One Year of Opus

Surprise....

2011-12-14T14:49:00.000-08:00

I'm back. Only for a minute though. I've been wanting to finish up this blog and I truly just have not gotten around to it. I have loved my four years of "One Year of Opus." LOVED THEM. This blog introduced me to some great people. It gave me a forum. It let me tell the world, and myself, about my mom dying. It captured so many moments of my son growing up, my own changes, and things happening in the world. Now, I need to move on. It's time. I like change. I think I would like to start another blog. If you are reading this and would like to know what my new blog is called, send me an e-mail at jilliebug@aol.com.

Catch up....
Since my last post, I have started an Art Gallery (galleryone13.com), written a few poems, gone to Kansas a couple times and Jackson Hole, WY. My son is in the 8th grade, I'm teaching school, and Barry is throwing more pots. I teach poetry at the jail. I have, a hundred times, experienced things that made me think; I need to blog about this! But I didn't. I feel a little sad to bring this blog to a close. But it really was all about having a year to be creative, and to appreciate, and then having that year turn into a year of being present with my mom while she spent months dying. I am still so thankful for that year.

I also felt, at times, that I couldn't be free in my writing because I knew that there were people I didn't really want knowing my every move, reading my blog. I felt inhibited at times. Unsure. And that's not how I wanted to write. Like I said, it's time to move on.

On November 1st of this year, 2011, I started a FB post of gratitude. I'm including it here.....

Gratitude month. Day two. Car heater. (Day one I posted on Maggie Carrillo's page...Opposable thumbs)

Gratitude month. Day three. Of course, my mom and dad. Even though they're gone, they have an impact on everything I do, everything I say, and the way I live my life. The two best people I've ever known.

‎"You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna live like we are telling the best story in the whole world." —Penelope from the movie, The Brothers Bloom

Gratitude month. Day 4. My boy. A thirteen-year old that still likes me. Honest, funny, kind and occasionally sassy and annoying :)

Gratitude month. Day 5. Books. Real books that smell like paper and rustle when I turn the page. Ones that I can dog-ear and stack by my bed.

Gratitude month. Day 6. Bathtubs.

Gratitude month. Day 7. These carrots. They were nestled underground, beneath the snow, waiting for me dig them up today, tops still green, brilliant orange. They taste so good. I am amazed that from a tiny seed they became carrots.

Gratitude month. Day 8. Memories. I am lucky to have good memories. Oh, there's some yuck in there too, but I pretty much just stuffed those in a big fat balloon and let them go (metaphorically of course) (oh, and after I learned what I needed to learn) (oh, and often it took me a few go rounds). But yes, lots of good memories here.

gratitude month, day 9, poems.

Day 10. My blood family. John, Jayann, Suzy, Neal, Ann, Jerry, Jim, Jennifer, your kids and mine. We make each other crazy, but we love each other more. I'm very thankful to have been born into this bunch.

Gratitude month. Day 11. Sight. There is so much to see.

Day 12. Getting older, which I write in the context of knowing the alternative.

Gratitude month. Day 13. Ghirardelli Sea Salt Soiree chocolate bars and red wine :) Almost as much to fun to say as to indulge in. Almost.

Gratitude month. Day 14. Barry.

Day 15, coffee. Cup after cup after cup.

Gratitude month. Day 16. Okay. I have to admit this. Facebook. Here's why...I see so many names of "friends" pop up on comments or likes, and you know, I might not have seen some of these people for decades, but I like ALL of them. And suddenly, because of facebook, I kind of know them again, even in just a "hey, you're still out there" kind of way. It's warm and comforting. Thank you. Oh, and I'm also thankful when people on FB use your/you're correctly :)

Gratitude month. Day 17. Breathing. I love breathing.

Gratitude month. Day 18. Roly polies and lady bugs. I love these bugs. Something about them makes me happy.

Day 19. Flagstaff. What a place to live. Very thankful. Now, just so you know, that was not my first choice today. I realized I'd named most of the big stuff; friends, family, etc, and I'm now moving on to the other, everyday blessings. So my first thought was, man, am I thankful for regular bm's. But that, of course, might offend people. But, seriously? Thankful. So anyway, I spared you from that by choosing something else for my Gratitude day 19.

Day 20. Gratitude month. I can't believe I actually was thankful for regular bm's before I mentioned health. Holy cow! Health is one of my top one gratitudes. I am so blessed to just be able to walk and talk and eat and move about....and that's all health related. Good health is the greatest blessing.

“Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.”—H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Day 21. Quotes. A good quote can change perspective and/or attitude. Give hope. Encourage empathy. Promote understanding.

Gratitude month. Day 22. The "rant and rave" section on Craig's List. Some funny stuff in there.

Gratitude month. Day 23. Brake repair shops that are kind and honest and quick and do a good job AND 380.00 cheaper than the first place that said I needed to get new rotors BUT I DIDN'T REALLY NEED THEM.

Gratitude month. Day 24. Thankful all around. For everything I mentioned on the last 23 days, and then for the safe, easy uneventful drive to San Luis Obispo today. Yay vacation!

day 25, in san luis obispo, thankful for starfish and sea anemones, 70 degree weather in november, and monarch butterflies migrating.

Gratitude month. Day 26. Thankful that I have a job. Actually a couple of them. Not getting rich but paying the mortgage.

Gratitude month. Day 27. Ahhhh. Vacations are good. Thankful today for the safe trip back to my Flagstaff. Also, olallieberry cobbler. Big yum.

Day 28. The cat, Margaret, who is sleeping on the suitcase. The dog, the super Stan man, who is a little nervous and barks at skunks. The guinea pig, Buddy, who has a silly face and makes wonderful noises when he's happy. The turtle, Herman, who does nothing but dig deep in his world and sleep for days at a time. The chickens, the ladies, giving us eggs and clucking.

“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.”—Arthur Rubinstein

Gratitude month. Day 29. Gravity. Think about it.

Gratitude month. Day 30. All of it. The failures and the successes, the hope and the despair, the sadness and the unimaginable joy, the loss and the healing. I am grateful for the whole beautiful mess. All of it.

Grateful. Every day. Every breath.

Here too is my Christmas letter too (hahaha, getting it all in!)

Merry Christmas

IT’S THAT WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR WHEN I GET TO
CHECK IN WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY, CELEBRATE THE
SEASON, AND SHARE A BIT ABOUT OUR LIFE.....AND MAYBE
HEAR BACK A LITTLE ABOUT YOURS.....

Here's the News from 2011....

* I opened a small art gallery, Gallery 113, in downtown Flagstaff. I
love going to work! I’m still teaching at the community college too.
Check out the gallery at....galleryone13.com
* Jay is a awesome. I’m a lucky mom. He is playing basketball, drums
and video games, getting good grades, being kind, honest and
loving, and is looking forward to the snow.
* Barry is teaching ceramics at the community college and working
in Extended Campus Advising at NAU. He finished our back patio
this year, along with about 10 other projects and he is NOT looking
forward to the snow :)
* Jay and I traveled to Kansas for a week, and Jackson, Wyoming for
a long weekend. We have so much fun going places. The train to
Kansas was great fun, as always, but he’s starting to consistently
beat me at dominoes so I need to sharpen up my game.
* We are going on a cruise January 1st. I’ve never been on one but I
hear they’re relaxing. I’ll be ready for it by the New Year.
* My entire family, all 30 of us, met in St George, Utah for a few
days and had a blast. One house, 12 bedrooms, talent shows, kids
everywhere, practical jokes, good conversation. Sweet!
* I still think about, and miss, my folks everyday. I think they would
be happy, and proud of all of us. I guess that’s a good measure on
how one lives their life.
* And finally, here’s a quote I’d like to share with you.......
“Life is short, live bold! Be heard, be you, dream big, take
risks, don’t wait!—Unknown

There, that's it.
So, if anyone reads this, know that I loved writing it. All four years. I am still a writer. I am still here.

P.S. I just got so excited that I can start a new fucking blog!!!

Starbucks Customer

2011-05-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

I Love Spring

2011-05-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Two sites that have made me laugh out loud in the last week.......

Princess Beatrice and her hat

and

Chuck Norris facts

I'm not really sure what this sudden adoration for sophomoric humor can be attributed to, but it's sure giving me the giggles.

Okay, and I'm also ready for the movie, "The Hangover, Pt 2" to be released.

Enough said.

Deep Thoughts

2011-04-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

There are so many new diseases. And everyone has one. Bi-polar, chronic fatigue syndrome, various eating disorders. I'm sure all these things are very real, especially to the people going through them, and I mean no disrespect. I just think if we called them by descriptive names, they would make more sense. Such as, "sensitivity to people irratating me," "normal reaction to sadness and tragedy," and "I'm angry but don't want to/am afraid to show it so I'll just be tired instead."

I have a couple tics I'd like to break. One is the "twirling my hair" tic, and the other is the "bite the inside of my mouth" tic. I've been doing the TMH tic for years and I tried to stop several years ago. Then, in some magazine, probably "People," I read that Jennifer Aniston twirls her hair and I thought, hey, if she does it, it must not be that bad of a habit. A few days ago, while twirling my hair, I realized I don't have her money or her body and if I did, I could allow myself the TMH tic, but since I do have things about myself that could stand a little improvement, I need to lessen that one. The BTIOMM tic is a newer one and I think I'm getting a handle on that one. It's just a matter of being aware and saying, (quietly in my head) stop it.

Last night I was watching an infomercial for "Brazilian Butt Lift" (really).....a set of 3 exercise DVDs. It looked very interesting but I figured it was a scam. I googled it, then ebayed it. After that extensive research, I saw that it was a very legitimate exercise tape. But it was selling for big bucks on ebay. I bid on it, thinking, I just want to see what this sells for, and knowing that as the price rose, the acceleration would pop up on my email and I could see how much it actually sold for. Except that I did this late at night and there was only an hour left for bidding. So, now I own it, or at least it's on the way to my house. I did not mean to buy it. How great it would be if I really used it, exercised, got fit. Instead it will be like that old exercise bike that sits in the corner, never used, only I won't be able to hang clothes on the DVD. At least it gives me a reason to say, Brazilian Butt Lift.

It would be a plus if I only hit the snooze button once in the morning instead of seven times.

I wonder if my insurance covers "I could use a few changes and a heavy dose of motivation but I'd rather bitch and moan?"

Glitter Hole

2011-04-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well, first I called this post "Family" and then was struck by how boring that was...then struck by how much angst I have at BEING boring, or at least writing boring things...like post titles that say "Family".....so then I made the conscious decision to try to not be boring. What happened? I came up with a good post title.

My family has reunions every 3 or 4 years. We like to stay in big houses where we can all fit because we like to eat breakfast together in our pajamas and play cards late into the night. It's difficult to do those things in a hotel when there's, at last count, about 35 of us. Now, this is just my brother, sister and myself, and our immediate families. Each of my siblings have 3 kids (actually adults now) with a few kids of their own. Except me, and I have just one young one. My brother and sister are about 20 years older than I am so their kids are my age. Anyhoo, this year we rented a place in St George, Utah. It had 10 bedrooms, two pools, a kitchen with two of everything including stoves, and a huge yard. There were 16 adults and 13 kids.

It started last Saturday. Twelve of my relatives drove into Flagstaff from Kansas and spent the night. I had planned on BBQing in the back yard so we could all be outside, as my house is not that big and there would be 15 of us eating and talking and lots of kids roaming about. The week had been beautiful weather-wise and tulips were coming up. But it's Flagstaff so instead we got a foot of snow on Saturday. Hahaha. Sunday morning we got up and planned to hit the road early to get to Vegas where we were going to spend Sunday night, along with the rest of the family who were going to meet us there. We had two, three bedroom suites at this timeshare place and we all wanted to get to Vegas early so we could explore, as a few of my family had never been there before. We had wanna-be gamblers, kids who wanted to see the dancing waters, and B and I thought we would get over to a bar called Money Plays to see my blog friend, Tyge. Out the door at 9:00 a.m. we got gas and headed onto highway 40. Three exits down we came to a very sudden and absolute stop. "Shit! Must be a wreck. We should be moving soon." I said. We did. We moved up about a half mile and were herded off the highway and back to Flagstaff. As we pulled off the highway and onto Flagstaff Ranch Road, my niece, Jennifer leaned out the passenger window and tried to talk to the cop directing us down the road and back on the highway. "Hey, we need to get to Vegas. How can we do that?" she hollered at him. Didn't even look at us. "Can't" was all he said.

After Internet and phone help, we found out it would be 11:30 before the road would open. So, we decided to go downtown and explore a bit of Flagstaff. Then, we were told it was going to be 1:30, then 3:30 before we could leave Flagstaff. Ugh!!!!! There WAS no detour. No where to go....well, except maybe drive to PRESCOTT and then up to ASHFORK. Hours out of the way. So, that's what we did. While we should have been in Vegas by 1:00, we ended up pulling in around 6:30. By the time we got to the room, unloaded bags, headed to dinner, and took all the kids to the dancing waters, it was midnight. Did I have time to play Roulette? Barely. Did I lose money at Roulette? Yes. Did I have time to win it back? No. Did we get to Money Plays? No.

So Vegas was merely a blink of the eye. A little over 12 hours and we were out of our rooms and heading to The Valley of Fire. We did stop first at The Palace Station for the breakfast buffet, which my brother had said was 4.99 (which was all I had left after playing 15 minutes of roulette), because he went in the day before and got the promise of a discount from the Asian lady at the counter....who wasn't there the next morning to okay it so we ended up paying the regular 7.99 price. Picture this; my sister at the register trying to explain that my brother, who was 25 people (who were NOT relatives) back, had SAID we get the 4.99 discount and the NEW Asian lady saying, "No. So sorry. Only with Palace Station card." And my sister yelling over the 25 people to my brother, who started yelling back about HIS story from the day before. At that point I just wanted to pay whatever it was gonna cost to get out of that line.

The Valley of Fire was about an hour outside of Vegas on the way to St George and kind of cool. Big rocks colored various reds and pinks and oranges. When you have nine cars caravaning it can get a little tense when someone needs to make a bathroom stop or wants to read a road marker but four of us had walkie-talkies and that worked okay. We made it to the trail head and hiked a bit. At that one stop there were people (my family) crying, laughing, exhausted, raring to go, excited, angry, loving, impatient, positive, negative and nervous. I decided right there that a family that big in one place is like a whole city, what with all the varied emotional content. After all the driving I had done the day before, I was just ready to get to St George.

The house was great. Two of the bedrooms were bunk rooms so the girls had one and the boys had the other. The other eight were split among the adults. The jacuzzi didn't work the first night so we had to call the pool guy. We had a talent show, a secret family society initiation, and several group cooking experiences. We watched DVDs of Ann and Jay Divine, our parents and grandparents, the two people we all had in common, and remembered them and talked about them and told stories. On the third day, my nephew Neal went to the BLM and found information on a great place called "The Glitter Hole." It was a several mile drive outside of St George on windy dirt roads until we came upon a couple mounds of what looked like broken glass at first. But then, when we got out of the cars and walked over to it, there was a huge pit on the other side filled with Selenite. There were a million pieces of it and the walls of the pit (a good 50 feet deep) were lined with it. It was awe inspiring. (Okay, so isn't Las Vegas a Glitter Hole too? Get it? The blingy, wild, sparkling city lights of Vegas and the hole filled with sparkling smooth glass-like gems. Oasis in the desert! Both of them.)

On Thursday morning, we all packed up and went our separate ways...California, Wyoming, Florida, Kansas and Arizona. One thing I particularly liked was that we all stayed until everything was done. No one left before everyone could leave. We all drove out the driveway together.

Is Spring Break Over Yet?

2011-04-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

I always tell my students, Please, please come back after spring break. It might be tempting, because of the glorious weather and the glimpse of freedom, to never come back. But do. Come back after spring break. And then, I did what I tell my students not to...I didn't come back after spring break. Not to class, I mean here. I didn't come back here after spring break. I got busy, I had fun doing other things, and I stopped writing. Now I'm back. But I had a great spring break :)

A lizard played an April Fools on our cat. Magpie has proven herself to be quite the criminal. She's brought several dead birds into the house through the dog door. A few more have been left by the door on the back porch. April 1st I heard her outside meowing to come in. I opened the door and she slipped through my legs into the house and I saw a poor little lizard, dead as a doornail on the patio. I love those little guys, so on the off chance it was still alive, I poked at it a few times to see if I could rouse it. Nope, dead as could be. I left it out there and scolded Miss Kitty. About an hour later I happened to glance out the window and I saw that lizard limping over to the side of the house. Holy Schmoly! The damn thing WAS alive. I kept the cat inside for another hour and by then the lizard was up and running. All fingers and toes unfurled and functioning. After making sure the lizard was gone, I let the cat out. That cat went right over to where she left that lizard. Gone! She looked all over the patio. It was pretty funny, seeing the cat looking perplexed. I imagined that lizard....yeah, you thought I was dead? You were going to come out and bat me around some more? April Fools cat!

Jay and I caught a Phoenix Suns game over spring break. We also saw K-State play an NCAA game in Tucson. We saw The Body exhibit at the Museum of Science. I cleaned my house and I put a bunch of stuff on ebay. I read a book during the middle of the day. See, I've never JUST taught school (aside from my oneyearofopus) and so usually I worked all through spring break. Spring break meant nothing except that I had to figure out where Jay was going to go while I worked my OTHER job. This year I got the week off and it was wonderful. Kind of makes me want to be a teacher :)

Ever heard of Bountiful Baskets? Google it. (I'd put up links but I am not skilled enough to do that while still being lazy) Fifteen bucks a week and I get tomatoes, apples, mangoes, carrots, asparagus, lettuce, onions, pineapple, etc. It's CRAZY. Two bushel baskets of food. So, I end up with food I don't usually buy and I have to figure out what to do with it. I made an apple pie. From scratch, baby. I slice mangoes up and eat them for breakfast. I made sweet potaoe mashed potatoes last night. Cheap AND tasty. Check out Bountiful Baskets.

Oh, and B fired a plethora of pots (actually vases, mugs, a VERY cool watering can, and some other beauties) at the NAU soda kiln this last week. It's such an amazing, yet time and energy consuming process, and still so worth it at the end. There are so many talented artists throwing clay here in Flagstaff, and then a few of them get together and load the kilns, fire for 5 days, and when they open the kiln, you just have no idea what happened in there. Did things explode? Did their glaze and the soda combine to create wild blues and reds and greens? Did the best favorite piece of all time crack apart like an egg?
The anticipation is big and yet one should never expect anything. Hope without attachment.

I am so ready for summer. This year the raised bed gardens are ready to plant, the patio is begging to be sat on with a beer, and the chickens are laying again. A month and a half of school left to teach......ahhhh.

As for spring break....I truly had several students in each class disappear. And they were so close.

I Love Comments

2011-03-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

I caught one!!! I put out my bait and hook, and reeled one in!!!! My beautiful friend, girlstayput, commneted on something she loves. Thank you!!! Now, all you other ya-hoos, tell me what you love. Damnit. Thank you, girlstayput, for giving me faith in humankind again. Now I have to go watch Charlie Sheen's "Winning Recipes" on Funny or Die. Google it!

Here's girlstayput commenting......

"I love this blog, and the moment of reflection it requires. It's not the same as FB asking what's on your mind, cause the easy answer is "cheese". Your blog is more mindful, reminding me to be creative, be grateful, have some fun, dammit."

Accepting more comments now!!!!!

Just wondering.....

2011-03-08T20:43:00.000-08:00

I LOVE knowing what other people think.....so write a comment about something you love and I'll post them all Thursday. Yay!!! And this is not a cop-out. I really love other thoughts and perspectives. I want to know what you love.

If you're in Flagstaff, I'm reading poetry at Uptown Billiards Wednesday night, 6:00 pm......

Surprise

2011-03-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

I love spontaneous dance-offs. The problem is, it's rare to see one here in Flagstaff. Occasionally I initiate one myself, but the last time I got sprayed with mace (party pooper), There are so many fun dances available and with Wii and Xbox 360 there are so many new ones still to learn. Combine "the swim" with Hammer's "You can't touch this" and you are a WINNER (no Charlie Sheen reference intended). The only downside....no prizes.

Slammer

2011-03-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

I LOVE teaching poetry. It's one of the reasons I don't work a nine-five kind of job. The other reason I don't work a nine-five kind of job is that I would hang myself in a closet if I worked a nine-five kind of job. Hahaha. Not really. BUT, I do appreciate the flexibility I now have to teach poetry in the afternoon at the community college or, as I mentioned last night, at the jail. I work for the Exodus Program on a volunteer basis teaching poetry. There are 24 inmates in the program and more on the waiting list. To get into the program, inmates must apply and have drive and motivation to better themselves. It's mostly drug offenses, domestic violence, theft, etc.

The first day I went in I was nervous. I had no idea what it would be like or if I would be any good. I always go in with one of the Exodus workers, and we walk down quite a few steel-gated hallways to get to where the inmates are. It's a pod where all 24 sit at three tables and do their work. Off the main area there are 12 cells and it's two men to a cell. These are guys who want to improve. They are visited by groups that teach them life skills, financial skills and 12-step programs. And poetry. One of the essentials :)

We do mostly fill in the blank type poems. They are all so ready to write poems. They write about faith and their families, and about how they want to break bad habits and addictions. They are all so respectful and every one of them participates. After we take half an hour to write, I ask who wants to read theirs aloud first. No one. Then a hand goes up when it looks like I'm going to move on to the next thing, and then pretty soon they are all wanting to go next. When the two hours is over and I'm heading out the cold metal door, they are shouting out "thank you" and "see you next time."

I look out at these guys and see 24 people who have good intentions. They really want to make their lives work. They are sober and thoughtful and aware. I think it must be so much easier in there, in those cells, to have hope. There are no drugs sitting on the kitchen table or friends bringing over whiskey. There are no beer fueled fights or jobs to struggle with to keep. Their days are mapped out for them in a good way. I know that even though right now they want SO BADLY for life to work, most of them will have problems when they get out. Some will end up back inside, some will just end up drunk outside the corner liquor store. One of them wrote about that, about being the drunk at the corner liquor store, and how he doesn't ever want to be that again.

So I try to get them to write about the things that will get bottled up when they get out; the anger and fear and want that they are bound to have. I figure if I can get them to see it, recognize it and feel it, they might not allow it to eat at them until the only way to escape it is to numb it or give in to it. It's a harsh world on the outside, especially when you've lost your job and you have to find different kinds of friends to hang with. I'm going to arm them with poetry. Here's a fill-in poem for you to do. Send it back to me and I'll post them, anonymous if you want.....jilliebug@aol.com

“Me" Poem

Line 1: First Name 
 Line 2: Four descriptive traits 
Line 3: Sibling of... 
 Line 4: Who loves.....  
 Line 5: Who fears...  
 Line 6: Who needs...  
 Line 7: Who gives...  
 Line 8: Who would like to see...  
 Line 9: Resident of...  
 Line 10: Last Name

Sample:

Alysa
Short, feisty, artsy, crafty
Sibling of Phyllis and Sam
Loves cats and flowers
Fears fatal errors
Needs a healthy network
Gives help where needed
Would like to see peaceful blooms and fur flying
Resident of NJ
Cummings

Fear and Wanting Poem

I am afraid of _______________________________
 I am afraid of ________________________________
 I am afraid that ________________________________
 I am afraid that _______________________________ 
I am even afraid _________________________________

I am afraid of __________________________________
 I am afraid ____________________________________
 I am afraid that ____________________________________
 I am afraid that ___________________________________
 I am even afraid ___________________________________

I want ______________________________________
 I want ________________________________________
 I want ______________________________________ 
I want ________________________________________
 I even want ______________________________________

I want ______________________________________
 I want _________________________________________ 
I want ________________________________________
 I want _________________________________________
 And I want ___________________________________ 
Most of all.

