Windchill -26˚ ...

... and that means NO SCHOOL!

As usual, I was out the door and on my way to work when I found out. My district is so stingy with calling school off for the weather, that I don't even bother to check anymore. There have been too many instances where literally every other school district in the area has canceled, and we still have to go.

Wisconsin weather is weird. Yesterday we had a high in the mid-forties. When school got out at 2:32 (yes, 2:32, we cover a lot of ground in that extra 2 minutes a day!) it was raining. Half an hour later we were experiencing a shower of Dippin' Dots™ (an absurd and overpriced frozen confection that young children pester their parents to buy at carnivals) and the temperature had dropped almost 50˚!

I can't end this post without talking about that day in early February, almost 12 years ago, when my youngest child was born: the real temperature (not the windchill) was -27˚ and I made Mr. Ether and my friend Fay take me outside for a pre-dawn walk during labor, twice. And they still love me.

One Day = 720 Million Dollars

A Life Writ Large

Today I received an email from a long-time, dear friend telling me that his father had died a week ago. Art Rybeck was not famous. He was not a celebrity ... or was he? If you have some time, watch the videos here -- an award winning documentary made by his daughter-in-law, to find out the measure of this man.





Martin Luther King Day often leads me (and other like-minded people) to wonder, "Where are today's leaders?" The lives of people like Art Rybeck, people whose moral compasses point true North, are one answer to that question. The role models are right here, among us. You don't have to be an orator or command an army. A significant difference is made every day at the grass roots level.

(I am also grateful to Art for his role in producing the incredible Rybeck clan, whom I have loved for so many years!)

FOLK BALL!!!!

I don't care how far away you live! All roads lead to the fabulous city on 3 (or 4, or 5, depending on who's doing the reckoning) lakes this weekend, to Great Hall in the Memorial Union for this year's Folk Ball. Dance and singing workshops during the day, and fabulous parties on Friday and Saturday night, all live music, and all admission is FREE (donations welcome.)

Mr. Ether will be playing both evenings: Friday, 9 p.m., with the all acoustic Veseliyka (village-style Balkan band -- does that make them Village People? Just wondering.) Then if you really want to rock, stay up late Saturday night for the Reptile Palace Orchestra at 11 p.m. And many other good bands too.

This is one of my favorite events of the year. I've divulged before that I was a folk dancer in a previous life. I don't dance much anymore, but Folk Ball is fun and exciting. For one thing, hundreds of people come, dancers and otherwise, the fun is infectious, and by the time Mr. Ether & the Reptiles play all the curious onlookers have become dancers and it is a veritable folk dancing mosh pit! It is also very family friendly, and there are lots of little kids. My own kids have been going since Sparkly Sea Cow was a babe in arms. (Cinderbelle will have to miss it this year. She may be in the hometown of the Tamburitzins, but I don't think they have anything like this!)

In my opinion, people don't dance enough anymore, not this kind of social, intergenerational dancing. Mr. Ether and I were incredibly lucky to have been involved in it as teenagers, and actually folk dancing was a popular pastime at our hippy dippy alternative high school. It was one of the ways that Mr. Ether and I courted (although I pretended not to know that's what we were doing at the time.) The occasional time that we go to recreational folk dancing these days, there are very few young people. They don't know what they're missing, truly.

On the other end of the generational spectrum, I can't leave this without commenting on my favorite local dancers, Lou and Fran, who are a dancing couple in their eighties! I absolutely love watching them!

So, if you're in the area, maybe I'll see you on Friday or Saturday.

(This is the large print version of my blog post. Sometimes blogger is such a pain!)

The Prophet Reconsidered

The Martin Luther King holiday. As a teacher, I struggle with it every year. How do I teach about this man in a way that doesn't reduce who he was to being a statue, frozen in time? How do I teach about what he gave his life for, without boiling it down to meaningless words like "freedom" or the obligatory writing "I have a dream that ..."? How do I (to crib a phrase from Teaching Tolerance, a publication you should know about if you don't) put the movement back into teaching about the Civil Rights Movement? And make it appropriate for kindergartners?

Today the War Times sent me a link to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Prophet Reconsidered, by Christopher Phelps. This is exactly what I've been seeking, a clear eyed look at the activist King was becoming at the time of his death.

We forget so much. We forget that he was hanging by a thread in 1968 at the time of his death, whose 40th anniversary we will mark in April. We forget that his moral authority had frayed, leaving his fund raising in free fall. We forget that in his final years, he faced not only a rising "white backlash" — the media term for white obduracy in the suburbs and working-class neighborhoods, North as well as South — but resentment from establishment liberals who thought he had executed too radical a turn by opposing a Democratic president and the Vietnam War. We forget that although blacks still looked to him more than any other leader, he was increasingly viewed with cynicism by young militants who derided him as "De Lawd" and thought his nonviolence too tepid for the times. We forget that police agencies from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to military intelligence viewed him as a dangerous subversive, listened in on his conversations, and spread both true and false rumors about him in a concerted campaign to discredit him. We forget that between major addresses he was prone to depression, afflicted by insomnia so severe that he slept only a few hours each night, even when popping sleeping pills. We forget that his close associates were concerned by his anxiety and fatigue, and taken aback by his fixation on his own mortality. We forget the critics who accused him of harboring a "Messiah complex."

By all rights, though, we ought to remember. We are surrounded by constant reminders of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Statues, monuments, and postage stamps bear his likeness, highways and boulevards his name. He has become a national icon. Television ads sample his voice. Presidential candidates invoke the "fierce urgency of now." Ubiquity has come, however, at a price. The nonviolent revolutionary who upended conventional society and sought to induce tension has become an anodyne symbol of progress. The disappointed prophet who spoke toward the end of his life of America as a nightmare is remembered only for his 1963 dream. Once widely reviled, King has become an almost obligatory object of reverence. Even conservatives genuflect before his memory. While dismantling affirmative action, a policy King advocated, they cite King's aspiration that Americans be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. King is a totem: safe, universal, unobjectionable. He is as remote and mythical to schoolchildren as any other figure in the national pantheon stretching back to the founding fathers. His inner turmoil, his public failures, his vocal critics, left and right, have all faded from view, replaced by a fable in which a nation awakens gently to his self-evident dream.

This pattern is not wholly lamentable. It may even be necessary. Had the long campaign waged by Coretta Scott King after his murder not succeeded, had she and her husband's closest associates not surmounted strong resistance and achieved a national day named for him, there might be no annual federal commemoration of the life of any African-American. There might be no occasion for the nation to reflect upon the merit of the dismantling of overt racism in law, public accommodations, and education, as well as the securing of voting rights for all citizens, regardless of race. These accomplishments — understood by King himself as gigantic steps forward — merit our commemoration.

But the ceremonial gloss now overlaid upon Martin Luther King Jr. causes problems. By rendering him immaculate and incontrovertible, sanctification has, paradoxically, left him vulnerable. Cynicism is too easily the reaction when revelations occur about, say, King's sexual escapades or collegiate plagiarism. But King's heroism and place in history never depended on a halo of saintly purity. Brilliant, flawed, controversial, talented, King — as he was first to observe — was always a sinner.

