Cold Spaghetti

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the park photographing some friends.  A family, actually, who we met when they started at Abeona last fall and who remind us of Helen and Paul.  There is just this glow about them — their happiness, their manners, their causal and friendly approach — that reminds us of the friends we miss.  My mind goes there anyway this time of year.  My eyes linger a little longer on the photograph taped to the fridge, the one Helen took of our kids and husbands together in Music Together class.  Seeing it presses the work of being a better person, living more fully, and being grateful into my daily grind.  Then there was a random email about the need for our community to take a stand, again, against crime.  (For those who aren’t up on NOLA news, our Mayor showed up long enough to cut funding on anti-crime activities in a petty hissy fit that the City Council wouldn’t sign off on the ridiculously high salaries for his sycophants.)

These thoughts have had me feeling a bit lost for the past day or so.  Just… off.  Questioning, again, why we work so hard to be here?  Thinking, what would happen if we just… ?

But it’s no point thinking about it, really.  There is no other place for us in this country, we know that now.  Even as I dream of a home near the beach, I know that this could only be a weekend escape, a summer retreat.  Not home.  Not New Orleans.  But still, I question my faith.  I wonder if my longing for this place puts us at risk or inflicts undue hardship.  If life were easier, would we be happier?  I think that I don’t know the answer, so the question remains, plaguing me.

So the affirmation and support from other writers was a huge boost to my spirits.  Especially to see that Lisa, a vineyard owner in California, made the space to so elegantly write about New Orleans and several bloggers — even me, who she pinned so neatly and squarely you’d think we’d been buddies for years.  Amazing, timing wise.  A little holiday cheer so neatly placed right before me.

My favorite thing?  The award is in Portuguese.  (The Spanish would read something like ‘Este Blog invierte y cree en la proximidad.’  Although Jenny or Alejna could probably do better than that with the English, Spanish, and Portuguese translations than I have.)

I’ll pass on the love shortly; once my thoughts settle and clear.

I’m trying to figure out where this award originated?  Any one better at the google search for this type of thing?

QUESTION.  Where can you see….

Aretha Franklin, Wynton Marsalis, Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor, Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Sugarland, Tony Bennett, Earth Wind & Fire, Erykah Badu, Irma Thomas, Etta James, Emmylou Harris, Pete Seeger, Better Than Ezra, Roy Rogers, Neville Brothers, Dr. John, Tab Benoit, Los Lobos, Cowboy Mouth, and a few hundred others….??

ALL IN ONE PLACE????

Why, in New Orleans, of course.  (duh.)

JAZZ FEST 2009 LINE-UP HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED!

Holly and Paul’s Hacienda “where we really do treat you like family” is officially taking reservations!  Early reservations get priority bed bookings; others should bring provisions for the floor.  6am wake-up calls are part of our friendly service.  Whine is always free, but bring your own cheese.

** Mention this add and get one morning of Paul’s legendary fried egg-in-toast breakfast — without being asked to do the dishes afterward! **

Three more days until the two week holiday break.  Paul and I had lofty goals.  Or, rather, I had lofty goals.  My dream was to surprise the kids Christmas morning with PROGRESS.  In the house.  My dreams included finding the Christmas tree, putting down the floor in the back room, and putting together Will’s bed.

Instead, I get home this afternoon to find this:

The boys are hard at work, all right.  ON THEIR MAN PALACE.

I know, I know.  Who can resist a man putting up siding?  All by himself?

**Okay, honey, forget about that building that we actually live in!  I support you in doing whatever you think is best!**

I’m a wuss.

But then again, look at that assistant.  How can I deny him time with wooden planks and hammers? Especially when it’s 70 degrees outside.

Behold, The Man Palace.  Looks a lot like it did before, huh?  Progress is SLOW, people.  S-L-O-W.

The good news is that Paul only has 12 more hardie boards to move from the front to the back.  (Remember that pile in the snow?)  Six more trips and the neighbors will start talking to us again.  But the improvements to the front hasn’t stopped there!  We also un-stuck the stuck shutter.  We do, however, have some old college-style furniture donations on the porch for the Vets to pick up.  What can I say?  We can only gain so much class per day.

Not to be outdone, I went to work in the kitchen.  My helper was not photogenic today.  She was busy making me coffee on her stove.  Coffee served in a bucket with koosh balls inside, which is really the only acceptable way to drink coffee.

Between buckets of joe, she was helpful enough come around to lick a spoon.  Or three.  But who can blame her?  These grasshoppers are yummy.  Chocolate, butterscotch, noodles, peanuts.  All for teachers and staff at the kids’ school.

I even got all Martha-Stewart and put together little baskets with notes.  But here is the really amazing part: THERE ARE STILL THREE DAYS BEFORE THE END OF TERM.  I finished them early.

Gris-Grits tagged me and ’cause it gets me all blushy and bashful, I’m totally going to do it again.  The rules are the same, but as I mentioned last time, I’m terribly unreliable when it comes to things like RULES.  It’s one of many things I’m unreliable about, actually.  Here are some more…

1. I cannot be trusted to put shoes away, ever.  Particularly before bedtime, which means that someone who is stumbling through the dark to find the bathroom is likely to encounter shoes.  Be warned.

2. Recipes are very hard for me to follow.  It’s not that I CAN’T follow directions, it’s just that it is an incredible bore.  Paul disagrees.  He likens my meddling with recipes to a dog marking it’s scent on every passing lamp-post.  Lovely man, my Paul.

3. I cannot be trusted to keep my mouth shut.  Ever.  About anything.  It’s one of my charms.

4. I bit through my tongue when I fell off a sit-and-spin at age 5.  My tongue had a hole for years from the bite and still has a visible cut.  The fall happened because I wasn’t listening and was standing on the toy.  I show Will the injury as a warning of what happens when Children Don’t Listen.

5. Doctors wondered if I would have a thumb nail after I slammed my left hand in a door (also at age 5).  Surgeons re-attached my thumb and a few months later, a new nail grew in.  Today, there is no visible evidence of any injury, so I do not have the physical evidence required to use it as cautionary tale to my children.

6. I would give it all up to tour with The Supremes.

—-

UPDATE: Lisa noted that I didn’t tag anyone.  So I tagged her, bashfully.  Anyone else new to Cold Spaghetti??  Please play and link here so I can find you!

For some of us, we were up — literally.  Too bad he’s not up there admiring the view.  He had a great helper, though, which sped things along.

Wait, helper… where is that helper?  Helper?  HELPER?

Oh, there he is.  Hi Helper.

Say, Helper, can you…

…wait, where are you going?  Helper?  WILL?

Um… what are you doing, Will?  Dad really needs you to… Will?  WILL?

Koosh ball?  Tennis racket?  Where did you… oh, nevermind, where… WHAT are you doing?

WHY ARE YOU GIVING YOUR SISTER A TENNIS RACKET?  And so close to where Mommy has ridiculously hung the video camera!?

Oh.  I get it.  You’re not helping Daddy anymore.  You’re working for someone else.  Sorry, Paul.

Miraculously, though, Paul finished the roof of the outbuilding and returned the roller this morning.  One little step done…!

This week’s Photohunt theme was FAVORITE.  Nothing came to mind, so I flipped through Aperture looking for something that said ‘favorite’ to me.  Bingo.

This is Will and one of his Special Friends, at a fall festival in October.

My favorite is the stick figure shaking his little butt.  Which little one do you like best?  (Video after the jump.)

12 STIs of Christmas

And here’s the public health response on this Soapbox Saturday….

From a public health perspective, fear of something is not a very effective tool to influence behavior change.  But I still find this little public health message cute and informative… mostly because it reminds that condoms protect from more than HIV.  Perhaps it is good campaign to direct at pharmaceuticals?  It does a good job of showing how ridiculous it is that we ONLY have the condom to protect against these infections, which is pretty worthless when you consider the amount of people who choose to have sex without condoms because they want to get pregnant (or live in a pronatalist culture), or are forced to do so, whether by threat, coercion, or obligation.

If anyone says ‘abstaining’ as an option, I may just hurl, or cry.  We’re not taking about American upper middle class teenagers, first of all, and second, the entirety of sexual and reproductive health doesn’t revolve around them and their perceived needs.  Sexuality as a ‘choice’ exists in only a few spaces.  In reality, many have very little choice on how their sexuality gets expressed: culture, tradition, expectations, power, money, obligation, and poverty are much more present factors than any individual behavior ‘choice.’  Which is why the condom, a method that must be negotiated between a couple, is so ineffective as a comprehensive tool.  It’s all we’ve got and at least it works when it’s used correctly, but it’s hardly the answer we need.

Santa?  Are you listening?  Here is what I would like for Christmas: A viable method of protection for sexual partners to use that prevents STIs that is NOT the condom.  Can you get your elves on that?  Our pharmaceuticals are just not heading the message.

“What color was your day today?”

“Pink.  I had a happy day today.”

“Oh?  What made you feel happy today?”

“Ummm… I don’t know.”

“One of your friends at school?  A game you played?”

“No.  It was lunch.”

Do you want a Digital SLR camera?

I’ve got one, and I want to give it away.  With it’s lens.  To you, if you’re up for it.

Here’s the catch: my original DSLR, the 300D Rebel, died from secondary mirror failure a year and a half ago.  We did some mirror DIY stuff, problem solved, talked to Canon, and eventually just put it to the side.  It will cost $175-200 to repair and I kept thinking I would do this, or grow the confidence to take it all apart and try to fix it myself.  It’s not going to happen.  I don’t want to risk breaking it if someone else out there is interested in fixing it, particularly if it means they will then get to have a digital SLR.

