~:: A Whole Lot of Nothing ::~

Posted on February 24, 2012 by K

Here is a post with no moral compass, no philosophy or political opining, no responsible reason for existence.  It’s just about me.  Me, me, me.

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The Scoots, finally having earned one of Donna’s Buckwheat Days sugar bears.

G has taken Chaz out on a date—dinner and the new Studio Ghibli movie.  This is a big deal. G hates anime. But Chaz loves it. The father has dumped his wife in order to spend an evening with a darling daughter, doing something she will love—all completely his idea.  The wife? Facing the evening alone (he’s had church or work every evening this week – so it’s been many evenings) with determination to indulge herself nigh unto death. And so has she done.

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My Valentine’s morning greeting.  You can’t read the candy hearts – they’re private.

Today was a kind of good day.  I finished the image correction of my 397th (and last) page of my project just yesterday. Then I had to wrestle with Photoshop, unraveling the arcane Batch Automation function – which I finally did this morning, turning the big computer loose to resize, apply a black border, and save the .psds as .pngs all by itself.  The process, even for the computer, took two hours.  But I didn’t have to do a thing. Very satisfying. And I wrote a letter I’d been meaning since October to write, and paid my irrigation dues and even finished up the discussion questions for the back pages of the up-coming publication of Breaking Rank. And cleaned out the dishwasher.  And filled it again.

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But it was tonight I meant to write about.

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The first of a long line of next Christmas’ camels.

I had planned my evening out, this date with myself—thought it over for days —and when I woke this morning, I knew what I wanted more than anything: the best Philly Steak sandwich in this little western town; this morning, I researched it thoroughly.  And a piece of French Silk pie, easily collected along with a triple-berry bribe I lovingly bought for my friends who will bring me hay this July.  But the piece of pie was smaller than I’d imagined it, so I stopped at the Great Harvest bakery down from the sandwich place to buy a giant oatmeal/chocolate chip cookie (which so reminds me of my mother) and managed to collect a buttered sample slice of exotic wheat bread and one of an even more esoteric peach bread as well.

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My sad attempt at Fuzzy Mitten’s Pookie pattern.

Then I went through every movie we own, sifted through Netflix and on-demand and Amazon prime, looking for a movie that would charm me, carry me away, make me feel something special – and came up with what I must now admit is probably my favorite (and most often watched) movie in the world: You’ve Got Mail. It was the only one that spoke to the evening.

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This is one of the first toy patterns I collected – two years ago? Joey’s house.

Now I am fat and sassy.  The sandwich was still warm by the time I got to unwrap it.  The pie, smooth as it purported itself to be.  The cookie is yet uneaten (is enough really enough?).  The movie, touching and sweet and dear.  The evening is growing toward dark, and the house is quiet, except for the dog who is sneaking around upstairs, not knowing I can hear the boards creak under his feet.

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I am deciding about the cookie.  Debauchery. Wildness. A madness of unbridled carbs.  So unlike me.

I am smiling.

This is what the children mean when they say, “I can’t wait till I grow up and I can do anything I want.”

Finally.

Posted in Fun Stuff, Just life, Just talk | Tagged , , , | 30 Comments

:: Valentines <3

Posted on February 14, 2012 by K

heart with thanks

I mean it.

Posted in Family, friends | Tagged | 23 Comments

~:: Vanishing Point ::~

Posted on February 12, 2012 by K

A coupla things I’ve learned, pretty much too late:

1.  Mostly about film  photography: if something is worth shooting, it’s also worth the little extra cost and trouble that goes into finding a good lab to do the processing. Things being what they were, I used the cheapest, most convenient places—and now, as I go back through my kids’ childhood, I see the cost of that: fading, color shifts, the loss of detail. I can work around much of it, but not all, and every photo I took because I loved the face and the moment – partially lost to me now because the lab used exhausted chemicals or the wrong mix, or because a machine made the decisions in the printing – is a small grief to my heart. Do it right while you have the chance.

2. I am a genealogist and family historian.  Also a daughter. I don’t have a degree in these things, just thousands of hours in the practice of them. Though I’m pretty sure I didn’t practice being a daughter any better than I practiced piano. Here is one thing I’ve learned: there is a day when it simply becomes too late.

You have questions; whether it’s about your great-great-great grands or your own childhood, questions are inside of you. For a million reasons, we tend to shove them on the back burner—sometimes, maybe, because the asking would be too emotional.

Andrew J and Mahalia Ann

Andrew Jackson Sneed and Mahalia Ann Smith Sneed

Then, one day, your mother doesn’t recognize you anymore. That’s when  those questions float to the surface with a vengeance.  On that day, you will sit three feet away from her, looking right into her face, and know that you are now stuck with questions that there will be no answers for.  The easy ones (Mom, how did you feel when?  Mom – why did you move around so much?  Or where did you go to school? Or tell me again that story about – because I forgot to write it down and I loved it and I can’t remember the details.)

Years ago (read: the normal state of a genealogist), there was a knot in my genealogy I could not get by.  It was that knot that drove me to read through the entire body of equity records for Abbeville, South Carolina over a five year period, taking notes on EVERYthing. And I learned a lot during that time.  Made a lot of friends (albeit long dead ones and some – new cousins and fellow researchers – still alive). Learned not to sue over ridiculous things that, two hundred years later, some smart-aleck researcher would be bound to roll her eyes over, reading about it.

Then (very long and complicated story made short), I found Era.  Era Morgan Davis.  She was just about ninety years old when I found her, living in Pickens County, South Carolina. A girl of great spunk and charm. She’d married a Davis and had spent years running around the county interviewing every Davis person she could find, pumping them for their memories and names of relatives. (I can picture her sitting on a person’s porch in the heat of the summer, a light cotton dress, maybe an iced tea on the table in front of her, delicately fanning herself with an index card.)

