Blessed Saturday

Nothing like a Saturday when you really need one. It's sunny, I could sleep in, and I have something fun to do today.

Today I will go work on Quilts of Valor with a friend and a group from my quilt guild. I help out once in a while - it's not my signature project personally, but it's a good charity, and it's such fun to sew with friends.

It's sunny here in the midwest, not terribly cold, and I got to sleep in. These are the small things that bring joy.

The memory is going

I spent about an hour on Saturday writing a long post recounting a story from my life. Then I had a sudden feeling of deja vu... aw, crud. I posted that story already! It was about the January Apartment Fire back in 1989.

The frightening thing was how similarly worded the story was - the version I'd written three years ago and Saturday's.  I have become an old lady who repeats herself.

Heh, at least I can check if I've repeated myself!

Blogher

I've recently spent some time on Blogher reading and learning how to become a better blogger. So far I have not found much advice beyond what I already know - use proper grammar, spell correctly, proofread, and vary your sentence structure.

There are a lot of helpful tutorials on photography. I have a lot to learn about taking photos for online.  Blogs with pictures are just more interesting.

I'm also hoping to improve my readership and step up the design, particularly on my rikrax blog.

This blog is still rather private, to me. At times, I have posted blunt, honest, and strong opinions and feelings. I'm not really ashamed or embarrassed, but it isn't something I would like to have a wide readership for. Yes, I know exactly what I'm doing when I post to the Internet. As it says in my blog subtitle, this is my public journal. It's an exercise for me in mental fitness.

Hello 2012

Almost all of my favorite bloggers have started their posts this year with one titled "Hello 2012."  OK, so here's mine.

What will 2012 entail?

Things are changing this year personally for me. I do not expect my job to change much, but I think I must define a new paradigm for how I live. The kin keeper (Mom) is gone. I do not think any of my other family will reach out to me very much, therefore if I want to center my life on my family, I must become the kin keeper. I do not want to become the kin keeper, therefore, I must begin to define my life outside of my family of origin. I still would love to be in contact with family and I probably will be in contact on some level. SImply put, my life will not be about family.

This is non-traditional. The most popular model in America is the family-centered paradigm, in all its stress filled glory. For many people it works out well. For many others, it is hurtful and harmful. For me, I think it could be fine, but I don't think it will deliver fulfillment I am looking for. I will end up frustrated and feeling unappreciated.

I'm not sure what this means when I try to operationalize a non-traditional life. Travel over the holidays? Work over the holidays? Develop and nurture a network of friends that serve as family over the holidays? Who will I call to catch up with?  The fact is, I need a tribe, but my tribe does not need to be a clan.

So, I must get started.

Christmas 2011

Watching football on Christmas with Dad.

Last night we went to our church. I played with my informal clarinet quartet as the prelude. We played three settings of Christmas songs I found at sheetmusicplus.com. There's not much out there for clarinet quartet for Christmas. Guess I'd better try writing something - setting some carols or something like that. Nevertheless, when the music is written for clarinet quartet, it sounds better than a transposition of a quartet for some other grouping of instruments.

The service was very nice, but lasted longer than I would have liked. Since I was playing in the quartet and singing in the choir, I got there at about 9:45, and we left at almost 12:30.  That's a long time.

In the morning we had a nice breakfast and then went to mass with Dad; he's Catholic, I am not. I don't mind going to mass every once in a while. It's very similar to the protestant Christian denominations, with more ceremony, accoutrements, and memorized sections than I am used to. The mass lasted longer than I would have liked. The archbishop celebrated mass with the church we chose, and certainly that contributed to the length of the service and the large crowd. (Since I'm not a Catholic and I don't know the Catholic churches around here, I found the church via Google Maps, searching close to my house. Hey, whatever works.) Incidentally, the church website did not mention the archbishop presiding.

Big church. Kansas is really good at growing large churches; everyone seems to go to church, here.

Dinner consisted of homemade spanakopita, carrot and raisin salad, and a dinner roll. For a beverage, I bought a bottle of Cava, a sparkling wine from Spain - it was very good. I keep hearing about it on The Splendid Table and elsewhere; I had to give it a try. I purchased Poema Extra Dry at the recommendation of the salesperson at my local liquor emporium. Pretty good - I'm now a fan! I think it ran around $13.

Dessert was my favorite Christmas cookies: Toffee squares and Date Nut Pinwheels (recipes from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book).

Good food. nice weather, a little bit of God...all in all a good Christmas.

