nina turns 40

note to self

Do not, under any circumstances suggest to the offspring formerly known as the kidlet that he might perhaps wish to wear the Scooby Doo chones instead of the Spider Man ones.  The answer is, of course, NO!

Friday iPod random ten I'm lazy edition

Those Three Days~Lucinda Williams  "Did you love me forever, for those three days?"
Smooth~Santana featuring Rob Thomas "You're my reason for reason, the step in my groove."
Almost Blue~Elvis Costello "Almost blue, almost doing things we used to do, there's a girl here and she's almost you.  Almost."
Vertigo~U2 "Girl with crimson nails has Jesus round her neck"
Ladder~Joan Osborne "You're giving me crooked answers, I'm cracking your little code."
But Beautiful~Shirley Horn "Love is funny, or it's sad, love is quiet or it's mad, it's a good thing, or it's bad--but beautiful."
Contigo~Luis Miguel "El mundo parece distinto cuando no estas junto a mi."
Mater Blaster (Jammin')~Stevie Wonder "They want us to join the party, but our answer today is to let all our worries, like a breeze through our fingers slip away.
Sacred Love~Sting "The sky grew dark and the earth she shook just like a prophecy in the holy book."
Barranquilla Barranquilla~Fruko y sus Tesos   No way I can getcha any lyrics on this one, they sing too fast, and besides, this tune is for dancing.

el viento, lleno de polvo

The offspring formerly known as the kidlet and I were walking up the stairs to school this morning when a big gust of wind blew a soccer ball and great quantities of dust across the playground.  "Wow!" he said, "I've never seen the wind before."

They have their school pictures taken today, and I don't think our careful combing and gelling and styling is any match for this wind, especially as their time slot isn't until 3pm.  I told him to be careful putting on his coat, which goes on over his head.  "But Mom, it's mega mega hold gel."  Of course, silly me.

Update: The wind has also brought a steady stream of clouds cruising by my office window at remarkable speeds as they head Northeast hard by Mt. Baker. I've spent all day feeling like I'm floating.

I know I posted this originally not that long ago, but it just seems to sum up my mood on so many levels today, so here it is again.

la llorona

I was poking around in the old blogspot version of nina turns 40, and I came across this, which I posted a little over two years ago.  Luckily, my own lacrimal output is far less than it was in those days, but I am still always moved by this excerpt.  It's the late Caroline Knapp paraphrasing Germaine Greer in her book Appetites:

"Women weep, Greer believes, because they feel powerless, and because they are exhausted and overworked and lonely. Women weep because their own needs are unsatisfied, continually swept into the background as they tend to the needs of others. They weep becaue the men in their lives so often seem incapable of speaking the language of intimacy, and because their children grow up and become distant, and becaue they are expected to acquiesce to this distance, and because they live lives of chronically lowered expectations and chronic adjustment to the world of men, the power and strength of a woman's emotions considered pathological or hysterical or sloppy, her interest in connection considered trivial, her core being never quite seen or known or fully appreciated, her true self out of alignment with so much that is valued and recognized and worshipped in the world around her, her love, in a word, unrequited."

from the day late, dollar short department

I'd really like to give the president credit for finally saying something intelligent by urging folks to drive less, except that it's so friggin' obvious, and should have been said so long ago, that I'm less than impressed.  Tomorrow he'll be telling us it's healthy to eat fresh vegetables.

misc.

It's been over three weeks with no coffee.  I even managed to hang out at El Diablo with Kimberly last weekend and was content with my Mexican hot chocolate, which by the way, they make with real Mexican chocolate, and don't just throw cinnamon on their Hershey's.  But man, I miss it.  Terribly.  Every sip of decaf I drink makes my soul crumble just a little bit. 

The kidlet, upon seeing his foto on the blog announced that he no longer wishes to be known as the kidlet.  We have yet to come up with something suitable as a replacement.  Am contemplating holding a "name the kidlet" contest.

Scott wrote about how for him, Fall starts not according to the calendar, but on the day he bakes his first apple pie.  For me, it is my first pot of soup.  This year it was chicken and vegetable, made all rosy and delicious by my new favorite root, the humble beet.

Chris Clarke is going to be doing a series on "Anatomy of Bad News", wherein he will examine the effects that cumulative bad news tends to have on us, from burnout to cynicism.  Here is his prelude to the series. I'm not sure I can bear to read it, but Chris always writes so gorgeously, even as he's depressing me, I don't think I'll be able to stay away.

Twisty, on the other hand, always cracks me up as she's depressing me.  If you're not reading her already, then repent and sin no more, my friends.

These early fall days are glorious.  The air has an astonishing clarity to it, the relationships of objects to the space around them seems different--they slice right into it.

kidlet on the beach

taken by my mom

c'mon girls!

We have The Triplets of Belleville in from Netflix, and the kidlet has been watching it everyday for the past 10 days or so.  Despite getting the theme song stuck in my head, it's a much more pleasant movie than most to have on repeatedly.  Since I am usually only listening to it rather than watching it, two lovely moments have become favorites.  When the grandson gets taken away on a large ship, the grandmother and Bruno the dog follow in a self-powered paddle boat.  After a bit the skies darken, the waves swell, and the rain starts to pour, all to the sound of Mozart's Mass in C Minor.  Gorgeous!  It always grabs my attention away from whatever it is I'm doing, and I must listen.  This may prompt me to make my first classical music purchase in years.  The other bit that always makes me smile is when the grandmother is tuning the triplets' piano.  She clinks and tinkers with it, and then finally satisfied she sings a strange and mournful song in Portuguese.  Makes me love the character of the grandmother even more.  There's obviously so much more to her than you first suspect.  Truly, has there ever been a better movie about old women?