My grandmother's mother's father married her father's mother.

I am my own cousin 4 times removed.

When I was growing up in PA, we would always wait for the robins to come back. A red-breasted robin was among the first signs of spring, along with the crocuses and irises poking up through the snow. (Snow still being present was of course no indication that winter wasn’t going anywhere for a while.)

These signs of spring were a sure sign that Punxsutawney Phil had been right all along, spring would come six weeks early.

Usually it was just one lone robin- there he was hopping gingerly along the frozen ground. His red breast showing brightly against the dead earth, cocking his head, looking at you with his little beady eye as if to say, “If I leave right now, it will be winter forever! I am the bringer of spring! I and I ALONE!” (He gave no account to the irises and the crocuses.)

That lone robin was the harbinger of hope-the feathered optimism for better days, a mighty symbol of sunshine, shorts, pool parties and popsicles. That robin, after five long months of snow on the ground, that robin made everyone smile, everyone. (Even if he was a little cocky about his role in the scheme of things.)

Today I saw a flock of robins. Wow! I didn’t know they came in flocks! (It was only ever that first one who got noticed, after him they were old news.) I was amazed, I stood and watched them for a while. They were everywhere, swooping and resettling. I had to move for fear of droppings.

Being pooped on by the harbinger of hope would be a bad thing.

Today I have black hair, a black dress, black stockings black boots and red lipstick. My co-worker said I would look goth if I had on "more threatening accessories." I guess my red beaded choker with a sweet little silver heart doesn't cut it.

I dyed my hair black last night, just because I never had black hair before. But I sure did feel like a fountain pen trying to wash the dye out. I had a tub full of black ink-water, and it was all over the the tiles, the tub the shampoo bottles the shower curtain (the wall, the counters- I don't know how I managed that from inside the shower.)

It's alright, but I think next time I'll go back to burgundy.

“O Ye Jigs & Juleps!” Virginia Cary Hudson

“The Baptist church is next door to our church. They sing as loud as they can all the time we are trying to pray. I bet the Lord can’t hear one word we say. The Baptists sing about plunging sinners in a bloody fountain drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. We sing about Crown Him Lord of All. I think it is much more ladylike to crown the King than to be plunging around in a bloody fountain. I took the cotton off my sore finger once and stuffed it in my ear on the Baptist side. But just once. My mother attended to that.” Pg 7.

“But you sure hear plenty about Hell at the Baptist Church. . . . that preacher hollers himself red in the face about Hell. When you get to hell with your Everlasting Life, the devil waves his pitchfork and turns it into Everlasting Damnation, and he builds a fire under you and you wail and gnash your teeth . . . If I have to go to Hell, I sure hope I go to the one for Episckpalians, and don’t, by mistake, get pushed into that horn punching, and tail wagging, red hot blazing one the Baptists are going to have.” Pg 25.

“China has millions of people. The tall ones live up North and the short ones live down South. My grandmother says my legs are too long. I would have to live up North and that would be aweful. But maybe China does not have Yankees.” Pg 45.

I like it when people smile at their computers.

words for the day:
fabliau (fablee-o) noun plural fabliaux: a short usually comic, frankly course, and often cynical tale in verse popular in the 12th and 13th century.

fabular: adjective, of relating to, or having the form of a fable

fabulist: noun, a creator or writer of fable, a liar

"I would love to write a fabliau, however, I don't believe I could ever write fabular literature as well as the most famous and fabulous fabulist Asop."

I opened the door this morning and realized it was Yankee cold out there. High in the low 30's, left the water dripping.

Someone told me the other day that she thought the “stars were aligned for her” all the little things were going right. She hit all the green lights on the way to work, she found her favorite pen, things were good.

I’m beginning to think the stars are against me. At least one of them is out to get me.

This morning I think I broke my little toe. I was in a hurry so I put on my shoe and walked out the door. It hurt, but who has time for complaining little toes? When I got to work I took my shoe off and saw that it was bleeding. Hmptht! Stupid little toe, bleeding in my shoe. But I’m not going to put a bandage on it, oh no! I’m wearing control top hose, there’s no way I’m taking these suckers off for a little inconsequential toe!

Sunday I went for a walk in the woods. I was looking for a fossil. Not only did I not find a fossil, but just as I was about to get back to level ground, I fell. I don’t know how, but I strained and scraped my left wrist, and got bruises and scrapes on my right hip, my left shin, my right elbow. While accomplishing all that I, at the very same moment (and this hurt the most at the time) I fell right on, (smack flat on) my right boob.

