Happy Halloween!

from our house to yours….

Exxopolis - at the Brisbane Festival

We finally took in some seasonal culture at the Brisbane Festival.  

Exxopolis is an large plastic tent-like installation that is illuminated only by natural light filtering through thin, colored plastic "windows".  It seemed to be inflated from within - sort of like a jumping castle - but there is no jumping!  The walls are very thin - can you tell yet that this was emphasized in the orientation?  No running!  No jumping!  Maybe there was some sort of hard skeletal structure... I remember there were cement blocks lining the outside edge...no throwing yourself at the wall - you could fall onto the cement block and crack your head open...

We didn't run...but someone scooted on his knees as quickly as he could.

"The Accidental Tourist" by Anne Tyler

From September 2014

 

 "I said to you the other day, I said, 'Macon, now that Ethan's dead I sometimes wonder if there's a point to life.' Do you remember what you answered?"
     "Well, not offhand," Macon said.
     "You said, 'Honey, to tell the truth, it never seemed to me there was all that much point to begin with.'  Those were your exact words."

But Macon had the feeling that school never went very well for Alexander.  He came out of it with his face more pinched than ever, his glasses thick with fingerprints.  Her reminded Macon of a homework paper that had been erased and rewritten too many times. 

     "It's my opinion that sex is overrated."
     Macon looked at him.
     "Oh, when I was in my teens I was as interested as anyone," Charles said.  "I mean it occupied my thoughts for every waking moment and all that, but that was just the idea of sex, you know.  Somehow, the real thing was less… Why, I don't mean I'm opposed to it, but it's just not all I expected.  For one thing, it's rather messy.  And, then the weather is such a problem."
     "Weather," Macon said.
     "When it's cold you hate to take your clothes off.  When it's hot you're both so sticky.  And, in Baltimore it does always seem to be either too cold or too hot."
     "Maybe you ought to consider a change of climate, " Macon said.  He was beginning to enjoy himself.  "Do you suppose anyone's done a survey - city by city?  Maybe the Businessman's Press could put out a pamphlet."

If Ethan hadn't died, Macon thought, wouldn't he have grown into such a person?  He would have turned to give the boy another look except that he couldn't manage the movement.
     The taxi bounced over the cobblestones.  The driver whistled a tune between his teeth.  Macon found that bracing himself on one arm protected his back somewhat from the jolts.  Every now and then a pothole caught him off guard.
     And if dead people aged, wouldn't that be a comfort?  To think of Ethan growing up in heaven, fourteen years old now instead of twelve eased the grief a little.  Oh, it was their immunity to time that made the dead so heartbreaking….
     He felt a kind of inner rush,  a racing forward.  The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time.  It's as much adventure as anyone could wish.  And, if he pictured Ethan still part of that flow in some other place, however unreachable, he believed he might be able to bear it after all.  

I picked up "The Accidental Tourist" after finishing "The Beginner's Goodbye".  I had read the book years ago - I think when I was living in Wooster - and I had loved the movie.  I remembered Gina Davis's  quirky "Muriel" - an excellent rendition of a truly original woman from the movie (obviously) and I remembered from the book enjoying Macon's quiet but exceedingly odd family and boss.  I saw/see myself being a lot like Macon - who wants to feel like he's always at home and that things are stable and predictable.  I thought it would be good to go through his journey and remind myself of the gift of Muriel.

What I didn't remember was why Macon and his wife had separated.  And, so I found myself reading another story of death - in this case the death of a child.

Wow.  Painful.  And, so beautifully written.  You pretty much get that from the above excerpts.

The Cold Cold Ground: Book One of The Troubles Trilogy by Adrian McKinty

From September 2014

The riot had taken on a beauty of its own now.  Arcs of gasoline under a crescent moon.  Crimson tracer in mystical parabolas.  Phosphorescence from the barrels of plastic bullet guns.  A distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship.  The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces.  Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife.

Beautiful start but these prose don't extend beyond the first paragraph.  I was hoping to find my next James Lee Burke or Ray Bradbury.  My search continues.

Breaking my cycle of bad luck

For years I've been not going to concerts.  If someone was coming that I wanted to see - Prince, Laurie Anderson, Joan Armatrading - we'd be out of town.  Or, we'd have the tickets - front row tickets - like to The Pretenders and Blondie - only to have the concert rained out.  But, I've got my ticket for December.  I'm going to make it.  It is going to be good - from this point on....



