a different kind of thanksgiving

Bad weather sidelined our plans to travel today. This is the first Thanksgiving in my adult life I have been in my own home - not traveling, toting contributions to meals and sometimes early Christmas gift's for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Sometimes I have cooked a Thanksgiving meal on Christmas Eve because I am a pretty decent cook if I do say so, and I enjoy cooking this meal. So, we quickly gathered what we needed to whip up a nice small Thanksgiving meal today at home. While the turkey breast is roasting, and nearly all the side dishes done and ready to heat, I thought I would do a quick post here to share one of my favorite Eddie Izzard bits on the topic of Thanksgiving, and a few more thoughts below.

I am truly grateful for many blessings. I am grateful even for enough worry and difficult times to recognize joy when I feel it. I am watching it all - aiming for equanimity.

Wherever you are, if you are reading this, good wishes for peace, love, and safety on this holiday of the very best intentions. I have many fond memories of this day growing up. In recent years, since blogging here at JPP, I have put to keyboard quite a few Thanksgiving thoughts and quotes. For fun sometimes, I search the blog on a word, and scan through my past thoughts. If you want to do the same, here is the search on "thanksgiving." Cheers.

thanksgiving

If you have wandered by today, Happy Thanksgiving! Where I live, snow is lightly falling, and it is quite pretty out there. We are traveling to Tom's brother's home today down in Allentown, PA, about three hours away. They got much more snow than we did yesterday. The weather patterns continue to be so odd... after three earlier snows this past month, we actually had mid-60 degree weather just Monday, and everything looked quite green again. Today? probably 4-6 inches of fluffy snow... again.

Who doesn't love a day that focuses on one's blessings? Last weekend, we celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary with a nice dinner party for just family. It was a lot of fun. This coming Saturday, we will gather for a family photo with a photographer we weren't able to book on the same day as the dinner. The last time we had a formal photo taken, the youngest kids were very young, so it was a bit stressful. This time, it should be more fun.

So many things come to mind as I focus on gratitude today. I am thankful that I am reading a great book that helps keep my emotions in check when I have visceral reactions to the injustice of what has happened with the grand jury the Ferguson, MO case or when I read news pieces about the Ebola epidemic. I can do what I can do to be mindful, loving and kind, and speak out for justice when and how I can. It beats powerlessness. (The Places That Scare You, y'all.)

I am thankful that we will gather with Tom's family today. It will be bittersweet, missing Tom's brother Charlie who died this past summer. It will be our first Thanksgiving without him, and he loved this holiday. I plan to have an extra dessert in his honor. He would have liked that. He was quite a character.

I feel quite lucky to be making a job change. My last day of the job I have had for the last three and a half years was yesterday. My remaining days there are going to be paid out as vacation days, and I start my new position on Monday. I have had to move all my files and programs from my work laptop to my older, slower notebook computer. (A new computer may be in my future. Not sure if I can truly handle this.)

Certainly I am thankful for the Internet and the ability to be quiet with my thoughts as often as I can make time. I enjoy reading blogs, listening to music, reading poems, and writing in this space. Even the hackers can't get me down. As I was trying to load Skype on my personal computer so that I can keep in touch with one of my clients who is out in California (my choice to do as a volunteer), I was not paying close attention and got fooled by a phony Skype download which put some malware on my computer including a proxy server. Argh. I have been working for hours trying to remove it and correct it and I am hopeful that the malicious programmers were not able to get saved passwords. Here's hoping. These malware programs are tricky, and as tech-savvy as I like to think I am, this is beyond my level of knowledge.

Well, it seems I am making up for lost time in writing a long post this morning. I need to pack, exercise, get the teen up and moving and we have to get on the road. I will close with a link to a previous Thanksgiving post...and within it you will find some of my favorite Thanksgiving prayers/ blessings / quotes. (After all, this is a #TBT, and I am throwing it back to 2007!) Peace. 

thanks-giving

In honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to highlight a special place that happens to be in Dallas, Texas. Dallas (or anywhere in Texas except maybe Austin) is a place I would not ordinarily have any desire to visit. But my affection for Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the pull of Thanks-Giving Square, could influence me to go to there some day after all.

