All of These Good Things

Last Thursday the 20th I drove over to the next county and picked up a puppy.  Just when I felt like I was paying all my bills on time and flossing regularly I threw a puppy in the gears of the house and everything when sproinging and springing out of the box. I can't help but be reminded of my old dog, 'Wednesday', whom I received in October of... jeez maybe 1997? She looked just like this pup. Wednesday was a great dog.  I needed a couple of years between her and this one to just be helpless mammal-less. 

Lately though I'd been wishing I had someone to bark when the door bell rings, someone to walk the bike-path with me, someone to chew on my shoes. Then Dad came over and brought a friend's dog with him.  My young son showed that big old lab around our house like he was royalty. "This is the hallway, this is the bathroom, this is my room... and if you ever spend the night you can sleep right here..." he said.  It wound me up in such a way that I knew this boy who's brought a stuffed dog to school with him every day for three years, needed his own dog. My mind was set.

I made myself one promise, I'd not have a house that smelled like dog. So potty training is number one and this pup understood in the first two days where to go and what to do. She's super smart. we taught her stairs, we taught her to go in and out, we taught her how to walk on a leash, tomorrow we're going to teach her to sit. But she's a nipper. She's part border collie and that makes her want to herd things. Including children.  We're working on it.  I bought books. The kids are helping. She's learning, but her teeth itch and she wants to chew things and every cell in her body is saying run and steer.  She can move a soccer ball around the yard like Pelé. My boy says he still loves her even though she chews his pants and his toys. So we're far from having lil' Pelé sleep over in his room, but we'll get there.



***

It's mid-October, the leaves are falling while the wind rustles the trees in the early afternoon.  That sweet autumn smell is wafting in the open windows.  Dinner is simmering.  Both children are at the dining room table working on their homework, and chatting about funny things. Thomas is making tea. The puppy sleeping on her tuffet, rolls over and her fat little belly is exposed as she yawns. The Cubs are on their way to the world series and Hillary Clinton is up in the polls.  I stand in the middle of the house sipping coffee and quietly soaking in all of these good things.

Infinite Geometric Progression

If you were trying to explain infinity to a six year old boy, you might say that it's the biggest number that goes on forever.  You might say things like you love him infinity much. You could talk about walking around a circle or explaining how small things can be or how far space goes.  Then you might hear him explain it back to you by expounding that if you farted two butts and those butts farted their own butts and those butts farted their own butts and it just kept going you would have infinity butt farts.

Hermit Crab

I haven't left the house in two days. It's glorious. I've been painting and illustrating and watching CNN. I'm at the end of the groceries and just stood in the kitchen figuring what I can still make without adding anything.  I have dinner figured out but every day I but a cookie in the lunches of the people that leave the house and I'm out of cookies.  We'll be going to karate class tonight and I'll run next door and buy some cookies and coffee, so briefly, for a bit this evening, I'll have to put on a bra and talk to people. The hard part about working from home though is that I'm never really off work and it's always looming there in the room wanting one more line one more swipe of the brush. Though I can go to work in my pajamas I'm still compelled to work after the day is done for just a few more minutes.

Hand Powered Mulcher

Why has no one invented a hand powered mulcher.  Seems like it would have gears like crazy so you could really crunch up a good sized branch pretty quick.  It'd fit right over a lawn bag and in really high gear you could have your kid crank the handle while you feed in the leafs and sticks.  I found a few plans for building your own and I've seen a few reviews for "leaf shredders" that say they stink in general as they're always getting clogged up. But it just seems stupid to fill lawn bags with all this plant material and send it away with the truck once a week and then in the spring go out and buy mulch to replace the natural mulch we all just sent away.  I get that it's not convenient to spread because it's not all chopped up into a uniform size... thus the mulcher, but I just want one less gas powered/electrical powered noise machine in the neighborhood.  I'm an old fashioned rotary blade push lawn mower and rake kinda person.  I did find one vintage shredder called a Rotocrop, but have not found a single one for sale in the whole world wide web. It's vexing.

