November Wendishday

Dragon Mood? -- tired, yet excited

It dawned on me today that today is the last day of November ... and it's a Wendishday!

Today is my last day of so-called 'bachelorhood.' Tonight, S is joining me at the pied-a-terre after 10 weeks (is it?) to return to work. She is fairly well healed (on the outside, at least) from her surgery. Healing on the inside continues and she is still prohibited from picking up heavy objects.

While her reproductive system slowly returns to some semblance of equilibrium, her thyroid is quite out of whack, exacerbating the ups-and-downs of her hormones. Our doctor has prescribed a new prescription hormone replacement for S. And this morning, she finally got an ultrasound of a nodule in her thyroid; we're hoping it proves to be nothing.

I am looking forward to us living together after this forced separation of convalescence. We've had more than our fair share of forced separations over these past two-and-a-half years, you know?

We are both excited about the coming holidays, spending time with family and being away from work. Imagine that!

Re-filling the well -- or -- doing for yourself

In response to the question, "What are you doing for yourself TODAY?"... I answered with these:

• I woke up without an alarm this morning. That is always a pleasure rather than being jArRReD out of bed!



• I did walk on the treadmill for fifteen minutes -- a little shorter than I should, but certainly better than doing nothing!



• I sat and slowly drank a cup of coffee even though I knew it would make me late for work!



• I lovingly made myself a bowl of hot oatmeal with iodized sea salt, a teaspoon of brown sugar, crumbled walnuts and half a banana. I ate it slowly. Even more late.



• I used rosemary/mint shampoo this morning simply for the pleasure of smelling it. I stood in the shower and enjoyed the hot water hitting my upper back. Even later still!



• I wrote a brief thank-you note to our mail carrier and posted it inside the mailbox for her to find -- because it felt like a good and random-act-of-kindness thing to do. She had held our mail just by my talking to her, not running to the post office and filing any pieces of paper or anything. A thank-you note felt like the least I could do.



• I made myself a cup of tea after lunch -- Celestial Seasonings Moroccan Pomegranate Red -- just for simple sipping pleasure.



• I called Ruth this morning for a brief chat. Doris and Hemie left Roanoke early this afternoon for their trip back to Texas. I think we're going to talk more tonight.



• I think I'm going to crack open my last bottle of Crane Lake cabernet sauvignon this evening and sip on it while I make myself some dinner and do a little laundry.



• And .... I'm considering swinging by either a nearby Rite-Aid, a Target or the closest World Market just to do a little random Christmas elfing -- see what may grab my fancy.



• Funny .... I just realized that I brought a bunch of Christmas CDs from our 'other' home to work for my listening pleasure (including several that Lina and Yosh have burned for me over the last couple of years) and I haven't even DIPPPED into them yet!

So ... that's my day so far. I am feeling better today. But I have lots more serious TAKING CARE OF ME to do. I feel like I've filled the well up to about my ankles right now! :-) Lots more well-filling to do!

Sunday blues, Monday blues

(hum a bluesy tune)... "I got the Monday mornin' blues ..."

... that reared their mournful faces on Sunday, the blues that hunkered down with the gray skies on Saturday, even Friday and if truth be told, the ones, the very same ones that lurked in the shadows even on Turkey-lurkey Thursday.

I've been feeling blue since Thursday! Dammit!

I missed my kids, I missed being with my sister and her kids, I missed being with my family, with my people. I was with S's family, her kids, her family and that was good, that was fine. But it wasn't the same. And I missed being with people who make me feel special.

Pat, our therapist, for years and years -- his voice is now embedded in my head -- he's asking me what I've been doing to take care of me? Because, you see, when I don't do a good job of taking care of me, I start nit-picking at S, criticizing her, judging her in my all-too-familiar-critical-father voice, "She's not doing that right!" and generally trying to make her miserable enough to match my misery.

Dammit! That's not good!

So .... my goal, no, my MISSION ... is to take very good care of myself this week, EXTRA GOOD CARE of myself this week so that I can push, push, PUSH these inky staining clouds of blueness and sadness and depression right out of my skies. My skies want to be filled with deep, warm sunshine and periwinkle-blue clearness and white puffy clouds that shift and make shapes and swooping bluebirds singing their happy-bluebirdy songs.

That's my mission!

Overheard

Dragon Mood? -- amused

Overheard in the baking section of the local grocery store yesterday:

I just can't cook with crappy oil ..."

