Off to the CBA!

Father's Day weekend has arrived, and you know what that means--bad ties and aftershave in golf ball-shaped bottles, right? Not for me. I celebrated the day a bit early yesterday with the DH, and now Michelle and I are off to the long-awaited CBA Father's Day Weekend Bluegrass Festival up in Grass Valley, California. And guess what I got just in time for my big weekend of jamming and singing? A nice head cold, that's what. Ah, life's ironies. At any rate, I'll attend workshops if I'm not too woozy, and at least get to hear some great music. If I'm not careful, I'll get another nasty sunburn to go with the one from the first Farmer's Market we played at three weeks ago. This time, however, I am prepared, anti-sun kit at the ready, complete with not one but two hats (to double my chances of looking silly). A good time will be had by all, or Mother Scothia will find out why.

Old-time in Oldtown

Michelle and I opened at the new downtown Salinas farmer's market in front of many enthusiastic listeners last weekend, June 3. It was a blast, although I learned two things: sunscreen is not optional; and press people, even very experienced ones, cannot be trusted to shoot your best side. (Yikes!) A nice Russian vendor gave us blinis, saying, "You sing. Now you have lunch!" Another, grateful we'd brought more business his way, gave us carrots and cilantro; the bakery lady "paid" us in bread and cookies. Folks stopped to smile, sing and dance along. Little kids clapped and twirled about. Lots of people took our publicity cards and quite a few signed up for our mailing list. Lunch, water, and parking were all provided by the venue; and we made pretty good tips. What could've been better, other than T-Bone Burnett emerging from the Steinbeck Center to offer us a contract?

6-6-what?

Just like 1984, the turn of the millennium, and other notable dates anticipated with anxiety, 666 came and went without too much to show for itself. Right, the Omen remake opened. Yawn. Once again, the silly false prophets are revealed. God will do what He will do when He is good and ready to do it.

Tonight we watched the 1932 Cecil B. De Mille classic, The Sign of the Cross. The first frame shows the Roman Imperial Eagle. I thought of that other great earthly kingdom that shares the same symbol. Will we share the same fate?

Thanks so much, guys (Memorial Day, '06)

Patrick's uncle Charlie Ahern was there at Iwo Jima. After getting shot during the first assault, he lay bleeding on the beach for some indetermined time before being rescued. Such courage, such sacrifice, such a debt as cannot be repaid...

Counting the gifts

One more May 25. One more Jeremy's birthday. It would have been his 29th.

How does one count the gift of a human being, of personified love? Jeremy's birth mother gave in such an extraordinary manner, and made us people we had never been before--parents.

So many images scan through my memory, like those face pictures all made of up a thousand smaller likenesses of the same person. There was no countenance like his. I can say without a trace of sappiness that he was and remains my inspiration and hero, as he was to many who knew him. To Jeremy, there was always something grand to reach for, and so what if life got in the way? That was his gift to his world.

Patrick gave Jeremy a rock on which to stand, an anchor on which to pin. He was the constant to the boy driven by restless dreams. Ever loving and patient, Patrick modeled who the Father was and never stopped believing that his beloved Jeremy would one day understand. That was his supreme gift to his son, and we saw it come to pass.

Tonight I started playing a simple melody on my autoharp--G, C, D, C, G; G, C, D, C, G; and so on. I began to cry without realizing that I was hugging my 'harp the way I did my son when he was an infant--only I had to release him from my embrace, from my protection, from my expectations, and out to fight his dragons. That was my gift to Jeremy. The little song I composed today is "Jeremy's Lullabye". I didn't want to finish the song, just as I didn't want to be finished with the baby and the boy and the man. But to everything there is a season; every song has its completion. I made an end to the song and played it for Patrick as a celebration of the incredible gift we were given.

Thank you, Stacey and Patrick. Happy Jeremy's birthday to us.

And thank You, God.

