The day is impossibly beautiful and breezy. Dazzling.
Nekkid baby has returned to my strip of the sidewalk, on a tiny bicycle. Riding it like a scooter. One foot on a pedal, one accelerating heedlessly.
An hour ago, with his mommy, he had walked by wearing nothing but a pull-up diaper, holding a sippy cup, absorbed utterly by anything under his nekkid little feet. Leading with his lil' boy belly. Dappled in sunshine.
But now, on his bike, daddy along for the ride literally, he is dressed and helmeted and speeding. I hear no wailing; he must be good at not falling.
He fades down the road.
The passel o' boys across the street from me are outside playing some game, squealing with joy between yelling like angry badgers, all modulated by occasional, calm dad-voice.
It. Is. OSUM.
Oh man - another bloodcurdling scream! Kids at play so often sound so terrifying!!! It sounds exactly like my own neighborhood, circa 1978.
Between this, tweeting birds, and inviting breezes, I am hard put to finish part 2 of the month's reporting. Gah.
There is this very specific inflection to kids playing - an elastic up-and-down wave, nothing like so tidy as a sine - in which the sound of injustice resonates with purity. BUT WHYYYYY ... can't I go over here ... does he get to run to the next base ... am I not wiii-ii-iiiiiii-in-in-innniiiinnng?
The breeze in the maple outside the window, playing with the grass, scintillating in the treetops across the way. The beagle a couple houses away, Expressing Opinions.
It is ... beautiful.
***
Just a few miles away, filthy Confederate monuments I want to see for myself, updated for our age by people angry, and sad, and bereft for the several-millionth time in 400 years. The police chief here has been on the side of citizens. Just south of us, another chief stood with his people. It is not loaves and fishes The Beatitudes, and it IS optics and choices and amplification calculated - but it is good to see choices for those these polices forces are here to protect and serve.
One of my dearest friends, my best neighbor at work, a woman I love so much - I have heard the sirens, but she heard those and the sound of "no justice/no peace" and "I can't breathe" all this weekend. She is a living blessing.
The Daughters of the Confederacy could have done as others have - served history instead of themselves, as an institution. Why anyone would care to be institutionalized with a group of worshippers of the Lost Cause - people lionizing rebels, who broke away from and tried to destroy the United States - is beyond comprehension. Their existence is shameful, and their mission indefensible. They should relinquish their revolting relics to actual historians, donate their facilities, repent and make reparations. They are shameful. They burned - for a little while - this weekend. This is not looting, it is reprimand, and long past due.
Lee's tired horse, on an exalted platform of ridiculous loftiness - tail down and tired, while the old General still rides, ramrod straight and UNASHAMED, bronze and burnished, but shat on daily by local pigeons with more rectitude - is bedaubed with graffiti. Stuart's plinth, a little shorter, surrounded by a wrought iron bridge it could *not* have been easy to bring down - but brought down it has been, by living bodies who matter more than these rebels do.
Leave them desecrated, the echo of the desecration these insurgents brought to the United States, in dividing them. Remember them for the failures they were. Let the bronze and granite decay, the rot take them over. Leave them to rot, or take them away altogether.
Leave Kehinde Wiley's living horseman in their place - no traitor, but an AMERICAN man - pristine and strong and proud and standing for something. Let him tower over the others as they fall down.
***
It would take only minutes to see what has been done, and what has been undone, in my city. I will probably drive out - before the newly enacted curfew - to see what I need to know. To be a part of it.
To see the dazzling sun, perhaps, set ... on these newly-faced (hardly DEfaced - how do you "ruin" idolatrous monuments to traitors?) images.
To breathe the good air, and commit to using my privilege ... so that little nekkid kiddo can stay untouched a while longer.
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Monday, June 1, 2020
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Cookbook Memories
Yesterday, I spent a good while looking through old cookbooks - the Betty Crocker, of course, but also the little binder style book my mother-in-law gave me, complete with several of her family recipes and into which I've put decades - generations! - worth of my own grandma's recipe cards, old magazine recipes, a couple sheets of paper with my dad's handwriting; the bread I used to make, but haven't since he died.
Fourteen years goes by ... well. Not fast.
And yet ... there he is. Right there; my dad, his egg salad. His handwriting. His mother's gingerbread; like velvet.
