Petaluma Poetry Walk

Here's to the 10th year of the Petaluma Poetry Walk!

It only took me 7 or so of those years to get someone to join me on the trip. The PWG (Petaluma Writers Group) gals and I saw a few of the poets:
Maria M. Benet, Claudia Chapline, Gerald Fleming, Dorianne Laux, Sharon Doubiago, and Maria Mazziotti Gillan. We took a break while Diana di Prima and Geri Digiorno, Sonoma County's new Poet Laureate, read. Then the other gals called it a day, but I went home very briefly, said hello to my mother-in-law who was visiting, and turned around and went back out to hear David Bromige and Kate Braverman at Copperfields. (As much as I might honor my mother-in-law's ability to hold forth for extended periods of time, these particular poets were more inspiring.)

Also a treat today was getting a ride from one venue to another in a poet acquaintances' KMZ sidecar, a 1980's Kiev Motor Works vehicle. And yes, it was as fun as it looks.

So now? Now it's nearly 10:30 and I have a mountain of clean laundry on the bed to fold (or, more likely, shift), and a barely-written ghost story with the prospect of little free time tomorrow to write further. Ah well. These things happen, don't they? Yes, they do.

The Neighbors Leave

Our next door neighbors are moving. I pulled up to the driveway today and the moving van was finally there.

They put their house on the market about a month ago, around the same time that they bought the new place. They’ve been working on changing a few things in the new home, such as pulling out all carpeting and installing hard wood floors to help them in their battle against some fairly significant allergies. These changes have taken time, so as weekend after weekend went by and I saw no evidence of packing or pickups, I’d been able to fool myself into thinking that they weren’t really leaving. And so seeing that moving van today, and seeing all their friends and family like worker ants carrying things out of their house hit me really hard. Harder than I thought it would.

In particular, I’ll miss my friend Mary. Mary’s been a good sounding board, someone with whom I can talk about science or religion or politics, someone with whom I can laugh at the struggles inherent in being a mother while trying to be an independent adult as well. She has three children 6 and under. She has a PhD in molecular biology that she finished while she was pregnant with her oldest child. She’s active, fit, slender, and good-natured. And a month ago, just as she & her husband were signing papers for their new house, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It happened fast. Within a week, she went from having a cyst removed & checked (it was benign) and having a mammogram done, to surgery because of something the mammogram picked up, to the surgeon testing tissue during the procedure and then performing a mastectomy. She has started chemotherapy, and her mother is staying to help her, but she’s going to be fine. She’ll survive this.

What’s amazes me is not just the speed of the diagnosis and sudden thoroughness of the surgery—she said she was not going to mess around, she wanted to take care of it completely—what really amazes me is that it’s really the mammogram that her doctor recommended that has saved her life. Neither she nor her doctor would have found this cancer otherwise. Apparently, the first thing the surgeon did after surgery was ask Mary’s husband for her doctor’s name and call the doctor to say, “Hey, this? This was a good catch. A good one.”

Tomorrow is Mary’s birthday. She’ll be forty.

Next month, I’ve got an appointment for my bi-annual checkup – and even though I’m too young for them to “require” it, I’ll be getting a mammogram. Just, well, you know. Because.

The lights are off in Mary’s house and I think they’re all spending the first night in the new place, a couple of miles away: Mary, her husband, her three children, and her mother. I know I'll still be seeing them around, and we'll probably arrange playdates--and Mary knows that I want to help while she's recovering from treatments, in whatever way I can--but I'll miss having them as neighbors. I hope they’re all sleeping well.

Resolve

Happy Birthday D!!!

If he had a web site, I'd send you there to see it. But he does not.

Okay, I do recall having said that posting this late at night doesn't work for me.
Here's a note for myself for future reference:

POSTING THIS LATE AT NIGHT doesn't do anyone any good.

For example, I have typed the above sentences about 4 times. I keep falling asleep mid-word & typing nonsense each time. I am not making this up. I can't type more than 3 words without literally falling asleep with my fingers poised over the keyboard.

So that's all for tonight.

Thursday as Friday

Since I have tomorrow off, I'm up late. D & I watched I Heart Hucklebees (an existential comedy). A good flick if you're philosophically minded and can stand some irreverence.

That's all. Except to say that the kitten *may* have a home by Monday. We hope.

Calm, calm

Tonight, I went to a lecture at the girls' school about values, Waldorf education in general and our charter school in particular. The speaker is both experienced and insightful, and I've learned a lot from hearing her in the past. She talked about how telling a story in a CALM, SOOTHING way is so much better for small kids than teling it with wild hand gestures and over-the-top yelling or whining. She talked about how there is a link between memory ability in children and limiting media exposure, having good nutrition, and getting lots of sleep. I'll write more about it tomorrow - including the hipocampus stuff! If I remember to. If I get enough sleep.

Kitty is still here, but still only as a foster child, and we're just trying to find a good home for him. Apparently, it's the tail end of kitten season and all the shelters are either full up or have outbreaks of one disease or another. I spoke to one woman on a farm (our best lead so far) who said that she's been helping with strays for 50 years (she started bottle feeding kittens when she was four)and is a third generation animal advocate, and this has been the worst year for deaths from upper respiratory illnesses that she's seen. Swell.

We'll take the kitten to the vet tomorrow, I guess. I'd avoided it because I'd been told by one friend that shelters sometimes cover those expenses. And he's been eating and drinking fine and doesn't act sick. But at this point, since a private "adoption" is looking more likely than a shelter, but isn't in the immediate future, we need to get him officially checked out. The farmer might take him Monday if he is well enough according to the vet.

For those of you who are concerned, we have kept him quarantined in one part of one room away from other pets and have been washing hands thoroughly after every time we handle him. Just in case.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARE! I think everyone should visit her blog and wish her a happy birthday.

First night of yoga

Those of you who do not live in California can go ahead and chuckle as I live out the Left Coast stereotype and take a yoga class. I expect, however, that this is going to do me a world of good. Especially since I'm so unaware of my body and my breathing most of the time - too much in my HEAD, too much thinking, figuring, fretting and second guessing. (Take the first sentence of this blog as an example.)

The kitty still does not have a home. But there are a half dozen new shelter names I've been given in the Bay Area, so I can try those. In the meantime, we're all just enjoying his company without becoming *too* attached to him. As a consolation prize (diversion), the girls are switching rooms in the next few days.

And this just in...

For those of you who have been to Wales and are desperately missing the air there, try this. That's right, Wales in a bottle. A breath of air from Cymru proper, sealed for your convenience. The site says you can even specially request the Welsh smell/air that you want to purchase. What will they think of next?!

Finding a Home

Itty-bitty kitty, the kitten that R has dubbed "Yoda" because of its large ears and the shape of its eyes, does not yet have a home. But we're working every angle we can, from vets to shelters to foster homes and rescue programs, and something should pan out by this time tomorrow, I hope. Here's what s/he looks like, for the record.


What's not to love? Unless, like us, "love" is not the issue, but having reached our maximum-amount-of-pets-deemed-reasonable is.

Come on...don't you want a kitten?

Home from Camping

It was a great camping trip - possibly the best I've ever been on, and certainly the best that the girls have experienced. This was in spite of (not because of) the fact that D stayed home. He says he'll join us for the next one, and that's good enough for me.



More details tomorrow, including The Kitten's Tale, or How Bringing Home a Stray is Not Always the Best Idea, Even if it is Deemed Necessary.
PS - Does anyone reading this want a 3-to-4 week old cat?

Pre-emptive Post

Here it is again, folks. Tomorrow’s news, today.

Because we’ll be in the great off-line outdoors all day tomorrow, I won’t be able to blog tomorrow.

Let’s just say we’re having a great time, camping. The weather isn’t as cold as I’d been afraid it would be. The girls are having a blast. Everyone we’re meeting is soooo nice.

And I’m terribly inspired to write and write. The poems are just coming out of my ears.

Yeah.

Let’s just say that.

Making Each Day Count

Yesterday's blog post started out with a title like this one (or maybe it was this one, I just deleted it and am not too worried about figuring it out).

This is because yesterday I was going to write about the "gymnastics mom" who underwent chemotherapy in the Spring for breast cancer. And my neighbor, who is about to undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer. And D's friend Jane, who died after a long denial followed by a bitter fight with cancer a few years ago.

But then I realized I wasn't going to be able to do justice as a witness late last night. I need time to compose what I want to say.

This weekend, we're off camping, and I'm bringing paper and the hope that I can think things through, write things through, make the days count, and come back with something worth setting down here.

Sometimes We don't want to Jump on the Trampoline

(post renamed 9/9/05)

Today S fell apart into little sniffly crocodile tear pieces when it was time to join her gymnastics class, and no amount of tender loving persuasion, firm parenting, positive discipline, bribes or threats could entice her to either explain what was wrong, or join the group--even late, even with me walking her to the floor and sitting with her while the instructor and other kids encouraged her to play with them. Of course I didn't really bribe or threaten her. Don't be silly. I wanted to. But I resisted.

