So, I was mulling over this crazy situation that’s coming up this weekend, with the little cult-like church down in Gainesville, FL that plans to burn the Qu’ran on September 11.
On the one hand, you have freedom of speech, and what they’re doing falls under that umbrella. It’s like the nutters of Westboro Baptist, or the Klan, or any other group you despise. Hate what they say, defend to the end their right to do it.
In fact, it’s the Number One amendment in our Bill of Rights.

On the other hand, you have freedom of religion, and it’s not particularly love-thy-brother to burn any religion’s holy book, declare them Evil and want to eradicate them. One of the persecutions our founding fathers were fleeing was an imposed religion. Wait, that’s also covered in that First Amendment. Hm. In fact, this church’s brand of lunacy dogma is protected as well.

Certainly there are greater scholars than I, who could expound for days on the topic of Constitutional Law, Religion, and freedoms in general.

What our original government never could have imagined was a day when information transmitted in the millisecond of a lightbulb turning on, that images and words and moving pictures would exist and live on ad infinitum in an ethereal world that gives as much as it takes.

So what do we do? We can’t legally order this man not to proceed with his notion of protest. It is in direct contrast to (most of) our collective values, whether you worship Jesus, Jehovah or JellyBellys. (Allah, too, but it doesn’t start with J.) I’d like to see the entire world turn their backs. If the Qu’ran burns in the forest and nobody puts it on the internet, did it really happen?

Of course, our rapacious modern media won’t do this. Someone will argue the need to record the event for historic purposes. But the media attention is what this man WANTS. Giving it to him, and thus elevating his notoriety not only in our country, but the world, is, in my opinion, irresponsible. The so-called minister of this ‘church’, and I use the term loosely, has said he’s willing to die for his beliefs, but he has no regard for how his actions could trigger the reaction that would cause the deaths of our own soldiers abroad. Sure, you can spend another fortnight arguing responsibility there – if I load a gun, turn the safety off, and hand it to a ten-year old, do I get to throw my hands in the air and say, “Hey, I didn’t pull the trigger.” ? To me, this is where the decision breaks down. If you want to burn something – even a flag- and the only repercussions are social ostracization (or acceptance by like-minded people) or the only harm can come to you, then knock yourself the hell out. But when the fucking U.S. General overseeing our military operations says, “Hey, you doing this could really start some bad shit half a continent away, and oh by the way, your little shindig will be used in terrorist training videos,” wouldn’t you think twice? Maybe I’m being generous by using the word “think”. It just angers me that one of our soldiers, doing their job in Afghanistan, could somehow suffer the fallout from this person’s “conviction” to protest.

And, while I’m at it, I object to the conversations that compare this to burning an American flag.  Because when you burn the Bible, you’re making a statement against Christians. Or the Torah, against Jews. So on and so forth. The flag? That’s all of us. You, me, black, white, every shade in-between, no matter your god, no matter your political party, no matter your income or education status: all of us are under that flag. When you make the choice to burn the flag, you are indicting our country in your protest, and it is (pick your option) an act of defiance against the entire country or an act of aggression against the entire country. Even this is still protected in our country. But these two situations are not the same.

Just remind yourself this weekend about what our First Amendment rights protect. And remember the people who died on September 11th, and all the other people, soldiers, freedom fighters who continue to die to protect this right.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is the most heralded truth I hold as a citizen of this country, and I am sad that the actions of one tiny pocket of our population (who enjoy the very freedoms they are denigrating) could be seen as representative of our collective beliefs about the Muslim faith.

I heard a bit on NPR the other evening about how this huge number of Los Angeles elementary school teacher names are going to published, with data about their students’ improvements (or not) on standardized test scores.

All I could think in response was, “Yet another way to remove responsibility from the parents.”

Yeah, I’m married to a teacher. He works hard at his job, he makes a difference in his students’ lives.  And yes. There are teachers who suck, don’t care, do the minimum to get by.

