Insouciance
Also, here is a lovely memoir about some very determined symbolism. Moths Ate My Marriage
I've been slacking with taking pictures, and Steve hasn't even posted any pictures from his trip. It will come, especially now that Hannah is out of town.
On a related note, if you are in town Labor day weekend, we'll be having a housewarming party, one year late!
I want a clover lawn- all clovers and daisies, no grass. That is, if we have any lawn at all. Here's a great article from the New Yorker about the development and acceptance of an increasingly artificial status symbol- the lawn.
Modern Love: In My Fantasy, I Caught Up to Reality
Generation B: His First 50 dates (or in Her Case, 3)
Here are some photos from a family gathering in the sun
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Here are some photos from Linus' 2nd birthday New Orleans bash.
More links to come.
Down in Pike Place Market.
I've been getting trickling reports of friends and family who are annoyed I don't update. Heh. That's sweet, and I'll try. We've been busy. Some reflections:
Steve and Travers have started working some handyman jobs a couple days a week. The first week, they did a job that was pretty interesting. This week, they pulled ivy in the rain. Steve dropped concrete on his pinky finger and it is ugly to the extreme.
Linus is going to childcare two days a week! A sweet lady and her husband watch another two year old along with their 9 month old son, and are watching Linus now on Mondays and Tuesdays. They are right across from Mom and Dad, which gives me peace of mind, and Linus has been so amazingly happy. The first day, I was so nervous to pick him up- but he just beamed, gave me a hug, and then ran around showing me all the toys he had played with that day. The other two year old, Landon, talks a ton- which will be a great influence on Linus.
Rob (Steve's dad) is coming out tomorrow night until Sunday. So definitely, I will have pictures to share from that. Happy St. Patricks Day (yesterday)!
I think sometimes of a woman in Utah who had bladder cancer, four children, thousands of dollars in debt. No family or husband available, and their landlord was one week from throwing them out of their apartment because she didn’t have rent. She had already called all the organizations I offered that may provide financial assistance. She had exhausted local resources. The only number I was able to give her was United Way. I think of her. I have no illusions that the empathy I provided helped. One week after I talked to her, she was likely moving to a family shelter.
Everyone has their triggers. I have a few. I can talk to someone for an hour about how to find local resources for cancer patients, and how to phrase questions for their doctor to improve the communication between them. Sometimes I am wretchedly reminded that for the person living in Arkansas, there may not be resources. There may not be another doctor from whom to find a second opinion. There isn’t enough financial assistance, there isn’t an insurance plan for everyone, there are no safety nets.
This article hit close to home, and I've been waiting for it to be released online to share.
Brave New World, by Stephanie Mencimer. Mother Jones Magazine.
Albert Kaplan bought a daguerreotype in a New York City gallery in 1977, and after much research, it was confirmed as Abraham Lincoln's earliest image. Would you ever think it?
This article is incredibly long, but so worth the time. It is part of a series of Esquire's seven greatest stories ever told in their magazine published in celebration of its seventy fifth anniversary ( the big semisesquicentennial, of course). After a first paragraph like this, it only grips you tighter:
The School by C.J. Chivers
Kazbek Misikov stared at the bomb hanging above his family. It was a simple device, a plastic bucket packed with explosive paste, nails, and small metal balls. It weighed perhaps eight pounds. The existence of this bomb had become a central focus of his life. If it exploded, Kazbek knew, it would blast shrapnel into the heads of his wife and two sons, and into him as well, killing them all.
