I Want to Tell You About...

Haiku

2011-10-19T07:52:00.002-07:00

The sun just set. Full
moon rising. Tell the Buddha
I'm enlightened now.

Cat on my yoga
mat. Is she a distraction
or my wise teacher?

Zorro in the frost;
in his winter coat. I think
he wants some coffee.

On my day off, I
can't find my favorite gel
pen to write haiku.

Haiku

2011-08-28T16:34:00.003-07:00

The full moon tells me
it's August, but the clouds tell
me it's October.

Even though the leaves
aren't turning yet, I can tell
they are very tired.

I write haiku in
my head. I forget to write
them down on paper.

Will the cognac help the
haiku? Or will the haiku help
the cognac? We'll see.

And Ask Many Questions Like Children Often Do

2011-06-12T19:47:00.003-07:00

One of the political blogs I read is Andrew Sullivan. On Sundays, he often just posts poems, videos and links to other blogs about God and religion. I kinda like that. Like a blog Sabbath.

Since I like that, I thought I'd do the same.

I have a great affinity for religions, but I practice none. I consider my self agnostic, at best. An atheist heathen, at worst. Are pagans the same as heathens? Not sure, so I'm possibly a pagan, too.

I'm drawn to the rituals of religions, the disciplines of them, the art, the music, even the costumes. But the actual beliefs that support them all I find empty and hypocritical. Like a learned historian who cringes when politicians mangle history and spit on what they should learn from it, religions are steeped in mythology and the stories overlap and repeat themselves over and over to the point I can't take them seriously.

I know faith is supposed to transcend all that. But it just doesn't for me.

That doesn't stop me from seeking God. I think I look everyday. Is that praying? Don't know.

I do see God in the wonders of life. Nature, music, art, the relationships people have. I think God lives there and in all the spaces in between. This requires no faith on my part. Nor does it require a religion to support it. It just is. And that mystery is also God.

That book and movie "Eat, Pray, Love" was fun and all, but it got on my nerves because the woman was basically a rich, single woman who had the luxury of leaving her life behind and travel the world to go find herself. Whatever. Tell me the spiritual journey of a working mother of four then I'll take you seriously. Tell me the spiritual life of a guy who has to work two jobs to support his family. Those are stories I'll believe. Show me where they find grace. Show me their beliefs when they're exhausted at 11:00pm.

Anywho, I am strongly attracted to religions. I like books and movies about nuns. Or any female in any religious sect. I wish they had convents for part-time agnostics. Like the Army Reserves. Serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year. I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd take a vow of silence and sweep floors and wash windows and go to vespers and all that jazz.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea

2011-06-09T11:03:00.003-07:00

So Carla is pissing me off.

I've been thinking, with taking the summer off, I need to start writing again. More on that thought process in a minute. Just when I'm gathering my fortitude to begin again, Carla starts blogging again and gets on her high language arts teacher horse and spouts off about the discipline of writing everyday. Here's some of her garbage:

Lower your standards until you can write.
Don’t correct error.
Writing is a visual art.
"Fail. Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett
Finish. Submit. Many have talent. Some begin; few finish.

You can read all her garbage here on Carla's Blog.

Here I am writing again.

I always have many grandiose ideas heading into summer. Not many materialize. It's all good. I have come to the place that whenever I have time away from work, my goal is to relish that time if for no other reason than it's not work.

Let me explain. No, it's too much, let me sum up. (Obscure movie line for $200, Alex) I do love teaching. I especially love teaching art. I consider all my fellow teachers to be another family. And, God help me, I even like those little bastards I teach. I don't love them. But I like them. Imagine, if you will, every person you had to deal with, all day every day, was someone who was trying to lie, manipulate, groom, steal, put one over on you and, in general, do you dirty in some way. Imagine the exhaustion of having your guard up every single minute of every day. This is what's exhausting about my job. Teaching is a piece of cake. I can do that blindfolded with one hand behind my back. The spiritual space (if you'll allow me to wax philosophical for a moment)that these kids live in is dark and full of pain. And they'll take any opportunity to offload it on anyone within reach.

I need a rest from that.

I need to breathe non-recirculated air.

I need to feel the sun on my face.

I need to clean my house.

This brings us back around to writing. When I think about my time off, my focus has shifted from grandiose plans to daily aspirations of balance and enjoyment. My days are fulfilling when I look to balance all activities. No matter how much I like watching X-Files re-runs or working in the garden, I usually regret doing either of them ALL day. If I allow a little time for different things, the day just seems more full and happy.

Good Lord, that sounds SO bourgeois!

Oh well, you'll get over it.

Writing is one of these activities that balances my time. I've fallen off the writing wagon. The reasons are various and don't really matter much.

It's summer now and I'll write about the sun on the pines and the sweet lilacs blooming along the driveway and the hummingbirds and all other things that don't want to lie to me.

No Enlightening Haiku

2011-03-06T09:14:00.003-07:00

My favorite new mom/redhead/substitute teacher/fellow book lover, Jackie, told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to blog again. She said "enlightening haiku or book reviews". Well, the weather hasn't changed enough for any haiku to come visit me so I'll get caught up with a few book reviews. Hopefully, I'll be able to write enough to keep her satisfied. Pushy redheads.

I'll start with "Born to Kvetch" by Michael Wex. This is non-fiction about Yiddish. You're asking,"What? You can't read a nice book about English? You're breaking my heart!" My inner Jew loved this book for two main reasons. First, the author is a teacher and translator of Yiddish and knows the language inside and out, including regional dialects,differences in accents, and slang. Second, he's extremely funny. So even though the subject had the potential of being a history lesson from hell, it more closely resembled a stand-up comedy routine. I'm a total geek for languages and I make no apologies for loving this book. P.S. Jackie, I own it if you want to borrow it.

Next, we have "Great House" by Nicole Krauss. This writer is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, my favorite from "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" which is being made into a movie.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the movie.

Anywho, must be interesting at their house. But I digress. "Great House" was hard to read for me. Krauss is an amazing author in that she can express very complex and lengthy thoughts, emotions and ideas without resorting to pretentious vocabulary. I admire that greatly in an author. I don't need to know you know how to use a thesaurus, for crying out loud. Tell me the frickin' story. So that aspect of the book was really enjoyable for me, reminds me of Margaret Atwood and her profound ability to move you through time so effortlessly. But the story Krauss was telling didn't quite grab me hard enough. It was several stories and characters and time lines that shared the common inanimate character of a large desk. While I didn't need her to wrap up every story line in a neat package for me (in fact, that would've made me angry)I did need a stronger thread to connect all her stories. I do still like her very much, I picked up "Great House" because I read her "History of Love" last year and liked it. So if she publishes again, I'll bite.

Next, we have "How to Be Good" by Nick Hornby. He's one of my recent favorite authors with "Juliet, Naked", "A Long Way Down", "Slam", and (Carla will kill me because I still haven't read "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity"). You'll recognize some of these titles from movies. His books make very good movies. And you can envision Hugh Grant in every one of them. "How to Be Good" is about a middle-class family in England (Hornby is British and writes very much in a British voice, one of the reasons I like him)where the dad/husband has a spiritual epiphany and decides to quit work and only do humanitarian work. This means sacrifice, not only for him, but for everyone. The kids are resentful they have to give away toys and games and extra computers, the wife is REALLY resentful when he invites his new spiritual guru to live with them and starts inviting homeless people to live them as well. She's a doctor and struggles with the question "Don't I do enough good already? Am I not a good person doing what I'm already doing?" It has a some funny moments and very touching moments between the husband and wife as they struggle to deal with the changes that a life together brings. What would you do if your spouse suddenly thought whatever you were doing wasn't good enough? Good in the big picture of Good. Not just that the house wasn't clean or the trash didn't make it out on trash day.

Next, "Elizabeth the Queen Mother" by William Shawcross. This is the official biography of The Queen Mother. I read it after seeing The King's Speech. As an official biography, it's a little dry. Quite a bit of it just reads like an itinerary. But parts were interesting like she was the first non-royal to marry into the royal family. All those crazy royal families in Europe all married each other. Heck, Queen Elizabeth II is third cousins with her husband, Prince Phillip. It used to be law that you had to marry another royal, but right before The Queen Mother's time, they changed it. Granted, she was Scottish nobility, Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, but that's different than royalty. So just that one step away from royalty made her like a breath of fresh air up in that crazy tree. I like The Queen Mother because she reminds me of my Grandma Linsday. They were born a few year apart, come from different universes(although that branch of my family is extremely British), but for some reason it just makes me think of her a lot. When you're a kid, you love your grandparents, but you don't really think about them and the times they lived in and the experiences they had. Not until you're older and have a perspective on history do you appreciate that and then, typically, it's too late to talk to them about it.

Lastly, the book I'm currently reading, "Eleanor of Aquitaine" by Alison Weir. I guess I'm on an Anglophile kick. One of my favorite movies is "The Lion in Winter" with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn as Henry II and Eleanor. Those crazy royals were even crazier back in the Dark Ages. They all married each other, but had strict rules about how closely you could be related to a prospective spouse. They frequently ignored these rules, had the Pope sign a dispensation to sanctify the marriage, and then when the marriage didn't work out like they'd hoped (no male heir was produced, loyalties changed, they wanted to kill each other, etc.)they would just say "My bad! We're too closely related! We're sinning against God! Quick! Pope! Annul us!" And the Pope would and crazy new branches would ensue. Eleanor was queen to two different kings in two different countries, had ten children (officially), and was Queen Mother to three kings and two queens. She outlived all of them except two. During the times she was actually allowed to rule, she was very wise and fair. She had no qualms about advancing the prospects of her children, although some of them she never saw past their infancy as it was common practice, especially for girls,to be betrothed as toddlers and go live in the household of the future spouse. I like Eleanor. She learned quickly how to function in a world where girls were used as property. Any girl, even queens, could be kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, have children taken from them at any point in time, have marriages arranged and dissolved without their knowledge or consent, and be restricted from about 90% of worldly activities. Her youngest son, King John, was such a horrible king that the rebellion that created the Magna Carta happened under his rule.

So, there you go, Jackie. Hope that's a nice grown-up distraction from your world of all things babyish.

Haiku

2010-12-16T18:50:00.002-07:00

Stuck inside stupid
training. The geese outside have
no pity for me.

Dark skies in my rear
view mirror. Clouds up ahead.
Here...a bit of sun.

Writing haiku, I'm
not really listening. I'm
a bad student.

Iridescent clouds
at dawn. I really shouldn't
look while I'm driving.

Haiku

2010-10-24T16:22:00.001-07:00

Soft as sleep, full moon
on a rolled blanket of cloud.
I want to dream stars.

Haiku

2010-09-28T18:32:00.002-07:00

First, the Aspens. Next,
willows. Then, cottonwoods. Fall
walks down the mountain.

Passionate red leaves
on the convent wall make me
want to be a nun.

Sitting here writing
haiku instead of walking.
No one will find out!

On The First Part Of The Journey

2010-08-04T07:21:00.003-07:00

It's not that I find Kansas ugly. It's not ugly at all. I find a lot of beauty there; the wide expanse of sky, the different crops and their different colors. Corn is dark and shiny. The farther east you go the more tasseled out it is. Soybeans are lower, lighter green and less glossy. Wheat is...wheat colored. I could think up some schmalzy name for the wheat color like something on Miss Clairol box, circa 1976. But I won't. It's wheat colored. And then there's the un-crop colors and textures of open range, little pastures, medians and random undesignated bits of land. These are lush and sprinkled with wildflowers where there's been rain and brown and straggly where there hasn't.

So, no, it' not ugly. It's not even boring. It's just boring to drive across on I70. If I wanted to take 5 days to get to STL instead of 1 1/2, I'd find all kinds of wonderful side roads, old cemeteries, huge cottonwood groves, quiet creeks, leaning barns, crazy billboards with Jesus holding sheaves of wheat, yarn stores, cathedrals and boyhood homes of senators, presidents and astronauts.

But I would ever do that in the summer. Or the winter. So it looks like I'm just gonna have to take off work sometime in the spring or fall. Dang it.

By the time you get to the eastern third of Kansas, it starts to look like Missouri. The hills start to roll and the trees thicken up into woods. It starts to feel like an old friend. I was gonna say home, but that's not all the way true. It's home in a nostalgic, familial way. But when I say, "I'm going home" I mean a little house in Woodland Park with a busted screen door and a crazy cat that keeps Don awake all night cuz she misses Lila. When I go to STL, I say "I'm going back to STL". So by the time you hit the eastern third of Kansas, it feels homey to me, even though it's not home anymore. It resonates in my core, I know it well, it brings up a lot of memories, it pushes a jukebox button in my head that plays a Bob Seger song. Jolly Rancher if you can guess which one.

The screen door was fixed by the time I got home.

All The Books

2010-07-27T09:23:00.003-07:00

Here's a quick review of all the books currently listed by me.

I'll start with the oldest ones. "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" are both by Jonathan Safran Foer. Everything Is Illuminated is about a young man who travels to Ukraine to find the small town his grandfather was from. The town was wiped off the map during WWII. He hires a tour guide in Odessa to take him there. The tour guide is accompanied by his English-speaking grandson and his "seeing eye bitch". The grandfather thinks he's blind and needs a seeing eye bitch, but he's really not and does all the driving. The grandson, Alex, is brilliant the way he butchers the English language. Everything is Illuminated was made into a movie starring Elijah Wood. It's one of my all time favorite movies. I saw the movie long before I read the book. Foer's writing style often borders on fantasy. Some of the things that happen to his characters in the book are pretty close to being unbelievable. In the movie, Everything is Illuminated, a lot of the fantastical stuff is cut from the story. I'll have to go on the record here and say I liked the movie better.

The other book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is so sad and so sweet and funny, it'll just break your heart. There's some fantasy stuff in it, but not as much as his other book. It's about a very young boy who's father died on 9/11 in the WTC. The boy is very smart, possibly autistic. It's never spelled out for you. He finds a key in his father's things and sets out on a journey to find out what the key goes to. He struggles with guilt, he didn't pick up the phone when his dad was leaving messages for them that morning. He struggles with grief when his mom starts to see another man. All the while being a little too smart for his own good and seeing the world through the eyes of a kid who sees everything differently then we do. This is a great book.

The next book, The Help, Carla handed to me one day at work and said I had to read it. Being the follower that I am, I did. I didn't really think I'd like it, it sounded kinda soap-operaish, but I L-O-V-E-D it. It's a fast read, which I like now and again, the characters are totally believable as are all the events. Whilst reading it, I kept thinking, this would make a GREAT movie. I often think the opposite; that anyone who tried to make a movie from a book will ruin it. It takes place in Jackson Mississippi at the very beginning of the civil rights movement. The main characters are the black maids and nannies that take care of and run the white ladies lives'. The writing was...completely honest and simple. Trying to write about that type of relationship could've easily gone sappy or condescending or really really boring. And it wasn't. It cut right through to the complicated feelings of hating someone you serve and depend utterly on for your livelihood. And, I think filming started this summer in Mississippi.

The next book is The Honk and Holler Opening Soon. This was written by the person who wrote Where The Heart Is. You know, the story of the unwed pregnant teen girl who lives in the Wal-Mart and gives birth there. Anywho, it's a similar story of an unlikely group of friends that become family in a little diner in Oklahoma. Nothing earth-shattering here. The writing is simple and folksy. Pleasant, homey, a happy ending in a non-schmalzy way.

The next book is Beatrice and Virgil. This is written by Yann Martel who wrote Life of Pi, one of my all time favorite books. This book is not a sequel, but there are a few threads that continue on in it. It's a very sad book. Very sad, nothing uplifting at all about it. Just warning you. But it's still good book. Martel likes to anthropomorphise animals in his stories. Beatrice and Virgil are a monkey and a donkey who are alive during the Holocaust. That's all I'm saying.

The next book The Sabbath World. This is a non-fiction book. It's a history lesson of the Sabbath as well as a modern interpretation of how a person could even begin to observe the Sabbath in a traditional sense. I liked it for those reasons, but I liked it more for it's meta-message of how it's important to observe and organize your time in a meaningful manner. About how it's important to stop our work-a-day lives on a regular basis to tune into something bigger than ourselves, more timeless than ourselves, something that gives our work-a-day world more meaning. The last line of the book is my favorite: We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.

The next book is The Island Beneath The Sea. This is by Isabelle Allende, one of my favorite authors. She writes in Spanish and her books are translated for English speakers. I love how I can tell that English is not her first language. It comes through in the translation. Every once in a while, you hear a phrase or the way a word is used that you an tell it wasn't written in English. The story is about a slave on a sugar plantation in what now is Haiti. It starts in the late 1700's and continues through the revolution when that island becomes Haiti. The white family, with this slave and her daughter (the master's second child with this slave)flee to New Orleans. It's a rich story, a painful story. Like The Help, highly complicated with the strange feelings and relationships slaves and their owners have. But not sentimental in the least. One of those stories that you worry about the characters when you're not with them. You don't want the story to end.

The next book is Eat Pray Love. Dhyana said that both Lila and I should read it. I read it first. It was a fun summer romp. Even though it addresses some serious life issues this woman goes through, she writes with humor and never fails to defuse a heavy scene with a bit of funny. Like the Balinese medicine man said, "I don't do yoga. It's too stressful." Love that guy! Already made into a movie, being released very soon. Next week?

Finally, right now I'm reading Wuthering Heights. Seen most of the movie versions. Have many fond memories if staying up late to watch it on the late, late movie. The language is a bit antique. Those Gothic writers are brutal. Such is the story...dark, violent, unhappy and tragic. What's not to love?

The Long Day

2010-06-26T06:33:00.003-07:00

May 27th was Lila's last day of school and her 8th grade recognition ceremony. She didn't even want to go, said it was stupid and some other kids were skipping it. I said tough noogies, you're going and Don and I are going to recognize you whether you like it or not. And she said (rolling her eyes) Mom! You're harshing my mellow! And I said Don't use that tone with me young lady! Then she stormed out of the room, I grounded her and we haven't spoken since.

Ok, that's not what happened. She said it was stupid and some other kids were skipping it and I said that we're not skipping it and she said ok.

But she did think that people were making too big a deal out of it...until she got money out of the deal. 8th grade recognition isn't so bad after all.

I thought they did a good job of it. The jazz band played and the choir sang. They gave out a few awards (not too many) and let the kids walk up and get their certificate. Short and sweet and to the point. My kind of ceremony.

Afterward, it was so crowded we couldn't find Lila. We went out to the car and she texted us within a few minutes. She ditched us to go hang at the park with her friends. So we went out to lunch, but she still managed to get her feelings hurt that we went without her. Oh well, sucks to be her.

That evening, Lila was down the hill with her neighborhood friends enjoying the first night of summer vacation. She's allowed to run wild in the streets until 10:00 during the summer. I had taken a shower and put on my jammies. Don and I were watching TV around 9:30 when the phone rang. Georgie had died.

Don's parents, Don and Georgie, both still lived at home under hospice care. They both were dying of COPD. Georgie was the worse between them. She had been steadily going downhill for the past two years. Multiple hospital stays, long stays in rehab centers, several times when it looked like the end. By the end, she was on so many meds and getting so little oxygen, her mind was going. As much as everyone loved her, everyone wanted her to die. It was too painful , too heartbreaking, to watch her suffer.

I got dressed again and we headed up to their house. I called Lila to tell her what happened and that we were going up there and did she want to come. She started crying and said no. She was with her friends that love her and would take care of her. It was ok with me.

When we got there, I think there were two sheriff cars in the yard. Fred and Teresa were already there and Butch, the widower of their sister who just passed the week before. I think some other people were there, I can't remember. Fred was outside, ready to strangle one of the sheriffs because they had treated him like a crime suspect when he arrived. These sheriffs all knew Don and Georgie, they all knew they were on hospice care, there was no reason in the world to treat it like crime scene. I could understand them not wanting the body touched until the hospice nurse came to declare her, but other than that, it was ridiculous.

We finally went in the house. Don's dad was there, sitting in his recliner like he always does. Georgie was on the floor, covered in a sheet, lying were she fell. Earlier in the evening, she gone into the bathroom and was in there for a very long time. Don had gone to check on her several times, she said she was ok. When she finally came out, she walked a very fast pace (for her) past Don in his chair and towards the window. Don got up and tried to get her to turn around and to get her to go back to her chair. She spun around, knocked him down and fell dead. She scrapped up her arm on the fireplace hearth as she fell, but there was no bleeding. They think her heart had already stopped by the time she got to the living room and she was just moving on adrenaline.

The hospice people had to come up from the Springs so it was over an hour, I think, before they arrived. The one nurse checked her pulse. Then she wiped Georgie's face and, at Don's request, took off her rings and her watch. It appeared she had vomited blood, there was something red on the carpet by her face, but it was really spaghetti sauce. Her favorite hospice person had cooked a spaghetti dinner for them earlier and apparently she ate very heartily. They covered her back up with the sheet until the funeral home came for the body. I didn't like leaving her there like that. I would've liked to have straightened her out, washed her face and hands, brushed her hair a little. But it wasn't my place.

