kstreetjournal | A pony a day keeps the money away

~:: On Birthdays ::~

Posted on May 15, 2012 by webmaster

Behinder and behinder.

In our house, at some point, I made a decree: Christmas is all about Christ, but birthdays are all about YOU. I always hated the sit-on-Santa-and-ask-for-stuff thing. So for my poor children, if Santa’s lap was involved, the mandate was to list only the things their brothers and sisters would be delighted to find under the tree. The Santas were not helpful in this regard. “But what do YOU want?” I didn’t want that to be the question. Christmas is about giving and babies and sacrifice and miracles. And about your parents knowing, by watching and paying attention, the things of your heart.

Not so for birthdays. Birthdays were declared a bald-faced self-fest. You could greedily make lists of wild desires. You were allowed to beg and hint and think only of your own heart’s desires. The day was about the child. Kid picked activities. Kid picked the restaurant.

I think this proclamation happened after the year I was pregnant with Murphy and made Chaz and Cam, whose birthdays are about ten days apart, share the same dang day, cake and party.

Not my actual birthday, but pretty close.

My mom was great about birthdays. I can remember at least two parties—the one when I made the blown egg bunnies and chicks for favors (and learned that not everybody appreciates the time you spend to make them something), and the one in the basement of the second Kansas City house; the party when Mom came up with the giggle gun—you point it at somebody and they can’t giggle for one minute or they’re “it.”

She was good with the games and the planning and presents and mystery. Not that she gave parties every year, but it only takes one great time to make a kid feel like something actually did happen every year.

Mommy and me

Mostly, I just really almost totally remember the feeling. Birthdays had almost a taste to them. Not cake taste. Something else, an emotional taste that came of the mystery and anticipation and hope and excitement. I think children feel like they actually glow on their birthdays, like they’re set apart from the common creatures—and that everybody can tell, just by looking.

The magic’s in the details, mostly. The tiny attentions. The little privileges. And the boxes wrapped in special paper, all sitting on the table—a temporary taunting.

One year, I snuck into my mother’s closet—I’m thinking it was LA, because they had a very small closet that was very dark. And I don’t know how I knew that the presents would be hidden there; maybe some kind of inner compass with birthday as north. But there was this brown paper bag full of boxes. I fished through it and found the Spirograph, the one incredible desire of my heart. (And yes, they let me watch Saturday cartoons—my children did NOT—because things they made you want to buy never did quite live up to the hype.)

My mom said to me, “Were you in my closet?” And I cannot tell a lie: I told a lie. A wide-eyed and innocent whopper: I had no idea what she was talking about. “Why do you ask?” I inquired cannily. “Because,” she said, “your presents were in there and there was a certain box suddenly at the very top.”

It’s too late now to tell her the truth. And the peek really didn’t spoil the surprise. How can you can hold a coveted thing in your hands and still be insane with excitement when you open it? But I was.

Everything is out of the reach of children. They can’t drive places. They don’t have money. They’re tempted on all sides by heartless Madison Avenue suits who know very little about what a child’s heart is like. But on this one day, magically, all things are possible—and wildest dreams just might come true.

I turned sixteen the May just before we moved from New York to Texas. Two weeks before school was out. I had time for one date, one chance to go out with a beautiful boy. But the boy who took me out wasn’t the one I wanted. Then it was summer, and people who don’t drive yet have a hard time making social.

We moved to Texas in September, after the school year had started. I made some friends, but there was so much culture shock and so little backstory—I was just a tiny fish coming from my high school of several hundred to this big-hair Texas school with three thousand kids in it. That spring, just before graduation, I wanted to have a birthday party, but one of The Most Popular Girls (who was dating the boy I had a terrible crush on) was having hers the same night—so she invited me to hers, and with kind grace had everyone sing to me.

I liked being little better.

My favorite birthday—after the ones my mother engineered—happened in 1976. That was my magic year. My year of grace and magic. I was in grad school. I was finally almost at home in my self. My friend Kira and I spent a lot of time in the mountains, playing Irish music on harp and flute and talking about love and magic. Hope was everywhere. It was palpable. I was alive enough to feel the blood passing through the veins in my own wrists.

Not a lot of pictures of me back in those days. But this was about the same time. I’m on the right. We’re supposed to be those classical theatrical masks: Maria was comedy, I was tragedy. Sort of. For the picture.

Early that birthday morning, I found white lilacs on my front porch. They were tucked under the ancient tin mailbox. I still don’t know who left them. A few minutes later, Bill Cushenberry came to get me and took me to Baskin Robbins for ice cream sundae breakfast. All day, magic sprang from the corners, the grass, the air. The lily of the valley grew thickly under the window of that ancient rented house, and the scent of them made us heady. A thousand friends appeared out of nowhere. It was all so clear, and I felt lovely.

