my new favorite thing

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What a special early Christmas weekend. John's family came to visit us from the Boston area and we had Christmas and my birthday, complete with turkey dinner that they provided and John cooked, tree-trimming, a cake with candles and some anemic caroling for the benefit of Nana on the phone. It was all memorable and wonderful, although we were disappointed that Nana couldn't come.

This morning someone came by and offered to buy Rhonda the plow truck. John asked them to come back later, which they did, and negotiated a fair price. I am sad to see her go, especially with another nor'easter dropping a ton of snow. Uncle Frank has given us his old snow blower, which John will drive to Massachusetts to pick up, and will see Nana at the same time. And I have another cold. This one's in my chest as well as head.

It will all work out.

from a note to my oldest friend

Dear Friend,

Here in the Adirondacks we got a little snowstorm overnight, and the spring birds that have migrated this far are making all their normal noises even though the ground is white. Our chickens are pecking around outside looking for bugs and other tasty bits. Last week one of the chickens pecked a baby mouse to death and ate it. The pigs are all comfortable in their sweet hay beds, and they don’t mind the cold — to them 32 degrees Fahrenheit is sixty degrees warmer than winter, and they’re content. The piglets are romping around in their yard digging up old horseshoes and bits of metal, glass and ceramic mysteries. It is so interesting to live on an ancient farmstead. John’s tromping in from chores now, so I will sign off.

Love, M

observation - the tits test

On days like today when I wear something that [does not conceal / shows off] my bosom, I am very conscious of men’s glances. It is amazing how many men who usually are fine can’t help themselves. A tit glance before their eyes meet mine, and then no shame at all in their faces.

NCPR News Archive

NCPR News Archive
What a day. It started earlier than usual for me, as I have to do chores myself now that John’s back is injured. Poor man, he is in so much pain he finally decided to go to the hospital where our doctor has an office. More on that later. So I did chores, and he went and got wood shavings to put down over the areas where the animals to the bathroom. I scraped and shoveled and mucked, hardest work of my life, and I am getting stronger every day. My stamina is growing, too. It’s not so bad after the work is done but it sure sucks while doing it. I know I ought to be grateful to John for doing all the barn chores for weeks at a time. Now that 100% of the job is mine, for however short a time, I am amazed and overwhelmed and secretly very proud.

Came indoors to have a cup of coffee and cool off before showering & heading to work, and saw the river had turned into a bucking bronco of racing rapids, ice cakes & logs. Quite dramatic. I did shower and while I was in the water I heard the fire department pager go off and the word “jam”. Ice jam! I hadn’t seen one of those yet. The river was absolutely rolling and heaving, the ice cakes as big as a car or truck. It was terribly exciting. Very little traffic except for emergency vehicles and cops moving slowly by with their lights on, everyone watching the water and the ice. It was raining lightly. (Now at 4:30 in the afternoon the sun is out.) John couldn’t help the fire department because he was on his way to the hospital to deal with his excruciating back pain, so I (perhaps) over-dramatically decided to stay home from work in case the flood rose to the house or the barn. I was imagining shooting the pigs and then there would be no more barn chores. Our back field did flood, right up to the bonfire mound, which is at the edge of the pigs’ paddock. The river did rise to nearly road-level, but only stayed that high for half an hour or so before some ice jam broke somewhere, and it left ice cakes behind. Today I learned that ice jams grow and crack up, they form on the river here and there, and in between are long stretches of normal-looking water.

beloved neighbors & heroic problem-solver

What a Tuesday. John hurt his back and was out of commission for a third day, in worse pain than the other two days combined. The temperature remained above freezing and the “deep pack” in the barn was very thawed, stenchy and dangerous. This condition has been bothering me and when it was clear John would be doing no shoveling today, much less go to work, I panicked. I called beloved neighbors and received reassurances that they would be over soon with big machine + big muscles. I convinced John to let himself stay home from work, got him a chiropractor and massage appointment, set him up with his favorite beverage (Diet cola), food (chips & salsa,) music (Monsterbuck) + NYT Sunday paper bits, and went out to do the hardest physical labor I think I have ever done in my life. With hours of heroic help from neighbors and two men from my school, we got the barn clean. The animals seem so much happier. It’s hard to know if they are or not. John called me his heroic problem-solver.

It is daylight savings time, so still bright dusk at almost 6:30. I hear John moving about upstairs. He’s got to do the fire department treasurer’s report, and then go to a meeting. I will continue to sit here in my quiet exhausted state. Aching back, sense of major accomplishment. I went out to the barn just a while ago to check on them, and all remains well. The animals truly seem happier. I can only imagine what it was like for them living on top of their own suddenly melted mess, eating from a trough while their feet were in their mess.

