sadness

Really good guy, father, friend, hard worker - had a heart attack and died while riding his bike to work this morning. I am friends with his wife. Makes me want to hug someone I love.

Friday as usual

So... got up this morning feeling logi. Don't know how to spell that (logi) but it means, at least to me, blah, bloated, like you have sand in your veins, like a beached whale, like you don't know how you will make it through the day.

I chose some funky stockings and a skirt with bright shoes, and got to my office where Rob greeted me with a question of my dress. "Today is JEANS day," he said. Now, when I was a kid I went to a neighborhood public school where girls were not allowed to wear pants unless it was "Pants Day". (Says how old I am huh?) Pants Day was our day of freedom. It was the day the little women of Barton High felt emancipated. So, when Rob said it was Jeans Day I had a sinking feeling that I was about to miss all the fun and sit alone in prison all day. Driven by inward passion, I turned around, got into my car, drove home. And this is what happened.

Time being of the essence, I grabbed my new jeans off the shelf and SQUEEZED into them with a hopeful spirit. They are fabulous I must say. But my granny panties, which truly make a granny happy, and I might add, cannot be topped for comfort, were bunched three inches out the top of my jeans. Not a first rate look I thought.

So I tore off the jeans, grabbed a more appropriate under garment, and put myself back together. Grinned at the mirror. Decided the shirt I had on was lousy and threw it on the floor and chose a purple Old Navy long sleeve T with a long black under shirt ... young and foxy. Changed my earings, one fell in half and I had to figure out how to loop it back together. Dang.

Then I heard the cat tormenting the birds. Walter the girl cat is a mighty hunter and although we have trained her to leave the finches alone, sometimes she cannot help herself. They are, after all, a fresh food feline tapas bar. Knowing it would be above zero today I decided to throw Walter outside. I tried to coax her, grab her, and ended up having to chase her over the couch, around through the kitchen and dining room twice, and knocked over two chairs before I had a firm grip on her tail. I dragged her to me and tossed her out the door.

Puffed, I pulled on a little jacket and ran out to the car, racing to work and getting in just three minutes late for a meeting. Grinning. Felt like I had had a big time. Had a huge laugh inside me. It was the most therapeutic 17 minutes of my year so far.

Maybe we are all simply kids inside. Maybe jeans really ARE the magic clothing we thought they were when we were teens. Maybe I just needed to abuse my cat a little. In any case, my day got a lot brighter and these jeans are foxy. Making me happy. And it's Friday. Whoooeee!

(all the above pictures are simply reasonable facsimile ... my ass is much much cuter than this.)

and the little ones shall lead them

You may read a version of this on my daughter's blog if you read it ...but she called and told me this story and I have to tell you all.

Kyra, my fabulous oldest granddaughter, goes to a school at which she is a minority. By minority, I mean like the only white kid in her grade. She doesn't even notice.

Being as February is Black History Month, her class is doing many things, including a big party where everyone is bringing their favorite 'soul food.'

Kyra's teacher talked to her and since she didn't know what soul food was, she was given the option of bringing some food from Canada.

Her best friend, Mayia (pictured above talking to each other using Nintendo DS while they are side by side...) is bringing macaroni and cheese. See how small the differences are? We have macaroni and cheese in Canada! ;-)

This is the girl who, arriving home from school after learning about Rosa Parks said, with passion, "If Rosa Parks didn't do what she did, we would still be sitting at the back of the bus!" I think this is the best education Kyra could have.
There may be hope for the world yet.

You can do anything...if you wake up in Greece...

You can do anything if you wake up in Greece....

... the lyric sung over me as I left my car to enter my office building this morning. Greece indeed.

We are in Narnia where it is always winter and never Christmas. Of course, Christmas can get on my nerve too.

So... I once again have to say that I loath winter. All my energy, emotion, joy, desire to live dissipates and turns into a few flakes of skin on the floor. Truly, if the most beautiful snowfall ever to occur in the history of the world happened, and I missed it, I would not care.

