What I wrote, one year later

Come and look at this, Michael said. He was sitting, ludicrously, on the children's little, yellow stepstool and spoon-feeding Sophie her breakfast. The television was on. I stood three paces away from him, baby Oliver in my arms, and watched. My hands rose of their own accord to my mouth. Everything seemed still. The towers were tiny on the television, the smoke like a child's art project: black painted circles, blue sky. Peter Jenning's face was taut, his own anxiety held tight under his skin. I stood there on the black and white floor, still, for what seemed like hours. I didn't cry, then, only thought my city, my city.


I agonized over whether to put Sophie on her school bus. Would they come to Los Angeles, the planes? Shouldn't we all be together? When the bus pulled up, Dot, the bus-driver seemed oblivious to what was happening. Her large, dark face beamed at Sophie and she swung the doors open. I put Sophie on and watched the bus pull away, regretful. An hour later, I'd go after it, Henry and Oliver in tow, and take Sophie from school, apologetic.

Michael left work for his first day with Wolfgang Puck. It seemed silly, his anxiety, a new job.

Later, still transfixed, I saw the tower fall, even before Peter Jennings, who was looking at a different monitor. When he glanced up, I told him, Look, It's fallen. The tower has fallen.




** In her inimitable style, Ms. Moon wrote words that, for me, reflect perfectly my own feelings about this day. Go here, but only if you're prepared for the unorthodox.

Saturday Emily

In a Library 

A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

-- Emily Dickinson

And here's an interesting article to read that offers a glimmer of hope in its unorthodox thinking: Are Jobs Obsolete?

Dominion

I've been staring at this photo of Charles Darwin, thinking it one of the most incredible photos I've ever seen. Staring at it, I remember a thought I had a few weeks ago when I walked around the glorious woods and fields of Yosemite National Park, here in California. I was reminded of the Biblical verses below:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:26

I'm not so sure about that and at risk of sounding heretical, I'd venture to say that statement is a colossal joke.


Want to win a $100 gift card to Dick's sporting goods? Think of the hiking equipment you can buy for Yosemite!
More here.

Yes No

Sophie has been working with and playing with her iPad for nearly a year, now, and the going is rough and inconsistent, but there are times when it all bursts forth, when those neurons connect and don't spark or combust but rather hum with illumination. Yesterday was one of those days when Sophie got home from school and collapsed onto her bed, pulling her legs up under her Indian-style. Oliver lay across the foot of the bed with all his papers from his first day of school, chattering to me about what he did and what they were going to be doing. When he stopped talking for a moment I wondered aloud what Sophie's day might have been like and then got up to get her iPad to find out. Sometimes, when her aide remembers to, she'll record Sophie's "day" into the iPad so that Sophie can "tell" me. Yesterday, probably because of the chaos of the first day, she did not, so I went to the YES NO screen.

Basically, this is a screen with two boxes, one green and the other red, that say YES and NO. When you swipe or tap the YES, you hear yes, and when you swipe or tap the NO, you hear no.


Got it?


YES       NO


And can I tell you that we had a real conversation yesterday? It was a conversation that inspired Oliver to stop chattering, look over at us in utter amazement and yell, 


Sophie, you're on fire!


Here's a bit of it:


Me: Sophie, did you have a good day at school today?


Sophie: Yes

Me: Did you see your friends?

Sophie: Yes

Me: Was it hot today?

Sophie: Yes

Me: Is Henry in the room right now?

Sophie: No

This is when Oliver looked up.

Me: Is Oliver in the room right now?

Sophie: Yes

Me: Is Valentine a cat?

Sophie: No

Oliver is sitting up now, his eyes as round as saucers.

Me: Are you smart, Sophie?

Sophie: Yes 


Sophie, you're on fire!

It's long but everyone should read it

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

Thanks to Ms. Moon.

Strandbeests and Sophie

Last night I was reading an article in The New Yorker, an article like many of the articles in the magazine that somehow make me feel as if I should have known about this or that because this and that are so astounding and amazing. Other than the occasional snide and snarky first pages, The New Yorker makes me happy in that read with your nose buried in your book kind of way, and last night I opened it to Ian Frazier's The March of the Strandbeests. Frazier's first sentence is: If you're like many people, you know about Theo Jansen already.


