gnome home

it is the day after x-mas and my paperwhites are blooming.

today we drove up to the blue ridge parkway where we were hoping to show my mom the breathtaking views. we were disappointed to find the road closed because of a few patches of ice. darn southerners. but we took a nice walk to the first overlook and enjoyed the scenery.

then we went to staunton, a village built on a hillside full beautiful historic buildings. we had a picnic in the car by a duckpond, played chase with tashi in a playground, then visited some really boring gift shops. the jolly roger haggle shop was a good one though, an antique shop that claims to have over a million items. three floors of kitschy glory! i purchased a reclining garden gnome. i couldn't resist him at a mere $4. he is dressed in green and napping.

bright lights big wishes

the sacrificial leg-of-lamb is in the oven (what can i say, my greek mom is here), tashi is playing with her playmobil faerie set while listening to a new smithsonian kids cd, dan is fitting his new guitar strings onto his guitar, the cats are crashed after madly playing with their new catnip toys, and i'm typing in my cozy new slippers.

probably the best gift of all was this, designed by dan and tashi. i'm not quite set up for mail-order yet, and right now i'm just making teas and dream pillows, but this is certainly an inspiration.

merry christmas, happy chanuka, and what speaks most to me personally, a bright and hopeful winter soltice to all.

solstice mouse

the attic rag dolls came out yesterday morning and had a really fantastic exchange, but i somehow deleted it and was then depressed for the rest of the day.

tonight i am up way too late because i've been lighting solstice candles and baking cookies and clearing the coffee table which had about five layers of junk piled on it. but it's solstice and you're supposed to stay up until sunrise anyway. not that i'm going to make it that far.

the highlight of the night was the mouse incident. luna, the champion cat, caught the mouse that has been haunting our kitchen. she carried the poor sentient being around for a while, throwing it down in various corners of the house and growling at it.

at one point she was hanging out with her prize behind the christmas tree. the next thing i knew she was gazing down into the christmas tree stand, a deep narrow vessel almost full of tree trunk and water. she had somehow tossed the mouse in.

so dan and i took turns crawling under the tree branches, our heads crowned with pine needles and precarious ornaments, shining a small flashlight toward the innards of the tree stand where we could see a tiny mouse leg floating up from under a knob of the tree trunk. an extraction with chop sticks was attempted, which only succeeded in pushing the mouse down further. more water was added, with the hope that the mouse would float upwards. eventually it did seem to rise a bit and i managed to pull it out by grasping its poor dead paw with some tweezers. the mouse was tossed outside, much to the dismay of luna, the champion cat, who blew it by trying to bury her catch in a christmas tree stand.

that folks, defines my winter solstice 2005. fa la la la * la la la.

the neon skies of charlottesville hollywood

last night we were sitting at the dinner table and talking about earthquakes when our windows rattled and there was a strange unearthly scratching sound. we thought the wind had suddenly whipped up and was shaking the icy trees, but later when we stepped outside we realized that the top of a tall pine had broken off and fallen right next to our house, crushing part of our cute boxwood, and pulling down the power lines which actually continued to work. we are lucky that it didn't crush our roof, or knock over the chimney, or crash into tashi's bedroom, as it very well could have.

not long after the tree fell the sky flashed a crazy neon green a couple of times and then the power went out. some nearby transformers had blown. our electricty came back about three hours later, but this afternoon there were still large areas without power. tashi announced that she was beginning to like virginia, as the winter storms here seem to bring a lot more excitement. school was cancelled yet again today and so begins christmas vacation.

this afternoon tashi and i emerged from a downtown gallery after checking out some amazing murals by lincoln perry. i met eyes with a woman on the sidewalk and found myself searching for a reason why she looked so familiar. she smiled at me, nodded, and just as she brushed past i realized i had just met eyes with sissy
spacek. images of a young prom queen drenched in blood flashed through my head. i felt a giddy little thrill. she lives just outside of charlottesville and apparently feels no need to hide herself away from starstruck admirers.