I am inspired to seek out the books Phelps cites in his essay. And I remind myself, that it is not as important how I celebrate this one day with my students, but what I model for them each and every day.

Just One More Year! Good Riddance to George W. Bush

That is the headline of an op ed piece from Britain's fantastic newspaper, The Independent. The author of the piece, Rupert Cornwall, writes:

Today is a sombre milestone, marking the start of the last of Mr Bush's eight years in the White House. This being a leap year, exactly 366 days remain until 20 January 2009, when his successor will be sworn into office. It is a time when incumbents look to their legacies. And for this President the view could scarcely be bleaker.

Is he the worst President in US history? Mr Bush faces stiff competition from the likes of James Buchanan, who watched as America slipped towards civil war, or Warren Harding with his corrupt administration, or Herbert Hoover, who failed to halt the slide into the Great Depression, or, more recently, Richard Nixon, the only President to be forced to resign. But in terms of dogmatism, incompetence, ignorance and divisiveness, Mr Bush surely compares with any of the above. (Read it in its entirety here.)

I think he sums up the whole sorry situation very well, although I disagree with him on some points. He believes that Bush cannot be held responsible for the looming recession. I say, look at the man's record! He has turned every venture he has ever touched into dreck (although he and his buddies always seem to make out like bandits. Imagine that.)

I also take issue with this: "Belatedly, the President has learned the virtues of diplomacy, and his troop surge has at least reduced the violence in Iraq." Has he learned the virtues of diplomacy? I still believe that he will find a way to bomb Iran before his term is over. And ask a citizen of Iraq whether the troop surge has reduced the violence.

I don't have a lot of faith that U.S. regime change is going to change our path anytime soon. What I do know is that we at the grassroots have to keep on working for the common good, sowing the seeds of nonviolence and of stewardship regardless of what we predict as an outcome. And I, for one, am looking forward to that day 366 days from now.

2˚Fahrenheit!

It's a veritable heat wave, up from the subzero temps yesterday and this morning. I took Molly to the dog park. She wore a silly red doggy coat that's too big for her, so she looks a little like Super Dog! (I never thought I'd have a dog who needed a doggy coat.) I wore moosehide mukluks, jeans, long johns, long sleeved shirt, wool sweater, polar fleece gator, wool hat, polar fleece mittens, coat and topped it all off with a felted wool poncho. By the third circuit of the park, I was actually working up a little bit of a sweat in the sun! I love this weather!

Why I Teach

This is a scan of a letter I was given today, from a first grader in the classroom next to mine. She spends a bit of time "helping" in my room. There are a lot of things about teaching that are damned hard: it requires a tremendous amount of energy, you're "on" all the time, there are unrealistic expectations of these kids, it's a thankless profession, etc. etc. ... and then a child gives me one of these. This is why I teach, this is why I will continue to teach as long as I can.
Notice how the children are falling over backwards in astonishment at my achingly accurate recitation of the ABCs. The critics are raving!

Is voter suppression now the norm?

I just read this article at Alternet about tactics that the Clinton campaign is allegedly using to block Obama supporters from voting. If this is true, it is disgusting and clinches it for me: I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.

The headlines say the latest schism among the top Democratic presidential candidates is over gender and race. But on the ground in the presidential season's opening states, there is a darker narrative: that Hillary Clinton will not just fight hard, but fight dirty, to win. And her tactic of choice is attempting to suppress the votes of her rival's supporters.

The latest example is from Nevada, where the Nevada State Education Association is widely seen as filing a suit on Clinton's behalf to stop Las Vegas' most powerful union, Culinary Workers Local 226, from caucusing inside downtown casinos after the union endorsed Barack Obama. The tactic foments a split along racial and class lines in arguably the strongest union city in America.

"It's horrible," said one longtime Nevada activist, who didn't want his name used. "It will cause fights and damage that will last for years."

But the Clinton campaign has made similar moves in New Hampshire and Iowa.

We have had 2 stolen national elections and too many years of the dirtiest of politics. I won't pretend that anyone else is squeaky clean, but I think this shows her hunger for power and her contempt for the American people. Enough is enough.

Book Review: Bowman's Store, A Journey to Myself by Joseph Bruchac

I'm a reading monster! I have to get my fun reading done in the next week, before my library class starts.

Bowman's Store is Abenaki author/storyteller Joseph Bruchac's memoir of his childhood. Bruchac is well know among educators for having collected Native American stories in an excellent series of books, Keepers of the Earth, Keepers of the Animals and Keepers of the Night, as well as many other works of fiction and nonfiction.

Some readers may remember a book from a number of years back, The Education of Little Tree. It became a bestseller and purported to be the author's memoir of growing up with his Cherokee grandparents. It later caused a stir in literary circles when, not only was much of it revealed to be a work of fiction, but the author, Forrest Carter, was alleged to be something of a white supremacist.

Bowman's Store is the real thing. Joseph Bruchac grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state, reared by his maternal grandparents. His grandmother had defied her parents' wishes, to marry their dark-skinned "French Canadian" hired hand, Jesse Bowman. They had a daughter, and when she married an abusive man, they agreed to raise little Joseph (or Sonny) in their home. What they kept secret from Sonny, indeed what seemed to be a regional secret, was that the people called "French Canadians" were really Abenaki Indians, New England's First People. As a people, many of them denied their culture as a self-preservation technique through years of systematic prejudice and persecution.

Bruchac grew up in what was, by his account, an incredibly loving home. His grandparents ran a small store and gas station. Their economic situation was always marginal, in part because his grandfather had a deep-seated belief that you share what you have with others less fortunate. From his grandfather, who was essentially functionally illiterate, he also learned to "read" and love the natural world. He was an awkward, bookish child, but his grandmother constantly reassured him that his time would come. It wasn't until he was in college in the sixties that Bruchac started to piece together, and then embrace, his Abenaki heritage.

The blurb on the dust jacket of Bowman's Store calls it "compelling, lyrical, and deeply moving", and I agree. This is very much a love story to Bruchac's grandparents, especially his grandfather Jesse Bowman, in which he gives him back his Indian identity. Lovely reading.

(Cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge)

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

I caved in this afternoon and tackled my youngest child's bedroom. I am relatively certain that she never reads my blog, so I can talk about it somewhat freely here.

Oh. My. God. That's pretty much my response every time I decide that enough is enough, and try to make inroads. This is a tiny room, mind you, and a kid who saves everything. She had a small library's-worth of books under her bed, beanie babies, plastic trinkets, craft projects that were started and forgotten about ... but what strikes me most every time I do this, is the amount stuff that is, quite literally, trash.

Of course it begs the question "Why doesn't she just throw it in the waste basket right there at the time?" but there is a larger question about the amount of trash we, as a society, generate. Practically every single thing that we buy generates trash. It is impossible to buy even a pair of socks that doesn't necessitate the throwing away of at least two pieces of garbage, one of them non-degradable plastic.

There is almost no getting away from it. Sometimes I joke that the human race is going to die under a mountain of those obnoxious cellophane straw-wrappers that come with juice boxes. I challenge you to walk through a park where children's soccer games are held and not find a juice box straw-wrapper!

Ah well, I tackled the bed and dresser, next comes the closet. God only knows how many pounds of wrappers from the ghost of Halloweens past I'm going to find.

Help. Me. Spock.

There's no place to check off "life."
Even Martha has failed me.

Welcome to the Saturday Morning from You Know Where

Don't read any further if you don't want to get sucked in to the chaos that sometimes is my life. Alright, I warned you.

I slept in a little this morning. Since Georgia died, I no longer have to be up at 6 on the dot or find a puddle on the floor ... although I actually like to be up and done with my morning yoga before the sun comes up. I'm weird that way.

Early Saturday morning is my favorite part of the whole week because it is so filled with promise ... and then reality sets in, as it so often does.

It started with a phone call. My friend was calling to cancel the tentative dinner plan we had for tonight (which was OK, because I had forgotten I had dinner plans for tonight. I would have remembered when I checked the calendar.) Made my tea. Gave in to the siren call of the computer ("I just have to check my email, and by the way, did a certain vice president die during the night? Hope springs eternal ...) when the doorbell rang. "Who could that be at 8:30 in the morning?" I muttered to myself.

Opened the door to ... OH SHIT! My mother-in-law. I completely forgot that we were taking care of her dog this weekend, and here she was dropping Angel off! I tried to cover up my shock, but I don't think I did a very good job. Luckily she attributed it to the fact that we hadn't listened to a phone message which she left last night, not to the fact that we had simply forgotten.

Angel is a good dog, but big, and we haven't cared for her here before. She did stop by to visit once a few months ago and sneaked down to the basement and did a little woodworking [she made a stool, haha, weak attempt at humor.] So I'm a little freaked out about having her here, but aside from another brief foray to the basement, she's fine, exploring the house. Molly was desperately trying to get her to play, which was cute.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ether gets up earlier than usual because he has a haircut appointment. He too expresses surprise at seeing Angel here. (This is why we are so compatible, except when the Packers are playing, as you will soon see.) After a couple of false starts, leaving the house, coming back for something, he leaves for his appointment. The house is quiet again. Wait a minute ... it's too quiet! I go upstairs to see what the dogs are doing. Molly has gone back to bed in Sparkly Seacow's room, but where is ANGEL? I look in all three bedrooms upstairs. I look downstairs. I look in the basement (but the door had been shut. Can she walk through solid wood?) I look upstairs again. I look in the bathtub. I look behind and underneath the furniture. I am starting to panic. For pete's sake, our house is less than 1200 square feet and she is a good-sized dog!!

It is during this time that I make the mistake of looking into Sparkly Seacow's closet. BIG MISTAKE. My blood pressure skyrockets, and I am momentarily distracted enough from dog searching panic to yell at her that today she has GOT to clean her room and I mean it!

Ding-dong. It's the doorbell. It is my neighbor Charlie dropping off a house key because we agreed to let his dog out today while he and his wife go to the Packers game in Green Bay. For the record, I did remember that commitment. But I must have looked a sight, because I was in the middle of near hysteria. At that point I was thinking that a) Angel was either able to curl herself up very small and had gotten into someplace I just hadn't thought of yet or b) (and yes, this thought was seriously going through my mind) that I had imagined the previous hour with my mother-in-law's visit and the dropping off of Angel. In short, I thought there was a good chance I was losing my mind.

Then it dawns on me: Mr. Ether went out, came in, and went out again. At some point during that 90 seconds or less, Angel must have pushed the unlatched storm door open and gotten out. She could be anywhere!

I was still in my pajamas (they have a vintage Dick & Jane motif on them, just in case you want to know.) I called Mr. Ether's cell phone and screamed incoherently at the voice mail, threw on some clothes, and ran to the hair salon, which luckily is only less than half a block away, to scream at Mr. Ether there, and headed back home calling, "Angel! Angel!" And I'm here to tell you that there is a god, because there's Angel trotting up the street toward me.

I came back inside, with Angel, to find the phone ringing. It's my neighbor, Charlie. Maybe he had noticed that I was a little unhinged and was calling to tell me that they had decided not to go after all, so I start babbling out the story to him. He says, "Oh, I saw a big dog running around out there when I stopped to drop the key off. I just didn't know it belonged to you."

Oy vey. Now it is no longer morning and the day has degenerated -- like all Saturdays do. This is what I take anti-depressants for. Mr. Ether is going off to watch the Packer game on TV this afternoon, which always puts me in a great mood. [sarcasm alert]

Feel free to cheer me up.

Yet ANOTHER Book Review: Winterdance by Gary Paulsen

Subtitled The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, this book chronicles Paulsen's first go at the 1150 mile Iditarod. (He has run it twice.) I had a hard time putting Winterdance down, not because the story was especially suspenseful -- although at times it was -- but because Paulsen is a damned fine writer, and I gobble it up. From the first germ of an idea that he might do the race, through all of the training, to the race itself, the narrative moves seamlessly back and forth between gutbusting humor and nailbiting tension.

Self-deprecating almost to a fault, he tells about incident after incident in which, due to his own arrogance or stupidity, he should have died. However, he finished the race, a fact which he attributes entirely to his team of dogs. Gary Paulsen loves dogs, which is perhaps what led him to the Iditarod in the first place.

If you too love dogs, or you love real-life adventure stories, or you just love good writing, I recommend this book. And then look for Paulsen's other writing. The bulk of his work is written for young adults, and it is very good. I have also read a memoir by Paulsen which I loved, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass, about life on a Minnesota farm.

My copy of Winterdance has a sticker on the cover that says "The true story that inspired the mjor motion picture Snow Dogs." A word of warning: Don't see Snow Dogs! It starred Cuba Gooding, Jr. doing an embarrassingly bad acting job and had less than nothing to do with this book. Paulsen must have been hard up for cash when he sold Disney the rights to this very fine book.

(Cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge.)

A Little Too Close to the Truth

The Onion is frequently very funny (my favorite headline: "Jenna Bush's Wetlands Now Open for Public Drilling") but sometimes they hit the nail squarely on the head, as with this week's top story: BUSH BEGINS PREPARATIONS FOR NATION'S FINAL YEAR.

WASHINGTON—As his last term in office winds to a close, President Bush has directed White House aids and Cabinet staff to begin preparing for 2008, the nation's 232nd and final year in existence ...

The president held a special America Wrap-Up press conference with members of the international press earlier today, where he spoke frankly with reporters and gave out long, heartfelt hugs. Bush also took time from his hectic schedule of staring blankly into the gaping maw of absolute dissolution to reflect on the country's past and look forward to its 281-day future.

"Our great nation will be a shining, then blinking, then slowly fading beacon to the world," Bush said. "As our time as a sovereign country with borders and currency comes to a close, let us hope we will be remembered for all the great things we accomplished, and not for the 1960s."