She was the one who undid the knot for me.  After twenty five years of fruitless search, one conversation with her and I had my answer.  We have been friends ever since. Last we wrote (email), she was living alone, her husband – a first world war vet – dead these last five years, on the family farm.  Every day, she walked the woods at the foot of the farm and sat at the computer, answering genealogical questions.  We made each other laugh. She forwarded me a funny thing right at the end of September.

Just at Christmas, I realized that I hadn’t written her for a while.  Sent her a note. And only two days ago realized I hadn’t heard back.  So I wrote again, day before yesterday. But as I sent it, I felt odd. So I googled her name. I attached the word “obituary” just in case.  Three Era Davis bits came up – I mean three different people. All born in the same decade – 1911-21. All in the south.  All three had obituaries.

She had died just twelve days after that last thing she’d sent me.  But this is not a sad story. The day she checked out, she had been on the computer, answering people’s questions.  And I imagine, that glorious September morning, she’d walked the woods. She was flipping ninety-seven years old by then.  That makes her sound like an old lady, doesn’t it?  But she would have make one heck of a best friend, that one, whatever age she was.  And, to be sure, she lived till she died.

But it’s sad for me.  If I’d only known (yeah – she’s ninety seven, what else did I need to know?), I’m sure there were tons of questions I should have asked.  I should have flown there, visited, hugged her, looked at all her research, walked the woods with her myself.  It is just so weird to have lost her.  The emails didn’t even come back.  They just shot off into the ether – seen by – ????

So that’s what I learned: the connections we human beings have are amazing.  The meaning we can have in each other’s lives – even if we’ve never met face to face – is nothing short of miraculous.  A joy, a gift, a blinking surprise worth celebration.  Not to be taken for granted.

So thank you, I say.  To my beloved family, and friends known both in person and in only written presence: thank you.  You are the salt on my avocado. The melted cheese on my – anything.  The light of my eyes.  The joy of my days.  I’m just sayin’ –

While I still can.

(I was going to try to find a picture of Era somewhere – but there aren’t any on line.  Evidently, she didn’t do facebook ((meant to be wry)). But her name is plastered all over thousands of people’s genealogical records as a source.  So now I’m thinking, if somebody wanted to see the shape my life took, what would they find?)

K4GenNana1980sm

Four gens of womens – my womens.  Including me.  And Gin, as a dumpling. I am now the oldest mind of this family. Kind of a shocker.
Posted in A little history, Family, friends | 39 Comments

~:: Oh, Drat and Phooey ::~

Posted on February 11, 2012 by K

Last week, I was going to try to sit down and write a blog apologizing for long silence.  It struck me then that I wasn’t alone; there weren’t a lot of my near-and-dear penning cheery notes for the rest of us.  But I didn’t write it then, and now everybody else has written, and I still haven’t.  I’m afraid the only reason why I am able to write now is the miserable, niggling cold (read: a miswabl cohwd) I’ve caught.  It came from G.  Who got it from Andy and Scooter. Who evidently got it from Cam.  Or he got it from one of them and then—well, okay.  Whatever.  I’ve got it.

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Still no new pictures.  Still the old ones – from greener, warmer times.  Hope I’m not repeating myself.

The truth is, I still have been doing nothing but InDesign and photobooks.  I get up in the morning, do the usual routine, sit down to do the projects, look up at the clock in surprise and then go to bed.  No, not true.  Don’t tell the more virtuous among you, but I (blown out with learning and making tiny aesthetic decisions all day) watch some TV at night, knitting small things very slowly.  Then I go to bed.  And maybe I sleep.  Or maybe I simply lie there going back through my past life, or anticipating the future, identifying all global problems and trying to solve them.

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Which doesn’t leave much room for writing.  The last couple of weeks, also, I’ve been reading (as I have probably said more times than anyone on the planet needs to hear) Breaking Rank and editing it and setting it up for ebook.  Which is nearly finished.  I just have to make up some very intellectual discussion questions to stick at the end, since that seems to be de rigueur these days if you want book clubs and teachers to buy your book.  Which they won’t anyway, because they don’t buy ebooks.  I know this from experience.

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And I am still taking no pictures.  Though I tried to this week.  Really, I did.

I even have a hastily (if I were British, that would be AN hastily) scribbled down list of the rare flashes of philosophy that have erupted from under the rest of this.  I had to write them down or they’d be swallowed in Photoshop concerns and novel edits.  They prove that I’m still able to think.  I think about quite often—all  kinds of things.  I will admit that I’m avoiding politics.  Except for this very funny clip which Chaz sent me – which is only about politics because of this stupid election.

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I will tell you this short but stupid story: last week, I decided it was the better part of valor to reconcile all my accounts—home, biz, etc.  Since I hadn’t for weeks.  And it’s good I did: first, I found that they had charged my account twice for the same check. I have to explain here that when I buy checks (in the echoing past, the last time), I don’t start over with the  numbering and haven’t for decades, which means that my check numbers are up into the 45000 range.  I am old, remember.  The credit union, however, only uses the last four digits, usually, to identify my checks. The first check was simple—last four digits, and you could click on the and up comes a nice image of the check.  Perfect.

But the second one, in the line right after the first one, had FIVE digits.  And no image would come up.  So I called them.  Understand that this credit union has been guarding my money since about 1976 and I’ve had no reason to complain, so all this stuff is really unusual.  I talked to the phone teller, explained the situation—then off he went to research the situation, leaving me on hold for about twenty minutes.

The explanation: it seems that a check came in at the same time as mine—from somebody else’s account—that had almost the exact same check numbers (plus one) as my check.  It also happen to have been written for EXACTLY the same amount of money and had a routing number that was EXACTLY the same as my account except for one digit, which had evidently been partially scraped off.  So that it looked like EXACTLY the same number in the same position on my checks.  So they figured I had written two identical checks, and that I had capriciously found some total stranger to sign the dang thing (not to mention the printed name and address in the upper left-hand corner.