DSLRs still start at over $300.  For used models.  $200 is a good price for a used 300D with lens.  This particular camera kit sells used for $350-500.  The lens sells for about $100; it is most common bought and sold as the “kit” lens for Rebels.  (Note that now they sell the “II” version of this lens, but it is essentially the same — see details about it here: http://photo.net/equipment/canon/efs18-55/ )

Or, maybe you’ve got a kid who is into taking apart electronics?  Mine aren’t old enough for this sort of experimentation, but if you’ve got one who is…?  I’m okay with that, too.

I’ve put it up on craigslist, listing it for sale because my experience in giving things away via craigslist and freecycle is that there are a ton of responses and very few follow-throughs.  So now I tie a price to the item — only serious people bother.  Although what typically happens is that when the person shows up for the item, we end up giving it to them when they turn out to be nice, regular folks.  Because it’s just the right thing to do.

http://neworleans.craigslist.org/pho/955269472.html

I’d like to give it to you, if you’d like it.  I’ll pay for any shipping costs.

Just leave me a comment.  No need for fancy writing or a ton of links or whatever.  This is just about trying to find a home for this camera… before it gets sent off for parts via craigslist.  If no one responds, I’ll stick with craigslist.  Otherwise, I’ll choose someone here.

—–

Okay, okay.  I admit it.  I am trying to find yet another way to say I’ve filched something from Magpie.  Technically, all sorts of people give away stuff on their blogs, too, but it was actually trying for one that made me feel like I should do it, too.  Plus, I just love that cleansing, complete, satisfying feel that the word filch leaves in my mouth.  Because there aren’t enough sentences in a day that need the word filch.

UPDATE:  A friend of a friend without a blog emailed me.  It’s gone to a good cause!

As some point during the 4 years we worked together, one of my graduate school mentors, a woman similar to me in voluptuous shape, suddenly began to play adult indoor soccer with gusto. Why? Because of the shock of her 6-year old son declaring that she wasn’t cool because “she didn’t have a sport.”

Now that Will is 5, I am up late some nights wondering, “will my son suddenly find me uncool because I don’t have a sport?”

I’ve made extra effort to teach him how to swim in the ocean and snorkel in the surf. I’ve gone outside to throw a ball with him. I’ve danced and done yoga. But do these count as having a sport? Am I close to losing Cool Mommy points for something that doesn’t involve forcing him to eat lima beans or wiping? Because that would be terrible.

Paul and I have had many discussions about wanting to do more exercise as a family, but things (aka: the fact that we are independently renovating our 100+ year old foreclosed home for the 4th year running) tend to get in the way. In our ‘non-work’ hours, Paul works on the house and I entertain the kids. I do my best to take them to the park for exercise, but a runny nose, a need for the bathroom, my forgetting to pack snacks, or a fall over a twist tree root can bring even the best plans to a crying, whining, fussing halt. Sure, we do yoga together, more a practice in laughter than actual stretching, but we have not found our exercise-together-niche.

The battle of the bulge looms greater as the pressure for a household video game player has been mounting. Will played his first video game while visiting my brother and sister-in-law last summer, which spurred my Dad to get an Xbox so that he and Will could play when we visit them.

And Paul? Oh, my, poor Paul.  When we met, Paul was a GAME GUY.  He did side work as a pinball machine programmer.  He collected and restored classic pinball machine and video games; games that with each move, he’s had to leave more and more of behind.  In short, Paul is foaming at the mouth for a console, but knew I was completely against them, hating the idea of our kids sitting on a couch staring at a screen.

Then I learned of the Wii and in particular, the Wii Fit.

It was Melanie who turned my head.  Melanie made a commitment to being more fit a few years ago and has become one of my exercise heros — and she says that the Wii Fit is a great exercise tool.  She made me believe it would work for us, too. So I emailed her for Wii information last month and started to plot how I would manage a Wii for us for Christmas. I began to believe it was something that could put us all in better shape simply by making it easy for us to include fitness into our day as a family.

Then Paul caught on. First he started on the “we have no money for Christmas” route, which I ignored. Then he flat out figured my plan, which I blogged about in a huff. Finally, he sat me down to look at Quicken in detail. Yowza. We closed up our holiday wallets for the long winter.

But we still want a Wii, specifically because of the Wii Fit.

And even more than I could dream of wanting it, the other three in the household are dreaming of it.

Especially Will.

Inspired by his recent viewing of Star Wars for the first time, Will made this video for Magpie Musings, who is giving away a Wii Fit this coming Monday.

It’s based on Leia’s plea to Obi Wan to help her fight the Empire.  (I’m trying to ignore the implication that I could be the Evil Empire in this scenario.)

“Help us Magpie Kenobi,” says Will, “you’re our only hope.” I can only add to the plea that maybe, with us playing sport and fitness games as a family, I may avoid the loss of Cool Mommy points in the future.

Will’s plea for a Wii Fit to Magpie Kenobi from Cold Spaghetti on Vimeo.