Today I am grateful for...

Busy day today, no time to write and too tired to undertake anything too ambitious now. I've always rather liked the idea of keeping a gratitude journal in which a few items are recorded each night before going to bed. Sometimes it is too easy to focus on the things we don't have that we forget to appreciate the ones that we do. So, tonight on a night when I am feeling worn out and ready to fall into bed, I am grateful...

. . . that I have shelter and don't have to sleep outside on a frigid night like tonight

. . . for friends who make me laugh, even while they are kicking my ass at online Scrabble (twice!) and threatening to make me call them, so they can hear me sing "You are the Champion"

. . . for Jenny and Antonio, who stayed with my mom yesterday and took her to her doctor's appointment, so I wouldn't have to take time off from work

. . . that the symptom that took her to the doctor, turned out point to only a minor, passing ailment rather than being a precursor to something more serious as I had feared

. . . for the friends who are encouraging my projects by offering prompts and even participating along with me

. . . for the awesome Multnomah County Library system, which enable me to take home an obscene number of books each visit

. . . for reconnecting this week with a high school friend I lost contact with 20 years ago (Internets, sometimes you hold some amazing surprises!)

. . . for the Season 1 DVD's of My Name is Earl - it really is a funny show!

. . . that Lily (puppy, who loves everyone and thinks everyone loves her) and Cleo (reclusive geezer feline, who only tolerates dogs), who both sleep on my bed, have negotiated via a sophisticated, 14-point "live and let live" diplomatic policy stating that Lily does indeed have the right to exist (and occasionally be sniffed while she is sleeping)

Wilkommen! Bienvenu! Welcome!

Welcome to day four of my January post-a-day expirement! Today I have a confession to make: What you are reading is not really my writing project for the day. It still sits safely in my notebook, not quite ready for public consumption. Actually, that's not true.

I have a second confession: It's not so much that the piece isn't finished, it is that I am not ready for anyone to read it. A friend has been offering me daily writing prompts (thanks, friend!), which is lovely, because I find myself writing about things I might not normally touch on here. In combination with the pressure to have something ready to post each day, I find myself become more daring in my writing. But some things are a little too daring to feel safe.

Like the others, yesterday's prompt was fabulous. Once I started writing, it all just spilled out. It wasn't what I expected when I started - it went deep. It offers a glimpse into my own private brand of crazy (just think of it as The Nutburger Monologues). Though I adore you all for reading, I'm not quite ready to have it sitting out there at the top of my blog, sticking out like a raw nerve. Maybe in a few days or a few months, I will add it somewhere in the middle of things by typing it into a new post and backdating it. Maybe I won't. It will be like game. We'll see if anyone notices.

Meanwhile, in exchange for not revealing something about myself, I will reveal something else - a list of the 60 books (mostly novels) I've read this year. They say you can tell a lot about a person from the company she keeps. I happen to think you can learn a lot about a person based on her bookshelf. I didn't even edit out some of my more questionable reading choices! So, go ahead, mock Gypsy Magic if you want, but you and I both know that somewhere in your history there is something equally mockable! And don't mock too heartily, because I TOTALLY know how to put a curse on you now (provided I can find my eye of newt)!

If I get a chance (or hit a wall one day) I will go into more detail about my favorites. For now, I've marked the ones that left the greatest impression with an asterisk (or ten).