No, the closest I came to poor parental choices, once I gently, lovingly took her away from the building, was that I refused to let her listen to The Vile Village CD in the car because she (and R & I) are enjoying it so much, it felt like it would be rewarding her behavior. Not that her behavior was bad - no, of course it wasn't. Did I say it was bad? No. Rationally, I can see that she was just tired, and/or feeling overwhelmed by the large group of mostly older kids, and/or upset that her favorite teacher didn't happen to be there today. But I was also, myself (around whom my world turns) feeling frustrated and embarrassed and like an utter failure as a human being for not being able to coerce her into acting like a cheerful little group participant. That's all. No baggage, here. Maybe the teeniest overnight bag of spite, but no real
Samsonite.

Besides, after about two minutes, I turned on the CD.

But only once I had a better understanding of why she wouldn't go to class, and had her reassurance that if I let her (read: me) listen to the completely delightful Tim Curry narrated Limony Snicket book, she would not make her six-year-old face dissolve into a dramatic Mask of Tragedy next week just so she could skip gymnastics (which I have PAID FOR) to listen to more of the recording.

Someone else's poem

Today, another poem. Someone else's. I've floundered for something of my own to write, here, but find nothing nada zip zero goose egg. (And it took 1.5 hrs to post *this*, thanks to lack of inspiration and flakey DSL connections. Grr. Grrr grrr grrr.)


You can read more about Jane Hirshfield here, or check out this interview.

Optimism

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

-Jane Hirshfield

Making ratatouille

I had some solid ideas for a story I'm writing while making ratatouille this evening. The kids (mine and 3 others that had wandered into our house) were playing in the next room while listening to a book on CD. It was a picture of domestic bliss to an casual observer, but those with keen eyes would recognize that an Artist was at work at the same time.

Ha!

(And I am NOT talking about my cooking. Anyone who has ever had my cooking knows I'm not.)

I figure if I can master this art of chopping onions or eggplant while plotting a story or coming up with a good line for a poem, my work as a writer will have a strong backing.

And as an added bonus, my family will eat a lot more vegetables.

End of the long weekend

It's sad enough when Sunday night rolls around, but holiday night blues can be even worse.

D was at his gaming friend's house, because it's Monday.

The girls are sacked out, after a day spent cleaning (mostly R's room), playing and riding bikes to the local pizza place for dinner and then home again (they rode, I walked).

D's mother dropped by mid-afternoon, and the girls and I stopped our work for a couple of hours while she sat at the table and drank green tea and told me stories, and while I reminded myself that there is a reason for everything, even (maybe especially) those things which frustrate me.

She also gave me a wonderful birthday gift. She was raised in France by a Corsican mother and a Russian father. Every year for her birthday, her father (who had been in the Czar's cavalry) would give her a gold French coin which had been made into a pendant. Today she gave me on of the oldest ones she had, from 1862. It's beautiful, and I feel so honored that she would pass it on to me. Since D's sister and his mother have been estranged for something like 17 years, I may be the closest thing to a daughter she has now, and maybe that has something to do with it.

At any rate, I'm grateful for the gift, and for the gift of time that this whole 3-day weekend has been.

Currently listening to

A while back, before I went out and saw Patty Griffins with Dar Williams, Mary Chafin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin, I decided to buy a CD or two so I could be more "informed" at the show.

Unfortunately, I went out without a list of all their names & by mistake, instead of getting myself a Patty Griffin CD, got Nanci Griffith, Other Voices, Other Rooms.

It was a fortuitous mistake. I'd never heard of her, but the album includes covers of songs by Kate Wolf, Vince Bell, Townes Van Zandt, Frank Christian, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Ralph McTell, Tom Paxton, Woody Guthrie, Janis Ian, Jon Vezner, Buddy Mondlock, Gordon Lightfoot, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Harry Belafonte, among others. It's about the writing. And it's all excellent.

Paperwork

Cutting losses, letting go. I fed to the shredder a stack of rejection letters for poems from 1989-1997 a couple of days ago. After logging when they'd been sent, to whom they'd been sent, what the response had been, etc. Other writers might have had a bonfire and called it done, but I had to record, archive, make one more note before disposing of the artifacts themselves. Typical. I seem to let go in stages. Unlike D, who I've watched cold turkey it with cigarettes, motorcycles, scraps of plastic, and even (upon occasion) people.

Tonight, he and I are cleaning up the garage, closets. We're reveling in tidying up the chaos. It's a Virgo thing.

About two hours ago, I found a box of some cards & letters I'd kept for years. I mean, these things (just a small percentage of my excess paperwork) dated as far back as 1979 or so. Many of them seem to have been important to me to keep because they reminded me of missed potential, of things I should have done, connections I should have made. It's like a friggin' Box Of Guilt, for goodness' sake. Very healthy. Cards and letters from people saying wildly generous, loving, kind, flattering things about me and how important my friendship is to them, and I hardly remember caring about them at all. I must have done a good job *acting* like a good friend for these people without ever *feeling* like one.

I've gone through much of my life careful not to establish any real emotional connection with anyone, for fear that it would either bite me in the end, or cause grief to those around me, who as a result of my happy relationship missed out on some connection of their own. It's a long story, but at least I'm aware of it now. As are you, whether you wanted to be or not.

So I'm getting rid of much (but not all) of the correspondence in this particular box. Rest assured that if you're reading this, I didn't throw away your letters. I did, however toss cards I got for my 16th birthday, congratulations on my college graduation from friends of my grandmother. There are even love letters I'd forgotten I'd received from someone I spoke to maybe twice, in 1987. I don't even remember how I met him or where, (I hardly remembered his name), but apparently, our meeting prompted long emotional missives stating that he hoped I'd always be part of his life, even if as only a friend.

How soon they forget.

I mean, apparently, I also had a pen-pal in Goteborg, Sweden. Do I remember this? Not in the slightest. Yet, I have these letters here, in slightly amusing English. She wrote me at least three times, thanking me for my letters and answering questions I'd apparently asked. This was in 1979. I mean, I have never done drugs, but even if I did, I should have still had a pretty sharp mind in 1979, don't you think?

So what else have I forgotten? I used to be able to label the parts of the heart. I'm sure of that. And I think I used to be able to write pi to the 4th or 5th place. But the tricky thing about this sort of memory loss is that you can't be at all sure of what's missing. It's not like there's a blank place in my brain the shape of Annelie Olsson in Goteborg. What else is gone? Have I ever spoken formally at the White House? Was I, in fact, once an exotic dancer in Newark, NJ? I don't think so, but you can't be too sure. Maybe I did once complete a paint-by-number picture of Citation the racehorse. Perhaps I have driven a Peterbilt truck and just don't recall.

Maybe these things are only temporarily gone, though. Maybe they're what I will re-live during the long solitary confinement hours of my prison stay (when I'm convicted for crimes I've forgotten I committed). Or maybe they'll be the stories I tell my great-grandchildren when they visit me in the Home.

For all the things I once knew and have forgotten, though, there are some things that I never learned at all until now. Those are the lessons I hope stick.

What Will the Neighbors Say?

How does our country's poor response to our own disaster look to the rest of the world? I've actually been avoiding reading the international press coverage of Katrina. I'd hate to think of how amused by this Osama bin Laden must be. My only hope is that the current administration is learning something from all this.

Actually, right now I'm so angry at the President, I can't even write about it. I suspect a lot of that is me wanting to blame someone and him being an easy target for my frustration. I don't anger easily. And usually, I don't stay angry more than a few minutes, at the very most. But what I'm feeling now is a low-level smoldering ire that isn't doing anyone - me or Katrina's victims or the rest of the US - any good.

This weekend, D and I are going to go over our own home's emergency supplies to make sure they're adequate. We're going to do fire and earthquake drills with the girls. We're going to donate to the relief fund.

And I'll continue to pray for the victims of the hurricane: those affected directly, and the rest of us. Because none of us are free of the consequences.

But more importantly

As Julia reminds, me, those of us not in Louisiana or Missouri or Iraq, or Beslan or Kashmir or Gaza - those of us who just by quirky circumstance are, at the moment, safe - must not be immune to empathy, or succumb either to taking for granted the temporarily good conditions of our lives, or to letting petty annoyances become more significant than the true losses that are being suffered.

I pray that I don't find myself thinking that compassion is just too inconvenient, something better left by the wayside than carried on the journey.

Compassion is the journey.

Crabby

Whose idea was it to blog every day, again?
The same genius who agreed to work 5am-1pm, I guess.
Grrrrr.
I do like sleep so very much. And judging by my mood, I need to get a bit more of it.
Nightly.
Like, bedtime at 8:30 instead of 9:30, probably.
For a start.

I can be taught.
No.
Really.
I can.
Stop laughing.

ISS non-sighting

We'd heard from a friend of a friend that the International Space Station might be visible tonight (during a four minute window), and so without really verifying it, D & I stood outside and stared up for a while, hoping that one of the little lights above us would be closer than a star and farther away than an airplane. But we got nothing for our time except slightly stiff necks and a couple of very cool comet sightings.

"I hope that wasn't the space station," I said about the first streak of light across the sky.

"That," D pointed out, "Was probably the size of a speck of dust."



