What a Great Place to be a Cow

Labyrinth Walk

2012-01-25T22:56:00.000-06:00

Walking from the busy street through the gate to the garden labyrinth on Saturday I was struck with a sense of the sacred. The grey bench outlining the center of the hedge-lined path danced before my eyes. I breathed easily as my mind suddenly took a back seat. I was in the mist of the Divine surrounded by fellow travelers.

We formed a line beside the labyrinth. Silently reciting a prayer for each person who entered before me, my mind was ever focused on the bench, waiting in the center.

I stepped to the entrance, made the sign of the cross, and wanted nothing more than to jump over the hedges. My first steps along the path were quick and filled with anticipation, but the labyrinth is a path to be walked, not an obstacle to cross. Soon my feet found the rhythm of the journey, pausing to dwell in each turn.

When I arrived in the center I marveled at the space. Far from a small, cramped circle I had entered an oasis. I sat on the bench and almost for the first time, my eyes fell on the tree. The strong old oak had beautiful spreading boughs, as though it was embracing the entire labyrinth.

I closed my eyes and centered in prayer. I did not seek to experience a sudden moment of clarity. I had not come to the labyrinth that day with a particular problem to work out. I sought, and experienced with profound clarity, God’s holy presence.

I carried that sense of presence with me as I left the labyrinth and that ‘holy’ place. I also carried with me a challenge. The next day I saw this challenge perfectly laid out in a line from the comic, Calvin & Hobbes. “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” I am challenged to enjoy my time on this path towards ministry.

2012-01-23T00:44:00.000-06:00

Joshua Bell signing my CD - photo by Alex

One of my first celebrity crushes. I don't think I will ever stop loving Joshua Bell. He was in Houston on Friday playing a recital concert. After two hours of painting beautiful music with his violin, Bell sat in the lobby and signed autographs. He has a new CD out, so of course he was signing CDs, but he was also signing programs. Meaning the line was insane. Still, when we walked up he smiled. Shook our hands, asked Alex what her name was and if she enjoyed the concert. Like an idiot I was just smiling repeating, "Thank you for doing this, you are really wonderful" over and over again.

I was going to post a youtube video of him playing here, but I've spent the last hour watching videos. Now it is time for bed and I still can't decided which one to post. I'll leave it up to you to google him if you want. I hope you get lost in the music too.

Forgotten Sickness

2012-01-20T08:39:00.002-06:00

So the daily calendar I bought myself for Christmas this year is called Forgotten English. Every day it presents a word or phrase that was once used in English speaking society, but has since died either because other words have replaced them or because the thing it describes no longer exists.
Today's word: Green-sickness is defined by James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English, Language published in 1884, as "A disease in which the person has a sickly paleness, with a green tinge of the complexion, chiefly confined to unmarried females.
According to Zell’s Popular Encyclopedia, published in 1871 “….the cure of this disease are gentle exercise in open air, with nutritious and rather stimulating diet, sea-bathing, and agreeable society."
As much as I identify as a feminist, there are time I wouldn't mind being able to fain "green-sickness".
Of course then I’m reminded that today is the Feast Eve of St. Agnes, a day when unmarried females would fast and pray to the patroness of chastity all day long and then drink a concoction of dried worms and white wine before going to bed in order to induce dreams of the man they would one day marry.

I can’t help but wonder if green-sickness wasn't perhaps induced by that kind of diet and “cure.” I have to say this kind of thing makes me very glad to be an educated woman living in an educated, 21 century society.
All of this, of course has nothing to do with anything. Just thought I would share.

MLK

2012-01-15T19:02:00.000-06:00

Invitation of Joy

2012-01-08T21:12:00.000-06:00

Early morning Sun
nudges my eyes open.

I look out my window,
that has been open all night
to invite in the breeze,
and see the tops of winter trees.
Naked. No leaves.

The Son nudges
my soul open.
Naked. No expectation.

I invite Joy to enter.

New Year, New Skills

2012-01-02T17:30:00.001-06:00

I begin the new year with a new skill. I can give myself injections. It isn't something I ever thought I would do. I'm afraid of needles. Meaning I don't like looking at needles that are just sitting on a table never mind ones that are going into my arm, or stomach as the case maybe.

You stand at the bathroom sink. You take a deep breath and settle into your skin, your knees wobble, your palms sweating, and you feel a twinge of panic. You think of the sharp prick of the needle, of how the liquid will burn. You think, I can't do this. No, no, no, no, no. And then you think of all the people surrounding you in prayer. Their calm is calming to you, their spirits cheer you up. We are a team, and for the sake of the team I will stick it out. And of course the pill for nausea helps. And the promise of a Reese Peanut Butter cup.

I'm back

2011-12-31T21:17:00.000-06:00

I completely enjoyed the season of Advent.

For the first time in what seemed like a life time, I my schedule was open and free. When I was at home I could just be at home. Our house had one rule: No Multitasking. It was fabulous.

Christmas morning when Alex and I stumbled out of bed we opened the smattering of presents under the tree and watched the Disney Parks ~~Commercial~~ Parade. It was fabulous.

Christmas night the dull pain that had been nagging on the right side of my back all day turned into a sharp stabbing pain and I was up all night. In pain and sick. Long story short I ended up in the ER the next morning. Longer story short it turns out, I[probably] have "sticky blood." In other words blood is prone to clotting. Probably. This [probably] explains the odd shooting pains that I have been experiencing over the past several months.

I'm now on blood thinning medication. A shot. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who is also a nurse. Because while the Hematologist was confident I could inject myself with the "short" needle. He didn't take into account how much I hate needles. Hopefully I he puts me on a pill form of the medicine soon. I don't don't if Nurse Curly Locks can inject me every day for the rest of my life. Needles aside, the medicine has worked. I feel better. I'm not in pain. The clot that was in my kidney is probably gone. They will follow me closely for the next six months to a year and see if this really is what they think it is. And figure out long term treatment options. Apparently once a person has sticky blood they always have sticky blood. [insert gratuitous call for healthcare reform here].

So today, since I was feeling 100 percent normal again I called my sister, the yuppie lawyer, and demanded she take me to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to see the incredibly wonderful documentary, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. See this movie. Bring a box of tissues. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who created and portrays Elmo is an amazing human being. Inspiring.

And since today is New Years Eve, I have to add that I am incredibly grateful for all of the people that have walked across my path this year. The opportunities I have been given have been amazing and challenging. I have gained new knowledge and I have gained a better understanding of who it is I am in God. I look forward to continuing my journey, to continuing to learn how to move over so that God can walk this path with me.

First Sunday in Advent

2011-11-27T07:22:00.000-06:00

Oh, Holy Mother, Divine Creator of All, we are your children, the sons and daughters of your flesh and your heart. Our very waiting for you in Advent is itself our confession.

We are waiting for you, Emmanuel, to remember your touch and the fragrance of your essence, we long for you; hear our call.

We are waiting for you, Messiah, while the proud are still powerful, the mighty are still exalted, and the hungry stand unheard at the door.

We are still waiting for your son Jesus, your incarnation in human form, because we have not known you in our siste; we have not loved you in our brother; we have not served you in our neighbor.

In this time of great meaning, in the stillness of Advent love and light, enlighten us with your presence. Draw back the veils that we might see, and harken the doors to open, that beauty and ecstasy may live in our homes and hearts more fully.

This is our hour of greatest need. Hear our deepest confession; heal us and make us new through the good tidings of your presence in our lives. Amen.

Something to keep in mind when Christmas Shopping...

2011-11-14T06:29:00.000-06:00

Halloween...

2011-10-31T08:41:00.000-05:00

Last night, in honor of Halloween Alex wanted to watch a scary movie. I don't own any horror slasher flicks, not that I think there is inherently wrong with them I just don't enjoy having the crap scared out of me and I don't find violence to be entertaining.

So we looked to see what was offered by way of streaming on Netflix. The answer to THAT was not much, but they did have Night of the Living Dead. A classic. We got to the part where the zombies chase the girl into the house and we had to turn it off. Alex was too scared. So we watched Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein instead. Spooky, but funny - my idea of a good time. And it got me thinking. What are my all time favorite Halloween movies. I came up with my top five - the order is subject to change.

5. Spaced Invaders - I haven't found this movie anywhere recently. It was made in the early 1990s about four aliens who crash land in a small town in Iowa on Halloween night. Hilarity ensues.

4. Arsenic and Old Lace - I'm not sure how many times that play has been made into a movie, but I love the version with Cary Grant. Fun, scary and the fact that Boris Karloff plays Jonathen - the mass murdering brother who "looks like Boris Karloff" makes it even better.

3. Meet Me in St. Louis - I know, it's not a classic Halloween film, but Halloween in is in it. I can still hear Margret O'Brian crying, chocking back tears... "HE TRIED TO KILL ME!"

2. It's the Great Pumkin Charlie Brown - needs no explanation.

1. The Mummy - with Boris Karloff. To me, this is the classic 1950s horror film. Karloff is scary beyond all reason and gives you all the suspense and none of the gore.

Today, 70 percent of American households will open their doors and offer candy to strangers, most of them children; 50 percent of Americans will take photographs of family or friends in costume; and the nation as a whole will spend more than seven billion dollars.* In terms of dollars spent, it is the second most popular holiday of the year in this country, after Christmas.

For the Celtic people of Northeastern Europe, November 1st was New Year's Day, and October 31 was the last night of the year. Celts believed it was the night that spirits, ghosts, fairies and goblins freely walked the earth. Archaeologists aren't entirely sure what all the traditions were, but they believe the holiday involved bonfires, dressing up in costumes to scare away evil spirits, and offering food and drink to the spirits of family members who had come back to visit the home.

It was Pope Gregory III in the eighth century A.D. who tried to turn Halloween into a Christian holiday to divert Northern Europeans from celebrating an old pagan ritual. He made November 1st All Saints Day, and October 31 became All Hallows Eve. Instead of providing food and drink to the spirits, Christians were encouraged to provide food and drink to the poor. And instead of dressing up like animals and ghosts, Christians were encouraged to dress up like their favorite saints.

In the United States, Puritans tried to outlaw Halloween, in part because of its association with Catholicism. So it was the Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to this country, when they immigrated here in great numbers after the potato famine in the 1840's. Since the Irish were largely poor and oppressed, Halloween became a holiday for them to let off steam by pulling pranks, hoisting wagons onto barn roofs, releasing cows from their pastures, and committing all kinds of mischief involving outhouses. Treats evolved as a way to bribe the vandals and protect homes.

But by the late 1800's, Victorian women's magazines began to offer suggestions for celebrating Halloween in wholesome ways, with barn dancing and apple bobbing. And by the early 20th Century, it became a holiday for children more than adults. In 1920, the Ladies' Home Journal made the first known reference to children going door to door for candy, and by the 1950's it was a universal practice in this country. By 1999, 92 percent of America's children were trick-or-treating.

What's interesting about Halloween is that it has no real connection to the majority religion of this country, it does not celebrate an event in our nation's past, it does not involve traveling to visit family, and it doesn't even give us a day off work. But it gives us the chance to try out other identities. For one day, people can feel free to dress as the opposite gender, as criminals, as superheroes, celebrities, animals, or even inanimate objects. But Halloween retailers report that the most popular costumes remain some variation on witches, ghosts, and devils.

*according to an article I say on yahoo this morning.. and the 92 percent thing is something I read a while ago, it may not actually be 92 percent, but it was 90 something.

Loving to be wrong.

2011-10-30T08:13:00.000-05:00

The other day I called up a good friend of mine, realizing I had been wrong to openly question his relationship with this girl I didn't care for. Half way through my apology and expression of true non-dislike for the girl he stopped me and explained he had been dumped the night before.

A simple series of mistakes, one that anyone could make, and isn't that true of all of them? Divorce, episodes of lousy parenting, dumbhead investments, negligence behind the wheel - it's all too human, and you have to learn how to admit failure and walk away from it and not torment yourself. Sometimes the remorse is worse than the offense.

It is invigorating to realize you've been dead wrong about something. That's why we read history. It's an antidote to smug self-righteousness, which makes us insufferable. You learn about this from books. I can't think of any movie or song that permanently changed my mind about anything, but books of history certainly have.

You sit down and read about the temperance movement of the 19th century, which brought about Prohibition, which you always thought was a foolish attempt by blue-nosed puritans to repress bonhomie, which was the view of the satirists of the Twenties, but there is another point of view: The temperance cause was a protest movement by women who, having been shut out of higher education and relegated to menial jobs, were economically dependent on men and therefore terribly vulnerable to a man's alcoholism. The temperance crusader Carrie Nation, famous for busting up saloons with a hatchet, was the wife of a raging alcoholic who had destroyed her life. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, which you had thought of as a joke, has certain heroic dimensions and helped pave the way for women's suffrage.

It's good for a young liberal like me to read history and recognize that Eisenhower was no dolt and Adlai Stevenson was no giant. And to read about Joe McCarthy and realize that, opportunist and blowhard that he was, he was hardly the embodiment of evil that we liberals cherished as an enemy.

It's hard for me to watch...

2011-10-26T22:12:00.000-05:00

It's hard for me to watch the goings on of the Republican presidential race. And it's not that I begrudge the Republicans their politics or their right to disagree with me. I'm not sure how different their Tea Party is from those who are occupying Wall Street right now. Underneath bravado we are all just flawed humans beings prone to over simplifying complex issues.

What gets me though is the way they have high jacked my faith. At the prayer breakfast if the Holy Spirit speaks it is always in favor of tax cuts and less government regulation and preemptive military action. The Holy Spirit never comes out in favor of anything without clearing it with the Republican Party.

The Bibilist vow to put God back in the public schools, as if God were a small plaster icon and not the Creator of the universe. Evidently they can attend prayer rallies and sense the Spirit's presence. I don't. The public invocation (Father God, bless us, Father God, we ask you hear us, Father God hear this conference, Father God, of Northeast Iowa caucus voters, father God...) is a piece of sanctimonious boilerplate with the spiritual weight of a postage stamp. It has no connection to my understanding of prayer, the offering of myself in the presence of the Creator: Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world have mercy upon us. Or in Merton's words: the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. Saying the names of loved ones, putting myself wordlessly under God's wing, this is the prayer I known and understand. Campaign prayer is simply political speech directed at God as if She needed instruction. Why are these candidates and their followers so willing to exploit the Christian faith for political mileage? I can't answer that.

I just know that for all the prayers, if you try to find the love of God at work in the major political parties of America it may take you awhile.

It's okay to reconginize our differences

2011-10-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

I know it’s been a while and this is going to sound like an odd thing to post about, but it’s been bugging me. So I’m posting.

With Mitt Romney, a Mormon, running for president there have been questions raised about the Mormon Church’s relationship to Christianity.

I want to preface what I’m about to say with this: I’m not attacking Mormons. They’re nice, good people. I’m not questioning a Mormon’s ability to be a good president. Being Christian should not be a prerequisite for holding public office, especially in America where freedom of religion is the law of the land.
I also recognize that there are lot of people who are Christian who don’t agree. I realize that there are some things that I believe that other Christians don’t. That doesn’t make me not Christian. There are some things that other Christians believe that I don’t. That doesn’t make them not Christian.

That said, Mormon’s aren’t Christian. There are key doctrines of faith that unite Christians with each other and at the same time distinguish Christianity from other faiths. These are the doctrines that make Christians not Jewish. Or Muslim. Or Buddhist. Or Mormon.

I realize that there is a lot of nuance in any faith, and I’m not at all claiming to know or understand the totality of what the Mormon Church professes. These are just key doctrines in which Christians and Mormon’s differ.

Christians teach:
Belief in one eternal triune God,
the Almighty, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
God has no beginning and no end.

Mormons teach:
God the Father is only one of countless gods,
He used to be a man on another planet.
He became a god by following the laws and ordinances of that god in that world.

Christians teach:
Jesus is the Christ, and is “one Being with the Father”
through him all things were made.
He came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary
and became truly human.
Mormons teach:
God brought one of his wives with him to this world
with whom he produces spirit children who then inhabit human bodies at birth.
The first spirit child to be born to god and his wife was Jesus.
Second was Satan.
We are all also spirit children.

Christians teach:
Jesus was crucified, died and was resurrected for the sake of our salvation. Salvation is understood to mean the forgiveness of our sins through the grace of God.
Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. Christian hope is looking forward to the day of resurrection when God’s kingdom will be united with earth and have no end.

