Photo Challenge: BACK/FRONT

Only 2 of us entered this challenge. When this happens I weep quietly into my ice cr.....um, no, I don't. I do put up more than one photo by each entrant, though, so you're getting two from each photog and a new prompt below (sort of). Enjoy!

I am not usually one to get a kick out of the painful misfortune of children but I couldn't keep myself from including this one and giggling at it. Our Lisa hit the shutter at exactly the right time!

For the record, Our Cindy knew that I was taking a picture of her taking a picture of Her Chris's ashes before she scattered them on our wanderings in Chicago.

I like to see children stationary and at a safe distance from incendiary devices. Glad that Our Lisa's boys are being brought up right...and with all their eyes and fingers intact.

I am not certain at what point El Caminos went from being a drag to being totally cool I just know I really liked this one.

The last prompt felt really challenging for me so I'm going to actually go promptless for this one. Please just enter whatever your favorite recent photo is. What do you want us to see?

Please enter by 9am Wednesday September 11th for posting on September 12th (This is a change in timing as I plan to keep my online presence somewhat quiet on the 11th). Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and PROMPTLESS. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The new appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

Tough Choices

I read two blog posts today that, had I been alone, would have reduced me to a sobbing mess. As I was sneaking my reading in on breaks at work I managed to hold my cover but the stories will stay with me. When you get a moment in this noisy, bright, angry world see if you can give these a read.

Dooce's sister and her family said goodbye to their dog Beau. Heather points out that her sister's children, in letting go of Beau, have had to do something incredibly hard that their parents, not having childhood pets, never had to do.

Heather Solos, a blogger new to me but not, I'm sure, at all new to the internet, said goodbye to her sister recently in a heart wrenching chain of events. While she processes that she gives really important advice about dying and legacy in America.

Today I've been in that place where every tiny slight has made me want to just burn people to the ground and piss on the ashes. After reading these I think I have a hold on myself. I'm looking forward to going home, snuggling a dramatic little dog, and drinking wine with friends.

Poetry Prayer #23

Honestly, I chose this one for the last line.

Late August on the Lido  

by John Hollander

To lie on these beaches for another summer

Would not become them at all,

And yet the water and her sands will suffer

When, in the fall,

These golden children will be taken from her.

It is not the gold they bring: enough of that

Has shone in the water for ages

And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;

But the final stages

Of all those afternoons when they played and sat

And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them

Back over the water again

Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.

What actors then

Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?

All this over until, perhaps, next spring;

This last afternoon must be pleasing.

Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,

While the wind, increasing,

Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything.

Late August on the Lido

  by John Hollander
To lie on these beaches for another summer
Would not become them at all,
And yet the water and her sands will suffer
When, in the fall,
These golden children will be taken from her.

It is not the gold they bring: enough of that
Has shone in the water for ages
And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;
But the final stages
Of all those afternoons when they played and sat

And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them
Back over the water again
Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.
What actors then
Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?

All this over until, perhaps, next spring;
This last afternoon must be pleasing.
Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,
While the wind, increasing,
Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23671#sthash.1Q8N4yYn.dpuf

Late August on the Lido

  by John Hollander
To lie on these beaches for another summer
Would not become them at all,
And yet the water and her sands will suffer
When, in the fall,
These golden children will be taken from her.

It is not the gold they bring: enough of that
Has shone in the water for ages
And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;
But the final stages
Of all those afternoons when they played and sat

And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them
Back over the water again
Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.
What actors then
Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?

All this over until, perhaps, next spring;
This last afternoon must be pleasing.
Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,
While the wind, increasing,
Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23671#sthash.1Q8N4yYn.dpuf

Late August on the Lido

  by John Hollander
To lie on these beaches for another summer
Would not become them at all,
And yet the water and her sands will suffer
When, in the fall,
These golden children will be taken from her.

It is not the gold they bring: enough of that
Has shone in the water for ages
And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;
But the final stages
Of all those afternoons when they played and sat

And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them
Back over the water again
Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.
What actors then
Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?