I heard this today on All Things Considered from Daniel Schorr. And it makes me think that so much of what we worry about is trivial - just little specks of dust zipping across our vision - compared to what else is happening in the world.



Last night (actually early morning, around 3:30 or 4am), I had a dream about trying to save a very young child who had drowned. It's much more complicated than that--my dreams usually are--but after I'd spent a long time analyzing what the whole thing meant, and after I thought I'd figured it all out, I heard the news about Baghdad on the radio on the way in to work. After that, all I could think about was how the boy had had dusty brown skin, and had belonged to a small village full of people who were also dusty brown, and very poor.

The dark side of the dream was the death, of course, and my feeling of being responsible for it. But on the other side, later in the dream, the boy's spirit returned to speak through other small village children. We had buried his body, but we hadn't entirely lost him.

Afternoons at home

This change in schedule has been lovely. I'm home early in the afternoon, I see my husband every day during his lunch break, the girls and I have a chance to unwind and do their own thing for at least an hour or two before we venture out to run errands or go to the gym, if we even do that. The days are starting to have a rhythm to them, and I am a creature happy with habit. (I had oatmeal and an old-fashioned non-electric drip coffee for breakfast and a baked potato with melted cheese, bacon and Ranch dressing (!) every day for something like 3 months straight. This was probably 16 years ago, mind you, but still... during that time, I wrote tons. I think the routine freed me to be more creative.)

So I'm hopeful (let's say "cautiously optimistic") that with the longer afternoons, I can tackle the projects around the house I've been wanting to check off my to-do list for years. I've already started (and completed!) a few of them.

Happy happy happy,
joy joy koi.

I think I'll call this my "Feliz Fishies" poem.

The Day After

A good day.

Worked only 5 hours, took Mom to the airport, came home. The girls and I had a mellow afternoon, time in the park then to the gym for a run for me, then home again where R cooked dinner (re-heated left-overs) for us. Time playing outside, bed. An evening where I had ample opportunity to be vigilant and catch myself irritated when the girls themselves got testy - working hard to be the grown-up, the one that breaks the nighttime cycle of crankiness. Up from 3 hours of fitful sleeping to blog only, my last dream having been one of a veritable stranger calling to ask me when my birthday was, because she had a psychic there who wanted to know. In the dream, it was the 3rd such request in a day, and it was spooking me. Hmm. Could it really be the left-over vegetable mu shu, I wonder?

Indulgence

Happy Birthday to Me. :)

What a day of being spoiled! Actually, it started yesterday with the trip to Mendocino County and checking in to the Inn, where a lovely surprise present from a friend was waiting for me in my room. (Thanks, friend!!) We had dinner out, and woke up to fog and the Pacific - so kind and gentle in comparison to what is about to hit Louisiana.

After taking in a little of the beach near the wharf, we enjoyed a tour of the lighthouse, followed by a relaxed ride home along scenic Hwy. 1. (Am I sounding like a travelogue yet?) Then there were presents waiting for me when I got home, including a digital camera from Mom (look out! I'm part of the modern age, now!) and books and hugs and kisses from the kids. We all had a delicious sushi dinner out and chocolate cake for dessert. I tell you what. Such decadence.

Tomorrow it's back to reality - a full work week, and Mom goes home.

But it could be worse. I'm really feeling compassion for the residents of New Orleans right now. Two weeks from today, I was scheduled to fly there for an HP conference. Who knows whether that will still happen, and whether there will be anything left to see when we get there. Maybe we'll just become part of the cleanup operation.

We don't have TV, of course, but I'm reading how people are boarding up their homes and shops, while those same homes and shops may end up under 20 feet of water. And there's nothing that can be done to stop it. It's a little like the inevitable flu pandemic that will come, for which we are not prepared.

Aren't I cheerful for a birthday girl? I guess you could blame it on me crashing from the chocolate cake...

Weekend getaway...

D & I are packing to head north for an overnight stay on the coast. It promises to be a beautiful drive up. The sky is blue, the air is warm but not hot, and Grandma's here to take care of the kids. Whoo-hoo!

My sister wisely advised, "Just throw some things in a bag and get out the door!"

Oh, if only it were that easy. If only I could abandon my desire to fold all the clean laundry first...!

We'll be on the road soon, though. And I will post descriptions and pictures upon our return.

Made it

...to Friday. Once more. It's a relief that as inevitable as Mondays are, Fridays are just as likely to roll around again.

I'm grateful.

It's been nice having Mom here. Quite apart from my comments last night, which were more philosophical whines than complaints (honest!), it's been fun laughing with her over the kids and over how doggone silly we are as a family, in general. Without fail, one of us says something really ridiculous and out of left field 2-3 times every thirty minutes, so we spend a lot of time cracking up, and sometimes even have the lovely experience of giggling about a new joke before we've caught our breaths from giggling at the last one.

After the first day of school, R was describing the "time out" chair her teacher has in the classroom for kids to sit in when they're disrupting the class. Apparently, it stayed occupied (or at least warm) all day. D said that if *he* were the teacher (you, know, one of those "Well, if *I* were the teacher..." pronunciations we parents sometimes make), he'd put tacks on the chair and kids would learn very quickly not to do anything that would make them have to sit in it.

About five minutes later, when we'd already moved on to another topic of conversation, (and even another one after that), S. suddenly raised a finger in the air and declared, "And if the tacks had the pointy sides facing up, then the kids would REALLY not want to sit in the chair!"

Mom's thoughts on Blogs

So we tried again (not the first time) to explain to Mom over dinner what a blog is. We told her it's short for web-log. We told her it's an online journal. A web site where you write things down.

D. said, "You could have one, Mom. You could write down what happens to you, like 'Today the coyotes came down the hills closer to the house.'"

I said, "And other people could read it, if you wanted."

Mom said with (to my hypersensitive ears) Obvious Distaste, "Why would I want to do that?"

She said she'd heard of a newscaster in her part of the state that had a blog, and she didn't see why anyone would write personal stuff down that anyone out there could read.

I changed the subject rather than tell her again that I blog, or invite her again to read the blog. She has conveniently forgotten or not heard me talk about it more than once.

I sound so like a "But You Don't Understand Me" teenager, don't I?

This is a painful fact. My mom supports everything I do, because she's my mom. And I love her, and I know she loves me. But I am sad (and am watching myself be sad) that she may never "get" it - the poetry, the blog, why it's important to me.

Maybe that's part of every human being's experience - having an aspect of oneself that even those closest to one don't understand, can't touch, can't "get." It's probably just as well, for it may be a prime motivator in getting people to form connections with outsiders, with kith rather than kin.

I have this added dimension in my sense of separateness, of course: I wonder how much of the differences between Mom and me (especially when it comes to tastes and sensibilities) are because I was adopted. I like to think it makes no difference whatsoever, but maybe it does. I am blessed to know the good people to whom I am genetically related, and we do share a surprising number of interests and aptitudes. But with any excitement I feel about really connecting with them, I have a sense of guilt about feeling disconnected from my mother.

Again, that's just how it is. Right now. I'm admitting it, observing it, writing it down. For anyone out there to read.

School Starts

For our young "Waldorf-inspired" charter school, the first day of classes means a gathering of wide-eyed little ones in a circle of redwoods, with loving parents and other family and friends surrounding them, while the Executive Director introduces the Educational Director, who introduces the teachers and School Board President, who introduces the School Board. After the introductions, there is the repetitive singing of a simple song that has the words "journey" "sun" and "stars" in it, a group reading of some poetry about strength and the universe, and a story told by the First Grade Teacher about a little flower gnome.

Okay.

So here's where I have to jerk my writing to a stop and remind myself of Suzanne's words of wisdom regarding not putting unkind things in her blog.

Okay.

So, um.

Let's just say that a shorter flower gnome story might have been equally effective.

And that my mother, who had thought I was kidding when I said we would perhaps have to sing Kumbaya, agrees that I'm possibly too "mainstream" to qualify to have my kids at the school. I mean, I wear non-cotton garments, for example. And I don't always shop at Whole Foods.

(Mom also said it's the most cheerful group of parents she's ever seen, and she wants to know what else they're growing in the garden besides sunflowers...)

But the beauty of such a warm, loving, open community, is that they have a grasp on inclusiveness that is strong enough to allow for refined-sugar eating folks like us to participate in their vision of the future.

Thank God (or Mother Earth, or FSM or what have you) for that.

Because, really, the song was kinda nice.

Beach Day Take 2

**THIS REALLY TRULY HONESTLY HAD BEEN WRITTEN YESTERDAY, AND POSTED TO MY BLOG YESTERDAY.**

Really. Truly. Honestly. But unfortunately, I found to my dismay tonight that I'd posted it to my exercise blog (which is not public) instead of this blog. Horrors!!

At any rate, here it is duplicated with the really honest-to-goodness original post date+time.

**



Back to Stinson Beach today, the last day of Summer before SCHOOL starts. Mom & the kids & I had brunch at Hallie's Diner first, then headed out to the coast, not deciding until the last minute whether we'd go to Tomales or Stinson.

