There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. Goethe

"Der moderne Buchdruck" - Modern book printing, Berlin

I often think that Goethe's statement that there is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste is a singularly perfect thing. More of that has been seen in this country during our most recent boom times than perhaps anytime in recent history; what with our McMansions (ugh. shudder at it) and big toys (I never refer to any purchase of mine as a toy. Toys are for tots); the gross and exuberant displays of bad taste and absolutely no taste have been flaunted as shamelessly as a coed at her first Mardis Gras.

So, when I consider another famous Goethe quote, "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" it all knits together so nicely. It's almost as if Goethe knew us, intimately.

I write about these things so the children will read this later and be reminded of How To Do Things. Some things are not ok and never will be. Exercising some bad taste option that entails more than $1.59 is not worth it.

Sad Today

Today is the second anniversary of Granny's passing and I miss her as much today as I did that day two years ago. I've experienced a wave a grief lately - the kind of grief that made me wonder if this was only the 1st anniversary... I had to think about it, no, no, this is two years.

My friend Jon once said that as time passes a new kind of grief comes from getting by without the person you miss. You almost feel sorry that you haven't collapsed and been unable to continue because that would be a reaction commensurate with your love and longing for your loved one. He's right. Sometimes it feels so bad to have gone days without thinking of Granny.

But it's just a cycle and it ebbs and flows like anything.
Today it's very present.

Is it my imagination...

Or does every gay man have a close friend named Zoe (Zoey, Zooey)?

Stop the Insanity

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_fed_up_mom;_ylt=AlX0B6fzoXSf1tFkONazZzcDW7oF

Ok, I would never do this but who wouldn't show up in court for this woman to say, "I've thought about it."

It's like a baby crying - it has this sort of dual effect - you have this overwhelming sympathy and concern and somewhere on a lower, baser track in your brain you just want to get it to stop. After months of little sleep and this crying that has no explanation (you go through your litany, wet? no. hungry? been fed. tired? just woke up.) and you find yourself thinking, "What?" to your baby. What in the world have you got to cry about?!

It's the same with the bickering. God! It's awful. My kids have this way of saying each others names in disgust that might as well be a screeching sound or nails on a chalkboard. "Wilbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!!!!!" "Emeryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

It's terrifying.

And in the car it's always the worst. They want to bring a book a toy a lego guy a whatever in the car, even though we have a rule about no toys in the car. But I'm late, we need to get to school, I sigh, "Whatever! Fine! Bring a lego guy, bring 10 lego guys, let's just go!" Then in the car they fight over the LEGO GUYS! It's insanity. Absolute insanity.

So, would I pull the car over and say 'get out'? No, but I can imagine this poor woman. Gripping the steering wheel, trying to drive, she keeps calmly reinforcing to her children that they must stop fighting. And then, if you don't stop fighting I'm going to pull this car over and leave you wherever we are to duke it out. And suddenly in her head, as the incessant bickering continues over some bullshit that the children don't actually even CARE about it occurs to her to just do it. The little devil says, "you told them. You said if they didn't stop. Follow through for once in your life. Do it!"

Mari's Beehive

I patterned myself after Mari Wilson off and on through college. I did the beehive, cocktail dresses (although I paired them with combat boots)... And I loved this song. I bought this cassette tape while I was in high school (1983? 84?) and I remember riding around in Susie Shearer's Honda Matic with the sunroof open and this blasting.

What Rich Is

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."

This is from a woman whose family earns $250,000 per year...

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/106934/Wealth-Less-Effect-Earning-Well-Feeling-Otherwise

There is this article in the WSJ about whiny-pusses who make at least 250K and don't want their taxes to go up because they are barely eking out a living.

Please.

It's hard for me to even know where to start with these people. I feel so rich, so blessed, so privileged - because "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without" to quote idiot-woman Ms. Parnell. And if she wants a reality check, I submit she look no further than within. What is it about Ms. Parnell that makes her feel less than rich in the midst of all that abundance? It seems more a spiritual quandary than a tax issue. Compared to most people in this country she's rich. Certainly when you scan the globe, she and the other 250K/year earners are among the Super-Rich. Do we now define Candy Spelling as rich and anything less as middle class? I guess I thought when you could do all those things (am I a Depression baby all of a sudden?): Pay your mortgage, go to resorts for vacation, have 5 kids (these people had 5 kids! My mother is an only child because my grandparents couldn't afford more. All those kids were a choice!) and have $1,200 left over every month ---- YOU WERE RICH. Yes, Ms. Parnell, I think you do need a reality check on what Rich is. You are but you didn't have the sense God gave you to enjoy it.

FOR THE EYE and The sun doesn't move

Emery has to take these eye drops every day for his allergies - it's called Pataday and it comes in this teeney little bottle that you'd swear holds about 3 drops. The last time I refilled the prescription they put the bottle in a pill bottle (it usually just comes in the Pataday box, which is also teensy weensy) and on the pill bottle was a sticker, larger than the eye drop bottle, that said, "FOR THE EYE" . And I just thought, what else would you do with this? Or would it be so harmful to accidentally swallow it? Or is it that it wouldn't be effective if you took this some other way? I pictured people putting it on their skin as a topical or putting drops on their tongues and screwing up their faces in consternation, saying to their significant others in a twangy voice, "I cain't figger this out, it jus' ain't workin'! These gol' dang allergys is jus' as bad as before!"

On another note, it was a very sunny morning yesterday, the kind we live for here in the Seattle Metro but as we left for school the sun had briefly gone behind a cloud. The clouds were thick enough that you could stare right at the sun and see this shadowy round thing up in the sky - a perfect outline of the sun. Wilbur asked me what that round thing was in the sky and I said it was the sun, that the sun had gone behind a cloud. In a very concerned voice Wilbur said, "the sun doesn't move!" He said it like I was messing with the laws of the universe and shaking the very foundation on which he based his understanding of this world. So I said, "yes, you are right, the sun doesn't move -- I should have said the clouds came in front of the sun..."

Holy Week

I love Easter and especially love all of holy week. We are going to communion for Maundy Thursday at church tomorrow and then for Good Friday we are doing a dramatic reading that I put together. We rehearsed last night and I think it's going to be very good - moving and solemn.

The thing about Iowans...

Atlantic Meat Locker
Originally uploaded by mcrriowa

They are stubborn, independent thinkers. Meredith Wilson was right, there is an Iowa kind:

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There's an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We've never been without.
That we recall.
We can be cold
As our falling thermometers in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But what the heck, you're welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
You really ought to give Iowa a try.

I have found every Iowan I've ever met to fit this bill in some form or fashion. I have loved every minute I've spent in that beautiful state so I understand why my husband loves it so much. I also understand why he left, not so much Iowa, but the small town life he knew there. Being a very private person and having everyone in town know all your business all the time was a kind of torture to him.

I've gotten a first-class education in all things Iowan from my Iowa-born-and-bred farmer husband. They would give you the clothes of their backs but they wouldn't want you to mention it to anyone. They don't put on airs but they are proud, proud, proud. And they may pick at each other but they wouldn't want to be anywhere else. They aren't hick-ish or uneducated, the state of Iowa may have the best public schools in the nation and their students are industrious, well educated and resourceful.

So, it was a surprise to me that they passed an amendment banning gay marriage. I am just glad that sitting on the bench of Iowa's State Supreme Court are some independent thinkers who are now protecting their constitution and the rights of many of their citizens.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage