Half way through the Berkshire Mountains on the Mass Pike, I noticed a band of crows circling over my car. Five minutes later, one of my back tires went flat. A minute or so later, I was pulling off the road in front of a trooper, who just happened to be parked there waiting for speeders. Another five minutes and the emergency truck arrived; another two, and I was on my way again. “Somebody up there must be watching out for you,” the trooper smiled, winking.
We had put in my daughter’s meditation garden — turning what had been a huge circle of white stones that occupied the space where the former owners once had an above ground pool into a tear-drop patio that curves into the edges of a garden (that will soon be covered with the herbs, ground covers, and grasses that we planted. Except where there’s a path leading from the patio to a bench. And except where there are rocks, a fat maternal garden hare, a watchful hedgehog [which I call a hedgehag], and a guardian gargoyle.)

My grandson and I had our own journeys to take, as we spent a long afternoon together while his folks went out to lunch and shopping for more garden plantings. We improvised little scenarios, in which he always remembered both his lines and mine. And then there were the trucks. Lots of trucks. Diggers. Excavators. Front loaders. And a truck video on which, he explained to me, there were an auger drill and an impact hammer. We were on a learning journey, and he was the teacher.





…………………………………………………..
someone was in my apartment, she says. they moved things around in my dresser. were you in here taking my gloves, she asks. she’s back. you’re back. so much for rejuvenating journeys.

I’m leaving early tomorrow to visit the Wizard Who Can Make Me Laugh.

Or rather the goofy Munchkin.

Of course it’s raining and it’s going to rain all week. Tomorrow I’m taking my mother to my brother’s and then I’m heading out on Thursday for some R&R at my daughter’s in Massachusetts.
Perhaps we should do what the people in Fairhaven, in the rainy Pacific Northwest do: have an annual Rain Festival. Unfortunately, their last such event was spoiled by a plague of sunshine. What rotten luck.
The willows near the pond are heavy with rain. I had planned to sneak out tonight and cut/steal some willow branches to weave a “protection shield” for my daughter’s house. I will be going out there on Thursday, so I still have time when I get back from my brother’s tomorrow. Unless it’s raining then as hard as it is now.
it’s raining, it’s raining
I can’t help my complaining

from myrln
We need more atheists, agnostics, and Buddhists:
NY Jews Heckle Sharon
Israeli Jews and Muslims heckle Laura Bush.
Bush heckled at Christian College.

I’m pissed that CBS has concelled Joan of Arcadia. Now, you might not think I watched a program like that, what with Joan talking to God and he/she talking back. But I understand the difference between fanatasy and reality, and that was one of the most creatively written shows on network tv.
But CBS says that the demographics they’re after don’t watch creatively written and well-acted quirky dramas that explore the human struggle to develop personal and moral values.
And the same network also cancelled Judging Amy, and so there goes the great imperfect older woman role model played by Tyne Daly.
CBS thinks that the demographics they’re after are not interested in watching well-written and acted shows that feature strong imperfect women struggling to make their way in the world while still remaining the center of strong imperfect families.
And on top of all of that, according to the Observer:
Nestling deep in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, in the heart of America’s Bible Belt, this is the first dinosaur museum to take a creationist perspective. Already thousands of people have flocked to its top-quality exhibits which mix high science with fundamentalist theology that few serious scientists accept.
Well, there you go. CBS’s demographics:
Even as America’s scientists make advances in palaeontology, astronomy and physics that appear to disprove creationism, Gallup surveys have shown that about 45 per cent of Americans believe the Earth was created by God within the past 10,000 years. It is not just creationism either. Last week NBC’s Dateline current affairs programme, equivalent to the BBC’s Newsnight, investigated miracles. It concluded some could be real.
Oh yeah. Feed the frenzy of fundamentalism!
And don’t forget the Silver Ring Thing.
Don’t bother those Right/eous with facts. They know what they believe.