Once on the beach, we were under fog all day. But the air was fairly warm and the water tolerable. The girls and I had races up and down the wet sand, got our feet (and in some cases, knees and waist) wet in the Pacific, chased an aggressive gull away from our towels, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Mom watched and read a hardback mystery, walking for a while with us as well.

A stop at the Cheese Factory on the way home for lots of Brie, and then a trip to the grocery store, and the day was pretty much spent. As were we all, especially those of us who *didn't* nap during the drive inland.

Funny how the act of writing even a small blog entry more often than not now gets me awake, even if I'd been asleep, and inspires me to write more.

But I know the morning will feel early to the kids after a summer of sleeping until 8am, and I want to be awake enough to see them through it. So I'm hitting the proverbial hay.

Grandma's in Town

After work today, the girls & I went to Emeryville for a browsing session at Borders & lunch at the Market. This was literally next door to my last employer, III. I was so tempted to stop by and see if anyone was around from when I worked there, 7 years ago. But then I was afraid that I would see someone, but it would be someone who would remember me who I wouldn't remember, and I felt the sort of guilt-in-advance that so often keeps me from doing things. So I chickened out.

Hey. At least I'm consistent in my neurosis.

Then it was off to the airport to pick up Grandma, who is staying with us for a week. We got back around dinner-time and as a result didn't have dinner until much later, when we were all so hungry that everything was funny and the Table Silliness Factor was even higher than usual. I can't accurately describe it, but if you've ever seen me drunk (as some of you have), you can imagine that same goofiness also displayed by a 6 year old, a 10 year old, and Grandma, who is old enough for the senior fare with Southwest but young enough to giggle as uncontrollably as the rest of us.

We'll see if she can stand a whole week of "fun" with the clan, though...

New Backyard Fence

D completed the new fence for the back of the backyard, and it is gorgeous. It's amazing how it completely changes the feel of the whole yard.

He also moved about 3/4ths of a ton of rocks from the backyard to the front. I helped, but only very little, and tonight D is nearly a broken man. But the yard is looking amazing.

Hard to practice any kind of detachment when I'm feeling so attached to where I live now.

Time has slipped by and I'm late to bed, again. Out for now...

Saturday at the Beach with Writers

Today my colleagues and I in the PWG (Petaluma Writer's Group) had what I hope will be the only the first of many writers' retreats. There was coffee and chatting and writing and chatting and writing (and, for me, a short nap in the sun) and a walk on the beach, and more writing, and dinner out. I managed to get down a good section of a brand new short story (a ghost story, even!) before we had to wrap it up. Thanks to Julia for arranging the space, and to her parents for the loan of it.

I can't say why I feel compelled to write a ghost story right now, but there it is. It could be a need I have to give voice to some fear or another in my life. But I think even this, as with many ghost stories, is really a tale of letting go. And I'm working a lot on "letting go" lately.

I don't yet know the resolution of the story - or whether there will be a resolution. I don't know that all ghost stories need to be resolved. I think that often, the whole point is that there is some unfinished business, and that's why the ghost sticks around. But we'll see what comes of this particular yarn...

The End of a Long Week

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster this 6-day work week is over. (And thanks to Suzanne, and M., for the FSM introduction.)

I resorted to letting the girls do computer games for an hour this afternoon while I napped, in between various cleaning projects around the house. I don't know that the nap it helped much, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Tomorrow, I go to the coast for a Writer's Retreat with the Writer's Group gals. I'm looking forward to it, although I regret, a little, not having a better plan for what I hope to write tomorrow (I had written the word "accomplish" but that sounds so driven...)

Hope springs eternal, however - especially after a full night's sleep. And tomorrow presents first chance in a week to sleep past 5:15am -whoo-hoo!

Counting Blessings

I was going to write down a list of blessings tonight, and when I started to bring them to mind, I realized I didn't have room for that kind of list.

So.

Blessings?

Almost everything.

If I pause long enough to think about it.

Heart Sutra

gate, gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha

(roughly: gone, gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond beyond, hail the goer.)

I'd read an English translation of this in the beginning of The Years of Rice and Salt, a book given to me by Clare for Christmas. I only (finally) started the novel at the beginning of the month, and within a week, on the Food for Families delivery, the Buddhist on my route (with whom I've had several wonderful conversations) spontaneously taught the Sanskrit version to me. He didn't know I'd just encountered the mantra for the first time. "Isn't that a coincidence?" he asked me, when I told him. "Not really," said I.

Compassion

Given time, I would verify the validity of the below quotes by trying to find more reliable sources for them than the Web. But (fellow scholars reading this forgive me!) whether or not they are exact and authentic is secondary to their message for the purpose of this blog entry.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." (Albert Einstein)


"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery...we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness." (Dalai Lama)


I'm experiencing compassion in a new way. On a few occasionss recently, different friends have confided in me about some very difficult things that they're each going through. Where once I would have calculated my response at some level, would have had a knee-jerk reaction not to share their emotion but to second-guess my own behavior in response to them, where once I would have been analytical, or at the least, detached in my response to their bad news - I felt (what a verb - felt!) instead an almost immediate and instinctive sense of empathy. My heart went out to them. I cried without thinking, and only later wondered at the change in my behavior.

Maybe I'm starting to get it.

In the meantime, maybe I can practice some compassion on myself.

What I'm listening to

So I'm going to create a sidebar comment (only not tonight) for What I'm Reading & What I'm Listening To

I think it might make the tail wag the dog - might make me reach for new music, anyway - to have those things posted.

But for now, I'm putting it in this late-night, up-to-blog post.

What I'm Listening To: Rent

I saw the show in NY (thanks to half-off same-day tickets). All I knew about it was that it was supposed to be really good. And it was. (I'll have expand on that review tomorrow, though, given the late hour.)

I've got the double-set CD in the car. The girls like the music too, but I do have to turn the volume down in strategic places during the songs because the language is not always appropriate for a 6-year old or even a 10-year old....

Sunday night - or is it Monday?

Working on Sunday when you know you'll be working Monday-Friday too can throw a gal. However, I managed to have a weekend anyway. Actually, it kind of felt like 2 mini-weekends in a row.

We have 4 new sections of fencing up, and D will build the rest sometime in the next week. As it turns out, the neighbor behind us, Luis, is really a pretty nice guy. The pit bulls actually belong to his son and daughter, who are 20 and 16 respectively. I still wouldn't want to be alone in a yard with any of them (the dogs, that is) if they weren't chained up, and it's sad and disturbing. But Luis himself is a nice guy.

It reminds me that the most realistic villains in novels are not purely evil. I mean, here's a person who will work with you all day, sweating to building a nice fence, give you a beer or two, ask how your children are and listen when you answer. A man who loves his wife, a man who wants to grow a beautiful lemon tree, and have a neighborly bbq. He'd loan you a cup of sugar in a heartbeat, but at the same time, he has three big dogs in his backyard that are never allowed in the house and are left alone to fight amongst themselves in a cage all day and whine or bark well into the night. How do you reconcile those facts? Maybe the way they treat the dogs is a cultural thing. That's entirely possible. My father in law, growing up in a farm in Romania, only ever knew dogs as working farm animals. They were not allowed in his rural home in the 40s and 50s, and I think he still has a hard time understanding how people can have larger dogs in the house.

That's probably it. Or (since they don't, after all, live on a farm) maybe Luis' kids are just too lazy to take proper care of their dogs, or aren't around. And maybe Luis is too tired at the end of a hard day's work to deal with dogs that aren't, after all, his. I don't know. But the truth is probably more simple and less dramatic than my "one can smile and smile and be a villain" assumptions. Maybe I am just a tad too quick to make the people I meet into characters whose motivations I have to untangle...

Family Games

R has made a Harry Potter Monopoly game, complete with playing pieces and money. It's a fun version, and well done. There may be an official version out there somewhere, but I haven't researched it, and I don't really care - R's version is more charming than any mass-produced thing they could come up with.

Tonight we were going to have a family game night and play her game, as well as 3 others - one picked by each of the other 3 of us. But S picked first, and picked Simpson's Clue, and it took us over an hour to play that one game.

The highlight of the evening was when R finally made an accusation, and suggested - if I remember correctly - that Miss Scarlet (Lisa Simpson) had done it in the Bowl-o-Rama with the Poisoned Donut. It was only after she checked the cards in the envelope (which reveal the true crime) that she realized - DOH! - that she actually already had all 3 cards in her hand.

We all laughed until we couldn't breathe, including R. That's the kind of silliness that brings a family closer together. We've already started calling her Sherlock.

Saturday night, but I'm working at 6am tomorrow, so I'd best hit the hay. Drat. It would have been fun to stay up and watch a movie, or fold laundry, or both. (Don't chores at 10:30pm sound FUN?). But instead, I hear that nice big horizontal piece of furniture calling my name...

Friday night

If I stay up much longer, I'll be able to watch the Perseid Meteor Showers. Last night I went to bed too early to catch them, but this morning driving to work, I did see a "shooting star." Only one of the many advantages of working the 5-1 shift!