Yesterday's reading:
"The fallacy of reducing perception to reception is especially clear when it comes to phantom limbs...the feelings people experience in their phantom limbs are far too varied and rich to be explained by the random firings of a bruised nerve. People report not just pain but also sensations of sweatiness, heat, texture, and movement in a missing limb. There is no experience people have with real limbs that they do not experience with phantom limbs. They feel their phantom leg swinging, water trickling down a phantom arm, a phantom ring becoming too tight for a phantom digit. Children have used phantom fingers to count and solve arithmetic problems. [...] The theory—and a theory is all it is right now—has begun to make sense of some bewildering phenomena. Among them is an experiment that Ramachandran performed with volunteers who had phantom pain in an amputated arm. They put their surviving arm through a hole in the side of a box with a mirror inside, so that, peering through the open top, they would see their arm and its mirror image, as if they had two arms. Ramachandran then asked them to move both their intact arm and, in their mind, their phantom arm—to pretend that they were conducting an orchestra, say. The patients had the sense that they had two arms again. Even though they knew it was an illusion, it provided immediate relief. People who for years had been unable to unclench their phantom fist suddenly felt their hand open; phantom arms in painfully contorted positions could relax. With daily use of the mirror box over weeks, patients sensed their phantom limbs actually shrink into their stumps and, in several instances, completely vanish."
Read the whole thing here.
Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened -- and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery. She is a beautiful speaker, and has an astonishing story:
We have an expedition! I'm hoping Steve will expand on this bare bones explanation (It's my lunch hour at work!). We are entwining our grasp on Steve's brother Travers (T-Bone, Steve: closer than biological brothers).
Jan. 8th, 10:40 pm: We all head out to New Jorky- arrive early in the am on Friday the 9th.
Steve and Travers prepare for a cross country drive. One main preparation is seeing if Linus fits in the truck with them.
Jan. 12th, early in the am- Steve, Travers, Linus leave, head south. They go through Virginia, Washington DC maybe, Chapel Hill, Atlanta (hi Allison!), New Orleans.
I leave for Seattle, with Linus if he doesn't fit, and without (my own! luxurious! seat!) if he fits in the truck.
Jan 16th, late at night, I fly to Houston (again, with or without Linus) where Rob is. We leave on Saturday and drive to New Orleans. Meet the boys. Spend a day there, head back to Houston.
Jan 20th, Steve and Travers leave early in the morning for a long drive through West Texas. I leave with Linus in the evening.
Steve and Travers head north, likely hitting LA and San Fran.
Jan. 23 (evening) or 24th- Sydney and Linus and I drive to Bend Oregon, meet the boys when they get there, spend a day, and head home Monday.
On the top of Haleakala, there is a plant called a silversword which doesn't grow anywhere else. It can live up to 50 years, and flowers once. After it flowers, it dies.
And here's a Nene!
Feist on Sesame Street
Read these Coco Wang comics about the Sichuan earthquake in China. Fun game: see how long you can read them before crying. (I made it through two).
(Note: these are graphic and heart wrenching.)
I am not really sure how all these plants suddenly amassed. In the evenings, Linus loves to go outside with Papa and "help." While Papa methodically waters all his plants, Linus carefully removes handfuls of dirt into strategically placed cardboard boxes (making it easier to dump the dirt back in the pot). It gets complicated when the Linebacker tries to hoist the dirt back in. We all know that dirt ends up on the deck, where it is stomped for ten minutes by our little man, and then picked up in tiny finger pinches. Then, it's time for bed. 
This is in Buenos Aires.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Monday, May 5 2008
At breakfast, Linus kept hoarding crayons like a jerk, and making Steve mad. This middle picture is what I had to watch all breakfast- the woodsman in his outdoor wear looking glum, as Linus curiously looked on, making sure Steve hadn't pocketed any of his precious color sticks.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Happy Birthday, Papa! Why the crazy eyes?
Monday, January 21, 2008.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Cleveland's Westside market
We used to meet by the dog park in Washington Square, where the urine stink pervaded the parkgoers. I couldn't count the hours I spent acclimating to that smell, watching the dogs, and doing the crosswords. He would ride up with a bright red checked flannel, and we ate sambar and roti curry together. On his trip to New York, he took pictures of the renovations of our old haunt:
My favorite. I listen to this at work constantly.
Monday, December 26, 2007.
Some family pictures.
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch.
It is a long video, absolutely worth the time. (The introductions end at 8:00 mins)
Tom Brosseau
Pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to Houston:
