Headache

Flashing lights. Halos. Eyes blinded by imaginary floating amoeba. A vise wrapped round my head, squeezing it like I would a wet rag. The revulsion of food. The curse of light.

And a drowsy kitten on my stomach making life bearable.

Reflection for the Day

The Lutheran minister down the street from us sends out a lovely newsletter. Today's held two selections of scripture that really rang for me today.

The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

--John 14:26-27

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

--Philippians 4:4-7

The messages of peace beyond circumstances, a deep abiding permeating peace resonated with a need in my thirsty soul.

Felted Animalia

A couple months ago, my daughter and I took a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island. It was a Spring Break mini-vacations, a daytrip to our favorite fabric store (Esther's) and one of our favorite yarn shops (Churchmouse Yarns). The Blackbird Bakery lies between the two for an excellent, quick lunch and gloriously, tasty baked goods.

We began at the cafe and moved along to the yarn shop, ogling the yarns as we had the pastries. Fingering one or two as we couldn't the tarts, pies, and brioche.

Little Bear saw some knitted critters and asked if we could make one. I said, "yes." So, we found the table of patterns and decided upon a rabbit and a llama (both by Fiber Trends) and a made-up-creature. The first two were for wool felted animals. The third pattern was for non-wool yarns. On the way out of the store, we saw saw a felted sheep in the window. It was really cute. Back into the store we went to get the sheep.

(The report on the fabric store will come later.)

The bunny was the first of the menagerie. The Fiber Trends pattern was clear and easy to understand and really fun to knit. It required more concentration than most of my previous endeavors, but wasn't so fussy as to be difficult. Thanks to the internet and YouTube I was able to learn any knit stitch I wasn't familiar with or had forgotten.

I used an inexpensive wool fisherman's yarn in natural and chose not to use a contrasting yarn for inner ears and bottoms of feet.





After knitting and stitching the parts together, I felted it in the washing machine with hot water and Tocca soap. I used a lingerie bag to prevent too much wool collecting in the washer. The instructions said it was necessary to stop the process before the spin cycle to avoid ugly creases and to restart the agitation if necessary to felt the piece more.

The washing process went faster than I thought and the spin cycle started. But I stopped it quickly, and no damage done. Lesson learned. Set the cycle on the longest time allowed, set a timer for a few minutes (I set one for 4 minutes, but time may vary depending on the type of wool yarn used), and stop the machine when the timer goes off. If it's not felted enough, put it back in, turn the washer cycle back to the longest time setting to avoid the spin cycle, and reset your timer. Keep checking till the piece is felted the amount you want.

Rinse in cool water till all soap is gone. The Tocca seems to rinse out quickly. There are also wool soaps recommended in the instructions that also rinse well and quickly.

I took out the cotton stitches laced into the stuffing opening and stuffed it with small rags and shaped the rabbit. Taking out the cotton stitches was a little tricky, and I did have to tug at the opening some to separate the wool.



It took several days to dry completely.

After removing the rags, I stuffed the rabbit with fiber fill and stitched the opening with the same wool used to knit the bunny; then used a blunt needle to rough up the stitches to make it hardly noticeable.

A little embroidery floss for eyes, nose, and mouth and Wha-la! Instant felted buddy.

No nose

Having come down with a cold sometime on Sunday late night/ Monday morning, I have rubbed my nose to the cartilage. I can no longer tell whether my eyes water because of the cold itself or from the needle-sharp pain searing my nose whenever I wipe it.

Cats and Bunnies

The cat has set out on a sailing adventure on Lake Washington. She has cat food wrapped in one of my nicer silk scarves (the wretch). She drags behind her a cat-sized skiff made of scrap wood, with a limb mast and pillow case sail. The skiff also serves as a conveyer of the silk-wrapped food. She seems to have thought this through.

With a mournful, scornful look over her shoulder, she sets off down the hill, occasionally stopping to adjust the boat. She does not plan to return until we have changed our ways and ejected the bunny from the kitchen, better yet, from the house.