What gets me, though, is all these new initiatives that are designed to impact student test scores, arguably to improve them – most of them involve punitive measures against the teachers.  I’m sure there are people out there who hear about them and react, “Yeah! Make teachers accountable!” and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be – but even with all the hours a child spends in school, the school is not a vacuum, and the teachers can only effect so much change. They certainly can’t beat the children anymore, like they could when I was in school. Much of the fear that accompanied my childhood education is gone – I was terrified of my principal, most of my teachers, and the faintest notion that any of them would call home to my father. God, not that.  Discipline in school can be sparse or completely absent, probably out of fear the angry parent will sue the school for violating their child’s rights. I’m not saying getting thwacked was the right solution, certainly, but discipline can exist – and it takes a lot of work and effort on every person in the school, from the administration to aides, all working in a consistent manner.

My opinion is that there is an inherently flawed premise: All students want to excel on the test.  The assumption in all of the standardization, and resulting measurement of teachers, is that the kids want to do their best on these tests.  They’ll study each question, spend all the time they need or are given, striving to do their very very best.  This isn’t a correct assumption. For you, for me, for most people who read my blog, sure – we were motivated to do well on our tests, because it was probably rewarded (or expected!) at home.  If that isn’t fostered at home, you are expecting a hell of a lot of initiative from a ten-year old to find the drive and desire and energy, no matter how hard it may encouraged in the classroom.

Look around this city and its suburbs. Look at where you see the “good” schools. It doesn’t matter which side of the state line it is, but I can bet you this: the strongest schools are where the  parents are more involved in the education of their child. When that child leaves school, they go home to an environment that continues to encourage good study habits and achievement. Long-term goals involving education to get there.  Accountability and responsibility. Proper diet, nutrition, strict bedtimes and limitations on tv/internet/video games.  We see the breakdown in family structures, the absence of good parental modeling, yet we can’t do anything about it because the “rights” of being a parent in this country are beyond reproach. You can buy a car and drive it, but you better have passed a driver’s test, and carry the proper insurance on it or you face consequences. There are no licenses or permissions -or even training- given to parents.

So, back to those teachers in L.A. who will have to see their efforts reduced to a statistic on a page. What if your job hung in the balance, dependent on all these other factors you can’t control?

Update, 8/29/10: Apparently The Onion had a similar idea, but with its usual delicious dark humor twist. NSFW for language, enjoy!

In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don’t Give A Shit?

Look at the clock! Where did that time go? Let’s see… it’s now July 14th and I may have to kick this random-orts old school style.

1. Our washing machine committed suicide at the end of June. Dramatically, in fact. It decided to screech like a feral cat and imparted a burnt-rubber odor to the items being washed. We ended up getting one of those front-loader machines and the thing looks like R2D2 with about as many lights, choices, and buttons! So far, it seems pretty nifty and is very water-efficient.

2. There’s nothing like finding out disaster has struck again via Facebook. Husband posts something about finding out the hard way that pliers and a passenger window don’t mix. Followed immediately by a post “liking” Safelite Replacement. Yep. Because of the Honda windshield we replaced a while back, we got a frequent-customer discount! And another can of magic window cleaner. Woo!

3. Because bad things happen in threes (or more, who knows, it’s just superstition), our air conditioning slowly petered out on the holiday Monday after the 4th. The initial diagnosis was a coolant leak, that could go one of two ways – keep refilling it each year, or it would hemorrhage in a couple weeks and then we’d be looking at big bucks to fix it, as much as half the cost to just replace it. Yuck. But then! The technician couldn’t get it to load coolant, and he realized we had a clogged line – which was resolved by taking out the piston. Apparently particles from the wire can gather for a cocktail party, and once enough of them get together, it results in a kegger of microscopic particles, which form a paper-thin seal and the a/c won’t work. At that point, I would have been happy to kiss the receipt, because anything under $200 without the specter of a $3k bill on the horizon is a-ok with me.

4. I turned 42 the day we fixed the a/c. The day itself held little fanfare, though I did make my husband go into DQ and get me an ice cream cake. I love those things! We did have an early party – a whole bunch of the knitting crew and family met up over the weekend to celebrate, and I got some very lovely pressies and the enjoyment of being with my fiber-lovin’ brethren.

5. Tomato season has begun. Last night’s dinner was homemade French bread, goat cheese, and a garlic-basil-tomato bruschetta. Oh how I love the tomatoes! This year, I’m paying more attention to tasting them like I would judge BBQ or evaluate a wine – it’s kind of fun, and gives the master gardener of the house good feedback. There have been a few standouts, but the black tomatoes are far and away the kings of the fruit. Later this week, there will be fresh pico de gallo….