Cookbooks like this, or recipe boxes, are in their way perhaps even more evocative than photo albums. The memory of food is so strong, so meaningful. The fading handwriting. The stains, and the little notes about special tricks with this icing or that casserole.
Wishing you and yours the sweet - and savory - memories of the season. May we all be blessed, and enjoy a time of peace ...
Fourteen years goes by ... well. Not fast.
And yet ... there he is. Right there; my dad, his egg salad. His handwriting. His mother's gingerbread; like velvet.
Cookbooks like this, or recipe boxes, are in their way perhaps even more evocative than photo albums. The memory of food is so strong, so meaningful. The fading handwriting. The stains, and the little notes about special tricks with this icing or that casserole.
Wishing you and yours the sweet - and savory - memories of the season. May we all be blessed, and enjoy a time of peace ...
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Sunset and Shadow
Yesterday, I left work at that point in a February afternoon when the sun has just begun to go down, and the horizontal shadow creeping upward toward dusk was still below the tops of the trees. One long, golden line of late light, bright and rich and warm.
My commute takes me eastward, away from the sun itself, but hurtling toward its last light, and takes me across the highest hill in the region. Climbing that ascent, I came into the light still un-shadowed. There is a traffic signal at the top of this hill, and as we sat while it was red, the sun sunk enough that that line of shadow had risen up almost to the top of the trees atop this long, high hill. It grew indistinct and diffuse, ruddy and so soft the shadow of the earth was no longer clear.
And yet, plunging down the hill was not the descent into evening. Not quite yet.
The sky holds on to the sun's light even after its rays are no longer directly available. Humidity, pollution, the magic of physics. The lee of the hill was not the dark side of the day.
But ten minutes later, on the last straight line of asphalt, the final approach to my house, the light had been switched off the Earth, the homes, the trees. Only the lingering glow - and trees now all but emitting darkness, bringing night to a sky still in denial.
The moon appeared as if from nowhere.
Home, and parked, my yard is a place unmolested by the traffic going on behind me.
In the kitchen window, Gossamer peeps out, because he knows when I get home. And, at the back door, he snoots at me from the counter and Penelope greets me as well.
And I am home ...
... and it is dusk.
My commute takes me eastward, away from the sun itself, but hurtling toward its last light, and takes me across the highest hill in the region. Climbing that ascent, I came into the light still un-shadowed. There is a traffic signal at the top of this hill, and as we sat while it was red, the sun sunk enough that that line of shadow had risen up almost to the top of the trees atop this long, high hill. It grew indistinct and diffuse, ruddy and so soft the shadow of the earth was no longer clear.
And yet, plunging down the hill was not the descent into evening. Not quite yet.
The sky holds on to the sun's light even after its rays are no longer directly available. Humidity, pollution, the magic of physics. The lee of the hill was not the dark side of the day.
But ten minutes later, on the last straight line of asphalt, the final approach to my house, the light had been switched off the Earth, the homes, the trees. Only the lingering glow - and trees now all but emitting darkness, bringing night to a sky still in denial.
The moon appeared as if from nowhere.
Home, and parked, my yard is a place unmolested by the traffic going on behind me.
In the kitchen window, Gossamer peeps out, because he knows when I get home. And, at the back door, he snoots at me from the counter and Penelope greets me as well.
And I am home ...
... and it is dusk.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Time for a Penny Post
When Gossamer and Penelope first came into my life, there was a pretty regular stream of posts about their development and ours as a little community, with the occasional nod to making these points relevant to publish, but mostly just the indulgent and frustrated emotional responses of a pet owner and Virginian dealing with that ultimate trial: CHANGE.
My dear old Sweet Siddy La was the absolute finest in mellow, sittin’-at-your-feet dogness. She knew my dad a little when she first came around, and he approved of her. He tole me when I got her, “Don’t you feed that dog from the table, don’t you let her get fat.” She got the occasional treat (she loved pizza crust), but I never forgot what he said, and she did eat pretty healthily. To her last months on earth, you could see the shape of the muscles in her legs. And she had beautiful legs.
Lolly was a wonderfully “well behaved” dog, as defined by a bit of fulsomeness in the greeting department and a tuggy deportment on walks, but never causing messes in the house and always calming down fairly readily.
