Hot chicks hit back

New music from the Dixie Chicks... kt and i think it's a powerful, rockin' tune. (Strings bring in the crescendo- SNAP!) It also seems the perfect response to the death threats and censorship they faced for speaking out against the president. I'm not sure i get the imagery of the video, but i love Not Ready to Make Nice on so many levels.

Then there's Pink. She's getting a lot of press lately- saw her on Oprah, the Today Show, etc. Dear Mr President is simple and fluffy in both lyric and melody if you ask me, but there's no denying this chick has pipes and EGGS.* There's nothing soft, cuddly, or demure about Pink; and it's kind of sweet of her to reclaim a color that has been thrust by society on my gender as a way of emphasizing our supposed pretty-sweetness over our strength and intellect.

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* For those of you who don't know, TT learned from Bitch and Animal that the female genitalia shouldn't be used as an insult. When you think about it, doing something courageous could just as easily take "eggs" as it could take "balls."

An aunt's obsession

Even though these people suck at blogging-
er... um, (clear throat) excuse me...
have OTHER things filling their life other than blogging...

These pics are too cute to miss.
So I decided to put them ALL up where people who might care can see them can.

Check out my album on Snapfish

Mac the knife

STOP!

In the name of love...

Before you

Break my heart...

STOP!

In the name of love

Before you break my heart...

Think it oh-oh-ver... (do-do-whop)

Think it oh-oh-ver....

I'd like to give a "shout-out" to my peeps. You know who you are...

You know when people say, "Let me know if there's anything I can do..."

And they mean it, but there's not much that they CAN really do, and the stuff that you might WANT to ask for just seems like asking too much.

Like, say- for instance...
"Can you help me clean my house?"

I mean, by the time you need help cleaning your house, things have probably gotten really out of hand, right? And then it's hard to invite a stranger in- even if you're paying that person- to help you clean. And if you can't even allow a stranger in, than how can you let friends and family know about this nonsense...

Sometimes life is overwhelming, and sometimes love hurts. And sometimes your people just know what you need; and they are not afraid to stick their ungloved hands into your kitchen sink or bathtub to help you scour and remove some of the grimy scum. Is there any love greater than that?

I think not.

Thank you, ladies for putting the L and K in our TLK- you truly are forever friends!

It feels GGGRRrrrrrreat!

It's not like I'm some kind of golf wiz, but I have to admit, for the last few days, I have been drooling about the prospect of playing golf this year.

I bought new clubs, and have the very cool Nike bag (that Web bought me last year for my birthday) stocked and ready to go.

Today on my first 9 holes of the season, I scored 48. Before you get too excited, the holes were all par 3, so that is fairly sucky. But, I was driving the ball pretty straight. Chipping and putting- well, let's just say, twice I got to the the green on 2 strokes and ended up with a 7 for the hole. Whatcha'gonna-do?

Playing golf makes me think of west-coast Webers and how great it is to roam around outside for a few hours with peeps. My goal this year is to play more frequently and consistantly and not let my game fall to crap if there are people playing close behind (build up confidence.)
Don't forget my new intitials:
TT (Tracy the Tiger)

Good Friday

This is a hilarious website!

Hat-tip to Michael Reynolds at the Mighty Middle who is exactly right in saying, "You could spend HOURS there."

Who are you?

Our pastor posed some interesting questions at church yesterday. They seem relatively easy to answer at the outset, but I think they provide an interesting platform from which to explore yourself, or others.

1. Who are you?

2. Who (or what) do you serve? (who or what is your god?)

3. What is your yearning?

4. What is your prayer?

A year or two ago I probably would have scoffed at these questions, assumed them to be part of some religious agenda (I shuddered at the word prayer, or god). It's hard not to feel that way when we hear a lot about "family values" (and they don't mean my family values). But going to the Universalist Church has definitely changed something in me. I finally feel able to explore religion and god and not feel like I might get the answer wrong somehow. It makes it easier to find god in places other than church: my garden, the magnolia tree that is blooming, patients with dementia, a newborn niece, or even my pink blanket.

I'm not sure any of us can answer the above questions with any certainty, nor do I think the answers are static. Nonetheless, I'd still like to try to know the answers.

Gin-Soaked Olive: Historical perspective on our blog's name

A while back, I decided that fruity drinks were nice and beer suited me well, but I’d better figure a way around my distaste for the hard stuff. Life can throw you some curve and knuckleballs, but when you take a fastball in the ovary, it is embarrassing to saddle up to a bar and bark, “Bud Light!” Or worse, “Malibu baybreeze! Make it a Double!!” I tried Whiskey and Tequila, but I might as well have been 6 years old trying to stomach a plate of lima beans- so much involuntary gagging.

There was a bar across the street from my first apartment that I frequented on occasion late at night. It wasn’t very popular, so it was a good place to drink alone when say- you are confronting the finality of death and making your slow way through the stages of grief while trying to mull over life’s frivolous questions: Am I really gay? How could I have gone to church all those years and not been horrified about the vilification of homosexuals? Can people really “love you” like they claim and vote against your political/personal interests? How long will I be able to stay in a job where my primary function is to try to beat life and heat back into people until it is time to zip them into body bags?

