the gang's all here

My older brother and his family have lived in Prague for the past decade or so, and my younger brother and his family have lived all over: California, Oklahoma, and now Mobile, Alabama. It's rare that we're all together, but this weekend we were, and I got to meet my striking red-headed nephew for the very first time! He's the little one on the far right. His older sister is next to him in white. My kids are on the left, and the remaining three belong to my younger brother and his wife:

Striking red-headed nephew is also known as "the dude." Here are the dude's parents, his mom* explaining to me why she doesn't like having her picture taken:

What's one of the neatest things about family gatherings at my mom's house? The horseshoe pit.



Lee: 21, Josh: 3. Not exactly regulation play. BURN! says Lee to Josh, nevertheless.

* SIL has an actual camera and knows how to use it, as opposed to my crapass cell phone and hasty clicks. Check out her blog for beautiful shots of all kinds of interesting things.

full moon pie

I was deleting some pictures from my phone when I came across this one. We celebrated Leah's seventh birthday shortly after we moved out here, before we had a functional kitchen or even a bathroom sink. Our guests had to wash their hands in the tub. I couldn't bake a cake with no oven, so I did the next best thing. Okay so maybe it wasn't the next best thing.

fine german engineering

Well, we did it. We got another dog. A German Shepherd pup named Maya. We're keeping her close for now, only letting her roam by leash until she knows it's home. She spent most of the day running between the front porch and the rest of the house, sliding around on the floor for lack of traction. For anyone interested in really great books about raising dogs, check out what The Monks of New Skete have to offer.

I'm dog tired (ouch), and I've grown weary of the captcha game (although I did find it amusing that the one I most recently encountered was "besynucl"), so that's it for the first day of February.

highland court

In my last post, I mentioned Sloss Furnaces. I spent most of my young adult life living in various apartments on Southside. The last place I lived as a single girl was called Highland Court.

Glen and Joe and Becca lived in Highland Court. That model chick and her cute musician husband lived in Highland Court. The crazy girl who didn't own a pair of comfortable shoes and turned up the techno music at 3am lived in Highland Court. I had a small balcony and my dog Lucy and the long, narrow stairwell up to my door. I rode my bike everywhere and fell asleep to Michael Hedges or John Coltrane or Peter Gabriel. As happy as I was to get married, I had a hard time saying goodbye to Highland Court.

Every now and again we'd build a little fire in the middle of the courtyard and stay up all night. One night we decided to walk to Sloss at around... hell, I don't know... maybe 2? 3? 4? On the way, we had to stop for a train. There was a cop parked next to the tracks. The train was carrying tank after tank after tank. The cop said he was there to make sure nothing happened. He didn't hassle us at all, which was fortunate given our general state of mind. It was a little odd.

The train rolled past and the tanks got smaller. The cop took off, and we kept walking. I don't remember how we got onto the premises -- whether we had to sneak through or climb over anything, or whether it was all pretty accessible. But we got in, and we wandered through, and we climbed up that really high tower, which is way higher than you realize until you're up there. We smashed our cigarette butts into a film cannister so as not to litter. And later I wrote a song.

I'm a little reluctant to post song lyrics, because they never quite work unless they're being sung. Poetry is meant for the page; lyrics are meant for the song. But I'm going to give it a go and see how it turns out. I think I probably wrote this in 1998 or so. I typically fingerpick variations of C and G with a capo on the fourth fret when playing it. It's called Highland Court.

Came dancing through the courtyard,
wings and wands and fairy dust
Sprinkled it beside me on a night made out of August
Followed them to the railroad,
saw them ship the tanks off for the war
It used to be that war was just a word
we never heard

Taught me how to read the map,
how to find the belly of the tree
Biggest one in all the forests east of the Mighty Mississippi
Older than my daddy,
old as god, old as mercy
It used to be that mercy was just a word
we never heard

Climbed the stairs to the furnace,
climbed down into the canyon's bowl
Ate my granny apple, lay back as the time unfolded
Quiet as the backseat
in the dark on the way home
Quiet is a ladle full of words
we never heard

Yeah, well -- not quite the same as a poem. Music adds rhythm and inflection and an emotional sense that would otherwise be built into a poem. Lyrics alone are confusing and easy to stumble over.

