Call Me a Dreamer

My daughter, who was assigned male at birth, let me know that she was female several years ago. She selected as her name to use the first and middle names I would have given her, had her gender been correctly identified when she was born. I am very honored by that choice.

( Possible triggers for medical stuff, not very graphic )

More recently, she has moved out of state. A number of her friends have moved, and several had settled in the same location, so she and two other friends who were ready for a change of scenery have relocated to the same city. So far, this seems like a pretty good move for her, as she seems happy and busy. Tired, but in general her mood seems improved. She tells me about having game nights with her friends, and that they have set up a shared crafting area. I miss her, but I'm glad she's doing well.

Over the same time frame my son has also had a number of changes in his life. He has been working as a cook for many years, but at one point decided he needed to try something different and a bit more lucrative. He attended commercial driving school and became a long-haul trucker. He got to see just about the entire country, but his view was almost entirely from the truck window. He spent a year doing this, and while it was good money, it was also not a healthy lifestyle. After a year, he decided that he was having too many negative health issues related to that lifestyle, so he left trucking and returned to living full-time in Tucson, and doing kitchen work. He became the kitchen manager at a local bar. Prior to taking this on, the kitchen had served as a loss-leader for the bar. Under his management, and in less than half a year, the kitchen was turning a profit. Additionally, having revamped the menu, the bar won a local award for having the best bar menu. He also worked with the owners to produce a line of hot sauces that could be sold.

The restrictions caused by covid meant that the bar shut down and he went onto unemployment, as did so many others. At one point, when the restrictions were lifted, the bar owners attempted to reopen, so he went back to work in a much changed environment, but after only a short while a new wave of illness meant the bar had to shut back down again. More time passed, the bar reopened, and he returned to work, again. Unfortunately, the strains of the past year, and the changes that were impacting bars and restaurants, resulted in the bar owners making some changes that negatively impacted the employees. When discussions over some of those changes fell through, my son made the decision to leave.

My son is currently working in a small Italian restaurant with fabulous food. I've taken friends and family members there several times and been really delighted with the quality of the food, as well as with getting a chance to see my son, who always comes out of the kitchen to urge tasty food on me and my guests, often on his nickel.

I've also got three stepsons. At the start of covid, they were all living with us. My eldest stepson still is, and he does so much around the house it's hard to imagine what we'd do without him. He does most of the driving, shopping, and errand running, as well as working in our home kitchen with his dad to prepare amazing meals for our family, helping in the garden (really, doing all of the heavy lifting, since his dad is post heart attack and has restrictions to what he can do), and just generally being ready to help when we need help. My middle stepson had Down Syndrome. Since, due to covid restrictions, his mom often works from home, he's been spending a lot more time with her. In fact, his parents worked out a schedule so his time is a lot more evenly split between them. He spends two weeks with her, then two weeks with us. If she needs to go into the office during her weeks, she drops him off with us, or his big brother picks him up, and he spends some extra time with us. Overall, this seems to be working out pretty well.

The biggest change with my stepsons is that my youngest stepson, after more than eight years getting to know his online girlfriend both online and in person, has gotten married and is now living with her in her home town in another state. They had plans to get married last spring, and although they let covid push those plans out a few months, eventually decided they just didn't want to wait any longer. They had an outdoor wedding. The oldest drove out with his mom and the rest of us attended virtually, via a Zoom or Skype meeting, I don't remember which. It was beautiful and green!

So, lots going on, as always, but much of it very positive.

Today, one of my friends, a librarian, asked for help from the community in defeating Arizona House Bill 2379. This bill would, according to the library director, slash funding to Arizona's system of county libraries. She recommended that we contact our state representatives, and provided a link to the Arizona State Legislator "How to Contact Member" page.

Since I live in Arizona District 3, my state legislators are Senator Olivia Cajero Bedford, Representative Sally Ann Gonzales, and Representative Macario Saldate IV, all democrats.

Here is the text of the letter I sent to them:


If you live in Arizona, I urge you to contact your representatives and to express your support for our public library system. You are welcome to use what I wrote, if you would prefer not to compose your own letter. Thank you.

I managed to announce this on most of my social networking sites, but not here. I was asked to do a guest blog post for a genealogy wiki, called WikiTree, and my first post went live on Tuesday. You can find Pamela's Perspective (Their name! I never thought to name it, somehow.) on the WikiTree blog. This is my first guest post for someone else's blog, so I was thrilled to be asked to participate.

You might also have seen my occasional mentions of posts on Searching for Roots and Branches. Searching for Roots and Branches is my journal of genealogical discovery, where I explore various aspects of genealogy, anything from a photo of an ancestor or other relative, to a biographical sketch, to a detailed examination of my research and proof process. This evening, instead of getting work done, I posted about a a sudden nostalgia I was feeling in An Unusual Lullaby: The Whiffenpoof Song. My husband tells me it's a weird post, but "in a good way." Go figure.