I decided to teach myself to like gin martinis because it became clear that I needed a more efficient path to intoxication. The strategy to my success was the olive. The olive is the perfect garnish: salty and often stuffed with something sweet.

I spent some time pondering the cocktail onion. What in the crazed hell is that all about? Even in my well-earned melancholy, I couldn’t do it. If the Gin Martini is the drink of someone who is dabbling in self hatred, the Gibson is for someone with truly nothing to live for. I’m not going to lie. It was a process. In the early days, my ratio was one olive per sip. Order “extra olives” and you’re lucky to get three or four. I twirled imaginary long, curly, blonde hair and batted my blues at the bartenders, “Could I have extra, extra, EXTRA olives?”

I learned a neat trick from a college friend, Bill, who dangled a $20 note in front of a skinny waiter and said in his most charming tone, “This is for you. There is more where that came from. She really likes olives. It is my hope that we stay here drinking all night and she never has to ask for an olive again.” Did I mention Bill had done a little bartending himself? We did stay all night, our table dotted with highball glasses overflowing with olives when we left; twenty dollar bills spilling out of our waiter’s packed pockets. I tried to hook up with Bill that night as a show of my appreciation and drunkenness. In my memory, he rebuffed my advances by swishing one hip, extending a limp wrist and lisping out the reasons we shouldn’t be intimate. But that is a strange memory since I know he doesn’t have a lisp or any limp things on him.

By the time I met Katy, I had learned to like the cold gin and the olives became what they were meant to be: a garnish. It was lucky timing because my “extra olives” became a staple in her bar diet and an essential piece of our courting ritual. She knew I was falling for her as the number of olives I kept for myself decreased while the number I offered to her increased. Gin-soaked olives are kind of like training wheels, getting you ready for the next big thing. Pessimists, and/or those that fear alcoholism might see my olives as the façade of something healthy that pulls you into something unhealthy. But I prefer to think of them as the unexpected nugget of salty flavor that eases you into and through the raw acidity and ironies of life.

Attacked by quarters

I awoke this morning to my wife beaning me with quarters from the doorway of our bedroom. She laughed at my protests shouting that it couldn't hurt "through all those blankets." I reminded her that The Princess and the Pea was more historical fiction than fable, and if I was all bruised up I would not hesitate to write about it in the blog.

She said: "Yes. Write! Exactly. Get up and write!" She has some kind of charming fantasy that if only I follow my dreams and start producing actual essays or more, that the universe will be kind in its reward of my art. That's brave of her to prescribe and her confidence is inspiring on some level, but I say there has got to be a better way. I think Justin Timberlake said it best when he crooned with the Peas: WHERE IS THE LOVE?!? There has got to be a better way of feeling the love of a fine woman on a rainy Saturday morning, than hearing her cackle as she hurls an arsenal of quarters at you from across the room.

Fucking marriage.

(I'm serious. This woman is about as predictable as a superball on a gravel road. And sometimes I'm convinced that keeping me in a constant state of confusion is nothing for her but sport or folly.)

Changing the subject: Thursday was my Grandma's 82nd birthday. I proudly told her in infantile phraseology: "Hoy es el cumpleanos de mi abuela" at the restaurant. Thirty seconds after butchering their language, I realized there was a bi-lingual, bi-ethnic Spanish-speaking family sharing our hibachi grill that night. (Doh! Stupid Gringa!)

Thursday was also the 2 week anniversary of my sister's c-section (a.k.a. Mac's birth). It was the new family's first night out to dinner and baby girl was content to sleep through the entire event. (Side Bar: Mac is a great name to make a reservation under, if you're ever sick of using your own name.)

Halfway through dinner, Web realized that Mac had been sleeping too long. Perhaps it was all the shrimp pieces that were flying over her head, or the sweet smell of greasy grill, or that she's already instinctively sick of hearing the same old jokes from the Japanese hibachi chef, but the girl wanted no part of awake. My sister started undressing her little tyke, blowing in her face, rocking her rapidly, picking up her arms- nothing, nada.

Kids are usually so annoying at a restaurant: screaming, crying, coughing all over the food... You can imagine we all got a little panicky at how soundly she was sleeping. Well now writing this, it does seem silly that we got panicky about that, but at the time it did seem disconcerting.

But, let me point out- this is a child whose father woke up at six am in the first few days of his daughter's life telling my sister, "That's pretty good that she slept from12 to 6." Teri's bloodshot eyes glared and her head bobbed in an incredulous, involuntary shake, "No. No, you slept from 12 to 6."

But Web has no room to talk. My sister is the only person I know who graduated from college in four years after sleeping through not one, not two, but THREE final exams. It is the stuff of family mythology that she talked her way into make up tests in three separate classes with no excuse but, "I overslept."