Sample;

I am afraid of spiders 
I am afraid of lightning strikes
 I am afraid that the milk has gone bad
 I am afraid that the well will run dry
 I am even afraid I might show up ten minutes late

I am afraid of final exams
 I am afraid of making speeches
 I am afraid that my math may be wrong
 I am afraid that I'll say a bad word
 I am even afraid of the dark

I want friends who smile back
 I want fresh fruits and vegetables
 I want fewer reruns on summer TV
 I want 50% off sales
 I even want to read books with happy endings

I want to laugh
 I want to sing
 I want to dance
 I want to get the joke
 And I want to be here
 Most of all

I love knowing my limits

2011-03-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

I love working with inmates. Really. I teach poetry for the Exodus program at the jail. I love it. I am going to tell you all about it when I write in the morning because I'm a little tired right now. So, I'm going to sleep.

Cause and effect

2011-03-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

I really really like solving problems. Here's the problem - my blogs are short, uninsightful and boring. The cause - I'm writing them late at night. Solution - Write them in the morning. Done and done.

Chuck

2011-02-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

Love does not really = fascinate. But I am surely fascinated by this whole Charlie Sheen debacle. Okay, as perverse as this might be, I even slightly love it. I watched a 26 minute clip of Charlie railing at his boss, his dad and his naysayers. "Bi-winner" and "bitchin rock star from Mars" and "brain from a different terrestrial realm." ???????? Really? We all secretly want to be him.

Based on a Novella

2011-02-27T20:29:00.000-08:00

I adore writing long, involved, fascinating blog posts. This is not going to be one. And I have not written one for a week or so. I even took the weekend off. But I can say this. I am completely enthralled and entranced and blown away by the movie, Legends of the Fall. It is another (along with Shawshank Redemption) of my top 3 favorite movies of all time. It's so filled with tragedy. They should put up a stop light in that tiny hilltop cemetery because there's so much traffic. Anthony Hopkins is superb even before the stroke....and then after, with his closed eye and palsied face, AMAZING. Brad Pitt is beautiful and yet.....beautiful. He's also a damn good actor here. And did i mention, beautiful. Aiden Quinn is the lesser of the handsome men, and he's no slouch. And Julia Ormand is damaged and stunning and lost all at the same time. Great writing, acting, and directing. (Side note - April....I know this one made you shed a tear.) Oh, and did I mention the scenery?! Whoa. This is an EPIC movie.

It's the weekend

2011-02-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

I LOVE taking the weekend off. And I am. I will be back on Sunday.

Logophile

2011-02-24T08:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am a lover of words. That's what the post title means....a person who loves words. This was exhibited in my last post, although I was too lazy to go to the dictionary and really search for the good ones. If you want to get a unique word-a-day, check out wordsmith.org. They'll send a vocabulary word to your e-mail everyday and it will be unusual and one you've probably never used in a sentence. I use that site to get my vocab words for my English classes and lately we've had ambisinister, captious, pip and lacuna. Do you know any of those?! I didn't. Now I do.

mmmmmm

2011-02-23T20:40:00.000-08:00

Did you think it was going to be about food?! No! I adore the letter M! Monkeys, money, mulberry, magazines, mercy. Mmmmmm. Music, moon, morning. Mother, motion, muscles, Metropolitan Museum of Art. My Man. Malarky. Mr Rogers. Monsoon, mudpie, mettle.

Short but Sweeeet

2011-02-22T20:02:00.000-08:00

I heart bumper stickers. Not really. It's just that saying that makes me think of this one story. Remember those goofy-ass bumper stickers with the "I" then the "heart" symbol then the picture of the dog's head. And it would mean "I love my poodle." Well, a few years after those got popular I saw a bumper sticker that said, "I heart my dog's head." Hahahaha. Really. I laughed for days about that one. I heart my dog's head.

Homemade Pizza!

2011-02-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

I be lovin my homemade pizza. Here's why I wrote that sentence like that......I'm on day 13 of my "30 days of stuff I love" and if I write the words, "I love...." one more time I will barf. As I recall, this happened last time too. I had to substitute other words in there. It just gets so TRITE. So, today, I be lovin my homemade pizza.

The routine is simple. Make some dough about an hour or two before dinner time (pour a nice little glass of red wine here and sip it slowly). Let the dough rise in a bowl, covered, on top of the stove. I usually turn the oven on for a few minutes to make the area warm on the stovetop. Then, divide the dough into thirds, ball up and let THAT sit for 15 minutes (you will have finished that first glass by now.....pour glass two). Olive oil the cast iron skillets, sprinkle with corn meal, preheat oven. Take each dough ball and flatten it out, throw it in the air (Go, B!) and flip it into a pan. Then, ahhhhh, the pizza making begins. Mine is always the same because I LOVE it so much (I said it again and it was really okay), pesto, mozzeralla, fresh tomato and garlic, a little parmesean. MMMMM. Jay's was red sauce, chicken/sundried tomato sausage, pepperoni, mozzerella and a few dollpos of pesto on the top. Barry's (the one pictutred) was both red sauce and pesto, broccoli (lots and lots of broccoli), cheeses, tomato, and garlic. He put a bit of fake meat in there too but decided next time to forgo it. You might need to top off that second glass of wine here. Bake for 13 minutes. Eat. Yum.

Snow

2011-02-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

I LOVE driving in the snow. And by snow, I mean 18 inches of snow. I mean, put on the chains, back over the berm, and barrel down the block in your front wheel, 2-wheel drive Honda Pilot, over piles and piles of white serious snow. I laugh out loud like a crazy person and Jay looks cautiously over at me from the passenger seat and says, "You really like driving in this weather, don't you mom?" and I say, "Oh yeah." and off we go, to Joann Fabrics. Hahahaha. I can go anywhere with chains on my tires and I will stop on a DIME! I love the white swirling powder storm of snow against the windshield. I love driving through the hedges of snow. I think this is all I can say without sounding TOTALLY irresponsible and careless. Okay. Goodnight.

I love......

2011-02-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

nothing today. Oh, I do. I brought a caterpillar in out of the snow. I made white chicken chili. I had one lovely glass of St Francis Claret. I even told my son that he needed to turn off his cell phone because he has a friend over. When you have a guest, listen to them, talk to them and BE PRESENT. I liked all those things. I might have even loved them in my "I love it all" way. But I also feel sad about a lot of the world. People are suffering from floods and earthquakes and nothing gets done. Children get treated badly by the very people they trust. Loneliness is epidemic. Our politicians are corrupt and we have no heros. We stop having conversations with the people we should be talking to, preferring texting and IM's and facebook. (I saw a couple at a table in a restaurant the other day and they were sitting there across from each other, texting.) There's not much to depend on. People lose their jobs and houses and loved ones and we just keep plodding on. I don't love that stuff. None of it. But I love, for some reason, that I can write it down. I love that I can see it, and just keep breathing.

Ear Buds

2011-02-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

I love music that surrounds me. I was in the car today with the music blasting and in the car next to me was someone with ear buds in their ears. I can understand the virtue of ear phones/buds/whatever, as far as listening while running or exercising or avoid bothering other people, but the acoustics have to have space to bounce off of, and that just doesn't happen as well confined to my ears.

Goodnight

2011-02-17T20:22:00.000-08:00

I love being really tired, but awake enough to appreciate it. Lying in bed when the sheets and blankets all feel just right and I find a sleeping position that is just comfy and not in any way disagreeable. No restless legs, no temperature angst, no strong thirst or hunger. No cravings for nachos or fast food. No strange worries about having a heart attack in the middle of the night. No slight headache that may turn into a stroke at 3:00 a.m. or driving rain that keeps me up worrying about the cat. Just soft coziness and warmth. Ahhhhh. It's moments like this that allow me to experience supreme gratefulness.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

2011-02-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

I love Shawshank Redemption. Wow. What a movie. I didn't watch it tonight (I watched American Idol!), but it's one of my top 3 movies of all time. Andy Dufrain is the classic common-man hero. He's honest and good and Innocent of the crime he was convicted of. He's also willing to break the "law" to get his life back. He hurts no one. And helps many. I love the scene when he's escaping. Also the scene when Morgan Freeman leaves the prison and heads to Mexico. If you don't shed a tear in this movie, you must be the tin man and I would advise you follow the yellow brick road to go find a heart. If you haven't seen it, rent it now.

Just let me sing one more!!!!!!

2011-02-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

I love American Idol. I do!!!! I really do. No fooling. I like j-Lo and Steven Tyler and Randy. J-Lo is soooo Jenny from the hood; just a regular gal married to a wack-a-doodle. She's kind and sensible and knows her music.....NOT like Paula. Steven Tyler is alternately funny and serious and deranged. Randy is the new, kinder yet still honest Simon. Happy as can be that Kara is gone, never to be heard from again. I have never really gotten into the show like I have this year. I can't decide if, during the audition phase, I like the talented folks best or the really lousy ones. I cry when the really amazing people sing, and tell their tragic life stories, and I laugh like a fucking hyena when the squeaky, crazy, arrogant people bellow about. LOVE IT.

Sweet Stuff

2011-02-14T21:43:00.000-08:00

I love memories. I love how, just through thought, we can remember things that are comforting or funny, or important. Little stories our mind tells us, that are slightly embellished over time, and also slightly forgotten. It's almost as if the mind distills the memory down to just a theme or a lesson. One of the best Valentine memories I have happened when I was maybe 20. At the time, it wasn't necessarily a great day, or even memorable. But I think of it now with great fondness. It was a sweet kindness directed my way and I have never forgotten it. There was a boy that worked with me, Steve, I think. I don't even remember his last name. I vaguely remember him liking me but not thinking much about it. I came home to my apartment after work on Valentine's Day and there was a big fat Manila envelope at my door.

It had my name on the front. I took it inside and opened it up. There were 25 small, store bought valentines. Each was written on in child's handwriting. They all said, "To Jill," and they were all notes. "I hope you have a happy Valentimes" and "I like you" and "Be my Valentine." They were all signed either Love or From, and the children had all written their names. Mark, Janet, Betsy, Tim. I emptied them all out on the table and looked them over. I looked in the envelope for a note, a card or just a scrape of paper to tell me who these were from. Nothing. How weird. I didn't get it. How did these kids know me? And where did these come from? It was a mystery for a while and then I think I just let it go.

Steve never said a word about those cards, but I talked to a friend of his several months later. His friend asked me about the Valentines and it all came back. He told me that Steve had a sister who taught third grade in one of those very small Kansas towns, and that Steve had taken the Valentines out and asked the kids to write me a Valentine. They did, and sometimes I think about those kids writing a Valentine to a girl they didn't even know. I do remember those cards strewn out all over my kitchen table, and I remember that it made me smile and feel strangely happy that someone had left an envelope full of Valentines at my door.

Steve never even said anything to me. We never went out. I never would have known the story except I ran into his friend at a party one night. But it's a nice soft memory of an act of kindness that had no motive or manipulation. I still have those Valentines in that big envelope in a box somewhere. And when I think of that memory, I always hope I'm capable of that kind of kindliness.

Happy Valentimes Day.

La la lalala la lala la la.

2011-02-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I love music. But I also forget about music. I'll go days and not hear a bit of it. Except maybe on American Idol. Hahaha. Really. But then, I'll have a day at home and I'll plug in my computer to the stereo and play Pandora radio for a couple hours. Or I'll just surf my own itunes or check out Grooveshark. I get energized and confident and I dance a across the living room like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, only better. Music is weird like that. It can make me feel really confident, as in, "Yeah world, I just listened to Mumford and Sons and Kings of Leon and I am ready to go out and BE SOMEBODY and KICK SOME ASS and totally BE KIND TO EVERYONE. Yeah, I am going to SUCCEED today f**kers!" It's very cool. I not only love the music but the lyrics too. I pretty much like it all, except country, and I'd probably be okay with that if I had the money to just sit around and listen to music all day. Music can take me over and change my whole mood for the better. It never really changes my mood for the worse, because even sad and depressing songs make me feel good. Oh, yes, I am watching the Grammy's. I haven't watched the Grammy's for a decade but it's kind of fun. I didn't even know who B.O.B. was, or Esperanza, or Lady Antebellum. Well, I'd heard of B.O.B. and L.A. but not Esperanza (won for best new artist). I have a little music sampler to the right of this post I believe. I haven't changed the songs for three years. Because I like them. I think of it as the soundtrack to this blog. Go on, listen.....

Powerball

2011-02-12T23:41:00.001-08:00

I love when, If I forget to play the lottery, my numbers don't come up. See, I have two sets of numbers I play quite often on Powerball. I'm a gambler, yet I'm not real consistent on making it to the store on the right days. So, for instance, earlier today I thought, don't forget to buy Powerball tickets. Then at 10:00 p.m., I realized I never did it. I couldn't resist, I had to know! So I googled Powerball and saw that the numbers WERE'NT MY NUMBERS. Ahhhhhh. Relief. Elation! I did not lose millions of dollars by not playing the lottery.

Ommmmmm

2011-02-11T23:18:00.000-08:00

i love yoga. It's all about breathing and stretching and wearing cool yoga pants.There's no running involved. You get to close your eyes. I just started a few weeks ago. I can barely touch my knees.

Steamy

2011-02-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

I love very long, very hot showers. Lobster skin showers. This may be too much information but TOO BAD PEOPLE. I am a water wasting, utility raising shower fanatic. I will easily shower until the hot water runs out. I will shower until I'm late for class. I seem to get most of my epiphanies and revelations in there, with the pulsing streams of water knocking on (frying) my brain. One of the first shower epiphanies I had was about a million years ago when I was getting ready to pack my bag and head out for my grandma's 90th birthday. Right there in the shower I knew very clearly that I needed to buy a video camera. BOOM! This is before anyone had video cameras. I was very young and I had no money. I think I had one credit card which had rarely, if ever, been used. But there in that shower I realized I had to get a damn movie camera. I was meeting my parents at the birthday party. As I recall it was in a church in Hutchinson Kansas. In a long room with a long brown tables and paper table clothes. Crepe streamer decorations.

I had about 100 miles to drive with a town or two along the way. I stopped at several stores I thought might carry video cameras but couldn't find one. Sure, there were tons of cassette tape players and beta video players, but I couldn't find a video camera. I finally did, of course, (this may be where the bile problem started) and when I got to the party I told my parents I borrowed it from someone. My dad would have bust a gut if he knew I had BOUGHT one. On a credit card. For $1600. That was a CRAZY amount of money back then. That was like 5 months rent. Shit. And the camera was HUGE. Heavy and bulky. Luckily these days my epiphanies are more likely to be about what I should make for dinner or where the raised bed garden should go, although some days I do still have grand ideas like, I'm going to quit my job, or, I think I'm going to start a business. Most of my shower ideas do come to fruition, and it's usually a positive thing. At the time of the video camera splurge, everyone feigned shyness, and didn't want to be filmed. It was such a novelty then. But I was relentless and got great footage. I made people tell me stories. I filmed relatives eating cake. I got audio of myself saying "um" a LOT. But mostly, even now, a million years later, I can hear my grandma laugh. Now THAT'S worth $1600.

Birthday stream of consciousness

2011-02-09T11:01:00.001-08:00

It's my birthday. I was driving home from doing some errands this morning and I had the best running dialogue going in my head of blog writing! Man, it was good. I have now forgotten all of it. I don't really think I have early onset, although I worry sometimes about my memory. Although I'm NOT old and I do remember lots of things. I just can't think of any right now. Hahaha. And I'm not going to do some piece on THAT. The whole getting older thing. I'm in a good place, with good people, and good food. I have good employment and good recreation, although I would love to travel more. Good. I'm baking a cake right now. Can someone please tell me the difference between Milk Chocolate, Swiss Chocolate, Devil's Food and Chocolate Fudge? I chose Chocolate Fudge because it sounded, well, chocolater. I'm making it in the two 8" round pans my mom used to use when I was a child, and I'm going to frost my chocolate fudge cake with a brown sugar/caramely frosting that my mom used to always make for me (recipe alert!!!! 1 and a half cups brown sugar, half a cup butter, half a cup milk, put that in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Take off heat and add powdered sugar. Frost cake.). My birthday dinner (which I will not make because I would be the only one eating it since the folks I live with are either vegetarian or tuna abhorers) used to always be tuna and noodles with mashed potatoes.

I have come to a few realizations. Nothing profound. Namely, I write more when I have an assignment. For instance, I started a blog a few days ago (here it is).....

"I have adopted a new cooking method. It's the "throw a bunch of vegetables in a pan with broth and cook em" theory of dinner prep. Then, throw what's in the pan in a blender, and you're done and the soup is on the table. It's rather like making a smoothie, only the smoothie is cold and for breakfast, and the soup is hot and for dinner. The amazing part of this is that Jay likes this dinner. He used to LOVE baby food veggies; squash, carrots, peas, etc...but when I stopped the baby food, he stopped eating vegetables. This is a sly way of bringing back the baby food. And I swear, I am not writing about him for at least a couple weeks.

I HAVE been on a food making kick. I made a berry pie yesterday, and I've been doing other soups (chicken, mushroom and wild rice - yum) and pastas and whatnot. I really am happy to not be at Starbucks anymore. I had no idea how much I would love NOT working there. I feel like I'm having another oneyearofopus even though I have a job. Now if this irritating snow would just go away."

(End of blog) ....and then I just got busy with other things and did not write more, or edit, or THINK, or post it. I've been pretty darn successful with the "30 days of......" so I think I'll go back to that for the next 30. I WAS thinking about this in the car. Thirty days of things I love. Yes, yes, I've done it before. But, I really like being positive. Plus there are so many things I love. And, I feel no pressure when I start up a 30-days-of because if I want to, I can just write one measly sentence. BUT, I have to write every day of that 30. Yay! A purpose! Oh yes, in addition, writing about what I love makes even crappy days better because I am suddenly aware of how stinking lucky I am that I have things to love.

(Three hours later, still my birthday)

We have a phonograph. It works a bit. Sometimes we still play records. It's not a high-tech deal; more of an old console style from the fifties. Mostly we listen to NPR weekend mornings with the radio in it. It's amazing how the radio in a thing like that gets such good reception. So, Jay came up to me a few minutes ago and said what's this? and he was holding one of those yellow plastic 45 record center dohickies that let you play singles on a turntable with just the long thing center piece. (After that description, I'm sure I need a picture here.) I got out my 45's and put on Sister Golden Hair by America. That song was my favorite song once. I still love it. I can still sing all the words. I did, and Jay never once told me to stop. It did skip once, where it plays the same phrase over and over and I was so excited. "That's a skip, that's a skip. Listen. Oh, it just used to gripe the heck out of us. You'll never hear a skip anywhere." and Jay actually seemed interested and listened while the I pushed my finger down on the arm to ride through the scratch. Birthday kindness rocks.

Here is a poem from Poetry Daily that I get on Facebook. It's wonderful. Read it slowly, don't rush, and read it out loud.

Happiness

I have been taught never to brag but now
I cannot help it: I keep
a beautiful garden, all abundance,
indiscriminate, pulling itself
from the stubborn earth. Does it offend you
to watch me working in it,
touching my hands to the greening tips or
tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild
the living and the dead both
snap off in my hands?
The neighbor with his stuttering
fingers, the neighbor with his broken
love: each comes up my drive
to receive his pitying,
accustomed consolations, watches me
work in silence a while, rises in anger,
walks back. Does it offend them to watch me
not mourning with them but working
fitfully, fruitlessly, working
the way the bees work, which is to say
by instinct alone, which looks
like pleasure? I can stand for hours among
the sweet narcissus, silent as a point of bone.
I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer
than your grief. It is such a small thing
to be proud of, this garden. Today
there were scrub jays, quail,
a woodpecker knocking at the white
and black shapes of trees, and someone's lost rabbit
scratching under the barberry: Is it
indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither,
and expurgate? Should I, too, not be loved?
It is only a little time, a little space.
Why not watch the grasses take up their colors in a rush
like a stream of kerosene being lit?
If I could not have made this garden beautiful
I wouldn't understand your suffering,
nor care for each the same, inflamed way.
I would have to stay only like the bees,
beyond consciousness, beyond self-
reproach, fingers dug down hard
into stone, growing nothing.
There is no end to ego,
with its museum of disappointments.
I want to take my neighbors into the garden
and show them: Here is consolation.
Here is your pity. Look how much seed it drops
around the sparrows as they fight.
It lives despite their misery.
It glows each evening with a violent light.

by Paisley Rekdal

My favorite part of that poem is "working like bees work, which is to say by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure."

I good solid line of poetry makes my day.

So, segueing here into Facebook. I am a convert. I have controlled myself and never spend more than a half hour a day on it, and I mostly make sure it's after 8:00 pm. That way I'm not losing scads of time surfing and looking at other people's vacation pictures. But today, I had a million birthday wishes. It was not fake. It was real birthday love. Thank you, to everyone who sent me a happy birthday wish. I feel blessed and lucky. And for all my former Facebook disdain, all I can say is what I say about EVERYTHING......moderation, baby.

Oh, and the realizations. I said several and I only wrote about one. Another realization is that my life is relatively bile free. For many years I produced a lot of bile. (Sorry) It was mainly because I had dismal relationships (the number one bile-producing problem in the U.S. today) and I was younger and confused. Now, very little bile. Yes, I have a 98% bile free relationship (thank you B), I am older (not OLD), and....wait....okay i'm still confused.

Also, I have come to realize that my office (the 8X8 room in our house that has my desk, B's desk and some bookcases) will never be organized to the point where there are no paper piles on the floor. Now, this is something that has, in the past, produced bile in my guts, but, by changing my perspective, I can accept it and live with it, no bile. No hoarding either, again, moderation.

Okay, have you drifted off yet? One more thing. This is the first day of my what-I-love blog commitment. Here it is....

I love chocolate cake with caramel frosting that was made in those old pans that my mom used to butter and flour for every birthday in our family. I love that those old pans were touched by her fingers as she put the batter in, and when she tapped the cake out onto a plate. I love that the frosting is her recipe and that, because she just knew, she didn't write down the amount of powdered sugar when she sent me the recipe so I'm never really sure how much to put in. I love that she cared enough to make me that cake. I love that she's why I have a birthday today. I love that she had me, even though she was older and she and my dad had to cancel their vacation to Hawaii because SURPRISE I was coming and I love that she taught me how to love so many things so very very much.

Convo

2011-01-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Jay says to me; Mom, we need to go shopping tomorrow for pencils. I say, You have plenty of pencils in this house. He says, Well, I mean mechanical pencils. I reply, But can't we just get lead refills? And he says, No. people have tooken all my pencils like that. AUGHHHHHH. I say, Honey, it's taken. Tooken is not a word. He says, This isn't English class, I just need more pencils. I say, It's ALL an English class when you have me for your mother. He says, But you're not MY English teacher. And I say, Do you KNOW what my job description is here? It's to make you into a productive, loving, kind, literate adult. There, that's my job description.

Silence. Yay.

Hello?

2011-01-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

My son had his first "anonymous girl" phone call tonight. The phone rang (yes, we still have a land line) and it came up as Private Call. I answered it and there was a moment of silence. Hello, I said. A young girl giggled and asked, Is this Jay's house? I answered, yes, would you like to talk to him? Giggle. Giggle. Who is this, I asked. A girl from his class, came the reply. Giggle. Background second-girl giggle. Well he's right here, you can talk to him, I said. Jay was standing a foot from me looking puzzled. I handed him the phone. Hello, he said. Hi, yes, no, no, who is this, he said. Click. He didn't recognize the voice but he was quite flattered. Nothing rude or vile was said. Just twelve year old giggling girls and a perplexed thirteen year old boy. I thought it was cute and sweet. SOMEBODY has a crush on you, I said (shrieked). But WHO? Jay responded. And got nervous and smiley. What a small little window of time. When you are suddenly aware of the opposite sex and yet everything is still innocent and dear. No seriousness or decisions or hurt or CRAZY MAKING BEHAVIOR.

