Soggy but Safe

The Delmarva Peninsula is home to what remains of my family. I've watched the news from the balmy Midwest and worried about their safety during the latest storm of the century. The Delaware and Maryland families are fine with minimal tree loss, and they didn't lose power until daylight, which is a small blessing. The Virginia clan is fine, but likely flooded, as they live on the skinniest part of the tail of the peninsula, and the storm hit at high tide. These things have happened before, they will likely happen again. Hopefully not any time soon. Everyone is safe, which is all that truly matters.

Hurricane Irene wasn't as mean as she could have been, but she sure was huge. We've had more than a few jokes about the name of this storm, as my mom's Aunt Irene was as huge as she was cranky, and she was slow moving and scary, too.

Delaware, Maryland and Virginia didn't get much media coverage in the wake of the big storm, but that's OK. We never could compete with the Jersey shore or big cities, and more importantly, we never wanted to. The winds and rains weren't as awful as everyone was prepared for, which is a blessing when you live a few feet above sea level. There were a few homes damaged by tornadoes, a few downed trees and some power outages, but all things considered, my family was lucky. They're soggy, but relieved. I'm relieved, and maybe a little guilty, enjoying some of the best weather of the year, thanks to the high pressure Irene has kept pushed over us in the middle.

Hopefully the flooding will be minimal in the upper states as Irene marches slowly and dissipates.

In the calm after the storm, I wish for many lovely mushrooms like these found after our last downpour.

Hope you and your loved ones are all safe and sound.

I'm going to miss you, Target

I have already transitioned away from all things Koch Brothers (Angel Soft, Quilted Northern, Soft N Gentle, Brawny, Dixie) because these mega-rich brothers lobby for and fund policies I find ethically, environmentally and socially reprehensible. But now I have to stop shopping at Home Depot and Target too??? Ok, it hurts, but I will do what I can to stop funding the madness. I'm going to miss you guys, but your politics suck. Target not only donated to Michelle Bachman's political campaign, they support anti-choice and anti-gay policies. And if you know me at all, you know I think Bachman makes Palin look normal, and I love my freedom of choice and my gay family and friends.

Lest I offend any of my handful of readers, I claim no membership in our two party system. I love the Constitution, especially the parts that ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I'm pretty taken with the separation of Church and State part too. I'm a moderate, a libertarian (according to the political affiliation quiz I took), and most importantly, the grandaughter of a woman who resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution because of their racist policies in the 1950's, a woman who fiercely loved this country, and taught us to do the same. It's important to have some standards, and if corporations are using my dollars to support policies that undermine the ideals my ancestors fought and died for when they built this country, the very least I can do is shop somewhere else. I hope you do too.

Big business special interests have no place in politics. I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would agree.

Big Corporations Donating to Conservative Agendas

If you'd like a little more nausea with your morning coffee, you might want to know a little about ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, where the Koch Brothers, lawyers and state legislators meet to craft legislation for proposal at the state level that is pro business and anti everything else I hold dear - consumer protection, environment, worker's rights, - you know, the usual screw the regular citizen and keep the rich rich bullshit. Currently under investigation by the IRS for abuse of non-profit status, and despite their claims, there is nothing non-partisan or transparent about what they are doing. Again, I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would beat these people with a cane if they could.

ALEC Exposed

That's enough political outrage for one morning. Have a nice, earthquake and hurricane free day.

Kurt Vonnegut on the Shape of Stories

This made my day.



What shape is your story? Mine looks like a can of worms :)

Blame it on Mrs. Moon

Well she started it. I haven't done a damn thing all day but sit here at my laptop getting a numb ass. I've had worse uses of my time, but I wanted to give credit. Mrs. Moon blogged about Annie Proulx's new book, about building her house, Bird Cloud, in Wyoming, where we all know it is too damn cold to live in the winter. Where I know that in the mountains, it can snow in the summer, because I spent the most formative summer of my misspent youth in the Bighorn Mountains and have a major soft spot for Wyoming. I used to imagine I'd live in a cabin on a stream someday, like Annie, but different. I had to know MORE. So off I went a-googling, and a-reading, hence my numb butt.

One rabbit hole led to another, because Ms. Proulx has a fondness for the band The Gourds, and I've been listening to them all day for free, and you can too, right here:

Radio Free Gourds

If you want extra connectedness, listen to this youtube clip of them singing Dying in the Pines in Asheville, NC. Small world. Better yet, click the first link and let the popup turntable spin while you read. Song number 5, Last Letter, reminds me of Traffic and the 60's a bit, moodwise and number 11, Steeple full of Swallows, sounds like the Band, and makes me so melancholy I can hardly take it, but in a good way. I'm smitten. This bloggy day will cost me more than time, in books and music.