For almost a week, we have hosted the bunny in the kitchen, giving him a reprieve from the cage in the study. He likes the kitchen. He likes the attention. And he is very well-behaved and civil. The cat detests him.

She seems to have felt the last straw upon her back around 4:00 o'clock this morning when she confronted the bunny at the gate to the kitchen and received reproof from The Papa and later from me. Over tea and scones, she tried, once again, to explain to me why the bunny's existence was a sort of insult to her catness and that since she was clearly the superior animal, worthy, for example, to roam the entire house, the bunny must go. It wasn't very moving. The cat did not take the attempted talks of peace well. She spilled a spot of tea and left crumbs around the plate when she walked off in silence.

After a good sulk, she retreated to the basement. Shortly thereafter a bit of hammering, sawing, and the distinct smell of glue wafted up from the workroom. I let her have her space and was only slightly surprised by the apparatus lugged up an hour later. Upon the cat's saying she was running away, I offered to help her pack. This did not sit well. It probably explains why my silk scarf is on the way to Lake Washington bearing cat food.

She'll be back. The little prima donna.

Where to Begin

Gratitude.

Yesterday my cousin asked a group of her friends on Facebook if they experienced common courtesy anymore and to expound upon that experience. There were a couple of negative responses that, to me, didn't really respond to the question she had asked. The responses reminded me of what "grown-ups" sounded like to me when I was a child: rather general, without thoughtful contemplation, and defaulting to the negative.

We can do better.

Common courtesy in a dictionary sense, possibly even a social sense, does imply (necessitate?) an agreement on what behavior is courteous and that the people involved in the encounter comply with this behavior. But this is too limited and technical for me.

I live in a very diverse community: racially, ethnically, linguistically, economically, religiously, and with regard to age, national origin, and - no doubt- world view. It is a beautiful microcosm. Sometimes it is exasperating; sometimes beautiful and uplifting. Living here has alerted me to how many assumptions I have built-in about what is "common courtesy" and that these tenants are not shared by all, and perhaps more importantly, that just because others do not share all of the same measures of courtesy, they do have measures of courtesy.

When curiosity and understanding step into play, we might realize that there's more common courtesy in the world than we see at first glance. We might also realize that sometimes someone is dissing us and we didn't realize it before. :}

The biggest factor that I felt had been overlooked by some of the reactions to my cousin's question was this: a mind-set of gratitude, kindness, compassion, generosity, and faith in human beings. There seemed to be too much focus on the legalistic application of the term "common courtesy".

Every single day I experience common courtesies. If I were more in a mindset of openness and gratitude instead of sometimes being in too big a hurry or distracted, I would probably experience even more moments of courtesy because I would notice them.

Finally, I think that sometimes we confuse common courtesy with surface politeness, when what is really important is a genuine goodness of heart, graciousness, peace, and demonstrating a genuine love of our neighbors.

Violence and Non-violence

Today has offered a challenge. How to cope with viciousness, racism, misogyny, and violence inflicted with hate and persistence in a public venue with witnesses who stood silent, stony, and without acknowledgment of my existence, the man's, or his threats.

It rubbed an old nerve raw. It resurrected feelings of victimization. I shrugged it off as nonsense. And I questioned my powers of perception.

The facts: I walked into Safeway feeling quite upbeat after a good start of the day and looking forward to a good workout and some concentrated work later. Feeling on top of things, I decided to treat my self to a coffee at the espresso stand inside the store (a rarity). No one stood in line. So, I stood in front of the counter waiting patiently for the barista to finish the drink she was making for the previous customer. There was a bagel bag on the counter. I thought nothing of this.

At about the same time, three men walked up: two middle age men, one African-American, and one who could have been Native American, Latino, mixed race, or something else completely. These two stood a distance away, waiting their turn. The third man was another story. He was a young Asian man, possibly mixed-race, 20's, several inches taller than I. He walked up to me from the magazine aisle, directly at me, took my cart and moved it away and walked to stand in front of me. He waved his magazine, picked up the bagel bag and set it down again. I smiled, acknowledging that he must have been there first, and I stepped back. He looked directly at me and said, in a low voice, "never trust a white woman".

It wasn't clear if he were a little mentally ill crazy or simply full of hate crazy. But he eyed me several times, snorted with disgust, and then began what I first thought were weird leg-tic movements. Then I realized he was in control of his limbs, and very purposefully aiming controlled karate kicks at my knees and lower legs and grinning at me with malice. He said some other things in his low, whispery voice, but I ignored them, as I did him. It crossed my mind to leave and come back, but decided he wasn't actually going to hurt me, and I wasn't going to be bullied into giving him the satisfaction of having his hate rewarded. He wanted me to fear him, and I didn't completely fear him. There was something telling me to call bullshit on him.

Maybe it was more the woman in me than the white person. Who knows? He had issues with both. What he stood for I despise. What he stood for is what's wreaking havoc at our end of town and in our world. I got off the self-righteous train pretty quickly standing there. It was good not to go to that place and stay. I just wanted a cup of coffee.

As he continued his barrage of hate, I looked at the men behind us to see if they were registering any of this, if they agreed with him, if they supported me, or what their reaction was. Both men stared straight in front of themselves "seeing nothing". The African American man frowned or scowled slightly, but not at the young man or at me or the circumstances. His look seemed to say, "I'm not your friend" for a moment and then it seemed to say nothing. The other man stood expressionless and unreadable.

The young man got his drink, made another comment to me, moved off and got his drink as I ordered; then passed by again to say something else. I had a friendly interchange with the barista, took my drink, watched as the two older men played the gentleman with each other when indicating whom should go next, and walked off to do my shopping.

I walked past the angry, hateful one on the way to the bread and a few minutes later passing the frozen foods. He tried to say something loud enough for me to hear both time without others hearing him nearby, but I was too far away. He watched me walk past. I watched him out of the corner of my eye and ignored him.

I avoided going back toward the front of the store until time to checkout. I looked around to see if he were there and wondered if he were if I would ask for an escort to my car. He wasn't, so I didn't have to answer that question.

I asked myself whether I thought he would have really hurt me. This is when the threat really struck. I realized he really would have if he would not have suffered any consequences. If I'd been alone somewhere when he'd come upon me, he would have hurt me, with rage and hate. Even though the two men witnessing his violent expressions and threats pretended not to see anything and made no move to intervene or to stop him, he knew someone in that store would have done something to him if he'd actually kicked me or yelled the things he was saying. He felt restrained. He did not feel free to do what he wanted and get away with it. He didn't want anyone to do to him what he was doing to me.

When do I do to others what I don't want anyone to do to me?

Life in the Depression

A friend recently posted a link to an NPR piece on the "No 'Poo" movement. The report focused on folks who were going without shampoo for ecological reasons: plastic bottles, chemicals that if ingested would be considered poisons, water purity. The people who follow the movement often site that our hair is like animal pelts and does not need shampoo to be clean. I've read some who say the use of shampoo aggravates and increases oil production, requiring the use of more shampoo and conditioner to boot, because shampoo dries out the hair shaft by removing the oil that would typically moisturize the shafts. Some report that if you stop shampooing, your hair will improve and the oil production decrease.

In a British test several women took the six week challenge: no shampoo for six weeks. Some reported an improvement in hair condition and reduction of oil production after a few weeks and like the test. Others reported greasy, ugly, smelly hair with no improvement after several weeks.

Some No 'Poo folks use nothing at all. Others use dissolved baking soda as a wash and apple cider vinegar as a rinse. And they do it less frequently than they used to shampoo.

One reporter found an allegedly Mexican tradition of rinsing the hair with water and using wet washcloths to redistribute the oil from the top of the head down the hair shaft by stroking these cloths 100 times down each section of hair.

One report stated that shampoo didn't exist until sometime in the 1930's and even then wasn't used daily until ad campaigns of the early 70's encouraged it. This comment together with my personal experience as a child: washing my hair once a week and using apple cider vinegar as a rinse, got me to thinking: how did people REALLY wash their hair in the 1930's? Did they do it as seldom as some of these reports state? Did people really not use soap or shampoo regularly?

The following is a response from someone who was a child during the Great Depression to the questions: what did you use to wash your hair/body as a child/teenager? how often?

As to hair:
As a child:
1) We used soap--the same kind and thing we used for bathing. Sometimes
Mother used water and vinegar to rinse my hair and sometimes she probably
used nothing but water. There was no running water so this means my hair
was washed in a small "wash" pan and rinsed by pouring water from a bucket.
2) I don't know how often it was washed but my guess is it depended on
weather and events. I.e. in winter, less often. In summer, maybe weekly.
If we were to attend church, visit family, have pictures made, etc. it
would have been washed for that I'm sure.
3)Between washings we just brushed or combed it!

As a teen:
1) Same as above except I did my own. If we had shampoo, I used that.
2) Weekly--every Saturday!
3) Same as above!

As to bathing:
As a child:
We used soap and water. I doubt we bathed even weekly. Most of the time we
bathed using the small "wash" pan which meant you did what we later referred
to as a "spit" bath (not everything got very clean). We sometimes bathed in
a zinc tub--much better bath! In summer it was in the backyard. In winter,
inside by the fireplace! I do remember in the winter my heels would get
grungy which meant I certainly wasn't doing much scrubbing on them!

As a teen:
We used soap and water. Bathing was similar to above except much more often
and much cleaner. When we moved to a house with running water, bathing was
in a bathtub. Hair was still washed only once a week and bathing was as
needed. I do know that by the time I graduated from high school bathing was
daily!

That ends the response to my questions about shampooing and washing during the Depression and 40's/50's. It only represents 2 people's experience, but it's interesting. It intrigues me to look at what we take for granted daily nowadays. How extravagant are our expectations? How much of that is mass-marketing produced reality? And how much of it is necessary or a good idea? Many things to ponder as Earth Day approaches.

And about a month ago, I cut back on shampoo. I was a daily washer. Now, every 2-3 days. My hair is pretty oily by day three usually, but the second day is doable.

Communion

gods and saints don't like me
cause I spit my shame into the wine
Thought that's where the guilty thoughts went
when the deeds won't stay behind
So I confess to anyone who doesn't listen anyway
Gonna break the record for obsession and toss the hand grenade
Don't taunt me into battle with my rough and bloody hands
The stains of my communion with the other side of Hell
I expect my life to lead me straight down the wide and curvy
Should I stumble back onto the narrow guide me where the earth don't tremble
I was there when they laid him in the tomb of his remembrance
a plot of earth so stained with blood it seeped like oil around us
and the guns tore up the sky leaving nothing but the darkness
and I found a tear inside me with a message sent from God.

Ain't gonna stay

I'm outta here. I'm on my way. Ain't gonna look back. Gonna get away. Don't care if it rhymes. Don't care if it's brilliant. I can't stand my own skin. Don't want to be in it. Time to check out. Time to check out. Time. To.

Do we scream until we're speechless; then smile and walk away? Do we whisper vapor smiles that fade before our lips move? Would we know the difference? I. Can't. Hear. You.

Have the stakes been lowered till anybody can pitch a penny ante, don a crown and stake a claim? I've got two pair of nothing and couldn't find a care to raise or call. In my pocket is a piece of paper, folded, bent, crammed. A receipt with words in pencil on the back. How long will they last? Will you hold me to them? Will you take that as a marker? Or did you write your own notes on a napkin and toss it in the garbage.

I'm outta here. Ain't looking back. I need a world where gods fear to tread because the humans shake and rumble like seeds.

Feeling Moorless

Did I pay the moorage fees for life on Earth? Today I drift.

