kstreetjournal | A pony a day keeps the money away —

~:: What Happened on Monday ::~

Posted on March 22, 2012 by webmaster

First, may I say that I am growing to hate capchas of any kind with a deep and abiding hatred? Well, I am. And the darned things are getting longer. Isn’t there another way? Counter-bots that follow the dang spammers back to their nests and blow up?

I’m afraid I might be in a sort of foul mood.

Here is what happened this week:

Wait. No. Here is what happened last week. When did we go to Gin’s last? The second of March. Right. That was twenty days ago? We flew. It was short. But as always when I get back from being anywhere, I have this ghost left in the back of my mind, and when I think about doing anything, it says, “but you better hurry, because you have to leave next week.” When I don’t have to leave. When I have all the time in the world, it still says that. It makes me nuts. So I said to G last week: “Tell me I don’t have to go anywhere next week.” And he did. But now I can never trust him again.

Because of children. Because being a mother is knowing that, whatever you think you know – you don’t. Whatever you think you are going to do, you won’t be. Whatever you don’t plan WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.

Driving through the woods on a frozen morning

There are tooth aberrations in my father’s line. As of about five years ago, he still had at least one lateral incisor that was still a baby tooth. You know that expression, “long in the tooth”? Well, he is, but that tooth isn’t. Long. But old, yes. And I inherited this. I had – I don’t remember – one? Two? Baby teeth without adults to follow. And some of my kids had the problem. But Murph? Five. FIVE TEETH that came without replacement parts.

Please note the cliff at the edge of that icy turn up ahead. And Chaz’ pink Foster Grants, the burden of a true cos-player.

Braces shifted my whole set of teeth around so you almost can’t tell I’m tooth deficient. They pulled the baby ones and crowded all the other teeth into them. But you can’t shift around as many teeth as Murphy has to deal with before you’d have to slap a brass plaque on his chin announcing that his mouth had actually been designed as an abstract impression of the Rocky Mountains. So we always knew that implants loomed in his future.

I was once a dental assistant. It lasted for a year. I assisted in deep bone surgeries and easy restorations and root canals, but mostly, I just made appointments and paid bills. During that time I conceived a deep disregard for prosthetics like cap and bridge. Especially bridge: what is the point of destroying two perfectly good and very personally shaped teeth so you can fill in between them? Implants speak to me.

But you have to have jaw bone to screw them into. Jawbone is shy. Sort of a use-it-or-lose-it affair. If you don’t keep it healthy, your teeth start to drop out of it like apples out of the sky on a warm autumn afternoon. Adult teeth that burrow their roots in the right places are not a problem. Baby teeth that outstay their welcome are. So when Murphy began to have pain in one of his teeth, went to a local dentist and found out the baby tooth was dying an ugly death, we knew that the final process of building Murphy an adult mouth had just precipitously begun. And since Gin’s Dr. Kris has sworn to make it happen, there is where we had to go.

It was Murphy’s job to shoot this as I drove. This is why he likes driving. So I can shoot my own darned stuff.

Murph had to drop everything and travel down to Santa Fe right away. Before the jaw bone decided to recycle itself and disappear. Things being what they were, he was determined to drive himself. Mothers being what they are, I couldn’t let him do that. Chaz being what she is, she wasn’t about to let two weary people weave their ways south through the mountains without the company of a responsible adult. So suddenly: ROAD TRIP.

Never mind the fact that the second worst blizzard of the year was also scheduled for Monday, we threw our stuff into the Highlander and headed for the adventure.

Eleven hours down, through two blizzards. One day running around town. Eleven hours back the next day. I am now sitting on the couch pretending to be sick. This morning, I found a massage person who lives three blocks away, got her to work the kinks out of my neck and shoulders and driving arms and gas peddle leg, and I’m waiting for two days’ supply of Dr. Pepper to drain out of my system so I can stop traveling in my head and finally sleep.

Warm, oblivious Sully.