I've been feeling a large amount of grace lately. Towards me, I mean. I read a short definition of grace as being unmerited mercy and I loved that. I've been feeling loved and blessed and lucky and sheltered. And through none of my own creating. So, all you friends and angels and anonymous perpetrators of kindness out there....I appreciate you and I am going to work at putting it all back out there.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”
--Anne Lamott

And, a MLK quote I just found......

“Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

One quote seems to be about receiving grace and the other about bestowing grace. Now, in regards to the MLK quote....combined with the fact that I started teaching English 100 and 101 again today.....you actually DO have to make your subject and verb agree, but I still like the quote. Hahahaha.

And then, because I so like definitions....

Grace:

--(Christian theology) a state of sanctification by God; the state of one who is under such divine influence;
--elegance and beauty of movement or expression; "a beautiful figure which she used in subtle movements of unparalleled grace"
--seemliness: a sense of propriety and consideration for others; "a place where the company of others must be accepted with good grace"
--a disposition to kindness and compassion; "the victor's grace in treating the vanquished"
--(Greek mythology) one of three sisters who were the givers of beauty and charm; a favorite subject for sculptors
--a short prayer of thanks before a meal; "their youngest son said grace"
--(Christian theology) the free and unmerited favor or beneficence of God; "God's grace is manifested in the salvation of sinners"; "there but for the grace of God go I"
-- A disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill.
-- Mercy; clemency.
-- A favor rendered by one who need not do so; indulgence.
-- A temporary immunity or exemption; a reprieve.
-- Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people.
-- The state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God.
-- Music; An appoggiatura, trill, or other musical ornanment in the music of 16th and 17th century England.

Okay, now I'm on a roll. I am LOVING these grace quotes. They all just seem to fit.

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”
-- May Sarton

Of course I was going to work gardening in here somehow :)

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
--Denis Waitley

“life is a gift, and i try to respond with grace and courtesy”
-- Maya Angelou

So, I just had one of those weird moments. I saw the quote, "Tuesdays child is full of grace." Well, I was born on Tuesday and I have always been a fairly clumsy type. I never understood that damn quote. I thought that quote meant elegance, but maybe it means mercy, a sense of gratitude, and THAT stuff. It makes sense to me now. Cool.

Just a Thought

2011-01-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

First things first....Pente was not invented by Hasbro, it was invented by some other guy. I think his name starts with a G. You can find it in the Pente! word at the top of the blog, shaded in gray. It will take you to a link. Also, Allegiant Air does tack on fees for luggage and taxes and the like. So, when it says 40.00, it's more like 70.00. I am not a person who is hugely concerned with facts, although I do not want to mislead.

Secondly, I found this great video on FB today.........watch it here

I am thinking about doing it. But, I know myself. If I just did it and acted like it was forever and that I was never going to get back on, I would fail. I would start to hide it, sneaking on when B's at work and Jay's at school. When people talked about it, I would feign innocence...."wow, really, she wrote what!? Holy Smokes." So, here is my idea. Cut down drastically. ONE DAY A WEEK. Yeah baby. Pick my day, done. I would manage my time so much better. I would HAVE more time in my day. Instead of watching a three minute blurb of The Daily Show, I just WATCH THE SHOW. I could read and do dishes and grade papers and get some damn sleep (instead of looking at vacation pictures of someone I don't even know anymore at 11:30 p.m.). I am thinking really hard about this one. I already picked out my day....Monday. That would be it. Yes, I like the idea.

Psssst....

2011-01-13T12:58:00.000-08:00

Have you HEARD about Allegiant Air Airlines? They are really cheap. And good. My nephew, Neal, and his family flew from Idaho tp Phoenix for almost nothing at Thanksgiving on Allegiant Air. I just checked on a flight to Kansas from Phoenix and it's 40.00 one way. That's crazy! I am really into saving money right now. I occasionally do this money challange with myself where I give myself a boundary financially and then try to stick to it. Hahaha. I did it very successfully a few years ago during my actual One Year of Opus and did not buy anything that I might wear (including purses, shoes, ear rings). FOR ONE YEAR. Honestly, I accidentally bought one Cardinals tee shirt, but that's all. Otherwise, I did it, and I saved a crapload of money.

So, for the month of January I'm only buying things I can ingest. Wine, groceries, medication and chocolate all fall into this category. I have passed up two VERY cute shirts at Target, a beautiful flannel comforter cover from Eddy Bauer, a few books and some jewelry. And; Christmas decorations at 50% off, a cool piece of art on etsy, a set of Tupperware at Sam's Club, and several other pieces of clothing. Whew! Obviously I need to do this more often.

It is necessary; therefore, it is possible.
--G. A. Borghese

Games & Soup

2011-01-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

Pente!!!!!

This is a great game. It takes some brain, but not as much as chess. It has little round glass pieces that are smooth and appealing. It is difficult, yet fun, and is perfectly suited to a nice glass of red. There is nothing to read. As one plays for the first time, one might think they are playing an ancient Japanese game, created centuries ago, filled with history and mystique. Hahaha. Nope, created by Hasbro in 1977.

I made borscht on Saturday. I made it because I found nine bags of beets in the garage freezer. They were from the garden in 2009. Heaven forbid I throw them away, I knew they would still be good and beet-like.

Hold that thought.

I have a Facebook profile. I went into Facebook kicking and screaming. I was NOT going to succumb to a teenage social network that doled out sound bites of information. Was. Not. But I eventually got on board, as I will probably do with every technological invention that comes my way if I can figure it out. So, here it is, 2011, and although I have a Facebook profile, I remain a lurker. I decided that since my friend, Maggie, was popping out sentences on facebook, I would occasionally jot down a few myself. So to make a very short story stupidly long, I wrote on my facebook, Jill Divine "is making borscht."

This is the comment I got from my son....

" It didn't taste very good and it was too red! But overall if my mom made it again I would probably eat it."

I love Facebook. I love borscht. Here's what goes in it....
3 C diced beets
2 cups diced carrots 1 medium onion
bit of garlic
several stalks celery
8 cups broth (either chicken or veggie)
half a head of shredded cabbage
teaspoon or so fresh dill
sour cream

Saute onion and garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add broth, beets, carrots, dill, and celery. Cook for an hour or so. Add cabbage and cook for another hour. Spoon into bowls and add a dollop (wtf) of sour cream. sprinkle with a bit more dill.

Again, yum.

This is a bit of health in every spoonfull. And, by the way, whereas Pente has not so much history, borscht does....here

Finding Music Already #2, 2011

2011-01-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

One of the items on my thingsiwanttodo list for 2011 was to find and listen to good music. My friend, Scott Feather, put this list on his FB and it's GOOD. And although it's his list for 2010, as he says, it's not about when they're released, it's all about the "find." And aside from the couple I've already heard, I'm finding most of these in 2011. Thank you Scott, for being my first guest blogger of the year.

Songs 2010
by Scott Feather on Friday, January 7, 2011 at 9:26pm

Last year I made a “favorite songs of 2009” list. At the time I it just felt like something I had to do, having heard too many good songs over the course of a year to not talk about them a little bit. I didn’t know if it was something I would be able to do again the next year. I mean, what if 2010 sucked for music? What if I didn’t discover any songs that blew my mind? I’m pleased to announce that is not the case. Awesome songs abound. They always seem to be waiting patiently to be found, and then when you play them for the first time, they pounce like lions. It’s one of my favorite characteristics of music, the immediate impact it can have, like after you hear a great song, the world seems like a different place. 2010 was no exception. Now I’ve said this before, but this isn’t a proper “Best Of” list because some of these songs didn’t come out in the past year. It’s just when I discovered them . . . or how I like to think of it, when they discovered me. I mean, who gives a shit when a song was released? its all about the find. So without further delay, My Top 16 songs of 2010. Why sixteen you ask? Because sixteen is better than ten. I just picked the songs that I had something to say about.

16. Too Long Awake - Idlewild

I’ve always kind of dug this Scottish band, but in a very moderate way, just a song hear or there. kind of a hipster sounding R.E.M. . From their third record Warnings/Promises, it’s undoubtedly the most memorable song they have ever written. I love distortion. But not when its used to simply make the song sound abrasive (I know when you are trying to annoy me, song). I love it when it’s used with a sense of melancholy, when it rides the fence between ugly-sounding and melodically haunting. The guitar in this song sounds like ache. It bends and sways and I close my eyes when I hear it.

15. Right Ahead, Great Sailor! - Right Away, Great Captain

Right Away, Great Captain is the folky side project from Manchester Orchestra’s hairy front man Andy Hull. It is a much lighter serving from a guy whose songwriting is starting to reach startling heights (more from him later). This song is just an acoustic guitar and a kind of lazy, jangly sounding vocals. Clocking in right around two minutes, I just cant seem to get enough of it. You know those little ice cream bites called Dibs? The ones where you pop a couple and then realize you have no physical ability to stop? That’s this song. I listen to it constantly. It’s stuck in my head constantly. It’s like a box of Dibs. Great lyrics too. My favorite lines in a song aren’t the ones that are necessarily that profound, but just the ones that I can extract from the song and attach a personal meaning to them. “how easy would it be if we could see the plan . . . but really what’s the plan?”

14. Beauty School - Deftones

Deftones never cease to amaze me. They remain as bad to the bone as they were when I was a sophomore in high school. As a band they have constantly evolved while maintaining a central thread of identity. Their songs are angry and sexy and sad, often all at the same time. This gem from their latest, Diamond Eyes is one of their most refined statements. Abe Cunninghams drums groove like you would not even fucking believe, and Chino Moreno’s voice comes in, sounding like some kind of amazing combination of confesstion and seduction. It’s absolutely astonishing to me that this band was EVER lumped in with bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. It simply boggles my mind.

13. Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show

As much as I love music, you would be surprised how reluctant I am to hear music people want to play for me. This is, of course, absurd, and something I should definitely work on, especially since sometimes they bring me songs like this. My brother came over to my house and basically made me listen to this song. And it starts, and the verse is cool and I dig the banjo and the twangy vocals ok, and then it get’s to the chorus, and to the part (and if you have never heard this song just go listen to it so you can know what im talking about) “heyyyyyy, mama rock me” and it is game, set, match. Like, holy shit, that’s why harmony exists. It’s one of the glimpses in a song where everything gets stripped to it’s simplest and you understand why the precise appeal of music. Beautiful.

12. Left and Leaving - The Weakerthans.

I love sad songs. But the thing is they rarely make me sad. I don’t know what that means about me, but it’s always been like that. Case in point, Left and Leaving. It’s a crushing post break-up song, that, from what I gather has the poor chap wandering around trying to keep his mind off his lost love. Typical story, except this dude is an above average writer. “I wait in 4-4 time, count yellow highway lines . . .” It’s such a concentrated line about loneliness. Devastating. And every time I hear it I smile inappropriately.

11. Hole In the Fence - Person L

How a song this beautiful came from the brain of a former pop-punk front man who was best known for one MTV song and his spiky bleached blonde hair astounds me. Kenny Vasoli makes a magnificent leap from The Starting Line to this band, writing songs that you feeled compelled to stop what youre doing a listen to. It sounds more like Explosions in the Sky than Green Day. And Holy Mother of God, that’s a good thing. This song was responsible for a mix I made for someone I titled Driveways at Night. It’s the kind of song that if its on when you’re driving home and its still going when you get there, you sit in your car and finish it. It’s just too good to cut short.

10. Just Stay - Kevin Devine

If you ever get a chance to see this dude live, you better go. One of the best shows I have seen (not the very best though, we’ll get to that in a bit). He played at a coffee shop and there were maybe thirty-five of us there. He just played without a mic and song his heart out. This was my favorite that he sang. It’s shows off his vocal range, going from a sweet melodic verse to the bridge that finds this anger brimming to the surface. But if you look at the lyrics, the anger was always there. It was just musically well hidden. “she said “it’s pretty but you hate yourself, I can hear clear as day.” I said I sing like this, it sounds worse than it is, I’m ok . . .ok.” Maybe this justifies why I like sad songs so much. Sometimes they just sound fucking great.

9. Swim - Surfer Blood

Like the Old Crow song, sometimes it can be one particular moment in a song that can win me over. Like, I may have been halfway listening and then this . . . part happens, and it’s like “what the hell was that?!” Swim has one of those moments. They have a really indie sounding vocal approach (think somewhere in between early Shins and Band of Horses) and in the chorus there is a line he keeps repeating “Swim to reach the end.” On the very last one he just fucking loses it. “Swim to reach THE END!!!!,” hitting this elevated note. I remember exactly where I was when I heard it and made Sam rewind it about four times. Ok, so there are pictures of me at a Halloween party and in this one pic I’m clearly singing and have my fist clenched. I know that I’m listening to that song, because I have the exact same physical response every time that song comes on.

8. Small Skeletal - Crime In Stereo

I’m pretty sure this is the song I have listened to more than any other song in the past year. You know when bands at one point belonged to some kind of intense genre like punk or hardcore and then get labeled sellouts because their new songs start to take one this new sound that’s not as hardcore or punk as it used to be. Yeah, I tend to love those bands. Crime In Stereo were an edgy hardcore punk band that’s music kept getting more and more versatile. But what a band loses in so-called integrity they make up for in a more free form of expression. This post hardcore gem has one of the most memorable first verses I can remember. From what I can gather the song is talking about cigarettes and cancer. “Now each day I sink a bit further into my father’s fate. Four packs a day, four decades straight right into an unmarked grave.” And then the chorus where he screams “I used to think it would sleep!!!” And as cool as the lyrics and vocals are the real kicker is when that drummer starts wailing on those toms in the chorus. Try not moving your head when that part comes on. Can’t do it. You just can’t.

7. Popinjay - Joy Formidable

This is got to be the best, I guess random is the word, band I have ever stumbled across. AP Magazine had this little paragraph about them and I liked the buzzwords they used to describe them. “Walls of guitars” and “shoe gazer” but “raw and melodic.” So I gave em a quick listen and it took about twelve seconds to figure out that they absolutely fucking rule. Their songs are so melodic, so sexy, so hard hitting, so fucking loud. It’s all the reasons the Pixies are great. Its all the reasons My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive are great too. And this song . . . oh man, this song. I mentioned once before, this song has this cockiness to it. I love when a song is so good you can hear that they know how good it is. I have this weird thought of them playing this song at some kind of battle of the bands, finishing, and just walking off stage like, “your move, bitches.” and no one, the crowd, the judges, the front of house, having the slightest idea what hit them. This song is literally that good.

6. Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons

Oh, this band. Is there a band that released an album in the last year with such a pure, joyless, heartfelt delivery as Mumford and Sons? How about, well, ever? I knew this band was good from the first time I heard them, but nothing, NOTHING, could have prepared me for seeing them live. I have never seen anything like it. Oh, I’ve seen great shows with great crowds, but this was different. This was spiritual. There was a connection between the band and the crowd, this shared energy, that I can only describe as joy. People sang. People clapped. People put arms each other. This was more than a live show. This was a gathering. With the exception of a few special New Years Eves, I have never felt such comradery with complete strangers. They opened with this song, and when the get to the chorus and the lead singer has the kick pedal set up by the mic and he starts hammering that thing and singing “Love it will not betray you, it will not dismay you, it will set you free” the crowd just erupted. I’ll never forget it. It would even be alright if another show never topped it. If you get the chance to see this band, do it. You’re not going to convince me of an excuse good enough not to.

5. Love Is All - Tallest Man On Earth

This is another song that has a moment that simply cannot be ignored. It’s a beautiful folk song that frankly, sounds from another era. He sounds more like Woody Guthrie than any other singer I can keep of. Its such a simple song, just him and an acoustic guitar, no accompaniment at all. And this chorus “Oh, I said I could rise from the harness of our goals, here come the tears but like always I let them go.” and when he hits always . . . I swear to God. It’s like the world stops revolving for a split second to hear this guy. His voice just sounds shredded and soulful. The song soon ends and the everything unfreezes, but if you listen to this song, prepare to be stopped in your tracks, if only for a few seconds.

4. Lemon world - The National

It could have been several songs off this band’s newest release High Violet, but this is the one I keep gravitating to. The National have been one of my favorite bands for several years now, but on this record they take it up a notch. Interestingly this is probably the simplest, most laid back song on the record. I think I can’t get enough of it because its so much fun to sing along to. “I‘m too tired to drive anywhere anyway right now, do you care if I stay” . . . the song just grooves. Singer Matt Berninger has the raddest phrasing, creating lines that are awesome not so much for what he is saying but more how he is saying it. Favorite line of the whole record “I’ll try to find something on this thing that means nothing enough.” I like to imagine being at someones house, someone you don’t know very well, and your rummaging through their records or scrolling through their ipod, and you’re trying to find the song that is perfect. Not too overbearing or epic, but not too easy to ignore or nothing-ish. Just . . . nothing enough.

3. It’s Ok With Me - Manchester Orchestra

I remember the first time I heard this song and the first half of the song was so beautiful that I was just praying “Please, please don’t take some weird turn for the worse. Please don’t start rocking out for no reason. Just stay like this.” And thank God it does. A drumless, baseless mournful dirge of a relationship just slowly, inevitably falling apart. The only other song I can think of to compare it to is the Hallelujah version by Jeff Buckley. I swear, when I listen to this song, its like a weird blend of every raw emotion
from a breakup I’ve ever been in. Which probably sounds fucking awful, but when I hear this song it’s, like Natalie Portman said in Garden State, like I’m in it. Andy Hull has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard and I think this band is going to be around a long time. The only bummer is this song is hard to find. It got released on a four song EP that came with their record when you bought it a local record store, some kind of promotion for buying local. But music nerds, just do what you need to do find this song, because its worth the effort.

2. Stay Lucky - The Gaslight Anthem

Is it premature to say Gaslight is on their way to being the most important rock band of our time? Maybe, because I think the term “important” is kind of stupid. However music affects you is valid regardless of what critics or magazines or the masses think. But if I did like such a stupid term, I think Gaslight would be that band, because, my God, they feel important to me. I didn’t think they could top their sophmore masterpiece ‘59 Sound, but they may have done just that with their new record American Slang. No longer are they writing songs about being in love and wild and being twenty. Now they are writing songs about being thirty, and how life just doesn’t seem to be turning out quite how they envisioned. “Mama told me there would be days like these until it was much too late to recover.” The best compliment I can pay this band is it feels like they are writing my songs, songs about my life. I think everyone at some point needs to have that band. It wouldn’t surprise me if The Gaslight Anthem could be it.

1. Hip Hop Saved My Life - Lupe Fiasco (Featuring Nikki Jean)

It crossed my mind to bury this song somewhere in the middle of this list. I mean, its unlike anything else on the list, and isn’t a good example of what I normally listen to. And it’s not like I can relate to this song exactly, the economic struggles of an aspiring MC who is trying to support a family. I thought about all those things but honestly it doesn’t matter, because the truth is, there was not a song in 2010 that I had a stronger emotional reaction to. Not one. I have this memory of driving on I-40 and listening to this song and realizing I was dangerously close to tears. What the fuck?!? The oddest thing is that phenomenon has happened a bunch of times. There is one thing I’ve never quite understood about punk rock. Making money is bad? I’m sure that’s a blanket statement but what I love about this song is that is exactly what it’s about. At the end you hear what he would do if he had more money and the content with Lupe’s urgent delivery is breathtaking. “told her when he get home he’ll take her to the gallery and buy everything but the mannequins.” It must be the passion. I’m starting to realize more and more that often in music, like the National song, its not what you say, it’s how you say it. I can’t think of anyone in any song who said it better than Lupe Fiasco did in this song.

So there you go, friends. These are my favorites of 2010. You should listen to them because I think there is a good chance you will like them. I hope at the very least there were some songs that had a similar effect. We’ll see what 2011 has to offer. Happy New Year.

#1, 2011

2011-01-05T20:17:00.000-08:00

I was on the cover of a magazine. I have no idea how or why it happened. Someone must think I'm a writer.

Some things I'd like to do in 2011....
1. Travel somewhere warm and beachy.
2. Discover new music that is so good I can't sleep. That happened with Counting Crows, August and Everything After.
3. Learn how to can vegetables. Hahaha, that's been on my list for five years and I've never done it. No chance.
4. Prepare for the end of the world in 2012 by hoarding bottled water and toilet paper.
5. See a live concert.
6. Exercise three times a week with "Just Dance 2" on the Wii.
7. Make dinner and eat it at the table on a regular basis. As opposed to stick taquitos in the microwave for Jay and feed him while he watches basketball on TV and grab a handful of chips and a glass of wine for myself.

Whew! That's enough.

Speaking of food, here's a great soup....make it.....eat it.

Spicy Pecan Soup

2T butter
1/2 cup minced onion
3T minced garlic
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
6 oz can tomato paste
2 cups heavy cream (I used almond milk instead and it was great, no cholesterol, way less calories)
2T lemon juice
3 cups pecan pieces
3T finely chopped chipotles (I only used 2T because I am mildly spicy girl)
salt/pepper

Cook and stir onion and garlic in butter for five minutes. pour i stock and whisk in tomato paste, cream and lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Turn to medium/low and add pecan pieces and chipotle. In batches, puree in blender Pour back into pot and heat. Super easy and REALLY tasty. Make beer bread to go along with it. Drink a buttery white wine, or a slightly tannic Chianti.

Christmas (voted most unoriginal post title, 2010)

2010-12-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

I found a cool website called The Ripples Project and you will like it. Check it out.

This morning from the Ripples Project:
Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.
-Bobby (age 7)

Which gets me back to......Christmas!

Bumble and the Rudolph gang are out in full view. I sent out cards today, packages last week. I am making peppernuts and truffles and will be doing Christmas cookies tomorrow. We have a tree (fake) up and the outside of the house is decorated beautifully (thank you J & B). Hahaha, not the liquor. Jay and Barry. I always make horrible looking Christmas cookies but they usually taste good. Last year I had none of it. No tree or decorations or Bumble or peppernuts. The house was in total disarray with the remodel and man, my temper was short. Bah humbug!! Not this year, baby.

Maybe some of my joy emanates from the fact that I no longer work at Starbucks. Barry came through the drive-through on my last day and took a picture. After two years I had zero barista moments caught on film. I think I'm going through a little bit of withdrawal, although I certainly have no desire to keep working there. I had some great co-workers and it was better than working in a coal mine. Well, I think so. I've never worked in a coal mine. I knew I had to leave there because I was starting to really dislike people in general. Hahaha. Really. Someone would drive up to the window and I would have their drink and they would fumble around in their pocket or wallet and I would just be rolling my eyes and groaning (on the inside), thinking, "Did you not just order ten fucking minutes ago, and did you not KNOW you were going to have to pay once you made it up to the window? What have you been DOING?" And I'd like to think that's not the real me. That impatient, bitter, irritated person, getting all out of wack at someone just because they're being human. I'd like to think it was a build-up that took two years to get really bad. Man, I hope so. We'll see how many people I snap at over the next week for no reason. To be fair, there were a LOT of customers that yelled at ME for no reason (oh wait, I did forget the ten cent cup discount once or twice. And then there was that awful time I accidentally put vanilla flavoring in a drink instead of peppermint) but I still think I was overly CRAZY there at the end. And by crazy I mean way pissed off at everyone. I'm going to go heal now. Where's the red wine?

I sent out 50 Christmas cards today. I love sending cards. It's a tradition that reminds me of my mom. My parents received about 100 Christmas cards every year. It was such a warm and cozy thing, getting mail from old friends and reading the letters and feeling so loved. And my mom would send out at least that many, and she had a whole little satchel with stamps and cards and addresses sitting on the dining table for a week or so, as she wrote personal letters to each person. I love sending out the cards, although not as many people send cards back anymore. It's one of the disappointments of the Internet world, the ease of dashing off a Merry Christmas in an e-mail. Well, I plan to send cards and pictures every year. If you're not on my list, all you have to do is send me your address and I'll get you on for next year. Anyhow, here's my letter (the picture is funny, with a chicken on B's shoulder and the turtle floating in the air near the cat, but it's a total cut and paste, well, tape, so I can't include it here)........