Snow Days

We're on our third snow day. The family sleeps while I enjoy the quiet. Yesterday we had a snowball fight, made snow angels, took pictures, ate snow cream, baked homemade cinnamon rolls, walked and slided through the streets of snow, played a ruthless game of Sorry, and started a snowman. The only must-do left for today is to finish the snowman.

We saw three teenagers snowboarding down our hill and two cars stopped without arriving at their destinations. If you consider that the first is possible, the second doesn't seem extraordinary.

Sometime before Christmas, I need to wrap presents.

The computer is mostly down due to a software crash and troubled reinstall, so we're back to a simpler way of life, like it or not. How long will we make it? Hopefully, we will look each other in the eyes a few times before the snow melts, dispose of unkind words, and reengage.

But right now, it's time to take out the garbage, on the off chance the truck gets up the hill.

Holidays

How is it they run up one against another in a seamless stream of take down, clean, store, take out, set up, repeat? Add in work, errands, quiet time, other responsibilities, and our lives seem seed-beaded together into a necklace of celebrations and the work feeding into them.

Living With Someone Else's Pain

How do we cope with the day in day out of living with someone else's chronic, acute pain?

When you wear too tight clothing, it rubs somewhere. You chafe or blister or walk funny. You take it off and feel better. You lose weight and feel better. There's a solution one way or the other.

But you can't take off some pain, and you almost surely can't take off someone else's. If you don't care for the person or don't have regular, close contact with her, perhaps you can avoid her. With a loved one, an immediate family member, that is not a likely solution.

The family is a unit. It functions as a symbiotic life form all its own, and pain or another crisis rips the covers off that reality, sunning it in the heat of reality. When one family member hurts, all hurt. Maybe we each feel the rub in a different place and in a different way and to a different degree. But we each must find a way to cope with the pain that upholds the others individually and the family as a whole. We each reach for the handhold that will build our corporate strength so that we cope together in unity, because to withdraw, to opt out, is to weaken all and self, to collapse under the weight of a would-be usurper.

So when one person lies awake in pain or has to be accommodated in daily activity to alleviate pain and reaches out to the others for help or lashes out in exhaustion, frustration, and agony, the family unit changes, adapts to cope. How?

Words like knocked arrows poise to fly on death's wings through a heart
or like living water pour comfort into the soul

Each moment our lips and tongues tense to ship words into the world we have a choice.

There is an old saying: least said soonest mended.

So spare, careful, caring words can bond a family in pain. What more?

I ponder elements that build in crisis and will post as they coalesce into coherent thought.

Puppets and Knitting

Lulu Mouse globetrotted for a crowd of kids at the Mount Baker Community Center. Lulu and her friend learned a little about the British Isles, Japan, and Mexico, introduced the kids to folk costumes and dances from these places. The children got to participate in some of the dances. Pretty fun all around. The drawback for the forum seems parents at the back of the room talking constantly and little ones running amok to the extent the performers had to stop repeatedly toward the end to quiet the crowd so they could be heard.. Apparently, that's par for the venue. At $3/head, if you've got the money, it's not bad. And most of the kids who were interested in the performance sat up front and could hear. I couldn't figure out if the parents in the back with the disinterested, wild children didn't have other partners with them to take those children out for a walk or if they were oblivious to the noise and needs of others or if there's an unspoken agreement among regular attendees that this is how these events are. Who knows?

Buggy, a slick children's consignment and new goods shop on Beacon Ave. on Beacon Hill, hosted its first knitting lesson day. The two proprietors had two prospective knitters show up: Frank and a woman whose name I've forgotten. Frank was excited to learn to knit, especially since it should mean a finished knit cap at the end. The class lasted 3 hours and wasn't cheap, but the atmosphere was fun, and he got the hang of it (if not a lot of confidence). Little Bear and I looked through the consignment clothes, shoes, some new things, the toys, and played with the toys that were set out for that purpose. Really nice shop.

Lunch and el Quetzal (tasty) and a stop at Mount Baker Park, and we were done with our outings. A movie rental stop and home. Pretty tame for us.