6. Speaking of bread, I am elevating my breadmaking skills by challenging myself to try new recipes. I bought The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and my first recipe turned out beautifully. (We needed hot dog buns so I made them, along with hamburger buns, and they were utterly fantastic!) Yesterday’s French bread was an old recipe, because many of the breads in  my new book require 2 days to complete them.  It’s fun, and I’m going to get a sourdough bread loaf I’m happy with if it kills me!

7. We went to the lake this past weekend and had a good time – the dogs got to swim and retrieve a lot, including a mis-adventure with James, who had leashed them to a large, unwieldy, wrought-iron bench as he threw out the dummies.  They were so excited, they ignored their leashes, and promptly dragged the bench straight off the concrete landing and into the water with them. I wish I’d been there to see that, but hearing about it was enough to give me the giggles. Of course, when I showed up, everything was soaked, including my husband, and it seemed a little early in the day for swimming…. but our driven dogs were going to haul that bench like a sleigh, so in he went to rescue them!

8. We came home from the lake about 6 hours after the microburst of storms went through, to a house with no power. Fun. After tending to the garden, we both showered and decided to high-tail it out of the sweltering house, to dinner and a movie. We saw Despicable Me, which is the must-see movie of the summer for the 8-year old set, and it was entertaining enough, certainly, but the fact that our power still wasn’t on was weighing on my mind. (We would keep trying the home number, to see if the answering machine would pick up.) On the drive home, we mulled our options – tough it out or call Momma Linda to get us a hotel room through Priceline, get dry ice in the morning for the deep freeze – and as we inched down our street, we felt a little bit of optimism creep up, and thankfully, as we crested the  hill by our house, saw that the porch light was on. 12 hours of power outtage, we didn’t lose anything in the freezer. I feel bad for residents East of us, as even today they are still trying to restore power and the heat index is going to HOT PINK crazy, upwards of 110.

9. I had a comment on my Circle of Life post, from the Realist, who told me I was ‘thinking too hard and feeling too much, kid’, and it was phrased exactly the way my father would have said it to me. In fact, I read it on my phone, and it took my breath away a bit. Thank you for that comment, because it was not only true – the story of my life, in fact – but it reminded me in a wonderful way the pragmatic was delivered from my Dad over the years. I was his kiddo, and I miss him like crazy still. Feeling like pieces of him are still around me are surprising, unexpected gifts.

With that, I leave you for today. I have some knitting to share, and will take pictures of this next awesome-o bread I’m going to make. It has bits of hard salami and gouda cheese in it. Oh yeah.

I’m going to try to write a blog post today in the vein and spirit of an ad colleague I admire greatly – Mr. Sam Meers. He writes great observations on business practices, pulling from ordinary life experiences. I hope I do justice to his style today.

One of the things that has bugged my husband to no end over the years is when we’ll drive by an office building in the evening, and the automatic sprinklers are bursting out water…..in the rain. Or the day following a rain. He’s right, of course. It’s incredibly wasteful. My problem-solving brain ponders this every so often.  I’ve wondered why these automatic sprinkler systems don’t seem to have some sort of moisture-content trigger, rather than a timer. Or at least an employee designated to switch them over to “manual” during periods of heavy rain (like we’ve had the past two weeks – 12+ inches!)

Today, I glanced out my window and saw that the shady side of my building was a congregation area for all the young punk geese who are unicolor and fluffy and awkwardly gaggling about while their parents keep watch and let them feed. I decided to get a closer look, and walked around my desk to stand right up against the floor-to-ceiling windows. I needed to see over the row of hedges, and indeed, there were a whole bunch of birds, some chilling out, some nibbling.
And then I felt it.
A burst of hot air.
From the baseboard heater that runs along the length of the windows.

It’s in the 90′s here. Fahrenheit.

Mind you, I have a thermostat in my office, and it’s set at the lowest setting possible, because I’ve noticed it just never seems to cool down. Gee. No wonder. So we have a call in to maintenance, and soon I’ll stop wondering if I’m going through early menopause every afternoon.

