just the tip of the iceberg...

To this day Zoe still doesn't understand why I wouldn't let her watch Disney movies until she was 7 or 8. I found this graphic on Pinterest which somewhat simplistically illustrates a small part of my objections. Still I thought it was worth re-posting here.

(side note: I don't censor her anymore and she loves Disney, even if I'm not a fan.)

ADDED LATER

my sister wrote this in an email to me this morning:

"OH, what I was gonna tell you was about your post. As my girls loved the Disney movies, you know I let them watch them. X's favorite was the Aristocats but I made her that Cinderella dress for Halloween when she was 2 and she wore it every day for almost 2 years! (I have kept it) anyway the thing I really wanted to say was that for the induction into the National Honor Society X had to fill out a questionnaire. there were many questions ( What would you do with a fortune, what historical character would you like to meet, how do you want to impact the world, etc.) and when the student was inducted the MC chose a couple of things from the questionnaire to introduce the student to the audience. One of the questions was 'which fictional character would you like to be and why'. They didn't use this question to introduce X but she chose Spencer Reed from Criminal Minds (because he is super intelligent and has an eidetic memory) every girl introduced where this question was mentioned said she wanted to be either belle, Cinderella, jasmine, Ariel, snow white. etc. Every one a Disney princess, and I sat there thinking REALLY?!?! at 17 an NHS student can't think of a better fictional character then a Disney princess? and I wondered about a society that indoctrinated their young women in such an inconceivably unachievable destructive way. And there wasn't one boy who said he wanted to be the handsome prince."

graphic source:http://pinterest.com/pin/56576539038645759/

lizard progressing and a Happy Birthday!

The horned toad still has a ways to go (but then he is 8 times larger than the real thing). In fact what we have here is a digital photo of an incredibly blown up, unfinished drawing,

of a lizard who people call a toad who wants to wish

Tara a Happy Birthday!

Kind of like a modern day version of Plato's cave since the drawing is a drawing and not a lizard or toad, who knows nothing of people, or birthdays, or blogs, and for all I know it might not even be Tara's Birthday (although I have it on good authority that it is!) making everything just shadows and this post possibly pointless....and confusing. But forget all of that and let's just leave it at

Happy Birthday Tara :)

Fictionalizing Reality

Yesterday I found myself and my groceries in line behind a clean cut, middle aged fellow trying to hang onto a LOT of donuts and bananas. Other than his struggling not to drop everything I really wasn't paying much attention to him. So anyways, I'm behind this guy minding my own business when I realize that in addition to the donuts and bananas he has a pile of one hundred Walmart gift cards that he wants the cashier to add $5 a piece to.

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe (X maybe 20)

The guy looks over to me and apologizes. I give him a smile and quietly reply “it's fine”. What he doesn't know is that I'm stuck in town for the next three hours waiting for Zoe's drawing class to end and it really doesn't matter to me if I spend that time standing here or somewhere else. If I were a chatterer I'd tell him that and relieve his anxiety. I'd tell him all about how my 16 year old home schooled daughter who has never set foot in a classroom in her life is attending the college and how I'm just running errands and killing time until she's done. I might even brag about how creative she is or of my hope that she'll meet someone her own age and make new friends. But I don't, I don't do that sort of thing.

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

On autopilot my brain wonders “who in the world would want a $5 gift card?” Pretty quickly I decide that he's either a preacher or used car salesman. At least that's what he looks like.

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

(are we up to 50 yet?)

Another apology “I really am sorry”. I smile meekly again and say “it's okay”. And it is, except for my brain. It's decided he's pimping God and that tomorrow morning somewhere in this frozen tundra (okay it's not technically a “tundra”) will be a gathering of lost souls whose emptiness, vulnerability and despair will be rewarded with donuts and practically worthless gift cards. I imagine how dirty the donuts would taste in my mouth....how cheap I would feel at such a feeble attempt at collective belonging. Okay, enough! I laugh at myself and decide to still the mental chatter and clear my mind of absolutely everything right there in the middle of Walmart. As I shut my eyes and breath slowly and deeply to center myself I wonder if he thinks I'm trying to summon patience or stave off frustration. I wonder if his imaginings are as ludicrous as mine?

