Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Friday, March 09, 2007
For a Five-Year Old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.
- Fleur Adcock
Oh, how I long for the five-year old sensibilities, the young mind that still accepts what comes out of a mother's mouth and is not yet ruined by noticing the actions that may contradict words. We have one nine years past five who has taken it into her own hands to be extremely cruel to snails, among other things. Mom and Dad's words no longer hold any sway. We just pray.
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.
- Fleur Adcock
Oh, how I long for the five-year old sensibilities, the young mind that still accepts what comes out of a mother's mouth and is not yet ruined by noticing the actions that may contradict words. We have one nine years past five who has taken it into her own hands to be extremely cruel to snails, among other things. Mom and Dad's words no longer hold any sway. We just pray.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Wisconsin Kennel Club Dog Show II
A few more. We didn't see any miniature schnauzers, but a few standards and giants. This was such a fun event for me and my camera.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
More Goldfinches
These little guys (and gals) are all over my neighbor's crabapple tree, just outside one of our upstairs windows. They are stuffing themselves on the shriveled fruit.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Ups and Downs, or Downs and Ups
I'll start with the downs first and save the more uplifting stuff for last.
- I am recuperating from a recent surgery and, while healing, am dealing with some post-operative concerns and decisions that now have to be made.
- Since I am sitting on my butt for a greater than normal part of the day during recovery, all the improvement I made during my last two months of physical therapy on rear end muscular/busitis issues has sort of backslidden (sorry).
- Being bored by the end of a week of sitting around here, unable to get out and walk (much), get groceries or run errands has intensified my normal February-in-Wisconsin cabin fever syptoms. The highlights of my recent days have been showers, and taking my daily dose of isoflavones.
- I am not able to lift more than ten pounds at a time right now, so my babysitting job is on hold for another week or two. I have thus turned to Internet shopping, spending bits of cash pretty much in reverse proportion to what I would have taken in during these last three weeks of work. This means I have lost not three weeks of income, but actually six, not to mention the loss of cuddle time with my adorable nine-month old charge.
- Beyond my health issues, there's always teenagers to make life difficult. My oldest got an interim report card today indicating a D in Math, another D in Biology, and a U in History if improvements aren't made soon before the next marking period. When confronted, said teen replied, "The homework is stupid." Well, if it's so stupid, I guess I understand why she wouldn't want to do it. How silly of me. Now, if my children were all animals, as they sometimes are, but no - literally animals, and these animals put on a circus in the forest, my eldest would definitely be the racoon dressed as a clown. A very creative, intelligent clown (except in math, biology and history, that is). Let's say she puts the E in Emo lately, and whether she means to or not, she is driving her concerned parents nuts.
- I can no longer have any more children. Ever.
- The bad part of surgery is over, especially that first night in the hospital, which was awful.
- They gave me drugs, painkillers, to take home. This is very good. But it's also very good that I now no longer need anything more than Tylenol. Even better is that I now have some nice, strong, prescription painkillers left over for future use.
- I got flowers in the hospital from three different parties. This is a nice treat. They now grace our coffee table in the living room.
- I got the staples out of my incision only four days after surgery, and my doctor let me keep them so that my oldest daughter could make strange jewelry out of them.
- I have had lots of positive attention and MEALS brought over that I didn't have to think about, prepare or clean up after. This, to me, is one of the best parts of having to recuperate from surgery. I have never liked to cook, but I do have a nice cookbook selection. I love the idea of cooking, but this idea has never germinated into actually doing it on a regular basis.
- I got lots of healty isoflavones as gifts (dark chocolate) and less healthy isoflavones (milk chocolate). Sometimes I double or even triple my isoflavone dose.
- I have a nice supply of soaps, lotions and skin care products that recently arrived in the mail from one Internet shopping frenzy, and any day now my lime green Born shavano boots will show up, along with my bread baking pans and the four Burt's Bees starter kits I won on eBay at a fantastic price.
- My feet smell like peppermint more often than they ever have before.
- Before I even knew I needed surgery, I had started to think about getting a second miniature schnauzer. A few days later, out of the blue, a friend told me of a colleague's new litter of mini schnauzer pups! We saw them at eight days old, and they were, of course, adorable. Now that I have suffered through all sorts of medical brutality, I find the timing good in the end. Who would want to watch me go through all of this, and then deny me a puppy?