The other hospice nurse proceeded to dispose of all the meds that Georgie was on. This baffled me. Every bit of drugs in the house with Georgie's name on it had to be destroyed. Whether it had ever been opened or not. Now I completely understand destroying anything in containers that had been partially used. But there boxes and packages and bottles of stuff that had never even been touched. It all got dumped into a Ziploc bag full of kitty litter. I thought it was such a waste. With so many seniors struggling to pay for their meds and they were just destroying it. I just don't get it.

There were many moments during the evening that people couldn't hold the tears. Dumping the meds was one of Teresa's moments. She was Georgie's primary caregiver, putting her life on hold to be with Georgie during these last few years. Taking care of, scheduling, making sure all the meds got taken properly, was a big part of it. Now she had to dump it all into kitty litter.

Finally the funeral home came. They asked us to leave the room while they put her on the stretcher. Again, I would've liked it if we were the ones who lifted her and wrapped a sheet and blanket around her. Then they said a little prayer over her and wheeled her out.

The full moon had risen over Pike's Peak, which is the view from their front yard. I drove home alone, Don stayed the night with his dad.

I'm In The Garden

2010-06-23T18:58:00.003-07:00

The garden is an unpredictable thing. S'pose that's one reason I love it. There's so many variables involved: weather, deer, squirrels, my energy level, my monetary level.

And I'm sure there are unseen forces at work that I have no knowledge of, let alone any control over.

Some plants thrive one year and flounder the next. Some mutate and you get plants that you never bought. Some get eaten to a nub and come back more vibrant than ever, some get eaten to a nub and succumb.

Some have sentimental value. Like the Snow on the Mountain that Janie gave me, the little purple flowers (don't know they're name) and the yellow Iris that came from Georgie's garden, the rhubarb that never quite gets big enough to harvest. And the sweet little Johnny-Jump-Ups that somehow manage to over-winter even though they're annuals.

My favorite time in the garden is right....about....now. About 8:00 in the evening, after I've watered. The sun is at the perfect angle to back light everything in a very mellow gold. The evening breeze is blowing and the hummingbirds come 'round for their evening dog fights. It is this perfect time of day at the perfect time of the year that I will miss most if we ever move away from this house.

Speaking of unpredictable, I have a deer skull in the garden that I rescued some years ago from my neighbor's trash. It's been slowly decaying with weather and mice. Tonight I was watering and another neighbor's dog came ambling by. He's an old dog, gray muzzle and long body like he was half basset. He came slowly up the hill, walked into the garden, walked over to the deer skull, picked up it's jaw bone and took off with it. I didn't try to stop him. Es ist Leben im Garten.

We Once Knew The Story

2010-06-20T10:35:00.004-07:00

So, yea, haven't blogged in forever.

It's been a bit of a rough go for me this past winter. I've been struggling with peri-menopausal depression type stuff. No fun, really. At first, I couldn't even recognize what was happening. I just felt sad all the time for no reason, didn't feel hopeful or look forward to anything, couldn't exercise, couldn't do any art.

Doctors weren't much help, even my old witch-doctor. "We can put you on birth control pills or anti-depressants." Um...no.

I was able to lift my head up long enough to do some research online about it. I knew it wasn't anything that could be classified as clinical depression. I've never been depressed about anything. Been sad, really sad, been through some tough things, but never depressed. I knew I was heading down that long menopause road and there's tons of stuff out there about the emotional effect of this hormonal change. Bingo.

I got some nutritional supplements and herbal supplements for this specific purpose. Seems to be helping. Springtime helped, too. During the winter, I go to work when the sun is just coming up and don't head home until after dark. I get no sun. Can't work in the garden. Bleh. Longer days helped a lot. And now this summer I'm not teaching summer school so, except for this danged sinus infection that put me down for few days, I've been outside a lot more and make a point to get a few minutes of unprotected direct sun for my Vitamin D levels.

I miss the writing part of the blog. I like the short, snappy part of Facebook, but it doesn't fulfill my writing urge. That was another casualty of my gloom. There was a disconnect between what I felt inside and what could come out. It's not that I didn't see and hear and feel beautiful things worthy of a Haiku; the spigot to let it out was turned off.

So my goal is to return to some writing. Some topics that have been dressed up with no place to go (in no particular order):

Work
Art
Georgie's death
Lila and Dhyana dealing with the death of their dad
Politics
Photography
Garden
Books

Books...I did not stop reading through all of this. I've updated my lists. I'll need to take some time and go back to write some reviews of them. They were all very good in many different ways.

And, of course, the music never stops.

Thank goodness for Don and his patience. Not sure how anybody else suffered me.

Blogging Is For Old People

2010-02-13T09:39:00.003-07:00

I finished reading "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver a few weeks ago. Have since read "The Third Angel" by Alice Hoffman and am now reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss.

The Lacuna took a while to warm up to. Firstly, because most of Kingsolver's other main characters in her other books are female. It's not that I can't relate to male characters, but she has a wonderful way to write about females that I enjoy immensely. Secondly, the entire book was written in the form of dairy entries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. But I persisted and it payed off. It still won't be my favorite Kingsolver book, I think that will always be Prodigal Summer. But I did enjoy The Lacuna. After a while, I enjoyed the rhythm of the journal entries, the way the story was told through only what Shepard, the main character, deemed fit to record. The Lacuna was both a place where he escaped to and the part of the story that is missing, the part he decided not to tell. This theme is repeated when he's accused of being a Communist under the McCarthy witch hunts. Again, they only know part of the story; they could know more if they cared, but they really don't care about the truth. I recommend this book. Carla has it now, we'll see if she likes it. If she doesn't, maybe Jackie will.

The Third Angel was ok. An easy read of overlapping stories and time lines. Interesting, but a bit forgettable.

The History of Love also has overlapping stories, but it's more interesting. This author is married to the guy who wrote Everything is Illuminated, one of my all time favorite movies. I didn't read the book, maybe I should! More when I finish.

So I'm blogging like an old person now.

Had an enjoyable birthday, lots of hugs, cards, phone calls, singing, fun things on FB. Don and I are going out today for our birthday/Valentine date. He decided he would see The Wolfman with me and risk getting scared. I told him he could pick the restaurant, but he said I could pick that, too. I tried to find someplace we haven't been before but the two place I got good recommendations for, neither serve lunch on the weekend. We wanted to do lunch since it's Valentine's weekend and everyone is forced to display their undying love through spending money. That is, all the places will crazy busy for dinner. So I think we'll be forced to go someplace mundane like Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill and save the new fancy places for another weekend when all the crazed lovers aren't horning in on our action. But we'll have fun anyway. Always do, one way or another.

War Stories

2010-01-24T10:14:00.003-07:00

My dad was a Marine in Korea. He shouldn't have been as he is blind in one eye. He never really talked much about his experiences over there. Not sure if it was traumatic for him or whether in the context of his life it just wasn't that big of a deal.

Over Christmas in STL, I heard two stories from his time in Korea. One story through my brother and one directly from my dad.

The one heard through my brother was about Monopoly. My dad loves to play Monopoly and plays it at every party that games are involved. He typically just wants boys to play but I've horned my way in that action more than once. So the story goes...my dad was a radio guy (again, not clear on any other details as he never divulged them). In the radio tent, there was Monopoly game. A never ending Monopoly game. Whenever your shift ended, the next guy came in and kept it going. When a game ended, a new one immediately started. I guess it eased the boredom. That and smoking.

The second story my dad told me directly, out of the blue, with no prompting on my part. I like this story better because it's about me! My nickname growing up was Bo. Short for Bobadink. Sometimes Bobalaa. But I went by Bo and my dad still calls me that. It never even crossed my mind why that was my nickname. I just figured he made it up like parents often do. So on Christmas Eve he tells me that one of his radio guy buddies in Korea used to broadcast fake basketball games when he was bored. Apparently, he wasn't supposed to do that, but he did it anyway. In his fake sports broadcaster voice, this guy would make up whole basketball games and announce the game play by play. The star player of every game was Bobadink. Bobadink won the game every time. Bobadink shoots! He scores! The crowd goes wild!

Like my brother was saying, as a parent, you often don't think your kids care about your life before they came along. And for a long time, they really don't. But when your own kids have kids and we have a longer perspective on things, we realize our parents were once kids and teenagers and young adults...all without us. Who knows? They might have even been fun and interesting people we would have been friends with.

For When I'm Fighting Depression....Variation On A Theme

2010-01-13T19:39:00.005-07:00

Winter Across Kansas

2010-01-03T19:53:00.004-07:00

The geese in their ragged chevrons, one arm falling apart as certain malcontents jockey for another position, then re-forming for a moment until someone else gets a wild malcontent hair.

Hawks, patient and keen, I can spot them in the bare trees along with other birds' nests. They are rounded and full against a backdrop of twiggy veins. The tree branches, ever thinner, like capillaries, until they disappear into some unseen transfer with the sky.

The fallen snow, perfectly submissive to the Invisible Hand of God, shoulders together into drifts. Sculpted together with dirt, swirled and re-swirled until it's hard and deep and resistant to all but a more acute angle of the sun.

The ponds harden into opaque discs, the streams whiten along the edges, ice creeping towards the middle. Quieter and colder, each long night deepens the waters' meditation. Any dreams of cicadas and thunderstorms are stilled as if they were just too worldly for this path to enlightenment.

Those Cranky Lutherans

2009-12-16T19:43:00.003-07:00

I finished "A Mercy". It's sad, but good. Now, I'm reading "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison as well. This copy belongs to Andrea, our other language arts teacher besides Carla. It has all her notes in the margins. I like reading these along with the story. "The Lacuna" arrived today, I'm looking forward to reading it over break.

We've been making Christmas cards in art class. Some of the kids make other types of cards. Birthday, Love, Baby, Thinking of You, I'm Sorry, etc. I also had them make some cards that we're sending to Walter Reed Hospital. I like making cards with them, it's always a successful project (success, measured by me in that environment, is enough interest generated that they don't get bored in the space of 50 minutes),but it's the one time I feel let down by my role as the facilitator. "Facilitator" is the big fancy educational word I like to use for what I do. I often feel like I don't really teach, I just create the space for the kids to learn. Split hairs? Could be. Anywho, 99% of the time, this role suits me just fine. When I'm making cards, I still do facilitate, but I feel SO FAR behind the scene...pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain...that I feel invisible. I feel invisible because the kids come to me, one after the other all day long, to help them make their cards for their family, their friends, their baby mama, their staff, their dog, their parole officer(just kidding, they all hate their parole officers "I wasn't doing nothing but hanging with my friends...in that stolen car....that no one was using...and my freekin' parole officer hooked me up!")and no one ever makes a card for me. So, while on one hand I enjoy the invisibility, on the other hand I'm a little bitter that I provide all this help in their card making and they never make me one. I'm petty and small and getting coal for Christmas. C'est la vie.

And speaking of cranky...

