Witness

I am so grateful to have had this week with him. 

Although we did our best, we were both a little brittle around the edges because of the war. His understanding is limited, but kids talk, and not many of them have any useful answers.

I had very few.

Can you imagine this through a child's eyes?

"What did I do?"

 I don't want to capitalize it or name it. I don't want it to take over our lives here the way 9/11 did. Everywhere I look - (even though I don't want to) I see desperate emotions boiling over. This is not Hollywood, people. That's real blood and flesh on that sidewalk.

So we talked about literature. The merits of a series over a serial. (Thanks, kid). Why spelling shouldn't matter. And for that matter, why learn to type when you can speak and the phone or tablet turns your words to text with very few typos.

We struggled with the mind-numbing rote of the multiplication tables. Uncovered my weaknesses. (I did not become confident with arithmetic and a little algebra until Jake learned it. Really. I can keep a checkbook, Amen.)

We emailed each other from opposite ends of the house.

We learned more about odds and more math playing poker and Scrabble. We got some air and sunshine. 

Cooked some wicked spaghetti and meatballs. 

We watched the Braves implode and my spirit animal fell off his perch. 

Things that kids everywhere would do. Goof off with Nana while she snuck in some education.

He could be Israeli.

He could be Palestinian.

He could be Ukrainian

He could be Russian,

He could be American.

All of them. Children.

 

He likes this one best. It's the Man of Mystery. 

Today, there are seventy-four years between us. We put the numbers on paper. He said, "That's not possible!"

Sweet duty

 

I'll be up here in the country with Charlie for a week. Since school started for him early in August, the district set a Fall break in October. Sensible. Year-round school would be really sensible, but goddess forgive the American school system should make any sense.

I pulled over to chat and take pictures of some of the neighbors. They were uninterested. The field they are in looks parched but the green grass has actually just been harvested. They are snacking on the leftovers. I'm fascinated with the gray cows and the herd of donkeys that run with this bunch. I'll try to get a better picture. Grace, I'm jealous of your Click to enlarge. 

   
  

 This took a bit of doing, but we figured it out.

I took him to the high school to ride his razor in a huge sloped parking lot and we did a little crime scene art before we left.

As I was finishing up a man pulled in to ask if we needed help. Nice of him!

Charlie needs math practice because there's no avoiding that math is everywhere. Especially when I'm driving.

Later, we played Scrabble. Keeping score is mathwork. 

In all my years of playing cards, I have never seen a hand like this and I was the dealer. Fortunately, he's not gotten a firm grip on raising. I told him in a cowboy saloon, this would be a dead man's hand!

On a serious note, he has a lot of questions about the conflict in the Middle East and I do not have enough answers. I have to do some reading. The situation is complicated and ugly on both sides.

What I do know is that Israel and I were born in the same year. 

In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, my husband Jim was an 18-year-old paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne. He said they were loaded onto a huge transport plane geared for battle. No one knew where they were going. They flew around in circles going nowhere for what seemed like days (they ate all their C rations) and then were brought back to base. Apparently, the US was poised to intercede in that war, most likely without any public notice.

 I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was happening right now. 

My Dixie Mink ~updated

 

A tender heart will model one on someone else's sleeve. 

I despise those pictures people take - usually in a bathroom - holding the phone up so you can't see their faces. Why hide your face? We aren't looking at your ham tattoo or your hemline. We're looking at that scuzzy bathroom.

Enough of my grumpiness. Here's my traveling jacket all decked out for cooler weather. When it finally gets here.

Until then, we are warm and parched. I've been carrying water in gallon juice jugs out to the deck plants and the bird bath up in the grove. It's been several weeks since we've had any kind of rainfall. 

There was real writing, too. Writing a reading for a Tarot spread that I invented for the story is hard. 

"...snowflakes dying all around him." Dee, some of those same lines worked on my head the moment I put them down. They make it hard to make the next move. 

These two books (I've accepted that there are two happening at the same time.) have struggled, and continue to be struggling to be born. The least I can do is show up consistently.

I tuned in to see what further nonsense the House would perpetrate after voting McCarthy out. Gave half a moment worrying that they would try to get the Shitweasel to lead them after the sickening spectacle of him bloviating after court yesterday. 

And McCarthy's sub's first act?  Having Nancy Pelosi's office re-keyed while she was attending Diane Feinstein's memorial? 

That is some small-minded,  petty shit. What we have come to expect of Republicans. 

 

sunset stitch

 

        If the day has gone well, I indulge myself with a little stitching while the sun slips down through the trees. Today I listened to the last Braves game of the regular season. It was a nail-biter. They lost but if I was playing for a team who just clinched a playoff spot, I'd be hard-pressed to be going all out. Still, it was an exciting game. Listening to a baseball game on AM radio. Imagine that. How many people do you know still do that? I do. It's like a portal to the past. 

This, from a birthday card I sent. He won't mind.

~~But sometimes I fear the challenges we faced when we were growing up are so different from what today's young people are dealing with, that we can't step into each others' worlds, unless we, who have been there and done it,  pass off our experience as something magical, even when we know better.  

The choices remain the same: Be hopeful. Build a ladder and reach down. Stay in touch with those closest. Do right by others. Believe in Love.

So those of us who make stuff from almost nothing but sweat and blood - writers, musicians, artists - get to spread our reach a little bit farther than those who don't. 

It's important work we'll all do until they touch a match to our pyre. 

Play the music that tells the tale of who we are and why. 

Happy Birthday, halfway between yours and mine,

Deb

Stuffed cusspot

I spent this glorious morning updating the dirty threads inventory, here and here. 

Then this little devil crossed my radar.

Before one of the demon cat posse decides that this is a new toy, I've decided to let it out into the world of usefulness. $65 includes postage anywhere in the US.

There are four full skeins of Dirty Threads in the bottom. I have topped it off with hand-dyed scraps until it feels like a ripe avocado. You know the kind- use it today or tomorrow at the latest. I chose the scraps with an eye toward variety.

The cusspot itself is crocheted from Lily Sugar & Cream cotton thread and then hand-dyed with my mix of Procion MS dyes. Once you empty it out, it can be a great thread and scrap catcher.

You can put loose change in them. All manner of little things that shouldn't be left wandering around.

I have dipped them in a water and acrylic medium sauce, shaped them, and then allowed to dry hard.  Hung one up to be a birdnest but had no tenants. 

 

The original is now stuffed with cotton and catnip leaves and sewn shut. I think I want it back. And I still have a half cone of that thread just waiting for a frosty day.