http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/04/us/politics/20081104_ELECTION_WORDTRAIN.html

Mommy's little helper

Part of my job is to lie down on the floor and rub kids' backs to help them take a nap.  It sounds wierd, and it is incredibly intimate, but it's also great and enables kids to have pleasant afternoons.

Yesterday everyone was totally stoked about Halloween and totally a mess.  I got a pillow and sat next to this little boy who really likes me.

What are you being for Halloween? He stage whispered.

It's  not time to talk now, it's time to rest.

He smiled at me and said You could be a Mommy.

Awww.  I thought.  He thinks I'm nurturing and warm.  He also thinks that I'm different enough from a mommy that it could be a costume.  That's really sweet.

You could get some toilet paper and wrap it around and be a mommy for Halloween.

Yep.

He meant mummy.

Recall, for a moment, the most foreign Asian-sounding music you can imagine... unrecognizable rhythms and chord progressions... the kind where you just don't think that music is REALLY an international language at all... that makes you feel a little ignorant when you wonder "Is this it, or are they just warming up?"

Ok. Now put it together with everything that you know about the sound of another person learning to play any bowed intstrument... and then put it on a subway platform. I was ASTOUNDED that so many tired Bostonians were so patient with something so irritating. This Asian man was sitting on a special cushion with an empty tissue box beside him for donations and just wailing away on the thing, staring into space, his cheeks reddening occasionally... from exertion, perhaps? From embarrassment? The oppressive underground heat and humidity? After at least 15 minutes the teenage next to me moaned quietly "Oh my god." and took off his coat.

When one puts off blogging...

One is stumped to find something worthwhile enough to say that makes it ok that you haven't written. .. this is a vicious cycle, as we all know.

In my silence, I've found a job (at a wonderful childcare) and we've found an apartment (that I feel great about) and I've found myself very happy to have moved.  I no longer feel confused that I might be still on vacation, and things are comfortable and easy here.

Next time I write, I ASSURE you, it'll be clever and fascinating and sooner than an entire month.

Oh, and thank you to those who encouraged me to blog again.

News flash

So far... The  biggest differences between Boston and Seattle?

Cyclists here are more likely to be crazy, breaking the law, dressed in street clothes and helmetless.  

One cannot find a cd store if one is more that 3 blocks from a college dormitory.

Ice coffee is sold everywhere.  (But we expected that, didn't we?)

The rain is harder.  I went to NYC to visit my brother and he talked me into buying an umbrella within about 10 minutes.  I can't remember ever having an umbrella.  There's some hazy memory of having one in my childhood, and YES there is that disturbing pink one with a face that I found on my lawn one morning, but I never used it.  So, there it is... I've changed.  I'm an umbrella user who rides her bike on the sidewalk sometimes.  

You say you want a revolution...

Z and I have been following the Arsenal, an English football team for two seasons now. While I really dig it, it feels kind of funny to put a lot of energy into something so distant (we actually got satellite JUST to watch football!) I was really excited that when we moved here, we could totally follow a local, kickass soccer team... the New England Revolution.

I headed to Providence for various and sundry things on Friday, and was planning my return when Z mentioned that the Rev were playing the LA Galaxy. (The Galaxy are like the Yankees of men's pro soccer in the states... they've got Landon Donovan AND David Beckham.) He looked into actually heading over to the stadium, but since I'm still unemployed, and tickets are not THAT cheap we settled for watching the game in a bar.

In Seattle, we knew where to find soccer on tv. In Fremont, there was the George and Dragon, there's The Dray in Ballard, there's the Kangaroo and Kiwi on Aurora and downtown, there's the Owl and Thistle. When the African Cup happened we called each of them and every Ethiopian restaurant and bar in town and still couldn't watch ONE game, even the final. What I'm saying is, we have practice tracking down soccer bars. Since I was hanging out with the Gray family, Z did all the "legwork" (read: Googling) tracking down the best place to go. I got home, we left for the T, we got out right near Fenway, and headed to a very fancy bar.

"Are you sure they'll show it?"
"Yes. This is where the very devoted fans, the Midnight Riders, come when they can't get to the game. They'll show it."

I put a shirt on over my tank top for decency and we headed in. Every television showed college American football. We asked the bartender, she asked her manager, she told us no. The manager came to us and apologized... usually they do show the games, but tonight they had a private party starting in 20 minutes. He apologized a couple more times and told us he wasn't sure where we could go to see the game.

We headed out, and over to Boston Beer Works which had a plethora of tv's (also showing college ball). We asked, and they said that they could totally put some tv's on the Fox Soccer Network for us...also they were a microbrewery! Score! We sat down and put off the waiter until we were sure that they really had the game. There was the face of Donovan in high def! We ordered beers and food (our waiter just moved here from Portland, Or, so we exchanged secret handshakes and he told us about the floral Ipa "You really can't find that kind of Ipa here in Boston") and then "No Signal". The tv's would show about 1 or 2 minutes of game and then "No Signal" for about 30 seconds. "Watching" the game this way was worse than listening to a radio, worse than not watching at all. All the same, it was all we could look at... we'd watch a play develop, see the pass toward the center then "No Signal". We were crestfallen. We gulped down the beer and the food and bolted.

The Iphone oracle suggested we go to a place called McGinns. En route Z popped into a bar as we passed and they suggested we head to McGinns. Thus bolstered in our faith in the oracle, we walked around the block. McGinns looked like just the place... except that it was inexplicably dark. So inexplicably dark (no sign, no nothing) that we both just stared into the windows for awhile. It was frustrating. We didn't have anything else to do, though and it was early so we figured we'd wander around and maybe get lucky. I had given up any real hope, but I like wandering around, so off we went around the next block. We saw a place called "Porter". We both enjoy porter, so we headed over. We looked through the paned windows, and there over the bar was a television showing the game. Easy as that. There were a handful of people inside, including a broad, atheletic-looking guy with bristly silver hair, staring up at the screen.

It was fantastic. The game was exciting (we'd only missed the first half hour) and Z talked to the fan... he'd played professionally back in the day and was eager for soccer to "catch on" here in the states. He followed Portugal and they had a great chat.

Here's to finding our way in our big home! Cheers.

I'm very blessed....

So many kind people said "goodbye".

So many kind people said "Welcome".

Now I'm taking things out of boxes again. I feel at home, and like a dog in space.

Yesterday I took an enormously long walk. I found a yoga studio, two public libraries, all the banks, a bakery, the coop, the other hippy dippy grocery, the bike store (w/ bike map), the UU church (apparently there's another close by) fair trade coffee, the bike path through the green space... it was awesome. Wierdly I could NOT find a public bathroom. Not in the place where I bought and consumed my large ice coffee and a bagel, not in the next place I visited, or the Goya-filled Hi Lo Grocery. Finally, I came upon a T Station, and decided to look there for a bathroom. Basically I ended up having this crazy identity crisis in there, just trying to get to a bathroom.

Kendra: Do you have a public bathroom on this side of the turnstyle (I REALLY have to go.)
Guy in uniform: Nope, nothing on this side.
Kendra: Well, if I paid a fare to get past the turnstyle would there be a bathroom on the other side?
GIU: Yeah, there's one on that side.
Kendra: Oh good, I just moved here... where do I put the money?
GIU: You don't have a card?
Kendra: No, I just moved here yesterday from Seattle.
GIU: and you didn't take the T yet? How'd you get here.
Kendra: Well, I'm staying right around the corner.
GIU: If you're staying right around the corner, why not go there, and save the money?
Kendra: Well, I really have to go, and they wouldn't let me go at the coffee shop where I bought the coffee, and then I walked awhile...
GIU: They wouldn't ?!

This guy didn't believe a word I said, and I'm not sure which part started him doubting me. I just had to go to the bathroom! Anyway, I found myself hoping he always worked that stop so I'd get to know him and we could laugh about it later... but mostly I was hoping I could put the money in the machine and get to the bathroom. He had the Woman In Uniform unlock a bathroom for me. It was wierd because it appeared to be an employee bathroom, and someone had obviously been smoking there just before. Also, instead of handsoap, there was hair conditioner.
I am a stranger in a strange land.
I am very happy here.

Today I had coffee with my dad and cooked veggie chili and went to a yoga class.

kp

Double Date Weddings 2008

Six years ago (and a week) Zak and I got married, and a week after that, our dear friends Ty and Jd did too. It was christened "Double Date Wedding 2002" by Wally Pleasant, a folk singer who was commissioned to write a song all about us.

