Amber, is now a good time, since Greenleaf, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year is over, and before tax time, unless of course, you are busy on executive end of year reports of some executive kind, to ask about the Twenty-Fifth anniversary t-shirt I wanted? Just wondering. I can wait until you aren't busy, silly me! I think I mentioned my original has turned into an indecent rag. Love you to Skittles and back.
And Roger, is now a good time to ask when your tax shop will be open for business? I have my w2. Love you to Skittles and back.
Movie: Instructions Not Included, Mexican, colorful, sweet, silly, shamelessly sentimental. Viewers liked it, critics did not, it's 56/93 on RottenTomates. A drama/comedy, it isn't a great movie but it gets a big fat honorable mention from me. I was moved.
Entertaining address: Rices Texas Hill Road in Oregon House, California. Great huh?
Quote o'the day: You have to live the life that there is to be lived."
Now on to football: How wide spread is football? Is it a disease, pastime, entertainment, sport?
I was with Janice and Art once as we walked around Seattle, yes that was back when Janice and I walked around, anyway, they were wearing Angel's jackets and everywhere we went people talked baseball to them. I remember being amazed at the variety and number of fans of the sport. It wasn't amazing to Janice and Art.
And now I am in the midst of football talk. Some kind of football heaven or hysteria? Man does Seattle have a lot to say; teenagers at Target, little old ladies in the smoking area, colleagues to numerous to count. One of my friends at that game was sitting next to a man who had a heart attack.
I had no idea how serious this obsession was even after watching Mom and family all these years, even knowing Mark Harris, even seeing Jennifer Taylor break a toy at reunion one year over a call. A bad or good call I can't remember, but it affected her deeply, deeply. I guess it was a bad call; good calls make you throw your hands in the air in exultation, bad calls make you slam your fists down in frustration. Where have I been all these years?
I had no idea Christian knew so much detail about football. I had no idea Christian couldn't sit down during a crucial game. Even though I had watched Mike Noland pace through some Rangers game at Greenleaf one year, I had no idea crucial games existed at this level until I watched my son's, and the girls, watch that championship game. Watching Christian absorb and translate and appreciate the technical strategies of the game amazed me.
People feel these events intimately, deeply, passionately.
Somehow this was a life lesson for me. A revelation of passion I swear I wasn't aware of before. Now I understand murder and religious ecstasy better.
How have I missed this all these years? Bach, ballet, horseshoes, poker, father's yelling at their kids on the playing field, al Qaeda, world soccer cup riots, Dr Salk, Dr Livingston, Byrd, Amundsen, need I go on.
Passion is a funny old horse, deeply engaging, fierce, devoted, personal. It only took the micro exposure of my family and several million fans in Washington to educate me. I have a firm grasp on life and death, on love and hate, on fear and peace, but this folks came as a surprise.
WOW! Where does it come from? Where is the seed from which it blooms? I'm lively, creative, lived a long time, so I don't know what surprises me more; the passion out there or my lack of awareness. It seems as though passion involves life, limb, mind, body, risk, reward. A human weakness or a human gift? Vicariously or not passion exists. Animal battles over water, food, land, over the field of action what ever it may be. I even understand my friend Lynn better also.
Passion drives: As Jeff once said, if it had been up to him there would be one giant city in the middle of the African Savannah. He would never have crossed the ice bridge.
God I love humans! And life. I have come close to passion with infants and vistas, everything else was something else.
And that brings us to the final conundrum;
My passion is okay -- yours isn't.
How human can we get?
Humans are weighed down by weighty matters.
There is a big football game coming up and I can tell you Seattle will be watching -- with passion.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Five
I'll get these over with first, right out front, immediately.
Seahawks:
Shake your head and slowly say, "Russell. Freaking. Wilson." Say it softly like a prayer. There I have done my bit for the Seahawks. It is the Seahawks? Right?
Connor:
Connor turned five. He told me he wasn't four anymore. I picked him up from school for our playdate and asked if he wanted to go to the Working Man's Store or a book store. He screeched, "I LOVE THE WORKING MANS STORE. It's hard to find, you will have to look for the sign that says Lowe's."