Wrapped up in this song is a whole nother adventure in the Sipsey Wilderness, as well as one in the Little River Canyon, but I'll save those for another day. They all took place while I was living in that little apartment, with all of those people that I wonder about now.

(And yes, I do consider "a whole nother" to be perfectly acceptable Alabama grammar.)

adventure in oneonta

Today we met Annie of Edifice Rex! This woman is building her house from the ground up, using passive solar design and lots of salvaged materials, among other hip, green approaches. Here is a shot of her and Lee, discussing smart building versus stupid building:

And here are the kids, standing at the spot where the spring and the creek converge:

Once home, Lee was inspired to start a Yahoo group called Blount County Earth -- a place to share information, resources and ideas for residents of Blount County, Alabama, specifically creative/alternative building, farming and other sustainable living practices.

So cool to meet blogfriends. Turns out we were both at the Cowboy Junkies show at Sloss Furnaces waaaaay back in the day. I like it when the world is small and friendly.

I'll close with a gratuitous shot of recently gathered eggs, which are now being made into huevos rancheros for a late-night snack:

how i feel about today

Hell.

Yeah.

Baby.


Amen.

mlk day captcha

aindselp

- noun: turn-of-the-century farm implement

That's about as much as I can muster at the moment. I wonder what turn-of-the-century farmers used their aindselps for? You tell me. I am off to bed. Tomorrow is a big day!

let's go fly a kite

The unbelievably-cold-for-Alabama snap has passed, and today was just perfect for flying a kite:

I didn't take any pictures of Lee climbing the ladder to the very top of the Kite-Eating Tree. You'll just have to imagine that.

sunday evening captcha

outions

- noun: preparations to leave a place

Example:

In order to get to the party on time, we need to start making outions.

This word works best when pronounced as though you are from Canada (oo-tions).

city vs country: the junky yard

Junky yards are a dime a dozen wherever you live (or at least, in neighborhoods not far from wherever you live). I usually assume the best -- that someone is in the process of cleaning up -- because I've been there before. (Still go there sometimes.) But there is one particular category of junky yard that I never saw when I lived in the city: the eternal yard sale.

A couple of years ago, the inhabitant of a nearby trailer decided to have a yard sale. At the end of the weekend, most of the stuff had not been sold. This is when most people would donate the remaining items, or else shove them all into a hidden corner. But this remarkable woman wakes up every morning with renewed hope and faith that someone will stop by and want something. And very slowly, over the past couple of years, the amount of stuff in her front yard has dwindled, though not to the extent that you can't tell it was originally a yard sale.

Here is what I find most perplexing: some mornings, I see her out in the yard, pulling weeds or raking leaves, and I think, huh. Wouldn't a yard covered in leaves be better than a yard covered in junk? So I suppose she is keeping things tidy for the next customer, and the next, and so on, throughout eternity.

eggs!!!

This is the best thing that has happened to us in a while. The chickens are starting to lay in the coop again. Even our "teenagers" are growing up and we're getting some lovely blue/green eggs.

parental discretion advised

I sweartagod it's only a mushroom. A shiitake. Lee ordered it from Fungi Perfecti. He puts them in his miso soup every morning, along with some fresh ginger.

Lee is a man of many concoctions. He is sitting here next to me, so I think I will take this opportunity to interview him about it.

M: Can I talk about all of your concoctions?
L: Sure. You wanna know what I just now drank?
M: Okay.
L: Five dashes of cayenne pepper in water. I used it to wash down my curcumin pills.
M: What do those do?
L: Oh, everything. I am also soaking two cacao beans in water to remove the skin, revealing the delicious nibs inside.
M: Any others you'd like to mention?
L: Of course red wine, my favorite staple, which I prefer to drink early in the morning.
M: Don't you do some kind of algae?
L: No, alfalfa. I mix 1 tablespoon alfalfa with 1 tablespoon brewer's yeast, and it tastes really good with chocolate soy milk. Earlier today, I mixed approximately 4 ounces kefir, 1 teaspoon ground flax seed, and 1 teaspoon flax seed oil, and then consumed it. But my favorite, as you know, is garlic. Simply smoosh, wait ten minutes, and consume raw. I put it in water and drink it.
M: Yes, that one's fun.
L: I take 1 tablespoon unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of local honey or blackstrap molasses every now and then.
M: Are you the healthiest man alive?
L: No, but it keeps me going.

So there you have it.

L: But I've got more.
M: Really?
L: Goldenseal root tea, or any old green tea. I like to chew raw cinnamon sticks. And I like anything that's cultured, like unpasteurized sauerkraut and kimchee. I also take a quarter teaspoon of the apple cider vinegar mixed with distilled water in a neti pot to flush my sinuses. Which I quit doing for a while and then I got a cold, so now I'm doing it again.
M: It's way past time for the kids to go to bed.

if it's sunday, it's captcha game day

Today's word is...

ruscapp

Hmmm. How about...

- noun: a slang term used by software developers to refer to an outdated application

Bonus: Jenga! Here is a shot of the tower created during a game between Leah and Lee. It lasted for several more moves, finally falling on one of Lee's turns. A most spellbinding game!

sew groovy

The event that sort of kicked off our string of bad luck was the passing of Lee's maternal grandmother back in October. Since then, we have been making trips to Montgomery to help clear out her house. I believe it's safe to say that this woman kept everything. EVERYthing. I spent a good hour tossing items from the pantry that were not from this decade (or this century, for that matter). Some of the canned goods were oozing black from the bottom (can you say botulism?). My hour of labor yielded no visible results; the pantry is still packed.

So when I was asked whether I might be interested in a closet full of fabric, I was inclined to say no. I am trying to get rid of stuff, not collect it. And when I say a closet full, I mean that she could have started a small fabric store. But once I started going through it, I just couldn't help myself. There was some really good stuff in there:

Those are just a couple of samples of the HUGE and HEAVY bag full of fabric I must now wash. (It's kinda old and stale.) Once it's all ready, I can get to it using this:

Time to start making things for next Christmas....

at long last

Other than some sinus irritation, Leah's MRI results are normal.

Phew. (As opposed to phick.)

The doctor's office was extremely apologetic about how long it took. The holidays, combined with the moving picture quality of the results, delayed the feedback. Thank goodness we don't have to do that again. I'll be consulting with them and the pediatrician again next week to determine whether we need to shift gears and visit the twitch clinic. Some days it's so minimal that we hardly think about it; others it's so bad that she holds her eye and asks for a warm, wet washcloth, and the worry grabs hold again. The twitch clinic would try to determine whether it's your basic twitch, or whether it looks more like Tourette's (the age of onset fits).

Did I hide my nervous wreckishness well?

would you like to play a game?

CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

Of all the captchas I encounter on various different sites, I like Blogger's the best. They're readable, they don't include numbers, and they're never actual words, although they have actual word potential. Perfect nonsense.

For several days, I have been recording my captchas with the goal of creating definitions for them. (Here is where taking Latin instead of French and Spanish would have been useful.)

Today's captcha is...

phick

- noun: an unsophisticated urbanite (a big-city hick)
- interjection: expressing upset or tension as opposed to relief or fatigue (opposite of phew)

What do you think phick should mean?

a little something i left out

Death of a Jeep

I told myself it was because he never downloaded the pictures onto my computer, but really it was because it was all just too much at the time. Dear readers, you'll never believe what happened today: a small portion of the universe imploded right over our house! Now, I know you've already left several concerned and sympathetic comments, but please keep coming back for more!

So here's the story: In between the death of our dog and Leah's MRI, a three ton company van ran a red light and crashed smack dab into Lee. I mean, like, the only thing between the van and Lee was Lee's car door, which couldn't be opened afterwards. Pieces of the dashboard flew off, Lee's head broke his door's window, and the sandwich he was eating for lunch ended up on the hood of the van.

When Leah found out, she said, "Poor Daddy. First Dee died and then the Jeep died." Which pretty much sums it up.

Lee is absolutely fine. Physically. But he gets depressed every time he sees a Jeep, and because the Jeep used to be mine, I can relate. You can't beat the turning radius on that thing. And it held all of his tools, ladders on top, without being obnoxiously big. The red-light-runner's company's insurance paid for a rental truck, which was a bigass pickup that was impossible to park and made us feel like ugly Americans. So he's driving my old Altima and looking for a replacement Jeep.

And lo, we shall make a mess of hoppin' john on the eve of the new year, and we shall eat that hoppin' john to bring forth many miracles; to know but good news and glad tidings in the days to come.

merry morning

Still no MRI results (I think the pictures ended up being pretty messy; we might have to do it again, with sedation -- ugh), but we managed to have a very merry Christmas anyway.