chopped locks

last night i went to the starr hill music hall to participate in hops & chops, a benefit for the uva children's hospital and locks of love. with a donation of at least six inches of hair, i was promised a free haircut and free admission to see three local bands. and so, i donated my hair. the hairdresser, located in a dimly lit space on one side of the music hall, tied my hair into a pony tail and chopped off ten inches, rather than six, and she didn't really finish the job. this left me feeling a bit grumpy. but it's just hair, and at least it was all for a good cause.

i quite liked the first musical act, morwenna lasko and jay pun, jammy violin gone wild with acoustic guitar. the other two bands, shapiro and fountainhead, seemed like good bands to listen to while getting really, really drunk. i didn't want to do that so i left a few songs into the last act's set. it's not that i don't love angst rock, but i didn't feel the need to further aggravate my bad haircut mood.

i'm hanging at home with tashi today, as school was cancelled for the third time in nine days due to another ice storm. she begged to watch "the sound of music." 'tis the season for epic family classics. the second half has just begun.

the ice has coated all that exists out of doors with a dangerous glimmering layer. i need a haircut for my haircut.

penalty

i'm having a bad day. this morning i arrived at work and realized that i'd missed a doctor appointment scheduled for earlier in the morning. actually i missed two, as one was for me and the other was for tashi.

i promptly called the doctor's office and they said there was going to be at least $70 charge for missing the appointments. i almost fainted. the woman on the phone said she'd talk to the doc and see if he might waive it.

well, they called me back this afternoon and said that actually they are going to charge me $75 for tashi's missed appointment, and $85 for mine. now, i know doctors' offices usually charge money for missed appointments, but i didn't think they charged that much. also, i made this appointment a month and a half ago. you'd think they would have called me with a reminder. i mentioned that to the bulldog on the phone and she said that they have it marked on their list that they left me a message. i don't * ever * remember receiving a message. but of course that doesn't matter to them.

i feel really crummy.

the thing is, about a dozen people recommended this doctor as being an amazing guy who also practices naturopathy. since i'm not much into the alopathic way, it is important for me to have a doc such as this. but now i feel kind of resentful. i guess i shouldn't feel that way, as i'm the one who screwed up. but i feel like they are way over-charging me. kind of digging the knife in and twisting it. had tashi and i actually showed up for the appointments it would have cost only $30 for the both of us.

at least i got some free fudge brownie mix from work today.

little tree / little silent christmas tree

today our goal was to cut down our own yule tree. first we went to ashlawn highland, home of fifth president, james monroe. at ashlawn highland you are permitted to cut a tree down from the edge of the forest and leave a monetary donation if you wish.

we had a nice walk along the edge of the forest, but the trees were either massive, or tiny and spindly, like charlie brown's tree in the famed christmas special. so we left ashlawn highland without a tree.

we took a drive southward, and then westward, and then northward, looking for a tree farm. i was doing an invocation by singing "oh christmas tree" with new lyrics. and then the sign appeared, in red and green, "christmas trees!"

we turned left, pulled into a residential driveway, and for $20 we were able to cut down a tree from a small family owned tree farm. a friendly dog watched from the porch as the sun set behind the blue ridge. we chose a white pine, nicely shaped and full, with long soft needles. dan and tashi sawed her down in a few fell swoops. while dan hoisted her into our vehicle, tashi and i sat by the stump and offered up our gratitude. i thought i might cry.

we brought it home and trimmed it and plopped it into the big ugly plastic stand and covered it with lights and ornaments. this year i've finally given up on trying to have the perfect looking martha stewart tree. damn those six planets in virgo. i did insist on stringing the lights myself though.

so now we've got a tree in our living room. the cats stare mischievously at it. tashi does a jig next to it. dan and i gaze at it while drinking honey mead, trying to figure out what to do with the displaced items that once stood where the christmas tree now stands.

it is indeed so very pretty. . .