Bring on the extra virgins!

Three days to Turkey Day and counting

Dragon Mood? -- in the groove, listenin' to a new CD, "Quantique" by Yves Leveille

Havin' a pretty good day.

I heard my cell phone alarm go off this morning without that heavy-headed, cottony-feeling I've been experiencing. Instead, I woke up right away, thankfully clear-headed.

Dressed casually, jeans, wool socks, Birks, drove into town to buy just a couple of dollars worth of gas. Surprise -- gas was selling for $2.03 a gallon, so I filled up. Then I went over to the little coffee shop run by an ex-Baptist preacher (or so the grapevine says) to buy a latte. He looks tired, worn, a little thinner. I bet that's a hard job to do. I bought my latte and headed down the two-lane highway.

I made the 75-minute drive in about 70 minutes thanks to fast-moving traffic. Swapped my jeans out for some navy blue slacks and headed to work.

Slipped quietly into work, buckled down, and earned my salt (a pinch, at least!). Picked up my scrip at Sam's over lunch and finished out the day.

Now, it's back to the pied-a-terre to put my jeans back on, head to physical therapy for my ever-so-slowly-thawing frozen shoulder and then what? Probably, I'll buy a bomber soy chai at the handy-dandy Starbucks, jump on the freeway and head back to our home in the tall pines. Whew!

What a crazy, peripatetic gypsy life this is!

Let it be noted ....

Dragon Mood? -- dragons like looking at, not raking, falling leaves

.... last Friday, I raked leaves for two solid hours in 30-degree weather at the pied-a-terre. ArrghhHH!

It was harrrrrd work, matey!

fancy-schmancy; a pilfered conversation

Dragon Mood? -- laughing, laughing some more, laughing out loud

A "fancy-schmancy" Thanksgiving slide presentation from a national gourmet cuisine retailer came to me by way of email. I forwarded it to several other family members and it snowballed from there:

Nothing like celebrating Thanksgiving the traditional way the pilgrims did. With Cheese Straws and Onion Tarte Tatin.....

(laughing) Geez, S and I are always f*cking thrilled if we get the damn turkey cooked properly! One year we tried grilling it and that was a disaster . It was half-raw. Josh was totally grossed out! I say, anybody who has time to make Cheese Straws and Onion Tarte Tatin, f*ck 'em! Give me plain ol' Turkey Day food ... and lots of alcohol, of course!

I think that’s my new favorite Thanksgiving quote: “I say, anybody who has time to make Cheese Straws and Onion Tarte Tatin, f*ck ‘em!”

Exactly, Mary! A six-course Thanksgiving Day meal should look like this:
1. Bloody Marys
2. Beer
3. Turkey subs from Cousins
4. Football
5. More Beer
6. Irish Whiskey

Well, the half-raw turkey, no matter how you spin it, was pretty disastrous! I think the next year we were still so distressed about it, we had grilled new york strip steaks and flipped Matthew, S 's oldest son, out -- he's quite the believer in tradition! He still talks about that.

And speaking of drinking on Thanksgiving, ask Lina about the year (I think she may still have been in college here on this side of the lake) when she literally passed out at the dining room table, her head nodding and dangerously close to hitting the wild rice stuffing. I couldn't believe it! My beautiful daughter, the drunk! We had probably killed at least three bottles of wine while cooking that day. She got a little warm food in her tummy and bit the dust! (laughing some more)

Hah-hah-hah-hah! Lina hits the wall in between the cranberries and pumpkin pie!

I think, at the time, we called it something more like Stupid Turkey Goddamnit!

Although, we almost had another fiasco last year with the turkey roaster, placed out on the porch so we could keep the oven free for side dishes. We got the bird all prepared, lovely and nice with her rubbing of butter and dousing with lemon and orange juice, her cavity lovingly stuffed with said citrus fruits. And we put her in the roaster to cook…and, only about three hours later, realized we had the temperature a couple hundred degrees too low…DOH!

Yeah, well that was TOTALLY my fault. I misread the instructions and didn't THINK about what I was doing. Thank goodness we discovered it early enough to recover. Whew!