The Fly and I

Patrick often teases me that I can't just walk into a drugstore, mall, or supermarket like normal people do, without something downright Garrison Keillor-ish occuring. "So what happened this time?" is his usual greeting when I return from a shopping excursion. It could be a run-in with a drunken celebrity; finding an envelope with over 200 bucks in it that no one can claim, which cop that happened to be in the same 7-11 at the time tells me to keep; or a chance encounter with someone I knew twenty years previously--on the other side of the continent.

Yesterday it was a fly in the hamburger.

On the rare occasions that I buy beef, it's the expensive, no hormones or antibiotics or anything that would get reported on Oprah kind. It's a treat, and one I was in the mood for. Having already gone to the local produce stand and bought all my veggies like a good girl, I naturally thought of a nice, juicy hamburger to go with them. It's been a year or two since I had one, and high time to indulge. Off to the local supermarket to procure my ingredients. I had just pulled some nice whole wheat rolls off the bakery shelf (how virtuous am I?) and headed back to the meat counter. Yes! "One pound of ground Angus, that'll be a bag of gold and your bicuspids, Ma'am." But oh, I wanted that burger, so I grabbed it.

Now, couldn't I just put my humble little package in my humble little cart and be done with it? Apparently not. Instead, I stood gazing at all the little jewel-colored packages waiting to go home with someone. And then I saw it--three pounds of choice USDA ground round, proudly displayed with a living, buzzing housefly trapped inside the plastic wrap and crawling all over the meat.

Naturally there were no employees in the vicinity to alert to the problem. Furthermore, I couldn't just leave it there or pretend I hadn't seen it. I was forced to carry the disgusting little parcel to the front of the store and wait for a manager. When she arrived, she was as grossed out as I and pitched the whole thing right into a wastebasket. She looked at my other groceries. "Are you purchasing those items?", she asked. At my affirmative, she answered, "Oh no, you're not!" and bagged them for me. Then she marched me over to the till and gave me the price of the fly-infested hamburger as well, with apologies so profuse I began feeling a little sorry for her...after all, it was a fly, not a rattlesnake. At any rate, I got free groceries out of the deal plus more money than I had before entering the store. (Too bad I hadn't done my whole week's shopping right then--but one can't have everything.)

And no, seeing the critter didn't take away my hankering for hamburger. If anything, I was even more grateful for the succulent feast on the whole wheat rolls, knowing it was a freebie. Pass the spicy mustard, please.

Lightenin' up, Spindley style

Sometimes we have to stop and breathe in the midst of all the wackiness and weirdness going on, and just focus on something positive. Those who know me also know about The Spindle Sisters, the duo I put together with my dear friend, the awesomely talented Michelle. Here's our favorite pic and probably future CD cover, Lord willing.

Is it legal to have this much fun?

Take that, ACLU!

Yeah, take this.

Oh, I'm just so glad the American Civil Liberties Union is out there doing the hard stuff, defending me from high school kids reciting the Lord's Prayer at their graduation. Isn't that what the founders had in mind when they put their lives on the line for free speech?

Oh, I forgot. The First Amendment to the Constitution is really there to protect public libraries from having to put porn filters on their PCs.

DaVinci cowed?

Not I.

Who said I have to have read the book/paid good money and time in order to say I dislike The DaVinci Code? I couldn't get through more than ten pages of "Left Behind" either before I ran screaming from the room. (Okay, silently screaming.) I dropped out of a book club so I wouldn't have to read or hear about Opus Dei and the plot to keep women from exercising our goddess-given rights. The ubiquitous articles, reviews, blogposts, conversations wafting across restaurant aisles have left me no desire to fuel the bank accounts of Dan, Ron, and Tom any further. DVC is now an indicator of what I call Walgreen's Syndrome, in which something once trendy is absorbed so completely into the popular mindset that it ends up on a drugstore shelf next to Zen water fountains, Tae Bo videos and power bracelets.

I'm not boycotting, mind you--I'm "elsecotting". I've found something else to read, something else to view, something else to occupy my time. Now I've found something else to talk about, too. See ya.