****************************************************************

little tree - a poem by e.e. cummings

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

dreamslinging

i was in a crowded east bay bart station with tashi. we were waiting for our train and i badly had to urinate. i told tashi to wait right where she was sitting and ran off to use the facilities (take note: i would never, ever leave a seven year old tashi sitting alone on a train platform). naturally, when i returned, she was gone. there were people swarming around everywhere. i started calling her name and freaking. there were some red cross personnel standing at a table and i told them i couldn't find my daughter. they were unsympathetic and said that there was not much they could do. a security guard overheard me and said, "don't talk to them, they're mean." he made some phone calls to various stations, and then proceeded to gaze down into the tracks. that made me feel really uneasy. i wanted to call dan. i wanted to call 911. i knew the security guy could communicate with the train drivers. with each idea that came into my head, i felt great hope that tashi would be found. and then i awoke.

i hate these kind of dreams.

i had another the night before. dan, tashi and i were at a big house party. i was letting tashi do her own thing, as there were plenty of friends around and i knew she would be safe. but she disappeared. i spent hours searching for her and freaking. the friends were unsympathetic. i was beginning to give up hope and then tashi appeared out of the blue. she told me she was afraid to tell me she was going anywhere, because she was with her new boyfriend and she feared i wouldn't approve. i told her i didn't care who her boyfriend was, to just let me know if she was planning to go somewhere.

hopefully it will be seven more years before i really have to worry about any of this.

but in real life, tashi told me yesterday that a friend of hers informed her that seven year old girls could have babies. of course seven year old girls can't have babies. why mom? this opened up a can of worms.

house not heat

everyone is in a frenzy because a "winter storm" is expected. that means it might snow a couple of inches. schools will close and people will drive as if satan was throwing boulders at their windshields. they'll pray to their almighty lord and vote for george bush.

in the meantime, our house doesn't hold heat. we discovered there is no way to close the chimney flue. it just hangs open belching out every last bit of precious warmth. the heating unit in what is supposed to be our guest room is completely useless. and there is nothing like insulation in the walls.

we might as well just huddle around a space heater like we did in india.

but you know, i'm just whining for the sake of it. at least i have a roof over my head and it's a fine one at that. brand new in fact, because this house almost burned to the ground a year ago. and we have organic kale to eat and two fat cats to laugh at and lots of clothes, blankets, toys, books, cd's and a couple of jobs. so i can't complain about a house that doesn't hold heat when i could be sleeping in a doorway with a greasy paper bag for a blanket.

snow day in the south

we got a call yesterday morning from one of the second grade parents announcing that school was closed for the day. i was completely bewildered. she said, "welcome to virginia, snow is expected." it was raining a little outside and felt tepid. we just couldn't believe it. dan was enraged, saying he was going to complain to the administrators. he never wants to complain to administrators!

so dan went to work early, and then when it was time for me to go to work i dropped tashi off at dan's office where she watched "the wizard of oz" on one of the computers (she saw it for the first time on the big screen this past summer), ate pizza, and watched dan do an internet satellite search for our old house in oakland. i worked for four hours and then picked tashi up. they were both smiling.

in the mean time the rain turned into a spattering of little flurries, which later turned into fat flurries, which finally began to stick around the time i got out of work. one of dan's co-workers said there isn't a snowplow in all of charlottesville. when it snows it just sits in the road until spring.

tashi and i came home and built two snow men and had a snowball fight. i started to feel wet and yucky and my socks wouldn't stay up in my boots so i came inside. she stayed out there for almost two hours, laying on the ground looking at the sky, cleaning off the car, doing acrobatics in the fluff and finally, rolling a giant snowball and draping her body on top of it as if it were a yoga ball. i could hardly get her to stay outside for ten minutes when it was warm and the last lingering bugs of summer were present. now i can't get her to come inside when it's mushy, dark, wet and snowing. i think she's got the midwest in her veins.

this morning all the trees are under a blanket of snow, crystalline under the sun. it's gorgeous. tashi's school is two hours delayed, but she does have school while all the rest of the schools are closed. and i just realized i'm supposed to be at work in 20 minutes. see ya!