He was doubtful when I was going to buy him a real hammer. He held it reverentially and said, "I will have to ask mom and dad for permission. I'm going to ask them REAL NICE." He did get permission to keep the hammer and it only took 1 1/2 hours before he was banging the wall and it was taken away. That was a good 1 1/2 hours.
I'm still amazed at the blooming of vocabulary. He was using these words perfectly in sentences;
difficult as in difficult to choose,
exactly as in he didn't play with every toy exactly every night,
realized as in I realized the best kits were at the back of Lowe's.
Then there is the obsessive compulsive bit of Connor; when he retrieved his back pack at school all the other back packs fell askew. We couldn't leave, even to go to THE WORKING MANS STORE, until he had straightened, arranged, and aligned perfectly the remaining back packs. He might of inherited that from Lonnie and Roger, he didn't get it from me.
There was also the time we couldn't leave the library until after he performed a puppet show and then proceed to inform me the puppets were in a mess and straightened those as well. I was telling Stephanie about it and she sighed, "Why can't he do that at home?"
I sent Amber, via Facebook, a recommendation to read the book Born to Run. I will recommend to Mark the movie Vision From The Life Of Hildegard Von Bingen.
I will recommend to everyone the book One Summer; America 1927.
I will recommend to everyone the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
At the start of the New Year many people make changes, resolutions, clean out the old to make room for the new. Well, I was scratched from several Facebook friends list. I know I haven't changed, so they must have. I survived most. Thank you for allowing me to continue to be your Facebook friend. All those Facebook employees are still busy at work up on the 18th and 19th floors downtown. They look so serious and guilty out in the smoking area.
Change is in the air. Five of my book club members have changed homes.
Connor changed from four to five and is having a party this weekend. He told me he wasn't going to be six it is just his party day, not an actual birthday.
Jean is going to be seventy-five. Ask her about the cruise, it's going to happen.
I know a thing or two. I know about birthing babies, menopause, Mexican food, siblings, red dirt farms, downtown parking, the difference between being young and being old,
but
the rest of the world is a mystery to me. I know know nothing of missionaries, Slovakia, being royalty, being homeless, plucking a guitar, pushing heroin, DNA, Thomas Aquinas, Mayan tribes.
To quote Robert Lewis Stevenson, I think, "The world is full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." Except as I have already confessed, I don't know anything about being royal.
I re-read The Box-Car Children from the Gutenberg site on my new Nook. I'm sure that book more than any other started my life long love affair with reading.
I'm having a sons dinner this Sunday at Stephanie and Roger's so Bo and everyone else can watch some football game. I'm having the dinner, but it will be at their house, with their TV, with Stephanie doing the cooking, and Roger doing the clean up. I'm liking this.
One last Connor story. We were Lego building, naturally, and he was looking for some little pieces for his bomb blasters. I found several and said, "Here these should help protect your man."
He said, "Granny, My guy is a bad guy. These aren't for protection it's to kill people.
Change is in the air, Connor is growing up, I survived your Facebook cleanse.
Seahawks:
Shake your head and slowly say, "Russell. Freaking. Wilson." Say it softly like a prayer. There I have done my bit for the Seahawks. It is the Seahawks? Right?
Connor:
Connor turned five. He told me he wasn't four anymore. I picked him up from school for our playdate and asked if he wanted to go to the Working Man's Store or a book store. He screeched, "I LOVE THE WORKING MANS STORE. It's hard to find, you will have to look for the sign that says Lowe's."
He was doubtful when I was going to buy him a real hammer. He held it reverentially and said, "I will have to ask mom and dad for permission. I'm going to ask them REAL NICE." He did get permission to keep the hammer and it only took 1 1/2 hours before he was banging the wall and it was taken away. That was a good 1 1/2 hours.
I'm still amazed at the blooming of vocabulary. He was using these words perfectly in sentences;
difficult as in difficult to choose,
exactly as in he didn't play with every toy exactly every night,
realized as in I realized the best kits were at the back of Lowe's.
Then there is the obsessive compulsive bit of Connor; when he retrieved his back pack at school all the other back packs fell askew. We couldn't leave, even to go to THE WORKING MANS STORE, until he had straightened, arranged, and aligned perfectly the remaining back packs. He might of inherited that from Lonnie and Roger, he didn't get it from me.
