It's a musical treat.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Evolution
I was reading the posts of some of my friends on Facebook and one had put this up there:
"Mary Antin, 1912: We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful..."
it caught my attention. I'd received an email from a friend that I'd made several years ago during a time when my spirit was in a period of evolution. My growth of spirit caused some painful changes in the relationship I was in. My spirit needed to grow and couldn't do it in the shell of the relationship I was in at that time.
It needed to expand so for a time, that relationship changed. My SO moved and took our children with her. My spirit exploded. I made some very intense friends and connected with some very intense and emotionally advanced women. One of those women was the one I received the email from. She said that based on what she'd read on this blog showed her that I was very different now than I was then.
She's right. My spirit evolved. I learned lessons. I brought that back to my current relationship and fully believe that this is where I'm supposed to be and want to be. I'm more settled in and calmer spiritually. Not necessarily temperamentally.
It doesn't diminish what I had back then. I was supposed to experience that as well. And learn from it, which I have. It's made me who I am today. It prepared me for what's to come. I wouldn't make any different decisions if I were given it all over to do.
I miss those women. I miss the energy that was around me then. I miss what I was surrounded by. I love what I have now and have learned to balance the "then" with the "now" and it works for me.
My spirit is still evolving but not nearly as explosive as it was then. I'd like to think that there is more maturity which means taking measured steps towards what I'm supposed to become. I would hope that there's more awareness on my part.
We'll see. I'm looking forward to the journey. I remember what I was when I met my friend and I use that as a guide or measuring stick for what I am now and what I will turn out to be.
"Mary Antin, 1912: We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful..."
it caught my attention. I'd received an email from a friend that I'd made several years ago during a time when my spirit was in a period of evolution. My growth of spirit caused some painful changes in the relationship I was in. My spirit needed to grow and couldn't do it in the shell of the relationship I was in at that time.
It needed to expand so for a time, that relationship changed. My SO moved and took our children with her. My spirit exploded. I made some very intense friends and connected with some very intense and emotionally advanced women. One of those women was the one I received the email from. She said that based on what she'd read on this blog showed her that I was very different now than I was then.
She's right. My spirit evolved. I learned lessons. I brought that back to my current relationship and fully believe that this is where I'm supposed to be and want to be. I'm more settled in and calmer spiritually. Not necessarily temperamentally.
It doesn't diminish what I had back then. I was supposed to experience that as well. And learn from it, which I have. It's made me who I am today. It prepared me for what's to come. I wouldn't make any different decisions if I were given it all over to do.
I miss those women. I miss the energy that was around me then. I miss what I was surrounded by. I love what I have now and have learned to balance the "then" with the "now" and it works for me.
My spirit is still evolving but not nearly as explosive as it was then. I'd like to think that there is more maturity which means taking measured steps towards what I'm supposed to become. I would hope that there's more awareness on my part.
We'll see. I'm looking forward to the journey. I remember what I was when I met my friend and I use that as a guide or measuring stick for what I am now and what I will turn out to be.
Broadway Pizza
I keep forgetting it's there and just down the street from me. We decided to go there last night at about 5:30. It wasn't crowded so we thought that dinner would come quickly.
Not so.
And we discovered why. They do a HUGE takeout business. I wish they delivered.
We ordered a large "everything" which is what the youngest wanted. We also ordered hotwings. We ordered the hot which turned out to not be terribly hot but very tasty. I'd get them again. The sauce is spicy with a hint of vinegar and salt. it was delicious.
And the pizza was also delicious although I don't think I'd the the "everything" again. It was too much. The flavors all meshed together until it really didn't taste like much. Kinda like mixing all the colors together and you just end up with black. I'd go with only a few toppings.
I think that next time we might call ahead although the wait wasn't unpleasant because we entertained ourselves at the table.
We will definitely go again and might even go there for lunch or at least call a pizza in then go pick it up. I don't think it would give Memphis Pizza Cafe a run but it's a nice diversion and much closer to us.
Not so.
And we discovered why. They do a HUGE takeout business. I wish they delivered.
We ordered a large "everything" which is what the youngest wanted. We also ordered hotwings. We ordered the hot which turned out to not be terribly hot but very tasty. I'd get them again. The sauce is spicy with a hint of vinegar and salt. it was delicious.