That said, and said loudly, driving to work was like traveling through a strange land. I remember the first time I saw the moon in the sky of the southern hemisphere. The sky was what it always is, and yet not what it is. A while of thinking and I realized everything was upside down. I sat and stared.

So this morning. Familiar old trees whose branches go UP now drooped down. Rows of cedars bowed along the side of the road as I passed, as if I was a dignitary worthy of worship. Evergreens had arms outstretched, fat bowing bodies and hooded heads drooped over, like some weird creatures from a fantastical shire. Familiar landmarks gone, or piled in a different place. The same and not the same.

When the land we always walk through shifts it wakes us up. That is good. Even if we are in a winter stupor. And I have to say too, there was some beauty. Nature is beautiful even when it is cruel.

So. It is winter. Winter is the season that ages me. Winter is the season that makes me despair. It is the season responsible for at least 8 pounds of unsightly fat snuggling into my pants. I have not yet experienced 12 months without a walk through this trial. I've done my turn.

I've been a good girl. Can I go to Greece now?

remember Noah's ark?

Spring is sneaking into Kentucky today! I come out of the house and it is balmy - "my" birds are flitting (cardinals, wrens, woodpeckers and doves are the ones I notice) around the feeders. Buds on bushes and trees are fat enough that I can see them from a ways off. The air smells like garden. And skunk. A whiff of skunk which isn't unpleasant in it's own way.

I know, I know, it will get cold again in a day or two and winter isn't over. But I feel like Noah. I have been stuck in the ark for forty days and I released a dove, or cardinal? and it returned this morning with a tiny promise of spring in its beak.

This is why I live in Kentucky.

Snow day

This has nothing to do with yesterday and the election... I loved watching the Obama's dance ... he really looks at her. But I am now back to life and winter and got this picture from my daughter and it made me smile. So many times kids re-orient me to think better about life.

This is a fun thing for kids in NC. They know how to have fun in snow...and also know that enough is enough! Back to spring okay?

on being Obama

So much interesting about this inauguration. SO MUCH. Obama's daughter telling him his speech better be good because he is the first African American president. His wife by his side, a real person who is a role model even to this white middle aged woman. His team. John McCain being consulted on issues. The response of the people.

A tattoo parlor offering a free Obama tattoo with any purchased tatt. Now that is a good two-fer. And the girl who checked out our groceries at WallyWorld today - the cutest African American kid, hair in braids and foxy little clothes. She was smart. We talked about Obama. Her best line, "When he got voted in people came in here and treated me like I was the only one who voted. I told them, I'm not the only one who voted him in. Don't you go looking at me that way." I liked her. Her name was Ruth.

The best part of my day was outside in my garden. The roses should have been cut back in the fall but I was busy. Today was a cold day to do the pruning but it seemed right. I was thinking about being president, and what a good constellation of requirements should be of any person seeking the job.

1. There should be a White House garden (a REAL garden by the way, with herbs and petunias and infestations of Japanese beetles, not just big square bushes and roses), and the president be required to spend at least two hours a week working in the dirt with his/her hands. A garden makes people reflective, and kind.

2. The president should have been present at a birth of a child. I think I would specify that be a NATURAL childbirth so they could get a feel for the whole experience. A life could not be taken for granted when you experience the cost.

3. The presidential resume should include at least one month as a server in a low budget restaurant - to get a feeling for what it is like to have to be the one who serves without fanfare. When you have worked for almost nothing, been treated like you are invisible and then learned to respond with grace you have acquired almost everything you need to be a leader.

4. The president should have learned to play an instrument to teach patience and attention to detail, not to mention a love of art. Once a month that instrument should be taken out to remind the president that he is a person just like everyone else, and has a song to play, but it is not every song there is.

5. The president should anonymously (perhaps wearing a rubber nose as a disguise) attend regular AA meetings for the first year of his/her presidency. I know of no place that is more humanizing and life supporting than a healthy AA group. Such a group would keep the president's feet on the ground. Maybe save his/her sanity.

So...that's a few I came up with. Such a plan might infringe on presidential duties - taking up valuable time usually spent at expensive dinners and high level briefings. But I just can't help think we would all be a little safer. Any other suggestions?