Miss Penelope, by comparison, has always seemed like a handful. For one, she’s still only three; not even the age *yet* that Siddy was when I was blessed to take care of her. For another, she is just a very different dog. Massively energetic, terrifyingly intelligent, skittish where Sid was calm and oblivious to storms (the one area in which Sid would lose composure. aww.). Penelope was untrained when I got her, and fed off the faintest energy from me with exponential emotional results. If I was upset, Pen was beside herself; if I became excited, she was rendered utterly uncontrollable.
And yet, from the beginning, she submitted to me in ways Siddy never did (and never had to). Pen was still juvenile when we came together, with all the dependence and the lack of discipline that comes with. I’d sworn I would not adopt a puppy, knowing the limited time I have to commit to training and so forth – and there she was. My dog. My baby, scared, confused, lunatic dog. And I loved her.
I despaired of time ever passing and her ever Being Like Sid (I never would have admitted it then, least of all on those terms).
But I reveled in her incredible trainability, and especially the fact that she would take command not only from me, but from others who came around; my friends and family.
It wasn’t long before she behaved almost as if she had a button – the alacrity in her obedience is still so speedy and so emphatic it’s as endearing as it is comical. She binds me to her, and I am overjoyed that she and I can communicate. She still thinks, “Oh! Mom told me to sit, so I will do that, then I will lie DOWN, then I will give her BELLY, because that is even more than she asked for, and I want to give my ALL!” – and we’re working on “that’s not sit” in the gentlest way, still. But “back” she has down to a tee, which is unbelievably handy for us both, and “stay” she’s getting better at though still likes boundary testing.
But in non-command behavior is her magic.
Siddy, right out of the box as they say, had some of the subjective behaviors one most wants in a pet. She would no more touch my food even if I weren’t in the room than she would poop in the house. I never had to teach her – and, after perhaps one incident of “HEY THIS DOG IS DIFFERENT” with Penelope getting tentative at my supper, she really didn’t require teaching on the point of food heirarchy either. Siddy was far more aware of her food surroundings, indeed, than Penelope is – a single molecule of anything people-edible going astray was instantly claimed and cleaned up by that Hoover of a Good Girl, but Penelope misses a surprising amount. She’s getting better, but actually drops even her own kibble and forgets about it from time to time. I drop a piece of it and tap my toe to indicate she should pick it up, she’s so het up about feeding time she can miss after three tries. Into each life, a little kibble must fall.
Gossamer’s even worse. But I do get a warm mommy smile at my Pen, when she is oblivious to tiny morsels available for the pickin’.
Penny turned three-ish on her made-up birthday, April Fool’s day. And it’s been during the past month or two I’ve been watching more changes in her, more maturity. She’ll never settle down, quite, but her ability to greet visitors with less wee-ing and tungsten-clawing (all well-intentioned love and submissiveness, but no more appealing to most contemporary humans) has markedly improved. Though perhaps markedly is the wrong word to use …
In her own space and on her own time, Pen has always been a pretty mellow kid; prone to bursts of energy, and occasionally instigating, or being insitgated into kerfuffles with, Gossamer. But generally a dog – lying around and not being a complete drama queen about every last instant of her existence.
But seeing her regulate herself a bit at social moments is – well, I won’t say exciting. It’s just nice.
One of the best parts is this: Penelope is in her own skin, and she’s comfortable there. Her home, her dogmommy, her semi-pal Gossamer. She’s got this thing, y’all, she doesn’t have to freak about it alla time.
She’s home. It’s a good place for us both.
“How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?”
Five. One to actually do the job. Two more to stand off to one side, tut-tutting about how much better the old light bulb was, and fretting with semi-religious fervor about the implications of a new bulb. And two more to write the history of the original bulb with maps and Civil War footnotes.
My dear old Sweet Siddy La was the absolute finest in mellow, sittin’-at-your-feet dogness. She knew my dad a little when she first came around, and he approved of her. He tole me when I got her, “Don’t you feed that dog from the table, don’t you let her get fat.” She got the occasional treat (she loved pizza crust), but I never forgot what he said, and she did eat pretty healthily. To her last months on earth, you could see the shape of the muscles in her legs. And she had beautiful legs.
