Outward Gazing and Inward Gazing

Outward Gazing:

Whole lotta loving going on when it is Connor playdate. I put two pieces of candy, a banana, and a wet nap in his Thursday treat tin. He ignored the candy and banana and grabbed the wet nap and went into wet nap bliss -- I think. He wanted to clean the spot off the peeled banana, the dark shadow that was part of the picture in his picture book, his chin, hands, toys and me. When we went outside he told me I couldn't sit down until he ran upstairs for his sunglasses and retrieved his wet nap to clean the chairs. Oh, he is a fussy one.

I think I will take him another wet nap next week.

I've decided Connor is part meerkat -- the way his head goes up and swivels like it is on a hydraulic lift. I have seen this action before in other animals; baby birds in nests, rabbits in fields. It must be a survival instinct of the weak. Dogs will perk their ears while cats will scan with their eyes. Connor does keep an eye on the action.

Connor got upset with Brandy just like she was a sibling. He went to his daddy and complained, "Brandy barked at me."

It's hard to be a Granny when you can't make daddy behave. If I ask Connor a question, real or rhetorical, Roger answers.

Roger has a trailer hitch but no trailer yet.

I received my income tax and gave it to my car in appreciation of it's faithful service. New tires, master cylinder, tie-rods, and an alignment, now that baby ought to purr for a few more thousand miles.

Rain in Spring is better than rain in Winter. The pink rhododendrons are blooming.

Inward Gazing:

I read a story about a man who goes to construction sites and digs up the little trees that are getting ready to be bulldozed over and then replants them.

Where does that kind of inspiration come from? Is that up-lifting or inspiring? What is the difference? Is one action and one emotion?

What makes people passionate? What makes spirits soar and souls sing? Beauty, art, music, nature, skills, quotes, adventures? I asked Ian what he was inspired by and he said Mom. I asked Roger and he said artistic and athletic feats. I asked Christian and he said he doesn't get inspired.

For right now I'm going to go with anything that makes me think deeply, anything that changes me by the experience, anything that makes me feel renewed  -- I think I am back to Connor.

I finished the Tiger book, read The War of the Rats, had lunch with Claire and all my chores are done. The computer glitch I thought was my fault and it was keeping me off the blog was actually the blog renewing itself, upgrading, so now I am back on the blogging track.

Not exactly inspiring but very very comfortable. Back on track with my car, blog, computer, Connor and inward gazing.

Two Questions

Is fire chasing Jeff?
-- and --
Are tornado's chasing Cathy? Didn't one chase her to Branson? Didn't one go east of Dallas when she was in Tyler? Was Cathy in Norman today?

Just wondering.

One Perfect Day

After I received the advertisement, the urgent advertisement, warning me that being hard of hearing leads to dementia and Alzheimer's I figured I am doomed, so what the heck just enjoy the day.

Up early for a bit of Facebook time, computer time, making list time, and several cups of coffee.

A delicious leftover breakfast and when I say leftover, I mean leftovers of leftovers. The leftover roast from Easter Sunday's French dips became a savory Beef Pot Pie, which two days later became my delicious leftover breakfast.

The Sun came out with shirt sleeve weather, finally, and brilliant snow covered mountains and shimmering water. The absolute best of the Pacific Northwest showing some color at last.

Ian up early, well I had already had time to get up early, have a nap and get up again, but it was early for Ian.

Hair cuts -- mine was perfect cowlick and all, and Ian didn't complain about his.

Grocery shopping with a QFC run; meats and treats. My freezer was getting pretty bare and lucky me QFC was having a meat sale. I swear the chocolate cake was for Ian.

Library for a quick pick-up of waiting items.

Pharmacy for an early pick-up of meds -- and they were already done.

Lunch at Ivar's by the Ferry dock; perfect fish and chips, perfect french fries, perfect perfect clam chowder. More sunshine, mountains and water and Ian to make the food run and the trash run. Does it get any better? Well, yes it does.

I had Ian to haul in and put away all the groceries. Ian, does it get any better? Well, yes it does. He did the laundry and I didn't. I swear the chocolate cake was for him.

Movie time; The Descendants a wonderful, wonderful film.

A special delivery to my Little Chef Friend Amanda. I had promised her some fabric for the doll house she is making for her daughters, so instead of taking it to work for her to haul home on the bus, I did a drive by and gave her a bushel basket of fabric and the bushel basket. I included two Barbies from Ian's old collection with a shoe box of Barbie outfits. Jasmine and Snow White now have a new home and I have one square meter less stuff.

The playdate with The Connorman was a bit -- busy. I think he is still reeling from an Easter sugar high. He tried to lock me out on the patio, in a week or two I think he will be able to succeed. It's a good thing I have a secure access. I will be in real trouble when he can lock both the front and the back door. Or I won't go outside to smoke anymore.

The day care teacher said he hadn't got along with his fellow playmates at all until after his nap.

When I was fastening him in his car seat I nuzzled him and said I love you. He said you are too loud granny.

All afternoon he kept wanting things that I told him he would have to wait and ask his mommy about. Things like M & M's, chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, jelly beans, peeps, finally he heard the garage door open and ran to the back door, when Roger entered he threw himself down and said you aren't mommy. Yep a bit busy.