So he fixed that.

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Gin took this, which is why it looks so good.

I hung up.

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Then I found another mistake: you know how, if you pay your Visa total in full for a month before the 25th or so of the next month, they don’t charge you interest?  Yeah, well I always do that.  I never pay interest (unless I get a terrible cold that makes me really stupid, and I forget what day it is, which happens whether I have a cold or not.  But suddenly—here they were, charging me interest on my Visa.  And I was pretty darned sure I had paid it off as per above.  Unless I’m finally getting Alzheimer’s.  The thought of which freaked me out a little.

So I went back through my account for three months, and sure enough, I’d paid it the way I’ve been paying it for more years than most of their tellers have been alive.  So?  Why were they charging me?

Another call.

I was hoping to get the same nice guy.  But I didn’t.  I got some girl.  They use students a lot, which observation is really not apropos of anything.  But this girl; some people have lovely phone personalities.  Some—do not.  She sounded like a traffic cop.  Ma’am.

I usually try to get a customer service person laughing early on.  I like it when this kind of call feels at least a little like two humans talking to each other.  But she was a tough house.  I explained the whole situation to her carefully: charges, paid off the end of the month amount WAY before the deadline.

“Ma’am,” she said.  “Did you check the balance on your statement?”

I explained that I do not get statements.  I bank on-line.

“You have to use your statement,” she said.  “You can’t just use the computer balance.”

I explained that for DECADES I have called up my transactions, located the balance on the last day of the month, paid it and lived a happy life.

“You can’t do that, ma’am.  You need to check your statement.  Just find e-statements in your personal branch menu and pay the amount indicated.”

“But I CAN use the computer ledger.  Because I HAVE used the computer ledger without one single problem – for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but you do need to check your statement.”

And then I requested, very civilly (for which I get many, many points), that I might be transferred to someone who might understand better what I was talking about.

“I understand perfectly what you are talking about,” she said stiffly.  “But I am willing to transfer you to a supervisor.”  Her tone at this point suggested that I was about to be sent to the principle’s office.  And it almost worked on me.  But I sat up straight in my special leaning-forward computer chair and said, “Transfer away, please!”

Thankfully, the very helpful and charming Lindsey, someone who has evidently worked at the credit union for more than two weeks, figured it out. This one also took twenty minutes.  And what had happened?  Well, it turns out that the cut-off for “received” charges on any given day are figured differently by the Visa company and the credit union by about one hour.  If a charge comes in at four thirty, the credit union records it as coming in the next day, but Visa records it as coming in that very day.  The ledger on line reports the credit union date.  But the Visa balance will include any charges than sneak in under the wire.

“But this is a rare problem,” she said.  “In my seven years here, I’ve only seen this happen three or four times.”

Of course, it would be me.

She fixed it.  And I am left thinking that it probably happens a lot more than she thinks – not that many people are OCD enough to be jumping on their end of month balance the way I do.

Still.

Why is it that when the rare and amazing things happen to me, they don’t have anything to do with me being picked to win a million dollars or having perfect teeth or that rare metabolism that lets you live on chocolate with no discernable down-side?

Anyway, I’d had a lot of stuff to do that day.  Yep.  Didn’t get it done.

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Another Gin one.

So.  Long story with no point.  A lot of whining.

2011-10-08GinChristmasPicFam11-1See?  They do hold still for me.

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But you knew it wouldn’t last, didn’t you?

Excuse me now—I’ve gotta go open another box of Puffs.

Posted in dumb stuff, Just talk, whining | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

~:: Anatomy of a Family Portrait ::~

Posted on January 30, 2012 by K

When you start out as a family, a couple of grown-ups and maybe a baby, the concept of  the “family portrait” is a pretty tame thing. You say, “Ready?  SMILE!” and everybody does.  They look right at the camera and smile. And you? You smile too, thinking this is reality.  It’s not for years that the truth sets in. Two years if that baby in the first picture was your first. It all goes downhill from there.

Every year I have done a family portrait to send out with the Christmas cards, usually shot in autumn.  A couple of years ago I made 8x10s of all those Christmas shots so I could hang them on the wall, a sort of wall-hung flip-book of our lives.  You start at one end and see the wedding kiss, you come to the other end and see the wedding of our oldest daughter. That’s when I ran out of wall.

I have learned.  Oh, I have learned what a  – quest – it is, the good shot—the one in which every person’s face is visible and no one is doing something embarrassing. It can be done.  But it helps if there are credible threats involved, or cardboard stand-up substitutes for the actual children.  Then the kids move away, which makes things infinitely worse; after that, you have to wait until they all happen to drop into town at the same time, and then try to coordinate everybody’s schedules, or (see the above point about cardboard standups).

Then the grandkids come along.

Have you ever tried to put puppies in a box and keep them there?

It was in September this year that I began to try to get this year’s shot.  In the backyard, just before the family party in honor of M’s incipient nuptials.  The light was dimming and green (what with all the leaves) but that was only the beginning of my problems.  What follows is a photo essay, empirical defense of my point.

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You start with the children.  At this point, they are all – at least ostensibly – adults.  And beautiful, if I do say so myself.

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Then add one grandkid, and what happens to the focus?

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And one is never enough.

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Well, another two.

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Then Lorri shows up.  (Never forget; one kid always leads to another.)  How many of these people are looking at the camera?  No really.  Five adults three children.  TWO people, looking at the camera.  That’s twenty five percent, paying attention.  At least they’re all nicely bunched up.

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WHERE DID THIS LONG CHILD COME FROM?  And look what happens to the back row.  What’s more, none of the children are with the proper parents.  Okay, Sand is in his mother’s lap – but honestly, does she look like a proper parent?

