~ the state of my office ~

Here sits Toolbelt at my overcrowded desk, with its old monitor and its new iMac that sits here taunting me because we haven't been able to move all my work files over to it, yet. We're waiting on some certain cable.

It's amazing I can get any work done in the room at all, its cluttered feng shui being what it is. We are still living around the overflow from the spring flooding of our basement. I can tidy up, but have no other place to put the stuff.

It looks like another beautiful day out there. The sky's blue, the deep snow is frostily white and sparkling, and yet the temperature hovers around freezing. Glorious day for a walk in the country. I slept late again today, and am still sitting here in my housecoat at 12:40 p.m. Mom's housecoat, I mean. It's the warmest thing going.

Remembrance Day

Yesterday a man called into the Saskatchewan CBC radio program, Blue Sky, and wept while describing some photographs he'd seen, taken in the time of the Second World War. One picture was of a Nazi soldier holding up his bayonet, laughing, with an infant speared on it.

I cried, too.

Blue Sky is the 12-to-2 program I listen to as I sit here at my desk on weekdays, working up a storm.

A wool tapestry from the 15th
century, called Offering of the
Heart, is one of 276 works to
be loaned by the Louvre.

It's got me thinking of taking a "real" holiday next summer. How often do we get to see artifacts from the Louvre, without going all the way to Paris?

You can read the whole story here:

Louvre to loan works to Quebec museum

**********************************

Here I sit at my desk, with a brand new computer (woo hoo! a 20-inch iMac) right next to the old one, but not hooked up to the internet yet, and in the kafuffle of getting old files transferred to the new machine the connection for the digital camera has been put somewhere, so I can’t post any photos of the gorgeous foot of snow that’s fallen on us over the past couple days. Before that, it rained and froze ... and today the trees are covered with sparkling ice ... it’s enchanting, and I am dreaming anyway when I imagine my camera being able to reflect the light and beauty as it really is.

The boys are home three days this week and I'm enjoying having company in the house, though they mostly do their thing and I do mine. Tomorrow afternoon they head out with their dad and his girlfriend for the weekend. She took this picture last time:

My buddy Kate goes all-out for All Hallows Eve.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888

~ the Night Table Notebook presents ~

“She added some advice all writers could profit by:
‘Begin— the first sentence is everything.’

[and]

“Jane had a journalistic eye for the graphic, and a poet’s ear, as is evident from the example she cited of Irish keening by a bereaved mother:

O women, look on me! Look on me, women! Have you ever seen any sorrow like mine? Have you ever seen the like of me in my sorrow? Arrah, then, my darling, my darling, ‘tis your mother that calls you. How long you are sleeping. Do you see all the people round you, my darling, and I sorely weeping? Arrah, what is this paleness on your face? Sure there was no equal to it in Erin for beauty and fairness and your hair was heavy as the wing of a raven, and your skin was whiter than the hand of a lady. Is it the stranger must carry me to my grave, and my son lying here?”

- from the bio of
Jane Francesca “Speranza” Wilde

Mother of Oscar, by Joy Melville

Everett at the beginning of his trick-or-treat rounds last night.

He had picked up his costume and accessory last week and commented "my first real costume," meaning he'd never purchased one before. He was pretty thrilled and could hardly wait for Halloween to come.

We even got a trick-or-treater here at the farm! For the first time since moving here. The first year I made super-treats; no one came and I ended up bagging them and sending them off to the kids we know. The following years I made sure to buy treats to have on hand, and when no kids came we were glad to have mini chocolate bars and smarties around the house for a month. This year I didn't buy any, and little Althea came. Fortunately there were a few caramels left in the glass canister on the kitchen cupboard and I was able to give her a robust handful. She was tickled, too -- who wouldn't be -- caramels?

Wish I'd see a big bag of the chocolate ones somewhere.

Dropped Everett off at the northwest end of town and arranged for him to meet me in one hour at a café, where I'd be finished my supper and we could make more plans. He came in on time, finished up my french fries, and headed out again.

I went out into the cold- sharp wind in the street -and gassed up the van; then ... well anyway, I was out and about. 'Nuff said. Went to Grandma's at 8, to find that Everett had had enough candy-collecting an hour before I got there.