Lolly was a wonderfully “well behaved” dog, as defined by a bit of fulsomeness in the greeting department and a tuggy deportment on walks, but never causing messes in the house and always calming down fairly readily.
Miss Penelope, by comparison, has always seemed like a handful. For one, she’s still only three; not even the age *yet* that Siddy was when I was blessed to take care of her. For another, she is just a very different dog. Massively energetic, terrifyingly intelligent, skittish where Sid was calm and oblivious to storms (the one area in which Sid would lose composure. aww.). Penelope was untrained when I got her, and fed off the faintest energy from me with exponential emotional results. If I was upset, Pen was beside herself; if I became excited, she was rendered utterly uncontrollable.
And yet, from the beginning, she submitted to me in ways Siddy never did (and never had to). Pen was still juvenile when we came together, with all the dependence and the lack of discipline that comes with. I’d sworn I would not adopt a puppy, knowing the limited time I have to commit to training and so forth – and there she was. My dog. My baby, scared, confused, lunatic dog. And I loved her.
I despaired of time ever passing and her ever Being Like Sid (I never would have admitted it then, least of all on those terms).
But I reveled in her incredible trainability, and especially the fact that she would take command not only from me, but from others who came around; my friends and family.
It wasn’t long before she behaved almost as if she had a button – the alacrity in her obedience is still so speedy and so emphatic it’s as endearing as it is comical. She binds me to her, and I am overjoyed that she and I can communicate. She still thinks, “Oh! Mom told me to sit, so I will do that, then I will lie DOWN, then I will give her BELLY, because that is even more than she asked for, and I want to give my ALL!” – and we’re working on “that’s not sit” in the gentlest way, still. But “back” she has down to a tee, which is unbelievably handy for us both, and “stay” she’s getting better at though still likes boundary testing.
But in non-command behavior is her magic.
Siddy, right out of the box as they say, had some of the subjective behaviors one most wants in a pet. She would no more touch my food even if I weren’t in the room than she would poop in the house. I never had to teach her – and, after perhaps one incident of “HEY THIS DOG IS DIFFERENT” with Penelope getting tentative at my supper, she really didn’t require teaching on the point of food heirarchy either. Siddy was far more aware of her food surroundings, indeed, than Penelope is – a single molecule of anything people-edible going astray was instantly claimed and cleaned up by that Hoover of a Good Girl, but Penelope misses a surprising amount. She’s getting better, but actually drops even her own kibble and forgets about it from time to time. I drop a piece of it and tap my toe to indicate she should pick it up, she’s so het up about feeding time she can miss after three tries. Into each life, a little kibble must fall.
Gossamer’s even worse. But I do get a warm mommy smile at my Pen, when she is oblivious to tiny morsels available for the pickin’.
Penny turned three-ish on her made-up birthday, April Fool’s day. And it’s been during the past month or two I’ve been watching more changes in her, more maturity. She’ll never settle down, quite, but her ability to greet visitors with less wee-ing and tungsten-clawing (all well-intentioned love and submissiveness, but no more appealing to most contemporary humans) has markedly improved. Though perhaps markedly is the wrong word to use …
In her own space and on her own time, Pen has always been a pretty mellow kid; prone to bursts of energy, and occasionally instigating, or being insitgated into kerfuffles with, Gossamer. But generally a dog – lying around and not being a complete drama queen about every last instant of her existence.
But seeing her regulate herself a bit at social moments is – well, I won’t say exciting. It’s just nice.
One of the best parts is this: Penelope is in her own skin, and she’s comfortable there. Her home, her dogmommy, her semi-pal Gossamer. She’s got this thing, y’all, she doesn’t have to freak about it alla time.
She’s home. It’s a good place for us both.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
On Christmas Day, You Can Drive as Slowly as You Want
With my local family temporarily under the weather, the holiday is waiting a day or so while they recuperate and I stay the heck out of the infectious zone.
Yesterday was dark and drear and rainy and wonderfully evocative, even if not horribly cold, and I spent a bit of it antiquing with a lovely friend. Today, it is what my dad would have filled his lungs, smiled, and called "a glorious day" - again not very cold, bright and blue-sky-ed, clear and breezy and beautiful.
