Weblog 62
April 15, 2007~ 8:00am
Yesterday was Mr. Bill's big fourth birthday bash. It was a FIREMAN'S THEME.
They did drift off to tricycles and the sandbox too, but I'd have to say their roles as firemen took precedence. The 'piece-de-resistance' was when an honest to God, REAL firetruck pulled up to the front of the house. Even though I knew Holly had arranged this for 1:30 in the afternoon, it was still such a thrill to see those lights flashing and the 'ooga ooga' sound of the horn. The South Baldwin Volunteer Fire Department were SUPER DOOPER in their willingness to provide the party entertainment. They gave all the kids a tour of the truck, let them take a 2 block RIDE back to the firehouse, then gave them an inside tour there. They came home happy with their gifts of frisbees, plastic fire hats, a coloring page that showed 'what to do in case of FIRE'- and real fire or no-- they all glowed.
Bill was smitten with the firemen. He nearly trembled with excitement, having had many hours in front of the TV watching his 'Rescue Heros' cartoons, so that when they were ready to pull away, Bill had to run back up to the firetruck to say, "I......I LOVE YOU GUYS!" - then he asked for hugs. LOL!!! He got them, too. Ah, kids have always been fascinated with firemen. I still remember one of my favorite childhood books of the Little Gold Books series, "Hook And Ladder Pepper".
(Update: the pictures are uploaded!)- and yes, he did go absolutely ga ga.
April 16, 2007~ 6:30pm
As the song goes, "what a difference a day makes. Twenty four little hours...." - I find myself plummeting from joy and full-hearted hope, to the depths that a national tragedy can bring. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!"
Why is it-- (and truly, nobody knows right now why this happened)-- but why is it that it's become so easy just to pick up a gun and kill people, ferchissakes? Why does that seem to be such a common theme in this country? Hell...statistics show that Canadian gun laws are actually looser- more people own them than we do here, the difference is: they are less apt to USE them on one another.
Why? This country... born of a revolution... spreading westward with all the cowboy "don't tread on me" heads of steam that made way for the Iron Horse and plowed up everything in sight, to CLAIM IT, OWN IT- (even people, a whole nation of them)- with all of us feeling entitled at every moment to every and any goddamned thing we want, when we WANT IT....if you ask me, that's where this comes from. The short-fused 'spoileds' and the axillary to that: the anger and jealousy of outsiders who see all this misbehavior and get pissed off at us, and want to take it from us.
Why does so much of the world hate Americans right now? It's worse than it's ever been (yes, it is- the coddled "Me Generation" has taken power) and the greed, the impatience, the imperious back-slapping, self-congratulatory smugness of the lot of us creates an "atmosphere" people, so that those who breathe it are eventually poisoned. Easy violence becomes a solution for everything and that's what the young are learning. (And don't ever be fooled into thinking that for one minute they buy any of the ideological 'politico-speak' that's hurled at them. Did you ever listen to Condoleezza Rice- the nervous tremor in the voice, the rapid 'I have to get this out. I hope they buy it. If I talk real fast, act real confident, no one will ask questions....."- nope, they don't buy any of the answers they're getting.) They're immersed in a nation of greedy, violent, avaricious children, who justify themselves at every turn. More and more of these horrific incidents happen because we're rotting from the inside out- and they are dying of it.
I wonder.......I just wonder what kind of a world we could have if we truly did share and not horde; not just with one another, but with all people- their welfare as precious as our own- one student's life as precious as one's own- desiring goodness for all of us, not just some of us.....I just wonder if maybe that's really what the designers of the world's 'last, best hope'- this 'city on the hill'- this land where we're promised so much by simply being truly democratic-- and 'of the people, by the people, for the people' (not the privileged few, but all)-- how differently this all may have turned out- this 231 year old experiment.
It's unimaginable to me, the grief of the families violent death has visited today. It makes me once again want to take a closer look at things. It's not an easy thing to examine this catastrophe because it is a symptom. We need to probe the wound, begin to stretch our minds to see why we so easily shoot one another.
It's not one campus, not one high school, not one small Amish schoolhouse where the impossible occurs- it is pervasive. Trends happen for reasons; we need to look closely at the 'whys'-- not just the 'hows' and 'whens' and 'whos' because it's everywhere-- in every traffic jam, around every water cooler, in every household fighting over the remote control, our fuse grows shorter and shorter. And oh....oh, I fear the long winter of the soul might be forever if we don't pay closer heed; if we don't start looking inward honestly at ourselves and our lifestyles, our priorities- "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY is as close as the nearest mirror.
