Good cop, bad cop

Things have been difficult here lately -- nothing earth-shattering, nothing about my own little family, just enough to leave me a bit drained. Hoping, in fact planning, to make a spectacular comeback this week.

May your own week be spectacular, safe, and sunny.

Let there be lights

We won't be able to have lights up outside our house this year, but that's OK.

See, it went like this: we were hearing a squirrel on our roof, and it was really annoying. BUT, it took on a whole new level when said squirrel figured out how to get from the roof into the attic. Ugh.

I took a little time figuring out the best course of action, and decided to call a roofer. (What would be the point of having someone come to trap the squirrel, since legally you have to release them within a distance that any squirrel this clever was going to find no barrier to getting right back into our attic?) So Mr. Roof Guy tells me that the 15-year shingles on our 21-year-old house are but one of the issues on our very bad roof.

Ah. Three weeks before Christmas is really NOT when you want to hear you need a new roof, but looking on the bright side we haven't had snow yet -- so we got the new roof.

But see, during the time they were working on the roof was our only realistic window of time for putting up the outdoor lights on the bushes, and that didn't seem wise given all the work being done all over the place. So, no lights.

That's OK. And these words came out of Ken's mouth: "Well, the roof and the furnace were the last things that were going to need any attention, so the roof's all set and luckily the furnace is in good shape."

You know what happened this morning, right?

It was 3 degrees f. last night (yes, that's *three*), and the house was awfully cold this morning.

Ken had to miss Dean's winter concert at school to wait for Mr. Furnace to arrive. But arrive he did, thankfully, and we now have a new transformer and a new motor on our furnace. And heat.

But no lights outside. That's OK. I'll just keep looking at my pictures from Disney World, where they do outdoor lights up in a big way.

And I share with you this priceless nugget from over at Pea Soup: "Also, just when did Christmas become women's work, or has it always been and I've not consciously noticed it until now?"

Welcome to the sisterhood.

And now, we return to sanity

I'll admit it.

For the first time ever ever, I was seriously contemplating getting out super early on Friday to do some shopping. Joann Fabrics tempted me with a flier filled with those "door buster" specials designed to get you into a shopping frenzy.

It helped me to read an article about how retailers trick you with this stuff; when the fine print in the ad says "limited quantities" they often are REALLY limited, so that you are almost assured of finding that the crazy unbelievable deals will be sold out (unless you're willing to camp out overnight, which I most certainly am not). That they dazzle you with deals on stuff you don't really need, and get you into the buying state of mind so that you really rack up the bill at check-out time so that you feel it was worth your while to get out so early.

Instead I will be where I belong. Home, maybe in bed, maybe up with my first cuppa, and maybe even setting out to make some things with the unbelievable amount of crafting supplies I already own. We've designated Friday as "At Home" day (another reason not to sneak out!), and we're going to relax and enjoy and not feel guilty about all the stuff we're not getting done. We'll live off the fat of the leftovers and maybe even get a fire going in the fireplace.

Sounds better than having to vie for a parking space at 5:30 a.m.

Words, and pictures, though not necessarily connected

We've all been hearing for a while now about how chicken soup has real medicinal qualities, that eating a piping hot bowl really will help cure your cold.

I now also firmly believe in the emotional healing power of baking chocolate chip cookies, and eating some while they are still warm out of the oven. Taking the time to bake with Dean was big; I just haven't been able to rally for much of anything lately, haven't been cooking much, haven't been very hungry. But we had a snow day yesterday and I knew we needed the project together, AND the cookies. Wow. What a world of difference.


Here's an interesting place I've just arrived in mourning the loss of my mom. I have regrets -- many regrets. And that has been crushing me, the weight of those regrets. But then, I suddenly realized, she had regrets, too. We both had things we would have done over differently. So now that we can't -- neither of us can without both of us here -- I can move ahead knowing that simply we still loved each other deeply. That even with our imperfections, what stood up over time was love. That's what I need to focus on. What lasted and remained true, regardless.

