Dec 21, 2013

YOU AREN'T LISTENING??

well i finally understand uptalking.
yes i thought it was weird and irritating but suddenly i saw the light.

it's a contraction.  we've been doing it right along.
now we just cut to the question mark instead of adding these words at the end of our sentences.
it could be because more and more we suspect you aren't listening, don-cha-know?
so listen to me, will you?
n'est pas?
nome sain?
eh?
y'know?
understand?
non?
ya?


and that's all it is. get it?

Dec 7, 2013

surprise frog package *sniff*


froggy things arrived by post
two of the things i love the most
two funny books! for laughs or napping
all in wondrous froggy wrapping!


from Osprey, a fellow doggerel lover,
a lover of silliness and surprise
a person of remarkable energy and humour and passion,
the funnest and most creative time of my life is due to her.
it changed me for the better.

now she is on her way out the door,
into the next something or nothing,
a light will go out in our world. 
she plans her exit for the solstice,
to steal off in the darkness while everything sleeps.

all of us who knew her will carry a little of osprey within us, and feel joy and loss when we think of her -- and i have her books!!

i had some Lear and Carroll and even Don Marquis, and all those funny books, but of  Belloc i only knew to be kind and tender to frogs!  osprey wanted to further my education in this respect, and as she will have no more use for these books, i am so happy to receive them.

 the synchronized unicycle and knitting drill team at an early rehearsal


Dec 3, 2013

my imaginary friends may be real and you maybe not

so i got another box from the attic.
stuff my mom saved from my childhood and then gave to me.
maybe i can get rid of it!

here's my baby book, something mothers worked hard at.
oh look, i had an imaginary friend, a rabbit.
i have no memory of such a thing.
apparently it had to have a place to sit at dinner.
my parents loved this stuff.

i'm thinking my next imaginary friend was Jesus,
i took to him at a very early age.
my parents were not so happy about that,
but they let me live in that rabbit hole until i outgrew it.

which i did, and then went without imaginary friends for years.
were those my years as a grown-up?
now that i'm a Buddhist i have many many imaginary friends!
if i become a Hindu i'll have multiple times that number.

my friend the Shaman has his power animal (i keep wanting to say 'familiar' but that's witches)
it sits by him at dinner (apparently on the floor) or so he mentioned at dinner recently.
is that his imaginary friend, or is it real?
in which case aren't they all real?

real as anything else?


Oct 30, 2013

the weather the weather the weather

dear friend

the weather as always is strange here where it's nearly november. 

our first snowflakes fall past my window.
this is not the strange part.

the strange part was yesterday eve they were haying across in the field.  

tractors and trucks with their summertime hum, 
loading the bales.

and our silver maple has taken a vow to renounce deciduosity. 

tho all other trees have turned red/gold and bare, 
she wears green.

Oct 23, 2013

the dangers of peanuts

you know that song "found a peanut?"
what's with that?
when i was a kid the common belief was that if you ate a bad peanut you'd die.
back then i never heard of anyone actually dying from eating a peanut.

but now it seems it does happen, and it's frightening.
not from rotten peanuts, but from deadly peanut allergy.

i wonder if that's how the song came about?  and people just blamed a bad peanut.
blech i've eaten bad peanuts sometimes you get one in a bunch, i conjure up the yucky taste just thinking about it.

Oct 21, 2013

the wiggle glass goes on to a new life

our windows have wiggly glass.  
because they are very old -- from back before. 
if you look through them and move your head, the grass, trees, hills, clouds wiggle and wave!

we want to be warmer in vermont winters, now that we're old and seem to feel colder, so we're having some of them replaced with double pane tight fitting new windows.  i'll miss the wiggle glass.

our carpenter was planning to take the old double hung wood windows to be discarded. but our town recently got enrolled in Front Porch Forum, and now we can send messages to well over 100 of our neighbors, and the group is growing!  so i posted about the windows last week, and they've all been taken.  YAY!

some will be part of a sugar house, making up the front of it, so you will see the owner inside boiling down his sap, all wiggly hee hee.  some will go in a new barn being built.  isn't it wonderful?

the carpenter doesn't know -- he left before the windows were picked up.  it'll be fun to tell him, since we just had a long talk about death and the bardo and rebirth.

Oct 15, 2013

Juggling revisited

years ago i concluded i would never be able to ride a unicyle (outside of Second Life) or go to clown school, but with the help of a juggling book, i could learn to juggle.  
i gave it a year and then concluded it was an inborn skill -- especially when i met scott who could juggle as if he were born to it, and apparently hadn't had to learn it at all! 
unlike most everyone i know, i LIKE the circus.  ok ok i know, the animals, i did give it up until the new circus movement sans exotic animals. 
so i'm reading The Ordinary Acrobat: A Journey into the Wondrous World of the Circus, Past and Present by Duncan Wall, and savoring it. 
i'm up to the chapters on juggling, history and present, and got out my beanbags for another try. as Duncan learns, he gets some tips from the pros, like concentrate on the TOSS.  that really helps! and chanting the rhythm outloud.
maybe i'll give it another year.

Farewell to my summer wardrobe

banishing short pants
to the attic until spring
a tearful goodbye. 




Aug 28, 2013

the joy of dieting

"diet" wasn't my thing.  this left me out of or seriously bored with many conversations.
i assumed it all had to do with some body image problem.

recently i watched a super good PBS video Eat, Fast and Live Longer with Michael Mosley (available it says until 9/7) http://video.pbs.org/video/2363162206/ and decided to try it. (except i don't really want to live with michael mosley)

now i get it!  it's a way to organize your life.  instead of wandering aimlessly about in life, you are on a mission, a project.  you research, you devise menus, your brain has something to do when it needs distraction -- think up menus, plan new wardrobes, pat yourself on the back, plan how you'll get through a restaurant or party experience, all that kind of stuff.

Things People Organize Their Lives Around fascinates me since i quit my job.  it's kind of a sub-category of my lifelong interest in What People Should Do With Their Time, other than, that is, criticize everyone else for how they're spending THEIR time.

anyway, this 5:2 diet is great, because you only do it 2 days out of 5, and on the days you are eating very little, you can just reassure your tummy that tomorrow you will FEAST!

Aug 26, 2013

making sense of parties

something i read the other day has stuck in my mind.
an explanation of traits of introverts vs extroverts.
the part that stuck was about parties.
it said that introverts go to parties looking forward to spending time with people they know.
extroverts go to parties looking forward to meeting new people.

that stopped my mind.
going somewhere with the idea of looking forward to meeting new people. i cannot wrap my mind around that idea.
but looking back at the behavior of some of my friends, i can see it now!
it all makes sense!  they look forward to meeting new people.

is this obvious and i just missed it all these many years, that such a thing was common and not a weird affectation of a few people i knew?

i wonder what that's like?  i wonder if i could try it?

Aug 3, 2013

lightning strikes

NPR has a little map showing the last 18 months of lightning fatalities in the USA.  i clicked on one near my home, and it was the lightning death of a teenage boy. crazy, huh?

when i was a child my parents had some friends who had escaped the nazis and brought their two little kids to this country, where the kids, playing in a field with their metal wagon, were struck and killed by lightning.  i actually recently found this article about them online, with no date, but i think it was from 2001, as i also found his obituary from 2004.

that story stuck with me through my life, a profound example of something or other.

recently i asked my friend Vicki and her mom what they would do if they were out in a field and heard thunder, would they lie flat, would they squat, or would they (bad move) RUN.  

my friend's mom said "i wouldn't be out in a field.  i'd be at the mall."  is this why statistically mostly men are killed by lightning?

Jul 17, 2013

serendipity strikes again

all they had were the really big watermelons, not the small sweet ones, but we figured it would be ok for the party.
 but then we didn't get to go to the party!
 plus it was hot hot hot
 thank goodness for the world wide web, the information highway, the 'net.
i discovered a new fabulous hot weather cooling beverage...fill the blender with watermelon, mince up some mint (rampant in our back yard), and when it's all a liquid, chill it.
it looks so pretty in a glass with a sprig of mint.
deeelicious, plus i filled several quart jars and froze them for winter.
watermelon mint ice cubes would be good too!

Jul 15, 2013

the silver apples of the moon

why don't i have a label "songs stuck in my head?" 
i could do a whole blog of them, of interest only to me, but then so is this blog. i really do it cause i like to type.
anyway, i refrained from saying "he caught a little silver trout" in my previous post, but the song is still stuck in my head (the version someone put to music).
tho i am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands
has anyone done this in second life?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxIroakIXto

Jul 14, 2013

sunday morning before the heat settles in

he caught a fish just as i walked by! 
i've walked around the 3 or 4 blocks of this village for years; always something to see in this town of 600 people in 42 sq miles.
this morning it was a crew of parents behind the school working on the new greenhouse and pavillion, and
a big crowd (25 cars!) at the church, i could hear singing.
along the brook by the falls no kids were swimming yet; the fire chief's truck was parked nearby.
uh-oh, 
but then i saw him up the hill a bit holding a fishing rod.
i waved but he was intent as his rod bent.  i watched to see what he'd snagged.
he pulled in a 6 or 7 inch silvery fish -- couldn't see for sure, but it had to be a trout!

Jul 13, 2013

in which i make it stop raining

weeks and weeks ago it got rainy a bit almost every day and my shoes would be soaked after a bit of gardening.
then it got rainier, raining some every day, sometimes really really hard.
and HOT too.  the humidity was around 90 to 93%.
how hot was it?  this hot

i've never found rainboots in narrow sizes, but i was desperate and ordered some i found online because people in the comments said they had a narrow fit.

they were due to arrive on Friday.
NOW it will stop raining, i told everyone. because I ORDERED BOOTS.
probably have a draught!

meanwhile it rained even more. and harder.
then FLOOD WATCHES.
and i got stranded in Windsor due to flooded and washed out roads one night and had to call some folks i know and ask to sleep on their floor!

friday came, no boots, flooding getting worse, i realize the email said the NEXT friday.  
don't worry i told everyone, my boots will be here next friday.

by wednesday i was sleeping with essentials all packed and the car facing out right by the road. everything was soaking, the river was roaring and roaring, thunder and lightening were added to the mix.  
more storms moving in for thursday.
a mushroom grew on our doormat!
 but thursday came and YAY the next batch of storms had veered north.  AND MY BOOTS ARRIVED!

aren't they adorable?  no more rain in the forecast.  but SHHHHHH!!! i am sending them back...way to wide to stay on, even with thick socks!  don't tell.
i love them but they won't stay on

Jul 12, 2013

trying out firestorm

taking firestorm out for a test drive -- toady's class sounded like a good way to do it!  
and it was a fun class, lots of tinies there, making a little spaceship that follows you around.
not only that, but another tiny can sit on it and have a ride!

everything in firestorm was right where i looked for it, so they really did make it like phoenix.  it was fun to be back in one of toady's classes.  she is amazingly good at working with a bunch of exuberant unruly tinies!
toady looks scary but she's a good teacher!!

we play with our spaceships after they're all done



































i do get the feeling that firestorm's perspective is a little strange -- everything looks further away sooner if that makes any sense.  maybe it's a setting somewhere. i'd like my view to be flattened in a bit, less depth.

Jul 10, 2013

phoenix to firestorm -- i did it

second life is so off my radar these days, i seldom give it a thought except to go in once a month and pay mudpie's houseboat rent and check on lucy's property.

i noticed a sort of urgent message from Phoenix.
apparently it is now imperative to migrate to the Firestorm viewer.
i've been meaning to for a couple of years, but keep thinking "why not just give up on the whole second life thing?"

yes, why not?  i guess i had so much fun there for 4 or 5 years, it's hard to cut my ties.  nostalgia for a virtual world,  now so changed as to be barely interesting at all.

anyway, i did the surprisingly painless upgrade.  it seems while i've been procrastinating, so have many others, and Firestorm just worked harder and harder to make a version more like Phoenix, just for us diehards.

everything seems to work except lucy's grass and money pile are white instead of green! (click pictures to see them really big!)
where's the grass?  and the money pile isn't green either

the other colors seem ok -- nice that the ugly across the way is gone


all is well in haven shire at mudpie's houseboat
and there are some new businesses in the neighborhood


Jun 28, 2013

new fangled gadgets

Me, being dramatic, "WHAT?" "Did Mom DIE?"
Dad, "No, she doesn't know yet"
Me, "She said you could get a microwave over her dead body."
Dad, "She's in Maryland for the week at her sister's. So I needed one! Don't worry, she'll get used to it."