It made me think, though, how much money is wasted by such simple, common-sense practices. You don’t run a space heater at home while you crank down the a/c, do you? Because not only does it cost money, it’s silly. We’re grateful for the rain (in moderation), because it means less watering. This building has been paying for more electricity, because they don’t come through and turn the heaters off when the seasons change. The a/c works twice as hard, less effectively. Boy, I’ve had jobs like that. Doing something the same way as always, because a boss doesn’t want to question the client or the process or suggest a different way of doing things.

Contraindication is used mostly in medical terms, but it certainly applies to situations like I’ve described. It could also apply to a certain oil company who is under the microscope right now, and needs to portray an image of dedication to undoing the worst ecological disaster, ever. Such a visible leader/representative of the company might want to take a break, say, to watch his yacht race, but that would be contraindicated, because it sends the message, hey, I’m going to spend some time on a sport most of you cannot relate to AND I’m not spending time on the disaster that happened on my watch. Tony Hayward, I get it. I bet your life sucks really, really badly right now. You want your old life back. Guess what, it’s not going to happen for a long time. As long as there are tar balls and people wondering when their car’s going to get repossessed because their livelihood was taken away from them, you have to maintain at least the appearance of diligence. No fun for you until your chores are done, that’s how I was raised.

And as for businesses who cut staff and make the ‘survivors’ work harder, and tell them they’re expendable, while keeping spouses on payrolls? One place you might find some extra money is in your landscaping budget. Or your own pocket. Berating and punishing contraindicates a productive work environment. People are your greatest asset, and how you treat them during the bad times, when they want to hang on to their jobs, will serve you when the tide turns. Will you see mass exodus? Or devoted loyalty? The tides are turning in the job market, slowly but surely, and I’ll have my own schadenfreude moments when I see trapped friends finally able to burst free and go someplace new.

Me, I’m in a good spot, thankfully. Life is pretty darned good. Apart from the extra heat.

UPDATE: Since I started/finished this post, Tony Hayward got sacked from being the point person on this oil spill. Hope the new dude learns from his predecessor. I am available for common-sense consulting, should you need it.

So, I pondered on Plurk earlier today, ‘the naivete and stupidity of clueless people will never fail to astonish me. Does that make me… naive too?’

A friend pointed out that I just want to believe in the best of everyone. And I think that’s mostly true. It’s a blessing and a curse, some of which grew from being an only child, because your formative influences are adults, who use logic and restraint and explain things and treat you with respect. Something I hear-tell is less common when a sibling’s in the mix, and I do believe that siblings give you thicker skin. I can’t even begin to count the number of times in my life where I’ve been hoodwinked, for someone else’s amusement, or out of addiction, or because they’re just plain mean. Yet I still apply logic to the wound, and while my skin gets a bit tougher and I’m certainly capable of being a jaded mean bitch when I need too, I really do want people to just … be. I drove up Wornall a few weeks ago and there was a blind man, obviously trying to figure out exactly where the bus stop was. The sign is on a light pole, and there’s grass there, it’s not a shelter. The traffic was going along quickly and I slowed, fearful he could mis-step and land in the street. But then another man, who didn’t seem to know him, walked up to him and I could see he was speaking to him. Then he touched him on the shoulder, guided him, talked to him, helped him find where he needed to be. It brought me to tears, these two people, just being human and kind and helping and receiving help.  No hidden agendas, no pretending to be anything else.

I was frustrated this past week by an obvious breakdown in logic. Granted, one should really avoid Twitter arguments, because bitch, please, I can NOT make my points in 140 characters or less. But I think it’s important to recognize that when you are putting things out there on Twitter, and you say something unpopular? You will get called out for it.  You will be accountable for it. If you want to say that the KC Fiber Community is lame, and then later say what you meant was inspired, I urge you to use www.m-w.com, because lame is not a derivative of inspired, or vice-versa. If you then want to be a martyr and say you’re just expressing your opinion and flounce about it? Well, then I get really pissed. Because yes, you are FREE to call us lame. And it IS an opinion. But I will defend my friends (who are…supposed to be the Lame-Labeler’s friends as well) because they are trying to make it a better place, and a more rewarding community, and you might not like being held accountable for your opinions, but there you have it. The old adage came to mind… when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is… stop digging.