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Is anybody listening to me?  HELLO?  Lens pointing at you guys.  What, there aren’t enough of you yet?

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Okay – add the bride.  And so much for the nice bunching. Like somebody just hit them with a cue ball.  I think they’re all rearranging themselves into family groups, but I can’t be sure.  Obviously, Max isn’t sure either. He is, by the way, the ONLY ONE looking at the camera.

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ditto.

Can M actually hold two girls in his lap at one time?  And can the chair hold ALL of them?

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Finally. Smashing.  Six adults. Four children.  I am using my motorized setting so that, in the unlikely event that every person might be looking into the camera at the same time, I’ll catch it.  This is NOT that frame.  I’m showing you this frame because everybody’s face is at least visible.  Mostly.  Not sure what Cam is doing.  But Murph is smiling like a sane person, and that’s something.

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Something that doesn’t last long.

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Now, what?  Chaz – WHAT?  Where did Scooter go?  Ginna – oh, never mind.

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M’s energy is leaking out.  Ginna is still – I don’t know.  The back row is deteriorating.  Max is steady.  Sand and Laura are starting up a conversation.

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Okay, lost the kids on the back row entirely.  Cam – not one flipping smile yet.  The conversation between Sand and Laura is getting intense.

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Max is steady.  You’re a rock, Max.  But Andy has gone feral.  I guess Laura thinks Sand was finished with what he had to say.  Chaz?  Chaz?  Could you look at ME?

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Oh, cats.

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Re-shuffle.  Bring the back row out in front where (at least in theory) they can’t get away with so much.

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Oh, yeah – well so much for that.  And now the new back row is out of control.

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And we’ve lost Sand entirely.  We never had Andy, not from the beginning.  Can anybody say, “Cheese”?

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No.

No, I guess not.

Now, if you have just a lot of time on your hands, it’s kinda fun to go back to the top and scroll down quickly watching just one person or group of people.  And when you’re all finished with that, you’ll know what I’m saying here.  Yeah.  You’ll know.

Posted in A little history, Events, Family, Fun Stuff, Gin, HappyHappyHappy, The g-kids, The kids, Visits | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 33 Comments

~:: Small Victories ::~

Posted on January 25, 2012 by K

I found a little box of chocolates in the fridge.  I didn’t mean to.  I wasn’t hunting for it.  Left over from Swiss Colony. There were just a few in there.  And I ate them all. Today.  For lunch.

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A gift from a very dear (if balmy) buddy.

I want to blog.  I want to make you laugh. Actually, I just want to reach out and touch the back of your hand to let you know I’m here.  Is that the same as echo location, I wonder? Because it just feels like friend-biz to me. I have not been sharing photographs because I haven’t been taking any. January is not charming me this year. And you can only take so many shots of your desktop.  So I am going to pepper this with unrelated images, loved but somehow passed over last year.  That okay?

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Having given up on fixing the old microwave (Thanksgiving looming), G muscles the new one into place.  What a handy guy.  (Notice my bag of knit pony stuffing saving the stove top.)

Admissions:

1) Christmas is not completely put away.  I am still defiant about leaving the lights on at night till the end of January. But it’s the tree that’s the main problem; the bag we bought for it years ago savages it every time we stuff it in there. (Did I hear you say, “GET A REAL TREE?” Don’t. The number of lights I use on a tree qualifies as torture under anybody’s rules of engagement, I don’t care how dead the tree may be when we start.)  But there are other things, too; they need to be put away properly.  I don’t have properly in me.

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A Christmas owl for Chelsea, the owl maven.

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A mysterious mess on the project table.  What can it be?

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An argyle hippo for Gin, the hip hippo maven.

2) I hate Microsoft 2007 for Mac. I’m just sayin’. I want Word Perfect back.  Less auto format, more control.

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Small face at the window.  Autumn.  Still some green.

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3) I am still freaking out over this book business. I read the first page of  The Gardener this morning and found about eight things I needed to edit. And I’m trying to figure out how to write braggy things about myself for publicity. And how to find channels for product exposure.  I am NOT a salesman. I’m just a writer. But I’m learning a heck of a lot about inDesign. Wow – how they come up with these programs is beyond me.  So cool. Lucky me, when I upgraded PhotoShop back V.3 time, they gave me thirty days of Lynda.com training as a thank you.  Five years later, I was shocked to see the offer was still good.  And I love it.

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A Thanksgiving apple pie for Lucy, as she jets around the world.

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Chaz opens a Christmas box with golden paper in it (see the reflection of it on her face?).  The gold paper is supposed to make an exciting present out of what may be the ugliest scarf every knitted for a decent girl.  EVER.

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Murph, sporting his Christmas sweater, and the other present his mother gave him.  Explanation coming at another time.

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Dear Laura, the good sport, wearing the ugliest hat ever made for a decent girl.  My very first hat effort.  If you put this and the ugliest scarf together at one time, you could be arrested for possessing a weapon of mass destruction.

4) This is how I have spent the month:

A) (isn’t this outline fun?) I started my annual bout of Scanning the Family Photo        Albums. The books I end up with at the end of the year are usually between 300-440 pages, but that includes a lot of single-very-favorite-photo pages, so I only end up actually scanning – oh – maybe 250-350 pages in the first six weeks of the year. But I’ve always been worried the river will flood or the house will burn down and the unscanned history will be lost forever—or else, I’ll die before and do it, and who would do it then?  So at times I’ve thought, why not just go ahead and scan the entire dang library?

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Chaz and friend.  Late summer.

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Then I look at the bookshelves and realize how much there is to do and remember how mind-numbingly boring it is to do it. At least five years’ worth of project left.