Stop Pretending

The Bush administration erased millions of emails illegally sent by 22 administration officials through private, RNC-owned accounts, in order to thwart an investigation into the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys.

 Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails.

 Colin Powell intentionally bypassed federal record-keeping laws. using his personal computer, hooked up to a private phone line to communicate without it going through the State Department servers, to do business with foreign leaders and senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts.

Stop Pretending You Don’t Know Why People Hate Hillary Clinton

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working on the house

I put a new front screen door on with the help of my brother who actually added two inches to both the top and bottom because I have insanely long doors.  It's working out pretty well, but I need to order new screens as I don't care for the shape of the screen border on the one I have for it.  This makes me feel persnickety - but it's not very often I insist on spending extra money so something can be just how I like it.  I'm pretty thrifty and usually if a thing works and sorta fits in I use it.  This is how I ended up with mismatched cabinets in the kitchen all painted white.  I like them, they're all at differing heights and each one has a good use.

I want to remodel the bathroom.  I know I'll have to hire plumbers and electricians and carpenters and tilers.  I want to hire a general contractor and just write a check and come home to a new enlarged bathroom but I'm thrifty and coordinating people is something I'm sorta great at.  So there will be permits and a full gutting and a wall coming down a reinforcement of the floor to hold an iron and enamel vintage claw footed tub filled with water and I know the project is going to be over budget by 30%. I haven't saved up enough and financing it scares me. I have enough for a new car or a bathroom but not both.  In the mean time the current bathroom and the current (paid for) car are just fine, so I'm just in stasis wishing for a washer and dryer in my bathroom.

I still haven't painted a single wall in my house.  They're all white.  I just can't commit and I have so much artwork and chotchkies, that if the wall was any darker you'd feel like you were living in a little hollowed out portion of a hoard of books and art and music and toys and art supplies.That's not really the case... well just before big art show deadline it can be, but I can't stand clutter and so it's opposed to what I'm trying for.  I went to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright - Laurent House here in town last week and got all bummed out about my very full clutter place. In an effort to be uncluttered, I haven't much in my own bedroom, but how this really translates is my room looks like a college student lives here.  A mattress on the floor, a dresser, a pile of books next to the bed and clothes flung in all directions. I should at the least get my own nest in order for good sleepings. Maybe after Fall Art Scene, I'll paint a wall.

Frank Lloyd Wright - Laurent House

Restless Legs, Exploding Head, Hey Sleep - WTF?!

Last night, smack dab in the middle of a really great, cool crisp September air, fluffy down comforter, whole bed to myself sleep, I was immediately awakened by five sharp and very loud knocks on the door. I laid there for several moments listening to the neighborhood through the open 2nd story window contemplating whether I should get up to investigate or just go back to sleep.  My front porch light is always on and I wondered if someone was looking for help in the middle of the night.  I heard the usual crickets and nothing else.  No wind.  No steps on the wooden front porch.  No more knocks. No voices. I chalked it up to one of those loud noises that I hear in the night sometimes just before I fall asleep and sometimes right before I wake. Like an auditory hallucination along the lines of feeling like you're falling before you sleep.  One time it was someone yelling "HEY!" right in my ear, another time it was an explosion, another sounded like either an earthquake or a truck hitting the house.  All episode are followed by utter silence proving to my sleepy self - nobody else hears it, not the dogs on the block, not the crickets, and certainly nobody else in the house.

This morning I looked out onto the front porch and made sure everything as it was yesterday. It was. I decided I ask the internet and about loud knocks in the night and to my dismay the hoodoo is that it's a "death knock".  I clicked the link and read three loud knocks in the night are a harbinger of death. Nah, I had five knocks and it didn't seems scary when it happened outside of laying wide awake in bed and having a lot to do today.  So I moved on looking for something far more scientific.  There's a thing called "Exploding Head Syndrome" in which folks hear an extremely loud noise just before falling asleep or just before waking.  The causal theories include small frontal lobe seizure and involuntary movements of the inner ear.  I always thought it was an auditory hallucination but either way I was happy to see the phenomenon addressed scientifically. I was excited to read that people who have this happen also complain of their body jerking before falling asleep, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, and a feeling of the entire bed vibrating - all of which I have! So hey all the sleep oddities killed with one stone.

