What can I say; he's gorgeous, gregarious, a good listener and he knows how to savor the finer things in life.+1+yr)
But what else can I say about that?
I still pay attention and contact my representatives and yell, scream, coerce and debate. But really, what else can I say about that. I feel like Cassandra screaming into a hurricane. Very, very bad shit is happening because of and within my country -- and I don't presume to compare the wussy miseries occurring within to the tragic blood-letting without, but the voodoo hoodoo hippie dilletante in me knows it's all connected like some global geopolitical version of reflexology. Just remember; we did not elect that sick, fascist fuck twice and that did not change any outcomes.
All of that being said anyway...frivolity...
I've decided to adopt the bullshit hoodoo voodoo hippie dilletante perspective of giving energy to that which is good and denying energy to that which really needed to disappear 8 years ago. I intend to project joy, gratitude, love and luck like some demented karmic Pollyanna in hopes that maybe THAT will work a little better than the bitching and testifying. That's probably a messed-up wrong-headed approach to generating joy, gratitude, love and luck, but I'm going to let form follow function in this case.
So:
Here's to all of the love we make, break and take. Here's to the attending pain it comes with which reminds you love is bigger than sweetness and more love and luck to those who are too chicken to love and too candy-assed to get hurt.
Here's to the woods and all of those who protect them, as well as those who enjoy them.
Here's to being one lucky woman because I have so many I love, not to mention the greatest kid in the world.
Here's to my fat ass which keeps me warm and is an excellent, portable, ergonomic cushion.
Here's to the whiskey which fertilized this bullshit post.
Here's to getting kissed so deep, sweet and well the arches of your feet break out in a sweat.
And here's to you. Thanks for stopping by.
Make a hawk a dove,
Recently, my sister introduced me to the term bershon, which is that very special disgusted face adolescents make when they are annoyed by their family.
I think my nephew Dex (above) looks like my son Donovan (below).
However, Donovan now looks more like this. 
...although not as much as then. And a Happy Mother's Day to my sisters who are raising some of the coolest kids in the world ...
I can't believe how old my son is ...
...but he'll always be my baby.
Or how to make sure Iraq continues in a state of poverty, disaster and chaos for another generation... These images brought to you courtesy of the Oil Robber Barons.Support our troops. Bring them home -- don't cut their healthcare.
Clockwise from center: Dex, me, Peter, Donovan, Michael, Tom 
Next, Jason Thomas from WXRT presented me with a plaque commemorating the day I got lucky and dyed green. (See my look of shock re: all the ribald talk in front of my grandmother. Actually, I'm being warned that if I spill the dye it will never come off and if I break Tracy from Jameson's mother's Waterford biscuit jar -- follow that? --I will sleep with the fishes.)
Next we paraded from the hotel bar to the river bank at Cityfront Plaza. Hooray!(I think the reason the fates decreed I should win this silly contest was because I spent 10 years training in the rarely useful art of walking without spilling in my years as a bartender/ coctail waitress.)
Here we are descending the stairs with bulky, breaky things and the momentum of 75 people behind us. The blonde in the green track jacket at center is Tracy from Jameson. She was lots of fun and did an excellent job putting the whole thing together.
Here is another picture of the Emerald Society. If you look in the background, you will see hundreds lined up along the railings. That's probably only about half of the spectators.
My hand in dyeing the river was symbolic. The real work was done by the gentleman from the Plumbers' Union. About 42 years ago, a plumber walked into the Union Rep's office covered in green. The Rep asked him about it and he explained he had been using the dye to suss out the source of a sewage leak into the river, in order to correct it. The Union Rep mentioned it to Mayor Daley (I) and the plumbers were given permission to dye the river.
Next, I dumped a Waterford jar full of orange-turning-green-dye into the river...
...as the plumbers dyed it from the boat.
And here's a picture of the green Chicago River from our hotel room. Notice how the dye seems to stop exactly at that bridge at mid- frame...
Slainté!