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This year, though – I ripped through the five albums earmarked for the project (I’m sort of retired, remember—filling in time till I kick the bucket). Started scanning January 3rd; finished in five days. I guess I’m good at it now.  Actually, I’m a machine. A clock-work miracle. Steam-punk mama. I had it down to eighteen moves per page, timed perfectly – (I know because I timed myself), a dance of precision.  G came in one time to hug me and I simply knocked him over and danced across his chest.  And I listened to Radio Lab so that my brains wouldn’t fall out. A few times, I wondered if the process was burning calories.  So I just kept going.  One hour, two hours, finally three hours a day.

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All in all, by the time I finished on the morning of January 23rd, I had scanned fifteen hundred and ninty pages.  That’s one thousand, five hundred nine-oh.

I have backed them up to three drives, Mozy and now I’m committing them to DVDs.

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January’s work: a very fat sheep. Linda, please forgive me.

BUT I’M FINISHED. With the scanning at least.  The scanning and the Christmas chocolates.

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And a very red fox.  I made him from alpaca instead of the mohair he’s supposed to be, and my DK wasn’t fat enough for my needles, so he’s a white-spotted red fox, which doesn’t make him less endearing in his mother’s eyes.  Renny, I call him.  You know, short for  – yeah you get it.

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B) I found the digital manuscript for Breaking Rank, the only one of my NY published novels that’s completely out of print.  And I got out the book.  And I transferred all the editing that ended up in the book to the manuscript so I can e-book that, too.  Except for the typo hunting being done by my mistake-sniffing friend, Kathy, that’s finished.  So all I’ll have to do is set up the cover and the formatting and the blank-space images and the copyright pages and that will be finished too.

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Fox and sheep, or couldn’t you tell?  They aren’t shivering.  But I was when I shot them.  Captured them, I mean.

Done.  All this stuff done.

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So why don’t I feel finished?

 

Posted in Family, holidays, Just life, Just talk, photo games, Pics of Made Things | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 67 Comments

~:: Winter Interlude ::~

Posted on January 15, 2012 by K

It’s the middle of January.  In this hemisphere, that means we are in the thick of winter, buried in snow, crusted with hoar frost.

But not this year.  Yesterday, I bundled up and went out to the barn to watch Geneva work with Rachel and Hickory.  Standing in the arena with the bright sun on us, I realized that I wanted to take my jacket off.  And my muffler.  And my gloves.  It was fifty four degrees.  When I got home, my young buddy across the street drove up in his brand new used Pontiac Solaris.  It was gorgeous – a rag-top convertible. Grinning, he put the top down, his mom in the passenger seat, and off they went, wind in their hair.

I finally opened the living room window, just to get that lovely spring feeling in the house.

Are you kidding?  Can this weather be anything but a little too good?  And I’ve been taught all  my life never to trust anything that’s too good—it’s just wise.  Sad, huh?

Now, I’m trying to fight off the myriad viruses my children have contributed to us in the last few weeks.  I just watched Music and the Spoken Word, the Tabernacle Choir broadcast.  The Martin Luther King concert.  Beautiful.  Just beautiful.  And after that, heard the story of the New Zelander women’s world champion squash champ.  It will be fifty degrees again today.  The kids will come over later for dinner—maybe I can give them back some of these nice little bugs they leant me.

This entry isn’t really about anything. And there are no pictures.  I’ve been too busy with editing books and scanning the photo books.  But in my head are the pictures of my lovely little horse, my beaming young friend, my delighted dogs rocketing across the dry yard, and the faces of my beautiful sons and daughters.

Maybe winter will come next week.

I’m thinking about Martin Luther King. About how he has been just another hero with clay feet. It was disappointing to hear about his womanizing; that behavior was in such opposition to his message and to the place he took in the world.  But this morning, as I was listening to the broadcast, I actually starting thinking about all that (as opposed to just rolling with the tales)—I mean, I didn’t know the man.  I don’t know all those negative things by experience, or even by credible report. But even if the reports are true, and it’s entirely possible that they are, none of it changes the work he did, the chances he took, the effect he had on the world.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be accountable for the choices we make, or for the fact that we can weaken our cause when our lives don’t measure up to our mission. But all this makes me ponder on the great deal of work it takes to be a good human. It seems almost impossible for us to be entirely integral. Like, all our parts are always at war with one another, love and self, rest and guilt, honesty and survival.  It’s like we can never be good without being haunted with our flaws.

So, I guess, the triumph is to do the most good we can—to stand for what is true and good and healthy and loving.  To do our work the best we can.  And also—to practice mercy.  Making place for that inside ourselves, understanding that we are all striving for balance and that there is  not a single human being who is perfect.  The operative word in that last sentence is striving, though. Mercy can’t validate our imperfect choices.  But it can allow us to draw strength from the good human beings do.  And to honor the good we have done ourselves.

I am so thankful for the men and women who put themselves out there, who try so hard to bring more light into the world, even in the face of personal danger, of mockery, of personal exposure.  Dr. King saved a lot of lives. And even now, the fact of his life makes us stop and think and want to be better.  So, bless his heart.  I am grateful to him.

Posted in friends, Geneva, Horses, Rachel, The outside world | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments

~:: My Hubby, the Patriarch ::~

Posted on January 12, 2012 by K

Anybody remember me? The woman who blogs once every six months unless she’s mad?  May I just say that I have scanned over 450 pages of family photographs since January 3rd?  Hmmm?  And that I’m going through one of my older books, Breaking Rank, word by word, comparing print version with manuscript so that I can stick that up on Amazon, too?  And in the cracks, sticking away Christmas – one holly leaf at a time?  Yes.  That woman.

Here is a fun thing: Deseret Book just published a gorgeous new book, an illustrated telling of a scriptural story: Lehi’s Dream.  And my dear husband is the STAR of the book.  I am going to tell you the story.