The next great birthday was when Murphy was about three—G planned a kidnapping and all of the children were in on the planning. Nobody spilled the beans, even Murph. G shook me awake at three in the morning and said, “You’ve got to get dressed and come with me.” He led me out to the VW van where all the children, dressed and strapped in, sat grinning. The thing was full of packed bags of all sorts. And we were off to Disneyland. I hadn’t had to plan or pack or do a single thing. Not even defend the extravagance.

Last week’s birthday was quietly amazing. G asked me what I’d like to do, suggesting a horse ride in the morning. So we planned that and a trip to Park City and some exotic, artsy shop trolling. But in the end, going places wasn’t what I wanted. I spent the first two hours of the early morning returning a totally unexpected barrage of Facebook greetings. Just amazing. And the evening having dinner with the kids – Chaz and Lorri had planned to take me out – and then a crazy movie with almost all the kids.

That’s my best thing now, my very favorite: being with these people I love so much—sharing jokes and evil food—with that ancient context we share.

I thank you all so much for your good wishes – life is an amazing gift. When we have eyes to see and ears to hear with, magic still springs full grown from the corners and grass and trees and air. But mostly from love—the love we plowed and planted and watered till it grew into connection and friendship and life.

So, yeah. I had a good day.

Posted in A little history, Explanations, Family, holidays, Memories and Ruminations | Tagged birthdays, lilacs | 21 Comments

~:: Stalking the Killdeer ::~

Posted on April 29, 2012 by webmaster

When I was—what was I? In high school, I think, and spending the night at Kristin DeKuiper’s house. Her parents took us to this—umm—presentation at something like a gym, where they’d set up a projector (remember the sound a projector makes in a dark room?) and were showing a film. I don’t know why. In the course of the film, there were several shots of sandpipers on a beach. A sandpiper is sort of a lozenge of a smallish bird on stilts, and is—like all birds—without eyebrows or any other feature that might allow any facial expression.

The only things that were moving on these water birds were their legs. Tick-tick-tick-tick, they’d make this businesslike dash down the wet sand as the water receded. Only to do a one-eighty before they quite got to the water edge as the next wave sent a little surge of water inland and, tick-tick-tick-tck – back up to the dry sand they’d go.

No look on their faces, just these busy little legs propelling them first toward the water with fierce intent, then magically, with the same fierce intent—away, over and over again. I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. And ever since, I have loved sandpipers.

We have seagulls (therein lies a Utah tale). And salty lakes. And tiny little waves that can get nasty when the wind comes up. But we have no ocean here (surprise!), and so we have no sandpipers.

What we have instead are Killdeer.

They were once water birds. But they rethought things and became field birds. That’s where I first met them, in the fields behind the church, right where they finally built the school.

Killdeer look a lot like sandpipers (at least, they do to a non-birder land lubber) – the lozenge like body, the stilty legs. And I used to stand by the field fence and watch them, tick-ticking all over that field. They are fierce and courageous parents; when someone scary like me comes along, both parents will leap from the nest (well, only one sits there at a time, but they take turns) and, with an air of really not having been anywhere before this very moment, they walk stutteringly away from you, nest, and any previous existence – very much as though they are a little wounded, a little vulnerable, and certainly unaware that you are behind them.

In fact, if you are scary enough, and if you seem a little undecided as to whether you are interested in eating them, they will suddenly hunker down and thrash around as though a wing is broken—flashing the red underfeathers that lie beneath their sleek white, gray brown usual selves, suggesting that there might even been blood involved.

And all the time, they make a little piercing cry. It doesn’t sound like “killdeer” to me, but it evidently did to some name-giving person once. Of course, as you approach from behind, the dying bird manages to take a few more lurching steps, then a few more, until you are almost certainly out of range of the nest. And then it will suddenly launch itself forward into the air, still flashing the red, still calling, to lead you even farther away.

But this is not an ornithology lesson. It is prelude to the tale of our last month’s delighted obsession: a pair of killdeer who seemed to have chosen our field for a nesting place. Every day when we’d go out to feed the horses, as we started down the drive to the barn, there would be the killdeer, looking a little as if she’d been caught in the middle of something, suddenly scooting across the drive in front of us, heading for the grass.

I found this puzzling. Why, when I assumed her nest was in that nice high grass, was she always coming from my neighbor’s graveled drive and yard? There was no grass to hide in there—Jim keeps his tiny lawn clipped with barber clippers. And she always seem to materialize right out of the fence line. Curiouser and curiouser.