Pondering Mother's Day

In 1977, during the reign of polyester separates and that ghastly stuff called Disco, and while Jimmy Carter was president, I became a mother. That year, and again in 1985, two incredible kids from two different continents were placed in my arms.

One of them now awaits us in another Land, his sojourn here accomplished. The other is just now moving into her life as an adult, making her own decisions. Some of those decisions cause me concern and even consternation; others make me so profoundly proud I almost can't breathe. Isn't that the way it always is with one's grown children? All the what-was-I-thinking mental smackdowns, in which I rehearse every time I failed them as a mother, mingle with the myriad happy memories in which I know I got it right. Somehow, through all this, two productive human beings emerged. My son left his indelible mark on hundreds who knew him, who were inspired by his courage in facing a life of pain and difficulty with indefatigable faith and zest for life. My daughter will find her way as well. Most importantly, the One who loves her beyond what any of us could, will find her.

This Mother's Day I miss terribly the laughter of the man who always prefaced his call from back East with an apology for not having remembered to send a card in time. I hold him in my memory, the infant already astute enough at three weeks to insist on being carried so he could face the world; the boy delightedly chasing bats through a Brazilian cave, or pulling down the top of a two-piece kitchen cupboard because he couldn't wait for me to get the peanut butter out for him; the demanding, churlish teenager chomping at the parental bit holding him back from the adventures he longed for, then patiently enduring the traumas of multiple surgeries and dialysis after being hit by a train attempting one of those very adventures. I remember driving away from the 18 year-old who wanted to blaze his own trail rather than accompany us on our move to California; and the young man who became more than a son--who became one of my closest friends as well.

I recall, too, the years of longing for the little girl who would complete our family. Jeremy wanted a sister. Patrick and I both wanted a daughter. The doll-sized baby with the starlike black eyes lassoed our hearts the instant we looked into them. How could we not have gone through all the obstacles facing us to make her part of us? How there have been the last 20 years without her? Perhaps someday she'll read this and realize how truly loved she is and always has been.

In the meantime, the cards will be tucked away in a memento folder. The flowers will droop and go the way of all things. The gifts and dinner out will become part of the fabric of happy recollections. But Happy Mother's Day to me, for I am blessed beyond measure.

What would Jesus boycott?

It's fairly quiet here in Lettuceland, on this day devoted to shutting down the country's economy to show the flexed muscle of undocumented workers. The usual recess yells waft over from the charter school across the street. Underneath my lofty perch, a yellow Stanley Steemer van is pumping vacuum power to clean the apartment across the parking lot. The carpet cleaners are obviously Hispanic and obviously not taking the day off. Traffic seems normal; the difference is that the sirens which screech intermittently every other day are conspiculously absent. I've not noticed a swell of students from the high school two blocks away jubilantly cutting class and yelling "Mex-i-co! Mex-i-co!" as they did several weeks ago, but the day is still young. Haven't been down yet to see if the Mexican restaurant next door opened for the day. If it's closed, I might leave a note saying I'll never eat there again. (Then again, I haven't eaten there in five years because they have incredibly lousy service and I had Montezuma's Revenge for dessert last time.)

In our city, the demonstrations will take place in the almost-exclusively Hispanic east side. Talk about serenading the choir! That'll really get our attention! Since I'm miles from there, I won't be hearing a thing. Another case of the people agreeing with you already being there.

I am pondering what the Christian attitude and response to all this should be. So far I've not fully developed a personal theology on the balance between loving one's neighbor as oneself, and rendering unto Caeser the things that are Caeser's. The same Bible which admonishes the Israelites to be kind to the aliens among them, also called him who would enter the sheepfold another way aside from the gate a thief and robber. We must have law and secure borders. We also must be humane and kind. Mercy and truth must meet together; righteousness and justice must kiss each other.

Somehow.