Deseret Book

Long ago and far away, when we were all just out of school, my G and his writing partner Marvin wrote a lovely little story-with-songs called The Planemaker.  They had a young up-and-coming artist friend of ours, James Christensen, do a cover for the album.  He did a couple of treatments.  The one that ended up on the album now belongs – to somebody. I don’t know who.  But the other one?  It languished in a corner of Jim’s studio till he re-discovered it one day, and when G said, “I want that,” Jim said, “You’ll have to model for me to get it.”

Years later, here came this book idea, and Jim called in the debt.  So he called us in and had G pose for Lehi.  And he let me hang around in Jerusalem robes too, even though I’m not young and glamorous anymore.  And even I ended up on the last pages of the book.

These are the pictures I shot of the photo session in Jim’s studio:

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The place has absolutely beautiful light.  I don’t know how to build houses and things so that the light that comes into them is perfect.  Leave it to Jim to do that right.

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Here is G, decked out in the basic costume.

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And here is Jim, walking G through the storyboard.  Let me just say that I was not convinced about this modeling business.  I’m the actress in the family, after-all.  Not that I could have pretended to be a middle aged ancient prophet.

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See what I mean about the light?  You see that sheety-looking drape back there on the back of the couch?  Even a plain old sheet looks like art in this place.

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Improving on the basic robe.  I wonder if Western Culture will ever go through a robe and accessory period?  It’d be comfortable.

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And there he is, lookin’ like a patriarch.

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In the story, Lehi stands beside the tree of life, aching with hope for his children, as he watches the people of the earth start to make their way to the tree – through hardships and sorrows.  The story is about wanting the right, most beautiful things and what getting to them may cost us.

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The tree of life is, as it is said in the story of Eden, hung with wonderful fruit.  Jim used an orange to model the fruit, which was just the right thing.  When he handed it to G, he had the same response to the orange that he always has to oranges: he held it up to his nose and breathed in the fresh, sharp sent of it.  The scent reminds him of everything home: his family, the tiny orange grove in the backyard, Christmas morning.  And so it was a very good stand-in for the fruit of the tree of life – the scent of love, family and happiness.

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Here, he calls to his family: come and have some of this lovely fruit.  Come and be happy.

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Here is Lehi as he dreams his dream.  I see this every night and every morning.

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Modeling is hard work.  G did it very well.  But while our backs were turned – after that last shot was set up – well – maybe he took his part just a little bit too seriously.

Posted in friends, Fun Stuff | Tagged , , | 52 Comments

~:: Political Howling ::~

Posted on January 4, 2012 by K

I’d say that I’m getting sick of politics, but the statement would be inaccurate.  I have ALWAYS been sick of politics.  Probably since before I was born onto this planet, I hated politics.  It’s just that lately, I am sick-ER.  This is mostly because the US is coming up on a new presidential election, something I have been longing for now some eight years.  Yes, I know we actually have them every four years, but I’ve been hoping for one that could sense for two cycles, now.

The formal circus begins with these “caucus” meetings.  As much as I know about etymology, I have no idea where the word “caucus” comes from.  Every time I hear it, I think of that kind of gross little shell caterpillars build when they’re hoping to turn butterfly.  Not the process, but the weird little brown casing itself – made all of hardened secretions.  A caucus is a convocation of politically interested people (meaning having a vested interest in the outcome) – which should actually be every citizen of the country.  But someone forgot to work into the process the fact that most solid citizens have jobs and families and property to maintain and time out for political conventions actually costs them.

These things would be so much more sleek if you had to buy a license to speak at them, proving that you can make a point in under three minutes.  And that you are not crazy (in either the left or the right tradition).  And if they fed you dinner for free just for showing up.

The caucuses pick the candidates, winnowing down the vast field of hopefuls in a specific party.  Delegates vote in convention, choosing just one person to be the official Republican or Democrat candidate. And those couple of lucky winners get sent into the national coliseum to duke things out.

The amazing thing is how people who say they represent the interests of the same party can tear each other to shreds in the act.  And the thing that fired me up to write this bit was a radio sound bite I heard the other day, some female delegate, a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian, explaining why she would not vote for Mit Romney, who happens to be LDS.

She said something to this effect: “I just can’t send somebody to Washington whose religious beliefs are dangerous and will do harm to this country.”

And I blanked out.  Whaa?  Was she saying this in reference to Romney?  Naw.  But – yes.  She was.

And then I was mad.  And so should be every single intelligent Evangelical, since she was taking it upon herself to represent the aggregate with that incredibly stupid statement.

First of all, this country is made up of ALL KINDS of religious traditions. And the stark and howling truth of the matter is that every religious tradition is made of up ALL KINDS of religious opinions.  Take best friends or twins or long married people, all pairs having membership in the same exact church, “believing” the same exact list of tenets.  Have each person draw a portrait of God: will those portraits look exactly the same?  No. Pretty sure they won’t.  Have those people explain in specific terms what is meant by keeping the Sabbath day holy.  Will that list of specifics be identical?  Betting not.

Truth is out there.  It’s just – we are guessing at what it is, all the time.  Reading scriptures and deciding what they mean – as many interpretations as there are eyes to read, and as many applications as there are times a single person reads the same words.  The same scripture changes with circumstance, health of the reader, world events, state of the marriage, level of loneliness or joy or love.  Somewhere at the center of What Is is a hard, immutable truth.  But I have never met any human being who has a handle on what that truth looks like.  Only opinions, guesses, interpretations, poetic romantical “shoulds” – and those colored highly by vested interests, desire and fear.

A president is supposed to steer a very heavy ship of state.  He’s suppose to uphold the body of law, the constitution, which – like it or not – was written from a base of Judeo-Christian values.  But he is NOT supposed to impose his own religious peculiarities on the law, the people, the airwaves, the fate of the planet.

All of that said, here is one supposed Christian coolly damning another Christ-based believer in a way that told me she had absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the beliefs subscribed to by the person she was damning.  What a mess of little cannibals we are.