But I am a woman, not a man; and since one of my two favorite sisters asked me and because I already blogged a childhood memory this monthe re: glockenspiels ... I will tell you about another pleasant childhood memory.
I was about 5 years old. It was December, and my best friend Jeff and I had been cooped up indoors because of the weather. On this particular night, however, something to fulfill our wildest space nerd desires was going to occur. The Star Wars Holiday Special was being broadcast on TV. We ate dinner at Jeff's and were going to my house to watch the show. It was raining and dark, and we were both giddy with anticipation and the very special privelege of being able to walk in the dark without supervision -- even though it was only around the corner. We huddled together under an umbrella and spontaneously began singing together at the top of our lungs:
How would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot? What if the following described the life of your daughter?
"The Americans killed my father. My father went to Kabul to get medicine for my brother who had pneumonia. When the Americans bombed, my father was killed. He did not return to bring medicine for my brother. So my brother who had pneumonia also died." This young girl said the following when asked if she had any message to the American public: "do American children love their fathers? I miss my father very much. Every night I cry and my mother tells not to cry because my father is in paradise, but I still miss him. I don't like the Americans."
She, her mother, and her siblings live in abject poverty.
Meet Dexter! He is the baby formerly known as Thelonious. (Can you tell that his dad -- pictured here -- is a jazz saxophonist and pianist?) Dex has Joel's coloring, ears and much of his facial structure -- although I think he has Nora's nose and chin.
Nora is doing well. Dex is in a special care nursery, but that seems to be mostly precautionary. Hopefully, they will all be going home tomorrow.
I got to be one of the few priveleged folks to hold him yesterday. He has good lungs and a musical little gurgle that he vocalizes when you say his name. He also has very long, graceful fingers. He likes to wiggle them around until he gets them into his mouth.
In this self-portrait that Donovan left for me on my camara, you can see why my cousin nicknamed him GQ. Although, I think he must have just showered here. Ususally he doesn't walk around with a Pete Doherty hairstyle.
I'm the luckiest mom in the world. The kid is funny, sweet, smart and a hard worker.
Look at my nephew Iain. He's such a good big brother. Iain has enough imagination and smarts for about a half dozen kids. If you need any zoological or botanical facts, you might want to read a field guide -- or save yourself time and ask Iain.
And then there is Rory. She is a bundle of sunshiny love and thunderstorms. She is a party girl who loves to be goofy (as seen here) and lately she's been making up knock-knock jokes.
The jokes are awful, but the delivery is impeccable.
For example, last night he spoke in a Minnie Mouse style falsetto while imitating me: “14,000 people have died in car accidents since George Bush has been President. Coincidence? I think not.” (Please note that I speak in a tobacco-tinged alto. I point this out to him with every imitation, and although he concedes, he always makes me sound like Minnie.)
He tells me blogging is for socially retarded nerds.
I do manage to embarrass him on the regular, although we’ve worked out some compromises. He won’t complain about me listening to hip-hop – as long as his friends aren’t in the car. And he enjoys discussing the evolution and compositional motifs of classic rock , so we have long debates about topics such as what was Brian Wilson’s best song. His absolute favorite band is the Who, so not only does he own just about everything they’ve ever recorded, but he naturally reads bios and liner note and blogs. (Why is a blog suddenly cooler when Pete Townsend is writing it? Nevermind, stupid question.)
This is how he discovered one of my most trite and useless things (because it isn’t even a skill). I can usually identify a song in about 3 bars. So although I’m not permitted to sing along with the radio, I am encouraged to shout out the title of each and every song during its intro.
(Excuse me. Say the title – must not shout it. It seems that years of working in nightclubs have damaged my hearing and now everything I say is just so loud.)
I enjoy this game , however, because this is about the only thing I do that he doesn’t find dorky/ nerdy or just plain wrong.
Unless he does something really clumsy such as slicing his hand open on a can of cat food and suddenly he needs me to clean up the blood with bactrine, bandages and love.
So I am still necessary.
And the poor kid is going to be soooo embarrassed when he reads this.
