While on my walk today,

I saw banks of clivia, and I thought about Sophie's sixteenth birthday tomorrow and whether I would make or bake cupcakes for her party at school. I noticed spit on the sidewalk shaped like a pocketbook and ran my fingers through a bank of lavender, then sniffed them. I heard birds singing and crows squawking, the double toot of the roach coach and a small child shouting I love you. The clouds to the north were puffy and rolled in banks over the hills while in the west they darkened. The shadows of the endless palms were long, dwarfed by my own. I passed a man with a dog that didn't look like his and a woman whose dog looked like her. I waited for cars at intersections and felt the dull ache of my heels and when I lifted my face to the sun it was warm and I didn't need to blink.

Sunday Stress Sermon

San Francisco 2008

I'm going to start writing for a new site, and my first article is up. The site is called Technorati, and you can read my article HERE. If it seems familiar it's because I worked on an old post a bit and made something new. Leave a comment

here


there

nowhere

everywhere.


Happy Sunday.

Saturday Stroll

We're going to take a stroll today. I've always loved the French word for stroll: flaner. You pronounce it flah nay. Did you know that I double majored in English and French literature in college? Well, I did, and before you think me insufferably pretentious, let me tell you that I hated French.

Except for the occasional beautiful word like flaner.

je flanes, tu, flanes, vous flanez, il/elle flane, nous flanons, ils/elles flanent (there should be all kinds of accents over those es and as, but despite a valiant effort, I can't figure it out)

Anyway, we're going for a stroll.

Nous flanerons. (that would be French future tense)

We are going to stop and visit an artist and crafter named Ruth from Chase Creative Art House.

Ruth recently made me some custom bibs for Sophie. Yes, Sophie needs to wear a bib when she eats; otherwise, food gets everywhere, and we're all about dignity here. When I saw the amazing fabrics that Ruth uses, I asked her whether she could use them for a large bib for Sophie, and she said Yes. Here's one of them:

Ruth also makes amazing napkins out of these fabulous fabrics, so I ordered some of them, too.

They're the perfect size, reasonably priced and so much better than the paper kind.

Ruth is a graduate from San Francisco Art Institute with a degree in painting. She is also an art teacher and has been sewing since she was ten years old.

Stack'd by Sister Made was started by Ruth just over a year ago, and her sister Colleen helps her to sew. She started Sister Made to have what she called "Mommy Money" -- the freedom of getting her hair done without "What! You what for a cut and color!" by Mr. You Know Who.

Ruth says that her napkins are what she's totally in love with and that the idea is to keep a stack on your dining room table and use them as needed. They take up virtually no space in your laundry and do NOT require ironing.

I can vouch for that.

Ruth can also do custom orders and is happy to sew for others. She can help pick fabric and make different sizes and quantities. She makes small and large bibs as well as lunch bags and children's cloths!

Ruth can be found at:

ETSY: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SisterMade
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_138227532906961
BLOGGER http://sistermade.blogspot.com/



I suggest you stroll on over there. She's offering FREE SHIPPING today and tomorrow to my readers. Just use the  code AMOONDISCOUNT.


Where should we go afterward?

No One Gets Left Behind

I had to put on my Pretend Like I Have High Expectations for My Daughter's School hat and meet our private speech pathologist (the one who is helping me to implement the iPad into Sophie's life) there so that she could do a mini training of the iPad with the powers that be at the school. When I got there and ushered her through the iron gates, I changed into the Pay No Mind to the Dark and Gloomy Tunnel/Hallway at the End of Which Lies the Classroom hat, and we walked down the hallway cheerfully. I then changed into the Pay No Mind to the School Aide (not Sophie's) Who is Sitting on the Sofa and Texting hat which was quickly replaced by the Remember that this Place is Only a Small Part of Sophie's Life hat. I kept that hat on for the rest of the time.

Make of this what you will.

Superstitious Lady

My alter ego, the superstitious southern Italian peasant woman needs to just come on out and tell ya'll that Sophie's seizures have dramatically improved. This might be because the IVIG has kicked in

or the new drug Vimpat is helping

or the weaning of Keppra (she was on it for over seven years but I refuse to allow more than two drugs, so it had to come off) is helping

or the combination of all of the above, coupled with regular visits to the osteopath are conspiring to improve the strange workings of Sophie's brain

or the planets have finally aligned for her.

Your guess is as good as mine.

But it's good, really good.

And while I feel a bit like the pile of ashes left behind as the phoenix soars, my gratitude, hard-won, could burst at the seams. I'm adrift, laying back, my face to the sun but too tired to row.

Scratch the VW van, I want one of these

That's Roald Dahl's writing shed.

And here's Virginia Woolf's:

I actually visited Mark Twain's one weird summer when I escaped with my first love to upstate New York. That's a whole other post, I suppose -- or maybe even a book. Here's his "shed:"

And who wouldn't want one of these? That's George Bernard Shaw and his writing shed.

No wonder Dylan Thomas waxed so lyrical from this creative space:

You can get a glimpse into my real character if I told you that when I read about these writing cabins and then saw the photos -- well -- I practically peed in my pants.

You can see the rest here.

Thinking about Suze Rotolo

I sat in the car yesterday at a light and listened to a small tribute to Suze Rotolo, one of Bob Dylan's early formative influences and muses who died of cancer. I don't know why, but I shed some tears.



Create a playlist at MixPod.com

(and thanks to secondsistersuaviloquy who inspired this post!)