While I'm posting about blogging, perhaps I should mention that I also blog on Red Poulaine's Musings. This is a joint blog which my husband and I write. Red Poulaine's Musings started shortly after we opened an Etsy store, Red Poulaine, where we sell vintage postcards and photographs. In our item listings, we include a lot of historical information about the people featured in the images, the photographers who took the pictures, and other historical tidbits and trivia related to the paper ephemera we sell. (My genealogy work sometimes comes in handy when we're researching the people associated with the images, allowing us to share information not easily found elsewhere.) Our shop had readers! So, we decided to create a blog and give people who don't visit our shop a chance to read some of the historical work we do. Although almost every image we sell has a story associated with it, we don't manage to post as often to our blog as we post pictures in the shop. We wish we could, but there's only so much two busy people can manage. Still, we hope that the stories and history we share on our blog is interesting and fun for our readers.

I've published another post on my genealogy blog, this time about two of my great grandparents and their children:

Alpheus McClelland Rote and Ella E. Ward, and their Children

ETA: Looks like I missed yesterday's post: Mom Won Big Bucks in DAR-Sponsored Contest, Circa 1933.

One of my stepsons was recently discussing his appreciation for the explanations of grammatical terms offered by The Word Detective. The website is the online version of a newspaper column by Evan Morris, for which he answers readers’ questions about grammar and the written word. Although I often explain the correct usage of of it's and its to students, it was the explanation for the history of why the current usage of it's and its that brought me to the page of column entries that includes Dr. Morris' advice concerning these words. However, once there, I couldn't resist reading the rest of the entries, the last of which was titled "A Visit from the Willies." In response to a question regarding the origin of the term "the willies," Dr. Morris responds:

By virtue of an eerie coincidence, I happened to be puzzling over the origin of "willies" just as your letter arrived (start the spooky music, please). The previous evening I had attended a performance by the American Ballet Theater of "Giselle." In the first act of the ballet, Giselle, a sturdy peasant girl, responds to a procession of unsuitable suitors by dancing herself to death. (I know, I know -- I didn't entirely understand this part myself).

 

In Act Two, the now defunct but still remarkably sprightly Giselle meets up with a troupe of spectral Rockettes who haunt the nearby forest and are known as, guess what, the "willies." Together they dance around a good deal until the suitor Giselle really liked all along wanders by, whereupon the "willies" literally dance him into the ground, and the two lovers live, or don't live, happily ever after. I love culture, don't you?
 

 

I have checked several reference works, and most agree that "the willies," meaning "the jitters" or "nervous apprehension," is of "unknown origin." One exception, my own parents' Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, traces "the willies" to the slang expression "willie-boy," meaning "sissy" -- presumably the sort who would be prone to the "willies."
 

 

That theory is far from impossible, but I think I may have found, thanks to my evening with "Giselle," a more likely source. The "willies" in the ballet take their name from the Serbo-Croatian word "vila" (in English, "wili" or "willi") meaning a wood-nymph or fairy, usually the spirit of a betrothed girl who died after being jilted by her lover. It seems entirely possible to me that "willi," the spirit or ghost, became the "willies," the feeling that something creepy is going on. Now, where's that spooky music I ordered?

I just love the various connections Dr. Morris makes in this response, in large part because the story of Giselle and the willies has so many fairy tale elements.

It's January 5 (Happy New Year, Everybody!) and here in Tucson that means cardinals. For many years now, we've had a mated pair of cardinals nesting in our pomegranate tree. My husband spotted the female earlier today, and one of my stepsons spotted the male, so we know they have arrived for their annual visit. Given that it's been close to ten years, now, that our visitors have graced our neglected garden, we do not know whether this is the same couple, or succeeding generations of a cardinal family, but we enjoy their presence, nonetheless.

This afternoon, we were graced with a couple of hours of liquid birdsong. Now, it's mostly quiet, with occasional moments of sleepy-sounding near warble. Are cardinals songbirds, as well as beautiful, or has another pair of birds taken up residence nearby? We do not know, but we are pleased, as always (except, perhaps, when the singing starts before dawn), by these cheerful reminders that now that we have passed the Midwinter Equinox, the days will be growing longer and Spring is soon to arrive.

City planners, I hope you're paying attention because if you built an entire community of surreal houses (using all the latest Green tech, of course), I would so want to live there. Really!

I've been neglecting my DW and LJ communities for a long time, now, in favor of what I realize are often broader, but shallower, connections. I reach more people, but I do so at the expense of the wonderful conversations I used to enjoy here. In a way, I've been going for what the corporate world calls low-hanging fruit, which are, at least in my case, goblin fruit. This doesn't mean that those other ways of connecting online don't have a place in my life, but simply that I don't think they should be my primary means of communicating online.

