Veterans Day

To all who served – and who continue to serve – thank you.

A special thank-you goes to my favorite veterans (and current servicemen) in no particular order: Father Chili, Bruder, Tonks, Gerry, BoBo and his Mrs., Matt, Auntie Teacher, and Grampa Bud.

 

Ten Things Tuesday

Some people I love very much are commemorating a sad anniversary today.  I know there’s precious little that I can do to ease the loss they all still keenly feel, but I can let them know that I’m out here, loving them hard.  Here, then, are ten reasons why Gerry, Honey, and BlueMoon are more than friends; they belong to me, and I to them.

1.  From the very first day I was face to face with them (Gerry and I had been blog friends for more than a year before we actually met), I was immediately comfortable.  Gerry and Honey invited me into their home with no hesitation, and we spent that first day together in an easy sort of comfort that I find rare and delightful.  That ease has extended through to today, and I’m still offering gratitude to the Universe for it.

2.  I am a motherless daughter, being first estranged from my biological mother and then losing the mother of my heart this past summer.  Honey manages to find a glorious and, for me, vital balance between approaching me as a friend and taking me in as a daughter.  I find myself wanting to call her “Mom” more often than not.  The depth of that feeling is pretty indescribable.

3.  The only thing I dislike about BlueMoon is that she lives so far away.  I am sure, without a moment’s hesitation, that she and I would be inseparable if we lived within reasonable distance of one another.  There’s something about her that resonates with me, and she was a Capital-G-Girlfriend pretty much from the day we met.

4.  Gerry makes me think.  I don’t always agree with his perspective – or his way of expressing how he understands things – but I know for sure that this guy is a careful and critical thinker, and he challenges me to put my own thinking in good order so that I can engage him in conversation.

5.  I don’t know that I’ve ever met more generous people.  The TwoBlue Family have given us their time, opened their home, and their given their hearts to all of us.  We are humbled in the presence of that much love.

6.  They’re FUN!  Whether we’re staying in, goofing off assembling puzzles or playing games on iPhones or computers or going off on adventures, I’m never bored around these people.

7.  They appreciate yummy things – sandwiches, sweeties, and (ahem) adult beverages.  Mmmmm!

8.  They’re FUNNY!  I don’t know that I ever laugh as much as I do around the TwoBlueDays.  I know a lot of that comes from sympathy of spirit, but it doesn’t matter where it comes from – I love it.

9.  Despite the fact that we only get to be in each other’s presence a couple of times a year, we’re still active presences in one another’s lives.  We text and email and comment to one another every day.  I love that.

10.  I just love them; all of them – Gerry, Honey, BlueMoon and NewMoon.  I know they’re hurting today, and I know that I can’t take any of that hurt away, but I hope that they are able to feel a little bit of my love, especially today.

Kristallnacht

Seventy-one years ago tonight. a widespread and brutal riot was perpetrated against Jews in Germany and Austria.  Reichskristallnacht, or “the Night of Broken Glass” represented one of the first mass attacks on Jews under the Nazi government, and it is widely believed, by scholars of the period, to be the act that lit the way to the Nazi’s horrid and unthinkable “final solution.”

Accurate figures are difficult to ascertain.  According to The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, “rioters burned or destroyed 267 synagogues, vandalized or looted 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killed at least 91 Jewish people. They also damaged many Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes as police and fire brigades stood aside.”  I have heard, from varying sources, that more than a thousand synagogues were destroyed, and close to two hundred people were killed, though the sources generally agree on the figures for the destruction of Jewish businesses.

Regardless of the numbers, however, I think this event is an important one to remember because it represents the beginnings of state-sponsored hate against members of its citizenry (which is not to say that this is the first instance of such a thing, but it is certainly a visible and visceral one).  While the Nazi party leadership took pains to distance themselves from the riots – they claimed that they were “spontaneous” responses to the assassination of a minor German diplomatic figure in France at the hands of a teenager distraught over the deportation and mistreatment of his Jewish parents – the truth of the matter is that the orders for the riots came from those in authority.  People whose job it was to protect German citizens – and let’s not forget that the greatest proportion of Jews targeted in these attacks were citizens up until the Nuremberg laws revoked their status, leaving them country-less – chose instead to aid the rioters.  The fire brigades manned their hoses not to put out the fires in synagogues, but to prevent those flames from spreading to the homes and offices of “innocent Germans.”  The police, instead of rounding up and arresting the vandals and rioters, arrested Jews by the thousands and sent them to concentration camps.  Murder, while not officially condoned, was not punished, either.

