dispatch from Nawlins and coast

so far the food has been very good; the weather superb. Yesterday in 'Nawlins to see Pres' new house all a color in the byewater. His design is wonderful with inner courtyard, solar on roof, roof veggy garden, black bathroom, wonderful staircase (with voodoo designed panels!), voodoo tarot paintings in the big front door. Pres has out done himself collecting objects of interest from auctions, a mooracan mirror of inlaid camel bones, two African chieftan arm chairs inlaid with ivory i think - wonderful carpets - a bit heavy on the Sallie Ann paintings and none of Pres's great collection of art - But the walls are to die for, clay mixture over sheetrock - feel so warm - amazing. fun to see Pres and his house and to finally meet Sallie Ann. Lunch at Satsuma where at an adjacent table was a man i knew i knew, but since I wasn't sure I said nothing. We then went to the neighborhood park where arts' had tents displaying their work. Philip Thompson was there and while I was talking with him the man from the restaurant came up saying, "Blacksburg?" and i turned around to see the same face! ah, yes, Catherine Snyder's recent x, Chris Beattie (?) who now lives in New Orleans. I introduced him to Sharon, Trailer, Philip and Pres. Was a good day. Got to meet Sharon's new grand daughter, Emory - oh, so precious - definitely puts the want of baby flesh into your heart. Got to go to walk thru the pine trees with Trailer and Sharon (we hope to coax Sharon out!).

Fly Away

I've packed. After much deliberation, I am leaving computer and memorizing passwords; question remains: pat down or radiation (full body scan)? Last night I asked Mindy and Baldwin who both answered immediately: Baldwin, "scan;" Mindy,"pat down." I laughed - wasn't the responses I would have imagined. A split decision, I'm just going to be inspired. I should ask Ez who has done more traveling than anyone I know.
Looking forward to some warmer weather and to seeing my friend. Hope to maintain my cool and to not get fusticated by my Dad. ha. Wondering if the air still smells of petrochemicals. Wondering if there is any sea food to eat - and what about my favorite sushi places? Planning on doing qigong with Sharon so I won't miss all of my routine. Walking thru suburban mcpalaces on the bayou instead of circling Red Bud. Into New Orleans to meet Sharon's new grand-daughter, Emory; play with Aiden, try not to miss Pearl!

I buried Griffin today

I found Griffin this morning in the green house curled in an unmoving ball, so thin and so light - he must have died yesterday afternoon while i was at the seminar in Blacksburg. He would not have made it through the winter and I am relieved he didn't have to suffer longer or let out his moaning meow. I'll miss his pawing at the glass door and his passive slow motion move thru the day. As far as I know he never caught a mouse or bird in all of his 17 years, while his brother, Merlin, was a masterful hunter. Griffin is buried above Greystroke.

a taste of what i learned today

I think this is the fourth of Robin Murphy ND seminars that I have attended, maybe 5th; this evening I am energized by the moringa leaf tea and cacao raw fudge and wanting to share some of the amazing information. There is always fascinating information from the seminars: last time and this time he talked about activated charcoal, specifically bamboo variety. This in powder form is a great detox, 1/2 teas. in water - but it is has a score of other uses. Poisoning being perhaps the top of the list. A poultice can be made - its pretty messy and stains - but a poultice can suck the poison out of a wound (even snake bite). It can also be used as a mask to clean the skin...and Robin swears by a tooth powder of charcoal powder and baking soda! I came home and mixed some in can cat food for my cats one of whom needs a miracle! More tomorrow!

swinging

I am amazed at how strong DD is: she swings her legs holding onto counter and chair. Upstairs she climbs up the high bed and clings to a post before sliding down.

Fortunately all the chickens survived last night with their small chicken doors gaping open until I came home from Giles after 9. Hiking up thru the pines to the blue house with a full belly I amused myself with the stories still spinning in my head from the evening at Ann's. Talking about virtue in the Blue taxi traveling home; virtue as opposed to morals!

another halcyon day

Yesterday was wonderfully productive in our "web" rehearsal - Bob's direction took the writing into dramatic territory, into a place that was more moment - out of the space of past mourning - allowing the works to blossom. It was exciting.

hiked the mountain before i left yesterday and just completed a circuit today before i again journey into Blacksburg to retrieve friends for our celebration of Pat at Ann's.

thoughts

woke myself up last night screaming, "get away bear!" Lay in bed remembering my camp nick name, Mary Bear, because I would scare away the black bears banging on a cooking pot on hikes in the Smokies. I loved hiking and spent most of camp (at age 13) on hikes in the mountains of North Carolina; the bears there are larger than the bears around here. In retrospect I would have loved to go back to camp the next summer but for some reason we were not allowed; i doubt it was financial, I suspect my mother's horror when she heard that i'd been on a 5 day hike and had not changed clothes in that time! I was drifting hopelessly away from southern ladyhood!
My camp experience was a seed of my later feminism which was no doubt fertilized and nourished at Sarah Lawrence. I still have a hard time understanding what's not to like about feminism. But I realize my father could easily set me straight on this if i would stop to listen; but my ears clog up the minute he suggests i need to go to a beauty parlor (" I've never know a woman who doesn't like to go to the beauty parlor," he actually said to me).
At a basic level, feminism means to me that I have dominion over my body - hence, I am strongly PRO CHOICE. It means that women have equal rights to men; but this is still far from true. Still not equal pay! I associate feminism with a sensibility that abhors injustice.
This is a subject to which I will return!

while a rumor of bear...

runs thru the pines, I plan to take in my bird feeders tonight and perhaps bar the downstairs door that has no lock!
Read a fine article on the state of feminism today which was in the October issue of Harper's. I think there is much to think about; much to discuss and friends in Blacksburg are starting a discussion. It frightens me to see the hatred against Planned Parenthood. ach do!

There are many things to like about Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM, but I had to stop the other night to write down a sentence on page 444 which thrilled me: "He became another data point in the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn't the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn't get along well with others."
All day I took time to search for the second PO Box key which I put in a safe place 12 years ago; it was a second look in the tea caddy on my dresser that proved successful. grrrrr. A second incident of Griffin pooping inside; and i had only let him in for moments. So disgusted in myself that i hardly fussed at him.
Was a wonderful morning of Qigong and a halcyon day for a walk this afternoon.

Persistence will get you there or here!

He's back and he's staying this time; meant to be, i suppose - now if Alaska and Oskar can just not fight, we'll be happier with the situation. And on this coldest morning without daylight savings, how can i not admire the homing instinct of this cat, especially since this wasn't exactly "home",but a place he'd staked out. Now I am hoping that he, Alpha cat, can frighten the skunk away who I surprised slinking under the deck as I went to close the chickens just home from the NAACP Freedom Banquet. Luckily I was not sprayed, nor was the house.
I enjoyed the banquet, especially relevant speaker, Wornie Reed (Prof. of Sociology at VT) who spoke about the disproportionate number of African Americans in prison. I learned that Virginia has a particularly high incarceration rate of blacks - mostly for drug crimes. I knew Virginia prohibited ex-cons from voting, ever, but i had not known that Virginia is one of only 2 states who do this. He talked about how this impacts the family; the increase in single family households. Another reason we need NOW to find some to run for governor of Virginia; I want Tom Perriello . A friend suggested Rick Boucher.

begging

Here's Griffin! Can't really see the incredible thinness of him; can't hear his moan that can be heard all the way up at the Blue house.
I am enjoying Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM; indeed, masterful dramatization of life in the USA - "freedom?" ah! freedom to not be free; freedom to corrupt self, family and earth...

my problem with elephants

Many years ago (well when Ezra was applying to college - 1990) I went to a psychic. Besides declaring almost immediately that my son would go to Texas (Ezra then applied to UT Austin!); he said, "You are very spiritual person, tho not religious." He then proceeded to tell me why: In a previous incarnation you were a member of a religious sect in India which the government banned. All members of the sect were brought to a clearing where there was a large stone. One at a time people were led to the stone, told to put their head on top - at which time an elephant stomped on the head! Ah, I thought that seems possible as I have never been a church goer. I tend to think that most organized religion causes brain damage, but i hadn't thought, squash. Nevertheless, this may partially explain my donkey persuasion.

On another note I have exiled poor pathetic Griffin to the green house after his use of my rug for toilet. This for the second time in few days, causing me to scrub a rug in the cold sleet that suddenly fell from a grey cloud. I have little patience for him as he is able to negotiate the cat door out of the green house - but fails to go to the door from the house. He's old. I feel awful looking at his scrawny pale orange body very very slowly making his way back to the green house when I won't let him back into the house. The green house is warmer, he has a snug fur cat bed in there. I hate that he can make me so angry. At least he has stopped his loud moaning meow.

its cold! freeze fear

cold here, cold all around here. But we're warm and eating oranges inside, DD can manage a clementine all by herself. Taking a basket and clippers out to the garden to gather greens for the worms and me. Definite need for another soup; if i don't make a pie with Alma's pumpkin, i may make soup which is probably a good idea as i have these lovely granny smith tart apples in contention; it so depends on a mood or ingredients available.
we may even have snow flurries tonight and tomorrow - if we're considered "high elevation" by the clouds that be. Being from the swamp lands of New Orleans, this is absolutely high elevation at 2 thousand feet.
Thinking over yesterday's blog "alter" (thanks, Faith!), I do want to let it out that I'm not considering a dog yet - only imagining. And when it comes to the figuring and contortions of the electorate, specifically the voters for Griffith or Hurt, I can't say I know the persuasion that works for them, nor the "connections" they make, only that it seems poorly thought through. I am admittedly of the Earth First lean, pro choice, pro sex education in schools, pro gay marriage, pro health care - and so forth. ah..................

what did i mean?

I changed the "arter" to after, but i was sort of intrigued with arter! I should a artered, instead of spending the day at the polls. Today the kind secretary at the Auburn UMC (where we do qigong) handed me a small picture of a border collie pup from the paper - a sister of the puppy she recently got for her family! We've chatted about dogs, she went several years between dogs. So dogs seem to be coming at me!
"If you do what everyone else does, you won't lead an extraordinary life." The quote is from my friend whose dentist told this to his children; he bicycles to work in Roanoke, travels to Africa where he offers free dental work and he is 80 and still working.
It was good therapy to go out into the fields yesterday with my chainsaw and cut down small scrub pines and locust. Like splitting wood, hard work does seem to help dispel aggressive feelings - anger. I do think that we may have hit on something discussing the out come of the election before we began qigong: that some of the "tea party folk" compartmentalize notions and fail to make connections. In this sense, they cannot see the idiocy of their words - the lack of logic, the no facts. for example, the notion that abstinence works, when it has proven to not work (statistics on teenage pregnancy point this out). We could have talked the morning away! "Aren't we wise!" as Katharine Heath might say!

the day after

Well, I was inspired for a short time by Mindy's note that November is national blogging month and was wont to blog each day; Mindy's going ahead. I didn't blog yesterday after too long standing and "greeting" voters at the polls, growing cold and sore, losing faith that BOUCHER would be reelected and hungry for hot soup (which I am getting around to cooking now). I guess I will set a more realistic goal to blog every other day (and I don't know about the end of the month as I will be visiting Rudy).
The saving grace of yesterday was that after setting up BOUCHER signs at D-3 Bethel and greeting early voters with two Auburn HS students until Tom arrived, I went home to baby sit grand daughter. For 3 hours I played in the world of a bright 2 year old and forgot about elections. I had to return to the polls immediately after she left and spent the long afternoon at Bethel. Taking a break to vote at Auburn, check in at Armory and the library, calling Pilot. What what now? The anxiety that runs through my blood is President Obama's election in 2012 considering the nasty ads and signs of this year! Sigh!
I held a little puppy, indeed little at 8 weeks, a chihuahua, shivering and licking. Very cute with that endearing puppy smell - but the parents in the car were not so cute, overweight and pointy nosed. So life goes on in the hollow with out a dog.

The Days of the Dead

I hope i know why the election surveys are skewed: yesterday i got a call which i would normally have hung up on, "do you care about gun control?" ach, yes, only not in the way you mean! I want control so tight you can only bu
y a gun if you live outside of a city - and no hand guns and no automatic weapons! But i answered the four questions just so I could register a vote for Rick Boucher!
Woke up this morning to see if alarm worked and to attempt to prepare for tomorrow when I have to be at Bethel polling place before 6 am to set up Boucher signs and meet voters until another volunteer shows up, hopefully in time for me to get to the library to greet voters there. I'm pretty well scheduled until 5 PM when I have to clone myself and be in Pilot and Bethel simultaneously! I am debating which place is the more important.
Of course, I thought 2008 was an important election year and indeed it was; but this year is very important too!