Celebrate With Honor

 

Tonight I smell fires, something usual in my neck of the woods, but unusual for here, two states away from home.  But Dad says "It's just barbeques."  For several years on Memorial Day morning, we've gone out and stood on the median in the large, broad street near to our house and waved flags and flashed peace signs at all the patriotic motorcyclists in West Coast Rolling Thunder, a parade of choppers that goes on for nearly an hour.

 But this year I'll be down at the Apple store with my parents, trying to get all the iClouds and iTunes and iPads and their accounts all massaged into place.  It used to be I'd just turn off the computer and turn it back and that would pretty much fix anything that was wrong with a Mac.  But now it's getting waaaaay too complicated, with all our iSystems, Syncing, passwords (we are carrying in a sheaf of passwords) and user names, and we need a genius or two to help us out.  

It's Memorial Day, a day of decorating graves (two done earlier this morning, the rest done last Thursday).  A day of remembering not only our own ancestors, but those who died fighting in wars, hence the West Coast Rolling Thunder, a parade of aging Vietnam War Veterans who are finally getting their due and their own honor.  

I love this holiday, for the traditions of my parents placing flowers on graves, for all the memorials around the country, and for the barbeques that make my room at night smell like the countryside is on fire. Happy Memorial Day, 2014.

Dave's gone for a bike ride, I've spent hours on Pinterest, and it seems this quiet morning is restorative for both of us.  Blessings abound: nice place to live, nice home, great children and grandchildren, good relationships among extended family, learning how to live with those daily aches and pains and thorns of life.  We're also happy for our work, both the work that brings in money and the work that doesn't, and that it gives us something to talk about on our morning walks.  Laundry, the Great Leveler, teaches me to be grateful for tasks, but also greatful that I can entertain myself beyond counting up the completed household chores. 

I also am grateful for the mundane: the new drill that works great, comfortable shoes, good blogs to read, clothes without patches and holes, wall-to-wall carpeting, my Apple TV and a comfortable sofa from which to watch movies.  My mundane may be different from yours, but I'm hoping that your Thanksgiving Day is a good one, filled with thoughtful moments of gratitude.

(Like being grateful I'm not camped out front of Target right now, like the folks I saw last night.)

Happy Thanksgiving, 2013. 

Merry Christmas 2012

On a family trip to Italy on the Millenial year, after we saw the Sistine Chapel, the Hall of Maps, the courtyard with the enormous machine-like sphere, our family wandered through the rest of the Vatican museum, only half-paying attention.  In one of the glass cases was this very small sculpture; in my memory not more than a few inches tall.  It depicts Joseph pulling on the donkey while Mary, swaddled and very round, leans into the wind, shown by the cant of the bodies, the donkey's tail and Joseph's robes.

This small sculpture reminds me to think about Joseph and his devotion not only to his espoused wife Mary, but also to the cause of bringing Christ the King to his earthly kingdom.  He had to not only obey the law of the land in paying taxes, the laws of nature as he worked against the wind, the stubborn donkey, his Mary nearly delivered of child, and the laws of the marketplace as he tried to find a place for his family.

There are always those who are behind the scenes, pulling the donkeys forward, caring for others who remain the focus.  If not for Joseph's determination to do the right, the world might have shifted slightly on its eternal axis, tilting us off our Christ-centered mark.  May we all revere the Christ child in the manner of Joseph: shoulder against the wind, focused on the babe from heaven. 

Merry Christmas

Christmas Lights

I had purchased new blue lights to replace the older bulb lights that we gave away two years ago, and it took some remembering why we had done that (we were tired of them) so this morning found us finishing up the job started yesterday: clipping on the remainder of lights along the roof line and winding them around bushes and trees.  As I wound the lights around the hideous lavender bush (it needs to be yanked and replanted--one of the side effects of being that intimate with your front yard is realizing how long you've ignored it), I thought about the house across the street and the difference between her Christmas decorations and mine.

She has candy canes and gingerbread men.  I have strands of lights woven in among dying lavender bushes, the places where the strands join together carefully taped with silver duct tape.  Hers look great in the day, but disappear at night.  You should probably avert your eyes from ours in the day, but hey--in the night we really shine.  Literally.

It got me thinking about my day yesterday, with three doctor visits.  The first, to a dentist, started with me tripping and landing on all fours on the pavement outside in the parking lot.  I looked down and there were no holes in my new jeans, but hidden by those jeans, my knees were quite sore and achy, and my hands hurt although on the surface although they looked fine.  I think my ego was more bruised than my body, but still.

