Danny and Annie

When I lived in Vermont, I had no clock, so in one of his magnificent care packages, K. sent me one, complete with a radio alarm, for I hate to wake to a buzzer.

Now it's by our bed. This morning, it went off at 6.50, and NPR flooded the room loud and clear. Usually one of us hits it, but this morning, we listened to this project called Story Corp. Apparently there is a New Jersey man named Danny who loves to talk to Story Corp about his wife, Annie.

He was described as a bald toothless gnome of a man, and his voice was pure grit, but he spoke tenderly about how much he loves his wife. Apparently he's done this so often that Danny and Annie are now the "faces"-- or voices rather-- of Story Corp. My favorite was when he said being married is like having a color television-- you don't ever want to go back.

Of course, they are re-visiting the story of Danny and Annie because Danny has cancer, and is expected to die soon. He says he doesn't expect to live, but he and Annie talk often of hope-- hope for her future after he's gone.

There are not enough men or women who wear their heart on the sleeves, and it is so exhilerating to see someone do so. Embarrassing, of course, especially for us Wasps. But exhilerating nonetheless.

Check their pics out at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5230164

HAPPY THOUGHTS

you can always just go to bed.

bathtubs.

somewhere, the sun is shining.

spring is coming.

there are many beautiful shades of bubblegum pink tonenail polish.

george bush can not be president longer than his term (thank you, mr. roosevelt.)

tulip bulbs.

the earth will run out of oil. (YEAH! WOOHOO! WHAT WILL WE DO NEXT?)

saturday could involve: french toast, coffee, a grapefruit, a walk.

celebrities and their oh-so-traumatic lives.

all-girl bookclubs.

dogs and people who like dogs.

thunderstorms.

screen porches.

three-day weekends.

swimming in a sun-warmed lake.


kisses chickies!

heads' up!

Why is it that lists of things to do before you die include items such as:

write the great american novel
learn to speak french
travel to the great wall of china

and so on.

right now, i have several ambitions, and they look like this:

learn to make slipcovers
get our taxes done
plan interesting lunches for next week, so my husband doens't have to eat dinty moore out of a can (which is really very good, but also very much like canned dog food).
keep writing my not-the-great-america-novel
get something done to my eyebrows

and so on :)

nonetheless, i firmly beleive that it is important to keep in mind those things you'd really LIKE to accomplish, as opposed to the ones you kinda have to accomplish (read taxes).

so think, people, think, and then do what i do best: list. because if you're like me, you might forget.

V Day Approaches

I have never really been single. Not something that's couth to say, but it's true-- I counted up the months in high school, and there were 8-- combined-- of singleness, and then in college, well, the minute I broke up w/my highschool boyfriend I was madly in love with K.

But depite all my years of coupledom, I've never had a truly superb Valentine's Dy. Or even a romantic one. My old boyyfriend paid for Chinese take-out once. And back BEFORE I was with K., he sent me some really beautiful tea that made me very angry at Chinese-take-out boyfriend.

Why am I telling you this? Because I am boldly shattering the myth that all couples have February 14ths filled with teddy bears, massage oils, and romantic dinners. Actually, I've always thought the single versions of V-day sounded great-- chick flick, pajamas, and chocolate. Mmmm. Chick flicks. A moive without 1: really awesome special effects 2: loud noises and spilling intestines and 3: car chases that supposedly make up for the complete lack of plot and ridiculous dialogue.

In essence, Valentine's Dy is a day of loathing for Singles and Smug Marrieds alike-- because all it does is higlight what's not there*. So buy your chocolate, and call your mom. She'll be glad to hear from you.

Peace out chickens

* I am blessed with a very romantic husband-- who nonetheless has a deep, deep aversion to being told what to do and when to do it.

Getting to the Golden Years

Kagan and I have been talking a lot these days about retirement. By the by, I am a champion worrier, and really, I can freak out about the most far-off event, even if I don't know that it will happen. We had the kids conversation BEFORE we started dating, and the remarraige post-death conversation less than a month after our wedding.

But anyway, retirement. The idea of having enough money to do nothing for twenty odd years of my life strikes me as some strange pot-of-gold urban legend, but I am assured that it is possible (especially with compound interest) if I get off my butt and open a Roth IRA.

Here's what retirement looks like for me: I have a place to live that I like, and I can quit my day job. (With any luck, I can retire in five years :) ) To accomplish this, I need to make a lot of money and stash it away, manipulating the tax system like silly putty.

So how did anyone ever retire? Come on, I know there were old people before social security came and went. How did they live? Did they starve? Did they just drop dead in the fields? Were adult children nicer? Did you die rather than go to the doctor/hospital?