We had a ton of fun. Grave discussions of all aspects of existence. Terrible puns. Hamburgers. Life-threatening conditions. Cute Sandy. Cute Max. Native American treasures. Sully. The mouth-dropping beauty of red rock. Santa Fe trip as ususal. And they read one of my manuscripts to me all the way down and back, thus doing for me the work I had planned for this week—only much better than I’d have done it alone. I am still lost in the magic of that story and the rhythm of the road. And I am one tired little old lady.

Gin is actually taking professional, dentist like pictures. She is not just taking advantage of her brother’s undignified moments.

Ummm. I, on the other hand, AM taking advantage.

This is Murphy again, trying to get a shot of the magnificent Shiprock. Maybe next time.

Once again, may I celebrate the blessing of useful children who take care of each other? In the end, this is the greatest of all things: that those you’ve invested in, invest in each other. That we should all make God that kind of proud. (read that last bit with a bit of Yiddish)

Posted in A little history, Family, Gin, Journeys, Seasons, snow, The g-kids, The kids, The outside world, whining | Tagged blizzard, Chaz, Dad, driving, Gin, Kris, Murphy, Santa Fe, Teeth | 27 Comments

~:: And Where Did They Bury the Caucus? ::~

Posted on March 17, 2012 by webmaster

And this: go look at my giveaway and enter to WINNNNN! Giving away a hard back copy of Breaking Rank!

Here are some awful (I am NO good with this phone) shots of our only actual snow storm of the year, two weeks ago. This is when we got up at four in the morning to make a flight to Santa Fe, not realizing that we’d be the only snow plow on the freeway. This is what we saw that morning as we opened the door to haul our bags to the car:

Didn’t look like too much here. But on the roads it was deadly.

And you have to realize that we’d had NO snow in the valley all winter. Rachel told me that the day we left, the snow was up to her boot tops when she went out to feed the horses. Two days later we came home and there wasn’t a trace of the stuff left.

Now, I challenge you to understand what you’re seeing here. That deer-in-an-oval is hanging straight down before your eyes. But there’s some optical illusion going on with it, and I’ll play with that when I get back from this stupid drive to Santa Fe we’re doing Monday – through the only other snowstorm we’ve had.

And now, the actual blog:

Have I mentioned the fact that I hate sitting still? No. Let me amend that: if I’m the one talking, or if I’m watching something that involves words and that fascinates me (like a movie or, far more rarely, an incredibly good class), I can sit. Otherwise, like when I’m compelled by duty (to faith or family or something as binding, like traffic school), I can hold myself in place by white-knuckling the edges of my chair. Or by playing Sudoku. I can listen and play Sudoku at the same time. Mostly.

It’s obedience and faith that can hold me through the LDS series of Sunday worship meetings, all three hours’ worth. (Worship meeting, Sunday school, women’s auxiliary). But since I feel neither obedience nor faith to or in any government, political meetings usually don’t even see me darken the door. Unless I’ve got an axe to grind.

Many years ago (four?), I went to my first caucus meeting. I have no idea what possessed me—probably the word “caucus” which is so puzzling, so reminiscent of something a locust casts off, or some sea floor scuttling thing. I dragged Murphy with me, ostensibly for his education. Actually, so I’d have a sympathetic ear for my sotto kibitzing.

Pictures of this year’s caucus. I have helpfully put black dots over the heads of people who are friends. There are no dots over the heads of people I don’t know. If you see a heart in any of these, I’m married to that guy. (snicker) Here is the sad thing: I had color balanced all of these, saving them apart from the originals. Unfortunately, I put the dots on the un-corrected shots. So. Sorry.

It was awful. An awful experience. Once of the most deadly boring things I’d ever done in MY ENTIRE LIFE. Finding the room was kind of a mess. They’d scheduled it in one of the most ancient schools in the city (a junior high, since completely razed and rebuilt as a grammar school), a rabbit warren of hallways. And when we finally found the place (“Is this the republican room? Or the other kind?), there were maybe twelve to fourteen people in it. Which meant no anonymity in sneaking out again. The chairman was a neighbor, a very nice man; serious, responsible. But no ringmaster. He started the meeting late (hoping someone else would show up, I expect) and then proceeded to read, word by ponderous word, the entire Republican Platform.