This was in the 60s. Recently I sent a link to friends with kids, grandkids, work with kids, for a summer fun project using ivory soap and a microwave oven.  One friend replied "I wish I had a microwave -- Not really."  She's an old-fashioned sort of cook.

Mom did find uses for the microwave.  Dad then got each of us kids a microwave so he could use it for his coffee and his oatmeal when they visited us. I foresaw it as useless, but once we had it, we found it handy.
 

It turns out the first microwave oven was sold in 1947. That's as in freaking NINETEEN FORTY SEVEN!  It's new like the TV, refrigerator and stove are new!  The countertop version was introduced in 1967 by Amana. Lots of people still refuse to have TVs, and dammit, you just can't get ice delivered for an icebox any more.

Some people are convinced microwave cooking is dangerous, radiates microwaves, chemically changes the food.  Could be.  I will say this, if you aren't careful, it for sure lets you to cook up all kinds of prepared foods best left out of your meal plan!

Jun 27, 2013

go

liz's cat died.
so sad.
but then,
you know i'm sure.

it was her smart cat.
so now will the dumb one be the smart cat?

i mean if you don't care about cats, why are you even on the internet?

anyway it's a chance to reprint (without permission) the best dead cat poem by someone who really gets it.

On the Death of a Cat
- Franz Wright

In life, death
was nothing
to you: I am

willing to wager
my soul that it
simply never occurred

to your nightmare-less
mind, while sleep
was everything

(see it raised
to an infinite
power and perfection)--no death

in you then, so now
how even less. Dear stealth
of innocence

licked polished
to an evil
luster, little

milk fang, whiskered
night
friend--

go.

^ ^

May 13, 2013

But Wait! That's ME?

a very weird thing has happened.
there's a blog called Lucy Tornado's Blog.

that's really the name of it!
and it has nothing to do with me, Lucy Tornado!

how can this happen?
the worst part is someone might go to the blog thinking i wrote all that.

what should i do?
i hardly use this blog but still would hate to have ideas and opinions attributed to me that are not like me.

what to do what to do fret fret fret.


May 6, 2013

science marches on!

apparently a study has shown that children have significantly fewer allergies if their parents cleaned off a dropped pacifier by licking or sucking it.

i'd like to know more about this!

were those parents all men?


did they have allergies?

what effect did it have on the health of the parent?


will this help my 30 something son if i lick or suck a pacifier and then give it to him?


what about lighting someone's cigarette, or sharing a joint?


will it help my sister, who has allergies, altho i pretty much don't, if i share some saliva with her now?


what if the dog licks it off?

does this involve some ancient knowledge now remembered in the phrase "he's the spit and image of his dad?"

Apr 25, 2013

brown brown brown

for years i've used a particular eye medicine to control glaucoma.  works fine, and has LOL in the name, so it must be good!

now comes the suggestion that i switch to a newer drug, which doesn't make your eyes dry.
and it's not a beta blocker.
and i wonder if i might have less (make it stop!!) tinnitus, fewer crazy dreams? 
don't know.

here's the thing about the newer drops...
it darkens your eye color.
so me with hazel/green eyes would end up with BROWN EYES.
not reversible.

who would i even be with BROWN EYES???

one of my friends said "I've had brown eyes all my life...not a problem."
and i say "Easy for YOU to say!"

if there were a medicine that turned brown eyes green, i'll bet she be on it in a flash.

brown eyes.

yeah, right.

Apr 17, 2013

spring week - and other oddities

this is how spring came over the last few days:

day 1  full cover snowfall
day 2  melting, swollen river
day 3  robin evensong
day 4 peepers loud at dark

day 5 crocuses
day 6 ants in the cat's dish
day 7 bright sun and open windows

the week before, on my way south, security confiscated and destroyed my unopened (forgotten about) raspberry soy yogurt from my carryon.   my penknife was allowed.  the yogurt was deemed more of a threat.