I hadn't made a plan except to wrap the interminably-delayed presents and perhaps work on some research for the WIP novel; but, this morning, when mom woke me up at 9:00 to wish me a merry Christmas, after lolling about in bed with the furbabies for a bit, it came to me. We all got up, I put on clothes that can be seen in public, she went in the yard for a little while, and I checked email and so on. About eleven o'clock, I went out to ask her if she wanted to go for a ride.
And we went to go see my dad.
Dad's in a memorial garden near where he taught for many years; and so, after a little exploring in the quiet, walled-in space where he rests, we took a little bit of a walk. Penelope was bullied by the cutest, tiniest little dachshund you ever saw, and curled up as small as a sixty-pound mass of muscle can get, submissive to the one tiny little bruiser out of three dogs all out together. Never saw her quite like that, but otherwise she enjoyed the walk.
There were some birds on the water; dark plumage and swimming unusually low, beaks longer and pointier, but just as orange as a duck. One nearby dove under the ripples and stayed down a good while. I was half tempted to think it was a Great Blue, but have never seen one do that and what little I saw of the body, surely it had to be too small. Interesting, though.
Coming home, my spazzy window-hanger was actually tired, and she curled up on the back seat and I think may have gone to sleep. Sweet. Perhaps she liked the high-pitched music of Switched-on Bach, or really was just tuckered after going visitin'. She'd made a beeline, when we walked into the garden, to dad's niche.
Now, I'm in the office with Gossie. He lies on his window seat, and Pen is in the living room I believe, napping on my grandmother's thick wool rug, in the ray of sunshine in there.
I may have to take their example; napping, even if not in a sunbeam (though the chaise might be good for that).
Hoping all who celebrate it are enjoying as peaceful a Christmas as this, and even more joyous. And, for those who just enjoy the quiet: save some dumplings and veggie fried rice for me!
Yesterday was dark and drear and rainy and wonderfully evocative, even if not horribly cold, and I spent a bit of it antiquing with a lovely friend. Today, it is what my dad would have filled his lungs, smiled, and called "a glorious day" - again not very cold, bright and blue-sky-ed, clear and breezy and beautiful.
I hadn't made a plan except to wrap the interminably-delayed presents and perhaps work on some research for the WIP novel; but, this morning, when mom woke me up at 9:00 to wish me a merry Christmas, after lolling about in bed with the furbabies for a bit, it came to me. We all got up, I put on clothes that can be seen in public, she went in the yard for a little while, and I checked email and so on. About eleven o'clock, I went out to ask her if she wanted to go for a ride.
And we went to go see my dad.
Dad's in a memorial garden near where he taught for many years; and so, after a little exploring in the quiet, walled-in space where he rests, we took a little bit of a walk. Penelope was bullied by the cutest, tiniest little dachshund you ever saw, and curled up as small as a sixty-pound mass of muscle can get, submissive to the one tiny little bruiser out of three dogs all out together. Never saw her quite like that, but otherwise she enjoyed the walk.
There were some birds on the water; dark plumage and swimming unusually low, beaks longer and pointier, but just as orange as a duck. One nearby dove under the ripples and stayed down a good while. I was half tempted to think it was a Great Blue, but have never seen one do that and what little I saw of the body, surely it had to be too small. Interesting, though.
Coming home, my spazzy window-hanger was actually tired, and she curled up on the back seat and I think may have gone to sleep. Sweet. Perhaps she liked the high-pitched music of Switched-on Bach, or really was just tuckered after going visitin'. She'd made a beeline, when we walked into the garden, to dad's niche.
Now, I'm in the office with Gossie. He lies on his window seat, and Pen is in the living room I believe, napping on my grandmother's thick wool rug, in the ray of sunshine in there.
I may have to take their example; napping, even if not in a sunbeam (though the chaise might be good for that).
Hoping all who celebrate it are enjoying as peaceful a Christmas as this, and even more joyous. And, for those who just enjoy the quiet: save some dumplings and veggie fried rice for me!
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Twas the Day Before Christmas ...
The morning has been dark and stormy, opening with a torrent of rain that held off the very dawn. I'm working from home, but it's quiet, and my office is filled with presents for my family I will finally wrap today. I am joined in this cozy spot by the two you see above. It could hardly be more perfect and cozy (the tower heater does help), and we're half-listening to "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" on the little Roku box.