what’s this, she says, holding up a jar of mayonnaise that you’ve been wondering what happened to. that’s my mayonnaise, you say, picking it up to see if it’s cold. it’s not.
where was it, you ask.
I found it in there, she says, pointing to the buffet against her dining room wall.
why did you put it in there, you ask.
I didn’t put it there, she insists.
it’s just about midnight. she is looking through all the boxes in her bedroom that she has begun to pack in anticipation of the big move you both will soon be making. she says someone keeps moving things around from box to box.
you ask what she’s looking for, but she doesn’t seem to know.
why is everyone taking my things, she sobs. why can’t I have the things that are important to me.
no one is taking your things, you say. it’s all here, somewhere. you forgot where you put them. no one wants your stuff, you say. we have our own stuff.
I love you, she says. you came out of my body. why do you want to do this to me. why do you want to make me think I’m crazy, she says.
go to sleep, you say. tomorrow you’ll be rested and you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for.
you go back across the hall. turn on the computer. it’s almost twelve-thirty.
the phone rings. did you take the photo I have of you, she says.
no, I didn’t, you say. it’s there somewhere.
you’ll fix it for me tomorrow, she says. good night, she says.

Teenage Blogging
[subtitle added after posting for search purposes]
I’m sitting at my computer in the HOBY t-shirt that I got yesterday as one of the gifts to the panelists at the seminar.
I can’t remember when I’ve been so wound up and tired at the same time that I can’t get to sleep. So, yesterday evening, I played cards with my mom, watched the tape I made of Smallville’s finale (Yup. I watch Smallville. Everwood, too. Something about never letting go of my inner teenager.) I remember having private drool over Tom Welling (Smallville’s Clark Kent) when he appeared on Judging Amy as a yoga instructor that Amy had a fling with.
Is this starting to sound like a teenage girl’s blog? (I’m so easily influenced!)
After the blogging panel part of yesterday’s program, each of us three panelists (SUNY Journalism Professor William Rainbolt, an HR person whose name and company I didn’t write down so I can’t remember and her name isn’t in the program, and me) sat down with a randomly selected group of the kids to chat.
I thought it was interesting that only a handful of the fifty or so kids in my group had a blog, and they were mostly girls. Before yesterday, I did a little Googling and found out that, a couple of years ago,
The average blogger is a teenage girl who posts every two weeks to update her friends on her life. Two years in blogtime makes a big difference, though, and I’m sure that the average has shifted. If anyone has stats on that, I’d love to know.
As you might expect, this was an energetic and lively bunch of kids — for the most part. I couldn’t help notice a few, though, who looked familiar — that holding-back and mildly defiant stare — the bright rim-walkers who sit in the back, watch, ingest, process, and somehow find their own way around the hypocrisy of systems. They weren’t the bloggers. At least not yet.
The questions the kids asked were not terribly insightful — but hey, future leaders or not, they’re still tenth graders. They asked me to elaborate about b!X’s current brouhaha (which I had mentioned earlier), about why I blog, how long etc. They seemed to be most interested in how personal they should get on their blogs. I shared with them many of the quotes from the comments I got about the guidelines various bloggers I know use for themselves. I also cautioned them about blogging information that predators can use to track them down. And I reminded them never to assume that they can hide behind anonymity. Everything on the Internet is public and can be tracked down by the persistent. I also recommended the various weblog handbooks in which Shelley Powers, Rebecca Blood, and Meg Hourihan contributed. I should have also told them to ask their school librarians to stock them if they haven’t already.
One young woman asked if I use music in my weblog. Admitting to being an absolute non-techie, I responded that I’m a “word” person, a writer, and I never bothered to learn how to import music because I don’t want to distract from my writing. I also told them all that I know about “audio blogging,” which is that it exists.
They asked me how “public” I am about who I am. I replied, as you might expect, that I didn’t worry about anyone out there wanting to harass a “little old retired grandma raising hell at the keyboard” — and that I am a performer at heart, and these days my blog is my one-woman-show. But they need to be a lot more careful because they are in a much more vulnerable position.
Finally, I stressed that blogging is an extension of one’s life — they should blog the way, I would hope, they live — with compassion for others, with respect for the privacy of others. What I wish I had thought to say is that rather than attack individuals and their behaviors (except, of course, if they’re public figures) phrase what you want to say in the form of questions. Question the validity of behaviors, comment on the effects of certain behaviors. The point will get through without naming names or crucifying with specifics.
When they ran out of questions, I just shared my blogging experiences — how my blog gives me an identity, a place to be creative, a way to meet kindred spirits (I tend to interact mostly with bloggers who identify themselves as real people with names, locations, and histories). I told them that I usually write a draft of what I’m going to post before I post it so that I can make sure it’s what I really want to say and check for typos, etc. Usually, but not always. And when I don’t, I’m usually sorry I didn’t.
Finally, I urged them — if they want to make a difference in their communities, change their little pieces of the world, become a voice for the causes they espouse — to try blogging. And I told them to check out theonetruebix.