What can i say, we are sleepers... I've seen my father take a snooze during a Broadway musical tap dancing show, and i can practically sleep standing up if necessary- don't even put me in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle and expect me to stay awake.

In the end, shoving a bottle in Mac's mouth is what woke her. She drained three ounces so fast that Teri, Bill, and I started chanting: "drink. drink. drink. drink..." for the last third of the bottle. When it was gone, she opened her eyes, and the chanting stopped, her proud Daddy beamed, "It looks like she's headed for state school!"

Angry yoga girl

Angry yoga girl is BACK! For the few of you who actually went to yoga classes with me in grad school, you will remember my face as being quite similar to that of the young woman pictured below. It is a freakishly accurate portrait of me and yet in no way actually meant to be me.


Needless to say, I have started taking yoga again, and it is good. I try not to look so angry, and it usually works.

WTF

This is so great... here's the same shot of our grill- THIS MORNING.
Spring is such a tease.

PS

This day of blogging was inspired by and made possible by my totally cool digital camera which if I could I would have pointed at itself and taken a picture to post right here...



I guess you'll have to settle for a link (wink)

Nature vs. Nurture

These are two big pines that guard the northern border of our estate. Supposedly, I own these trees.

Not "supposedly" as in "Where is the property line?"

But "supposedly" as in "How could i possibly feel ownership over something so much larger, older, and so clearly more grounded than i am?"

I couldn't begin to guess how tall these trees are, or how long ago they sprouted,

but if you look

HERE:

Or here,

You'll notice amazing beauty but also, a lot of dead branches...

Whereas, if you look here,

you'll see a whole lot of precarious LEANING set against an amazing array of dead branches.

Now, here's the really impressive part.

If you look in the direction of the leaning, you see mostly wide open space, except for one minor setback:

Saddly, I know that these glorious pines are taller than the distance they are from this little box we like to call home. I love these trees, but I might love this house more.

Perhaps I was a lumberjack in a former life.

Opening Day

It's officially grill season.


The weather was too perfect not to fire up the WEBER grill
and roast some veggies



and some chicken



Booyah!!!

Freezer Burn

Here's the upside of the broken refrigerator thing from last weekend. I had to take a picture because it amused me that these were the only things to survive the great unplanned thaw:

Baking soda and pecans (in the door), a loaf of wheat bread, 1/2 a bottle of Absolute Citron, 2 bags of shucked edamame, and left over "fruit" flavored freezy pops- all our least favorite colors (the good guys were eaten up months ago...)

Seriously, have you ever seen a freezer so clean?!? Looking at this freezer, there is simply no way to tell the general state of disarray our home is presently in- Maybe the toilet will stop flushing and I'll have to clean that too!

Three-hour Sleep Cycle

I had a little coffee yesterday. When I say "a little" I mean one cup: 1/2 decaf, 1/2 regular Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee. Not the huge, mother, styrofoam cups that you get if you order an individual coffee, but the tiny (what are they? maybe 12 oz?) paper/cardboard freebe cups that you get if you order a "Box of Joe" to go. I love the smell of coffee and (I'm seeing a pattern here) the ritual. But I rarely drink the stuff- it reeks havoc on my GI track... makes me feel twitchy and nervous. When I do drink coffee, I add plenty of cream and sugar turning it into a dessert of sorts. I have a completely unscientific theory that these ingredients will somehow counter-act the tweeky, jumpy, I-might-need-to-run-to-the-bathroom, does-anyone-hear-that-police-siren-and-should-I-be-talking-this-fast effect that a normal-sized cup'a java has on me.
Sometimes I can't resist it, though.
Especially if it's sitting right there...
And there is a whole bag of those little creamers...
and sugar packets... and stirrers...
And there are a group of people gathered around,
clutching their cups while engaged in pleasant conversation...
And if my mental state has already got me feeling
a little sensitive, shaky, or neurotic...
I figure, what harm can this do???

I definitely did not have enough coffee yesterday morning to have affected my sleep last night, but a disturbing trend has arisen. Every three hours, I wake up ready to start the day until i realize the time. Yesterday, I saw 11pm (bedtime), 2 am (up for 30 minutes) and 5:30am. Last night, I turned in at 10pm (I know, that's hot... 10pm on a Friday night) and woke up at 1:05 am. I stayed up with some suduko for an hour, and then the eyes flashed open at 5am. What's the deal??? I hope it is anxiety, lack of exercise, and/or impending old age, and not sleep apnea or psychiatric disorders... Call me crazy (bad pun) that's just my preference.

The strangest part of all is that 1) I remembered my dreams last night- i usually don't remember my dreams, and 2) I dreamed extensively about trying to get myself a cup of coffee. In my dream, I kept going to various independent and franchise coffee outlets and ordering AND paying for a coffee, but then leaving without it. I was down $30 in paid-for but never received coffee when I woke up.

I hate to blame little Mackenzie for all of this, but she is also on a 3-hour sleep cycle. Even though she and I are in different houses in different towns, it's just a little too ironic, don't you think?!?