"home again, home again, jiggedy-jig"

that's what my Dad always used to say (in a sort of sing-song voice) when we pulled into the garage of our house, when I was a kid. and when we left home, he often would sing the first few words of that air force song, "off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high, into the sun..." He was in the army air corps (there was no air force yet) during WWII, although he spent the whole time in Ohio, as I was quick to add when discussing the subject with my Japanese friends over the weekend.

anyway, I'm home--back to the land of the lovely lovey Loopy, and also of tornado warnings and muddy dogs.

*sigh* I barely remember the old Dad of the "home again home again" days. He's been foggy and getting foggier ever since sometime when I was in college, when he forgot his wallet at the post office, which totally rocked my world because (I can't remember him this way at all anymore, but) he was always extremely organized and never, ever, forgot anything, made a mistake, etc.--he was sharp, super-sharp, always won at scrabble, kept a diary in the car of the gas input & odometer reading.... so when he forgot his wallet, I knew that was the beginning of the end, because he had never, ever, ever done something like that before.... EVER. I can't imagine being a person who had never lost her wallet.

I don't remember that Dad very well. I do remember a lot of silly little sing-song phrases he used to say, little habits... like when I told him dinner was ready (messenger sent from Mom) he would get up from his desk and walk toward the dining room, clapping his hands and rubbing them together as if very excited, and say, "Oh boy.... oh boy!" to show how much he looked forward to Mom's cooking. God, he was a goof... sometimes he would say "Oh girl!" just for variety's sake. If he was the one calling me to dinner, he would always say, (again in the sing-song voice), "Come to dinna, sister Ginna!" It's funny (but I guess not surprising) that this silly stuff is all I can remember, because it's like that's all that's left. well... actually... he doesn't say any of those things anymore. But they are consistent with who he seems to be now. It's almost like the other Dad was a veneer that came off over time...

I remember a few little things that show the "sharp" Dad, but I don't have a sense of him; for example I remember a game where I would look at the old globe we had, and read off the names of cities; he always could tell me what country they were in. I was always amazed that he knew every city in the whole world... (although that's funny in retrospect, because of course, to actually be shown on the globe, the cities would have to be especially large & important, so probably I know them now too...) I also remember hanging out with him in the pool... I would rest my arms on his arms, and he would stand up and I would float, and I would ask him questions... I remember asking him, "Daddy, what's paint?" and he explained that it was little particles of color suspended in a medium, which could be oil- or water-based.... and I remember him reading to me, book after book after book. It's coming back to me a little bit now, when I think about the reading. When I was really little I would hold his hands and "walk" up him to sit on his shoulders. I can't really connect that vital, strong, powerful person with this Dad that I see now. I don't really remember him. Anyway I guess he's gone.

I'm distracted now by "Dawson's Creek," where Pacey is trying to get Joey into bed. Must go watch that.

hey, it's 3 am again

I found another way to zone out and go numb... jigsaw puzzles.

The "retirement community" where my parents now live (such a bizarre concept in the grand scheme of human history, but so perfect for them at this time) has, among its many cheerful amenities, many jigsaw puzzles in various stages of completion, on tables hither and thither throughout the building. tonight is the third time I've come home late and worked on this one puzzle. this time, for three hours.

at 1:15 (2.25 hours and counting) the night security guy came and talked to me. i guess he watched me on the camera long enough, he started to wonder if I wasn't some crazy off the street. but after I introduced myself, he was really sweet--he knows my Dad--apparently Dad comes and talks to him on the way to breakfast eveyr morning (or he used to, until he started sleeping through breakfast). I can see why Dad would seek him out. he seems so gentle, kind, friendly, solid--and he must know Dad well, he talked about him with great affection and perception, and did a perfect imitation of the way Dad (at his most relaxed and confidential) expresses utter dismissal of some irritating person or idea. he seems to really enjoy just being a friend to the "residents," especially the ones who are lonely. he gives out hugs and people come to talk to him.

i meant to blog about something else but as it is now 3 am I will go to sleep. I was on the right track when I came home.... I talked myself out of the idea of packing or trying to cram in some last-minute homework.... I reminded myself that I want to spend some "quality time" with the folks in the a.m. so I should just go to sleep.

but somehow I'm not sorry about the puzzle. I got to meet Luis, and it was a nice way to calm down.

tomorrow I go home. I miss Loopy so much. she has been so supportive while i've been here, always available, solicitous, always knowing just the right thing to say to help me get through. (no, Autumn, she wasn't "yelling at me.") I am the luckiest personage in the world.

the best mistake I've made in a long time

I was talking about my career change with my Japanese friends today, and I was trying to say that a teacher's salary is too small to live in New York.

But what I actually said was that a teacher's cucumber is too small to live in New York.

(salary = "kyuryo," cucumber = "kyuri").



Incidentally, this photo, which I found via Google images of course, is titled "Timmy_Boros_with_his_great_cucumber_prize.jpg."

I love it. Who, do you suppose, is Timmy Boros? and, is he holding a prize cucumber (seems a bit small for that)? or did he win a cucumber as a prize (of sorts), and if so, what kind of achievement merited this glorious award?

if you google "love"...

...in google images, this is what you find, among many other very, very strange things...

this is dedicated to Loopy, of course!

perhaps a better title...

...for this post would have been, "I'm giving up on [you-know-who]."

[this is a response to a post on "Getyourselfsomeboring"]

I see no reason for you to give up on love. In fact (although I haven't known you long enough nor do I have enough information about your past to make this statement) I would say that you haven't ever given love a chance.

I mean, how could love get into your life (that kind of love anyway) when the available space was occupied? ("occupy" being about the most active verb that could be used here, n'est-ce pas?)

I'm glad you're tired of always being the bigger person. "The bigger person" here means, "the person who puts up with a lot of shit she is WAY too wonderful to have to deal with." The other day I was contemplating a crazy scheme to get you a guy by placing a personal ad on your behalf. (Loopy's sobering commentary: "Statistically speaking, most people meet their partners through mutual friends or activities, not personal ads." Yeah yeah, you sociologists, such romantics). It would read something like this:

Our friend [that's you] is smart, beautiful, and sexy, and a talented cook. She'll cheer you up when you're down, listen to your troubles, and make you laugh--a lot, all the time. She is also one of the most loving, considerate, and thoughtful people you'll ever meet. So help us out here--we keep telling her that not all guys are like the self-absorbed shmuck who's been making her miserable. Help us prove it. Call her up, take her out, treat her right. You'll love every minute of it--guaranteed.

Now c'mon, read your own ad right there, and tell me that that girl doesn't deserve better. I'd say she is going to find someone to treat her right--maybe not now, but soon, and for the rest of her life. So please, give up on [you know who], the sooner the better--but don't give up altogether.

Oh, and let me know if you want me to run that ad...

grateful...

...for a long walk with aforementioned dear friend from high school this morning, through an oh-so-Tucson neighborhood seemingly overflowing with gorgeous wildflowers and the heady scent of orange blossoms. another fragrant activity to the rescue. it was like putting some reserves back in the mental/emotional reservoir after a steady withdrawal. thank you dear friend. and to Ame for a phone message and Loopy and Bean for being present in different ways. *sigh* just giving myself space to be, and to feel all these feelings. there are a lot of feelings, but fortunately here in arizona, there is also a lot of space (in all senses of the word). for once I'm glad that I get to be in a kind of bubble with my thoughts--it will probably get lonely as it did last summer, but for right now, it's good.

another way to waste time

...and numb your brain: perusing the "hottest 25 urban legends" page at snopes.com. I see that another hour has passed. I did this last night too, stayed up til almost 4 flipping TV channels (it's good to be back in the land of telemundo, but they play army recruiting commercials just about every three minutes after 2 a.m., which renders them unpalatable...)

this is dumb........I'm soooooooo tired... gotta go to SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

um, perhaps I should add...

...under the topic of my previous post about coping mechanisms/how to zone out in the face of difficult times, I obviously should have included...

.......................................BLOGGING!!!