- The litter will be ready to go home six weeks and one day after my surgery, the magic recovery mark - and also my younger daughter's 11th birthday. Is that a sign, or what?
- I don't have to do laundry, take out the garbage, vacuum, shovel or even drive anyone anywhere for at least another week.
- I can no longer have any more children. Ever.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
My kids and I were watching old episodes of The Office on DVD the other day. Jim took Dwight's "company" stapler and suspended it in jello. It was there on Dwight's desk, floating in a dome of goo, and I thought to myself, "Someone was actually given the job of making that jello mold and carefully placing that stapler so that it would be in the center of the gelatin when it set up."
I could be that someone.
I could be that someone.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Float Like a Butterfly . . .
Yesterday was Muhammad Ali's 65th birthday. NPR made this announcement and then relayed one of Ali's quotes: "If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize."
Gotta love that.
Gotta love that.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Interesting Old Covenant Rule
I am rereading the Bible this year. The last time I did this, I read the New International Version, but this time around I am reading The Message, a newer translation in "modern English," though sometimes the choice of words makes me think the translation team is a bit Mr. Rogers-ish. (I really admired Mr. Rogers. I grew up watching him and cried when he died.) Anyway, today I got to this verse from the last book of the Pentateuch, the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verses 6-8.
When you come across a bird's nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don't take the mother with the young. You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life.
I thought that passage was intriguing, sandwiched in among all these lengthy and, to me, rather burdensome, strict and harsh rules concerning sexual conduct, ceremonial uncleanness and how to get rid of it, sacrificial policies (wow - that's a LOT of animals) and a long list of offenses punishable by death. It stood out, and not just because it gives people the right to relieve a mother of her children, but it asserts that she must go free. There's even a reward for doing this. They're talking birds here, and I give my loose interpretation tongue in cheek. I guess I was surprised to find this verse and wonder what the true significance is.
The next verse reads: When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn't fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death.
We don't have a parapet around our roof, but we bought the house as is.
When you come across a bird's nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don't take the mother with the young. You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life.
I thought that passage was intriguing, sandwiched in among all these lengthy and, to me, rather burdensome, strict and harsh rules concerning sexual conduct, ceremonial uncleanness and how to get rid of it, sacrificial policies (wow - that's a LOT of animals) and a long list of offenses punishable by death. It stood out, and not just because it gives people the right to relieve a mother of her children, but it asserts that she must go free. There's even a reward for doing this. They're talking birds here, and I give my loose interpretation tongue in cheek. I guess I was surprised to find this verse and wonder what the true significance is.
The next verse reads: When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn't fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death.
We don't have a parapet around our roof, but we bought the house as is.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
So That's What That Is!
I made a short shopping list today: coffee, crackers, cream cheese, Chicken & Stars (soup), chocolate milk and cereal. Walking out the back door, I noticed these items all begin with the letter C. Wow.Walking through the Metcalf's Sentry's beautiful produce section, I came upon this lovely fruit that I had never seen before. It's called Ugli and was $1.99 each. I remember seeing it in Lois Ehlert's book, Eating the Alphabet - a standard on any family bookshelf with kids under about age 7 or 8. She illustrated fruits and vegetables for each letter of the alphabet. U is for Ugli fruit. Well, then. Here it is. I haven't tasted it yet. Last week we tried a persimmon. It was just bloody awful. I hope this one tastes better than it's name. Sure is pretty.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Anticipation
This was our first sight of the warehouse from the south side of the river. No wonder we wanted to come back here with our cameras after first seeing this while geocaching. Gives you an idea how large the canvas was.
Oh, the Joy of Rust
Imagine how I felt when we found piles and piles of these rusty panels along the train tracks! I wanted to take the brightest one in the middle home and hang it on my garage, but it was just too darn heavy. They were about 11 x 7 inches long. They are used to hold the railroad ties in place along the tracks. There were hundreds of them in neatly spaced piles as far as the eye could see.
Squish?
I see an S, a possible E, then a Q . . . and then I give up. Can anyone read this? I just call it Squish.
Oy
I call this one "Oy" because that's all I imagine I can see in it. What about this one - what do you think it says?
Saturday, January 06, 2007
More Junk to Photograph
The light was overcast this morning, perfect for taking photos, so I called Dad and he agreed to join me on a little outing. We drove over near a geocache we had done last fall, and where we had seen some really nice graffiti. I drove and took a road I had never even seen before, which got us right to the trailhead behind the Badger Home. I was pleased.
We set off down the trail, which runs parallel to the river and some railroad tracks on the north and a huge mountain of garbage on the south. Just beyond the hill of garbage is Doyne Park Golf Course. It's almost like they bulldozed a bunch of buildings out of the way north towards the river, then built the nice slab of greensward on the leftovers up top, leaving a forested-over hill of detritus to spill down towards the river. Between the hill and the river is our trail. Our side of the trail, below the garbage ledge and away from the sun, is an amazing collage of old bricks, cement slabs, twisted metal and trash, laced through with indestructible garlic mustard, buckthorn and the trunks of resilient trees that have stood their rocky, littered ground. The photos don't really look that bad, but when you're standing there, in it, I suppose it's a testimony to how nature will overcome, literally, in the end. There are large sheets of rusted metal (my favorite) that have become one with the trees, trunks growing through and around them, encasing them in bark. There was a pile of younger trunks and branches in the midst of which I noticed a metal pipe. It blended in perfectly with the living limbs touching it.
I got a few photos of nice rusty remnants before we found the bridge which would take us across the river and to the railroad tracks, beyond which is the perfect tagger's canvas - a large, white warehouse, gleaming with brilliantly colored graffiti. Finding a chainlink fence and gate locked on the other side of the bridge, we snuck around a narrow passageway between the end of the bridge rail and the gate. Doing this required stepping around the fencepost on about a four-inch strip on concrete, clinging to the chainlink to swing around over the river about 25 feet below to the safe ground on the other side. I didn't mind doing it, but found it made me nervous to watch my Dad after me. We got out and began to walk back in the direction we had come along the trail, except now we were on the north side of the river and following the railroad tracks. Looking up, Dad noted a road right alongside the warehouse. It appeared to go straight out to State Street, where traffic was skipping along. I guess we could have just drove in that way and parked a few feet from the building, but then we wouldn't have had such a nice hike along the trash trail.
We were walking toward the graffiti when a truck came driving right down the tracks with its headlights on. I thought we were going to get yelled at for being back there, but the driver just waved as he passed by. We found wonderful piles of rusty metal track parts on our way to the warehouse. Then there was the graffiti itself, so large, complex and, to me, indecipherable. The smaller, simpler words are easy to read, but the larger, highly stylized mottos escape me. Who does these things? They're really very well done. I collected a bunch of spray can lids and took a photo of that, too.
After we had our fill of shooting, we headed back to the bridge and crossed over to the trail once more. On our way out we met a family: a mom and about four kids, and their pet boxer, Diamond. The first young child to reach me looked up eagerly and said, "Someone left their underpants in here." Somehow, we had missed the underpants, but I found a perfectly usable teaspoon and my dad found one orange golf ball to add to his collection.
We set off down the trail, which runs parallel to the river and some railroad tracks on the north and a huge mountain of garbage on the south. Just beyond the hill of garbage is Doyne Park Golf Course. It's almost like they bulldozed a bunch of buildings out of the way north towards the river, then built the nice slab of greensward on the leftovers up top, leaving a forested-over hill of detritus to spill down towards the river. Between the hill and the river is our trail. Our side of the trail, below the garbage ledge and away from the sun, is an amazing collage of old bricks, cement slabs, twisted metal and trash, laced through with indestructible garlic mustard, buckthorn and the trunks of resilient trees that have stood their rocky, littered ground. The photos don't really look that bad, but when you're standing there, in it, I suppose it's a testimony to how nature will overcome, literally, in the end. There are large sheets of rusted metal (my favorite) that have become one with the trees, trunks growing through and around them, encasing them in bark. There was a pile of younger trunks and branches in the midst of which I noticed a metal pipe. It blended in perfectly with the living limbs touching it.