It was G who found the nest, I think. Or was it me? And then we read about these amazing little creatures. And now I’m going to show you what we found.

Here is the fence line.

And here is the startled and embarrassed killdeer. Mother? Father? Both do the job.

Can you see the bird now? I was trying to avoid scaring her off the next by walking through the field, but off she took down the driveway anyway. She scared me to death by flying across the busy road. If she’d just asked, I’d have told her I was off to spray thorns and had no interest in the driveway whatsoever.

Look how good he is at hiding. (Phone shot, WAY zoomed in) This stripe is the pencil thin shadow of the fence post.

Whoops – up pops a head.

A couple of times, we drove in quickly enough, we got past before the Killdeer had a chance to jump up and book it. I wanted a great shot of the parent so you could see how pretty they are. This is another phone shot, zoomed. I came back and used the camera later, but—as you will see—had no luck getting proximity.

Here is what we learned: Killdeer build their “nests” in gravel. The find a likely place—usually on the side of the road—and hollow out a place in the gravel. As they would have, once, in the sand and gravel of a beach. It took some hunting on our part to discover it.

Can you see anything?

Look away and you will lose them, I promise, and have to find them all over again. There are always four eggs. Often, only three hatch for some reason. The folks sit on the eggs for about twenty-eight days, and the second the chicks come out, they are ready to run. Animals like this are called Precociates or something close to it.

Here I am, trying to get a better picture of the adult.

Doing real well.

Okay. Not so well.

So I finally lay down in the grass to look less menacing. There is a bird in this picture, on my neighbor’s drive over there to the left.

A good ten minutes I waited. But my zoom and the bird’s caution did not help. I was getting damp. And this is the best I got.

At this point, we were totally invested in this family. I couldn’t even let the horses out onto the field, because I needed to send them down the driveway – which I could NOT do with four tiny eggs lying in that gravel.

Last week, G grabbed me from my coughing, miserable couch and pulled me out to the barn. Something had happened.

This had happened.

Isn’t it amazing?

Astonishing.

Can you see it now?

Maybe now?

How about NOW?

Can you see the strong little legs?

Because they do work. The two parents, at this point, were both screaming their heads off and flying all over the place. They don’t know I’m not after baby-bird-pop-corn snacks, and I am trying to get as close as I can as quickly as I can so nobody has a heart-attack.

G. even got to touch one.

But when I got this close, finally, up popped this chick and

off he took.

Dive-bombing parent.

We took off after this, not wanting the babies to end up on Jim’s Big-Truck driveway. And certainly wanting the parents not to worry any more. I haven’t been back since; still here on the stinking couch. This is the longest I’ve been sick in years. But I’m grateful it’s not the flu. G, on the other hand, has been back. But he has found no killdeer. They’re gone. Moved out. Off to greener (safer, I hope) pastures (literally). So now we can let the horses out onto the grass, which will make them very happy. Still—the driveway seems so empty.

Posted in Fun Stuff, Images, The outside world | Tagged killdeer | 23 Comments

~::gifts, prizes, surprises and delights ::~

Posted on April 25, 2012 by webmaster

Got a cold. Can’t bweathe. (insert cough here) This puts me even more behind in everything, including reading you, Dawn. And you, Cori. On the couch watching a smarmy movie—not for long, though; it’s really stupid and the synth score is awful.

But I figured out the inDesign text box thing that was making me cry yesterday, and that makes me happy. So here are a bunch of random things.

First: Kathy Dally, our resident caterer, brought me this little package for my birthday. It wasn’t my birthday—she was a month ahead. But it was Easter. And besides, I will accept brilliant gifts pretty much any time, any day, any month. But isn’t this so cool? A sculptured bread chicken with herbal embellishment. Ok. I ate the mama chicken. but I still have the rooster. I couldn’t eat him. I loved him too much. The eggs were relief dyed; herbs tied to them.

Self portrait with following horse. We were on our way to the grass.

Same horse, no longer following. I shot this with the phone. He was having a hissy fit. The cool bit is that the only thing actually in focus here is that rear left hoof.

Did I show you this? Moon over the mountain.

The flowers Chels’ mom sent me. They were a thank-you-for-taking-care-of-her. But really, I should have been the one sending the thank you. Chelsea’s a great girl.

My little Easter basket. Mostly stuff you’ve seen before. But it all makes me so happy. Bloom’s blue bird. I didn’t make the plastic egg. And I added the Myrtle and Eunice chicks – which I loved in theory, but adored once I made them.