Mar 31, 2013

visions of hallucinations!

i've read a number of books on the para normal.  tale after tale of people's  real experiences with the dead, with their own near-death, trips out of body, religious or ecstatic visions and visitors. 

in some the point is to convince us these things happen, and that they are quite common.  sometimes the conclusion is they must
therefore be real.

in some, it's just part of someone's story, like Hildegarde of Bingham's visions and revelations, taking at face-value that they are from god.

and i read Mary Roach's "Spook" -- her scientific investigation into ghosts and after-death experiences.  lots to laugh about and be amazed by, but no final answers to be found.

i just finished Oliver Sacks' "Hallucinations" which covers some of the same territory from a neurological point of view, appropriately not considering any other possible explanation.  he begins with simple hallucinations in some blind people (Charles Bonnet syndrome), easily understood as the brain's reaction to loss of vision. then he leads us on further into various phenomenon not so clearly explained neurologically, but then goes on to explain them now that we are primed to hear such views.

so he tells of patients with ecstatic religious visions, hearing of celestial voices, seeing deceased loved ones, having out of body experiences, and gives us the details of how the brain is bringing all this about. he ends with the neurological explanation for the not uncommon feeling of a presence, that we are not alone, in a helping way or in a threatening way, and he surmises that this leads humans to the idea of god.

round and round we humans go trying to understand our experiences and our brains, using our experiences and our brains -- each expert feeling a different part of the elephant. (you know the elephant story i'm sure). my conclusion so far...it's all hallucination!

Mar 22, 2013

syrup & eggs

march 22 signs of spring on main street!

fresh eggs - the hens are back at work! & sap buckets - this year's maple syrup on the way!

 and a gorgeous blue spring sky for the morning.

  
later in the afternoon, snow fell to brighten the muddy spots.

Mar 15, 2013

emergency in the snow

local emergency volunteers get a call that a grandfather, snowmobiling with his grandson out in the middle of nowhere, turned around and realized his grandson was not behind him!

he retraced his path, but didn't find the boy.  he rode on to the nearest town and called 911 for help.

dozens of people show up in response, as word spreads of the lost child.
their snowmobiles comb the area for this kid.
it was the event of the year!

one smart rescuer decides to go back to the parking area the pair started out from, and discovers the boy, waiting in the car. 

turns out the boy is 18, not a child as people had imagined, and driving his own snowmobile!  
when grandpa got too far ahead, grandson turned around and drove back to the car to wait for his return.

no doubt there's plenty of grumbling, but given the happy outcome, i'm sure a good time was had by all!

Mar 14, 2013

Sunny with patches of brown and snowing

well now it rhymes. does that make it a poem?

what is spring up to?
unpacking her bag?
hey, wait -- that's not spring!
it's old jack frost in drag.

see, he's wrapped her blue skies
over his frosty suit
just as soon as she catches him,
he'll get the boot!

Mar 13, 2013

redwings!

got out of the car at 10:30 and right in front of me, i heard the first redwinged blackbird of spring! probably on his way further north.

sunny with patches of brown

out the window i stare hard at Spring - is she unpacking?
or living from a suitcase??
the birds will know.
oh wait! hahaha!
it isn't Spring at all!
it's Jack Frost in drag
what jokers they are!.

Mar 11, 2013

well then go ahead and panic

happy birthday to Doug Adams.
oh no! you're still dead. :(
just pour me some old janx spirit

“Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

Mar 9, 2013

feeding the mammals through the winter

keeping chickens continues to gain in popularity.  by now i am not at all surprised and less and less distraught over someone's story of how all their chickens were killed/stolen/eaten by some predator (in one case, the family dog).  you don't see many chickens past egg-laying age.

a few weeks ago during a neighborhood party chicken conversation, someone was listing with great interest the things that had gotten their chickens over the past couple of years -- ermines or minks, fishers, weasels, owls, hawks, coyotes, bobcats, and mostly, the mama fox who lives and raises her families nearby.

and then it dawned on me -- keeping chickens can be a lot like keeping a bird feeder -- it's a small mammal feeder!  it helps the animals we love so much make it through the winter, and provides wildlife spotting opportunities for the owners.  i do believe many chicken owners love the fox and her kits even more than they do their chickens, especially once they are over the stage of naming the chicks.

