I'm spending the rest of the day in my pajamas, don't tell anyone I'm home! We overdid it yesterday, painting the house and raking leaves. 20 bags worth from our meager acreage.
Then I jogged at the Lake this morning. Cold but lovely anyway. I ran into 7 teenagers trying to harass an animal and I had to talk with them. I'll elaborate tomorrow. Sigh.
People never guess that I'm a huge supporter of free will. Wiccans say do whatever you like, as long as it causes no harm. Yet animals are so often used as entertainment for bored children I guess tormenting them is now seen as perfectly acceptable.
Oh well, have some snacks! (Not sure what that is in the picture but it looks yummy).
What's the longest you've ever waited in line?
I think that would have to be the line to get into the Obama rally in Española in September 2008.
And I forgot to wear sunscreen. That sunburn literally scarred me for life.
What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.)
French. Super-easy but also interesting, and the class size was always so small that we were able to have a lot of fun with it.
After looking through old photos of myself and my sibs when we were kids, I have come to the conclusion that we must have worn the most ridiculous, daggy swimmers you could ever hope (not) to see.
Now I myself only saw my mother sew once, when she sewed my bridesmaid doll a dress and cape. But these definitely have a home sewn look to them. And we seemed to wear them for years.
Take me here for instance. Determined to get to the beach. And nothin', not even those baggy daggy swimmers is going to stop me. I mean mother, you could've taken in the legs a little. I bet if I keep looking I'll see one of my sisters wearing these before I got them. Probably both of them.
And one of my favourite photos. Emjay, the oldest, with our brother and sister. Sporting a very unfashionable blue suit with a matching home done fringe trim.
And here she is again, what maybe a couple of years later, still wearing it.
Move forward another couple of years and my other sister is now wearing it and Emjay has a much nicer, yet still loose fitting pair of swimmers on. As you can see I'm still wearing the same pair I had on in the beginning. Because I had penty of room to grow into.
OMFG. And I was right. Even though I was only half joking. Here is Min, wearing my baggy pink swimmers. I wonder if I ever owned a new pair.
I have this vision of my mother, searching through her wardrobe every year the day before we went on our summer holidays, pulling out a bag full of atrocious old faded swimmers and handing us each a pair. Mind you it wouldn't have been a very full bag. We seemed to last through our childhoods with three of four pairs between us.
I wanted to compose a piece that was almost 'pretty', and sounded like a slow, medieval court dance.
I wonder if Albany would dance with Cordelia to this?
Here's my mini-arrangement and recital of The Lion Sleeps. It is for four violins. I would love it if someone out there could write in a cello part!
Enjoy.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
lol, what a strange question! Are we expecting one then?
I'm obsessive compulsive enough thanks. If I start worrying about potential natural disasters I'll be a nervous wreck.
Although, we are going to Thailand at christmas time, and I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind as I run on the treadmill each morning, that'll I'll be right to run a long way up into the mountains if a tsunami hits. Maybe even carrying one small child on my back. Which rules out my kids because they're all much bigger than me. Which is good because I won't have to do the Sophies Choice thing.
Remember when everyone was freaking out about the Y2K thing? I said to Daz, maybe we should stock up on food. And when the year 2000 clicked over with no problems I looked in the laundry and we had stocked one bottle of water and a 4 pack of baked beans. It was a pretty piss poor effort really. We'd have lasted a morning.
I think to be prepared for a natural disaster the best thing you can do is forget about supplies and just stock up on weapons. Lots of guns and ammo. Thats your best bet, because you're going to have to kill a lot of crazy desperate people to get to the supermarket and the bottle shop. Maybe even zombies. I'm not sure what sort of disaster we're talking about. Oh yes,there they are, I wasn't looking properly. No zombies, so that makes it a bit easier.
And nail polish. Stock up on nail polish. Because new nail polish always makes you feel better.
My new bottles arrived in the mail the other day.
I'm wearing blue at the moment. But I'm wishing I'd picked Calypso.
We visited the Berkshires this weekend, it was lovely. We grabbed some lattes, looked for hiking clothes and ate at a small-town pub after. The region is more mountainous and forested than our region, the Valley.
We drove past an incredible home. It was white with silver shutters, and it was traditional yet semi-modern. I wish I knew the name of house styles so I could have identified it.
We have a creative artist neighbor who does sidewalk chalk art every day. One guy calls it "The Gallery" because we all see her fabulous drawings when we walk to the breakfast place on weekends. I'm looking forward to having more artistic space on our new property.
People in the Berkshires live a much more cozy lifestyle, the forests are right outside their windows, along with the rushing river and mountains. Fireplaces and faux-fur hiking boots in mudrooms are the norm.
I found a cool example of a modern home, south-facing windows, in Natural-Home Magazine. It's a Zen Ranch Colorado Straw Bale Home. I'd love a place like this!
We shopped for hiking boots this weekend, I overheard the funniest conversation. A woman and her mom were trying on some clothes, lamented that the sizes were all wrong.
"These clothes aren't made for American women. (Looks at label) See? 'Made in India'. Women over there are made differently. That's why all our jobs are gone, because the were all sent over there".
I had to laugh. Haven't we gotten a grip on a global economy yet? When will we get with the program? Other countries have a prospering population, universal health care. Other nations are united to solve climate change issues. Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands allow gay marriage.
There's an exceptional article in the Boston Globe this week called Why Fundamentalism will fail.
In Christianity, the fastest-growing wing of the church is the Pentecostal/Charismatic wave...accounting for one in every four Christians. One writer has called them “main street mystics.” Among Muslims, it is the gentle but ecstatic Sufi version that is growing fastest, not the suicide bomber cults. All these movements...represent a fatal threat to fundamentalism.
Surveys have shown that the rapid growth of evangelical Protestantism in Latin America has not produced a replication of the American religious right, but rather a moderate leftward tilt. A majority of Brazilian evangelicals, for example, voted for President Lula, who ran as a Workers Party candidate. ANOTHER REASON WHY fundamentalists are faltering today has to do with the world outside. The fundamentalist world view is unbending and monochrome, but today’s world is variable and multi-hued, and the plurality is more and more visible. children live every day with a heightened, web-enhanced awareness of a diverse world.
I'm encouraged to hear this. Because while the far right-wing may be making a lot of noise, they are clearly in the minority. They've even caused some Republicans to switch parties - and I'm a huge supporter of the Working Party.
I don't think it's about being the loudest, I do think it's about forming communities.