The cure? less stress, yoga, meditation, clomipramine (an older class of tricyclic antidepressant used for narcolepsy.) I don't know about you but just knowing it's a thing and not having to read about ghosts and dead relatives and demons makes me less stressed out to begin with. I think I have to get a dog and then if I hear things and the dog isn't barking I can save a few seconds of laying in bed wondering before stop caring and go back to sleep... or this is a thinly veiled attempt at justifying getting a puppy!

Vagenda of Manocide

Please take the time to check out www.vagendaofmanocide.com also #VagendaofManocide

August

When school starts I'm going to schedule three days of nothing.  I'm sure those days will quickly fill with leftover school supplies that are needed and a hundred hours of cleaning summer out of the cracks of the couch and finding moldy swim trunks from behind doors.  I will most certainly not have all the electronics that can possibly make noise tuned into to various cartoons and shouty commercial programming.

***

These last two weeks we're trying to fit ALL THE THINGS in.  We'll have three concerts including two performances by the kid and one where we just get wear earplugs and scream and cheer at Weird Al. We have a ghost tour, a solo art show, a camping trip, a Pow Wow, a Pokemon walking tour, school supply shopping, two doctors appointments and a dental appointment, three birthday parties and at the very least one sleep over and we still haven't used the free water park or Six Flags passes.  Did you get tired just reading all that?

***

I gave in and turned the AC on tonight.  It's not super hot it's just humid, it's hard to move through the air, it feels like there are velvety curtains to push through all the time, everywhere you go. At night the sheet feel like they came out of the dryer 15 minutes too early and I'm perpetually flipping the pillow to the cool side.


***

Here's a photo I like.

Running Running Running Running

Life is moving too fast.  I think this every summer but it's super true this summer.  I've got a solo art show up and I'm teaching two classes and adding a third in August in addition to another solo show at a different place and of course getting ready for art scene and working on layout and cover for another book! We just finished the last one in June. I still haven't sent out all the copies of it. The summer is half done and I just put the air conditioners in the windows for the first time last week.  I can't even dedicate the proper amount of time to blogging about any of these things because there are soo many.

***

I took everyone to the Ren Fest and sword fighting has taken priority at out house.  It's awesome. I'm inspired to try to find a fencing class but then I remembered I'd much rather find a belly dancing class and then I remembered that I barely have any time already and what the hell am I thinking. Also I'm thinking about getting a puppy because I don't feel busy enough and all the mammals at my house are no longer helpless and so I thought I'd add one. (sarcasm! wooo!)

***

Totally going to see Ghost Busters tomorrow night.

***

The statistics are this - one in five women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.  Why do we spout this statistic putting the emphasis on the victim instead of saying one in sixteen men is a rapist, or that one in three men would rape if they knew they could get away with it?  So after this statistic is repeated we can all look around the room and try to figure out who's perpetrating instead of who the poor victim is.  It's time to shift the focus.

***

I love Hillary Clinton. I'll vote for her.  I'll work for her if she needs me in IL or WI. This isn't open for debate. My choice is made.

***

I want a puppy this fall.  One who is middle sized, smart, dark fur that doesn't shed, barky but not bitey, likes to mostly hang out laying around on the floor, one who's ears stand up and are pointy and has a long tail. I want this dream puppy to be super cute and be a rescue.

The Kid Sings

Just Before Turning Six

"How do dinosaurs drink milk? Do they use a straw?" "If you had a ballet sandwich in your lunchbox, then you can't eat it. You have to watch it dance."

-Jack age 5 ¹¹⁄₁₂ 

Squirm

I was out of town last Wednesday.  It was garbage day and the cans sat in the garage and grew things.  Tonight when I put the garbage out I wore gloves so nothing squirmy could even get close to getting any squirm on me and when I was done dragging two weeks of garbage to the curb like it was uranium slime, I threw the gloves in the can, in front of my new neighbors, who now likely think I'm some sort of weirdo. No words were exchanged.