The next doctor was to schedule one of those loathsome every-ten-year tests. And the last doctor was the oncologist--a check up on last year's cancer surgery.  Sitting in waiting rooms gave me a chance to think about what goes on under the skin, physically.  I do spend some time in church thinking about what goes on under the skin, spiritually, and if my outward pronouncements and behavior match up with my desire to have a generous heart.  But to sit and think of the muscles, tissues, bones, blood systems, cancer and surgical scars is not something I usually do.  Or like to do.

It's kind of like my Christmas lights.  Even though we'd rather not, we have to open ourselves up to the harsh light of day to see the woody stems, prickly branches and dead spots. I realize that I'm lucky in that I don't have endless doctor's visits; these are sporadic events.  Yet they force me to think about mortality, about relationships -- all those Big Things -- as I wait for my turn to be called back to the exam room.

But I'd rather think about last night when I went outside to see what our handiwork had wrought: the blue lights were a slice of the heavens of blue and white stars in outer space.  I thought of that phrase from The Little Prince, by de Saint Expury, paraphrased here: What is essential is hidden from our eyes.  It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  I know he did not mean that heart of the doctor's office.

So for now, for this Christmas season, although I am aware on those things that are hidden, I'm keeping my eyes -- and heart -- focused heavenward, on the glowing lights.

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas

Snowman Cartoon Fun

We don't have snow in California, so we have to get our snowmen fixes this way.

Merry Christmas Season Begins!

My friend and her family do a Christmas video every year.  We know we can start celebrating and decorating when we see it arrive.

Memorial Day, 2011

Monday morning, I put on my patriotic earrings which were purchased in Washington, DC ages ago when we took our family on the East Coast trip around the 4th of July.  We watched the fireworks from the Mall,  with the Washington Monument there like a stem to the spiky chrysanthemem-like lights bursting into glory over our heads.  A couple of the kids squabbled over the umbrella in the light drizzle.  One child made eyeglasses out of the glow-in-the-dark necklaces we'd purchased. The ride home to our hotel took us hours because the Metro was jam-packed with people.  It's a great memory.

We walked about half-a-mile to our main boulevard, and waved our flags and cheered on West Coast Rolling Thunder.

We'd invited our friend Rob to join us this year.

Then I came home and put up our Red, White and Blue Quilt in the hallway.  Read more about that *here*.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there!

Easter Eggs

I made up some little treats for my family over Easter.

I'd read about this over on GiversLog.  Amber Lee likes to mail strange and wonderful things, and she posted about doing this.  I thought I'd like to try it, so I bought some eggs, some wind-up toys, some candy.

I printed up little notes, and tucked them inside.

I wrapped the seams with sticky tape, then put address labels on them.  I taped over the addresses with packing tape because I was worried about them coming off.  When I took them to the Post Office, the counter clerk smiled as he weighed each one.  I smoothed out the postage label, and then he took my bag from me, filled it up with eggs (smiling all the while) and plopped them all in the giant bin. I made up twelve, and all but one arrived.  Not a bad event, all in all!

Happy Valentine's Day

MLA--Day in LA

As lowly adjuncts, my friend Judy and I are used to be low women on the totem pole, and even have learned to see the bits of black humor that come from having no benefits, low wages, no office, no official phone numbers, no committee assignments, no politics and no status.  So I was surprised when the august association of the Modern Language Association sent out an email inviting us lower-than-lows to their annual convention in LA.  Show this letter, they said, and you'll get a free one-day pass.

We decided to take a shot right in front of the poster, to prove we were there (we're using this as our "Professional Development" hours at the end of the semester).

After two energetic sessions, we slipped out for some lunch/dinner at the local Wolfgang Puck's--in the LA Live Center--really a plaza right next door to the Staples Center with big screens, cool lights in the trees and a nice ambiance.

It was an interesting day filled with contradictions, thought, interesting challenges, a call to labor activism (although I'm pretty sure the speaker meant the Real Teachers, not us) and a workshop or two on Digital Humanities.  We broke away from a few minutes to grab some linner (or dunch) to bolster ourselves for the upcoming sessions, and to rehash the ones we'd been to.

 

Since this is my blog, you know there has to be a picture of the meal.  

This pizza had goat cheese, sun-dried tomato halves, kalamata olives all adorned with prosciutto and bits of basil (I think).

 

As we walked, we enjoyed the sunset, the lights with their drippy lights and having a day away to think about all things MLA.  And that's not only how to list sources for your research paper.

 

Huge fake leaf shapes with fake shadows.

One of the fun things was throughout the day was receiving lots of text messages, phone messages, emails wishing me a Happy Birthday. Thank you all for your birthday wishes--sorry I wasn't always able to answer the phone immediately.

Judy had planned ahead (not surprisingly) and when we got back to the car after a long day, she whipped out a covered cake pan, and presented me with this Happy Birthday plate and cake.  She sang to me, then we enjoyed a sweet treat.  Thanks!