THEN: I won a giveaway. Over at Color Me happy, Lynda is busy turning things colors. She gave away this lovely packet of her dyed wool felt, topped off by a caned button. The funnest thing about it was meeting her.

Delicious color sandwich.

Hereby hangs a tale: when I was at university, we stage-actor types fell in love with the 1930s and 40s. Specifically, with the clothes. The wide legged, flowing, high-waisted pants. The cool vests. I’d done a little knitting in my life – mostly potholders. So I figured I could make up an argyle vest as I went. And I did. I made if for this boy I liked. I don’t have a picture of that one. This one, I was making for myself. But I quit in the middle

This piece of it went into a storage box and lived there in my garage for some twenty years, rediscovered from time to time. Then, one day, Cam was going on a scout camping trip, so he went to the garage loft to find his fabulous camping backpack and one of our lovely high-class sleeping bags. But he couldn’t find the stuff. So I went out there to look—and it was so weird. The second I got to the top of the stairs, I knew something was wrong. Things were – just not right. And the camping stuff was nowhere to be found.

Turns out that a scary guy who was secretly (and illegally) camped in the bracken along the river path on the other side of the river had been scavenging through our neighborhood late at night – for weeks. In fact, we’d heard him the night before during a late night bathroom break. Heard a strange sound outside, like someone had tripped over the strange metal-sculpture horned frog that lives on our back porch. The next day, we found our rather lethal weed-digging tool on the ground – in the oddest place. Luckily, we hadn’t let the dogs out, or he’d have killed them with it.

We had neighbors whose tools had been stolen from their trucks. People who’d lost bicycles. And when we checked our garage (it was the one night we’d forgotten to lock it), we realized that a bunch of small things were missing.

It was when Cam came home from his trip that we found out the people three doors down had caught a guy just climbing out of the large camping trailer they kept in their backyard. ”Uhh,” the guy said, once confronted. ”I lost fifty bucks. I thought it might be in here.” So our neighbor called the police who came and found the guy in his ratty little camping place. They confiscated a whole array of things, including a hookah, a child’s bike, my son’s backpack, our sleeping bags.

We’d called the police, too. And they came out – but they wouldn’t even dust for fingerprints. Later that day, the policeman called us and asked us to come down and see if some of the stuff the man’d had might be ours. First time I’d been in an evidence room. Officer Luthy brought out the sleeping bag and Cam’s backpack and began taking things out of the pack. First, that guy’s absolutely filthy denim shorts (which literally could have stood by themselves) then our Dremel tool case – THEN THIS PIECE OF VEST. ????????

He’d gone through all our storage, and he’d taken this unfinished, ancient piece of my knitting. HOW WEIRD IS THAT? So we got it all back, but I had to wash everything with hot water and disinfectant about five times before I could touch any of it.

That was before I knew about felting. In fact, it happened about ten years ago, but it was just the other day when I came across this thing again and realized that all that carry-over yarn on the back side was now one solid mass. And that’s the end of the story. Never saw the guy. Never happened again (knocking on wood). And this post is getting WAY longer than I’d planned.

Sweater I made for myself about twenty years ago (sheesh). I just counted the stitches in one of my Dale of Norway sweaters and made the pattern up as I went. See? If there’s nobody around to tell you you can’t do something, you can do very surprising things. Only problem was, I should have used needles two sizes up. It came out just a little too small. So Gin, the twelve year old, was the person who got to wear it.

Cammon, looking rowdy and redneck. He destroyed his cute little truck, pulling his film equipment trailer through the west desert. So he found this new old truck, just the right size.

The boys, getting ready for a run up the canyon. That strap around Cam’s arm is his heart-rate monitor.

Cam’s robots. He loves making toys, and he’s been fascinated by making them out of cardboard.

Would you buy these on Etsy?

The other son, getting ready for a bike ride.

Are you still with me?

Donna sent me these guys in January (I said I was behind). Handmade with love and cleverness.

A whole family of deer.

And a kit so I could make them myself. (Wait till you get here and get hugged, girl!)

Next to the last bit. This should actually be about four blogs, but I can’t do that. The point of this picture is the sweet, loving little dog. See how he puts his head back and looks lovingly into my eyes? The cutest little dog ever.

ya think?

And last of all, a dear friend sent me a hat. A hat she’d made. A gorgeous, wonderful hat. And she sent Rachel gloves (same series of adjectives). She’s a wonderful person, just an amazing human being.

Now, I always hate to put pictures of myself up here because the face no longer matches the voice. And see those wrinkles? Holy cats.