I have to say I'm not really sure.

What's In A Name?

I like my name. I like my husband's name. I think a fair bit about names.


top 10 names in 2005 (in order of popularity):

Emma Emily Madison Kaitlyn Sophia Isabella Olivia Hannah Makayla Ava

Aidan Jacob Ethan Nicholas Matthew Ryan Tyler Jack Joshua Andrew


I confess I'm a big fan, especially when you compare them to the '80s:


Jennifer Jessica Amanda Melissa Sarah Nicole Heather Amy Michelle Elizabeth

Michael Jason Christopher David James Matthew John Joshua Robert Daniel


And just for kicks, let's look at the 60's:


Mary Susan Karen Maria Lisa Linda Donna Patricia Debra Deborah

David Michael John James Robert Mark William Richard Thomas Steven


The weirdest thing of all? Savannah, which is the name my sister and I duel over, is n. 47 on the 2005 list.

All the good names are taken (pout, flounce-off).

Just for kicks: Things I Don't Believe In ctd.

nuclear power

living together pre-marriage

mean men

pantyhose

sweaters with faces on them (read santa clause, reindeer, etc.)

deficit spending

this crazy, crazy idea that opening up that one last tiny piece of Alaska will somehow save us from foreign oil dependence (really-- look at a map.)

being bad at your job

vegetarianism

lunching with co-workers you don't really like

annual letters about how great your family is (oh, mom and i had so much fun with this one. we'd compose them in the car. this year, dad moved four times, the septic tank erupted into the library, alexe got two speeding tickets and went to three driving schools, eliza began bathing regularily, and oh, our dog died.)

negativity :)

cheerio children.

Things I Don't Believe In:

educational software for children

peeled carrots

ADD

ADHD

eggs, potatoes, and dairy being bad for you

eloping

NOT having engagement bling

George Bush

people who want to ban abortion-- especially men

atheism, agnosticsm, and Unitarianism* (*if my understanding of this denomination is correct)

Will Farrell and all of Will Farrell's movies

Napoleon Dynamite, while we're at it

war-- with an exception of defensive wars

poorly written chick lit books

Montessori school for kids under the age of 4-- unless you're clear that you just want them out of the house

divorcing because you're just not in love anymore

owning a hot tub

"finding" yourself

frosting in a can

prudes (read: people who don't like dogs, who can't handle a little dirt, who have never roughhoused)

the public school system

having to go to graduate school

our gross miserliness towards teachers

pale bloated men who work 12 hours a day WHILE having a family

having to have curtains

piano lessons, soccer teams, etc. for children under the age of 5 (unless they beg you because they actually really want to)

buying furniture, blinds, cars, and clothes on credit

SUVs with the exception of TRUCKS for FARMERS, not: college students, teenagers, soccer moms, or corporate honchos

the stock market

this strange notion that America is superior to Europe, especially with regards to our economy (oh, i'll take you down on this one. Just ask.)

oh-so-literary fiction

EFFICIENCY

roads without sidewalks

strip malls

going to a new place and shopping at the same 100 retail stores found across America

Yogilates


but as always, I close with the fact that I really do love my dishwasher.

san diego

Chickens, I am off to San Diego, and I am trying not to lose or forget everything I own (coversation in my head: did i pack a sweater? No. damn. I'm going to freeze again, just like I did in Capri. Well, who cares-- all I really have to do is remember my passport. Don't LOSE my passport, not before I get to the airport, or while AT the airport like last time.)

So once again, peace out chickens.

peace out, chickens

I heard a story the other day about a hippie-ish do-gooder who started a community garden in the slums of D.C. He was harvesting one summer afternoon when a group of children approached him and began asking questions, like what's that? and what are you doing? and are you crazy?

After some friendly banter, he pulled out carrots. It had the same effect as a magician producing a white rabbit out of a hat, because they'd never really thought about things growing in the ground.

Seeing this, the hippie-ish do-gooder asked, "What other things grow in the ground?"

One small boy ventured, "spaghetti?"

I don't understand how fax machines work. I don't understand how computers or telephones or nail polish remover works. Until two years ago, I had no idea where garlic or cloves or mustard came from. I'm confused by our facts of life, such as concrete and grocery stores and cublicles.

But you know, I really do love my dishwasher.

Eleanor Rigbys

“This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
--Douglass Adams

back to food

Fact: Kagan and I spend roughly ten percent of our take-home pay on food. (And our take-home pay doesn't count the 401k or mortgage or insurance or metrocheks.)

Fact: in 1900, the average family spent nearly half their income on food.

Half.