My brother Richard: "There's a 11:00 Christmas Eve service."
Me: "I don't know if I can stay up that late. I'm old. And cranky."
Richard: "There's a 5:00 service that the old people go to. You'll like it."
Me: "But I need a service for cranky people."
Richard: "There's a Lutheran church around the corner."

Her Fearful Symmetry

2009-12-07T18:45:00.002-07:00

Ok, so I've been a slug.

I finished "Her Fearful Symmetry" about 2 weeks ago.

I didn't like it. Not because I was expecting another TTW (Time Traveler's Wife, for you uninitiated). It was a bad story. The writing was good, if you can seperate that out from the story? I just didn't like the story. It was a ghost story and the ghost was a bad person. You meet her only briefly as a live person at the beginning of the story and really don't get to know her until after she's dead. And she's just not nice. But it's not in a spooky ghostly way; she's just a jerk. This in itself would be ok, but there's no acceptable resolution to her jerkiness. There's no good resolution for any of the characters. I'm not talking happy endings, I often get irritated at those anyways. Just an acceptable resolution. A believable resolution? I wanted to like it...just didn't.

Then I started reading "Little Bird of Heaven" and stopped after about 50 pages. The author used the word "commingling" three times in the first 50 pages. Good Lord Harriet, where is your editor?

I started reading "A Mercy". I couldn't get past the first few pages. Toni Morrison writes in a foreign language. It feels like a foreign language. Something about her syntax. But then I picked it back up and tried again. I slowed down and treated it like a foreign language. And now I'm enjoying it very much. She can find the characters' voices without any pretentious vocabulary.

All these books are overdue at the library. It's been so cold, I haven't gone out of the house unless necessary. I'll pony up with the late fees when it goes above 10 degrees.

There's nothing else going on right now. My life's so common it disappears and sometimes even the music cannot substitute for tears.

Haiku

2009-12-01T18:33:00.001-07:00

Cold moon through my wind
shield. Only twenty days 'til
the days get longer.

Haiku

2009-11-28T21:08:00.001-07:00

When the cat tries to
help make the bed, she really
doesn't help at all.

I Got A Library Card And I'm Not Afraid To Use It

2009-11-12T18:23:00.003-07:00

I finished both "The Wordy Shipmates" and "Juliet, Naked".

The Wordy Shipmates was very interesting to read, although sometimes a little...wordy. There was a lot of in-fighting and bickering between those early shipmates and sometimes the account of all that got a little boring. But I like, in general, the way Sarah Vowell writes. She occasionally interjects her personal feelings about things, but that's ok. Sometimes straight history can be boring. A little subjective perspective adds context and depth.

The main thing I took away was the constantly-needs-to-be-learned-history lesson that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. These people had a good and noble mission. They had high aspirations and good intentions. And not that all of that was lost, we are living proof that some of it survived and was improved upon, but the human need to control and have power over others splintered their group, slaughtered Native Americans (and they praised God and had "Thanksgivings" in honor of these successful slaughters), and drove out any dissenters. Harvard, founded in 1636, was founded to provide Puritan approved education after that rebel, Anne Hutchinson, home bible-schooled women (gasp!) in unapproved curriculum. Trivia...George Bush is one of her descendants. The man who put her on trial, John Winthrop, also has an American politician descendant...John Kerry. Who knew?

Juliet, Naked is a very funny book. It's a wonderful play on modern music, the facade of celebrity, the obsession of fans, and the magical absurdity of the Internet. Can't really say much more without revealing the plot. It made me laugh out loud.

New books are listed above. These, and the two I just finished, are library books. Trying to save money. The library is our friend.

Sabbatical Schmatical!

2009-10-23T10:43:00.004-07:00

I had the week off this week. My school divides up our school year differently than a traditional school. We work the same days as other teachers in our district, but the original intent of our schedule was that the kids didn't go for more than two weeks at time without school. With recent summer school cuts, this doesn't really work anymore, but it does cut down on their down time. Idle hands...

The longer I work at this job, the more time I need away from it. It's not physically demanding nor is it particularly educationally demanding. The kids rotate through so quickly, I can easily repeat projects twice, three time or even more during a year. There is some bookkeeping (grades, reports, etc.) involved, but I know it's a fraction of what other teachers have to do. And, believe or not, there are few behavior problems. Few major behavior problems, I should say.

So why, oh why, do I feel so burnt out?

It's the dang kids. They are SO needy. They may not be acting out in a behavior problem kind of way, but they are a bottomless pit of neediness. All of us teachers, all of their security staff, all of their case workers and counselors and parole officers and transition specialists and lawyers and judges can't make up for the fact that wherever they've come from...is a giant hole that none of us can fill. All this time and money trying to replicate a decent family, it never works. So the kid who can play Chopin like a concert pianist will probably go back to using heroin when he gets out. And the kid who always surprises me in class with his creativity will probably violate his parole again by drinking on the job.

But, enough about them! I really wanted to talk about having time off work. For me, a week really isn't long enough. I spent it doing a whole bunch of nothing. Ok, so I did a few chores, made a few cards, spayed a few cats, but really most of time was piddled away on the computer and various incarnations of Law & Order. With a sprinkling of Monty Python.

I really need a good month off. One week to decompress, three to enjoy. I'm all about year-round school with shorter, more regular breaks. It's good for the kids, it's good for me. Three months off in the summer is so 19th century.

Maybe one day I can be like this guy. Take one year off every seven years. I wouldn't even have to move to Bali.

BTW, my knock-knock joke is "South Pacific" related.

Knock-knock?
Who's there?
Sam and Janet
Sam and Janet who?
Sam and Janet Evening.

Sing it like Harry Connick Jr.

I Love The Smell of Turpentine In The Morning

2009-10-11T16:30:00.005-07:00

I did a lot of driving this past week. Tuesday, all of us teachers had to go to
Golden for training. It was stupid and a waste of time. I won't bore you with details(they're stupid and boring), let me sum up by saying that was 12 hours of my life I'll never get back. But I carpooled with Carla and Janie and we laughed and gossiped in the car and most of us had a picnic lunch out on the lawn of the facility where we were. It was a golden day in Golden and all of us sharing our lunches in the warm autumn sun was the high point of the day.

This weekend, I went the Colorado Art Educators Association fall conference in Breckenridge. Carla was s'posed to go with me, but she had some family stuff that came up suddenly and she had to stay in town. Bummer.

I don't mind the drive to Breckenridge at all. It's a pretty drive. Across the wide flats of South Park (yes, THAT South Park), turning at Fairplay to head up Hoosier Pass and then down the hairpins to Breckenridge.

The conference was pretty good this year. They had some issues last year and I think enough people complained and they seemed to do better. One of my favorite vendors wasn't there this year, Kozo Papers, but they had a nifty coupon in the schedule book.

I think the best workshop I went to was the Solar Plate printmaking. I've never done this before so it was fun to learn. I can't do it with my kids cuz the plates are metal and have sharp edges and you need turpentine for one of the steps. Oh well, sucks for them. I like the smell of turpentine and I still have some black ink under my nails.

I finished reading "How I Became A Famous Novelist" while I was there. This book made me laugh out loud and was the perfect counterbalance to "The Hour I First Believed". I have two books now from the library "Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby and "The Wordy Shipmates" by Sara Vowell. Not sure which I'll read first.

So it was good to come home to Don and Lila and the crazy kitten. Even though the bed I had in Breckenridge was bed and poofy and had 4 poofy pillows, it's not my bed. It was good to be home and have the crazy kitten, like a couple of little girls before her, sneak into our room to sleep in the big bed.

Haiku

2009-09-30T19:11:00.001-07:00

Clear night, full moon night.
Even with the leaves changing,
Haiku evades me.

The Hour I First Believed

2009-09-20T19:51:00.002-07:00

I finished this book Friday night, long around midnight. Regretted it the next day, but I slept for a good 10 hours last night.

Since it's almost October, there's a good chance this will end up being That Book for 2009.

It was a hard book to read. It was for me anyway. Might not be for somebody else. A very few of the plot lines end up in what could be interpreted as a happy ending. But the others do not. And yet, I wouldn't call it a tragedy. Not in a Shakespearean way where everybody is dead at the end except for the fool narrating from off stage. There is tragedy for every one of the characters; some survive it and some don't. And some just survive and others are able to live on the other side it. This is where the story is. When you can't undo it, when you can't unring that bell, when the ripples go out across time...even generations...and get into every nook and cranny of your life: How do you live with something really, really bad?

Such is life. And where the good stories live.

New Books

2009-09-17T18:40:00.002-07:00

These books are in my shopping cart on Amazon:

How I Became A Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood

They're not all released yet. Hopefully one of them will be That Book. That Book that keeps you awake at night, That Book you think about all day long. That Book. I hope for one of those a year. Haven't had one yet. "The Hour I First Believed" is close to being That Book. It's so filled with trauma, though. Unless Wally Lamb can pull off some miracle...but then that'll make me angry to have all that trauma that rips your heart out and have it tied up with a pretty rainbow at the end. He wouldn't do that. Would he?

All I've Got Is A Photograph

2009-09-04T19:37:00.003-07:00

Well, sports fan, I think I'm going to take a break from the epic photo project. I think I got up to 2004-2005? Somewhere in there. I found two CDs with photos from my early digital that I need to go through and put them in the right year. The photos from there out are on my laptop. They are fairly organized by year, but I've printed some in random spurts so I need to go through the albums I've created on the Walgreens site and get them all together. I will eventually print everything.

Add to this, all the really old photos I have from my family, Don Coil's family and Don Clifford's family. I need to get them all off of those awful sticky film pages and onto archival pages.

There's still gobs to do. But I've been working on it pretty steady since Dhyana went home. Which means all my stamping stuff has been put away. I think I need to stamp for a while. This will give me time to work on the photos just on the computer, getting albums organized and ordering batches of prints. Yea, that's the ticket!

I'm Not Crying, It's My Allergies!

2009-09-01T18:40:00.003-07:00

I'm reading "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb. I wasn't going to comment on it until I finished it, but it's breaking my heart.

It's fiction, but the main characters are a husband and wife. The husband is a language arts teacher at Columbine H.S. and his wife is one of the school nurses.

The Columbine shootings happened on April 20, 1999. This was about 8 months after Don died and I wasn't watching any news during this time. The whole Bill and Monica thing is lost on me. Another staff from school called me to tell me about Columbine. I did turn on the news to see, but only for a minute or two. I couldn't watch the trauma nor could I watch the vultures in the media. So I've known about the general event, but not many details.

Until this book. Yes, the character's experiences are fictional, but they could so easily be the truth. And Wally Lamb is such a good writer. It's a well known fact I don't cry easily at movies. I've never cried reading a book. Not even Time Traveler's Wife. This book is making me cry and I can't even think about it during the day without going there. So I try not to think about it during the day even though the characters are written so you want to think about them and wonder what's happening to them when you're not there.