Merry Christmas to all of you!!!

Here are the highlights and general catchings-up from our wonderful, busy, and occasionally nerve-wracking 2010.......

*Jay, myself, my sis, niece, and her two girls traveled to New York last February. My book was a finalist in the Patterson Poetry Prize and we were invited out for a reading. We LOVED the city. The Statue of Liberty, Mary Poppins on Broadway, a limo ride, and a stint on the Today Show (where Jay won us $100 for answering a Superbowl question correctly!) were the best moments. The fact that a winter snow storm was heading into New jersey and my reading was canceled was the only downside. But I went to NY city!!
*I got my Life Coach Certificate. Hahaha. Really. And I am GOOD.
*Barry finished the remodel on the house by putting in the laminate floor and hanging all the doors. He also built not only a stellar chicken coop but an entire flagstone patio in the back yard. It pretty much took over his whole summer but he did a beautiful job. He is making beautiful pottery - we have a studio in the garage and a gigantic kiln in the back yard - and was accepted into several shows.
*We now have a guinea pig, Buddy, that takes our animal count to ten. The three turtles, four chickens, Stan, the dog, and Magpie, the new cat, are all well and happy. Maggie gives Stan frequent bathes and he seems to be resigned to the attention. We lost our beloved cat, Barney, to illness and we miss him very much.
*I resigned from Starbucks and my last day is December 21st. It was a great job...and I’m really happy to be moving on! I’ll be teaching a full schedule at the community college and I’m looking very forward to NOT getting up at 3:30 a.m. anymore, which was my shift at Starbucks. Being at home when Jay gets up in the morning has become a priority these days too, and now I can do that.
*Barry and I became addicted to the Showtime series Dexter and watched four seasons in a month. I recommend it. Not the four seasons in a month...just the show.
*Jay is in 7th grade now, his first year in middle school. He is doing well in school and made the Honor Roll. And he hates Algebra. Unfortunately, my skill level is only up to fourth grade math so I’m not much help. He loves watching the NFL and playing drums. I’m sure the following information is getting repetitious but he is kind, loving, smart and funny. To temper that, he is also obstinate, allergic to chores and embarrassed by my every move.

It’s been a great year overall and we are thankful for our many blessings. I hope your Christmas season is brimming with warmth and love, and may your 2011 be prosperous, healthy, and filled with fun and loved ones.

Blessings.

Cha cha cha cha changes.......

2010-12-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

I did it. I gave my notice at Starbucks. I have four shifts left. I worked at Starbucks for a little over two years and I have to say, it wasn't all bad. When I first got the job, I felt like I won the lottery. Benefits, early morning hours, FREE FUCKING COFFEE, and a relaxed atmosphere. My co-workers were fun, and mainly, I was going to get a regular paycheck. Woo Hooooo! I did love it in the beginning. I wrote quite often about it here, on my blog. And then two years went by. I still liked it, but there were gnawing things. My poor body was giving out. Damn, I developed a sharp pain in my hip (I'm eighty years old) from the pivot at the drive-through window. My upper body hurt like crazy on a regular basis. The need to BE at work at 4:15 a.m. was making me tired and crabby. My legs ached daily because we were on our feet for the whole shift, running around like a bunch of lunatics, with a measly 10 minute break. Now you may think I should just blame it on a sedentary lifestyle and old age, but it was happening to the twenty year olds too. Plus, big problem, I noticed the customers getting angrier and angrier about coffee. People would YELL at me. About their COFFEE. "Eeeehhh, you didn't put enough vanilla in my latteeeee!" and "You forgot my cup discount. How many times have you done that? You owe me a refund for all the times you didn't give me a cup discount. Can I speak to your manager?" Really, those things happen. And many customers at Starbucks feel entitled to have their coffee exactly how they want it, and they feel they're right to yell loudly at their barista to get it that way. Ahemmm. Not anymore, baby. I still like Starbucks. I really adore most of the people I worked with. I just love some of the regular customers. I'm sure I'll grab a coffee there on occasion. But I don't have to work there anymore. Did you hear me sing that last sentence? To the tune of naa naa naa naa naaaaa na? Instead I'm going to write coffee table books. Hahaha. Not really. Well, maybe.

Another reason I resigned from my job at Starbucks is that I want to be home in the morning with my son. It's his first year of middle school and I think he needs to have me around in the morning to fix lunch and check breakfast consumption and talk about math. B does a great job making french toast and he's been a tremendous morning presence, but I think I need to be there too (so I can eat B's french toast). Although my son is mortified by me in public, heaven forbid I actually speak, he seems to like me okay in the mornings inside the privacy of our home. I don't want to lose touch with the homework and the friends (whose parents I don't even know) and the upcoming school dance news and the possible future acne problems. And mornings, sitting at the dining table with a cup of coffee, a bowl of yogurt and granola, maybe a piece of french toast, and the sun coming up seem like a perfect moment to touch base on the coming day.

Okay, moving away from the self-evolved, responsible person, I have to ask...have you SEEN Dexter? Good lord, this is the best show on TV. Watch it from the beginning. Season 3 is a little weak in places (Rita, just go away) but it's a tightly written, well acted series. A serial killer with a freakish past that works for the police and only kills people who deserve it. Yeah baby. It's gory and smart and sexy and WEIRD. I still need to check out Breaking Bad, and I do want to watch Weeds, so there are other shows out there, since, ughhh, the last Dexter of the season is on this Sunday. If you don't get Showtime, it IS possible to see it on your computer.

Also, getting back to Starbucks for a minute, as I was writing about it I wanted to give you a way to read all the blogs I've written about it in the past. I mean, who can forget the story about the wild cat attack in the blue car (talk about gory). I'm going to attempt to go back over all my posts and label them so I can steer you to related posts. Hahaha, we'll see how long that takes me.

The Television Chronicles Part 2.....Plus

2010-11-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

I solved the television dilemma. I took the second new TV back and bought an old TV off Craig's List. Wooohooo! $125 for a Sony Trinitron HDTV (with stand and Sony receiver and VHS [what's that?] and a DVD player) that isn't quite so blurry as the other two new expensive TVs. Now, you should know that my son wept upon hearing this decision. "You mean we're going to have a FAT TV?" the young man said and I laughed wickedly and shouted YES, YES A FAT TV. HAHAHA! and he got teary and said, "How big is it?" and I replied, ONLY 30 INCHES!!!! HAHAHA! and he punched his frustration into the couch and shed a tear realizing that he was NOT going to have a thin, large TV with a sharp picture and TIVO. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not the mom who wants to be playing board games and twenty questions instead of watching American Idol. I am just trying to get through my Direct TV contract as unscathed as possible and that means until September 11, 2011 I cannot do anything that extends my contract.....such as getting an HD box or even TALKING with a Direct TV representative. Every 15 minutes on the phone with a rep from that place adds two years onto your contract. Not really but almost.

Halloween was a little bittersweet this year (yes, I'm writing about Halloween). Every year for 5 or 6 years, the moms walked the kids around the neighborhood. The moms would sip warm Tom and Jerry's (recipe follows) and the kids would run around collecting candy. We have a big neighborhood so it was a couple hour ordeal. But it was fun and there was lots of laughing and waving and hellos. We saw neighbors we hadn't seen in a while and saw scary werewolves and dainty princesses. And our kids were young and carefree and excited. And innocent. This year some of the kids were over Halloween - teenagers! - and some were out of town and it wasn't the same. BUT, mostly it made me aware of life moving on and that the parties and holidays and night times for Jay were changing. It just made me really miss those other times and it made me realize they're over. Not coming back. No more little kid, but soon to be teenager. And moms don't follow their 14 year olds around in a pack like that. Hahaha.

Of course my one consolation is that some people never grow up. Here's B and I, Hairy Potter and Tippy Hedren. Classic movie night. I guess Halloween never dies, the parties just change. I kept running my sewn-on birds into everyone.

Tom and Jerry Recipe.....
Ingredients
3 egg whites
3 egg yolks
3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 jigger lukewarm brandy
1 jigger lukewarm rum
hot water, milk or coffee
grated nutmeg
Beat egg whites til stiff froth. Separately beat egg yolks until light in color and then gradually beat in sugar, allspice, cinnamon and cloves. Fold yolk mixture into whites and pour 2 tablespoons of this mixture into each of four 8-ounce mugs. Add 1/2 jigger brandy and 1 jigger dark rum to each mug. Fill mugs with very hot water, milk, or coffee. Stir well and sprinkle the top with grated nutmeg.

After making fun of my son earlier for his TV love, I'll have to brag about him now for his thank you notes. Okay, ONE thank you note.
This is not status quo for him, but I intend to use this as a prototype for Christmas this year. Normally, he writes a simple (sparse) thanks for the gift kind of note, as in Thanks For The Gift is all he writes. This time he elaborated and was surprisingly articulate. It made me proud. If you click on the picture you can read it.

And then, a weird thing....back when I was playing Scrabble, a friend and I were about to finish our game. There were no tiles left and it was my turn. I looked at the tiles and it dawned on me...they were a mixed up spelling of POET! Freak my shit out. It was so cool I had to take a picture of it. And then I had to tell most people I spoke to that entire week. Obviously the weird thing here is not that those four letters could spell poet....the weird thing was my reaction to it. Hahahaha.

This has been a wonderful weekend. We all went to see Unstoppable, which was an okay movie. I bought the 2011 Harkins movie cup so I can get dollar cokes (although I usually have them fill it with water which mostly defeats the purpose) and I'm looking forward to movies galore. I had a great Thanksgiving with a couple days in Phoenix (Coyote game and zoo) and then back to Flagstaff for Thanksgiving dinner and pie. Then pie for breakfast, pie for lunch, and even pie for dinner since. I have a great family, great friends and a great life. I miss my folks but I also know they raised me well and happy. I am surrounded by little wonders every day. And I see them. My son, my B, my running water and my food in my fridge (and by food I mean pie). And then 647 other things and people and memories that keep me going. And I am just so thankful for all of it.

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man
has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men
have some. "
--Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English novelist

"To be alive, to be able to see, to walk...it's all a miracle. I have
adopted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle."
--Arthur Rubinstein

The Television Chronicles

2010-11-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

This story is meant to be a metaphor about something. A message, in a sense, about the world, in a way that I haven't yet deciphered. Truth be told, I'd like to be profound, and I think there's a bigger picture here (no pun intended) but I really think it might also just be a slice-o-life anecdote. Enough preface.......

I bought a TV from Sam's Club a couple years ago. Vizio, 37" HDMI flatscreen. $749 smackers. Nice TV. I never did get HDMI. Too expensive, plus the fact that there are just a few HD channels out there. I DID, however, get the three year service plan. I have NEVER done anything like that before. So, about three months ago, the TV goes out. I remember the service plan. I believe I may have danced around the kitchen at that point, hollering Waaaahooooo. Maybe not. I called the service company and they sent me a big-ass box, I sent the TV off to Minnesota, and I waited. After almost two months, I called 'em up. Hey, where's my TV? My TV was not fixable so I got a check to go get another.

B and I read every possible thing about televisions on the Internet. I now know about 1080i, 120 hz, and LED vs LCD. We found another Vizio at Walmart; LED, HDMI, 1080, 120, and bigger (42") on sale, two year additional service plan, bought it, got it home, set it up and it SUCKED. I'm still too cheap to pay the huge amount for the HD box AND HD service (somewhere in this blog is a post about my absolute disdain (hatred) for Direct TV) and two more years added on to my contract. Come to find out, HDTV without the HD service is crapola.

Took that TV back and got the exact TV I had before, smaller, LCD, 60 hz, thinking this would be better. Not really.

So here's my disjointed commentary.....why don't they just make standard televisions anymore? The HD technology seems to be out of wack. There are only a few HD channels. Standard channels are blurry and pixilated on HD tvs. The whole thing is a great big mess. Okay, I don't even watch much TV, but really, when I am watching the Cardinals play, I just want a clear picture. There is just something crazy about the world having come up with the technology for amazingly clear vivid television, and then not making TV's that work with that technology.

Whew. Anyhow, now we have a TV in the living room that still has plastic on the sides (to my son's chagrin) as I am waiting to see what happens during the pre-Christmas sales.

Switching the subject, I have to say I wonder sometimes about what the animals do when we're gone during the day. Today I found out.....

My artist's Life

2010-11-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

I found this on Facebook.....oh, wait, first, before you read my fabulous artist's statement, make your own!!

Get your own artist's statement here

Jill's Artist Statement

"Through my work I attempt to examine the phenomenon of Wiley Coyote as a methaphorical interpretation of both Salvador Dali and fishing.

What began as a personal journey of shitism has translated into images of Huevos Rancheros and toes that resonate with caucasian people to question their own yellowness.

My mixed media twigs embody an idiosyncratic view of The Dali Lama, yet the familiar imagery allows for a connection between Milton Berle, marigolds and eggs.

My work is in the private collection of Ed Asner who said 'Holy Crimenetly!, that's some real itty bitty Art.'

I am a recipient of a grant from Folsom Prison where I served time for stealing mugs and tie clips from the gift shop of The Museum of Tolerance. I have exhibited in group shows at Freddy's Steakburger and The Metropolitan , though not at the same time. I currently spend my time between my hallway and Berlin."

Hahahaha! That is probably very right on.

Robot Games

2010-11-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal with Scrabble and me.

I loved Scrabble. Scrabble meant sitting at the table with a glass of wine and a dozen chocolate chips in a small shallow bowl. Little wooden tiles on a little wooden rack. Keeping score on the back of a used envelope to save paper. Writing my seven point scores (B kicks my butt most of the time) with my favorite pen, a Pilot Razor, gray with a little yellow top and the smallest, yet smoothest felt tip nib. Ahhhh, THAT was Scrabble. Then I found Facebook Scrabble. I could play many games at once, one play a day, anytime I wanted. It was fun and I became addicted. It was pretty wild though, and people were fucking smarter than I thought they were. The other players were throwing down crazy words, as in, these people were using Q with no u after it. Come ON people, there is always a u after a Q. Words like qoph and ose and faucal and mikron. Hahahaha. Those aren't words! But yes, yes they are as far as Scrabble Facebook is concerned. Well, come to find out, there are sites on the internet that are Scrabble cheat sites. Just type in your letters and you get all the words you can imagine....and then some. Seven letter words, six letter words, whatever you need. That's where all those fancy schmancy words were coming from (except Ann, who does NOT cheat). So, what did I do. I JOINED IN. I cheated too. I spent hours cheating. I wasted an unbelievable amount of time plugging my letters into a little box and pouring over which words I should use. Then I had my epiphany.....Scrabble had become a huge time suck where I didn't have to think or even relate to anyone else. I wasn't even using my brain. The only goal was to beat someone else's score. What in the hell was wrong with me!!!??? I could have been reading a book, or writing a book, or watching the Discovery Channel. I could have been playing real live Scrabble and using my BRAIN. Shoot, I could have been blogging. So, I'm not playing anymore (except with Ann). Facebook Scrabble anyway. If anyone wants to play Scrabble with me, you have to come over, have a glass of wine, chat and think.

Also, you still have three days to send me a cocktail napkin poem (see my last blog). Do it!

Use A Pen......

2010-11-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the deal. I will be hosting a little poetry reading at this great bar, Uptown Billiards, on Wednesday. I decided the theme would be "Cocktail Napkin Poems." This would be any poem written, or sounding like it was written, on a cocktail napkin. I'm thinking Bukowski, Hemingway, etc... poems that might be on the shorter side. BUT, I will also read poems written by YOU! Or, you can come read them yourself. So, when you're out this weekend, write a poem on a cocktail napkin and e-mail the poem to me. jilliebug@aol.com. Do it!!!! Just get the poem to me by Wednesday afternoon. Yay! Six o'clock Wednesday night. I will write a poem too...probably tonight....possibly at Uptown Billiards.

110 days of self imposed non blogging

2010-11-02T21:07:00.000-07:00

These are the monsters. I will tell you about them. They live in that cup; the one with Bear on the front. The brownish one in the front appears to be levitating. They were found a few days ago in the shower, Jay's shower, when he noticed a big fat spider web entrenched in the larger container the cup and the monsters and a small personalized watering can were in. This solved one mystery....where in the heck did that huge spider come from that crawled up Jay's small white rib cage and made him, a twelve year old boy, jump from the shower and run screaming into the hall like a little girl (his words). So, back to the monsters. The monsters have lived in the cup for years now. They were a bath game Jay and I used to play when he was a tiny boy, appropriately called "monster toss." I would hold the cup and he would try and toss the monsters in, while I moved the cup around to CATCH the monsters. We were both working toward the same outcome - Jay winning the game.

Now the monsters are under the sink, in the cup, waiting for the day when someone might play monster toss again, or the day they will be thrown away, or the day they will be sent off to Goodwill. My desire is, of course, the future monster toss game. Do you ever just wonder, though, what in the heck's going to happen? I don't think I'll ever be destitute. I envision hanging out in this house, traveling, teaching, doing art and writing and allofthat, with my child (who, even in college should only be a text away) and my man. This is the curse and the blessing of life. I think we all want the best and we all want to be the best, but in that itty bitty recess of blank space left in the brain, we all sometimes wonder, WHERE AM I GOING? So I shut that damn hatch under the rug, down the tunnel, in that back recess of my mind and plan things like Italy and grocery shopping and writing a book, and 25 years down the line, another tiny child (Jay's, not mine) to play monster toss with. I am the perpetual looker on the bright side of.

Today is The Day of the Dead, celebrated November 1st and 2nd. I just made a chocolate cake from scratch. The recipe is written on the inside of an old envelope in my mother's hand. It's probably 50 years old. It's called "Peggy's Devils Food Cake." I do not know who Peggy is. I also have two small loaves of zucchini bread in the fridge for my dad, who died on The Day of the Dead. I wrote my parents a letter too, so they can kick back, eat cake and bread and read my letter.

So, I didn't blog for a very long time. I started one in August with this....

So, Barry says to me a week or so ago...".You should just delete your blog. You don't write anymore. Just get rid of it." Then my friend Maggie makes a little snarky comment like, "So, I guess you're not blogging anymore...." As time goes on I am the recipient of several more comments like that,,,,"Go home and BLOG" was a subtle one, as was, "I have no idea what's going on with you because YOU'RE NOT BLOGGING ANYMORE." Hahahahahaha. I caught you! I caught you all!!!! You missed me. You WERE reading even though you never had the cajones to comment. Fine. That's all I needed to know.

and then I was done. And then no one even commented anymore. I think I had (have) writer's block, although I don't believe in writer's block. I think Writer's Block is a made-up disease like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Hahaha, people are going to hate me now). I just couldn't write. No desire, no words, no ability. Finally I was even ejected from Tyge's Perennial Buds list, which truly verified my non-existence in the blog world.

Here I am.

All of the following 20 things are true and have happened during the last 110 days.....

1. I got a motorcycle (1968 Honda 90).
2. I got a motorcycle licence.
3. We have a new cat (Magpie).
4. Jay started middle school.
5. I only work two days a week at Starbucks now.
6. I have my Life Coach certificate.
7. I take a pottery class.
8. Flagstaff has a Freddy's Steakburger.
9. I had a swell garden.
10. I got two oil changes.
11. The patio is done.
12. I got new tires.
13. Went to Kansas.
14. I met Barry's aunt.
15. Jay got a guinea pig (Buddy).
16. I became addicted to storage unit sales
17. I vowed to not buy anything else that needs to be fixed.
18. We turned the whole garage into an art studio.
19. I plucked 17 hairs out of my chin (not at the same time).
20. I started teaching my beloved poetry class.

Bonus #21. We discovered how to watch current episodes of Dexter on the computer without forking over the dough to Showtime!

I'm alive!

2010-07-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot I had a blog. Hahahaha. Not really. But it seems that way, huh?

I found a video that supports my life's purpose.......

which is......Have Fun. Or....Enjoy. Or even....You Better Go On Out There And Have A Good Time Because Life Is Fucking Short.

So, I've been doing things. Jay and I went to Kansas. We took our friends, Jackie and Michael, and had a great time. We went to the underground salt mines and to the Cosmosphere. We had a six course Italian dinner at this really cool Italian Villa in a field near Inman, Kansas. We almost went to see the "biggest ball of twine" but didn't have time. Jackie and I sat on the porch every morning with coffee and every night with a beer. And people think there's nothing to do in Kansas?!?!

Here's a little bragging story about Jay. We were at the cosmosphere and Jay found 16$ on the floor. He brought it to me and said, mom, I found this money. I looked at him and thought, cool, that will pay for your souvenirs, and he said, we need to take it to the front desk and see if anyone lost it. So we took it to the front desk and I told them that we found some cash and if anyone came up asking about it to call my cell phone number and that we would check back in a couple hours too. Well, no one ever checked in so he did get to keep the 16 bucks but I was happy that he wanted to do the right thing. And I did not make him buy his souvenirs with it.

No new Starbucks stories really....although please note that if you're mean to us, we WILL decaf you. Hahahaha.

Okay, okay, one more thing about Starbucks. Why, oh why, would anyone think it's acceptable to spit out their gum at the drive-through window? Really??? Adults??? It has to be adults because it's the front driver side window. There's scads of chewed gum on the ground. Yuck!

The following is a little movie I made called "Chicken Bliss." The chickens have a new beautiful house, courtesy of Barry, and they take many wonderful dust baths there. Check it out.....

Just kidding. I cannot get my little "camera filmed" video on my blog. Here, instead is a picture of the wondrous coop and thriving garden.

If I can ever catch up with the technological age, I'll get that chicken bliss video on here.

Moving on, I have to mention Tom Cruise. Not a fan really. I think Katie is being held captive in some Scientology castle and Tom calls all the shots. I think he is a lunatic and a narcissist. But, B and I saw the movie, Knight and Day, last week and I loved it. I even liked Tom. He and Cameron Diaz were great! Wonderful movie. Good writing, timing, acting and chemistry. I'm not a fan of Katie's either, by the way.

We also saw Toy Story which was brilliant, and Robin Hood, which was not. I want to see The Kids Are All Right and Cyrus but the odds are that they won't even make it to Flagstaff. Despicable Me looks good and so does The Sorcerers Apprentice (Nic Cage playing a strange, weird person? Nooooo).

So, I didn't blog for over a month. That was disappointing. I love to blog. I feel more connected and creative when I blog. Plus, when I only blog once in a blue moon, I know I'm leaving out important stuff. I have to say that working at 4:15 in the morning doesn't help my writing. I don't have time for writing in the A.M. and I don't have the energy for it in the P.M. Hmmmm, change might be necessary. I'll work on it.

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.
--Anne Sexton

Whoops

2010-06-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

I went to a party today. At a big fat swanky house. A big house out in the woods with a view of the San Fransisco Peaks and quite a few dead animals inside. There were two bear rugs with the heads still attached and a mountain lion (full body) over the fireplace and an elk head peering out of the wall. Several birds and a few more furry things. We got there around four and I succeeded in dropping cashews all over the floor within the first ten minutes, to be followed by dropping my glass of red wine on the floor several minutes later (thank GOD it was a hard wood floor and not plush white carpet). As I left, I tripped while saying goodbye and thank you to the host, who must have thought I'd been drinking all day. No SIR, I wanted to say, it's just how I roll.

