Michael took the top picture yesterday at sunset. I pulled the bottom two from tiny sections. If you look closely in the second one (click the picture to magnify), you can see dark specks. If you can look very closely, you can identify them as bald eagles. On my first cursory count, there were forty-seven of them. I am still speechless.

Of course, it could be a refractory effect on some other type of bird, too. But hey, go with me on this! Whatever they are, they are very large birds very far away...

The bottom picture is a magnification of a fleck of green just off the right rim of the bright spot of the sun. If you look at it just right, you can see a spiral like a yellow-brick-road, with the green on the walkway. Isn't that crazy? Like a golden circle...

If you look just above the spiral there is a smudge that resembles a bald eagle flying. I swear, I am not making it up! Just off of its "beak" there are two small flecks. You guessed it, real bald eagles! (if only in my kingdom...)

Then, if you look up in the right corner, you see another small spiral and at about nine-o'clock to that is another, even more vague, smudge that might resemble the head of a bald eagle, if you are really trying.

Be a sport and try! Just click on the picture and see if it doesn't magnify enough to pick up the effects.

If this isn't the most amazing photograph you have ever seen, I will refund your money! And give you a good whack to knock some sense in you!

Hi mom, Hi gramma, hi everyone.
I made it home safe and sound from New Joisey. it was fun if not a little hectic, but i would expect no less. now, i am frantically working on getting to my next projects that i must must have done by the end of this week and mid february respectively. a poster and cd artwork. wish me luck.
mom, i read your poetry book last night. its beautiful.
thank you.
happy new year.
love all.

hey guys, i do not know what happened to our cool intro, with maya's cool picture. I probably did it cause i have been the only one here but i have no recollection of same. Anyway, having lots of fun with my camera thingy. Check out "gardenplanet" link, then go to "photos" tab if you want to see more.

mostly i don't know what i am doing, except having a blast!

mary

oh, i finally figgered out how to form a group blog, and added myself as a member so i don't have to log and relog and relog again and again. But, then the last post is too hard to edit, and I am too lazy to go into the rigamarole above when I can p.s. you here.

( to remind myself: movies to watch for: the invisible, and the guardian.)

okay, well, i just wanted to say that the last post was my annual christmas story-lecture thingy, not really a legitimate post.... except for what it is, of course!

cyberspace is very lonely.

Merry Christ-Mass!

Deeply entangled in the christian mythos, I sit with questions about the baby jesus and a steaming cup of coffee. My eyes light on the drug-store star, garishly lit and fully half the size of the tiny bargain tree, an after-christmas scavenge many years ago, upon the very tippy-top of which it somehow maintains a ridiculous perch, glowing unashamed for all its humble roots. All of the merrily, and hastily, wrapped gifts are gone, even as I waken, a reminder that this year is different.

I miss my oldest daughter! First Christmas celebrated on Christmas Eve in my entire lifetime. And first without her since she was born, twenty-five years ago. For the first time ever on a Christmas morning, my younger daughter is sleeping late and my husband spent the night at his family's, and here I sit alone, dreamy and reminiscing, my mind seeking that golden thread of merry christmas past…

Hmmm, yes…. what is that?

Ahhh, I see babies! Christmas! Happy children, afloat in a sea of bright paper and ribbons, passed between elders all a-koochie-koo and my my my how you've grown! And food, sweets aplenty, no end of excitement! Lights, color, noise, the smiles, the smells - oh, the smells… and all the rules abolished for a day! Oh my!

Then, ever seeking balance, my wayward mind pulls a darker thread.

I see babies, millions of them, wailing, gray from malnutrtition, a symbol of relentless demand to parents overburdened with their own cares, screaming too much beseeching too much and why why WHY WON'T YOU EVER SLEEP! So many terrified children, familiar with the closets and underneath places for hiding, bones broken, tears sucked dry, hearts bleeding out and blackened… Oh, all the children!

And all those millions of babies in-between, each beautiful and brimming with a potential never on earth seen before, and to never be seen again. Ever.

Only this light can shine itself.

These babies, all of them, all of them! are our future. We battle-scarred, war-weary citizen-soldiers will soon pass the baton. And how will we prepare the ground? How will we care for our children? How will we care for yours?

How many happy memories can we provide for them to grow on? To bring to them the compassion, the warmth and the light toward which they can faithfully turn in the darkness, when they need to find their way? The warmth and the light that organizes their choices on every step of their life-journey?

Behold the Prince of Peace who comes into the world to lead us into a kingdom of compassion and communion….

My agnostic roots are tangled, perhaps, as even I, unbeliever of an enthroned god, can see the sense of that teaching! What makes it so hard for the devout? Indeed, for anyone? Isn't this the yellow-brick road between the here-to-there from anywhere winding through the heart of any path to Truth?

Goodness! I must be confused, mixing Oz and Seuss! Obviously in need of saving…

hehe ;-)

Ahhh, what good coffee! I am glad. What a good family to belong to! So many kind words and well-wishes to sustain me. How wonderfully blessed I have been! So many powerful memories, so many hearth-fires to warm my soul and light my way…

So, thank you baby Jesus, for the warmth and the light of your heart in the darkness, so strong that even this heathen-child can find it across these endless chasms of time and delusion…

(Now, that's what I call “Big Art!”)

Love to you all! Warmth. Cheer. Hugs and snuggles. May the season uphold the very best in us, and remind us to honor our amazing potentials, and to pour forth the very light that guides us….

Yours in Love and Light! Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas Eve! Maya is back to sleep after a morning of gifting and buckwheat pancakes and eggs. Persephone is sleeping too, after hours of fun in the pile of paper and ribbon. I hope everybody got their cards and stuff, but probably not.

Michael has gone to Christmas Eve in Evansville with his family. I thought it would be rude to spread my germs.

I have been writing poetry like crazy. If you're interested, hit the link to my blog at gardenplanetproject.zaadz.com...