Sigh.
(Try clicking on this one to see it larger -- "Outbound to Wonderland" -- my favorite sign in the entire Boston public transportation system.)

I'm thinking about my relationship with Dean very much in all of this experience.

We were both born in the Year of the Tiger (1962 and 1998) in the Chinese calendar, and this is the Year of the Tiger (2010). I'm trying to think about how to celebrate that, what we can make of it. Seems like an opportunity worth seizing, somehow.


And speaking of having been born in 1962, it was just my birthday last week. Natalie sent me flowers -- wasn't that a wonderful thing for her to do? They are still a breath of spring, brightening the whole kitchen.

In the overall birthday department though it was pretty crappy, given the timing. And, how can I put this -- I'm wondering why it is that both my parents had to pass away right before my birthday.

I used to truly love February. It featured my birthday, which I always used to adore, it has Valentine's Day, it's the time of winter when you do start to see signs of spring -- even if only the lengthening of the day. Oh sure, most people find it hard to say nice things about February, but I was a staunch supporter. Now.... Not so much. I find myself dreading my birthday, and not because of the aging thing (that's never bothered me a whit). I don't want to have to face February every year and these two sad anniversaries. Oy.

There are 11 other months of the year, I have 3 siblings all born in various months -- couldn't the grief have gotten spread around a little bit? It has been hard for the past 11 years to work my way past the anniversary of my dad's death in order to feeling up for anything by my birthday, and now I just can't even imagine. Oh well. Maybe it was time to grow up about it.


One good thing that happened on my birthday is that after Dean and I finished his observation of seahorses at the aquarium (for a school report), Ken came to meet us and after lunch,


we went to see Ultimate Wave Tahiti in Imax 3D. If this film plays near you (especially in 3D) I highly recommend you go see it. I don't imagine that I'll ever get to Tahiti in my lifetime, but this film gave me such an incredibly real sense of the place. I wouldn't say that I have an interest in surfing, but the film made it fascinating. It very much highlights the spiritual culture and beauty of Tahiti. I'm still waiting for my birthday margarita, for my birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and my birthday cake. Hopes are not high.


I'm tired. Are you tired? I am deeply, could-fall-asleep-at-any-minute tired.

Dave, with whom I work at school, is the skip of his curling team. How cool is that? He brought in his rock and broom and shoes (and even his special pants and his special jacket with his name on it and his championship patch). Trying to imagine how we're going to handle Olympic withdrawal.

You make the call

Dean tells me that "skedaddle" and "hootenanny" have been officially dropped from the dictionary. He feels that "skedaddle" is a loss but feels no pain over "hootenanny." I think both cases are tragic; such colorful, uniquely American words being lost. I'll just have to try to work both in to as much of my conversation as possible. (You have been warned.)

Meanwhile, if you haven't seen this yet, please watch it. For me, for yourself. It is a TED video of Stuart Brown, talking about the importance of play. Better, even, than the Ken Robinson one (but do watch if you haven't seen it).

Then tell me when you're going to start playing.

[edited to add: I should have said up front -- to 'skedaddle' is to leave quickly; a 'hootenanny' is both a party with music and dancing -- usually folk/square dancing, and it also means the word that you can't think of at the moment -- as in, "hand me that hootenanny over there!" People now more commonly use "thingamajig" or "whatsit" or "thingamabob." Also, my further research has shown that while some references put 'skedaddle' as a term coined during the American Civil War, other sources put it as having derived from earlier Scottish/Irish/English terminology.]

Rather than focus on the facts

On a day when we will be lucky if it warms up to 0 degrees f. with wind chill, I will carry this image in my heart to keep me going. And I will wear my warmest socks....