What kind of religious person could we feel comfortable electing, then?  Someone who believes exactly the same thing we believe?  (Please refer to paragraphs above.)  Okay then, what kind of religious beliefs should disqualify a man who is thirty five years old, a natural citizen and a resident of the US for at least fourteen years?

Religious traditions that:

Are predisposed to send anybody who disagrees with them to hell?

Advocate the sacrifice or culinary consumption of children, virgins or any other human sorts?

Would strip citizenship protections from people whose diet is deemed sinful?

Administers disapproval by means of beheading?

Believes the punishment for sin should be instant death?

Believes rules and law are only for people who are different, and that life should be one long, exciting orgy for members of their own party?  Or has a secret agenda to throw over the rule of law and set up some Godly dictator who also gets to approve all publishing house new release lists?

Intends to override all law with the tenants of that faith, enforcing them by main force and punishing those who deviate with torture and death?  Ahhh.

 

So exactly what LDS beliefs does that “Christian” woman find dangerous and harmful to the country?

That LDS people believe in the reality of God?

That LDS people believe Christ is the Son of God?

That they read the Bible?

That all of their literature is based on the teachings of Christ?

That honesty, virtue, kindness, service, hard work are the way to joy and love and a lovely community?

That free choice is the centerpiece of mortal existence?

That the atonement of Christ is the door out of here and back home again?

That people should be responsible for their own actions?  Or that they can change their lives for the better?

That people should obey the law, and if they don’t like the law, seek to change it through the channels set up for that purpose?

 

Boy, I look at that list I just made, and I am frightened.  What a monster that Mit Romney must be.

I can see that there are people who would feel threatened by him because he is a good Christian – people who don’t love Christianity.  But even they have to understand that, by definition, a good Christian must be, by their own adherence to the teachings of Christ, the best neighbor and friend ever.  Not inclined to judge, but rather to help, heal, support, and listen with concern and sympathy.  Not likely to take what isn’t his, to treat others harshly, to harm in any way.  The problem is that too many people don’t actually live the tenents of their religions, whatever those may be.  They just wear the banner and the button and the hat and shoot their mouths off about things they don’t actually understand and assume that everybody but them is wrong.

Romney may be my choice and he might not.  The fact that he is LDS and that he has a reputation for trying very hard to live as a good man does influence me.  And I hear that Santorum (I don’t know his religion) also tries very hard to be a good man.  That influences me, also.  But I wouldn’t vote for either, regardless of religious affiliation, if the “good man” in their personal lives wasn’t there.

Some people have called Romney a flip-flopper because of the way he handled Massachusetts.  Too liberal with his health program and his apparent laisez-faire attitude toward homosexual marriage.  But here is what I think: I think that when a man is elected to office, he is not made head of religion.  I think he is elected to uphold and administer the law and to make sure that his constituents are safe, protected in their harmless pursuit of personal happiness, free to choose their own interpretation of the universe.  He is not elected to provide everything for everybody who wants something, nor is he made schoolmaster and micromanager of personal lives.

If people who are Jewish elect a Christian man, it is not because they want him to force them to live as Christians.  It’d be because they respect his respect for them.  Massachusetts is it’s own little world; the people there look at things a little differently than people look at things in Texas which sees things differently than Utah or even California, which sees things differently than almost anybody on the planet who does not surf.

The governor of a state, if he is being true to that office, has to serve the state that elected him, bringing out the best in it, but always with an eye to the rights of that group of voters who elected him.  Of all responsible citizens to make their own choices in life.  (Irresponsible ones who constantly do harm and have one hand on a hip and the other out for free stuff do not count.) He may be wiser than his constituents, and so try to shape the law to keep them safer and healthier than they’d keep themselves – but you have to be very, very careful with that kind of attitude.  Helping someone means that you have the wisdom to see who they are and to help them become the best form of the human brand they’ve chosen for themselves.  And to keep people from harming each other.  It doesn’t mean taking over a person’s life and telling her how to live it.

And what Mit did in Massachusetts seems good.  If the more conservative voices in the country think he should have said “NO,” to the adult citizens of the state, as though they were simply out of control children – well, that’s just wrong.  And if the liberal voices also think he should say “NO,” to conservative voices in that state – they’re just wrong.

I don’t know who I want to vote for.  But not for that idiot “Christian” woman, who frighteningly has just as much right to wield the power of a vote as I do (and I am aware enough of my own ignorance to look at my right to wield that power with terror).  And not for people who smirk and mock other people.  (I hate that democrat on Fox News after what he said about Rick Santorum – what a jerk. And it’s not like I am inclined to believe only good about Rick Santorum – I don’t even know the guy.)  And not for people who want to force me to dance to their tune, I don’t care what side of what fence they stand on.

Maybe not for any human being on the face of the earth.

But we have to have a government.  And the one we’ve got now (it’s full of idiots, judging from recent actions taken to “fix” things, all based on their failed past fixing strategies)? It  stinks.

Human governance is complex because humans are complex.  Government is stupid because humans are stupid.  And it’s dangerous because humans can be very, very dangerous.

I think it is very brave of free nations to have elections like this, and then to work with what they get the morning after, not showing up with armies, yelling, “WE TAKE IT BACK.”

So I guess you can’t get around politics.

But I can still hate them.

I have the right to.

 

Posted in IMENHO (Evidently not humble), Just talk, mad | Tagged , , | 44 Comments

~:: Solstice Thoughts ::~

Posted on December 26, 2011 by K

I was thinking about a reply I made this morning to a dear friend’s comment on my little Christmas card.  I’m going to repeat it and embellish a little here because—well, sometimes I worry that people don’t understand why I choose to write what I do.  That maybe they think I’m misrepresenting my life, trying to make it all shiny and successful and American Dreamy.  My friend observed that the pictures of our family at Sunday dinner were full of love.  And they were because we were.  But our get-togethers are not always totally harmonious.  So this is what I said:

You do know we fight and get huffy and misunderstand each other and act badly, too – right? I know you know this.  Because you live in a real family, too. I think we bloggy sorts don’t choose to write about those acrimonious bits because life, love, family – all are a work in progress. We strengthen ourselves and choose our path each time we recognize the brilliant loving patterns working—realizing that this is the path we want, and want badly.  So we are moved to write in a state of wonder and gratitude, focusing our own hearts on what is strong, growing and healthy.