The burning of the synagogue in Ober Ramstdt during Kristallnacht. The local fire-department prevented the fire from spreading to a nearby home, but made no attempt to intervene in the synagogue fire.
Trudy Isenberg Collection, USHMM Archives

What I’m getting at here is that we always, all of us, walk a very thin line.  I hear some of the rhetoric coming from the fringes (on both sides) in this country and I wonder just how long it’s going to be before our “us vs. them,” “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” philosophy breaks down OUR republic.  What I’m getting at here is that we must remember, even (especially) in the midst of our most passionate disagreement, our common humanity.  I may not agree with you.  I may not even like you very much, but I will always respect you as a human being.

We’re smart enough to learn from the past; to do otherwise is to invite certain peril.  Let’s not let this ever, ever happen again.

Hand Prints

Every year, at the Apple Harvest Festival, the Chili girls slap their hand prints on ceramic tiles at the kiosk run by our local paint-your-own pottery place.

I finally made it to the store to pick up this year’s artifacts.

Now I need to get to an art supply shop to get another set of hangers…

We’ve got room on the wall for next year’s prints, but I think that’s about it.   That’s probably best anyway; the way she’s growing, I’m not sure that Punkin’ will be able to squish her hand onto those little tiles for much longer.

While I was waiting at the studio for the man to find our tiles, I had a flashback that was actually kind of pleasant (if you know me, you know how rare this is!). When I was in kindergarten, we did this little project where we put our hand prints on a piece of paper, then copied a poem on to the paper and presented the finished project as Mother’s Day gifts. For reasons only the Universe knows, I still remember the poem;

Sometimes you get discouraged
because I am so small
and always leave my fingerprints
on furniture and wall
but every day I’m growing up
and soon I’ll be so tall
that all those little hand prints
will be hard to recall
So here’s a final hand print
just so you can remember
exactly how my fingers looked
in ‘74 December.

I will remember how my babies’ hands looked; at least, six years’ worth…

Six Word Saturday

Marriage is a Universal Human Right. 

Article 16.

• (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
• (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

• (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

(and not for nothing, but nowhere is it explicit that men have to marry women (or women, men), though I can see where the more narrow-thinking among us might read the article that way. I wish that the UN authors had replaced “men and women” with “people,” but we work with what we have, I suppose…)

Taking the Day

I’m kind of taking the day off.

We had a teacher workshop day today.  I was supposed to be renewing my CPR certification, but the time for the class was switched on me after I made plans around the original time, so I bailed.  I went to Punkin’ Pie’s teacher conference this morning, had lunch with my family and Sphrynatude at a local (and very yummy) pizza place, then dropped Beanie at a friend’s house and took Punkin with me to the bookstore, where I bought Toni Morrison’s a mercy and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.  I went in looking for Three Cups of Tea but, of course, the store didn’t have a single copy.  Neither did they have a copy of a handbook for debate, so I went home, logged on to Amazon, and bought myself some presents (oh, and I threw in the first season of Sons of Anarchy, just because I could).

Now I’m going to take my pretty light blue pen and a (short) stack of freshman and sophomore research papers and head for the couch.  I plan to be in my pajamas by 6:30 tonight, and I may even open a bottle of wine to seal the deal.

What’s YOUR Friday been like?

S-T-P

I’m going to a student-teacher-parent meeting this afternoon with Beanie and her teachers.

It has become all the vogue for parent-teacher meetings to not only include the student, but for that student to run the meeting.  My small people were sent home with guidelines for how to direct their meetings with their teachers and parents.  I’m glad that the school did this; we tried to run student-led conferences at CHS, and they were kind of a flop.  It’s hard to have a student-led conference when the student in question is content to sit in sullen silence.

I don’t think that’s going to be an issue with either of my children, however.  Beanie is an effusive little thing and can talk for sustained periods about all the things that excite her in school (she’s currently working on a Native American project in social studies that has her practically buzzing).  Punkin’ Pie also has quite a lot to say about some of her more recent experiences in school, though I think that she may need a bit more prompting than her sister will – many of the things that she has to talk about aren’t all that pleasant.  Her meeting is tomorrow morning, and I get the feeling that she’s dreading it.

It’s going to be interesting for me to sit on the other side of the desk for these things. I’ve only briefly met my children’s teachers, so I’m not really prepared for what I might find in terms of personalities (though I have met Bean’s primary teachers before; she is in the same class that Punkin’ was in when she was a fifth grader).  I plan to come to the conferences with print-outs of my girls’ Edline pages in the hopes that I can get some more commitment from some of the teachers about their sites; I’m more than willing to be an advocate for school at home (I mean, come on; really?  MORE than willing), but I have to know what I’m advocating FOR…

 

New Hair and Old Prejudices

I’ll post ‘before and after’ pictures for my haircut because I promised I would, but don’t sign on to tell me that you don’t see much of a difference, because I, too, can see that despite how dramatic the change seems to me, the photographic evidence is pretty thin.  Observe:

Before:

After:

It doesn’t look like much, but it sure FEELS different.  The woman who cut my hair said she really didn’t take that much off; she was aware that, as my hair got shorter, there would be less weight to pull down the curl, so she really only cut the damaged ends.  She’s right – I hadn’t had my hair cut in almost 3/4 of a year, so there was quite a lot of damage – but my hair sprung right up and now it feels short, short.  I can still pull it back (I checked) and it’s going to feel weird in the shower tomorrow, but I think I’m going to really love it.

