MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk
Notes from the Homefront -- Theresa Jarosz Alberti, writer and mother... http://sapphire.albatross.org
Admittedly, I've never been much of a science fiction person. I've tried at times, I remember reading some Ray Bradbury short stories when I was a kid, I've read a few novels here and there, mostly prompted by sci-fi-loving boyfriends. Sci-fi is the genre of choice for my DH and my kids, though DD is probably more into fantasy, she still reads through all our sci-fi books like they are candy.
I always had a friend or two growing up who were Star Trek fans, and I'd go along to see movies and such, but I never really could get into it. I just couldn't get that excited about The Final Frontier-- I was more fascinated with all the complexities of the relationships I saw around me, and I liked books that could help me get deep into a character inhabiting the world I was living in.
Now enter Dr. Who into my little world. Of course, I'd heard about this British TV show for decades but I'd never seen it. DH gew up watching it, and I had some notion about a very cheesily enacted bare-bones sci-fi script. Something he'd grown beyond. But much to my surprise, it is actually an on-going TV show that has morphed throughout the years but never stopped, and suddenly DH and the older kids are watching dowloads of the current incarnation of Dr. Who. And they are really excited about it. I'm not sure how it happened, but they talked me into watching a few episodes, and wow, I'm surprised to find I actually like it. It helps (for me) that it is heavy on character development and a cleverness to the scripts. The episodes are strange and quirky. And now I'm actually getting some of the references and jokes that my family talks about in relation to the show.
So, Who-da-thunk I'd be watching Dr. Who, after all these years? Stranger things have happened in Time and Space!
--DH has been in London this week, teaching a class, so I've had 9 days of being the single mother. It's been a long week. I mean, it's not so bad with the kids being ages 12, 15 and 15 as it would have been when they were 1, 4 and 4, not the physically and emotionally exhausting work that it was back then. But still, it's a whole 'nother mind set. If something is going to get done, it's gonna be me doing it or me enforcing one of the kids to do it. There's no back up, no one else to take or deflect the energy kids give off. I don't know how single moms do it all the time!
--Jinx the cat developed his Catulence again, very stinky gas that clears a room. It wasn't quite as bad as at Xmas time, but he hasn't been eating well so I decided to have the vet see about it. One $26 bag of poop
and $31 in medicine later, he is starting to smell better. But since I'm the single mom this week, I've had to deal with giving the cat pills myself. Gee, I hate this! When DH is home, one of us can hold the cat firmly and the other shoves the bitter pill down his throat. I've tried having the older kids help, but they really can't hold the cat firmly enough. So I wrap him like a burrito in a blanket and do my best, but somehow even though I'm opening his jaws and shoving the pill deep and closing his mouth firmly, he's getting the pill spit out. And then he starts drooling and spitting all over the floor because he's tasted the pill. So I don't know how much he's actually ingesting of these pills, but he isn't stinking anymore. Sigh!
--Just got done having a boys' sleepover last night. Younger DS has wanted to have a "party" and invite 4 friends over for the night. Since Spring Break started yesterday, we got the party over with (and only 3 boys could come, which helped). It really wasn't too bad. They played video games, watched a movie, played ambush with giant nerf guns (more like machine guns). It was too rainy to go outside but they did go out for a few mintues at 11 pm. They woke up and had pancakes and I got to listen to some talk about school and girls and stuff. They're a good group of kids and DS is very happy he got to have his party. I'm glad it's done!
--I'm looking into starting to do freelance writing for businesses. We are needing me to make some income, and I just don't think I could make much money doing a job with my skills, which tend to be more writing/editing based. They really just don't pay writers or editors much in the job world, but businesses do hire freelance copywriters since they do not want to have them on staff anymrore. I'm nervous because I really haven't had to market myself and put myself out there in this way for over 15 years. But I think I can do this. Riight now I'm trying to figure it out, reading some stuff, working on a more business-like website, business cards, that type of stuff. Wish me luck! Or let me know if you have any connecitons.
-- NOw it's time for me to figure out what to do with the rest of spring break. We have all next week off. I want to go to the science museum, since we have a membership we haven't used much and the Omnifest is happening there (a bunch of Omnitheatre movies there at once). But what else to do?
That's it for now!
I wish I could be more sure about that, but unfortunately, I'm not at this moment.
This week marks the 4th anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. And where has it gotten us, what improvements has it made in the world? Even though the vast majority of the American people now oppose the war and want it to stop ASAP, onward it continues with no real end in sight. Nobody in Washington is listening, and the Democrats we elected to get us out are just wringing their hands.
There was a peace march in Minneapolis today, protesters marching from Lake and Lagoon in Uptown to Loring Park. First Universalist Church, our church, organized a group to go and there were about 350 people just from our church, adults and children, walking down Hennepin Avenue for peace! I wished we could have gone, since I've never marched in a big group march like this, and I want to stand up against the war, and I want my children to have that experience too. But we had a family event to go to, so we'll have to find another opportunity. I was so proud that our church stood up and marched for our beliefs. Our church has never been so strong about social justice as it was today.
I just got done watching some of the local TV news coverage of the
protest march. How interesting... KARE-11 said there were 4,000
marchers and showed more aerial photos of the huge crowds in the
streets. FOX-9 claimed there were 1,000 protesters, and showed mostly
closeups of the crowd, so you couldn't get a full sense of it, but they
did have a lengthy coverage. KSTP-5 news said there were a few hundred marchers but implied that it was mostly students, and then gave a long coverage to the war supporters who were gathering across the street. WCCO-4 news didn't mention how many people marched but after showing the peace marchers they went to coverage of a man who was a veteran who supports the war and has a daughter going there.
Wow, what a difference in coverage! You can see just how biased the
media is. We know there had to be at least a few thousand protesters because of the aerial shots, and our church alone had such a big group. What does a news group like KSTP get out of broadcasting such slanted and incorrect information?
We have so MUCH to overcome in We Shall Overcome One Day. And it doesn't help when news media can't just report the facts, or bother to get them right.
First of all, I just want to say "thank you!" to the man in the red van at Menards. I was backing out of my spot and the angle was tricky and there were pedestrians passing behind me and I ended up tapping the back of the shiny red van. I saw a guy pop out of the van and look at me, so when I got out of the way, I stopped and got out, cringeing over what I'd probably hear. It was really just a tap, the kind that doesn't do any dammage, but I felt obligated to apologize since the guy had been sitting in the van. You never know what you get in these kinds of situations, someone who yells at you or talks in a shaming voice, or who might even want to try and report it to insurance to see what he can get out of it. When I walked up to the van, he popped out again, a middle-aged guy with a beard. I immediately apologized as profusely as I could, and he does a double-take and looks at the back bumper-- "What did you do to my bumper?"
HIs voice had a jokey lilt to it, and the bumper had a big dent in it, much more than I could have done, but you still never know what people will say or try to get away with. "It was like already, right?" I asked hopefully.
He assured me it was and said things like this happen, and I apologized one more time. Phew! But thank you, Mr. Shiny Red Van, for being so kind and taking it all in stride. And again, I'm sorry.
And now for Bob Dylan...
I have to admit, I never really knew what the big deal is about Bob Dylan. He came from Minnesota, wrote and sang some songs that became popular in the 60's, and he always seemed to be quite low-key about being a star. Listening to him on the radio, I couldn't understand the mumbly way he sang in that distinctive style, often can't figure out the lyrics, and so it was all a mystery to me.
Just across the river at the Weissman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, they now have an exhibit about this famous Minnesotan and how he broke onto the music scene in the '60s, about the time I was being born. Since the exhibit came out, there's been even more talk about Dylan around town, what a innovative songwriter he was, how he pushed all the boundaries and moved music into new pathways. And I thought huh, maybe I should go try and understand what Bob Dylan is all about. What's the big deal about him? All I had to do was drive across the river to a free museum, where even my parking in the ramp ended up being free.
It's a great exhibit, with pictures of his life, memorabilia, informative displays and lots of places to sit and listen to samples of his music and videos on different aspects of his life and his influence on music. Getting a chance to sit down and listen to the music, I could actually understand what he was saying (less mumbly when I really listen, I guess). I could hear the poetry in his songs and see why he had become popular. His songs are all very deep, almost more like stories than what you hear when you turn on the radio nowadays.
What really struck me about Bob Dylan after visiting this exhibit was how he seemed to really stay true to himself. Even though he was famous, he didn't get sucked into being a star. He shied away from the fame and seemed really focus on his music and getting to sing it to the world. He didn't seem to want to be A Star. And in the interviews I saw of him, he also didn't want to be labeled (he hated it when people called his music "folk rock"), he didn't want to be called the spokesperson of his generation, he didn't want to really be seen as having some big message like the other folk singers did. He was focused on being himself and playing his music.
Of course this is all my perception after visiting this exhibit. I'm glad I went, because now I feel like I have a clue about this. And I recognized a lot more of the music than I thought I would... I didn't realize he'd written so much and that it had been covered by a lot of other artists.
Now I'll have to go listen to the Indigo Girls' playing "Tangled Up in Blues" again. Maybe I'll "get it" this time!
When you can't think of what to blog about, there's always the weather. :-) But only if the weather is remarkable!
Which it happens to be today. After a winter of almost no snow, we are now getting it all at once. I don't know how many inches we're getting, thick heavy wet snow. All I know is I went out to pick up younger DS from school at 2:30 and I shoveled the back walk to get to the garage. By the time DH came home at 5:00, there were several inches alreay piling on the sidewalk.
I was supposed to go to parent-teacher conferences at the high school at 4:30, and everything has been cancelled. It is fortuitous that it was a no-school day tomorrow anyway. Not very fair to kids who would like a snow day that makes them miss a real day of school! But it works for everyone else.
Honestly, we've had such lame winters for so long that It's easy to forget that THIS amount is the regular amount of snow we used to get when I was growing up. We didn't always have huge blizzards dumping it on us all at once, but we could always count on a foot or two of snow on the ground for a good part of the winter. You needed to have boots to get through the winter. I haven't hardly worn winter boots for a few years.
I have the luxury of not having to go out-- nothing scheduled until taking DD to an eye appointment tomorrow at noon, and that could be canceled. It is still snowing heavily, blowing, white covering everything I see. And tonight is my Good TV night, with several shows I watch (I love the dumb humor of "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office," and I'm a big fan of the two popular medical shows, "Grey's Anatomy" and "ER."). So it is cozy to sit inside, drink tea, throw on a blanket and watch TV. Blizzards aren't so bad when you don't have to drive around in it!