(Let me say here that many LDS people are republicans. But there are also LDS democrats – I know because I love some, personally. Frankly, I have no idea how they can be LDS and vote the way they do. And they have no idea how I can be LDS and vote the way I do. Which makes for a very nice balance that keeps us from getting just a little too self-satisfied and formulaic.)

I was having flashbacks, sitting there in those junior high-sized desks. Trapped by government obligation. The big, stark clock on the wall with hands that moved with awful torpidity. We gave it an hour (no bell rang) and finally elected our friend, Steve, as a delegate. Then, with no subtlety whatsoever, I grabbed Murphy and we made our escape. And never went to any such meeting ever again.

Till this year. This year, somehow, the caucus become the Party-to-Go-to. People had signs on their lawns. Computers called us (over and over and over) in case we might have forgotten about it. Poster-sized card-stock notices were crammed into our mailbox. And Dawn wrote about hers. So okay. We decided to give it one more go.

And wow, was this a different experience. We had a hard time finding the door (in a different, newer, but still warren-like series of hallways) because of the mass of people crowding the place. Like trying to get on Peter Pan at Disneyland. Our precinct (I felt SO New York, being in a precinct) met in the school library, and we crammed the place. One hundred and thirty seven people showed up in that room alone. Dozens of neighbors we know well. Dozens more we know marginally. The chairman was succinct, funny and VERY good at working a room.

When they were passing out paper ballots, I jumped up to help and earned the position of Vote Counter for the rest of the evening. So I didn’t have to sit still hardly at all. It was great and very American: we all spoke out of turn, were free with our jibes and catcalls, laughed ourselves silly. We got to ask probing questions about our nominees’ political views, a revealing experience when the noms are neighbors you’ve known for years and worked with at church. (REALLY? You feel like THAT?) And Some people had brought their teenaged kids (most of whom were personal friends of mine – the kids I mean). And I ran around the room all night, handing out ballots, collecting and counting and votes, and yelling sly things from the back.

It was actually great fun. I was even nominated as a county delegate. But I declined; I am much more happy and effective as classroom monitor, thank you very much.

So, I don’t know. I think making your voice heard is way fun when you’re in a room full of people you like and trust. It all felt – very American. That’s my brand, you know. American. Mouthy, pushy, opinionated, outraged but quick to pitch in where it’s needed. Brands: LDS, Mom, Teacher, Horsewoman, Genealogist, Friend., G’s other half, American.

I may not appraise for much, but you know – I’m think I’m really fine with that.

Posted in Events, friends, Just talk, The outside world | Tagged airport, caucus, sitting still, snow | 24 Comments

~:: The Tale of a Grey Bird ::~

Posted on March 14, 2012 by webmaster

I will tell you that I, having decided to educate my children myself for as long as I could, waded into teaching them to read with naïve confidence. And backed out of it astonished at the complexity of the job. First, you have to teach them to recognize the shape of a letter and label it with a name. You have to be careful, explaining that letters have wrong wayness and upside-downness – that every part of the shape counts.

Yeah, we teach them the alphabet song. But what meaning is in it? The song gives letters an order that really has nothing to do with making words. And it really doesn’t tie the shapes to the names.

Even tying names to shapes isn’t the meat of the learning, because the names only hint at the real meaning behind the symbol: that shape indicates sound. And some shapes actually can indicate several sounds.

From there, you have to move to the idea of making a string of letters – and thus a string of sounds that have to fade into one another the way one musical note in a melody does into the next – and that words do not not always mean concrete things, but also feelings, actions, ideas –

Every one of us has learned these things, one way or another – because the adults around us made the effort and took the time to teach us. Think of the immense complexity of the learning a child does in his first four years. Balancing on hands and knees. Learning to stand, and then to move. And so many other startling truths we’ve forgotten we once didn’t know.

Some years ago at the local university, some person made it departmental policy that all children’s books including talking animals should be shunned. Such a book just wasn’t realistic; children need to be brought up to the real world, not some fantasy place full of anthropomorphized animals. (anthro=people morph=form) Ah, the wisdom of those who feel themselves educated.