The idea of Thanks-Giving Square is that gratitude is a universal human value. The Square features a very special chapel, constructed in 1976. According to Wikipedia, the chapel features "a small, spiral tower that features an enclave for prayerful thanks. The entrance to the chapel is at the end of a 125-foot (38 m) bridge that runs over a cascading waterfall. Inside the chapel, the spiral is topped with stained glass windows, leaving a flood of color when looking up in the chapel. Collectively, the stained glass, which was designed by Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France is called the Glory Window. It was designed to feature brighter colors as the spiral reached its apex, becoming brighter and brighter as it reached the center." Neat, huh?

The foundation that runs the square, an enclave of green grass, waterfalls, and aqueducts, in the middle of the downtown, focuses on promoting understanding across different faiths and religions. They promote a "multifaith exploration and exchange" program. And I think that is very cool.

My favorite Thanksgiving recollection is a tradition that my family had before the Thanksgiving meal. Each person around the table would draw a folded piece of paper from a small bowl and pass the bowl around. Each slip of paper contained a thanksgiving blessing or prayer from around the globe -- from different religions and cultures -- and we would each take turns reading our blessing before the meal began. There were traditional Pilgrim blessings, Native American (Pawnee) and African prayers, and blessings from "Grandmother Tappleton." Some of my favorites were the Gaelic blessing, an ancient Hindu prayer, and a Unitarian grace -- among others. I will post a few of these in a separate entry, because they are too good not to share.

On the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, when we'll travel tomorrow to Allentown and then suburban Philadelphia to spend time with Tom's siblings and their families as we have annually done, I am reflecting on the many things I am thankful for. For those of you into memes, try coming up with your top-ten list of things you are thankful for. It is a really nice feeling.

I am grateful for these things, among many others:

• special family members whom I love and who love me
• good friends with whom to share time, space, and laughter
• music -- all kinds -- and books and movies, too
• delicious foods and never being hungry
• a cozy home and beautiful views of nature around me
• a job that helps me support my comfortable lifestyle and one which never leaves me bored
• democracy -- and tolerant, open-minded, community-minded people
• humor - a sense of
• the Internet - and of course - blogging as a means of self-expression

happy thanksgiving

Last year at this time, I did a blog post that included several different blessings and grace sayings for Thanksgiving. This year, I decided to take the words from those universal themes of gratitude and make a word cloud to see what it would look like. Neat, huh? If you missed it, I also enjoyed highlighting Thanks-Giving Square in last year's Thanksgiving post.

We are off for a few days to travel to see Tom's family. We'll have Thanksgiving dinner at John and Kim's in Allentown with all who can make it from the clan, and then head down to Sue and Steve's outside Philadelphia for two nights. We have a wonderful tradition, and it is sure to be a fun time.

On this day especially, I appreciate taking some time to reflect in gratitude on the many blessings of my life. First and foremost among them are my family and friends.

happy thanksgiving

Thanks-Giving Chapel, Dallas, TX. Image courtesy of Google Images.

This is my favorite Thanksgiving image. It is cornucopia. It is light and colored lenses. It is spiraling upward and symbolic of prayer. It is external and internal. It is grace. It is gratefulness. (This is a photograph taken at the Thanks-Giving Chapel in Dallas, Texas... a place I have never been, but try to imagine, and have written about on previous Thanksgivings here at JPP.)

I worked today and we travel tomorrow with dinner in Allentown and a few nights in Philadelphia to see Tom's siblings.

Although I have many favorite quotes focusing on gratitude, prayer, and thanks giving, this one is perhaps most significant to me. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives as parallel realities.

It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend.

When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives

but are grateful for the abundance that is present:

love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature

and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure,

the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.

--S.B.B. (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

grace -- universal themes

After I got done posting the piece on the Thanks-Giving Square, and recalling my favorite Thanksgiving memory, I decided to call my mom to ask her to read to me a few of the blessings we used to pick at random from the bowl to read before our Thanksgiving dinner. She still had the pieces of folded up paper in her dining room hutch, and she knew right where they were when I asked her to read them to me.

I figured that I don't just want to remember that they were prayers and blessings from "around the world." I want to actually remember what they said. And I want to share them with my readers, too.

So here are a few of my favorites. There are still others that mom said she'd type up and send. I thought it was interesting that one of my favorite ones reflected quite eloquently what I was trying to do with my meme in the previous post.