I think another reason why this is getting to me is, again, the writing. Wally Lamb does such a good job of building the time and environment of the story that it takes me right back to that time.

And that time is here again. 11 years this Labor Day weekend.

yes I'm a crazy flaming socialist I guess

2009-08-28T13:15:00.001-07:00

The Time Traveler's Wife

2009-08-24T16:32:00.003-07:00

So I've had a little time to reflect on The Time Traveler's Wife movie. Overall, I liked it very much. Your expectations always go down for a movie made from a book you love. You just don't want them to royally jack it up.

And they didn't. Of course some plot details were omitted, again, fully expected. Certain scenes from the book that I enjoyed were omitted, but they have to cut it somewhere for time. The biggest disappointment was the ending. They didn't use the ending from the book. Huge disappointment. The final scene in the book is short and heart-rending. Would've added a few minutes onto the length of the movie and added that final helping of bittersweetness. Carla complains I don't cry at movies...I might have if that scene was left in. Carla also reviews the movie in her blog, linked over on the right.

The book is amazing, in my top 10 of all time. The movie is good. I'd see it again.

I'm also now reading "The Hour I First Believed" Wally Lamb. Bought it at the bookstore after seeing Time Traveler's Wife. I'll go back and forth between that and Harry Potter for awhile.

Harry Potter And The Late To The Party Mom

2009-08-18T16:26:00.003-07:00

I finished reading "Slam" the other night. Great book. I recommended it to Carla as a book to read together in class with the kids. It's about a 15 year old boy who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant...right after they've broken up. It's so well written, not cheesy or preachy or over-sentimental. It deals, I think, quite realistically with that whole complicated scenario.

So...I didn't have another book lined up read. I have on my nightstand two books by Alexander McCall Smith (The Number One Ladies Detective Agency), but I wasn't in the mood for those. I started reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". I know Dhyana will kill me for reading this one and not all the previous ones, but...oh well. I have no excuse. Honestly, I tried reading the first Harry Potter book and it bored me. Not so much cuz I'd already seen the movie, but because it was written for a younger audience. The books progressively become more mature. And while I greatly admire J.K. for writing them this way and drawing in so many young readers, I just couldn't read it. After seeing "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", I became rather intrigued with the ending of the story.

I've outed myself as a fair-weather Harry Potter reader. Let the chips fall where they may!

The Kitten Days Of Summer

2009-08-12T18:56:00.003-07:00

My summer officially ended today. I was back on the chain gang. I was singing it like The Pretenders before Marilyn even told me to.

I had a good summer. The weather was very cool and rainy, my garden wasn't great. But I didn't get sick, I did some fun projects, hung out with Lila (even though we didn't technically do anything), had a good visit with Dhyana, did some cooking, and just enjoyed my time away from work.

Monday was a fabulous next to last day of summer. Carla and I saw "Julie and Julia". It was such a fun movie. The food was glorious and the love of the two different couples was sweet and patient and comforting. Then she and I had lunch at La Baguette. I had the butternut squash ravioli. Then we went to Michael's to look at stamping stuff and I bought more pages for the epic photo project. Our check-out clerk was one of our former students. She looked good. I don't know if she was ever a druggie, but she looked pretty clean. She said she'd had a baby and gave it up for adoption. She talked easily about it, but the profound sadness was unmistakable.

When I got home, two gifts were waiting for me. First, Larry sent me a card full of fortunes out of fortune cookies. If you've never been to my house, the upstairs bathroom walls are decoupaged with fortunes. So I'm gonnna have to bust out the Modge-Podge again soon. Personally, I think Larry should do it himself. Why do I gotta do all the work? Hmmm?

Second, Marilyn, in her quest to convert me to Catholicism through humor, sent me a gift to help me observe August 15th, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary. She sent me a Holy Toast Stamper. I tried in yesterday morning....Our Blessed Lady did not manifest. She can see into my heart. But, yesterday morning, I did watch "A Nun's Story" on TCM. I felt a little closer walk with Thee after that. I felt bad for the nun cuz she had to choose between being a nurse and being a nun. Being a nun meant she had drop whatever she was doing when it was time for mass or vespers. Even if a patient needed her. They should let people be part-time nuns. Like the National Guard.

Speaking of TCM, I watched a few movies either on that channel or AMC. A few that stick in my mind were "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Glenn Ford and Ronnie Howard, "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "Mrs. Miniver". I don't remember who's in those. They were British war propaganda movies overtly designed to elicit American support to join WWII. Keep a stiff upper lip and all that.

Back at work today, I had a new flat screen TV installed in my room. It's up on a wall bracket. The DVD slot is on the upper right-hand side which means....I can't reach it! I told Sharie, our admin assistant. She came back to my room a few minutes later and said, "Jen, you don't get a raise this year, but here's a step stool!" Awesome. It's kinda running joke in our school district. They do things that are jacked up and try to pass it off as something great. Like recently we got a minuscule pay raise and we had to work 3 more days. Um...I'm not a math teacher, but that's not a pay raise.

Ah...good times, good times.

Slam

2009-08-04T19:28:00.002-07:00

I finished reading "Rats Saw God" the other night. I really enjoyed it. Is it a book geared for young adults in a coming of age genre? Certainly. But it doesn't talk down to a younger reader. The writing is snappy and witty and quirky. The author, how you say in French, knows how to turn a phrase. Rob Thomas is added to my list of authors to watch for.

Now I'm reading "Slam" by Nick Hornby. You might recall I recently read "A Long Way Down" by him. Haven't gotten far enough to say much.

I finished the shirt I was sewing last week. I'm pretty happy with it. Except I'll probably change the buttons. They're white and they really need to be green.

I worked on the photo project today. I'm about three-quarters through 1998. Right about at the sad part. However, I did find a photo of some old friends that got married that year. They were in Don Coil's meditation group in STL and we remained friends with them after we moved out here. They had a daughter who was a few years younger than Dhyana. They never married as the guy had been remained sour on marriage after his first marriage failed. He told me that Don's death had moved him in an unexpected way. He decided to marry. He loved this woman that he'd lived with and had a child with for years so why was he being stupid about marrying her? I'm going to send them a card this week and say hello.

My Gardening Song

2009-08-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

I'm In The Community Garden Of Hope And Peace

2009-08-02T13:08:00.005-07:00

Just so you know right off the bat, I don't like that name. Too pretentious.

The other week I was at the farmer's market and came upon this booth run by The Woodland Park Harvest Center. Never heard of them, never seen them before at the farmer's market. I went over and chatted them up about who they were and what they did. They run community gardens. They have four locations around here where people can come and garden and grow food for themselves or grow food to donate to food pantries or grow food for therapeutic reasons or grow food just for grins and giggles.

I signed up.

Last week was so wet and cold, but I met with one of the ladies on Thursday evening. She showed me the raised beds they have so far and gave me some ideas for getting started. I decided to not start my own bed this late in the summer. So I'm just going to help out for now.

In the four-season bed, she said I could pull out the row of arugula and plant whatever I wanted in there. I planted two tomato plants, a spearmint, a lemon mint, and a chocolate mint. I told Marilyn what I was doing and she reminded me that a psychic told me I should make teas. A year ago, a year and half maybe, Dhyana and I went to a new age-y/holistic fair and I got a psychic reading. The lady said a bunch of hokey stuff like I had a lot of kids, I should make teas, and I should listen to crystals and write books about what I hear in the crystals. Woo-hoo! Well, I do have a bunch of kids if you count the ones at school. Ok, I'll give her that one. Anywho, Marilyn, in her infinite wisdom, remembered all this and said here was my chance to make teas. I was looking for peppermint cuz that's what she drinks to keep the migraine headaches away, but my nursery didn't have any straight peppermint. I'll try it with the spearmint, lemon mint and chocolate mint. Could be yummy.

The location where I go is right across the highway from me down by the Safeway. There used to be a great nursery there called Aspen Gardens. The property is still owned by the lady who used to run it with her husband. They were older and then he died and she couldn't run by herself. The little building is still there, nice open areas for the beds where her greenhouses used to be, and her house with her little fenced in yard and shed and chickens. I guess she's just letting the Harvest Center use the property for free. Which is awfully nice of her, considering she even lets them use her hose and water. They had an really, really great nursery before they had to close. I was very sad when they closed since there was nothing else up here like it. Since then, another nursery has opened out off of Highway 67. A lady runs it out of her yard. I found about her at the farmer's market, too.

I went over there today. I watered, checked on all my mints and cleaned out a non-food bed. It had purple sage and some other daisy-like flower in, horribly choked by grass.

So I don't like to call it The Community Garden of Hope and Peace. I just like to call it Aspen Gardens.

Summertime And The Living's Easy

2009-07-30T08:40:00.005-07:00

It's been a very cool and wet week. Had to close the window last night. It's 45 degrees this morning.

I'm up to year 1995 on my photo project. Lila shows up at the end of this year. Until then, I'm enjoying looking at all the photos of Dhyana, Micaela, Holly and little Grace. These girls were our neighbors back in Kirkwood. Their mom, Kathy, is one of my best friends. She and I don't talk often anymore; sometimes life takes you on differnt paths, but I still consider one of my best friends, we still visit when I go to STL, and her kids are still friends with my kids. Dhyana and Micaela still keep in touch across the country (Micaela is in Oregon now, Dhyana in Kansas). Lila is friends with Holly and Grace on Facebook.

Speaking of Lila, she and I went shopping the other day. She needed shin guards and shorts for soccer. I needed fabric. Ok, I didn't NEED fabric. Shhhh. Lila bought this smell-good lotion from Bath and Body. Lila is a fragrance hound. She loves perfumes and lotions and anything that has a scent. And I really, really don't. I never have. I don't like any women's perfumes. I do, however, enjoy a good man's cologne. Go figure. But anything smelly for girls, I really don't like. So I have to suck it up when Lila is perfumed up. Crack the windows in the car, etc. She makes the cat smell like her.

Dhyana was home for a few days last week. It was good to have her home. We're a fairly boring family, but sometimes you need a whole bunch of nothing.

I've also been sewing. I've been trying my hand at altering store-bought patterns. Clothes I buy in the store never quite fit properly. Always too big in the shoulders. I'm only trying shirts right now. If I'm happy with the results, I might try pants. It's hard to find petite (I'm not short, I'm fun-sized) pants in my size that I can wear to work. I need pants with pockets for my work keys which I have to keep on my person at all times. If I don't have pockets, I have to wear them on my wrist on one of those coiled-up stretchy thingies, which I don't like, or around my neck on a lanyard, which I don't like either. Although, the lanyard always reminds of the Billy Collins' poem "The Lanyard". Which is one of the most brilliant poems of all time. But I digress. So, I'll let you know if the shirt turns out.

