our long-eared boarder

This little critter has been living under our porch for a while, and has a nice cozy grazing area out back, safe from prying kitties. He/she? sits in the same spot for hours, munching clover and getting fatter, then bolts away when A comes outside. I love bunnies.

ww1, full circle

I have posted numerous times about my obsession with the Great War. I have read a good deal about it, and especially about the artists who lived through it. Now, my WWI dreams have come true: my favorite living mystery writer, Jacqueline Winspear, has written her latest Maisie Dobbs mystery about an artist who lived through the war. The book is called Messenger of Truth, which refers to the main character's mentor, who often said that coincidence is a messenger of truth.

AND---the author will be in Washington tomorrow, signing books! And I am going!! With my mom, who also loves the books!

Cricket...cricket...

ok I know most of you could care less, but besides Harry Potter, the Maisie Dobbs mysteries have really captured my imagination, and to meet someone who brought so many interesting characters--and indeed, a whole era--to life is a real thrill to me.

I also realized that my obsession with that time period goes even farther back than high school art classes. My favorite Charlie Brown cartoon, the Great Pumpkin, has Snoopy pretending to be a World War 1 Flying Ace. I was mesmerized by the flute solo playing in the background, as Snoopy sneaks through enemy lines after being shot down.

The other childhood connection is Hallmark's version of The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We taped the show, and it was on constant rotation when I was babysitting my sister (along with Wizard of Oz, which we both memorized, and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which cracked her up so much, it made me laugh even when I didn't think the video was funny). My mom liked it because she thought the girl playing Mary Lenox looked like me. She did, though her teeth didn't stick out in all directions like mine...The soundtrack of the show is all Chopin piano Nocturnes, which I tried to pick out by ear on our piano, to mixed success. At the end of this version of the story, the grown-up Mary meets the grown-up Colin Craven in the secret garden, to say yes to his marriage proposal. He is a wounded British soldier of the Great War, and we find that Dickon had been killed in the war.

The actor who played the grown-up Colin Craven was Colin Firth, a very handsome unknown actor at the time, and a very handsome Mr. Darcy later on. All my obsessions wrapped up in one. Sigh.

long live craftsmanship

I found this great quote today:
"The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, who has no real effect in the world. But craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one's failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away."
Dr. Matthew B. Crawford, in Shop Class as Soulcraft.

Shall I take his advice and go make something? I think I will.

fall crochetme is up!

And yours truly, Ganap herself, has an article on the 2006 Knit and Crochet Show!! Woot! It's called Not Just Square Grannies, and hopefully will not offend the grannies I did meet at the show, who were all very lovely people. And anyway, it's hip to be square. Enjoy!

rain continues, sparks muslim anger

My made-up Onionesque headline, in response to the latest in a string of incidents which have enraged Muslims around the world. The Pope made some comments which quoted a 14th century Byzantine emporer under siege in Constantinople, who said that it was against reason to violently coerce anyone to become an adherent to a religion. His comments and quote were taken out of context and made to infer that he is beginning a new Crusade against Muslims. As a result, riots are breaking out, people are burning Pope effigies, a nun was shot and killed, and two churches were attacked in the West Bank. Once again, the skilful leaders of vast populations of disenfranchised followers of Islam have redirected the rage to the West, instead of their own mismanagement and oppression. It's really brilliant, and one has to hand it to the leaders of these groups. It's almost too easy. Perhaps they have taken a leaf out of our President's book: get people scared enough (constant talk of terrorism), or distracted enough (John Mark Karr), and we can ignore illegal wire tapping, CIA prisons, oil prices conveniently coming down near the elections, and other yucky things. Of course, most of us are sitting on our butts and not burning effigies of Bush (I say most, as I am sure there are nutters out there doing the very thing) and not attacking embassies in Washington. Americans are more angry about a segregated Survivor than the nearly-segregated Senate.

One good thing is finally the Evangelical world is outstripped in anger by another group. Break out the champagne. I think what needs to happen is an outbreak of joy. There is none that I can see in the headlines, nor will I ever, I'm sure. Happy things never make it to the front page. But if we really want to change people's minds about our way of life, the least we can do is be happy with our many freedoms, our unrivaled level of diversity, and the great strides made in the last century to acknowledge the human dignity of people of other races, women, and children. Of course we have a terribly long way to go, and are nowhere near an idyllic situation, but I think the West spends too much time apologizing for itself and its sordid past, ignoring the very real advantages of living here. In what other country can a Cindy Sheehan buy the ranch next door to the President's? Where else can you find a country that would invite leaders of enemy nations to lecture at a renowned University (Ahmadenijad spoke at Cooper Union this week)?