I haven’t been this tired since my days of teaching. I think it was nerves, since I haven’t spoken before any kind of group in five years. Tomorrow, I’ll blog about the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Seminar at which I was on a panel about blogging.
Before we called it a day, I got a t-shirt, a cool little notebook w/pen, hugs, and this:

The goslings have hatched. They tumble around the grassy slope near the pond, each group of them carefully monitored by their pairs of haughtily protective parents. Each dad stands stock still, never letting his eyes leave mine as I stroll by. Each mom keeps one eye on me and the other on her charges as she herds them out of my range. It’s not just a goose thing.
I keep checking in on my son’s weblog, where he’s in the center of a storm raging around issues that are central to blogging: How deep does the process of verification/authentication/investigation have to go every time a blogger points to a political fact of interest to her/him? Isn’t the point of having a weblog with comments to give everyone — especially those whose motives are questioned — a primary, direct, and immediate chance to respond, correct and amplify? Just where do blogging and journalism coincide and where do they diverge?
Weblogs like the Portland Communique are personal explorations of public issues with links used, like footnotes, to support the blogger’s take on the matter. Comments exist to give readers the chance to refute or add to what seems like the truth.
Corante’s Michael O’Connor offers a snapshot (scroll down; the code’s screwed up)of the escalating argument. The whole deal is still going on here, with 62 comments at this point and still counting.
This mama goose finds it hard to sit on the sidelines, even though the offspring flew away a long time ago. But I do. Sort of.
The irony of this whole thing is that tomorrow is the day that I address 170 tenth graders (participating in a youth leadership seminar) as part of a panel on Should there be guidelines for blogging or should “anything go.” I’m walking into that room tomorrow with a case study right at my fingertips.
Also at my fingertips is a printout of all of the comments I got from some of my blogger buddies about that issue. So, thanks, all.
This Mother Goose has some stories to tell tomorrow.

Yes. I moved mountains. And not metaphorically either.
I took my mom down to visit where we will me living a couple of months from now — in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. And I gathered up pieces of the mountains that are on that property — rocks. Pretty big rocks. I loaded a hundred pounds or so of them into my trunk to take to my daughter’s next week for her rock garden. They don’t have any rocks in her back yard. There are plenty in the woods behind their house, but there’s also plenty of poison ivy. My poor son-in-law is still recovering from a massive reaction to it.
It’s amazing how much better my mother can see now with one cataract removed. All the way down the NY State Thruway, she rorschached the masses of clouds that moved along with us. She commented on all of the various shades of green that lined our long ride. As much as I hate having to arrange my life around giving her the required eye drops several times a day for a month after cataract surgery, I’m going to take her to get the other eye done. Apparently, she will have 20/20 vision in that eye when she has the cataract removed and the little lense implanted. Also, apparently, she had been legally blind in the eye that she just had done. I didn’t know it was that bad.
She always insisted that she could see just fine.
Now if only I could get her to submit to hearing aids. Heh. It would be easier to move the actual mountains.