Go have a look. I already know the fat cats who happen in here have stopped reading this entry at the first sentence, self-righteousness being a big symptom of why we are unheedingly going the way the French monarchs just before their little revolution.) But if anyone is uncomfortable with America right now, it's for those ears that this is written.
Think about it. Question. Don't be afraid to see. And do someone a good turn. Put the other guy first for a change, and for God sake, know you can live with less- and actually have more for everyone for all of time.
April 17, 2007~ 5:15am
I slept as though someone hit me over the head with a 2X4- the alarm jingling away frantically this morning as I peeled open the eyes in confusion and stared in rapt discombobulation at the clock face reading 4:30 a.m. as though it were the obelisk from "2001: A Space Odyssey".
I will say this though- I love the person (or persons) at nunnington.com- (thanks for the link.) That picture is wonderful, by the way- grabs my attention straight off.
(It makes me strangely happy on this dark morning.)
April 17, 2007~ 6:15pm
Since this week's blog began with my cheeriest intentions- (wanting to share the happiest parts of my world with you)- I've displayed grandson Bill prominently here.
But I simply HAD to share his baby sister too- the inimitable KAY!- whose picture snapped on Saturday puts me over the moon in love with her. I jotted down this poem, wanting to remember how "down-to-the-toes" good it makes me feel just to look at her!
Lost In Her Face
It's like
an anodyne
to stare
into that face-
it has the softness
of birdwings
underneath
I remember
from my
parakeet
who used to let me put him in my pocket, walk
around
the house, that tiny thing
living
next
to the heart, and she is
like that too- a small and graceful
bit of space
that holds
the face
the world
would heal
to look at:
rosy cheeks, a daub of pink
on the nose,
the eyes-
my
God- the eyes
lapis
lazuli, so
deeply blue that
when you
look at them, you don't
know
if you're falling into her- or she's
falling
into you, there is
peaceful communion
looking
at Kay's face.
I wish I were Renoir- he could
catch it
like
the sun
will catch the waves
and show us
movement, magic; what I know
is-
all
I know of
love
she already
does.
April 19, 2007~ 9:15am
Sent to me by email. Made me laugh because it's so darned true.
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS:
40-ish..................................49.
Adventurous..........................Slept with everyone.
Athletic................................No breasts.
Average looking.....................Moooo.
Beautiful............................Pathological liar.
Emotionally Secure..................On medication.
Feminist...............................Fat.
Free Spirit.............................Junkie.
Friendship first.......................Former Slut.
New-Age..............................Body hair in the wrong places.
Old-fashioned........................No B.J.'s
Open-minded.........................Desperate.
Outgoing..............................Loud and embarrassing.
Professional......................... Bitch.
Voluptuous...........................Very fat.
Large frame...........................Hugely fat.
Wants soul mate.....................Stalker.
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING WOMEN'S ENGLISH:
Yes.....................................No
No....................................Yes
Maybe...............................No
We need...............................I want
I am sorry.............................You'll be sorry
We need to talk......................You're in trouble
Sure, go ahead........................You better not
Do what you want...............You will pay for this later
I am not upset.............Of course, I am upset, you moron!
You're attentive tonight.........Is sex all you think about?
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING MEN'S ENGLISH:
I am hungry...........................I am hungry
I am sleepy............................I am sleepy
I am tired..............................I am tired
Nice dress..............................Nice cleavage!
I love you..............................Let's have sex now
I am bored............................Do you want to have sex?
May I have this dance?..........I'd like to have sex with you.
Can I call you sometime?........I'd like to have sex with you.
Want to go to a movie?..........I'd like to have sex with you.
Want to go to dinner?...........I'd like to have sex with you.
Your shoes don't go with that outfit.........I am gay.
April 20, 2007~ 7:00pm
As I was stopped on a hill this afternoon, and basking (more like baking) in the halted traffic, I glanced to my left at one of those changeable church signs with the plastic black letters, outside a small Presbyterian church. It said: "Encountering Christ", and right away, my mind slid back a few decades and I remembered the phrase as the title of an adult CCD class ('Confraternity of Christian Doctrine') that I'd taken long ago in my efforts to 'teach' high school students at a Catholic version of Sunday school (which I was ridiculous at...lol.) I remember relying too much on 'props'- music, hand-outs, 'worry stones'- and I kept watching the clock so I could go outside and smoke. All part of a much younger version of me; when I now look back on her now, it's with a feeling of fondness for that 'wet behind the ears doofus', trying to 'do some good' in the world.