Sigh.


I had never heard of Theo (pronounced Tayo) Jansen, nor had I viewed with more than 4 million others the videos of Mr. Jansen's creations nor had I even seen one of those creatures called Strandbeests.

Reader! Have you heard of Theo Jansen and his Strandbeests? If you have, why didn't you tell me about him and them? And if you haven't, you must.

Strandbeests are Theo Jansen's kinetic sculptures, and he aims to create an entire world of them. Made from miles and miles of PVC tubing, the finished animals are rather ungainly yet spectacularly beautiful. And when I watched one of the seemingly thousands of videos on Youtube, I was struck by their similarity to Sophie and to perhaps other disabled and broken people. Perhaps it was their habitat on the beach, their precise yet awkward gait, or the gentle prodding of Jansen when he set them up, but I imagined Sophie when she wanders down the sand, powerful and glorious.

Interesting words from a man whose words are usually over my head

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. "He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them," Eric Margolis writes. 'Bleeding the U.S.,' in his words." The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden’s trap... Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction... may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States” -- particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.


from Noam Chomsky's reflections on Osama Bin Laden and the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Was There An Alternative?

The Two Longest Days of the Year

1. The day before one gives birth to one's third child:

2. The day before school starts.


Help me, Rhonda.

Weird September

I've woken up literally every morning this summer, here in Los Angeles, and walked outside to the usual glorious weather -- sunny, clear skies, a bit of a cool breeze, temperatures near seventy degrees, no humidity. And every morning -- in fact, throughout the day, I've either remarked to someone or said in my head how utterly fantastic the weather is. How beautiful. How perfect. How grateful I am for it. How fortunate we are. This morning I opened the door and was greeted by a blast of humid heat. The skies were a bit gray, yellow, really, and the breeze was hot. And the air was weird -- both still and stifled and rippling through the palms. I felt uneasy, unsettled. Earthquake weather, is what the neighbor said, and I nodded as I leaned over and picked up our paper. Sophie had just had a seizure and was her post-ictal clammy self and despite the fact that she has seizures nearly every day, multiple times a day, I worried that it was indeed earthquake weather and that the strange barometric pressure or whatever you call it was affecting her, too.

I'm still unsettled. Anxious, looking up into the sky and down to the ground.

A brief summer wrap-up

 The Summer 2011 list is pretty much filled in -- with notable exceptions:

Note: That's "Prepare Dinner for Family" -- meaning, the kids prepare dinner for family.

Oliver's newly acquired trophy collection is artfully arranged in his room, at the foot of his bed:

Yesterday, in a pique of boredom, Oliver blew up the 6-foot tall palm tree and cleaned it thoroughly.

He then disappeared for what seemed like hours, and when I finally found him, this is what I saw:

My take from the Shut-Up envelope is $11.00. Since making more would have been counter-productive to the scheme's aim, I'm happy.

Happy Labor Day. I'm ready for school to start on Wednesday.

What I found on my camera when I downloaded some photos

Would you like to win a $100 gift card?
More.

Sunday church signage

To all my readers who hate politics, I apologize. I just couldn't resist.

Happy Sunday.

Far from the Madding Crowd

Moon through the window

Moon outside

 

At home by the fire, whenever I look up, there you will be. And whenever you look up, there I shall be. 

--Gabriel Oak

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Giveaway and Sports

Australian women's swimming team - 1919

In case you missed it, I'm riffing on sports and Gatorade as well as giving away a $100 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods.

All uncharacteristic, but you do what you gotta do. Look on it as kind of, sort of bailing me out of 24-hour childcare.

Go here, read about my boys and sports, win some sports stuff for your man, your boys, your girls or yourself. As for the significance of the photo above, there is none -- other than that I liked it and swimming was actually the only sport that I kind of sort of excelled at (excelled being a slight exaggeration).