And the pizza was also delicious although I don't think I'd the the "everything" again. It was too much. The flavors all meshed together until it really didn't taste like much. Kinda like mixing all the colors together and you just end up with black. I'd go with only a few toppings.
I think that next time we might call ahead although the wait wasn't unpleasant because we entertained ourselves at the table.
We will definitely go again and might even go there for lunch or at least call a pizza in then go pick it up. I don't think it would give Memphis Pizza Cafe a run but it's a nice diversion and much closer to us.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Vacation
Vacation was awesome! Traveling in the RV was a pleasant adventure even when we had to spend the night in the Firestone parking lot in Hattiesburg, MS. We had some overheating issues which required us to stay over night.
So hear we are in the parking lot with our feet kicked up watching a Harry Potter movie while eating dinner that my SO had cooked. The next morning we're all getting up but still in our sleeping clothes while breakfast is being cooked. Sausage, biscuits and eggs. The poor Firestone techs were just looking over at the RV and drooling. We had the exhaust fan on in the RV which sucked all that good smell out into the parking lot.
Torture.
We got back on the road and made it down to the coast. The weather was nearly perfect. Two days of showers then 7 days of mid to upper 70's, clear, great water. It was just wow. Lots of time to read and relax and recharge. I love it down there. I think moving there would kill the magic though. Not sure. May have to test that though.
Amazingly enough, we all got along even though we were in tight quarters. There was very little computer access so we either had to read or play games or just sit and enjoy the calm. I enjoyed the calm. I enjoyed the sun and the wind and the water and the peace.
I can hardly wait to go back.
So hear we are in the parking lot with our feet kicked up watching a Harry Potter movie while eating dinner that my SO had cooked. The next morning we're all getting up but still in our sleeping clothes while breakfast is being cooked. Sausage, biscuits and eggs. The poor Firestone techs were just looking over at the RV and drooling. We had the exhaust fan on in the RV which sucked all that good smell out into the parking lot.
Torture.
We got back on the road and made it down to the coast. The weather was nearly perfect. Two days of showers then 7 days of mid to upper 70's, clear, great water. It was just wow. Lots of time to read and relax and recharge. I love it down there. I think moving there would kill the magic though. Not sure. May have to test that though.
Amazingly enough, we all got along even though we were in tight quarters. There was very little computer access so we either had to read or play games or just sit and enjoy the calm. I enjoyed the calm. I enjoyed the sun and the wind and the water and the peace.
I can hardly wait to go back.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Squirrels in the Attic
No, it's not a movie. Our newest cat addition when hunting in the attic and brought back a prized catch which it promptly took to the bathroom to finish gutting.
Thank goodness I wasn't home at the time. My SO was and had to deal with the carcass and the cat. He was so proud of the gift he'd presented.
Fur, blood and guts all over the bathroom. At least he had the sense to take it to a tiled room so that clean up would be less unpleasant.
This is our third encounter with a squirrel in the house. At this point, we're no longer interested in saving the vermin. Funny how certain encounters will do that. Kinda like the beggers downtown. I used to have compassion. Now I just glare at them.
Kinda like the folks that have gotten us into this financial mess. Where is their tiled room?
Thank goodness I wasn't home at the time. My SO was and had to deal with the carcass and the cat. He was so proud of the gift he'd presented.
Fur, blood and guts all over the bathroom. At least he had the sense to take it to a tiled room so that clean up would be less unpleasant.
This is our third encounter with a squirrel in the house. At this point, we're no longer interested in saving the vermin. Funny how certain encounters will do that. Kinda like the beggers downtown. I used to have compassion. Now I just glare at them.
Kinda like the folks that have gotten us into this financial mess. Where is their tiled room?
Potato Cannon
We had a nice family weekend. The boys were scheduled to have some friends over for a game night but all families backed out for various reasons. My youngest was feeling it the most. He's my social mocking bird. So, we loaded up his potato cannon and took it down to the greenbelt at the end of the street.
We set up, carefully loaded it, sprayed just the right amount of hairspray into the combustion chamber then pushed the button.
WHOOMP and out shot the potato. The people sitting on their porch across the street immediately turned around to watch. We fired off another and they were moving closer. Then a third that really boomed because the youngest added just a little more hairspray. We decided at that point to pack it up because we figured the police were next. As we were leaving, we noticed a father and 2 sons coming down the street.
Sorry they missed it.