welcome to december

it's been a busy week of building the cottage industry. i bottled up two dozen mason jars of my herbal tea blend, "pixies by the mouthful," labeled them, and decorated the lids with holiday fabrics and ribbons. there are a dozen scattered about the barnswallow, and i have several more at the waldorf school store. i also intend on sewing up many dream pillows, and then preparing my next herbal tea line, "mother's little helpers".

aside from that, dan is doing some contract work and so i can't get online as much to write to all of you dear blog readers (one of you? none of you?). it's fun to pretend one has an audience.

today is the waldorf school christmas bazaar, a time when tashi's school truly feels like hogwarts. at least it did in ann arbor. i think the bazaar here will be a little more low key, but still crackling with magic. i'm being a good mom and volunteering with set up, baking, the candle dipping room and the school store.

the really rotten news this week is that a former co-worker of mine from people's food coop in ann arbor committed suicide on wednesday night. i've been turning this over in my mind and it's just really devastating. julie "sparrow" harrison was a beautiful spirit, so loving, giving and positive. that was the external julie anyway. she was certified in massage and, though in a wheelchair, was beginning to take on clients in reflexology and the like. and then something happened to her at a rainbow festival. too many mushrooms i heard, and a desire to drop her anti-depressant medications. things haven't been the same since. i can't believe she put out her own light. i thought she was a survivor. one thing is for sure, she was a great force of good will in the world. she had a huge community. her beautiful warm light will shine on in the hearts of those who loved her.

soon to come, pictures of the pixies.

balmy

not much going on here except for the bourgeois notion that i must go find some curtains for my office that doubles as a guest room because my mom will be staying here over the holidays and she will most certainly want coverings on the windows. there are a couple of decent sales at some unnamed evil department stores (not wal-mart though) so i guess i'll slip off and take a looksee before work. the only curtains i have ever purchased in my liftime were a wild pair of 60's vintage black and white boldly designed curtains lined in vinyl from a rummage sale long ago in buffalo. i gave those away to my pal laura meisler before i left ann arbor because i hadn't used them in over a decade.

other than that, it is feeling creepily tropical outside.

check out miss ladies photos! she's got a great shot of santa in the abu dhabe airport. i think he's following her to nepal.

poment

mist field
glaze across gaze
to insist on a yield
yawn of autumn knell
in blank shift of begotten shawl
a misfiring of desire
her opulent pearl of somnolent days
groping for a moment
to misfeel a razor for a reel
chimney smoke, chipped paint, topiary
tending the needs of a heedless class
latitude of luminosity
calf, lass, colt
wanting to secure the latch and bolt
toward an arrangment of range
homeric isle
a melding of mud and tile
song of sage and thistle
missive missle toe
of one conniving giant
in a tale of conquest
(that would be best)
draperies now drawn
but for milk pink dawn
seeping through lace

birds, cats, hoopla and hash

i admittedly bought in to the traditional american turkey slaughter, and served one up yesterday, stuffed with an amazing cornbread/sausage/pecan/apple stuffing, and accompanied by the requisite mashed potatoes and giblet gravy. i also prepared breaded sweet potato slices, salad and broccoli. we stuffed ourselves silly and then watched an odd old disney movie called "the three lives of thomasina." it has a great bardo scene of an orange tabby cat, like our own loki, walking down an aisle of languid siamese cats and paying homage to bast, ancient egyptian cat goddess.

this morning tashi and i wandered out into the bitter virginia cold and watched a very lame holiday parade. there were probably a dozen "miss albemarle county," but the bagpipers were fun.

afterwards i checked out the holiday market on the downtown mall. my favorite things were the candle holders made out of old tin cans and the birdhouses and dustpans made out of old license plates. i made it back to my car just in time to miss the gaggles of holiday shoppers beginning to pour in.

for lunch today i am about to make the best part thanksgiving which is turkey hash. you can make it too! just follow these directions.