This last week has been Double Date Weddings 2008. It has also been a wierd respite from our move preparations. I'd like to write more but I'm very tired. Here is a picture of Puj and Stevu from their wedding... there will be some of Bri and K's soon, but I didn't bring my camera so I'll have to wait. Now I've got to go to sleep.

I'm putting things into boxes.

It's really difficult to concentrate/focus/pack. One box at a time. That's all I can do.

Time Warp

In the summer of '95, I had to get ready to say goodbye to my three best friends and my boyfriend because they were all going to college and leaving me behind for my senior year. By September, I could recount what I did every single day of that summer, because it all felt so eventful and poignant. (Also, because we did awesome stuff like, go to the drive-in, hung out at diners and Thai restaurants, drank coffee and swam in Newport at night, and climbed around Lincoln park.)

This summer there are some circumstantial similarities, of course, but weirdly there's been some very visceral experiences that confuse my sense of time.

- Riding in the backseat of a car on the way to the beach around sunset with loud techno music playing, while the driver inexpertly speeds through gears and skids to a stop at every light.

- Believing that coffee can make up for weeks of mild and mostly voluntary sleep deprivation.

- Spending HOURS on the phone with different people, talking until I figure out really big ideas about myself and my future.

garage sale is over.

whew.

Shameful

It's the basement, man, it just swallows me whole!

I've been under the stairs, and keep finding the kind of stuff people keep in cardboard boxes under the stairs... tax documents, paperwork from work trainings and college classes, old notes from friends and lovers... generally weird stuff! I found my second journal WHICH I started in 7th gr. (Homeroom 20, it says on the cover.) I started it because we were reading Ann Frank's diary, AND we were about to start the Persian Gulf war, and my self-absorption kind of led me to conflate the two. It's more embarrassing than I would have thought.

"6:36 am January 16th: Hi again! I'm waiting for my Cream of Wheat to heat up. Isn't it weird that when my mom was a kid they had to make a big pan of it now you make your own in 3-4 min. as compared to 20 min cool huh, Oops it's done, see ya.

9:11am January 17th: We bombed Iraq last night. We bombed their air fields, factories, and everything. We're about to take a lit exam.

10:56 am I'm back and I'm in science. Oh, I got a 95% on my exam only two wrong!!! I'm so happy, mom's going to be ecstatic!! We won in Gym! We're going to see a movie to tell us about Uranus. Bye!"

Good thing I grew up, so I can write about important stuff, like what people in Ballard say on the bus, and how efficiently (or not) I'm moving.

I'm a little dizzy....

Saw the Dark Knight, it was incredible, absolutely amazing. LOVED it.

The to-do list has graduated from the bathroom mirror to the white board in the kitchen. (This whiteboard used to hold shopping lists and lists of all the non-visible foods in the house (pantry, freezer etc.) Now it has lists pertaining to emptying this house, to filling boxes and a truck, to preparing for visitors (?!) and applying to school.

Also, we started feeding the cats Peppercatz because of John's wierd skin problems and their enormity. It's raw meat, which I feel good about for them but a little confused about as a new vegetarian. On the other hand, after two days they're behavior is decidedly more catlike on the cat-to-sofa spectrum which is incredibly charming. Yesterday, we watched John tear ass across the lawn (which generally only happens in the presence of a dog or a vaccuum) and scratch her nails on the fence. "She's THINKING about CLIMBING the FENCE!" Z said with absolute incredulity. We're mixing it with their old food (California Natural) and the kibbles have been left over every single day. (Today, I gave them Evo which the lady at the pet store gave me for free to try. It is still sitting there.) John ignored her bowl in order to plot about how to intimidate Little G out of hers.... again a move away from sofa.

Proof of Packing

Last night my friends John and Paula watched me pack because Z is away for the weekend and I needed some moral support. I went through a box of old stuff (dumped most of it) and two shelves of books. (Most of our books Z and I want to pack or pitch together, but tonight I did my child/youth section, and saved two questionable items to ask him about later.) Unfortunately, since I don't have boxes yet (but will fetch some today... cast-offs from P's wedding gifts) my packing really consisted of stacking. But the hard part for me is really sitting on the floor, and casting off the ones I don't want, and I did that.










































For John the Baptist, hating changes is the hard part, though.

I've found myself really anxious and stressed out about this move, more than I thought I would be. Yesterday I said something about "this family" and how we move. It was a tense moment in a long string of tense moments, but Z laughed when I said that and we realized that maybe there are some other voices speaking in our conversation. I don't remember much of moving as a kid, but we did it a lot because my dad was in the Navy. (The last big move was when I was 9 and I remember that one.) I'm pretty curious about how my family talked about moving, and what my parents were anxious about at the time. I remember the concept of "cleaning for inspection" and that it was a big deal. I think at one point this meant my mother scraping spaghetti off the ceiling in Connecticut (someone had shown her that a perfect way to test your spaghetti is to throw it onto the ceiling... if it sticks, it's done.) and oatmeal off the water heater in California (a kid my mom cared for had been forced to eat his cold oatmeal breakfast leftovers for lunch and the kid had hidden it there when my mom's back was turned). I guess, when I'm feeling stressed out about emptying the basement, I can imagine scraping oatmeal off the heater.
Yeah, that might help.

It's the little things....

That let me know we're moving. No I don't have big boxes lying around yet... there is the Direct TV reciever all boxed up for FedEx... the woman just couldn't understand that I'd only wanted it for Soccer and now that the Euro cup is over, it's worthless to us.

No, I know I'm moving because when I started to taste hot sauces from Zack and Zane's at the farmer's market a few weeks ago, Z reminded me that we would "only have to move it." When I got home, I looked at the pantry. Time to use that 3 year old can of coconut milk... what'll I do with all that rice that the Sprayberries gave us when they moved two years ago... ship it to Allentown maybe?

This morning I used the last of the conditioner and planned to refill a little bottle instead of a big one so that we can take it with "on the road".

Occasionally, when we look at a map together to plan, I find myself imagining the rouute, sure. I'm also imagining our cooler, full of almond butter sandwiches on hippie dippie bread, local blackberries and pluots, a six pack of good beer to drink in Coors country.

When Z and I go out, I find myself memorizing the faces of my favorite baristas, wishing for a recipe for juevos abrogados, just marking the moment so that we can remember it later.

I am a shining star!

Just got home from my guitar class and am ready to gloat! I practiced (nearly) every day last week and my teacher actually suggested that I am NOT a beginner (I am, I am just also a progressor!) AND asked if I needed something more challenging to practice. I DON'T... I can't wait to plink and plunk at "Oh Susanna" and "When the Saints Go Marching In". I am so happy and proud. Tra la la.

P.S. What move? Packing? Oh, I have a friend bringing boxes over next week, doesn't that count?

Brand new John Prine fan

I was listening to Pandora recently, on my favorite Amy Winehouse/Dan Bern/Ani Difranco/Woody Guthrie/Common De la Soul station, and this song by John Prine came on called "She is My Everything".

Of course songs just sort of come up randomly on Pandora, so the only way I've found to hear it online is some guy's Youtube tribute to his girlfriend that uses the Ken Burns effect (and this awesome song).

My favorite line is "She knows everybody. From Mohammed Ali to teaching Bruce Lee how to do karate." Awesome.

Last Solstice in Seattle/Overheard in Fremont

It's time to stop beating around the bush.

Tonight Z said something about our "last 6 weeks in Seattle". "We have WAY more than 6 weeks." I said in the same tone of voice that I tell the children to "put that stick down" or "do not push me" or the voice I used to tell crack addicts to "please take a ten minute walk". "Alright 9 weeks" he said.

Anyway, I've been staying away from "Last Blah blah blah" but I'm ready now, friends... it's time for lasts. Then I'll get firsts. The other day, it randomly occurred to me that I'll be back east in time to spend my brother's birthday with him for the first time... probably in ten years. Probably. Maybe nine. This is good news. (P.s. I hope that brother stays put for his birthday, but it's ok if he doesn't because I've got lots more New England Septembers in store.)

I already had my last mothers' day and fathers' day that I didn't call because I woke up late and did a thing, then another thing, then I ate some dinner and it was way late back east, too late for calling. No more of that, which is cool. (Hey, I didn't miss them EVERY year, most years I totally made it... it just sucks when I didn't so I remembered it more.)

Anyway, last Saturday was my last Fremont Solstice parade. When we first moved here, Z and I lived in Fremont... an arty neighborhood which (suprise!) has gotten less cool and more commercial over the last 10-20 years. This neighborhood hosts a big fair and Solstice parade every summer and even in my 7 years here it's gotten WAY bigger. I've always gone alone, though in the past I've met up with good friends. This week I went alone (Z considered going, just because it was his last chance. On the other hand, he hates crowds and there was a Eurocup game going on, so he was much happier at home.) and was happy about that. I am so often on the verge of tears in big crowds.... (esp. since I stopped smoking, I'm kind of an emotional wreck... in a good, clean, celebratory way).

The hippie pagan selling prayer flags in English, the kids watching the bubble man, the guy who built a huge chair so that he could sit 15 feet above the crowd at the parade, one of my favorite coffee shacks all dolled up like a cabaret, everything made me cry a little bit.

As the naked cyclists swirled around (there was an awesome naked guy painted silver on a skateboard as silver surfer which was awesome) I was still looking for a spot. I passed a grown man talking to an older man (his father I think) saying "Some people never learned the value of wearing clothes, I guess". I found this fascinating on so many levels. Then I saw a big vinyl sign held aloft that said "GOD HAS GIVEN YOU OVER TO YOUR DEGRADING PASSIONS." I misread this as celebratory, and got all teary. Later, I saw that the guy had a megaphone and was trying to save people from themselves, and realized I'd had it wrong. I heard part of his rant "Like this little woman here. What do you call yourself young lady?"

Woman in wings: A fairy.
Man Trying to Save Us: A fairy. What fairies like this don't know is...
Nearbye man with a pink fedora and a lisp: There's nothing wrong being a fairy.
Random strangers in the crowd: Chuckle.
Woman in wings: Fairies Rule!
Two women in wings: FAIRIES RULE!
Man in pink fedora and women in wings and passersbye: FAIRIES RULE! FAIRIES RULE! FAIRIES RULE!

I have to say I can't quite imagine tinkerbell pumping her fist in the air the way they were, but it was lovely in its own way.I sat down for a second to write this stuff down, and the guy from the local paper took my picture.



Unfortunately, the guy asked me what I was writing, and I said "Something I overheard that I want to remember" and he captioned the picture "Kendra PeloJoaquis pauses to makes some notes on what she's heard people say as they walked by her." That Ms. PeloJoaquis sounds like a creepy character. Yuck! Fortunately, it's a picture of my lap, so I think I'm safe. Next big last... my last day working with my mentor.

Are you lookin at me?

Finally saw Taxi Driver.

YES I've made it to almost 30 years old without watching it. I DIDN'T watch it when I should have when I was a teenager, and desensitized to blood and guts and then I just never got around to it. Then tonight I was babysitting, and therefore knitting in front of the tv and checking out the list of "free" on-demand movies (which is a like a tiny, crummy, depressing video store. I can't remember most of the 100 or so movies there were, but The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Evil Dead 2, Leonard Cohen (A biography?) stuck in my mind. I stopped when I got to Taxi Driver, because, I thought, "When else will I sit down and watch Taxi Driver?" It was, of course, brilliant and awful, but I felt a little ashamed with all that cussing and assorted nastiness on the screen with a sweet little girl asleep upstairs.

I was babysitting for someone who lives in the Navy housing in the middle of a huge park near here. I felt a little creeped out driving through the unlit park at midnight, then once I got out, got lost in the suburb that surrounds the park. (Comically I got lost because I was behind someone. I thought I was going the right way, but the streets were little and quiet and I became unsure. As soon as I did, it occurred to me that if I were not on the arterial, then I was just following this car around a quiet neighborhood at night and probably making them nervous. This convinced me to NOT pull over to make them possibly feel better, which if FUCKED UP I know. As I pulled onto 15th at Dravus, there was a guy face down in the road who had obviously just fallen out of his wheel chair. I pulled over and helped him into his chair... and helped him cross the street. He was very drunk, and kept trying to tell me this over and over again but failing. I got him underway and went and sat in my car in an empty parking lot for a minute. I'd offered to call 911, but he'd told me not to(because he was drunk) but I was pretty worried for him since he was in a really busy place with people whipping around corners and very hight curbs... right before I saw him, I saw a dude totally blow through a red light.

In my head, Travis, the taxi driver was pissing and moaning about all the scum and trash and garbage in the street and scowling at the poor guy (Did I mention he was wearing only one shoe) and my favorite meditation teacher was telling me that nothing was wrong, that I just needed to see what is without judging it, and my yoga teachers were all telling me to do no harm. (?!) The bitter, scarred coworkers I had in the shelters told me I knew better than that guy about how to keep him safe, and the better ones told me that he deserves to make his own choices and I had no right to intervene and betray his privacy. Finally, exhausted and confused I stopped thinking and called. I took the easy way out. It's interesting to think about the things that are automatic for a person. Because of one job that I had, calling 911 is just as comfortable and mindless as moving a child's glass of juice away from the table's edge, blessing someone when they sneeze. Just automatic, easy. (The meditation teacher's got a lot to say about that, I bet.)

After I talked with the dispatcher I made a small loop, but I didn't see the guy. I felt dumb, because so many of the people I knew who wandered around this city at night in all kinds of vulnerable, loaded, disabled states were usually, stunningly fine. I felt a little better that he was gone, that he was right to tell me not to call, and my call only made me feel better and didn't do anything for him.

Then I came home and turned on some bright lights and drank some orange juice to cheer me up. It's almost working now.

My Story of Stuff

I have been looking around my house with a new lens. We're getting closer and closer to the move and I'm astounded by how many objects there are, and how dominated I feel by them.

Growing up we moved quite a few times, and I remember stuff getting "lost in the move" or broken by movers. I also remember how comforting it was to see the same stuff in a new place. I was the oldest, so I mostly got new stuff, but I got some hand-me-downs from older cousins. One set of grandparents was always trying to give us stuff... I think that grandma bought most of my clothes until I was old enough to know that Healthtex clothes are not hip... and to wonder why the word "Health" was in the brand name. In fact, I have two parcheesi sets from the 50's that that grandfather gave to me (and that I carried on a plane!) in my closet right now. When I visited them I took pictures of some of their stuff, the fruit bowl, and the weird statuettes that had been in the same places for my entire life. I heard often from my family that my other grandparents had gotten rid of so much of their good stuff. They didn't save anything for their children, like furniture, cars, trucks, a beach house. In fact that grandfather gave away my mother's chickens by accident... somebody asked about them, and he had no idea that his teenage daughter even HAD chickens, so he gave them away without asking. On the other hand, that grandmother was a knitter. Her gifts were afghans, pajamas, sweaters and scarves and slippers. I still have a sweater that she made for my mother. Different people, different times, different stuff.

When Z and I moved here, we had a huge truck and we drove a LOT of stuff here. I feel like I spend some time every day commenting on my stuff without actually picking any of it up and DOING anything about it. (Except books. Z and I have a box for keeping books and a box for getting rid of books. Every so often, one of us will pick up a book and ask the other one "Keep this one?" or "You don't want this one do you?" This is fun, and we've agreed completely so far.)

I've got clothes of course. I buy almost all of my clothes at the Goodwill, which is great; it's reusing, it's cheaper, it's around the corner, I'm not supporting sweatshops, or box stores. I feel really good about it. On the other hand, they tend to fall apart a little more quickly (because they're older) and I think I'm more likely to "settle" for clothes that don't quite fit or aren't just right, so they cycle back to the goodwill, and I tend to be discontent. I'm not crazy about boxing up tons of "Not-quite-right" clothes and paying to ship them across the country. In any case, I've had an annual clothing swap that's coming up in a couple of weeks, so that's one solution to that stuff.

I've got wedding gifts. Most of the beautiful special stuff that Zak and I will carry across the country again are wedding gifts. After our wedding, in Rhode Island, we drove a borrowed Eurovan across the country. We carefully packed our gifts into its small trunk. At one point we accidentally killed the battery by leaving the DVD player on (it was a SWEET Eurovan... thank you Mag) and had to jump it. We thought that the battery was in the back (it actually had two) so, while I fetched someone to help us, Z carefully removed our treasures and set them on a picnic table in an RV park. It felt really wonderful, looking at them all laid out completely out of context like that. The only gifts we won't cart back will be some of our beautiful dishes that have broken over the years. (I admit, we've been saving the pieces in a box, because Peter's Pots, where our dishes were made has a butter fingers day. If you bring in the pieces of a broken piece, you can replace it at a discount! I have no idea if the box of pottery shards will make it to Boston.)

I've got technology... I've got yarn... and books... and old papers and STUFF. I'm actually frozen when I think about how to move or sell or pack all this crap that's hemming me in. (As soon as I'm done with this blog, I've got to spend 15 minutes in the office trying to get a handle on the mountain of papers and yarn on and around my desk that has exiled me and the laptop to the living room.) Occasionally, I look beside my bed, or in the office and I think of a film I watched called Possessed by Martin Hampton. It's a documentary about four hoarders, and it's very startling and sharp and disturbing. The whole video is available if you follow that link, and it's excellent... like any mental illness, it's easy to see the same, if less dire, habits of thought and fear in anyone that are displayed in the film.

Once I met a guy and visited him on his boat where he lived and I was startled by how free and happy I imagined I could be on a boat. "Check it out." I thought. "This guy has only a little bit of crap. He basically could NAME every object that he owns. That's awesome." I imagined how fantastic I would feel if I got rid of all my stuff. Zak was away and I came home and looked around our house and found myself only attached to SOME of our stuff. I met a woman on retreat who lived on a boat. We talked about how free she felt with fewer possessions. I told her that I imagined that it would be hard to get rid of books. She blushed and told me about when her husband built them each a bookshelf, and announced that this was all they got. She asked for a second shelf, which he fit in someplace else, and then still ended up storing some books with her sister.

Recently I helped some dear friends pack up their apartment and in lifting all of their stuff, felt miraculously less and LESS attached to all the things I have with every trip up and down the steps. On the other hand, I've been thinking hard about buying another bike (my old one doesn't really fit me) and it's been very tempting to buy one that's brand new.

Sitting in the sun on our deck w/ Z, I looked lovingly at the prayer flags that I hung the first day we lived here, five years ago. They are so beautifully faded and destroyed, worn to transparent colorful bits with gossamer strings hanging from them. I asked Z... what should we do? Should we leave them (probably to be taken down and discarded by the landlord or the next tenants?) Should we take them down and bring them with us? That does'nt feel right at all. Maybe take them down and bury them in the yard, or do some other kind of ritual? We put off deciding. We are very accomplished at putting off deciding.

Yesterday, our training at work began by watching a video called The Story of Stuff. It's a brilliant 20 minute film describing how stuff is made, sold and then discarded. It discusses planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence in depth and where they entered our design world and how it's changed our relationship to stuff. Please take some time to watch it, it's really fantastic and compelling. It's a little hard, in that An Inconvenient Truth way, but that's because it asks us to look at a bigger picture, which I'm trying to do a little every day anyway. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure where The Story of Stuff has pushed me. (At work, a friend and I are going to gather a Zero-Waste Lunch discussion group of teachers and parents. This makes me feel a little like a super hero.) I'll have to keep mulling to discover exactly how I'll shift my own personal life from this film.

I'm sure that it'll definitely impact me as I consider how much stuff to keep, what to fix, what to get rid of, etc. Now I'll wash some stuff, and recycle some stuff, organize some stuff and try to change my relationship to other stuff. What do you think about your stuff?

My New Favorite Salad

various Greens.
a precious Tomato
mushrooms
brussel sprouts
raw pumpkin seeds
raw walnuts raw cashews
Sprouts
Lemon Tahini dressing

(Roast the brussels and the cashews until they're brown. Put them on the salad.)

Holy Spring Salad.

Heard in Ballard

As I slogged up a slight hill on my way home today, a dude rolled down his window to say "Thanks for biking!"

At first, I felt happy and appreciated, then I wondered why this dude was in a car if he valued biking so much, and THEN I realized that I was looking at the Bubble Man in his purple bubble mini-van.

And I felt awesome.

the darndest things

Yesterday I sat eating hummus, pita bread and carrots with some kids.

"Kendra, what vitamins are in carrots?"
"Well, I don't know a lot about vitamins, but people say there's vitamin C in carrots."
"Yeah, I'm taking some carrots because they're good for my eyes."
"I've heard that carrots are good for eyes and bubble gum's good for ears."

I had never heard this before, and wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. "You've heard bubble gum is good for ears?"

"Yeah. Maybe not. That's just what I heard." The kid was embarrassed because of my reaction.

Then another teacher remembered that we chew gum on airplanes to help our ears adjust to the pressure. AHA! Eating gums IS good for ears. We all felt better.

I should always feel this great the day after a vacation.

Two years ago on our anniversary Z and I went to a really cool resort in British Columbia called Point No Point on Vancouver Island. (I found it by doing various searches on the coast using "hot tub" and "remote" as search terms.) We told our pals C and T all about it, and last winter they reminded us that we'd agreed to all go back there together. (This is the time in our lives where we must make good on all NW dreams and plans, so, off we went to celebrate Z's birthday.) It was fantastic and amazing and beatutiful... and I got sick. T and I BOTH got sick, actually. She was symptomatically about 6 or 8 hours ahead of me, so I could glimpse the future of my respiratory passages just by looking at her next to me in the backseat. We bought some whiskey for medicinal purposes, though and kept a hanky with us at all times (even in the hot tub) and generally did just fine.

(Please note, w/ almost no exceptions, Zak took almost all of these photos.)
We climbed a hill at Deception Pass and saw a big old bird who wouldn't come back to say hello.
 

We saw some of those succulent plants that are always in the "Native Plants" part of the store here, and I've never believed actually belonged. Oops.
 

I ate an expertly cooked omelet.
 

C and I lost a hacky sack in the jungle almost immediately. More to come very shortly... I actually have to go back to work.
 

Beautiful weather= no blog

First I was sick,
then I started learning guitar.
Next came Z's birthday and now I'm hustling to get ready at work and at home to go on a trip to Point no point with my fantastic friends C and T from the NC.

It's going to be awesome. And probably colder than here.

Things currently being worried about/worked on for the move...
how/whether to move newts
our book collection
how crazy it is that time moves ever onward.

???

Just riding along, minding my own business, when...

"So you all know that what you've come to see is a nature documentary not a sports film."

I've been sick since Wednesday but on Saturday I dragged my ass with Z to the 36th Legislative District Caucus to attempt my civic duty as an Obama delegate. I was short of breath and coughing and spitting and generally disgusting and by the time we made it there I was certain that my next stop would be the emergency room. Because Z was an alternate we made sure that there were enough Obama alternates to cover me before he drove me to Capitol Hill to see the doctor. There were. We got in the car and I started wondering AGAIN...
Could I make it to the movie?

About three weeks ago I was walking to a bar when, through a window of a locked up coffee shop in the U District, I saw a poster with the face of Zizou and some dates. I imagined that I would forget to look it up, so I called Z and told him "It says Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait and April 4-6th." The next day we bought tickets. Until about an hour before the movie played I was still unsure about whether I could make it/stay awake/avoid coughing all over the person next to me. (The doctor gave me an albuterol inhaler to open up my bronchs, which was the only thing that assured me that I could, in fact, breathe through the whole show.) There's no telling when we'll get to see a screening of this incredible film again, and I'm so glad I went.

The quote in the title is from the Board member of the NW Film Forum who introduced the show. But I'm getting ahead of myself. As we walked up to the place (which is ordinarily pretty full up with folks who look like "film people" and other people dressed in black) there were people in Real Madrid jerseys and other football gear. It looked more like the George and Dragon on a Saturday morning than an arty film house. Everyone was on the phone telling the people that they were meeting that the show was sold out. I glowed smugly as we coasted into the Will Call line. The screening room was also filled with men, mostly, who looked unsettlingly sporty for the venue. I imagined they were almost hooligan-y. A group in the back kept trying to start a CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP like we were at a stadium.

The story of the film is that it's an experiment and it's a different way to watch a football game. I think it attempts to give us some insight into what the difference between a player's perception of a game and a viewer's perception. Basically, the filmmakers shot one Real Madrid match (the usual cues are missing, and I don't know enough about la ligue to recognize the opponents) by only filming Zidane with 17 HD cameras. This means that we very rarely see the ball, and we simply watch all of the moments in the game that don't make it into the highlight reel. This is difficult to describe, particularly to anyone who doesn't watch soccer.

We (American soccer fans) often say that watching soccer takes a longer attention span, that the action is more continuous and therefore at a different pace than other spectator sports. This film shows that playing professional soccer takes a longer attention span still. We see only the world through Zidane's apparent reaction to it, through how it changes his game face. It was very Zen, very beautiful and like nothing I've seen. Absent are commentators, the pregame to remind you of which individuals are playing, the time clock, replays or other onscreen reminders to let you know the details of the game. I wasn't even certain of the score until I checked with Z on the way out!

Most of the film is growing obsessively familiar with the smallest details, Zidane's squint, his gait as he wanders from open place to open place on the field positioning constantly. Early on, there's a little bit of action... he gets the ball, burns through a defender or two and passes it on. Nobody in the sold out crowd made a sound (though we were clearly all football fans (the clapping guys started calling out ZIZOU! ZIZOU! when the lights went out) and appreciated the beauty and skill on the screen) that was it. We were collectively silent for the rest of the film. A crowd of people, who I imagine have no shame about yelling and berating screens anywhere else, watched our first football match in silence. I believe that if we'd cheered for that initial moment, we'd have made noise through the whole thing.