Mormons teach:
One must follow the laws and ordinances of the Mormon church in order to earn forgiveness.
Salvation is both forgiveness of sins and the promise of universal resurrection.

Mormons can say they are Christian all they want, but that doesn’t make it so. When one group starts with a belief in one eternal God that created the universe and the other group starts with the belief in a man who became one of many gods back when he lived on a different planet, they aren’t sharing a common frame of reference.

So Today was the day...WDW turned 40!

2011-10-01T22:08:00.001-05:00

Edit to add: You know what was really funny about this? I think after a certain point there are certain things I just kind of stopped taking pictures of because I had so many pictures for every possible angle... So it took me a while to remember the last year I took I picture of each these things without people standing in front of them... I just found that funny. okay... enjoy your day now..

In just three days...

2011-09-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

In just three days Walt Disney World will be turning the big 4-0. And while I would love nothing more than to write a really long post about the history of this culture altering theme park, the people who created and how i have come to personally love it, I feel like all I ever do now is write.

I go to work and write patents. I go to class and write notes of the lectures. I come home and write papers on theology, and responses to articles and reflections on experiences and oh.. yeah.. I'm suppose to be journaling every night. After all of that I feel... wordless. Like my brain has exceeded it's maximum number of characters... except here I am writing about not wanting to write?

ALL of that to say... I'm just going to post pictures of the People of the Park. Because to be honest, it's the people from the Imagineers to the VPs to the everyday cast members who, more than any ride or show, makes Walt Disney World the most Magical Place on Earth.

Marty Sklar - Celebrating Epcot's 25th Birthday
Vice Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering
Started with Disney back in 1955 is the only person to have been involved with the design of every single Disney Park.

Joe Rohde - Celebrating Epcot's 25th Birthday
Executive Imagineer
Joined Disney in 1980 during the design of Epcot. He is most famous for designing
Disney's Animal Kingdom and it's signature ride, Expedition Everest.

That guy in the suite with the blue shirt is Jim McPhee,
That girl in the pink baseball cap is ME!
This picture was taken in 2008 during the fan celebration of Epcot's 25th birthday.
At the time, McPhee was VP of Epcot. He took time out of his day to take photos, shake hands
and answer both informed and ridicules questions. The man went above and beyond to make sure
a bunch of nerds from a message board felt welcomed into the History of his park.
McPhee is now leads the WDW Operation's team.

Eddie - Greater and all around awesome Cast Member
at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort in 2008.
For years we have made it a point to visit the Grande when ever we are at the World.
Until our last trip, in 2011, Eddie was always there with a smile and story of what
was happening "in town."

Charlie - Main Street USA Cast Member
controlling the crowd for the Boo to You Parade
I'm not sure what his job title is, but he's the guy I always see before parades at the Magic Kingdom.
When people line up hours before the parade starts, someone has to keep the peace,
and Charlie knows how to do it.

Note to Self....

2011-09-19T23:16:00.000-05:00

Note to Self... if you are posting on a class discussion board on which you are asked to share your reflections on a particular article... don't say things like, "...this is obvious to anyone who has been educated in the 20th century..." or, perhaps worse, "As a member of a post-modern society..."

Because come to find out, what is obvious to me, looking out from my little bubble, isn't so obvious to others who have been educated. And some of the people sitting right next to me, aren't members of a post-modern society.

I think there is something to be said for sticking your foot in your mouth every once in a while. You might find out the world around you is bigger, more diverse than you imagined.

I swear I'm going to stop posting Youtube videos

2011-09-12T22:44:00.000-05:00

I swear I'm going to stop posting Youtube videos as soon as the novelty of being able to watch videos on my computer wears off.

Today I bring you a song from my childhood. So I took care to find kids singing this song. I learned this song while I attended a Church of Christ elementary school. So I took care to find kids singing without instruments. We sang this song all the time, in class, in the halls in chapel, on our way to chapel, at recess, and even after recess. So I took care to find a group of kids who looked like they were passing time, and just having some fun doing it.

I don't know why I had this song stuck in my head all day... I just did. I hope it sticks in your head too.

I'm including this version just for the heck of it and so you can see the lyrics of the full version. I think the group has great harmony, but they sing the song way too fast and without the right amount of fevered excitement.

Before you watch this though, I think you need to be prepared for the image of Jesus knocking on the door... it could cause nightmares.

What I need today...

2011-09-11T14:52:00.000-05:00

Today my daughter went to our local water park with the youth group at church. And I thought... that's just what I need today of all days - just something fun.

Reclaiming the Call of Healing

2011-09-06T21:39:00.000-05:00

I don’t want to come to the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States that took the lives of over 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 and not reflect on where I was that day, where we were collectively as a nation community and local communities, and were we are today.

That day I was a member of a college community. I was living with my parents at the time and watched the first plan fly into the world trade center with my mother as she watched Fox News and I prepared to leave for school that morning. I stayed for a minute, absorbing that image. Said a prayer for the people on that plane in that tower and in that city and then I left. I left for school. In the car I turned on NPR and listened. As I drove to orchestra practice I heard the report that a second plan had flown into the second tower. This was no accident. My world was so small that day I could not imagine who would have done this.

In some ways the rest of that day was a blur of emotion, but in others it was very much business as usual. Orchestra practice was canceled. I sat in the student lounge with my fellow musicians and watched as the World Trade Center buildings collapsed. I remember feeling numb as I walked to my American History class, expecting it to be cancelled, it wasn’t. The world outside our walls may have been changing, the Pentagon may have been on fire, but that was no reason not to learn about the period of Reconstruction after our nation’s civil war.

In the days that followed everyone flew their American flags. People called for dialogue and understanding. It seemed as though our leaders would rise to the occasion. Something would come of this tragedy. Somehow our world would find a way to heal.

We have not healed. Our nation has been at war for most of my daughter’s life. I’ll never forget one day when she was four years old, out in the backyard of my parent’s house, playing in the same corner of bushes where my sister and I used to look for fairies. I asked her what she was doing. Her reply, “I’m fighting the insurgents!” I stopped watching the news.

In the last ten years torture has been renamed, “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Predator drones continue to drop bombs on children and grandmothers so our government can scratch the name of one more terrorist off our hit list. We have given our government the authority to authorize wire taps without a warrant, subject its citizens to full body pat downs and confiscate our toothpaste without probable cause.

I look back at the last ten years and I mourn the loss of that call to heal. How do we reflect on the tragedy of that day and the days that have followed and reclaim the call of healing for ourselves?

Upon Further Reflextion

2011-09-03T20:54:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the encouragement of friends, I took a deep breath and wrote words, sentences and paragraphs inside a notebook this afternoon. One can be that heroic voice shouting out the injustice of quantifying the work of the soul feeling brilliant and unappreciated. Or one can stop putzing around in the shallows. The sheer waste of time — years spent dragging around personal measure of what is worthy of effort and meanwhile nothing is gained. Perhaps the situation is not ideal, but this is still an excuse to push aside distractions and be attentive to God's presence. No ruffles and flourishes of pure intention needed.

Flash Back

2011-08-31T20:38:00.000-05:00

So I'm in this class. Is it a class? Its a pass or fail thing and you get one hour of graduate work credit and its called Spiritual Formation. Its odd. Being in a class called Spiritual Formation where participation is required. Every session we are given a different spiritual practice to practice. Every session we have to write a paper about our experience. If we don't complete every assignment or attend every session you fail.

Participation is mandatory. You can actually fail at Spiritual Formation.

I get it. I do. One should not go through seminary without being spiritually formed. Still, how helpful is it to compel a person to journal? Maybe I'm just whining because I'm not in a place in my journey right now where I don't feel like journaling. Its not that I doubt the worth of the practice. I have kept faithful journals in the past. I'm just not there right now. I'm not there and yet, because I don't want to fail I feel almost blackmailed into writing in a notebook. I don't think that's spiritually forming. Or particularly helpful.

It very much feels like my days as an undergraduate at a Baptist university. We were required to have 120 spiritual life points in order to graduate. You could earn points for your soul if you attended Convocation or volunteered your time at an approved religiously affiliated charity. Looking back years later, I don't think those things were particularly helpful or spiritually forming.

But that could just be me.

It's a smurfy computer...

2011-08-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

I have a new computer. One that works. It's light. Easy to use. Cute. Cheap. All the things I told the sales person at the electronics store I was looking for. If you saw the Smurf movie (I hope you didn't) I have the same computer Neil Patric Harris used. I have a Smurf computer! Its so awesome to click on a program and have it just open.I can watch videos on Youtube again.

Speaking of, here is a really amazing music video of one of my new favorite songs. Bon Iver - "Holocene"

…and at once I knew I was not magnificent 
strayed above the highway aisle
jagged vacance, thick with ice 
I could see for miles, miles, miles

BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

school has started

2011-08-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

School has started for both me and Alex. I wish I could say that the business of it all has kept me from posting, but it something way worse. My computer is dead. I used to brag on my Dell Notebook. I bought it wne I xtarted undergrade and it's been like the little engine that could ever since.... until it wasn't. I'm going to get a new one this weekend. I suppose a new computer every ten years isn't so bad.

Of course Alex wanted me to get a Mac until I pointd out that I could possibly get to PCs for the price of one Mac. Not that I'm geting two.... I was just pointing that out.

Still tonight we are off to the mall. Alex has been asking to be dropped off at the mall with a friend of hers. I don't think we are quite at that level yet. I'm just going to let them go to the Apple store by themseleves while I'll be at the Apple store looking at laptops and tring to figure out what all the fuss is about. Yes, we will be in the same store. No, we will not be together. No, it's not what Alex had in mind. And just for the record - I'm the meanest mom in America. Don't beliveme? Just asm Alex. She totally back me up on that one.

Summer Days...

2011-08-17T15:56:00.000-05:00

Saturday was one of those perfect summer days. Where by the early evening you feel happy, tired, but at the same time refreshed. If that makes any sense. We had gone to the local science museum, seen exhibits of ancient Ukraine, dinosaur bones and fossils, and then gone for ice cream. One of those days where no one rolled their eyes at me, or at least not much, this is reality after all, and things just seemed easy.

It was one of the days that I wish mothering was solely made up of.

We got home and were sitting on the couch. I felt like we could be in one of those Country Time Lemonade commercials. Sticky with ice cream, smiling, colored in sepia tones.

Dream House

2011-08-08T13:47:00.000-05:00

Photo by Alex, 2011

I love this house. I love the size, the shape, the red door. I love the way it sits at the end of a long dirt drive way. I love the trees, the monstrous yard. I love that this looks like a cottage in the woods, when really its located in the middle of the city.

This house, my dream house was recently sold. I am now hoping against hope that they owners love this house the way I do. That they will live in this house and make it a home. But I'm afraid that like so many other houses in our city the owners look at this lot and see just that... a lot with land on which to build a McMansion.

Complete Randomness

2011-08-02T10:04:00.000-05:00

The day Alex was scheduled to return home she missed her flight. I love how the people who heard this wanted to know how that happened. It seems like the premise of epic tale of struggle and woe. And I guess it could have been if you think about the guy who recently died from playing is Xbox because that was what she was doing with her father two hours before her plane was scheduled to be in the air. In their defense, her father likes to point out that the airline moved the departure time up by 15 minutes.

Whatever the true cause, she missed the last flight out of Small Town California so I was just going to have to wait to see my baby. I had to WAIT. This waiting went on for DAYS. Ok - Hours. Many, many hours. As many hours as there are between 12 PM Saturday and 3 PM Sunday, which doesn't seem like many right now, but at the time, as the minutes were amplified by my baby's absence and the thought that she would miss the next flight as well, it seemed like all of the hours that ever were, a collection of time so vast that I could have witnessed the Colorado River carve out the Grand Canyon, one layer of dirt at a time.

When she finally arrived home her eyes were glued to her new iTouch. Curse you Steve Jobs and all your fancy products and seductive marketing. I guess on the bright side of things she wasn't all that bothered when I left her a few days later to attend a gathering of Exploring Candidates. It was interesting and refreshing to meet other people who are heeding the call to ordained ministry. And the fact that the Candidates got to take the written portion of the psychological ~~test~~ assessment together made the three hour ordeal just a little bit easier because not so secretly everyone knows we're bat-shit-crazy. Why else would we be there?

As fun as that was - the best part of the weekend had to Sunday after noon when we went to see Smurfs. I'm not saying that you should rush to your nearest theater so see this one. Its cheesy ball and predictable and just plan dumb in parts, but as a person who was raised by Smurfs and Doogie Howser, M.D. it was an opportunity to relive the best parts of childhood for 90 minutes. The day they remake He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra Princese of Power my life will have come full circle.

Sorry...

2011-07-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

I have been gone. I wish I could say it was because I was really close to achieving world peace or at least ending this never ending drought that has plagued the South and Midwest - maybe now that this weather has made its way to New York City the powers that be will take notice and DO SOMETHING.

Does anyone else remember that movie that NBC shortly after Katrina? It was about a huge hurricane that threatened to destroy a major city, but before it could, the Local News Reporter and some Really Hott Guy (I don't remember what his job was) shut down the city's power grid thus, LOWERING THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH and magically turning the hurricane into a light breeze. (Why waste money on scientific consultants right?)

Where are Local News Reporter and Really Hott Guy when you need them? Things are so hot and humid in these-here-parts that by the time I get to my apartment and CLIMB UP STAIRS I just want to wrap myself in a little air conditioned cocoon and wait for fall.

Lose the security blanket

2011-07-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

In a few weeks the candidacy processes for ordination is going to become more official and seminary classes are going to start and I’m a little terrified. And not just in that way that I’m afraid of roller coasters but pretend I’m not and come up with a lot of reasons that we probably shouldn't ride Rockn' Roller Coaster today, look at those lines. Why don’t we go on Space Mountain so you can’t tell that I’m closing my eyes even though it's pitch black anyway and my 12 year old daughter is sitting in front of me with her arms raised. Not in that way, I mean genuinely terrified.
And the source of my nervousness? I’m afraid to really try.

That’s a dumb sentence, and perhaps this is an illogical thing to fear given all the very real nightmares I've faced in my life without blinking, but fear doesn’t really follow logic and that’s honestly the one in my head right now. I’ve got this weird belief that if I don’t really try, then I can’t really fail. I can always buy into the lie, “If I had tried, I probably could have done that.” But if I try, if I give it my all and my all isn’t enough, I’ll be crushed. It’s like the story the poet David Whyte tells of finally having that artist studio you always dreamed about. You finally get the perfect space in which to create and then you are faced with the blank canvas. There are no more excuses, you actually have to paint.

Attending seminary classes, actively pursuing certified candidacy, admitting that I’m structuring significant chunks of my day to work towards ordained ministry makes the whole thing feel “real” to me. I lose the security blanket of saying, “It’s just something I've thought about, it’s no big deal.”

Impulse Buy

2011-07-12T08:29:00.001-05:00

Since Alex is away for a month I'm attempting to embrace the "single in the city" life. I hit the 75% of skirts sale at Old Navy this weekend, doing my part to keep sweatshop workers around the world employed. Then yesterday - a Monday no less - I went out at 8:00 pm.

That's right. I left my humble abode at 8:00pm for a quick work out at my local gym before topping off the night with a jaunt to my favorite watering hole - the grocery store. It was here that I made a wonderful impulse buy - nail polish. The following conversation between myself and the young checker insuded:

Boy: $7.50 for nail polish?
Me: I know I'm horrible, but the color is awesome.
Boy: Nail color is worth $7.50?
Me: Not normally, no. But this is chinchlly*.

The boy nodded as if he now understood. As if my explanation had indeed explained something. Chinchilly indeed my friends. Chinchilly indeed.

* I would post a picture of the Essie nail polish in question, but the pictures I have found on-line don't do it justice. In pictures the polish looks gray, but in person it looks purple gray.

** Also, while I'm on the subject of "single in the city" - is it just me or is there some global conspiracy by the cable networks to keep Sex in the City on TV twenty-four hours a day? What does it say about me that I identify most with Carrie? Shoes and Prada aside.

Did you know...

2011-07-05T14:02:00.000-05:00

Did you know that we are in a drought here? I will admit that it is sometimes difficult for me to remember that it isn’t just one sunny day after another. It is strange how quickly I have become accustom to not checking the predicted weather reports before daring to walk outside.

Fourth of July in this area was odd as cities and counties banned the use of fireworks and even many professional venues canceled their shows. Apparently the country club my parents live near had confidence in their manicured lawn's ability to not burst into flames so last night I found myself sitting in a gas station parking lot. Its not the same as laying on a blanket in a dark grassy field. Not the same at all.

This year it was decided that it was too hot and dry to go to my friend's place in the country. There is a burn ban in their county as well and they haven't installed A/C in their cabin yet. So for the first time in years I was in the city for the Fourth and sitting in parking lot. I missed the ride in the pick-up bed from the cabin to the fair ground and the part where we find a grassy place to sit and pull the blankets and bug spray out of the Mary Poppins bag. We had no children with our group at the parking lot so I missed the hour long build up of, “When are the fireworks going to start?” Okay, maybe I didn't miss that part.

But I missed what comes after that - when the fireworks start and we lay back on our blankets, limbs all tangled together, and the kids cheer and clap. The whining and the hassle of getting there seems unimportant. Suddenly, it's not too hot or buggy. Suddenly everything feels just right. And that was what I missed last night.

I Love...

2011-06-27T12:53:00.000-05:00

* ... that when I complain to my sister, the yuppie lawyer, about the fact that this whole seminary/candidacy process is kicking my butt - everyday I am asked to jump through a previously unimagined hoop that simultaneously puts my job and sanity at risk - the yuppie lawyer just looks at me and says, "You asked these people to torture you. And you can't complain about spending a weekend with Ministers if you are going to become a Minister."

* ... that Alex's reaction to seeing Chicago the Musical live on stage this weekend was, "That was weird."

* ... that the long tough battle for marriage equality if finally over in New York State. "In New York alone – there are approximately 10,600 same-sex couples raising more than 21,000 kids. Marriage will not only help provide children some measure of legal security, it sends a strong message to them that their families are recognized, validated and valued by society." - Family Equity Council.

* ... that it is so hot here in the swamp I find my self drenched in sweat after two minutes of playing Rumi Cube outside and drinking wine.

* ... that my friend Leigh turned 96 - yes 96! - which gave us all an excuse to play Rumi Cube and drink wine outside in the swamp.

"Oh, and one more thing..."

2011-06-24T15:01:00.000-05:00

This man. This wonderful man, Peter Falk, died yesterday afternoon. I just got off the phone with my sister. I had to call her as soon as I heard. Peter Falk and the characters his played, Sam Diamond in Murder by Death is one that jumps out at me, and of course, the role that will forever define his career, Colombo were a constent presence in my childhood. My mother loved to watch detective stores and Colombo was one of our favorites.

For years, he starred on TV as Lieutenant Columbo, the shabby detective whose apparent absentmindedness hid a razor-sharp brain.

He had this "awe shuks" way about him that always lulled his targets into believing they could pull the wool over his eye. The Lieutenant would arrive at the murder sceen in his old car and beat up trench coat, holding his smoldering cigar and simply ask, "What I don't understand is..." We always knew the case had been solved when we heard the words, "Oh, and one more thing..."

Peter had been ill for a number of years. My thoughts are with his close friends and family. I hope he is resting peacefully. There will be pulling out my copy of Murder by Death and heading to my sister's to watch the first three seasons of Colombo.

Sameritan in the City

2011-06-22T08:15:00.001-05:00

My best friend's In-Laws are in town. They are staying with her while they remodel her kitchen. Or to put it another way, her In-laws have been living with her for a month and they have destroyed her kitchen. I buy chocolate chip cookies and wine and set off to console the desperate.

After 10 minutes of driving I am in the heart of my friend's neighborhood at the corner of Drug Dealer's Paradise and Working Girl Central. My tire blows. Not only do I hear it and feel it blow, but a nice lady who just happens to work the corner knocks on my window, "You have a flat!" I sigh and pull into the nearest parking lot which happens to have not only Korean grocery store and Mexican eatery, but a message parlor with tented windows as well. Great.

I think: "Right, well it can't be that hard to change a tire." I open the trunk and find a screwdriver, jumper cables, shoes, lawn chair, large amount of plastic swords, two teddy bears, Cheeze Nips, water gun and underneath it all, a tire bolted down, which I cannot budge. I go back to the front of the car to try to will the tire to change itself. A pickup truck pulls into the lot and I wave frantically. The nice man stops and asks me if I need any help. As it so happens, yes I'm desperate, and the man sets about freeing the tire and jack from the trunk. It is at this point I realize that his knuckles spell out "K-I-L-L". I take a deep breath and look at his girlfriend who is still sitting in the truck. As a ponder the wisdom of this situation the man continues on with the job in hand. It takes him about five minutes. My tire has a lengthy gash in it. He pours scorn over my spare and implies I will die horribly if I attempt to drive on it as is. He says he will go straight to a gas station to put air in my spare.

As he throws the donut into the bed of his truck the girl friend in the front cab is having a hissy fit. I suspect she does not like me and these suspicions are confirmed when he forces her to stay with me while he redeems the tire. I extend my hand to the designated-bodyguard-girlfriend as she gets out of the truck. As I am introducing myself my eyes are involuntarily drawn to her breast which are slightly covered by a neon green tank top which reads, "Light Up the Nite!" in pink glitter. It turns out Chloe is a women of few words. Neither of us is good at small talk so we sit in silence and wait for her boyfriend to return. By now, the poor guy is dripping in sweat. It has been another 100 degree day and he has been fiddling with my tire for close to 30 minutes. He wastes no time finishing the job and refuses my offer of all the cash in my wallet. I shake his hand and thank Chloe for lending him to me. I do not think she likes me. They drive away. I open the chocolate chip cookies.

First Day of Summer

2011-06-21T08:34:00.000-05:00

Today is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the first official day of summer and the longest day (and shortest night) of the year. It's also the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Calling today the "first" day of summer seems odd to us here in the south, and I suspect anywhere else that has been experiancing extreme draught and 100 degree weather over the last month. There is something about that amount of heat that simotaniously slows the world down and hightens expectations of adventure.

So today is the solstice, the day the North Pole is tilted toward the sun. The term solstice comes from the Latin words for "sun" (sol) and "standing still" or "stoppage" (stice). On this our longest day of the year, the sun appears as if it were standing still in the sky. One of the biggest destinations for the summer solstice is Stonehenge in England; today it is the place for New Agers such as neo-druids, neo-pagans, neo-christians and Wiccans to gather, along with college-age revelers, wholesome families, romantic couples, and shoestring backpackers. And it's the only day of the year the park service offers free parking, free admission, and the opportunity to stay at the monument overnight.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

By Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA

Art and Prayer

2011-06-18T21:39:00.000-05:00

Set us fee, God

free to try new ways of living;

free to forgive ourselves and other;

free to love and laugh and sing;

free to lay our burden of security;

free to join the battle for justice and peace;

free to see and listen and wonder again

at the gracious mystery of things and persons;

free to be,

to give,

to receive

to rejoice as a child of your Spirit.

After Words

2011-06-17T17:28:00.001-05:00

There came this moment
when life broke free and
I questioned every tenet I sat down
every verb desired to be a noun.

I want - my want. I love - my love.

Afterwords, the compromise.
I sit beside you at the table
an ocean is between us.

Day Last

2011-06-15T19:28:00.001-05:00

On the last day of our holiday we woke up early to catch the monorail to Polynesian.

Blueberry pancakes and Kona coffee were calling my name.

We killed some time at the Magic Kingdom before we had to go to the airport. Here is a line from A.A. Milne which I saw while waiting in line for Winnie the Pooh's Adventure. It seemed appropriate for the day.

Later, while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to turn in their scooters I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Could it be? Ye Ol' Pay Phone complete with Phone Book! Amazing.

I'm not going to lie, I was sad as I watched our Magical Express bus drive away after depositing us at the airport. I don't know when we will get to go back. Absence makes the heart grow founder... or so I'm told.

Day 6

2011-06-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

This was our last full day at the Walt Disney World Resort and all the hip people wanted to rent speed racer boats and head out on Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake, but I don't have any pictures of that because my mom and were at the Magic Kingdom.

We went on the Jungle Cruise which is an all time favorite before hitting all the rides in Fantasyland. Yep, this is a picture I took of Fantasyland. They are expanding and reimagining this space which will open some time in 2012... or later.

Everyone met up with us for lunch after the boats. We ate that the Plaza which is a little restaurant on Main Street, right across from the castle. Sigh, isn't it beautiful? I hope Cinderella is living happily ever after in there....

After lunch I had to attend to some business so I went to the Business Center at our hotel. There wasn't a lot of stuff there to take pictures of so I present a wall of clocks, showing the current time in every Disney Park. I know, EXCITEMENT! Really the best part of my time spent there was this lovely couple who were shipping three gigantic boxes of presents to their grandchildren back home in Mississippi along with a huge, $12,000 Thomas Kinkade painting of Bambie. The most memorable quote, "If something gets mixed up its okay, we all live on the same 32 acres." That's code for they all have trailer homes on the same plot of land. I know this because some of my best friends live in double wides on their parent's property. I'm not passing judgment, only it leads me to wonder if they were really spending the settlement they received after their son died in an industrial accident wisely.

Day 5

2011-06-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

On day 5 we went to Epcot again with the rest of the family and headed straight to the Land Pravilion to ride Soarin. I took this picture from the entrance of the ride, and yes, those people up stairs are in line. I started to explain ride cycles, but realized that if you care you probably already know. Let's just say the capacity of Soarin is low which makes wait times insane.

Then it was back to the World Showcase where we stopped in Japen to see the candy lady. Here she is making the candy monkey that Alex requested.

When the afternoon Florida sun was just too much we went back to the hotel for ~~a nap~~ to play in the arcade. Lots of games equaled lots of fun.

The evening closed with cheese and ice wine from Canada. Wonderful.

An Invitation

2011-06-13T21:04:00.000-05:00

This day is beautiful,
bright, blue, green and
Yes!

An invitation into
God's creation. An invitation
to just be without care
or worry. God's invitation
to say yes to Her gift.

This day,
this bright, hot day
of silence, of meditation,
of creation extends
Her hand and invites
me to walk into the unknown
and grow there.

Day 4

2011-06-12T08:13:00.000-05:00

Alex and I ditched the rest of the group on day 4 and headed back to our favorite park - Epcot.

After riding some rides in Future World, we headed to the World Showcase, where we teamed up with Kim Possible to save the world from evil villains.

After reporting to an Agent Station you are given a Kimmunicator. This allows you to talk to Kim, her sidekick Ron, and their technical guy Wade. Here we are in Germany where the villain is using special salt on pretzels to control the minds of unsuspecting citizens.

And now meet Duffy the Bear. No, he's not a Disney character, but he has invaded the parks. You see, you buy the $30 bear and then you can buy all sorts of $20 costumes to dress him up in. I didn't buy one because, I don't need a $50 stuffed animal, but he is cute - and everywhere - so I took a picture for prosperity.

Finally, before we left the park we stopped at Innovations. Innovations is meant to be that part of Future World that really lives up the the Epcot mantra of keeping up with the newest technologies so the space is a made up of interactive exhibits that are easily changed. Our favorite was the build your own roller coaster exhibit. You start with an introduction about how roller coasters work and then you get to step up to a computer and build your own virtual coaster. At the end you are strapped to the end of a robotic arm and you get to experience all the twist and turns of the track you created.

Day 3

2011-06-12T07:41:00.000-05:00

Our trip fell during a time at Disney's Hollywood Studios known as Star Wars Weekends. DHS turns into one large Star Wars Extravaganza so on Day 3 we had to go and be a part of it.

I don't know if the insane lines for character meet and greats we saw on this trip are a reflection of the time of year (it's summer so there were a lot more kids than when we go in the fall) or if people have just really lost their minds. At one point there was a 60 minute wait to see Princess Belle and Aurora on main street. As a rule, I don't wait more than 30 minutes for anything, but I especially can't imagine waiting that long to see a person dressed in a costume. That said, Alex and I were really excited to meet two of our favorite celebrities, Phineas and Ferb while we waited for our Fast Pass return time for our favorite DHS ride.

We took a ride on a hunted elevator and lived to tell about it.

We ended the day with a nice ~~wine tasting~~ meal at the Wave restaurant in our hotel. I had three examples of Pinot Nior - New Zealand, California and Australia - California was by far the best. Oh, and I had stake too.

Day 2

2011-06-10T20:21:00.000-05:00

On day 2 we lined up two hours early to see the Main Street Electrical Parade. There are a lot of advantages of lining up so early. Besides having the best viewing spot for both the parade and the fireworks is that you get to take pictures of random things that happen by... like balloons!

...and hot dogs....

...and wedding! No, these people aren't getting married, this is the picture of the happy couple getting a family wedding portrait made in front of the castle. (Well, the back of their family anyway).

Alex bought a light up mo hawk. Sometimes its best not to ask why...

When the parade started I handed my camera off to Alex. I've taken so many pictures of night time parades, it was time to pass the torch... or lens...

One of the things I found really funny was the fact that no one around us knew that this was Elliot and Pete from Pete's dragon. I don't often say this, but parents need to do a better job educating their children.

Really, this is an example of why I love going to Disney World so often. I know for most people a trip to "the World" is a once, maybe twice in a life time event. They have five or perhaps seven days to see all four parks with all the rides, shows and parades not to mention shop and swim in the hotel pool. So for a lot of people a trip to Disney is whirlwind. While we were sitting there I actually had someone stop and ask, "Why sit on the curb for two hours when there is so much to do?" Because I've seen/ridden it all, well most of it, the parts I care to see/ride, and now I want sit with my family and make goofy faces and take pictures of complete strangers.

Day 1

2011-06-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

On my birthday we left the house at the crake of dawn and headed to the most Magical Place on Earth.

When we arrived in Orlando we headed for our hotel, Disney's Contemporary Resort. The Contemporary was one of the two hotels that opened with the Magic Kingdom Park on October 1, 1971 so this year, as Walt Disney World celebrates its 40th, the Contemporary celebrates hers.

After check-in we caught the monorail to my favorite park, Epcot. Its no secret that Walt first concived E.P.C.O.T. not as a park, but as the Experomental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It was Walt's dream to create the ultimate city of the future, but after his death it became clear that this particular dream just wasn't practical so it was left to the Disney Imagineers to figure out how to bring the spirit of Walt's dream to life. The Epcot of today is not a city, but a perminate World's Fair of sorts. Future World explores cutting edge technologies while the World Showcase celebrates the cultures of the eleven countries represented there.

We rode some of my favorite rides in Future World, including Spaceship Earth, Living With the Land and Journey Into Your Imagination. Above Alex is holding the famouse 18-story geodesic sphere that holds Spaceship Earth. Below are pictures of dragon fruite and a tomato tree taken inside the Epcot greenhouse as seen on the Living With the Land ride.

Then it was off to the World Showcase and a stop in Canada. We visited with the local shops and of course watched the movie, O'Canada staring Canadian Martin Short and featuring on of my favorite songs.

We toped off my birthday evening with a ~~beer~~ meal in Germany.

Tomorrow we are leaving...

2011-06-01T05:49:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow we are leaving for Walt Disney World AND tomorrow is also my 29th birthday. Although I think I reached a point several birthdays ago where turning a year older wasn't a socially acceptable thing to celebrate, I've relished in them. However, I have to say that this birthday in particular is the one I haven't been running towards with open arms. There is nothing even remotely redeeming about turning 29; it doesn't come with special privileges, and there isn't even a "turning 29" section in the birthday section at Hallmark. It's totally forgettable, and the only purpose it serves it to remind me that I'm still not even 30.

I guess I'm scared more than anything, not of getting old, but of what could possibly happen to me in this 29th year. I honestly thought my life couldn't get any more hectic than when I was 27, and then I turned 28 and all HELL broke loose: Alex went to middle school, I lost my job and started working for French people, I started hanging out with a guy, I've been accepted into seminary, moved upstairs, AND taught my daughter how to take a shower daily. You could say I'm a bit fatigued.

It's also weird because I've always been the youngest person in any group. I'm the youngest of three children, I was always one of the youngest people in my class at school, I'm always the youngest parent among Alex's friends, and I've always kept much older friends. Now this is all starting to change, and I'm the granny in the group. I find that when I tell a kid in college my age they sort of shudder with this look in their eyes, like, my god, this woman is ANCIENT, she actually remembers what it was like to be alive in the 80s! At church when I mingle with parents my age, their children are potty training. When I talk about my daughter's ipod downloads and ask for opinions on cellphone usage and study habits, all I get are blank stares. Really, it was almost better when people my age had no children.

I've decided that for my birthday I'm going to ask for things I know I can't have so that I won't be disappointed when I actually don't get them. Had I learned this trick at the age of five life would have been a much more enjoyable.

This list includes:

1. A vase of fresh flowers that won't die.

2. A brand new ibook.

3. A two and a half hour 3-D movie that contains nothing more than footage of Anderson Cooper reporting live from war-torn countries dressed in Prada and looking at the camera with those bright blue eyes.

4. A never ending pan of chocolate chip cookies that will not make me fat.

5. That my daughter will stop grunting and rolling her eyes at me.

6. Fresh, minty clean breath (and farts) for my dog.

7. A promise from God or Allah or whoever is in charge that this trip to Disney World where I spend six nights sharing a hotel room with both my mom AND my dad is not going to totally suck.

8. A functioning national public school system where the curriculum is set by educators and not self-serving political hacks.

9. Three fiery meteors hitting the earth, one on the headquarters of FOX NEWS, one on the headquarters of AT&T Wireless, and one on the head of Texas Governor Rick Perry. (Rick Perry is the devil, which should be obvious from his hair.)

10. Free health care for everyone.

On the move with my books

2011-05-27T08:16:00.001-05:00

Today I will be signing a new lease for my new apartment. Unit number 14. After Sunday's final move, I will have to climb a flight of stairs in order to enter my home. This is a development that Alex is very excited about. She has always been a big fan of stairs and the number 4.

While I don't want the headache of moving, I am looking forward to having a washer and dryer INSIDE my apartment. Also I'm tired of looking at boxes. My living room and bedroom are so full of boxes that I stopped packing a few days ago. This may sound wonderfully awesome, like the move is going to be a breeze because I'm so packed and ready to go, but actually... most of those boxes are just filled with books. My mom came over for two seconds the other day and demanded I give some books away. She was not impressed when I explained that I had already deposited three whole boxes at Half Price. "That's a start," I believe were her exact words.

Some people just don't appreciate the fact that there are books worth holding onto because you know that you will read them again, and that there are some books you must own multiple copies of because the story bound in hardback is a lot different than in paperback - trust me.

******************

UPDATE:
I am leaving work an hour early so I can meet the leasing office person and sign papers, give them a check that won't clear until Monday and get the new keys to my new apartment ... because she wants to leave work early. Leaving early today is probably very socially irresponsible of me because I am the only Admin in the legal department today (that's what they call secretaries now), but my boss isn't in the office so when I called to ask his permission he had no idea why he should not just say okay.

This is how I know that I am a fake secretary. If I were a real secretary, like all the other real secretaries I work with, I would not leave an hour early. If I were a real secretary, I would have a deep sense of morality and a strong work ethic and there is no way I would leave a bunch of lawyers unattended for an hour. God forbid they have to un-jam the copier all by themselves.

More Awesomness in Customer Service....

2011-05-25T16:26:00.000-05:00

"If you are simply calling to improve your day - press 9"

Yes, that was actually the menu option right before "If you would like to speak to our operator - press 0" when I called my local cabel provider about transfering my service from apartment 5 to apartment 14. They were very happy to help and once I talked to an actual human being the whole thing took like two seconds. Oh, there is going to be a $25 transfer fee for that by the way. For a split second I almost told the lady never mind, I'd like to just cancel my service, but I didn't.

God bless America.

Is it Genetic?

2011-05-25T07:46:00.000-05:00

To precisely answer the question of when Alex will be ungrounded - because it feels like she has been grounded since the dawn of time - I would have to explain why she is grounded and I promised her I would stop telling to people about it. Let's just say that the timeline of her grounding depends on her. She has the power to either be ungrounded at the end of this month or at the end of next month and at the rate she is going, I'm thinking it will be another month.

I used to date a guy who in a previous life was an unknown Greek philosopher. Although that may sound fascinating, and it was for 30 seconds, I'm here to testify that one rhetorical genius in a relationship is too many. He was very good at thinking, but had a very difficult time doing, especially when that doing involved maintaining gainful employment. That wouldn't be so bad if I had a large trust fund or didn't give birth to his child because honestly - who wants to be involved in doing when you could just be thinking?

Alex, like her father, does all sorts of thinking. If there is something you need someone to think about, if you need to think about something meaningless but you can't because you are all wrapped up in doing something productive, Alex is your go-to-guy. If there is an activity that takes up an inordinate amount of time and yet has absolutely no bearing on her future ability to go to college or hold down a job that pays money, she is on it like white on rice.
I think, because he isn't around, people don't appreciate just how much Alex is like her father. For starters she has his eyes - and lord that man has gorgeous eyes. She has his adorable freckles and honestly - if they ever stand next to each other - they look like twins. Its like instead of making a brand new person, God he just put my hair on her father's head and called it a day.

So being like her dad is not all negatives, but on this one trait, on this do nothing trait, I'm honestly wondering how genetically ingrained that is and what the heck I can do to change it. Her dad did eventually come around. I just want Alex to come around before she turns 26 and has to join the military in order to avoid homelessness.

I have a nasty habit....

2011-05-23T20:48:00.002-05:00

I have a nasty habit of cramming an entire life span of things to do into a short period of time, eventually abandoning everything on my to-do list and crawling up into a ball on my couch underneath my comforter.

I think that is why I picked the last Sunday in May to move. If anyone has a school age child or knows a school aged child - you will understand that in the month of May is especially crammed with activities. For well over a month it seems as though my life has been driving Alex to one MUST attend event after another. However, my old lease official ends on May 31 and just to give myself a bit of breathing space we leave for Walt Disney World on June 2 (happy birthday to me!) so in my defense I don't have much choice.

Aside from packing and playing warden to a still grounded Alex I have been enjoying all those fun things that come with moving like making sure the new apartment has electricity.When I called my energy provider today I simply wanted to transfer my electric account from my soon to be old apartment to my soon to be new apartment. Only "Ultra Green Energy Company" (which was recently purchased by "Corporate Energy Giant") is in the middle of a systems upgrade and their friendly customer service representative (CSR) informed me that while they can disconnect the old apartment electricity on May 29, the earliest they would be able to connect the electricity at my new apartment would be June 2.

This news lead to the following discussion:

Me: Seriously? That sounds dumb. I’m going to be in the same address, I’m just moving to another unit.
CSR: Well, Monday is a holiday.
Me: So? What are Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday?
CSR: Uh?
Me: Never mind. I don't want to transfer my service anymore. Just disconnect my service on May 29 and I will get a new electric provider.
CSR: Well, let me tell you about our very competitive rates.
Me: I don’t really care about your rates. I can’t live in an apartment without electricity for 4 days.

Now I am all signed up with "Wind Energy Company" who is going to connect my electricity on Friday, May 27 because their technicians don't do connection work on weekends or holidays. Thank God for the deregulation of the energy industry. I'm so impressed by the wonderful costumer service all of these privately owned businesses are forced to provide to consumers so that they can be competitive in the marketplace.

Seriously, I just want to go to Walt Disney World so I can sit in the darkened theater of the O'Canada attraction and sing-a-long to this great song while Alex dies of embarrassment....

Some things to do before I die ...

2011-05-19T12:59:00.000-05:00

Alex is grounded (still) and one of my favorite things to do when she is not allowed to watch TV is watch things I know she hates. As I was flipping through channels to find something suitable I stopped on the Bucket List. Jack Nicholson was laying in bed in the hospital room he shared with Morgan Freedman. Why did these men not win Oscars for this movie? Granted, I only watched for another ten minutes because as soon as Jack started puking- a side affect of chemo treatments - they were venturing in to memories I'd rather not relive and so I changed the channel.

But it got me thinking. What is on my bucket list? I'm probably too young to make one. I'm sure this list of things I want to do before I die will change before I die. Already, I'm not too sure how important some of them are to me. It was still interesting to think about and to see what it is I have going on in my head. Traveling an decluttering seem to be main themes. There are 40 things because it is the number of Journey. They aren't listed in a particular order.

1) Learn to sew – like FOR REAL. [This is something I have dabbled in a lot over the years. I would like to actually sew something more useful than a pillow.]

2) Start and continue an exercise regime for three months, even if it kills me [God, I'm lazy]

3) Stay away from restaurants/cafes for 3 months [Yup, still lazy]

4) Learn to accept my body and all its imperfections (yeah, right)

5) Read some more classic novels I should have already read

6) Go to Paris with a man

7) Spend a summer in the United Kingdom

8) Go to Vancouver

9) Visit Alex while she's attending New York University and take her to a Broadway play [I’ve always wanted to live in New York City. I should at least attempt to live vicariously through my baby.]

10) Take Alex on an insane road trip that involves ~~educational opportunities~~ crazy tourist traps and at least one ~~fancy~~ haunted hotel
11) Take an art class of some sort

12) If I’m going to get married, I’d like to do it before I’m 40 [if not – oh well.]

13) Finish writing a book [should probably start it too.]

14) Go through all my artwork and select some to matte and frame. AND hang them on a wall

15) Gather pictures of Alex’s childhood and compile them into a coffee table scrapbook thing

16) Spend an entire 24 hour day without cussing once [I should try to do this one before I become a minister]

17) Let my child make a really big mistake without pointing it out to her – and then calling every single relative to let them know about it [I don't think I'll ever be able to do this... ever]

18) Own a pearl necklace

19) Have enough disposable income to be able to donate large sums to people and organizations I care about

20) Get that Tree of Life tattoo I’m always thinking about

21) Dig out my paints and easel and paint a new painting and hang it on my wall

22) Create another Art Car
23) Read Little Women aloud to Alex [I might have to wait until she is in a comma to do this.]

24) Take Alex to a rock concert, cheer and pretend I am a fan of crowds and loud music for the night [then again, I might just wait until she is 16, buy her concert tickets and hand her the keys to my car]

25) Befriend someone who knows how to fix everything and works for free

26) Write in a journal every day until all the pages are full

27) Make it a habit to drink 8 glasses of water a day [though I am beginning to think if it were actually good for us to drink this much water God would have added caffeine]

28) Finish my masters degree [starting on this one soon]

29) Get rid of all the things in my house that are just clutter and would benefit someone else [I'm trying, but convincing other people that their stuff is crap and they should get rid of it, isn't easy]

30) Build a bonfire, make hot chocolate, and have a party and enjoy it

31) Change the course of another person's life for the better
32) Make a really good meal completely from scratch for no real reason and invite people over and enjoy it

33) Buy some expensive bras and matching underwear. [I like the idea of this, though shopping for a bra isn't all that exciting]

34) Watch every movie on the IFC top 100 list [I already sat through Citizen Kane the rest couldn’t be THAT bad.]

35) Buy a plant and keep it alive, instead of treating plants as if they are meant to be disposable

36) Attend a wine tasting class and discover what it is I’m supposed to be tasting

37) Go through the stuff I left at my parent’s house [or just toss it all into the dumpster]

38) Organize a box for Alex to hold her special childhood ~~crap~~ memorabilia, limit size of said box so that she can never say she doesn't have room for it in her own house

39) Spend some amount of time by myself on retreat

40) Come to grips with the fact that there is no way everything will be exactly as I wish it would be

Finding the Heart of Gustav Mahler

2011-05-16T08:37:00.003-05:00

Its been the driest of Mays in my little world. The swamp has fallen into drought. I shudder to think of how my daughter's grades have fallen. In the middle of the night, my kitchen and living room flood and I shudder to think of all that is still not mended. A move-out date is looming on my calender and festering in every unpacked corner of my apartment while a clouded air of insipid vacations, unpaid debts, and uncertain relationships loom.

In the midst of these ominous ramblings, I went to a lovely performance of the Houston Symphony on Sunday afternoon which is notable because my mother and I usually only attend three of four concerts a year. Classical music is a bond we have had since I was child who played the double bass quite well and she was a devoted mother who drove me across the universe to attend private lessons, orchestra rehearsals and various performances. My mother gave me a lot of her time and a lot of herself. She taught me how to walk away from an unreasonable argument, to appreciate artist expression even when you don't understand it, and to love classic movies. I like to think that my short lived career as a child musician helped my mother appreciate classical music, even if she doesn't fully understand it.

Symphonic music at its best expands our capacity to feel, to enter the compassion and the pain of being human. Classic music holds joy deeply, and for the time we are experiencing a composer's work we borrow his passions and make them our own.

Such was the case of Sunday's performance of Mahler's 10th, and unfinished Symphony. When Mahler wrote the sketch for his final symphony he was a man living on borrowed time. Doctors had discovered he suffered from an incurable heart condition and it was uncertain how long he would live. He had learned too that his wife, Alma - an insatiable flirt - was having an affair. As unfinished works go, the sketch Mahler left behind was quite complete. Mahler wrote out all his basic melodies and cords and filled the margins with his notations of regret for the life he would not live and the heartache brought on by a cheating wife. When he died in 1911, two years after starting his final work, Mahler left us not only the bones of a symphony, but a memoir of human suffering.

And yet, despite the shrinking high A of his trumpeter and funeral march of his bass drum, the final movement of Mahler's final symphony leaves us with an uplifting melody. The kitchen floods, the grades slide, the good man is gone, the lawn turns brown, but with Mahler you come back to basics: Do I regret this life? Is it, despite all our brave words, a cheat and a waste? Does it make any slight difference to the universe that we are present?

Spending an afternoon with the Symphony simply is an extravagant gift from the heart of the performers to the hearts of whoever is sitting nearby. Life is good, no matter the disappointments — O God the disappointments. Just square your shoulders and give them your utter best. As the late great Marilyn Monroe said, "I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful." Life is insurmountable, but we mount up every morning and ride forward.

Statistics....

2011-05-13T12:42:00.000-05:00

I got really excited the other day when I was watching FOX NEWS of all networks and they cited a poll that shows 59% of Americans think we should leave Afghanistan now that Osama Bin Laden is dead. This is progress. I thought, the American people are coming around. The American people are starting to motivated less by fear and more by rational thinking.

I thought that until I was reading an Article on NPR.org today which cited a poll that shows 41% of Americans believe dooms day will arrive by the year 2050. That's almost half. Almost half of the American population think that dooms day is just 39 years away. That's in my life time. Almost half of the people living in the United States of America - and industrialized, secularized nation - think that I'll only be 67 years old when Jesus starts raising people from the dead. According to 41% of the Americans who answered the poll cited by NPR I will see zombies walk this earth before I die.

That blows my mind. Is that the divide in this country? Fifty-nine percent of us are rational, thinking people and the other forty-one percent are just bat shit crazy.

A True Classic

2011-05-12T08:24:00.000-05:00

Since Alex was grounded on Monday (for reasons I won't detail) I have been celebrating the birthday week of Katharine Hepburn watching some of my favorite Hepburn classics.

At a time when women were seen as the weaker sex, she didn’t wear make-up or dresses, she didn’t cooperate with the media, and she had a habit of insulting other people in the business. She had red hair and freckles and a sharp cheekbone. But she was one of the best and most popular actresses of the twentieth century. She won four Academy Awards and was nominated for eight more. My favoriate films of hers include: Little Women (1933), Alice Adams (1935), Bringing Up Baby and Stage Door (1938), The Philidephia Story (1940), Women of the Year (1942), Adam's Rib (1949), The African Queen (1951), Pat and Mike (1952), Desk Set (1957), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1969).

She made a name for herself on Broadway in the role of an Amazon in The Warrior’s Husband. The role required her to come on stage by leaping down a flight of steep steps while carrying a stag on her shoulders, and a talent scout was so impressed by the feat that he offered her a movie deal. She starred with John Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement (1932), and suddenly she went from making $80 a week to $1,500 a week. It took her just a year to win her first Oscar, for her role in Morning Glory (1933). After that, she handpicked each of her movies, a noted luxury in the golden age of Hollywood, and she often had a say in who the other actors in the movie would be. Sometimes she rewrote her own lines.
She said, "If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun."
And, "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving."
And, "If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased."

*References - Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn.
**Photo and date of films found at http://www.imdb.com/.

The Railway Children

2011-05-11T08:48:00.001-05:00

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.
We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words traveled the wires

In the shiny pouches of raindrops,

Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.

-by Sheamus Heaney

As I laid awake in bed last night the words of this poem, among other things haunted me. Lately I have caught myself in the act of trying to live a large life. Trying to prove that I can think big thoughts. Insisting that I am wise enough to be of some worth to someone.

To be small and know nothing is hard.

Touring Art

2011-05-09T21:46:00.001-05:00

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a free reception at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Among other things we were treated to a guided tour of their neoclassical collection as well as the National Gallery of Art's collection of impressionist paintings which is now slowly touring the country.

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to see these paintings at a time when the gallery was closed to the public. Instead of feeling like a herd of cattle, as one so often does when popular works are on display I had the chance to spend some time with these fascinating paintings.

One painting left a particular impression on me. I have long been an admirer of Mary Cassatt's work. She spent most of her career capturing moments of women and children in their everyday lives. She has a way of filling her paints with a hundred possibilities. Beyond the images she captures, emotions, stories, entire lives seem to jump off her canvas and into the imagination of the viewer.

Mary Cassatt

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

1983.1.18

The name of this picture is Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, but really I think it should be titled, Alex and Gryffindor. I never thought I would find that sloppy posture and board expression enduring, but somehow, way back in 1878, Mary Cassatt captured that face and melted my heart.

I turned on the radio this morning...

2011-05-04T12:29:00.000-05:00

I turned on the radio this morning and learned that today is Star Wars Day. According to the online resource Wookieepedia, it is typically celebrated by sci-fi fans the world over with parties, movie marathons, Star Wars-themed toys, the occasional light-saber duel, and movie-quote exchanges on Twitter. You could also celebrate by reading one of the many Star Wars-related novels, playing a video game, or gazing at your collection of action figures in their original packaging. “It’s nice that this particular date seems to observe and celebrate the power of the Force, and we’re thrilled that Star Wars fans continue to find new ways to connect with a galaxy far, far away,” said a Lucas Films spokesperson.

Despite the fervor of some of its fans, Star Wars Day is not a religious holiday yet, although the Church of Jediism is lobbying hard. The City of Los Angeles prefers to celebrate Star Wars Day on May 25, the anniversary of the film’s release, but as for the rest of us ...

May the Fourth be with you.

April has come and gone....

2011-04-28T07:44:00.001-05:00

Here it is, just two day left in April and looking over my shoulder I'm not quite sure where all those other days went.

This month, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. We all waved palm branches, morned his death and celebrated his resurrection. Meanwhile my daughter celebrated her twelfth birthday. Twelve is the last year of childhood, the time of coming of age novels, so one can understand the excitement that comes with being twelve. Though for my daughter this birthday meant one thing, riding in the front seat of my car. It's a good thing she didn't ask for too much else.

Yes, there was a flurry of activity this month, but the skies did not bring April showers to Texas. There have been wild fires to the north of our buyou and our grass has turned from a lush green to a crunchy brown. We had so much rain this fall that I think we all got a little over confident and tricked ourselves into believing that with enough humidity we could all avoid death, but we can't avoid the patterns that keep the circle of life circling.

Must Be Nice

2011-04-15T16:03:00.000-05:00

That was the subject line of an email I got this afternoon. On a morning when I already am in a funk because EAR INFECTION!!!!! And now that I'm on an antibiotic... DRUG SIDE AFFECTS!!!!
I really did used to be one of those people who never got sick. Whatever happened to that? And when did I become the person who experiences side effects of every freaking drug doctors prescribe?

Must be nice to be you.

Well, yes it is actually nice to be me, thank-you very much. But not for the reasons that you think.

It is nice to be me because I have a place to live with person who loves me. A person who routinely drives me precariously close to the edge of the crazy cliff, but a person who loves me nonetheless.

You think you are so perfect.

No, if I were perfect I would have made a little person who wouldn’t drive me crazy. Also she would love to read, not watch the Disney Chanel. Doing homework with her be a seem like a mother/daughter bonding experience, not like I'm stabbing my brain with a pencil.

You have so much money.

Yes, I am lucky enough to have money to pay my rent, buy groceries and keep our lights on. I am lucky that I have enough money left after I have paid our basic living expenses that I also pay for a tween's school activities, and school t-shirts, and yearbooks, and karate lessons, and belt tests, and church retreats, and birthday parties, and school lunches, and school trips, and other luxury items.

I know that it may seem like all these things are paid for by magic. That my daughter gets these things, and we go to Disney World every year because I have discovered the secret of magically pulling money out of thin air, but the truth is, we have these things because I save the money I earn and I don't buy a lot of things new for myself. We have these things because I have a large family and circle of friends that have helped me get by over the years when I couldn't get by on my own.

You aren't perfect.

Believe me, please, when I tell you that I know this. I'm not even good at faking perfect.

I Love...

2011-04-04T19:48:00.002-05:00

I love days like today, that begin with a dark and ominous sky filled with the threat of rain that in a moment turns bright blue with crisp green leaves swaying lazily in the breeze.
I love evenings like this evening when I can sit in my living room, windows open, and watch the blue sky turn orange, then violet gray as the sun sets behind the buildings.
I love eating left overs with Alex and listening to her plan her birthday party. She is turning 12 this month and thing she wants more than anything else in the world is to ride in the front seat of a car.
I love making cookies and watching Mythbusters with Alex because it means get to eat cookie dough and watch Mythbusters with Alex.

Rich and Mysterious Vanilla

2011-04-02T10:44:00.001-05:00

At 28 it seems rather useless to continue to insist that I am not an adult. Yesterday I found myself on the floor of the file room, digging through boxes. I got up, dropped something and then bent down to pick it up again. Effortless. It gave me pause to wonder how much longer I will have this freedom of movement. How old can a person get before they have to stop sitting cross legged in their office chair? I'm realizing now that I've turned toward a modest, pragmatic view of life and those dull virtues that I ran from in my youth — don't run in the dark, don't be a jerk, get over yourself, do your work, avoid self-pity, pay attention, know that the law of gravity applies to you too, and hang onto your old friends because there may come a day when there's no good reason for people to like you except out of habit. These are sensible virtues of people that strike me in adulthood as vital to the preservation of life. One doesn't have to be so smart to make your way through adult life, but one should know the basic rules.

My church has recently hired a new organist who plays with a lot of flash and pulls out the trumpet stops and he makes me appreciate our old, now retired, organist who isn't that good and knows it. As a teenager I dated boys who were brilliant and unreliable and I amused myself with them and then I met a sweet guy who has those little virtues cited above and is be a good father and caring boyfriend, a steady reliable man who will dispose of deceased rats and will open doors and is capable of astonishing things.
The young and the restless are dismissive of the sensible virtues, on the basis of poor information, as vanilla, but you wouldn't dismiss vanilla if you'd ever tasted real vanilla, which is as rich and mysterious as chocolate. They only know the artificial vanilla that McDonald's sells, which is completely artificial. The blandness is in them, not in the vanilla, and their dismissiveness is pure horse hockey. Which is itself rich and mysterious, but not as good as vanilla.

It won't be long now...

2011-03-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

In a couple of hours it will officially be the first day of spring. The vernal equinox will occur then, the time when the earth's axis is not turned toward the sun (summer, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), or away from it (winter), but is aligned with the center of the sun. The word equinox comes from Latin: aequus means equal, level, or calm; nox means night, or darkness. The equinox, in spring or fall, is a time when the day and night are as close to equal as they ever are, and when the hours of night are exactly equal for people living equal distance from the equator either north or south.

A Light exists in Spring

by Emily Dickinson

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period-
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay-

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

untitled

2011-03-19T17:04:00.004-05:00

I caught
a passing glimps of you
but now you have become
the unseen

I recognize you
and am trying to free you
of me

It is your freedom
that I love, but
I have not yet
learned to love
without holding on.

Spring Lunchon in the Park

2011-03-16T13:06:00.002-05:00

Daylight Savings Time has come and stolen my chance to arrive at work with the sun and so my walk to work is still in darkness and yet early spring weather has arrived. Along the gulf coast our summer carries oppressive heat and humidity and so in spring we enjoy the outdoors with wildly nervous abandon. Yesterday, under the spell of spring I took my lunch outdoors, and enjoyed my sandwich in front of city hall. On the new benches by the reflection pool and green patches of grass I ate carrot sticks and read a book on my new Color Nook. Two children played tag as I read and a gang of skate boarders rushed by.

I wasn’t the only one taking my lunch in the park, on a bench placed there to honor our former Mayor who, apparently, “loved the city parks.” There were others. Men with knapsacks and trash bags filled with more than just a sandwich, but I suspect, everything they own. No one bothered me. Or talked to me. I don’t think anyone ever even looked at me, and yet I couldn’t help but feel their presence as I sat there and read on my Nook. I felt like a schmuck, sitting there with my Vera Bradley lunch tote and reading the philosophical meanderings of a guy chasing rubber duckys lost at sea by way of a luxury electronic device.

Like most good capitalist I didn’t do anything about this feeling of schmuckiness. I simply read and ate and then walked back to my job in the nearby skyscraper. I sat and ate with people who have nothing and did almost nothing. As I left I offered the man beside me my uneaten apple, which he took with a smile after sniffing it for passions. That made the schmuckiness seem to ooze out of me even more. The act felt wholly inadequate and I felt unwise and unsure and humbled.

I suppose if I were a minister writing a sermon this would be the place where I would insert a story from the bible or a lame antidote about something magical I heard God saying to me that day in the park. If I were a feature story on NPR this would be the opening line to explain the revolutionary way I’ve begun to serve the homeless population. But I’m not a minister and I didn’t receive a divine revelation; this isn’t NPR and I’m certain I won’t be opening a homeless shelter any time soon. I have no bow to tie around yesterday’s lunch. I just offer it, humbly and covered in schmuck to the universe. Maybe God, in time, will tie around this for me, but maybe not.

Wednesday of Quiet Love and Ashes

2011-03-09T08:14:00.002-06:00

Today is Ash Wednesday. My evening will end with a service in which a United Methodist Minister will ask the congregation to come to the altar. People will go to the altar and kneel and the minister will dip the side of his thumb in ashes. He will take the purported ashes of last year’s palm branches and spread them on congregants’ foreheads in the form of the cross. The gathering of unholy sinners will leave the red carpet and stained glass windows of the sanctuary with ashes emblazoned on their foreheads and feeling just a little holier and just a little subconscious about flipping the bird at the guy who cuts them off in traffic. You can’t flip someone off if you are holy.

I do not start this day a holy person. I woke up well rested having fallen asleep at 9:30. Being a secretary is exhausting. Handling ten tasks at once for eight hours is exhausting, but soaking in a hot bath for thirty minutes proves restorative so I soaked. I soaked and talked on the phone and went to bed and slept soundly. Waking up at five o’clock in the morning is easy when you have slept soundly and so this morning I woke up and was ready for the day to begin. I anticipate lunch with an old friend as I eat my Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast and marvel at the quiet darkness as I drive through the neighborhood, depositing my daughter safely with her grandparents. The road out of town was quiet and soft in the early morning glow of street lamps. My car drives itself as I listen to James Naughton read the words of Earnest Hemingway's Moveable Feast in his deep baritone voice. Heading east into town I am hypnotized by this baritone and I listen even if I did not care for Hemingway’s words and I wonder how many people in their twenties even know who Gertrude Stein was or why his portrait of her is so stunning.

This trance is broken when I finally slip out the door of the downtown garage and onto the street that is full of people and the air that is full of garbage and bus fumes. These streets are not quiet. Cleaning women are making their way home and typing women are making their way to work. The only men I see are wearing hard hates and blue jeans. Men in suites don’t come to work this early or else they never walk on the street.

And so this day begins. This day, the first of the holy season of reflection and preparation, begins like any other with simple peace. In the quiet God’s simple assurance of unconditional love speaks volumes. In placing ashes on our foreheads we wear the grace of God and Her love feels absolute and forever. So what happens between the quiet and the ashes? What happens when I walk through air that is full of garbage and bus fumes? God's love is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. The state of grace—God's attitude toward us—is eternal. I am the one who changes with fumes. To receive the love of God is to recognize it is all around us, above us and beneath us; speaking to us through every person, every flower, every bag of trash, every trial and situation.

For the next forty days I give myself the challenge to remember this simple statement once written by the Franciscan monk Richard Rohr - Stop knocking on the door: You’re already inside!

Just Hanging Out

2011-02-20T19:40:00.004-06:00

I was grabbing my Sunday morning $4 latte and caught a conversation between two girls about whether one of them had dated a particular boy or was just hanging out with him, an interesting piece of semantics. Texting the boy on a cell phone was what distinguished hang-out from date: She had flashed him a friendly "What's up?" and he being nearby met her for a dish of ice cream, and they migrated to a party at his friend's house and thence to his grandma's, where he is currently living (and driving Grandma's BMW), his parents having cut him loose financially since he quit school to become a writer. There was audible eye-rolling on the word "writer." She didn't want to date him because he was too screwed up, so it was only a hang-out situation. I wanted to know more about the BMW guy who lived with Grandma — think of it! Unconditional love plus a luxury automobile with a perpetual full tank of gas — but the girls drifted away and left me sitting alone, wondering if love has lost some of its mystery.

It seems to me that Dexter Green of F. Scott Fitgerald's "Winter Dreams" would've lost interest in the wealthy Judy Jones if there had been cell phones in 1922 and he could've texted her and hung out with her instead of worshipping her from a distance and making her a symbol of all that is Noble and Beautiful. Hanging out would've shown Dexter what a nobody she was and saved him the trouble of disillusionment.

Or Holden Caulfield. A cell phone would've made "The Catcher in the Rye" a denser and funnier book, Holden roaming around, flashing messages to Sally Woodruff and Jane Gallagher and Phoebe and Sunny, instead of brooding about who is and who is not a phony.

Meanwhile these young girls are looking to become the next great doctors or lawyers which means long meetings and 12-hour workdays and plenty of homework, all in hopes of early retirement at 55 with enough cash to go traveling on and transform yourself from stolid drudge into a beautiful adventurer. But 55 is a little late for transformation. And having money gets in the way of it. Sorry. All you can do is hang out on the periphery of transformation, as I do and personally I am rooting for the BMW boy who is screwed up (always an asset for a writer) and wants to maybe write a novel about a dropout like himself, which could be a huge best-seller and earn him enough to be able to afford a reclusive life in New Hampshire, and those two girls will be telling people for the next 50 years how they used to date him. You just wait and see.

Divided We Stand

2011-02-17T05:46:00.003-06:00

As our new Congress begins a long, hard fight over a new budget, political commentators ring their hands and worry that our country is too divided. The speech is too visceral. While I think there is plenty of room to argue for more civil conversations in Washington, D.C. I think its important to remember that it was on this day in 1801 that the presidential election was decided for Thomas Jefferson by the House of Representatives. The election laws were quite different at the time. Each elector in the Electoral College was allowed to cast two votes. On top of that, each political party nominated two candidates. So the election was between four men, two from each party, and the result was a tie between Jefferson and his fellow Republican Party member Aaron Burr. The tie meant that the election had to be decided in the House of Representatives.

The first vote in the House was held during a blizzard on February 11, 1801. By 3:00 a.m. the following morning, 19 roll calls had been taken, but they'd all been deadlocked. Three days later, the deadlock was still unbroken. Commentators began to worry that Congress would have to adjourn before selecting a new president, meaning that the country would be without an executive branch for several months. John Adams feared that this situation might result in civil war. Some people in Virginia said that they would secede from the Union if Jefferson didn't take the presidency. Others in the Republican Party announced that they would drive the Federalists from Congress by force if necessary.

The election was finally decided when the lone representative from Delaware chose to abstain from voting. And so, on this day in 1801, Jefferson was elected the third president of the United States. Aaron Burr became Vice President and of course is fondly remembered for mortally wounding his friend and political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel while he held that office.
O

Making Up Stories...

2011-02-16T19:23:00.003-06:00

On this cool night in Houston I see a little breeze in the trees as I look out my window, dozens of lighted windows of private lives, one of which is mine. I am reminded of this by the fact that 100 yards away a small number of Arab men have gathered. Their voices are just loud enough for me to hear. I don't speak Farsi, so I imagine them discussing recent events of the day.

I leave the blogging world for a few weeks and Egypt over throws her dictator and the Middle East is in an uproar. If I had only realized the impact I have the world I would have stopped blogging a lot sooner. I’ve always been a fan of revolutions, especially when they evolve from the masses and so count me as one who is eager to see what path these freedom fighters decided to take. Now that the good old USA is too weak to exert his influence in every corner of the globe, perhaps these countries will be free to find their own voice, apart from the influence of Western threats and bribes. For once our talking heads are forced to sit on the sidelines while the true players decided their fates. So I will refrain from offering my further opinions.

This is what we do in a big city: we make up stories about each other. I take my brown haired daughter to a crowded restaurant and she gazes into faces as we wait to be seated and because its a local eatery and not the Olive Garden there is an astonishing variety of faces, all shades, all shapes, all hairstyles from punk to post-hair. The entire city of Houston isn't like this. You get far enough away from the center and suddenly everyone looks rather similar — it's like the old joke about the little ant who was confused because all his uncles were ants — but in the center there's plenty to catch your eye. I have to remind her of the five-second rule. You can stare at anybody for five seconds but then you have to look away. Look but don't make a scene.

I have a hard time comprehending why anyone would want to be out of reach of such a rich tapestry of sights, sounds and cultures. I haven't quite wrapped my mind around preferring a McMansion that has been locked away from the world to a comfortable two bedroom surround my lights, noise and the richness of diverse and interesting neighbors.

Winter's End Brings Prince Charming

2011-02-15T21:57:00.004-06:00

The big soul-stirring blizzard of 2011 hit us hard here in the bayou city. Not a drop of snow fell to the ground, but in true southern fasion when the windchill reached -8 degress the city rose up like a chorus of Russian peasants coming onstage in Act II after the Princess has fainted for having been spurned by the young lieutenant at Count Androvsky's grand ball, and we sang, "With true hearts and strong, we go to the fields to harvest the cotten. The bitter winds we endure only make us more grateful for the biscuts with its dollop of white cream gravey which is all one needs to be happy."

We except the hardships of life and trust in the small pleasures to see us through. Possessing the ideal makes a person nervous: you sense the inevitable decline just ahead. Just this week we have had a string of perfect days — fresh and sweet in the morning, afternoons balmy, and evenings you could sit outdoors and so of course I'm looking over my sholder.

I was excepted into seminary last week. As one wonderfully encouraging mentor put it, this is but the first step on a long and arduous journey. I am still waiting to hear about scholarships and I am still waiting on a lot of other things that are involved in the path towards ministry, but it is a step in the process. I have a foot on solid ground so I push aside my wary and unforgiving nature, that excellent sense of doom, to savor a moment of joy.

Moments of joy have become a new mode of life. I have met a person of the male persuasion. Besides being kind, smart and handsome he seems to like me quite a lot for reasons that I still don’t comprehend, but like I said he’s kind, smart and handsome so I’ve decided not to argue with his affections. I’m sure there came a day when Prince Charming looked at Cinderella and found her mouse fetish odd and her tendency to lose expensive objects vexing, but not before they danced until midnight and talk extravagantly about life so for now I am just enjoying the ball.

Freeze Your Buns Off

2011-02-01T21:37:00.003-06:00

I haven't really blogged about Crunchy Chicken's annual Freeze Your Buns Off challenge this year. Its hard to write about your freezing buns when its 60 degrees outside. Oh its dipped into the freeze zone once or twice this year, but mostly late a night and I haven't had to turn my heater on - except a few times in the early early mornings. In short is has been nothing like the insanely cold, insanely long winter we endured last year.

Tonight is different. This morning it was 72 degrees when I walked out my door, 68 degrees when I first sat down at my desk and 39 when I ate my lunch. According to NPR is now 27 degrees with a wind chill of 8. It might snow on Friday.

There are few people on my floor who have recently moved here from Belgium (and yeah I can't fathom having to leave the beauty of Brussels to live in our little arm pit). They can't get over our weather. I had to laugh when one guy explained it to me like this, "I just don't understand how you Americans do things. In Belgium we have winter and cold comes a bit at a time and stays for months. Its not like how you have winter that comes in the middle of the day and then its over."

Yes we Americans are odd in the way we do our weather. I wonder if we could petition our city counsel to out law drastic temperature drops within the city limits, or is that a state or federal issue?

Its annoying when the temperature drops in the middle of the day. It happens her enough that I don't find it shocking, but its not the norm. I think I would much prefer the Belgium way of having the cold come a bit at a time even if I wouldn't want it to stay for months on end.

At any rate I am bundled up in my over sized sweats and fuzzy socks. The heater is turned up to 50 and I'm ready for some hot coco.

Happy Winter Everyone!

The Duck in a Chiken Coop

2011-01-31T21:00:00.006-06:00

It's the birthday of Thomas Merton, born in Prades, France (1915). Merton was a Trappist monk, but he was also the author of more than 50 books, 2,000 poems and a personal diary that spanned much of his lifetime.

Merton was educated in France and the United States before beginning his university career at Cambridge University. But he left after only one year and returned to America to attend Columbia University and live with his grandparents. Merton decided to write his master's thesis on William Blake, and he found himself deeply influenced by Blake. He converted to Christianity, and in 1941 he entered a Trappist abbey in Kentucky, where he remained for most of his life. In his diary from this time, Merton wrote, "Going to the Trappists is exciting. I return to the idea again and again: 'Give up everything, give up everything!'" Merton had become well-known throughout the world, in part because of his writing, in particular his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain (1948).

He said, "An author in a Trappist monastery is like a duck in a chicken coop. And he would give anything in the world to be a chicken instead of a duck."

Merton was also known for his dialogue with other faiths, and for advocating non-violence during race riots and the Vietnam War. Merton was encouraged to write at the abbey, but he was not allowed to leave. And so a new abbot allowed Merton to leave the abbey in 1968 for a tour of Asia, where he met the Dalai Lama, and where he died accidentally, touching an electric fan as he stepped from his bath.

The Everlasting Gospel (excerpt)
by William Blake

The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine
Thine is the Friend of All Mankind
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates

Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates
Socrates taught that Melitus
Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse
And Caiphus was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white

Art and Histroy of Great Writing Deut

2011-01-29T16:33:00.004-06:00

Theater Arts is Alex's elective during her first year of middle school. She has been learning about the art and history of the dramatic arts, from theater to radio and beyond. Alex's favorite actress at the moment is Julie Andrews. She loves the way she sang in movies like Mary Poppins, Sound of Music and Thoroughly Modern Millie. She loves the way she can balance an air of respectability and comedic timing.

But when it came time for the kids in her class to write a report on a well known person in American theater history they simply drew names out of a hat. So while the boy sitting next to Alex drew the name, Julie Andrews, Alex was stuck with some random person named Adolph Green.

The funny thing is that I was raised on classic movies and back in the early days of movies, right through the 1960s actually there was a lot of cross over of talent between Broadway and Hollywood. I was surprised that I was unfamiliar with this choice. Alex was disappointed, but today was took a trip to the library to do some research. What we found there was a treasure trove of information and now I am ashamed to think that I had been ignorant of the great lyricists and writers, Adolph Green and Betty Comden.

Adolph Green was born in the Bronx, New York on December 2, 1915 into a family of Hungarian immigrants. He graduated high school in 1934 and worked at assorted jobs including as a runner on Wall Street. In 1937, at a summer camp, he met the young Leonard Bernstein who was the music counselor, and they became life-long friends. In 1938, another decisive meeting occurred while making the rounds of theatrical agents he met Betty Comden. Together with Judy Holiday, the two formed the act The Revuers, which performed in the legendary Greenwich Village nightclub, The Village Vanguard. They lacked the funds to pay royalties and so began writing and performing their own satirical and musical comedic materials.

They went onto collaborate with Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins on what was the first show for all of them, "On The Town." Also with Mr. Bernstein they did the score for "Wonderful Town." With Jule Styne they wrote the book and/or lyrics for "Bells Are Ringing," "Hallelujah, Baby," "Do Re Mi," "Subways Are For Sleeping," "Peter Pan," and others, wrote the book for "Applause," and book and lyrics for "on The Twentieth Century" and "A Doll's Life." Four of these, "Applause," "Hallelujah, Baby," "Wonderful Town," and "On The Twentieth Century," won them five Tony Awards, and "A Doll's Life," a Tony nomination.

Comden and Green are considered to have the longest running creative partnership in theater history, but some of their best known work was for film. Their film musicals include "Singin' In The Rain," "The Band Wagon," "On The Town," "Bells Are Ringing," "It's Always Fair Weather," "Good News," and "The Barkleys Of Broadway." Two of these, "The Band Wagon" and "It's Always Fair Weather," received Academy Award Nominations, and those two plus "On The Town" won the Screen Writer's Award. "Singin' In The Rain" was recently voted one of the ten best American films ever made and, by a vote of international film critics conducted by the prestigious magazine "Sight and Sound," it was chosen as Number Three of the ten best films of all time.

I think the best source that Alex and I enjoyed reading together was Art of the American Musical: Conversations with the Creators edited by Jackson R. Bryer and Richard N. Davison. This included an interview with the team that was conducted in 1992 and the thing that impressed me most about them was how much fun they seemed to be having, even when they were talking about what seemed to be soar subject, "Singin' In the Rain." That script was written for MGM under the old studio system so while it as their greatest screenplay and lyrics, they don't own any of the rights. When asked how their partnership lasted so long Green gave a simple, yet wonderful answer, "We have basic respect for each other." To me that sums up the greatness of career. They have wonderful sense of timing and a great skill for writing, but what really started and sustained their careers was the relationships they formed both in film and stage industries. People had great respect for not only their work, but who they are/were as people.

Adolph Green passed away in December of 2002. He as honored by a memorial on Broadway that was attended by some of the greatest legends that have had the honor to preform their work over the years. I'm glad Alex pulled his name. I might never have known the story of Comden and Green otherwise.

Day at the Theater

2011-01-25T21:20:00.002-06:00

On Saturday Alex and I were on the Island of Galveston, Texas to see a musical at The Grand 1894 Opera House, named such because it was built in 1894 and it is very grand. The main stair case with its carved wooden rails is a wonderful reminder of the craftsmanship of a different era when stage and hall were built for architectural ascetics and not optimal acoustics or prime audience viewing. All the better though because the way musicals are priced now-a-days one can buy a small yacht for what it costs to see a show. With more than a handful of obstructed view sets Alex and I were able to see Monty Python hysterics set to music – and a rather nice pillar - for a mere $40.

I admit that I was skeptic when I first heard that Eric Idle was going to turn Monty Python’s greatest motion picture triumph, The Holy Grail, into a musical. Boy was I dead wrong. Spamalot is fresh and hilarious while staying true to the original Python voice and it tells a story that both Alex and I love.

Alex enjoys seeing the Black Knight become a quadruple amputee and we both laugh listening to The Lady of the Lake croon about her missing part. When theater is working, really working, we find it hasn’t changed much since Shakespeare even if a line like Lancelot likes to dance a lot would not have played well on Broadway during Roger’s and Hammerstein’s day. All of the business and politics of the world is left in the lobby. We take our seats and wait with great anticipation for the curtain to rise. For two and a half hours we are putty in the actors’ hands, crying, laughing - and even singing - right along with them; creating something beyond the human realm of understanding. They are presenting us with part of their soul and we give them part of ours in return.

The Animals Come Parading In

2011-01-19T19:24:00.003-06:00

If you are listening to NPR right now, you might be hearing the Carnival of the Animals, or at least that's what I'm doing right now. That and telling Alex to go away. I feel bad of course, but really, when I say things like, "this is my favorite part!" she takes that as her cue to start telling me why, in excruciating detail pink is and always will be her favorite color.

I love the Carnival of the Animals because I grew up a bassist and it is one of the few orchestral pieces that features what I believe to be one the greatest instruments ever invented. And also, I love Camille Saint-Saens. He was a child prodigy, with perfect pitch and a fantastic memory. He learned the piano and organ, composed nice waltzes and gallops by the age of five and wrote his first symphony at sixteen. During his lifetime he was most famous opera was Samson and Dalila He was always surprised that the greater public gave him such high praise, yet constantly wanted to hear Samson and Dalila and ignored his other work. Over the course of his lifetime he composed more than 300 pieces and he was the first major composer to write specifically for the cinema. He might best-known today for Carnival of the Animals, a collection of pieces written for piano and orchestra, but it was never published or performed in full in his life time. Saint-Saens was afraid that the frivolous work might hurt his reputation.

I think what endures Saint-Saens to audiences still today is the way his music tells stories. Of course, who is better to interpret those stories than the artist at Disney Animation Studios. Here is a segment from Fantasia 2000 where flamingos tell the story of the Finale of the Carnival of the Animals.

Because my workday begins...

2011-01-17T22:23:00.004-06:00

Because my workday begins early, it begins, in winter, in the huge, tense blackness of the world. I slip out of bed before the sun slips into the sky and the house is hard cold so I move purposely in silence. I lack the confidence to move quickly, I fear the skate board that could be waiting in the middle of the hall. I dress in the dark and shuffle to the coffee pot. The sleepy dog walks with me a few strides then he disappears. The coffee maker hisses then gurgles. I listen intently, as though it is a language the coffee grounds are speaking. There are no stars, nor a moon. I can see a little from the street lamps and finally I turn on the light that sits on the side of my desk. I lean on the winged back of my green chair by the amber light and my purple desk. Now the dog comes back, his happy feet finding a new bed by my side. I sit and read, think, write, stare by the light of my desk.
This is the beginning of every day.

Small things and Simple Adventures

2011-01-16T12:54:00.002-06:00

Its a rainy Sunday in January. Things are slick and gray and slippery so it feels like winter even if it isn't that cold, and its hard to get out of bed when the sound of rain is soft and romantic and frighting. Rain drops are wonderful when you are sheltered, but shattering if you are caught in the open world.

I have been called away from the computer and my chain of thought since writing the above, so I have no idea where I was going with that, but the sentiment is wonderful isn't it? Or at least it sounds nice and so I'll leave it where I left it. Only to add that today will be a day of small things and simple adventures accompanied by rain drops and old time country music on the radio.

Check your ego for the Greater Good

2011-01-06T22:40:00.003-06:00

Republicans used their second day in charge of the House to read the Constitution to each other. This is good. Holding the majority of one chamber of Congress will require both political parties to decide who they are. Are Democrats really interested in unemployment, health care, banking regulation and the long-term health of the planet? Are Republicans still just angry that a non-citizen and practicing Muslim got elected president so he could send death panels around to enslave us in the chains of Mexican Marxists?

Nobody looks on the marathon health-care debate and the latest stimulus bill as a noble chapter in political science. No legislator is going to have a hospital or school named for him in honor of his heroic work. (Maybe a parking ramp.) Meanwhile, one-sixth of our population is without health insurance, and over ten percent are unemployed while the wealth gap gross and the middle class disappears.

If our nation is to learn anything from the shooting rampage that took place at a gathering for political dialogue in Arizona this weekend, both parties will have to wake up and realize that running on anger is not such a great idea. For one thing, it's hard to sustain. Government does not change when you yell at it. The world doesn't run on slogans and ideology, it runs on compromise and paperwork. Government can not be run on Blue or Red ideals alone, there being so many purple people occupying flyover country. One has to wonder if our Congressmen realize that our Constitution was written in order to form a more perfect UNION and not simply a cluster of warring ideologues. The remarkable thing about great Statesmen are not their high ideals, that at some point differences and ego are set aside for the greater good.

My heart was gladdened by an official-looking sign in the Bush airport when I went to pick up Alex the other day. Just beyond the TSA checkpoint, hanging over where you put your shoes and coat back on and stuff your laptop back in the case: The sign said, "Recombobulation Area." The English language gains a new word. Recombobulate, America. Pull yourself together, tie your shoelaces, and check your over sized ego before boarding.

I will know everything when I know nothing

2011-01-04T21:02:00.004-06:00

So 1,000 birds simultaneously fall out of the Arkansas sky and the state government's answer to that oddity is "fireworks". True story. I was listening to NPR this morning when the segment turned to the freak dead bird story that has been the "water cooler" news de jur. They interviewed Arkansas State Veterinarian George Badley who is convinced that these birds were just all "discombobulated. Black birds were frightened by fireworks and the entire group of 5,000 simply got confused and began crashing into solid objects, like houses and trees. The idea that they were sick or otherwise affected by some mysterious toxin is "non sense" according to Badley. Look, I don't know what happened to the birds and the 100,000 drum fish that went belly up around the same time just over 100 miles away in the Arkansas river, but if it wasn't a various or some mysterious environmental toxin, as the Arkansas state fish guy seems to believe possible, then I'm going with Aliens or an apocalyptic sign from God.

