November 30, 2006

Except he has a better camera.

November 29, 2006

My first post was on November 29, 2001, and it had a blogspot url. I spent the next month blogging about learning to blog. By the end of my second blogging month, I had discovered zefrank and was exploring the differences among journalism, commentary, and reporting. I became obsessed with linking to other bloggers. In less than six months I started to hit my writing stride.

Between then and now Kalilily Time has accumulated several thousand posts (many of them not worth reading) and half as many comments. I've made many blogging friends and lost track of some of them; I've had some disagreements and even more laughs. Every once in a while I think about quitting, but here I still am.

I wonder if I can make it to a decade.

November 28, 2006

The following are excerpted from the current Harper’s Weekly Review.

• in Ramsey, New Jersey, a flock of turkeys was spotted waiting for a New York-bound train.
  
• a college student in Portland, Oregon, was expelled after questioning a classmate's belief in leprechauns
  
• Chinese scientists revealed that showing pornography to pandas has helped increase the captive panda population, and said that they had successfully mated robot fish.
  
• Israeli military officials decided that Miss Israel, in order to prevent bruises on her legs, should not have to carry a rifle
  
• police in the Mpumalanga region of South Africa were looking for the owner of an unclaimed penis
  
• the Yellow River turned red for the second time in a month
  
• Indian officials announced that they would establish seven vulture havens in order to relieve shortages at the Towers of Silence, where Zoroastrians leave their dead to be eaten.

And then this from Harper’s as well. The very very opposite of whimsy:

Meanwhile, back to whimsy on the mountain, where this afternoon I watched a doe and her two offspring foraging right outside the kitchen window as the various birds took turns picking at the suet pack. It was like a scene from a Disney movie. At one point, one of the deer looked into the window and directly into my eyes, but I stood perfectly still so after a second or two, it went back to its munching. I didn't dare move to get my camera.

And even as this magical moment happens, there is an email waiting for me from one of my close women friends telling me that her career Army son (with three small children) has been told he'll be going to Iraq in February.

Magic and mayhem. I guess it's always been like that.

November 26, 2006

Today is my daughter's birthday, and I am feeling so very grateful for the relationship we have, despite her few tumultuous late teen-age years. She has grown into a strong and creative woman of great compassion and sensitivity. Her home is warm and inviting and relaxing. And I'm not saying this just because I had the best Thanksgiving I've had in decades and I didn't have to lift a finger.

I can't help but compare our relationship with the one I had/have with my own mother. There is even a bigger difference between my relationship with my grandson and my mother's with my two kids. When my kids were young, a visit from my folks was not something that they would get terribly excited about. I don't remember my mother ever playing with them or engaging with them in any meaningful way or bringing them any little fun "surprises." My father was better at understanding how to play, and he reached out to my kids in ways that were fun. I don't think my mother, to this day, has any concept of "play."

On the other hand, my grandson looks forward to my visits. (Of course I always bring him a present, and that certainly adds to his anticipation.) We spend most of my days there playing together, imagining, making up stories, and laughing at silly things. My evenings are spent in conversations with my daughter -- the kinds of conversations I never had with my mother. My son-in-law and I usually talk politics; my mother barely even spoke to my husband.

And so today, on my daughter's birthday, I am feeling so very grateful for my daughter and the peace and joy she brings into my life. And I am so very sad that my mother and I have never been able to come even close to feeling like that about each other.

Happy Birthday, Melissa.

November 24, 2006

We sat on the floor and he played "construction site" while I played with blocks. No plan. No expectations. I played with the blocks, mindlessly moving them, stacking them, toppling them. Nothing mattered -- not the choices or the colors or the configurations. It was play. Pure relaxing thought-less play. I didn't cook, I didn't wash dishes. All I did was play. What a wonderfully happy holiday!!

We also played astronauts in the space-shuttle/tent I brought him.

He's my rocketman!

I also actually had time to sit and read my latest issue of Harper's magazine. Unfortunately, I left it behind. There were bits in it that I wanted to post. The only one I remember is that too much testosterone kills brain cells. (Heh. That would be the one line I'd remember!)