Mar 6, 2013

sock dolls

a friend of mine collected some discarded sewing machines, and started an afternoon sewing class for children.  boys and girls came and loved it!  
she was looking for project ideas and i remembered i used to make dolls out of old socks, trying to invent new kinds.
i found a few i still had, and she took them to her class. two of the kids decided to make merfolk (a mermaid and a merman)  
wish i had a picture of the ones the kids made...here are some of mine...

Mar 5, 2013

keeping warm before dawn

early morning cat caught on the stove! 
i've never seen him with burnt paws...how does he know when the fire has burned down enough and the stove cooled enough to warm his tum but not hurt?  i often find him here mornings.

Feb 27, 2013

forced remodeling

the van a the neighbors' probably wasn't robbers, or they would have backed into the driveway.  the next day more trucks and people, and something clearly was going on. those neighbors are off in Florida keeping warm during the cold months. and they aren't the type to have someone remodel their house without them there to keep an eye on the doings!

eventually a huge pile of wood, insulation, flooring, grew in their front lawn. the sad story is that their furnace broke, and when their daughter came to check on the house, the pipes had broken, the downstairs flooded, the water froze, and what with the ups and downs of our weather as the sun returns, things even began to get moldy.

Feb 22, 2013

more placebos

mupie's pseudoceuticals
mudpie has not heard back from the folks who requested her fake 'prescription'  placebos. 
 are they taking them as directed? are they working? 
or did they sit them on the shelf as a cute conversation piece (bah).

she has a brilliant idea, and several requests for ... ta da!...

assisted suicide placebos  
(it being February and all)
 but is nervous about actually giving them to anyone. 

if you believe in the placebo effect, well, what would they do??

Feb 19, 2013

the unseen becomes felt

often people become more 'spiritual' as they age.
the usual explanation is that they feel the approach of death.

but i think it's expanding awareness.

picture my baby son at the ocean. 
the infinite sky, the endless beach, the limitless sea.
what did he do?
picked up nearby cigarette butts.

as children our area of awareness is so small, because everything is new. 
once the nearby is familiar we extend our awareness out another step.

awareness expands and grows as we age and become familiar with a wider and wider circle, until it reaches and then includes the unseen, the felt, the sensed world beyond our 5 senses, the world we maybe scoffed at in our body-centered youth.

Feb 12, 2013

teeny xmas book

liz made some teeny tiny books to sell at the xmas craft fair in december.
they were so well made, with such good quality paper, i had to have one.
even tho she had added a ribbon to hang it on the xmas tree,
which is not something i do.
but they were so wonderful, i got one anyway.

after xmas i realized i could write in it if i wanted!
what if i wrote in one every year, what happened on xmas?
what if i'd started this years ago?  

as the chinese saying goes "the best time to plant an apple tree is 10 years ago. 
the second best time is now" 
or something like that.

so i wrote in this one and plan to buy a few more...

let's see, if i live to be 120 i'll need...omg.

well it turned out the darn thing had like 40 some pages! (each page had 2 sides)
here's the first 4 pages (i only wrote on one side)

"now two-thousand twelve is ending"
"tis december twenty five"
"and despite the mayan warning"
"we have managed to survive"

and on and on and on it goes!!


i can haz book?


Feb 10, 2013

from "brushes with"

from "brushes with" by emily toder
the last 6 lines of the book:

I got back in the house
my woolen farmprint pajamas of petting zoo textile
I let them on me
and they hung on me
ways I have managed to sleep after this
vary little

(reprinted here without permission! sorry! but her little book is a favorite of mine, and it comes from Tarpaulin Sky Press)

suddenly i remembered the feral clothing museum that Osprey created in Second Life, and i wanted to add a picture of it because these lines remind me of it.  but alas, the museum is gone, vanished in whatever mysterious disaster  took away Cowell and Salazar as well, and i can't even find any old pictures of it!