Read it all here.

When I saw it on the newstand yesterday, I just about lost it. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Oy, these times we're living in.

Book Review: Here Lies the Librarian

(cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge)

This is one of the books that has been sitting next to my bed for over a year, and I finally took the time to read it. Well ... I hate to say it, but I was disappointed. Richard Peck is a young adult author who is usually very funny, and there were moments in this book that made me laugh. The high point for me was the epitaph on the librarian's headstone, from which the book's title came: "ELECTRA DIETZ, 1851-1912, SHH, HERE LIES THE LIBRARIAN, After years of service, tried and true, Heaven stamped her -- OVERDUE." But mostly the story -- about the coming of age of a young girl in rural Indiana and her brother's quest to win a local stock car race -- seemed kind of disjointed and half-baked.

If you'd care to read some books by Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago (a Newbery honor book,) A Year Down Yonder (which won the 2000 Newbery award,) or The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy In Three Parts are all a lot of fun. He also wrote The River Between Us, a poignant mystery set during the Civil War.

Hollywood Heartthrobs for Kucinich

Yay for Aragorn, a.k.a. Viggo Mortensen!

He flew into New Hampshire to campaign for Dennis Kucinich, gave Sean Hannity what for, and spoke out for impeachment.

At the height of LOTR madness, I thought maybe I could win points with my teen-aged daughter with the impressive revelation that I had seen Viggo Mortensen's unborn child. We had gone to a club to see the band X, fronted by Exene, who was quite pregnant with ... Viggo's child! Cinderbelle was unimpressed. (Kids! I don't know what's wrong with these kids today.)

Temp Dog Gets Permanent Contract

Molly, the Dalmation-mix, is joining our family permanently. Her New Zealand family made the difficult decision not to put her through the rigors of the flight and subsequent quarantine at her age (11.) She is a lovely dog in all ways*, and we feel honored to be trusted with such a beloved companion. I am a dyed-in-the-wool Corgi fan, but Molly has won my heart!

*except for the noxious gaseous emissions

George McGovern Speaks Out

I worked on the McGovern campaign when I was a middle schooler. I stuffed and licked envelopes, helped silkscreen yard signs, canvassed. The McGovern campaign headquarters was my social scene for a while, probably because I was tagging along with my best friend, Anne, and her mom was a big time Democrat in this city. She was even a delegate to the 1972 Democratic Convention and I remember watching her on t.v.

McGovern's loss was my first taste of electoral heartbreak.

As I said in my last post, they don't make politicians like they used to. Since 1972, George McGovern has shown himself to be more than worthy of the title "elder statesman" and today's Democrats would do well to pay attention and learn from him. In an op ed piece in today's Washington Post, he calls for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, saying,

Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot. (And so much more. Read it here.)

Cool buttons up at the top, eh? Mr. Ether found them in one of his boxes in the basement.

Farewell, LSD ...

... or former Wisconsin governor Lee Sherman Dreyfuss, to the uninitiated. He was the dark horse Republican candidate for governor in 1978, starting his campaign with a grand total of $17,000 in the bank -- and he won! He was a unique politician in that he was an educator, and he understood the value of education. He ran a populist campaign much like Paul Wellstone's, crisscrossing the state in an old school bus, wearing a signature red vest, and shaking hands with people.

He was the kind of Republican that perhaps people mean today when they say, "I'm not a Bush Republican." He was very progressive on social issues, and signed into law landmark legislation protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination. Just last year he publicly opposed a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions in Wisconsin. I believe he was also pro-choice. Both he and his wife were huge supporters of funding for the arts.

He had a few moments of infamy. He signed a law decriminalizing oral sex between consenting adults, with some comment about how everyone does it so it shouldn't be illegal. I remember my brother saying, "Governor Dreyfuss is a muff diver" at which we both laughed hysterically. He also took a record surplus and gave it back to Wisconsin citizens in the form of a check in the mail, a move which later caused an economic crisis when the next recession hit. But I still have a print on my wall that I bought at an art fair using my LSD refund. His wife, Joyce, infuriated Wisconsin beekeepers when she made the comment that when she was a little girl she thought that honey was "bee poop."

I don't remember when the Bee Gees came to town, but it must have been when they were riding the disco wave. It's hard to tell in a black and white photo, but LSD has a shiny Bee Gees jacket and the Gibb brothers are wearing red vests.

This is all to say that they don't make Republicans -- and indeed, politicians of any stripe -- like they used to. That's a loss for all of us.

(Read more about LSD here.)

Twelve Years

That's how long it has been since my dad died suddenly of a massive heart attack, Jan. 3rd, 1996. I wrote one of my first blog posts about him last year. I last saw him about twelve hours before he died. Strangely enough, we were at a reception following a memorial service for a family friend who had died the week before. My dad was a very shy and unassuming man, but that afternoon he beckoned me over to sit by him and proceeded to initiate the most intimate conversation we had ever had. It was wonderful. When he got up to leave, I remember taking note of how frail he looked. Then in the middle of the night I got a phone call from my brother, saying that he had died.

I often wonder if he knew his time was short. At any rate, that afternoon was a priceless gift. I had lost my infant daughter less than two years earlier, and I was a month away from giving birth to my youngest child. I was emotionally fragile, but I also think that the veil that separates the world we live in from that which we cannot see was pretty thin for me at that time, and perhaps he sensed that.

Tonight, to remember him, I read my daughter two short stories by James Thurber that my dad used to read to me for bedtime stories -- The Dog That Bit People and The Night the Ghost Got In. (He had an interesting idea of what constituted a good bedtime story.)

I miss him.

Sometimes I Want To Scream

Common Dreams today has a headline story reprinted from The Salem-News in Oregon, Move to Impeach Cheney Gains Support in Congress. "Oh, goody," I think. "It's about time." But on reading it, I find it is about Wexler, Baldwin, and Gutierrez who signed onto Kucinich's H.R. 799 what, at least a month ago? So why, oh why is it headline news in Salem, OR and on Common Dreams today?

If my blood wasn't boiling enough, I read down to the following statement:

The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrens’ [sic] health insurance “and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. … This is why Americans shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress.”

Oh my sweet Lord, CAN'T WE GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE? This is like when they blamed Saddam Hussein for kicking out the U.N. weapons inspectors or when they blamed news reporters for bringing about the invasion of Iraq with their relentless "March to war, march to war." Those were the very words of Preznit Jo-ji!

I'M shaking my head in wonder at the priorities of this Congress, because THEY HAVEN'T FOLLOWED THE RULE OF LAW as set out in the U.S. Constitution and IMPEACHED THESE LYING, THIEVING DESPOTS! (Whew, my keyboard is smoking!)

Yet Another Travesty

If Marion Jones returned her Olympic medals after admitting to using steroids, shouldn't George Tenet return his Presidential Medal of Freedom after this?

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations. Read the rest here.

Heckuva job, Georgie. My God, will we ever see any accountability?