Science likes to make pronouncements. What I love are the studies you hear about every so often: “Children who are brought up with reasonable discipline have been found to be more successful in school!” Or: the consumption of sugar has been found to contribute to obesity. Or: if you drop something, it will, according to recent studies, fall downward. I know that you have heard this kind of thing on the news. Tell me that you haven’t rolled your eyes at least once and said, “Gosh. Really?????”

But once in a while, you hear something that knocks your socks off, and that is what I want to write about here: my mental bare feet. It happened some years ago. And I’m willing to bet, though I don’t really remember now, that it was a segment on American Scientific Frontiers. Alan Alda had gone bird watching—in the lab of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a theoretical chemist (as I recall) who had deserted chemistry for something far less scientifically acceptable: the study of animal intelligence.

Long held scientific strictures concerning animals indicates that they are not actually all that intelligent, not the way human beings are. That they are driven by program (call it instinct if you like) and not remotely by “intent,” having no sense of self. Remember the crack I made in the last post about people without families writing about them? I have to assume that scientists must not be, in the main, people who live with animals.

Animals can’t learn concepts like same and different. They can’t understand counting, numbers, color. Of course, beasts and birds don’t have a lot of motivation for counting things. They don’t keep inventories so they call sell to other people; they don’t need to keep track of their property (or if they do, they have a much more available method of doing it); they don’t have to pay taxes. But we take the absence of their doing these things for an indication that they can’t do them. The same way you’d have to assume that all the people who were born before the harpsichord was invented were incapable of playing a keyboard.

But my opinion isn’t worth much. I read all those damaging, anthropomorphizing kids’ books as I grew up. We were so naïve back then – Black Beauty. Call of the Wild. And I watched Lassie, too. And My Friend Flicka, and Flipper. So my perspective is terribly warped.

I once secretly spied on Scout, our escape-artist Collie, who was way down the yard— preparing to climb the fence and be gone. Before he put paw to fence, I watched him pause, then take a long, deliberate, appraising look over his shoulder at the house. I was so warped by then that I actually assumed he, knowing good and darned well he was NOT supposed to climb the fence, was checking first to make sure nobody was watching him.

Silly me.

That experience Alan Alda had in Dr. Pepperberg’s lab? It had us both scraping our jaws off the floor. The doctor has started her research with a year old African Gray, bought at some random pet store. She hadn’t even picked the bird herself; the clerk had picked it for her, all in the name of impartial science. How could she have known that, thirty one years later, she and this feathered “colleague” would end up doing that could whip up a firestorm in the scientific community.

Parrots. They only pick up what you say and then they repeat it. Like Pete the Repeating Bird, the toy I did NOT get for Murphy for Christmas when he was six. They don’t really know what the words mean. At least, that’s what everyone who has NOT owned such a parrot has thought through the ages.

All she set out to do was to try to find out what is really inside the mind of an animal by teaching one to talk so he could tell her.

This is the short bit of a long interview at Massachusetts School of Law. Part of a series about significant women and their work. It’s about Alex’s number reasoning. The rest of the interview is linked at the end of this piece.

So by now, you’ve noticed that I’ve posted a few YouTube moments here for you. I took a lot of time finding the good ones and harvesting the links. Most of you never follow my links – you lunks. What, you don’t believe I find cool stuff that you’ll get a kick out of seeing? But I hope you watch these, because they are astonishing, astounding, and somehow, deeply spiritual. And still shots are not going to make you understand why I am so deeply moved and intellectually provoked by all this.

G and I just read Alex and Me, Dr. Pepperberg’s personal account of her work with an animal that can live sixty years. This is not a scientific work, but her human story. And what we read there – wow.

Here is a short working clip: the two of them in the lab. Not the highest quality – just a record of the work. Still amazing.

This one is more professionally put together.

I remember, after seeing the Alda piece, thinking – if all the people in the world could realize that the self of an animal is just as real as the self of a human being – we would all be deeply, horribly ashamed and embarrassed by the way we have treated our furry/feathery brethren.