Michael gave me a book called "The Essential Haiku." I am thrilled! Three masters representing each school: ascetic, artistic and humanist. I began realizing what a hack I am about two weeks ago, when it became clear what a magical medium it is, how fractal and complex in nature. So Michael must've read my mind. Or maybe I said something and don't remember. Still to his credit!

Maya will leave soon for Chicago. The weather is good, so no worries. Hope the airports are unsnarled by the time she leaves for New Jersey. I kind of forget whether that was supposed to be the day after Christmas or what. But that's okay. I am not the one who has to catch the flight!

It's a good thing.

Michael will be back tomorrow and we will have a turkey feast. Again. yum. I hope to be speaking with you guys on the phone. So.

Sated, (burp)

mary

Merry Christmas Eve, Everybody.
We are moved in but not unpacked. Fran and Bill are expected this afternoon for oyster stew supper and will overnight for our Christmas tomorrow. We will try to have a pathetic little tree, the usual glorious feast (if I can find the kitchen) and good cheer around the fireplace (Franklin stove). I found my camera so I can take and post pictures. Love love love to all. And Peace to the whole wide world. It is good .....

Good mording! I godda code. sniffle snort hack hack.

Baya is hobe! I am washing my hands and coughing into my elbow so as not to spread my good cheer...

I actually got everything in the mail a hair's-breadth after the deadline. Oh well. So. Everybody will get their cards by regular pony express a day or two late, because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend $14.05 per envelope... So there, santy claus. So I will call folks and maybe even write letters a bit more regular. I wasn't exactly procrastinating: i got some excuses, but they sound a lot like whining!

Well mom, I do hope everything is settling. Breathe! It really is fine! After all, think about it: you've made it this far, and a lot of the time you, like me and everybody else, had the accelerator jammed and no directional control... wheee!

So if we can make it to this moment with as little panache as that, well, then we can do anything, as long as it obeys the laws of physics!

Breathe: long, slow, deep, regular, long, slow, deep, regular...

Can't wait to hear from y'all!

mary

Oh, yes, Maya. Very cool (kuhl) indeed. Your partridge design is magnificent. My favorite Christmas motif has always been a partridge in a pear tree. And when I get a home with a printer hooked up to my iBook I will print it out and color it. I love all my family very much -- this will be my last night in the old house. I sent useful things for Christmas this year. Not hot pink, but useful. I'm losing brain cells to fatigue at an alarming rate just now and need some of that oh-so-good karma beamed my way. Mantra: I-can-get-through-this-I-can-get-through-this-I-can-get-through-this---------

Hi from Maya!

A picture of me and my neu haircut. sehr kuhl.

um I'm crazy busy. I just got an order form another band (not my boyfriend's) for t-shirts and they are paying me like real money and stuff. anyway so I got those done yesterday and I definitely got my mess-up/huge hassle karma out of the way very early on. you know what that means...perfection the first time from now on. yes yes yes it does. so now I just have to do 30 more shirts for the record low (17 of those are already sold) and a poster before next friday. Its gonna be a push, but I should make, thanks to all the perfection karma I got comin my way. anyway, so check on my other blog for the t-shirts in the next few days. Maybe if my mom likes them I can make her some for her garden planet project. I've already got a design...hmmm.

so here is my christmas list cuz mom is making me post this.
cds: bonnie prince billy, "the letting go"; magnolia electric co., "fading trails,"
polaroid 600 film,
a new toothbrush,
working heater blower motor for an 89 Toyota van, and
anything useful, thoughtful, handmade, and/or hot pink.


OK, love you all so much Grandma, call me when you get your new phone number.
bye,
maya

1:30 a.m. in Red Mesa. No sleep. I am trying to figure a way to tell Maya I am looking at her blog. There doesn't seem to be a way to enter comments on her site. Maya, I want to hear from you about everything. Can you call me? I'll be at this phone (Red Mesa) until Friday. Moving Saturday. So-o-o-o tired. It will be all right. Really -- it always is. Virginia

persephone sees a bird... mary

Hello! I am back again. Yay! Mom, don't do anything! It must've been a glitch last time I tried...

This is my view on the world this Sunday morning...

I am enjoying a cup of fresh-ground sticky-black and bitter french roast coffee, still foaming. Michael is making cd's, Ayla is tap-tapping at her computer. She just got in from swinging, which is what Ayla does to chill. We have a tall swing outside, and she, being an audiophile like her dad, has ten-thousand-and-counting recordings, which she burns onto cd's and listens to on the swing...

I think otherwise she may go insane.

Playing with my camera, my pc and my guitar. In my jammies. What a yummy day!

Love you guys. Mom, hire a young person please pretty please for the big stuff?

;-) mary

Hey everyone. Kind of at loose ends here. Michael and I plan to eat out tonight for our twentieth, which was Tuesday. But he was on call. Maybe we will shoot some pool. I'm no good since I got bifocals, but Michael said that's ok, he will clear the table for both of us.

Kinda sad, but we couldn't remember what restaurant we ate at the night we were married. And we don't remember whether any pictures were taken. I just remember I was huge with Phaedra, who was stillborn 10 days later.

This morning I awoke to a loud crack as a bone-chilling wind blew something against our bedroom window. I got up, stumbled around for a while before noticing that it was snowing outside.

First snow. Just a dusting. I took some pictures on the way to work, cause my mother was not available for our usual Thursday morning conversation. Probably moving to Flagstaff as we speak, or as I write. I am sure she will keep us posted. If we don't hear anything for a week, we should call out the posse.

Michael and I decided to splurge on a digital camara for our anniversary and christmas present. Works great, but for some reason I can't upload to this site yet. I have a couple up on my gardenplanet site (hit link to the right, go to photos). Pie-in-the-sky Techno-dreams: grrr.


Got to go!

mnp

Okay people, this is what I did. I updated our template. Classy huh? But, it appears that the default type is this Times or something schoolbookish.

I prefer Arial, myself, cause it is prettier on the page. But I guess we will have to all take care of it our very own selves.