And now I'm back, feet resuming the step by step, day by day journey on this hard ground. I would rather be lost in space.

November 21, 2006

I am leaving early tomorrow to spend two nights with my daughter and family, and she has invited her in-law family over for a big Thanksgiving dinner. This will be the first holiday in five years that actually will feel like a holiday. I'm leaving a Thanksgiving dinner for my mother and brother. My mom is mad at me for leaving her. No surprise.

A Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

November 18, 2006

Go here to create one of your own.

Their cars are parked all along the highway between here and town, where there are forests and ponds and places where wildlife like to hang out. I don't know it they're after the four-footed or the flying, whether they're hunting for supper or sport. I hope that they will eat what they kill. That should be the way of it.

I had venison once. It was cooked by the hunter who killed it. It tasked fine but somehow, well, I just couldn't enjoy it.

They make seasoned buckshot now, you know. Well, it isn't real buckshot; rather it's very hard pellets of seasoning, so you can flavor your bird before you even get around to plucking its feathers. How's that for convenience.

Maybe if I had to hunt and gather, I wouldn't eat so much. And then there's all the exercise that goes along with hunting and gathering. I guess I could go out and live in the forest. But with all of those other hunters out there I probably wouldn't last long.

I have always been hungry. Only before this, I was able to find lots of ways to fill myself with satisfactions other than food.

I can smell the sweet bread baking in my bread machine.

November 17, 2006

Sometimes the only way to survive is to detach -- detach your brain from the whining and complaining and criticizing, from demands and expectations and disputes.

The danger is, once you start detaching, momentum takes over.

I retreat into my own body, the senses that satisfy. I eat a whole package of Pims cookies, the kind with orange jam inside. I spray the scent of grapefruit around my room. I sit in silence, sweet silence.

I imagine great gaps of space between me and them. Distance.

November 14, 2006

There were five of us at the Cheescake Factory Sunday morning, jovially bantering with our cute young waiter and laughing our way through an assortment of brunch delicacies, from French Toast to a perfect Breakfast Quesadilla. And, of course, cheesecake. I'm addicted to Key Lime cheesecake.

We like to kid around with young waitpeople, giving them "motherly" advice, making them laugh, and managing to find out more about them than they realize. And then we leave a big tip. They are aways a major part of our dining experience.

The pizza and several glasses of wine the night before relaxed me so much that the kink in my back that's been there for a week finally started to dissolve. Wine, laughter, and good friends with whom you share the same politics -- that's the best medicine in the world. We laugh at ourselves and we laugh at each other, reminding ourselves not to take ourselves too seriously.

We do take politics seriously, however, and the brunch was as much a celebration of the election outcomes as it was a celebration of just being together again.

In between the wine and the cheescake, I ran around buying stuff I needed in stores that we don't have here in the mountains. I especially load up on my cat litter at PetSmart -- Swheatscoop, which is make out of wheat and so it doesn't get my cat constipated, as other litter does. Apparently, she ingests a certain amount of litter when she cleans her paws. The wheat just gets digested and doesn't plug her up. It's expensive, but, hey, she's worth it. And, since her litter is in my one large room living space, it sure helps that there's no odor!!

Leaving my mother with my brother on Saturday was like leaving a three-year old. She cried, cursed, used guilt, and had an elder-trantrum. But I went, and she survived just fine.

For the past several years, I have spent every holiday with my mother. But this Thanksgiving, I'm planning to go to my daughter's. I'll cook the usual turkey and mashed potatoes and "kapusta" and my brother can heat it up (or not) on Thanksgiving Day.

I'm looking forward to having the feeling of family.

November 10, 2006

Yep. There it was, up over the crags of the mountain, set pale and half-faced into the cool powder blue sky.

It's strange to so clearly see the moon in daylight. It's like looking out at an alien landscape. It moves ordinary days into dreamtime.

Tomorrow I drive up to Albany for an all-girls weekend -- pizza and a gab fest on Saturday and a sinfully fattening brunch on Sunday. I'm looking forward to hanging out with my friends.