Here you go:

Abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives as parallel realities.
It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend.
When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives
but are grateful for the abundance that is present:
love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature
and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure,
the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
--S.B.B. (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

Gaelic blessing
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining star to you.
Deep peace of the son of peace to you.
Amen.

It isn't the big pleasures that count the most.
It's making a great deal out of the little ones.
-- Jean Webster

Pawnee Prayer
Earth our mother, breathe forth life.
All night sleeping, now awaking in the East.
Now see the dawn.
Earth our mother, breathe and waken.
Leaves are stirring; all things moving.
New day coming; life renewing.

Ancient Hindu Blessing
The ritual is one.
The food is one.
We who offer the food are one.
The fire of hunger is also one.
All action is one.
We who understand this are one.

An African Grace
The bread is pure and fresh.
The water is cool and clear.
Lord of all life be with us.
Lord of all life be near.

Gratitude is not only the memory, but the homage of the heart rendered to God for His goodness.
--N.P. Wells

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
--Robert Louis Stevenson

Turkeys come and turkeys go, and trimmings only trim, we know.
But we're together. That's what matters.
Not what's put upon our platters.
--Grandmother Tappleton (from the children's story: Thanksgiving at the Tappletons')

Unitarian Grace
The food which we are about to eat
is earth, water, sun, compounded through the alchemy of many plants.
Therefore, earth, water, and sun will become part of us.
The food is also the fruit of the labor of many beings and creatures.
We are grateful for it.
May it give us strength, health, joy, and may it increase our love.

P.S. Happy 43rd Anniversary to Ralph and Clare!

thoughts on cornucopia

I wish you a happy Thanksgiving! This holiday is about more than just the food. When I think of cornucopia as metaphor, as a representation of abundance and sustenance, I feel a deep gratitude for all I enjoy in this life. I am thankful for my family, friends, health, home, and work. I am grateful for worldly possessions, books, the Internet, and for the capacity to enjoy and employ them.

Nearly every time I run the water in the faucet, I think of the clean water we have at our disposal that most of the world does not have. I think about the fact that I am rarely hungry, physically, spiritually, or emotionally. When I need replenishment, I can get it.

I am thankful for the people I know and the people I've had the good fortune to know who are no longer here. Thanksgiving can be a time to celebrate those whom we also mourn.

Some of the gifts we enjoy are music and art and laughter, and remembering that beauty exists amidst pain and destruction and poverty. I am thankful for the sweet pets many of us have in our lives to give us warm and furry comfort and enjoyment. Endearment exists in many forms!

Gratitude is a universal human value, but it is one that we have to bring our consciousness to else we forget to be thankful. A consciousness of gratitude enhances our experience of life in each and every moment. And of those to whom much has been given, much is required ... to paraphrase a quote from the New Testament.

Holiday traditions can be a way of bringing family together for a conscious celebration of thanksgiving, usually around a special feast of some kind. When I think back to traditions of the past and how over time traditions have to shift to follow our lives, I have happy memories, tinged with nostalgia, and I look ahead to future. One thing is for certain, if we focus only on the food, we are missing out. Don't get me wrong, I love good food, but within the food is the message.

We will be traveling to Philadelphia today, Allentown tomorrow, and then back home for the weekend. We'll spend time with Tom's side of the family, and we are all looking forward to some laughter, good food, board games, and just quality time together.

Whatever your plans, I wish you the gift of gratitude. Certainly I am thankful for my blogger friends and family who give me special threads of connection in my life! Best wishes to you!

thanksgiving

Enjoy some peaceful and heart-opening music, accompanied by beautiful images of this bountiful earth, on this day of giving thanks. This is a photographic video of George Winston's lovely musical piece entitled, Thanksgiving.

holiday season begins

vanilla clove scent

wafting through the shopping mall

prompting them to spend

We have returned from our jaunt down "south," to Pennsylvania. I can't remember where along the trip down that the snow disappeared, but on the way home yesterday, just north of Binghamton on Route 81, the snow started appearing on the ground again. We came home to just slightly less snow on the ground than when we left on Thursday.