Yes, I did start falling asleep at the table, but I was fully coherent up to that point…Mom thinks anytime I fall asleep after I’ve been drinking, it means I’ve PASSED OUT. Now, me at Matt and Sarah’s wedding, with my feet up on whatever they were up on, and my dress hiked up, THAT was “passed out.” :)

Mom, even though we won’t be there for Thanksgiving, will you still make me some of your wild rice and pork sausage stuffing at Christmas? That stuff is soooooo good…I don’t even need any turkey to go with it…

We can certainly make some, if you want. We also can make our traditional beef stew OR smooshed potato soup for Christmas Eve OR another hoisin sauce-covered pork tenderloin .... AND whaddaya think about making some of your childhood Christmas cookies, the red-iced Santa Clauses and the blue-winged angels?

Speaking of which, you and I NEED to make some more wild Wendish Christmas stockings this year. We have THREE new members of the family: Sarah, Ell and Preston. I know, I know, you hate Ell... but I was thinking, maybe we could put gray felt lumps of coal on her stocking ... and make a hole at the bottom of the stocking ... so all the goodies fall out? (hee-hee)

Hah! Wendish Christmas Cheer at it's best!

Mom! You’re a wicked, wicked wench! I LOVE that about you! :D

Sure, we can make some more stockings! I think Cisco and Dakota need at least one to share, too, as long as we’re at it. And when Mr. Ronbo Delicious decides he wants to come join our party, we’ll make him one, too. Maybe with a semi-naked female elf with big bazongas on it… ;) Mom will put an omelet in it the first year…

Outstanding! but, don't take it personally if I check the bottom of the stocking for holes.....

You BET! It'll be the BEST, the JUICIEST, the HOTTEST omelette you've ever SEEN, SMELLED or TASTED!

And, isn’t it funny that, even though Mom says I “hate” Ell (which I don’t REALLY…but I would like to give her the occasional swift kick in the ass sometimes), the idea for the gray felt lumps of coal and “bottomless stocking” idea was ALL HERS? The wenchiness doesn’t fall far from the tree…

Okey, Miss Smarty-Pants -- what's the difference between falling asleep at the dinner table and PASSED OUT? Huh?

Well, there is some correlation between falling asleep and being at the table when said action occurs that leads oneto term it "passing out," I guess.......

YUP, I'll own up to my share of Wendish Christmas Cheer and Wenchiness. And I love that MY little girl's wenchiness came (at least in part) from me! :-D

Mom, are you coming on to ...?

Uhh .... uhh, NO! I just got carried AWAY with the sensuousNESS of it!

If she is, this will be the first time I've ever heard of omelettes used as a pickup mechanism!

You are just the cutest Mom ever. I can honestly say that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the emphasis put onto the “ness” part of “sensuousness.” That takes cojones!

Good news, bad news

Okay, the bad news first. It rained yesterday. A lot. I walked the 70 yards or so from my car to the building entrance at work and my feet were wet. Not on the top, but on the bottom. I sat down and looked at the soles of my brown leather shoes. Big cracks! No wonder my socks were positively squishy! Damn! Now I gotta buy some new shoes. There's a hundred bucks I wasn't counting on spending. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I talked to my benefits rep yesterday, and without going into gruesomely detailed details, I am entitled to more "free" days of pay than I realized. Like about FOUR MORE! Whoo-hoo!

you're a true Spartan if ...

As the college football season comes to a close (tongue-in-cheek) ...


You're a true Michigan State Spartan if ...

................ Michigan was playing against al-Qaeda, you'd root for al-Qaeda.

(It's a darn good thing hardly anyone looks at my blog, cuz this posting would probably get me in trouble. It's definitely not politically correct!)

the last day Ruth is 50

Dragon Mood? -- loving my sister

Tomorrow is my sister, Ruth's 51st birthday. Wow!

Ruth and I talk regularly. At least once a week, sometimes more. We are sisters, confidantes, sharers of family history, reminders of family events ("I just wanted to remind you that Josh is taking his test tomorrow") and chief cheerleaders for one another as we each face our challenges.

We do a lot of remembering and reminiscing. We remember our mom and her mom, Nana, laughing at some of their foibles and antics, waxing philosophically on some of their troubling behaviors. We talk about how we miss them. I tell her how I recall a certain event and she tells me how she saw it. It's always an amazing thing, what people remember, what they don't and even how different our perceptions of a shared event can be. Ruth remembers little details that, if I ever noticed them, I have long since forgotten. I can recall environments and physical layouts of places. She remembers things and objects far more than I do.