Things that seem important enough to record

When I'm trying to lift myself up, I find it useful to do things I think I'm good at. I usually skate (if the weather is good) and I paint and then I clean house and usually by that time I'm feeling pretty cheery.

Twelve Other Things I'm good at:
-Driving
-Cake decorating
-Finding cool and valuable things at the resale shop
-Reading out loud
-Making lists about myself
-Taking snap shots
-Singing pop music in a silly way in the car
-Yelling
-Errands
-Stacking things into a tight space (closet, trunk, grocery bag, Tetris)
-Playing Atari's Break Out
-Remembering colors

***

I almost never talk about the kids anymore on the blog.  I'm trying to give them some privacy and not treat them as an extension of myself so much.  They aren't here for me to necessarily blog about, it's not my place to tell their stores... in fact my one child has her own blog and barely writes anything about herself, indicating some stories she just wants to keep to herself.  When they were young - this was a little bit of a baby book for me and them and the public (weird right?!)  but they're getting big and they often ask me NOT to put things on the internet and so.

***



I can talk about Thomas though.  I haven't figured out what is appropriate to say yet.  I guess first of all he has several blogs that should you want to know about him, you could read yourself.  How he fits into the family unit still feels pretty private as it's utterly possible my previous husband and maybe his new partner could read the blog... or maybe not... I really don't know.  I try not to talk about how great life is and how happy I am in a way that would make my ex feel bad about it and so there's that. Lastly sometimes it feels like bad luck to talk about how utterly happy you are when you are.  That all said, he mentions my name when blogging and so I feel like it's important to write his here.  Thomas.

My partner Thomas and I went to New Orleans at the beginning of the summer while the kids visited their dad.  It was odd to be able to walk out the door together without going through when we'd be home, where we were going, and how to reach us 'just in case'.  It was odd for me and Thomas to go on a date like regular single people would. It was fun and freeing and after a few days we started talking about the kids and the silly little things they ask for and do in a day.  We missed them. We still did our best to do all the things we wanted to do in a strange city and I think next time the kids go visit their Dad, we'll get out of town again and see another city.

***

I am obsessed with Cauliflower. It's so tasty. I could have it fried and baked or in a soup every day forever.

***

I felt like I should say one more thing after talking about Thomas to make is seem all very nonchalant and I was overcome by the need to profess my love for Cauliflower.  Now looking backwards (just up there) Cauliflower seems stupid and silly but now I'll leave it. So there.

What June 2016 is Like So Far

Jeepers, I didn't post anything in May.  I suppose it's just been super busy around here with the end of the school year and a vacation as well as three huge projects wrapped up yesterday.  The news and this election is draining me.  I'm actively trying to tune it out a little more than usual.  I'm not in any way advocating apathy, but I physically can't walk around mad at the world and in disbelief about the rift I feel between the two opposing opinions all the time.  Sometimes I wonder how we are all going to be able to actually cope with living next to each other with such diametrically opposed views, it just feels irreconcilable these days. I'm trying to limit it to a little NPR in the morning and a little Maddow in the eve but of course I'm on the internet reading all day. I'm genuinely surprised when I find out someone I like (but don't really know very well yet) is on the other side.  I try to justify and see why they think what they do and lately it's getting harder and harder. I just can't reason it out in my mind.

I know it's dangerous to see things so one sided.  I know it's good to be pliable and accept a compromise, I just don't think I can this election cycle.  The differences feel too great.

Civil rights are human rights.

Violence is bad.

Help people who ask.


This doesn't seem like things that should ever be up for debate.

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I took the day off work and we went to the beach today.  I opted for no sunscreen on my legs and cheerfully laid myself out basking in the sun while the kids buried themselves in sand and splashed in the cold lake water. I didn't bring my phone down, for fear of sand in the cracks and so when it seemed like we'd been there awhile I flipped over and pinked up the back of my legs about as equally as the front. Then it seemed, all at once, we were all starving so we left and went to McDonalds.