But the phrase brought on what felt like a flashback acid trip of reminiscences about how 'loaded' the word 'encounter' was back in the 70's. (Anyone out there remember "Encounter Groups"---LOL---those free-for-alls made for bashing one another's egos and trying to get to the 'truth'?) It was trendy. A public social deconstruction thought of as 'healthy', but it was anything but that-- mostly folks tried to show how smart and intuitive they were by pointing out someone else's weaknesses.
The worst happened when those things would spring up during the course of a drunken party when everyone was babbling at once about this or that new psychological/social gizmo or other: Eckankar EST, P.E.T training (Parent Effectiveness Training), N.O.W., free love.....everywhere you looked, someone or other was trying to get you to open up, raise you consciousness or open your third eye.
Mix any of that with drink, and you have the makings of a bully. LOL!!!- and I should know. My one encounter with an Encounter Group happened at a Christmas party during the mid 70's when I was still binge drinking, taking writing classes from the local YWCA, classes in pen and ink drawing, stained glass, macrame'......everything but swimming in my efforts not to feel overwhelmed as a stay-at-home mother, but the only thing I really liked was solitary drinking.
From what I can remember, the Christmas party with the 'encounter' attached to it was a nasty smorgasboard of accusations countered with defensive justifications tossed back and forth. (I remember being particularly obnoxious by drunkenly suggesting to one fella', that deep, deep down, what he wanted was to sleep with me- and that's why he tried to be so intellectually superior; that he was very unhappy in his marriage, and I proffered that my looks intimidated him. LOL! Ah, the good old days....I was a true asshole.)
In that insular, silly and self-involved world, we were still decades away from the frightening globalism of today, with anyone a target for terrorism on an ever-shrinking, ever more-volatile planet.
I now divide life into 'Before 911' and 'After 911'...... 911 was my cherry. It is gone now. The denial and the David Lynch-ness of the 50's, the hedonism and innocence of the 60's, the over-indulgence and shallow disco of the 70's, the Republican, rising stock market era of the 80's-- finally the Clinton years, where things seemed pretty stable at least on the surface--all are gone.
Then the great black cloud of billowing smoke.
Encounter groups....what hogwash. Simple human kindness and decency is what we need most in interpersonal relating. Age has taught me many things, with that being the most valuable -- and to notice: to notice being alive. That sums it up.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Yesterday was Mr. Bill's big fourth birthday bash. It was a FIREMAN'S THEME.
They did drift off to tricycles and the sandbox too, but I'd have to say their roles as firemen took precedence. The 'piece-de-resistance' was when an honest to God, REAL firetruck pulled up to the front of the house. Even though I knew Holly had arranged this for 1:30 in the afternoon, it was still such a thrill to see those lights flashing and the 'ooga ooga' sound of the horn. The South Baldwin Volunteer Fire Department were SUPER DOOPER in their willingness to provide the party entertainment. They gave all the kids a tour of the truck, let them take a 2 block RIDE back to the firehouse, then gave them an inside tour there. They came home happy with their gifts of frisbees, plastic fire hats, a coloring page that showed 'what to do in case of FIRE'- and real fire or no-- they all glowed.
Bill was smitten with the firemen. He nearly trembled with excitement, having had many hours in front of the TV watching his 'Rescue Heros' cartoons, so that when they were ready to pull away, Bill had to run back up to the firetruck to say, "I......I LOVE YOU GUYS!" - then he asked for hugs. LOL!!! He got them, too. Ah, kids have always been fascinated with firemen. I still remember one of my favorite childhood books of the Little Gold Books series, "Hook And Ladder Pepper".
(Update: the pictures are uploaded!)- and yes, he did go absolutely ga ga.
April 16, 2007~ 6:30pm
As the song goes, "what a difference a day makes. Twenty four little hours...." - I find myself plummeting from joy and full-hearted hope, to the depths that a national tragedy can bring. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!"
Why is it-- (and truly, nobody knows right now why this happened)-- but why is it that it's become so easy just to pick up a gun and kill people, ferchissakes? Why does that seem to be such a common theme in this country? Hell...statistics show that Canadian gun laws are actually looser- more people own them than we do here, the difference is: they are less apt to USE them on one another.
Why? This country... born of a revolution... spreading westward with all the cowboy "don't tread on me" heads of steam that made way for the Iron Horse and plowed up everything in sight, to CLAIM IT, OWN IT- (even people, a whole nation of them)- with all of us feeling entitled at every moment to every and any goddamned thing we want, when we WANT IT....if you ask me, that's where this comes from. The short-fused 'spoileds' and the axillary to that: the anger and jealousy of outsiders who see all this misbehavior and get pissed off at us, and want to take it from us.
Why does so much of the world hate Americans right now? It's worse than it's ever been (yes, it is- the coddled "Me Generation" has taken power) and the greed, the impatience, the imperious back-slapping, self-congratulatory smugness of the lot of us creates an "atmosphere" people, so that those who breathe it are eventually poisoned. Easy violence becomes a solution for everything and that's what the young are learning. (And don't ever be fooled into thinking that for one minute they buy any of the ideological 'politico-speak' that's hurled at them. Did you ever listen to Condoleezza Rice- the nervous tremor in the voice, the rapid 'I have to get this out. I hope they buy it. If I talk real fast, act real confident, no one will ask questions....."- nope, they don't buy any of the answers they're getting.) They're immersed in a nation of greedy, violent, avaricious children, who justify themselves at every turn. More and more of these horrific incidents happen because we're rotting from the inside out- and they are dying of it.
I wonder.......I just wonder what kind of a world we could have if we truly did share and not horde; not just with one another, but with all people- their welfare as precious as our own- one student's life as precious as one's own- desiring goodness for all of us, not just some of us.....I just wonder if maybe that's really what the designers of the world's 'last, best hope'- this 'city on the hill'- this land where we're promised so much by simply being truly democratic-- and 'of the people, by the people, for the people' (not the privileged few, but all)-- how differently this all may have turned out- this 231 year old experiment.
It's unimaginable to me, the grief of the families violent death has visited today. It makes me once again want to take a closer look at things. It's not an easy thing to examine this catastrophe because it is a symptom. We need to probe the wound, begin to stretch our minds to see why we so easily shoot one another.
It's not one campus, not one high school, not one small Amish schoolhouse where the impossible occurs- it is pervasive. Trends happen for reasons; we need to look closely at the 'whys'-- not just the 'hows' and 'whens' and 'whos' because it's everywhere-- in every traffic jam, around every water cooler, in every household fighting over the remote control, our fuse grows shorter and shorter. And oh....oh, I fear the long winter of the soul might be forever if we don't pay closer heed; if we don't start looking inward honestly at ourselves and our lifestyles, our priorities- "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY is as close as the nearest mirror.
Go have a look. I already know the fat cats who happen in here have stopped reading this entry at the first sentence, self-righteousness being a big symptom of why we are unheedingly going the way the French monarchs just before their little revolution.) But if anyone is uncomfortable with America right now, it's for those ears that this is written.
Think about it. Question. Don't be afraid to see. And do someone a good turn. Put the other guy first for a change, and for God sake, know you can live with less- and actually have more for everyone for all of time.
April 17, 2007~ 5:15am
I slept as though someone hit me over the head with a 2X4- the alarm jingling away frantically this morning as I peeled open the eyes in confusion and stared in rapt discombobulation at the clock face reading 4:30 a.m. as though it were the obelisk from "2001: A Space Odyssey".
I will say this though- I love the person (or persons) at nunnington.com- (thanks for the link.) That picture is wonderful, by the way- grabs my attention straight off.
(It makes me strangely happy on this dark morning.)
April 17, 2007~ 6:15pm
Since this week's blog began with my cheeriest intentions- (wanting to share the happiest parts of my world with you)- I've displayed grandson Bill prominently here.
But I simply HAD to share his baby sister too- the inimitable KAY!- whose picture snapped on Saturday puts me over the moon in love with her. I jotted down this poem, wanting to remember how "down-to-the-toes" good it makes me feel just to look at her!
Lost In Her Face
It's like
an anodyne
to stare
into that face-
it has the softness
of birdwings
underneath
I remember
from my
parakeet
who used to let me put him in my pocket, walk
around
the house, that tiny thing
living
next
to the heart, and she is
like that too- a small and graceful
bit of space
that holds
the face
the world
would heal
to look at:
rosy cheeks, a daub of pink
on the nose,
the eyes-
my
God- the eyes
lapis
lazuli, so
deeply blue that
when you
look at them, you don't
know
if you're falling into her- or she's
falling
into you, there is
peaceful communion
looking
at Kay's face.
I wish I were Renoir- he could
catch it
like
the sun
will catch the waves
and show us
movement, magic; what I know
is-
all
I know of
love
she already
does.
April 19, 2007~ 9:15am
Sent to me by email. Made me laugh because it's so darned true.
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS:
40-ish..................................49.
Adventurous..........................Slept with everyone.
Athletic................................No breasts.
Average looking.....................Moooo.
Beautiful............................Pathological liar.
Emotionally Secure..................On medication.
Feminist...............................Fat.
Free Spirit.............................Junkie.
Friendship first.......................Former Slut.
New-Age..............................Body hair in the wrong places.
Old-fashioned........................No B.J.'s
Open-minded.........................Desperate.
Outgoing..............................Loud and embarrassing.
Professional......................... Bitch.
Voluptuous...........................Very fat.
Large frame...........................Hugely fat.
Wants soul mate.....................Stalker.
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING WOMEN'S ENGLISH:
Yes.....................................No
No....................................Yes
Maybe...............................No
We need...............................I want
I am sorry.............................You'll be sorry
We need to talk......................You're in trouble
Sure, go ahead........................You better not
Do what you want...............You will pay for this later
I am not upset.............Of course, I am upset, you moron!
You're attentive tonight.........Is sex all you think about?
DICTIONARY FOR DECODING MEN'S ENGLISH:
I am hungry...........................I am hungry
I am sleepy............................I am sleepy
I am tired..............................I am tired
Nice dress..............................Nice cleavage!
I love you..............................Let's have sex now
I am bored............................Do you want to have sex?
May I have this dance?..........I'd like to have sex with you.
Can I call you sometime?........I'd like to have sex with you.
Want to go to a movie?..........I'd like to have sex with you.
Want to go to dinner?...........I'd like to have sex with you.
Your shoes don't go with that outfit.........I am gay.
April 20, 2007~ 7:00pm
As I was stopped on a hill this afternoon, and basking (more like baking) in the halted traffic, I glanced to my left at one of those changeable church signs with the plastic black letters, outside a small Presbyterian church. It said: "Encountering Christ", and right away, my mind slid back a few decades and I remembered the phrase as the title of an adult CCD class ('Confraternity of Christian Doctrine') that I'd taken long ago in my efforts to 'teach' high school students at a Catholic version of Sunday school (which I was ridiculous at...lol.) I remember relying too much on 'props'- music, hand-outs, 'worry stones'- and I kept watching the clock so I could go outside and smoke. All part of a much younger version of me; when I now look back on her now, it's with a feeling of fondness for that 'wet behind the ears doofus', trying to 'do some good' in the world.
But the phrase brought on what felt like a flashback acid trip of reminiscences about how 'loaded' the word 'encounter' was back in the 70's. (Anyone out there remember "Encounter Groups"---LOL---those free-for-alls made for bashing one another's egos and trying to get to the 'truth'?) It was trendy. A public social deconstruction thought of as 'healthy', but it was anything but that-- mostly folks tried to show how smart and intuitive they were by pointing out someone else's weaknesses.
The worst happened when those things would spring up during the course of a drunken party when everyone was babbling at once about this or that new psychological/social gizmo or other: Eckankar EST, P.E.T training (Parent Effectiveness Training), N.O.W., free love.....everywhere you looked, someone or other was trying to get you to open up, raise you consciousness or open your third eye.
Mix any of that with drink, and you have the makings of a bully. LOL!!!- and I should know. My one encounter with an Encounter Group happened at a Christmas party during the mid 70's when I was still binge drinking, taking writing classes from the local YWCA, classes in pen and ink drawing, stained glass, macrame'......everything but swimming in my efforts not to feel overwhelmed as a stay-at-home mother, but the only thing I really liked was solitary drinking.
From what I can remember, the Christmas party with the 'encounter' attached to it was a nasty smorgasboard of accusations countered with defensive justifications tossed back and forth. (I remember being particularly obnoxious by drunkenly suggesting to one fella', that deep, deep down, what he wanted was to sleep with me- and that's why he tried to be so intellectually superior; that he was very unhappy in his marriage, and I proffered that my looks intimidated him. LOL! Ah, the good old days....I was a true asshole.)
In that insular, silly and self-involved world, we were still decades away from the frightening globalism of today, with anyone a target for terrorism on an ever-shrinking, ever more-volatile planet.
I now divide life into 'Before 911' and 'After 911'...... 911 was my cherry. It is gone now. The denial and the David Lynch-ness of the 50's, the hedonism and innocence of the 60's, the over-indulgence and shallow disco of the 70's, the Republican, rising stock market era of the 80's-- finally the Clinton years, where things seemed pretty stable at least on the surface--all are gone.
Then the great black cloud of billowing smoke.
Encounter groups....what hogwash. Simple human kindness and decency is what we need most in interpersonal relating. Age has taught me many things, with that being the most valuable -- and to notice: to notice being alive. That sums it up.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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