Taking Risk

There I was, well on my way to total world domination (pink), when the boys (Dean, blue, and Ken, black) decided to call it quits. That's okay. As much as I generally have to say about how things are going to be different once I'm in charge of the world, fact is that it's really much more responsibility than I can handle.

in the depths of winter, I finally learned

Ken was willing to take a chance on a bottle that had "Torres" on it, in honor of Dean and my football hero Fernando Torres:

It's not that we suspect any relation, but it is just so typical of us to see and celebrate connections like that. I think it's that kind of whimsical outlook that keeps us going -- through the depths of winter, through the less-than-whimsical stuff life throws at us. And of course each glass had to start with a toast: "To Fernando!"

Really the hard part about being back to work now, after our lovely 2 week holiday break, is (aside from the work itself) that there's hardly any daylight time to enjoy. It's dark when I walk the dog in the mornings and dark when I take him out again when we get back home at the end of the day. Some spectacular sunrises, some glorious views of the moon and stars are the little treats I seek out so that I get everything I can from those experiences, although the bitter cold makes it hard to stay out there too long.

I'm looking for the little connections, the funny stories, the unexpected moments that can turn January into a gem and not a hump to get over. I go into the new year newly compelled to make the most of every day, every month. All the talk of the decade just past has my head spinning -- 10 years? Really? Couldn't have been! Four or 5, sure -- that I could believe. Not 10.

Resolute

I have resolved not to noodle away the day. It's Friday, my 'day off,' and I'm going to accomplish things. Housework things and personal things. Dough for pizza will be made, laundry will be put away, and at the very least my craft space will get tidied up. I have a way of letting these days get away from me, but not this time.

Making the journey worthwhile

What I learned about myself between last night and this morning is that if there's a hint of chill in the air in the evening, when we go out to walk the dog after dinner at about 7:30 p.m., I MUST have a jacket on. Maybe even long pants. I cannot tolerate being even slightly cold at the end of the day. But in the morning, when I take the dog out at 7 a.m., I am delighted by the crisp promise that the chill morning air offers and I can't stand to take a jacket with me. It's entirely possible that it is colder in the morning than in the evening, and there I am with shorts and short sleeves and a smile.


I know that some measure of this is physiological; I am a morning person and my energy is all bright and burning in the morning. By the end of the day I am done. I actually don't mind one bit getting into bed before it's even fully dark out because I am tired and done and ready to sleep. So my biorhythms or whatever are set on 'high' in the morning and 'low' at night. And I guess there's no way to disconnect the psychology either. It's just funny to me to have realized it and to understand that the given temperature doesn't really predict how the temperature is going to feel to me (or to anybody else?).

(I just googled biorhythms and came away with the impression that there's a lot less science (none, maybe?) to them as I thought there was, but what I meant are the particular highs and lows of your own system throughout the course of a given day.)


For me the point of these kinds of seemingly pointless realizations is to build my tolerance of these same kinds of idiosyncrasies in those I love. If I can be so apparently irrationally impacted by the weather, then trying to insist that Dean put on a jacket because it's "cold" out really is not very fair at all. Like that. That the reality each of us experiences, even on a very micro level, is entirely personal, even when it seems that it shouldn't/couldn't be. That the 'truths' we are so sure of ourselves don't necessarily carry.

When did I become someone else? or Which me are you looking for?

Dean is growing up. He just is. That our children grow and change should come as absolutely no surprise, given that we grew up ourselves from the children we once were. We know this happens. But to be on the other side of the telescope, to be the one watching the growing, rather than the one actively moving out of childhood, is an overpowering and unbelievable thing. Well, different sides of the same coin, I suppose, but going through it yourself really does nothing to prepare you for watching your own child grow.

I've been truly struck by the whole idea of growth lately. I'm surrounded by it. I've had a chance to check in on some blogs I haven't visited for a while and BAM -- I'm faced with photos of children I think of as babies, and there they are getting all big and grown up and I think HOW is that happening so fast? And here we are on July 9 and we've already had over THREE INCHES of rain in our area and I've never seen so much lush, tropical, intense growth before. The pot of tomatoes on the back porch is so tall it is starting to challenge gravity AND there are green tomatoes already. Astonishing.


Then I've got this whole other part of growth to think about and it's a lot harder. It's my own struggle with me, and who I am growing in to, and what I am growing out of. I've been thinking about what a very different person I seem to the people who knew me in high school from the people who knew me as a pre-parent career person from the people who know me as a parent and soccer mom. The thing about Facebook is that all those lives, all those past connections, come right up in front of me and I parade this whole mysterious complicated silly person to an audience with very different visions of me.

Bringing this all together for me was a post by Andrea (it's the June 29, 2009 'our dance' one -- I can't target one entry directly on her site) who had an opportunity to remember her past young self as a performer (that was me, too!) and who wrote, "...I remembered, that she is still me."

She is still me.

It's all still in here somewhere. Loving soccer doesn't dissolve loving art galleries, laughing at Phineas and Ferb doesn't prevent me from shedding tears over Three Cups of Tea. Disney World didn't replace Paris, it just got added to the list of favorite destinations.


Hmmm.

So then probably a good measure of my mourning Dean's past self, the childhood that he's rapidly rising out of, truly is foolish. He is still himself, still the sweet person he has always been. Just a lot taller. And ready to take on more by himself. Which should leave me ready to decide what I'd like to be doing while he's doing that. So that's the hard part, then.


I believe that an important aspect of being a parent is in being intentionally changed by that experience -- by being influenced in who you are as a person by the person your child is. Again thinking of a recent one of Andrea's posts, she wrote, "Attention is the most concrete expression of love." By paying attention to the things that are important to Dean, I've gained new knowledge and new interests; I've grown as my own person in response to him. That's a powerful antidote to the feeling of being consumed, of being made invisible by parenthood. "Where did I go?" can be a mournful question, about what seems lost, or it can be a joyful one about where you've landed -- about discovering that new place and discovering how you don't give up your true self in becoming a parent, you just grow into a new self.

Where I Stand in the Countdown

1. Got my boy back. Dean spent 3 days and 2 nights here, and came home talking about how he can't wait to go back again next year. Lots of dirty laundry, lots of evidence that he did not take a shower or brush his teeth the whole time -- despite statements to the contrary. Oh well. That's part of the whole deal, I guess. One of the many reasons I love our school is because it is about life lessons, not just academics. It's about learning through direct experience. Going away and spending 3 days doing the hard work of farming teaches you about plants, animals, food production, weather, history, and about how you manage to do things you didn't realize you could do. It teaches you where milk really comes from. It teaches you that you can survive without your mother hovering over you, constantly asking if you need eye drops or a tissue or another dose of Benadryl (it's allergy season, big time). It teaches you that you can get to know and appreciate people in new ways when you break out of your usual routine and roles. And maybe even it teaches you to appreciate home in a new way, too.

2. The new computer is in the house, but probably won't get set up until the weekend. That's cool. Nice to know it's close.

3. Still not much happening in the get-up-and-go department. Keeping the faith, though, that I'll kick back into gear. Soon.

I think that, aside from cleaning up my craft room (again -- I know, I know), I need to embark on some new project to get me going. I need to find something that's going to drive my excitement about summer, and that's going to give me something to show for the season. I need something to give me some creative challenge -- I think I'm feeling sluggish because I don't have anything other than work and home-life demands rolling around in my brain, and I guess I don't feel the fun of getting all that stuff checked off the list to make time to do what I want to be doing.

What I Am Without

1. I am without my boy. Temporarily. Dean is on a class trip to a farm, not so very far away (under 2 hours). He left yesterday, waving merrily from the windows of the big shiny school bus, loaded with kids and luggage and teachers and all the various medications, lotions, sprays, and other necessary tools of survival. I drive up to the farm tomorrow to pick him up. Three days, two nights away from home. Poised to return, I believe, triumphant in his success and filthy after all that farm work.

