Three Year Old Disdian

Nothing beats the disdain of a three year old:

Connor got hold of my cell phone. He turned it over and studied it and looked at it and punched a few buttons. It didn't make a sound. He studied it some more, no pictures or games popped up. He found absolutely zero entertainment. I guess he decided it was a pretty worthless phone because it was discarded with disdain. You know how low you have sunk on the technological scale when your three year old grandson is disgusted with it.

Maybe it was paybacks;

I took him to Red Robin and forgot to get him a balloon as we were leaving. What kind of granny would forget to get a balloon? Of course we did go back inside and make an emergency search for his wetnap that he had somehow dropped on the way out. The wetnap he had folded and unfolded and tucked back inside the envelope only to take it out and unfold it again, oh I don't know, maybe about 17 times.

I scored on the wetnap search.

Then we arrived home and his daddy promptly took the trash and threw it away.

I also lost a few granny points when I took him a whistle, the long and skinny kind. How could I have forgotten to tell him not to run with it? Well, I remembered after he stumbled and cut his chin.

As long as I am confessing, I will also confess to getting Connor a discounted toy for his birthday, a really really good discount. That is now the toy that is hidden in the spare bedroom because it scares him. He was showing Ian some of the other toys in the spare bedroom when Ian accidentally made the Big Foot Monster growl and roll over. Connor backed into the safety of his granny faster than I could say boo. I guess granny's are good for safety and security, even me.

I have a learning curve I will figure this granny stuff out.

Coffee:

Did you know coffee is the second most traded commodity on Earth?
70% if the world drinks Arabica coffee, which is mild and aromatic.
The remaining 30% drinks Robusta,
which is more bitter tasting but has 50% more caffeine.
Originally coffee was eaten.
African tribes mixed coffee with berries and fat
which formed edible energy balls.
68% of coffee drinkers have their first cup within an hour of getting up.
35% drink it black.
Guess where the coffee capital in America is?
Like this is hard.
Seattle with 35 coffee shops per 100,000 citizens.

Movies:

My Week With Marilyn -- very good.
Moneyball -- very good.
Exit Through the Gift Shop -- very good -- if you like documentaries about punkish street graffiti artists. Part of the film was the question is it really art. Ian asked me if I thought it was really art. I said I'm the one who has a smashed crumpled smoke stained trombone and two dead leaves that are 15 years old hanging on my wall, of course I think it is art.

Songs:

I went to a local church concert with my friend Mary; small, intimate, loving, and full of joy, everything from African chants to opera. I heard two songs and thought of Julia. Being as out of touch with music as I am with technology, I imagine everyone has probably heard them but me.

Sing by Wynnoa Judd and Music In My Mother's House written by Holly Lear.

Asbestos:

Thinking of Jeffery and doing a little Wikipedia search.
Asbestos has been used for 4,000 years.
Mining peaked in 1975.
The world's largest asbestos mine was the Jeffrey mine in Asbestos, Quebec. How is that for irony? I read a bit about using it for filtering fine particles out of wine and kids crayola's and litigation and illness and disease and how long it has been known to be a carcinogenic and how wide spread it is and how the US was late in admitting its potential harmfulness that eventually I gave up and went back to more cheerful subjects like global warming and the US debt.

Wikipedia:

Considered to be the most accurate encyclopedia due to all that technology I know nothing about.

May your day be asbestos free and full of cheerful subjects like grandsons, love, Trader Joes chocolate truffles, Easter, good tires...

...and what ever you do, don't spray paint any cars. It might not be art. It might be illegal.

A Little Sunshine A Little Reading A little Family and Friends

It is amazing what a little sunshine can do to feelings of gallumpyness: a ride to Anacortes, some time with Lynn, a bran muffin, a visit from Carol as she did another look/see on my new computer not spellchecking. Like I can live without spellcheck.

The Treat Fairy left a sweet potato scone at my car and it was waiting for me after I left work and toddled to the parking lot oblivious to all the downtown bustle. That was a lovely surprise after a rough day. Lynn arrives downtown at 2:30 pm and I get off at 3:30. I loved her faith in humanity and the weather. No one stole the scone tucked in a Whole Foods papersack positioned under my wiperblade and the rain held off.