Please notice a new links section to the right called "Where to go from Here" or something like that. This is a cool place to put whatever it is you might want to direct our attention to. (I know the damn thing is hangin', mother!). I put a link there to Creature Comforts, which is a very cool U-Toob animation that you'd best have fresh incontinence pads to view. If any of you actually use them, hehe.

So. All of your posts are in a serif-font of some sort. That is the worst of it. So that's not so bad, eh?

I am so glad Maya is home from Florida. She had enlightening whilst there. But I leave that to her able hand....

teehee

mnp

posted on Bobbi's site at visionarysuccess.zaadz.com

So nice to be back online. Bobbie just emailed me and asked to connect, because she liked my icon picture, said it reminded her of her own pictures. Of course, I don't know if she actually took this picture or if it is just a part of her collection, but there are many amazing photos there... Including the blue iceburg picture below. That is really just a wild coincidence, because I only "met" Bobbie today!

Wow, just noticed the cool pencil icon that allows you to edit from the page, instead of navigating back to the dashboard.

Ain't that sweet!

mnp

I am back, I am back, I am back!

Kaloo, Kalay oh Frabjous day!

mnp

Here it is: a duplex, three bedrooms (two up, one down) no garage, 1-1/2 miles from Northern Arizona University. Vern will see it tomorrow. There is a Franklin stove in the living room. Tall conifers in the back. Love to all. Hurriedly -- Superpacker.

And how is this beautiful, happy baby. Mary, when new -- that's who. And baby, look at her now!

Chicago! yea!

pigtails, a thanksgiving tradition

looks even better in person...if you can believe it

no... thank you alliance bakery

now i'm just rubbing it in

marcus, hank, and dear sweet robbie

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm very happy about this one. fun. fun.
No tofurkey for us! We were keepin it real with pasta! I made the salad. pretty standard. then i was gonna make sweet potato fries but the turned into curried sweet potato mashers. yum. and i made this garlic spread with toast points. hank made two kinds of pasta. one being really good and one being really meaty. he also "borrowed" a strawberryrhubarb pie from the bakery where he works and made some homemade whipped cream. Dinner was served on the coffee table since, let's be honest, we're all more comfortable in front of a tv. We watched the program, Deal Or No Deal, or Vas y No Vas, as hank likes to call it. which obviously translates to Deal AND No Deal but he won't listen. Robbie took care of the dishes (he is an angel) without throwing any of them away, and marcus showed up in time for pie. ok, glad everyone had a great thanksgiving. i like this one too. the holiday that is. even though nobody bought me a present. thanks anyway.
(love you!!)
maya

That photo was in Durango Fall 2005. Maya, I saw Chihuly's work several years ago in Omaha and was blown (no pun intended) away. I understand that he was blinded in one eye many years ago in an accident and cannot actually see to blow his own art forms but sketches what he wants and then somehow instructs his helpers how to create them. He has a huge studio on the waterfront in Seattle that I would love to visit. His glass is amazing. I love a ship load of it floating, floating.

Maya, Maya, what did you and Hank have for Thanksgiving Day dinner? Please tell me no tofurkey. After all, a thing is what it is, or it's not. Sorry about the iPod. I know how much you loved it. I looked at the new ones in California, but somehow it doesn't fit into my life. I'm still trying to learn cellphone.

Here is a definition of eternity: two people and a roast turkey.

Picture of a Beautiful Iceburg from a site with no credits to relay... Too bad.
Much to ponder...

For Void is Mind Itself, and Mind Itself is Void
Wei Wu Wei

Mom what an awesome turkey! Michael cooked ours. We got a "natural" turkey from the co-op. There's something sad about that. But it was really good. Firm, mild-flavored. And moist! Perfect, actually. Kudos to my husband.

Who is sleeping. Ayla too. And the cat. Every tummy is full.

Persephone, our new kitty, she lives in an alternate universe. No, for real! She carries the nylon horse crop around, lays on it, shadows Michael and meows until he will play with her. He gets her going every which way, up and down and over furniture, in circles... Hilarious. But then she always claims it when he drops it, lays on it whipping her tail for a while, then drags it round like a lioness would an impala.

She's a nut.

Maya, those pictures are great! Looks like you, and the bear, had so much fun. Tell me, did you get singled out by any of the zoo animals this time?

And color me stupid, but I am missing the connection between the boat of blown glass objects and the artist looking like a pirate... Maybe it's a generation thing? Blush...

I love that you don't care as much about stuff as you do about people. It is a wonder that people like you can survive in this world! But the world needs lots and lots of people like you. Even if it hurts sometimes. We heal, and like whales, wear our stories carved in our skins...

But I am sorry about the i-pod. They are really nice. Not something you can run right out to replace. Hopefully it is being appreciated by somebody innocent, like maybe a kid or it got sold to a really cool person for cheap or they never never never would have been able to get one for a million zillion years.

Would that be cool?

Wish I could kiss it make it better! (oh, mother! she says...)

Speaking of whom... Mom, where was that picture of Vern taken? Lots of green...

Hugs.... mary

This was our feast today. Vern and I together ate perhaps a tenth of what you see here. Oh be thankful for leftovers. Pounds and pounds of leftovers. Mary my pet, your tree is lovely. It reminds me of a Walt Whitman poem which I will send to you once I look it up. When Vern returns from his walk in the desert, we will have pumpkin pie, made from a pumpkin I grew in my back yard this year. Then we will watch "Trains, Planes and Automobiles," an annual tradition with us at Thanksgiving.

We just finished watching "The Blues Brothers," one of my favorite movies of all time. I've seen it many times, and still I laugh, and laugh, and laugh. We bought the DVD as an anniversary present for both of us this year.

Mary is right about the Thanksgiving Day holiday. May it long be preserved as a pretty-much-non-commercial-holiday. I like the myths that have grown up around the first "Harvest Home" celebration in Plimouth colony with our Native American friends joining in. Actually, it was the food provided by our red brothers that kept the Plimouth colony afloat. (And boy, are their descendants sorry now!) I haven't looked at the gp entry today but I will, I will.

Love and gratitude to all my near and dear. From Virginia

My Favorite Tree, with wires

Happy Thanksgiving one and all! I just woke up from a nap. There is an infomercial on. On Thanksgiving? On Thanksgiving! Last night tv was all about the day after Thanksgiving.

This makes Thanksgiving the invisible holiday, the one that is a failed market. After all, not even Hallmark has figured out a way to capitalize on it.

Maybe even they cannot top the slaughter of millions of innocent turkeys!

Hey. I ate one. Well, almost one. I let everybody else have a little. And grrr, the gizzard and bones are mine!

But not to be too cynical. What I realized is that this non-commercialized holiday is a vestige of a simpler time, and remains unsullied, truly a celebration of giving thanks, of opening to and honoring the values of giving and thanks.

Wouldn't you know that it would be a holiday of heart that is least admired and most enjoyed! Except by our feathered kin... So giving thanks becomes antidisestablishmentarianism. I think. Celebrating a non-commercial act of generosity is an act of civil disobediance.

I like that!

And I like turkey. And I like that I did not stuff myself to oblivian. See my gp blog for more about that. Link is that way>>>>>>>>>

And I like that I can get on the computer and read posts and see pictures from my family. That truly makes my day!

Love to all of you! Blessings! I am off to watch a beautiful sunset and enjoy a really tasty beer!

mary

Dear Family Members:

To all and sundry, near and far, no matter where the heck you are: Happy Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for have we not? The usual home, family, pets, warmth, food, security.
Peace (for us at any rate) and freedom from want.

{mvn: I'm glad you're feeling better.} Jack the Cat is trying to get at the turkey thawing in the sink, Vern is reading National Geo, I am cooking up the usual excessive feast and wondering why on earth I'm doing it.

I learned a new phrase this week: "Eschew Sunk Costs." It has become my byword and is posted on the fridge.

Love to you all (and you know who you are) from Virginia

Hi everybody. Just wanted to make sure everyone is happy and well. I'm feeling better than I have in a while. I'm getting things in order and whatnot.

I was pretty bummed when i wrote that last post. I thought I had just gotten this guy fired because we thought he had stolen my ipod from smoke daddy. It turns out it was most likely him, but gosh, no reason to get the guy fired right before the holidays, right? i've been contemplating my sense (or lack) of justice lately and, in fact, i'm a bit embarrassed that i don't want to "catch" the guy who did it, but i don't. and when think about it, stealing has never bothered me as much as it probably should. anyway, my boss told me the next day that he told the guy's company not to fire him because of me and that he just couldn't come around smoke daddy anymore. i felt much better about that.

oh and i'm knitting and i'll be in some beautiful place next week.

hank and i are doing thanksgiving just the two of us. we're trying to figure out wat to eat. Hank wants to make some kind of pasta dish. I told him pasta on thanksgiving was like crackers in meatloaf but i don't think he's buying it. i just don't love pasta. oh well. he works at a bakery so i think he's going to bring home a couple of pies. Maybe we'll just have pie. That would be fine with me. Can't wait!

Oh, I love you all. Talk soon. Love, maya.

Trip to New Jersey turns into trip to Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Gardens

This guy looks about as happy as everyone else who's great idea it was to visit the Bronx Zoo on what turned out to be the last beautiful sunday of the year.

Boatfull of really pretty blown glass by a this guy Chihuly. I saw a picture of him. He looks like a pirate. ah...i just made the connection...

Oh, will you please take a picture of me in front of the art? please? thanks.

Waiting for the tram.

hi everyone,
sorry i've been absent. i've had a spell of bad luck lately and don't have a lot of motivation for anything. hope all is well. i'll be in florida for the week after thanksgiving. for thanksgiving, i will be spending it in chicago as it seems that i will be working at my new job on wednesday. we dont have any plans or money so it looks like it will be just another day. i thought about buying a train ticket to southern but i kinda bet they are sold out or pretty expensive at this point. sorry, i'll miss you all (and the food). ok love, maya

Hey people,

It is ridiculously wet outside and my nose has been cold for daaays. Sun broke through for a gorgeous sunset last night. Thursday morning I saw a bald eagle in the rain. Yesterday morning I saw two of them in the sky. Also saw what I think may be the damage they can do to a fresh roadkill deer... Impressive.

Maya said she may be almost certainly going to Florida for Thanksgiving to visit Grandma Barbara. Hello, Grandma Barbara! We will miss her, maybe a little...

My sister joined zaadz! Halloooo Fran! Very cool. If you are curious, follow the gardenplanetproject link in the links section to the right, then hit "home" to find out more about it. It is a plentiful mix of amazing dialogue to drivel. Very stimulating. I am using it to work out my 'gardenplanetproject' thing, which is "my mission of one to create a garden planet," via metaphor and tongue-in-cheek in song and spoken word.

I've been observing this digi-world, the blogosphere or whatever they call it. It's very exciting and very strange. How easily we are drawn into the mirror... It is difficult enough with real-time-space people, with all that body-language to provide context. But the projective-reflective properties of the mind appear exponentially accelerated on the web. Almost like the mind has been immersed in a vacuum, or a frictionless field of some sort. Slippery. Very slippery...

But surprisingly, lots of people seem very open and it is not a terribly dangerous environment, at least not on zaadz. There are the insane and the competitively challenged, the hyper-intellects and all the silly-little-hominids we are, but that's just like everywhere else. A little more slippery is all...

Today, this afternoon, I am going to jam at a music store I just discovered, where the old-timer blugrass folk gather on most afternoons, officially Saturdays. I can generally hold my own, but I don't know many of the songs. That's what happens when you're not very good. You have to stand outside the circle where you can't see what anybody is doing. So you learn to hear, but to be able to follow intantaneously, you never learn or remember what you are actually playing. Hmmm. Some sort of gate-keeping mechanism, maybe?