Sleeping until 6am or 7am tomorrow will be downright decadent.
I'm looking forward to it. And I'd better do it while I can, because the Comet Swift-Tuttle (whose debris gives us the Perseid showers) passes closer and closer each year, and will probably in fact collide with our earth.

Apparently, the calculations that went around in 1993 that this could happen in 2026 were off. Now it's thought the comment may not hit us for another thousand years or so. Just enough of me is paranoid that I worry that they're only saying the comet won't hit "soon" because it could affect the economy or even American voting patterns if they told us the truth about our mortality. But what do I know?

The New Teacher

Tonight the four of us went to the girls' school to join with other parents in meeting the new 5th grade teacher. She's a very bright, talented, strong and graceful woman with a what seems to be a rare combination of experience and optimism.



They're going to eat her alive.

Waning Summer

Thanks to Josh for the link to Gas Guy. I've only read his latest post, but it was a very good read. The same message coming to me from another voice. The message that we are not our labels, and that it's sane to chose to love the job you have rather than find a job you love.

Partially as a result of reading that site, and partially because of the last few weeks of emerging from my private blog shell, I've now made this blog available to the general reading public. I've also updated the sidebar with new and renewed links. Don't all rush over and read at the same time, now.


The pre-school (as opposed to preschool) year is starting up, and all that comes with it: meeting with the teachers, making sure the kids have good backpacks and lunch boxes, prepping the classrooms so they're Waldorfly pastel in color, rallying the parental volunteers, stocking up on lots of cheap wine...

The girls, as young as they are, aren't yet pre-programmed to feel pre-school-year butterflies - that laying-out-the-new-clothes-the-night-before anxiety that still hits me (perhaps on their behalf) as August starts to fall away.

But we're trying to get to bed earlier than 9pm (take today, for example!) in anticipation of two weeks from now, when the harsh reality of being out the door with lunches made by 8:00 will hit anew.

And there's this other reason to get to bed earlier, for me. Starting tomorrow, my workday begins at 5am. It's a good thing, and something I wouldn't have changed if it wasn't too my advantage. The challenge will be to get to bed by 9pm myself, nightly, or face the sleep-deprivation consequences.

Lines from 5 years ago:



i'll make this quick

i don't have time to read long poems let alone write them
only i wanted to remind you that the world is rife
with things that poetry could never say
but must

Change is constant

I seem to be in an extended spring-cleaning overhaul of myself and my surroundings. Yesterday, I threw away some papers that I've felt certain I had to keep for the last four or twelve years. Papers that I'd held in my hands many times, and each time put in the same "I should file this somewhere" pile. Why? Why, I ask you? Why keep them?

I've kept them, I think, because they painted some picture I wanted to have about myself and who I am. Like, "I am a clever, prepared person because I've kept this article about sites to see in the Central Valley in case I ever take my family on an extended vacation in Fresno." Clever-schmever. What I am at core has nothing to do with whether I keep these things - things like articles about an artist I once knew but haven't spoken to in 14 years, or email from work that I found humorous (but still have at work in my thoroughly backed up email box), or a comic strip about stress that is still funny but totally not necessary to keep. I mean, other things in life since then have been funny (tonight's dinner conversation, for one), and I'm optimistic that I'll find something else humorous in the future and won't feel a Comic Void without that particular "Life in Hell" panel.

Yes, sir. I'm letting go of so much. Oh boy. I'm on my way. I mean, this was at least a dozen pieces of paper I just ruthlessly put in the recycle bag.

(However, in the interest of full disclosure I must say that I was still compelled to spend 10 minutes just now looking for a link online to the Groening Stress comic strip so I could document here, in my blog, the piece of paper I've thrown away. Somehow, I think I'm still a little unclear on the concept.)

I did, however, find this humorous link on "How to be a Sensitive Poet." It's uncanny how many of the categories apply to me. I think I'm going to write a poem about how despondent I feel about being a poet who only writes about how despondent she feels.

And it won't rhyme, either.

And I'm going to send it to either The New Yorker or Saltwater Fly Fishing Magazine - which ever will publish it first.

Lesson?

If our DSL is always acting up and it's *impossible* to be online between 10pm and midnight, does it mean I should take it as a sign to blog earlier in the day? This is all I'm writing for now. And I figure I'd better post it quick before I lose the DSL connection. AGAIN. Errrgh.

Don't Fence Me In

Last weekend, D bought some of the wood he needed to replace the fence at the back of our yard - the 40-year old one that was most horribly dilapidated, being held up only by a few twigs of ivy and the wire cage that contains one of the neighbor's pit bulls. Yesterday, he bought the rest of the material.

Yesterday he also told the neighbor, Luis, that if Luis and his friends would tear down the old fence and dig the post holes, then he (D) would build the new fence and put it up. Luis had his half-asleep teenage daughter shuffle out of the house to hear the explanation a second time, since Luis' English is not great. Along with the gist of our message, the girl must have translated a sense of urgency we didn't quite have.

Within an hour, the old fence was gone.

It was that rickety, yes - as D pointed out, to tear it down someone probably just had to sneeze in that direction. But we hadn't expected them to move quite so fast, and now we have nothing between us and three unpredictable (mostly neglected, sometimes even teased) pit bulls, except the cyclone fence cage for one (Damian), and chains from collars to trees for the other two (Blue and Kilo).

So D worked like a one-man demolition crew to clear away the big rocks and old cement-and-wire pond bed that had been along the back of the property.

The girls and I, meanwhile, played. R went to the county fair with friends and S and I met other friends for swimming and a picnic. I did move a few rocks before I left, but mostly, D sweated alone. Now he and the girls are crashed, and I'm feeling the panic and stress that is bound to come after 9 days away from the office. This is especially true because I'll be sitting in another department starting tomorrow, and I'm training a new employee, a friend of the company's owner for decades.

This is me acknowledging my anxiety, observing it, and now recognizing it for what it's worth - basically nothing. This too shall pass. And in the meantime, I have several hours of sleep to look forward to.

Snapshots

From New York:

On the second full day of the trip, Tuesday, I stop in a branch of my bank (on 5th Ave.) to see if I can get a temporary book of checks to use, since I'd brought bills to pay but no checks with which to pay them. While I wait my turn in line to talk to a teller (who eventually tells me they could not give me any checks), an interesting thing happens. The man who had been two places ahead of me in line is leaving, having finished his transaction, when the lady one place ahead of me says, "Hey, excuse me mister, but you've got something on your shirt." The man pauses, and looks down at his crisp white collared shirt. "On the back," she specifies. "You've got something on the back of your shirt. I think it's a cucaracha." As he walks past from me, turning like a dog after its tail to see if what she is saying is true, I catch sight of a good sized cockroach hanging out square in the middle of the back of his shirt. Another person in the line behind me flicks it off for him as he walked by, and out the door he goes, no doubt on his way to a high-paying executive-type job. Only in New York? I don't know, but it sets the tone for me, happening as it does my first morning in the Big Apple. (My research suggests it was a male Oriental Cockroach, but that probably doesn't matter to most of my reading audience, and in fact, I may have just lost some of you as an audience entirely by writing this.)

Day Three: I'm in the elevator of the Hilton, where we stayed, and I'm riding to the 17th floor with four construction workers, and I hear one say to the other, "Remember that rat that Johnnie saw, the big one that chased him?" A couple of the guys remember, and for the benefit of the other guy, the first speaker says, "Yeah, you know, that fricken' thing was THIS big," he gestures like a fisherman, and I assume he's including the rat's tail in the length, but even so, he's describing something akin to a ROUS from Princess Bride. The other guys laugh, and one says, "That's the one that went after him, right? Fricken' charged after him out of the room and up the stairs. I never seen him run so fast. That thing was huge." They all laugh. I imagine what kind of beast it would have to be to make one of these dirty, tattooed, muscled tough-guys run for his life. Another man adds, "Yeah, that was down in SOHO, wasn't it?" They all nod, laughing some more. Apparently it was. Within an hour, I'm in SOHO. I never see the rat that chased Johnnie, but I also avoid going into the type of apartment where such a rodent might be King.

In SOHO, my favorite part of New York, there are cafes and art galleries, bargain boutiques, cigar shops, Laundromats. It's a little like Berkeley East, but at the same time unlike anything I've seen. I liked New York very much, and I really liked SOHO (maybe especially because I never saw a rat the size of New Hampshire there). Now whether SOHO liked me is another matter. The high/low point was probably when I walked into the Franklin Bowles Gallery on West Broadway, wearing old tennis shoes and the same clothes I'd worn the day before, having walked in the sweltering heat for miles with sweat trickling down my back. To her credit, the woman managing the gallery at the time let me view the Matisse line drawings and even let me take a business card (which she delivered using the tip of her fingers and a very long extended arm). I didn't feel like I could even afford to ask how much the pieces went for, but I was pleased to have encountered them. It was like that in a couple other SOHO galleries, too. Like being an orphan at Christmas, or a gardener coming across an unexpected iris bloom out of season.

Teaser

I had fallen asleep (first on the floor, then the couch) just before the kids also went to bed. As a result, I'm still asleep. Asleep but blogging.

