And So It Goes...

I'm carrying this book around like a baby.

Kurt Vonnegut's eyes are the last thing I look at at night and the first thing I look at in the morning.

What I see in those eyes changes daily.

I'm reading as fast as I can, mostly in stolen moments, which is very frustrating. Life is not cooperating with my need to engross myself in this book right now. In a perfect world, I'd be in a self guided college English course, rereading Mr. Vonnegut's stories and novels in chronological order, analyzing them in the context of this biography, trying to make sense of it all, but my world is very far from perfect. So I read on and on in snippets, ever anxious about the review I need to write in exchange for my advanced copy, feeling at once rushed and unwilling to hurry. I don't want this book to end. I don't want to know what happens next, because I know what happens in the end.

Context is everything, and I was missing a lot of context while reading Vonnegut's books over the last thirty years.  I reread both Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions a couple of years ago, and they both made me laugh and cry repeatedly, so sad and yet still hopeful. I knew so little about one of my favorite authors that I am somewhat ashamed. Somehow, in the 1970's I became fixated with war stories, soldier's memoirs, especially Vietnam and WWII, probably because I knew and loved some pretty damaged veterans, and I saw them struggle to live a regular life. I tend to compartmentalize their sadness or brokenness as a logical result of surviving the insanity of war. I suppose I saw Kurt Vonnegut through that tinted lens, and failed to see all the other shades of sadness in his life, both before and after his release as a POW. I'm guilty of thinking in my narrow mind that he wrote these cathartic works and went about his quirky way as an esteemed author. I was very wrong. I'm beginning to get a sense of how difficult a project this must have been for anyone to undertake, and a deep respect for the author who convinced Kurt Vonnegut to let him write it.

Of course, when I am done living in the book altered reality of  And So It Goes , I suppose I owe it to myself and Mr. Shields to read his biography of Harper Lee, Mockingbird.

Mr. Shields writes a wonderful blog about writing if you care to give it a look. He's a fine writer, and based on his kind comment on my little corner of the blog world, and his taking the time to email me, a fine person as well. If you're a biography fan, or a Vonnegut fan, his book will make you think, laugh, cry and so on.

Happy reading!


ps!!!

I'm outraged that Blogger deleted the amazing work of art that is The Dishwasher's Tears.

If you love your blog and you don't want to lose it, in your dashboard, Settings Tab, Basic, Blog tools is an Export Blog choice. Blogger will download all the text in your blog to your computer and you will have it on your hard drive. HOWEVER, pictures and embedded items do not follow.

Or, you could open a wordpress account and import from your blogger site with a few permission clicks. Everything is there, easy peasy. I'm working on my transfer now, it's here if you fancy a look. I like the change myself.

Or, if you really want to go all out, the website blog2print will turn your blog into a book and sell it to you for a fee. You should play around just to see what your blog looks like as a book, it's fast and free, unless you want to touch it!

Happy Weekend everyone.

Hope the Dishwasher is back online soon. I need a fix.

On second thought....

I was going to post more leaf pictures and whine about the change of seasons, the time change and my confusing, confounding new job, but screw that. Instead here's a video to make you laugh with satire and irony, and a video to make you laugh and cry with wonder.


Roy Zimmerman's extraordinary political satire:



Hope it made you laugh too. Roy is performing in Florida this week.


Liberty and Sophie encounter a Murmuration:



I've watched this 6 times now and still get goosebumps, and smile along with them at 1:48.

My kids found it fascinating, and it led us down a rabbit hole of youtube videos on such things. The world is a mysterious and wondrous place, my friends.

Happy Sunday and have a great week.

xo


p.s.

OK, maybe just ONE leaf picture, one of the 904 I've taken in November, one photo showing the shrub that now has ONE leaf left clinging to it. not that I'm complaining.  Oh wait, maybe I am. Oh Well.

p.p.s.

I'm reading an Advanced Copy of  And So It Goes  Kurt Vonnegut: A Life,  and it is just so damn sad. I knew he survived the fire bombing of Dresden. I knew he was damaged by war. I did not know he came home on leave prior to his deployment to surprise his family and his mother for Mother's Day, and that his mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills that weekend, while he was home. His mom was a mess, and never recovered from the loss of social status during the Depression, and Kurt never felt loved in the first place, but this? Too cruel. I'm less than 60 pages into the 420 page book, and my heart is just breaking for poor Kurt. I'm going to have to reread a lot of his work through new eyes when I am finished with the biography.

That is all for now.

Leaf Abstracts

I was just going to press a few leaves to play with, but I got carried away. I have leaves pressed everywhere, and playing with them backlit, macro has been way too much fun.These are from a frenzied but fun hour yesterday. I can't wait until I have a chunk of time to really experiment with light and focus.

I'm fascinated by the variations that light can cause. This little leaf....

... becomes yellow green and pinkish....

....but a slight tilt and the green fades and the purple pops.

This one is as lovely as stained glass windows. I'll be playing with this leaf a lot more.

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to paint abstracts, but I gave up. Nothing I could create could come close to pleasing my eye like these leaf photos. Nature already made all the art I need. I'm just learning to catch it so I can look at it whenever I want to.

Happy Friday from the land of the easily amused.

Fall Madness

So, maybe I took 549 pictures yesterday, just in my little yard, but it's the viburnum's fault, for being so enchanting. I also blame the incredible quality of light in the woods in the morning, and the glowing magic light as the sun was setting too.  I was so intent on trying to capture the light, color and patterns that I almost forgot to smell. Oh my. I breathed so deep and long I got dizzy. Crunchy fall leaves, earthy brown smells, colors in every shade - I took pictures morning and evening until my hands were numb.  I'm making some DVD's for my mom and a certain leaf loving friend in California so I have a little excuse besides my insanity for all this excess.

These few selections are just from yesterday, just the viburnums, just one variety of the four I have in my yard. Don't even get me started on the Bradford Pear.......

Attention Online Shoppers....

I'm mostly an online shopper, because shopping out in the world can make me depressed faster than any other modern day activity, except maybe sitting in traffic. I hate wasting hours looking for things that aren't in the store, I hate waiting in lines and my super tall family can't wear much off the racks unless highwaters come back in style. So I let my fingers do the shopping, and I stay happy at home in my comfy clothes.

A friend told me about Ebates - a shopping portal that gives you rebates, and I was hooked. Creating an account was easy - just an email and address, so they can mail me checks. I was shopping at these stores anyway, so I'm happy to click through another link first to get cash back. Sometimes I forget and have my cart filled, but it's almost always magically still there when I open the new window through ebates.

I've been using ebates for most all my online shopping needs and in less than 2 years I've earned $165 in rebates. Most stores offer 3% back, but some go up to 10% which thrills me to no end, because I grew up in a tax free state, and giving Illinois 7% galls me, so the rebates take some of that sting away.

Lots of companies offer free shipping or low flat rate shipping. I ordered from 3 stores tonight because the babies keep growing and I paid $4 in shipping costs. I'm teaching my kids to never, ever pay retail, and to always shop around for the best deal.  There's no need to bang my head against the wall at American Eagle or the mall, with sticker shock or lack of stock.  Plus, I really like shopping at my old favorites, like Bealls in Florida or Boscov's in Maryland from afar, and sometimes the clearance deals are crazy good.

If you want to check it out, Ebates has over 1200 participating stores, and if I read it right, you get a $5 credit for signing up through that link. Anyway, with the crass commercialism season looming, I thought I'd pay the Ebate hint forward. We might as well get something out of the deal.

Happy shopping  :)