1. Charlaine Harris, Grave Sight
2. Libba Bray, Rebel Angels
3. Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli
4. *Yann Martel, Life of Pi
5. Meg Cabot, Shadowlands
6. Charlaine Harris, Shakespeare's Counselor
7. David Rakoff, Don't Get too Comfortable
8. *Imaculée Ilibigiza, Left to Tell
9. Meg Cabot, The Mediator 6
10. Poppy Z. Brite, Liquor
11. Sonia Singh, Ghost, Interrupted
12. *Travis McDade, The Book Thief: TheTrue Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman
13. *Mary Stewart, Nine Coaches Waiting
14. Dark Horse Comics, Tales of the Slayer
15. *Philip DePoy, The Devil's Hearth
16. Patrinella Cooper, Gypsy Magic
17. Lynda Kaplan Thaler & Robin Koval, The Power of Nice
18. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Slayer, Volume 1
19. Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman
20. Squire Rushnell, When God Winks at You
21. Sonia Singh, Bollywood Confidential
22. Sonia Singh, Goddess for Hire
23. *Jurek Becker, Jacob the Liar
24. *Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
25. Derek Wilson, Unquiet Spirit
26. *Sera Beak, The Red Book
27. *Philip De Poy, The Witch's Grave
28. Janice Taylor, Our Lady of Weight Loss
29. Jan Underwood, Dayshift Werewolf
30. *Colum McCann, Zoli
31. ???? [damn, you, messy handwriting!] Higgenbotham, Paganism
32. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
33. MT Anderson, Thirsty
34. Calvin Trillin, About Alice
35. CL Bevill, Bayou Moon
36. Cherie Priest, Four and Twenty Blackbirds
37. *Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country
38. *Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
39. Daniel Handler, The Basic Eight
40. Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevemer, Sorcery and Cecilia
41. *Christine Wicker, Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead
42. Norma Seely, Secrets of Harbor House
43. *Paulo Coehlo, The Witch of Portobello
44. *Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
45. *Paulo Coehlo, The Devil and Miss Prym
46. *Tim Guest, My Life in Orange
47. *Suzanne Simanaitis, Kaleidoscope
48. Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Call
49. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
50. *John U. Bacon, Cirque du Soleil: Igniting the Divine Spark
51. *Phillip DePoy, A Minister's Ghost
52. *Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
53. Jim Butcher, Fool Moon
54. Lucius Shepard, Soft Spoken
55. Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape
56. Karen Armstrong, Muhammad
57. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
58. *Jeffrey Steingarten, The Man Who Ate Everything
59. Phil Stanford, Portland Confidential
60. Carolyn & David Roe, The Complete Papillon

My People

I was born into a family of occupiers and refugees, of natives and foreigners, of engagement and apathy, of openness and bigotry, of poetry and nascar. Growing up, I always felt like I inhabited some kind of midland that was neither German nor American, neither of my mother's people nor my father's. I suppose my sensibilities lean more toward that of my mother's people. My maternal grandmother sold her wedding ring when they were refugees during the war to buy food for her children. My paternal grandmother beat her sons with heavy duty flashlights and wooden shoes. She referred to her son's immigrant wife as "the foreigner" and told his little girl "You have eyes just like your father's [and I do!], they could stare a hole in a brick wall." If this taught me anything, it is that blood does not always bind. The family you want is not always the one you get - sometimes, but not always.

One of the greatest epiphanies of my life was that we have the power to create our own communities, that family can be intentional. As we move through life, communities change, but family (and I mean of the heart and not necessarily of the blood - though one certainly doesn't preclude the other) is always there. I really do believe that some of our relationships are not meant to last a lifetime. Sometimes we develope passing (but not necessaily insignficant) friendships with individuals who are only meant to be with us for a short while before going off on their separate paths. But, then, there are others who are meant to accompany us throughout our journey in a deeper way.

These are the people who offer to come over and clean up the detritus left behind by the paramedics when your father has a heart attack, bring soup when you're sick, and help you move. They bring your favorite mint milanos when you're having a bad day and cheer you on when you're having a good one. They encourage creativity and expression of self, and they know you'll do the same for them. They make you feel comfortable taking your crazy out from under the bushel where you normally hide it, because you know their crazy too. Intimately. In fact, your crazies have been on parade together, dancing a manic tango down Main Street. They may live close or thousands of miles away, but their mere presence in your life augments it. And even when you haven't seen them for ages, when you finally do get together, it's like you've neve been apart. Sometimes they nag, sometimes they even annoy you, but deep down they make you feel you are loved not for what you do or what you have, but simply for who you are. And I would take that over some DNA or a knock on the head with a flashlight any day!

Lily

It has been almost two weeks now since little Liline C. Papillon came to live at Powellhurst. She has been weighed, measured and found completely adorable at 4.1 lbs. Her ears are still floppy, but my reading (in echo of her former caretaker) assures me that from one day to the next her "wings" will stand at attention. They are already a quite a bit closer to erect than they were when this picture was taken. I have a growing suspicion that she will surpass the originally estimated 5-8 lbs., but that won't make me love her any less.