Here is Neal telling Santa that he wants a trampoline. Santa must have listened, because there was a mini-trampoline under the tree that Neal and Leah have taken turns bouncing on all morning long.

mri

if everything comes apart in this helium cooled
superconducting electromagnet,
we're coming apart
together
i think
as i hold your hand that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

rings and zippers -- no worries, they said
just before the wallmuralwhales
began to thump and howl and
my ring began to vibrate so
i moved it to my other hand --
the one that was holding your feet that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

no worries, they said from behind the glass
but my baby didn't come with one of those
mr safe green stickers
and good thing i thought of her ponytail holder
-mom, does she know she's moving her feet?-
two minutes, maybe; two hours, not likely she'll
bestillnomatterwhat

i want to fall asleep standing up
-- no, i want to crawl inside the tube,
poke fun at each other's ear plugs,
notice that you are weeping
- mom, is she okay?-
i think so, just fidgety, just
bestillnomatterwhat

The Commons

A while back, the Library of Congress partnered with Flickr to place a bunch of really cool old photographs online, open to comments and tags from the public. Since then, other libraries, museums, and archives have joined in the fun. To get a sense of what's out there, and the remarkable way that folks can participate in the conversation of history, go here, being sure to scroll down through all of the comments until you get to the really good stuff.

from halloween to hohoho

Wicked:

In case you were wondering what we do for fun out here:

Abstract, by Leah:

The first version of this sign said, No Boys Aloud. I thought that was equally appropriate.

Hiiiiiiiideehooooooooooooooooo:

yesterday was hard

Lee found her. Close to home, beneath juniper branches and leaves, lifeless but intact. We suspect she was hit by a car and crawled into the brush. She still looked so D -- I found myself staring at her belly to be certain it was no longer making little ups and downs.

I took the kids over to Mom's for a belated Thanksgiving dinner while Lee took D over to his dad's to bury her. Now she makes things grow.

recommended reading

Okay, so clearly I have not yet gotten the camera and am still using my cell phone, but Christmas is a-comin', so it could happen. I just had to post this grainy shot anyway, because among the pile of books I found in Leah's bed (just next to an issue of Captain Underpants) was Mom's. (To be clear to readers who might come away thinking I'm a Durr, Mom edited this autobiography from recorded interviews.)

Now, to be honest, I think Neal grabbed it when she asked him to bring her a big book to put under some drawing paper, but still, it was neat to happen upon this particular juxtaposition of books in my daughter's bed.

meme

I think normally people ask you to do these, but I ripped mine off of a blog I was browsing via another blog:

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: Farmer Dean
(Mother’s & father’s middle names)

NASCAR NAME: Curren Cecil
(First name of mother’s dad, father’s dad)

STAR WARS NAME: Wamarg (Wameg for short)
(First 2 letters of last name, first 4 letters of first name)

DETECTIVE NAME: Cobalt Dog
(Favorite color, favorite animal)

SOAP OPERA NAME: Barnard Hayden, but everybody calls me Pace
(Middle name, city where you live)

SUPERHERO NAME: Indigo Stella
(2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink)

FLY NAME: Maes (or Mees; it's superfly to have an alternate spelling)
(First 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)

GANGSTA NAME: Strawberry Thin Mint
(Favorite ice cream, favorite cookie)

ROCK STAR NAME: Sika Pinecrest
(Current pet’s name, current street name)

PORN NAME: Candy Overlook
(1st pet, street you grew up on)

day three

Some things just don't fit. When your dog disappears, vocabulary is too snug; requires unbuttoning. There is no trace of predator, no trace of accident, no trace of unfortunate event. Coyote, car, snake -- there is none of that. She does not roam away from home. Ever. We have called and driven and walked and made signs. Leah made a list of places to look, and clues, and kept asking, But what's different about today? And the answer is nothing. Nothing but the missingness.

We keep expecting her to show, keep looking sideways out the front door, over to where her bed and an unopened bag of dog food wait for her return. My head feels cloudy, as though there is something that will suddenly become clear: Oh yeah, I forgot, she's in the ....

Yesterday, a turkey ambled through our yard, mingled with the chickens for a bit, and went on her way. I might normally take this as a sign of good fortune -- a Thanksgiving shout out from Mother Nature. Instead it just seemed weird and haunted. Nothing fits.