Back in the day, I attended a Church of Christ elementary school. Such fundamentalists didn't mess with angels, sensing that Catholics owned the angel franchise, part of their dim smoky world of bead-rattling and hocus-pocus and lugubrious statuary, so instead in school we focused on the Holy Spirit who dwelt in all of us true believers and told us what to do and what to say, which is convenient for people with plenty of self-confidence. You read some Scripture and work up a sweat over it and stand up in the sunlit sanctuary, no dinging or chanting, no costumes or choreography, and you open your mouth and out comes Truth, such as the doctrine of Separation from the World, which was appealing to those of us with no social skills - if people didn't like you, it was proof of your righteousness.

The idea that I was right and most other people were wrong stuck with me through my cocksure youth, but then comes the perilous passage of life when a woman lies awake in intensive care thinking about breathing forever with one lung and if you will ever bare another child, and your interest in Truth fades a little compared to your interest in winged beings who might come and rescue people in serious trouble. Nowadays I think more about angels. And sometimes I slip into a silent church to sit and commune with any resident angels and to light a few candles. Because if I know anything, it is that too often this world defies all scientific knowledge and human logic and that more often than not, the best answer to the question is "I don't know."

Update:

After reading the above, I feel compelled to add that I have no idea, nor do I pretend to guess the religious leanings of Mr. George Badley. I just see two sets of people who are completely sure of their answers and I stand in awe struck wonder of their certainty.

Red Shoes Go With Everything

2011-01-01T08:24:00.003-06:00

This fall I quiet haphazardly bought a pair of new red shoes at half off. I bought them not sure when of if I would ever wear them, but they were cute. Cute and half off. The longer I owned these particular shoes, I began to realize something magical. That red shoes go with everything.
I know that it is said that things can't make you happy and perhaps that saying is often true, but I draw the line at my red shoes. I am happier when I wear them. They bring an extra spark to any day, and I'm happy when I think about the fact that God made me the type of person who dares to own a pair of red slippers, Hans Christian Anderson's ghastly tale not with standing.

So it was that last night I slipped on my shoes to join the New Years count down with friends old and new. We ate too much food and had just the right amount of wine. We laughed and joked and pushed each other on to stay at the party until midnight. There is nothing quite like celebrating New Years in the middle of Bum-Fucked-Egypt. In the city they have things like laws that keep hooligans from shooting bottle rocks at each other in a misguided attempt at celebration. In BFE every one's a hooligan and there are no laws against setting off fireworks in your back yard, right next to that huge oak tree. The mayhem starts at midnight and we old battle axes drag ourselves out to the front porch in equal amazement and fright because even unsafe fireworks are magical and I'd rather be outside when the roof goes up in flames.

A lot happened in 2010. The Olympics and Jo at A Majority of Two introduced me to Vancouver, CA. And I feel head over heals for that beautiful city and the not a mascot Muk Muk. I also learned about vuvuzelas, cheered for Spain's World Cup win, and said fair well to Paul the Octopus.

This year I didn't listen to a lot of new music, or the new music I listened to all sounded the same, but I did see a lot of movies. I saw the Lisbeth Salander trilogy and loved it. The final Harry Potter, Part I was spot on. The Twilight movie I was sucked into seeing sucked more than I thought it would. Disney Animation's Tangled was good, but Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3 was better. If we are talking best film I saw this year I would have to hand it to The King's Speech. Not because I just saw it or it stars the ever sexy Colin Firth, but because it was the first movie I left, having paid nearly $10 for and wanted to turn right around and pay another $10 to see it again.

In 2010 I discovered E.L. Koningsburg's wonderful stories and Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Finished reading Stieg Larrson's Lisbeth Salander Trilogy and finally read Harper Lee's magnum opus, To Kill a Mockingbird. My favorite non-fiction works include Neal Gabler's telling of Walt Disney's life story, Karen Armstrong's A Case for God and Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

I was laid off in October which was great because I had the chance to do some random things I normally would have passed on like visiting the Menial Collection and eating lunch in all kinds of trendy restaurants with my not so trendy friends. I found joy and courage in relaxation, art, journaling, prayer and loved every minute of being a stay at home mom. Still, if one is to buy red shoes, one must have an income so I was grateful to Elaine for retiring and to the people at the French oil company for hiring me on as her replacement. I finally responded to God's nudging and turned in my application for seminary and sat through necessary interviews with key Church people about pursuing a path towards ordination. That all sounds like I've worked out what I'm doing, but this is still just the preface. God is still preparing me for this journey. Ask me next January if we've reached the exposition.

So here we are. We lost a lot of good people in 2010, but you and I didn't die. Reason enough to celebrate. You and I go on. We dance our little dance and pursue the circuit of our dreams insofar as the hours of daylight permit. Love, courage, justice, faith, hope, charity. God bless you all.

The Blessings of Wonder

2010-12-25T09:29:00.003-06:00

It is Christmas Morning, but of course you know that. Unless you live ten miles up a box canyon deep in the Wasatch Range with only your dog Boomer and are demented from drinking bad water, you are inhaling Christmas morning air and "Joy to the World" is stuck in your head like a five-inch nail.

On Christmas Eve the Church was packed for the 3:00 service, the 4:30 and 6:00 candle light services were beautiful. Slient night drift through the rafters. I left the church and listened to NPR share the Christmas music of Olde England while I drove to Old Navey and bought a new pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. For myself.

I know its Christmas and we are all to be selfless and giving, but with my daughter away I am indulging in simple acts of selfishness. For example if I feel like if I feel like having a mocha, I just step into a Starbucks and get one. A small one, no pastry, but it feels luxurious. Why mocha? How does it further God's work on earth? I don't know. I just like it.

I had planned to return to church for the 11:00pm communion service, but after driving around I found myself near an old Catholic church. I slipped in the back in time for Mass in Spanish. Mass in Spanish is pretty wonderful. It's like a big family reunion at which I know nobody and so nobody is mad at me. Nothing said in Spanish offends me doctrinally or any other way. I squeeze into the crowd, under the placid stone faces of saints, the sweet smell of burning wax and a hundred varieties of cologne, and feel the religious fervor, and tears come to my eyes, and I light a candle, say a wordless prayer, and out into the cold rain I go.

A woman gets a keener sense of the divine in a church that is not your own. Maybe Luther and Calvin and Jan Hus and all them were dead wrong and literacy is not the key nor an understanding of Scripture, and maybe the essence of Christmas is dumb childlike wonder and the more you think about it, the less you understand. Which makes me glad I am no smarter than I am. Let's go have Christmas lunch.

Bah Humbug

2010-12-22T21:21:00.003-06:00

Its the week of Christmas and I don't have a stitch of decoration hanging in my apartment. Not even a bit of greenery hanging on my door. Advent came and went this year and it seems the whole thing passed me by. I was busy being sick and the world did not stop and wait for me to get well. I'm still a bit stuffy if you want to know the truth, but I don't feel ready to collapse at any moment so I consider myself well. Well enough to enjoy the festivities anyway.

And there is the rub. I started thinking last week, as I laid on my death couch, that I just wanted to be well by Christmas. Well here it is, two nights before Holy night and I can't say that I care. The only person I bought wrapable gifts for is in California with her father and my usual Christmas cheer went with her. I'm not alone. I have lots of family to see and parties to attend. It just seems like Christmas is happening all around me, but somehow I'm just not quite a part of it.

Christ the Crazy Liberal.

2010-12-18T08:26:00.003-06:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat

http://www.colbertnation.com/

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

March to Keep Fear Alive

Colbert at his best.

Sick of Being Sick

2010-12-15T19:33:00.003-06:00

I am never sick this long. I guess I should say I'm never sick with common illnesses this long, but this cold thing just will not give up and go away and I'm seriously over it. I'm over the hacking cough. I'm over the Kleenex. I'm over bathing myself in anti-bacteria gel in an attempt to convince myself that... really... I'm not spewing germs all over every single service I touch.

This whole experience has been a great reminder of just how craptastic the American health care system really is. Its lucky that I'm sick now, before my insurance expires at the end of the year. Right now, working this new job on a temp to perm basis, I'm heading for two months of no coverage. I'm pretty sure there aren't any health insurance companies that would want to carry a one lunged cancer survivor.

Without insurance:
$130 Doctor visit
$158 Steroid prescription (w/$25 coupon from doctor)
$38 Antibiotic prescription

Total cost of cold = $326

With Insurance:
$25 Doctor visit
$5 Steroid prescription (w/$25 coupon from doctor)
$10 Antibiotic prescription

Total cost of cold = $40

Self Portriat

2010-12-12T21:54:00.006-06:00

boiling water

silky rich hot chocolate

soothing calming tea

Self Portriat

2010-12-10T21:03:00.005-06:00

ONLY 1,994

2010-12-06T21:32:00.003-06:00

My daughter now has a new phone. A new phone with all of the old minutes, and that my friends is no small miracle. I try not to be one of those snarky people who whine about talking to customer service people in India because the fact that the people are in India has very little to do with how craptacular the whole system truly is.

Perhaps its the conspiracy theorist in me, but by the time hour 2.8 was inching towards the round number 3, I was starting to get the impression that the system wanted me to get frustrated. I was sure, when the very nice lady put me on hold for the 58th time, that I was going to cave and hang up the phone. I probably would have. Having deactivated the lost phone and activated the new one, hanging up and letting the old minutes on the old pre-paid phone die seemed really appealing. Except, as I told the really nice lady who tried really hard to convince me that the system was really crappy and getting my old minutes transferred would be a pain in the ass, I had AT LEAST 2,000 minutes on that old phone at the time it was lost. I had to keep repeating that to myself. I had to keep those 2,000 minutes fresh in my mind when the deep despair of hold music was beginning to destroy my soul.

Through it all I credit myself with being really nice to the really nice lady who helped me. I was really nice to her every time she tried to talk me out of getting my 2,000 minutes. I was really nice to her when she kept putting me on hold. I was really nice up to the point when, after holding for almost 15 minutes, she came on the line and said, "Mame, I have accessed the minutes on your old phone. You do not have 2,000 minutes. You ONLY have 1,994. Do you STILL want to transfer them?"

Happy Ending of the First Week of Advent

2010-12-03T22:52:00.003-06:00

For the last few years I have made a vow not to step foot in a mall during the month of December. I intend to keep that same promise again this year, but I have to admit that I wouldn't mind being in this food court.

In Recovery and Getting Better...

2010-11-30T23:00:00.000-06:00

Apparently one can suffer from a massive cold and yet live to tell the tale. I was feverish and snot filled, but thanks to God, NyQuil and triple layered lotion filled Kleenex I am slowly on the mend. My brain is unstuffing.

I spent the weekend in the Texas hill country. I spent the weekend drunk and freezing like a bunch of hobos. It was a glorious country Thanksgiving compete with a small town hayride past the county court house decked out in Christmas lights. all rides end at the bar, the one place in town where a family can get warm. Meed and cider on tap for all the freezing hobos.

And now I'm back in the city and, as stated, I have started my new job. Its the kind of thing I really wanted for now. Something where I can come to work and leave and the whole thing is relatively stress free. That's not say that I don't think it will all be easy, I just know that it stuff that I can do, or learn to do and the people I am working with really want to work with me and not against me, which is refreshingly nice. Did I mention that I get to wear jeans on Fridays? And that there is an option for a "compressed work schedule"? Yes my friends, life is an option at this new place of business.

Thankfulness

2010-11-28T18:55:00.002-06:00

So the day after Thanksgiving we packed up and headed for the hill country. We saw friends. We roasted marshmallows. We huddled around the campfire like a bunch of homeless people to stay warm.

We had a lot of fun despite the cold, but now we are home. Tomorrow is back to school for Alex and the first day at a new job for me. Did I mention that I'm sick? Yeah, tomorrow should be interesting. I just hope this bit of cold magically goes away during the night.

Oh, yeah Thankfulness... I'll get back to that later.

From Novel to Movie

2010-11-23T07:21:00.001-06:00

I have seen more movies this month than I have in the last year. With Disney releasing its 50th animated feature tomorrow that promises to be either to be the masterpiece that I've heard ramblings about or a the total dud that I've been dreading, I thought it wise to get the reviews of two more movies out of the way. No matter how it ends up, Tangled will deserve its own post.

Today's theme is book adaptations - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Let's start with the later shall we? I don't have the same book to movie baggage with this one that I have with Harry Potter and that I had with the previous two Girl With A Dragon Tattoo movies, but to be fair I have rather liked the director's adaptations so far. Even though I came away from the second movie wondering if certain points would be lost a person who had not read the novel I felt the first two films translated the themes and character's of their respective books to the silver screen better than most I've seen.

However, the rapped pass in which these films have been released means that I had to see The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest before I had read the book. I know what you are thinking, that book has been out for almost a year, however its a rather popular book and as of this morning I am number 63 on the library hold list. I don't have much hope of getting my hands on the thing before New Years. So I have no Novel to Movie to compare here.

If you haven't read the books or seen the first two movies, you need to do your homework before going to the theater. This movie is the last in Stieg Larson's Millennium series and the whole story is amid at tying up loose ends. What unfolds is a fast past conspiracy story in which paranoia becomes the norm for anyone even indirectly associated with the central character Lisbeth Salander.

Lisbeth has the potential to be one of the great characters of the modern novel. Even in film as Noomi Rapace who plays Lisbeth in all three Swedish movies has come to embody this character. Pity poor Kate Mara, the young actress chosen to play Lisbeth in the coming Hollywood version of the saga. She will be compared to Rapace, who has captured just the right blend of psycho majesty and emotional cripple in the character.

We learn so much about Lisbeth throughout the course of the books and films, and yet I left the theater wishing I knew her better. Really, without giving too much of the story away that kind of sums up this movie for me. It made me want to read the book so I could find out what was left out. My friend assures me that was made it onto the screen was the mostly whole of Lisbeth's story, and if that is true, I am immensely saddened that Stieg Larson didn't live to write more.

Over all a great work of art. I'm not sure how it ends the series for me though. I give it a 3 out of 5, but I do think it is a must see - even if not in the theaters.

Harry Potter is a different animal. The first book came out in 1997 when I was a freshman in high school and needless to say, Jo Rowling's character's have been my old friends these past ten years. I was even willing to look past some of the bloated writing (what part of Goblet of Fire was worth 600 pages?). Conversely, the movies that started as rather unimpressive and shallow, and have become better and better with each installment (save Goblet of Fire).

Half-Blood Prince, among the worst of the books in my opinion, was turned into one of the best of the movies, thanks to excellent editing from being forced to condense the novel and the amazing direction of David Yates, giving the series the needed darker tone. Yates returns for Deathly Hallows, and while the first installment suffers from not being able to stand on its own, it has certainly left me excited for next July.

Without giving away spoilers, Deathly Hallows opens with warnings of the impending threat kicking off a more political aspect immediately gives the film a distinct feel that separates this one from previous installments. When the film eventually settles into the series of camping scenes, they are slightly less annoying than they were in the novel, and actually give the trio some much-needed character development. Its kind of sad that it took this long to actually get some real character injected into the movies, but at least it finally happened. Also worth noting is the facial hair worn by Radcliffe and Grint, officially making them no longer twelve.

Speaking of no longer twelve, please do not bring your young children to this movie. Harry Potter has grown up with its audience, and this film is the darkest yet. Yates has gone even darker than his take on Half Blood Prince, and the results are great. The film was given a PG-13 rating for a reason. I felt comfortable with my eleven year old seeing it, but I did worry for her friend's little brother who is six.

With the characters in the woods for so long though, the supporting cast is left rather useless unfortunately. Alan Rickman's Snape, one of the best parts of previous films, only has one scene near the beginning. However, some returning characters make the most of their limited time, notably Brandon Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange and Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge.

The biggest fault is its inability to stand on its own two feet. The film ends at the appropriate time for an intermission, but lacks the punch required of a proper ending. Deathly Hallows will be better reviewed once the film is complete. Fans of the novels should be pleased with the extended length, and fans of the films should at least enjoy the excellent visuals and astounding direction. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I is an extremely promising sign of what is to come.

I give it an overall 4 out of 5 with the potential of a 5 rating if the second part proves to be as good as I hope.

