Musings
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R.I.P., WaMu
When we first moved back to California from Philly, we went in search of a bank, and ended up at Great Western, a bank that we knew, and that had the advantage of being smaller, not a huge B of A or Wells Fargo. We liked Great Western, liked the friendly employees, liked the neighborhood feel of it, liked that they didn’t charge us to use other people’s ATMs, that kind of thing. Then, a few years later, WaMu came to town. They bought two banks in our area, Great Western and American Savings. We thought of moving to another bank, but at the smaller bank I looked at, they…
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Potpourri
(image found here) This is going to be one of those random blog posts, just kind of blah blah blah about what’s going on in my life. Some more serious than the rest. It’s Saturday afternoon, and we just got back from breakfast/lunch at Denny’s. Denny’s has changed a bit…they put a weird booth in where the counter used to be, and they took out the bar and the big screen TV. I never went to the bar, but I thought it was interesting that our Denny’s had one. The big screen TV, I’m thrilled to see that go. After Denny’s, we went to the Farmers’ Market and got some…
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Back to School
The other night was ‘back to school night’ at Maya’s middle school. The evening started with speeches with the Principal, the Superintendent of the district, and the head of the PTA. They talked about how lucky we are to have such wonderful kids, how our district is in the top 95% of the state in test scores, and how parent involvement and dedicated parents help to make this the case. They talked about how raising healthy, happy children was about much more than these test scores, but still, yay test scores! Then we went and sat in each of the classrooms that our child attends for 10 minutes each, and…
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Poetry Tuesday
The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.…
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Talking Politics with a 12 Year Old
Last night, watching Palin speaking at the convention, Maya started asking us, “Is she lying?” She’s 12. She does not understand nuances yet, sees the world in black and white, us and them, good and bad. She likes Obama, and therefore if there’s a woman up on stage trash-talking him, she wants to know if that woman is lying. She doesn’t yet see that, sadly, ALL politicians skew the facts in their own favor, ALL politicians pump up their own resumes in order to make themselves more electable. What she wants to know is, “Is she lying?” So, I printed this article up for her today when I saw it…
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Zombie Meme
I found this meme over at Butterfly Cauldron, and I couldn’t resist. Then again, I didn’t try. You are in a mall when zombies attack. You have: 1. One weapon 2. One song blasting on the speakers 3. One famous person to fight along side you 1. One weapon – I liked Zan’s clever solution, which was a wand that turns the zombies around and sends them to eat Republicans. Of course, some of my best friends are Republicans, and I don’t want to steal her answer when there are only three options, so I have to come up with something of my own. I dashed over here to see…
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Memories
A few smart people commented on this post that the hard last days with my mom were not the sum of our relationship. The suggestion was made that I might find some comfort in stopping every day for a few minutes, and remembering the good times. You know what? You people are smart. I’ve been doing this, and it’s been helping. Not a cure all, of course, but when I start remembering that last visit, I shove my brain over to other visits, other times, and it cheers me right up. I’ve shared my pain and frustration with you, so now, I’ll share some of the good times as well,…
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Wordless Wednesday
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08.08.08
(image found here, and no, this isn’t Dorothy’s wedding invite, though it is a beautiful invitation designed by Daniel Larsson) Today we go up to Nevada City to witness the coming together of two families in marriage. My dear friend Dorothy is marrying her beloved J, and their 5 children will become brothers and sisters, though it seems that they feel that way already. I was thinking about marriage, or more specifically, about weddings, yesterday. I love weddings. I almost always cry at weddings. (I say almost, because I didn’t cry at our wedding. But I think every other wedding I’ve ever been at, I’ve cried.) And while I say,…
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Public Service Message
Yesterday’s mail included the new Ikea catalog, and started me thinking about the crap that shows up in our mailbox, and how there should be a ‘do not send’ registry for catalogs, like the ‘do not call’ registry for sales calls. Well, there isn’t one registry that you can blithely say, “Please don’t let anyone send any catalogs to me anymore”, and that’s that, but there is a service you can use, Catalog Choice, to opt out one by one. This seemed like a good time to do something like that, rather than waiting until November or December, when it will almost surely be too late, and my mailbox will…
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Wanna See My Plumber’s Crack?
(image found here) Remember back in the early 80s, the painter pants? Any idea where a girl could get some plumber pants? Oh, that’s right, any low-rise jeans will show my butt-crack quite nicely. Well, get ready to see my ass, world (not a pretty sight, btw), because guess what I did yesterday? I fixed the toilet. That’s right, me. I’m disproportionately proud of myself. Why is my pride disproportionate? Because it was a really simple fix. The stupid toilet has had a slow leak for a long time now, where the tank drains a bit, then fills, drains, fills, on and on and on, I think about a hundred…
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I am my body
I wrote a post last week about yoga, and (un)relaxeddad made a comment that included this: “It never ceases to amaze me how much our bodies know about where we are and what we need (and how separate we hold ourselves from them except in situations of extremis). ” That comment really stuck with me, and it reminded me of my mom in a lot of ways. She was working pretty hard to try to come to terms with her body, to accept and love it, and to not judge herself because she was fat. She was working with a program called Overcoming Overeating, and I think she was doing…
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Why?
Why does there have to be a TV wherever you go? There’s a nice spa down the street from our house, where we sometimes go for a massage. They have a stupid TV in the changing room, set to a horrid show, talking about some guy who murdered his children. Not the news, either, some sensationalist channel. So you come out after having a wonderful massage, and you’re confronted with that crap. They also have a changing room for after you work out, and I can understand having a TV there, since some people like to watch the news in the morning, and they go to the gym in the…
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Yoga and Grief
I used to take yoga somewhat regularly, meaning a once-a-week practice. It kind of fell by the wayside a few years ago, and while I was too lazy to do anything about it, I missed it. When my mom went back into the hospital in May, I was so overwhelmed by the stress of her illness, it seemed like getting back into yoga would be a good way to help me deal with some of this stress. So I started up again, and it did help some. The class I take is through our city’s recreation program, so classes are 9 or 10 weeks in length, and then a new…
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Banyan Tree
Have you ever seen something that made you realize that the world doesn’t always work the way that you think it does? Often it’s a matter of nature…an animal or a plant that is so different than what you might expect to see, that it makes you stop in your tracks and think. While in Hawaii, I was struck by this very strange looking tree…turns out it’s an Indian Banyan Tree, which originates in India. The branches of the Banyan tree fan out over a large canopy, much like an Oak tree. One problem with Oak trees is that when the branches grow long and cover a large space, they…