The big issue that arose (and early) is how to help Little Bear become disciplined about getting places on time and listening to our guidance before we raise voices or she gets in trouble. How to pay attention to and not dismiss, disrespect, or take for granted those who love you. It's all become an issue in recent weeks. We're not batting 1,000 on this.

Miracles

A pause from the election chatter to ponder miracles, giving up, restoration, the unexpected.

This morning during the drudgery of cleaning the cat box in the basement, I noticed something small moving toward me, something coming from behind the ironing board and the cat litter bucket, something with a very sweet face and very bright eyes: our hamster Piknecon (pronounced pinecone). Startled and almost afraid to breathe, I picked her up and welcomed her back into the fold. How can a human heart fill with joy over the return of a missing hamster? But it does. I carried her upstairs to show Little Bear and Frank, who likewise could hardly believe their eyes. We took turns holding and stroking her. Then, I fetched her cage, which had been relegated to the basement but not changed since the day she went missing, September 10, 2008. I remember, because it was the day the Hadron Collider started up. Her disappearance had been bizarre: a completely closed cage, no signs of where she'd gone (droppings, blood trails if the cat had gotten her, etc.), no confessions from family of having left it open and later closed it.

Her appearance in that part of the basement, so far from where her cage had been upstairs in the living room is astonishing. Her survival after all this time is equally mysterious and astonishing.

Oddly enough, after 1 1/2 months away from us, she essentially came to my voice, did not fuss when I picked her up, and seemed very, very happy to be held and petted. She is resting in a pile of shavings in her cage. Home.

The cat has been exonerated, and her strange little dance around me, trying to get me to go to the basement (I thought to fill the food bowl or empty the litter box) has now been explained.

Welcome home, Piknecon!

Post-election

Yesterday, I sent emails to some family members asking what the election meant to them based on their life experiences. They have all agreed to sit and write it out so that I can archive it for future family members.

Today I'll share one of my memories, the one that popped to mind most prominently as Barack O'bama gave his speech Tuesday night. Vividly, the image of a young, black man, a boy actually, in my second grade class in Starkeville, Mississippi, in 1971, supplanted itself over the face of our new President. I don't remember the boys name, but I hope never to forget the image of him.

He had been made to stand beside his desk while our teacher, Mrs. Rice, berated him for his shabby clothes and told him and us never to wear clothes like that to school. She spoke of the disrespect his clothes showed, but his torn, denim shorts and hole-worn shoes without socks were not a disrespect to school. They were a disrespect to him, a human being with dignity and deserving of better. And his clothes were not the greatest disrespect in that classroom that day. Her words, her shaming behavior, her racism, her bullying were the greater offense. I remember looking at him and thinking how beautiful he was, standing there with a firm jaw and squared shoulders, a quiet, strong man-to-be, taking the lash of her tongue without lowering himself to her brutish level. He was taller than the rest of us and may have been older. He looked older than we. He did not say one word.

I sat in my seat, glaring at my teacher whom I had been taught to respect, but whom, I realized, did not deserve it.

Now, through the haze of history and memory, I do not remember if I spoke up to her aloud or only in my head. But I remember saying, "You shouldn't yell at him like that. He may not be able to afford better." Words, retorts, arguments burned into my brain in that moment. They have served me well since. There are times I think that day was a defining moment in my life, a time that said, "find your voice and speak out for those who can't speak for themselves. Never let an injustice go unanswered."

As I watched and listened to Barack O'bama Tuesday night, I remembered that proud boy in second grade and felt that somehow he had finally received justice.

Vote

The sabbatical ends today. I voted. It counted. Will my preferred candidates and measures win? Stay tuned.

Thank you 19th Amendment.

Silk Wrapped Dyed Easter Eggs

We wrapped the eggs in squares of silk; then white cotton, and twist-
tied them. Next we put them in an enameled pan, covered them with
water, and brought to a boil. As soon as it boiled, we lowered it to
simmer for 20 minutes. We took them out of the pot but left them in
the wrapping till they cooled. When we untied them this is what we got.