John shuffles by and reminds me that I still need to water the pigs. Now that he’s accepted his limitations he’s a model patient + happy delegator. We’ll see how long I remain a model wife.

I did not go tot work today; took a sick day sort of, to deal with this all. Feeling somewhat guilty about that: should I have been traditionally responsible and gone to the office, or should I have done what I did: stayed home and gotten help to solve what I perceived as a terrible crisis? Woulda coulda shoulda. What’s done is done.

Pig water. Dinner for self & hubbin. Bring in firewood. Wash dishes. Move laundry through cycle. Straighten up from the day. Triage tomorrow’s tasks. This reminds me of what I imagine child-rearing will be like. Always some demand.

Water done. nearly seven and still light, hallelujah. When did I turn into this rough and strong farm person? (Grin.) When did I turn into a person who is happy to go to church? I am so far from perfect—am a deeply flawed person—but I have moments of joy just from living my life. My ridiculous, unexpected life.

pig cannibalism

It is minus eleven degrees at dusk, nearly six o'clock. I just came in from chores. When I entered the barn all seemed calm. I had already fed the big pigs and the hens and was pouring the sows' grain when I noticed a bloody mess in the deep straw in the back of their stall. It was a half-eaten piglet, the black-and-white banded one. I couldn't believe it. I shouted in horror, then climbed over the fence and gently nudged Gal, the mama, so I could go into the stall and get the carcass. The piglet's front half was entirely gone, and when I picked it up (little legs not much thicker than my gloved fingers, little feet between my fingers) I saw bits of bone & offal in the straw. The others had emptied out the body. There was no skull or front legs or feet. The dead pig's black and white mid-section was deflated, like a scooped-out piece of fruit. The animals did not bother me as I took the carcass out, and when I left the piglets scampered in and started rooting in the straw for any remaining bits of their sibling's corpse. Ugh. Ick. I laid the body and bits on top of a pile of manure in a blue bucket. The sows kept on munching their grain.

Just the other day I read in a pamphlet about slaughtering pigs that they don't care if you kill their pig-friend right next to them--they just go for the warm tasty blood.

That's at least $60 down the drain, or more precisely, into the compost. Gal had eleven or twelve babies and three remain. It is so very cold, and we are so very new to pig-farming. We've probably made 100 mistakes. I blame myself for not helping enough in the barn. Although of course the pig was probably crushed and then eaten; Ham and Gal are by choice sharing that space meant for one sow and her litter.

cold

Note to beloved siblings...

It’s booger-freezin’ cold here today! The river is frozen solid and is utterly quiet, not even creaking. There are miniature glaciers forming along the roadside cliffs where in the warm weather there are damp mossy springs. In the winter that dampness grows & grows, like frozen billowing smoke, and gets to be all sorts of colors from the minerals in the rock. More notably, the growing pillows of ice flow into the road and have to be scraped away by big machines. I would love to catch this on slow motion film. I wish you could see it. Anyway, big storm coming our way. Enjoy your weather-channel view of it. Love, M

humorous video about PMS

spoof of post-War instructional/propaganda videos

A Place In Our Hearts

I have an essay printed in this book:

A place in our hearts: Roland Park Country School

Five years ago this was my daily view: the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, New York. We lived on the Brooklyn side. That's my fire escape in the upper left hand corner, and a great pale dilapidated opera house on the right.

Here is a poem I sketched out during those years.



Urban Soundscapes

1.
That first day in the city
Me fresh from forest living
A tired and lonely night
July, no air conditioning
The tuneful humming bridge and parties,
Traffic, commerce
Did marry into jazz.
And later to learn Ornette Coleman hung
His hat here, composed and played.
In my panic, culture shock I did hear that jazz
If only for a hyper monkey typewriter moment

2.
Flat on my back on the silver roof
Six stories up, level of bridge roadway
Higher still, beyond bridge elbows, Chrysler and Empire State
Clouds ride against the plastic bubble surface
Covering our spiky city sky
They make no sound, but like a calliope
They are ornate decoration, the carousel horses

3.
I notice that jackhammers
on the bridge do sound
like wailing cicadas
locusts in reflective orange and gold
hard hat highway persons
six stories up in traffic.