What she did was take the time to teach a fellow creature the things we teach our own children: what the world is made of, and how to use words to function with other minds.

The most brain-reaming thing she reported about her work was this: after long work with Alex establishing a lexicon (a list of words you both can use to communicate concepts), and after teaching concepts like number, symbolism, types of matter, color, similarity and difference, Dr. Pepperberg offered Alex a tray with a small refrigerator magnet number 7 on one side of it and four large blue blocks on the other. Then she asked him, “What bigger?”

It was a tricky question. One little number symbol. Four large blocks. I’m sure Alex would have loved to have been able to ask her any number of qualifying questions before he answered. What he finally said was simply, “Seven.” She had to do the exercise again and again, using “small” numbers and more blocks, “larger” numbers with fewer blocks. Most of the time, Alex showed her that he understood that the number symbol meant an actual number of things, and keeping that number in mind, compared it to the number of blocks, unfooled by their actual size. And came up with an answer. Can your four year old do this?

If you are not shocked by now, I must assume it is because you have never tried to teach a child how to count, or how to associate letter shapes with sounds.

I think we adults often don’t even give our children credit for having minds. So often, the manifestation of their intelligence ends up being a little trying and a lot inconvenient.

Seeing the results of Dr. Pepperberg’s work just changes the shape of the world for me. I have actually heard people say that beating a horse, or riding him with spurs is no big deal because “they don’t feel pain like we do.” I believe that slave owners in the south once said the same of their field workers. But I have seen a mosquito land lightly on the broad back of a horse, and the horse immediately shift his entire skin to fling the thing off. A creature that can feel the touch of microscopic feet can certainly feel whip end of pain.

I guess there’s a larger truth here, too. That we really know very little about the world around us. About each other. How other people may see exactly the same things we do – but perceive them very differently. I believe in truth. But I also believe that we adults aren’t as acquainted with it as we long to believe we are. Anyway, there you are. I’d love to know what you make of all this. If it’s as surprising to you as it was to me.

This is the long story - it’s an interview that I think is about an hour long. Very interesting and covers just about everything.

This is the last one. Not long – but poignant.

Posted in IMENHO (Evidently not humble), Just talk, The outside world | 20 Comments

~:: Milestones 2012 ::~

Posted on March 12, 2012 by webmaster

Last weekend, this person and I jetted down to Santa Fe for a special occasion: the eighth birthday and subsequent baptism of our very first grandchild.

I don’t think I ever really saw myself with grandchildren – not till they happened. Till Max happened. For that matter, I really don’t think I ever saw myself with children. I think the sum total of my young future visions stopped with the fairytale formula: finding the prince/best friend/soul mate and living happily ever after. Not that I didn’t assume there would inevitably be children and a house and domestic chaos; even if I had been born in a barn (which is a possibility—my mother asked me about that often enough) I’d have picked up on those elements.

I just never visualized myself with them. And I never hankered after them. The brutal truth is that I hated babysitting. H-a-t-e-d it. Only the money seduced me into it. Let me warn you: do not hire me to watch your children (have I written this before?).

Nobody warned me what it would be like. Oh – they will always warn you about noise and brattyness and bedlam; people who tend to live on coasts and make mass media about families without actually having one are always very clear on these points.

I simply had no idea how fiercely I would love my children. How they would drive me crazy in a million ways—love, worry, hope, empathy. People who love to talk about education never talk about this: how the child is the school, and the parent the learner. That I would be so swallowed up, I’d brave pregnancy a second time, then a third and a fourth, just for the privilege of waiting at the gate with a baseball glove on both hands, wondering who would get tossed into my arms this time.

Small children are the hardest for me: I love looking at them. I love talking to them. Mostly when their parents are around though. I am still not a babysitter. I am more willing to teach them writing and trigonometry than I am to fill hours will blocks and tiny pretends and sub-English communication. This makes me a lousy grandmother, I think. Not like Kathy, Gin’s other mother, who is warm and patient and willing to do any and all selfless things. Around her, I am a squib. I felt that way about being a mommy, too.