2. I am without my computer. My own, home computer. Ken surprised me with a trip to the Apple Store on Mother's Day, and they now have my hard drive there while they transfer everything to a new machine. I am getting used to the whole big idea of this, but am anxious to have a machine with all my stuff back on it. It's a very vulnerable feeling to have all your stuff somewhere else, all your digital stuff which turns out to be more than you thought it was when you don't have it anymore. Temporarily.

3. I am without my get-up-and-go. Temporarily. Sluggishness brought on by too many loose ends, too much to do in the next few weeks.

What's missing for you?

So this pig walks into a bar

In a way, it felt like the opposite of a "desert island" question. You know: If you were stranded on a desert island, what (book, movie, person) would you want to have with you? Or perhaps the "if you could take one material possession with you as you left your home in a disaster situation, what would it be?"

Only the exercise was: If this is one of your last opportunities to lay in a supply of essentials ahead of a pandemic that could disrupt food supplies and/or negate access to public places such as grocery stores, what will you buy?

Apparently toilet paper and coffee are very important to me.

My trip last Friday to the giant warehouse store was made not simply because we were almost out of toilet paper, but also because we believed it prudent to stock up a little. While we are the kind of people who take things like pandemics seriously, we are also the kind of people who understand that without the capacity to afford and store a 3-month supply of everything we might need (including water, given that our well pump requires electricity to operate) then the exercise is more about temporary peace of mind. But peace of mind can be important. Feeling that you are doing something rather than nothing, and that the 'something' isn't counter-productive in the long run, can be important too. So we've got 72 rolls of toilet paper (hey -- giant warehouse store -- remember?) and enough coffee, sugar, and evaporated milk to get me through a host of mornings. I learned that the ingredients for making chocolate chip cookies felt important to me (retaining a sense of normalcy, and ignoring the electricity question since the stove is all electric), as did soup, pasta, rice, and peanut butter.

What I also found interesting at the giant warehouse store AND at the regular grocery store on Saturday was that retailers were expecting me. Hugely overstocked supplies of bottled water were very evident at both places. What I also found interesting was that I appeared to be the only shopper thinking the worst. Clearly at the giant warehouse store I was the only person with an apocalyptic agenda.

Rather than feeling relieved or foolish, we are simply hopeful that the news continues to improve on H1N1. We understand the science, as much as lay people can, of what's coming, even if H1N1 does not turn out to be 'it.'

And we go about our lives, continuing to clean house and mow the lawn and do laundry because you can't stop living. We keep going to our soccer games, too.

Dean, in the green, continues to love the game and to play it with passion. Last week (when this picture was taken) he scored a goal and had 2 assists. This week, he had his first foul called on him. As it happens, he and the other player were both going for the ball and the other player tripped over his own feet -- we and the other spectators were closer to the action than the referee (although none of us would ever question a ref's call). But the fact that Dean 'might' have fouled someone was interesting to all of us -- Dean, me and Ken, the other spectators. It has taken Dean years of playing to get a certain degree of competitive edge about him. He is as polite and non-physical a kid as you would hope to meet, and had generally applied his rules of good behavior (take turns, give people their space, don't bump or otherwise use your body to get your way) to his soccer game play.

We would always rather have a child who is kind than a child who does whatever it takes to win. We would be mortified if he ever intentionally caused a foul by pushing, shoving, kicking, tripping (as other players in his league do). But we are happy to see him learn to appropriately stand his ground. We are relieved to see him fall and then get right back up again. And we are happiest to see him feel good about a game regardless of the score at the end.

Wishing you good health, seasonally appropriate weather, and everything you need to make chocolate chip cookies in an emergency.

Kind of a list

Dean turned 11 yesterday. It's a simple enough thing on the surface; people celebrate birthdays everyday. But how monumental this passage of time is to me, I can barely begin to express.