We had a really lovely Thanksgiving holiday with Tom's family. Thursday's meal was a very nice feast, and Matt enjoyed his annual Thanksgiving football game in Uncle John and Aunt Kim's back yard. We had a great time playing a game called "Apples to Apples" on Thursday evening before heading to Sue and Steve's down near Philadelphia. Friday was a busy and fun day, which included a visit to a great bead store in the morning, some time at Dave & Buster's, a movie (Madagascar 2), and dinner at a yummy Chinese-Japanese restaurant. Sue and Steve are always thoughtful and generous in hosting and making us feel at home, and this visit was no exception.

As soon as we got home, we started our annual tradition of putting up the Christmas tree and window candles. It was a big job, but made all the more enjoyable by putting on some favorite Christmas music. I really enjoy the extra lights at this dark time of year!

I guess it is just hard to believe that December is upon us. So much to do in the weeks ahead. My paper is due a week from Tuesday, so I plan to work on that a bit today and put the finishing touches on it next weekend. Matt has his holiday concert on Thursday. I look forward to getting started on my Christmas cards. As always, I will do my best to not let the frenzy of the season get to me. It is supposed to be a holiday of peace and love, not of greed and materialism. I plan to tune into the joy of the beautiful Christmas music as often as possible.

home life

This is Shearwater and "Home Life" off their Rooks album. I really enjoy this band. I was looking for a song to post this evening after returning home from a very nice Thanksgiving trip to spend time with Tom's family. This song title seemed to be a good choice after settling back in after a few days away. Our first stop was Allentown on Thursday for a fun and delicious Thanksgiving dinner and board games with the whole gang at John and Kim's. Then we headed down to outside Philly to spend a couple of days with Sue and Steve. It is a tradition we have had for several years now. We drove down in snow and freezing rain and back in sunny snow showers. The cats were happy to have us back home. Tonight, SU basketball, after a good win yesterday. Our team is off to a good start. I hope you had a nice holiday.

thanksgiving

If you look to others for fulfillment, 

you will never truly be fulfilled. 

If your happiness depends on money, 

you will never be happy with yourself. 

 Be content with what you have; 

 rejoice in the way things are. 

When you realize there is nothing lacking, 

the whole world belongs to you. 

 -- Lao Tzu

Not every holiday is happy for every person every year, but regardless, having a grateful heart is actually a source of happiness. Science is shedding some light on that... case in point, this New York Times article has gone viral recently on social media. I wish you a thanksgiving filled with peace and joy. To quote the ever beautiful Desiderata, "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world." Peace out. 

jumpin' jolly old st. nick

The week after Thanksgiving always feels about 8 days long. It was a long week at work, with things getting busier from now until the end of the semester. Add to that the long list of things to do before the holidays, and I am not sure how often I'll get to blog. Certainly I'd blog every day if I could!

We had Matthew's school concert this past week. Here's a little number from that concert. The Select Band concert is in two weeks, and I imagine we'll hear a difference in the level of performance. Still, we enjoyed seeing our boy play that alto sax. He plays baritone sax in the other band.

For another number (River City Parade), go to this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v62umFbZ76A

time flies

Today marks the 4th Blogiversary of Jade Page Press. I started this blog on December 23, 2006, and have been writing and posting ever since. What a pleasure it has been. I thought it might be fun for me to list several (fairly) randomly selected posts from the the past. (I say fairly random, because my random draw ended up giving me all posts that included music videos or poems written by someone else that I had shared . . . and I figured it would be better to include more of my own writing.) I had fun strolling down memory lane as I clicked around the categories and the archives by year to see what was there.

While I have gone though some phases (for example, I used to write a whole lot more haiku or mah jong posts than I do now), one thing has been a constant. I like to mix it up on WJPP. I am still an "unlisted" blog, and I would like to thank the loyal group of readers who have been reading and sharing over these years. You are not only virtually my friends, you have become actual friends. How about that? Here you are, if you have the time . . .

• from February 2007, a tribute to a friend, entitled For Jim W.