Roger and Stephanie were bubbling with good will and summer plans are shaping up. California in May, Colorado in July, a summertime cruise on the Fortener's boat sometime in between. They are going to forgo the Ragnar run this year to go to Stephanie's family reunion. They were going to go look at a camper so I came home a bit early.

Dinner at home was my QFC treat; a croissant and fresh tomato sandwich, perfect, perfect, perfect.

A first glimpse of a barely blooming rhododendron bush -- purple. A long chatty visit with Kathy. A bit of the Tiger book I'm reading. Some more Easter dinner left-overs -- fresh strawberries and pineapple, and no chocolate cake, I swear.

The only thing missing from my two son day was a Christian connection, but two out of three ain't bad. Besides, his left-over sparkle from Easter is still lingering. He talked, laughed, ate, entertained Connor, talked politics, work, movies, books, and music. He turned me onto some truly amazing music which I will now share with you.

Go to YouTube and watch Songs Around the World; Playing for Change especially Stand by Me and One Love they might bring a tear to your eye.

One perfect day. Life in the simple lane.

Lottery Fever and Mary's Facebook

I noticed something about lottery fever; it was interesting listening to people describe, in detail, what they would do with the money. A certain dream fever was unleashed. There was a smattering of cars, homes, travel, but generally the dreams were pretty modest. No one talked about climbing Everest or going to Hollywood and making a movie or paying for a medical education. Fascinating, but the most fascinating part was the lack of greed.

Folks were talking about what they would do for others; their parents, their kids, their friends. Everybody I talked to would give me some of their winnings. I guess that's why I never actually bought a ticket, I didn't need to, or I was just too lazy to go inside someplace and plunk down my dollar, or I no longer have dreams that lottery money can buy. I told one woman I wouldn't know what to do with millions of dollars and she answered she was perfectly willing to spend the rest of her life trying to figure that out.

All those unleashed dreams of good will has to fill the world with a little bit of afterglow. At least, it can't hurt.

Mary put on Facebook this quote from Daniel Dennett, an evolutionary biologist, and since I do believe in genetics -- passionately, I'm segueing from lottery to luck:

Freedom Evolves:

Every living thing is, from a cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky to be alive. Most, 90 percent and more, of all organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth, suffered that normal misfortune. You spring from an unbroken line of winners going back millions of generations, and those winners were in every generation, the luckiest of the lucky, one out of a thousand or even a million. So however unlucky you may be on occasion today. Your presence on the planet testifies to the roll luck has played in your past.

Thanks Mary.

Anyone remember Dory Previn's song The Empress of China? It's the same theory with a sadder ending, but then so was Dory.

I remember when Stephanie was so ready for a child and Roger was dragging his um... feet, so to speak. I told him Stephanie not only wants a child for herself, but also, it's hard to resist 26,000 years of biological drive. I wasn't smart enough then to think back to the dawn of life on Earth.

Our ancestors didn't get shot in the Sherwood Forest, didn't drown after a canoe tip over, didn't get eaten by a saber-tooth tiger, hanged by a Salem judge, nailed to a cross, lost at sea, freeze during a glacial age, or hit by a meteor.

Mom and dad were lusty, so I guess we come from a long line of lusty sons a bitches. Lucky us.

That of course hasn't protected us from broken bones. I don't know where this came from but my mind filled with all our broken bones. Everything from dad's back to James clavicles, to wrists, arms, legs, shoulders, ankles. Josephine broke everything from the pelvis down, but then that might occur if you step in front of a moving vehicle. For years we joked about how James seemed to take all the families broken bones like some kind of bone voodoo doll. We can't say that any more, so remind me of your broken bones. What have you broken? Anyone break a pinkie finger?

Somewhere in Tennessee a customer lives on Light Pink Road. How lucky am I to live in the same world with Light Pink Road? And Jane sent me some Vera Bradley jumbo binder clips just because. And Connor is coming over Easter, so I bought a chocolate bunny, got out some bunny books and stickers and am planning a balloon surprise if Christian cooperates. He mastered balloon creations a long time ago, just after he mastered juggling and before mastering skateboarding.

I read The Sibling Effect, pretty interesting, especially due to the fact that I am rich in siblings, but somehow I think it missed the heartbeat of siblings of our sort. It didn't address poverty much, or families with lots of siblings, and there was too much evidence to disprove what he had just given evidence for. Sometimes science sucks.

I also read A Visit from the Goon Squad for book club. I loved the Pulitzer Prize winning book, but where the jacket talked about Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption...blah, blah, blah, I just felt like it was people accepting their life. ...And there wasn't enough family in it. People go through life with family around, parents and siblings.

I haven't seen a great movie lately, any suggestions?

Final thought of the day: I saw a truck heading up I-5 with the company name of Nancy Baer. I asked myself, in the manly world of trucking how many times do you see a woman's name emblazoned on the side? And that made me wonder just how many women drivers are out there in this great big beautiful world?

We aren't so limited as folks, and the world is actually huge.

Happy Easter to all you lucky folks and thanks mom and dad.

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.