What is it about loud booms that attract people? Fireworks do it. Sonic booms do it. Apparently a family spending time together with a potato cannon does it.
Maybe we'll get it out again soon.
We set up, carefully loaded it, sprayed just the right amount of hairspray into the combustion chamber then pushed the button.
WHOOMP and out shot the potato. The people sitting on their porch across the street immediately turned around to watch. We fired off another and they were moving closer. Then a third that really boomed because the youngest added just a little more hairspray. We decided at that point to pack it up because we figured the police were next. As we were leaving, we noticed a father and 2 sons coming down the street.
Sorry they missed it.
What is it about loud booms that attract people? Fireworks do it. Sonic booms do it. Apparently a family spending time together with a potato cannon does it.
Maybe we'll get it out again soon.
I have to share this commentary
The article is below. He says what many of us have been thinking. The middle class and poor have been screwed by the ultra rich and we're a poor nation for it. Talk about moral bankruptcy!
Reviving the Dream
Working families were in deep trouble long before this megarecession hit. But too many of the public officials who should have been looking out for the middle class and the poor were part of the reckless and shockingly shortsighted alliance of conservatives and corporate leaders that rigged the economy in favor of the rich and ultimately brought it down completely.
Readers' Comments
Share your thoughts.
As Jared Bernstein, now the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden, wrote in the preface to his book, “Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries)”:
“Economics has been hijacked by the rich and powerful, and it has been forged into a tool that is being used against the rest of us.”
Working people were not just abandoned by big business and their ideological henchmen in government, they were exploited and humiliated. They were denied the productivity gains that should have rightfully accrued to them. They were treated ruthlessly whenever they tried to organize. They were never reasonably protected against the savage dislocations caused by revolutions in technology and global trade.
Working people were told that all of this was good for them, and whether out of ignorance or fear or prejudice or, as my grandfather might have said, damned foolishness, many bought into it. They signed onto tax policies that worked like a three-card monte game. And they were sold a snake oil concoction called “trickle down” that so addled their brains that they thought it was a wonderful idea to hand over their share of the nation’s wealth to those who were already fabulously rich.
America used to be better than this.
The seeds of today’s disaster were sown some 30 years ago. Looking at income patterns during that period, my former colleague at The Times, David Cay Johnston, noted that from 1980 (the year Ronald Reagan was elected) to 2005, the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.)
But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during those years. The standard of living for the average family improved not because incomes grew but because women entered the workplace in droves.
As hard as it may be to believe, the peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973, when the average income per taxpayer, adjusted for inflation, was $33,000. That was nearly $4,000 higher, Mr. Johnston pointed out, than in 2005.
Men have done particularly poorly. Men who are now in their 30s — the prime age for raising families — earn less money than members of their fathers’ generation did at the same age.
It may seem like ancient history, but in the first few decades following World War II, the United States, despite many serious flaws, established the model of a highly productive society that shared its prosperity widely and made investments that were geared toward a more prosperous, more fulfilling future.
The American dream was alive and well and seemingly unassailable. But somehow, following the oil shocks, the hyperinflation and other traumas of the 1970s, Americans allowed the right-wingers to get a toehold — and they began the serious work of smothering the dream.
Ronald Reagan saw Medicare as a giant step on the road to socialism. Newt Gingrich, apparently referring to the original fee-for-service version of Medicare, which was cherished by the elderly, cracked, “We don’t get rid of it in Round One because we don’t think it’s politically smart.”
The right-wingers were crafty: You smother the dream by crippling the programs that support it, by starving the government of money to pay for them, by funneling the government’s revenues to the rich through tax cuts and other benefits, by looting the government the way gangsters loot legitimate businesses and then pleading poverty when it comes time to fund the services required by the people.
The anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist summed the matter up nicely when he famously said, “Our goal is to shrink the government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub.” Only they didn’t shrink the government, they enlarged it and turned its bounty over to the rich.
Now, with the economy in free fall and likely to get worse, Americans — despite their suffering — have an opportunity to reshape the society, and then to move it in a fairer, smarter and ultimately more productive direction. That is the only way to revive the dream, but it will take a long time and require great courage and sacrifice.
The right-wingers do not want that to happen, which is why they are rooting so hard for President Obama’s initiatives to fail. They like the direction that the country took over the past 30 years. They’d love to do it all again.
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