the oh so Lovely 'A Chloris...'

Utterly hypnotic art song by Reynaldo Hahn. Sung sublimely by French sensation, Philippe Jaroussky. Piano accompaniment puts me into a trance.

While packing in California less than 18 months ago, I went through binder after binder of accompaniments I had played in a concentrated year - looking for one two-page pearl: A Chloris. I did not find it. (Unwisely, I discarded almost everything else, thinking I would never need them. Surprise: by grace, vocal accompanying fell into my lap here.)

the most beautiful face in the world....

Charlotte, one day old.

life in death and death in life...

My mother's most fascinating life story is of her near death experience. She was an older teen, living at home...perhaps 17 or 18 years of age. She remembers being in the kitchen and saying to her mother, 'My heart has stopped beating'. Her mother insisted that was a ridiculous statement. But to Susanne, it was true: She began floating upward into the sky, irresistibly drawn towards the Light. Smelling salts and slaps brought her back to earth. I asked how she felt: 'Disappointed' was her reply. She had been happy and safe in the warmth and peace of the interrupted journey, and wished it could continue.

Recently, I received a long, poignant email from a friend who was heavy laden with the loneliness of loss...four friends, from near and far, having passed recently. 'Driving through a waterfall of tears' is how the grief fell on him. I feel that time in my life coming at me like a train - hijacking my intentional journey and slapping me with an about face. Tonight, news of another death from our California church family. Surely, this lovely lady is in a crystal place of light in God's love...light years from earth's sod.

But, what of us - those in the middle...between our making and our remaking? The juxtaposition of 'here' and 'there' is often too much to comprehend or bear. At times I rail, Why is it that we are left here...sometimes with lead footed heaviness... weary of being encapsulated in the imperfect state that traps us - a state perhaps most accurately defined by the unknowns of our exit details.

When my father died, I rejoiced for his separation from his painfully ailing body, so that he could be the radiant person he was made to be. So perhaps tonight I weep not for beautiful Dorothy, but for someone left behind who loves her. And for us, also left behind in a place we were not made for...in a life that we love and live, but that seems, sadly, light years from my mother's interrupted flight to freedom in the heart of God.

fall leaves...

"Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance!"

-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

video d'resistance...

Fr C is soft on Lucy...but it doesn't turn out quite as he expected:

by popular demand...

The latest video of Lucy and Bat Girl. (She does have circles with the bat symbol on both sides of her body - very fitting, we think.)

Note the starting position, with the little trouble maker draped across Lucy's jugular.

good work...

My mother always encouraged her four daughters to 'put your shoulders back' - a vehicle for lauding the importance of good posture. I couldn't do it. It never felt natural or right at all. Later, I would hear from others, 'hold your chest high'. Ditto there, for what seemed to me to be artificially manipulating the human body and perhaps the human spirit as well. Then there was 'Picture a string pulling you up from the top of your head'. Well, perhaps we're getting closer here.

Our daughters model good posture for the rest of us, a result of vocal studies. There is a lifting of their torsos out of that place of bodily solidity - the hips/abdomen - that naturally aligns everything in its path as it grows and stretches into proper position. To me, this technique doesn't artificial but rather very organic and natural in its action and result. I do it, when I remember to! And it just feels right.

When our children were young, I walked an inner tightrope between wanting them to know how wonderful and amazing they are - and not overly praising them for good work done or stressing how proud I was as if it is the latter that makes them the former. "I'm so happy for you" would sometimes be on my lips after an accomplishment. I'm sure I didn't balance the implied tension very well at all. But I didn't want them to think of the performing parts of life (from school work to recitals to degrees...dinners prepared and fabrics & paints, sewn and applied) as something that was to impress others or define their worth, but rather as some good work from and for them. Something to relish, enjoy and be grateful for. And also to ponder in that, in the mystery of how it interlaces with life. Something natural. "You're wonderful" was always in my heart because it's true - but in a much more cosmic sense than we know.

Wendell Berry's 'Good Work', (from What Are People For), offers a somewhat spiritual interpretation of good works that puts the natural back into a what is sometime an artificial concept in life:

Good work finds the way between pride and despair. It graces with health. It heals with grace. It preserves the given so that it remains a gift. By it, we lose loneliness: we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us; we enter the little circle of each other's arms, and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance, and the larger circle of all creatures, passing and out of life, who also move in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.

weeping for wonder...

The spiritually profound O Magnum Mysterium by Morton Lauridsen.

UST Alumni Singers, both incredibly able and obviously popular (over 80,000 views).

Below, proof that a group can be seamlessly one, even when comprised of solo quality voices, one of which is deliciously featured here in Unusual Way (from the musical Nine, Maury Yeston, composer). Arrangement by their director.

saving fuel in Wonderful W...

I just loved the serendipitous proximity of the high gas prices news header and the photo above it!

overheard this morning...

"What was I saying when I so rudely interrupted myself?"*

- from an interminable ENFP

Oooo, I found a website that not only links to prayers for each Myers-Briggs personality type (ENFP: "Oh, Lord, help me to keep my mind on one thing at a....OH! Look at the birdie!!!"), but also suggests a style of prayer best-suited for the types. Augustinian, for NT's.