Well, that didn't last long.  Laurie Anderson is performing at OSU Oct 12 - while I'm away in NC becoming educated.

Rehabilitating October

From September 2014

Planning a short trip back to Ohio in October.  I am going to watch leaves turn, rake them in big piles, jump in them with Zupe.  I'm going to drink apple cider.  I am going to a pumpkin patch.  I am going to decorate for halloween and make a costume and party with my people.  I am going to study the clear blue sky.  I am going to love my family.

Odd Spots

#3 Starfish do not have brains. (That hardly makes them unique.)
#49 Giraffes cannot swim. (But, can they ice skate?)
#?? Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree. (Note: should oak trees need to stop playing golf during storms!)
#19 Birds have the right of way on all Utah highways. (Yeah. Right.)
#23 There are around 61 trees per person in the world.  (Probably better than there are 61 trees around each person in the world.)

From 6/6/14 : Words to live by....

From September 2014

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Sincerely,

E. B. White

Thoughts in my head

From September 2014

Are their words or phrases or questions that pop into your head repeatedly?  I hope so.  It happens to me all the time.

For the last couple of years its been either

"I don't know what to do"
or
"I've got to stop crying".

Can't say there is much mystery to why these might haunt me - though for the record, the latter never occurred while I was actually crying.  I just figure I was pretty much crying constantly inside.

Now, my inner voice asks,

"What am I going to do".

I think it is an improvement.

Work survey

From September 2014

Photo by my brother-in-law, Sam.  Thanks, Sam.

I'm guessing it is a project for The Office Facebook Page - a survey asking us to introduce ourselves, so to speak, by answering a series of questions.

What are your qualifications?

"I went to school for a long, long time and then went to school, again."   

This got shortened to DVM from The (of course) Ohio State University and PhD in Biopsychology from Duke University.  I left out the MA and the BS.... 

What is your background?

Fortunately, I had the advantage of seeing other people's answers to know that this meant, "Where are you from?"  On my own, I would think it was asking what I had done in the past.  Not all that different.  But now no one will know I was a corn detassler, a documenter of dragonfly behavior, a castrator of doves, or a catcher of radioactive horse pee.  You, dear friend, already knew all of this... so I guess I overstepped with the use of "no one".  

I am from the Poultry and Egg Hub of the Midwest.... or what at one time was the Poultry and Egg Hub of the Midwest ... like at the time I was actually becoming from there. 

 The questions got harder.

Your pets.

Hmmmm.  There is this gecko that lives behind the a/c unit in the bedroom.  Would he (please be a he an not a highly fecund female!) count?  

It seems sad, and possibly suspicious, for a vet to say "I have no pets" or "My pets are all dead."   

In the end, I went with sad.  "Still missing our bad girl, Zelda."

What animal would you like to be?

Sigh.  I don't want to be anything that has to run really fast to get her dinner.  I don't want to be an animal that has to run really fast to not be someone else's dinner.  I don't want to eat rotting animals.  I don't want to bite into a live animal and have my mouth filled with gushing blood.  I don't want to be a cow and constantly vomiting - even just a little - into my mouth.
I went with jelly fish.  They look so beautiful and so relaxed.

Feel free to comment with your own answers....

The Year of the Flood

From July / August  2014

Farewell is the song Time sings...

from 2/17/2013

"The Big Over-Easy: A Nursery Crime" - from May 2013

From July / August  2014

Oh my goodness!  What fun! I had grown tired of Thursday Next - though never of her name - but loved both this and "Shades of Grey: A Novel".  Pick up a copy.  You deserve it.  Meanwhile, off to order "The Fourth Bear" from Amazon.

"..Well, there's usually a rule of three somewhere.  Either quantitative, as in bears, billy goats, blind mice, little pigs, fiddlers, bags of wool or what-have-you, or qualitative, such as small, medium, large, stupid, stupider, stupidest.  If you come across any stepmothers, they're usually evil, woodcutters always come into fame and fortune, orphans are ten a penny, and pigs, cats, bears, and wolves frequently anthropomorphize."

...

"Do they know?"
"Do they know what?"
"Do they know they're nursery characters?"
"I think sometimes they suspect, but for the most part they have no idea at all.  To the Billy Goats, Jack and Jill and the Gingerbreadman, it's all business as normal.  Don't worry-- you'll get into the swing of it."

...