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, with my dad. He and I enjoyed it, and I've hardly seen it since, so this is a happy thing to have at my fingertips on a pre-holiday.
My stepfather came down with the flu yesterday, so Christmas will be postponed, either by hours or a day or so, but conveniently I took a four-day weekend, so that's not a problem. Penelope's own tummy is quietly burbling; no holiday scents to join us so far, but I hope she's feeling okay. They've both now curled themselves up and the only sound is that of my typing, with the movie on pause. The scent of some of the more frou-frou presents mingles comfortably with the somewhat puppy-sweet fragrance of fur that got a little damp a couple of hours ago, and the sky is lightening, though still wonderfully drab and drippy.
The work day will be a little short, and I've got a lunch date for later, one of my longtime friends, with whom I always laugh a great deal. Tomorrow? Still flexible there. But Christmas is coming, even if a little late. May yours be merry - even if it's a movies and Chinese food affair!
Friday, May 16, 2014
RIP Mary Stewart
I remember the summer day I was staying with my aunt in Northern Virginia, and she took me to a bookstore. I remember where it was. I remember how bright it was that day. And I remember the very first time I ever saw the covers. I was naive, I was only fourteen. That was when I met Merlin. That was when I met Mary Stewart.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
MSS
After the Conference, I went a bit mad for the rest of the weekend, and have been trying to keep myself at it on my time - going over the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb. I've finally finished this once-over, and pronounced, for myself, that it is presentable.
Wow is this terrifying.
And yet, given the timing we've got here, it's also ... gratifying ... wondrous ... exciting ... emotional ... mystifying ... and MISTY-fying. I can't even tell you how many times reading my own work, even in a hurry now, has brought me to *tears* these past several days. Yes, yes, it's all very hormonal of me. Yet the fact is, it is a powerful thing to do. And the feeling I've done something - made something pretty wonderful - is overwhelming on its own perfectly valid terms.
I wrote a BOOK, y'all.
I'm selling it.
I made the decision before I ever left work, tonight I won't try to compose my query. I've set myself the deadline of getting it sent tomorrow night - but today, with all it had going on, I knew wasn't a viable time to try more writing.
Well, correction to that - it's not the time to go with a first draft my paltry brain won't be capable of reading objectively. Even with a strong query already, this email is going to have to be particular; so I won't just mash the document attachment onto what I have boilerplated.
(Even if that HAS been edited umpteen ways to Sunday, and for every agent I have contacted since February!)
Today is a day of rest, if only writing rest. I'm too smart a writer not to know SOME work is best just left undone for a minute. The *best* work is what I am after.
So time to go sit in my beautiful haven of a living room, with the great Lolly, for just a little while.
Then walkies.
Then puttering, bath time, and finally sleep.
A good day.
I mean: tomorrow.
Wow is this terrifying.
And yet, given the timing we've got here, it's also ... gratifying ... wondrous ... exciting ... emotional ... mystifying ... and MISTY-fying. I can't even tell you how many times reading my own work, even in a hurry now, has brought me to *tears* these past several days. Yes, yes, it's all very hormonal of me. Yet the fact is, it is a powerful thing to do. And the feeling I've done something - made something pretty wonderful - is overwhelming on its own perfectly valid terms.
I wrote a BOOK, y'all.
I'm selling it.
I made the decision before I ever left work, tonight I won't try to compose my query. I've set myself the deadline of getting it sent tomorrow night - but today, with all it had going on, I knew wasn't a viable time to try more writing.
Well, correction to that - it's not the time to go with a first draft my paltry brain won't be capable of reading objectively. Even with a strong query already, this email is going to have to be particular; so I won't just mash the document attachment onto what I have boilerplated.
(Even if that HAS been edited umpteen ways to Sunday, and for every agent I have contacted since February!)
Today is a day of rest, if only writing rest. I'm too smart a writer not to know SOME work is best just left undone for a minute. The *best* work is what I am after.
So time to go sit in my beautiful haven of a living room, with the great Lolly, for just a little while.
Then walkies.
Then puttering, bath time, and finally sleep.
A good day.
I mean: tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)