My Favorite Christmas Carols

I have sung in choirs for many years even at Christmas time and have sung many settings of Christmas carols. The song of popular culture don't always do it for me - they sound a bit manic at times (Happy! Presents! Santa! Snow!).

Here are some carols I really like this year:

In the Bleak Midwinter: I like this one because of its mournful longing sad tone. The tone is foreboding of Jesus's sacrifice to save humanity, yet there is an underlying theme of great love To me it sounds like God is saying "I know what I've come here to do, and I'm going to do it anyway."

O Come, O Come Emmanuel: This is another carol with a minor/modal tonality with with a feeling of longing.   It sounds like a Jewish song to me - the Jewish people crying out to God to send the savior.  I imagine they could continue to sing it today. Christians sing it as a way to represent the historical longing that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, before he came to us.  It's in Dorian mode, which makes for interesting listening and singing, in this world of rigidly 8 note scale

Hoo boy, digging into the recesses of my memory of music history for that one.

The Holly and the Ivy: I used to think this was the stupidest hymn ever. What does the running of the deer and a holly prickle have to do with Mary bearing Jesus Christ?  It seemed like someone wanted to sing a secular folk tune about woodland plants, then threw in the Christian reference to make the song acceptable, because the priest said they had to. Then.... then..... I figured it out. It's a long simile for the birth and life of Jesus. Sometimes I'm kinda slow.

Into the more popular hymns:

Angels We Have Heard On High: Love the harmony on the "Glorias."

The Christmas Song: Another one that is good to sing and gives a feeling of warmth.

Morning Star: Moravians are a small Protestant Christian denomication that has a relatively large concentration in central North Carolina. We used to live there and I was intrigued by them - I had never heard of them prior to moving the the Raleigh area. One year we went to an authentic love feast at a Moravian church and it was awesome. Morning Star is their "favorite" hymn, called the Moravian "Silent Night." It's a simple folk tune, but sweet and kind.

If I think of any more, I'll post some more. I need to get a move on today!

My Stephen Minister

A Stephen Minister from my church is helping me get through all the emotional turmoil of losing my Mom about 6 months ago. She helps me a lot, and most of the time we don't really talk about mourning or sadness or how I miss my mom. But having that support, having someone to talk to about the times when little things make me think of Mom, is really helpful. 

I am doing well with my grieving, and I probably won't need a Stephen Minister any more in the near future. I want to get through the holidays with her available, and see how that goes. 

Last time we met, we talked about closing the official Stephen Ministry relationship. We both expressed that we'd like to be friends afterwards. That's nice, and I'm pleased. Then she said something that struck me as odd: one reason she enjoys me is because I speak with a big vocabulary. 

Hm.

I have never thought of myself as having a big vocabulary. At least not in that way....I don't know. I try hard not to sound pretentious or stuck up by using words to impress or confuse, but the fact is, I know words and I like to use them whenever appropriate. My main goal is to communicate clearly. 

I guess the comment just made me think. I like being thought of as having a big vocabulary. 

Geico Commercials

And now for something completely different.

We watch a lot of our TV via Hulu. We gave up satellite, never had cable, and now we watch over the air TV and recorded shows. Occasionally we'll buy a program on iTunes.

You can't skip over the ads on Hulu. Fortunately, there aren't too many commercials. Unfortunately, there aren't many sponsors, so you get to see the same ads over and over and over again.  Geico happens to be a sponsor of Hulu shows we watch and we see their ads repeatedly.  For the past several months, all they run are the ads showing the announcer guy saying "Would switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance?" The next sentence is a truism or saying that's obviously true, but they interpret it creatively.

Examples of the second sentence are "Whaddya live under a rock?" or "Do dogs chase cats?" or "Is the pen mightier than the sword?"

I invented a simple game - try to guess what will be the second sentence.  The announcer guy says the first sentence almost identical each time, so it's a little tricky... I suppose if I paid close attention to the ads I'd detect differences in his tone, timing, expression. But, what's the fun in that?

It would be an awesome drinking game - if you get it wrong, you have to drink.  If you don't guess, you have to drink.  If you get it right, everyone else drinks.....or something like that.

For me, it's just a fun way to make the commercials go by faster.

I like those ads. I especially like:

• Did this little piggy go "wee wee wee" all the way home?
• Would Foghorn Leghorn make a really bad book narrator?
• I like how the chicken hawk grabs the club and stalks off camera. Moment later you hear a whack...then..."auugh."  Hilarious.
• Do people use smart phones to do dumb things?
• Yep. I have the brostache app.