Now that I’m not so irritated about it, and I’ve distracted myself all weekend with voraciously reading the Stieg Larsson trilogy, I’ve come up with a new twist on an old, albeit creepy, quote.  Sums up my sense of astonishment pretty darned well, I’d say. And, it’s rather appropriate with the big dug-out hole, too.

“It puts the logic on its skin and watches it slip right off again!”

Bitch, please. (I love that SNL skit just a little too much.)

I know the entire city exhaled this week when Bernard Jackson was arrested, charged with rapes from the 1980′s, and has been all-but-officially named as a suspect in the recent rash of rapes in, Waldo/Brookside. It would appear that there is strong (DNA) evidence that ties him to those cold-case rapes, and his own record speaks to his violent history as a predator. The Kansas City Police Department simply can’t comment or divulge anything about the current cases, but I hope the DNA evidence is there to tie him to those attacks as well.  I want him to be guilty.

I also believe in the system. Flawed as it is. Innocent until proven guilty. In a court of law, not the media. Or at midnight in a jail cell. It kind of squicked my stomach, how KCTV5 proudly interviewed Jackson’s cellmate who gave him the midnight beat-down that sent him to the hospital his first night in jail. My heart, my gut, my empathy for the women who were attacked and who were beaten by this man, all collectively said, “Yeah! Know how it feels, motherfucker, to be attacked yourself.” I was a volunteer rape crisis counselor for years, and it is one of the burning causes inside me that I rail against. The man who perpetrated these rapes deserves to feel unsafe, feel battered, feel like his safety has been taken away.  But at the same time I felt that tiny exhilaration, my mind, my intellect, my values cringed.  And I know to even state this puts me in the minority.  Our society is a tv-news-fed, pop-culture, twitter-riding mass of instant judgment and categorizations.  Remember, I was raised by a liberal hippie who always cautioned me to step back and think. Assess. Don’t follow the mob. Stand apart. Vigilante justice is not part of a civilized, advanced society. Everyone who’s seen CSI knows how powerful scientific evidence can be, so let’s sit back and wait (it takes longer than 20 minutes to get those results), and let’s not let down our guard completely, and let’s allow our system to work. I have the utmost respect for the detectives and crime lab folks who have devoted their lives to this case for the past several months.  The dedication – the involvement at all levels (inside word is that the FBI has been all over this as well), is to be commended. And a breath of relief for the women who have waited tens of years for this man to be brought to justice. May it be the same for the women in these current cases. And let’s ratchet down the sensationalism. It’s a disservice to the women who are still waiting to hear if Bernard Jackson is going to be charged in their cases.

Friends are mightily important in my life. There are people I know I’d like to give more of myself to, but time/space/energy/location preclude it. But I don’t take friendships lightly, and when I have issues in a friendship, they weigh heavily on my mind. Recently, I had the small realization that just because someone SAYS we’re friends and says all the right things doesn’t necessarily equate to action-based friendship, which to me, is where the rubber meets the road. Then, there are other people who strive to be friends with the people they perceive to be “the cool kids”, so that through association, they are also cool. Does any of this feel like high school yet?

Thanks to the internet, there are a whole bunch of people out there I do call my friends. You are my online friends. You comment, we exchange emails now and then, we’re even friends on Facebook. Thanks to the internet, I found my best friend in the universe. But the internet is also a deceptive shimmery piece of film, where it is easier to ‘be’ friends than to do it in real life. And it doesn’t even have to be the internet – friends in real life, but in a different setting? One of the friends became invisible. This kind of shit really makes me weary. It’s a reason I haven’t posted in a while, because I usually blog about what’s sitting right at the top of my brain, and yes, there have been a lot of great things happen over the past couple of weeks, and a couple not-so-great, but I knew as soon as I sat down to type, this whole friendship thing would start bubbling onto the keyboard. I’m irritated. It makes me want to cull and cut and slice and dice and withhold myself from the online universe.  Yet I’m wrestling with another situation, and I want to turn to some of those people for their advice, their perspective, because I still think most people are good, and care, and want to be needed, even if it’s through the interwebs.