Feb 9, 2013

sewing with CATS

no sewing class or instruction addresses the subject of CATS, but they ought to.
this is not an acronym.  i mean those small furry creatures.
they love to be involved, and they make me laugh so much!

i appreciate their holding down the fabric while i measure or cut.
...until they decide that ...
a. some of the pins would look nice dropped in their water dish (try catching a cat running off with a pin in his mouth!)
b. the voices in their head are telling them there's a mouse under the fabric.
c. it might be useful to find out how much thread is on that spool on top of the sewing machine. 
d. it's cool the way things drop off the table when you push them.

general rules are: 
1. don't leave the room if there is a hot iron on the ironing board
2. don't leave the room if there are pins anywhere in reach
3. don't leave the room if the sewing machine is uncovered (unless you want to have to thread it all over again with slightly chewed thread)

there may be more rules, but meanwhile, here are my helpers:



Feb 6, 2013

HAIR as it should be

youtube has a video of GWU performing HAIR -- the real HAIR!

if you've heard the soundtrack or saw the movie, you couldn't guess what an uproar HAIR caused. 
it went all the way to the supreme court! 
frontal nudity, obscenity, flag desecration for starters. 
banned in Boston and nearly everywhere else in the world, too. 
(i did manage to see it in Boston the one pre-opening performance before it shut down).

the movie of HAIR is cleaned up and has good music and beautiful people, but it just doesn't have the raw energy, joy of life and in-your-faceness that make the real thing so thrilling. not to mention the missing songs.


HAIR's the explosive expression of a dream of a better world of love, joy, and beauty, back when the government was trying to kill us, before iphones, before AIDS, 'the pill' was new, before women realized...well, but you know all that.


the GWU performance on youtube is like going to the theatre and having really bad seats for a really good show. 

even so, it's wonderful to see it as it should be, young, raunchy, rude, crude, defiant, youth in love with life, body, self, and each other.  
the music is great, especially if you already know the words. i wish their audio-visual department had been up to par with their theater department!

Feb 5, 2013

tiny women stand up and dance!

mudpie joins with other female tinies on Raglan Shire's beach to dance for women's lives!




Petlove Petshop is making a video for the One Billion Rising campaign, part of second life's participation in this call to action to end violence against women and girls. 
not that violence is a problem for tinies, but out of solidarity with our biggie and real life sisters!
on February 14, 2013, men and women in Second Life will join activists, writers, thinkers, celebrities, and people across the world to Walk, Dance, and Rise as a show of unity, individual strength, and the need for change.

Feb 3, 2013

stopped at the light

late for meditation.  of course, the light turns red just as i reach it. 
wait... wait... wait... wait... wait... wait


up the hill strung out along the sidewalk to my left some people come striding along in the cold, chatting happily.


without a pause they walk off the curb and cross the road in front of me,
of course, just as the light turns green.


to myself i mutter "may we reach enlightenment at the same time"
and at that one of them looks up.


she waves to me and mouths "thank you!"
and it makes all the difference.

Feb 2, 2013

festivities of february!


longest of the months
yet having the fewest days
february is

(haiku by mudpie)

february! (apparently pronounced feb-yoo-wary) here in winterland seems like the longest month.  maybe that's why it has so many holidays.

there's Feb 2nd, one of the halfway holidays between the equinox and the solstice -- the sun is halfway here!! 
of course this is groundhog's day, the day when we badger a woodchuck.
it's also Imbolc (from the belly) or Brighid's day. 
could also be candlemas, whatever that is.

then comes the day the music died - Feb 3.  if you don't know, look it up.

and then bring it on!! -- Valentine's day  -- on which volumes could be written!

next i think is president's day, in the USA. 
a boring for sure but necessary long weekend in this month of waiting for the sun to get 3 weeks closer!

hmmm that's it, except for those odd days that nobody knows where they come from like Thank a Mailman Day and Hoodie Hoo Day (feb 20)

now and then we get an extra day in february.  this excites lots of controversy and speculation and consternation as if there is some greater meaning!

has anyone pulled together stats for feb, like car accidents, heart attack deaths, weddings, births, drastic haircuts, hospital surgery errors, hospital surgery recovery times, people who decide never to speak to their sibling again, murders, meals eaten in restaurants?

after writing this, it came to my attention that there is something of a holiday for many americans, called superbowl sunday, which has it's own special foods, drinks, outfits? and is the occasion of many parties.  party on whoever you are!   