My computer is struggling to keep afloat with all I've got loaded on it. It's making it hard to do much here, since every time I download photos from my camera I have to wonder if the old girl is going to be able to hang on. Ken promises me we can try to switch machines but there's so much backing up and saving and moving to be done first -- it's like moving house.

I feel very out-of-touch here. I need to get out to all of your blogs, to catch up with what's been happening with you, and figure out what it is that's been happening with me.

We go to Chicago for a few days mid-month, and I've got a list of things to do and people to see that would take a month. I just want to feel the way it feels to be there. Home.

Break

I was remembering this morning that when I used to work with my mom at a glass company (she was secretary to the president, I was in high school and helped out doing things like microfilming records in the summer), 10:30 or 11 was the time that the truck pulled up out front. The truck, unlovingly called 'the garbage truck,' was one of those quilted metal vans out of which are sold hot coffee, donuts, bagels. Cartons of white and chocolate milk. Cigarettes, maybe. Of course there were people who went out every day for a treat, and to smoke. For us it was more of a once-in-a-while, or Because it is Friday kind of a thing. As a denizen of corporate America, I had the convenience of a coffee shop right in the building where I worked. Thinking about it, every job I ever had except for this one had some means of supporting the coffee-break culture, of taking care of the 'I need a treat' feeling.

So here I am at work on a Monday, which is a bit unusual (I don't usually work on Mondays or Fridays; you may think that's 'lucky,' but then that would mean you haven't known me long enough to know that it has been a life's ambition to reverse the "week" and "weekend" schedules and this is as close as I've ever come to realizing that dream). It snowed this morning; not totally unusual, but we're all walking around acting shocked and affronted. It was extra dark, of course, 'thanks' to the time change. What I'd really like is another hot cuppa coffee and an old fashioned donut. There's a very specific type of donut that's called an 'old fashioned' -- it's a very plain cake donut. I'd also like not to be at work, but I'm racking up a lot of extra days to take off this summer so it's not the worst thing. And I really do need to get back to it.

A virtual coffee break, looks like. At least I don't smoke.

Seeing

Grate on a storm drain

The complete circuit around the cul-de-sac on which we live is one-third of a mile. I walk the dog around that circle between 6 and 15 times every day (depends on how cold it is, depends on whether or not anyone else helps with the dog-walking effort, depends on how much time the dog needs). It's difficult to go farther afield during winter because the accumulated snow and ice makes the somewhat busy road to which ours connects very narrow and somewhat treacherous to walk. In warmer weather, there's a big stretch of time during which most of the sides of that road are covered in poison ivy and we don't want the dog to carry those oils into the house on his fur. So I've traveled somewhere between 2190 and 5475 times (730 to 1825 miles) on this small stretch of road in a year.

It takes real effort to see each day, to really look at what's out there, what's different, what needs to be noticed. I was thinking about her walks and all the beauty she captures -- with envy. I wondered what was out there that I haven't seen, haven't appreciated.

Time

You can feel the difference in the quality of the light. The angle of the sun is already noticeably enough different. In just three weeks we'll 'spring ahead.' (I pledge that I will do my best not to complain here about daylight savings time; I've sung that song often enough before.) Anyway, you would just know; you would go outside and you would know that change has happened and that more change is coming. I love those deep instincts we have, the abilities we forget to use.

I only just figured out recently that the design of an analog clock -- the hands moving 'clockwise' around the dial -- corresponds exactly to the movement of the sun as marked by a sundial (or by a person standing perfectly still for as long as the sun shone). Did everyone else realize that except me? It made me happy to discover it, in any case, and it made me feel better about my preference for clocks with dials and not digital numbers -- does this happen to you too? -- if I see a digital clock (4:53 or whatever), or if someone just tells me the time, sometimes it doesn't really stick -- it doesn't make sense to me, or I can't easily figure how much time I've got left before I have to do something. But if I can see a clock face -- just glance at it and really just take the information in visually, instinctively -- then I have a much clearer sense of what time it is and that I have about 20 minutes before I have to get going. Sometimes I compensate by picturing a clock face when someone tells me the time.