I never figured out people who bring their whole living room out to the beach.  The chairs, the electronics, the snack cooler, the drink cooler, the entire medicine chest with all the sunscreens, the beach blanket, the towels, the flippers and flotations and goggles, the life-jackets and pails and shovels and squirt toys and sand toys and it takes three trips to the car to get it all down there.  Then there's the preparation of the children, taking a full half hour to apply all the things to the kids before one drop of water has even reached a toe.  I just don't have that kid of time or patience, plus the sand is hot and I like to get my feet into that water right away.

Today, I watched a mom apply sunscreen, then a swim shirt and a life-jacket, swim wings, water shoes, and a hat to her four year old son.  He looked like a kid in a snow suit who couldn't put his arms down waddling out into three inches of cold lake water before his mom screeched "Your goggles!" He turned and waddled back and when she stretched the rubber ribbon over his head and let the goggles snap back into his face with a smack noise, I held in a sinful giggle and was glad for the camouflage of my big sunglasses .  The kid plopped down on the beach and cried about his face, rightfully so, it sounded like it hurt.  I secretly wished his mom would calm the hell down before grabbing my towel and one sunscreen and yelling to the kids it was time to go. They put their flip flops on and we went out to the car where I showed them how to hold up a towel in between the car doors for each other while one brushes the sand of their bum and gets dry unders on.

It all made me feel smug and free and easy.  We seemed like the cool kids on the beach, aloof and un-tethered, squatting to check out the soft-shelled turtles and roughhousing with each other.  I didn't take a single picture.  Not a single "cheese" was uttered until I asked for some on my burger at McDonalds later... and yet here I sit recording the events of the day. sigh.

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Allen Clifton on Hillary after the NY Debate Last Night

About Allen Clifton: Allen Clifton is a native Texan who now lives in the Austin area. He has a degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. Allen is a co-founder of Forward Progressives and creator of the popular Right Off A Cliff column and Facebook page. Be sure to follow Allen on both Twitter and Facebook. Have feedback, inquiries, criticism or hate mail? You can email him as well. Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/author/allen-clifton/


 The following comments are from Allen Clifton's Facebook page:

"Once again, I am not anti-Sanders. Though I know it clearly sounds like I am.

But hypocrisy is a huge pet peeve of mine and there's been a ton of it from his campaign and his supporters.

He walks on water and can do no wrong - ever, while she's basically Satan who's held to a standard unlike any other candidate in political history. Every single thing she's said or done is held against her without the slightest bit of context linked to it. Hell, even things her husband or President Obama has done SHE'S the one who's blamed for them.

Meanwhile, Sanders has several questionable votes on his record - but, eh, who cares? He voted for those things so he clearly has his reasons. Bernie never lies - he's the greatest human being who's ever lived... ever, ever.

He's a once-in-a-lifetime candidate!!

Here's the FACTS: He's a career politician who Politifact proves lies just about as often as Hillary Clinton, who's benefitted from being a political figure in a very tiny state where constituents don't really demand much from you.

Bernie Sanders would never be "Bernie Sanders" if he were a politician from New York, California, Florida or any number of other states where elected leaders are forced to make very difficult decisions.

He's benefitted from the fact that, in Vermont, you're dealing with a state the size of most mid-sized cities.

I live in Austin, TX - a city (not including the surrounding suburbs) that has over 250k more people than the entire state of Vermont - ONE CITY.

And if you don't think that  benefits him immensely to say and do things others wouldn't be able to, you really need to learn a whole lot more about politics." - Allen Clifton

***

"Bernie Sanders is not all that much different than Donald Trump. By that I mean both candidates say (and endlessly repeat) their go-to talking points - then offer almost no real specifics as to how they plan to do any of it.

Then if you provide studies that debunk what they want to do, they simply cite their own findings (clearly biased findings) to dispute anyone who says their plans are unrealistic.