• from December 2007, a funny little poem called "a streetlight named bob," and a post thinking about a new year: pendulum swinging . . . or, "as the world turns"


• from November 2008, this happy thanksgiving post had links to some past years' posts


• from June 2009, daybreak over lake champlain


• from March 2010, some meditative musing on the unattended moment

sitting by the tree

I've spent some time today remembering some favorite Christmas moments, and as corny as this sounds, one of the best and most peaceful memories I tap into is that calm and happy feeling I get when I sit and stare at the Christmas tree with its colorful little lights glowing in the dark. This is more a "feeling" than it is a memory, and it is one that is not exactly temporal or singular (it is many moments, many trees, many locations. . . . ) Looking at the ornaments, which themselves conjure memories of the ornament maker or giver, gives me great enjoyment.

I remember the different trees over the years in my parents' home - both real and then artificial. I remember the trees in our third floor flat in Binghamton, and the trees that have brightened our current home over the past 17 years. I remember the feeling of finally having a Christmas with a baby in the house! Wow! And then came the "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments, followed by year after year of child-made ornaments to mark the years and the growth. I remember two years ago when I got an artificial tree to help make the holidays run more smoothly when Tom had a major surgery planned just 10 days before Christmas. I was worried that Matt would be disappointed, but put a positive spin on it that we could put it up early (right after Thanksgiving) and leave it up late. He loved that idea and for the third Christmas since then, Matt has opted for the artificial tree for those very reasons.

With any luck, I will always be able to enjoy this beautiful symbol of the holiday time. You have probably figured out that trees are iconic for me. To bring this marvelous symbol of nature into our dwellings, and to light the glowing lights during the season of dark winter is joy. Now, with the tree meditation often comes the listening of peaceful Christmas music. I hope you will tap into these simple pleasures. I am including some photos of some of my favorite ornaments on my tree. You'll see "black belt Santa," and "shell angel," and "Frosty the snow stick," as well as several ornaments that Matt has made. Peace!

whirling

Sorry that I didn't get to do The Sunday Whirl this week. The words were thought provoking, but there was no time for poetry (except to read a couple of really great ones in my e-mail.)  I had a little "Sunday whirl" of my own. I had a work event in Syracuse Friday morning, and then high-tailed it downstate to travel into the Big Apple for work events in Manhattan Friday night and all day Saturday. On Sunday, I had the privilege to co-present at an adoption conference in Brooklyn.

I love NYC! I love its energy and its quirky beauty. My colleagues are really great and fun people, and we had enjoyable (and delicious) dinners both nights there. The days were really long -- early to rise and late to bed -- and I arrived home late last night a bit wiped out, but happy with the adventure and happy to be home. I have three days to re-group before we travel for Thanksgiving to see Tom's siblings for a couple of days. Life is so fast sometimes. It makes me wish that I could truly take the advice of today's poem, called "Advice to Myself," by Louise Erdrich.

If you would like to wander through a few of my weekend "Hipstamatic" photos...or "travel art," as I like to think of them, take a meander over at my Tumblr, where you will find a dozen or so that I posted there. The photo above is of a Bloomingdale's window box. If you look closely, you can see the stores and street reflected in the glass behind me. Illusions everywhere!

winter's arrival

We had a little snow in October. It didn't stick around long. We had some snow in November, particularly over Thanksgiving and the weekend following, but it was short-lived. The snow that started coming down this past Thursday hasn't stopped. Not at all. In five days.

I am starting to hear the words "lake effect" and the wind speeds in every forecast I happen to catch on the car radio. I am back to wearing boots, and scraping off my car windshield at the end of the work day. I am reminded how hearty we have to be, those of us who live in central New York, where winter lasts a full four and a half to five months out of every year. We have all four seasons, but clearly spring gets the short shrift and winter takes more than its fair share of the year.

To take the attention off what is the beginning of a long stretch of severe weather, we have the holidays and all the associated activities. I am feeling a bit stretched these days between extra hours that work is requiring and the pressures of trying to prepare for Christmas. I am sure it isn't supposed to be this way. With any luck, I will find the time to do my holiday cards and get my shopping done before the 24th.

We had a great Relay for Life on Saturday night. We managed to stay until 1:30 a.m. and then after a couple hours of sleep, the alarm clock woke me up again at 4:30 a.m. again as planned so I could go back to do the closing ceremony and clean up. Sunday, though feeling a bit dead, we managed to get the Christmas tree decorated and the lights in the windows. I do appreciate the extra lights during this dark season.