All this over until, perhaps, next spring;
This last afternoon must be pleasing.
Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,
While the wind, increasing,
Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23671#sthash.1Q8N4yYn.dpuf

Late August on the Lido

  by John Hollander
To lie on these beaches for another summer
Would not become them at all,
And yet the water and her sands will suffer
When, in the fall,
These golden children will be taken from her.

It is not the gold they bring: enough of that
Has shone in the water for ages
And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;
But the final stages
Of all those afternoons when they played and sat

And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them
Back over the water again
Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.
What actors then
Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?

All this over until, perhaps, next spring;
This last afternoon must be pleasing.
Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,
While the wind, increasing,
Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23671#sthash.1Q8N4yYn.dpuf

Happy 103rd Birthday To You!

That's Auntie Blanche in the front in the dark suit. Though we are now firmly in the territory of Years When She Probably Wouldn't Be Alive Anyway I still miss her a lot.

Moody: Feasting

Bill and I went to one of the city's premier independent cinemas last week to see Blue Jasmine. They have great baked goods there and it's one of the few places left where you can get a ginger ale at all much less one from the fountain! That day I had paired my near-extinct ginger ale with a brilliantly dense brownie which was also special because I usually get the carrot cake. They have great carrot cake. I'm used to sharing it, though.

One of the revelations of spending time with Moody post-accident was exactly how limited his ability to serve himself was. We'd been seeing movies together at least once a week for several months before I remember sneaking some Junior Mints into the theatre. I was brought up polite so I offered him some and he agreed.

Then we stared at each other for a moment.

It was oddly familiar, that pause. Decades ago, when I worked for him, we had to go to the roof of our office's building to check the drains. While clearing a drain with his hand he cut his finger. This would have been about 1994 so prime AIDS crisis time in NYC and the world. Michael was gay. I immediately asked if he was OK and sort of leaned in to see if I could help. He was bleeding a bit. Then we stared at each other for a moment. You don't touch someone else's blood anymore, not unless you have a really good reason. Without acknowledging the many thoughts we heard in our heads we decided, together, that this small cut wasn't a really good reason and we went about our business.

More recently, with the candy, I realized pretty quickly that if he was going to have any I was going to have to feed it to him. After our short but loaded pause I fished a couple of discs out of the box and carefully laid one on his tongue. He looked up at me like a baby bird. I was terrified I'd accidentally choke him while his aide was in the lobby on a phone call so I fed him three or four but one at a time and with great slowness. We did our best to keep up our normal conversation to hide the fact that this was weird. Necessary and fine but undeniably weird.

It's a surprisingly intimate act to feed someone else. Think about the last person you fed. Was it a baby? A senior citizen? A lover? Did you use a utensil or your fingers? I might offer to share some food with a friend or co-worker but it's the rare friend indeed that I would physically feed. I remember that within an hour of meeting my ex-pseudo-father-in-law he was shoving a forkful of grits into my face to show me how amazing they are. Awkward didn't even describe how that felt but how could I say no? In "polite company" we proffer the plate and let someone choose a bite. We cut off the perfect melding of all the flavors and gently slide that portion onto the rim of someone else's plate. We cut a deviled egg down the middle with a knife and each pick up our designated half.

Michael broke his back in such a way that he could move his arms but not lift them higher than his shoulders. He had gross motor movement of the upper extremities but none of the fine motor skills required to hold a pencil or toothbrush or fork. From the moment he fell on those stairs to the moment he died several years later other people fed him. The people who performed this unusual, intimate act for him were sometimes family members or friends but were, more often, near complete strangers hired for the purpose. I imagine it must have been one of the oddest, most intrusive things to get used to. I don't know, though, if that was weirder than the moments with friends like the one he and I shared over those Junior Mints.

After that I held cups and straws for him. I forked up perfect bites of cake married with icing. I dropped morsels of candy onto his tongue. It became, for me at least, usual if not entirely devoid of the original weirdness. I will say, though, that it's not as much fun eating my own piece of cake at the movies.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Vandalism

Last night I had a consultation with my gardener and we decided it was time to move my most robust plant to the edge of the sink from its safe spot on the window sill in the shower.

Then I went to sleep

Our reasoning was that this plant would recover from all but the very worst damage. So, it's in the recovery unit now, right back on the window sill in the shower.

Evil cat.

Poetry Prayer #22

A day late but on the theme of Eddie's Homecoming I bring you some lyrics. This is one of my favorite musical theater tunes. If you'd like to hear it you can check out this video that features Diana Ross.

Be A Lion
by Charlie Smalls

There is a place we'll go
Where there is mostly quiet
Flowers and butterflies
A rainbow lives beside it

And from a velvet sky
A summer storm
You can feel the coolness in the air
But you're still warm

And then a mighty roar
Will start the sky to cryin'
But not even light'ning
Will be frightening my lion

And with no fear inside
No need to run
No need to hide
You're standing strong and tall
You're the bravest of them all

If on courage you must call
Then just keep on tryin'
And tryin', and tryin'
You're a lion
In your own way, be a lion

Come on be a lion

I am standing strong and tall
You're the bravest of them all
If on courage you must call
Keep on tryin'
And tryin', and tryin'
I'm a lion
In my own way
I'm a lion
A lion
A lion
A lion

Year Three Complete

I have told everyone who will listen (and some who tried not to) that today is Eddie's Homecoming Day.

I honestly thought that the act of becoming a dog person would change my life but that would be it. I had no idea that each dog could change you just as dramatically.

I have to tell you, I like him. Kind of a lot. I think I'll keep him around.

Photo Challenge: RELAX

I have really leaned in to the RELAX prompt lately. Despite two minor glitches with jobs I've been able to put my feet up and accomplish things only on my own terms. Don't worry, I understand what an enormous luxury that is. When things get nutty again I will refer to this challenge to remind me what relaxation is all about.

You wouldn't think that someone who got married within the month would have a lot of relaxing photos to contribute but Our Janet was the first person to submit to this challenge. Must have been a great wedding!

No one knows how to relax like my friend's dog, Olive. Olive could give relaxation seminars to sloths. She is adorable.

There were three submissions of black and white cats to this prompt. I only included two of them. I think of Our Alisun's as The Ninja Submission. This is a cat waiting to fuck with your relaxation plans, right?

We need to make Our Bethany's cat a tiny kitty sleep mask to protect her delicate eyeballs from the harsh light of day. Such a drama queen!

Our Cindy knows how to relax, right? I remember the year I read that book, too. I lay sprawled on the bed of the house I was sitting with the huge hardcover balanced against the pillows. Perfect summer reading!

Actual Flickr conversation about this photo:

Me, "It cracks me up that you included this. Also, THERAPY LLAMAS!!!"
Our Lisa, "I was so totally relaxed and loving these fuzzy dudes! C'mon, LLAMAS!"

Exactly.


I honestly don't know how I'm going to top the previous prompt. I know that some of us are in back to school mode. As a prompt that doesn't do anything for me except provide a jumping off point. When I jumped I landed on BACK/FRONT as my prompt. Do with that as you will!

Please enter by 9am Tuesday August 27th for posting on August 28th. Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and BACK/FRONT. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The new appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

A Poll for My Betterment

I'm working from home on Mondays in August. It's a delicious luxury for which I am endlessly grateful. Inspired by a conversation with Misti I decided that I would challenge myself to finish one larger project in my home every week while I have this saved time not being used on commuting and all the attendant time suck of getting to the office. So far I have deep cleaned the bathroom (keep in mind that my definition of deep may be shallower than yours but it's still deeper than I've cleaned in a long time) and thoroughly cleaned my floors (similar disclaimer here about my definition of thorough). Not sure what to do next so I thought I'd take a poll here. Please state your preference in comments! Thank you for your assistance.

1. Finish my filing (bought the filing cabinet a couple of years ago, though I have filed many things I have yet to file away every piece of paper).