you will need some butter, an 8 or 9 inch skillet, a cubed potato or two, a chopped green bell pepper, about two cups of chopped turkey leftovers (or tofurkey if you prefer), 2 cups of stuffing and about half a cup of gravy. melt butter in skillet. arrange in layers: potato, pepper, turkey. make sure to dot each layer w/ gravy. top with stuffing. cover the pan tightly with foil. cook on low for 35 to 40 minutes, until hash is bubbling and potatoes are cooked through. garnish w/ parsley if you wish, and serve. yum.

attic rag doll

iris with the red hair: it is lonely in the hills

lavender cat: but there's good rabbit

iris with the red hair: the air is so crisp my lungs ache

lavender cat: i like to tunnel under piles of fallen leaves

iris with the red hair: combat cat

lavender cat: all frailty

iris with the red hair: it is noteworthy, this damp hollow. muddied garment. birds that have gone now. proud evergreen.

lavender cat: i miss the birds

iris with the red hair: and the cicadas

lavender cat: i want to shred the tree

iris with the red hair: as long as it's not the chair

lavender cat: i will curl up there

iris with the red hair: while i tend the hearth

lavender cat: you are the flame in my heart

iris with the red hair: you are the fur on my toast

lavender cat: i do try

iris with the red hair: let's climb the belfry

lavender cat: such chiming never changed a day

iris with the red hair: i like the power of its call

lavender cat: the perspective of a possible fall

iris with the red hair: how very small we are compared to its enormity

lavender cat: how disposable we are against the validity of hours

iris with the red hair: we must make it ours

two virginias

friday evening i decided at the last minute that tashi and i would join dan in his visit to a friend's cabin in the mountains of west virginia. the three of us had gone to the greek festival to have some good old dinner from the homeland, and dan was going to embark on the two hour drive afterwards. i wasn't sure if it would be worth it for us to join him, since we needed to return by 4 the next day so tash could attend a birthday party. i asked tashi what she wanted to do and she thought quite seriously about it over dinner, and then decided that we should join dan in his adventure. so we gathered up some things from home, piled into the trooper, and drove off with dan in the dark toward mathias, west virginia, where peter, sprout and lily would be waiting for us in their mountainside cabin near the lost river state park.

and what a cabin it was. a beautiful wooden two story high up in the trees. the windows looked out upon a deep and twinkling valley, and a long chain of the appalachians. a stood there mesmerized by stars and mist at 3am, after strong beer and heh heh heh, a wee bit of scotch and warmth from a wood burning stove. the trees were leafless still gestures in charcoal bathed in the bright light of a chipped moon.

we arose this morning to sunlight and sky, pancakes and eggs and bacon and bagles, and took a steep hike upward, upon the greenest, mossiest, spongiest forest floor i've ever tread upon. tashi was a great hiker, but pooped out when we neared the top, so her and i and sprout hung out by an outcropping of rocks. i built tashi a little lean-to out of long branches, and she crouched there pretending to cook acorn soup, while sprout and i discussed childbirth. lily and dan and peter danced about on "cranny crow", and afterwards shared with us their pictures of the vista.

we left after lunch, a visit too short, but just perfect. tashi made it to her birthday party, and now we are all sleepy and pleased because the country roads took us home to a place where we belong.

blahgrrr

i was hoping that i would wake up feeling more cheerful, but alas, not. especially after i poured boiling chai over my hand while trying to fill a thermos. dan watched the whole performance and said, "you should use a funnel." my response is not worth noting, but it wasn't quiet.

i slunk out of the house and, on the way to work, stopped at foods of all nations hoping to find some lunch. in their deli case was one bowl of dolmas and nothing else. so i perused the sandwiches and they were at least $2 more than they were the other day. i'm not sure how that happened.