But I went inside after we’d taken these shots and messed around in front of the mirror, and I can honestly say that every one of those wrinkles is part of my smile. I tried frowning, and really, the wrinkles didn’t fit the frowns. Or even an anger face. Maybe pain would fit? But I haven’t had that much of it. ”Pained” as in raising children, yes. Anyway, for the first time, I didn’t mind the lines on my face. And I thought maybe I’m not such an awful person after-all.

I just wish we didn’t have to age. I wish we’d just go on, looking like ourselves till one day just – poof. Drop and stop.

So I’m sharing better shots of the hat. Because it deserves that. My beautiful Gin in the beautiful, magnificent hat.

I adore this girl. And this is the end.

Posted in dogs, Felt stuff, friends, Fun Stuff, Gin, HappyHappyHappy, Horses, Knit Stuff, Pics of Made Things, Rachel, The kids, The outside world | Tagged Bloom, burgler, Cam, Chelsea, chicks, deer, dogs, Donna, flowers, Gin, horses bread chick., knit hat, knitting, moon, robots, sweater, truck, vest, wool, wrinkles | 31 Comments

~:: Rest of the Springy Thing ::~

Posted on April 22, 2012 by webmaster

We have always kept a line between the candy eggs on Saturday and maybe real eggs on Sunday, though why dyed eggs, real or not, should count as appropriate on such a deeply significant holy day, I’m not sure I understand. I will have to ask myself. Later.

Anyway, so you’ve seen the plastic egg celebration. The next morning, the little C&L fam came over in their Easter best so I could take pictures of them.

Ah, yes. Puppies in a box. Cam does not actually smile like this. But it’s interesting how much Scooter’s photo smile looks like Cam’s. Andy is without concern about smiling. I will have to remind my family of this when they accuse ME of having a photo smile.

But they’re awful cute, jah?

Okay. So while I’m still getting dressed upstairs, Cam sneaks into the LL with bags of - are you ready? PLASTIC EGGS. He’d been so delighted with the outside hunt that he wanted to do an inside hunt with fluffy dresses on (not that he was wearing one). So when we came inside – SURPRISE!!! More baskets. And more hunting.

This shot actually reminds me of Christmas morning—Dad getting all set up with the camera (that one shoots HD video) and the kids kept at the starting line, straining to see what delights might be hidden in That Room. Andy hasn’t caught on yet. But Scooter obviously has.

The light is dim in there, and I apologize for not knowing how to run my camera. But blur means action, right?

Andy started off with easy dignity. Lovely yellow dress. But she DID catch on, and though the dignity was preserved, she stepped up her speed.

Very busy.

Then Aunt Laura and Uncle Murphy showed up. Pink satin to add to the yellow.

Cute, too.

It just makes me laugh that Cam experiences his family’s memorable moments through a lens, just the way I spent a quarter of a century doing.

I do not have pictures of us sitting reverently and gratefully at church.

But we did. I promise.

Posted in Events, Family, Fun Stuff, holidays, The g-kids, The kids | Tagged Andy, Cam, Easter, egg hunt, inside, Laura, Lorri, Murphy, Scoot | 12 Comments

~:: The Spring Thing ::~

Posted on April 21, 2012 by webmaster

Rewind: Easter

Part 1 – Outside

Chaz came home with a surprise for me—plush peeps. Even though these will NOT dry out and become a crusty delight, they are dang cute.

And here we are: an ancient scene somewhat reduced. There was a day when we’d get together with the Williams and stuff about three hundred of these lovely little plastic eggs, then hide them all (that would be the parents’ job) and then find them (the kids’ job) hidden in every nook and cranny of our yard. I would not even be surprised if, during the course of caring for the yard this summer, we come across some fifteen-year-old shabby old colored eggs full of petrified butter cream bunnies and pink jelly beans.

My parents started the Saturday morning egg hunt tradition when I was tiny, same eggs, same buttercream bunnies. The eggs may be plastic, but I still love them. LOVE them—even though the new ones just aren’t as well made as the old ones were (have you ever spoken those words before?)

This year, however, we are not going for nooks and crannies. This year we are hiding eggs in plain sight for very short people who haven’t honed their hunting skills yet. (pink arrow map to eggs)

Here are the hunters. It takes two hunters and five adults to make this work. Oh, and two cameras.

See? There’s the other adult. Sort-of adult.

Chaz is teaching Andy. ”This is how you bend over to pick them up.”

Scooter, on the other hand, picked up the concept rapidly.

It would not be a true record if I didn’t show Cam in his natural element.

Camera stalking.

The dogs are also hunting, but are less interested in candy than they are in snakes.

Chaz is also a director. Chaz: “I want you to run over there—can you show me some energy? Some excitement?” Andy: “Yes – but what’s my motivation?”

Sometimes the hunt gets dangerous.

But the joy of finding a tangerine colored egg – and adding it to a bright basket of delicious colors – very satisfying.

Now – inside to crack a few things open.

Posted in Events, Family, Fun Stuff, holidays, The g-kids, The kids | Tagged Andy, Cam, Chaz, Easter, egg hunt, G, Lorri, Me, Scoot, spring | 30 Comments

~:: My Very Large House ::~

Posted on April 18, 2012 by webmaster

I have written about this before, the strange and expanding nature of my very large house. It starts with a cluster of not very large rooms. Like these two, with a boy standing on the seam between them.

And like this one—

the one we build lately to handle the equally expanding family. From this center, out go the hallways, some grassy ways, some broad ones, carpeted with asphalt and cement. One short grassy one leads to the loft where the tools and the water and the Christmas things are stored. A longer asphalt one leads to the wing that houses another cluster of rooms that belong to Cam and his family. Chaz’ rooms are just across the hall from Cam’s. You pass Rachel’s rooms on the way to these. Thankfully, there are bathrooms all along the way.

But the longest hall leads between sunrise and sunset. At the end of it are the rooms of my father. Halfway along it is this kitchen:

This is the part of my house where my daughter lives, with her family.

I think I became surprised, as I grew past being a child, then past being the mother of children, then as a person with beloved friends, at the need for such a large house. But there it is. And I am astonished at the beauty in this place. But going from rooms to rooms makes me just a tiny bit tired sometimes.

What follows is just a mess of images of last week’s Play With Ginna time – split between kitchens.

Our house is a perfect parade route. You can walk your pets around and around in eternal circles

Sand is very serious about walking his worm. He did it for a good some twenty minutes. And to his credit, Max was with him most of the time.

Next day after church, the family dinner. Only Chaz was missing – because she was sick.

I love these shots. They look like lots of conversation.

I’m not sure what was going through this little mind.

Sand is very interested in dinner.

And mom doesn’t move fast enough.

The dogs, not interested in conversation, wait for us to get silly and drop things.

We retire into the LL for running and talking -

and music.

And science. Sand was learning how to slide. That involves physics.

Scooter is also interested in physics.

Most of the adults are more interested in talking.

But not all of them.

This is the deep satisfaction of advanced motherhood: when your children really enjoy each other.

The founder of the feast.

Cam took a lot of these, proving to me that I had no idea how to run my own camera. I had suspected that for some time —

This is the story of one odd slide. Sand had pretty well gotten the knack. Then—he came down and just sort of – plopped. Just like this. I mean, not like this. This. And he simply stopped. So, after a moment, so did I. I just plopped and stopped. And there were the two of us.

And there we stayed.

For quite a few moments.

Then Sandy’d had enough. Gone, he was. But the nice moment had been noticed by another person—who decided plopping was worth a try. And there we were, a new plopped pair.

Later, this is all we would find of her: Boo locks protruding from a blanket. A whole new take on plopping.

Then the two cousins, realizing that no one had seen Tucker for a long, long time, went outside to call him. It took about fifteen minutes of this calling, during which time Tucker wisely stayed sitting on the hill in the back.

And in the end, Cam pretty much collapsed. Collecting images is hot work.

The next morning, before the sun knew we were awake, Gin and the boys and I were in the Prius (Is it on? Did you start the engine?) on our way back down south.

Two excellent travelers. One patient, the other pretty darn tired.

And here we are, in the place where my daughter opens her own bills.

And Sand reacquaints himself with his old digs.

This is the last bit. I kept forgetting to shoot Sand in his new hat. So I had to do it at the very end. On the way to the airport.

How stupid is it to have to fly from one side of your house to the other? One side of your heart to another. Or maybe you just leave a piece of it in several places. Wherever the truth lies, I can’t see myself settling into a small house for a long, long time.

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Gin, HappyHappyHappy, Images, The g-kids, The kids, Visits | Tagged Andy, Cam, Ginna, Laura, Lorri, Max, Murphy, Sandy, Santa Fe, Scooter, visit | 38 Comments

~:: Never a Dull Moment ::~

Posted on April 11, 2012 by webmaster

I have this whole, insane load of craziness to record here. But Gin is coming, so I am dusting and washing and shaking out things in preparation for the visit of my lovely daughter and the boys.