(With apologies to all pigs and their admirers)

Book Review: Lois Lenski, Journey Into Childhood

One of my first, and enduring, passions is children’s literature. When I was in high school, I thought that I would become an author/illustrator, but I chose the teaching route instead. (Julia Cameron might call me a “shadow artist.”) Never has there been more of a market for children’s books, and I try to keep somewhat current, but I also love many older books, and I often obtain copies of them when they are “weeded” from library collections.

For a child of the sixties, the books of Lois Lenski were ubiquitous. Strawberry Girl, Cotton in My Sack, the Mr. Small series were all fixtures in the school library. Nowadays they are frequently overlooked or discarded for being outdated. I remember one of my children’s literature professors, in a thick New Hampshire accent, dismissing Mr. Small for its gender stereotyping!

My interest in Lois Lenski was aroused this winter when I received the latest issue of Quaker Action, the bulletin from the American Friends’ Service Committee and this sentence caught my eye: “And the juvenile fiction writer Lois Lenski Covey included AFSC in her trust, and the organization receives quarterly donatons as a result.” Wow! All of a sudden she was no longer a long-ago author of quaint, slightly sexist books, but perhaps something of an activist, and I wanted to find out more.

Google ... my virtual hero. There is actually quite a bit of information available on Lenski. I found that she had published an autobiography, Journey Into Childhood, which was in our local library system, so I read it. What a life! From a near-idyllic childhood as a minister’s daughter in turn-of-the-century rural Ohio to scraping by as an art student in New York City to marriage to distinguished twentieth-century muralist Arthur Covey to recognition as an author/illustrator who pioneered a realistic portrayal of childhood in America, it was quite the journey.

What touched me most is her obvious love of children, and her concern for their physical, emotional, spiritual, and creative wellbeing. It was that concern which led her to being a writer (and she used that term, “being led” which this Quaker finds interesting.) Her books, far from being quaintly old-fashioned, were an expression of a very gritty concern for the poor and downtrodden -- especially children -- in this country, very much on a par with the works of Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck or Dorothea Lange.

A few years ago I read a biography of another icon of children’s literature, Margaret Wise Brown (author of Goodnight Moon,) who was very involved with the Bank Street School of Education and wrote quite self-consciously in a style that was "scientifically proven" to be “good” for children. Lenski’s pedagogy was based on what she knew in her heart to be good for children, first the children in her own life and later, the children she met through her writing. She was the quintessential teacher. And it was easy to understand her gift to the AFSC.

Lenski’s life may not speak to you in the same way it did to me, but if you like memoirs or you want a view of America in the last century, seek out this book.

This review is cross-posted at the Winter Reading Challenge.

Happy Hogamany!

2008 is upon us. I hope you all celebrated, and celebrated safely. Mr. Ether and I went to the home of dear long-time friends. It was weird to remember New Year's parties of years past with some of these same people, when we all had little kids. Last night we were the only couple there with a school-age child, and she's quickly rocketing through her childhood years. She didn't want to come to the party with us and be the only kid!

Highlights of last night: incredibly delicious food, including a seemingly bottomless pot of gumbo made by our hosts; playing "speed Scrabble" for the first time; meeting a gentleman who had been in the very first wave of Peace Corps volunteers; sharing our New Year's tradition, "snapdragons": you spread a layer of raisins in a pan, pour warmed brandy over them, and light them on fire. Then you try to grab a flaming raisin and pop it into your mouth before it goes out. If you are successful, you'll have good luck in the coming year. (And only a smidgeon of a burn on your tongue, really. Try it. It's fun.)

I am not one for making fancy schmancy resolutions. I do have some wishes for the coming year:

*I dearly wish to see George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzales tried and convicted for war crimes.
*I wish for a presidential election that is not rigged.
*I wish for the nonsensical and dangerous debate about whether climate change is real to stop, and a concerted effort made in the upper echelons of power, as well as the level of individuals like us, to mitigate and even reverse the harm that continues to be done.
*I wish for economic justice for the lower income residents of New Orleans.
*I wish for WalMart to go out of business, to be replaced with sustainable employment for all.
*I wish to see the number of unionized workers start to increase in this country.
* I wish to see legal and economic justice, and an end to profiling, for immigrants in this country.
*I wish to see a complete repeal of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) bill.
* I wish to see not one more luxury condo project approved in my city, that all development be required to be affordable housing and practical for families.
*I wish for Mr. Ether to find work that he enjoys and that will keep our family afloat.
*I wish for a nice fat scholarship for me, so I can quit worrying about how I'm going to pay for each and every graduate course I take.
*I wish to finish my library student teaching, become certified to be a school library media specialist, and get the library position at my current school.
* I wish for my loved ones -- family and friends -- to be healthy, and to live with intention and joy.
*I wish to get it together to have just one music night at our house, and just one knitting party.
*I wish to get my bathroom ceiling repaired and painted.
*I wish that Martha Stewart would quit stealing my ideas, darn it!
*This almost goes without saying, except that it needs to be said and said often: I wish for the troops to be pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. I wish for a world without war, where violence is never considered, either as a first or a last resort. War is over, if we want it.

Best wishes for 2008!

Book Review: How to Get Your Child to Love Reading ...

(cross-posted at Winter Reading Challenge)

A Parent's Guide for Ravenous and Reluctant Readers Alike: Activities, Ideas, and Inspiration for Exploring Everything in the World Through Books by Esmé Raji Codell. There are few things that get me as excited as books, and as a parent, a teacher, and a soon-to-be (fingers crossed) librarian, this book just about makes me hyperventilate every time I pick it up! My daughter gave it to me for Christmas last year and I lugged it around for a while (and I do mean lugged -- it's a tome.) I was inspired to crack it open again yesterday when I had a couple of hours to myself ... good thing Molly the rescue Dalmation was here to lick my face when I fainted from the excitement!

If you have children in your life, or you simply enjoy children's literature, this book is an invaluable resource. It contains a plethora of lists of books, arranged thematically, interspersed with data about the power of reading aloud, ideas for volunteering, good movies, web sites. Codell wraps it all up in a package she calls "potato pedagogy". You take one humble potato, cut it up into many pieces, plant each of those pieces, and before you know it you have thousands of potatoes. Children's literature, she says, is our national potato.

Can you tell that I love this book? Two drawbacks, however. One, because of its nature, it will need to be updated every couple of years -- or at least Codell needs to release a supplement to it from time to time. Two, and this one is purely personal -- Esmé Codell has irritated me ever since she wrote that book Educating Esmé about the ONE year she spent as a classroom teacher, after which she quit because she couldn't hack it, but went on to write a bestseller about what a great teacher she was. It raises the hackles on this twenty-one year veteran teacher just a little. Jealous? Maybe. But I maintain that learning the art of compromise is not a bad thing, and I've done more for more kids over a long period of time than one crackerjack teacher can do in one year. So there!

That said, I recommend this book.