so i moved on to the belair market, a "gourmet gas station" as it's called in these parts. you can fill up your gas tank, buy an espresso, order a horomone free meat sandwich on fresh baked bread, pick up some ghirardelli chocolates or a toblerone, fill up a bag with jelly bellies, and buy a christmas present. i just got a peppered turkey sandwich on wheat bread (for about $2 less than the afore mentioned sandwiches). and a toblerone.

i thought the barnswallow would make the blahs go away but i walked into a ship wreck. everything was in chaos because tomorrow night there is an open house and the owners are madly rearranging and pricing and dusting and polishing. so i tied little ribbons on bells and polished glass and cleared away clutter and walked around with a feather duster. izzy the cat showed up and kept me company and curled up cutely in picturesque corners.

the blahs had pretty much passed by the time i picked up tashi from school. we took the scenic ride down to highway 29 (can i say fucking highway 29?) where just about every good and nasty grocery store strip mall shop plaza and chain store is in charlottesville. we did discover a small indian market on the way, tucked off on rio road. so we picked up some haldiram's moong-dal-snack and a package of naan.

why am i talking about grocery stores again?

b is for blah

everything is just a little blah right now.

blah blah blah

i've had a heachache for two days. the first two human cases of the bird flu have popped up in china. the holidays are upon us. my cat has diarrhea. and the customer of the day is a woman who has had like two bowel movements in a month. not even senna leaf worked for her.

sorry to be so scatological.

on other fronts, i watched the wal-mart movie in a full theater on monday. i even got a free wal-mart watch t-shirt. the wal-mart movie is loaded with appalling information. like: the walton family gives less than 1% of their riches to charity compared to bill gates who apparently offers up more than 50% of his. we all know wal-mart sucks, but go and see the movie and you'll discover that they suck even more than you could have ever imagined. it may not be too late: clickity click to find a screening near you!.

bed, bbc news and book are what i am going to curl up with now. they all begin with b, just like blah.

in the wake of the quake

this just in from a friend of a friend of a friend. she is a nursing/midwifery student at yale and spent two weeks doing relief work in pakistan. there are some good website links at the bottom:

I'm home safe and sound, but it's difficult to process all that we saw in
northeastern Pakistan. The official numbers--80,000 dead, at least that
many wounded, three million homeless--are overwhelming, but it's my patients'
faces, their smiles and kisses and tears that tether my heart to Kashmir.

The first place we visited was the city of Balakot, once one of the
loveliest spots in the country, now completely reduced to rubble and permeated with
the stench of dead bodies. From there we went to Kashmir, where I worked with
a team of doctors and surgeons in a field hospital in the capital city of
Muzzafarabad. Our camp treated 1200-1500 outpatients a day, and had male
and female inpatient tents as well as basic surgery and radiology facilities.
From 9am til 9 or 10pm I gave injections, cleaned and bandaged wounds, and took
care of inpatient nursing needs. As camp midwife, I saw all the pregnant women
and was on call for deliveries. When not doing clinical work I sat with
patients and chatted in my limited and apparently rather amusing Urdu.

I caught three babies in a delivery room we set up in the dirt-floored
supply tent. One of the moms I cared for had lost 45 members of her family,
another had lost her husband and other child, another didn't want to leave our
camp because her tent wasn't warm enough for her new baby. One pregnant mom I
was examining told me, "I was taking prenatal vitamins, but then my house fell
down." One of our patients had had two miscarriages and a stillbirth and
her husband had threatened to divorce her and take another wife if she didn't
have a child, so we decided to do a c-section. The generator died after we got her
anesthetized, but we went ahead and did the surgery without power.
Thankfully, mama and baby did just fine.

Among our patients on the inpatient ward was a family with six injured
children, including one boy who probably suffered a concussion and went into a coma
after not eating or drinking for ten days. His mom was convinced he was
possessed by a jinn and at first told us not to touch him. On one of our worst nights, an old man died in the camp and then a few hours later, a little boy died, the only one of his mother's four children to have survived the earthquake. Holding
her as she sobbed, it seemed we were inundated by far too much grief for one
mother, one nation to endure.

