We’re a diverse bunch here at Notes, or an ill-assorted one if you like, and I love that, but once in a while it means I second-guess myself before I post something. To be specific, how’s a more conservative subsection of readers going to feel if I talk about a Gay Pride celebration? Am I going to run anyone off?
When I worry about running someone off it’s not about numbers. Sure, I check my stats as obsessively (and pointlessly) as any other blogger, but mostly it’s because I don’t want Notes to turn into an echo chamber for voices who all agree on a 674-point charter that we argued over until we all hate each other. I value the comments I get, and the people behind the comments. I don’t want to lose contact.
But that can’t come at the expense of being who I am. If I shut myself up every time I…
One small can of high-quality high taste dog food. Mix with approximately triple quantity plain no sugar yogurt or Greek yogurt. Fill 3 ounce Dixie bath cups 1/3 to 1/2 full, then fill cups with plain yogurt to top. Add a mini dog treat on top and put in freezer. Freezes fast due to small size.
Add ins: spoonful of pumpkin, ground flax seed, small piece of fresh parsley or mint, small slice of fresh fruit, small piece of cooked liver, sprinkle nutritional yeast on top, other healthy stuff.
My doggies don’t eat the cups. You may wish to peel the cups off the treat.
She likened him unto the moon
‘at first light’ storms and a dark side
electrifying, magnetic, intimidating
impact craters, devilishly dapper
she quite overlooked his failings
that there were times when apathy
prejudiced her come hither games
Finally adversity eclipsed cajolery
only then did the she-moth spurn the
come hither charms of dark celestial
and instead, back on terra firma fell
head over heels for an incandescent
quite bare lightbulb, she paid the price
for infidelity, a betrayal of constancy
lost herself within the white lightening
Later
Stiff collared the know all therapists
crippled thinkers the specialists
xenophobic the nursing staff
limping invalids the lot of them
in a place serving to mend the
‘from the outside looking in’
plausibly ‘fit as a fiddle’ inmates
Her only family now a dog-eared overcoat
the powers that be entrusting her a
rambling mastermind, one who juggle with her wounded notions on…
My Fitbit is a hungry little piece of technology. Every day it coaxes me to walk just a few more steps, then more, and if I make it to 10,000 steps it rewards me with a happy little buzz buzz buzz. I’ve become fond of the buzz. So fond, in fact, that I’ve been exploring places in and around Tallahassee to get my steps in.
One day this week I visited the state capitol building. It’s another one of those places that I’ve driven past many times, but never stopped to inspect, in large part because I never could figure out where to park. Heaven forbid that I stop and ask someone. Armed with my Fitbit, though, I figured I’d park at a distance and get in some steps on my way to and from the capitol building.
This is not a photo that I took, but I found it on Pinterest and that’s almost the same as me having taken it. The historic capitol in the foreground is now a museum, while the high rise directly behind it is the current capitol.
One entrance into the new capitol features a family of sculpted dolphins frolicking in a fountain. It is totally captivating, and a sight I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t parked where I did. Thanks, Fitbit!
Inside the high rise, I took an express elevator up to the 22nd floor where one can see literally for miles and miles. This observation floor also includes a gallery featuring portraits of children awaiting adoption in Florida.
The chambers for the House of Representatives and the Senate are located on the fifth floor. Both were locked, but at least the curtains covering the senate chamber’s windows were open and I could see the beautifully appointed room.
The main floor houses offices for the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and a variety of other state officials including the Secretary of Agriculture and the state’s Chief Financial Officer.
Lobby floor of the capitol.
Sections of the wall on the main floor are dedicated to recognizing leaders in the Florida Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. There is also a wall honoring firefighters and police officers who died in service to the people of the state of Florida.
This gigantic marble seal in the center of this floor is impressive:
After visiting the new building I walked the short distance to the Historic Capitol Museum and strolled along the halls and chambers where interactive exhibits invite visitors to learn more.
Inside the historic capitol museum
The historic capitol was in danger of being torn down after the new building was completed, but the citizens of Florida came together to preserve this magnificent building as a museum. Thank goodness!
If you ever venture into Tallahassee on your way to Disneyworld, make sure to visit the capitol. It won’t cost you anything unless you park in a metered space, and even then it’s only a couple of dollars. A great bargain!
And if you’re feeding your Fitbit, you’ll get all of your 10,000 steps in by noon. Buzzzzzz!
“Headache” Painting by Tony Madden From fineartamerica.com
dueling hammers
rain blows
compete to send pain
into spaces
that echo and cradle
the mind
they throw sparks
sharp and hot
blazing spearpoints
of light
pierce the pools
of the eyes
the mad battery
splitting the seams
of the skull
where the intellect
cowers in fear
of its very survival
against this
malicious barrage
disturbed most of all
by two terrible questions
whose hands
hold the hammers
and why
On the road to Grand Marais, there are two houses I’ve loved. Twenty years ago, when we first started driving up M-77, both houses were worn and in need of repair. Every time we passed, I would check on their progress.
The first house was reclaimed and improved. It got a metal roof which I thought was wise since our own house in Grand Marais, the one built after a fire destroyed our first house, had a brown metal roof that I knew would never burn. The first house got new windows and was painted a radiant white. Geraniums in pots sat on the porch in the summer and there were sometimes actual people sitting there looking across the way at their barn, still weathered and grey but sturdy and tidy.
But the second house seemed unattended. Anything could happen to it, lying there just vulnerable to catastrophe.
When our son was born, my mom decided that she wanted to be called Grandmother. Not Granny or Grandma, Nana or Mimi. Grandmother. Well, that was all well and good, but our son had other ideas. Jason didn’t talk early. We began to wonder if he’d ever talk at all, but by three he had a decent vocabulary. Try as he might, though, he could not say Grandmother or Grandaddy. What emerged was something that sounded a lot like Gingy, so my parents, for better or worse, became Gingymama and Gingydaddy. And, since he was the first of the grandchildren, it stuck.
Daddy’s 81st birthday would have been yesterday, and since yesterday’s post was on the sappy side I thought I’d have my children and nieces and nephews post their memories of their Gingydaddy.
Jason texted, “Him rescuing me from the side of a mountain…teaching me to pee without unbuttoning…
I remember the first time I learned of the Japanese internment camps that were erected during WWII. I was an adult. Yep, our textbooks made no mention of this atrocity. At first I thought I was reading a piece of fiction, so I researched and found that yes, indeed, our own country, in a fit of fear and ignorance, interred its own citizens in terrible conditions. And there are some who’d do it again–to Muslim Anericans, to Gay Americans, basically to anyone they don’t understand. Read and learn from this piece by one of my favorite bloggers, sanselife.wordpress.com.
Mas Nonaka was born August 20, 1934. The youngest of three children he was the baby of the family.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the evacuation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Mas was a 7 year old child.
While these relocation camps were being built, evacuees were ordered to stay at what was called assembly centers. The largest of these assembly centers was the Santa Anita Racetrack in California where Mas remembers spending a hot summer. These American citizens were allowed to bring only what they could carry with them to the assembly centers and consequently lost most of their possessions.
Beginning in March 1942, the almost 19,000 Japanese Americans that lived at the Santa Anita Racetrack were housed in barracks or in converted horse stalls. Mas remembers a friend of his that lived in one of the…
–Park at a distance from the store for exercise.
–Meander leisurely through the aisles speaking politely to fellow shoppers.
–Take multiple items into the dressing room. Repeat as necessary.
–Try on clothes with grace and humor.
–Speak kindly to crying children.
–Indulge their beleaguered parent(s) with understanding smiles.
–Secretly judge their parenting skills.
–Take your time in the checkout line.
–Contemplate having a glass of wine over lunch at your favorite bistro.
–Linger over lunch.
–Take the long way home after lunch.
–Put your feet up and take a nap; you deserve it.
With Children
–Park next to a shopping cart corral.
–Wrestle child into a cart.
–Bribe as needed.
–Circumvent any aisle in the store that might be construed as a toy aisle.
–Select outfits based on concentration of Disney characters per square inch.
–Herd child into dressing room.
–Bribe as needed.
–If clothing fits, buy in every color.
–Make beeline to checkout counter.
–Pay while talking over chatty and/or crying child.
–Make rude gesture at judgemental childless person. How dare they smile.
–Forget which aisle you’ve parked on.
–Finally find car, wrestle child out of cart and into car seat.
–Promise driving through McDonald’s for a Happy Meal if the child stays awake on the way home.
–Contemplate having a nap later if the kid doesn’t fall asleep in the car on the way home.
–Take two Advil, straight up, no water.
I spent a lot of time driving on our nation’s interstates this past week and came to the conclusion that most people are competent drivers. I logged well over two thousand miles in the fast lane and encountered an abundance of courteous, conscientious motorists. But there’s always that one, or in this case, those two.
Just outside of Fort Benning, Georgia, a funeral procession pulled onto the interstate. That in itself was a little weird. The drivers around me reduced their speed and kept to the far left, so I followed suit. I figured folks around Fort Benning were accustomed to interstate funeral processions and knew the drill.
The procession continued for two miles before the lead police escort took an exit, and traffic began flowing normally again. All except for one car. Apparently the driver needed to take the same exit as the funeral procession and instead of going down to the next exit he came to a complete stop in the middle lane of a 70 m.p.h. interstate highway.
A white Ford pickup whizzed by me, passing on the right. My heart skipped a beat as I realized the pickup driver didn’t know that the car in the middle lane wasn’t moving.
“Errrrrch!” the brakes squealed as the truck’s front end dipped sharply. Amazingly he avoided hitting the car by mere inches. In my rear view I could see the pickup trying to get back into the left lane, but he never passed me again. I guess the close call slowed him down.
As for me, I’m just glad to be home and back in the slow lane.
Praying for Eyebrowz 