What Americans won't do

According to the top-ranked man in the United States, there are jobs Americans just won't deign to. Apparently, such things as landscaping, construction, agriculture, hotel services, office administration, housecleaning, plumbing, child care, retail sales, and the like are suddenly considered beneath our dignity. We hear that only the 12-20 million or so persons in this country illegally, who fill up the bulk of said job vacancies, are willing to do the Hard Stuff. That established, so we are told, we must move to give privileged status to undocumented workers in appreciation of their relieving us of such servile, mundane tasks.

To think or do otherwise is to be ungrateful, uncompassionate, racist--and who wants that stigma?

I live in Salinas, California. Probably no other city in the USA has a higher concentration of residents lacking documentation. Local services strain under the load of caring for all these needy non-citizens. I will not say that many of them don't work hard. Of course they do. I understand, too, that there are those desperately seeking something better for themselves and their children than the unbearably corrupt, hopelessly dirty pits of despair they left behind in Mexico and other places.

However, there are many jobs here for which I, a native-born, intelligent, willing American would be disqualified for one reason only: I am not fluent in Spanish. Even fast food joints favor Spanish speakers. Often, employers prefer people whose ability to communicate in the supposed language of the country in which they reside is sketchy at best; while otherwise willing applicants, as well or better qualified in other areas, are passed over because they don't speak Spanish. This is required not only get employment, but keep it. A couple of summers ago, I took an intensive Spanish introduction class just for my own enrichment. I was amazed at how many participants were in the program, until I was informed by one glum fellow student that he, like most of them, were teachers there under coercion from the school district. How many times is this story repeated in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and other states?

What Americans won't do, seemingly, is the difficult task of maintaining our borders, enforcing our laws, requiring the learning of our language, and holding our elected officials to their promises of defending our Constitution.

Politicians are obviously less concerned with the likes of the average American than the delicious Twofer offered by the current move to make mass illegals into mass quasi-citizens with a swoop of the Presidential hand: the prospect of a permanent servant underclass is too strong to pass up for the greedy on the right side of the aisle, the succulent plum of millions of easily manipulated new voters too enticing for the Left.

Meanwhile, Americans will do whatever needs done. We just need to stop being told that because we don't speak a different language, or want more than $3.75 an hour, we can't do them.

Not buying it

The White House wants a sweeping "we're not calling it amnesty" program to settle the invas-uh, immigration problem. The usual roundup of shrill leftists Democrats wants the same. Strange bedfellows, these.

Could it be they each have their own agenda? Could it be they're all being less than honest about their true motives? Nah.

Republicans could never be selfish and avaricious enough to want all the dirt cheap labor they can get to keep their money mills churning, now could they? After all, we need a new underclass in this country to do "all the hard jobs Americans won't do" (read: "...all the stuff we don't want to pay Americans a decent wage to do, and by the way it sure is nice to not worry about that Social Security thing cutting into one's portfolio".)

And Democrats could never be supremely power-hungry enough to wax all Emma Lazarus merely to have one more easily manipulated populace at their beck and call. Oh me oh my, no. They're all in it because they care so much. It's all about virtue, compassion, motherpie and applehood. Getting their butts whooped in national elections has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

And I, my friends, am taking flight from The Eyrie to take up residence at the royal palace in Monte Carlo--once my Powerball ship comes in, I win the Pulitzer Prize for blogging, and I wake up weighing 125 lbs.

I heart breathing

Okay, today at 1:15 PDT I have an appointment with my MD to begin finding out why I can no longer walk one flight of stairs up to The Eyrie, or even a straight block, without getting winded and gasping for breath. This, on top of the interesting eye thingies, worries the doctor--and no one wants their doctor worried. I asked him what could be causing all this. His answer? "Lots of things, and none of them are good." Gulp.

Not that I'm overcome with fear. If Heaven is before me, and I know it is one day, hey--at least I never ever have to wear pantyhose again! Or have somebody rush their car through the crosswalk while I'm in it! Or be a captive audience to a loud, boring cell phone conversation at the table next to ours in a restaurant! Or read horrible things in the news which vex my soul!