But I invested everything in my children. The hours, the passion, the work, the heart. Children are the hardest, most magnificent and creative work I ever did, will ever have done. And every minute, both the wonderful ones and the pure slog—utterly, eternally worth it. I raised up unto myself friends who will last forever. The grandchildren are simply an amazing fringe benefit.

And then – here we are, observing fat, backyard rabbits at my kid’s house.

And filling our arms with this person.

These people.

We were treated to a fine guitar concert. You will note that this is a nylon string guitar, and that this child is playing classical guitar.

He and his dad both, learning the finer skills, weaving strings of individual notes together into a baroque miracle.

Some of us listened.

Some of us played our own things.

This light was so warm, so glowing.

The next morning, I was brought awake violently. Just through the wall of my room, some people were listening to VERY loud, busy music, underscored by this weird, unending noise – as if they were making hundreds and hundreds of smoothies in hundreds and hundreds of blenders. This, I learned, is the sound of “spinning.” If you look, you will see the “trainers” under the back wheels of the bikes. These allow a rider to go very fast for miles and miles and miles without ever leaving his house.

By the time I dragged myself out of bed, these two must have done ten miles, easy. I came out of the room, carrying things I could throw at them. But they were so cute, I couldn’t do it.

You will note that the miles were wearing Max down a bit.

Yep. Wearin’ him right out.

Out.

But in a surprising moment of bravery and character, up he popped and on he went.

And the next day, we were off to church for the big moment.

The three men, all dressed up and ready to go.

The little family – a terrible shot taken in the hallway before the moment.

A better shot, taken inside the room. All ready to go.

Every time I tried to shoot the proud mother, the unconcerned younger brother managed to express himself.

Finally, and wonderfully – before a crowd of earnest young friends and loving older ones. And it was done. The father blessing his oldest son. Beautiful words said. Beautiful songs sung. Mama played a flute duet with a buddy. Dear friends were there in all good heart.

Then it was time for the grandparents to go home. The funnest part of this is that all us grandfolks got to come at the same time in the same plane. We drove through a terrible snow storm at five in the morning to get to the airport so we could come to this (freeways not even plowed), and then through sixty degree sunshine on our way home from that same airport. We had a great time together, all of us. We always do.

But sometimes, I guess we wear out little ears . . .

Here is a true thing: when you are with a child, especially outside, you will hear birds you’d forgotten were there, hear the bark of a dog three blocks away, know an airplane is flying miles above your head, see color. You will remember your own big moments – what it was like when the milestones happened in your life. I have always thought of myself as the children’s life-tour guide, but it is not so; the children showed me the wonder of now, here, this place.

I think they taught me to be alive.

Posted in Events, Family, Fun Stuff, Gin, HappyHappyHappy, Journeys, The g-kids, The kids, Visits | Tagged baptism, bikes, G, Gin, guitars, Kathy, Kris, Max, rabbit, Sand, Sully | 39 Comments

~:: Saturday ::~

Posted on March 10, 2012 by webmaster

I cannot write. So much crowding my little brain – rants about my hatred of politics, philosophical unravellings of the universe, book reviews, squeals in response to cuteness, speculations about the nature of the human mind and fingering weight yarn. I could howl about the limitations of the space time continuum, and a do a ripping followup on my resentment of entropy. But I can’t. I am brain-exhausted.

All I have been doing is learning the ins and outs of ebook publishing, which is more arcane than you can imagine. Some of you. Not that you can’t imagine it – but that you wouldn’t waste the time.

That and finishing the yearly project. And discovering Lynda.com tech training, through which I am finally learning how to do the things in Photoshop I’ve been doing the hard way for the last five years. Plenty of “Are you KIDDING me?” and “THAT’s how you do it!” moments. I have been, in short, living at my desk. Seeing no one, except on our trip to Santa Fe, and spending no money, except on our trip to Santa Fe. Until this morning.

This morning when I got home after feeding the beasts (stumbling stupidly through the chill morning – it’s good I only drive a country mile to get there), I opened the door of my house to find this person in it:

These people, actually. Andy dressed in flannel clouds, Scoots in small bright cars.