I told my friend looking for a little sympathy and she laughed and said, “You FELL on your BOOB?!” Well, it’s not like I tripped over it! “Yes! I fell right on it!” Says she: “I think I would have hit my nose first.” My nose—that’s one of the few things not effected.

Late last week I lost my purse. Details below.

So now, I have a lost purse, a broken bloody little toe, a skinned shin, a strained wrist and a bruised boob. (Among other things.)

I’m hoping for better things soon.

There was a woman who had identical twin boys. She couldn't keep them so she gave them up for adoption. One was adopted by a family in Egypt. They named him Amal. The other twin was adopted by a family in Spain. His name was Juan. After many years, Juan wanted to contact his birth mother, so he sent a letter and a picture to her. The woman was very happy to receive the letter and picture. She said to her husband, "My son is so handsome, I only wish I had a picture of Amal too." Her husband said, "Honey, they are identical twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal."

:0) read it out loud

 

 

I'm feeling so very clever today with my pictures!

and I would also like to add . . .

This is an excerpt from a “private blogger.” I’m sharing the wealth be it ever so anonymously. The great truth present here has effected me, I’m buying new underware!

“Most theologians (as well as lay-people, I suspect) would agree that wearing my Christmas-new sparkling snowflake underwear is of no interest to God the Almighty, but I insist that it's an act of worship as surely as we're told to rejoice in all things. Doing so gave me the extra gumption I needed to finally attend church in Atlanta. Going for worship is something I haven't done since - well maybe last summer.”

I answered the phone at work the other day. "Good morning, Science Learning and Career Center." and the girl on the other end started jabbering, and fast.

"Hi! (really excited) Wow! You sound so professional! Listen I have to take Spanish class, so my schedule's all weird and I have to register today, so I wanted to know if you know which teacher I should take? I mean, I want to take the easiest one obviously, right, that only makes sense. Have you ever taken Spanish? Do you know which teacher I should take?" (This was all rapid fire information giving, and I realized at some point that she had dialed the wrong number, and she thought I was her friend, but I wasn't.)

So I said, "No, no I don't know."

She said, "Oh, well okay, that's fine. I just wanted to know. Just checking. Oh, and I heard there is a social tonight, are you going to it? I heard Brittney was going, and it might be cool, I don't know, I might go. Will you be there?"

Me: "Ummmm, no. I don't think so." (thinking, I hope she talks to her friend about this conversation later, because leading her on in her assumption that I'm her friend is making me laugh on the inside.)

It's the little things that amuse me. I wonder if that is considered passive agressive behavior, or if it has anything to do with keeping my food in the dishwasher. (which I don't do any more, maybe that's why I need new outlets for my behavoir.)

I lost my purse! Seriously lost this time. I'm always losing something, but just temporary lostness, but this time I think she's really gone. And I'm sad about that. I didn't have any money in there, but being the materialist I am I really liked my stuff that was in there! My cute little blue wallet, my blue head phones, my blue compact (it was a blue purse) and my cranberry lipstick! The expensive kind! *sigh* my little green notebook with all my church quotes and my grocery list in it, my lucky Sacaguwia gold dollar and my switch-toothbrush, all gone. Scandalous, you would think when someone figured out it didn't have any money in it, they would have turned it in. I'm still hoping for the best.

Silas Marner, Geroge Eliot

“Even people whose lives have been made various by learning sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible- nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas-where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished.” p 16

I went to see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" last night. It was free movie
night at the university. Pretty good movie. The place was packed out and
this guy came up, asked if the seats next to me were taken. I said no, so
he and his friend sat down. Then he looked at me like he knew me, and said,
"Don't pretend like you don't know who I am." I gave him a blank look and
thought, "I don't know who you are." He said, "Come on! I'm Bob, your
ex-roommate's, sister's fiancé!" Oh yes, it's all coming back to me now--
indeed that is who he was. Friendly little critter.

There is a line in the movie where the daughter wants something, but she
doesn't think she will get it because her father will never agree. She
tells her mother, and the mother says don't worry, "He is the head of the
household, but the woman, she is the neck, and she turns him which ever way
she wants to go." Everyone started laughing. I just smiled. Bob said,
"Didn't you think that was funny?" I said, "Yes, it's a great truth, it's
from the prophecy of Zerubabble in the Apocrypha." It was his turn to give
me a blank look. He said, "Ah, Zerubabble" like he knew what I was talking
about.

Ah man! I'm a heroine! Why isn't my picture showing up? I don't need saving, I can do it myself. Sometimes I just let guys do it for me so they can build their self esteem ;0)

So which fairy tale archetype are you? Hmm??
made by Michelle at EmptySpace.