I think that the darker side of blogging is to write in the hopeless or bitter moments instead. And I think, also, that there are people – like those folks who hate and resent and love to sneer at “mommy blogs,” – who think we are just lying and bragging and distorting the realities of life by not sharing images of darkness and disappointment.

The thing is,  I choose hope – and I love light – and that is where my heart will dwell. That is where I sing. Husbands and wives are never perfect – harmony is never perfect – we are not built for perfection in this world. It’s the direction the face faces, the direction the foot reaches out for a hold on the path—that decides which paths we propel ourselves along—toward light or dark, toward growth or a simmering bitterness.

I am afraid that there are people who do not want to be happy, who embrace cynicism and bitterness as though they held a lifejacket in their arms instead of a choking weight. It’s clarity, love, hope and joy that I want to grab with hands and arms and legs – and I will fight for that. Just as you do, and Rachel does and my sister does, and Donna and Linda and Dawn and Jenni, and my daughters and the rest of my truly dear friends do. And we will make it—because we are deliberately cultivating light, and we will turn and look back as we go and like where we have been, simply because we keep moving in the direction of light, our resolve lit with hope and made material in gratitude.

I capture these loving family images because I need never to lose them.  Not that images can freeze anything so that it will keep forever.  Nothing will keep that long in this life.  But the point is, I deliberately choose these images—I choose them to define me, and then I do whatever I can, deliberately – hard-scrabble little loss as I am – to bring myself into that definition, to fit it.  Sometimes this is great work.  But I choose that, too.

————-=0=————-

I wanted to tell you a little more about the party group.

It’s an eclectic enclave of folks, the core of which are people we’ve known for more than thirty years.  But also there are people we’ve only known for five or six years.  Old college roommates.  Musicians we’ve been working with for that long.  Some are songwriters.  Some arrangers.  Some singers and players.  We have electrical engineers, too.  And one who used to sell radio ad time, but now does fencing material.  We have famous writers and unknown writers.  And people who have dedicated their lives to bringing up their children and creating the micro-cultures of home.  A couple who repair cameras.  Some who make stained glass windows.  Several who are teachers or librarians or who work in school administration offices.  Animators and artists.  Illustrators.  Fathers and mothers and children.  Tech guys who train people on complex computer programs.  Great cooks.  Lousy cooks.  One who is the DP on Bones.  Firemen. Radio show hosts.  Teachers of chemistry or dance or other things.  People who have lived in Brazil, England, Argentina, France – so many countries, so many languages.  People who have never lived outside the country at all.   Runners.  Cyclists.  Horsefolk.  We have brilliant crafters and people who hate crafting like poison.  Some are quiet.  Some are very funny.  Some are close to or over seventy years old, some who are under twenty four.  The things we have in common are our faith and just general good will.

And that’s what makes the party so fun.  A lot of these people are close friends with each other now only because this party exists – might never have known each other at all if we hadn’t gathered them in and thrown them together.  And that’s my favorite, VERY favorite part about all this.  I feel like a Yenta, thank you very much.

————-=0=————-

I was just listening to a song G recorded for our dear friend, Mike McClean – it’s called, “The Greatest Thing I’ve Ever Done.”  And I started thinking about that.  About great things, and whether I had ever done any.  And I decided I had.  And I decided to try to make a list, however short.  And of course, I’m putting that list right here:

1. Getting pregnant the second time.  And the fourth and last time.  In spite of what I knew might be coming at me.

2. Teaching.  And one or two things I chose to do while I was teaching.  Like standing by one of my students, who was wrongfully accused.  And loving the ones I once would never have given a second look.

3. Saying no when I needed to.  When it was right.  When it wasn’t easy.

4.  Admitting I am wrong – which I have done at least twice in my life.

5.  Learning my lesson – ditto.

6.  Getting out of bed on those few mornings when I was afraid to be alive.

7.  Being there for my kids.

8.  Living so I could go to the temple.

9.  Forgetting some things I would have loved to hold onto and simmer over.

10.  Planning the trips to Paris and England and Disneyworld.  Not because of where we went, but because I just, for no apparent reason, cowboyed-up realized that dreams were about to slip away and actually DID something, instead of just meaning to.

11.  Keeping the horses even when I was terrified of them.

12. Paying tithing.  Amazed that I can let the money go.

13.  Going to see my mother in the rest home for the first time.

14. Writing just a very few letters when I’d finally had enough – and eventually seeing them change the world, at least part of it.

I know this doesn’t sound like much.  No statues or immortality here.  But these were great things for me, because I am a small person and a big scardy cat and lazy and apt to dream instead of do.  I could also make a list of the most terrible things I’ve ever done, mostly on this same under-the-radar level, but things I still hurt over.  Like the time when I was in fourth grade, collecting newspapers for the paper drive in LA – the girl across the street came with me, a harmless, willing person – but at one corner, some mean little boys came up and started calling her “ree-tard,” a term still, sadly, in use today – and I denied knowing her to keep myself safe from them.  I’ll never get over doing that.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about this morning as I fed the horses.

So I just wanted to ask you: what is the greatest thing YOU have ever done?

I think my word for 2012 may be BRAVE.  If I take it on,  maybe I’ll digest it.

Posted in Family, Just talk, Memories and Ruminations | Tagged , , , , | 45 Comments