I want one

of these:

(the new Volkswagon Microbus, powered electrically, uses an iPad to control the entertainment and climate systems)

Cue in the Jimi Hendrix:

True Words

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

As I think about what's going on in Wisconsin (particularly the cuts to the disabled which you might not know about given all the hoopla and which you can read about here), as I read an article about Newt Gingrich's new-found Catholicism and platform of morality -- well -- it's difficult not to hate. 

But I know those words above ring true. 


Sigh.

Biutiful, written last night

I am in a daze tonight, late, just getting home from a solo trip to the movies where I sat in the dark and was enveloped by the movie Biutiful. 

I don't know what to say -- I've seen nearly all of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's movies, and they have been ponderous at worst and  ecstatic at best. I'm going out on a limb right now to say that great art for me always, always always transports me,  and is a reflection, seen through a glass darkly, I think, of the artist's soul - his or her transcendence. Javier Bardem seems to be a vehicle for great art -- it stares out of his huge, sad eyes and settles into the deep laugh lines around them. This movie is dark and intense and disturbing and so beautiful that I sat, stunned, with tears in my eyes when it was finished.

I've been hard put to explain why I thought the recent Social Network was a horrible movie -- one that "entertained" me for the two hours that I sat, subject to its slick and witty seduction, but left me wanting to shower off the filth that it portrayed. A great movie (again, I'll qualify with the words "to me"), no matter the subject matter -- and the moral conflicts and constant despair of Biutiful make the lowlife characters of Social Network look like the cast of Leave it to Beaver -- reveals the vision and soul of the artist and that vision and soul is something recognized that is collective. It is love.

I felt tonight as if I'd escaped my little life for two and a half hours and glimpsed another. I watched Bardem play a single father of two beautiful children, a man dying a slow and hideous death from cancer, married to a messed-up and mentally ill woman and caught, himself, in a dark underworld of corruption and social despair. I watched him commune with the spirits of the dead, fall into the arms of a strange and magical healer and confessor who shared his powers, parent his children with heartbreaking tenderness and strength and make feeble attempts at redemption. And despite the horrific details -- the crazy exploitation of immigrants, the insane web of lies and corruption that govern commerce and making a living  -- he is redeemed. It's all redeemed.

Breakthrough

Confession: I haven't been to the doctor (other than my dear Dr. Jin and the yearly lady stuff) for over three years.

Confession: The reason why is that I don't want to get on a scale. I also don't want to have blood-work done and find out that "my numbers" are bad. I don't want to pay an ungodly amount of money to be told that I'm really fine and just need to lose some weight. I don't want to find out that I'm not fine.

Realization: These have been and continue to be really poor reasons not to go to the doctor. The doctor won't think it's a moral failing when she notes my weight. I'm not doing myself any favors, as they say, by not going. I'm an idiot not to go.

Breakthrough: I made an appointment to see the doctor for a physical in mid-March.

Afterthought: My doctor is a naturopath who uses modern, leech-free methods for my health and well-being. Other than getting on a scale, it won't be so bad.

Addendum to last night's Oscar post

The word of the day today was just perfect. Here it is:

SITZFLEISCH

It means "the ability to sit through or endure something boring" AND "the ability to endure or persist in a task." As in:

I had great Sitzfleisch last night watching the Oscar Ceremony.

and

Sitzfleisch will be required this afternoon when I pick up my sons from school and let them know all electronic gadgets, including Wii, iPod Touch, iPad and PlayStation are off-limits until further notice.

There's a new sheriff in town, as they say.

Policewoman, suffragette, 1908

Oscar, LA-Style

Wasn't that just about the weakest, most lame Oscar ceremony ever?

Here in La-La Land, we hear the helicopters rounding up over the hills all afternoon. The Husband nearly always has a party to work (he used to be Wolfgang Puck's Executive Chef for catering and did the Governor's Ball every year!), so I walked around the corner to our neighbor's house to watch the shindig. Because it's mid-afternoon, here, when it all starts, the kids come, too. We fill out those forms and have a contest to see who picks the most winners. We eat trashy food and catcall, some years more than others. It was that kind of year. I just told a good friend that it was either a sign that I was just getting too old or that I'm profoundly depressed, but I didn't care about any of it this year. Not even the gowns. O.K., I did like Cate Blanchett's weird yellow and pink thing. And Javier Bardem looked ghastly in white but divine in black. And Annette Bening was my favorite -- mainly because of those green drop earrings she had on. I hated The Social Network, so any time they won anything, I got busy feeding Sophie. And while I enjoyed The King's Speech and love Colin Firth like 99% of other women, the movie didn't knock my socks off or anything. Anne Hathaway is darn cute, but she was an AWFUL host, and I just couldn't wrap my brain around the whole world watching it. In a dark moment, I might have muttered that it was just another sign of the decline of the empire, American, that is -- and when the two folks won Best Documentary for The Inside Job, which I'm sure is an excellent one, and they made their clever comment about how none of the bankers that masterminded the spectacular fall of Wall Street two years ago were in jail, yet, and everyone in the star-studded, powers-that-be audience tittered and clapped -- well, that made me squirm in my seat and feel embarrassed.

In fact, the highlight was seeing those cute kids from PS22 sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow because they, at least, still seemed pure and in love with entertainment.

And I still don't know whether it's all because I'm getting old or because I'm profoundly depressed, but I think it's a bit of both.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives #10

The King and EYE is hosting another fun linky -- Blog Gems -- where those who participate air out an older blog post, look for new readers, re-live something that they've posted of old and get a few new comments. This week's theme is anything Happy, Heart-warming or Funny -- something to warm our host's heart as she sits in the hospital with her little one. You can join the linky by going HERE.

And you can read my happy post HERE.