It isn't the thought of leaving which bugs me. It's all the stuff leading up to the leaving.

Sure puts a new perspective on a lot of things. Or should I say, brings into focus the one I should have had all along.

HE IS RISEN (shortest blog entry ever)

No other reason for Christianity to exist.

Video Gem of the month

In a world way past semblance of control, most of the time all I want is a nice, comfy, dry cave to in which to hide (one with a hot spot would be nice.) Occasionally I take a break from the general mayhem without and retreat into mindless levity. This is one such time.

Join me, if you will, and partake of my April pick for Video Gem of the Month--and don't forget, it's simarils this time around.

Hobbit Folk Rock Watch it now on StupidVideos!

Eye of the storm

Still don't know what's causing the lightning flashes and strange floaters. Doc couldn't see any obvious retinal tears or displacement, which is encouraging. Sighs of relief, however, are premature, since that means we still don't know just what it is. Theories dangle before me, but nothing that explains everything. So now I'm in monitoring status, meaning I have to keep track of the symptoms and report back to the optometrist as soon as something changes. If it doesn't aright itself soon, I will be referred to a specialist.

Thanks for the prayers.

Eye spy

Back to my world.

Nothing gets your attention quite like a worried-sounding doctor saying, "Get in here tomorrow." Yikes!

A day of lightning-like flashes along the periphery of my right eye, along with unfamiliar floaters, prompted that reaction from my optometrist. When I gave my recent history--the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad flu that held me prisoner for two weeks last month--he was doubly concerned that violent coughing may have actually caused damage to my retina. His examination did not produce anything to explain those phenomena--which is both good news, because it means no nasty retinal tears were obvious; and not so good, because we still don't know why the flashes and floaters are occurring. I'm at the self-monitoring stage now, wherein I have to keep a log for some days of how the symptoms are progressing/subsiding/persisting.

(And wow! There goes that new amoeba-shaped floater again!)

Someone who finally learned that the many vital uses for eyes does not include two nights a week of American Idol just does not need this.

Where is Abdul Rahman?

As of writing, no one who knows is telling.

Worst case, my dire predictions came to pass.

Best case, some kind country offered asylum. Not the US, though. Nuh-uh. Wouldn't be prudent to tick off those "allies", now would it?

Abdul Rahman, martyr-to-be

The goings-on in my little life seem quite shallow right now.

The story of the Afghani Christian being tried for the "unspeakable crime" of converting from Islam is taking a new turn. It appears that political pressure from the West, combined with bad publicity, is having an effect on the outcome of this story.

But don't get all warm and fuzzy just yet.

I predict that the Afghani court will find Rahman unfit to stand trial on mental grounds, then release him. That clears away the fallout of responsibility from the tyrant captors and political appeasers, and looks to be a solution everyone can live with. Everyone, that is, except Abdul Rahman.

Go back and read Michelle Malkin's excellent updated commentary. Better yet, read the full report from the Chicago Tribune to get a perspective on this case. Rahman will not be released to safety. He will most likely find a crazed mob awaiting him, ready to stone and beat him to death before ripping his remains apart.

After that, look for government spokesmen of Afghanistan to throw up their hands and say, "Well, we tried." Thus they get to have their cake and eat it too, with chocolate buttercream frosting--the foreign aid can continue to flow and they need fear no recurring effects from their "allies". The mullahs can appease their infuriated followers with a soothing, "Allah had justice; the infidel has met his fate." The White House and State Department will protest that they did their best, how much more were they expected to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign state? The rest of the planet will tut-tut for a few days until the Next Big Story hits.

After that, watch for a general bloodbath to ensue, as emboldened and ever-more-desperate Islamicists across the world rise up to follow suit. These will receive lesser attention from the media, as journalists shrug them off with, "Well, what did they expect? Didn't they see what happened in Afghanistan?"