I got a few photos of nice rusty remnants before we found the bridge which would take us across the river and to the railroad tracks, beyond which is the perfect tagger's canvas - a large, white warehouse, gleaming with brilliantly colored graffiti. Finding a chainlink fence and gate locked on the other side of the bridge, we snuck around a narrow passageway between the end of the bridge rail and the gate. Doing this required stepping around the fencepost on about a four-inch strip on concrete, clinging to the chainlink to swing around over the river about 25 feet below to the safe ground on the other side. I didn't mind doing it, but found it made me nervous to watch my Dad after me. We got out and began to walk back in the direction we had come along the trail, except now we were on the north side of the river and following the railroad tracks. Looking up, Dad noted a road right alongside the warehouse. It appeared to go straight out to State Street, where traffic was skipping along. I guess we could have just drove in that way and parked a few feet from the building, but then we wouldn't have had such a nice hike along the trash trail.
We were walking toward the graffiti when a truck came driving right down the tracks with its headlights on. I thought we were going to get yelled at for being back there, but the driver just waved as he passed by. We found wonderful piles of rusty metal track parts on our way to the warehouse. Then there was the graffiti itself, so large, complex and, to me, indecipherable. The smaller, simpler words are easy to read, but the larger, highly stylized mottos escape me. Who does these things? They're really very well done. I collected a bunch of spray can lids and took a photo of that, too.
After we had our fill of shooting, we headed back to the bridge and crossed over to the trail once more. On our way out we met a family: a mom and about four kids, and their pet boxer, Diamond. The first young child to reach me looked up eagerly and said, "Someone left their underpants in here." Somehow, we had missed the underpants, but I found a perfectly usable teaspoon and my dad found one orange golf ball to add to his collection.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Profound Discoveries
In the last 24 hours, I have discovered (at least) three things that really work: Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, yoga, and Tylenol PM.
Latest Favorite Poem
This little bit is by Don Marquis (Archy and Mehitabel). It is now on our refrigerator, replacing the one about the plums that William Carlos Williams wrote.
Honesty
Honesty is a good thing
but it is not profitable to its possessor
unless it is kept under control.
IF you are not honest at all
everybody hates you
and if you are absolutely honest
you get martyred.
Honesty
Honesty is a good thing
but it is not profitable to its possessor
unless it is kept under control.
IF you are not honest at all
everybody hates you
and if you are absolutely honest
you get martyred.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Happy New Year
Today I went into my daughters' room to see what all the noise was about. I found that Laura was "renovating" her large, walk-in closet.
"What the heck are you doing in here?" I ask as I see she has all the shelves down and is pounding nails into the inside of the door frame.
"I'm redoing my closet, painting the wall, then putting it all back together," she answers, obviously trying to make me feel okay about whatever it is she is doing.
"Do you ever think of asking before doing these things," I reply hastily. "No one ever gave you permission to -- wow! That's really good," as I turn to the left and finally notice the mural she has painted on the closet wall. It's a painting of a man that she modeled after a photo from a National Geographic magazine. You can see it below. I also notice the inside of the closet door is splashed in all sorts of acrylic colors, dripping down the wood all the way to the floor. I glance quickly at the carpeting, expecting to see a mess, but there's just green carpet, thank God.
"If we ever want to sell the house, I can paint over the door," she adds with more calm-down-mother tones.
The nails, I am told, are for a large, doorway-sized loom she somehow plans to anchor down to the floor. Once this is under way, her younger sister will no longer be able to enter the closet. No matter, that. The artist must make art.
"What the heck are you doing in here?" I ask as I see she has all the shelves down and is pounding nails into the inside of the door frame.
"I'm redoing my closet, painting the wall, then putting it all back together," she answers, obviously trying to make me feel okay about whatever it is she is doing.
"Do you ever think of asking before doing these things," I reply hastily. "No one ever gave you permission to -- wow! That's really good," as I turn to the left and finally notice the mural she has painted on the closet wall. It's a painting of a man that she modeled after a photo from a National Geographic magazine. You can see it below. I also notice the inside of the closet door is splashed in all sorts of acrylic colors, dripping down the wood all the way to the floor. I glance quickly at the carpeting, expecting to see a mess, but there's just green carpet, thank God.
"If we ever want to sell the house, I can paint over the door," she adds with more calm-down-mother tones.
The nails, I am told, are for a large, doorway-sized loom she somehow plans to anchor down to the floor. Once this is under way, her younger sister will no longer be able to enter the closet. No matter, that. The artist must make art.
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