(is it really 3 am Madison time??)

at least shampoo is cheaper than compulsive gambling

ah, coping mechanisms.... what do you do when you spend a couple hours driving around town with your dad, during which, for the first time in your experience, he (1) gets completely lost going someplace he goes often; (2) refers to you in the third person ("when [birdfarm] was little, she used to say..."); (3) points out "there's the church I go to," apparently not remembering that this was also the church you attended for much of your childhood; and (4) periodically pops out with a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever--in summary, what do you do after spending a couple of hours realizing that dad is pretty much gone, that the final remaining marbles are lost, or at least inexorably circling the drain--well, what do you do?

i was laughing on the phone with my dear friend from high school about my answer to this question. see, if you're me, you follow up a morning like this by announcing that you really have to go buy a picture frame, RIGHT NOW, but then go nowhere near any store you think might have a picture frame. Instead, spend two hours wandering the aisles of "Wild Oats" (same idea as "Whole Foods"), ultimately emerging (after Mom calls to point out that it's been two hours) with shampoo, lotion, and a cranberry bagel. this activity, is not only (as the title of the post suggests) cheaper than many other helpfully mind-numbing activities, but also smells of ylang ylang and calendula--which you certainly can't say about the race track, the bar, or the crack house. (nb: it could have been less cheap had I not managed to resist temptation at the putomayo kiosk, even after listening to short samples of about half the cds on there....).

ah well. then after dinner i had a fun little chat with my Mom about her question, "should I keep taking him to the hospital or just let him plotz in the living room the next time he has a stroke?" gee Mom, I dunno but did you ever think of asking your doctor this question??? Hmmm... I'm here til Tuesday, and if this keeps up, there's a good chance I'll be coming home with a cd or two (or at least a bar of "taos sunrise" high desert hand-crafted soap).

I absolutely have to go to bed.
hey, I didn't eat that bagel yet... where is it anyway...

monedita de oro

the Spanish phrase of the day a couple days ago was, "nobody can please everyone all the time," or more literally, "nobody is a little gold coin to be loved by all the world." (Nadie es monedita de oro para caerle bien a todo el mundo).

I loved the idea of a "little gold coin" (monedita de oro) and then I decided that my Loopy is, in fact, a little gold coin to be loved by all the world. I changed the calendar page accordingly and stuck it on the bathroom mirror. (Loopy es monedita de oro para caerle bien a todo el mundo).

Ah, how much I amuse myself.

If Loopy were a little gold coin, perhaps she would be this one; it has a horsie on it (Celtic, from 50 BC)

"What's that, Lassie? Timmy's in the well???"

This morning I laughed so hard I gave myself a sore throat. It was the funniest thing ever. Ever, ever, ever. (Look, the nice doggy is laughing too-->). And you're in luck, because I am going to tell you all about it.

I love BBC America. I am in general a fan of British humor. Lately I have discovered some really funny Anglo-Indian TV, including a show called "Goodness Gracious Me,"* which is basically just hilarious comedy sketches.**

Here is a painstaking transcript of this morning's sketch (which as mentioned previously made me laugh so hard my throat still hurts):

Young South Asian man in front of a home. With a worried, urgent look on his face, he is looking down and off-camera.

Young man (South Asian accent): "Lassie, what is it Lassie, what are you saying—somebody's in the well?"

Cut to a small glass of milk, which is twitching and gurgling, making small "urp" noises....

It takes a minute to realize that this is....

Lassi....

[here I laughed so hard that I had to rewind 3 times to hear the rest of the dialogue]

Cut back to the young man, who turns and calls, "Babaji, come quick! Lassi says there's somebody in the well!"

An older, turbaned man strides through a doorway and regards the young man with mild curiosity. He then picks up the Lassi, looks at it, puts it to his ear as if to listen, then quickly drinks it down. Looking satisfied, he has one word to say before going back indoors:

"Salty."

The younger man, looking shocked and horrified, takes the now-empty glass, caresses it mournfully, then cries out in a childlike anguish,

"Lassi! Lassi! Noooooooooooooooo!***

I know it doesn't really work in print, but if you go to an Indian restaurant with me in the next, oh, year or so, you'll want to know why I'm laughing myself silly over my beverage order. "Salty! Bwahhahahahahahahahahaha!" (Perhaps you will now be avoiding going to an Indian restaurant with me).

