Matriarch’s Neighborhood

Since I have had nothing to say lately I will post this...

I think this is hilarious, and I bought myself the shirt
http://rescuemarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/chains_of_love_t-shirt.gif

It's that wonderful list-making time of year, and August has come up with hers...for Santa.  At the top is a dog.  Another dog.  We have a dog, you know, a very big one, two kids, and a house the size of a postage stamp and a half.  I tried to explain to August how we really can't get a dog, not right now, not actually in the near foreseeable future.  She gave me this heavy-lidded, closed-mouth smile look and shook her head.  Poor Mom, the look offered, you just don't get it.
"Mom," she said, "Mom, just listen.  Do you remember when it was only Drake, and you were so happy with Drake that you wanted another kid?  Well, that's how I am. I'm so happy with Sakari that I just want another dog.  Now do you understand?"
Oh, I understand all right.

This morning over cereal, Drake told me that one of his movement/dance teachers at his school said to him that if he didn't bring an elastic for his long hair, it was going to go on his permanent record.  Not having a hair elastic for dance.  "Drake," I started.  Then we both laughed at exactly the same time.  How funny is it when your kids get how funny things are?

The first gay couple in Latin America is getting legally married tomorrow.  In Buenos Aires.  They won a law suit against the city government because they claimed that their constitutional rights were being violated in being barred from getting married.  They won.  And now they're getting married on December first (AIDS awareness day).  In the most wonderful, melodic, broken English, one of the partners, in an interview on the radio about his impending landmark marriage, said excitedly, "The rainbow is here.  You know, [singing] 'somewhere over the rainbow...' It is here.  The rainbow is here."
I'm going to try to remember that today.
The rainbow is here.

I know, I know. I have not posted any photos of my crafts in a long time! Well, I have been a bit busy over this last Summer and Fall, but the Winter is shaping up to be a good crafting season, so there will be more to browse...I promise!

If you want to easily view my past crafts, check out this link to view my Flickr photo sharing pages (or click on the link to the top right-hand side of my blog). They're all neatly organized in an easy-to-view format.

Have fun...and check back here around Christmas time for some knitting, sewing and such project photos!

-RM

I love it when the employers I freelance for return my work queries with "No, we have nothing this week.  That job that we were supposed to get didn't materialize.  Sorry.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING."  No irony intended.  None taken.  Sarcasm served in return.  Can you tell?

We don't have any particular religious traditions at our house.  We have a non-secular Christmas, my daughter spins a dreidel and explains gelt to me, my cousin's kids get batmitzvahed, Jim's aunt puts in a good word to Jesus for us, my son knows the story of the Buddha, and Jim is working on his latest Zen Koan.  However, at dinner every night, Jim asks us what we're each grateful for.  It can be grand or small, something that happened that day, something in general, but each of us has to offer gratitude for something.  Sometimes the kids will be grateful for a particular meal, or a playdate with a fave friend, or a sleepover, or a cousin.  Sometimes they struggle to think of something, and want to "pass."  There are no passes--you've got to come up with something, anything.  I'm pretty repetitive.  At the end of the day I'm usually grateful for most of the same...health, family, good news...health, family...health.  A gig.  Being together with my family. A gig that Jim has gotten.  Friends.  And so on.

So, here it is, Thanksgiving, 2009.  And as many times, for as many nights that I say it, I will repeat myself:  I am grateful, very very grateful for my family and friends, for health and happiness and for the things I forget to be grateful for.  For breathing.  For solid ground.  For music.  For palm trees growing right next to oak trees.  ! Hummingbirds and those damn feral parrots. Magic marker drawings on construction paper. Found photos of people I love. Serendipitous encounters.  Genuinely funny stories.  I'll stop now.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This is to my husband, with whom I am now back together, and will always cherish for being the man he is.

My life tells me not its breadth,

But with your love, I find its depth.

-Micol Day

Love you always, Cory!

I thought this game was a very cool game, so I decided to share it.

Our just-bigger-than-a-breadbox backyard has always been a quiet, private haven--snug in between the backyards of two neighbors who, between them, have lived in their homes for nearly 120 years.  Their children long gone, their backyards are mostly silent, save for visits from grandkids and great-grandkids.  The fences along either side are sound-proofed with years of benignly neglected shrubs and trees growing in such a way that you can't tell on which side of the fence the bushes take root and which side they end.  The back of our yard butts up against a mini-canyon of overgrowth too narrow to build on, separating our backyard from the neighbors behind us, who we have never actually seen.  Actually, we've never seen ANYONE on the other side of the chainlink fence in the 11 years we've lived here.  So yesterday, when our dog Sakari was howling out back, I figured it was at some possum or even a coyote (yes, in urban Los Angeles, there are wandering coyotes).  I stood on the back steps and watched Sakari for a minute until I heard voices...small, high-pitched voices shouting "Keep going!  Look out! It's a jungle! Go!"  Several boys, maybe 7 or 8 years-old, suddenly tumbled into view, crashing into each other.  Sakari went nuts, howling and leaping in place (too scared to advance, he posseses only the size and bark, not the chromosomes of his boy-eating ancestors), and all together the kids saw him.  They screamed and started shoving each other back the way they came, yelling "A wolf!  It's a wolf!  Let's get out of here! It's gonna get us!" 
I heard them scream and fight their way through the uncharted brush back to wherever they came from (a hole in a neighbor's back fence?).  "A big black WOLF!  I swear!" were the last words audible through shrub-bearded fences.
And then, it was then that I felt that giddy, conspiratorial 12-year-old rise in me.  I ran inside and told Drake to get his WWII gas mask on and get ready to go out back if we heard Sakari howl again.
"Kids, there were kids in the backyard!" I told him. "They thought Sakari was a wolf!  If they come back, you should be there with your scary-ass gas mask on!"
Drake's eyes widened as his PSII control slipped from his hands.  "Seriously?!" he said.  "Where'd they come from?"
"Dunno!"
"Oh, my God, Mom, I'll pretend that I'm like that guy in the hockey mask... Wait for me!"
"What'll I be?" August asked.

But the boys were gone.  At least for the rest of the day.

And then I was mom again, and everyone wanted to know what we were doing today. And when would we leave, and would it be fun?  And why weren't we going to that other place? And what I really wanted to do was grab a nerf gun, get on some camo and sit in a tree and wait...to laugh that screaming, gasping, breathless laugh that lies dormant....

The Gold Line was free all day yesterday, so we took it down to Little Tokyo.  A good time was had by all.