Do you know what a "yesterday joke" is? I was having it explained to me in a dream when D woke me up to get me to go to actual bed instead of the couch. A yesterday joke is one which has its punchline "delivered" the day before the joke is actually told. In my dream, this had everything to do with a billboard outside a church on a busy street where the minister would take a news headline or hot pop culture topic and find the scripture he needed to force-fit his message either for or against the subject at hand. But in general, I think the "yesterday joke" is something that requires more thought.

Tomorrow, stories from New York: (insert Ira Glass' voice here):
"Mister, there's something on your back," The Giant Rat of SOHO, and Seeing Matisse in Tennis Shoes.

NY Day 4 & home

This morning, instead of jogging, I slept in (until almost 8 - look out!) then walked down Park & Madison Avenues to Grand Central Station & took the subway to Chinatown. Had breakfast at Columbus Park, strolled through Chinatown & Little Italy & SOHO, then took the subway back to West Central Park & made my way back to the hotel from there.

The taxi ride to the airport, the flight home, and the drive home all went smoothly, and it's so nice to be back! It does feel like 12:30am a little bit, but since I stayed up until 2:15 EDT every night while I was in NY, this isn't so bad.

I expect to tell a few little travel tales on the blog tomorrow, when I should have some extra time (as I'm taking the day off work - whoo hoo!)

NY: Day 3.5

Thanks to a coworker (who now has this url so I have to publicly thank him), I now have a second way to access the internet: at the show's Cyber Cafe rather than the hotel's Business Center, where last night they wanted to charge me $10 for every 15 minutes that I was on the machine - but let me go without paying after I only spent 8 minutes writing.

The city: with city smells, city noises, fewer throngs marching along the sidewalks than I'd expected, more cabs then even the movies had prepared me to anticipate, and never a dull (or quiet) moment. The food here is really excellent, and the public transportation (a weakness of mine anyway), especially the subway, is amazingly cheap.

It's hot here, but not so hot and humid that it's not bearable - although I was pretty soaked by the time I finished my walk to the museum yesterday and to the WTC site and Battery Park the day before. Showering in the middle of the day, plus the way the shows events are broken up into multiple sessions, and the fact that I've stayed up to 2:15am for 3 nights in a row, all make it feel like I've been here for longer than I have. But at the same time, I'm already anxious that we'll have to leave tomorrow and I have barely scratched the surface of what there is to see in the way of galleries and museums here.

The shortcut (cheat) I've found is visiting the gift shops of the museums where I don't have time to actually see any exhibits. More on that strategy later...time for lunch and more Expo now!

NY: day 3

So the work part of this trip, the real reason I'm here, is going well. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it's been very satisfying talking techs who are already savvy in general. It's great to tell them about what we do because they *get* it, and they understand the value of the service we offer. (And I'm not just writing this because of the one or two co-workers who read my blog.)

While I had a break in the Expo today, I walked (quickly) around Manhattan again - North, this time, along the Western side of Central Park to the Museum of Natural History and the Rose space Center, then across the park on 79th to the Guggenheim, which had a number of exhibits including Mapplethorpe. I HATE to keep this such a slap-dash entry again, but again, I'm up against a deadline & need to get back to meet my coworkers for dinner - this time in Little Italy.

I'm making other, off-blog notes about the trip, though. So I can go down memory lane and post in more detail when I have more time/internet access!

New York!

I hate to be brief here, because I have *so much* I want to write about! But the business center is closing at 9 and my colleagues are waiting for me to meet them for dinner now, so I may not make it back before I lose my internet access.

This town is hopping! I walked half the length of Manhattan today, saw: NY Public Library, The Empire State Building, The Flat Iron Building, NYU, some of Greenwich Village, some of SoHo and the edge of China Town, City Hall, the WTC site, and the statue of Liberty (in the distance - plus Ellis Island). Took two subway trains, and started the day with a short jog in part of Central Park.

Ho hum. So dull.

Much more tomorrow, including details! Hello to all from the "right coast."

Pre-trip blog

I'm going to head out to the airport in an hour or so. I'm pretty much packed, and I should be able to take care of the "pretty much" part in the next 30 minutes. Beatrice the rat is crawling around the room, which is not the same as the rat experience Josh recently had.

I should have internet access every day of my trip - I'll be in New York at an IBM Conference, for goodness' sake! So I should be able to blog about the whole experience. I suspect nights will be fine and mornings will be very, very hard. The 7-8am registration time they have at the conference will feel like 4-5am - even earlier than I normally get up. Yikes!

Packing for NY

It's 3am in New York. Or at least, nearly 3am. And even though it's "only" 11:48 here, I'm still up. Usually when I blog late it's after I've already slept an hour or two. Tonight, I've been up the whole time.

After S's very successful (and amazingly quiet and calm) birthday party at the Gymnastics facility, we had a couple of little girls hang out here at home until around 10 while their parents were at a work event. It was perfect - the four friends kept each other very well entertained while I did chores around the house in preparation for the business trip to New York.

I leave tomorrow morning, and I may even get to sleep tonight first! I've gone from being blase to being very excited about this trip. I mean, New York! I've been to big, famous cities all over the world, and New York is one place I never thought I'd visit. I don't know why

I was telling a coworker the other day that it's like how I never thought I'd learn French. Or touch type. Even though I love languages and love to write. Go figure. You never can tell what life will throw your way.

However, I'm trying to avoid the "you never can tell what life will throw your way" philosophy while packing. I'm trying to pack *so* light. Which means packing clever. And it's hard to be clever when it's 3am in the place you'll be within 20 hours.

*yawn*

Maybe I should go to bed now and wake up at 4am, which will be 7am EDT. And then I can sleep on the plane and just snore and drool on the people sitting next to me. Yeah, that should be very attractive.

Spiderman & Maribou

S loves to shop. We bought party favors today, then a bike for her birthday, then went clothes shopping for me (black pants for the NY trip), and then - even though it was so far past dinner time, it was almost bed time - she was very sad that we couldn't shop more.

S is having a Spider Man theme party tomorrow. Well, semi-Spidy, anyway. The invitations were Spiderman. The plates and tablecloth are Spiderman. The cake and decoration on top of the cake are Spiderman. But the party favors are little sheer pink drawstring purses with pink maribou trim, and pink maribou ponytail holders. All her choice.

I love that my kids know what they want and don't care whether it matches any social norm. I might hate that later, but for now, it's mostly harmless.

Tomorrow we pick up R from camp, and the sounds of S talking to herself and singing to herself and otherwise bouncing off the walls will be complimented again by the sounds of R turning the pages of whatever book she is devouring. It'll be nice to have her back.

Here's a Thought

For her birthday dinner, S asked that we go to Applebee's. At the table kitty-corner to us, in my direct line of sight, there was a family of three - mother, father, and son. The son was probably between two and a half and three years old, and very charming. He had a big round face and a very short hair cut, and a squat little body that still had just the right amount of baby fat. Even his slight squirminess was somehow endearing - maybe because he seemed happy, and his parents seemed happy - both with one another and with him. He reminded me of a healthy little English tyke from some other era. His dad was a round-faced man who wore a baseball cap, and his mom was a tidy brunette with a spring green sweater and short nails neatly painted dark pink. While the three of us waited for our food, and then ate, and chatted amiably or teased each other (more gently in a restaurant than we usually do at home, where the dinner-table silliness can be loud), this other little family waited, and then ate and chatted with one another.

Sometimes the cute little boy gave S significant looks, and obviously, I did my share of glancing their way, since they were right in front of me, as it were. But for the most part, we were just two random families having a random meal at the same time in the same restaurant.

Except I thought about how this little boy is only about three years younger than S, and for all I know, sixteen or seventeen years from now, he and she might randomly meet, fall in love, introduce each other to each other's families, marry, and live happily ever after. Or, just as likely, break one another's hearts. And would I remember that I'd seen them somewhere, once? Would the way his mother tilts her head when she laughs ring a distant bell in my memory? Would his father put on a baseball cap at a family barbecue and suddenly transport my mind back to tonight's dinner?

No. Almost certainly, I'd never recognize then this "first sighting," would have absolutely no idea that we'd ever seen one another before. And how often does this happen to all of us? Life is full of this synchronicity, connectivity in the guise of coincidence. And is it happenstance? Or random but not without meaning, as the movie The Happenstance suggests?

I've written this because it will give me a link where memory would not, should we meet these folks again. They were from out of town, staying in a hotel - I know because they saw other folks, also from out of town, at the table behind ours. Here, from what I could gather, for drag racing at the Infineon. The woman introduced herself to someone as "Tara." So I have a name, something besides the other characteristics to go on, if, for example, we see one another again half a lifetime from now. I have a name, and I have this blog entry. And now, you do too.

Private party

Suzanne makes an interesting point about her blogging expectations and about blog rules. I can't say I'm always vague about work, and I can't say that I don't hurt anyone's feelings in my blog. Is that why I don't make this site available to the general public?

No, I actually keep it private for two reasons: one, I don't think anything I have to say is all that interesting to total strangers. And two, I don't know that I want to open up my life and angst and petty or personal triumphs and defeats for the whole world even if some people did find it interesting. Does this make me less of a writer? Or just a more private writer?