In related news, I am so sick of people comparing other people to Hitler, Mussolini, Nazi appeasers, and Stalin. I read the Drudge Report every day, followed with a dose of Cute Overload so I don't immediately attempt suicide after my first cup of tea. Drudge has his biases toward the sensational, but has a funny way of reminding people of what politicians and public figures have said in the past which contradict their current positions. Sometimes I notice a theme, and headlines are grouped by theme at times too. In the last three weeks, I've seen about six different instances of everyone from the Pope to two-bit local politicians being compared to Hitler and coming off worse than the Nazi Embodiment of Modern Evil. Give it a rest, people. Hitler is so tired, so five minutes ago. Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, South American dictators, Nero even--just think of someone else you can spout hyperbole about. Isn't it enough to say that someone is evil--the Devil, even (thanks, Chavez, for giving voice to the frantic Americans who seriously considered moving to Canada after the 2004 election)--and leave it at that? Do you have to play the Hitler card?

These people are worse than Hitler, you know.

hasaFETnyaaaaaaa, my daily companion

It's feast or famine here at Ganap! I'm committing some blog sin or other, not constantly posting and linking to a jillion things, in order to keep my meagre readership (or is it meager? I prefer meagre, like ogre. More British). Well, it will only serve to weed out the fair-weather blog friends.

We're listening to the same three songs from Classic Disney: Volume 1. A "friend" gave the CD to me after A was born, since she was cleaning out her CD collection and wanted to share the love. Thanks, Laura. You're a real pal. The Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata, and I Just Can't Wait to be King: you annoy the crap outta me!

When A wants to listen to these songs, he asks to hear "da Hasafetnya song," which refers to the very beginning of The Circle of Life:

"HAAAAAAAseFETnyAAAAAAA, com-e-ni-chi-owaaaaaaaa."

Good times.

During the day, A can be heard bellowing "HASAFETNYAAAA!" to his toys, food, and passers-by. And then the earworm starts (*earworm: the technical definition of the song or bit of song that gets stuck in your head allllll frigging daaaaaay lonnnng). I hear the rest of Circle of Life in my head, and then of course, it moves on to Hakuna Matata.

Hakuna Matata is probably my real reason for hating philosophy. Here these gasbag Brooklyn-accented African animals are telling an impressionable young cub to merely avoid all his responsibilities by saying the magical phrase, "Hakuna Matata." It is, after all, their problem-free philosophy. Meanwhile, the females of the pride are stuck with the consequences of Simba's happy-go-lucky grub-eating phase. Hyenas take over with Scar, the usurper, and all of the surrounding land is decimated. Good job, Simba. You go hang out in college a little while longer. Be sure to say hi to Nietzsche for me.

Yes, everything turns out all right in the end, which makes Lion King more than another piece of execrable Disney trash. Hearing it every day, though, is enough to make even the most patient person grind their teeth occasionally. And I'm not a patient person.

a shaky bad mood (bad bad mood, yeah!)

It's not a truly terrible mood, as one of A's favorite songs says (Boynton's "I like to fuss" from Philadelphia Chickens), but an annoyed one. We had a great day except for one thing--getting a parking ticket outside the towson library. It wouldn't have been as bad if the guy wasn't writing it as I walked up, and if it hadn't JUST run out of time, and if I hadn't parked there, thinking I'd save four bucks from not parking in the bloody garage. Well I will pay 18 bucks for that parking spot, thanks mister. I asked him if he could have mercy on me, and had A with me, and he said no, he already wrote it out (just THEN, ya punk), and something about not getting tickets when we deserve them, and getting them randomly or something. I was too mad to listen fully. I know I deserved the ticket, but it's still a pisser.

But the good thing that happened today was that A had his very first (half) day at preschool. It was only for an hour, and his preschool is at our church, so he's not in a completely foreign environment--but, it was still a big day for our little family. I lined up in the carpool area, his teacher took him inside after a hug and kiss from me, and then I drove off, shaking, down the road to the Caribou Coffee. I felt the same numbness and shock that I experienced the day we drove A home from the hospital, though luckily today I'm not swollen out the wazoo and down half a body's worth of blood. Yes, quite an improvement on nearly three years ago, I must say.

And I didn't cry. Big step.

Most days I still feel like a consummate hack as a parent. Same as that day we brought him home. "When will his real parents come to pick him up?" "Will someone truly responsible fill out all this school paperwork?" "Who's going to call the doctor, and sign the Parent section of his medical records?" Seeing no one else step up, I'll put my name down and wonder inside whether everyone is secretly holding back a snort of laughter.