B and I cut out of the party around 6:00 with Jay and two of his friends in tow and went to see The Karate Kid (btw, it's Kung Fu), which was sold out, so we ended up at The A Team, which was just as cheesy as the TV show used to be except that Bradley Cooper was in it. I have the "Movie Cup" and "Movie Shirt" (because I am cheap) and ordered one large "Movie Cup" Coke and three water glasses and divided the large Coke into the three glasses for the boys. B may have pointed out how cheap (see) that was or it could have been my own guilt ringing in my ears, so I got three Nerd Ropes so Jay would not have to be completely embarrassed by his FRUGAL mom and everyone was happy. The movie wasn't bad either, although I still want to see Karate Kid. We've watched a plethora of depressing movies as of late....The Messenger, The Road and Hounddog in the last week, so a movie that had no desolate landscape, dying soldiers or child rape was a welcome change.

I have a new passion. It's storage unit auctions. OMG. Yes, OMG. They are so fun! It kind of work on the "grab bag" theory for me. You pay for something in a box and you really have no idea what you're going to get. I bought a back pack for two bucks. Inside were four text books, a Texas Instruments scientific calculator and some other things. I've already sold the calculator on ebay and B sold one of the text books on Amazon. I filled my Pilot up to the BRIM for 26 dollars. There was so much bizarre junk spilling out of my car that B got a tension knot just looking at it. And I have tripled my money in twenty four hours and I still have tons of things left. "We have two boxes in front of Stoney...let's see Stoney, it looks like I can see five leather knife sheaths on top there, oh, no knives....and maybe some DVDs on the side...lots of other things in there, and we'll start with one dollar, anybody, one dollar, one, we got two anybody two and a half, we got two and a half, three, three anybody four, four we got there, and it goes for three to that young lady over there." I'm going every weekend.

Monday....

2010-05-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

I want a bigger life. I LOVE my life. But I want bigger. B and I saw the movie "Blood Into Wine" Saturday and it was wonderful. It's a pseudo-documentary which is also a real documentary about Maynard Keenan from the band Tool and his new (well, for the last ten years) wine making business. I thought...this guy is probably a goofy wild-ass rocker who is putting his name on wine that he has nothing to do with. But the guy is committed! He's articulate and fairly humble. If it comes to your area, see it! So, about the bigger life.....I want to do something big like that. Make a movie, work for something I'm passionate about, or write a coffee table book that rivals Kramer's (remember that Seinfeld episode?). Seriously.

Jay ran a 5K on Saturday morning. He did really good. He wore Vans. Holyyyy crap. I didn't realize it until the race was over and B pointed it out. "Look what shoes he's wearing." He came in 4th for his age bracket. With Vans. I said, "wasn't it hard to run" and he replied, "YES." I am NOT taking this on as my fault however. He IS twelve and should know what shoes to wear. I signed him up immediately for another race and bought him some running shoes.

We're heading out for Durango in a matter of minutes. Jay's class has a field trip to learn about the Colorado Plateau and we're actually going there. Cabins by a river. Mesa Verde. Snacks. S'mores. Twenty 6th graders with hormones raging. This is it, baby. The last field trip. In middle school the parents do NOT go along. I've already been informed. But Jay is excited I'm going and I get to ride along with my filed trip buddy for the last 6 years, Audra, and we're going to enjoy it. Mainly, Frito's and bean dip. Every field trip, Frito's and bean dip. We may drive everyone else away but we are having fun. Hahaha.

Meeeee

2010-05-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have run out of things about MEEE to write about. Well, it's temporary, I just am having a hard time writing every day about me. I'm still going to honor the thirty days of MEEE plan, just not thirty days in a row.

Do you remember that joke from Jr High? The one that had something to do with a store having a sign out front that said "Open 24 hours" and when some guy went there to buy something at 2:00 a.m., there was no one there and the store was closed. So he goes back the next day and says to the manager, "I thought you were open 24 hours" and the manager says, "Well yeah, but not IN A ROW."

That joke was funny in Jr High.

Anyway, I love lady bugs. Here is a picture of a whole clump of them. It's not like these all just descended on my garden, no, I had to spend money to get this many ladybugs. I used to think ladybugs were bringers of good luck.Does it matter if you have to pay to get them? I suppose it would be like buying a rabbit's foot (how archaic is THAT these days) or a horseshoe. So, I am overflowing with good luck....or at least when good things happen this week, I will blame it on the ladybugs. In this picture they are on my tomatillo plant. Yesterday I planted eight tomato plants, a tomatillo, a yellow bell pepper, an eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini and pumpkin. Even in the midst of my black hole of a backyard, the garden is growing.

We saw Robin Hood and I wasn't really impressed. I want to go see Letters From Juliet, even though I'm not a huge chick flick girl. Nothing can beat "When Harry Met Sally" as far as I'm concerned. But I want to see Vanessa Redgrave with her real life sweetie. Plus, it looks CUTE. Sleepless in Seattle, You've got Mail, those are cute too, and Bridget Jones Diary (the first one, baby) is great and makes me laugh the entire movie, but WHMS is still the classic, supreme romantic comedy of contemporary film.

Random pieces.....I am making plans for Kansas. I cannot stand wind. Quinoa is becoming a favorite food. I still miss the Barneys. I have several nervous tics. I would like to rent a house in Italy for a month some summer.

Gaga for the Internet

2010-05-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

I have a couple things. First, I like some of Lady Gaga's music. Really. It's fun and I like her voice and it's great car dancing stimulis. She dresses like a very rich crack whore (okay, how many crack whores do I know - zero), and I have to respect the total "I don't give a damn what you think" attitude. But as much as I like her songs, I like the covers even better. Here's one....

and here's another.....

I am not the only one who finds her interesting and her songs worthy, obviously.

Second, I am fully integrated into the world of the Internet. I have a blog, I participate on Facebook, I have two e-mail addresses (one for people I know and one as an address to put down for superfluous things) and I am on the Internet EVERY DAY. There is a part of that that saddens me. I know I would get much more done in my life if I didn't have internet. But I also love keeping in touch with good people. I have blog friends. I can check in with relatives I haven't seen for ages. I DO feel more connected with friends and family. I believe, once again, it's all a matter of moderation. I still keep lists of things I have to do and I am very careful to be aware when those things aren't getting done. I try to limit myself to an hour a day TOTAL on the internet, and I try to make it around 8:00 - 9:00 at night, when other things aren't available anyway.

Sometimes the world changes and I miss the old. I can't help but think back to when I was a kid and we spent so much time outdoors. Now, many of the kids I know spend most of their time on the computer or playing electronic games and watching TV. Plus, we used to stay out roaming the neighborhood during the summer until 10:00 at night. Parents are so very careful these days and there are so many quacks out there that kids stay much closer to home. This technology is amazing but sometimes I think it's making us all lazy. At least with wireless, I can sit in a lawn chair and catch some sun while I read about what someone ate for breakfast on Facebook. Hahaha.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

Refills

2010-05-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't shared a Starbucks angst story lately so I suppose it's time. Today an older gentleman walked in. Maybe 65. He had his own cup. He pushed it toward me and said, "Refill" to which I replied, "Did you already have one today?" See, we give cheapie refills IF you had a cup already TODAY. Not yesterday. Not last week and you kept your dirty old Starbucks cup, which is fraying at the edges. No. Today only. He said, "Er, uhh, yes." and I picked his nice stainless steel mug up and it was cold as a wet tennis shoe in a pond in January in Wisconsin (I will NOT accept the term cold-as-ice from any of my students). I looked at him. "Today?" I repeated. And he said, "I had one last night." I put on my best Girl Scout smile and said, "I am so sorry but we can't do a refill, although I can give you the personal cup discount." Silence. Hatred. Inner snarling busting through his pores.

He said, "We'll, I've been traveling all over the country and you are the FIRST one to not give me a refill." And with that, he licked his thumb and made an imaginary mark in the air. "Yes, you are the FIRST, so that must mean something." And he gave me the big evil eye (I couldn't MAKE this shit up.) So, I got him his coffee and he had to pay all of 1.93 and he walked off toward the condiment bar. I rang up a few more things and noticed him standing by the drink pick-up area. I walked over and said, "May I help you, sir." and he said, "Well, little lady, you didn't give me my cup discount, now did you?" and I said, "Yes, I did." and I gave him the exact drink/discount/tax amounts and he started to walk away. Kind of turned and looked over his shoulder at me. "I work for Starbucks, you know." Hahahaha. Yeah, right. People.

Reciprocation

2010-05-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

I believe in one main theory regarding relationships. And I'm not talking "relationships" as much as just general howdy-do, conversational, friendship, what-not interactions. Reciprocity. When someone asks you a question, ask one back, When someone says, "How's your day going?" ask them that same question back after you answer, "Fine, except I hate this freaking wind." So, whether I was remiss, or whether he's just being stubborn, my son is refusing to comply. I don't believe he's doing it out of utter rudeness; he's the king of the please and thank-you. But when someone, anyone says, "Hi, how are you today?" he says, "Good." and lets it go at that. Call me a nit-picker (actually don't, because that is GROSS) but I really want him to reciprocate when speaking with adult....or any one for that matter. So, we started attaching the response to his allowance. I think he's going to get it now :)

The family. We were a strange little band of characters
trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one
another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other
out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same
instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the
common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck

My Mom.....

2010-05-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

I entered some contest about "my mom is the best mom because...." I did not win, although I think I should have. Not only was my mom the best, but my entry was the best. Hahaha. I hope we all believe our own mom was the best mom. Happy mother's Day to all you moms and moms-to-be out there. Here is my entry.....

She had the best smile. She always had my back. She would push the hair away from my face very nicely, even when she said, "Aren't you ever going to do anything with your hair?" She would pick me up from school when I was in the sixth grade and take me to lunch every other Friday and we would get 13 cent hamburgers from Bike's Burger Bar. She bought me a Mr Peanut Peanut Butter Maker once. She was the best mom because she always knew how to have fun. Sometimes she would laugh until tears rolled down her cheeks. She was patient and kind. She would take me along with her when she would do volunteer work in the hopes that I would learn to see outside myself. She would stand on the front porch and watch tornadoes roll in when my dad and I would hide in the basement. She was strong but she was loving. My mom was the best because, even when she had Alzheimers and couldn't remember my name, she still knew that she loved me when I walked in the door. When I was in Girl Scouts she was the Scout Leader, and she never let me earn the badges without hard work. She made the best fried chicken and mashed potatoes. One time when I was six and in the dentist's office, the dentist told me to "Stop crying damnit" when he poked my tongue, and my mom flew into the examination room and said "Don't you ever talk to my daughter that way again." My mom made sure I said my pleases and thank-you's. She made it through a tough childhood without becoming bitter or hardened. My mom was the best mom because she kept hope and happiness and love in her heart and in her life and mostly, in her family.

Telescopes and Dinner

2010-05-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love weekends. This morning B headed out to a garage sale across town to look at a clarinet stand (He is teaching himself to play and has "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "When I'm 64" almost mastered). I had coffee and then Jay and I went to a couple garage sales in the neighborhood. On the way back to the house we stopped at one last sale and found a cool telescope. Bought it. When we got back to the house, B was in the back yard working on the shed and I ran out and said, "I bought a really cool telescope!" and B looked at me kind of odd and said"I did too." Turns out the only thing each of us bought was a telescope for Jay. Hahaha. Now he has two. At least until we have our garage sale.

We saw Ironman 2. It was GREAT! I LOVE Robert Downey Jr. but I do have to wonder how many middle aged guys go by Jr? That's a little goofy. I discovered the secret to not eating a lot of movie food at the movies. Go see the 10:30 A.M. movie. I had just had breakfast and was so uninterested in popcorn.

Speaking of food, I made a good dinner. I'm trying really hard to eat healthy. I was on a pastry binge at Starbucks for awhile there and I need to turn it around. Last week I did keep my vow of ingesting NOTHING that I had to chew while at work. That was a good boundary as it's so cut and dried - COULD NOT CHEW. Period. It worked. I did have several fruit/protein smoothies which were good. So, tonight I made saffron quinoa (keen-waaa) with Fresh asparagus and baby portebellos. It was yummy and quick and very healthy. Make it!

Bring 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups water to a boil. Add a pinch of saffron. Cover and simmer until water is gone, about 15 minutes. In a separate pan, saute one cup baby portebello mushrooms and one bunch asparagus (cut into 1 inch pieces) in olive oil and a hearty splash of teriaki or Worcestershire sauce. When the quinoa is done, turn off heat and add the vegetables to the quinoa. Stir it up and it's done. I would recommend a glass of Red Truck California Red Wine which costs about 8.00 and is well worth the price.

Almost Friday

2010-05-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

I love this warmer weather. It's springtime and we have a nest of baby birds in the back yard. How cliche and yet how lovely. They are nesting in the top of a propane tank covered by a round pink paver. We had no idea the nest was in there until B was getting ready to fire a kiln and when he lifted the paver up, the mama bird flew out and scared the bejesus out of us. We put the paver back on and only peek at them once a week. They're so ugly and so cute.

Tonight was Jay's school musical program. It's the last one where we'll be with the tiny kindergartners and all the chaotic, screaming kids. I'm going to miss those musical shows. Talk about baby birds! I love to look at the ankle-biters up there on the stage, knowing that a few are going to be huge successes and a few are going to be tremendous failures but most of them are going to be average, content human beings. I like that thought; average content people playing Monopoly and having BBQ's, watching a little Law and Order and reading a good book now and then. Of course, some people really do become ballarinas and firemen but I'd love to hear a seven year old say, "I want to be an average person when I grow up with a job that pays decent and has health benefits. Eat dinner with my family, teach my kids how to do cool card tricks and once a week sit at Barne's and Noble for an hour for a little "me" time." When I was little I wanted to be either a witch or a loan shark. Weird. I did not become either of those things. That's okay. I also, when asked who I would like to meet if I could meet anyone, said "Paul Lynde" while almost every other third grader in my class replied, "The President."

Mother's Day weekend plans - Ironman on Saturday. Working on shed and backyard. Storage unit auction Sunday morning. Wildflower Bread Company for lunch. Suns game Sunday night. Sweeeeet.

Not Much

2010-05-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

Only Randon - I miss the show Chelsea Lately since I got furious at Direct TV and cancelled all but the the bare minimum of shows....and now I'm too stubborn to get those channels back. I whoop and shout and wring my hands and say, "AUUGGGHHH" when I watch sports on TV. I am not afraid to bait my own hook. I like how people walk on "South Park" but I have to admit, I've only seen that show once. I like going to storage unit auctions because you never know what you'll find. I LOVE avocados.

Take That Pill Before I Pinch You!

2010-05-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am a mom. Jay and I relived the "pill" fiasco of last night tonight. He did better however, and I think it was the chocolate milk I bought today. But the whole experience made me think about all the aspects of being a mom. It's not Mother's Day yet but I saw a quote that I wanted to share...and I have a funny (to me) story of my own.

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own." - Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

First, how can two people be quoted as one quote? Did they think this up at the same time? Did one come up with the first sentence and the other came up with the last? Just curious.

So, when Jay was about ten months old we went to Las Vegas with my family. There were probably 7 of us and we had two adjoining rooms. One night it must have been 3:00 a.m. and Jay started to cry. I got up and took him in the bathroom. I had probably only been asleep for an hour or two (don't worry, my mom LOVED to hang in the room with her little Jay while I played roulette). I had not been drinking because I hate to taint my gambling with alcohol. Hahahaha. No, really, I don't drink when I gamble - throws my luck. So, I stood in the bathroom rocking Jay back and forth. For fifteen minutes. Then half an hour. Then an hour that turned into an hour and a half. I was TIRED. I just wanted him to sleep! I was tired and cramped and didn't have his usual "stuff" with me. No crib, no couch. I became irrational there in that small, dark bathroom. I wanted to pinch him. Real hard. Just a tiny piece of skin. Pinch! Like that.

I did not pinch my little baby boy. But I thought about it for the next half hour until he finally slept. I always laugh about it. It actually kept me sane. And, as I tell people, that's the difference between being a good mom and a scary one.....we all think about duct taping them to the wall, the good moms just make the decision NOT to do it. I always want to tell new mothers that, yes, they will drive you crazy and talk back and crush you at times, just make the right decision. Because they will be worth the kindness and the love in the end. Oh, and anything you do before they turn two....they'll never remember it anyway. Hahahaha.

(That last sentence is one of those things that you write and think, okay, of course no one will think I'm serious. I'm funny! And then you worry a little and finally come back and, even though you don't erase it, you feel compelled to write a disclaimer.)

Disclaimer: Folks, I am only kidding. Do not harm your child. Call a hotline if you feel violent. They really, really are worth the love. And they WILL remember everything. Thank you.

(I just served as awesome birth control for at least several college women)

Onward

2010-05-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

I was on bereavement leave. I'm not going to shirk my blog commitment however, so the "30 days of MEEEE" will continue on for twenty-one more days.

Here's what we used to do.......See, Barney was mostly an indoor cat, but once or twice a day he would meander about outside. He did not like to use Stan's dog door so when B would let him back in, B would announce, "Hey everybody, it's Barney!! Look! Barney's here!!" And we would all clap and cheer. "Look, it's Barney!!!" And Barney would get a celebrity welcome every time he came back inside. Barney himself did not understand the hullabaloo, but that was part of the fun. That's one of those things I'm going to miss. It's one of those little private "in-house" things that we all have in our homes. It was a good thing.

It's those private "in-house" moments that are the barometers of our lives I think. We all have those things that go on where we live that we don't share with the rest of the world. Maybe it's with roommates or maybe with our birth family or maybe with our spouse/partner (I am so fucking politically correct!). But I like when I'm in households where those moments are good ones. I've had times when they were positive and times when they were yucky and I notice that my whole psyche could be determined by whether those times were good or bad. Remember...if your "in-house" moments make you sad, rethink the "house" in your "in-house" situation.

I have a garden box. B has been working like crazy in the back yard; putting together raised garden beds and building a new chicken coop. I get to plant vegetables this weekend, and surround them with the beautiful "walls of water" aka "wall-o-waters" to keep then from FREEZING IN THE SNOW. Hahahaha. Why do I laugh at that when we had an inch of snow yesterday?

Right this instant, while I sit at the dining room table blogging away, my son is 15 feet away from me in the kitchen trying to swallow a pill. He woke up with a sore throat and body ache. I took him in and the doctor gave him some antibiotics. "I want the pills, not the liquid," he insisted as we left. "I can swallow pills now." So, for 25 minutes he's been trying to swallow a pill. He has tried orange juice, milk and water. He has hidden the pill in ice cream and yogurt. He has choked a mouthful of milk all over the kitchen floor (which, had I read that on someone else's blog, I would have laughed like a crazy woman, however, since it was in my kitchen I don't really find it that funny). He has placed it strategically in several areas of his mouth before ingesting the liquid. He is now taking a three minute break to check on the Sun's score. But he is going to swallow that pill before I go to bed.

Oh yeah, B and I saw Kick Ass yesterday. Great movie. Not for kids. Funny. Fun. See it.

Randoming - I still love Barney. I can whistle really loud with two fingers in my mouth. I always trim my own bangs and I ALWAYS do a horrible job. I really love my home.

P.S. He did it. He swallowed that damn pill.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated
from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
--Marianne Williamson

Barney

2010-04-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a bit because our Barney died. I tried several times to write about things....some days just general stuff and some days Barney failing, but I was either too tired or too sad. Here is one of my starts from a few days ago.....

"I'm back. I took a couple days off. Our cat is sick. Renal failure. Anemia. Congestion and old age are all attacking Barney at the same time. Barney is 17 years old and was not "my" cat too until about a year and a half ago. Barney has been Barry's cat forever. But now Barney belongs to me and Jay and Stan also."

That was all I could get down. Barney was such a great cat. He would do these head butts against your head. I always thought it was Barney's way of giving out some love. He liked to sleep in a chair by the fire. He ate a coffee bean for breakfast and he was partial to a couple tortilla chips for an afternoon snack. He purred and meowed, and click-clacked his toenails on the floor. Mr Barneys was a part of our home, and now we miss him. He and Stan were a team, even though they didn't know it, and now Stan is a one-man show.

Barnes, like most cats, had a dozen names. He was often both the King and the Court Jester. I loved to watch him sit in the sun, or sleep all curled up, or saunter across the lawn. He bit my nose, once, very hard, and I think he enjoyed it. He sneezed a lot. He liked to lie right on the newspaper when I was reading it. We miss that good old man.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. - Jean Cocteau

Mind Over Matter

2010-04-22T16:29:00.001-07:00

I would like to clarify. In my post yesterday it sounds as if I think I'm old. Well I don't. And I'm not. But there are some growing signs that, well, the times they are a changing. Too often, when I get up in the morning, I believe I may have been pummeled in my sleep by small elves. Small elves wearing brass knuckles. It's not serious. I don't feel so bad I want to see a specialist. But I ache. My knees, my lower back. It's just become a "transition" getting out of bed instead of a fluid action. The idea that exercise is becoming mandatory, as in, if I don't start taking yoga, or doing a little cardio, I WILL be in trouble. Soon. I actually discard pictures now because of "double chin look" and "ripple laugh lines" instead of "weird shirt" or "eyes closed, mouth open."

Also, my memory is shot. Did I mention the small elves with brass knuckles? Oh.

Yesterday when my girlfriends and I went dancing, we had FUN. We were GOOD. We were also in a group of people who were all under 24 years of age. I am not exaggerating. I wanted to get a shirt made that said, "Your parents are paying me to spy on you." When a Adam Ant or a White Snake or a Bronski Beat song came on, I wanted to shout, "You people don't know anything about this song....I LIVED this music....I have concrete memories about this song." Ahhhh, the rantings of an old lady. Hahaha.

When I titled this post I was thinking of the saying about age...“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter” (Mark Twain). Then I found the following one by Dr Suess (really) and liked it too.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

And then, I found this, which seemed appropriate...
“You don't stop dancing from growing old, you grow old when you cease to dance”

So, I have compiled a list of things to do if, like me, you want to hold on to your youth by the scruff of the neck like a desparate fool....

* keep dancing
* drop the f-bomb on occasion (wait, was that hold on to your youth or your vulgarity? Hahaha)
* red wine, baby
* keep your girlfriends
* read books
* contemplate taking yoga
* lots of water
* laugh until you have ripple laugh lines

I had more ideas but I've forgotten what they are. Fuck.

Ladies Eighties

2010-04-21T23:48:00.001-07:00

I went dancing. With girlfriends. To eighties music. I could of broken a hip! I think my knees are shot. It was quarter drink night. I had two beers. I love my girlfriends.

I need an intervention.

2010-04-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, first let me say that I'm on day 7 of my latest "blogging assignment." I write more if I have an assignment and I like to do the "Thirty Days of ____________" the best. Thirty days is not too long to do anything. And it's still long enough to be a challenge. So, I'm doing 30 days of me. Mostly because it makes me laugh at myself but also because I might gain an insight here or there. Sometimes focusing makes things clearer. I do find it interesting that when I have the assignment, I really do end up writing more. For example, right now I am TIRED. Sheee-it, I am TIRED. But I will not turn this light out until I get something self-absorbed written down.

Okay, back to the intervention. I am having a personal feeding frenzy. One might assume that I'd be over Starbucks pastries by now but apparently not. I eat too many. And I don't limit myself to Starbucks, baby. I buy pastries at Trader Joes if I'm in Phoenix. The other day I went to Wildflower Bakery and had a chocolate croissant. WTH (what the heck!). WTF.

Then, when I'm not gorging on sugar, I'm eating white starches. Tonight for dinner I had a big bowl of mashed potatoes. That's a fat ass bowl of taters, butter, milk, sour cream and cheese. YUM. I almost put a bunch of crumbled up bacon in there too. So, it' either an intervention or will power. I can see I'm going to have to do a reality 30 day assignment next - 30 days of healthy food. How about ONE day of healthy food. Hahaha.

Randoming.....I like spinach salad. I have very nice hand writing. When I was little my mom and dad and I went to Dairy Queen every evening in the summer. Sometimes little stiff hairs sprout off my chin. Ewwwww. I wish I had a cute nose. I would like to rent a house in Italy for a month.