When worms, minnows and tacos start cashing checks...

2010-11-22T10:13:00.008-06:00

When worms, minnows and tacos start cashing checks you know you there is a Renaissances Festival near by.

Or you might be leaving one, as I was went I took this picture. Thank God for traffic jams on old country farm roads. My sister, the yuppie lawyer, had tickets to the fair and so invited us along.

Here is Alex posing as a night. If you look closely you can see her new pet dragon, Max, peeking out from under her helmet. Besides the shopping and the great food we saw some fabulous shows.

There were the Mud Pit guys... we were on the side of the Trojans!

Here is the judge that had to eat mud... GROSS!!! I don't know how much money they make each year from touring this show around the country, but I do hope its enough to buy medical insurance.

Who can go to the Renaissance and not see a good joust? We were on the side of the German - who died of course because England always wins. It was fun anyway.

This is a picture of my favorite looking shop. Because I'm in love with all things fairy and I think its a good representation of why people care to go to these things anyway.

And here is a fun shot of what the sky looked like just before the sun was setting.

Thanksgiving Tree

2010-11-18T18:30:00.004-06:00

Thanksgiving Tree

Houston, Texas
Photo by Katy 2010

Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. The weather changes and suddenly the 90 degree days and 100 percent humidity are bad memories under the bridge. The temperature drops to a cool 60 degrees and its the perfect time to sit in the park, watch the blue skies and share a cup of coffee with a good friend under the tall pine trees. Pine trees, oak trees, magnolias we have all kinds of trees in this wooded part of my city, but none that change colors. None that look like the fall I've seen in photos. Fall foliage doesn't come to us so I brought the fall into our home. My mother's home really. The football tickets were added by my father. I know, it really throws off the look, but who can blame the old Aggie for wanting to remember the time his team beat Oklahoma?

I Love...

2010-11-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

I love that a cold front means a high of 60 degrees. I love that is cold enough for me to wear my new red pea coat.
I love that I get to take my father out to lunch for his birthday and I didn't even have to ask anyone for time off to do it.
I love that my dad has always tried to support his daughters. Even when he doesn't understand what we are doing, which is most of the time.
I love drinking tea with my mom at the kitchen table and cracking endless amounts of pecans.
I love that no one in my family blinked an eye when I told them I was decorating the Christmas tree for fall.*
I love my family dearly and I think God for each of them each day.

* Photo to come I promise.

This just in...

2010-11-16T12:24:00.003-06:00

Have you heard the news? Prince William, my one true puppy love crush, is engaged to Kate Middleton. I suppose this means that the long distance relationship the Prince and I have had since we were both 12 has officially come to an end. I will always treasure the letter I received from Diana's Lady in Waiting. I had written to him as part of a sixth grade English assignment to send a letter to a celebrity. For the record, out of the 27 letters written to various actors, singers and athletes, I was the only student to receive a reply.

While I am disappointed that our relationship did not progress any further, I am still happy for William. I think it shows some brightness of mind that he chose not to marry before now. The young man has been through enough heart break in his life I wish him and his bride all the happiness in the world.

But Wills darling - if things don't work out , know that I am still single...

It Could Be Worse

2010-11-15T06:45:00.002-06:00

It could be worse. Dressed in your suite ready for an interview, your daughter kicks a rotten pumpkin that was sitting on the carpeted floor of her room and hidden under a pile of all those clothes you told her to pick up last week. The pumpkin shell is no longer bright orange, but it still bleeds orange pumpkin juice so you had the child a trash bag and grab the carpet cleaner. You head onto the freeway, which is packed with Huns and Visigoths, and your mere presence infuriates them. They shriek at you and make vile gestures. Meanwhile, you're listening to the teeth-grinders on the radio blaming the president's troubles on the Congress.

Downtown, you run into a covey of teenagers, the girls with black lipstick and chopped black hair and black clothes, the boys with graffiti tattoos and their belts down around their femurs, and they look at you with such extravagant loathing, you want to tell them, "I am not worthy of so much contempt. Please, I am only a pedestrian like yourselves, save some of that for Hitler and Stalin."

You go into the interview. The joint is hoity-toity and your greeted by an attitudinous receptionist with a fake accent who leads you into a room where you tell your potential employer that you love working in offices and filing documents and paying attention to mind numbing details and as these words exact your mouth you don't recognize the person who is saying them but you say them anyway because you need a steady paycheck. Well, it could be worse.

It would be worse if you didn't have a good education and marketable skills and youth. Being young is often over rated and it couldn't be more true when it comes to employment. Employers want young workers because they are cheap and not making plains for retirement. It could be worse.

Cheap doesn't mean that you don't make a living wage, which is a rare these days. So you may not be rich, but you have your own apartment which is perfect because everyone needs to have some space between themselves and the rest of the world. A place where you can watch liberal news without the rest of your red state screaming down your door and you can sing off tune and not hear, "Would you mind?"

There is almost nothing so good for you as singing old songs, whether you sing praise to the Lord God or sing about the gin-soaked barroom queen in Memphis and your friends Long Tall Sally and Material Girl and that Long Haired Redneck. You've got trouble in mind and the water tastes like turpentine but you know you belong to the land and it's a grand old flag and the sunny side of the street is where you should direct your feet. Ben Hecht said, "Old songs are more than tunes. They are little houses in which our hearts once lived."

Winter is coming, which simplifies everything and shows you that the essentials of life are warmth, food, shelter, plumbing. The rest is decorative. The life that your friends write about in the Christmas letter, the life of steady accomplishment and upward movement on life's graph, is mostly fiction. The reality is that we are all in over our heads. I am and you are. God help us. And so far He has. It could be worse.

Whatever bonehead things we've done, we have not yet put our tongue on the flag pole and let it freeze there, and this is a fact not to be overlooked. There flag poles around, and in freezing weather they become lethal. You walk past them and they exert a powerful force on your body, particularly on your tongue. Imagine the misery of standing, tongue frozen to the iron, waiting for the firemen to come and pry you loose. In my darker hours, ever since I was 6 and watched The Christmas Story, I have imagined that the flag pole would be my fate, but so far I have avoided it, and you too, my friend. Together, once again we hope to come through the cold season with our tongues intact, and if we do, then winter has no grip on us. It could be worse.

Thought of the Day

2010-11-12T22:40:00.005-06:00

Mom, what's for dinner?
Chicken Salad.
Can I have something else? I had a chicken sandwich for lunch.
Something else like what?
How about chicken nuggets from McDonald's?
How is that better? Its still chicken.
Its not like its REAL chicken!

November Baby

2010-11-10T22:00:00.000-06:00

Gryffindor turns five years old this month. I know all dog owners probably say this, but Gryffin is truly the best dog God ever created. He's the perfect combination of couch potato and full on - play fetch, chase squirrels, bark at the postman - dog.

I never really wanted a dog. The last thing I needed was something else to take care of. Then I met Gwen. Gwen is one of my best friends from college. Like me her life was a mess and she wasn't afraid to admit it, a rare trait to have at I'm-Perfect Christian University. Gwen's family needed something to help them feel safe in their house. In their house, a few streets away from the house where her younger sister had been murdered so they adopted a big, scary boxer named Sally.

She has since moved out of Texas, but I hear that Sally the scary boxer still wages her tail and drools on everyone that walks into the family home. They didn't get the imposing guard dog when they brought Sally into their family, but what they did get was massive amounts of drooling unconditional love.

Somewhere in there, Gwen convinced me that what I need to help me learn to open up to people, to love people, was to first learn to love a dog. She was right. I was lucky to find Gryffindor. Was it divine providence? I don't know. Right now he's snuggled up next to me on the couch. His head is resting on Alex's teddy bear as he snores - loudly.

Mega Movie Weekend

2010-11-08T08:44:00.003-06:00

This morning I am doing laundry and what a gift it was to have a whole weekend that was devoted to play and not chores. I hardly ever see movies in the theater but this weekend I took life by the horn and saw two very different, very well done movies.

The first was Dreamworks Animation's Megamind. I walked into the theater -3D glasses in hand - with great anticipation and apprehension. The previews looked great, the buzz from industry insiders was promising, but I had been lead astray before. Does anyone else remember the Monster vs. Aliens disaster? What had promised to be a spoof on the great B monster movies turned out to be a slightly less than funny pile of jumbled potty jokes and goo.

Today I am happy to report that I think Dreamworks is slowly learning its lesson. Megamind managed to have a story that made cliche gags and fart jokes unnecessary. They still tend to fill holes in their script with sound track and I think the villain Megamind is destined to defeat could have been more developed, but this outing is the best I've seen* from Dreamworks since Kung Fu Panda. I don't think the studio has surpassed the bar it set for itself with the spoof on the 1970s kung fu films. Still, I think Katzenburg and company are giving the Mouse and Lamp and solid run for their money in the story department.

That said, I agree with a review I read earlier on the Huffington Post. What Dreamworks has done by elevating the story is great, but I hope they continue to improve their overall animation skills. All the characters in Megamind had large foreheads and a plastic look about them. So bravo to the animators for thinking story first, and even throwing in some fun 3D gags that made wearing those stupid glasses almost worth it, they still have a ways to go if they are going to catch up with Disney or even the styling we saw in the background art of Kung Fu Panda.

Overall I give the movie a 4 out of 5 stars. I would encourage anyone to see it in the theater, and spring for the 3D the cheese ball gags are worth it in this one.
*It should be noted that I have not seen How to Train Your Dragon ...yet.

The second movie Alex and I saw the weekend, thanks to the movie passes I've been holding onto since May, was Secretariat. I have to be honest - I had no desire to see this movie. They've been advertising it on the Disney Channel and Alex wanted to see it and let's face it there isn't much on right now. Other useless observations - 1) I was shocked at how packed the theater was. How many weeks has this been out? 2) The crowd that goes to the movies on Saturday night is a lot better dressed than the afternoon crowd. 3) I guess Disney knows what its doing after all.

Yeah, when I first heard that Dick Cook gave the green light to another horse movie after the success of Seabiscuit I thought he was slightly insane. How many dark horse horse movies can a nation be expected to embrace? I guess we know that they can embrace at least two. (Full disclosure - I haven't seen, and don't care if I ever see Seabiscuit.)

All that back story and my own personal grinchness aside, I was delighted with Secretariat. It had a great story that was heartwarming but not in a gooey, overly cheese ball way. The photography was beautiful and though I was not surprised by the ending, the script did a good job of getting us there. My only issue was with the casting of John Malkovich as a French Canadian. Maybe he tried to have an accent and he discovered that it sucked, but really I found him entirely too distracting. While everyone else seemed to become their characters, I could never get away from thinking ... There is John Malkovich... why is he speaking bad French? ... oh yeah, he's suppose to be French Canadian...

Malkovich aside I liked the movie. I would give it a solid 3 out of 5 stars and would encourage anyone to see it when its available on Netflix.

I love not working....

2010-11-05T10:23:00.000-05:00

I love not working. I know there are people in this world who say they don't know what they would do with themselves if they did not have a job to suck up 8 hours of every day of their lives, but I'm not one of those people. Perhaps that's why I was a tad depressed on Wednesday after the interview I had with a small employment law firm actually went well. I'm the first person they interviewed so I could still not get the job, but I gave good answers to their questions and even had them laughing. This firm offers a transportation allowance, birthday parties, holiday parties, jeans once a month and not I was never asked if I could work with "difficult personalities" its every paralegal's wet dream. Except I don't really want to be a paralegal. I don't want to work 60 a week in an office that takes three elevators and an escalator to reach. That's not even exaggeration for emphisis - whoever designed that building was high.

To make up for a day that was lost to suites and interviews I took myself to see the Menil collection yesterday. Its one of my favorite museums to visit. Its actually a complex of several galleries, that - in true Houston no zoning fashion - are located in the middle of one of the older neighborhoods near downtown. One this day I only visited the main collections located in a low gray building. The large gallery space is divided into smaller rooms of a dozen or so paintings each. Each space has two, sometimes three entrances, so you circle back through areas, peek around corners, compare paintings, view pieces from a longer perspective – intimacy and distance, the vague unsettling dis-ease induced by Surrealism. Claustrophobia and open-endedness. It’s dream work. It’s the uncanny that rises like perfume from the most familiar objects in your world.

A short brochure introduces new shows including my favorite this time around, KURT SCHWITTERS: Color and Collage. But in the exhibition areas, there are no texts on the walls, no structured guided tours explaining historical development. There’s simply exposure to art in an intimate setting. The perfect presentation of Schewitters' work. Schwitters transformed the “useless” forms of everyday life into a language and aesthetic by nailing and gluing together forgotten pieces of urban waste – train tickets, scraps of fabric, candy wrappers. I love making collages. There is something spiritual in the process of sitting before all these found objects and finding their collective beauty.

Photography is not allowed inside the galleries. I have located photos and a great article on the history Schwitters' work - in true Houston fashion - on the Dallas Art News blog. So CLICK HERE for more.

Thank God Its Thursday

2010-11-04T06:02:00.005-05:00

So now we have thrown some rascals out and left some rascals in power and sent some new folks to Washington to learn the art of rascality, and what in the end, after all the hoopla, will really change when the town drunks continue to run the municipal liquor store?

The Political Bulls remind me of an old coot who used to sit in my row when I attended the Episcopalian church, a guy who favored plaid dress shirts and a string tie with a turquoise clasp and who had an elaborate comb-over, a real piece of hair architecture. He muttered to himself through the sermon and never put more than one dollar in the collection plate. I guessed that he attended for the sake of his wife, a plump lady who sat between him and me. What he truly dreaded every Sunday morning was the exchange of peace. To shake hands with people nearby and say "The peace of the Lord" did not come naturally to him.

I didn't like it either. I was young and idealistic and thought those Episcopalians had more than enough peace, what they needed was some slapping around, not hand-shaking. But I was amused by how wary the guy got when the peace was exchanged and ladies went gallivanting around the sanctuary, hugging, having meaningful moments. He stood facing straight forward and wished everyone would keep their peace to themselves. I always leaned over to shake hands with his missus, and he turned away, avoiding eye contact.

One morning, during the exchange, the lady in front of me, turning to embrace me, lost her corsage. It fell at my feet and I looked down for it and accidentally kicked it and then went to retrieve it and stepped past the plump lady, and the old coot turned, horror-stricken, to see me coming. He tried to retreat but was blocked by other worshippers. I was one of the few people in that congregation under the age of 60 and maybe he expected me to plant a major peace on him — and then he saw me bend down and pick up the flower. He looked disgusted. It was what they call a transforming moment. I had always looked down on the guy and here he was, upset, because he thought I was going to love him up. He stuck out his hand to fend me off and I shook it.

The way to move forward in this political climate is for Political Bulls to praise each other for their courage and foresight and compassion until you scare them to death and they let important, true reforms pass. The way to fight these guys is to make them think you might like them.

Saints and Ceilings

2010-11-01T07:50:00.004-05:00

Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo, 1512
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Today is All Saints Day, an observance that can be traced back to the reign of Pope Gregory III in the eight century. In 1512 Pope Julius II chose this day to display Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the first time. The chapel itself was built about twenty-five years earlier, and various Renaissance painters were commissioned to paint frescoes on the walls. It was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling.

Michelangelo was 33 years old at the time, and he tried to point out to the Pope that he was known for his sculpture, not his painting, but the Pope wouldn't listen. So Michelangelo used his skills as a sculptor to make the two-dimensional ceiling look like a series of three-dimensional scenes - a technique that was relatively new at the time. It took him four years to finish the job, between 1508 and 1512. He worked from a scaffold 60 feet above the floor, and he covered about 10,000 square feet of surface. Every day fresh plaster was laid over a part of the ceiling and Michelangelo had to finish painting before the plaster dried.

For several centuries, art historians had believed that Michelangelo was more interested in form than in color, because the frescoes he painted were so dark and dull. Then, over a ten-year period during the 1980's, a group of restoration experts removed hundreds of years of dirt, smoke, and varnish from the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, and it turned out that the frescoes were some of the most colorful paintings of the whole Renaissance.

The German writer Wolfgang Von Goethe wrote, "We cannot know what a human being can achieve until we have seen [the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel]."

Centuries of saints, known and unknown have pass through this world and touched our lives directly and indirectly. Some of these saints I have known as personal friends of mine, some I have known only slightly and some I never had the pleasure to meet. We cannot know what human beings can become of until we honor what those who came before.