Just a head’s up. Last week I had a fit of – I don’t know what. Feeling mushy. Like nothing I was doing meant anything. And this is what happens when I feel that way: I DO something. Usually, actually, something I will regret later—like taking a load of things I’m tired of to Good Will (DI). That is how I lost a very dear family heirloom.

Beware of me.

This tree, over thirty years old, was getting grizzled—a bunch of dead branches on the lower trunk. I hated them. Every time I looked at them, I reminded myself I had to do something about them. For years, I did this. So as an antidote to mushy, I stomped out to the garage, got down the scary pruning tools and proceeded to effect mayhem. I even put the dead branches in the back of the truck. No heirlooms were harmed.

A day in the life: Thursday last.

First on the agenda: a meeting at Orren Hatch’s office. Met with Ron Dean, his Guy on the Ground, about a 700 acre marsh an environmental committee wants to put in three blocks away from thousands of houses down here. It would mean re-routing our river and providing habitat for about three billion mosquitos. After Rachel nearly lost her life to West Nile, the rest of us think this is a fairly dreadful idea. Especially considering that there’s a very long OTHER side to the lake where nobody lives. The gloves of the People are coming off.

G, setting up.

The producer gives notes. Our strings are very good. Our producers are very good. Heck. our SOUND is very good. I can claim no credit at all for this, except that i count the beans. But I get to hear it all go down, faintly, through my office wall.

Poor Ray, stuck in the piano isolation room. He plays flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, recorder, piccolo—anything that counts as a woodwind, Ray plays brilliantly. And he’s a sweetheart.

Third: a film shoot in the LL (long, light – family – room) This took till about one in the morning. Not business as usual, but delightful because I got to watch Cam at work, and I kibitzed.

Cam’s Red camera. Green screen. When you need to shoot actors and then overlay them on a more exotic location, you shoot against a green screen.

My son. WOO HOO impressive to me.

The dining room becomes wardrobe.

In the rest of the room: what happened to the denizens of the place.

Behind the green screen.

I love these shots. LOVE them.

Cam directing.

Wardrobe adjustment

Yes. Directing. My kid.

Posted in Events, Family, friends, Fun Stuff, Making Things, The kids | Tagged politics, session, shoot, Tree | 20 Comments

~:: Easter ::~

Posted on April 8, 2012 by webmaster

I am restless. There are so many things I want to write down. So many shots I want to share. On the Sabbath, I tend to want to write things of a spiritual nature, but today I am so tempted to show off Andy and Scoots in our first second-generation bit of egg hunting.

I can’t. Not today.

Today, I am so filled with - where are the words for this? Amazement. Tears. This will not connect with some people I love, I know. It will sound—superstitious, maybe? Like chasing fantasies. But for the others, the ones who have felt this same thing, this inexplicable, heart-breaking gratitude I will only be saying what they already know.

That there is a God. That our lives have meaning – now and past now. That we are capable of miracles, small and large. And that we do them every day on some level. That this whole thing: breathing, earth, spring, the stars, the exact and delicate balance of gravity and the same of radiation from the sun – the elegant lines of our fellow creatures, the inexpressible nature of love – that all of these things are gifts.

And the Son of God, knowing that we would fail a million times in our lives, fall short, turn the world to mirrors, grab the last cookie, eat that one square of chocolate that turns into three – and worse – that he would take the chance of participating in birth and childhood and love.

And death. Of the most amazing and horrible kind: at the hands of the ones you love.

I waste too many words. He was about thirty two. Ginna is thirty two. It’s nothing, thirty two years. If you read Cori’s piece, that’s how I feel. That anyone would love me so much, he would die – so that he understood (what a word that is) this experience he set us completely. So that he could make up for the flaws, the difference, the desperate emptiness we protect so severely.

But more, that he has done this for people who are precious to me. It’s a gift I couldn’t give them, that love, that safety.

So for me, this is a day of horror and gratitude. Now I’ve got to go lead the hymns that will make me cry. I don’t understand any of this, really – it’s something way past what I can conceive of. Because I’m just little. But I know when I’m loved. And I’m so grateful.

To the living God, to Jesus the Christ, I say it. I say thank you.

Posted in Explanations, HappyHappyHappy, holidays | Tagged Easter | 20 Comments

~:: Why We Can Never Be Bored ::~

Posted on April 6, 2012 by webmaster

First, I would like to offer you a profound treat. As part of your preparation for Easter (not the chickie and bunny part, but the heart-stopping love part), I refer you to a lovely piece of writing done by one of my dear friends, Cori. What a woman. What a perspective.