Well, Mom and Vern, keep thinking Flagstaff for Christmas. That is a pretty picture. I hope the packing and moving is not too fraught. Adventures can be dangerous in the Rockies in the winter. I hope you can keep us all posted as to progress.

Last I heard from Mom, she was looking at a picture of their new duplex cabin they are leasing in the pines. Computer-wise, she was unable to post it at that time, deficient bandwidth or something woowoo like that. Computer-woowoo.

Woowoo is my new term for any emerging field that does not quite fall into the purveyance of ordinary perception. A domain belonging to the fringe-folk whose practices are difficult to describe. Who can charge lots of money because you can't understand their lexicon, which you suspect may be nothing but a scaffolding of euphemisms, but without getting a degree in it you can't know for sure...

Well. Another gatekeeping mechanism? A woo-woo gate.

It is obviously too early and way before my first cup of coffee. My clock says four forty six a.m., just to forestall any mistakes on the blogger clock. It is measuring from an unknown geographic location. I suppose if I wanted I could do the math, but it's too damn early.

I have no idea what is happening in the world.

I learned a lot last week about complex trauma. I may have developed a crush on the presenter. He was powerfully reminiscent of brilliant Patch Adams as played by Robin Williams. Yes. Right down to the dimples...

Oh, but I really did learn a lot!

And St. Louis was very cool in the storm that rolled through. The one that continued on to develop tornadoes and other heinous cloudforms to the east. Just like you said, Maya. Nothing like a storm in the city...

And I learned something about Sealy Posturpedics: Yes.

Michael is up, coffee is brewing, Persephone is making lots of kitty noises. It is Saturday!

Comments are welcome, and are actually a signal of acceptance by the tribe...

Love you guys! mary

The photos are of McCoon (my name for him), Michael's new cat. He is classic for Maine Coon Cat and a very high on cute. Or was, when I was there -- by now he could be thirty pounds and mean as a wild hog but-I-don't-think-so. Mike and Amanda are wonderful with their pets.

Hi people. I am still househunting. We will stay here for at least a month; however, I'd like to be moved in to have Christmas in a new location. Flagstaff may have snow, but certainly there will be church services, and music, and perhaps a bell choir concert. (I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.) I have placed several applications with property managers. We need to find just exactly the right place for our pets -- a major consideration and a major hurdle. I keep threatening Vern with living in a yurt on national forest land. Can't you just picture it? When we get an address ... and a phone and an internet hookup ... you will be the first to know. I can buy a wireless hookup membership at Barnes & Noble, so I won't be offline for long. Ain't modern technology wunnerful? Bear with me, folks. I'm sorting, boxing, taping and labelling like a mad fiend.

Yeah, Michael!