I have to admit, when we got the artificial tree five years ago when Tom had his hip replacement surgery right before Christmas, I thought it would be a temporary fixture and that we'd go back to "real" trees. We haven't. I like the convenience of being able to put the tree up in a flash. It is already "lit," and we can leave it up for several weeks with no needles dropping. The only thing I really miss is the smell of the pine needles in the house. The tree we selected is the perfect size for the house, and once decorated, it is very real-looking.

Meanwhile, for some fun, we have started watching "Modern Family" on Netflix. It's as funny as people told me it would be. I recommend it. Bye bye, now.

[Photo credit This photo was found on Flickr, HERE. Isn't it GORGEOUS?]

eat, pray, love

I finally finished a wonderful book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. I had been hearing about this book since early last summer when my mother told me I needed to read it. Several other people mentioned it to me as well, and then my sister-in-law Sue gave me the book at Thanksgiving. I started to read it that weekend and was swept up in the easy-to-read writing style. The reader feels as if she is talking to down-to-earth, friend-next-door, Liz. The book is nicely and symbolically organized. I like that in a book.

Why then did it take me more than 2 months to finish the book? (I just finished it while I was in Florida last week.) Well, the life of a full-time mom and spouse, part-time doctoral student, and full-time employee -- over the course of finishing a semester and heading right into holiday season -- doesn't leave much time for pleasure reading as I might like. I decided I was going to enjoy the book so much that I "saved" it for when I would have time to dig right in. That time came when I headed to Florida. Once I got into reading it, I pretty much devoured it in 2 days.

Without giving much away, I will say that this book takes the reader with Liz as she travels to Italy ("Eat"), India ("Pray") and Indonesia ("Love"), while she heals from a very painful divorce that had depleted her of all her spirit. I think there is a good reason why hundreds of women all over the country have this book in their laps at home, on trains, buses, and planes. (While reading it on the plane, 4 different women said that they either had it to read, had finished it, or had heard about it and wanted to read it. No kidding.) This is a book about how to replenish the spirit, and many of us are walking around depleted. Liz finds nourishment, physically, aesthetically, spiritually, and emotionally. She works through her demons and figures out how to live her life fully. Who wouldn't want that?

Just one caveat in my complete praise for the book. In the beginning, the reader does have to get used to the fact that the author is rich, talented, and seems to be a bit on the whiny side when you consider her pain to all the pain in the world. On the other hand, we all know that however we might compare our own difficult times in our lives with "the big stuff" of world situations, pain is pain, you know? It's kind of like when a person has surgery, even minor surgery is still getting cut open if it is you. So who gets to decide what is minor? Therefore, if you can find you still like Liz despite not being able to complete relate to what she was able to afford to do, you can go on this series of adventures and completely enjoy yourself. I was able to adore this character and "suspend my disbelief," and I am so glad I did.

Especially fun for me was her description of studying Italian and learning some over her favorite phrases (and the symbolic implications of those phrases), as well as her descriptions of the meals in Italy. Be ready to get hungry. I also loved the India section. Without a doubt it was my favorite. And the reason why is that I studied yoga, chanting, and meditation in the same branch of yoga during the mid 1970s and throughout the 80s and early 90s, and I know the chants and ashrams she discusses. The Arati and Guru Gita she describes are still two of my favorite all time chants. The Indonesia section, set in Bali, is a nice transition to the continuation of her life as a healthy person with renewed spirit who has learned to move forward and love again. This book, no doubt, will be a movie within a couple of years. It has Hollywood written all over it. (Life really is stranger than fiction.)If this book sounds interesting to you, and if you haven't already read it, I recommend it to you.

Now onto two more books. I am presently reading Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes, and I have on the shelf to read as soon as I can, The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw:One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird by Bruce Barcott. The former is borrowed from Paula, and the latter, Tom just purchased and tore through. It is the story of our friend Sharon Matola, the director of the Belize Zoo, and the review of this book appears on the cover of today's New York Times Book Review. Tom is thrilled, because he said it would be a best-seller two weeks before the review came out -- and he says that this too is sure to have a movie made from it in its future. When I finish these books, I will try to review them here. (Tom is heading to the Belize Zoo and surrounding area next month to scout out and plan for the next Belize trip in January 2009!) Of course, don't hold your breath for the book reviews. I am still a full-time mom and spouse, still mid-semester taking a grad course, and still busy at work. And what with all the "procrastination blogging" I tend to do on weekends, my time for pleasure reading remains short. Slowly but surely, though, I will make my way back to these books for the sheer enjoyment of them.

a scattering

Google image.