The sound of the film may account for that. We heard the players run on the turf like horse, heard Zidane's hand scrape his stubbly head to wipe off sweat, and more than anything heard the voices of the fans in the stands as a player does. There is a brilliant soundtrack by Mogwai that complements the sort of Nature Documenatry sounds of a "footballer in the wild". All in all, it was unlike anything I've ever seen, and I'm grateful I went.
sniff.
cough.

Air.

Yesterday, I knew I was getting sick when I woke up. I had tickets to Cabaret, though so instead of going home to bed like I should have, I stayed out until about 11. Then I broke with my practice of never going to work sick. Today was "spicy work" one of my favorite traditions in our group, and I really didn't want to miss it both because I love it, and because everything would have been harder for my co-teachers.

We planted window boxes today. As I coughed and sneezed my bleary way through the morning, many different people said "Kendra, are you sick again? I think it's this building." Our new building is fantastic, but it has a climate control system that means that the windows don't open.

There was a table set up with boxes and organic soil and plants from my local organic fertilizer and plant store (might miss that in Boston). Kids in my small group were asking questions. One in particular didn't get it.
"Where will you put the window boxes?"
"Over there on the window sill."
"Where will the plants live?"
"In the dirt in the box."
"How will they live there?"
"We'll take turns watering them."
"But the windows don't open."
"Yes, that's true."
"But how will they live? Plants need sun and water and AIR to live and the windows don't open!"

Aha. I assured the kid that if there's air enough for people there would be air enough for plants as well. And I looked meaningfully into the eyes of the other adult in the room and coughed.

Laurie -1 Guy in the Chai House - 0

Overheard Saturday Midday at Mr. Spot's Chai House:

Guy is first tapping away at his laptop, then greets a friend. The friend comes over to say hi, and they chat, after awhile, Guy loses interest in friend and becomes more attentive to his video poker game.

Guy is standing, leaning over glaring at his laptop.

"Stop betting Laurie. Stop betting. Oh, Laurie, come on, I'm not betting for nothing. Laurie, don't do it Laurie, you don't have it. We both know you don't have it. Throw your cards in Laurie. There's no way I'm bluffing, I can't afford to bluff. You don't want a standoff. Stop betting. Laurie!" There's a pause. Then
"Oh! Laurie you bitch!"

The friend mumbles a question. Poker guy responds.

"There's a lot of ways to win a game like this. A show down is one way. Yeah, I could probably go all in and win a in a show down. But I don't want to win in a show down on this one. Oh, Laurie!"

I glanced over at the guy's screen. Laurie's avatar had long blonde hair, blue eyes and a white cowboy hat. I wondered if she's a real person or just a computer player.

Oh Laurie!

And all I got was some feathers in my hair...

Sundays are my favorite day of the week. They always start with a walk to the Farmer's Market. If I'm early enough, I get eggs, if I'm not I've got to wait until next week. I stop at Anselmo's for onions and potatoes every week, and at Growing Things when I need soap. I stop and listen to some Bluegrass on the sidewalk and taste the cheese before I buy it.

The next stop is for coffee or tea at one of my favorite spots. I've headed to Floating Leaves with my friend David a couple of times in the last month, and I often go to Nervous Nelly's (Where they know my name and my drink, and assume I want toast with cheese and egg.)

Today, I decided to head to the Chai House instead. When I first moved to Ballard Mr. Spot's Chai House was one of my homes away from home. The first day we had keys to the place, actually, I went out in search of some sage and prayer flags for our new home and I found myself at the Chai House buying both, and a Ruby Tuesday (Chai, no milk, pomegranite syrup, juice of a whole lemon and some cayenne pepper. Yummy.) Since we decided to move away from Seattle, I'm occasionally wracked with nostalgia and fondness for my adopted city. Unlike when we left the Northeast (I always knew I'd be traveling back for friends and family.) I'm not sure when I'll be able to make it back here and how often.

There I sat, knitting on the couch, gazing at the really bad art on the wall, sipping my Ruby Tuesday (fantastic for the immune system) and spacing out.
The incredibly competent barista with a subtle jerry curl kind of mohawk asked a woman who appeared to be a customer to cover for her. A few minutes later I happened to look at the people in line. They had snow in their hair! It wasn't warm today, but not cold enough for snow by at least 20 degrees! I looked outside... nothing. I looked back at the growing line and realized that they had feathers in their hair. Like, goose down. In fact... there was a young man with what looked like a pillow under his jacket. ? I looked outside again and discovered that feathers were blowing down the sidewalk, as if... as if there had been a pillow fight in the small park next to the Chai House. This is a bizarre thought to have, but the only solution to the evidence in front of me. The barista ran in, feathers in her mohawk and tagged out with her temporary replacement. I headed outside and sure enough there were a couple of pillows in sight, but a lot more hair full of feathers. In any case the entire park was FILLED with goose down. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but I'm sure some will appear in the next couple of hours.

When I got home, I googled "Ballard Pillow Fight" and found out that it was a "Flash Mob Pillow Fight."

I missed it! Something bizarre happened and I only got to see the aftermath! But really, the aftermath was more mysterious and lovely than witnessing the event without taking part would have been.

(In this one you can see the Barista in the sleeveless sweatshirt in the center.)

Metaphysical Poll

This is so fantastic and a perfect antidote for those of us who have spent way too much time staring at Geraldine Ferraro.

It's a place where folks post their dreams about Obama, Clinton and McCain. It's called the Metaphysical Poll because it's, like, where our subconscious can vote. It's also really fun to read. I had a dream about Obama early in the campaign, but can't find it in my journal, so I'll just have to spectate. Enjoy.

The Island Wedding On International Women's Day

I'm finally sick today, which is good because it's been LOOMING for weeks now. It gives me a chance to tell you all about the wedding of my friends Sandra and Molly. It was absolutely beautiful, and warm and everything a small wedding on a small island should be.

The adventure was more than just a wedding however! First, we had to get there! The brides asked Z and I if we could transport the officiant, JT to the ceremony on Orcas Island. Our little red wagon is the best, and I'm crazy about her...let me say that right away. Her CV joint is on it's way out however, and she's not the comfiest ride in town for an older person (the officiant) who might be stiff after hours in our back seat and Z is far too tall to hang in the back. Yet again, I am blessed with fantastic friends, and we borrowed our pal's VW van. This way we could ride AND sleep in comfort without having to pay for a room! Now, there's no sense in all those captain chairs going to waste... within days before the weekend, we had a merry band... Zak and I would pick up Julie, John and JT and head north. It was awesome...

except that I couldn't quite get the blinkers to work. They worked when I picked up the van on Friday night, but come Saturday morning, no go. I spent all the time I'd put aside for a hair cut buying fuses and replacing one, but still I hand signaled my way all the way up to Orcas.

First I picked up Julie (and a couple of "back up dresses" for each of us) and headed back for Z. Then we picked up John at Mighty O, along with some donuts and coffees, and then finally we were in front of JT's door, handing her a latte and apologizing for being almost 40 minutes late. (The blinker fiasco and a top secret wardrobe emergency were to blame.)

On the phone Friday night, JT had said "I'm not an anxious person." She proved this. Back home, I only took ferries to little tiny islands, ferries that left every 20 minutes or so. Here, in the Pacific Northwest, I've arrived for a ferry two hours early, and STILL missed it and had to wait still more hours for the next one. There are no ferry reservations, only ferry victors and ferry victims. Granted, ferry tragedies generally occur on busy, sunny, summer weekends, and not in March. All the same, I burned rubber all the 85 miles up the highway, no bathroom stops.

I got to know JT a little bit because she sat up front with me. She's a professor who teaches writing and poetry, and she was the academic advisor to Molly, one of the brides. We had a nice chat that occasionally overlapped and mingled with the hilarity that was happening in the back. Luckily, I'd happened to have heard all the stories that Z and Johnny told, so I didn't miss out on too much.

I'm a pretty good driver, and Z taught me how to drive. He is a very safe driver, and is anxious whenever he's in the passenger seat. I owe John and Julie something really great because they kept at least part of his brain occupied enough so that I didn't hear him gasp or holler when he was overwhelmed at the dangers of highway driving.

As we were approaching the ferry, I heard John say "He died when his bladder exploded. Most people figure it was mercury poisoning though." It was at this moment that I realized that we hadn't made one stop for the whole trip. We pulled in at 1:12. The ferry was set to leave at 1:15. The woman in the booth told us we would make it on. We celebrated. I parked. If we'd had to wait for the next ferry, we'd have gotten dressed on the boat and just barely gotten there with JT just before the whole shebang was due to start.