*Fr C isn't allowed to comment...as he already did.

somewhere... there's a beam down there to land on...

How is this humanly possible???

UNCONSCIONABLE

Just read in Yahoo news that - growingly persistent warnings aside - the known estrogen mimicker/hormone disrupter BPA is actually just peachy-fine for lining our food cans (including infant formula) and hardening our babies' bottles. This in stark contrast to other studies done by...you guessed it: scientists who are not in bed with the government agency or the chemistry council.

You may read an opposing and illuminating view here. Or, perhaps better yet: download/read the PDF of a thorough and riveting Vogue magazine article - 'An Inconceivable Truth'*.

If there is any question of risk - especially for babies, something should be BANNED until the safety can be 100% proven (pardon me while I seethe: 'Are any of these cr*$$* chemicals 100% provably safe???'). Unfortunately, while protecting big business, 'we' seem to approve things that are not acceptable with greater ease (and some bribes/bucks) than it takes to question or dislodge them later. It's all about money and CYA. (Cases in point: aspartame, mercury fillings & vaccines.)

Before I use some words that will ban this blog from the 'sphere, let me just say: I am not a sheeple and I refuse to go back to any regularly scheduled programming.

*This IS a magazine article. Therefore, there are bits of other articles on some of the pages.

Addendum: As standard news goes, the Washington Post's article is superior, IMHO. Their articles are not always accessible online, so here it is:

WASHINGTON — A chemical commonly found in can linings, baby bottles and other household products does not pose a health hazard when used in food containers, according to a draft assessment released Friday by the Food and Drug Administration.

The report stands in contrast to more than 100 studies performed by government scientists and university laboratories that have found health concerns associated with bisphenol A, or BPA. Some have linked the chemical to prostate and breast cancers, diabetes, behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity and reproductive problems in laboratory animals.

Exposure to the small amounts of BPA that migrate from the containers into the food they hold are not dangerous to infants or adults, the draft said.

"FDA has concluded that an adequate margin of safety exists for BPA at current levels of exposure from food contact uses," regulators wrote in the draft report, which will be reviewed Sept. 16 at a meeting of members of an FDA advisory committee studying the safety of the chemical.

The chemical industry and the agencies that regulate the use of BPA, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, have deemed the chemical safe, largely on the strength of two industry-funded studies that found no problems. The American Chemistry Council welcomed the findings of the new report.

"FDA is the premier agency responsible for the safety of our food," Steven Hentges, an executive of the group, said in a statement. "FDA’s thorough analysis confirms that food contact materials containing BPA can continue to be used safely."

FDA critic Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, said the agency lacks sufficient data to declare the chemical safe.

"Clearly their effort was to minimize people being concerned about this," Zuckerman said. "It just seems that whenever there is an opportunity to look at a new important issue, they just seem to be siding with industry’s point of view."

BPA, in commercial use since the 1950s, is in many everyday items, including compact discs and automobiles. One federal study estimated that it is present in the urine of 93 percent of the population.

c'est moi...!

BORG QUEEN'S COSTUME

This coming weekend, we'll be attending a significant anniversary celebration for Fr C's sister and her husband. Star Trek costumes required...at least if you want to have fun. Lucy can even come...if she's in costume.

So, ever clever BLT found this one for me. C'est partfait!!!

Christie's auction house description of it: A biomechanical body suit made from cast latex, painted as metallic cyborg hardware, with a pair of Borg gloves -- designed by Deborah Everton and worn by Alice Kriege as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact and subsequently by Kriege and by Susanna Thompson in Star Trek: Voyager (3).

Oooo Laaaaaa!!!!

Looks like it did already sell for $6K. Drat.

Former choir sojourners will know that an accoutremental surplice overlay is obviously obligatory...for 'other uses'. Demonstrating that 'Anglican Borg sound' has never been so fashionably commanding.



This.... ....plus this.... ....equals this!

christian the lion...

This amazing 1970 reunion has resurfaced, thanks to a spot on 'The View'. Christian's journey from his sheltered life in England (after having been born in a Rotterdam zoo) to being truly 'Born Free' in his ancestral Kenya was an arduous one, glossed over in the above video. If you have time and patience, the story of "Christian, the Lion Who Thought He was People" is told in depth in a series of fascinating and oftentimes unbelievable, black and white videos - beginning here. Intertwined is the story of "Boy", one of the 'Born Free' lions, who is an integral part of it all. There are ten parts to the series. The next video link is always to the right of the one you're watching -- under where it says 'info'. Or, click on the links below.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10 (short)

the dynamic duo...

Having some morning fun

Play among equals. Equally fond of each other. Both mouths wide open.

Kitten ends up quite damp from being 'guided' by The Mouth. Lucy's nose hopefully not the worse for wear from Muffmeister's Claws.

the right brain???...

Auditory : 40%
Visual : 60%
Left : 46%
Right : 53%

Damsianne, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utilize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account

Test courtesy of Brainworks.

prescribing some hammock time for my left brain...

For the past few decades, the growing awareness of my inability to view something with the right side of my brain without my left side sidelining it has both surprised and troubled me. Surprised, because I am an iNFp (Myers-Briggs) musician who values creativity and beauty more than anything. Troubled, because I simply can't shut off the analytical tape that's playing.

So, for example, when I look at a magnificent live oak tree with magical moss dripping from every limb, I can't seem to lose myself in the wordless wonder of it all. My left brain's tour guide analysis insists on bestowing meaning from its standpoint. That's OK...but it won't shut up.

When I was young and started studying piano, the perfectionist in me figured out every note on the page, painstakingly carefully. Once. It would be instantly translated to the 'ballet on the keys' where my eyes would find patterns and meaning that melded with the sound - and the result was almost instant memorization in the right side of the brain. Later, I grew more balanced. By young adulthood, I became an analytical, killer sight reader, by necessity. And, gradually, memorizing dropped to second place.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain teaches a fascinating method for activating the most core creative process in the brain. Imagine taping a piece of blank paper to a table...setting a pencil point in the center...and then looking away at your subject - perhaps a carrot or your hand - and never looking away from it, while on paper your pencil traces what you actually see in your subject. If your end-result drawing looks remotely like the shape of a carrot or a hand, then you cheated. The goal of the technique is not to draw what we think we should, but what we actually see with our ('mind's) right eye'.

An accurate drawing of a drawing of a hand

Drawings of the real thing.
Note the complexities denoted by the hand positions.
Such is of great interest to the right brain.

Even now, though I place my body in a hammock...and begin to enjoy the intricate weavings of threads and colors, I will find myself wanting to describe the patterns, rather than wrapping my brain in their beauty. I'm committed to letting go or that. I know I'll get sidetracked by the left brain's geometric discourses. Or maybe even some worthy speculatings about our children being set up for weary, demented, aged brains because reading and math are emphasized so strongly over art and music in our schools... musing about whether their gray matter is being pushed into a painful pencil sharpener - rather than enjoying the inhalation of invigorating oxygen into their right brains. All of which is what took me out of the hammock after a few minutes in it this morning in order to blog about it.

But, that's for another day or time when I've earned some analytical time.

charlotte...

See Charlotte. Grow, Charlotte, grow!

See Charlotte's head. What big eyes you have!

Think it's fun to turn Summer-saults? Acrobatic Charlotte. Come back in four weeks for more pictures.

Happy girl, Charlotte Louise. Enjoy the swimming and the good food...

...and Mommy and Daddy's love.

paw-nography...

Bixby wants requires equal time.

introducing muffy...

Who is the cutest of them all?

Fr. C dared me to entitle this post 'Hello, Kitty'. I refuse to blatantly bait Felipe that way.

So...here's the new kitten (and just for the record: she was 'unplanned'). Her specialties: careening, cavorting, catapulting. Two weeks ago, she careened into the spotlight from the woods surrounding our hosts' home on the evening of the year-end choir party. Her desperate yelping was piercing and resonant even for a much much larger animal. So we batted around 'Magnificat' as the most fitting name for a feline who loudly crashes a choir party, but we already have a Maggie in the grandkitty generation. And Muffy (short for the more respectable 'Muffin') just seemed to fit her. Besides, I like that name and can always plead that she named herself, as pets are wont to do.

Those who are animal lovers/whisperers know that each and every cat is distinct in every way, from how they move to the intricacies of their psyche. The Muffinator is sweet... spicy... grateful... engaged... communicative. She's a rival for 'brains' in an already brainy pet pool at our house. A sprite who's full of reckless inquisitiveness and is fearless in almost all things...and that's where the cavorting comes in. She doesn't simply aspire to climbing onto a sleeping Mommy: oh, no, she must leap in the air and land like, well, a plump tarantula...splat!...and then scamper off to prepare for a string of similar antics. And this is just in the middle of the night. She plays more intensely (insanely?) and intentionally than any cat we've ever had. And this is a vast understatement.


Muffy:5, Camera:1

Mostly, her moves come under the category of 'aerial'. The little flying-squirrel/super-girl likes to go with arms straight out and cape flapping. Or maybe she's spidermancat. I swear, she has little suction cups on the ends of her extremities. Let's just say she uses her claws well. We're all impressed. Here you can see samples of her horizontal and vertical techniques (oh, and her championship 'waiting the dog out' act):



So, how do Lucy-the-wonder-border-collie and Bixby-the-orange-tabby-terror fit into all of this? Well, it's been quite a journey. Her relationship with Lucy looked like it was headed to a control freak circus act. But much to my surprise, the little Muffmeister - who doesn't know she's a half a percent of Lucy's size & weight, is seemingly best friends with her. What she has in her favor: needle-sharp claws and entertaining moves. She is intent on snagging Lucy's nose with the former and can still dazzle her a bit with the latter.

Bixby isn't 'allowed' to open his throat to emit a teeny growl at the new kitten (Lucy long ago herded this wild cat into a straight jacket). But after two weeks of avoiding the new kid in the living room, he reached out a paw to so some 'air-playing' in her direction.

I'm still waiting for WWIII to start, i.e., the three super animal powers to meet in a dead end hallway.

When our children were young, we had a small 'Muffy' book. I may need clarification from them, but I think she was Hello Kitty's rabbit friend. I've stumbled across a couple of short and very clever Muffy adventure blogs. If you've got the time, you may enjoy Muffy Misadventures and It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, which are mostly about Muffy looking for her missing sister, Miffy. There's even a link to a 'Carrot Toast' recipe.

This one's for you, Muffy!

seeing nature from two sides...

Today, I retrieved a nest from a bush that was part of 'zealous' shaping and pruning on my part a few weeks ago. It was beautifully crafted: awaiting the laying of eggs, cleverly cradled in the honeysuckle bush that would be producing berries to sustain little ones before they fledged. A perfect avian nursery...I had mortally disturbed.

At the time I buzzed-cut the bushes (but not with any electric hedger -- I like the real blades) in our side yard, I had a worthy mission: to coax them to fatten up and fill in and become one with the chain link fence, i.e., totally obscure it from view. My heart got stuck in my throat when I saw what I had exposed. Deprived of branches and leaves above, losing protection from sun and predator's view, the nest's future usefulness was - in a few 'chop chops' - obliterated.

I brought it inside and set it on the kitchen window ledge. The super clean bottom of the nest bowl confirmed that it was not last year's left over, but intended for fresh, new life this year. At eye level, over the sink, I admired its perfection...but still felt so sad over the deprived future. Then...an earwig crawled out of it and I quickly put him in the disposal.

Earlier, we had pulled up a sprung mole trap from the front yard. We've been invaded, inundated and overtaken by these creatures. Caught in the trap's blades was a perfectly formed mole with cute little toes. Cruelly - in its view - was life brought to an end. We had to work to release it, and somehow that seemed fair. I found myself wishing it could have been trapped live and released. Impractical, at best.

I have mixed feelings about my interactions with nature. I get really upset when anything is harmed...and, more and more, I do mean anything. A few days ago, I saw a teeny spider running across our carpet. I whispered 'sorry' before flattening it. When we first moved in here, a house centipede attracted Lucy's attention one evening. She ended up being stung in her mouth as she played with it. I was frightened -- had never seen one before. After I finished it off, I went to google 'ugly midwestern huge insect' and found out who/what I was living with. Come to find out, they like to stay to themselves, mostly out of sight, close to the walls. AND, they eat all the insects you don't want to have in your house...roaches 'n' stuff.. Okay. So I gave them a lease...I guess on Life. I felt proud of being able to ignore them, but the reality is this: If I see one 'loose', I worry about Lucy getting hurt. Or at least that's what I tell myself after killing it. And I do wordlessly apologize, every time. Recently, when I saw a baby one in a bathtub, I verbally patted it on the back and left it alone. A few days later, it was dead. The tub was too slippery to escape. How ironic.

I am at the same time a sympathizer and a murderer.

So...with an increasing sense of my intruding footprint on the environment comes guilt (even as I discard the moldy broccoli that was forgotten at the back of my vegetable bin, or wish my solution to keeping garbage smelling 'good' would be something better for the environment than sealing shrimp shells in the ziplocked extra thick plastic bag they were sold in...a bag that will be degrading for eons before those easily biodegradable shells see the light of day), but also the awareness of the inevitability of good and evil mixing it up in this life. Are we all a sea in a Garden of Eden salad?

As I said before...I'm ready for the peaceable kingdom.

Fourth of July in the 'hood...

Aerial view of the greater neighborhood whose identity spans decades...
...as do their legendary celebrations...

Wow. We were warned. I mean...informed. Not one, but three parishioners called to ask if we 'know about the traditional celebration of the 4th' in our neck of the woods. It's decades old. And it's big.

Multiple parties started it off on Thursday night, some closing down the street. At the end of our block, parks 'n' rec picnic tables (in a small town, you can borrow anything) surrounded a home. A port-a-potty stood sentinel at the corner. Across the pond, the house that has become famous for festive music late into the night kept it's reputation for enhancing the mood until well after midnight.

The morning parade on the 4th was said to be 'smaller than usual'. Translation: no elephants or tigers...though they've had them in the past. An official baton twirler led it off, followed by bagpipers. Close behind: the large duck - I didn't get the story on him but I'm betting there is one.

Vehicles ranged from fire trucks to oldsters to jeeps and all the way down to golf carts. Impressively long!!!

The older set who had birthed this parade when their children were young walked the route boasting a 'Sex in the City' theme. Unfortunately...that picture got deleted from the full camera card to make room for others.


There is a 'W' missing before the 'TF' below! Gas prices drove the theme for the day. Even the grand marshal putt-putted on a wee scooter.



Pony rides were available on this corner before the parade. After the parade, 50,000 firecrackers (smoke bombs???) were thickly blanketed along the side of the road...producing, well....a highly impressive blanket of sound and smoke. A fitting end to a grand event.

But the parties went on!


A parishioner's grandfather - he'll be 100 on his next birthday. A treasured folk artist in this state. He carved, painted, etched and decorated the above walking stick. A highlight of the day for me: holding it and turning it as I read, aloud, the poem he cleverly wove into the design. I can't remember the name of the poem or poet...but, ironically, it did include something about failing memory.


The view from the grandfather's seat: A young boy rests on the largest tree swing I've ever seen. The lot straight ahead has a historic house on it that was the clubhouse when the greater area was a golf course.

The day ended with the longest fireworks display ever - well over half an hour - launched from two barges on the lake. Lucy and I drove to a point just beyond the lower right corner of the above google earth map and viewed them through the windshield. The barge was directly in front of us and therefore the show was deafening! Returning home a bit shell-shocked, we were (unfortunately) treated to more fireworks, this time launched from a house two doors down. I do mean launched. Barge-worthy.

mosaic of moi...

In her 'Midweek Mosaic' post, Miz Minka gives instructions and links for making a photo mosaic. An 'in your own image' sort of art project. Fun!

The photos represent my name, my favorite food, the high school I attended, favorite color, celebrity crush, favorite drink, dream vacation, favorite dessert, what I want to be when I grow up (if ever...), something I love in life, one word to describe me, and my alter-ego name. I don't think I'll offer any detailed Jungian interpretations of mine. But the first photo is a Brenda in a training session with the National Zoo's celebrity, Tai Shan. Nuff said. As well as the capirinha, chocolate and damselfly.

micro greens...

'Red micros', purchased from the Goshen Farmer's Market yesterday.
These are sprouted from arugula, mizuna, kale, amaranth, mustard, cress
and tatsoi seeds.
Crisp. Spicy. Extraordinary.

I'm addicted to microgreens. I guess that's not a bad thing. Sprouts are in fact the most nutrient dense food on earth, themselves ripe with the magic of life's essential enzymes. My mouth told me as much when I first tasted the mix above at the same marketplace a few weeks ago. A package or two later, my increased energy became their best spokesperson. A micro second later came the familiar nagging greed for possessing the knowledge of 'doing it myself'.

So I embarked on a Google journey. After hitting dead end after dead end in my search for a workable home system (let's just say most info sources are geared towards selling the expensive little gems), I discovered a wealth of info at SproutPeople. There I found my ideal: hemp bags. Seeds for micros need some sort of medium and the hemp fiber is an easy, reliable and reusable (and therefore economical) one. Next step: obtaining a bag of seeds that replicates the 'wow' of the above mix.

An Amish farmer at the above market declared that it now take five apples to match the nutrition found in a 1965 version of one. Depleted soil, herbicides, pesticides are perhaps the basic culprits. But a larger issue looms on a grander scale: In our good intentions to feed humanity easily and thoroughly, we may not have done either as we super-manage food producing, processing, packaging. "We're consuming 'edible foodlike substances' -- no longer the products of nature but of food science." (Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food). Honing the art of nutritional science, we're seemingly much less healthy than where we started. Malnourished some would say. Perhaps we've lost something essential: What food was truly meant to be.

Thank goodness the pendulum is showing signs (...not macro quite yet) of swinging...of increasing awareness of and desire for health and wholeness. Being human, we will ever do it imperfectly. For now, I'm choosing a micro remedy - with some hope and gratitude in the mix.

talking cat...

Miz Minka's recent post with a singing dog has reminded me of this YouTube video. When I discovered it a few months ago, both Bixby and Lucy came barreling into the room, trying to locate the interloper. On 'replay', Bix jumped onto the table beside me, walked across to the computer, went around back to sniff the speakers and...hissed!!!

Of course, I just couldn't resist replaying just a few more times for him. Some would say that's messing with his brain. He did end up staring at the speaker for quite some time.

Catatonic???

pond music...

We're enamored of the nighttime bullfrog-serenading going on in the pond. While living in Aumsville, Oregon, thirty years ago, we enjoyed these amphibians on the millrace that bordered our property, which was across the street from a feed mill. (I'm not going to go 'there' now as the mill's practice of putting out poison for their mice had a fateful effect on two of our beloved cats, including the one we got as a kitten when first married. Well...I guess I did go there. heartbreak...) The 'singing' can be considered irritating But, like a gently rolling train in the midwest background, it truly grows on you.

Soon after the first bullfrog commenced his unique arias - a month or so ago - a second one emerged across the pond. Some nights it was obvious they had moved, but still seemed to be facing each other on opposite sides of the pond/island/etc. I took to calling them 'Tristan and Isolde', thinking them star-crossed lovers that yearned to be together but were separated by familial expanse: Mom & Dad didn't approve of a liaison. Then, my visiting sister-in-law googled bullfrogs and announced if they're singing they're both males.

Like most males in the animal world, they have to work hard to attract females. In this case, the females are a bit larger than them. The wily mates not-so-slyly and attractively (???) honk away. When females come to check out the nature-karaoke and are put into some altered state by the males' bravado, they are summarily and quickly jumped on. Nothin' romantic or star-crossed about that.

Just yesterday I heard an NPR story on Wagner's opera, Tristan and Isolde. Well, actually, the drama surrounding the writing of it. While consumed by the T&I story, he was also consumed with passion for his benefactor's wife, Mathilde. By the time of the opera's premier years later, his wife Minna and said mistress Mathilde were both out of the picture. And Cosima Liszt von Bulow (Franz Liszt's middle daughter) - wife of Hans von Bulow, a famous conductor who was, in fact, collaborating with Liszt on the opera and conducted its premiere performance - had just borne Wagner a daughter. She would bear him a second child and be pregnant with a third before officially leaving husband-von-Bulow for fifteen years of marriage with Wagner. At his death, she clung to the corpse for 24 hours and longed to take the plunge to the afterlife with him.

Makes pond life look pretty dull. But, clearly, in some way that refuses to be pinned down, 'it's not over until the fat toads sing'.

Recently, Fr. C submitted my blog for a literacy test. Came up 'junior high' level. OK. I can take that, I guess. My propensity for making up words and writing incomplete sentences and often disrespecting the English language and its rules (though I was fastidious when young) are most likely to blame. However, Richard Wagner's life-tale is certain to ensure a solid PG rating.

Interesting quote about Wagner: During rehearsals for Tristan, Wagner's friend August Roeckel recalled: "If a difficult passage went particularly well, he would spring up, embrace or kiss the singer warmly, or out of pure joy stand on his head on the sofa, creep under the piano, jump up onto it, run into the garden and scramble joyously up a tree."

Click on the picture of the scary frog above and a National Geographic page comes up with lots of interesting bullfrog info. You can even listen to their 'music'.

we're pregnant...

Well, not exactly us. Sum and Dom are. Well, actually Sum is. Delight does not even begin to express our multi-faceted joy, generously kissed by gratitude.

Some time before the end of 2008 (hopefully a month before, for Sum's sake), we'll welcome a Chester or a Charlotte into this life. Oh such darling names! Middle names: 1) the D.C. station where S&D agreed to meet for the life-changing blind first-date; or 2) Sum's middle name.

They've heard the vibrant heartbeat, which has become palpable in grandmother/nana/wingedlady's prayers...a precious bird-in-hand...

music sublime...

This video - an entry in Universal Music's search for an international choir - won the Cistercian brothers of an Austrian monastery a recording contract. CD available May 19th. Here, the official trailer.

Perhaps some of the ecstatic and mystical spiritual meaning of this art will come through to our 21st-century hardened and bored hearts.

mother's day treat...

My Finnish Friend sent this for Mother's Day. If you click on the above nesting hummingbird, a site will come up with photos of her two offspring in their journey from wee eggs to adulthood. I believe these are Allen's hummers.

Clicking on this little photo brings up a wonderful site/sight, with a photo and narrative for each day in the Ruby-throated hummingbird's nest. Astonishing!!!


Such good moms, I might add...

the pond giveth...

Part of my regular binocular viewing of the island has been to check out Mommy Goose on her nest. It is mostly an obscured view (as she intends, no doubt), behind a large tree. After being content for so long with glimpses of her profile - beak and a bit of breast, or, in the other direction - the tip of her tail, my patience (obsession???) paid off. On Monday of last week, I witnessed a well-timed miracle.

She stood on her nest (I've only seen this twice before when she was undoubtedly turning the eggs). And as she walked off it, in the direction of Daddy Goose - who was about 10 feet away, doing what he does best...which is to stand tall and watch for trouble and generally look entirely in control, eight goslings lined up behind her and teetered into their new world. Then, to my complete amazement, the family set sail into the pond and landed on our piece of the shoreline to feed on a slope rich with bugs.

Daddy looks straight at me. Seems to know I'm out there...snapping photos through a window.
Actually, the camera's flashing red light probably gave me away.

I immediately noted that goslings, though inherently cute for a lot of reasons, are not that attractive. Yellow balls with large gray splotches, they are! I watched the gangley parade with some anxiety, as if it was their first outing, though I didn't know that for sure. Some comfort was taken in evidence of Mother Nature's well-oiled system of the care-and-feeding of goslings: Daddy, constantly looking impressively imposing, while Mommy leads the way, encouraging, sometimes keeping them close, sometimes stretching their limits a bit. I rehearsed the mantra that I expected would become my focal point over the next few weeks: one, two, three...four, five...six.........seven. Now where is that eighth????

Mommy then decided to jump off the neighbor's retaining wall. Bad idea!!!!!!!!! Goslings were certainly frightened at the thought of leaping into an abyss to be near her. One brave one took the plunge, looking oh so awkward. A few others followed. Daddy, in his attempt to be helpful, was actually causing the rest of them to go further down the wall, away from the spot on our shore where they could easily step into the pond. In the end, all was well, with all but one joining Mom by recklessly flailing and falling, and the runt finding its way back to the sweet spot on our side.

The family then processed back to the safety of the island. And my racing heart rested.

I expected that I would not serendipitously be around for all outings, but enjoyed the grace of the next sighting on the island a few days later. Backlit by the morning sun, the little ones' angelic halos of glowing yellow downy fuzz didn't match the behavior: running around, way faster than their feet and balance could handle. One was intent on beak-fighting (must be the brave one who was first to jump off the wall a few days earlier, I surmised). Their playfulness reminded me of kittens. Generally, they looked like they would soon be nothing but trouble to their parents. Yet, Dad still did what he does best - watching and guarding. And Mom seemed to still have influence when she clucked. Her children played the essential game of evolutional survival: 'duck, duck goose' - seemingly on command flattening to the ground to be hidden in the grass, hopefully invisible from predators. They went for a swim. I counted, over and over...'one, two, three', etc. Good job, Mother Nature.

...and the pond taketh away...

The next day, I saw Mom & Dad alone on the island, near the nest, but no goslings in sight. Sentinel father, still solid and stoic. Mother...well, looking almost dazed, if I could anthropomorphise. I knew deep down that the absence of chicks didn't make sense. And any hoping on my part that they were soooooo well-disciplined as to be in nest 'time-out' didn't make sense. I set the binoculars down and walked away from the window.

Early Friday morning, we awoke to loud and constant honking. I rushed to the window to see what was going on. There, on the island's nesting point, was Mr. Goose, standing tall, silent, at his ever-vigilant best, giving protective space to a seemingly distraught mate. No longer Mommy goose, Mrs. was pacing in the vicinity of the nest...dramatically gyrating...her long neck twisting this way and that, up and down. Her trumpet-wailing could have woken the dead...but didn't. I cried with her. And then went back to bed to hide my head under the covers. Damn Mother Nature.

This display of parent loss was the only outward sign of their grieving. Mates for life, they still are a pond couple. But the empti-ness of the empty-nest speaks volumes.

I now think back to something that might be significant: when stepping into the pond surface, some goslings seemed to go under and then bob back up. Though I truly think they were just enjoying the ducking and diving, I've wondered if something was nipping at them from below. There are no obvious suspects to put in a line-up for the parents to identify. Painted turtles are omnivores when young, though nothing larger than a grub is listed in the non-vegetable part of their diet description. A more likely villain would be the visiting heron we've seen...or occasional hawks. Do I want their young to go hungry? No. But I'm ready for a world where the lion can lie down with the lamb. Right now, the circle of life is definitely a messy thing.

gift of the season...

Returning home from a clergy spouse conference in this lovely diocese this past Saturday evening, I found a lilac branch waiting for me at the door. The gift-giver knew I was entranced by them here - a different variety than grows in California. What a treasure to find, after being consumed by lilac envy all the way home, mental scouring the yard to come up with possible sites for the myriad bushes I yearned to possess.

They grow big here. I suppose I would tire of a wall of them across the back...perhaps punctuated with a tribe of astonishingly beautiful redbuds...and a few of whatever graceful white blooming trees I see paired with them in front of the corner house down the street...and the many pictures I could take of pond wildlife, filtered through lilac light.

Or maybe not.

Many thanks, Sarah!

for the children...

Delighted to see this statistic on Yahoo news this morning: The Center for Disease Control reports a 20-year high in breastfeeding among new mothers (albeit, some briefly). Three out of four to be exact.

I belong in the group that zealously maintains you can give no better gift to your child than to breastfeed. Oddly enough, this comes at a time when a 'better than breast milk' canned substitute is out on the market. Organic, it says on the label. Hmmm. Glad they at least steamed off the petroleum used in the process of manufacturing it. My Canadian naturopathic sensei says labor and delivery nurses are calling it the 'diarrhea maker'. I'm hoping that, if I were to look into it further, it might have been pulled from shelves.

The above statistics could be minisculy bumped up if the state of Texas, in its well-meaning but out-of-control zeal, had not removed all children from their polygamist mothers...including nursing infants. Get a grip, Texas. We know it's a complex situation, but don't make the very children you are trying to protect suffer in this way.

etsy charm...

birch tree in fog capelet

A quick post, as I'm too busy to give proper attention to anything!!!

This past Christmas, I stumbled upon etsy.com and found Ellita's Flying Snail. It was a delight to choose a few special gifts from her hand-crafted, artful, one-of-a-kind creations.

You may click here for perusing her current gallery of items for sale, or go to etsy.com to sample all their galleries.

huh???

An ad on NPR's Morning Edition this morning, as related by Fr. C:

"...sponsored by Scott's Turfbuilder, reminding you to sweep excess fertilizer off your driveway to avoid contaminating groundwater."

Hello. What about the part that actually goes into the ground...???

I'm as much of a fan of green grass as anyone. But it's time to find an organic way to make that happen. Here, a post that covers some of their efforts to do that.

adagio para cuerdas en g menor...

Albinoni's Adagio for Strings in G minor.
The nicest rendition I've ever heard...
perhaps because of the organist's interpretation.
There is no indication of the identity of the performing group.

When I went back to school in my mid-thirties to obtain a teaching credential in music, they stressed an interesting, new (to me) approach to music education. Simply stated, if instruction resulted in a 'feelingful response' to music, that equaled success. Yes, we taught basics and concepts, etc, etc. Yes, we talked about what music means, etc, etc. But to simply enjoy being awash in the sound was considered the highest experience for the student.

I came across the above video as I was traveling a bit through the blog world a few weeks ago - one of those '...a link off a blog roll off of a link off another blog roll...', etc. There were other options on YouTube. But I found myself drawn to the simplicity of this one, just because. I didn't need a slide show of nature scenes (though I enjoy them) or to watch orchestra members ply their art (though I find that to be amazing.). This one gave me a chance 'just to be'. And in that, I found myself to be one with the music. And just that.

brenda the polygamist speaks out...

What a horrid, sad situation in Texas. Of course, we want to, have to - and must protect children. Granted, that polygamy is basically a disgusting concept. Granted, the government's intention in taking hundreds from the Yearning for Zion compound in Texas is grounded in appropriate concern. Granted, that such naivety and passivity on the part of mothers and fathers is grossly unfortunate. Granted, also, I'm sure, is that a polygamist compound might just be a great place for a pedophile (or two or a score or more) to 'abide' and such should be prosecuted vigorously.

And, while granting that children generally do not admit to abuse when parents are around, yet I do not greet with joy the news that each child being held in state custody will have a lawyer...but not a mother. Hundreds of children who knew nothing about the outside world are having a cruel introduction to it. They now have no one they trust to interpret, in their own language and spirit, what-the-heck is going on. I understand why it can't be. But, it's sad and ultimately costly.

I wept while watching the news video of 'Marie' describing her heart break...how her son came to her in the night with a naive request that broke my heart also. 'Brenda' follows with a statement of what happened at the separation.

Granted, in this blogger's mind, that the whole polygamist thing might have been settled easily - and eons ago - if it were males of young age that were deprived of control over their deepest selves. And, granted, immediately, that young males are in some way also victims in the current situation.

elephant intelligence...

Skeptical? See below, a 'copy/paste' from the Self-Awareness portion of Wikipedia's page on Elephant Intelligence, even containing a reference to my previous post's video. The entire page is nothing short of astonishing. Sections on Altruism, Problem-solving and Death Ritual - particularly so. Required reading for Fr C and Felipe!

"Asian Elephants have joined a small group of animals, including humans, great apes and Bottlenose dolphins, that exhibit self awareness. The study was conducted with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) using elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Although many animals will respond to a mirror, very few show any evidence that they recognize it is in fact themselves in the mirror reflection.

"The Asian elephants in the study also displayed this type of behavior when standing in front of a 2.5m-by-2.5m mirror - they inspected the rear and brought food close to the mirror for consumption.Absolute evidence of elephant self awareness was shown when "Happy" repeatedly touched a painted "X" on her head with her trunk, a mark which could only be seen in the mirror. Happy ignored another mark made with colourless paint that was also on her forehead to ensure she was not merely reacting to a smell or feeling.

"Extraordinary video documentation of an elephant painting a picture of an elephant - possibly indicating self-awareness - has become widespread on internet news and video websites. The quality of the painting is extremely high, leading many astonished viewers to doubt the video's authenticity. The website snopes.com, which specializes in debunking urban legends, lists the video as 'true'."

another wonder of nature...

Be sure to watch this to the very end! The artist's final, detailing stroke blew me away.



I would make a case for something more than a 'self-portrait', as this is billed on YouTube, but perhaps something deeper and more far-reaching: a sense of identity and recognition of tribe (though a group of elephants is poetically referred to as a 'memory' of such. Love it!). The elephant knows he's an elephant, is primarily interested in elephants. Don't humans paint mostly other humans? So he chooses to paint an elephant as a true reflection of what is essentially known to him.

Notice, he didn't paint a lion. But might yet do that if an elephant was holding one...??? (joke)

wildlife obsession...

The duck couple floating in the liquid gold of morning sun...

The pond wildlife community never ceases to amaze. Mr & Mrs Duck remain at the top of the completely adorable list. No sign of nesting. Unfortunately, I glimpsed a large (aren't they all) Canadian goose behind a tree on the south tip of the island in the prime breeding spot - sitting still for hours and facing the opposite end as if the better to see interlopers approach over the bridge. I hear geese can be verrry protective of their young. And even though I'd rather see the ducks on that prime spot during nesting season - and know that border collies are considered to the most effective geese-nuisance 'ridders' in the world, I'd fear for Lucy's safety if turned loose on the island at this point.

I have wildlife-viewing obsession and am currently completely over the top when it comes to turtles. With our small but wonderfully powerful binoculars, I spied a large turtle sitting with the above-referenced goose yesterday. Odd couple!! What I want to is to be able to snap a picture of that with binocular clarity and mega close up perspective. A picture taken from the deck is a safe photo bet, as long as I move noiselessly: turtles and ducks will skedaddle at the least little sound (I've even seen deer from way across the pond lift their heads when I simply open the deck door). But a bit too far away. Once, I was successful in going out the front door and coming around to the back, moving as silently as possible on the grass to surreptitiously take a turtle pic from land's edge. Closer... better. The best, but riskiest: from the end of the protruding dock. If you ever want to see 18 turtles hit the water in a split second, that's the way to do it. But then you get to watch their little noses moving just above water level as they swim about and ultimately heed the call of the sun's heat to return to the warm grass.

So, I've seen them - and tried to photograph them - in all their glorious charms, watching their numbers grow from one to 25 on a very fortunate day...observing great variety in sizes as their young join them...admiring their silver-gray backs when dry and warm...and glossy blacks when first coming up from the pond. Yup. Completely bitten by turtle obsession.

Admiring their own reflections?

Meeting of the tribal elders?

Probably not listening to a speech from the robin;
but - as they normally do, simply facing the direction they arrived out of the water.
Ideal/efficient for exposing their backs to the sun?

The day I counted 25 of them: varying degrees of size, dry/wetness.
A wee one on the far right perhaps coming up for a first day in the sun?


The island seems to melt into the opposite shore...
as turtles spread out across the nearer edge
we are most fortunate to have in our view.