No Rain

"The rain. Sometimes it gives me the blues." A little reference for all you Stephen King fans out there. Actually we are droughting a bit here. But I am feeling a little blue. All is well-- our baby girl is healthy, Alan and I had a lovely anniversary in Berea yesterday, our dear friends are on the cusp of being parents a second time, and I'm looking forward to a little time off this summer.

Its this weaving-in process I'm faced with (or knitting-in, favorabley). I'm just not at a point where I can tell people my ideas properly-- when I talk about my ecological concerns or my feelings about the terrors of racism I often feel labeled and pushed aside.

What I'd like to be able to do is have others understand that I believe in taking care of our environment and "getting back to the earth", healing racial and cultural and gender divides, abstaining from rampant consumption of goods, and relearning how to work with our hands because they are very deep, theological concerns. They do not spring from my politics or my upbringing-- my convictions are the burdens I joyfully bear during my "long obedience in the same direction." The Gospel of Christ is one of the whole person and the whole world, and each part of our lives must enter into the process of redemption for us to be sanctified.

I'm not so arrogant to think that wisdom is obtained in any degree in youth. But hopefully, someday, I can weave it all in to a beautiful whole.

Taters and Maters

My posts have been too long lately! Here's a little one for you. My Dad insisted to my Mom, on their first trip to Kentucky, that people here said "taters" instead of "potatoes." We all said he was crazy and he supposedly said "tater" the whole trip down (tater mountain, tater pie, tater dog, etc.). Well Dad, we owe you an apology. Heard a guy say tater and even mater (tomato) the other day. Still, keep it away from the road trips for Mom's sake.

Dis es my blotts, do bish kiddendish!

I feel very fortunate to have known an Amish family or two. My mother worked at the Amish market in our town for years and befriended an young Amish lady, Ruthie, well enough that we visited her a number of times over the years. We even went to her wedding!

The Amish make me think of good food, great company (Amish men don't seem to say much but the women are often so frank and funny), homes that even for their lack of lights and all the gas-run appliances are very comfortable, amazing vegetable gardens, and the odd lilt of Pennsylvania Dutch. My sister and I asked Ruthie's little sister Suzanne all manner of questions about not having a car or electricity in her home and she in turn shared her view of the "English," all people not Amish. Those were very good times.

Synesthesia

My whole life I've associated particular colors with particular letters and numbers. The letter T is always orange, four is a vibrant green, and U and Y are a mucky yellow (ick). I figured everyone saw numbers and letters like this. Not the case.

I'm a synesthete! About 1 in 23 people have some form of synesthesia; researchers feel it is caused by a cross over between sections in the back of the brain (kind of like when you are on LSD and you suddenly taste sounds).

Some synesthetes smell odors when they read particular words, others see vivid images when they hear pieces of music. And it isn't that you are just reminded of something-- I'm not reminded of the color orange when I see the letter T, I actually see the letter T as orange, every time I see it.

If this sounds like you, you should take the synesthete battery ( www.synesthete.org ) or read about it at wikipedia. Daniel Tammet is a rather famous synesthete you may want to look up.

Note: the alphabet above is all wrong-- not my alphabet in the least!

"Scrapping and Yelling...

and mixing it up. Loving every minute with this damn crew." Love and admiration for the first one to tell me what this quote is from.

Well the baby's started kicking. If I go too long without eating or eat a lot of sugar at once (like an ice pop) s/he goes crazy. To me, it feels like this: you ever thump on a melon to see if it is ripe? I feel like the melon, that's the best way I can describe it.

My Derby Weekend

What a fun weekend! Alan and I babysat for our friends' baby girl on Friday-- she was in such a good mood and didn't fuss once. Then Saturday was the big day here in Kentucky, the best few minutes in the sports year.

Yes, the Kentucky Derby. Krista and Alex, Derby veterans, threw a party for the occasion. Each guest chose a horse to root for-- with the racing form posted and all the horses on cute little cards with their jockey's name this was a lot of fun. We munched on pasta salad and sipped mint tea (rather than Mint Juleps, a Kentucky tradition-- we're at a Methodist school people!).

We all watched the reporters at the track make fools of the drunken General Admission people, heard all about the Queen's visit to the race and to her horse farm just up the road from where we live. Then it was race time! We gathered around, cheered, wished we'd placed bets. It was all very exciting and a great time with friends.

The Rainbow Connection

There are a few things I'd like to see before I die; unfortunately, they are not garunteed sites like the pyramids in Egypt and large sitting Buddhas which (hopefully) don't move. Don't get me wrong, these are great accomplishments of human kind, but I think I can still marvel at the talent of the ancients without seeing the Sphinx face to face.

What I'd like to see are the wonderous phenomena that take place in the sky. Ever since I saw a picture of the Nothern Lights in our dictionary as a kid I've wanted to experience as many of those fleeting and fantastic atmospherical events as I could. Only recently have I really rediscovered this joy. Living on the Hudson River afforded me many opprotunities to see full rainbows, bright and completely arched, some even reflected in the water below. At the top of the list is a circumhorizontal arc, pictured above. They are considered one of the rarest natural occurences and look how beautiful! Rainbowey licks of fire in the sky. I'd also like to view a moonbow, the Northern Lights, a parhelic circle, an anthelion, and a cicumzenithal arc.

I realize it is a matter of being in the right place at the right time, but I have hope I'll see a few of them in my lifetime.

They say thunder and they say lightning

I think Thor summers here. I've seen such crazy lightning in the past year. In fact the first big piece of news Alan and I heard upon moving to Wilmore was that some poor man had been struck by lightning in the middle of a field. So dramatic! Today the sky turned a terrible gray and sure enough started flashing like crazy. I like atmospheric phenomena though. Especially rainbows. Wish it was a day for rainbows instead.