our sweet old Annabelle Leigh

Maya and Michael, fixing her window just last week! And yes, she almost made it home....
~~~see post below somewhere for details~~~

This is the left member of a pair of eagles. Lost, or desperate maybe, they were across the county road from a man-made lilly-choked pond of questionable value, at least to eagles... Michael went back with more film for better pictures. Hmmph. We'll see....

Great to hear from you BroMike! And of course your new kitty is going to be large. You have had the largest cats I've ever known. And you are large!

Sounds like you get a lot of windshield time. You must be some kind of guru-sage by now! With one thousand masteries... How in the world do you do it?

I am so happy you are happy. I think I am still in avoidance-mode. It hasn't sunk in yet. I am in the bleachers with soda and a popcorn, way up there so I don't get messy when the show starts...

In the center ring, the Democrats, milling about in their week-old party gowns and tux's, sniffing around for more champaigne and peanuts. Hear them speak about the need to redeploy the troops in Iraq in spite of having no plan. Feal the fear!

In the left ring, watch as clusters of overstuffed, grey-suited, slightly balding and bespectacled men conversate in hushed tones in huddles. What are they whispering? Nobody knows. Some fall to their knees and cry for horses. Horses? What is that about?

In the third ring, bottles of wine cobble the carpet like stars between white-ribboned banquet tables and heaps of bodies draped in red satin, comatose and hung-over for the past week. Hear the muted weeping and count the many tears, see the poor souls pull themselves forward with the last of their strength to arrange themselves in loose lines for the confession booth, which bears a hastily scribbled sign: "Gone Fishing."

Darn, I'm out of popcorn, again!

Actually, I feel sad any time there is a victory, because victory is really just another tired old link in the chain of stupid violence. Stupid! Just one more excuse to disembowel and to be disembowelled during the next rootin' tootin' election-cycle. As if it is a game. It is not a game! People are dying out here. Suffering. Crying real tears... And I am so tired of fighting.

So I enjoy the recess, this pause between the out-breath and the in.

I would love to see some sober and sincere bipartison dialogue. Maybe there is enough humility to go around. I think Daddy's B's back in town, with Jim Baker heading a bipartison evaluation and strategy-formation committee of some sort. Kind of makes me wonder if Daddy hasn't been pushing for a while, and Baby B finally caved, firing Rumsfeldt after losing the election because he lost the bet and couldn't hold Daddy off anymore...

Me, always the conspiricist, trying to solve the movie before the end...

Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome! Enjoy the show!

Don't worry. I am fine. Really. No, really! It's really just a ceaseless narrative. Obviously an anxiety-mediation strategy to block out reality. And hey, I'm good at it! So why not...

So another monday. Off to work soon. Husband-Mike is already putting his phone on and heading for the door. News-du-jour drones in the living room. My feet are a little cold, but my fingers are better now I have a hot coffee-cup to wrap them around. Okay. Around which to wrap them. The satellite connection is sporadic, so the fate of this post concerns me. I definitely have to pay my bills before I leave. Definitely.

Discovered young singer Sara Harmer cd. I bought it at Border's in Chicago last July for Michael for Christmas, then stashed it. Then found it and puzzled over it, decided it was probably something that got stashed for xmas last year, but then forgotten in the traditional, rain-or-shine losing-of-the-gifts at the last minute kind of way. So I gave it to him. He really liked it. Then I remembered it was for this coming Christmas. I was then rather inconveniently flooded with memories: the where, when, how, the lighting, the color of the carpet, the smell of coffee, Maya already peeled off and lost in the stacks, what credit card I used... What a great birthday that was! (Oops, don't tell my husband!) Maya, I still haven't finished even half those books. I keep them on my back seat, my mobile library. Remember those?

This is one wacky circus.

Hey, Fran emailed me! She is alive and has no complaints. I will beckon her to this space. Or maybe call in the troops...

Anyway, so good to hear from you Bro. Drive safe and hug all relevants, especially Amanda!

Mom and Vern. Wow. Changes happen fast around you. Don't you just love a good wheel-yanking?

I just know you will land well. You always have before!

More later! mary

Hey there! Sacramental Michael here...

Jes' wanna say that after Wednesday morn I am in the best mood I've been in in six years. Sis, any ideas why I've been so personally glum for that long? It's like I've poked my head outta my shell and seen a whole new world. Some of my anger is gone, too. WOOHOO!

Mom's not posted pics of our new beastie as yet - A Maine-coonish Tabby that is intent on eating humans one at a time. He's going to be Huge.

School is, well, loonie, but that is the way of community colleges I think;
Next Semester I teach Drafting Technique for 12 weeks, two days a week, commuting Tuesdays and Wednesdays to SF for a 6pm-9pm class (It's 107 miles), then THursdays for a 6p-10p class for the entire 17wk semester. AND I'm going to be teaching some sort of 'process control and instrumentation' to a whopping 3 students on the first 9 Fridays, 8a-4p at Solano community College - for Budweiser...and who knows how much dinero. Solano CC is about half the distance.
I guess what that all means is I work alot, then after spring break I work a one-day week. Kinda wierd.

Movie Review: Babel: Gritty. Intense and Long. They've tried to cram two or three years of comparative social-studies into a 2-hour movie. I don't think the average american will like it. It was good, just eye-opening if you let it be an educational experience instead of a sensational experience we've become accostomed to in our movies.

Chuck and Nan Front: busy. log onto www.artistsloft.com fer pics of the new place and a look at the rental schedule -they work alot.
Dad's had aheart procedure of some sorts - great but crappy medical care - end result from my listening is very good - he's cheerier than he's been in years, I think the minor flutter was making him tire easy, which all of us can relate to - being tired all the time makes one pretty grumpy...

The Chill has come to 'northern' CA, the leaves are fallin', the sun is settin' early.

Last tidbit - look to the skies evenings to see the space-station pass by early eves, since the new panels it's about as bright as Venus! Search "ISS viewing" and weed through 'til you find the path and times somewhere.

Readya later, OtherMike

Hi again. Yes Maya we are moving. Very briefly, Vern has resigned effective the end of December. We will be moving to Flagstaff (as soon as I find a house) so that he can enroll at Northern Arizona University to acquire another credential -- special education. He did not want to undergo another five months of being witchhunt here while the admin looks for reasons to fire him. S-o-o-o here we go again, into the wild blue yonder. We leave this morning to go to Flag to check out some rentals.
All this is fine with me: I was wearying under the stress here. More details later. Love from (Gramma) V irginia

Hi people. This is a link to some interesting articles I picked up on msnbc.com. There are some stunning pictures of Orion from the Hubble plus some links to other stuff. I am in the process of packing up, finding a new dwelling in Flagstaff, and preparing to move -- maybe three weeks? four? Love to all. Virginia

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/

Hey all. It's the big day. They are lining up outside the polls. I am going to "vote."

If you detect sarcasm, you are astute. I am sort of dripping with it this morning. Like the fog off the eaves. They are already, at 712 this morning, predicting the dems will take the house. And I still haven't been able to come up with a sample ballot for Williamson County, so that I can actually research the candidates' records and make up my mind in an intelligent sort of way.