2. Deep clean the refrigerator (like wash all the shelves and stuff, too).

3. Go through my clothes and cull the discardables. This one could get emotional but in a good way.

4. Clean and reorganize my big storage closet. This will be a physical, hateful thing.

5. Finish backing up and fixing my external hard drive issues resulting in reclaiming my coffee table which has been a computer table since, like, Christmas.

6. Finish selecting the photos for the photo book of our Italy trip.

7. Take some action on the photo book about Eddie and his previous dog walker that I have in the pipeline but have not taken step 1 on. It will be my first foray into really designing and setting up photos.

8. Redesign my blog.

9. Completely clean and reorganize my kitchen counter and cabinets.

10. Nothing.

Are We Lovin' It?

There's a sort of Starred File equivalent in Bloglovin', the feed reader I switched to after Google Reader went away. This will be my first attempt at a linky sort of post using that. Let's see how that goes, shall we?

First let me just post a link to my bleeding heart. Oh, this sweet pup in California. I want her!

Here's a sort of interesting story about some thieves who returned their loot. It's got a Robin Hood vibe but it's also sort of twisted and wrong.

I don't currently have an active alcoholic in my sphere but this post speaks to all kinds of addictions and it came at a good time for me. Ellie was one of BlogHer '13's Voices of the Year. After reading her work for so long it was lovely to hear her speak her story to the masses.

Related but not attached in any way, Sarah Brown is guest posting over at Dooce and she did a pro and anti procreation post. I like it.

Speaking of BlogHer, they ran two posts in tandem both for and against the institution of marriage. After reading them I feel like they were both kind of against but who am I to judge?

Tanis Miller has brought the great Canadian debate of our times to my attention. I don't even know which side to stake my claim on. Reynolds. No, Gosling. No! Reynolds! No...

Oh, and I posted over at Kizz & Tell for the first time since March. I could use your feedback if you have a minute. Of course all the old rules apply, it's about sex and bodily functions and if you're uncomfortable seeing me in that way please don't torture yourself...or me.

Let's take this baby full circle and end with another dog. I've met a bunch of greyhounds. Not one of them had this problem. 

Timeless Love

Today has felt like a good day right from the start.

As soon as I hopped out of bed this morning I decided to take a quick look for an interim harness for the dog so we could start some special anti-tennis court training even though his new fancy harness hasn't been shipped yet. Only 5 minutes out of bed and I was rewarded again with proof of a great day in the making because they were in the first place I tried, right out in plain sight! Granted they were all tangled together with a couple of collars and some tie line but Halloween costume clean up isn't always pretty.

I peeled off a harness I didn't want to use. I disengaged another one that I thought might work and stared at it a while trying to figure out exactly how it's supposed to fit on my boy. Hoping to find a more straightforward example I picked through the myriad scraps of tie line, discarded a collar, picked up what I thought was another collar and....

What's this now?

Could it be?

Oh my lamb, come to mama for she has missed you!

It may not look like much to anyone else but for me it is the jewel in the motherfucking crown. I have been looking for my watch for months. Apparently since Halloween or at least Thanksgiving when I had a party and would have had to clear away the Halloween detritus. I thought it was somewhere in the kitchen, perhaps irretrievably lost behind the dishwasher.

"You didn't just buy another one?" asked a friend.

Aw shut it you practical people. No, I didn't. I am descended from Puritans. I lost the watch and must be punished for my carelessness. I am the reason we cannot have nice things! Thank goodness my punishment is over now.

Others might ask how liberating it was to be free of the constraints of time for so long.

To that I'd have to answer, "I wasn't free from the constraints of time. I still had to be places and do things by certain hours and minutes. What I was free from was the ability to easily know when I was going to fucking blow it!" Yes, I have a cell phone and it keeps time but it's such a bull-in-the-china-shop way of doing it. I turn my cell phone off in movies and plays or on airplanes (because it's the only polite way to do things) but sometimes I still like to know what time it is. If we're half an hour in to Pacific Rim and I have to pee then I'm going to have to run out. If we're two and a half hours under that water then I can probably wait the final ten minutes or so. Have we been taxiing for take off for three minutes or three hundred? Inquiring minds want to know!

Welcome home, dear friend. I have wound you and donned you and even fondled you a little. Let's never be parted again.

Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget that I have a Life List. Apparently the act of putting it on its own page for easy access triggered something in my brain that translates as, "Great, that's put away, you can forget about it." Well, sort of. If you read the updates I made today you'll see that the list has managed to worm its way into my subconscious. I've made more progress than I thought!

Start Your Day Right

After our trip to the park this morning I was walking back into my apartment complex with our neighbor, D, and her dog and saw that a woman was talking to the guards. Just before we reached the door to the security booth she burst out and, leaning forward a little, loudly and directly asked, "Does anyone want to do anything about people partying and smoking pot in the courtyard until 5:30 in the morning?" Her voice was shrill and her gestures big and a little wild.

D and I stared back at her a moment. Finally D, who spent enough years as a special ed teacher to have finely tuned awkward social interaction reflexes, said, "Were they?" She sounded polite and genuinely interested. The woman expanded on her experience, her voice rising in pitch and volume. Her elementary school aged daughter lingered in the doorway unsure what her role was supposed to be.

I jumped in and said, "If they were smoking pot you can call 911."

"I called 911!" the woman cried. "And 311 and the management office and..."

I tuned out here a little so I could grab the phrase running through my head. "Outrage kills nuanced discourse," it was repeating. That was something that Schmutzie tweeted yesterday that stuck with me. She's written about it before (though I'm damned if I can find the link) and the concept has been really useful for me as I wade a little deeper into political discussions both in person and online.

Chili often writes about how she is dinged for being passionate about her convictions. She said a few days ago that people tell her she "feels too much." Having known her a while (30 years is a while, right?) I understood the spirit of what these people were saying but I didn't agree that feeling too much was true. I didn't, however, know exactly how to describe what was true so I kept mum and kept thinking.

Turns out it's the outrage, even justifiable outrage, that does it. I agree with Chili almost universally on socio-political issues. When she's incensed about something it's unusual for me not to feel exactly the same. Sometimes, though, she'll come to me asking me to jump into a discussion and I'll decline. I've explained it to her by saying that when I don't feel there's a reasonable expectation of changing someone's mind then I'm going to reserve my fuel for places where I can move people. I'm in it for the marathon and I know I can't sprint a whole marathon. I won't presume to speak for her but I think she's disappointed when she hears that.

Like the people who say she feels too much I think I worded my reasons poorly. When I decline to participate in those discussions there is usually an element of (sometimes justified) outrage in someone's response that has lit a fire under the conversation and made it exciting to watch but basically an engine for destruction. I believe Schmutzie, outrage kills nuanced discourse and without nuanced discourse we can't solve anything. It doesn't mean you can't get angry, but it does mean that your anger isn't going to make your argument convincing.

I agreed with the ranting woman this morning, too. I've participated in discussions on our neighborhood listserv that I assume she has also been part of. I fought for years to lessen the problem of inconsiderate and noisy neighbors ignoring the house rules on my side of the courtyard and I've tried to give good advice in those discussions to the people fighting it now on her side. We're working for a polite, respectful community, it makes sense that we're all on the same side.

When she came roaring out that door and whipped her head around to pin us against the scaffolding with her voice, though, I couldn't talk. I couldn't participate in that discussion because it wasn't one. It was someone with completely justifiable outrage spewing her anger and frustration all over anyone who crossed her path. She wasn't actually looking for solutions she was simply overflowing with feelings. Before she was done, though, another neighbor came by. This woman is mentally ill and sometimes doesn't take her medication. She gave us all a sustained middle finger, called me a white bitch and D a black bitch and by the time she'd finally gone the original woman had disappeared.

So much for nuanced discourse. Maybe next time.