My life is busy, and I don't always spend my time wisely. I feel overwhelmed by the many things I want to do, so far too often I retreat into doing things that are meaningless. I know better—heck, I've taught time management skills to students—but, I am not as self-disciplined as I want to be, nor as I need to be. Maybe I'm just in post-con dumps—TusCon 39 was last weekend—but there's nothing like the reminder that yet another year has passed in which I didn't finish even a tiny fraction of the things I wanted to do, to make me feel that it's time for me to figure out how I can stay on task to complete more of the things that are important to me, while also being connected in more meaningful ways.

I'm not going to make promises, but I am going to make an effort to find a better balance in my life: one that supports me in my multiple creative efforts; that ensures I keep up my commitments at home, at work, and in the online business I share with my husband; and that helps me stay connected in the ways I want to be, with the people that matter.

Here are some highlights of my goals, in no particular order:

• Write more
• Submit more
• Jump start the almost quiescent writing group I'm part of
• Complete the CRLA Level II certification requirements before the end of the semester
• Stay on top of all administrative tasks for Red Poulaine, the Etsy shop I share with my husband
• Post at least twice a week to our shop blog, Red Poulaine's Musings
• Finish the quilt I started at least three years ago, in time to ship it for Christmas
• Finish this list

P.S. I really hate it when a post in progress gets inadvertently posted. :P

Censorship affects us all.

Today, blogs and sites across America, Canada, and the world are blacked out in protest of two legislative bills proposed in Congress: SOPA and PIPA. These two bills, which Congress claims are intended to stop online piracy, would have disastrous consequences for free speech, online communication, and online commerce.

"Online commerce?" you ask. Yes, online commerce. SOPA and PIPA would overwhelmingly favor big business over small business, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for independent creatives (authors, artists, musicians) to do business online. For an excellent overview of why this is so, read author and reviewer Cheryl Morgan's analysis.

Related articles

• Why We've Censored Wired.com (wired.com)


• STOP SOPA (cyberlaw.stanford.edu)


• SOPA and PIPA (blogs.discovermagazine.com)


• BlackoutSOPA.org - Change your profile picture to protest SOPA! (darioalvarez.net)


• Google Protests SOPA And PIPA By Censoring Logo, Offering Information And A Petition (inquisitr.com)


• What SOPA means around the world - literally (thenextweb.com)

Websites go dark at start of SOPA/PIPA protest (digitaltrends.com)

I just stumbled upon this year-old blog post and learned that today is World Vegetarian Day and the first day of Vegetarian Awareness Month. Sadly, the blog itself, which was well-written and entertaining, does not seem to be being updated anymore—but, back to the actual point of this post.

Several years ago, my husband decided to give up eating meat. Both of us had previously experimented with vegetarianism—I used to practice what I called "Vegetarian for a Week," figuring that one week out of the month was a moderate approach—so, this was fine with me. Especially, since my husband, who has cooked professionally and for whom food, good food, is a passion, does most of the cooking along with his sons.

Yet, I didn't consider myself a vegetarian at the time. Initially, I kept a little stash of meat products in the fridge for my personal use, but that practice gradually faded away as I found our meatless meals more and more satisfying. Also, at restaurants or when visiting friends, I didn't hesitate to eat animal products. Now, I rarely choose to eat beef or fowl, and find that on those rare occasions when I do indulge, my body protests this invasion. (Factoid: Just as we have special enzymes for digesting milk, we also have enzymes for digesting meat; stop eating meat, and your body will stop producing the enzymes.) The remaining set of creatures I will still eat is seafood; I will, given the opportunity, eat fish, shrimp, and shellfish.

While my husband, who loves animals, chose to become a vegetarian out of a reluctance to contribute any more than is possible to the suffering and death of living creatures, I initially held fast to the belief that, as an omnivore, meat was a normal part of my diet, something which I'd evolved to eat. But, since then, I've realized that I don't need meat to be healthy—in fact, I'm healthier without it—so, my reluctance to give up meat has been a form of denial.

Having acknowledged that I've been in denial about the importance of meat in my diet, the logical next step is, or should be, to resolve that I will never eat meat again. Logical, but not entirely realistic. I know myself too well to feel that I can honestly expect myself to never, ever, ever eat meat for the rest of my life. Still, I won't be eating meat today, or for the next month. If I do eat meat, it will be rarely, with full awareness of the physical consequences for myself, and with the realization that somewhere an animal died, most likely in pain and fear, so that I could have a few moments of gustatory satisfaction.

So, to all you vegetarians, vegans, plant-based diet fans, and, well, yes, to those who still eat meat, Happy World Vegetarian Day!