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

scan~type~swipe

When the stack is almost gone I smile at him while he apologizes again and thanks me for my patience which makes me laugh. When I finally finish checking out and approach the exit, the alarm goes off. After rifling through my entire cart the greeter apologizes because she can't find anything to write in her door dinging log. We wait some more while she copies my receipt and I smile at Larry because it definitely seemed like randomness and chance, or the universe, or whatever, was helping us as much as she could to pass the 3 hours we didn't know what to do with. :)

Holy Smoke! ~ real art in a Walmart World

I found Helen Thompson's work through Pinterest and am floored and inspired by it. She's definitely worth taking a look at.

her website: http://holy-smoke.co.uk/portfolio.html

on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/all/

where we live....

(Massacre Hill; The Battle of the Hundred Slain/Fetterman Massacre, photo by Larry)

as described in Black Elk Speaks:

...the soldiers came and built themselves a town of logs there on the Piney Fork of the Powder...

"Dead men and horses and wounded Indians were scattered all the way up the hill, and their blood was frozen, for a storm had come up and it was very cold and getting colder all the time. "

"There is a wide flat prairie with hills around it... Our women were watching us from the hills and we could hear them singing and mourning whenever the shooting stopped. "

The places mentioned in Black Elk Speaks are timeless and little changed over the last 150 years. The soldier's "town of logs" is mostly gone except for placards and a visitor's center. About 40 years after The Battle of the Hundred Slain and The Wagon Box Fight, the United States Government established a post office here solidifying settlement of the area. We now have a year round population of just under 900 people (a number which increases significantly if you count summer residents).

HISTORY LINK: Red Cloud's War on Wikipedia

so collect your courage and collect your horse...

in case you were wondering...

deer don't like gingerbread houses.

thank you!

I don't know who you are but THANK YOU to whoever sent me the subscription of Wired, I'm going to really enjoy it!

:)

from The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

Each of us can easily divide the world into good and evil, but presumably God would not suffer from the many biases and Machiavellian motivations that make us do so. Moral motivations (justice, honor, loyalty, patriotism) enter into most acts of violence, including terrorism and war. Most people believe their actions are morally justified. A few paragons of evil stand out as candidates for hell, but almost everyone else would end up in limbo.

It just won't work to turn God into Santa Claus, a moral accountant keeping track of 6 billion accounts, because most lives can't be placed definitively in the naughty or nice columns.

-Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

Garrison Keillor read this on today's Writer's Almanac...

Harmony in the Boudoir

by Mark Strand

After years of marriage, he stands at the foot of the bed and

tells his wife that she will never know him, that for everything

he says there is more that he does not say, that behind each

word he utters there is another word, and hundreds more be-

hind that one. All those unsaid words, he says, contain his true

self, which has been betrayed by the superficial self before her.

"So you see," he says, kicking off his slippers, "I am more than

what I have led you to believe I am." "Oh, you silly man," says

his wife, "of course you are. I find that just thinking of you

having so many selves receding into nothingness is very excit-

ing. That you barely exist as you are couldn't please me more."

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

My only resolution this year is to start treating Zoe like the 16 year old that she is (I tend to over mother the poor girl to death!). Beyond that, I don't have anything blog worthy or New Year-ish to add. I did just finish emailing my sister. While I doubt it will interest you I'll copy and paste it below. Proceed at your own risk though as it promises to be VERY boring! :)

Happy New Year to you too!