Second, I’m going to complain about how there aren’t enough hours in the day. I cannot seem to do all the basic things (for me: treadmill, horse-feeding, dog-wrangling, shower, keeping track of the money, turning writing into books, preserving the past, planning for the future and loving people) much less remember the holidays more than twelve hours before they happen, knit camels and other beasts, read swell novels, write about them, blog- and the rest of it. Personally, I think days should be elastic—defined by what wants to be done in them rather than by suns and clocks and schedules.

Third, some images from the past couple of days:

Yesterday

This Morning

Posted in Images, Seasons, snow | 21 Comments

~:: How We Captured a Duck ::~

Posted on March 23, 2012 by webmaster

Back in the saddle (not literally). Slept through a million odd dreams, hours’ and hours’ worth. Woke up feeling more like myself. Dressed for the pasture. Greeted the dogs. Checked my mail. Put my phone in my pocket and my hat on, shooed the dogs out the door and closed it firmly behind me.

Then realized that I did not have my keys.

G was gone, babysitting while Cam took Lorri to the airport for a very early flight. So I looked for the Hidden Key. The Hidden Key has been hidden in the same place for about twenty years. I hadn’t realized till that moment: the same place is now deep under the new family room. Good thing it was a beautiful spring morning.

But that is not the promised story. Here it is: this is before I left for SF. It was, in fact, Sunday last. G was sitting by the fire, reading, when he heard a strange little scrabbling sound coming from the stovepipe cleanup door. (Have I mentioned that we heat the house with a natural gas free-standing stove? We do. And the cleanout door is a tiny door at the base of the back of the chimney. And the chimney is in the new room.)

“Hmmmm,” he said to himself. “It sounds like something’s in there.” It was a reasonable conclusion, considering that a starling had fallen down that chimney once years ago. I, myself, would have been scared it might be a rat (in spite of the fact that there is no precedent for that whatsoever). But he, having a healthier imagination, went in and opened that tiny door just a wee bit for a look-see.

The first thing he saw was this eye. This bright, round, worried duck eye.

So he closed the door and yelled for me. He found a big, nice bucket for transporting a hysterical duck, and we positioned ourselves.

But G got in the way so I couldn’t shoot him actually putting his gloved mits around the duck and drawing him/her out of that chimney. She/he was flapping a little bit, so into the bucket she/he went – and we took her outside. I’ve decided on “her.” She had smacked her bill against the rough stones on the way down, but her wings seemed fine.

The dogs were not aware of all this and were busily saying vile things to people taking a peaceful Sunday stroll down the street, so we were safe in the back.

And here is our captive. What an odd idea, really. I mean, I can imagine a starling sitting at the top of a chimney and, have been overcome by smoke, toppling into the hole. But a duck? When there’s that whole river in the back yard? Which only goes to show you that people with too much imagination and adventure in their souls can wind up in difficult places.

When that happens, they can only hope their captors are friendly and gentle and kind and will reinsert them into a more pleasant element.

And the only loss? Maybe a tail feather or two.

The last picture, you will have to imagine. That beautiful little wood duck, once Guy had dropped her over the fence into the bracken, was down the bank and into the water in a flash, and then flying straight up river, a foot above the water – wings whipping up a fountain of shining drops. Soon out of sight.

All’s well that ends well.

Posted in Fun Stuff, Minutiae, The outside world | Tagged chimney. guy, duck | 25 Comments

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~:: On Birthdays ::~

Not my actual birthday, but pretty close.

Mommy and me

Not a lot of pictures of me back in those days. But this was about the same time. I’m on the right. We’re supposed to be those classical theatrical masks: Maria was comedy, I was tragedy. Sort of. For the picture.

~:: Stalking the Killdeer ::~

~::gifts, prizes, surprises and delights ::~

~:: Rest of the Springy Thing ::~

~:: The Spring Thing ::~

Rewind: Easter

~:: My Very Large House ::~

~:: Never a Dull Moment ::~

I have this whole, insane load of craziness to record here. But Gin is coming, so I am dusting and washing and shaking out things in preparation for the visit of my lovely daughter and the boys.

~:: Easter ::~

~:: Why We Can Never Be Bored ::~

~:: How We Captured a Duck ::~

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Not my actual birthday, but pretty close.

Mommy and me

Not a lot of pictures of me back in those days. But this was about the same time. I’m on the right. We’re supposed to be those classical theatrical masks: Maria was comedy, I was tragedy. Sort of. For the picture.

Rewind: Easter

I have this whole, insane load of craziness to record here. But Gin is coming, so I am dusting and washing and shaking out things in preparation for the visit of my lovely daughter and the boys.

Find something:

Recent Comments

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