Here's Jules mending her gorgeous black dress on the ferry. We got to hang out with some really cool people, so I hardly even noticed that I'd forgotten to bring cards.
HREF='http://bp3.blogger.com/_h2R7-FlbRtI/R9V2mNYkC9I/AAAAAAAAAH8/DudgiIiA5Ug/s1600-h/PICT1151.JPG'> 

I was very hungry when we got to the adorable inn. The three J's checked in, JT stayed at the hotel, and the rest of our band struck out for lunch. We found the little organic coop, and I had tofu and veggie sushi with brown rice. I picked my food first (I was most desperate.) and collapsed on the sidewalk in the sun. After a couple of bites, I realized I was in the way of any potential traffic (not a lot in the sleepy tourist town in the off season. I watched a bunch of local teenagers who looked like they'd been sniffing glue or something reenact scenes from Beowolf until Jules came out to join me. We talked about love and marriage and all of that lovely mess. I finished my entire lunch by the time the fellas were done. Still hoping to get a haircut, I ducked into one of the three hair cutteries pointed out on my tourist food map from the inn. No dice. Julie and I went back to get ready, and here's Zak and John having their lunch among the gulls across the street from the inn.
 

The sunlight was so beautiful, and it made photos really tricky.
 

Foreshadowing for the toast that would come later.
 

more of the wedding

Zak looks skeptical...

 




one of a series.



DJ WD40 who rocked the wedding. Musically, the best wedding I've ever been too. This guy took care of the ambience and entrance and exit and dancing, and friends Sonya and Laura sang and played Nina Simone during the ceremony. For reals! We also hung with him while we waited for the next ferry home, and he's a cool guy.
 

John and Jules talking animatedly.
 

Jt looks on as the nephews light candles as the sun goes down in a blaze of glory.
 

Here's Sandra walking down the aisle with her two sisters. SHARP! They had a bit of a thirties theme and I'm so sad that not one of my pics of Molly came out even a little bit.

 

John rocks the hula hoop.

 

We ate Thai food, did I mention they served the BEST Thai food? How many cute little islands do you know with fantastic Thai food? I only know one. Apparently that's the way they found the hall where we were. They were looking for good food, found the Thai restaurant and thought "this would be good wedding food". Later, they asked "Hey, what's upstairs?" and were told "Oh, a hall they rent out sometimes." After the food, there were toasts, after the toasts there was dancing and dancing and dancing and even a little bonfire out back. Since I tend toward participation rather than documentation, there are no photos of that.

 

In the end, Jules offered to let me sleep in her bed and Z took the extra twin bed in Johnny's room (where the dancing girls used to sleep) so we didn't sleep in the comfort of the van. The next morning I got up by myself and took a walk, and hung with the seagulls. This crow tried to hang too, and was only occasionally rebuffed...

 

Then we ate a fantastic breakfast all together. Over coffee on the veranda, Julie regaled people with tales of my aggressive Sleepytime dance moves (she didn't sleep well because I kept kicking and poking her.) We missed the ferry which wasn't terribly shocking, and it was a nice day so we hung out with lots of other people from the wedding. I taught Jules how to play cribbage, and I discovered upon arriving home that the blinkers weren't broken. The hazards were broken, and I'd flipped them on that first night when trying to turn the headlights off. So, that whole time, I could have totally blinked instead of making myself crazy with hand signalling. The end.

moving pictures

Last night I watched Once. Now, I don't follow the Oscars, so I had no idea that it had won one, or even been nominated. When this film came out, around a year ago, I think... Z was traveling... I tried to go see it with my friend Kyle. I'd read a review in the Stranger that it was the "best movie with music in since Hard Day's Night" or something. I couldn't find where it was playing because there are a million movies and reviews with the word "Once" in them, and because it was only one word, I was fucked. We looked and looked and finally discovered that we'd missed the movie, so we decided to go to the Cinema in the U district and see whatever came next. We saw The Lives of Others another incredible film from overseas. Now, when I search for the film it comes up right away! Thank you Oscar.

In any case Once is really perfect. It's very simple and spacious, and I found myself projecting my entire life onto the two lovely characters. It's sort of about inertia in some ways, and in most ways so am I. Since I've recently made a decision that is in every way anti-inertial, I was very sensitive to it all, and the music provided this main line to emotion, completely skipping whatever rational thoughts I could have about the story. I'm no good at movie reviews, but you should really check this one out.

Bizarrely, we saw Hot Fuzz the night before which makes for a great/hideous pairing. Hot Fuzz was incredibly smart and funny and dreadful, and reminded me that I still haven't seen Shaun of the Dead. I'll get right on that.

A first

In the last four years, I've learned a kind of sign language called SEE so that I can communicate with a kid (Call him M) in my group who is deaf and uses a cochlear implant. That's the serious part... forthcoming is the part where I can hardly TYPE these words without blushing, and dying laughing.

This afternoon I was playing a game with some kids (Including M). It's a little like a cross between Set and Boggle. Anyway, a third grader said "I wish there was a 'T' so I could spell 'Shit'." She said it so matter-of-factly, I adored her for it. She smiled at me when I said, shocked and charmed "That's a bad word, you can't say that here." She nodded. I congratulated myself on my measured reaction. I'ts not life and death, noone's in trouble. I'm not freaking out like her "real" teacher might be, because I'm cool. All the kids who are old enough (and one precocious Kindergartner with big sisters) gasp and look at each other and me, frantically. I continue playing it cool.

M says "What did she say?"

All 5 sets of eyes swing over to me, tennis-spectators' style. They've seen me interpret as much as I possibly can for M, even stuff that he's bored by or doesn't want to "hear".

"She said a bad word, and I..."
"Which one?"

I hoped I could get out of this somewhat gracefully.

"The 'S-H' one." beat... beat...

"What is that word?"

I feel a tremendous urge NOT to censor. Generally, when kids use language they shouldn't use around me, I use it back to them in my message, to disempower the word, take the sting out. "Please quit saying "hell" in this classroom, you know that's not appropriate." is a sentence I've used many a time. (With more complicated language when I worked with adolescents.)

At that moment though, I had to TEACH the kid a cuss he doesn't know... in front of other kids who KNOW the word and know that a teacher should NOT be saying it in any form. The kids stared at me as though I was a volcano about to explode, a kid about to eat something on a dare... could it happen?!!

I "whisper" to M. I fingerspell behind my hand s-h-i-t. He watches attentively. I'm relieved by his wise nod.

"How do you say that?" ugh!
"I'll tell you later."
"How do you say it? I want to know!"
"I can't say it, M. I'm a teacher and you're my kids I can't say a bad word right now."
"Write it down and I'll sound it out."

Ok. Fine. I'll rely on literacy practice to rationalize this one. Better on my notepad than on some bathroom wall, I guessed. Astounded at what I was doing, I wrote "SHIT" in all capital letters on the page because capitals are easier for kids to sound out and I wanted this over as quickly as possible. The other kids, compassionate as always stayed quiet and didn't laugh or anything. They could see that this was just another kind of development, another way to pick up information to which they already had access.

It hadn't occurred to me that he would sound it out OUT LOUD.
"Shit" he said clearly, looking at my pad.
I tried not to laugh and not to look at any of the other kids.
"Yes. Good reading. Now don't say it anymore, it's a bad word that you can't say at school or here."
"Ok. What does it mean?"
"It's another name for poop. But it's not just a bathroom word, it's a BAD word and you might get in trouble for saying it."

and then it was over. The other kids have all been trained in careful politeness, and they acted as though nothing had just happened. As I stared at the letter cards, I thought of my sister who told me that women in the deaf community tended to get pregnant more often by accident because they miss out on so much nuance and overheard sex education that the rest of us pick up from our surroundings and popular culture. I comforted myself with this.

I told his dad at pick up time, of course. No big whoop, which is what I expected.
"Third grade, that's about right." He said. M came over.
"What are you talking about?"

We both started signing. I said "I told him that I taught you a bad word."
"Oh yeah. Shit."
I giggled a little I think and reminded him not to say it. His dad clarified "it's rude". I like that better. As someone who cusses all the time (outside of the classroom) I obviously don't feel that the word is "bad". But I know that it's rude, and that's why I didn't point it out to the little girl when all the letters for piss came up.

If you must wear fur-lined gloves...

for goodness sakes, don't lose them in the PCC.

*for you non-Seattlites, PCC is the grocery store that's so organic and vegan friendly that it looks down it's community-minded nose at Whole FOods.