So I dunno. The internet brings us all closer, makes the global village a little smaller, brings us shiny fun videos to share, things we can “like” and things we can have in common. Yet it brings a false sense of closeness, too, and I hate when it slaps me in the face. I want to share my life and I don’t.  Some things can’t/shouldn’t be shared, and those are the things I muddle through with best friends. I’m a problem-solver and it sucks to not be able to find the answers readily.  Maybe that’s the point – not everything has an answer. Some sentences, some problems, and some friendships – are just left hanging.

The Wo and I treated ourselves to a dinner out on Friday night. We went to one of our favorite local spots, Red Snapper, where the kimchi is homemade, and everything is delicious. Shortly after our appetizers came, a young couple was seated near us – well within earshot, and it was hard not to hear them as they ordered. The man ordered a tofu dish, and the woman began a long list of what she could/could not eat. We shared a waiter, and he was spot-on professional. She didn’t want peanuts, meat, rice noodles, eggs, seafood or dairy. She did want pad thai (?) but just the sauce, over buckwheat noodles. I puzzled over that order in my head, as many of her absolutely-not ingredients were, like, KEY to making a good pad thai!

Their food arrived. She indignantly told our waiter she did NOT want zucchini, she did NOT say it was ok to give her any kind of squash, WHAT were those peppers doing there, and back to the kitchen it went. Wo and I looked at each other and did that Vulcan mind meld thing, sending each other the “Whoa, wtf?” message. Our entrees arrived, and then shortly after that, our neighboring table’s re-do order came back. This time her voice rose, as it STILL contained vegetables she didn’t want. Our waiter ran over, dutifully listened to what she seemed to want, then ran it back to the kitchen again.

At this point, the Wo and I couldn’t look at each other because it would have been abundantly clear to our neighbors that we were a bit horrified by her.

I had the Spicy Calamari, by the way. Utterly delicious, and brought half of it home with me. JWo had the orange beef, and it was fantastic. We got a side of fried rice that filled an entire carryout container, despite both of us eating some with our meal.

Third time, here comes the dish de impossible. It looked like a pile of seaweed and noodles, but it was met with praise from its recipient. Finally! We kind of look at each other share that smirk of “WTH? Whew, that’s over.”

Oh no.

Two minutes later, she has waved our waiter back over.

“I don’t like the texture of this. It’s not what I expected it would be. What is that over there? (gesturing at our table)” and she proceeds to order some fried rice – but without egg. And, I believe, certain vegetables. We left before that order arrived. Who knows how many times that one went back.
Seriously?

When we got home, I called the manager, and told her that Philip not only was a fantastic waiter, but that they should do something extra for him tonight, like buy him a shot when his shift is over. She laughed and thanked me.  First of all, if you have serious-ass allergies or personal convictions about your food, Pan-Asian cuisine does not strike me as a great place to go for dinner. (All I could think about was how many dishes use fish sauce or shrimp paste!!!) And even then – Red Snapper is the kind of place that  would bend over backwards to make you a dish – just tell them what you can’t have/don’t like. But to make a waiter run back and forth for 20 minutes, and in a pretty condescending manner? I hate to think about how they tipped him.

When I lived in Minneapolis, I worked for a small ad agency that eventually tumbled and crumbled and closed up shop. While I was there, I made some friends, worked on some interesting business, and got some good funny stories (always important.) One of those was sort of snarky, if only because it was brought on by the target of our snark. One of our co-workers (public relations) always behaved as though she was working ‘just to keep busy’, as though she existed on this ethereal plane above us, even when she walked among us. She loved to recount her days spent in New York City, and her favorite line was uttered with dripping nostalgia: “Life was measured in Hermes scarves….” I had to ask my compadre in snark what in the hell that even meant. “Oh you know, Jennifer. They just scrimped and saved and skipped meals so they could afford to buy a Hermes scarf. They’re like, $500 apiece.” Safe to say that was a different life, and definitely a different plane from mine. But my co-worker did a spot-on imitation of her, complete with the wafting of her hand and fluttering of her fingertips, and I could almost see the brightly-colored silk streaming in the breeze.