Also, we really do it up in the grocery stores. Luckily, my more frugal half gets most things on sale, but we still have grapefruits and Gruyere and organic milk and antibiotic-free chicken. What did that half include in 1900?

My point is: food is cheap.

This isn't a popular point these days, what with all the talk of low-income people being forced to consume the 25-cent donut sticks and honeybuns. It's true that while all food is cheap, bad food is even cheaper. Perhaps that's because it doesn't come from anything real, who knows, or that so many people buy it that they can produce with economies of scale. I don't know. But I digress.

Food is cheap.

And really, with more people in America and way, way, way fewer farmers, where does it all come from?

Snippet

I am a snoop; ergo, I love biographies. Not the boring oh-he-did-do-many-important-things ones, but more like the he hated his mother, loved his wife, and took baths every Monday evening ones.

So, shamelessly stealing from the Writer's Almanac: a man named Robinson Jeffers was born today in the early 1900s. Though from Pennsylvania, he went to boarding schools all through Europe, including Geneva, Zurich, and (!) Vevey. By the age of 19, he had completed his undergrad, studied philosophy in Europe, and enrolled in the USC medical school. But, after 3 years, he dropped out and enrolled in forestry school in Washington State. And dropped out of that too.

Meanwhile, he's been having an affair with a married lady named Uma. They met when he was 18 and she was 21. She divorced her husband and they married in 1913, at the ages of 24 and 27 respectively.

Ah, the drama. Don't you just love it? She throws away her marriage to a prominent Los Angeles lawyer to marry this boy. How does anyone see this working?

Also meanwhile, he publishes his first book of poetry, "Flagons and Apples" the year before they marry.

So, he keeps writing poetry, they have a baby girl who dies in infancy, they move to Carmel, and in 1916 (27 and 30 respectively) they have twin boys and Jeffers builds them a stone cottage. Later, he add on a 40 foot stone tower, and they spend the rest of their lives there. His critically-acclaimed career comes in 1924 with the publication of "Tamar and Other Poems."

Uma dies of cancer in late middle age and Jeffers doesn't hang on terribly long after that.

And this morning I didn't even know there was ever a Robinson Jeffers.

See his picture here:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/J/JeffersRobin/images/JeffersRobin.jpg

And the tower here:
http://www.gesc.ttu.edu/Fac_pages/Yoshinobu/RJ/HT_westface_c1925.jpg

and by request, a poem:

To The Stone-Cutters

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.

from Tamar (1920-1923)

sex, medieval-style

In our culture, men are the lustful sex.

Think about that. Agree? If you don't, come on. On TV, women are the ones turning down men's advances...or if you're a Scrubs fan, Turk is contantly nagging Carla for sex, and she's constantly turning him down (remember that time when she says " if you do ___, i'll fufill that fantasy you've always wanted," and he says, "really?" and she says, "yeah, but not with th whip or the silly clothes," and he says, "so normal sex then?" and she says, "if I don't fall asleep first," and he says ok.)

well, in medieval times, women were widely regarded as the lustful sex. Really. Medieval man had the whole madonna-whore complex big-time, but the problem was, a married woman who was totally faithful could still be considered whorish for interest in sex. Bt I digress. The thing that really made me think about this was when I was doing research for a paper and found a primary document that was written by a priest. It had advice about family matters.

This priest told husbands to regularily bed their wives. But why? To procreate? To become closer as a couple? No. The priest stated that women were so base and lustful that they needed constant satisfaction from their men, or they would err and stray. He goes on to use words like "responsability," "duty", and "favour."

That's all mediveal women needed-- men "doing them a favour."

Of course, we've now flipped the other way, and our culture thinks that wives, live-ins, and girlfriends have a duty to keep their man sated and happy. That's why we have the "999 ways to blow his mind" every month in Cosmo. And how many cheating husbands tell their girlfirends that their wives won't have sex anymore?

I'm trying awfully hard not to get bogged down in who's right. I just think it's weird that six hundred years ago, women were perceived as the earthy base sex. I wonder if they had a football and beer equivalent too.

If you're my age
and if you're destined to be an old man/lady
who weds a boy/girl twenty-five years younger than you
then your future spouse won't even be born
until 2007!

appropos of nothing much

I relate months to hours. Apparently, most people don't do this, but bear with me. I think of June as 6 o'clock and October as ten. So now, the minute hand is wavering towards midnight, and boom, we'll be in a new year.

Of course, I also have a lag in my head. So it's astonishing to wake up and realize that instead of 8:30ish, it's really almost January, 2006. I also can't reliably remember that my sister is now 18, even though I've been helping her with her college applications.