It is snowing lightly and a soft cover remains over the ground. Further west, our friends in Western New York have been hammered with feet upon feet of snow. I have few complaints. I did have to drive in wintry mix Monday early and late in the day when I had to drive to Albany for work... and tomorrow may be a snowy work drive too. I am winding down the days of my current job and begin my new position the Monday after Thanksgiving. It is a good feeling, a strange feeling, to transition.

I don't have much more to say tonight. I would rather read the words of others. Like this blog post, here. (Wiping a little tear.) Ciao!

my daemon . . .

In a parallel universe, a daemon can be a good thing. In the context of the story of the movie we saw last night, a daemon (pronounced "demon") is an external soul that accompanies a corporeal being. After going to see The Golden Compass last night, I decided to check out the web site to see if it had anything fun to share on the blog as I wrote a little review. It turns out the movie site is quite good. And you can take a little personality test to find out what your daemon would be. I am going to attempt to paste in the information and image of my daemon, Aesop (a gibbon), below.

The science fiction story is exciting and empowering. The battle scenes were a bit over the top for me, but violence seems to be part of movie culture. In this case, the battle scenes are an important part of the story. We have the books at home, a gift to Matt from Aunt Yucky a couple of years ago, and he is now excited to read them all. The special effects get an A+, and the music was really good.

The controversy surrounding the film, as evidenced by e-mail chain letters professing that the movie is "anti-God" is unfounded. There may be some parallels that could be drawn between the Magisterium in the movie and the Roman Catholic church in our reality/history, but to say that it is anti-God smacks of the very claims of heresy that the R.C. church promoted in the old days. Why so defensive? Hmmm. Do you wonder? Apparently the author of the books is atheist. That is okay with me. It isn't my place to judge him. I will say that he writes a good story. God exists. In my heart and soul I not only believe that, I experience that. There are people who do not believe in God. That does not threaten me. It does not change anything for me. There is no need to give in to fear or give fear any more power in our lives. My two cents.

Really, the story could be about ANY powerful organization or government that controls individual, independent thought for the "people's own good." Those kinds of organizations are subject to corruption and rotting from the inside out without checks and balances.

If you want to learn more about the movie, click on the link above and tool around the site. The web site gives you the story, has a trailer, and has some fun things too. I would recommend the movie if you can suspend your disbelief, and if you enjoy an action story with a science fiction flavor. Nicole Kidman, as Mrs. Coulter, is a credible villain, and the young actor who plays the child Lyra, Dakota Blue Richards, was perfect for her role. Matt loved it. He has been anxious to see it since we saw the trailer at the movie theatre over Thanksgiving. As much as I wasn't overly excited to go to the movies last night after a very long week, I am glad we went.

sailing to philadelphia

WJPP spinning a great tune for you on a Tuesday night. Two wonderful voices meld together on this song. Mark Knopfler and James Taylor - two icons - sing one of Knopfler's finest songs from what is perhaps my favorite MK album.

I am happy to report that I have the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving. I am truly grateful for the break, and I am thankful for so many things these days -- my family and friends, good health, good books, music and laughter and a sense of purpose.

Matt made the 7th grade basketball team. All of a sudden I realize I have a child who travels after school to "away games" on a bus. He has to bring a packed lunch for dinner. How did this happen? I don't know why I wasn't ready for *that*one. These days seem to be racing.

He has off from school tomorrow through Friday also, and I am very much looking forward to some time with him. Tonight, however, he has a friend over, and they are spending time in what I have coined "the man cave," -- our basement family room complete with video games, lots of snacks, and the faint wafting of cologne and sweat. Have no fear, there are no Nazi Zombies in the house (for those not familiar with certain video games, let's just say it isn't enough to shoot Zombies or Nazis -- but to destroy "Nazi Zombies" is the name of the game.) Yes. Help me.

With any luck, I'll churn out a few more posts between now and when the madness begins again next Monday.