At the Woodland Park Farmer's Market, I met these people who have started community gardens. I think they got some grant money or something. Anywho, they have several spots for the gardens and one of them is right across the highway from me. So, tonight, I'm going to meet one of the ladies who runs and see what I can do to get started. I asked the guy last week if it was too late to start this year and he said no. He said there was still time to grow some lettuce, possibly some broccoli. I'll find out more tonight. If it's not raining that it is!

And Now Here It Is....

2009-07-23T07:25:00.001-07:00

Your moment of Zen.

Rats In The Library

2009-07-23T06:41:00.004-07:00

I finished "The Abstinence Teacher" last night. For some reason, I've been able to stay up a little longer and read than I've been able to in the past few months. I like that, especially during the summer. I haven't pulled a 3:00 am'er yet, but that's ok. It takes a really great book for that.

Anywho, "The Abstinence Teacher" really wasn't too much about the abstinence teacher. If I had to categorize her, I'd put her as the secondary character. But, I kinda liked that surprise. Where you're reading and it dawns on you "hey, wait a minute! this author just kinda tricked me!" I like that when I'm reading. Also, what could've so easily been the climax of the book, the author totally doesn't go there. The story ends right before that scene. But, again, I like that cuz that scene really is just the backdrop for the action that goes on between the characters. Sneaky.

I started reading "Rats Saw God" after that. This book is from our library at school. Carla picked it out the last time we did an all-hands library search. This is when either something comes up missing or just a random search is ordered. All of us teachers have to report to the library and search the books. All the books. ALL THE BOOKS. It's tedious, it's dusty, we hardly ever find anything except a forgotten bookmark, but we joke around and tell stories and find books we want to read. Of course these yayhoo kids wouldn't want to read any good books. They only want to read books about ganstas and romance and crap. They just don't know what they're missing. We have an awesome library for the size of our school. This year, I'd say about a third of the books I've read came from our library. Mr. Dan, our principal, said we have to go thru the library next year and pull out books that the kids don't read to make room for ones they will read. I say we start a staff library with all those books I know will get weeded out. They'll be all the good ones that I want to read.

Margins! Margins! Margins!

2009-07-21T15:30:00.004-07:00

I was trying to find a YouTube of the classroom scene from "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie's teacher wields her red pen and exclaims "Margins! Margins! Margins!". I wanted to pair it up with this.

I couldn't find that clip, but I found this one instead.

Bella In A Box

2009-07-18T17:58:00.001-07:00

This photo is about 2 weeks old and I don't think she fits in that box anymore!

I'm In the Garden

2009-07-18T17:41:00.004-07:00

Nastursium

Yellow Columbine

Wild Geranium

Some wild flower I don't know the name of. But it's teeny tiny.

Purple Columbine

Orange Zinnia with Purple Petunias

One of the bulbs Nonie sent me. I don't remember what they are, I'm just happy they sprouted!

A glass thingy ornament that Marilyn gave me last December. I put it in a corner of my bedroom still wrapped in bubble wrap to keep it safe until spring and then forgot I had it. Bella was exploring in my room and she found it.

The flowers I plant in the shoes. See below.

These are little shoes that I plant flowers in every year and keep by the front door. The pair in the right belonged to Dhyana and the pair on the left belonged to Lila.

White dianthus and some purple wild flower that comes up every year.

Atlas Got 40 Years

2009-07-14T19:38:00.002-07:00

Summer school ended today for me. I was cleaning my room, doing all my stuff I gotta do to shut it all down for a while. I remembered one of my girls still had a book of mine. I had lent Amy "Atlas Shrugged" a while back. I asked Carla if she had returned it to her room. Carla said she did, but she gave it back to Amy cuz there was a essay contest for college money based on "Atlas Shrugged" she wanted Amy to try for.

So I thought about it and decided to just give the book to Amy. She turns 18 this week and will be gone from our facility before I go back to work in August.

Amy kinda teared up a little when I told her I was giving her the book as a gift. She made a motion like she wanted to hug me, but hesitated as she wasn't sure it was appropriate. I reached out and motioned it was ok. Cathy, her embroidery teacher, was there, so it was all kosher. No touching without witnesses. She asked if I would write something to her in the book. I did. Something about her being a better reader than me for getting through that book!

Amy has served approximately 2 years of a 40 year sentence for helping her boyfriend kill her mother.

Amy isn't her real name.

The Book I'm Reading Right Now?

2009-07-14T19:30:00.002-07:00

Well...I don't know yet. I have three selections to choose from.

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas

And, another Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)
Slam

I won't know until about 10:00 tonight. When I'm settled for the night, whichever one is calling my name. I'll let you know tomorrow!

The Amusement Park Rises Bold And Stark

2009-07-12T09:53:00.007-07:00

Mystery lyric for $500, Alex.

We took Lila and two of her friends to Elitch Gardens in Denver yesterday. It's a Six Flags. I think I'm officially over amusement parks. They really don't amuse me anymore. We'll still take her if she wants to go in the future, but I'm thinking if she's with a couple of girlfriends, they're old enough to go in by themselves. Don and I could drop them off and pick them up later. Then we could go do something we like to do in Denver. There's the aquarium, the art museum, the science museum, the botanical gardens, the zoo, Dave & Buster's. Plenty of fun there!

We do enjoy the people watching in places like Elitch's. But if I never see another tattooed thug in droopy pants, it'll be too soon. I guess cuz I work with those kinds of kids all day, it doesn't impress me at all. And, I'm guessing most of those thuggishly dressed kids aren't thugs at all. That just irritates me more. Grow some originality, will ya?

I did have a really good sno-cone. I ordered a cherry and the guy said, "It's $4.25." Holy crap. Well, he serves it up in this ginormous cup and puts lots and lots and lots of cherry syrupy goodness on it. Don and I shared it and still was too much to eat. So I guess the $4.25 wasn't so bad.

But Lila and her friends had a great time so I'm happy that we could take them. They deserve to have fun, they're good kids.

A Long Way Down

2009-07-05T20:35:00.003-07:00

I finished "Breakfast With Buddha". It was ok. There were some really fun moments in the book, a few beautifully mundane moments. The ending was guilty of what I complained about at the beginning. Too much talking, not dialogue by the characters, but talking by the author. The first person, in this case. The inner dialogue was too much. Blah, blah, blah. If you're interested in a light read, I'd recommend it.

Now I'm reading "A Long Way Down". I actually started reading this a while ago and got distracted. It's wicked funny, in a very dark humor kind of way. It's about four people who meet on New Years Eve...as they're all trying to commit suicide. It would so make a great Hugh Grant movie.

A-Punk

2009-07-02T18:07:00.001-07:00

I've posted this video before. Can't help it, I love these guys. I just want to pinch their cheeks. Marilyn has this as her ringtone. I'm insanely jealous.

In A Steely Dan State Of Mind

2009-07-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

I'm In The Garden

2009-07-01T19:14:00.003-07:00

Friendly Computers Grand Opening

2009-07-01T17:58:00.007-07:00

Don having his cake and eating it, too.

The official ribbon cutting.

Don and his family. His brother, Fred; Fred's wife, Teresa; Don's nephew, Jessie; Don's mom, Georgie, with Laine on her lap. Laine is Fred and Teresa's daughter.

Don's fancy car out in front of his fancy store.

The crew: Shannon, great and powerful office manager; the three of us; Wendy and Brian Ward (Brian is one of the Ward Brothers who owns Friendly Computers); Mike the tech, and Billy the intern.

Friendly is as Friendly does!

Zombies And Buddha, Hot Fun In The Summertime

2009-06-29T15:36:00.003-07:00

Let's see...what's been going on...

New kitten, Isabelle. I think most of you have a seen a photo of her by now. If not, go to Lila's blog. We thought Isabelle was 10 weeks old last week when we took her to vet for a check-up, but the vet said he didn't think she was that old based on her weight. She weighed less than 2 pounds. He said we can confirm her age when she loses her baby teeth. Bella has no tail, but she has all her claws! Isabelle, we mostly call her Bella, Belly when she's being cute, Kitten Kitten when she's all sleepy and snuggly and purring, and CAT!!! when she's climbed your leg and drawn blood on your inner thigh.

Things are blooming in the garden. A few Columbines have bloomed, the Delphiniums have buds, and one of my smaller lilies has buds. My day lilies don't have buds yet. I STILL have a small section I haven't gotten all the pine needles out of yet.

Don had his Grand Opening at Friendly Computers a few weeks ago. It was a big day, lots of good people showed up. As soon as he brings me home the photos, I'll post them.

I'm teaching summer school this year. I haven't done it the last two years. Summer school at my building is four half days a week. For me, driving down to work for a half day is silly. We were able to rearrange the hours for those of us who wanted to work full days. Three of us are still working half days and four of us are working full days. So I'm working Mondays and Tuesdays. It's grueling, two days on and five days off.

Last week I told Don my laptop was running very slow and needed some TLC. Big fancy computer guy, do you think he'd work on for me? No, he ignored me and the next day just brought home a new one for me. You can't get that kind of compatibility on Match.com, people!

Dhyana and, hopefully, Shane are coming for visit in July. I think I need to ask that boy what his intentions are with my daughter.

I'm still trying to decide if I'm making it to STL this summer. By the time Dhyana leaves, I'll have about two weeks left before school starts up again. August in STL. Ugh. I dunno. Why can't those people live in Montana in the summertime?

There's revolution in Iran...at least there was until, thankfully, Michael Jackson was able to pull us back to reality.

Obama has yet to give up the ill-gotten powers passed onto him by Bush. I knew that would be a hard road. Once powers like that are unleashed, even seemingly good people find it hard to give them back. Oh well, I guess I'll write him AGAIN on the White House website and tell him to do the right thing.

Marilyn says I should have a book section on my blog. I'm not sure how to do that other than just write a post. I'll think about it. Anywho, the last book I read was "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". It wasn't as good as I'd hoped it be, but it had some funny parts and, if the rumors are true and it's being made into a movie, I could definitely see a brilliant screenwriter turn it into a fun little gem like "Death at a Funeral" and "Shaun of the Dead".

The book I'm reading now is "Breakfast with Buddha". It's about a guy... a family guy, a regular guy... who gets duped by his loopy new-agey sister into driving this guru guy across the Midwest. The writing was not that impressive to start off, I almost didn't continue past the first two chapters. Too many lists, run-on sentences, too much telling me and not showing me. I can be pretty finicky. But I warmed up to it and now I like it ok. It's an easy read, which I like in the summer, it's funny, which I also like, and it's quirky with the main character vacillating between his staunch middle-class cynicism and his fleeting glimpses of peace and grace offered up like a child by Volya Rinpoche. Hope I didn't bore you with my lists, run-on sentences, etc.

That's all the news that's fit to print. I'm enjoying the golden summer in the mountains. Feel free to partake.

Get Your Musical On

2009-06-15T08:01:00.002-07:00

I thought about posting the Shirley Jones/Robert Preston version in keeping with the trend here, but this is the version I watched last night. After Don went to bed, of course.

Get Your Musical On

2009-06-09T19:09:00.001-07:00

The Color Lilac

2009-06-07T17:52:00.002-07:00

The sun never came out enough for my photographic tastes, but I did bring in flowers for two different vases.

Lilacs from the front yard. Their fragrance is.....mmmmmmm.

Dhyana gave me this teeny tiny little vase. It's perfect for a few Johnny Jump-Ups.

I'm In The Garden

2009-06-07T13:57:00.003-07:00

I was finally able to get in the garden this weekend. Yesterday was warm and breezy, I worked about four or five hours out there. Today is cooler and the sun isn't out much. I worked out there for about an hour and don't expect to go back out. Unless the sun comes back out later, then I might take some photos. I can't let Marilyn get the better of me with her fancy photos of broccoli.

There's still about a third of the garden that I haven't even cleaned out the pine needles yet. Since I put down the rock and mulch last year, you just can't go in there and rake up the needles. So it's me, with no gloves, picking them out a handful at a time. Tedious, yes, but I rather enjoy it as a work meditation. My weekdays are filled with needy children, recycled air and the heady aroma of hand sanitizer and various body odors. Sitting in the sun (on my new gardening stool!), feeling the breeze, listening to the hummingbirds, lawnmowers, playing children down the hill, and the fleshy tapping of Aspen leaves is the perfect antidote to all that.

As I said before, I only bought annuals for the decks and other pots. I have many, many new baby Columbines and delphiniums that are up in the garden. A good number of them may not even mature this year to flower. It's all good. I planted a peony last year that I completely forgot about and it's up. We'll see if it flowers. I have a very old bleeding heart that I thought had died, but I saw one little sprig coming up this year. And the rhubarb is out of control. It's fixing to flower. I don't think I should pick any at this point, probably gone very bitter.

I haven't seen any deer recently. I think they're off somewhere having babies. When they come back, with the babies, I'll have to get out the nasty deer repellent spray. It smells like rotten eggs. Might as well be at work. Doh!

Variation On A Theme (If You Like It Then You Should've Put A Ring On It)

2009-06-04T18:46:00.003-07:00

Song For (Another) Rainy Day

2009-06-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Dhyana!

2009-05-31T19:19:00.002-07:00

My Dhyana-poo is 25 today. She's feeling old. She might want to talk to one of her grandparents who have a 25 year old granddaughter and get a little perspective on the matter.

We love you, Dhyana!

I'm Not In The Garden

2009-05-25T19:13:00.002-07:00

It's raining. It's rained everyday since at least last Thursday. I've lost track.

I wanted to get into the garden over this 3 day weekend. My garden loves the rain. LOVES the rain. My rhubarb is the biggest it's ever been. Lots of baby columbines and delphiniums are up. Even one brave viola that survived the winter is blooming. The snow-on-the-mountain that Janie gave me last year is up. I have lavender babies and lily bulbs that were given to me as a gift are patiently waiting to go in the ground.

I'll be cutting back on the amount of money I spend on the garden this year. Don and I are making a full on assault on our massive debt. It's working, slowly. So I'll spend some money, probably get annuals to put in the pots on the decks. Not much else. I'll have to appreciate what I have.

Oh, and the lilacs will bloom soon.

Pomp And Circumstance

2009-05-19T19:23:00.009-07:00

We went to Dhyana's KU graduation this past weekend.

We flew out of Denver early Friday afternoon. Don used his credit card points to buy the tickets and they kinda treat you badly when you do that. We were all seated apart. Lila was sitting by herself in the second to last row, Don and I were seated in the same row but on different sides of the aisle. We all had middle seats. Don was sitting between two business people so they ended up talking business. Not sure what kind of people Lila sat in-between. I sat between an old guy and some college punk.

The flight was fine until we approached Kansas City. Big thunderstorm in a holding pattern. We circled KC for about an hour hoping the weather would move out. It didn't. The pilot finally said we were low on fuel and had to land in Salina KS. Salina has a tiny airport. A Phillips 66 truck came out on the runway to re-fuel us. There is no terminal there, we just waited on the plane. The kid sitting next to me seemed like a nice kid until we landed in Salina and we could use our cells to call our peeps in KC to tell them were delayed. Then I realized he was a punk cuz he used foul language in public. The old guy sitting on the other side of me, I could tell he wanted to cuss, but he didn't.

Finally, we made to KC. Dhyana was waiting for us; tired and hungry and broke cuz she had spending $5 on a magazine and $5 on a bagel so she wouldn't pass out from hunger after waiting there for us for 3 hours.

We drove into KC to my step-brother's, Peter, house. We were meeting him and his wife, my dad and step-mom, and my sister, Becky. They were all going to Dhyana's graduation, too. It was still raining, but not storming. Missouri is very green this time of year. The flowering trees are past their bloom, but the new leaves are shiny and soft and extra green. That, combined with the smell of rain and the bearable spring humidity, made me miss the flatlands intensely.

Everyone was waiting for us at Pete and Charlotte's house. We headed out for dinner. My dad's a fiend for diner food so we went to one a few blocks away. The waitress was smoking a cigarette out front and she was friendly and scruffy and efficient. And you had to pay cash.

Then we continued on to Lawrence and Dhyana's apartment. Don and I slept in her bed and she and Lila slept on the sofa bed. Dhyana lives across the street from a Burrito King Taqueria. That's open 'til 4 am. And it was the last day of finals. Um...oh, and trains come through Lawrence about 3.5 minutes. And blow their whistles at every intersection. It was a long night.

Saturday was the commencement for the individual schools. These smaller ceremonies allowed time to each graduate to have their name read and walk across the stage. I filled out Dhyana's name card where they ask you to spell your name phonetically so the professor will say your name correct. The professor still mispronounced it. Good Lord. Then Shane's parents and grandparents hosted a little shindig at their hotel for the graduates. All the STL people then had to leave as Emily's graduation in Columbia MO was that evening. As Dhyana said, they're professional grandparents. The rest of us crashed for a while and then saw the new Star Trek movie. I give it a solid B+/A-.

Sunday was the grand finale. KU has a tradition where the graduates, all 4000 of them, walk thru a tower at the top of the hill overlooking the football stadium, then walk down the hill, enter the stadium, walk the gauntlet thru all their professors before sitting for the speeches. It's quite a spectacle and if the weather hadn't been perfect, could've been quite unbearable. I think it took about 3-4 hours. I think getting all the those kids to walk down that hill in a timely manner is rather like herding cats.

Monday was packing, buying a few gifts, having one last nice meal together and the drive back to KC. We got Starbucks at the airport and dilly-dallied for a while before the final good-bye.

I got a little teary at the graduation, but not full on crying.

This image makes me more teary than the graduation. My babies snug in bed with matching ponytails and sleeping positions.

Haiku

2009-05-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

That one branch that hangs
over the highway, I like
to drive under it.

Zorro In The Springtime

2009-05-11T19:50:00.002-07:00

Here's some new photos of Zorro (or Zorra!). You can see he's rapidly losing his winter coat. It's fabulous how his coat blends into the dry pine needle strewn ground. The driveway...not so much.

Haiku

2009-05-11T12:23:00.002-07:00

New Aspen tassels
backlit in the morning sun.
Summer is...is soon.

Foo Friday

2009-05-08T05:41:00.001-07:00

For Sleepyhead Lila

2009-05-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

By The Way...

2009-05-05T14:35:00.002-07:00

...my blog has been unblocked by my school district. I don't know why. I didn't request that it be unblocked.

I hope it dosen't violate my acceptable use agreement. Doh!

Little Thank Yous

2009-05-05T13:38:00.011-07:00

Yesterday, I came back to work after a week off. I was happy to have a week off. Sometimes I feel a little burned out. Housekeeping often does my floors when we're gone for week. The other classrooms have carpet, the art room doesn't. My floors need to be stripped and waxed regularly. Even though I really appreciate how well they take care of my room, I always dread coming back after a break cuz they don't always re-assemble my room the way I like.

When I came into my room yesterday, it wasn't too bad. A few things moved around, but no major damage where it takes me 45 minutes to put things back. That made me happy. Then, I noticed on my desk a brown paper bag decorated with my name and glitter and stamps. I looked inside and I saw what looked like a bunch of gift wrapped tampons. They were white tubes just about the right size. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be little notes, wrapped up with ribbons. The notes were thank you notes from my female students. It was very sweet and surprising.

I went to the classrooms where they were to thank them. I held up the bag and said, "Thank you very much, ladies, for the gift wrapped tampons! How did you know?"

A Rainy Sunday

2009-05-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

At least it's not snowing.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete

2009-04-30T11:24:00.002-07:00

I was remembering this show while I was at the car warsh yesterday. Then it got me thinking about all those old school Nickelodeon shows that Dhyana used to watch. Salute Your Shorts, Clarrisa Explains It All, Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Hey Dude. What else, Dhyana? This is all pre-Spongebob, if you can imagine such a thing.

It's That Time Again

2009-04-23T18:51:00.002-07:00

Time to plan out all the movies I want to see that are coming up.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Star Trek
Angles & Demons
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Land of the Lost
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I Love You, Beth Cooper
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Julie & Julia
The Time Traveler's Wife
Inglourious Basterds

Some of these I'll see with Don and/or Lila. Some I will see with Carla and various assorted other females from work. I look forward to the big summer blockbusters as I love all the big action and big characters. The smaller movies are all chick flicks. Can't wait for Time Traveler's Wife and hope they don't butcher it. Inglourious Basterds comes out right about time I go back to work for the 09-10 school year. We're trying to talk Mr. Dan, our principal, into having a staff meeting at the movie theater. You know how they advertise before the previews "Hold Your Next Meeting Here!"

Cueca Solo

2009-04-22T17:17:00.002-07:00

As more and more disgusting details about Bush's torture regime come out, now news of some detainees that are disappeared. This Sting song was written about the disappeared in Chile under Pinochet. How like a kick in the gut that it applies to us now. The guilty ones will die warm in their beds, surrounded by loved ones. The tortured and disappeared?

Dancing with their fathers, dancing with their sons, dancing with their husbands, they dance alone...they dance alone.

No Capes!

2009-04-22T16:24:00.002-07:00

This week in the art room, we are finishing up some unfinished art projects, having some open art time, and watching movies. The two top favorite movies the kids pick are Eragon and The Incredibles. The kids say I remind them of Edna Mode or vis-a-versa.

No capes!