I'm also looking forward to NOT being on the same premises with my mother. I'm OK with her in the mornings, but by mid-afternoon I have no patience left....to show her for the fifth time where she has the small amount of cash we let her keep on hand....to look, again, for her glasses, her comb, her favorite photo of my father....to repeat at least three times, each time louder, everything I say......

I'm getting away. Even though it's only one night, it will be enough to reset my frame of mind, give me hours of quiet driving time to meditate on seeing the moon at noon.

He did it. Can you believe it? John Hall, original front man for the 70s rock band "Orleans" has been elected to Congress. He represents the district just south of here -- still not far from Woodstock. He sang as part of his acceptance speech.

Watch it here.

He's balding and middle-aged. And he still rocks.

We need more musicians and other artists in our government. They know how to think with both sides of their brains. And they listen to their human hearts.

I blogged before about exploring essential oils for whatever use they might be in helping my mother, both with her mental as well as physical states. She has very bad arthritis in her hands and has painful synovial cysts on her finger joints. I had one and had to have it surgically removed. It was painful to hold a pen.

But this time, I combined lavender and eucalyptus essential oils with almond oil and rubbed it on her fingers. Believe it or not, the swelling and redness has subsided and she says the pain is going away. We'll see.

There are dozens and dozens or essential oils, and if I went by the reference books that explain how to combine and use them for specific purposes, I would have to buy them all. However, I have found that lavender and eucalyptus oils are ingredients in many of the formulas. So I'm experimenting with them, especially since I love the scent of lavender.

I know that lots of people don't like Autumn. I guess because it's a season of endings. But I love the scent of that season -- the mix of drying leaves and damp earth, the air adrift with the crisp scent of apples, the late night whiff of woodsmoke from a neighbor's fireplace. Autumn is a season that opens to loneliness -- a feeling that I embrace because I have always been able to center myself in that loneliness.

Where I live now, there is not much time and space for being alone. Just late at night. Like now. When in the silent darkness I spray my sheets with lavender and wait for Autumn dreams.

November 07, 2006

Tonight we hold our breath as we watch Congress turn Blue. As of this moment, 10:30 p.m., eighteen states have made official complaints about voting problems, especially because of the electronic voting machines. No easy breathing yet.

And from today's Harper's Weekly:

* a paper-shredding service truck was seen approaching the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

* scientists claimed that at the current rate of consumption, global seafood supplies will be obliterated by the year 2048

* the World Meteorological Organisation said that the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had hit a record high

* due to the Lebanon war, Israel was facing an eight-fold increase in the cost of marijuana

* United States said it would fund millions of dollars' worth of abstinence-only sexual education for adults

* researchers in Japan captured a dolphin with legs.

* a cache of unsent letters to God was found off the Atlantic City shore

Meanwhile NBC just announced that Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House. Whew. Wow!

November 06, 2006

They sure do know how to spin, distort, and outright lie.

In her post from New Hampshire, Betsy Devine called attention to how On the last Sunday before Election Day, Republican operatives go out in force with a last-minute message to stick under windshield wipers.

But this year, Betsy goes on to say

The news here is that real NH Republican voters are too turned off to turn out for leafletting church parking lots--yay, NH! I knew people in my state had a lot of sense.

In the absence of actual volunteers, anyone willing to go door-to-door with GOP leaflets are allegedly getting $100 bucks for their troubles. And, in the absence of actual volunteers, the National Republican Congressional Committee has turned to 300,000 robocalls to NH, hitting some voters three or four times a day with calls that sound as if the Democrats made them.

Democrats have protested to the US Attorney that these calls are targetting even people on the national don't call list--that's illegal in NH. The NRCC says that calls will continue because NH law "does not apply" to calls made form out of state.

You've just got to love those Republican family values.

Factcheck.org cites a variety of outright lies being circulated by the GOP about a variety of candidates. For example:

★ In Connecticut, Democratic House candidate Chris Murphy has been attacked in three ads, all misleading, by the NRCC and his opponent Rep. Nancy Johnson. One ad says, "Murphy's record: Voting to allow sexual predators in public housing with families and children." In fact, Murphy did no such thing.


★ An ad by GOP Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona says that Democrat "Harry Mitchell could have kept child molesters in prison, denying them bail backed by our Constitution. Mitchell voted no." That falsely characterizes Mitchell's actual position.While a state senator in 2002, Mitchell actually supported a bill that would have denied bail to child molesters.


★ In another Arizona House race, Rep. Rick Renzi, a Republican, put up an ad that asks of his opponent, "What kind of person is Ellen Simon to lead the ACLU, which defended child molesters and the man/boy love association?" That's grossly misleading. Simon led the local ACLU and never defended child molesters.

Actually, the Dems have distorted information about Republican candidates as well. But no one does it better than those GOPers.

November 04, 2006

A dollar and a dream. Every day millions of people who really can't afford it drop millions of dollars on lottery tickets because "Hey, you never know."

What we all do know is that the American Dream has become a myth for everyone but the privileged. ABC's 20/20 the other night examined what standards elite universities use to choose which students they will accept, and it has little to do with intellectual brilliance. As George Dumbya said to one graduating class after congratulating the high achievers, if you're a C student, you can become president of the United States.

Privilege begets privilege. Poverty begets, well, you know.

A day before the 20/20 program, Tom Paine.com posted a speech given by Bill Moyers (one of those who really knows) to to the Council of Great City Schools , an organization of the nation’s largest urban public school systems.

Moyers connected the dots between an insufficient education and the the disastrous faiilures of America today. His speech is lengthy, but worth reading and reading and sharing. Below are some of my favorite excerpts:

I was at the Presidio in San Francisco yesterday. That former military enclave beneath the Golden Gate Bridge is now a marvelous and beautiful center of vital commerce and civic purpose – saved from exploitation and despoliation by citizens who rose up on its behalf. On the wall of one of the main buildings I came upon a painting of an enormous deep blue wave with white caps against an equally blue sky. The artist’s inscription beneath the painting reads: “This human wave expresses the concept of people at the bottom rungs of society waking up to using their united strength to claim their universal rights to economic, social, and environmental justice.”

Put that in your core curriculum. It’s America 101.

Use your vote to stir a new wave.

November 03, 2006

So go the findings of research reported in the New York Post.

A woman's brain is, in fact, about 10 percent smaller than a man's, even when factoring in physical size difference - but it also has a lot more going on, neuron-connection-wise.....

Thanks to Stone Age wiring, women also have a far greater capacity for understanding speech and body language, and have "elephantine" memories, especially when it comes to negative experiences.....

Of course, we're not in the Stone Age anymore, so it might stand to reason that the divergent male and female brains would have adapted to be more like one another - and perhaps, in time, they will....

While I'm waiting for those millions of years to pass that might finally bring about a meeting of the brains, I'll just continue to have more fun in the company of my women friends and not worry about finding a compatible male mate. It just ain't going to happen. It's a brain thing.

Go the the Post piece and read more about how the wiring of men's and women's brains affect their behaviors regarding multi-tasking, fighting, communicating, and having sex.

Live and learn.

(Although I do remember seeing a program on PBS years ago about how older men -- those who are no longer led by their testosterone levels and associated body parts -- become more companionable, better husbands and fathers and grandfathers. Maybe there's hope yet.)

November 02, 2006

We were warned that those @#$%^ machines were going to screw up. We were warned that those *&^%$ machines were going to be manipulated. It's already started BIG TIME with early voters,

Crooks and Liars links to a Texas television station that reports:

KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly. Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.

And the Miami Herald reports:

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step.

Mauricio Raponi wanted to vote for Democrats across the board at the Lemon City Library in Miami on Thursday. But each time he hit the button next to the candidate, the Republican choice showed up. Raponi, 53, persevered until the machine worked. Then he alerted a poll worker.

The smart thing for everyone to do is vote by paper absentee ballot. Ronni Bennett has been enouraging that, and her post, including comments, provides information on how to do that in various states. The absentee ballot has to be in by 8 p.m. election day.

Like any kind of powerful technology, it only works for the general good if there are good people implementing and monitoring it. Otherwise, you get what we've got now -- widespread invasion of our privacy and the outright pirating of the one vehicle we have to enforce change for the better.

This is what the ordinary German people must have felt like as their government leaders marched them over the cliff.