If you are a serious lover of children's literature, you should be aware of the Cooperative Children's Book Center. Each year they enlist volunteers to read every children's book published, then they in turn publish the CCBC Choices, a list of what they feel are the best books of the year. It is an amazing resource. They also take a keen interest in the issue of intellectual freedom, and are an excellent clearinghouse for information if your community is dealing with a book challenge.

Another slice of cake, please ...

One year ago I wrote my first blog post. Woo hoo! I tip my hat to the three bloggers who inspired me to start this weird and wonderful habit in the first place: Caroline's Crayons, the Quaker Agitator, and Poodle Doc. To those same three, and so many more of you, who continue to inspire me with your friendship, encouragement, and love. In some ways I feel sheepish, and almost apologetic about this blogging thang, but I love the connections I've made and the almost daily writing practice (and I use the word "practice" in the spiritual, as well as functional sense.) It has truly been a delight, and you, my Blogtopian friends, are so responsive. I know that I don't make the rounds to everyone's blog as often as I would like to, but sometimes I just have to get off the computer! (Ever mindful of blood clots ...) Thanks for joining me on this meandering journey, friends.

Winter Reading Challenge

I have been remiss in not mentioning that I am participating in the Winter Reading Challenge. Participating bloggers get to post their reading list for all the world to see, plus write reviews of the books they have read. So far I have not read a single book from my list, which keeps getting longer because I add more books after reading other bloggers' reviews, plus then I have to read library books that I've placed on hold. Those, of course, aren't on my list, because I thought I would be smart and list the books on my shelf that I own and have been meaning to read for a long time ... Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

There's still time to sign up.

Anyway, my most current review is up, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood.

Secret Santa, Better Late Than Never

Turns out, Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein's Secret Santa was really a Scrooge! At great expense to myself and my family ("Sorry, Cinderbelle and Sparkly Seacow, no presents this year ...") I jetted to the undisclosed location where the scoundrel resides, and roughed him/her up a bit -- all in a very Quakerly fashion, of course. As a result, I can now post this:

Dr. Monkey, you and Sparky had better pack your bags, because in a few days you will be flying off to winter wonderland Madison, Wisconsin, childhood home of Tracy Nelson, Steve Miller, Georgia O'Keefe, Bradley Whitford, and so many more! Yes, on Friday, January 4th the two of you will fly directly to the Dane County Regional Airport. You will be picked up by Madison's own Union Cab and taken directly to the historic Nick's Restaurant on State Street for dinner with Nation writer and Madison resident John Nichols. (My friend Beth really truly once saw Robin Williams dining all alone in Nick's. He was going to be performing in the theater across the street.)

After dinner, it's off to your hotel, the Ruby Marie. (Chosen for you because, prior to its current incarnation as a sumptuous hotel, it was one of Madison's preeminent flophouses, the Wilson Hotel. It was even featured in a made-for-t.v. movie starring Scott Baio in the seventies; his character lived there with his alcoholic dad.) You'll be able to snuggle into your comfy bed with sheets provided just for you! And you can take them with you when you leave ... legally!
For your bedtime reading, here is your very own copy of Love At Goon Park, the book that chronicles psychologist Harry Harlow's pivotal and controversial maternal deprivation studies, conducted right here on the University of Wisconsin campus.
But don't stay up too late reading. On Saturday, the two of you will be up early to be v.i.p. guests at the recording of The Motor Primitive's newest album! You and Sparky will watch history in the making, while you hobnob with the "fab four". You'll have meals catered in from (your choice) Lulu's (Lebanese,) Inca Heritage (Peruvian,) or Atlantis Taverna (Greek.) After recording, you, Sparky, and the band will kick back at the Harmony Bar, before heading back to your hotel for a few hours of shut-eye. Oh yeah, and I've arranged for Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, creators of the runaway internet hit Chad Vader, to meet you there.

On Sunday, the taxi will pick you up for a whirlwind tour of the area's finest tourist sites, beginning with a stop at the bench overlooking the spot in Lake Monona whereOtis Redding's plane went down on a cold December night 40 years ago. You will also visit Sterling Hall, the campus building which housed the Army Math Research Center and was blown up by 4 campus radicals in 1970 in protest of the American War in Vietnam. (One of the bombers, Leo Burt, was never apprehended.) It may be sub-zero. but that won't stop you from going to the Library Mall to get smoothies from the Loose Juice cart, owned by Karl Armstrong, another of the Sterling Hall bombers. If you're still hungry, you can walk up State Street for bratwurst -- a Wisconsin specialty -- at the Brat Und Brau, scene of last summer's infamous "monkey biting" crime. A stop at ... Cress Funeral Home? No, it is the Squirrel Museum! A place not to be missed.
Then it is off to tour Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural school in nearby Spring Green. Back to Madison for a quick stop at the Wright-designed First Unitarian Church (and site of the 1987 wedding of bloggers Luminiferous Ether and Enriched Geranium.)
Uh-oh. Don't want to miss your flight home. Quickly stop by Hotel Ruby Marie to pick up your luggage (and your freshly laundered sheets) before you go to the airport to board your flight for sweet, sunny Tennessee. Here is a cornucopia of fine gifts: beer from the New Glarus brewery, Cedar Grove cheese (RBgh-free,) Door County cherries, and that most special Wisconsin treat, Cow Pies. (And don't worry about tipping the cab driver. It's all taken care of.)
Happy War on Christmas, my friend!
(And I really am making you a real Ukrainian egg ... maybe in time for the War on Easter!)

Peace

Our internet service was down for 5 days or so, but I hope that all of you had restful times doing whatever it is you do on Dec. 25. This photo is actually about 7 years old. It is my husband's family in the annual holiday photo from 2001. We're all a little older now, and a lot more mature. That's me holding the sign (but you could have guessed that, right?) Happy three French hens to you.

What is the belief that keeps me sane?

This is a question that was posed by Thailand Chani.

The belief that keeps me sane is that we were put on this earth to love and be loved. I wear a bracelet with the inscription, "Live to love, love to live" and that's what I try to remember and live by each day.

What is the belief that keeps you sane?

10 Candles

My friend Madeline is in the Peace Corps in Lesotho. From time to time she emails a public letter, updating her loved ones about her life there. I was so moved by her most recent letter, which I received this morning, exactly when I needed it. I am sure she won't mind my publishing it here:

Candles on my Christmas Tree
Public Letter from Madeline U. in Lesotho, Africa (Dec 2007)

Those of you who've spent Christmas with me may remember I love lit candles on a live evergreen. Here in Lesotho , we're in the midst of summer, and I'm enjoying my second year of a no-commercials / no-pressures-to-buy-anything / no-Xmas-carols-in-shopping malls / no rush-around Christmas. Just the hot sun, farmers plowing with oxen, afternoon winds impregnating dust devils, and fields of aloe and wild flowers.

So my candles will be metaphorical ones – 10 candles on my Christmas tree of 2007:

Candle 1: Lit to celebrate my one year anniversary here. A decision to let go of the fast, rich life -- trading it for a slower, poorer one. Poverty is mean. Poverty wears me down, and it destroys the lives of my neighbors. But I am richer for living amidst struggling Basotho villagers, able to see how simple things mean a great deal, and how complex things intertwine to keep us in a mire of destitution. Most people in this world make the same amount of money per year as do the villagers in Mt. Moorosi . In one mere year, I've grown closer to the realities of people whose earth I share.