I don't get art. I don't want to pretend to understand and like something that doesn’t speak to me.

If I see something I like, I appreciate it. I may enjoy the look, the texture, the form and shape of any particular piece. Generally for me (don’t know about other people) it’s an emotive appreciation. It gives me remembrance of a person, a place—a belief, a narrative in my own history, the stories I know and claim. Art I like always gives me something. It may give me myself, it may give me something completely outside my experience. It may give me understanding of what I’ve never known, what I may never know.

I understand that everyone will like different kinds of art. Diverse pieces will whisper personal stories to individuals on various levels. I’m glad for that, so I’m not dissing museum choices. But I get the distinct feeling that if I declare I don’t like something considered an “important piece” I am seen as less of an art appreciator than the one who unconditionally accepts that artistry is attached to a name that someone, somewhere decided was good.

I saw Picasso’s Femme Couchee Lisant and Warhol’s Twenty-five Colored Marilyns. Two big names. I didn’t like those particular pieces. Honestly I didn’t like most of what I saw. A few things held my interest. I guess I’m just not “into” modern art. How uncool of me.

I found a new internet penpal. It's been a long time since I had a new pen pal. It's interesting the things one reveals to a stranger.

For example: he said he was a vegetarian for ethical reasons.

I said, “I'm a vegetarian because I get physically ill when I eat meat. I'm pretty sure its all in my head, its a texture thing. I don't eat meat, I don't eat wiggly deserts (jello, puddings, flan etc) and equally as random I don't eat anything artificially purpled. (thus I am against all things grape that are not actually a grape) The one thing that defies both the wiggly and the purple principle is jelly, but I never said any of this made sense.”

He understood. He said wiggly deserts (except jelly) have gelatin in them, which apparently is unethical, he doesn’t eat wiggly deserts either.

I said, “I’m trying to get back into the groove of eating eggs. I stopped eating them about 6 years ago, but I want to start eating them again.”

He said he does eat eggs, but only ones laid on “cage free farms.”

Wow- that's dedication

I remembered, but did not comment on my childhood experiences in the chicken coop. How my brother and I had to go collect eggs, how the coop was full of fleas and how he would gallantly volunteer to “stand guard” outside the coop so that once I scared all the hens out, they wouldn’t come back in and peck me as I stole all their babies. Inevitably I came out with dozens of flea bites and a few eggs.

I got a rock tumbler. It's been described as "really really loud." Indeed it is. I didn't know, but once you start the process of doing the "work of rounding a rock that would take hundreds of years in nature in a few short days" you can't stop. You have to keep it going "rattle, rattle, rattle, RATTLE, RATTLE, rattling 24/7 for four to five days. Other wise everything is ruined. Just a few more days--then I'll take it away, to live in the country, where it can run free, and it will be happy with out all the evil vibes the neighbors and the room mates hurl toward it. Poor thing.

The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood

"There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia, Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are bein given freedom from. Don't underrate it." 24

". . . women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose." 25

"We have learned to see the world in gasps." 30

"We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." 56

"We lived in the gaps between the stories." 57

"I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born." 66

"This contradictory way of believeing seems to me, right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it." 106

"We are hers to define, we must suffer her adjectivies." 114
----------------------------------
"A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women." 121
------------------------------
"It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, cross currents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully descried, too many flavors, in the air or on the tongue, half-colors, too many." 134

" . . . forgiveness too is power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest." 135

"Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Mabye it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing." 135

"To want is to have a weakness." 136
---------------------------------------------
"Context is all." 144

"Winter is not so dangerous. I need hardness, cold, rigidity; not this heviness, as if I'm a mealon on a stem, this liquid ripeness." 154

"Context is all; or is it ripeness?" 192
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"Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge." 195

"Better never means better fro everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some." 211
------------------------------------------
"God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man besided us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always for the incarnation. That word, made flesh." 226

" . . . most likely the man, would go wandering off on a trajectory of his own, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal." 227

I went to a dinner party last night. There were Chinese guests and a few American guests. I learned many things. An example:
A Chinese girl talking: "American's eat cheese for no reason at all. Just for a snack!"
Same girl later: "It is proven that American women have longer noses than Chinese women"
Quiet older Chinese man: "That's true, how do Americans kiss one another?"

there was also the discussions about eating your food live: Live newborn mice (it's okay because they are newborn, they are completely clean) and live octopus
according to the Chinese and Korean traditions-- and this is why I'm a vegetarian.

I should rename this "half of 11x12" at least I don't have a coffee table to contend with this time.