"What happened to your last DS?"
"His name was Alan Butcher.  A good man.  He died in a car accident."
"I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as I was; I was the one that ran over him in my wife's Volvo.  But it wasn't my fault--he stepped out in front of me."
"Was he...tall?" asked Mary a bit recklessly.
Jack shook his head sadly.  "You've heard about the giant killing already?  Sometimes I think the station talks of almost nothing else.  Well, hear it from the horse's mouth: Aside from Butcher, they were all self-defense.  When someone that big comes at you with a knife, you don't stop to worry about using lethal force.  It was him or me.  Same as the other two.  Mind you, only one of them was technically a giant--the rest were just tall. .."

...

"...By the way, how many giants have you killed?  I ask only by way of curiosity and self-preservation, you understand."
"Technically speaking, only one," replied Jack with a sigh.  "The other three were just tall."
"To kill one giant might be regarded as a misfortune," said Brown-Horrocks slowly.  "To kill four looks very much like carelessness."

Look what is new at our house!

From July / August 2014

He started last week Wednesday. I think it is because I dressed him in shorts and his little knees were tender after being covered all winter. (I'd insert evil laughter here if it had been even marginally foreseen.)

Go, Zupe!  Go!

Oh, and it is MOSTLY just a function of the video - that Zombie gait that he's displaying.  He is, however, our son.

Just don't do it.....

From July / August  2014

Am I the only one who puts the accent on the second syllable?

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell

…and I will dance this dance alone and it will be a dance I've danced before….

I'm cleaning house

From January 2, 2013

Well, so to speak.  You couldn't tell by actually visiting my house.  Of course, Kevin would tell you that cleaning is recognised by - damn this autocorrect - it refuses to allow me to use American spellings - an increase in mess.  There are piles of things where there once were none and paper spread over every flat surface.  The dead give-away, however, is that the vacuum is lying about.  Well, that used to be the dead give-away before Zupe.  Now, it might mean that he wanted to play with the vacuum and I was powerless to object.

But, while I am making a attack on the box of papers that need to be filed or followed-up-on or discarded (because the follow-up period has long since passed or my passion for them has waned below the file level), what I'm making an effort at lately has been to clear the draft folder in my blog.  I have an amazing number of draft entries - some of which are only titles many of which no longer stimulate me to remember the event I intended to chronicle.  I'm starting with the oldest.  Sometimes I post them "on" the date that I wrote the beginning of the blog and sometimes, not always on purpose, I am publishing them on the current date.  That's why I'm wishing my friend Diane a happy birthday in June for her January birthday….in 2008.  Yay for me.

Be Mine

If I should I live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you.

Happy Birthday, Diane!

From June 2014

Diane, you are another sister. I can't believe my good fortune to find you my roommate that first year at Ohio State. Such a big place to find a familiar and dear face. I treasure those years with you- and hope that this birthday was outrageously special. Maybe sometime we should get together again?

Originally written, and languishing since, January 2008.  Please tell Diane, if you see her, that I love her.

You can't get better than this!

The music! The costumes! The whistle!!

Wow, this was originally written in 2010.  I cannot figure out why it was still a draft.  I am feeling sad, however, that I don't think the link works and I am dying to know about the whistle!

Australian True Crime - draft from 2009

In the last week Kevin and I have finished "Underbelly" (the 13 part series about the Melbourne gangland murders of the 1990's and early 2000's) and "Chopper" (a movie about another Australian bad guy, Mark "Chopper" Reed.) We enjoyed both: "Underbelly" was both an excursion into Australian television (which, despite having lived here for over 2 years (over 3 for Kevin) we've never watched) and an OK story. "Chopper" was an excellent movie about a very unusual and disturbingly amusing character. You know. The kind of amusement you only feel when you are very far removed from the actual events and people.

So, Australian TV. I'm not sure I can put my finger on the exact difference(s), but (on the basis of watching a single progam series, mind you) there is a palpably obvious dinstiction between American and Australian TV. You can definately turn off the audio and still recognize that this is not a product of NBC or HBO. People are doing Australian things- like eating and DRINKING outdoors- around the barbie, hanging clothes out to dry and driving on the left side of the street. There is, also, something different about the editing - particularly scenes involving cars and car chases. And, in "Underbelly", at least, it takes lots and lots of bullets to kill a person. This may be historically accurate or it may be an artistic decision- or both. Maybe Australians are just really poor shots.