For now, I am happy to be linked to by some very fine blogs and leave it at that.

I do have short-term goals for improving the blog. (Blogging daily doesn't necessarily mean blogging well, so I don't consider that an improvement.) I'd like to expand the blog by adding more links to more sites and blogs that are important or interesting to me and possibly to my few readers. And I'd like incorporate some kind of "currently reading" and "just finished reading" column like Suzanne and others have.

And I'd like to post more pictures. It makes a blog more interesting, I think. Beyond that, who knows? There's plenty of room for improvement, though, and that's a good problem to have.

Be Still and Know

I just finished The Five People You Meet in Heaven - a quick read, even for me. It's all about how seemingly insignificant events in our lives have a greater meaning than we can imagine. It is sometimes too preachy for my taste, but it makes you consider the effect of your actions on earth in the same way a good production of A Christmas Carol might.

It isn't necessarily a Christian heaven that Albom describes. There is no mention of Jesus, and apart from a single word, no voice of God clearly spelled out that I recall.

I believe those who say that God can best be heard in silence. And I have not yet started to practice listening to the silence between sounds - a listening that is so crucial to meditation and prayer. ("Crucial," itself, being a word related to that for the "Cross.") But S, who hasn't been to church in almost nine months, told me Sunday that she has heard God speak to her.

She always seems to reveal these big things while I am driving somewhere and she's sitting behind me in her carseat. I'm then forced to pay attention to the road while wondering what it means when she says, "Once, I heard a voice say 'I am God.'"

In this case, after I'd gotten clarification (I'd briefly thought she'd meant the voice was saying she was God), I told my daughter how great it was that she could hear that voice, and that she must have heard it when she was being very quiet. "Oh no," she said. "I hear God talk to me all the time, even when I'm being noisy."

Depending on your point of view, this is either just a kid being a kid, or the coolest thing imaginable, or I should start saving now for one of the better hospitals - something with nicely mown lawns and new card tables in the Day Room.

"What else does God say to you?" I asked.

"Well, once he said, 'You are the beloved child of me.'"

"I agree."

"And another time, he said, 'You are my daughter.'"

"Also true."

The fact that the conversation did not deteriorate into her reporting that God had said, "You parents should get you lots of Spiderman toys for your birthday." gives me hope in the sacred nature of her experience.

Coincidently, after finishing the Albom book, I opened the below poem in my in box. It's by Ellen Bass, who led the retreat I'd attended.



ASKING DIRECTIONS IN PARIS


Où est le Boulevard Saint Michel?
You pronounce the question carefully.
And when the native stops,
shifting her small sack of groceries,
lifting her manicured hand,
you feel a flicker of accomplishment.
But beyond that, all clarity
dissolves, for the woman
in the expensive shoes
and suit exactly the soft gray
of clouds above the cathedral, does not say
to the right, to the left, straight ahead,
phrases you memorized from tapes
as you drove around your home town
or mumbled into a pocket Berlitz on the plane,
but relays something wholly unintelligible,
some version of: On the corner
he is a shop of jewels in a fountain
and the hotel arrives on short feet.
You listen hard, nodding,
as though your pleasant
disposition, your willingness
to go wherever she tells you,
will make her next words pop up
from this ocean of sound, somewhat
the way a dog hears its name
and the coveted syllable walk.
If you’re brave enough, or very nervous,
you may even admit you don’t understand.
And though evening's coming on and
her family’s waiting, her husband lighting
another Gaulois, the children setting the table,
she repeats it all again, with another
gesture of her lovely hand, from which you glean
no more than you did the first time.
And as you thank her profusely
and set off full of doubt and groundless hope,
you think this must be how it is
with destiny—God explaining
and explaining what you must do,
even willing to hold up dinner for it,
and all you can make out is a few
unconnected phrases, a word or two, a wave
in what you pray is the right direction.

Parenting the only child

Since S is without her sister this week, and it's her birthday this week, she's reveling in the attention. And she's so full of energy, I don't know if I can make it until Friday. She is literally bouncing off the wall. (I swear I have not fed her crack, though. Honest.) I've contained her in the tub for a little while, but she's alternately singing to herself, having conversations with rubber duckies and a naked Ariel doll, and shouting, "MOM-MEEEE! When are you going to come PLAY with me?!"

I did just speak to a Kaiser advice nurse, encouraged (but not quite dared) by Josh & Julia to do so. Of course, my throat is finally better today, so I'm left to think it really was viral, and I'm over it -- or it was strep, and I think I've beaten it but really it can and will come back any minute now and wreak havoc on my organs, or it was strep and I really have beaten it without antibiotics, if that's possible. The advice nurse must have thought I was crazy because I had half the symptoms of a cold or allergies and half the symptoms of something worse I'd made up in my spare time. I threw in Fifth's Disease, pink eye, and the half marathon just to confuse her. But then again, she probably couldn't fully concentrate on what I was saying anyway because she was too busy reading the section of my file that's flagged "hypochondriac" She eventually used a clever ploy to get me off the phone and stop my "But I don't know if I'm really sick" whining : she made me an appointment for Dr. I-Will-Shame-You-If-You-Are-Late for tomorrow at noon. If I wake up feeling better (please please) then I'll cancel the appointment. If I wake up still with a sore throat, I'll at least go in for a culture. We could all use a little culture now and then.

Summer Camp

Today R went off to camp for the week. This place isn't the same without her and her energy, but I know she'll have a great time. It's a Christian Camp, full of Presbyterian kids and counselors. The two counselors for her cabin seem nice - one has a rainbow dyed in her hair and many piercings in her ears.

This week, while R is gone, S will turn 6, and I'll have a particularly challenging week at work, with a visit from a drive manufacturer examining our facilities, and preparation for an upcoming trip to NY for a trade show and an upcoming move to sit in another room in the building.

The neighbor that lives behind us has three pit bulls, one of which has been barking non-stop for hours: the same 4-beat bark pattern over and over again. We've opted to wait and call Animal Control in the morning instead of the Police tonight. D is teasing me for blogging this. He says, "Are you going to blog the event number, too?" No.

But I did want to say that the more exposure I have to other people's dogs and other people's marriages, the better mine look by comparison. That sounds petty, but I don't mean it to. I'm just saying that I'm grateful for what I have.

Hot hot hot

I don't know whether it's the heat or the sore throat or both, but I feel like I've been in a stupor all day. D worked hard on the landscaping in the 200 degree weather, and I took S to dance, took R to riding, then napped for a couple of hours while they had play dates in the afternoon. I woke feeling no better for the sleep, picked up the girls, managed dinner, then went to bed early - only to get up and watch some of Obelix and Asterix in French with D. It's a very silly movie, and I just wish my French were good enough that I could catch the quickly-delivered lines.

I think I'll have to give in and call the dr tomorrow about my throat. I have to brace myself to swallow by the end of each day, and this has been going on for a week. My current home remedies haven't done the trick, and frankly, it's very demoralizing not feeling well. How do people with chronic pain or illness do it? I'm amazed by the courage required.

TGIF

It is nice to reach a Friday and be home and know that I don't have to get up and drive for six hours or run 13 miles. The girls have a friend staying overnight and they're just in that giggly pre-sleep stage now (up late!) while I wind down for the day.

No exciting news to report here, apart from the fact that I now suspect I might have strep again, perhaps as a secondary crud after the pink eye. But still! hope springs eternal that I can beat the bug with a good night's sleep instead of anitbiotics. A girl can hope, right?

Gotta check on the kids, now. Good night, all. Or for those of you reading this in the a.m. - good morning!

In the "Could Be Worse" category

Clare has a funny story about how tricky life can be when you're single-parenting a two year old (or, in her case, two) while your husband is in El Salvador with a group of teenagers on an immersion trip.

Why should I complain if my car is dirty? At least I have a car, and a new one at that. Think of all those people who don't!

Sure, I don't agree with the current administration's US Foreign Policy (to put it mildly), but at least I live in a country where I'm allowed to vote. Not every country has elections, and of those that do, women don't always have a voice.

Maybe I grumble about having to clean house, but at least my family has a roof over its head. We could be homeless!

And who am I to gripe about my weight? I have my health. True, my throat has been sore for 5 days straight, but hey! at least I have a throat. Think of all those people who have to make do without.

Uh.

Going back to bed, now....

The importance of finding the right man & mailbox

Around the household, there are some sniffles tonight because R has finished reading the Half-Blood Prince. "It's a good book, but it's so sad," she says. If you've read it, you'll know what I mean.

Earlier today, S told me, "When it's time for me to get married, I'm going to go down the line of boys and I'm going ask each one, 'What do you do for your work?' and if any of them say he kills things for his work, then I'm not going to marry him." I thought this showed a remarkable ability to discriminate for one so young.

Later, at dinner, R said, "As for me, when it comes to getting married, I'm going to draw the line at...at..."

While she searched for the right words, I suggested, "Involuntary manslaughter?"

But it turns out her sticking point was that she would not want to marry anyone who, say, leaves every Saturday for work in Los Angeles and doesn't come back until the next Thursday or something.

Picky, picky, picky.