A Little Culture

2009-04-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

We went to the Colorado Springs Philharmonic yesterday to listen to a performance called “Old and New”. The selections were Mozart Overture to “The Magic Flute”, Leroy Anderson Piano Concerto in C Minor, Keith Emerson Piano Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven Symphony No. 5.

After The Magic Flute, I said to Don, “Isn’t that the music to every Looney Tunes cartoon ever made?” He said he was picturing Bugs Bunny in his mind as the music was playing.

I’ve never heard of Leroy Anderson. His concerto was a bit too soundtrack-y to my ears, but the second movement was kinda fun in an Americana kind of way.

The Keith Emerson concerto was the real reason why I even wanted to go. This is one of my favorite classical pieces and I’ve never heard it live before. When the concert director came out to introduce the show, he said they had spoken to Keith Emerson directly and he was so excited to have the concerto played in Colorado Springs that he was planning on coming himself and doing the introduction. But some type of family emergency came up and he had to cancel at the last moment. Bummer. But it was super awesome to hear it live. I guess my only complaint was that I felt like the trumpets took a little artistic license and were a bit too loud sometimes. I don’t know enough about classical music to know whether it’s kosher to change a composition.

And I’ve never heard Beethoven’s 5th all the way through before so that was cool, too. The conductor had no music in front of him when he conducted it.

Lila went with us. Not sure if she enjoyed it as much as we did. Oh well, she tried something new.

Lunch at Applebee’s: $36
Three seats in the nosebleed section of the philharmonic: $60
Seeing Lila roll her eyes at us with a “I can’t believe I got talked into coming to this old people show” look: Priceless

A Bit O' Fluff

2009-04-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

This was yesterday.

This is today.

And it's still snowing.

Who's coming out for vacation? Anyone? Anyone?

Poco Thursday

2009-04-16T06:04:00.001-07:00

Alicia Keys Tuesday

2009-04-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

Foo Friday

2009-04-10T05:19:00.001-07:00

Still Rockin' In The Free World

2009-04-09T18:16:00.000-07:00

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

2009-04-01T18:03:00.004-07:00

HBO has a new series based on the books by Alexander McCall Smith. The books are great and the series seems to be doing a pretty good job in the film translation. The actress playing the secretary, Mma Makutsi, is spot on, with perhaps the exception that she doesn't have as "difficult complexion" as the character in the book.

Very fun to watch.

Dance Me To The End Of Love

2009-03-30T19:39:00.000-07:00

The embedding was disabled on this video.

Starry Starry Night

2009-03-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

House At Pooh Corner

2009-03-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

Yes

2009-03-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

This Much Is True

2009-03-25T07:59:00.002-07:00

Time was, whenever I had some time off work, I could stay up and power read until 2 or 3 in the morning. I know that makes me sounds terribly geeky, but underneath my ultra-cool exterior, I really am terribly geeky. But this geek has been having issues with insomnia and the past 4-5 nights have been really good. So when I read at night and my eyeballs tell me it's time to go night-night, I listen. I do make it until about 11 or 11:30. For some crazy reason, I just don't like to read during the day. I did sneak in a few pages during CSAPs. Shh! Don't tell anyone. But night time is the right time for me. I guess cuz everything is quiet, everyone's asleep. No distractions and no temptation to go do anything else.

Even though I'm not power reading this week, I still have a great book. Nothing worse than having time to read and having a crappy book. "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb. It's about twin brothers, one of whom suffers from mental illness. The writing is just awesome. It's awesome cuz awesome writing makes you forget about the writing. All you get is story. There's no clunkiness. A bad actor draws attention to the fact that they're acting. A bad writer does the same. An awesome writer disappears. When I find myself during the day thinking about the characters, wondering what they're doing right now, what's going to happen when I find out tonight, that's an awesome book.

And proves I've got street cred as a geek.

Springtime

2009-03-25T07:50:00.001-07:00

If it's springtime in the Rockies, that means it's snowing. This little sugarplum fairy dusting fell last night.

My P-38J Twintail Dragon

2009-03-25T07:44:00.002-07:00

I finally finished my model airplane from school yesterday. There were a bunch of decals that I could never find the quiet time at work to put them on. So I brought it home over spring break. I didn't put enough weight in the nose to make it sit right, but other than that...

It's wicked awesome.

Haiku

2009-03-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Typically, spring
comes like a robin on a
dirty pile of snow.

Insomnia

2009-03-21T06:58:00.001-07:00

Haiku

2009-03-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

The first green of Spring
Like a flirty whisper, a
Soft touch no one sees.

Taking On Education

2009-03-16T20:15:00.002-07:00

I found the Obama speech on education....on the White House website. Doh!

It's about 30 minutes long if you're interested in watching it. The title suggests a certain confrontational tack. I found it to be somewhat confrontational, but not offensive. And I found it to lack quite a bit of detail. But I s'pose that's not what Obama does best. He's best at the bigger picture, the longer view, the eyes on the prize type thing. I can accept that about him.

Certain things, because of the lack of specific detail, left me wondering how the heck he thinks those things are going to happen. He was very good at acknowledging that good education is based on "out of the box" type thinking. It's not about how well you can take the test, it's about creative problem solving, higher reasoning, and, more often than not, cooperative skills...learning and problem solving with your peers. So, if this is his big picture (as it is with most teachers regardless of content area)how will he measure this for teacher merit pay? How do you measure non-linear progress? How do you measure those leaps in cognition and understanding that all teacher's strive to facilitate?

You know what? I really don't think most teachers give a rat's ass about bonuses. Just give us a decent salary and let us work.

But I'm very, very glad he addressed all concerned parties and their respective responsibilities. Teachers, administrators, the larger community, students and parents. Parents are and always will be the child's first and best...or worst...teacher. The best teacher in the world doesn't hold a candle to whatever the child goes home to every day. If the parents are caring and do whatever they can, the best teacher in the world pales in comparison. If the parents are neglectful or abusive, the best teacher in the world won't even make a dent. Children learn what they live. My parents had this poem in our dining room when we were growing up. 'Nuff said.

Another Vampire Weekend

2009-03-15T19:23:00.002-07:00

I just love these guys!

I'm also listening to a live Van Morrison "A Night In San Francisco". Jenny likey.

Also the new U2. Haven't decided yet if I like it. Sometimes I really love U2, but when I don't, they get on my nerves.

Have You Seen Junior's Grades?

2009-03-15T19:01:00.003-07:00

Not much going on. It's CSAP time here in Colorado. Standardized testing. Here, let me help you with a mental image...a loaded gun, my head, bang. Ok?

Obama gave a speech last week about education. I still haven't been able to watch the whole thing so I better not comment on it too much. Rumor has it he's gunning for the NEA. Well alrighty then. I only belong to the teacher's union to have free legal services if a kid should ever make an allegation against me. Rumor has it he's still itching for merit pay. Dude, give it a rest. I'm all about some kind of re-invention for public education, teacher accountability, blah, blah, blah. I can guarantee merit pay will destroy more schools and teachers than NCLB. How's about some penalties for parents who don't give their kids breakfast? Or make them stay home to babysit the younger kids? Or get high with them at night? How's about just giving the power to discipline back to teachers and principals? Business models don't work on education. Obama should just ask me.

Another Vampire Weekend

2009-03-08T10:05:00.001-07:00

The Winter Of Our Discontent

2009-03-08T09:18:00.002-07:00

I've been sick a lot this winter. It sucks.

I feel like I'm finally at the tail end of it, thanks to a 21 day course of antibiotics. I don't like taking antibiotics, just as I don't like taking any medications. But I must say, God bless antibiotics. I can't imagine suffering for weeks or months while my body fights an infection by itself. Or succumbs to one, as 100 years ago could've easily been the case.

Needless to say, I haven't been exercising like I should. This compounds the ickiness. Just this week I've started back up and oy. Sore much?

The longer, warmer days help a lot. Last weekend was very warm and I worked in the garden. Way too early to do any actual gardening, but it was warm enough to start clearing out the pine needles. It's cold this weekend after a little snow, but the sun is out and that always helps, no matter the temperature.

Both of our mothers have been in the hospital the past few months. Don's mom with her emphysema and mine with her colon cancer. I think these things put hidden stress on you. With either parent, there's nothing we can do. Don's mom will die from her emphysema, it's just a question of time. My mom is recovered from her surgeries, but I'm in another state and the burden fell to Becky and Richard. So either way, I feel helpless.

Just under two weeks until the Vernal Equinox. I look forward to the summer made glorious.

Haiku

2009-03-08T08:06:00.001-07:00

Under the Dragon's
Breath, the sun turns into moon.
I'm in morning mist.

The wind chimes, the moon
and me. It's two a.m. and
all of us are up.

Optimus Prime Obama

2009-02-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Fun With Google

2009-02-26T17:08:00.003-07:00

My friend Jackie has a blog, but it's a private blog. She doesn't want any kids from Spring Creek to find her. Personally, I think most of the kids at Spring Creek are too dumb to find me. And the ones that are smart enough to find me, are really smart and if they wanted to find me...they could. Ain't skeer'd.

Anywho, Jackie had a fun little thingy-doodle on her blog recently called "Fun With Google". You type in certain phrases and put up the first three responses you get. Mine are edited for content.

Jenny needs...
1. a wee video
2. a road bike
3. space!

Jenny wants...
1. Jimmy's babies
2. to talk
3. her life back!

Jenny likes...
1. to punch people
2. the wine!
3. flowers

Jenny hates...
1. cheaterzzzz
2. computers
3. School of Motoring LTD

Jenny is...
1. better than cocaine
2. a boy
3. dead!

My favorites of Jackie's were...

Jackie needs a hero this morning.

Jackie wants a prenup.

Jackie likes that ol' Barack Obama

Jackie hates hippies.

Jackie is a sacred cow.

Vampire Weekend

2009-02-26T16:47:00.001-07:00

This is my new favorite band. They're extra tasty geeky.

i am coyote

2009-02-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

and im giving up punctuation

Please, Sir, I Want Some More

2009-02-24T18:49:00.003-07:00

Masterpiece Theater just had a production of "Oliver Twist". I'd never seen a straight out drama of this story before. It's really quite tragic. Oliver and his family (except his dead parents and his grown half-brother who wants him dead) have a happy ending. The rest, well, Bill murders Nancy, Nancy haunts Bill until he hangs himself, Fagan is convicted of theft and sentenced to hang. He's given the opportunity to live...if only he'll convert to Christianity. He chooses the noose. The Artful Dodger lives, with the terrible foreshadowing that he'll grow up to be just like Bill.

It made me wonder, who the heck ever thought THAT would make a fun musical?

But then I thought about other musicals I like. All tragic. Every last one of them. Who the heck ever thought that the Austrian Anschluss, gang warfare, or ethnic cleansing would make for fun musicals?