So, Annie Proulx.  After I read this article in the LA Times and this one in the NYTimes, I was unable to stop thinking about her and her Wyoming adventure. Her house. Her books. The view out her window.

For one, I can't imagine living alone up there, so isolated, especially in my 70's. I sense there is a distance between her and her family, as she said she's never talked about her writing with her kids. I try to wrap my head around that. Mom's a famous writer but we don't mention it. Ever.

And for two, if I was going to live alone in the hinterlands of Wyoming, I would sure as heck make a few friends in the town where I'd have to go for supplies. I get that the point of moving up there is to be a loner, and after 30 years of Vermont I guess Wyoming made some sense. Slightly lower sparse population of rugged individualists spread across ten times the acreage - from 67 to 5 people per square mile, actually. I looked it up. I guess she wanted to be ALONE. But I would have mingled, sat at the corner coffee store or bar and soaked it in, the culture, the connection to the land. I met some of the best people I've ever known out there, it's so stripped down and real. They look out for each other, or at least they did in 1981.

And the scenery. Good lord. Mount St. Helens blew that year, and the sunsets were unreal. I dream of going back there all the time. I mean I have real dreams, dozens of them, where I drive back up that mountain and let the thin air clear my head. I always wake both happy and sad. I could fill my own short story book with the tales I collected and the things I saw and did. A few bad, mostly good. Maybe someday. Anyway, I think maybe Annie missed out on the best stuff, but what do I know.

I know I will always remember this man, and this view.

My favorite cowboy, and personal superhero, John Kukuchka. He let me drive that jeep all over the mountain. He also let me ride horses and round up cows and fix fence and he gave me my very own shit stained Stetson, one of my prized possessions. He rescued me when I had nowhere to go and he told me his stories. I never thanked him enough.

One of the twin buttes. I hiked to the top and sat and dangled my feet from the edge. It was heaven, or as close as I imagine I'll ever get, 2 miles up in the sky.

 

My favorite Wyoming memory has no picture, because it was at night, and my friend and I slept under the stars on the ground to watch for meteors. I never felt so small and amazed and part of everything any more than I did that night.

I remember everything.... the smell of the pines, the rocks strewn like handfuls of dice in the streams, the taste of fresh trout grilled for breakfast, the sound of a moose snorting in the willows, the sight of a dead pronghorn caught on a barbed wire fence, frost in July, chokecherry syrup on my pancakes, the sound of a porcupine shooting it's needles, Willie singing whiskey river on the jukebox, the easy camaraderie of the unlikeliest of people - loggers, ranchers, hippies, tourists, locals - the look in the eyes of a scarred man who had one two many beer and whiskey's and told me his life story..... I remember it all.

So I'm sad that Annie went there to be alone. It can be a lonely place even if you're not alone. And I'm not surprised that it didn't turn out to be what she expected. Nothing ever really is, at least in my experience.

Anyway, thanks, Mary for the numb butt and the trip down both Annie's mushy lane and my own mushy memory lane. And thanks for songs number 5 & 11, for giving these memories a soundtrack.

USA Inc. Fiscal Report 2011

Well, this blew my mind. I have been digging around the internet for meaningful data about the economy and our fiscal problems for weeks, because you can't trust the spin each party puts on the numbers to support their politics.

I found what I wanted and learned yet again to be careful what you wish for.

I follow Bill Gates on twitter, and he recommended this independent financial analysis of the USA's current fiscal quagmire. Please give the video a listen or better yet, give the report a look. Share it with anyone with a brain so we can begin to understand the scope of the problem, which is as much about demographics as it is about dollars. I'm a third through the report and my head and my heart hurt. If we all symbolically hold hands together through this, maybe we won't be so scared.

The Video:




The Report:

USA Inc. - A Basic Summary of America's Financial Statements


This imbed is amazing, you can enlarge or change pages using the buttons at the bottom. For fun, jump to page 72 to see that we spent more total dollars on health care in 2007 than the other 30 countries in the report combined. This report is rich and dense with data, presented in easily understood graphs and charts.

I believe this is the most important post I have shared yet. Please share this with everyone you know, so that we might begin the hard work of making informed choices for the future.