Candle 2: Lit for this sad and special year in my family. My brother Dave has been living with a fast growing brain tumor. From this great distance, as I see my sisters Susan and Kate, my brother Will, my mom Barbara, my cousins Donna and Annelle, and many friends and family gather around Dave to support him, I am awed at the strength and love that endures in my immediate family. Thanks to the Peace Corps, I was able to fly home in April 2007 to visit Dave, to say the hardest word in all the languages I've ever studied – good-bye, for now, dearest brother.

Candle 3: Lit for health. Who would have known that two years in the Peace Corps would be the best thing in 30 years for my own health? I climb mountains, eat simple meals, don't stress out with multi-tasking. I have time for everything – reading, visiting, travel. I'm rich in health, wealthy in time, prosperous with sunsets and moonrises, and a millionaire in children who love nothing better than coming into my rondavel to read books or draw with crayons.

Candle 4: Lit to salute the mountains of Lesotho . I traveled a few days ago to Lesotho 's southernmost national park, Sethlabathebe, to visit fellow Volunteer Lizbeth. When I saw the setting of her village, I recognized it from the fantasy I'd had before I got here – the dreams I'd had before I was assigned to dusty, dirty Mt. Moorosi. From her tiny rondavel, Lizbeth looks down upon valleys so deep that mountain peaks rise out of the pool of hovering clouds. I've walked miles and miles of mountain paths this year, visiting remote little schools and sites of other Volunteers. Lesotho 's beauty is awesome.

Candle 5: Lit in admiration for Lesotho 's care of its orphans. With just about the most orphans of any nation on earth, poor little Lesotho has somehow absorbed them – in the bosoms and modest huts of grandmas and aunts and neighbors. Lesotho has few orphanages. For these little people, some sleeping on city streets, all without secure futures, all without the love and identity of parents, please light a candle as well.

Candle 6: Lit for Dintle. This candle sputters a bit, and it's the reason I haven't written for awhile, trying to spare YOU from the horrors of Quthing Hospital. So despite it not being holiday material, let me be honest with you (you are strong enough) to tell you that in the last two months, 14 year old Dintle has been diagnosed as HIV-positive (raped when she was 10 years old), and has an acute case of meningitis. She has shriveled to a mere skeleton, hospitalized for over 45 days now. I fought my way into Maseru once when it turned out the hospital didn't have her blood type, and I traveled in again a month later when the hospital ran out of medicine and her survival hung by a thread.
Nurses in the hospital are so overworked they disappear entirely from wards. When I walk in, looking fresh (and white), neglected patients call to me to adjust their casts or empty bed pans. Dintle can't feed herself – so if I or one of her family members isn't there, she doesn't eat. She has bed sores on her butt and on her ear. She's lost muscle and any ability to move. Seeing the rapid deterioration of a normal, healthy, laughing teen is a knife to my heart.
Helping to keep this candle lit for me is a newly-arrived Peace Corps Volunteer named Jason (Sesotho name – Mokhaele, "son of a chief"). He's been my savior, helping me pay bus transport for Dintle's sister, cousin, and grandmother to make the long trip to the hospital, helping deliver medicines, sometimes just coming in on his own and feeding little Dintle in the twilight hours. You have to love someone like this!
And may the light of this sputtering candle also shine on the hospital's doctors from India – totally overworked – and the Clinton Foundation nurses, who make a real difference, wading into the sea of HIV/AIDS patients. I have new respect for anyone who works in health care – a field reserved for the strong of heart.

Candle 7: Lit for love and loss. When I filled in the Peace Corps application, I didn't factor in long-distance grief. It think it has mostly to do with my age. If we live to be older than 50, we have an increasing number of losses to bear, losses whose pain is as deep as the love was tall. The path of this year has been taken sharp turns as I've heard unexpectedly of the loss of dear friends ~ Mary B., who left a legacy of Dodgeville activism and laughter around her kitchen table. My cousin Doug U., a tower of strength and a deep canyon of reflection. Twinkling-eyed Sven, my fiddling, Swedish host father. No news of dearest Karen T., who shared my years in Japan with such flare. And others…. Grief is hard; grief alone is harder.

Candle 8: Lit for learning. As I look out through my open windows at the upside-down constellations in the starry sky, my mind reels with the mysteries of being a human on this planet. Can we solve problems that we create? Why not? As I fall asleep, I ponder global economics, world peace, village solutions. I wonder what sustains greed, rape, neglect of children. I wonder if I am truly strong enough to pursue a career in international development. Is hope naïve? Is optimism merited? How brilliant the Millennium Development Goals – modest solutions to staggering problems, if only each nation would do its small part. How often I've longed for a cup of good coffee and a conversation with you, dear friend.

Candle 9: Lit for you and those you love, for all your challenges, for all the great things that have happened to you this year. A great hug if you've written me a letter or e-mail, and total understanding if you've been too busy to. That "busyness" -- so American! A national treasure –many things to do. Enjoy the opportunities!

Candle 10: Lit for us, for all of us who share the planet. Who yearn for simple things like a fresh salad, a day of sunshine, a garden of flowers, a child's sweet hug. May we cherish these, support one another, and look with optimism toward a new year.

Madeline

Georgia's Passing

The vet called me at 8 a.m. to tell me that Georgia had died early this morning. As I write this it is snowing outside, appropriate weather to accompany Georgia on her next journey. She loved snow more than any other dog I've known.

With pets it is so hard to know when to let them go. For the last year and a half, Georgia had chronic corneal ulcers that wouldn't heal, diabetes, diabetes-related blindness, and (we think) Cushing's disease. After treating our previous corgi for lymphoma, I was determined that quality of life would be the bottom line for decisions we made about Georgia. And though her energy was diminished, Georgia remained sweet-tempered and seemingly in good spirits through this past Tuesday when she became ill with a G.I. bug.

We hoped that getting IV fluids would put her back on her stocky little feet again, but it became clear pretty quickly that it was time. I went to bed last night thinking that we'd have her euthanized today.

We went to see her at the vet's yesterday, and though she was so sick, she roused herself and came out to see my younger daughter. Georgia and Grace were pups together; we got Georgia when Grace was one. The vet told me that she thought Georgia relaxed after we had been there, so I hope we eased her passage.

Camping at Rock Island next summer will not be the same without her.

Georgia was like a canine Buddha. I'm going to miss her a lot. I'm going to miss that corgi energy in my life.

Happy trails, sweet Georgia!

Glow in the Dark Cats

Why does this idea tickle my fancy so much? Read all about it here.

I'm sad ...

... My beloved corgi, Georgia, is very sick and may not pull through. She has been a sweet and intrepid companion for 10 years. Please hold her, and us, in the light.

What the Hell Are the Democrats Thinking?