Jan 31, 2013

aunt weese

once or maybe twice my mother said disapprovingly to my sister "you look like aunt weese."  of course it was said disapprovingly, as was just about everything my mother said to my sister (which oddly enough caused me some suffering as a child, and still does, my sister being my idol and my hero).

we puzzled over that for years.  we did know that aunt weese was one of daddy's mother's sisters, but other than that we knew nothing about her, not even what she looked like.  i'm pretty sure her name was Louise, as i have since met a woman named Louise who is called Weezy.


was mom referring to her manner of dress, or her hair, or was she stout, or buxom?  did she make funny faces?
it's a great joke now that there is nobody to explain it to us.  if my sister's hair is sticking up, or she's wearing something odd or she's feeling insecure, i'll tell her "you're just like aunt weese!"

Jan 29, 2013

hooray for the post office !

it's great to get internet greetings saying Happy Birthday -- email, FB, twitter, and even e-cards.  e-cards can be amazing. but you know what? my favorite is still snail mail cards.  i know, i know, they use up trees for paper, they cost money and need stamps, exhaust-spewing trucks and gas hogging planes have to transport them across the country. plastic pens are a blight upon the earth i'm sure.

but still...
i love the suspense of bringing them home from the p.o. and opening them.
i love that my friends went to all this trouble to choose one, write on it, lick it, stamp it, mail it.
i love that they are around the house for as long as you want them, and whisper to you "you have friends out there!" 
it's good to have that reminder lying around your house.
especially in cold January!


Jan 28, 2013

tea and film discussion

snowing like mad today. yay!
i love the bright sunny days, but more snow will be fun.

a friend and i met in a tibetan teahouse to discuss the movie SAMSARA, which he sent me a copy of.
a profoundly disturbing film.  has anyone else seen it?  we can find a teahouse with more pillows.  (maybe somewhere warmer, too)


Jan 27, 2013

for love of winter

sunny and 30 F today!  i took some more rugs out and broomed them...didn't bother with my jacket, and walked on the frozen snow in my sneakers.  w00t!

had some eggs to use up so i found a simple and delicious quesadilla recipe.  this used up all the eggs (so now am out of eggs) and have now to use up a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 can of black beans, and most of a jar of salsa, 2/3 a package of whole wheat tortillas. 
 there is also cheddar cheese left over but that won't be a problem!

for the book groups i am trying to read Pillars of the Earth, and for the other one, Founding Brothers.  omg they are both so bad.  xtian told me to read Geek Love and the library got it for me -- a paperback covered with tape and well used.  i'm already into it.

what are they thinking?  this looks like it must be popular, can't they spring for a new paperback at least?  but i know it's not that easy accessioning a book, lotta paperwork and stuff.  anyway, Geek Love will save me from death by ponderous tomes.

Jan 26, 2013

rug cleaning

it could almost be spring!
i love it after a spell of below 0 F weather how anything 20 degrees or higher feels balmy!
especially with the warm sun and longer days
and yesterday a woodpecker drummed a bit of flirting!

still the sun sits only a bit above the southern horizon at noon, and the shadows are loooong.
any wind takes things back to 0.

yesterday was perfect for rug cleaning.
i dragged the big braided rug and a small asian style rug out onto the snow.
once all the dirt and cooties had frozen off of them, i swept them, feeling like Strega Nona in my too-small plaid wool hunting jacket, the paisley neck 'buff' my sister gave me worn like a babushka, big clumsy work gloves, cords over heavy longjohns, and hiking boots!
after all it was sunny, but barely in the teens temperature wise.

(this is a common fashion look for vermont ladies when they are at home, brown is not advised lest you be mistaken for a bear)

and my broom was the old back porch broom which of course is worn and witchlike!  a good opportunity to practice my cackle.