Make a List

Everyone should make a "Top 10 List of Things I'm Grateful For. . ."

1. Turkey sandwich on sourdough bread, with mayo, cranberry chutney and leftover dressing
2. Turkey soup
3. emails from friends and the friends themselves
4. health insurance
5. parents who are still living
6. a joyful 36-year marriage
7. healthy kids
8. the best job I've ever had
9. the view from my back sunroom
10. good skin

Today on Mars. . .

While customizing my Google Home page, I became absolutely entranced with the NASA site and the amazing pictures that are available to us in this century. This picture was taken TODAY!!! While I cleaned my office, did laundry, and organized my family photos, this little human-built Rover was taking a Sunday drive on the surface of Mars and sending pictures back to us. As Plato once wrote: "What if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine, . . .would that be a life to disregard?"

Brown Sticks and Mud

This is the time of year I find it really hard to justify staying in Michigan for the next 10 years. . . the hills around St. Remy beckon and the spirit, if not the body, is more than willing to participate in the grape and lavender harvests. I would live, happily, without a car, preferably above a bakery. The walking would certainly mitigate the extra calories. I'd take my bicycle to the market and I'd spend time sketching the countryside or writing.

Interestingly, we had old friends in from "up north" this week, and the topic of our children and their lives came up, as it always does. They have a son and niece who are "freegans." I have never heard this term before, so they explained. These young people live in a commune together where they all pool resources. They walk dogs to pay the rent and utility bills, but everything else they need is traded for, or they buy it resale. They eschew anything new--including shoes--and they get all their food from dumpsters. They find perfectly good things thrown away all the time. Additionally, the house is substance-free (something you tell your parents to calm them down.) Now, I don't think I'm longing for a lifestyle that radical, but these kids are onto something, I think.

And this time of year, my mind wanders to the far ends of how to live.

Frozen Pigs on the Highway

I'm trying to get back into the groove of writing about things that I see or hear every day--the weird stuff that sticks in my brain like the "hook" from Eminem's "Lose Yourself." Admit it, you might really hate rap, but you loved that song. His rhetorical strategies rock.

So, that's what this image of frozen pigs has been. I wish I hadn't seen the picture, but I was taking my mid-day newsbreak and there it was...an arial shot of about 50 frozen, full-grown pig carcasses strewn all over the southbound lanes of the Golden State Freeway. Now, I am not your average meat eater. I've actually raised piglets from cute little bundles of wiggles to large lumbering hogs, and I've participated in the slaughter, butchering and smoking of the hams and bacon. I've rendered lard until every doorknob in the house glistened with pig grease. (It makes the best pie crust ever!) Despite my experiences with pork, this picture was really disturbing for some reason. Maybe I'll have to arrange an antedotal viewing of "Babe."

A Long Vacation

I took a long vacation from blogging not because I didn't have a lot to say, I was just saying it some place else. After a heavy load of teaching this fall, I'm recommitting to blogging for several reasons: one, it makes be feel young, hip and cool; and two, I should be doing it because I teach writing and I nag my students to write. I like the idea of having a place in cyberspace where I can pull together different items and create a collage of expression. So here I am again--please be kind.