.....the world is not respectable; it is mortal,
tormented, confused, deluded forever;
but it is shot through with beauty,
with love, with glints of courage
and laughter; and in these,
the spirit blooms...
-george santayana

Where it Started

2010-04-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

I am reusing a blog post. I was thinking about my One Year of Opus, which is what pretty much started this blog (hence, the name, hahaha) and I realised that some of my present readers probably didn't know the origin. So, this is my second blog post, clear back in 2007, and it says so much about who I still am today, and what's important. P.S. Live your life. Now.

July 2007
The What and The Why
In the beginning (three months ago)....I needed a job. I was borderline frantic. Everywhere I looked I saw things I wanted to do that no one would pay me to do. Garden, write poems, paint and put together all this crazy furniture I bought years ago. I wanted to learn how to can my garden harvest and I wanted to make a documentary about my mom and do art projects and take African dance. I wanted to teach poetry writing (which they DO pay me for...a little). But the eighttofivejobwithbenefits monster was breathing down my neck.

The What...One year of opus. Take one year, June first to June first. Take out a loan to live on, supplemented with meager teaching funds. Make it count. Four hours a day of being creative. Not just waiting for the muse to knock on my head with, "hey, here's a poem for ya!" but five days a week, four hours a day, WORK at being creative. Find it. Learn how to can food. Paint. write, read, garden, teach, take classes.... but explore the creative. Take one year. Opus - "A creative work, a masterpiece." My one year of opus.

The Why...Mostly, my mom. My mom has Alzheimers. She is so cool. She doesn't know me anymore, but she sure is happy to see me. She likes to laugh and she gives a good hug. I go see her a few times a week. She lives in the memory unit of an assisted living facility. Facility sounds so cold. But she has a nice room and people who make sure she eats and sleeps and is warm at night. I'm crazy about her. When I go see her I am always hit with one big thing... THIS is where we end up. So, as I leave her and get into the elevator, I'm thinking, "Do it now. Live. Live this life. Now." And when I get in my car I'm thinking, "Live your life. Now." And even by the time I get home I'm still there. Still have that voice hollering in my ear, "Don't waste it man, do the things you want to do. Soon enough you'll be sitting in a dining room with 20 other people eating pureed food so, since you've had that damn furniture out there for five years it's time to take it out of the box, put it together, write a poem on top with cut-out letters from magazines, paint it seven different colors, shellac it, and be done with it, ecstatic simply at the feel of brushing paint on wood." Or something like that. Something like, "Do not take this life for granted."

The Sacrifice...I love sacrifice. But it has to be real. Not "I'm going to give up lima beans" because I don't even like lima beans. I had to think of several things that I would miss. And some that would save a little money. So, #1 - Buy no clothes from June first to June first. This would not be difficult for everyone but I really like buying clothes. #2 - No credit card use. Wow. Yuck. Okay. #3 - Two bought coffee drinks a week, max. #4 - secret sacrifice.

The Blog... To begin with, I had to get over my idea that blogging was self-indulgent blathering about oneself. Blah Blah Blah I ate mini wheats for breakfast and took a nap kind of stuff. Knowing that I really need a supervisor, a motivator, and a, so to speak, kicker-in-the-butt type deal, I liked the idea of sharing the details of this year with people who might ask "So, what creative thing went on today, missy?" I wanted to know that when I go in Target and see a really cute skirt that I'll never find again and that would look soooo good on me, that if someone sees me buy it, curtains for me!!! Then, I read this great blog (Hermitgirlofthemountains) and that inspired me. And finally, I'm a WRITER! Writers write. This is practice. It's creative. It's my one year of opus.
Posted by jill at 7:14 AM 4 comments

Bookfest Time

2010-04-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

I love the Bookfest. It's been such a part of me for the last eight years. It was yesterday, by the way, and I volunteered last night at the headliner reading. Now, let me be honest here. I didn't do one damn thing for the Bookfest this year. Every year for the past eight years I was on the board. I went to pretty much every meeting, wrote some letters, did some fundraising, scheduled readers and procured free hotel rooms. I made the name badges and priced dinners and some years I even read. This year, nada. I needed a year where I didn't go to meetings or become involved. And low and behold, the show went on anyhow. I saw Lisa Schnebley and Rick Bass read last night. They were very good and the readings were fun and interesting. The poets did their stuff during the day and instead of It being a three day event, it was all packed into a single day. True Confession? The thing I liked best about the Bookfest this year was seeing people I hadn't seen for awhile. Darcy and Tracy and Bob and Tony and Jean and other folks who are artists and writers and friends that I ALWAYS see at the Bookfest and who I'd like to hang out with but we never do and it's always so good to see them. And even when we just get about three minutes worth of words in, I think about them for days or weeks later.

Random Schmandom......My favorite tv show is The Office. I love growing vegetables. I wish I didn't have to work for a living. I have a subscription to People magazine. Nothing better than a great pedicure. Chocolate cake with brown sugar frosting is my weakness.

at the center
of your being you
have the answer;
you know who you
are and you know
what you want.
(lao tzu)

What's Their Story?

2010-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

I LOVE movies. Today B and I saw Date Night. I had read the reviews (btw, how can one movie get three stars and be critiqued as "good" and another movie get three stars and be critiqued as "bad?" The star system should be consistent. If it's bad, just give it two stars and stop confusing me) and it sounded as if it was just too implausible and stupid. But, I just love Tina Fey and Steve Carell and off we went. Well I laughed out loud! Any movie that makes me laugh out loud is alright by me. We have a Harkins movie theater up here with something like fourteen movies in the building. Remember when there would be just ONE movie in the building? Well we only have one movie house in Flagstaff and so it has a plethora of films. Anyway, they sell t-shirts and cups every December, and when you bring them in for the whole next year, you get FREE popcorn for the shirt and one dollar sodas in the cup. I just keep the shirt in my car because I never wear it in, I just carry it, and that way I always have it.

So, last week I cleaned out some closets and piled a bunch of clothes in my back seat. I know you can tell where this is going. So, it appears that I gave my movie shirt to Goodwill last Thursday. Damn. I tried to finagle a new shirt from the manager today but no go. He did, although give me a free popcorn ticket so that was a nice thing.

Randomness......I like Grace Potter and the Nocturnals mostly for their music but also because Grace Potter is a very cool name. I love roulette. If I could play any musical instrument, I would play the violin. I adore a good Caesar Salad.

Thank You Heroes For doing a Good Job.

2010-04-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

I have a car. (In case you haven't read my last two posts, I'm doing a whole month about ME. Hahaha. So I decided to start every post off with the word "I") I was driving home in it this afternoon and saw several people walking on the sidewalk in a group - say 6 or 7. I came to a stop light next to them as they were walking and noticed who they were. There were 4 or 5 people with Downs Syndrome or something similar. And a couple people who were the care givers. Those people are my heroes. Everyone was smiling and the Downs folks were having a ball. The care givers were too, skipping along side when one of the others started to gallop about like a horse, and hugging when someone wanted a hug. It was just a short little glance at another world but it made me appreciate those who really do "do things for others." It's an area of my life that could stand a bit of work.

Random stuff....I love my home. I'm not afraid of tornadoes. My first two wheel bike was a glittery blue Stingray with a banana seat and a sissy bar. I sometimes wonder where the playground sport of tether ball went. I like the ritual of coffee almost as much as the coffee itself.

Why I am Going to Hell Because of Starbucks

2010-04-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

I have a job. I felt crazy there today. A woman came up to the counter with a mug from the retail section. "Hey," she said, "Would you consider just giving me this mug? It doesn't lock." I took the mug, fiddled with the lid, and handed it back to her. "Yes, it does." I said, "Just try to pry that lid off now." And she pushed both her thumbs up against the lid until I thought the cup would explode. "Well," she said, "I guess you're the smart one." turned, slammed the cup on a shelf and walked away. I had bad thoughts about that woman. Did I mention it was FREE COFFEE DAY? For tax day Starbucks gave away free coffee if you brought your own mug. So next, a woman with one of those aluminum water cans walked up and asked me to "fill it up." "With coffee?" I said incredulously. She nodded and I filled it up and burned the holy flap (this is Jay's expression that I have adopted) out of my hand. I held it by the upper 1/8 inch of the lip of the can and handed it back to her and perversely, secretly hoped she burned the holy flap out of her hand too. Both hands. Her lips. And throat. Next, the man who takes all our expired pastries to the mission came in. I RAN to the back to get the Tupperwares of scones and muffins and coffee cakes for him. I then stashed several boxes next to the coat rack for ME. I took good sweet pastries from the mouths of the homeless. There's more. I swore at people under my breath. I put the wrong amount of pumps of vanilla in several people's drinks because I was not paying attention to what they said. I walked very slowly. All this nastiness flowing out of me in a mere 3 and a half hour shift.

Random notes...My taxes were done a month ago. My favorite pizza is pesto sauce with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, tomato and banana peppers. I used to love watching Wild, Wild West with my dad. The SNL skit that makes me laugh the hardest is Schweaty Balls with Alec Baldwin.
.

It's all about me

2010-04-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

There is a girl whose blog I follow. She writes well, and has funny stories, and is quite down to earth. I like reading her blogs (No, I'm not talking about me. Hahaha). Her blogsite is girl, corrupted and she is the sister of another of my blog buddies, Tyge. She wrote a line on her blog the other day that sounded just like me...."Well, innernet, I got nothing." That's me. I got nothing. I've run out of stories, no one is dying, my house is remodeled, and I work too much. I've fallen into a huge abyss of non-creativity and low vibrancy. I have malaise. The truth is, I have LOTS to write about. I just don't do it. It's like my poetry and fiction writing. I've learned pretty much all I need to learn. I don't need any more schooling or University classes. I'm at the point where either I write or I don't. It's all up to me.

I've always found that it helps me to do a self imposed time frame and a definite assignment. One time it was "beauty." Thirty days of it. Making myself write about it made me FIND it outside of my writing. So, it's time. Again. And....I'm going to go to that place I always feel like I shouldn't go to. That thing I should be able to NOT write about. I'm going to write all about ME. Every day, for thirty days. Me. I'm going to brag and whine and project and dream. All about me.

I got my pitcher took. No, no one stole my antique glass pouring vessel. I mean I had my picture taken. By a real photographer. It was kind of an accident. I went with a girlfriend of mine who was having a photograph session with John Running He has a beautiful studio and has a bunch of props, clothes, vases, power saws, etc. for posing. While my friend, Carolyn, was getting shot, I was looking at tutu's. Well, of course I tried one on. And I got my pitcher took. It was fun. I loved it. I felt exactly like the girl wearing the tutu. After a long winter of jeans and sweaters and long underwear and heavy socks, I wanted an hour of tutu.

Random facts; I could eat Trader Joe's peanut butter with chocolate nuggets cookies all day long. I was pretty bummed out about the whole Sandra Bullock mess. I love both Barney (the cat) and Stan (the dog) but I think I'm predominantly a cat person because cats never smell and dogs do. I will probably always drive a Honda. I will never be a vegan.

I like the idea of a bunch of "me" posts. One of (the many) things I use as an excuse not to blog is that I think it's so self-absorbed to blather on about oneself. So now I'll just immerse myself in the middle of it. Bwahaha.

My company mascot is the bumblebee. Because of its
tiny wings and heavy body, aerodynamically the bumblebee
shouldn't be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesn't
know that, so it flies anyways.
--Mary Kay Ash

April Fools - Not

2010-04-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am at the drive-thru window this morning. Six-thirty. A woman is stopped right next to the microphone box. Now, there are four car lengths between the window where I hand out the drinks and the box where customers order. There are no cars in that space because the woman has been on her cell phone for A VERY LONG TIME. I keep saying, HI! HOW YA DOIN TODAY? CAN I START CHA OFF WITH A DARK CHERRY MOCHA OR A BLUEBERRY SCONE, only to be met with silence. I say it over and over. This is not a joke. This is not an April Fools. Finally, she orders. She drives down to the window. There is a line behind her of irritated people who are ALL going to say, "You're making drinks kind of slow today, aren't ya?" to which I will want to reply, "Go to hell" but instead I'll say "I'm so sorry! It sure got backed up there for a minute but here's your drink! Have a fabulous day!!!" She gets to the window and says, "I'm sorry, I just couldn't get off the phone." Yes, she says that. Take a minute. Mull that over in your head. I did. How about, "Hey, can you hold on for a sec, I have to order a latte" or "Hey, I gotta go, I'm in the drive-thru and there are a dozen cars behind me" or "Gotta go" or even the simple "Bye." How could someone not know these ideas??? I say, "Yeah, it makes me crazy how many people talk on their phones in the drive-thru" and she takes her drink and drives away.

You might think from the stories I tell that I don't like my job but actually, it's moments like the one above that keep me there.

Run for your lives.....it's Direct TV

2010-03-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

When I was ensconced in my One Year of Opus, did I ever make the comment, "I'm so tired?" I think not. If I remember correctly, I was painting things, writing poems, taking care of my dear mama, and gardening. I was busy. I was using my noggin (my dad's word) to figure out color schemes and what to plant and what to feed the boy and how to keep my mom warm. But I don't believe I was tired. Now, I am TIRED. T-I-R-E-D. Most nights I am too tired to blog. I am too tired to watch The Daily Show or Chelsea Handler. I am too tired to go out and drink a bunch of beer. WTF. But, obviously, I am NOT too tired to complain.

Direct TV sucks. I'm putting it out there. I'm even going to say this, youfuckersatDirecttvpissmeoff. I have always been mired in confusion regarding television. When I was a kid you didn't PAY for tv. You got 13 channels and it was free, aside from the electricity it took to run the television. Then there was cable, and then Satellite tv. And it's expensive! Lots of moolah. But if you want to watch tv, (and I don't even get the premium channels!) you have to do it.

So a few years ago I had cable. It kept going out. Two years ago I got Direct TV. I had the serviceman come out to the house. Here's what they do...they drill HOLES in your outside walls and run a thick white cable into your house. They run that white cable along the outside of your house to the dish. They don't put it in the wall. It looks crappy. But that's how they do it. And that's the BEST part. The contract looms. In the contract it says that they will give you a good price for 12 months, but the contract is for 24 months. So basically, after a year they can raise your rates and you are still committed for another year. When the guy was out here installing it I told him I just wanted a year contract. He said, YES, THAT'S FINE, JUST CROSS OUT THE 24 MONTHS AND PUT IN 12. So I did that. Haha on me. The company does not consider the installers as "spokespeople" for the company. WTF? I found this out because after one year my cost for Direct tv DOUBLED. Ughhhhh. When I called them and told them about my special 12 month contract they pretty much laughed at me. Hahaha that's not valid. So, while waiting for the second 12 month contract to run out, we went to Best Buy last week and got another receiver box to put in the guest room so Jay could continue his March Madness obsession. I had the receiver box activated, but the next day I couldn't get it to work, I called Direct tv and they fixed it, and also informed me that when I activated the box, I was gifted with ANOTHER EIGHTEEN MONTH CONTRACT. At the stinking higher price.

They were horrible. Evil. Yucky. They made me cry. And I have Direct tv for eighteen more months because it would cost 465 dollars to break my NEW contract. That I didn't even okay. That they have no signature on and no verbal agreement. I went to my trusty Internet and looked up "Direct tv scam" and there it was...rampant tv angst. Hundreds of people caught in the Direct tv web of lies. Sadly, there was something very comforting about being part of a group clusterfuck as opposed to being the only one duped.

I never believed this kind of shit. I always thought, Well, I could get out of that. Or, you just have to explain it. But truly, they have you over the old proverbial barrel. So, I've cut my service down to the bare minimum. And September 20, 2011, I am calling Direct tv for the last time. Until then, I am going to fight off my lethargy for the sake of complaining about Direct tv to everyone I know. Consider yourself warned.

Heap Big Winter

2010-03-25T20:47:00.001-07:00

Shed before snow.....

Shed after snow......

We saw Alice in Wonderland. Not the 3/D version because I find that a little distracting the first time through a movie. I loved it. It was so WEIRD. Speaking of weird, I'm trying to buy a Mr Peanut Peanut Butter Maker off e-bay. I had one when I was a kid. It made great peanut butter. Now don't y'all go bidding on one right now because I need to win mine first. They make really good peanut butter, which come to think of it, I'm really not that crazy about. I think I want it because my mom and dad got me one for Christmas one year and I had so much fun cranking that handle and being so amazed when ACTUAL peanut butter emerged from Mr Peanut's ear area. B and I are getting ready to work on cutting apart the shed. We're also going to move the garden box so I can start planting peas. Even though we could realistically get another snow, I'm thinking winter might just be over. I'm ready for the garden and tank tops and opening all the windows in the house and watching my paper piles blow all over, while standing in the middle of the room thinking, "Ahhhh. It's springtime."

Starbucks Tales

2010-03-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

The woman taxi driver in the Starbucks drive thru today. For reals.
(I've been wanting to write "for reals" for a couple weeks now. Hahahaha.)
But really. For reals.

Barista - Hi! Welcome to Starbucks! My name is Marcia! What can I get started for you? Would you like to try our Dark Cherry Mocha?

Taxi Lady - Is this Betty? Hi Betty!

Barista - No, this isn't Betty. What can I get for you?

Taxi Lady - It sounds like Betty. What's your name?

Barista - This is Marcia. What can I get for you?

Taxi Lady - That's a pretty name. I'll have a JFK.

Barista - Thank you. And I have no idea what you ordered but if you tell me what it is, I can make it for you.

(Barista is now gritting her teeth. And still smiling)

Taxi Lady - A JFK. You know, three shots.

Barista - Oh.

Barista - Okay.

(Taxi Lady pulls forward and runs into the car ahead of her)

(Like she needs more caffeine)

(Sheesh)

Found Poem

2010-03-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

A "found poem" is a poem that you FIND. You can find it in a billboard on a highway or in the text of a magazine article. You can find it on the back of a cereal box or in the subtitles of a foreign film. It must be the complete and actual text. That's my rule anyway. Some people pick and choose more but I believe it must be the exact wording to be a true found poem. The secret is that you make it a poem by line breaking it. Plus, it should be a little bit poetic. Or odd. Or surprising. Or funny. Or just beautiful. I found one today. I found it in the "info" file in my favorites under "Movie ratings for kids." it's a rather cool site that rates the sex/gore/profanity levels of movies. I check it out from time to time when I'm going to rent a movie for Jay. Today I was looking up Napoleon Dynamite. Here is my found poem.....

SEX/NUDITY 3

A woman gets off a bus, looks
at a man waiting for her, she runs to him
and they kiss (we hear smacks).
A woman takes off
a man's glasses, looks at him
suggestively
and they play footsie under the table.
A woman kisses a man
on the cheek a few times. Young men
and young women dance together
at a school dance. A young man asks
another young man
if his girlfriend is "hot." Two young men talk
about "hookin' up with chicks."
A young man touches
a young woman's hand and then pulls away.
A man touches another man's knee
and they both jump
and move away from each other.
Two young men talk about asking young women
to a dance. A young man dances on a stage
thrusting his hips several times.
Five young women wearing short skirts
that reveal bare legs
dance on a stage. A woman wears
a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage,
and young women wear evening gowns
that reveal bare shoulders
and backs. A man tries to sell
an herbal product that claims
to enhance women's breast size. We see
the engorged udders
of a cow.

Simplistic Movie Review

2010-03-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

I really loved the movie, Where The Wild Things Are. One reason is quotes like this...

Judith: Happiness isn't always the best way to be happy.

But really I liked it because it's kind of sad. I loved the realism of the family. I loved the darkness of the realism of the family. I loved the way the darkness did not interfere with the love. Maybe the darkness was a big slice of the love. I loved how it all existed at once. I loved how the child was lonely and that loneliness was so palpable. I loved the creatures and how they were filled with metaphor and slime. I loved that Spike Jonze actually took actors to an island and dressed them up in nine foot tall furry suits and made them run around (I also like that he spells his name with a z). I loved the fort made out of twigs and I loved how it looked as if it was made with a Spirograph. I loved that the monsters could be conquered by "staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once," I loved the seesaw of fear and comfort, I even loved that Sendak said, when asked, “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?" answered, “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

It just came out on DVD and I'm going to go buy it. I tried to win it on some site but they haven't e-mailed me yet with the good "You're the Winner" news so I suppose I'll just fork over the cash because I like it THAT much.

See it.

Let-Downs

2010-03-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the Olympics are over. Four more years until the next Winter Olympics and it's gonna go by like a short track skater. Yes, I love Apollo Ohno. He's fast and he's lucky. I'm kind of glad they're over. I love watching them but they're on so LATE. I sound like an old fuddy duddy. And then, it takes forever to see the people you want to see. Plus, I feel guilty if I don't watch them because it's not on again for FOUR YEARS, so if I like 'em, I should watch 'em. So, even though I might need to grade papers or clean the bathroom, I feel obligated to watch the Olympics. And then, there's this perverse love of the "crash" (come ON, you know you love it too....the wipe-out on the ski slope or the fall after the doubletriplelutz). And immediately after the CRASH is the guilt at having secretly WANTED the crash when you know it DASHED someones hopes and dreams of the MEDAL. All in all, it's a good thing they're only on every four years. Obviously I'd go MAD if they were on more often.

We've gone through 3 seasons of Dexter and now we're ready for season 4 and it doesn't come out until this SUMMER!!!! Waaaaaaa. I got so involved. Okay, I need a series. It's going to be Weeds, or Six Feet Under I think, How's that one with Holly Hunter, Grace something? And no True Blood because B is not into Vampires. I'm starting to enjoy the technological era. I like being able to bust through a whole season of shows in a weekend. It's slightly "instant gratification" overload but it saves time.

Non let-down item...... my friend Jackie and I are taking the boys (Jay and her son, Michael) to see Switchfoot on Thursday. A concert! on a school night! and I don't work Friday! We're going to take lighters for the encore and hide boda bags filled with Boones Farm under our coats....oh wait, that was me in the 80's. Hahahaha. I figure Switchfoot is a step up from The Jonas Brothers and Hillary Duff. Jay's first concert was Jethro Tull when he was three and since then we've seen Widespread Panic and a couple others. I figure he'll only want to actually go with me to concerts for, hmmmm, let's see, maybe another MONTH before he just banishes me altogether from any social events that he attends.

It's really okay that I could only think of two things to blog about on my "Let-downs" post. I even had to use filler "non-let-down" text. Whereas I suppose I could just change the title of this post to "Hmmmmm" or "Dexter, concerts and the Olympics" I think I would prefer to just appreciate that I don't have many let-downs right now.

The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness,
beauty and truth.
--Albert Einstein

Funny haha, or funny peculiar......

2010-02-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

Something I never thought would happen. In the last week or so I've heard from, or run into, several "good friends" of the guy the court convicted of aggravated assault. They seem to be quite fine with the way things turned out, and it's no surprise to them that he's going to prison. It's a strange thing to find out how people really feel.

Snow = yuck. Oh, it wasn't always this way. I used to love snow. When I was a kid my mom used to make me wear bread bags over my socks, (yes, really) and then put my feet into my boots. She said it made the boots come off easier and kept feet warmer. I never see kids doing that now and if I suggested it to Jay I think he'd laugh right in my face. But back then I would go out in the snow all the time. I loved to sled and build forts and stomp around. Even a decade ago I loved it. I would pack up my cross country gear and go ski in the forest or out at the nordic center. But now, I just want something warm and, well, snow-free. I'm tired of driving in it, walking on it and shivering from it. Ideally, a little snow, seen at night from a living room window, falling under the street light, would be beautiful. But it would need to melt the next day in 65 degree weather. THAT kind of snow I could enjoy.

For those of you that didn't know....coconut milk is CLEAR. I didn't know. I thought it was white. Like MILK. Why not call it coconut JUICE? Jay had a friend spend the night a few weeks ago and we all went to the store.
B was the only one that had ever opened up a coconut before (why didn't that surprise me?) so we got one. Yes. Clear.