I am deeply grateful for your love and prayers that sustained me through
times when I felt overwhelmed and exhausted. Please continue to pray for the
affected people of Pakistan, and consider donating to relief efforts. The
situation is critical, especially in the mountains as winter approaches.
$80 will buy a tent through the UNHCR; Save the Children and World Vision, two
agencies I know do good work, are also on the ground. I've listed their
websites below, plus the BBC site which has the best coverage of the
situation. The human spirit is resilient and there's good work happening, but they
desperately need our help.

bbc coverage

un refugee agency coverage

save the children

worldvision

foods and fuss

i didn't really like the gourmet grocery store foods of all nations when i first came to town. i just thought it was a lot of hype. but now that i've started to visit the mermaid express, a woman owned cafe inside foods of all nations, i'm gaining a new respect.

first of all, mermaid express feels like a cafe-car on a train, or a lesbian truck stop, or a teahouse in a roadside trailer. not that it's even close to any of those things, but that's the way it feels to me. and they make the best chai latte in town. the twisted branch tea bazaar makes the best indian style chai, but mermaid express makes the best all-western chai latte.

today i went to mermaid express with dan. after he left i looked at the abysmal employment ads in the sunday paper and then after that i decided to pick up some onions in the grocery store so i could make tashi's favorite [boring] kasha dish for dinner. in doing so i discovered that foods of all nations has pretty reasonably priced produce. at least today they did. and they carry a complete line of ecologically grown greens and herbs from planet earth diversified. ok, so what? well then i discovered a small reasonably priced bottle of taramosalata which is a greek dip that only my mom and i like. it is made of carp roe caviar, lemon, olive oil and potato pulp. i don't expect you to understand. and then i felt happy about the huge vats of sheep feta followed by a longish row of indian foods. also, the deli is interesting and the sandwiches priced fairly. lastly, they have a whole lot of wine and chocolate, but i'll stick to rebecca's for that.

maybe i shouldn't be promoting one grocery store when i work at another? maybe i shouldn't be promoting a grocery store at all? maybe i shouldn't be working in a grocery store?

anyhow, i think i should go and plant the bulbs our friend suzanne gave us. she will be in nepal writing her dissertation when they bloom. i'll plant the bulbs while wishing her a fruitful journey.

attic rag doll

iris with the red hair: the fox with too many ideas was paralyzed by indecision when the hunters came around.

lavender cat: but the cat had just one idea and he acted on it. he climbed a tree.

iris with the red hair: you cats believe you're so superior.

lavender cat: just don't think about it too much.

iris with the red hair: i will close my eyes and a pick a book: it is the collected works of lorine niedecker. i will do it again: it is dharma family treasures: sharing buddhism with children. ok, one more time now: it is light in august by william faulkner.

lavender cat: i'm just going to pick one: it is the celtic consciousness, edited by robert o'driscoll.

iris with the red hair: i thought the walls were closing in on me.

lavender cat: but at least the framed painting offered an opportunity to step out.

iris with the red hair: quit name dropping.

lavender cat: quit folding up.

iris with the red hair: but i love origami. and those notes we passed long ago in grade school. and the laundry. it is so warm and crisp when i pull it from the drier.

lavender cat: what about dahlias. and peonies. and calendulas. and cosmos.

iris with the red hair: you're brilliant, so smug in that tree.

lavender cat: and i love you most when panic casts the shadow of a dozen twiggy branches across your face.

war is not good for children and other living things

customer of the day award goes to a man who came in and told me he's used every homeopathic/herbal sedative and form of melatonin on the shelf, and he still has trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. i suggested some simple infusions but he seemed dubious. "i just haven't been able to sleep well since i returned from military duty," he informed me.

a true reggae uprising

a great song called "slogans" has risen from bob marley's grave. apparently it was discovered by son, ziggy, on a tape of family archives, and is believed to have been recorded in miami in 1979. it has some overdubbings of eric clapton on guitar. and this freaking awesome video which apparently will be viewable online for a limited time. it has some amazing marley concert footage, and some incredible historical footage of events from the 60's to the present. do check it out brothers and sisters!