---

*Also according to the BBC website, "The show's title alludes to the hit comedy record 'Goodness Gracious Me' made by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren to promote their 1960 film The Millionairess, in which Sellers, in brownface make-up, played an Indian doctor." Lovely.

**According to the BBC's "Goodness Gracious Me" website, "recurring characters...include Smeeta Smitten, Showbiz Kitten (Syal), a Bollywood gossip columnist; the nouveau riche Kapoor family, who were desperate to be fully English and insisted their name was pronounced Cooper; Mr 'Everything Comes From India' ('The royal family? Indian! Have arranged marriages, live in the same house and all work for the family business. Indian!')." And, "Many of the show's most successful moments were simple 'reversals', like the recurring sketch in which an Indian film crew making a travel documentary about London view it in the same patronising manner that such past fare had looked at Delhi or Bombay..."

***Actually he said "Nehhhhhhhhhhhhh!" which I think is an Indian wail of mourning, but it was a bit confusing written down.

"What's that you say Lassi?" "Salty."

my footprint....

Check this out: click here to find out how much resources you use up. I knew it would be sobering, but wow.

CATEGORY	ACRES
FOOD	4.2
MOBILITY	5.9
SHELTER	9.6
GOODS/SERVICES	14.1
TOTAL FOOTPRINT	34
"IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON. IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 7.6 PLANETS."

Yes, I know, it's probably very unscientific, and certainly holier-than-thou, but it's probably somewhat true, and definitely thought-provoking. The intriguing thing is I thought my big sin would come under "mobility" (gas!) but apparently it's all the meat and also processed, not-locally-grown food (all the chocolate, fig newtons, and hamburger helper) that's raising my score. According to the FAQ:

"The Food Footprint includes areas to graze animals, fish, and grow food as well as the energy to process and transport the food. A plant-based diet generally requires less land, energy, and other resources [than a diet with meat and animal products."

They do say that if I eat free-range, grass-fed meat etc that's better.

God, I am getting NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED!!!

been posting on MadTeach a lot...

so check it out if you miss my babbling... ;-)

my rabbit brain

so, tonight riding home in the car I was telling Loopy about some stuff I've been pondering lately...

about how I feel like my rational mind, which makes plans (I think I'll be a teacher!) and carries them out (time for homework!) is in some kind of pitched battle with a basic instinct, animal-level brain which is just stuck in fear, and has been for years.

Here's the theory I've been working on (yes, I'm aware of similarities to many other theories; where do you think this theory came from?): see, the animal level of my brain (or anyone else's--this is supposed to be a general theory) doesn't understand nuances like embarrassment, regret, etc.--the animal brain just understands one binary variable: alive or dead.

This is a problem because the situations that make people feel threatened in modern life are not usually life-and-death situations. instead they are more like, "I am going to flunk out of graduate school," "i am going to get fired," etc.

But the animal brain does not understand this; with each experience of fear, the animal brain stores the key information: "there was a threat, I responded this way, and I survived." THis results in a lot of mis-learned information about how to respond to threats.

What my animal brain did the first time I encountered a situation that overwhelmed my childhood defenses (specifically, the near-simultaneous death of my grandmother and a good friend, while I was also in the throes of a desperate unrequited first love) was freeze up and refuse to do anything. I managed to get through that okay, but later, as life got more and more complicated, my response was the same to every crisis: freeze and hold still and it will go away.

I'm starting to call this my "rabbit brain." You know how rabbits freeze and think you can't see them? That's how I feel when I get "stuck" and feel like I can't do anything. The more I try to do stuff the more I "go unconscious" and discover that another day has passed with me doing some stupid thing instead of my work.

What I finally realized was that my "rabbit brain" must have concluded that this freezing strategy worked. Indeed, when I would freeze long enough, eventually the threat would go away--grad school went away, my various jobs went away...and I didn't die. Obviously, freezing works--if your goal is a rabbit-goal, i.e., make the threat go away and don't die. It's funny, but also not.

