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!?"

Here I am....

I'm here at my mother's house. When my sister walked in an hour after I arrived, it felt strange. Generally, seeing family who live so far away involves months of planning and anticipation. Instead, here I am, and here they are, and none of us were planning on being here a week ago. It makes things feel very raw and somehow unproofed.

Here is a tribute to how rushed this whole thing has been: this morning, a couple hours before my flight, I was at the Goodwill, searching in vain when I called my mom. "Mom, do people still have to wear black to a funeral." "Yes, you're coming in at 9:20 right?" We talked about every other thing until I almost hung up on her after 10 minutes, and as soon as I hung up I thought "Did she say 'Yes' or 'No'?"
I've never had such a desperate race through the Ballard Goodwill. It was early enough on a Saturday morning that when I charged out of the dressing room, ready to demand some feedback, there wasn't even an employee there to help me never mind the nurturing, frugal earth-mama I was hoping for! (Let the record show that I am not very good at looking in a mirror and having any idea what I actually look like.) I was there for 45 minutes and had just washed my hair, but the effect of lifting dozens of synthetic blouses, sweaters and dresses (In various shades of black, chocolate and grey) over my head resulted in a charge so strong I thought I might pass out when I touched the door handle of the Little Red Wagon.

Never the less, I made it. Tomorrow we'll go collect as a huge group and do something Catholic together, and it makes me terribly lonely for my darling husband, who kept me company through the late night laundry/packing marathon. I needn't tell you that it was HE who looked up Goodwill's opening hours for a Saturday when I was at the end of my childcare-wardrobe-rope.

This is the first time I'm going to Tenant's Harbor:

In about 10 years.
Expecting to drink a beer there.
With a driver's license.
In the winter.
To stay in a business establishment instead of a home.

Whew. I say again Whe- hew.

updates to follow.

My Heart is So Full

My heart is so full. At the same time that I was working to help in the birth of a new space for my work, my grandfather was at the very end of his life. I've had some of the happiest working days of my life in my new classroom and yet the same time that I was packing to go home and mourn, the most compelling politician of my lifetime accomplished his first step in becoming president. While my emotions are changing from moment to moment, their pitch, their intensity stays steadily strong.


I'm heading home tomorrow, and then to Maine with my family for my grandpa's funeral. It'll my first time in Maine in maybe 10 years, and my first time eating with my family since I stopped eating meat.
I'm breathing very deeply and slowly almost all the time.

Endings and Beginnings

I just got home from Hilltop, and it looks GORGEOUS. There are still wonderful men there hanging doors. They've still been there every night when I've headed home after long long days. There are still things on back order, still things stashed in the teacher lounge (currently a storage room) but tomorrow, there will be children among all the things, ricocheting off all the perfectly painted surfaces and smearing up all the windows.

Now it's the end of the beginning. Tomorrow we start to live in our classrooms for real. My body and mind are exhausted. Lucky for me, my fella is out grabbing some Indian take out. I will drink a beer and cheer for Arsenal and then sleep like the dead, because I no longer have deadlines and unfinished business to occupy me when I should be asleep.

Hurrah.