Things here are good. I kept with my tradition of seeing the new year in unconsciously. The last thing I remember the clock said 11:50. Somehow the universe managed it all without me! :)

Zoe had wanted to decorate gingerbread houses this year. Rather than spend ten bucks per kit I told her to wait until after the holidays when I could get them at 1/2 off and we would do them new years eve, which we did. She's such a funny kid. She just really gets into stuff like that. I think we sat there listening to music and making a terrible mess for like two hours. So that was nice and the deer will love eating them in a week or two when we're done looking at them.

I didn't take any pictures the night of the ball but I have one of her in the dress that I took when we bought it. I have another shot that Liz took at the ball and posted on facebook so I'll send that too.

Larry watched a special on CNN in December about a diet the cures and prevents heart disease. He asked Santa for the book and is now undertaking this super strict vegan diet

http://www.heartattackproof.com/

Trying to make full meals and a constant supply of baked goods with no animal products, no milk, eggs, cheese, nuts, oil (of any kind) or butter has been keeping me busy. I did find some oil free vegan bread at the health food store along with vegan egg replacer. He said last night that the diet is giving him peace of mind because he knows he is doing all he can for his health. I'm sure once I've worked out a menu of successful recipes to choose from it will get easier.

Anyways, the whole ordeal with XXX's eye totally sucks! I would think it would make it hard to drive in terms of peripheral vision (among other things). I wish I was there, I would love to photograph it and turn him into the hottest ophthalmological stock model out there! :)

I bought a book for all three of us for Christmas called the Happiness Hypothesis

http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Modern-Ancient/dp/0465028020/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325450031&sr=1-1

which I've only just started. Anyways, the author is a psychologist who specializes in culture and morality. I've just started it but he simplifies the structure of our psyche by equating the unconscious (our autonomic responses and inclinations) as an elephant and consciousness as a small person riding (and trying to control) the elephant. I've always thought of those two aspects of ourselves as proportionately the opposite; that the unconscious is recessive and only occasionally informs our conscious selves. What he is saying is that what-who we are is mostly derived from our biology and our unconscious and is largely opposed to/immune to our conscious decision making. That without persistent and long term behavioral retraining the elephant doesn't conform. Anyways, what I'm getting at is that I think what he has to say may be relevant to the whole new years resolution/dissolution thing that you mentioned. I'll let you know once I'm further along if it's worth trying to get from your library. Personally I find that it explains a lot about me to myself but since that would make this email nothing short of a long book I will save it for another time. :)

And, since this email isn't already long enough, I'm going to bore you with the idiocy of bird count day which was yesterday. We got the most ferocious blizzard which lasted all of Friday night. So Saturday morning it was just lousy out, we had no power and no internet. I couldn't shower or do my hair but since the winds were terrible it didn't really matter. It took Larry and I an hour working together to dig a path through the 5 foot wall of snow at the end of our driveway. We froze our asses off! When we finally got free the county roads weren't plowed (except for ours which has a private contractor) Where we were able to travel, the snow squalls left visibility to zero. Every bird with any sense in his head was hunkered down somewhere. And those that were out, were being thrown around so fast by the wind that they were unidentifiable. On a normal drive through Story we will encounter around a zillion turkey and several bald eagles. Yesterday we counted 4 turkeys and only one juvenile bald eagle. I guess what I'm saying is that not only is the Christmas Bird Count a completely unscientific means of keeping tabs on local bird populations (because it is done by volunteers with varying understanding of species, binocular strength, and overlapping territories) the results are so weather dependent that they can in no way be an indicator of anything in any given year. So it was STUPID! I really should have skipped it but didn't want to seem like a pansy whiner as we'd made a commitment to help. What was I thinking?!

Well, now that you regret emailing me I will try and wrap this up.

You didn't say how your party and the fireworks went last night? I don't blame you for wanting to put Tuesday off a little longer. Hopefully when business hours resume at a normal pace the checks from all of that work you've done will start flowing in!

Good luck with your patient!

Much Love, Sharon

(bird count day 2011)