They invaded the kitchen. Do you see the small anime character beside the sink?

Hoping to coerce this man

and this one, also, to cook pancakes for them. Pancakes with chocolate chips and squirty cream. There is nothing I love so much as men who wear aprons and mean it.

Waiting.

And then chasing it all down with milk. “Well, Scooter – how did you like. . . oh. You need a minute, there, do you?”

I followed them outside into the warming morning as they left and noticed these. Then I came back into the house and wasn’t there more than two minutes before there was yet another knock at the door.

It was this person.

When the apron came off, this bearded man (who had been dressed like this the entire time) and this young buck broke out the bikes and went a journey toward the mountain.

Here is a dog who dreams of bringing down a wild bike with only his teeth.

This morning, it was not to be.

Though both dogs did their best to chase down those bikes on the other side of the fence. After that, I had treadmill time planned. But here came another person, jockeying her way in through the front door with a slightly clicky key.

Also dressed for biking. I was the only one desk bound today, I think, in the entire world. Anyway, I have no tight black pants.

I am also not a super-hero. But I did make some headway in my learning. Some. And I had some chocolate – which made up for everything else.

Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, The g-kids, Uncategorized | 44 Comments

~:: A Whole Lot of Nothing ::~

Posted on February 24, 2012 by webmaster

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.

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.

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 397^th (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.

But it was tonight I meant to write about.

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.

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.

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.

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 Chaz, G, movie, Philly steaks | 30 Comments

:: Valentines <3

Posted on February 14, 2012 by webmaster

heart with thanks

I mean it.

Posted in Family, friends | Tagged Valentine's Day | 23 Comments

~:: Vanishing Point ::~

Posted on February 12, 2012 by webmaster

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 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?)

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 webmaster

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I hung up.

Then I found another mistake: you know how, if you pay your Visa total in full for a month before the 25^th 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.

Another Gin one.

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

See? They do hold still for me.

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 banking, Books, having a cold, technology | 20 Comments

~:: Anatomy of a Family Portrait ::~

Posted on January 30, 2012 by webmaster

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.

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

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

And one is never enough.

Well, another two.

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.

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?

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

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.

ditto.

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

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.

Something that doesn’t last long.

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

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.

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

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?

Oh, cats.

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

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

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

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 Andy, back yard, Cam, Chaz, Christmas picture, family, Laura, Lorri, Max, Murph, picture, Sand, Scoots | 33 Comments

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Driving through the woods on a frozen morning

Please note the cliff at the edge of that icy turn up ahead. And Chaz’ pink Foster Grants, the burden of a true cos-player.

It was Murphy’s job to shoot this as I drove. This is why he likes driving. So I can shoot my own darned stuff.

Warm, oblivious Sully.

Gin is actually taking professional, dentist like pictures. She is not just taking advantage of her brother’s undignified moments.

Ummm. I, on the other hand, AM taking advantage.

This is Murphy again, trying to get a shot of the magnificent Shiprock. Maybe next time.

And this: go look at my giveaway and enter to WINNNNN! Giving away a hard back copy of Breaking Rank!

Didn’t look like too much here. But on the roads it was deadly.

And you have to realize that we’d had NO snow in the valley all winter. Rachel told me that the day we left, the snow was up to her boot tops when she went out to feed the horses. Two days later we came home and there wasn’t a trace of the stuff left.

This is the short bit of a long interview at Massachusetts School of Law. Part of a series about significant women and their work. It’s about Alex’s number reasoning. The rest of the interview is linked at the end of this piece.

Here is a short working clip: the two of them in the lab. Not the highest quality – just a record of the work. Still amazing.

This one is more professionally put together.

This is the long story - it’s an interview that I think is about an hour long. Very interesting and covers just about everything.

This is the last one. Not long – but poignant.

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

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

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

My sad attempt at Fuzzy Mitten’s Pookie pattern.

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

Andrew Jackson Sneed and Mahalia Ann Smith Sneed

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.

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

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

Another Gin one.

See? They do hold still for me.

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

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