4.
A camp wedding memory: Loons on our lake before dawn
concert of humanlike voices, echoes
notes of dog and splashing bonfire.
In Brooklyn, Williamsburg, this is sirens
Back and forth across the bridge
European bing-bong siren
Up and down Broadway.

5.
The museum of dead police cars and taxicabs
Has no known translation into music.
The lumberyard forklift back up beep
Insane, monotonous, ignorable.
The garage specializes in fancy car alarms,
Puerto Rican and Dominican flags.
They test alarms and horns in permutation,
Flexing their muscles, roaring their engines
Day and night, territorial,
Like the lake joke, what is the plume
behind a fast-moving speedboat—
Testosterone.

my grandma when she was happy

Williams, Janet McCormack various undated, originally uploaded by adkpersephone.

Here are some scanned photos of my grandmother, Janet McCormack Williams, from the late 1920s and/or early 1930s. The pictures may have been taken in Great Britain, where she lived as a young adult until my American grandfather, Kenneth Richard Williams sept her off her feet and away from the Blitz to Alexandria, Virginia.

Boing Boing

Boing Boing: I am in thy library, executing a grammatical procedure of great destructive force against thy lexicon.

This cat-themed joke series makes me snort with laughter. It also affirms my deep belief that cats are representatives of an alien life force outside our galaxy.

MollyGood re Bush & Rumsfeld

MollyGood Viewer - 110806%20bush%20rumsfeld / MollyGood

Saddam Hussein Sentenced to Death by Hanging - New York Times

Hussein Is Sentenced to Death by Hanging - New York Times

I find this very saddening. Yet another death.

licious

Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton

cubes toy

cubes.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

Blogger Help : How do I post pictures?

Blogger Help : How do I post pictures?

I am trying to post a photograph or two here, but am too deeply conflicted between Gen X and Boomer instincts to understand the "help" page.

American Buffalo at Upper Jay Upholstery

Adirondack Theater

REVIEWS

Thrillingly good. I’m so proud and excited that local folks have produced a show so professional, raw and strong. The actors, (my neighbors), are transformed within their seedy, intriguing set. The audience becomes the walls and roof of the rickety junk shop setting as we respond to the emotional storms of the play. Leave kids at home, don’t be late, and bring a few extra bucks or a bottle to donate to Recovery Lounge, c/o any staff or the bartender who gives you a free drink.

Two Together: Gay Marriage

Article submission for Press Republican’s JILL Magazine
500 words
April 15, 2006


Today at breakfast at the local bakery I asked one couple, “Why did you get married?” Their grown children, who became a family when the couple fell in love, urged them to. I asked another couple, whose teenage son was with them, “Why did you get married?” They didn’t see why they shouldn’t: they loved each other, owned property together, were planning to start a family and be together for the rest of their lives, and there was family health insurance available to them only if they were married. Both couples have been together for many years and are happy as can be. They’re also different than you might be imagining: the couple whose grown children urged them to marry are lesbians, and the couple with the teenage son and family health insurance are gay men.

I think it is perfectly fine for people to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or any variation thereof. But there is more to this than “it’s ok to be gay.” Why would two people of the same gender want to get married? First, because they love each other and want to commit to each other for life. On another level, gay people might want to get married as a step toward civil rights and equality. Yet another reason is that there are financial and legal benefits to getting married, as my husband and I learned as soon as we signed that license and started building equity. Being married makes lots of things easier for loving—or not so loving—partners. As one friend put it, “Marriages have been arranged to prevent war, accumulate wealth, unite families, get a green card, etc.”

Some people contemplate gay marriage and get stuck on the first word, “gay”. Some of my queer friends were irked when I asked them to think about marriage in the context of their own lives. One person asked why they would want to subject themselves to the likelihood of a painful and expensive divorce, since so many marriages end that way. Another said that their church is fine with them being gay as long as they don’t act on it and don’t have a partner; if they showed up in church with a beloved of the same sex, they would not be welcome any more. Sometimes things change: it used to be illegal for people of different races to marry, but those laws were changed as society evolved. Other social differences remain an obstacle to people marrying, like religious faith or economic position.

Some people think that the idea of gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage. This seems rather like pointing the finger away from the guilty party. In most places only heterosexual people can get married, and the divorce rate is terribly high, so aren’t straight people already doing a good enough job of ruining marriage? What difference would another 10% of the population make to an already wobbly institution?

Being married, to me, means making a lifelong commitment of love, partnership, and sexual monogamy. I chose to make this commitment with a person of the opposite gender. But what if the person I grew to love and cherish was another woman, and we decided to make this traditional commitment to each other? Why would that be so wrong?