I had driven slowly around the residential streets watching for him, and listening to CBC radio's show, and sipping on a cup of hot decaf. Perfectly fine way to spend an hour.

~ Sister Joan and Mom at J + G's wedding in 1997 (ish) ~

A wise and perceptive friend wrote "You are still in a state of deep grieving" the other day, and I thought "Am I?"

Of course I am.

*Flowers and Ritual

Flowers used in the death ritual enable the Luminosity Angel of the one who has died and the Resurrection Angels to work with those who grieve for the dying. To omit flowers for the dead produces an austere and sterile ritual.

During the ritual for the dead, the fragrance and the life emanation from flowers enable the angels working with the dead to shower a blessing of faith, and also enable the angels of the dead to come closer to those grieving—thereby comforting them.

Men who ignore the floral kingdom—in life or death—fail to unite themselves with the harmony and the blessings given of God.

Flowers have been used by the knowing since time immemorial, because they have intuited that flowers are close to the soul within the life of all living things.

To place flowers upon the grave of a person does not earth-bind the one dead. Such tokens of love are received in heaven as a communication, and as a confirmation of the belief in a spiritual life after death.

*from Watch Your Dreams, by Ann Ree Colton. This book is pretty far out there; "esoteric" is the word that comes to mind. I lack the ambition to articulate a considered review.

Wild creatures I've seen this week:

- twice, three white-tailed deer bounding across the road in front of my vehicle at dusk
- twice, a beaver in the flooded creek; the first time it was sitting on top of a layer of ice near open water
- a red fox that ran across the road and down through the ditch before it stopped and looked; when i slowed, thinking i might get a picture, it turned and ran further into the field

Study Says Family Meal is Good for Your Health*

According to a decade-long study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), teens who regularly have meals with their family are less likely to get into fights, think about suicide, smoke, drink, use drugs, and are more likely to have later initiation of sexual activity, and better academic performance than teens who do not.

Rutgers University anthropologist Robin Fox emphasizes the importance of positive intention in family meals.

"It's like the American Indians. When they killed a deer, they said a prayer over it," says Fox. "That is civilization. It is an act of politeness over food. Fast food has killed this. We have reduced eating to sitting alone and shoveling it in. There is no ceremony in it."

The CASA study also showed that eating with parents is an important factor in the nutrition and eating habits of adolescents, with research showing that family meals and parental presence at meals is associated with higher intake of fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.

Learn more:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_752.cfm

*reprinted from Organic Consumers newsletter

Grandma likes to point out that she is still wearing many of the clothes that she's had for 20 years — or is that 40 — but one day last week she said "Look at this old thing, I've had it for years, I never go anywhere to get anything new." She was wearing a white sweatshirt old enough to deserve being grey and that I recall her buying back before Everett was born, 14 years ago.

So I suggested we go shopping, and on Sunday afternoon went to town and took Grandma to the cheapo department store that sells poorer-quality items of all sorts, much of it coming from god-knows-what sweatshops in what countries. But it was open, so that's where we went.

There wasn't much in her size to choose from -- in her size, clothes are little-girly — but we did manage to find two sweaters she liked and she came home happy. She was wearing one of them when I stopped in the next day.

I keep the cover of this greeting card because the little girl reminds me of photographs I've seen of Mom as a child.

***

I was always one of those people, like Dad, who could not sleep if there was a radio or TV on near me. If I could understand the words being spoken, I’d get interested in the story. If music was left on in the living room when I fell asleep, it would either keep me awake or, were I lucky enough to nod off, wake me in the middle of the night until I’d have to get up and turn it off.

Since Mom died (it doesn’t feel right, that word; I have to force myself to type it), the radio next to my head acts like a sedative, sometimes putting me to sleep even when I am trying to follow an arts interview. This is what used to happen to Mom; TV and radio would knock her right out if she laid down.

Some kind of "transference" (thanks for the word, Cath) or what? Strange, but welcome.

After 1 a.m. the CBC has radio programs from all over the world, and these are often quite interesting, but I simply cannot stay awake to listen to them.

There are new sloughs in the field northeast of the farmyard, and they're frozen enough to walk on. Woohoo! How I wished to be wearing a pair of skates.
Actually that's not a bad idea, maybe I'll take mine and go for a glide today.
 

River
   
It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Copyright © 1970; Joni Mitchell
 from the album Blue