There was also the time we couldn't leave the library until after he performed a puppet show and then proceed to inform me the puppets were in a mess and straightened those as well. I was telling Stephanie about it and she sighed, "Why can't he do that at home?"
I sent Amber, via Facebook, a recommendation to read the book Born to Run. I will recommend to Mark the movie Vision From The Life Of Hildegard Von Bingen.
I will recommend to everyone the book One Summer; America 1927.
I will recommend to everyone the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
At the start of the New Year many people make changes, resolutions, clean out the old to make room for the new. Well, I was scratched from several Facebook friends list. I know I haven't changed, so they must have. I survived most. Thank you for allowing me to continue to be your Facebook friend. All those Facebook employees are still busy at work up on the 18th and 19th floors downtown. They look so serious and guilty out in the smoking area.
Change is in the air. Five of my book club members have changed homes.
Connor changed from four to five and is having a party this weekend. He told me he wasn't going to be six it is just his party day, not an actual birthday.
Jean is going to be seventy-five. Ask her about the cruise, it's going to happen.
I know a thing or two. I know about birthing babies, menopause, Mexican food, siblings, red dirt farms, downtown parking, the difference between being young and being old,
but
the rest of the world is a mystery to me. I know know nothing of missionaries, Slovakia, being royalty, being homeless, plucking a guitar, pushing heroin, DNA, Thomas Aquinas, Mayan tribes.
To quote Robert Lewis Stevenson, I think, "The world is full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." Except as I have already confessed, I don't know anything about being royal.
I re-read The Box-Car Children from the Gutenberg site on my new Nook. I'm sure that book more than any other started my life long love affair with reading.
I'm having a sons dinner this Sunday at Stephanie and Roger's so Bo and everyone else can watch some football game. I'm having the dinner, but it will be at their house, with their TV, with Stephanie doing the cooking, and Roger doing the clean up. I'm liking this.
One last Connor story. We were Lego building, naturally, and he was looking for some little pieces for his bomb blasters. I found several and said, "Here these should help protect your man."
He said, "Granny, My guy is a bad guy. These aren't for protection it's to kill people.
Change is in the air, Connor is growing up, I survived your Facebook cleanse.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
I'm Alive
As I sit here, early on this Quiet New Years morning, I'm alive and that's good enough for me. So, 2014 come on in, I can take what ever you have to bring.
Nothing much happened in 2013, it wasn't a stellar year, I didn't get invited to the Oscars by George Clooney, nor was there a disaster, well there was the opossum saga, but you can't quite call that a disaster. I didn't need a stick, cane, walker, wheel chair, surgery, brace, bandage, doctor or emergency room. All good. No rage, broken heart, broken bone, loss of home, job, or child. All good.
I was wondering, as I pondered the new year coming, that if this were my final hour, my final year, if I was suddenly at world's end or if instead of world's end it was Jan's end, am I content with the now? Mike Noland asked on Facebook; Have you found joy in your life? Has your life brought joy to others? Wonderful pondering and then gentle pride in being able to answer, "mostly yes." Years ago I learned a life lesson that the way to make the world a better place is to make yourself a better person.
A gentle now, a gentle contentment, a gentle pride. No passionate yearnings. No mountain I need to go climb. No path I have to explore. No intense self discovery. No book, movie, trip that reading, seeing, or doing makes me ache with desire. Gentle regrets? Of course, a few.
My friend Lynn asked on her Facebook post as she pondered the successful completion of a years long resolution to walk a park every day; Where do your energies want to go? I meditated on this question and the answer was easy; creative. I want my energies to go to more creative endeavors. Hmm, It seems like this was part of last years New Year ponderings. Hmm, it seems Lynn was way more successful at achieving than I was.
So, the Year of the Horse has me turning back to creativity -- again. Obama can take care of Obamacare. Pope Francis can take care of the Catholic church. The Dali Lama can take care of the Buddhists. The Weinstein brothers and George Clooney can take care of Hollywood. Dan Gerler can take care of Online Shoes. Julia can take care of sitting on a pyramid. Roger and Stephanie can take care of Connor. Ian and Christian can take care of themselves. Someone else can take care of the state of the highways, toll roads, prisons, and cooking shows. God can take care of the weather, natural disasters, The Duck Dynasty, and all the other odds and ends of strife. There, since that's all covered that leaves me room to read, watch movies, play and get in touch with my creative side. Here is a question for you; How can I make dusting fall into the category of being more creative? After all I might have company this year and I will be hosting the 15th anniversary of Book Club. According to Hallmark the year of crystal, Hallmark takes care of that.