I'm not a good joke teller. Never have been. I always forget the joke, or my timing's off, or I pick a joke that's not even funny. I saw this one the other day and liked it, and since I don't have to TELL it.....

There's this man at a bar, just staring at his drink. He stays like that for half of an hour.

This big guy walks up next to him, takes the drink, and just drinks it all down. The poor man starts crying. The guy says, "Come on, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't stand to see a man cry."

"It's not that," the man says. "This day is the worst of my life. First, I did my taxes last night and owe a LOT of money, I didn't get to sleep until 3:00 am, I woke up late, and was late to work. It's the fifth time I've been late this month, and I missed a crucial meeting. Then my boss fired me. When I left the building, I found out my car has been stolen. I got a cab to go home, and when I got out at my house and tried to pay the driver, I couldn't find my wallet and credit cards. "

"When I walked in the house, I found my wife in bed with the gardener. I left and came to this bar. And just when I was about to put an end to my life, you showed up and drank my poison."

Hahaha.

And here's one more that made me laugh.....

I'm back (1/29/10)

2010-02-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

I initially wrote this a couple weeks ago when I was in the midst of a trial. I decided not to publish it because of the trial stuff. Then, I realized that it's good to remember what's important. It's good to understand that in the big picture, my hardships are not that hard. And to keep in mind what the real victories are.

Wow. It's been awhile. I think I'll take this moment to just dive in. For the last year and a half I've been the "as opposed to victim I prefer the phrase girl-who-had-a-gun-held-to-her-head" in a criminal case in town. I still can't REALLY blog about it but soon......

Right now, I can tell you that I've been sitting in a courtroom for the last 4 days, listening to, and playing, a game. Kind of like the Superbowl (okay, I'm not that self-inflated, make it high school football). Two sides, two game plans, crazy rules and at some point, a winner.

I was a little overwhelmed coming home today. I had stellar friend support, a good man, fabulous victim witness folks, and yet still had the knowledge that life is a crap shoot and who KNOWS what will happen. Up, down, up, down. I even asked for positive energy and good thoughts on facebook and a whole bunch of great people answered me. So I felt really hopeful, and yet really vulnerable. My part in the trial was over. On one hand, I was strong, didn't get bullied by lawyers, and kept on track. On the other, a little man in a nice suit tried to twist everything I said, some girl lied about me and I had to look at people I didn't really like. Yuck! Then I got home and stood. Just stood. Slowly came back to this planet. Changed into sweats and slippers, riffled through People magazine. And on this planet I read my e-mail.......(yes, I'm loving the ellipses today)

Here's what I found......

WE MUST NEVER STOP HOPE-ING; PRAY-ING; AND BELIEVING EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
GREAT WAY TO START THIS NEW DECADE!!
SMILE AND ENJOY, BEV

Now, I'm not sure who Bev is. But her email was in response to my dear friend Jerry E, who has been fighting melanoma. I know that he will not mind me relaying this one sentence or two......

"We got some good news in Tucson last Thursday. My melanoma is, for the first time, STABLE. There was no progression of the disease since last November."

Now, that, my friends, is the important news of the day. There might be a trial. There might be too much snow. There might even be headaches and fear and Kurt Warner's retirement. But my friend Jerry's melanoma is stable. With news like that, none of the rest of it really matters. And hey, send your prayers, good thoughts, positive energy, and messages of hope through the universe Jerry's way.

"The things that will destroy us are politics without principle;
pleasure without conscience;
wealth without work;
knowledge without character;
business without morality;
science without humanity;
and worship without sacrifice." --Mahatma Gandhi

tv

2010-02-16T11:17:00.001-08:00

I am so addicted to Dexter. At work, I think, Wow, that woman in line reminds me of Rita. I spend many daydreaming moments wondering, Can someone in law enforcement really do that? I think of the characters as real people. I look forward to watching Dexter like one might look forward to a nice dinner. Ahhhh, I say when I sit down to watch, the reward to my long day.

It's sick. I have a house to clean. I have pictures to organize. I have actual novels on my nightstand to read. I could spend that late night Dexter time sleeping! I am so addicted to that show that I'm looking forward to the last episode. Then I can just be done.

I was at work this morning at 4:15. Yes. FOURFIFTEEN in the AM. I texted B during my break at 6:00. There was no Good Morning or Have a Good Day. My text went like this......"So, my take is this; Lila is going to kill Doakes to get Dexter back. They'll both be gone. Problem solved." Sheeeesh.

I've been thinking about the resolutions. I have decided to add to them, maybe on a daily basis for the entire month of February. I don't think one can have too many resolutions. I figure if I get close to 75% realized I'll be groovy (funny tangent - I just looked up current slang for "great" and found "groovy" - that is so wrong). So, here are a couple more....

*I'm going to keep a decent bottle of champagne in my refrigerator at all times.
*Once a week I'm going to make it a point to call someone I haven't spoken to in a while, just to say hello.

Okay, these last two resolutions (proclamation? goals?) sound like something out of a Redbook Magazine article on "How to have a sunny disposition" which makes me throw up a little. I obviously need to revise....

*I'm going to keep a decent bottle of champagne in my refrigerator at all times so I can drink Mimosa's before going to work in the morning.
*Once a week I'm going to make it a point to call someone I haven't spoken to in a while, just to say hello or to ask where in the hell is the fucking money they owe me.

There, that's better.

Resolutions

2010-02-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

I'm too lazy to look up quotes so I'm going to share some that either I made up or I just can't recall who said them.

"There's always room for improvement"

Okay, that's the only one I can think of.

Every year on my birthday I make my yearly resolutions. Some people do this on New Year's Eve. Some people never do it. SOME people do it on a weekly basis. One year, I did in June. It was panic induced because I was out of money and looking for a job and all I could find was NOTHING. So, I made a proclamation/resolution and had my One Year Of Opus (which you can read about on my July 2007 post). I resolved to spend NO money on clothes or any type of adornement; such as shoes, purses, hair ribbons (hahaha, hair ribbons) and earrings. I did it. Well, there was that one tee shirt. Oops. I had a whole list of things and I accomplished most of them. But that year was unusual and it's usually a birthday thing. My own private year of starting over.

Feeling Good

So, this year, after a few weeks of thought, I've come up with a couple things/ideas/desires I'd like to set down and commit to......
*Being a better writer.
*Staying the weight that I am right now.
*Putting together a reading to benefit something worthwhile.....like hospice or Smiletrain.
*Eating dinner at the dining room table more often.
*Traveling to someplace I've never been before.
*Check out some live music at least once a month.
*Dance more.

I seem to work better with rules and lists. I need deadlines and a kick in the butt! I need regular wake-up calls. I like gaining the knowledge that yeah, maybe I fucked up or got stuck in a rut or just forgot to do things I used to like, yet since it's my birthday I can start over and be BETTER!

I had this miserable experience that motivated me on the writing one. I was looking at the NY Times a few days ago and there was a blurb about a book. It was called "The Happiness Project" and it was written by a woman who took a year and spent that year doing what she wanted/needed to do to be happy. HELLO. That was MY book damnit. I could have written that book. That was my one year of opus. I had the damn rough draft. I could have added, improved and edited. I could have WORKED at it. But, did I write the book? NO. Did I write any book? NO. One thing that impedes me (through my own fault) is that I take what other people say (or what I imagine they think) to heart. I assume I must write the regular, conventional, novel or saga. What I want to write is a book that is unusual in it's form, that is part memoir, part something, and part something else. I'm a conversational person, a person immersed in reality, I can't (don't want to) write a murder mystery or a romance. I need to write about what I know. I don't think I want to write poems...at least I think I want to write MORE than poems. So, by saying I have a resolution to be a better writer, I think it means that I want to be a truthful writer, a more frequent writer and a writer who just DOES it. So, stepping out on a limb here, I think I'll just say that one of my resolutions is to actually write a book that I try and get published. There. Done and done. No, wait, not TRY and get published. GET published. On my terms, as weird and ridiculous as it might be. A sort of memoir, poetry, short story, surprises in envelopes, recipe, general life hints, and picture filled opus.

Yeah birthday resolutions!!!!!

Several Stories

2010-02-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Fingernails. I think I'll start with fingernails. I'm sitting here wondering where to start and I've realized I mostly need to go clip my nails. In New York, I forgot to pack clippers and several times I caught a nail and tore off a bit and had no way to alleviate the situation aside from biting it off. So, a day back in Flagstaff and I see I need to repair myself. My mom was a filer. Always filing her nails. They were beautiful and simple. I'm a clipper. Polish never stays on, I'm always knocking into something and I just did not get the beautiful nails gene. I have, however, managed to get a job where I'm not ALLOWED to wear polish so I have an excuse. Plus, I like to saw stuff, and paint things, and bang about, so I'm never going to be the girl with the lovely nails.

Okay, done.

Stories. I'm moving on to stories. I have a few. The first one started a year and a half ago. This story I'm going to shorten a bit. In August of 2008, an ex-boyfriend put a gun to my head. It was scary and intentional. I went to his house to get a couple cell phones back that were delivered to his house instead of mine. I made a few mistakes (FYI......in iffy situations when you have the choice of calling the police to help or barreling through on your own, choose the police), but he obviously made bigger ones. The State of Arizona took him to court and he was convicted two weeks ago of aggravated assault. I'm not going to go into all the court stuff but it was grueling. I spent several days on the stand and listened to lies by people I didn't even know. And then the jury came through. And now he's going to prison. But that's not even the story. The story is that I stopped blogging when it happened. I didn't want to write about my life; like when I was going to go to Kansas or even what time I left for work. I had to leave out so much of "regular life stuff" because I was afraid to expose anything about where I was going or what time or with who. It was WEIRD. I felt like I had to censor my whole flipping life when I wrote. When he had me on the floor and had the gun at my jaw, he even said, "You better watch what you write, people read your blog and know where you are and when you're gone." It was an implied threat, but it made me think about the possibilities. So, I worked hard to keep my posts generic, and I wrote less. And I honestly don't know if I'll ever be as open as I was when I started blogging. I get on facebook more, although I don't write on it much. The day before the trial I wrote a little post asking for positive energy and prayers and good vibes and 20 people sent me posts back. That was the day facebook won me over. I have to say this about facebook...you get to pick your friends (the people who can view your page), everyone is so fucking nice, and no one swears (damnit). Hahaha. I also am looking forward to blogging more. I love to write the long posts, the funny stories and the six paragraph "real life stuff" that isn't so much a part of facebook. So, although I'm leaving out a lot of that story, you get my drift. It was big and scary and it has changed the way I think about some things. And now I get to move on.

Today is my birthday. Barry is making me a cake. It's a process. Last night he started (from scratch) and used the cake pans my mom used to use. They're a bit smaller, 8" instead of 9", and after twenty minutes in the oven, smoke started to waft into the kitchen. The batter was overflowing onto the bottom of the oven. They never cooked and we poured the batter down the drain (okay, it made me laugh). This morning he started again, made three layers, not filling the pans up so full, and they fell. The layers are like 8" wide thin chocolate pancakes. He was a little bummed but I think they're going to be nice and tasty. Plus, more frosting fixes anything! And Barry made me a cake! I love it when people make you a cake on your birthday.

Facebook won me over AGAIN today....so many people wished me a happy birthday. I LOVE all you hoo-ha's wishing me a happy day. I am SO lucky and blessed to have you. THANK YOU. I'm in the process of deciding on my birthday resolutions, which will be forthcoming. I am planning on the best year ever.

Here's another story, that I would have been writing so much about over the last few months but I didn't want to give away my whereabouts. I went to NEW YORK CITY! All last week I was in New York. I believe I did already mention it, but my book, Game, was a finalist in the Patterson Poetry Prize. They asked me to read in New Jersey. So my son and my niece Suzy and her two girls who are Jay's age, and my sister and I flew into JFK last Tuesday. Here's the run-down...

Day one....five hour flight.
Awesome hotel in midtown Manhattan. Ate my first $16 hamburger at Smith & Wollensky. Walked around. Went to Rockefeller Center. Watched people ice skate. I tell you, that rink is so much smaller in person. Snowing in NY.

Day two....We were on the Today Show (check it out on my facebook). Tour bus. Ground Zero. Lunch at Olivas. Excellent pizza! Mary Poppins on Broadway. Limo Ride through Central Park, by the Met, Guggenheim, Lincoln Center. Ate at Raffles. Food is expensive!! Five dollars for a kids chocolate milk!

Day three....Times Square. M&M world (damn kids). Empire State Building. The Strand Bookstore. Battery Park. Staten Island Ferry. Looked at the Statue of Liberty. Subway to Harlem! Dinner at Sylvias (Excellent dinner!!). Here's a short story about Harlem. I live in a very white bread place. My son goes to a very white bread school. We walked about 5 blocks from the subway to the restaurant. Jay was nervous. He had never been in the minority. Never.

At one point he looked at me and said "I hate this. Can we just go back to our hotel?" and I could see his discomfort and even a little fear. I said, "It's okay. No one is going to hurt us here." We got to Sylvia's and sat down and ate an incredible dinner. Jay LOVED it. He relaxed and had fun. He interacted with black people. I mentioned that I think it's good to get out of ones comfort zone sometimes. It WAS good. I talked about how we're all just the same people, going to jobs, having families, eating dinners, trying to make it and pay bills and coping the best we can. We walked back to the subway after dinner and all three of the kids looked at the lights and the architecture and the people with less fear and more wonder. I LOVE that kind of situation. I wish my life held more cultural diversity. But it was so great to stretch ourselves a little and see other lives and places and people. Even if it was a very small moment, it was still an enlightening one.

Day four......The Natural History Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wow. Over four hours in each one. More subway. Mimi's for dinner (Italian). I LOVE The Met!

Day five....UGH! My reading was cancelled. Snow in New Jersey. Big Storm in D.C. Man, was I disappointed. I was going to get to read with Li-Young Lee and Molly Peacock. I was going to get to sell my book. I was going to get to listen to poets that I've read and admired for years. I was going to thank the small presses, especially my publisher, Two Dogs Press, because without small presses, it's hard to get published. I was going to live in the winner's circle of poetry for a couple hours. I was sad, and I had to stop myself from dwelling on the thought that my one big chance to get my book out there was gone. Maybe it was gone. Maybe that would have been it. But, I had to work on letting it go. I still am. Instead, that day, we went to St Patrick's Cathedral (wow), FAO Swartz (damn kids), and the NBA store, and Macy's and Saks and The Magnolia Bakery. It was still good. It was NEW YORK CITY!!!!

Day six....flew back to L.A., got on the Amtrak to Flagstaff. In the L.A. Grand Central Station, Jay and were sitting there waiting for the train. There was a woman who was ranting a bit. Okay, she was freaking crazy. Hollering at folks, dropping her luggage, demanding someone haul her down to the train. "Well Jay, I have to say one thing, there are a lot more crazy people in L.A. than Flagstaff" I say to my son. Fast forward to getting off the train in Flagstaff. I hear a woman's familiar voice. "I am not getting off the train" Rant, rant rant. Etc. Etc. Demanding service, dropping luggage. Yes, it was her. She lives in Flagstaff.

Yes.

2010-01-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. It's been forever. But not tonight, okay? I'm watching It Might Get Loud with Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page. Happy 2010. It's going to be a good one. My resolutions will be forthcoming....I make mine on my birthday as opposed to New Year's Eve. I see birthdays as our own private New Year's. I'm anxious to blog again. I have some ideas. I have a few stories. In the meantime, here's a picture of my fridge......

Rock on.

Missing Bumble

2009-12-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of my Christmas cookies. I see pictures everyday in the checkout lane at Safeway of beautiful, decorated Christmas cookies. The red of Santa's suit is a perfect fire engine red, and you can make out a perfect Cupid's bow mouth and sparkling black frosting eyes. Well, I will have none of that! I will decorate my Christmas cookies with a strange chartreuse frosting and even though they were cut out with cookie cutters, I dare you to guess what shape they're supposed to be. The single cookie here is, in fact, Santa. There is no mouth or sparkling eyes. There is no discernible suit or smart black boots. My Santa cookie is a big blob of off purple. Is this appetizing? Hell, no. Is it yummy. Yes, quite. Who makes those perfect cookies? Is it that same woman who haunts me? The one with time on her hands and a dust free house? It would take me half an hour to decorate one flipping cookie that precisely. Who HAS that much time? Not me. I could use the excuse that my cookies look this way because I'm so busy this year but honestly, my cookies always look like this.

Bumble. I have to say I've been a bit down from my non-decorating Christmas. Here's the deal....my house is scattered. There is no floor in the living room. The furniture is in a big fat pile in the center of the room. I have 27 piles of paperwork and it's all covered by an inch and a half of dry wall dust. My Christmas boxes are packed in the attic. I have no tree, no ornaments, and no Bumble. Bumble is the abdominal snowman in Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer. The Christmas cartoon with Burl Ives voice and the elf who really wants to be a dentist. The misfit toys for cripes sake!! So, I always have a little Bumble scene out, along with a Fimo clay Nativity I made two decades ago and some Styrofoam ornaments my mom made. This year - nada. Here is a Bumble shot from a few years ago. How can you not be filled with Christmas joy just gazing at Bumble's foolish crazy grin?!

Oh. and I've got a cold. I have drainage and sinus pain and I make gross noises and I cough. Yuckkkk! And, I haven't even written my Christmas letter yet. For five years I have written a superb Christmas letter. I may have given up Bumble this year but the letter gets written and mailed this weekend. What happened to November?!?!

Okay, I think I've complained enough for one blog. Now I'll tell you some of the things I love. I love breathing. I love roly polies. I love my man and I love my son. I love morning coffee with cream, and reading the paper. I love that I have a bed. I love prime rib and Yorkshire pudding. I love this temporary wreck of a house. I love my town. I love the pumpkin loaf at Starbucks. I love my family. I love Christmas even though the Grinch of circumstance took away everything, even the roast beast. I love Trader Joe's chocolate almond bar. I love clean bathrooms. I love having a day off. I love getting on a train. I love the necklace my dad made me years ago out of weird dried oranges that he drilled holes through and strung on fishing line. I love to get in the car on a cold day and turn the heater up real high. I love my friends. I love Bumble and I will just have to see him next Christmas.

Moving into winter

2009-12-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

My house is a mess. I don't mean that it's a little dusty (which would be normal) or that the furniture doesn't match (normal too). No, I mean that the interior doors are mostly all off, sheet rock is visible and very few electrical outlets have covers. We've been having a remodel done, pushing out the back of the house 10 feet, and it's been two months and I wannnnt mmyyyy hooussee bbbaack (simulated whine). It's going to be very cool when it's finished....it just seem like it's never going to be finished.

Starbucks is the same. You know those sleeves? The cardboard holders that go around the cup? We have to put them on the large (venti) drinks but often folks ask for them with the smaller sizes. I call those people "sleeve wienies" because, come ON, those drinks are not that hot. And it wastes paper. Damn tree killers. So, the other day I went in and got a small (tall) drink and walked out and MAN, that thing was hot. I refuse however, to admit that I needed a sleeve. I did not (plus, some people get them for cold drinks and THAT really pisses me off).

Miscellaneous checklist of my life.....Check out my last post if you live in my town - the Coconino Center for the Arts is having it's holiday sale this weekend and Barry's teapot is on the flyer. I give my final in my community college classes on Monday and then I'm done teaching for a month. I just received six bottles of wine in the mail (winewoot.com)! The chickens are NOT laying much as it's cold and dark here. I have a car (Honda Pilot) that seats 8 but there is only room for the driver right now because my car is FILLED with junk (chairs, Christmas gifts, books, etc) that don't fit in the house right now. Thanksgiving was nice.

Actually, I'm feeling a bit flat. You know that feeling? When you don't feel ungrateful but you're not really feeling grateful either? When you aren't being active or dynamic? When there's no great book on your nightstand, and your kitchen is too cluttered to cook a fun dinner? When your creativity bone seems to be broken, or at least sprained? Yeah, that's me right now. Ebb and flow. Ebb. And. Flow.

Yesterdays news

2009-11-11T18:42:00.000-08:00

The reason I had no picture of the beautiful vase (see yesterdays post) is that it was NOT a vase but a teapot. My bad. And I do have a picture and it is on the flyer. And a big thank you to the Coconino Center for the Arts for putting it on the flyer. And just to clear up matters in my own household....I LOVE having three kilns in the backyard. Really. Heck no, it doesn't bother or upset me in the least. No, really. I absolutely was NOT complaining. Hahahaha.

Quick and Easy

2009-11-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

This is a funny site. Some guy just writes down a sentence or two from his 73 year old dad. It's simple and will make you laugh...

http://twitter.com/Shitmydadsays

Here's Jay on Halloween. I am so wearing this mask next year.

Speaking of my son, he was voted onto the Allstars team for basketball. When he got the phone call, he just grinned for hours. It's been his dream for YEARS and he would always ask me, mom, do you think I'll ever be on the Allstars team? and I would always say, No, you're just not agressive enough on the court, and then this year he starts going for rebounds and BAM he's on the team. We go to Anaheim in April for the big game. Cool.

Barry's wonderful pottery got into a show here called It's Elemental. He entered this very beautiful vase that I do not have a picture of. Check out the Barry ware (He's going to HATE that I wrote that) at kindkilnpottery.etsy.com. We have three, yes, three, kilns in the backyard.

I have all my Christmas shopping done. Sweet.

How To Like It

2009-10-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

So, here's the big damn deal (Maggie says that phrase sometimes and I think it sounds like poetry). My blog has gotten boring (to me). b.o.r.i.n.g. Boring. Fucking boring. Hahahaha. I forgot how much I like to swear. I'm a happy swearer. I only really cuss when I'm feeling good. Or silly. Or for wild emphasis. And to give myself credit, and to let y'all know how responsible I am, I do not swear in front of children or nuns.

I've read over the first year of this blog and it was MUCH more busy and interesting. Oh, and guess what, I wasn't working. La-de-da, I was being creative every day. Or, taking care of my beautiful mom. Or, in a crummy relationship with a scary man. So, in a nutshell, I was motivated a lot to live, to create, and to go do things to get out of the house. My life has actually improved a LOT since then. There was quite a bit of upheaval and grief. But I also had bunches of time to paint furniture and write. Maybe someday I'll have more free time, but maybe I won't, so I guess I better start being fun and interesting again in a hectic world so I can write better blogs. Maybe I should just start being fun and interesting again whether I write a blog or not. I always said I WAS NOT going to be the blogger that writes about when I'm having breakfast (THAT'S for Facebook. Hahaha) so I need to get to work.

(Boring. Really? Am I overthinking? Is it boring to me because it's MY stuff and so retelling it seems redundant? Is it my own self-doubt that barges in? Is it that no one ever comments so I don't even know if anyone is READING my boring content? Is it from being told as a child donotbragorinflateyourself so as a result I cannot find my own life worthy enough to be written down? Do most people think too much?)

I love when someone has their ipod on with headphones in their ears and they sing out loud by accident. Actually, I like to do that myself too. I have the worst voice EVER and it's fun to sing when I have earphones in because then I CAN"T HEAR MYSELF. Other people around me look panicked and embarrassed, thinking, omg, she doesn't realize she's singing and it sounds so HORRIBLE but folks, I know. Believe me, I know.

i LOVE teaching poetry. I think that could be my calling. I just don't get to do it much. Budget cuts at the community college leave me with one class a year, whereas it used to be one class every semester. And I'm pretty ensconced in Flagstaff (happily) and even if I could get a swell job teaching somewhere else, I don't want to move anywhere right now. So, I teach it when I can. I think I'm pretty okay at it. Here are a few real comments from anonymous students that showed up in my evaluations....Divine makes me smile at the clouds and Jill is an amazing teacher and really great course and I'm going to take this beautiful class again because Jill has great in-class exercises and assignments and I feel like a poet and my very favorite, Jill is nice and pretty and fun and I like her.