A cashier found it and accused it's owner (nowhere to be seen) of slaughtering innocent tribbles for fashion. His pal started the ridicule from the other end: who would be wearing fun-edged gloves on a 50 degree day?! Either way, NOONE claimed that glove.

?

apparently these signs are appearing all over Canada.

Going Easy

Yesterday, I played Go with a 7 year old. I taught him the game some time ago, and he asked me "Go easy on me though. I'm not that good." I told him I'd help him play, but that I wouldn't really go easy on him. I showed him that in Go, there's a rule that provides for one player to have a handicap, so we set him up with a 5 stone advantage and then we started to play. After just a few turns I said "You can change your mind if you want, but I'm going to show you something that you could have done." I showed him and he changed his move to the better one and we kept playing. This happened periodically, and then after a little while another kid came. She has more practice with Go and she gave him advice and helped him talk through his moves. I stopped pointing out obvious moves because his friend was doing such a good job. After awhile, another (even more skilled) kid joined them and he had two advisers. At one point, I made a really cool move, and he said "KENDRA! You're not going easy enough on me!"

Going easy is an interesting thing. I explained that I was one person playing against three people, and that I wouldn't not capture his pieces to make him feel good. We wouldn't be playing a game if I did that! Then, later I played Bingo with some Kindergartners. When one kid who's challenged by patience and self-control was really on edge because he'd gone an astounding 6 turns without placing a marker on his card I TOTALLY looked and made sure that the next one I picked would be on his card. He was relieved and didn't lose it and I had no sense of guilt or anything over how much easier I had made the game.

What's that about? I don't particularly ENJOY bingo, in the same way that I love Go. I'm crazy about both kids though, and they both wanted to do well. Is it because one kid had the wherewithal to ASK for what he wanted and the other one just said "OH NO! I Don't Have THAT ONE!" at an increasingly loud volume? It's not generally my style to give kids what they want when they yell at me.... that teaches bad habits that embarrass me later when we're in public.

After I won that game, I played the kid's adviser number one. I told her I'd give her a bigger handicap, but I wouldn't avoid good moves just because she's a kid because we were playing a game and games are fun and I want to have fun too. We played the game and she was stunned that she lost. She's seven, and I taught her how to play the game, and she couldn't believe that I won. (!) I think maybe THAT's why I don't want to "go easy". I remember where I was when I beat my dad at chess (confidential to dad: if you were going easy on me back in third grade, kindly keep your damn mouth shut) because that seemed like something big. I also remember the first time I actually knew the answer to a question when I watched my folks playing trivial pursuit. (It was something about an elephant.) This is because I was a kid around adults who played games for fun, not to teach me anything about who I am. I lost a lot of games.

Perhaps that's it. I play games with kids because I love to play games, not because victory might make them feel good. I've taught kids how to play more games than I can count. If "going easy" is pretending that I didn't see that double jump, or letting you have my rook, I have NEVER gone easy on a kid at a game that I like. (I have however stacked the deck at Candy Land AND Chutes and Ladders...and I refuse to play Mousetrap... ever, no matter what.) When kids are disappointed that I don't "go easy", maybe they're used to grown ups treating games like I treat bingo. (Which is NOT a game, in my view, but a way to trick children into learning to memorize spelling words, college students into spending some time not drinking and old people out of their precious time and money.) I play games like they're FUN instead.

(Whew. I'm glad I figured that out... I was thinking that I might just be an inconsistent meanie.)

It's time....

When Z and I first decided to move to Seattle, we told everyone... it'll be two or three years. This month, it's been 7 years since we climbed out of that U-haul, and we've decided that we're ready to pack it back up again.

There are so many reasons why we're moving, and why now, but the biggest reason is that we both feel the need to be closer to our family. I am so excited... AND everytime we tell folks out here, I feel like I'm breaking up with them.

We've got plenty of time... Z and I love love love summer in Seattle, so we won't be leaving until August. It's exciting and wonderful, and we're enjoying imagining what will come next.

Happy Valentine's Day

Ze Frank, is, in many ways, my hero.

I wanted inspiration, but all I got was this adult diaper commercial with a woman doing tai chi.

Wednesday night, the email went out "Obama will be making an appearance in Seattle on Friday!" Lots of folks at work invited me (I wear an Obama button on my purse) and I carefully invited lots of people. (It goes w/o saying that most of the folks at a progressive hippy-dippy preschool will be voting for Obama or Clinton, and most of us are gentle enough with one another to not be unkind about choosing one or the other, but one must'nt offend.) I had an appointment that morning that I couldn't reschedule (Everything's fine, thanks for asking.) but I thought I could make it in. Door's were scheduled to open at 11 and I could get there by 11:15... he wasn't going to sell out Key Arena by THEN.

WRONG. It was awesome, like a big circus. The doors had already closed by the time I got there, and there were still thousands of us hanging around wondering what was next. Nobody was sure. We'd see a crowd near a door and line up behind them as easily as possible, alternately calling other people for more information or straining to hear the people around us guess about what was happening. I wandered from one door to the next pretty comfortable already with the idea that I wouldn't get in, just enjoying the mass of people. It was gorgeous.

I've been to a lot of rallies and marches since I moved to Seattle, and often there's a sense of... agency, or entitelment or something. The guy dressed like the statue of liberty knows EXACTLY what he's doing here and why it's right, and makes sure that as many people as possible can be enlightened by him as possible. The hippie family with the dirty faced toddlers carrying home made signs that say "Please Mr. Bush, use your words." are certain that the statue of liberty guy is just a Fremont freak who probably eats refined sugar and has never called his senators. The clog-ged folks from the Service Committee of Friends are tired of carrying their huge banner and wish all these johnny-come-lately folks would start donating to the people who are actually doing the work to end the war. Almost all of these folks are white, unless you're at the Black Dollar Days or the Martin Luther King Day March.

But here, at Key Arena, everyone had a look on their faces like they were the luckiest people on the planet to be here. (I didn't bring my camera. Ours is big and clunky... I've got to get a cool little one.) There were teenagers, and grandmothers, and none of us were showing off for one another (ok, the teenagers were, but it's not their fault). We were proud of each other and grateful that together we made a tremendous crowd. Our caucus was the next day, and we could look over a sea of people and feel sure that most of us (and our friends and families) would turn out to vote for Obama. A caucus is an elitist, activist way to vote and is NOT democratic but it's really inspiring, and for us all to have a little taste of what Saturday looked like made the trip worth it before Senator Obama even took the stage.

After awhile a voice came on the loudspeaker, asking us to slowly and calmly back away from the doors because there was no room inside. Again, I felt a surge of camaraderie as thousands of Seattlites turned (slowly AND calmly) and put our cellphones to our ears to check in with someone else about what comes next. They made plans about work, and transportation and who knows what else. Lots of people stayed outside and waited and hours later heard the speech through loudspeakers. I rode the bus up the hill with them later. I heard that Senator Obama even came outside to talk with them and thank them. My pal Stevie T was inside, but I had already tried to call him and had learned that it was too loud there for him to hear me. I texted him and Z that I couldn't get in. They both asked the same thing: if I was finding a nearby bar to watch in.

By the time I got their messages, I was standing outside of "Floyd's place" a barbeque joint and sports bar. I had already watched two groups of folks peer inside, say "They have tv's" then say "There's a bunch of us, I bet if we asked them to, they'd change the channel." then walk in. I looked at the menu (there is a sculpture of a pig dancing with a cow spinning above the front door, an omen "Vegetarians stay away!") and did not feel the hope of moments before. Eventually, though I went in, sat next to two dudes in Obama t-shirts, double checked and found that I could eat macaroni and cheese or nachos. I chose nachos. The place was a mad house. I am sure that they are no busier or rowdier on a Friday night at midnight than they were on that Friday afternoon at 11:30. There was only one barstaff, one floor person, one barback and one cook and EVERYONE wanted food and beer now. (Except for me, who had foolishly skipped breakfast. I didn't want beer.)

It was a tricky and exhausting thing because we all still felt this great thing about each other, but we were also waiting forever for food, and beer and our candidate. We'd heard that he'd be on at noon, so we hurried to discover what channel to watch. Everyone was nervous because most of the tv's were showing college basketball and one was on Cnn. I don't watch the news, so I was surprised to find that CNN was so ... sordid and yechy. We were all sure it'd be on KING 5, so at one point I was charmed to be sitting in a bar, watching Days of our Lives against our will. I kept thinking of how much we all said we wanted change, and yet, I recognized the "mom" as the "rebellious teenager with an evil twin" from when I was an adolescent watching the show.