The truth is that I find dog shows, perfection and pedigrees a complete bore. Flop-eared or 40 lbs, Lily is now family. Although it's been less than a fortnight, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine the time before she was here. That is the way it is with love, whether it be of pets, friends or significant others.

It took a while to find the right name. Names are important and cannot be rushed. Before I met her, I thought Baxter was craving a girlfriend named Lola. When I saw her picture, I thought "Lily seems a better fit." Still, I wasn't sure. But then, on the way to pick her up my puppy holder (we will call her "Mom"), suggested Lily as well, deeming Lola too brassy for one so delicate. Boy, was she fooled! (The C. was a later addition - for Carmilla, a little shout out to Sheridan le Fanu. Puppy has sharp teeth and she's not afraid to use them!) Still, it seemed a good sign. And if I wasn't sure then, it only took learning that her parents are Lily and Alexander to convince me that we were on the right track with Lily.

One of the best things about living with an example of a very old breed (papillons are descended from the Continental Toy Spaniel, a breed dating back to the fourteenth century) is that the past holds a treasure trove of anecdotes and artistic repesentations about these little dogs, which were bread as companions (early on largely for the aristocracy, because who else could afford to have an animal that didn't fill some functional work role?). This allows for a marriage between my outer animal lover and my inner history geek.

My favorite story that I've found thusfar, an anecdote from Carolyn and David Roe's The Complete Papillon, is another affirmation of Lily/Liline as a noble name. As the story goes, Henri III of France, is reputed to have had (among his other eccentricities) a fondness for carrying little baskets full of dogs around with him. Among his favorites was a papillon called Liline, who was with him when a duplicitous monk called Jacques Clement requested an audience. The dog took such an intense and immediate dislike to the man that she had to be removed to another chamber. Left alone with the king, the murderous monk stabbed him in the chest. The poodle lovers at Companions to Genius like to claim that Liline was a poodle (shocking, I know - it's on poodle people!), but I like to think of my Lily as part of the family that bore such a loyal, little companion. Until I find more information to the contrary, I will stick with my new Prophets of the Papillon, the Roes.

Meanwhile, I have a sweet little dog, who is also the subject of the writing prompt kindly sent to me today by my friend Wendy, the poet. When I grow up, I would love to have the strength and sensibility of her voice. Later, (in backwards fashion) I will work on her prompt for January 1. Her own lovely response to it can be found here. For now, my response to today's prompt:

"Today, bear witness to all you senses. Write each observation as a haiku. String them together."

Wiggly puppy breath
sweetly kisses me awake.
Breaking in the dawn,

the alarm clock screams
a good morning less gentle.
A new day begins

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2008! Last year I did the experiment of doing a blog post every day for the month of January. In addition to being a little bit of a pain in the ass some days, it ultimately was a lot of fun, motivated me to start writing regularly, and taught me that my head would not explode if someone else read something of mine that was not perfect, which means that it accomplished most of the things it was meant to. I've since learned that there is a NaBloPoMo that takes place in November (probably to offer an alternative to people who aren't into participating in NaNoWriMo), but where's the fun in doing it when everyone else does? Ok, it probably is still fun, but I like having my maverick January event, especially since it can now legitimately carry the appellation of Powellhurst's Second Annual Blogstravaganza.

I guess by now you have realized that I am going to try it again. I may even try not to cheat this time! I'm still making up the rules, but perhaps I'll try to find some special assignments (poetry? writing exercises? let someone else pick my topic?) for myself just to mix it up a little and create more of a challenge for myself. It's just a fun way to start the new year and now that I have a new assistant to help with proofreading, I think it's going to be even better, so stay tuned!

[adorable photo of Lily reading the phone book to go here, once I've downloaded it from my camera]

p.s. If you would like to join me in my experiment, let me know and I will happily read along!