And all of our wet slushy spring snow finally seems to be over, for a week or so I had some close encounters with snow almost every day. Now it's redbuds and forsythia with a bulb or two opening here and there. My living room window is open at last. Winter is over, Spring is delightful. And welcome. I have lived another season.

I wrote on the blog not to long ago: "My life is what it is for reasons not remembered." Trying to say, in my inarticulate manner, that my life is, has been, and will be okay. Then Lynn posted on her blog a beautiful Rilke poem with a similar sentiment. Aren't we lucky to live in a world of words.

Remembering

And you wait. You wait for the one thing
that will change your life,
make it more than it is --
something wonderful, exceptional,
stones awaking, depths opening to you.

In the dusty bookstalls
old books glimmer gold and brown.
You think of lands you journeyed through,
of paintings and a dress once worn
by a woman you never found again.

And suddenly you know: that was enough.
You rise and there appears before you
in all its longings and hesitations
the shape of what you lived.

Bless the crazy man, he wasn't so inarticulate...

I had a customer who lives on Son-In-Law road somewhere in Florida. Me thinks there is a story there.

I overheard a snippet of conversation "...and that is what the shotgun is for." I will continue to wonder about that one, snippets of conversation can be puzzling.

There is more to life than increasing its speed. Mahatma Gandhi
Some of the greater things in life are unseen; that's why you close your eyes when you kiss, cry, or dream. No credit given

Stephanie went to California for training, Portland for her spa weekend, Roger is in Atlanta as I write, Christian and Ian both had use-it or loose-it time off. Ian has returned to "floating" for Something Silver; one day at Bellevue, one day downtown, and three days at University Village. I have had breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, drives, visits, book club, and playdates with a lot of the folks. People who are important in my life. And found a little time to work.

I need a hair cut, a pedicure, and an oil change -- I need to pick up some books from the library. I have The Hunger Games and A Visit From the Goon Squad waiting for me. Book club books. Plus my never ending stack of books waiting to be read. The fourth book of The Game of Thrones and the Steve Jobs biography. Roger gave me The Tiger: a true story of vengeance and survival and Born to Run -- surprise, Stephanie gave me Snow Flower and The Secret Fan, Christian keeps me supplied with fantasy, Ian keeps me supplied with pop culture.

Seems pretty balanced to me.

Much of that afore mentioned life of mine has been spent reading; now why wasn't I born smart or funny or talented or tall or a great cook or a race car driver. Somebody has some s'plaining to do.

And lastly from Mother Teresa; "Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

Okay, I can do that.

Feeling Gallumpy

I was feeling down in the dumps, gallumpy. My tooth hurts. I forgot to sign my income tax return. My finances are a little flappy right now. More snow on the horizon. Feeling sorry for myself. Feeling my age.

So, I read a little Nietzsche and found this quote. "Aware of life's terror, affirm life without resentment." That reminded me of another quote I've had hanging around for years and I dug it out, no credit listed. "She had the sophistication aquired by the deeper and more difficult knowledge of how to walk in beauty, content in a difficult world."

Nietzche again: "Become what you are."

I went outside my office building and saw redbud trees all blooming pink and pretty. An acre of tulips and daffodils had been planted around the building. My computer from Jean, Jerry and Terry is zip-bang delicious. My friend Carol set it up for me just because she likes me. I made Janice's superb New Year's Fried Rice. Raymond, from the first grade, keeps sending me musical interludes. Connor is thriving, last Thursday he told me "no" all evening long, a perfect sign of thriving, and missing his mother.

I turned to the magical moments in my life: It's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy is five of them. Maxine's wake will always linger and haunt as one of the most beautiful experiences I've had, the deep sincere outpouring of support and tradition. Listening.

Silence. The silence of wheat fields or mountain tops. The roar of the ocean. A chugging ferry ride. Long lasting gratitude for gifts and blessings. Family visits.

By the way, what is the family doing these days? Surviving, loving, driving, at work, at school, at chuch, at play? Growing, changing, pondering, wondering, being curious about life, times, music, politics, gardens?

If you want a little pink entertainment go to Onlineshoes and search fuschia, there is lots of pink sparkly shiny entertainment there. And I drove home next to a shiny black Lotus today, it made me unreasonably happy.

Me thinks I will drink a little love potion and continue to live.