great blue propane clustered lanterns

it was 36 degrees this morning when i went to work and the barnswallow was cold. it is a barn after all. soon the owners will hook up the wood stove and i'll have to build a fire in it each morning. i think that's really quaint. but today we had the proprane heater going. this is kind of like sharing the room with a rocket. really loud and spitting flame.

at one point i stepped outside to turn off the propane tank which was emitting a horrible stink. as i opened the door a great blue heron flew from its spot just a couple of yards away. it had been hanging out by the brook that winds by the barn. it flew away from me and then gave me another thrill by turning around and flying overhead before disappearing into the distance. i was so in love.

and there were customers! one woman bought a necklace for $275. and another woman bought a wall lamp for $185. i can't even imagine spending that much money on pretty things.

after picking up tashi from school we had to kill time for a bit because we soon had to return to school for an autumnal potluck and lantern walk. we went to the greenwood greengrocer, a gourmet grocery store/deli/espresso bar in the middle of nowhere. we opted for dark chocolate coated raspberry ice cream bars, organic mind you. then we took a bit of a drive up toward the shenandoah national forest and then down a windy mountain road through a quaint village called afton. we reached a sort of valley and i was just blown away by mountains mountains mountains mountains everywhere! don't get me wrong, they're not granite sprouting snow pointed mountains. but soft rolling thick lovable mountains covered in gold and orange and umber. they feel like friends.

we drove a sort of loop and ended up back in greenwood where we stopped at the country store, an antique shop where anyone can rent a shelf and have like a permanent yard sale.

and then we drove back to the school in crozet where there was a kick ass potluck and lantern walk. i ate lasagne and quiche and ravioli and kale and salad and sesame noodles and apple sauce and pumpkin cupcakes. the kids walked and sang songs and carried beautiful carved out tin can lanterns with candles inside.

and then tashi yelled with great venom at me the whole way home because she felt her class had plotted against her and left her out of the circle of children singing songs at the end of the walk. i told her that i felt her sadness, but tried to explain to her that there was no circle, just a jumbled group of bobbing kids with no organization what-so-ever. she simply hadn't pushed her way into the jumble. but she was convinced the class had a secret plan to exclude her and that they were all to blame for the fact that she was on the outskirts and that i didn't care. it was depressing and infuriating and frustrating and i had to struggle to remain sympathetic yet rational. one of those moments when you wish the perfect parental words of wisdom will just flow forth and sedate your kid-gone-bonkers.

when we got home i drew her a diagram of what the circle really looked like (many dots randomly placed in a cluster) versus the perfect circle she thought she'd been shut out of (many dots forming, yes, a perfect circle). suddenly, it all seemed to click. she realized that all the kids had someone in front of them or behind them and that she wasn't the only one on the outskirts. and she realized that no one was to blame, but that it simply just hadn't gone the way she wished it had.

and so we had a breakthrough lovefest followed by a snack of frozen corn kernels (what can i say, my kid likes to eat frozen corn kernels), bedtime stories, lullabies, hugs, kisses and easy sleep (after getting up once or twice for this or that). phew.

who says parental wisdom can't come in diagrams.

down with the evil regime

the good news is in:

the house rules committee has removed the nasty arctic refuge and offshore drilling provisions from the budget-reconciliation package

and (this is old news now)

tim kaine won the vote for virginia governor (and even better, jerry kilgore did
* not * win the vote for virginia governor)

and

next week the exciting documentary about wal-mart's poor labor practices will be screened in over 7,000 neighborhood sites nationally. find the screening near you! dan and i will have to take turns attending, as we have a kid who is a little young for this sort of thing. dan is going to view it on wednesday at an anarcho activist community space/art collective called "better than television." and i'm going to view it on monday upstairs from the collective at the jefferson theater. let's hear it for grass roots community action!