Since my unemployment started, I’ve measured time differently. It’s odd, and strangely emotional, as I tried to explain it tonight at knit night. Each day that I wear makeup, I take it off in the evening with one of those makeup-remover wipes, the kind in a plastic bag with a seal, to keep the moisture in. When I first lost my job, I wondered if I could continue to afford to buy them. (They’re like, $5 for a package of 30.) After the terror of financial ruin faded, I did continue to buy them, and as I removed one each night, I wondered where my life would be the next time I needed to replace them. Unlike the previous 10+ years, I don’t have the illusion that when the calendar page turns, and the makeup-wipe wrapper is tossed in the trash, life will be the same as it is today. In some ways, certainly, I don’t want it to be the same. But we are creatures of habit. For the most part, we have routines. For 90% or so, that routine includes getting up and going to work roughly 5 days a week. Now I work part-time and cobble up freelance as I can, and wait. And wipe. And wonder. Where will my head, my heart, my creativity be when I wheel my cart down the beauty products aisle at Target, and toss another Boots 4-in-1 Makeup Remover wipes into the cart? Not knowing, in some ways, is good. It stretches you. It pushes you into new perspectives, new paths, as you restructure your New World Order and check your budget and reflect on what you enjoy doing and what you’re rid of, too. In some ways, though, my heart aches to the point of tears for the comfort of knowing. Let me clarify. The illusion of knowing, because none of us really, truly KNOW. We assume. We hope. We wish. We trust. That things will remain relatively the same, because they are comfortable and they provide and they are The Way, where work or goods are exchanged for money or services. So when people say things like, “Let’s plan to do X, I think it’s the third week of April,” my mental calendar is a mystery. I used to know immediately if I could participate or not, what was on my schedule and what the future purportedly held. Now I assume very little and just wonder… where will I be?

That said, I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t be buying one of those silly scarves.

So far so good on the Diet Coke withdrawal. I had one zinging craving last week, and I told myself I was just thirsty. It seemed to work (consuming some water) and my caffeine dependency seems to be maintained by a couple cups of coffee/day.  I haven’t noticed any miraculous changes, sadly, and the sale ads for it still catch my eye – but like I said, so far so good!

We saw Alice in Wonderland yesterday – I loved it. I guess there have been a number of reviews that ding it for this or for that, but whatever. I literally adored the two books as a kid, and thought Tim Burton’s movie was a great tribute to the imagination those works inspired. The room where Alice finds the door key, the “Drink Me” bottle and “Eat Me” cake? was such a match for what I imagined as a child, it took my breath away. There was one dorky bit – a dance – that I thought was totally disjointed, but such a tiny fragment of the overall movie. And let me just say that those CineSuites are the BOMB. It was our second time going to them, and they really are a treat. We don’t go out a whole lot (frugality!) and we’ve contained our movie-viewing to our Netflix + Roku, and premium cable channels, but the suites are enjoyable. The service has been top-notch, we both feel like we’re getting a good value and the food is good. Plus free refills on popcorn and drinks! (And I went with iced tea…)

James has been a gardening and working machine this weekend – he’s planted the lettuce and spinach seedlings in the garden, plus some French Breakfast radishes and snow peas. And? He’s putting in a small deck at the foot of the small deck on the back of the house. I took a two-hour nap yesterday and he had torn out the mint bed, the straggly rose bush and had the deck half done!  Me, I’ve been knitting.

Speaking of knitting – I finished my first Wollmeise project as part of the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling KAL on Ravelry. I made WendyKnits’ Talisman shawl, out of a skein of Indisch Rot, and loved it. The pattern, the yarn – and I love blocking lace.

Close up of the pattern:

Because I finished the shawl before the end of the month, I knocked out the rest of my Drifted Pearls scarf (pictures to come). It’s very soft and cozy! Now I’m working on Hemlock Ring Blanket, published by Brooklyn Tweed, as part of the March KAL. Because I have several other things I need to knit (sample cables for the Knitting in the Heartland cable class, for one!) I am churning through this – on the fifth ball of yarn out of ten.

Today is for muddling in the kitchen, running some errands, and trying to finish some laundry. This week is going to be pretty busy, between work projects and life projects, and something tells me things are only going to get curiouser and curiouser…. as she smiles like the Cheshire cat…..