Below are a couple of shots of the little Shinto temple D built while we were gone last week. I guess the trick now is to wait for the spirits to come live there. I'm woefully behind in my Shinto studies, however, so I could be wrong. But having written that, another thought occurs to me. It's possible that one of our mailmen might mistake the temple for a new mail box and put our "Last Chance!" credit card offers and Discover Magazines there. Then no spirit worth his/her ethereal salt will want to inhabit the little place.

I only worry about this because I bet that a very unusual mailbox at our address wouldn't surprise the postmen. After all, our current mail box is a BRASS SADDLE BAG that says "The Patrascu" on it. Not "The Patrascu's" or just "Patrascu," but "The Patrascu" as though the One and Only Patrascu lives here. This odd naming convention is thanks either to my French mother-in-law's incomplete grasp of English grammar, or a typo at the BRASS SADDLE BAG company that she didn't catch or didn't think mattered. We may never resolve that mystery, nor the mystery of why it is that D's mom insists on giving us the kind of gifts (like blinds or flatware or mailboxes) that are a part of everyday life in a home, and are therefore best left to the very specific tastes of the people who will have to live with them every day.

I am an ungrateful wretch, but not so bad that I can do what someone once suggested, which was to "lose" the saddle bag and then say to my mother-in-law, "Can you believe it? Somebody stole our mailbox!" Admittedly, I did practice the phrase several times, "Somebody stole our mailbox!" but where there should have been a note of incredulity in my voice, even I detected only glee.

The hired help has the night off

The hired help, Responsibility and Creativity, are taking the night off.

That's right, the usual suspects who contribute to the running of the place are nowhere to be found.

(Of course, Creativity keeps herself either scarce or half-baked anyway, but even Responsibility, who is usually so loud, bossy, and uppity, is also MIA.)

The relief staff today are Lassitude for the swing shift and Entropy for the graveyard. And really, neither can be bothered to post more than this brief announcement. And that's only because HR made them do it.

Two by two

I love to see the Canada Geese that pass through this part of California during their migrations. I always look anxiously to see that each has its mate, and am sorry for any that don't. (If three travel together, I wonder about how well that arrangement is working out for them.)

I love the call of the geese, and the way they move once they are in the air, as though they proceed ahead just by the force of the will of their long necks.


The girls' daycare provider spent last week at a workshop about cultivating peace, and part of the curriculum was poetry, including this one. I keep re-reading the first few lines.


By Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Cheat

Here's my results from an x-man quiz. Thanks to Josh for the idea. I'm posting it because I'd had it around to post for a while, and I'm plum wiped out from the drive home from Phoenix, too little sleep last night, and the race (which by the way, went well). More details tomorrow, trivial fun today:

You scored as Jean Grey. Jean Grey is likely the most powerful X-Man. She loves Cyclops very much but she has a soft spot for Wolverine. She's psychic so she can sense how others are feeling and tries to help them. She also has to control her amazing powers or the malevolent Phoenix entity could take control of her and wreak havoc. Powers: Telekinetic, Telepathic Jean Grey 85% Rogue 75% Storm 70% Cyclops 55% Wolverine 50% Nightcrawler 50% Beast 45% Emma Frost 40% Colossus 25% Gambit 25% Iceman 5% Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz created with QuizFarm.com

Back home again

It's so good to be home again, even though Paradise has surprised me again by requiring more attention and upkeep that one would expect should be necessary.

D made an incredibly beautiful Shinto shrine out of redwood while we were out of town. I'll request a photo and post it. But I also think [hint, hint D] that he should start his own blog site and document all his cool projects and creations that way.

I'm off in search of a good late pre-race meal and then a good pre-race sleep before the half marathon tomorrow morning. I have to pick up my registration packet between 5:15-6:00 am, and it takes about 40 minutes to get there.

My focus will be on not walking at all, but just enjoying every step. It's a gorgeous route through Sonoma county vineyards with lots of company and lots of water and Cytomax stops, so I should be able to enjoy it.

And then later in the morning, I expect to be writing with the writer's group gals at the Box.

Have I mentioned that it's good to be home again?

Ready to head home

Well, we're not really ready. I could stay here for a good long time, but I guess if I wait any later, I'll be going straight from Phoenix to the Wine Country Half Marathon Sunday morning.

It's be so nice to enjoy the warm (ha!) weather, and swim, and catch up with friends and family. I may spend time on the road home thinking about resuming day-to-day life, but for now, the time away has been markedly un-meditative in that area.

It's not likely I'll find a hotel to stay in with internet access tonight, so this is the blog entry for the day.

Special thanks to Clare for having us!!

Up too late, but worth it

So Clare and I will be hating life when the kids wake up at 6am and we are forced to grope our exhausted way to the coffee maker or (as C. suggested) just bonk them on the heads to make them go back to sleep.

But what would a good visit with an old friend be without staying up too late chatting about everything under the sun?

I had planned to go for a short run before 7am. That is seeming less likely every passing second. I also will be taking the car to a local shop for an oil change before our (estimated) 800 mile drive home tomorrow. Then my half-sister and the cousins are coming over for a swim. We had really nice dinner together tonight at Applebee's - 3 moms, 6 kids and 2 toddlers. The teenage boy at the front desk said to me, "Wow. You sure are brave, taking so many kids out in public."

I wasn't sure whether to say, "Hey - don't you know who you're talking about? We're super Mammas, here" or, "What? Do you think kids are raised in a box? Ya hafta go out into public with them sometimes, you know..."

Anyway, I'm fuzzy around the edges, and not just from the eye (which is better), so I'm signing out...

Not exactly catching the red-eye out of town....

Instead, I've managed to catch Pink Eye before coming to Phoenix. I no sooner got here and got settled in at Clare's wonderful big house (one hundred thirteen degrees outside, according to my car's thermometer) then I was gone again, leaving her with 5 children between the ages of 2 and 10 so I could go to an urgent care clinic 20 minutes away to get my eye checked - in case (as the California advice nurse had suggested) I had a scratched cornea. So far, it's only one eye that's affected. I'm just hoping no one else gets this.

In the meantime, my right eye is constantly watering, as if its heard a very sad story that my left eye missed out on. And I'm washing my hand after every wipe, and using the drops I got at the clinic.

I hope to see one of my half-sisters and her family at least once while we're here - maybe tomorrow evening and again Friday morning. I mean, "hope to see" as in I-look-forward-to-visiting-with-them. Not "hope to see" as in if-I-still-have-any-vision-left.

Speaking of vision, though, it does always do me SO MUCH GOOD and gives me so much perspective when I spend time with Clare. This would be true even if she didn't have this very blog as her Home Page. (Can you imagine?!) Of course, maybe she always puts her houseguest's blog site as her Home Page, just to make the guest feel like a valued part of society.

(Good strategy, Clare.)

I wrote a pre-poem in the Pizza Hut in Blythe today. Maybe I can shape it together in the next day or so...

Desperate times

Only faced with the prospect of either:

a: breaking my blogging streak, or
b: forcing my mother to lie to the front desk staff at the clubhouse and say that I had to show her something on the internet and therefore could go with her to use the "residents only" computer

would lead me to install a trial version of AOL on my iBook.

Blech. Pttuuueey! This is me spitting the bad taste of AOL out of my mouth. I just don't care for the service. Sorry if that offends any reader. It's just so invasive and busy with intrusive icons and cumbersome, to my thinking.

But this way, I have access via modem and the Mac using Mom's AOL account so I can blog.

The day was beautiful here. It was supposed to be up to 102 degrees, but I don't know that it reached that high. We had breakfast out, we shopped at a huge, loud mall, we came back and had "quiet time" (S and I slept, a bit), then we swam until dusk.

It's getting darker now, but the air outside is the perfect temperature.

S went from being afraid to leave the steps in the pool to throwing herself headlong into the water to swim a few strokes, over and over again. Watching her figure it out made me so proud. I felt like I was watching her learn to walk all over again. There aren't too many of those physical achievement milestones left for either daughter, I think. Learning to ride a bike, for S. Learning to drive, I suppose. But that seems not such a big effort of coordination, somehow. Maybe it's because by then, they're old enough to apply reasoning skills and other learned things to what they're doing.

I'm enjoying watching her go underwater again and again, each time more excited and pleased with herself than the last. What if we all tackled life's challenges that way?

Taken advantage of the opportunities

My mother's computer is dead (corrupt OS, I think, and she doesn't have a Windows disk for me to use to boot or reload). So I'm at my sister's, trying to grab a minute or two to write while everyone is in the other room, not looking. I doubt they'd care much about this blog, but on the other hand, they might be standing over my shoulder, watching me type in a matter of seconds. And that can be intimidating.

It's hot down here, but not as hot as Phoenix will be. We've been just relaxing. Swimming from noon to two (like crazy tourists, spending the hottest part of the day outside). Lots of good food (including the Cosmopolitan I had last night which meant I had my sister's boyfriend drive the girls and me home). We're trying to decide where to eat out tonight; tomorrow, we'll probably shop. Oh yeah, life is hard.

Poetry starting to sneak in around the edges. I'm grateful.