We talk about aging parents. We talk about how people change as they age, some gracefully, some not so gracefully. We question each other on our own aging. Will I be like that? Promise me you'll tell me if I ever do that! We talk about all the aunts and uncles that formed this hallowed circle around us as children, who are now in their late seventies and early eighties. Mom and Aunt Flora are gone. Who will be next?

We listen to one another about our fears, our annoyances, our jobs. Neither of us is particularly happy or challenged in our current jobs. We listen empathetically to one another about our partner/spouse and the challenges of long-term relationships. She offers advice to me about S and her stress-filled job. I encourage her to be patient with Paul as he struggles in a depressing job that was supposed to be "laid back."

We encourage each other to eat healthy, exercise regularly, take care of ourselves -- "go get that checked out by the doctor, promise me?" And, when we're both feeling particularly vulnerable about our health and unknown lifespan, we joke about Dad outliving us both -- and laugh heartily.

We tell each other things that no one else knows. Sometimes, the questions and their answers feel disturbing because they're just so damn intimate ... can they bear the light of day and potential for scrutiny? Can these confidences bear being voiced out loud?

That's when the essence of sisterhood becomes clear. I trust Ruth with a deep, implicit trust that really has no bounds. She's always been there, she's always been my ally and I know that she always wants the very best for me. She loves me in a deep, knowing way that I experience as true and profound. God blesses me with a sister like Ruth. Not all people have sisters or siblings who care like she does. I don't take her for granted. She is a gift to me.

And so, on this last day of my dear sister as a 50 year-old, I give thanks for her presence in my life. Happy Birthday, Ruth! I love you!

An uncelebrated birthday

Dragon Mood? -- snorting out celebratory puffs of fire

Last week, a birthday slipped by, quietly, uncelebrated. It is the 15th anniversary

"...of Tim Bernier-Lee's idea that there could be a worldwide web, linked not by spider silk but by hypertext links and transfer protocols and uniform resource locators."

The author of this article, James Boyle, goes on to say that the web is more amazing than we may realize. Why? Look at what the internet now contains: Google and Wikipedia and newspapers from around the globe; national maps, Project Gutenberg and blogs galore.

The worldwide web was created through the "conjunction of unlikely technologies." The web is reached by (deep breath for geek-speak)

"... general purpose computers that use open protocols – standards and languages that are owned by no one – to communicate with a network (there is no central point from which all data comes) whose mechanisms for transferring data are also open."

And ...

"The web developed because we went in the opposite direction – towards openness and lack of centralised control."

A third amazing thing about the worldwide web is that, were it to be created today, it would likely be crippled by special interests, if not downright illegal. According to this columnist, the web became too popular too quickly to control. The lawyers and the politicians and the copyright holders were not there at the time of its conception. If they had been,

It would have looked more like pay-television, or Minitel, the French computer network.
... Allow anyone to connect to the network? Anyone to decide what content to put up? That is a recipe for piracy and pornography. [Yeah for pirates!]

So, let's hear it for openness and lack of centralized control! And let's all celebrate the amazing thing -- imagine, in our lifetimes -- that is the worldwide web!

Pirates making a comeback?

Dragon Mood? -- pirates, as in Wendish pirates??

From various news sources including the Washington Post is this surprising "modern-day" development:

Pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns tried to hijack a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast Saturday, but the ship outran them, officials said.

Two boats full of pirates approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast and opened fire while the heavily armed bandits tried to get onboard, said Bruce Good, spokesman for the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The ship escaped by shifting to high speed and changing course.

"These are very well-organized pirates," said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program. "Somalia's coastline is the most dangerous place in the region in terms of maritime security."

The attackers never got close enough to board the Spirit, but one member of the 161-person crew was injured by shrapnel, cruise line president Deborah Natansohn said. . . ."Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good said, adding that the crew had been trained for "various scenarios, including people trying to get on the ship that you don't want on the ship."

Daily Kos makes this piquant comment:

I knew talking like pirates was all the rage. But actually being pirates?

And what will that ol' pirate princess, Wild Wend have to say about all this? Hmmm?

from Scarlet Letter's blog on MAKING ART!

Dragon Mood? -- dragon energies stirred up

Here's an interesting article that I found via many Firefox tabs, Scarlet Letter, on making art. I am reprinting these notes in their entirety, mostly for my reference:

1. Quality through quantity. Don't get hung up on making this one piece good -- make ten and one will certainly be pretty good.

2. Do NOT mix generating and editing. When you're making a piece, don't stop and get judgmental half-way through. If it's a piece of crap, get that piece of crap out of your system -- don't try to fix it mid-flow. Finish it, move on.

3. When to judge: After you've completed a piece, look at it and decide what direction you want to go in next. Or if you're selecting pieces for submission to a show, apply your critiquing mind then. Make a piece of art; look at it; make another.

4. Don't be afraid to re-use elements. If each piece has to be unique, then you're going to get hung-up when you create some bit that you like. But if you can re-use bits, then you can keep moving.

5. How to have "lots of ideas": permute. Start anywhere. Once a piece is done, try varying some aspect. Think of all the variables that could have permutations.

6. "Get through your first 50 failures as fast as you can." I don't think that we should be shooting for a place where we no longer make crappy art. A good artist is one who's in motion making lots of art -- you only think they're so much better because they produce so much quantity that their pile of "good art" has also been able to accumulate. For every piece of crap you create, you're one step closer to getting something you really like.

7. Don't even bother "fixing" pieces. Making art shouldn't be a struggle. You're simply "thinking out loud" onto the page, photo-paper, or canvas. If a product seems confused, leave it confused. Make another piece where you contemplate whatever issues you were wrestling with. Try something different. When clarity arrives, it will come in one living piece -- not be Frankensteined together out of a single infinitely re-worked, mangled corpse.

8. Work fast. Creativity is exciting. If you're not judging while you're making, then you can just throw things together as fast as your mind can move. You're smart; if you don't like what you've made, you'll know immediately. You might not know what to do about the problem you perceive... Don't "think", standing there cogitating -- try things. If your hands are in motion, you can be generating new permutations. The one that you want to pick will come out on its own time.

9. Let your level show. Let the world know that despite having years of investment in your art form, you're still a beginner who doesn't know it all. Rather than hide your thought process, let your questions be present in your work. You are a fundamentally more interesting artist if people get to see what it is that you're struggling with, rather than just your final answers. Show your work. Talk about what you still can't understand (unapologetically).

10. Don't hide your failures. If you are only willing to show those perfect pieces that you are aspiring towards, you're never going to display / publish your work. Show everything, the worst of the crap included, and let your ego be humbled -- and goaded to create more.

Good morning, world!

Good morning, world! It's Saturday morning, probably my favorite morning of the week, I'm home among the pine trees and with my sweetheart. All is well with my world!

S and I watched the final episode (for this year) of Bill Maher's Real Time last night. He had Joe Scarborough from MSNBC's Scarborough Country, as well as the former president of Ireland and now the United Nation's High Commissioner of Human Rights, Mary Robinson. I thoroughly enjoyed hearig her speak about the world's perception of the United States under George W. Bush's watch. Profoundly disturbing to the point of being tragic!

And ... I am writing this post from Writely once again, testing out the software. I think I might like this.

Make a wish

Dragon Mood? -- startled, excited

Tuesday evening, I was sitting outside, in the driveway of the pied-a-terre, talking to Lina on my cell phone. I noticed the sound of a plane flying overhead, so I looked up. The blinking lights of the plane passed by. Lina and I continued to talk.

And then, what to my wondering eyes should appear but ... a shooting star!?! I watched it from the right side of my view ALL-LLL the way across the sky. As it streamed across the darkness, it slowly burnt itself up in the atmosphere. Silently, arcing! Then, nothing. It was gone!



"Ooh-ooh, I just saw a shooting star!" I exclaimed.

"Make a wish, make a wish, Mom!," Lina prompted.

"What should I wish for?" I asked.

"Oh, you should have those wishes lined up!" she answered knowingly.

"Well, give me a second," I answered a little panicky. I certainly didn't want to blow my chance for a completely unexpected bonus wish!

Wishes, wishes? What should I wish for? S came to my mind. I'll make a wish for us both? No, I'll make a wish just for me. Oh, that's so selfish! Make a combined wish! Oh, okay!

So I did. A wish that incorporates good things for both S and me.

Let's hope.

I am hoping!

Testing Writely's blogging chops

Dragon Mood: this Dragon loves exploring new tech-y things!

I am drafting this posting inside of Writely, an online word processing application (if I'm understanding what this thing is doing at all). I ran across a reference to Writely the other day, but didn't have time to explore it. Now, it's Friday afternoon, the week is winding down and I thought I'd check it out.

one	two
three	four

Wow, Writely can even put a table in this posting for me. I'm rather impressed.

I think I'll post this now and see what it looks like.