Ah, another post that went off in a direction on its own, before I realized what was happening. I need to make the best use of the time that's left on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon; better go see what the boys are doing.

Day length

I realized yesterday that I've been composing posts in my head so often lately that I somehow let myself think that I've posted those thoughts when I haven't. A little catching up, then.

I'm still processing the Inauguration. We watched it at school, in a big room with about 135 kids -- some significant majority of whom were only vaguely aware of what was happening. At school, we felt it was important for all the children to have the experience in whatever way they could. Sometimes, that made it a little hard; lots of distraction and noise made it challenging to focus. But overall it was impossible for me, anyway, not to have the sense of the impact this president will have on the lives of these children. What amazes me about Obama is the incredible ability he has to be at the same time in charge, in control, and powerful while still having the kind of humility and grace to seem to wonder what all the fuss is about -- that he can have the experience of the Inauguration in a sense the same way we're having it; in awe, and hopeful, and amazed. To be in the midst of this pageant that's all about him, and yet not to let it be all about him. That takes an astonishingly centered and calm sense of self that few politicians seem to have.
We recently watched Oliver!, the 1968 musical adaptation of Oliver Twist. Dean loved it, as I knew he would, and wants me to read the original to him. I was part of a theater group when I was just a little older than Dean is now, and our only production (but in many incarnations) was Oliver! At various times I played either Oliver or Artful Dodger, and therefore knew all the songs (which I refrained from singing throughout the movie). I think Dean is just the right age -- 10 -- to explore the questions about good and bad and about the mix that's within real people. We talked about whether Dickens wanted us to think the workhouse boys had it better (living within the "legal" system administered by the government) or Fagin's band of pick-pocketing boys, and about the difference between Fagin, and Bumble, and Bill.

Strangely, our theater group once performed Oliver! at...an orphanage. Angel Guardian Orphanage was quite near where I grew up and it was a huge place. I very clearly remember the girls' dormitory where we changed costumes and my conversation with one of the girls there. I can't imagine how any group of adults thought that it was a good fit -- for us to perform a story about the horrors of being an orphan that ends with the kind of impossible fairytale ending that you wouldn't want an orphan to fixate on. Can I hope that we didn't make much of an impression on the residents?

How far away is economic recovery, do you think? Is this thing that we're perched on the edge of still just the upper edge of the pit, or are we near bottom and close to the climb back up? Living simpler lives is magnificent as long as there are still ways for people to earn a living. Ken said he thought malls might disappear as the result of the retail collapse and I disagreed -- they'll change, and the stores and what we buy will change, but the experience of getting out of the house, of being social and being entertained by shopping, won't go away (just in the way that home video capability didn't kill movie theaters). I don't think that, as an adult, I've ever wished this much that I could know where we'd be in a year.

And I noticed just this very morning that sunrise is earlier.

Moments of beauty

I'm not sure if it's going to make me feel better, or not. Taking time I don't have to do something I very much want to do -- write a blog entry for the sake of doing something that matters to me (and not something on my to-do list put there by others, or by me but on behalf of others). But here I am, and maybe I do even feel a little better already....

I realize that the likelihood of the long, lush, photo-jammed entry all about Disney World is slim, despite my aspirations. So instead I'll simply start -- sharing a photo at a time and unveiling over time just why I love that place so very much. This photo was taken at the Wilderness Lodge, one of the resort hotels on the property. One of the kazillion or so things I love about Disney World is the absolute, complete, and unwavering attention to detail -- and to detail that many visitors pass right by without noticing. It's the kind of place where the more you slow down to look, the more you see. We've stayed at the Wilderness Lodge before and I do love it, although we didn't stay there this time. We were there for dinner at Artists' Point -- a magnificent restaurant.

Ah. I hear the dog going bonkers and Dean getting frustrated and so off I go. More, soon, I hope.