When asked at work yesterday what my New Years plans were I said, a good book, a good movie and good take-out. That worked for me. Getting in touch with the weeness of my life has worked for me. Getting in touch with the rhythm of my life has worked for me. Small beats of work, dinner, baths, Connor, friends, family, books, movies has added up to a great deal of joy. Joy for myself that hasn't harmed others or myself.
I didn't want to get Connor a toy for Christmas, so I made him a calendar of experiences; working man's store, Legos store, visit Christian's shop, paint a t-shirt, ride something. Months of root beer floats, book club, balloons or some other wee adventure. Now, that is some gentle joy. Happiness does come in small packages I guess, until grandsons become Taylor's size.
Instead of signing off with Happy New Year, I'd rather say have a comforting New Year.
Nothing much happened in 2013, it wasn't a stellar year, I didn't get invited to the Oscars by George Clooney, nor was there a disaster, well there was the opossum saga, but you can't quite call that a disaster. I didn't need a stick, cane, walker, wheel chair, surgery, brace, bandage, doctor or emergency room. All good. No rage, broken heart, broken bone, loss of home, job, or child. All good.
I was wondering, as I pondered the new year coming, that if this were my final hour, my final year, if I was suddenly at world's end or if instead of world's end it was Jan's end, am I content with the now? Mike Noland asked on Facebook; Have you found joy in your life? Has your life brought joy to others? Wonderful pondering and then gentle pride in being able to answer, "mostly yes." Years ago I learned a life lesson that the way to make the world a better place is to make yourself a better person.
A gentle now, a gentle contentment, a gentle pride. No passionate yearnings. No mountain I need to go climb. No path I have to explore. No intense self discovery. No book, movie, trip that reading, seeing, or doing makes me ache with desire. Gentle regrets? Of course, a few.
My friend Lynn asked on her Facebook post as she pondered the successful completion of a years long resolution to walk a park every day; Where do your energies want to go? I meditated on this question and the answer was easy; creative. I want my energies to go to more creative endeavors. Hmm, It seems like this was part of last years New Year ponderings. Hmm, it seems Lynn was way more successful at achieving than I was.
So, the Year of the Horse has me turning back to creativity -- again. Obama can take care of Obamacare. Pope Francis can take care of the Catholic church. The Dali Lama can take care of the Buddhists. The Weinstein brothers and George Clooney can take care of Hollywood. Dan Gerler can take care of Online Shoes. Julia can take care of sitting on a pyramid. Roger and Stephanie can take care of Connor. Ian and Christian can take care of themselves. Someone else can take care of the state of the highways, toll roads, prisons, and cooking shows. God can take care of the weather, natural disasters, The Duck Dynasty, and all the other odds and ends of strife. There, since that's all covered that leaves me room to read, watch movies, play and get in touch with my creative side. Here is a question for you; How can I make dusting fall into the category of being more creative? After all I might have company this year and I will be hosting the 15th anniversary of Book Club. According to Hallmark the year of crystal, Hallmark takes care of that.
When asked at work yesterday what my New Years plans were I said, a good book, a good movie and good take-out. That worked for me. Getting in touch with the weeness of my life has worked for me. Getting in touch with the rhythm of my life has worked for me. Small beats of work, dinner, baths, Connor, friends, family, books, movies has added up to a great deal of joy. Joy for myself that hasn't harmed others or myself.
I didn't want to get Connor a toy for Christmas, so I made him a calendar of experiences; working man's store, Legos store, visit Christian's shop, paint a t-shirt, ride something. Months of root beer floats, book club, balloons or some other wee adventure. Now, that is some gentle joy. Happiness does come in small packages I guess, until grandsons become Taylor's size.
Instead of signing off with Happy New Year, I'd rather say have a comforting New Year.
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