Stupid Democracy. That's what we've got. And we are derided for our apathy! When even an intelligent, interested person such as myself, who tries for daaaays and daaays to get even a puny list of names of who is running for what, is discouraged from finding any real information, upon which depends a decision, upon which rests a democracy.

Ha! Bah Humbug!

As I bundle up in my frog-suit to wade out to do my civic duty, which appears to be to wield as little actual power as I am privy to as stupidly as possible. So stupidly, I will not even stoop to correct the grammar of the last sentence. I am willfully stupid.

This is me trudging....

mary-the-cloaked-in-ignorance, a true American!

Enjoying the pix, Maya.

Hey, where was "Fall" taken? It gives me a weird feeling, cause I think I should know it or something. I keep comparing it to pictures in my head that it resembles. But no matter how I turn it about, nothing matches... Is that a sign of doddering? Love it that you got them up so quick!

How is the battery?

Made it to Saturday again. Jeff Talmadge and Jaime Michaels were awesome last night at Cousin Andy's. The turnout was poor, and they were very very tired from the road, which makes their effort even more heroic. I was invited over to Vern's to jam afterwards, the second time since I started volunteering. My gut said no, cause it was late and they were so tired, but I went anyway. I had to go get my guitar from the office, which wasn't too far away but irritating nonetheless, because my gut had told me to bring it with me to begin with. So I had a glass of wine, fended off the dogs, one of whom was a bassett-dalmation mix with all the dominant features of each, and a pretty border-collieish with the biggest sharpest nose and no discrimination, if you know the type.

So one glass of wine and a few songs with Dan and Mary while Jeff and Jaime hugged the soup and the laptops around the dining room table. They were so tired, I probably stayed too long. Anything may have been too long....

I advocate for heeding the gut. I just haven't a clue how to learn how! Seems that if you heed it you never get the feedback about whether it worked or not. So I would have taken my guitar to Cousin Andy's and wondered why because I came home instead of going out to jam, which may have been a kick-ass jam and how would I know? You only get solid feedback when you don't follow your gut: cause then you can see what happens and how you should have followed your gut. How many times has that happened! That's inside-out and backwards in a paradoxical kind of way. Universe? A legitimate question, or two, I think.

Hope Mo-- Virginia and Vern are afloat on the Rez. I hear it's getting a little deep out there... Bet it will be nice to be out of there! We're all rooting for you.

Just developed a very old roll of film. Turns out it was taken mostly by kids at Ayla's birthday when she was maybe ten or so...

She hasn't changed at all!

Later... Michael just put breakfast under my nose! Yum.

mary

Visit to So. IL

Fall

The Mix Cafe

rest area

Impressive Highway Structure

Feather

-Maya

"One Heckuva Dog" or maybe "DownTown Drool" (yuck!)
or "Pink Shoes and Tongue"
Streetshot: Chicago

Hey all. Just sitting, early, winnowing the "news" from some sort of drivel that oozes from my media portal. Yikes! I sound cynical, don't I?

Paying my bills, googling, preparing for class today, blogging, noodling and practicing good posture, in a multi-tasking sort of way. I caught that from Ayla, the multi-tasking thing. Good lord, nobody does it like her!

Maya, it was so good to see you! And I am stunned that the van made it all the way here, passed its physical, made it all the way back, to die, die, die on the last stop before home. I think you have a legitimate question for the universe. Unfortunately, griping loads the dice or I would recommend that...

Persephone is looking for you.

I want a big happy picture of Hank and his new guitar. That guitar loves Marcus too! And maybe it misses me...

We miss you too. And as far as the van goes, you won't even remember this after a year or two, except as maybe an amusing anecdote. So worry? Nah.

Halloween was uneventful, except the clock on the wall in the group-room started spinning really fast during my class yesterday, which was almost Halloween in a spooky sort of way. Kind of awesome: it wound itself for exactly twelve "hours" and stopped. One of my students noted that it was absolutely unnecessary because it is a twelve-hour clock, after all. Very astute.

I just saw a "news" feature on interactive dolls for the elderly, like Wilson from Cast Away only cute. I want one, and I am almost old enough....

Mom, hope you and Vern are ok. Rough ride, out there on the rez.

Thinking of all you's. mary

From the top: Mono Lake, Sunset over Pacifica, Michael shows him how .....

Thanks to Ayla. I think I was too impatient, and the result was two (2) nearly identical posts without the photos I tried to send. So here are the photos (I hope). Love to all, Gramma
p.s. May I just be Virginia to everyone? I'd like that. Please, please, pretty please .....

Chin up, Vern! Winning is standing up and speaking the truth. Some day, that will be the norm. And that is the day we win the war! If peace is the way, then truth is the way and justice is the way, too. We have to give credit where credit is due... We are proud of you!

Hey mom. Sounds like you are taking your little victories where you can find them! You have always had your fingers in every pie, and now the drain too, I take it...

Like a river: you're either on it or in it! Sounds like you are on it...

love you guys
mary

PS i posted a comment on your duplicate entry that hasn't shown up yet... maybe the boogie man is out to git us!

Here I am again, saying Hi again to my near and dear. I wish I could write as well as the M&M's, pouring forth my thoughts with elegance and candor. However, I will just plog (blog?) along, doing whatever I can.

It is now 6 a.m. on Sunday and I rejoice that I have finally solved a problem that kept me sleepless last night and really cranky and disturbed yesterday. I mean really mean and bitchy. The pop-up drain in the bathroom sink came adrift some while ago. I tried and tried to fix it yesterday afternoon and I failed. In the great universe of fixing things, this is not permitted. So I went to bed, drainless and insomniac. At four this morning, I completely disassembled the dang thing and compared all its gubbins with the diagram I picked up from the net and behold(!) a washer was missing. Now, leakage was not the problem: a lack of pop-up-edness was the problem. I found a washer to fit, reassembled, and viola -- it works. Bear in mind that the sink is fitted into the cheapest, smallest cabinet that the builder could use, so that I had to work with my left hand only and mirrors to see the clevis screw attachment thing. Now I feel quite jubilant and accomplished.

Our position here continues precarious. So far, there has been no further information. Vern has not been informed what he is being 'investigated' for -- not a sound. A school board meeting is scheduled next Thursday, but there is no indication that Vern's matter will be on the agenda -- or even if there will be a meeting. The previous three scheduled meetings have been cancelled, and a special meeting was called and held in secret to authorize the travel expenditures of school board members. Nothing has been heard from the state auditor about putting the district into receivership. So ---- here we are, twisting, twisting, in the wind. It's possible that this uncertainty may continue indefinitely, since two other staff members who were put on administrative leave more than two months ago 'pending outcome of investigation' have not yet been cleared or dismissed and summoned back to work. Those 'investigations' involved the same school board member who is out to get Vern. Such is life on the rez. I've about had enough and I've been here long enough to understand that it's probably not going to get better in the long run. As long as federal money rains down with no accountability, graft and corruption will prevail. It is important to understand that the primary purpose for the existence of the school is to create jobs for the locals and create a phony sense of entitlement and power -- plenty of overpaid, do-nothing jobs and lots of perks for the school board. Students and teachers are incidental to that process and would be eradicated from the system if board and administrators could get away with it. If I sound bitter and cynical, it's because I am. In spades.