In other news, I’m practically beside myself about the dumbass vote in Maine to strike down their gay marriage law.  I have no doubt that all the people I know who can vote in Maine (Hi, Falcon!  Hi, Kwizgiver!) voted against closed-minded and hateful, but clearly not enough good people went to the polls yesterday.

image boosted from Auntie’s blog

It’s 2009, and we’re still denying people basic civil rights.  Unbelievable.  I hope the haters are pleased with themselves…

Ten Things Tuesday

Holy Crap! It’s Tuesday again?

1. My in-laws are coming for dinner tonight. At least, I THINK they are; we made the plans a week or so ago, and I put them on my calendar, but I won’t know until they show up (or not) if they actually remember. I’m trying my hand at chicken marsala again. The last time I made it, I was dissatisfied. Here’s hoping this time is better.

2. I’m thinking of cutting my hair shorter than it’s been in a very, very long time. I used to think that I kept it long so that I could pull it back and do pretty things with it, but the only time I ever do anything at all with it is when I’m going to bed or when I’m in yoga class – and then it’s only clipped back out of my face – so instead of the 1/2 inch I usually get it trimmed, I’m thinking of going for a couple of inches – maybe three or four. I’ll decide when I get in the chair.

3. I miss my Small One. Still. Dammit.

4. I’m going to get to sit on the OTHER side of the big desk this week as I attend my children’s student-teacher-parent conferences on Thursday afternoon. As someone who makes a big deal about parents who are involved with their student’s education, I’m going to (gently) bring up the fact that MOST of my daughters’ teachers are NOT using their websites (the school district uses EdLine), so I can’t figure out if my kids are telling me the truth when they say “No, Mom; I have no homework” until the zeros show up on their grade reports (which are also only sporadically posted). I’ll be a lot more involved if I have an independent way of finding out what the expectations are.

5. I’m more than a little miffed by how quickly we all adjusted to the time change. I was hoping to get at least a couple of weeks of chipper and energetic mornings, but after just two days, we’re back to dragging our little asses out of bed…

6. I’m writing a research paper about Kristallnacht. Both of my high school English classes are writing research papers this week, and I promised I’d write one right alongside them. I’ll print out my first draft to share in workshops tomorrow. It needs a lot of work, but I don’t expect to get a whole lot of constructive feedback from these students; given their experience with academic writing, they’ll probably think it’s wonderful (here’s a hint, kids; it sucks. It’s a first draft…). I might post it on Teacher’s Education to see if I can get some peer feedback on the thing; if you’re interested in helping a gal out, mosey on over (check in tomorrow, though; the paper is on my work computer…).

7. I’m taking the girls to see Auntie next Wednesday. We’ve all got the day off for Veteran’s Day and, since we can’t see her Friday (We all have the day off from school then, too, but I’ve got a teacher workshop all afternoon), we decided we’d aim for Wednesday, instead. I’m REALLY looking forward to seeing her again, and I’m hoping (hint, hint, Auntie!) that she’ll bring The Girl with her when we meet for lunch.

8. Periodically, the Social Security Administration sends me statements. I’m not sure WHY, exactly – it seems a horrible waste of time, energy, and resources – but they come every so often, anyway. Inside is a breakdown of my annual earnings from 1985 to the present and an estimate of my benefits depending on when I choose to retire (or when/if I become disabled). I see, looking back, that I earned exactly zero dollars for the years of 1999 and 2000 (Bean was born in March of ‘99). My most lucrative year was 2008, when I earned a whopping $20,975. I’ve averaged about six grand a year for my entire working life, and I’ve earned in that time what it takes Mr. Chili a little less than two years to make. Sheesh. That was a lot of math I just did; I think I need a nap…

9. Even if I never set foot in a store, I’d know it was coming on Christmas season (at least, it is as far as the retailers are concerned) by the way my mailbox is positively STUFFED with catalogues lately..

10. Speaking of the time change, it’s getting dark WAY too early lately. It’s only five minutes to 4:00, and I’m ready to start thinking about getting dinner on the table and crawling into my pajamas. I’m VERY light-driven, and we’re heading into the time of year where my productivity goes straight to hell. Maybe I need a sun box?

image credit

Happy Tuesday, Everyone!

MUCH Coolness *Edited*

Bobo sent me a link to this video this afternoon. I had to watch it twice; it’s that cool.

My geeky engineer-husband is going to love this…

Edited to include that this isn’t a real machine as the email that Bobo sent me indicated; it’s a computer-animated video. It’s still exceedingly cool, but it’s also entirely bogus.