We pay a lot of attention to time. We have major milestones that are based on age-- 13, 16, 18, 21, and the dreaded 40-- and others based on duration-- 2 years, 4 years (think politics) and 30 years (think retirement). I work 8 to 4. I have an hour for lunch. I try to do cardio for x amount of time (ain't telling all my secrets).

This seems a bit artificial and contrived to me, but on the other hand, it's dependable, and it lends our lives some kind of framework. I hate that whole "work until you think you've worked enough" kind of attitude because it makes me feel guilty-- frankly, couldn't we all always go a bit farther? I like knowing exactly how far it is to the finish line.

So, on Sunday, it'll be a new year. The clock will be re-set. 12 months to accomplish all of our good intentions.

babies, babies, babies.

fun fact: in some species of wasps, unfertilized eggs become males and fertilized ones become females.

Nature seems to have a lot of variety. Male seahorses bear the babies. Some frogs flip flop back and forth and fertilize themselves. Some pregnancies last thirty days and some last over a year. Some babies are just fetuses, who need a lot of shelter and care (e.g. us and the kangaroo), while others emerge self-sufficient (fish, snakes). And then you have the baby moose, manatee, and elephant, who come ito this world able to keep up with their mother, but still needing her. That's called "precocial," by the by.

I like this: Emperor penguines, the largest of the bunch, have a fairly equitable division of labor. The female lays one egg, which the male then puts his feet under and his fat tummy on top. He then stays there for two months! Losing up to 25 lbs! The mother comes back to feed and raise the newly-born chick, all fattened up from her feeding vacation.

I make things collide all the time, and nothing as cool as penguins results.

thursday thoughts

Question: is work someplace they have to pay you to go, or is it an important piece of your identity?

Here in white-collar America, it's pretty unfashionable to work 9 to 5, go home, and not think about the office until you drag yourself out of bed the next morning. No, indeed. My peers are passionate about their non-profit advocacy jobs (this being D.C.) or intense in their ambition to climb to the top of the finance heap. I don't have a problem with this, not really, although I wonder how they're going to fit in children a few years down the line.

At this point in my life, they most definitely have to pay me to go to work. I leave the moment I can, take nothing home with me, and yearn for the weekend Monday to Friday. That being said, I don't hate my job. It's fine. It leaves me with the mental space for my "real" life.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, after all.

Christmas Is Coming (the geese are getting fat)

Christmas. As a recently married couple, my sweetie and I have had a few talks about what Christmas has been like for us and how we want it to be in the future. On Saturday night, in the parking lot of IKEA, I found out that he never believed in Santa Claus, which astounds me. I was convinced that Santa Claus existed until I was eleven.

And ya know, why not? If fax machines exist, why can't a guy who gets around to all the priviledged houses in the world in a single night? Why the heck not?

How do you know, anyway? People who declare that there is no God, faeries, miracles, evolution, etc. remind me of all those people who thought that tomatoes were poisonous (the Devil's apples, they were called).

Well, maybe that doesn't work. Because I can't prove to you the existence of any of the above, but tomatoes really aren't poisonous. Mmm, tomatoes. I really was born to be Italian.

But anyway, my point is this: I don't know. You don't know. And I want my kids to not know either, which is why I will "lie" to them and tell them that their presents come from a man with a snowy beard, a big stomach, and an ability to wiggle down chimneys.

My Buddies

I love whales. I have never seen one, but I love them.

The blue whale is the biggest whale ever. Until people invented the steam engine, no one could hunt them, because they were too big and too fast. The heart of a blue whale is the size of a VW beetle.

So in other words, they're massive. They eat only krill, tiny little shrimpy things, and they migrate from the poles to the equator and then back again... but the interesting thing is, there are northern hemisphere blue whales and southern hemisphere blue whales who never meet because they frequent different poles. And even though they're loners, scientists think that they can communicate literally across the globe because of the high frequency or some such thing of their voices. Isn't that cool? "Hey Blue, how's the eating up there?"

Blue whales are my favorite.

Some countries and peoples, such as Japan and the Inuit, still hunt whale. It's monitored and such with quotas and all that. But still, a DNA analysis of the whale meat in a Japanese market showed several forbidden whale types, including my favorite, the blue whale.

Imagine a whale dying. That huge, big body drifting slowly down to the sea floor. Apparently, there are whole life systems that thrive on a dead whale. It's an ecosystem down there, with species that are not found elsewhere.

I find that comforting.

Apparently the Navy does these training exercises at sea that emits noises that are billions of times louder than what the whales can stand. Whales are found beached and bleeding from the ears after such exercises.

This makes me very, very sad. Sure, the Navy needs to practice or whatever, but really people, about how many things can we say, this is our right, no matter what or who it hurts?

Here's a pic of my buddies off the Baja coast: