The Greener Grass on the Other Side

We didn't get the several feet of lovely white snow that relatives got in Colorado. We didn't get that warm sunshine and wind in the palms that relatives got in Florida. But as I stood out on the dock last night, I wasn't feeling left out. I think Peruby did such a great job of putting these holidays in perspective...you should go there and read this post.

Scattering Memories

We (I) have now spent the longest time in our new house...nine days. Nine fully filled days of errands and activities.

In the process of filling the house full of things, we celebrated Christmas with those we love and filled the house with the first important memories. First memories are wisps of smells and sounds that tuck themselves into corners of rooms and are unexpectedly revealed by a ray of sunlight or the wind racing through the door before it is closed behind you. They pause over your head as you sit down for a cup of tea during the day. They hide in the smudge on the newly painted wall in the hall. Memories make the house sigh happily in the afternoon or creak loudly in the night as it makes room for more of the same.

I think that I may feel I am coming 'home' the next time I come down this way for a short and busy weekend and not just to someone's new house.

On the Day After Christmas

1) Couldn't really sleep-in as Xman was up by 6:30 and was ready to say good morning to his new "choo-choo."
2) Daddy had packed "choo choo" so that they could get an early start back home. Of course everything got unpacked and redistributed throughout the rooms in the short time parents got a quick breakfast.
3) One very special Christmas gift was that my baby girl is 7 weeks along with grandchild number two.
4) Bad news is that she has morning sickness the size of a small elephant and couldn't enjoy any of the food that she loves. She actually spent one afteroon of her days with us on the bathroom floor. (This past week she scared a coworker when she was accidentally found under her desk at work because she felt so nauseous. Sounds like something on a TV show.) Boo hoo.
5) We have guiltily contributed to the landfills of the area with the tons of banana- republic-bombay-godiva-macys-fischer-price, etc. bags that were left behind in my foyer after a somewhat excessive consumptive Christmas.
6) I am actually starting to take down the decorations (Yes, I heard what you were thinking.) This is because we will be back in the city for New Year's to catch a few movies.
7) One of the nicest things about the holidays is that I can have pumpkin pie with whip cream for breakfast and munch on holiday cookies as I do the laundry and feel no guilt. (And I did that today!)
8) We were smart this year and actually took all the toys out of their bubble packs and tightly wired housing before gift wrapping them since 30 minutes is too long for a 20 month old to wait for a train engine! One would think that toys are terrorist weapons the way they are protected from access
9) My son drove the hour back to the city on Christmas day and brought down his girlfriend of almost 6 years ... we are hoping this means something significant in the future as she is a very special girl.
10) And finally, I know very well that perfect Christmases don't come very often, but they are certainly worth waiting for on the rare times that they do appear.

Two Days Before Christmas

I have been working like a crazy person. Cleaning, shopping, wrapping, cooking, decorating. Each evening I fall into bed so exhausted I can barely pull the quilt up. While my holidays are usually quiet, this year we are lucky and have friends coming for lunch today and my daughter coming to cook me a belated birthday dinner tonight and then her in-laws coming for Christmas Eve dinner and to spend the big holiday with us along with my son.

My new kitchen is full of pies, homemade and storebought, homemade cookies, salad fixings, pretty fresh fruit and wrapped candies and awaiting the delivery of a ham and a turkey brought by guests. My new refrigerator is full of cassroles waiting to be heated.

Weather this year has been mild if wet and very different from the whomping white whippin that my relatives in Colorado are enduring. Thus, hubby was able to decorate outside a little. (We are too old to be crawling up and down ladders!) I will try to post a photo, although all bets are off as I blog on this very old computer we have down at this house.

I have been sleeping very well and so, am surprised to find I have insomnia tonight. So, at least I have your blogs to keep me company.

Love

Remember when you were younger and in love? That certain someone made you catch your breath when they entered the room. You couldn't drink enough of them in with your eyes. If they sat near you, you would breathe deeply of their smell and have to sit on your hands so that you weren't constantly stroking their skin. Everything you did revolved around the magnetic pull of their personality.

When you were away from them your heart ached. You would find yourself drawing their name on paper or seeing their eye color in nature. A laugh might sound so familiar that your heart would jump as you turned your head and then your heart would crash when you would see it was someone else.

Well, today I am aching for my love. My hands feel empty because they have nothing to do for him. If I sit on the couch I miss his head against my chest and his hands in my hands as he drifts off to sleep. Yep, I spent the entire weekend beginning Friday night with Xman and it was wrenching (for the both of us) to separate on Sunday afternoon. I miss the smell of his hair, his quick smile, and those honest brown eyes that would study my face. His pleasure was so pure when we were doing something he liked. Even when he was grumpy, it was just a mild protest to let me know he still wanted to be the boss, yet, I eventually got my way.

This power that my grandchild has over me is a little scary but oh, so addictive. Even when totally exhausted after putting him to bed at the end of the day, I wanted that one last little smell and kiss before I would head down the stairs.

I was tagged by
Ask-the-painting-contractor-chickie.

"The Rules:
The player of this game starts with "3 things he/ she would love to get for Christmas" and also has to list "3 things he/ she definitely does not want to get for Christmas". Then he/she tags 5 friends and list their names. The ones who get tagged need to write on their blogs about their Christmas wishes, as well as state this rule clearly, then tag 5 more victims. And the one who tags need to leave a comment that says "you've been Christmas tagged!" in their comments and tell them to read your blog."

Three things I would like for Christmas:
1. Peace in Darfur (I could ask for peace everywhere, but I am afraid I won't get that).
2. I wish that on this planet with an abundance of food no one starves anywhere ever again.
3. Everyone gets on a save-the-planet bandwagon and changes how they live and how they spend their money so that the environment is once again in balance.

Things I DO NOT want:
1. Anything that requires hours of programming to work
2. Anything that makes me sit more than move
3. Anything that requires a battery


Most of my readers do not abide by tags, but I will see if Peruby, Tammy and Long-tooth want to play.

The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

Yesterday I posted something from the world of information access and now here today from grrlscientist is even more exciting news from the world of science and research. Now if all the answers for you are in 'the book' than none of this makes any difference, does it? I just hope that the next doctor examining me and the next chemist creating my medicine and the next teacher teaching my grandson has read more than one book and has access to more than one library and doesn't second guess research results to be PC!

Back to the dark ages with the digital commons

Go here for some news on how your children and grandchildren will solve the world's problems! The photo is also a link.

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-libraries1210.artdec10,0,7523072.story

Stirring the Crazies

I have been static in this apartment since last Tuesday with a five hour "work-break" at the office. I have been all alone this week and have only seen a young man in the elevator when I went to pick up the mail. He didn't see me, because at my age, I am invisible!

First stir:
Second Stir:

Third Stir:

Fourth Stir:
I have gotten tired of surveying every little thing in this apartment and waiting for my freedom.

Run Down Musings

Totally alone all weekend with my millions of alien microbes. How many boxes of kleenex does it take to win a war? I am suffocating in my own body fluids and yet the river continues to flow. What a disappointment to discover that flu shots are ineffectual. The genesis of all this was a babysitting consequence that I had volunteered for this Sunday past. That venue also has three sick people trying to make it through the hours. Thank the fates that hubby and son are thousands of miles away in the land of snow.

My arrival at work after three days of rest on Friday was not met with sympathy but by annoyed co-workers sending me home back again as if I carried the plague. (They were right, of course, but I had become so lonely, and there were deadlines.)

While the throat no longer is on fire and the body thermostat has leveled off, I still have a smarting chest, a pressure headache and insomnia. And all I can think about is all the holiday errands that have been shelved. (And how much refuse there is on cable when one has to pass the time.)

Could someone make me another cup of mint tea, puhleeze.

My Own Little Discovery Show

(This photo taken from http://www.johnsonmill.com/birding.html

I will get a telephoto someday!)

“Hey, Tabor, come look out the window!” hubby said with excitement in his voice

I looked at the direction he indicated and high on a snag above the river sat a bald eagle. Hubby ran to get the binoculars --- that expensive Swarovski set that I bought him five years ago and which has panned out to be one of the best gifts I ever got him.

He generously handed me the binoculars first to see the close up of our visitor. He was definitely a male in his prime. His colors were lustrous and his feathers full and rich in the cold afternoon. The eagle then gently lifted his wings and glided closer to another nearby snag. That is when I saw he had a fish in his talons. He landed on the branch and I could see the silvery menhaden flapping against the branch as it hung down caught only by one claw.

The eagle ‘eagle-eyed’ his domain and then took a small bite from his sashimi meal. The menhaden continued to flap while the eagle continued to nibble. This predator prey drama was not for the weak of heart. The eagle would pause between bites and survey the river at his leisure. This lasted for just a few minutes more.

Before long, a crow flew in to a branch just above and to the right of the eagle with intimidating body language and a noisy jabber indicating clear interest in the mid-day lunch. In a very short time a second crow joined him and landed just above the first. Both seemed to me to be too close to the eagle. Daring black bullies they were. Two more flew in and landed to the left of the eagle. One of these flew down looking for fragments of flesh on the forest floor.

The eagle had now changed from the leisurely meal with a view on the water to the fast food manner dictated by the nearby company and he soon finished the fish. He proceeded to clean his bill and claws on the bark of the tree and the crows eventually lost interest and departed.

The eagle sat on the branch for almost an hour longer letting us observe him and giving us an excuse to halt the Christmas decorating. Then he took off, swooping with breathtaking grace down the river making a dip at the far end…too far for us to see if he caught dessert.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

Guests:
This Thanksgiving my daughter and son-in-law were on travel. My son was the only one who was going to join us for TG Day. I could have called some friends, but was too lazy. They were also thinking about calling us and didn't! So there were going to be only three for the big meal.

Location:
We could have eaten down at the house using the new kitchen, but I had to work on Friday so that was a long drive back at the end of the big meal that I didn't want to make. We could have eaten at my son's condo which has a larger TV to watch games on, but my son indicated he didn't really care about the football all that much---Translation:" I don't want to have to clean the condo for you guys." We could have eaten out somewhere, but we took so long to plan that that option disappeared fairly soon. Thus, we ate at the apartment.

Decor:


Hubby generously brought home a bouquet from the market to brighten up the table. So not too much more decor needed for just two guys.

Menu:
In years past I went all out with the meal. I like to cook, hubby likes to cook and the kids even like to cook. So some made pies and side dishes and I would work on the turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes and a special salad. Ah, but this is a lot of food to prepare for just three people in a tiny kitchen.

So this year we had 'take-out.' from Boston Market via the Giant supermarket. This box feeds 8 to 10 and costs $60.00. That comes to about $6.00 per person, the food is good if not outstanding, and there are leftovers and plastic leftover containers for everyone. All we had to do was reheat the meal in the oven and microwave.


I would never have thought of a Thanksgiving like this years ago. But I guess I am getting more mellow in my old age. Release the control, let go of the remote, put down that camera, hand over that turkey baster and just mellow out.

Thanks

Thanks for this big blue planet that keeps on turning in spite of all the assaults we place on it.

Thanks for the sanity of the people around me when things seem insane.

Thanks for the sparkling eyes and quick smiles of small children.

Thanks for love in all its strange configurations.

Thanks for one more day.

LIfe Story #5

A long time ago when I was living in a land of artists and spiritualists and peaceful people with violent rivers inside their souls (Indonesia) I took a batik course at the Palace grounds in Jogjakarta. I was taught privately by an old man who was as small as a goat and as brown as a coconut. He was always patient and smiling through his many missing teeth. He also taught batik to a class of young Balinese men, who were the real artists and devoted their lives to the medium, in early afternoons. I have had no formal artistic training ( unless you count the elementary teacher's art class I took in college many years ago), so his patience with me as I practiced in this very unusual medium was amazing. Of course he probably saw me as this rich, idle, American who helped him put rice on his table. I was too young to see myself in that way and I was also tutoring American children half days and desperately needed this artistic break.

In my memories I can visualize driving down a street toward the Palace past the Chinese men who cut hair and trimmed toenails at their stands on the narrow sidewalk.

My work would take place in a small room with bamboo walls and a dusty floor. It was so dark inside that I can remember looking through the spaces in the bamboo and seeing the lady who sold birds in cages on the sidewalk outside. The smell of the pine resin that was added to the wax was pleasantly welcoming when I arrived each afternoon. The dyes were strong and we washed the fabrics carefully in very hot water over a ditch outside behind the building. I purchased all the chanting tools, bowls and kerosine stove and was fascinated with the shapes and rustic metals of each one. I bought large blocks of wax and small blocks of pine resin and would melt them together for the correct mix. The dyes would come as fine powders in small plastic bags and I could not really tell the exact color I would get until I dyed the fabric.

At first all I did was try to copy the batik patterns I saw in the fabrics around me each day. Then I decided to try something original. The batik above was one of the very first pieces I did. It took quite a while between the washing out of wax and the application of each new layer of wax for the new phase of dye.

The subject appeared from nowhere into my head. Since I am allergic to cats I am not really fond of them, and I don't really know where the idea of this brown cat came from. I made him guilty, so I guess my lack of love for cats shows. I did a lot of needlework at one time and that was added. I also fell in love with a maidenhair fern that was growing on the wall behind my house in Jogja. All of these were added into my piece.

This batik has sat for decades folded in a box. My powderoom (with the famous sink) in the new house happens to go with these colors, so I spent a small fortune at Michaels getting it matted and framed. I have an Egyptian parchment cat that I framed to go on the opposing wall. No, the powderroom is not that big, and the batik just fits on wall, but that is the only room where it seems to fit in color.

The young woman who matted and framed it at the store kept praising it and several other patrons in the store also said it was a very nice work. I never thought about it much, but now I guess I can share it with you.

Found: One Tree Tanka

You may remember last winter how the burden of a heavy new snowfall caused a large branch from a pine tree outside my bedroom window to tear away from the trunk of the tree and fall heavily to the ground. It left behind a dramatic four foot white scar where the bark had been torn away. The painful burden of such a heavy new snow weighing against each needle was just too much for the tree. (I can relate to this in so many ways.) BUT this dramatic scar seems to have healed over almost completely. (Below not exactly pivotal in creativity...but I wanted to try thanks to Tammy.)

Hidden history
Shock and scars beneath the bark
Cambium bands true
Tomorrow grows the fair ring
Healing, hiding the past.

(I am not going to tell you where I found it...but those of you who have been blogging for a while will know!)

Currently Wondering About...

There goes that last little pixel...

I was working (sporadically) on a 'tree tanka'...motivated by that very talented Tammy. It had been sitting in my drafts folder for a couple of months, and finally, I decided that I was going to publish it even though I felt it needed a little more focused work. (I have this inner feeling that tells me if you are 'working' on a tanka it is no longer a tanka.) So I published it before I left for the house late on Thursday along with the picture of the tree that motivated my creativity. Virtual electronic spirits, whose primary diet must be pixels and digital bits of light or whose primary entertainment must be squirreling away pixels and bits of light, absconded with my post. I don't know if the post sits in their tummies (I wish them much indigestion) or if it lights the way down their hidden bandwidths. Where do posts go when they disappear in the ethernet? Do they end up on someone else's blog as a shockingly naked invasion? Do they sit in a place somewhere that will someday explode in bites all over the Internet? Do they evaporate into the atmosphere and are they a future carcinogen that we should be studying? Did this one go into a collection of tankas that sit in a folder somewhere just waiting to be re-discovered? Or perhaps, my tanka was so painfully bad that the Internet police decided that they just could not let it get by.

All I know is that I don't feel I can re-capture the thought any time soon.

Have a good weekend.

Two Personalities in the Marriage

Just a little grumpy. He is such a drama king, though.

I spent part of the weekend taking care of Xman who is not a happy camper since he cannot get around easily. He is slowly getting the courage to stand, but has to be distracted by something. Needless to say, he is getting tons of attention from everyone and has his own little party going on where he is the center. He is a flirt and loves to pretend he doesn't care that we are totally interested in him. We talked about how hard that will be for him, when in the future, he is treated like a normal child after the cast comes off and people tend to ignore him much of the time.

I am continuing to have issues at work as are several of my other colleagues with the same problem. I still haven't decided whether to just keep a low profile the next two years and do standard work, or try to venture out and be creative with projects and ideas even though there is a chance certain entities will fight me on anything they think will take the focus away from them. It is really hard for me not to be working hard on something. (My supervisor is being very understanding...whether she will do anything is another matter, of course.)

I was down at the house on Sunday bringing some end tables and lamps from the apartment. Hubby cleaned out the gutters which were full of leaves while I did three loads of laundry and went through several weeks of mail...mostly junk mail.

The bush by the dock has turned to snow.

Since we didn't get down there until almost noon the day flew by. The sun was setting as I was trying to sort some groceries for the freezer when Hubby came running in and said I had to get out to the dock and see the sunset. I was totally focused on a bunch of other stuff, but reluctantly relented. I took some photos and did some breathing in and out. I must have done something right to get this guy to marry me! He is so good about tapping into my zen moments when I am too busy being anal retentive and missing so much.


Dad was released from the hospital yesterday...things are looking up. I am smiling through the tears.

Just for Mannababies!!