It reminds me of our old dog Angel who used to bark at fireworks and then look very proud of herself when they vanished--see ma, I made the scary bang-sparkle-thing go away! Similarly, the rabbit-brain says, "I was scared, I responded this way (shut down, freeze) and I didn't die, so I must have done the right thing." Hmmmm.

Anyway, Loopy wants me to go to bed (wonder why? -- I think we're on Hawaii time at this point), so... I will continue this tomorrow.

march weather

doncha just hate those days when it's sorta warm and very windy....

....so you either bundle up and get all sweaty and stinky (hello hat-head!)...

... or you un-bundle and the stinging wind makes your eyes stream and your ears ache?

of course, if you work it out just right, as I did today, you can accomplish the best of both worlds: I'm here in the library with icky hair, sweaty underarms, red eyes and achy ears. Next time I'll pick one option and stick with it.

But y'know, what I really hate is the first warm days (like last friday or whenever it was 60), when the accumulated snow & ice melt, and all the winter's frozen dog poop melts along with it, and the edges of the yard are like a giant poop swamp, and the dogs just stiiiiiiiiink.

you're never coming to the house again, are you?

Italian journalist targeted? or just the entire Iraqi population?

Perhaps you have heard about the US troops shooting at a car carrying an Italian journalist who had just been freed from a hostage situation, along with her rescuer, a member of the Italian secret service. The secret service person was killed and the journalist was wounded. The funeral was a headlining story on the BBC this morning, but no mention of it on CNN or CNN Headline News all morning.

Anyway, there's some interesting coverage of the event on my favorite political blog, Angry Arab News Service. One commenter posted a series of links to articles written by the journalist, who regularly wrote anti-US pieces for the Italian communist paper Il Manifesto, e.g.:

Napalm Raid on Falluja? - 73 charred bodies of women and children found

Interview with an Iraqi Woman Tortured at Abu Ghraib

The same commenter also posted a link to an AP article that casts doubt on the "accidental" nature of the event:
Italian Journalist Rejects US Account
(Excerpt: "Meanwhile, an autopsy performed on the agent who died trying to save Giuliana Sgrena reportedly showed he was struck in the temple by a single round and died instantly." - doesn't go well with what I heard were the official claims that the soldiers shot at the engine to try to stop the car (would that stop a car?) and that the passengers were hit by shrapnel).

Then someone else posted this thought-provoking comment:
"Why does anyone think the US wanted to assassinate Sgrena in particular? A much more damning explanation is that firing 300-400 rounds at a car that poses no particular threat has become standard operating procedure for the US military in Iraq."

S/he has a point there.

---

P.S. Also on the international front, I was confused about the situation in Lebanon, so I did some research and posted about it on MadTeach.

and in entertainment news...

okay, i goofed. in my previous post where i said Jude Law was the "premier actor of his generation," i was completely forgetting my perennial fave, Daniel Day Lewis. He has been in a lot of crappy movies but he is a fantastic actor (if you don't believe me, check out "In the Name of the Father," in which he gets framed for an IRA bombing--for once a great flick, and as always, he's fantastic in it). definitely waaaaay better than leonardo dicaprio. i was reminded of this by watching the last few minutes of "gangs of new york" last night, which has both of them in it. watching leo try to convey near-death agony and murderous rage was just ridiculous. lots of huffing and puffing. (whereas w DDL, just closing his eyes was intense.) leo's exertions reminded me of his attempts to convey madness in "the aviator." apparently his idea of strong emotion involves hyperventilation.

i wrote some more about the film but decided to move it to madteach since it's a good one for history teachers.

ever wonder what a limpet is?

you know, as in "clinging like a limpet"?

here is a whole website that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about limpets. Some of it is in Norwegian, but the pictures are very helpful. (in case you don't want to click, apparently it's some kind of seashell).

also from this morning, the news that pumpernickel is not an aphrodisiac. but fresh homemade bread can still make your heart sing (ok well at least your tastebuds).