Of course, folks chanted from time to time, which just wasn't nice (the Man hadn't showed up to keep us down. We were kept down by tv networks.) but felt just perfect and perfectly awful. The one guy who could reach a television kept changing the channel based on tips from his neighbors until the bartender told him to keep his hands to himself. We ended up getting the same 5 minutes of the speech from MSNBC and CNN(weirdly not the FIRST 5, or the last just a 5 minute chunk from the middle).
When they showed part of Clinton's speech in Seattle from the day before the bartender said "Because what we really need is a Mom... the founding fathers have left us!"

(The estimates say there were about 21,000 people there... 18,000 inside and 3,000 listening outside, but there were more. There were at least 5,000 people who descended upon lower Queen Anne's bars, restaurants and stores.) I went to work late, of course, and then had to describe that no, I wasn't really AT the rally, but it was worthwhile somehow.

This valentine's day email...

was brought to you by the GOP.
As Ze Frank pointed out, these are pathetic, and I think that someone out there could do better.



I've got loads to blog about the caucus last Saturday, but not yet loads of time.

I am a delegate for our legislative convention in April, and Z is an alternate. (Our precinct went 5-1 Obama. It was awesome.)

More to come...
including some serious skepticism on the matter of super delegates.

Overheard outside the Obama rally

Among the thousands-strong throngs of us who were left out of the packed Key Arena were two skinny black jeans-clad punk teenage girls. One of them was clearly still learning to smoke as she said...

"But you donot' know... he could turn out to be a pedophile, and you'd like have his name on your body forever."

"But he's NOT a pedophile."


-- I imagined that this was a conversation about getting an Obama tattoo.

Z points out that this conversation could (and should) happen whenever one considers getting a tattoo with a person's name on it. (Unless your last name is Gray, in which case something deeper than thought goes into it, clearly.)

I used to make fun of people who said

"When things calm down..."

Because, I preferred to keep all things calm. I skipped through the parts about "stress management" because I was skillful at the first step of "stress management" which is stay out of THAT mess. I had "good boundaries" about "saying no" and I "made time for myself" on a regular basis. I'm unsure exactly when and how things shifted, but I apparently stepped on that slippery slope, and here I am at the bottom of Hectic Hill.

Saturday will be the Washington State Caucus. For the last two weeks, I've been reading and canvassing and making calls on my break to ask my neighbors to support Obama at the Caucus. Washington has this crazy system where the state holds a primary, but the state Democratic Party chooses their delegates at a caucus 10 days earlier. Many voters receive their primary ballot in the mail (most people here vote by mail) and figure it must count, and then skip the caucus because they feel they have better ways to spend their Saturday. This means that the candidate with the most informed (about the caucus) voters will win the Democratic delegates. (Only about 2% of voters attend the caucus here, historically.) This is crazy and means that there's a lot that can be done here on Saturday.

It's a very exciting time.

Common Sense

If you decide to cut your nails while waiting for the bus, DON'T do it when your fingers are so cold you can no longer really feel them.

Even if you are REALLY done with them.

That's free. You can pass that on to your friends if you like.

if you see one Youtube video this year...

It's this one.

Did I mention the whole Barack thing?

Or: This year, my caucus vote might actually count.

Four years ago, I caucused for the first time. It's really fun, and just my sort of thing. Everyone shows up and stands around awkwardly for a little while. Then you break up into groups for your candidate. (Mine was Wesley Clark last time, but Obama this year.) THEN you look at the sad sops who are there for a candidate who doesn't have enough people in her or his favor to earn another delegate. (In my precinct, I think you needed 5 people to earn one delegate. Kucinich, for instance had 3 people, who ended up splitting among Dean and Clark.) Then you get to state your case about why you support your person until everyone has picked sides. It's awesome in a picking-sides-for-kickball kind of way.

Anyway, I'm now one of the precinct captains for the Obama campaign in Washington, because this year, it may not be already decided by Feb. 9th! (All this means is that I'll knock on doors this Saturday before I head down to Portland for the Superbowl and ask my neighbors to please come and represent. To this end, my buddy Stevie T and I headed to Norm's Ale House (a dog-friendly bar? Apparently. hmmmm.) to talk with the campaign staffer and other volunteers. She worked in Iowa and Nevada so far. At her office for Desmoine, there were 23 personnel for the city. For all of Washingon State there are 7.

As I received phone numbers and things in an email yesterday, I asked Z "Why am I so drawn to activism and so embarrassed by the actual mechanics of it?" There is a part of me that cringes when I take the risk involved in knocking on my neighbors doors and calling them up. I'll cringe as I talk to them at the caucus a week from Saturday, and I cringe when I watch this: (But for different reasons.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EADrdg3Iu9U

a little game to keep you busy....

I've been very much in my head these last few days and have nothing much to report.

(Also, tomorrow IS the season premiere of LOST and, since it is the only television show of which I've ever been "a fan" Z and I have been rewatching the last season to get in the mood.)

So, here's a little game that I've enjoyed. (I'll be honest... I haven't made it past level 7 or so.)

http://www.nonoba.com/chris/untangle

"You called at exactly the right time."

I was just walking home by myself when I decided to call my friend Kyle. When Kyle and I talk on the phone, overhearing it actually tends to irritate other people (esp Z). I think it's because our conversations are absurd, and jump around from one ridiculous (often invented and/or juvenile) topic to the next. Because of this I prefer to call Kyle when I will not be overheard. I frequently get his voicemail, so I was mentally preparing my message when he answered in a peculiar tone.

Kyle: Kendra! His voice sounds louder and even more theatrical than usual... I become suspicious. The first thing that you say will be very important.

Kendra: accidentally interupting Hello. I am grateful that he ignores this, the first thing that I ACTUALLY say, because, that would be a real bummer.

Kyle: I am speaking to you from a darkened planetarium filled with people. these people (mostly children) begin to laugh We are talking about dreams tonight, and we need your help. What I'd like you to do is pick up a book. Any book. Just walk over to the bookshelf, pick up a book, open it...
now at this point I know that I cannot lie. I cannot walk down 8th Ave and pretend that I am in my living room holding a book.

Kendra: Can I walk to the bookshelf in my mind?

Kyle: Yes, I'm putting you on speakerphone. You may walk to the book case in your mind. What we need from you is the title of the book.

Kendra: I think as fast as I possibly can. At first, I figure I should try to think of a book title that would be ironic, or deep, or funnily appropriate in THIS moment. But, I knew better. I cleared my mind, and then said the first book title that I called up. The Little House on the Prairie?I hear children squeal and giggle.

Kyle: Little House on the Prairie, everyone! everyone in the place is cracking up. I have inadvertently made a joke I don't understand. That is perfect. Thank you, Kendra.

Kendra: You're welcome, Kyle. Goodbye.

Kyle: Goodbye Kendra. You called at exactly the right time.

Overheard on the playground

Spoken by a first grader and a Kindergarten whose casual manner shows that they CLEARLY do not yet know the cultural significance of moms and dogs.

"There's my mom."
"That's your dog?"
"No! That's my mom!"

knitters only

a friend asked me to repair a sweater. I used this tutorial and am a rockstar on the first hole. (When everyone here wakes up I'll try to take some pictures of the next ones.)

This is one of those knitterly accomplishments that makes me think of my grandma.

Maine Pictures

 

Here is a drawing my cousin Ben made of my Grandfather from a photo. He made it when he was 19, but as you can see it's really beautiful. It was taken at a dental convention in the 60's and my Grandpa wasn't crazy about it. I think he said something about it making him looking like a gangster. Anyway, my aunt brought the painting to the funeral and it was there, right next to the casket. The woman who took it (my granddad's dental assistant from those years) showed up unexpectedly and gasped "I took that picture!" It was pretty awesome, especially because my grandpa was an artist himself, and Ben is really the one who's carrying that torch around now.

 

Sunrise over Tenants Harbor. We never slept late when we visited grandpa.
 

This is where my grandfather's house used to be. That's his old garage where we used to play sometimes. That enormous bush was not there in those days. The house was sold 5 years ago when Grandpa went into residential care, but razed only a couple of weeks ago, apparently. It hurt my eyes to look at it.

 

Family Foto in Front of Farmer's.

There are more pictures from this trip, with more words here.

Heard in Tenants Harbor ME

Breakfast at Farmer's Restaurant across the street from my grandpa's old house.

Jessy: What kind of veggies are in the veggie omelet?

Waitress: Oh, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions... we don't put anything weird in there. I been waitressin' for years, but one day somebody asked "You don't put OLIVES in yer omelets, do you? I said NO! Ha! Can you imagine!?"