I did not have to pay those students very much at all to say those things.

But I don't think it's my calling because of those comments. I just LOVE it. I feel like it's a mix of making people feel safe and letting them express themselves and being creative all at once. When I'm teaching poetry I feel exactly right. Slightly giddy. In control of lightness. Able to guide with intuition. It's very cool. AND I get to introduce people to good poems......

How to Like It

These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let's go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let's tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let's pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn't been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let's go down to the diner and sniff
people's legs. Let's stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man's mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let's go to sleep. Let's lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he'll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he'll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let's just go back inside.
Let's not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich.
Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen.
And that's what they do and that's where the man's
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept—
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.

This poem is by Stephen Dobyns and although it is set in the fall (and it's close to winter now), I find it so beautiful and honest. In class we can spend a bit of time of this poem, figuring who/what the dog is, why the line breaks are where they are, and what other things the poem is saying to us. Where the poetic language lies. And simply, what we like and don't like. Don't you just love shine like small cautions against the night? Wow.

Yes, I Mention Rainbows

2009-10-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty mild week or two at Starbucks. Occasional bees, people talking incessantly on their cell phones, just the usual. Although I did have a couple come through yesterday that made me laugh. First, they blew right by the ordering box, while coming through the drive-thru. When they got to the window I said to them, Hey, you forgot to order, and the woman driving looked at me and said. Well, it was so confusing. There was no sign saying "order here." Hello!? Have you never been through a drive-thru? There's a big ole menu board, and then there's a dark box with a microphone under a big piece of screen? Yeah, you can order there! Of course I didn't say that. Hahahaha. So I inquire about where they're from and they tell me they're from Oregon and that they're heading to Sedona to see the Red Rocks Amphitheater. You know the big amphitheater that's built into the side of a mountain where all the really big bands play. Oh yeah, that's in Colorado. (I wanted to write hahahaha here but it sounds so mean....but hahahaha). I had to tell them. But I did feel kind of bad about the mix-up and ended up giving them a ton of information about the RED ROCKS of Sedona and where to go and some things to see, like the drive down Schnebley Hill Road. I hope they had a great day and didn't end up in Albuquerque.

I harvested and blanched all my root vegetables this week. I had turnips and beets and carrots and onions. I wouldn't have picked the onions yet except we had to move the garden boxes for the remodel. I'm kicking out the back of the house ten feet and it's exciting! B and I spent the weekend tearing up the back patio ourselves to save some money on it and the garden boxes have to go. My house is tiny so this will make it average.
There's just one thing I'm going to miss about the house as it is now. At certain times of day, the sun comes in through a skylight and makes these great rainbows in the bedroom. Well, the door to the bedroom is going to be sealed up in its current location and moved farther down the wall of the living room and the sun won't come in that way anymore. Damn. Now they'll be on the wall of the dining room so I guess they won't be gone FOREVER. Would it be worth the remodel to lose the rainbows? I don't think so.

During the remodel it is my mission, my goal, to SIMPLIFY. I want to clean out stuff! So my quote at the bottom of the page is going to be my motto. However, I am not making any promises.

Jay was sick with the flu for four days. I'm sure it was the Swine flu. That's what everyone says (would another hahaha be too much here?) I told y'all it was pandemic. I love my son. You know I do. We all LOVE our children. But four days of a "I'm too sick to go to school but not too sick to watch Sponge Bob" child will drive anyone crazy. Especially me.

Have I mentioned that I miss my parents? There was this unbelievable amount of unconditional love there. Not that I was a hard kid, or even a difficult adult (no, I wasn't, so stop saying that). But there was always a great love there. Today a girl at work looked at my ring and asked about it. It says "So, when do we dance?" on it. That was the last thing my dad said to me and I had the ring made to have still another thing to keep me aware of LIVING. I started to tell her about it and at the very last word, got a little catch in my throat. It surprised me a little. Suddenly I just saw him again, so clear and real, and man, I missed him. Now, we dance now.

If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. - William Norris,1834-1896

BTW

2009-10-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm still here!!!!!! But I have some quandaries to ask myself. How can I like my job and yet hate to work? How can I be a writer and yet not write for days at a time? Weeks at a time?!?! How can I love to cook and yet end up throwing a frozen pizza in the oven too many nights a week? Where does the time go, people?! What I would give to have my One Year of Opus back (See July '07 post). Oh well. Damn. I'll figure out these questions (and many more, such as, why would anyone carve a statue out of butter for the Kansas State Fair?) by next week. (Click on the above picture to see the Kansas State Fair Butter Sculpture 2009)

It's fall. My favorite time of year. I took this tree picture a week ago, when I noticed the first turned leaf on the tree. And now it's getting in the low thirties at night. Now all the leaves are red.

My garden is done for the year. Beautiful tomatoes, peppers, squash and zucchini. Corn was buggy, but my dad used to tell me to put mineral oil on the silk just as it was appearing and I didn't do it. My bad. Beets, turnips and carrots still in the ground and I'm going to blanch them this weekend for use in soup this winter. I did have a cool garden anomaly this year...it was this three bulb tomato. Yes, one tomato with three separate fruits. That's what makes having a garden worth it to me.

Now, I'm going to bed. I've had a very long work day, that included a frozen pizza and no writing. It also included my son coming home sick from school and college students who could not differentiate between there, their and they're. I have a long work day tomorrow too, which most likely will not include a frozen pizza but will most likely also not include any writing. I'm going to finish with this cool picture, taken on the front porch of my little house in Newton, Kansas. It's a praying mantis and they're supposed to be good luck. So, I'm sending you all good luck. Actually, I have to confess, I don't know if I can actually send good luck through a blog (although I'm always getting e-mails that claim to be able to do that, if I would only forward them on to 12 people and DO NOT BREAK THIS CHAIN) but if I can, then I'm saying you're going to have am amazing Thursday with wild luck coming out your ears (I think at least one of you WILL buy a lottery ticket and WIN).

By the way, the frozen pizza was just a symbol/metaphor. Barry made vegetarian Hamburger Helper. I guess the gist is simply that I love to cook but can't even find the time to decide on a flipping recipe, since I was at work at 4:30 this morning and didn't get home until 6:00 pm. Holy cow.

Bee good

2009-09-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

So, at Starbucks we have bees. Only at the drive thru window. They swarm around the trash that is about 20 feet past the window (where folks dump ALL THE TRASH THEY'VE ACCUMULATED IN THEIR CAR OVER THE PAST SIX MONTHS) and they often get confused and end up inside the drive thru. The area we're in is a little box. It holds two or three people, an espresso machine, cups, lids, flavorings, etc..... so when there are bees in there too, it's pretty crowded. Today I was enjoying the bees. As I would talk to people in their cars, I would watch the bees hang out by the straws and I'd look at their intensely furry yellow and black bodies. They're so cool. Their tiny brown legs are so busy and purposeful. They just want to slurp up a little vanilla flavoring and go put it in their honey (that sounded fun, yet slightly risque).

Well, I have no problem with bees. Bees never sting me. I'm not afraid of bees. There. I'm not afraid of bees. I like them, and apparently, they like me. I herd them out of the window with my hand, gently guiding them on their way back to the exquisite trash can filled with sugar products. So, later I volunteered to empty the outside trash. That can was overflowing with MacDonald wrappers and Burger King cups and BEES. There were at least three dozen little buzzers inside the bag. I tied the top in a loose knot, pulled it out of the metal can and carried it outside the store and around to the dumpster (glamor, my job, hell yes) and just as I about got there I noticed a bee crawling through the knot and WHAM, I got stung. I have to say, it hurt for a second. No welt or swelling. And it wasn't the bee's fault - it just wanted out of that bag. I pulled the stinger out and went back inside for another four hours of coffee immersion. And bee watching. But most everyone else, especially customers, were terrified of these bees. The involuntary movements that come from a fear of flying insects is truly hysterical to watch. Hands flapping randomly in the air, coffee flying into the back seat, Hahahaha. I kept thinking, everyone (who is not allergic and will DIE from bee stings) should just get stung. Once. It's nothing. Just get stung and get over it.

It made me think of when I was in my twenties and, for some odd reason, was deathly afraid of getting beaned in the head with a Frisbee while at a concert. A very specific fear, but a fear nonetheless. I almost never went down on the floor. I saw Foreigner, Berlin, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty all from the safety of the seats. I danced in my chair to Golden Earring, The Rolling Stones and Bob Seger because I was worried about some lone Frisbee arcing through the air and meeting up with my skull. My fear eventually caught up with me. I was in California at Venice Beach and there, while walking on the sand, a Frisbee did indeed come out of nowhere and hit me right square in the back of the head. Yes, it hurt. I was momentarily disorientated and may have fallen to my knees. But I didn't bleed or die. And I was never afraid of it again. I saw The Scorpions and The Cars and several 80's hair bands that I'm too embarrassed to admit to from the floor after that, pushed and crowded and Frisbee fear free.

Mom

2009-09-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

I never wrote my mom a note on her birthday. It was August 24th. It's not a required thing but since I wrote a letter to my dad, it would have been nice (and fair) to write one to my mom too. So, since I don't really know if time even matters in the after/life, I'll write one today.

Dear mom,
I forgot to write you on your birthday. I did think about you. I think about you often, but on your birthday I thought about how it would have been to have you around without the Alzheimer's. Right now I'm in Newton, Kansas. Yesterday, Jay and I went to the Historical Society. We talked with some folks who were so kind and friendly. It's one of the things we love about Newton. The Historical Society is in a three story building (plus basement) that was built in 1906. The stairs are old dark burnished wood. The windows are etched in places and have peculiar latches that I can't always figure out. I told the woman upstairs (the one in charge of archives) about the bible I found after you died. The one that was given to you when you were nine years old. When you lived in Newton. We never knew that you lived here. You didn't remember it.

I looked up your parents (my grandparents) in the City Directory. There they were. It was somewhat shocking. You lived HERE. In Newton. I had several dreams right then, in the space of five minutes. I thought maybe the house I'd bought was the one you lived in as a little girl. If that wasn't true, I daydreamed that I would drive by your house and it would be for sale. That it would be restored (the kitchen at least...who wants an old dingy 1927 kitchen?), but that the original woodwork would be intact. That the lawn would be green and mowed, and that the house would be an exceptional bargain. That in the attic I'd find an old doll or a journal of yours, or that somewhere I'd find something that had been yours. I'd buy the house, and I'd visit and own the house where you had lived.

The first night I slept here on this visit, I dreamed about you. I never dream about you. You were wearing a yellow shirt, and you weren't memory sick. You were just my regular mom, and you knew me. I looked right at you and said, "I KNEW you'd be here." and I hugged you and you hugged me back. Man, it felt so real and good. Anyway, after Jay and I left the Historical Society we drove to the address of where you lived. It was sad. It was an old, run down house that hadn't been taken care of. Jay said, "well, I guess you don't need a picture of that." but I took one anyway. Shoot, I don't care about that house. But the thought of you being here, maybe walking down Main Street on occasion, playing in your front yard, going to the Sunday school that gave you that Bible all those years ago, that I like.

If you and I sat down together, I don't even know if we'd say much. I think we'd just sit on some couch and pull our legs up along side us and chat a little. Your hands were always so beautiful. Nice nails, long fingers, smooth and olive in complexion. You would always play with our hair, just brushing it back from our faces. You would touch our shoulders or drum your fingers along ours. You were just perfectly affectionate with all of us. You loved us all, but you weren't sappy or mushy about it. You were strong and capable. You were a great mom, and I'm not sure if we celebrated you enough. Since dad's birthday was first, he seemed to always get the parties and the hoo-ha. And you were the one that held everything together. Don't think I don't know that. Don't think we didn't all know that. We did. So I'd like to celebrate the little girl who lived in Newton, with the beautiful hands, who grew up to raise a good family, and brush the hair out of all our eyes, and who showed us girls how to love, and care, and be strong and capable. Happy Birthday, a little late.

Welcome Isabella

2009-09-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

This is going to sound funny, but I'm sleeping with Suzy tonight. I'm in the spare room at my sister's house. Suzy, my niece is lying about a foot away, asleep already. We've been sporadically sharing the same bed for 35 years now. We are just a few years apart and our birthdays are on the same day. We are in Phoenix today because her sister, and my niece (Hi Annie!) just had a beautiful baby girl, Isabella. And here we are, sleeping in the same bed, talking late and laughing. When we were little, I can remember lying in the dark, finally quiet and near sleep, and out of the blue she would ask me some goofy question, or make a comment that was completely off the wall. It happened so often that after a while, I would just start to giggle anytime I slept next to her because I was waiting on that voice in the dark.

I used to do this horrible thing to her. I had moved from Kansas to Phoenix when I was 21 and I lived with Suzy, her mother (my sister), my niece, Ann, and my nephew Neal. I worked late and would come in around midnight. Suzy and I shared a room and had a bunk bed and I would tap her on the shoulder and say (she was still in high school and on the volleyball team, which had practices at 5:00 am) Hey! Your alarm didn't go off! It's 5:15! Get up! and she would jump out of her bed and run in to the bathroom and get in the shower. She still talks to me. Amazing.

Annie had a baby. Her first. She is the baby and now she had a little girl, Isabella (Izzy) who is the youngest of that generation of kids. Jay loves her. It was really cool to see them all together. Izzy is filled with one day old babyness; strange funny noises, ability to curl up into a tiny ball, and itty bitty fingernails. The kids just want to hold her and stare at her little face and touch her soft head. Everyone is very happy about the new baby. Suzy's kids, my boy, and Annie's new baby. They're good kids. The future is coming fast.

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the
universe, a moment that will never be again. And what
do we teach our children? We teach them that two and
two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them what they are?

We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that
have passed, there has never been another child like you.
Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.

You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.
You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.
And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is,
like you, a marvel?

You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy
of its children.
--Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

We Love a Sale

2009-08-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

I bought a Dutch Apple pie from Coco's tonight. On special for 6.99. Yum. Jay loves apple pie and I figure six slices must be the equivalent of one serving of fruit. Hahaha. Anyway, as he was eating his pie he looked at me and said, "Mom, you'll probably laugh at me when I tell you this, but right now I feel like I'm in the flower department at Sam's club. Or even the flower department at the Dillon's store in Newton. That's how good I feel eating this pie."

Yes, I did laugh. Yes, it was that good.

Where am I?!

2009-08-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

So anyway, this is my day so far.......I wake up and I'm in L.A. at that nice little park off Sunset Blvd. I've been sleeping on a bench and there are children playing near by. I sit up and look around. I think I've been wearing the same clothes for a few days. The grass is a brilliant green and the sky is it's normal soft brown color. It's a beautiful day but I have no recollection of why or how I ended up in California on a park bench a mile from Beverly Hills. Was I abducted? Am I on a reality show? Am I dreaming I was abducted and put on a reality show? Did I eat too much chocolate and am suffering from extreme chocolate induced amnesia (this has actually happened to me several times)? Despite all these things going on, the only thing I can think about is...I DIDN'T BLOG FOR FOUR FREAKING DAYS. HOLY CRAP. Hahahaha. Not really. I'm still in Flagstaff.

I have no excuse. I just didn't FEEL like writing. Although for some reason I have thought about that little park a few times lately so I thought I'd work it in. I was quite fond of that small triangle of grass with the tiny playground nestled among all the Porsche's and Ferrari's. It was a good place to read a book, and of course, daydream that Johnny Depp (from 21 Jump Street fame) would walk up and ask me out to dinner. There are definitely a few things I miss about L.A., although It's been years since I lived there. I miss that house down by that park that looked like it was made out of white frosting. It had blue mosaic inlaid all over the place and there were swirls of very smooth stucco (I think) all over. I miss the beach when it rained, and Gladstones 4 Fish, which is still one of my favorite restaurants. Suzy and I would get there in the late afternoon and wait for a booth by the window and we would just look out at the ocean and watch the sun go down and we really felt like movie stars......plus, best clam chowder EVER MADE. I miss driving in L.A., through Laurel Canyon and over from the valley into Malibu. The pier was fun and interesting, and of course Venice Beach was a wacky destination if we only went there once a month. The L.A. Co. Art Museum was great. And, I could find any kind of food ANY TIME AT ALL. There are many things I wasn't wild about too, but that's another post. There are good reason why I'm here and not there. But my utopia is a conglomeration of all the places I've lived, and L.A. had some coolness I miss.

I start teaching school Monday. I like having poetry in my head. I like words. One poetry class and one English 100. The great thing about 100 is that we concentrate on perfect sentences more than perfect essays. It's so much easier to write an awesome sentence than an awesome essay. And since I'm a low achiever I have no problem being completely satisfied by that.

Starbucks chat........Now, you might not think It's a big deal to go through the drive through and order a Grande Mocha With An Extra Shot, and then when you get to the window and they hand you your drink, say, OMG, I MEANT TO ORDER AN ICED DRINK. You might think that you're the only one who has done this. This crazy act of forgetting it's HOT outside and you wanted iced and not steaming. You might even think it's as simple as pouring the hot drink over ice (Really? Could you really think that?). But it's not that simple. And you are not the only one who has committed this HEINOUS COFFEE DRINK ERROR. At least ten people before you and ten people after you have or will do this. Here's the solution! Just take the damn drink, go home, stick it in the fridge and in an hour, pour it over ice. There. If you don't order your drink right, just take some personal responsibility and buck up. Maybe you will learn to order the drink you want. Thank you.

I'm writing a book. That's all I have to say about THAT. I will never speak of it again until it becomes available at your local bookstore.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry,
without a certain unsoundness of mind.
--Thomas Babington Macauley (1800-1859) English politician

Groovy, man.

2009-08-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm watching a special on the History channel about Woodstock. Wavy Gravy, Ritchie Havens, Country Joe and the Fish, Santana. Sly and the Family Stone, Abbie Hoffman, Janis Joplin. I know some of you remember it. People CHANGED the world. I love seeing all the folks who are in their 50's and 60"s now that were there as teenagers. So many of them went on to make a difference (and yes, so many of them overdosed and didn't even make it to 30). What an energy there was then. Not just Woodstock but that whole era. I was on the tail end of it but those periods of great change are very fascinating to me. Human rights, Vietnam, Martin Luther King. And Woodstock. Every person between 15 and 30 needs to watch this special so you can thank all the people in their 40"s, 50's and 60's for making it a little easier to speak your mind and grow your hair and be free (and smoke pot). Watch it.

Woodstock

By the way, Country Joe MacDonald from Country Joe and the Fish looks like a high school principal now.

True That

2009-08-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

Barry had a birthday. Here's what I got him.

Here we are using it.....

You can never go wrong with the silly straw.

faux hawk

2009-08-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

I learned how to get pictures off my camera. Here are the haircut pictures. (if I ever write the word "pics" there is something wrong with my head and someone should call a doctor. I don't know why but some words are just WRONG to me.) Anyway, here's the haircut that is STILL inspiring irritation in my house.

I had a bad haircut myself once. Actually it was a perm and a haircut. J.C. Penney's, fourteen years old. They cut off all my hair and permed it into a big puff ball. I was wearing a hooded sweater and I left the salon in tears with my hood over my new hair. I got over it...but I still remember it. I wish I had pictures of THAT.

Confession

2009-08-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

I was not really on vacation. Hahahaha. I was lazy. Also, I wanted to refresh you on some great quotes. Mostly, I was lazy. I have several stories to relate but they include pictures that are still in my camera or phone and I'm too lazy to hook up the cords and hit "import." There's the "Haircut" and there's the "Barry's Birthday." and they both have photo input. But......

Jay got a faux hawk. This is a haircut that is not a mohawk but resembles one. Here's my conversation on THAT over the last couple days......

Jay - (Tuesday afternoon right after haircut) - I LOVE my hair!!!!
Me - Me too!
Jay - (In thirty minutes) - I HATE my hair.
Me - Why? It looks great!
Jay - It's all flat now. Everyone at school will HATE it.
Me - It'll be fine.
Jay - (Right before bed) I LOVE my hair.

Jay - (next morning texted to me at work) I HATE MY HAIR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me - (No response)
Jay - (Noon, when I get home) - Did you get my text? I hate my hair. It's stupid.
Me - Yes, I go your text. It's not stupid, it's just a haircut. It'll grow out. And it looks good.
Jay - Really? Are you being honest?
Me - Yes, it's good!
Jay - (An hour later) - I LOVE my hair! I need stronger gel.

Jay - (After a gel run to Target) - I love my hair.
Me - Good.
Jay - (An hour later) - I hate my hair. I bet 60% of my class will hate it.
Me - Okay, stop now. It's just hair. Anyway, I bet only 15% will hate it.
Jay - Yeah? Who? Who do you think will hate it?
Me - No one will hate it. It's cool.
Jay - I'm going to be so embarrassed. It's too short.
Me - It makes you look mature.
Jay - (Right before bed) - I love my hair.

Jay - (This morning) - I HATE my hair. I'm going to wear it wet because it looks longer.
Me - No you're not. Stop grousing about your hair.
Jay - I hate it.
Me - (No response)
Jay - (Several hours, and three different gel applications later) I LOE my hair.
Me - I'm going to bed now.

Part II

2009-08-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Jill is still on vacation. Today is the second half of "favorite quotes." Enjoy.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

in dwelling, live close to the ground.
in thinking, keep to the simple.
in conflict, be fair and generous.
in governing, don_t try to control.
in work, do what you enjoy.
in family life, be completely present.- Tao Te Ching

If you want to change some things in your life, you have to change some things in your life. This is because if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten - unknown

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein

The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, Someone to love, and Something to hope for - Alexander Chalmers

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.
--Anne Sexton

Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge.
It's too high! Come to the edge! And they came,
and he pushed...... and they flew.
-- Christopher Logue

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about
to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle
in the way, something to be gotten through first, some
unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to
be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me
that these obstacles were my life.
-- Alfred D. Souza

Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or
polishes us up depends on us.
--Thomas L. Holdcroft

What will you do with your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver

"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather--who died peacefully in=
his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car."
--Author Unknown

"Happiness depends upon ourselves."
Aristotle

"It's not having been in the dark house, but having left it that
counts."
Theodore Roosevelt

"Keep on sowing your seeds, for you never know which will grow -
perhaps it all will."
Ecclesiastes, 11:6

"Question: What do you see yourself doing five years from now? Answer:
I have no idea. I've never had a career plan and never will. I just
always make sure that I'm doing something I love at the moment, and I find
out where it takes me. I float downriver, then I wake up and say, 'Oh,
here I am. I've had a swell float.'"
Diane Sawyer, interviewed in US Magazine, September 1997

"Earth's crammed with Heaven."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
From Chapter 8, Giving

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things
seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see
possibilities - always see them, for they're always there.
--Norman Vincent Peale

Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the
answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in
good company.
--Rachel Naomi Remen

"I imagine that yes is the only living thing."
e.e. cummings

part I

2009-08-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

Jill is on vacation and has left a list of her favorite quotes to publish in her stead. Please enjoy. She will return day after tomorrow.
--- The Editors

You may not be responsible for being down, but you must be
responsible for getting up.
--Jesse Jackson

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by
risking, by giving, by losing.
--Anais Nin, Writer (1903-1977)

I could not believe in a God that could not dance.
--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs - ask yourself what makes you
come alive, and then
go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
---Harold Whitman

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
'thank you,' that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a
horrible warning.
-Catherine-

Your work is to discover your world
and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
--The Buddha

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't
blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing
well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun.
You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with
our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we
know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like
the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor
does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is
my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just
understanding. If you understand, and you show that you
understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
--Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Master

I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder to each
other than we are. How much the world needs it! How
easily it is done!
--Henry Drummond (1851-1897)

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means
an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not
without doubt but in spite of doubt.
--Rollo May

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but
you can do something about its width and depth.
--H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with
the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with
the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because
someday in life you will have been all of these.
--George Washington Carver

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to
do is keep on walking.
--Buddhist Saying