Vern is considering taking some time off and enrolling at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff to get a Special Ed endorsement which would put him in the most preferred hiring category anywhere in the country. I fully approve and would encourage him to enroll at Kearney if he could be eligible as a resident. Flagstaff will do very well, however. If he is summoned back to his class here of course he will finish the year. But I think it is time to move on. It's really up to him -- but I hate seeing him go through this dark period with so little hope of justice in the long run. One cannot give up hope but if you could be certain that the good guys would win in the long run, it wouldn't take as much courage to stand up for the right things. I am so proud of him.

I was feeling so angry yesterday -- at the sink drain failure of course. I used my iPhoto slideshow to cycle through my California trip photos with a background of music from Nebraska Public Radio and found that it eased my anxieties a great deal. Kind of like meditating in a beautiful dream. Which reminds me of the one ray of hope from yesterday: our computer guru came to the house and reinstated my internet connection, giving me back the great wide world. Nothing was said about why I had lost it or why he was restoring it: don't ask, don't tell.

Happy Daylight Saving Time Ends Day.

Gramma, Mom, whoever I am today.

hey all, just touching base. Southern Illinois has a case of the drears. Sopping wet neath a thick gray ooze. Everyone complains. But everyone complains if the wind blows, if the sun is too hot or the air too humid. We have about three days a year when people don't complain. And those are never on the weekend. Ooops. There I go: complaining.

Lord, give me a tall enough pogo stick, and I can transcend anything, including gravity, if i'm not careful!

Maya, Michael said that the alternator is the sort of thing that is stocked on the shelf, and that he probably won't have any trouble putting it in for you. So you get a free (not easy) education on the mysterious mechanics of internal combustion. Lucky you. All I could ever get was "ok, pump the brakes, no stop, no STOP!) Never learned a damn thing.

Ayla had a flat tire yesterday, and caught a ride with a stranger because she forgot the phone. She said it was scary, but she feels good that she survived. And she learned how to change a tire, and to remember the phone, and these are good things. Ayla, I don't know whether to hug you or smack you!

Mom and Vern, hang in there. It sounds stupid to say that it will work out for the best, because we don't really know what that is. But it is fair to say that around the bend will be different, and you guys have been around enough bends to have faith in your ability to go around bends.... Sometimes it's all a-tumble, though. And it is never fair when the good guys get rode out of town.... But to stand up for justice, wow. WOW. Bad guys never get to do that. What a pity. Love to see their epitaphs: Here lies a bad guy who thought they were getting away with something. RIP.

I could write a lot of sad songs if I had the energy, right now.

Oh, good news! My agency is paying for a two-day seminar on complex trauma in St. Louis for me Nov 10-11, including hotel and everything. Well maybe not everthing, but enough. I am so happy if I was younger I would do a snoopy dance. At my age that would be testing fate.

BroMichael: if you read this, post something. It ain't fair that you get to be mysterious and I have to be whatever I am for people to see and have opinions about without getting any feedback, is it? So, out with you! Out of the dark, I mean....

You too Fran. I don't understand what you have against blogging. Is it like my husband, who has decided that computers are evil even though he's never used one? I hope not, because that is delusional. Just try it, you'll like it! Blogging is fun! And it's hard to do wrong, and people, me especially, would love to hear from you. We haven't actually spoken since our long conversation on my way back from Kerrville, when I ran out of cellphone juice, remember? If you read this, I want you to feel sorry for me, all alone in the wilderness, and be nice to me. Cause otherwise I might cry....

Hi to Chuck and Rosie too, if you happen by. Every time a fire breaks out in SoCal I get flashbacks, and I can't imagine how you are feeling Chuck. Talk soon, ok? Rosie, check your email, I think I got lost in the spam folder....

Well, so much for me today. I will sleep a lot this weekend. Then my tone will improve.

Love yall. Keep climbing! mary

Wild weekend at the VultureFest. (correction to previous post: the spring festival is not called Springfest, it is called MakandaFest) Saturday was a beautiful as a day could be, the fall colors at their very peak: a perfect exercise in perfection. The air was so clear it sparkled, room-temp, calm. Sunday was a turnabout: stinging frost, scudding clouds and a wind that picked the bones of the trees. Another perfect day! I looked up to see a huge flock of vultures swirling like a drain. I wondered out loud why we always see vultures in the sky over Makanda, but never smell anything dead. Someone offered that the vultures are gathering for migration to South America. Cool, huh?

Anyway, lots of music. I "troubed" all day Saturday and Sunday. People remembered me from last year, lots of compliments and support. I didn't get to play officially because they actually booked bands for two-hour slots instead of local itinerates for one. Bands tend to show up, unfortunately for me, but hey, they were great anyway!

Danny Dolinger is amazing. He is a water spout of genius and an ocean of heart... There was a jam afterwards and I crawled home very late. The next night it was Danny O'Keefe, of Good Time Charlie's got the Blues fame. He was very polished, urbane. He tried to be friendly, but only a handful of people showed up. I wondered what it was like to be so famous, and to fall so low. He probably has a low opinion of us hicks out here in nowhere-ville. Sad. I wish him better luck in future. I was really surprised and disappointed at the low turnout, too. Michael stood me up because he was too tired and irritable. After I had talked him up and everyone was expecting to see him! Some people don't even believe I am married, cause I can't drag him off the property....

I did meet a man who is a Johnston City home-boy, about my age, who has been playing professionally for forty years. We hit it off pretty good, and he said he jams around here all the time. Maybe Michael will venture out if the music were a little more local. Carbondale is a long ways from here, and none of my music people circulate in this area, so our house is very quiet.

So, I am still recovering from not enough sleep. Hopefully this weekend will bring me more sleep. Sleep is really all I have on my mind right now...

Love you all, see you soon Maya!

mary

here are some photos from the desolation canyon trip gramma and i did. it was very very fun. on our next to last night we saw (and heard) a peregrine falcon hunting bats. you know, upon looking, i realize that i have some even more remarkable photos from this trip. i will post these later.

i am coming home next week! this is for sure. if i drive i will be home on sunday. if i take the train i will be home on monday. i'll have to coordinate. if i come home on sunday i have to find someone to work for me on sunday, which i will gladly do. but i could use the money y'know.

um maybe i will be printing today. i have a grand idea that involves paper bags. so mom, please save your paper bags. oh and if i drive do you think i'll be able to fix the alternator in the van? i guess thats more a question for michael.
ok, love you all! see you soon!
maya