Today's vote in the house, "Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith," upsets me about as much as anything those good-for-nothings have done lately. 9 representatives voted against it. 9 had integrity. 40 were cowards and didn't vote. 195 Democrats voted for this frivolous, this jingoistic, this anti-American bill ... including Dennis Kucinich, and yes, Wisconsin's own Tammy Baldwin. I am truly disgusted with their pandering to whatever the Hell it is that they pander to. Shame on them!

Holiday Peace Market

We held our first ever holiday peace market yesterday at my Friends' meeting house. Doing this has long been a dream of mine, and thankfully, Ffriend Lester joined me in the organizing so that it actually happened! It was a resounding success, and many of the participants left talking about "When we do this next year ..." We had pottery, awesome posters by Lester, prints, watercolors, felted mittens made by me, baked goods, hand sewn items, body care products, cards, calendars and fair trade coffee and tea. Many of us were earmarking our proceeds for charity. I intend to split mine between a family at my school and a Quaker-run NGO in Vietnam called Steady Footsteps. Two other vendors, Glenn and Kathy, gave me a portion of their proceeds and altogether we raised a tidy sum to donate. It was a lot of work to get ready, but well worth it in the end.

An advertisement: Looking for a 2008 calendar? This Returned Peace Corps Volunteers calendar is my favorite one, and it happens to be made by friends of mine right here in Madison.

Five years ago, this week ...

... I had my only hospitalization ever, barring my own birth and the birth of my oldest child. After experiencing my most painful and intense back pain ever, and after going to both a chiropractor and an acupuncturist for more than a week, I finally went to a medical doctor and said, "Don't prescribe muscle relaxants. I know this is not muscular."

Amazingly, he listened to me and sent me for a scan, and lo and behold, I had pulmonary embolism, i.e. blood clots in both of my lungs. I was admitted to the hospital immediately, where I stayed for a full week.

I was, and still am, immensely grateful to the many people who helped during that time: dog walkers, food providers, laundry do-ers, babysitters ... and the ones who brought me cheer in the hospital. Too many to mention by name.

By the end of my stay, I was an emotional basket case, and all I wanted to do was go home. I think I spent the entire last day there in tears.

I remember that I decided to make it my mission to not treat any hospital employee as if they were invisible, not matter how unhappy I was. So from the nurses down to the housekeeping staff, I made a point of making eye contact and saying hello each time they came into my room.

I also remember the absolutely stunning sunrises every morning over Lake Monona viewed from my east-facing window.

This week I am giving thanks for my health -- which is good, by the way. I never did know what caused the clots. I suspect too much time sitting in front of the computer as I did a mountain of work for one of my library classes -- bloggers, beware. I have not had a recurrence. The intensity of the pain drove me to begin a regular yoga practice, which I maintain to this day.

And I am giving thanks for the amazing people in my life.

I am glad to be here.

Remembering Sophie

Last Saturday night was an annual Holiday Remembrance Service, organized by the local bereaved parent support group. We've gone every year but one, and for many years Mr. Ether and I have participated in the service by playing/singing the lovely song The Water Lily by Priscilla Herdman. Our daughter Sophie would be 13 now, which seems hard to believe. In my very busy life I have a hard time finding spare moments for reflection, so I always welcome the night of the service. This year was extra special, because for the first time my sister Meg, who was an attending midwife at Sophie's birth and actually caught her when she emerged, was in town and came to the service. The service is also a time to reconnect with people who we rarely see any other time. It may seem strange to others that we have a circle of friends -- and I do consider them friends -- with whom our connection is based on having had children die. But I cherish those connections, and I cherish this annual event.

Enemy Combatant

This article warmed me to the cockles of my heart (whatever "the cockles of my heart" are. They're warm.) Lucy Nehrenz, on the occasion of her 103rd birthday, says:

The war is "just plain nuts" and a "big waste of money," she says. As for Bush, he is without the question the worst president we've ever had, she says - well, the worst since Herbert Hoover anyway.

Does she fear death?

Not at all, Nehrenz says, because she's convinced the next world will be much more pleasant - and far less violent - than this one.

Actually, she does have a last wish she hopes will be fulfilled: to still be alive on Nov. 4, 2008, when a new president is elected.

"I don't care if it's a man or a woman, just as long as the person's a Democrat and we can get back to normal life again," she says. "But, oh, the country's such a mess I feel sorry for the person, too."

If I live to be 103, I sure hope I'll be as smart and feisty.

Light Blogging

I suppose, if this were an exclusively Quaker blog, light blogging could have a double meaning. But what it means is that I'm really busy this week, between madly sewing stuff for the Holiday Peace Market (a.k.a. "No More Shopping Days 'Til Peace") that I've organized at my Quaker Meeting this coming Sunday, ferrying children for Ali Baba, having family visiting from out of town, and all the other bits and pieces of my life. I have some posts bubbling in my brain, they just haven't made it to the surface yet. Stay tuned.

Thrills! Chills! Talking Camels!

For you Madison area readers, you have just 3 opportunities left to see Playtime Productions' Ali Baba and a Few Thieves. Upcoming shows are:

Wednesday, 12/5, 6:30 p.m. at the Waunakee Highschool
Friday, 12/7, 7:00 p.m., McFarland High School
Saturday, 12/8, 1:00 p.m., Deforest Public Library

As always, the all-kid cast of Playtime Productions dishes up a delectable performance. You won't be disappointed.

If I Had a Hammer ...

I did a fair amount of driving around yesterday, which was fun and exciting, given that a big snow/ice storm was moving in. Traffic moved slowly, and I was reflecting about our relationship to cars. That it is screwed up goes without saying. But just how is it screwed up? I think I figured it out.

Like all of the objects we use on a daily basis, cars are simply another tool, like a kitchen faucet or a washing machine. Yet somehow, probably starting with snake oil salesman Henry Ford, the idea of the car has grown to mythical proportions. Most people seem to view them as extensions of themselves, something to which we have an unalienable right. (Guns also seem to be viewed this way.)

I can't think of any other THING that inspires such strong emotion. I've never read about someone experiencing snowblower rage. No one says, "You'll have to pry my sewing machine out of my cold, dead hands!"

So the next time I'm feeling frustrated in traffic, I want to remember to tell myself, "This car is just a tool that I am using to get somewhere. Like a hammer or a snow shovel or my knitting needles. Not worth getting upset about."

When Good Guinea Pigs Go Bad

Yesterday morning I was so groggy when I got out of bed that I neglected to turn off the alarm clock, only hitting the snooze button for the umteenth time. So I was about to let the dogs out when the alarm went off again. Not wanting it to wake anyone else up at that ridiculous hour ( about 5:30,) I dashed up the stairs and toward the bedroom at top speed in the dark, forgetting about the -- WATCH OUT!! -- guinea pig cage that was now on the opposite side of the hallway from where it has been for the last few years. I hit it shin first. ##$@&%**^%#!!! WHEET! WHEET! WHEET! It wasn't a pretty sight. And I'm a little gimpy today.