They complain about the same things: The establishment, the media, money in politics and claim that there's some mystical entity trying to "sabotage" their campaign. They also tend to try to discredit states that vote against them. To say nothing about their sudden whining about the primary rules they knew about going into this campaign.

And have you noticed how Sanders will NEVER apologize or say anything he voted on was wrong? Hmm, very Trump-like, isn't it?

Even when he was busted trying to "quote-unquote" Hillary Clinton during the "unqualified dust-up" - he admitted that he ASSUMED that statement based off a HEADLINE - and still never apologized for saying she claimed he wasn't qualified.

Break up the banks? Okay - how? Uh, well, you break them up - that's how.

How do you plan to pay for all of this? By my modest tax increases on the middle class and larger ones on the rich!

Well, then how come in Europe, taxes on the middle class are much higher than your promising? Uh, well, we need to catch up with the rest of the modernized world!

How do you plan to pass any of these big promises? A political revolution!

Well, sir, voter turnout is down and you're behind 2.4 million votes. Uh, um, political revolution! We won Utah, Wyoming and Idaho by YUGE margins - but those big wins by Clinton in the South don't count.

I'll be so glad when this is over. It's no wonder he's largely supported by young people who've probably been really emotionally involved in politics since a hashtag told them they needed to be.

I don't dislike the man, but the hypocrisy I see coming from his campaign is absurd.

Even tonight, after MONTHS of trying to paint Hillary Clinton as a shill for Wall Street, he couldn't name a single vote in her Senate career where she favored the big banks.

Not.One.Single.Vote.

One would think a candidate who's spent so much time undermining her integrity would know her voting record pertaining to Wall Street up and down. Yet, he couldn't name a single thing.

Oh, but speech transcripts!

Who gives a damn? I'm sure she wrote a speech geared to tell them exactly what they wanted. President Obama took millions from Wall Street and passed Dodd-Frank. Though that apparently doesn't seem to matter. Why should it? It doesn't fit the "Clinton is the devil" narrative being pushed by the Sanders acolytes.

When it comes to these pro-Sanders radicals, they don't care one bit about the facts. They want to hate Clinton, cheer for him and reality doesn't matter one damn bit.

A supporter of Sanders basically called Clinton a "Wall Street whore." Well, if a Trump surrogate said that, we would be losing our minds over how that kind of language is linked to Trump's attitude.

Well, I'm sorry, Sanders' rhetoric against Clinton has basically been calling her exactly what that person said for months. Has he said those words directly? No - but it's clear that person felt comfortable enough to say it based on the attitude Sanders has displayed towards Clinton.

Who won tonight's debate? Clinton. Why? Because when Sanders was asked to name ONE thing Clinton voted on to favor Wall Street - he couldn't do it. And if you've made a massive part of your campaign how "much of a sellout to Wall Street my opponent is," yet you can't name a single thing she voted on that favored Wall Street, you lose the debate.

I hope Clinton wins by 10+ points Tuesday just to put an end to this primary. It's already pretty much over, but apparently math and reality doesn't matter.

Facts: Clinton is up over 200 delegates and around 2.4 million votes. SHE is the candidate "the people" want."  - Allen Clifton

Styling

I gave Jack a bath last night because kindergarten pictures are today. He went to bed with wet hair. This morning he looked like a fresh young shiny haired chicken. So, I re-wet it but just before he went out the door I realized his bangs were hanging in his eye and got the scissors. I did a one snip trim of the bangs before he asked for a winter cap and we headed to the bus. This could go two ways: cute, fresh, shiny, kindergartner or chicken head with crooked bangs and chocolate on his face. yay me.

*2:30 update:
Soooo, I was just informed by my adorable kindergartner, the plain blue t-shirt I dressed him in today was the same color as the blue screen they use behind the kids, and the photo taken today looked like a mysterious floating Jack head. These pics may be even more epic than last year**

**Last year's photo:
Jack is in the front on the far right.

What the kid is up to.

Rock N Roll Institute from Vixen Productions on Vimeo.