Holidays

2007 has been a lovely year - so much happier than 2006. As I sit typing, flanked by Lily on my left and Baxter on my right, I feel pretty content. The past week or so has been hectic, but only because life is filled with more friends (of both the furry and non-furry variety!), a more challenging job and a holiday to enjoy the fruits of both and more festivities to come. Today is a day of rest. Today life is good. Today I have time to share some odds and ends from the past few days.



Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve did not go at all as planned. Originally, the plan was to go to Bridgeport for the candlelight service. Despite my conflicted feelings about churches in general, this service remains my favorite of the year, because of the moment where the lights go down and we all light our candles to sing Dona Nobis Pacem (which reminds me that the Lumiere String Quartet's version is lovely, peaceful and well worth the .99 cent download from iTunes). In that moment, despite all of the things that are wrong with the world, I always feel that maybe there really is hope that one day it will be set aright.

But this year, it just wasn't in the cards. The early stages of dinner preparation were interrupted when my mom spotted a homeless man wandering the street with a shopping cart, searching for cans. It didn't take long for us to decide to give him the mountain of them we've been saving to take back to the store, so I went out to call him back. When he saw the little recycling bin we had, he was happy. When he saw that I had a whole trash can full to give him, he almost cried. He kept thanking me for giving him his Christmas present and blowing me kisses.

Honestly, it made me feel completely inadequate and somehow ashamed that I couldn't do more for him. He actually hugged me. To be worshipped for a few tin cans when I have a regular, warm place to sleep and he doesn't was embarassing. We talked for a while and I learned that he did (at least for now) have someplace to sleep. He has a sister in the area and she is letting him stay with her. Judging by her location, I don't think she had much either, but it made me feel better that he had somewhere to go. He left smiling, happy and blowing me kisses.

Dinner was late, but whatever - the traditional holiday nachos and creme de menthe cupcakes could wait. I know it sounds crazy, huh? If there's one time when it seems l ike you should do something special, it seems like holidays should be it. And we were planning to have an extravagent Christmas Eve dinner, but decided at the grocery store that our Christmas gift to ourselves would be not having to cook. (Besides, the cupcakes were already made, and they were DELICIOUS.) So, we dined on a buffet of organic corn chips blanketed in black beans, shredded beef, tomato, cheese, and avocado. But I am not ashamed. It tasted so good that I'm sure Mary and Joseph would have dined thusly, had there only been a microwave in the stable.

Then, just as we were about to leave, an elderly friend of my mom's called, so we didn't make it out the door on time. But, you know what? Even if I didn't get to sing by candlelight, I got my "Dona Nobis Pacem" just by being able to do a kindness for someone else and being able to enjoy a relaxed dinner with my family (aka my mom), whom I kinda love, even if she did renege on her promise to make up for making us late by being such a long-winded yappy yapperson on the phone by singing with me later.

Christmas
We actually had SNOW on Christmas day! If anyone had told me it was coming, I would have laughed. It seemed way too warm, but for a few lovely moments while I was wrapping presents, I could hear the beginnings of Vivaldi's Winter falling from the sky. I always hear the Four Seasons in my head when it starts to snow. This may be an omen that I need to learn to play it (and find an incredibly forgiving and non-mocking orchestra to accompany me!).

Presents wrapped, we headed a couple of miles East to spend Christmas with our friends, Jenny and Jesus and their family. That's right people. I had Christmas dinner with Jesus. The thing I LOVE about their gatherings is that they are so huge. I come from a small family unit, so when she tells me "oh, it's not many people - just family" it cracks me all the way up. "Just family" for her is upwards of 30 people. It was really crowded in her aunt's small home, but it was also a blast. We had ham, turkey with mole (so good!), and a ton of other foods. There was singing, playing with the kids (so many kids - you couldn't spit without hitting a baby - not that I would. I come down as firmly against spitting at babies!), conversation, and a LOT of noise (albeit unequivocally joyful).

All in all a great evening and a great Christmas! I hope yours was that way too! Even if I do have some misgivings about religion, one thing I do know is that the point of all of this life stuff is those moments of goodness, kindness and joy.

A Christmas Carol

Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O, weary, weary is the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O, stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart
His hair was like a fire.
(O, weary, weary is the world
But here the world's desire.)
The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
- G K Chesterton

Happy Christmas Eve!