Sing That Song of Cicada Love

I have been waiting patiently for the day to come. 17 years I have waited. Other broods have come and gone and been disappointing. But not this time! This time they sing!

It is time for Cicadas.

Until recently I thought that I might be the only one who has a an obsessive and overwhelming love fondness for these little creatures. But since I have begun to broadcast my love across the internetz others have come forward to say, in quiet voices full of hope, "Yes, I love them too."

Cicadas are a fickle lot. They don't show up everywhere in a region. They don't show up every year. They have "cycles". This year it is Brood V Periodical Cicadas, in case you were wondering about that. I have no earthly idea what that actually MEANS, other than these little fellows are the love children of cicadas that were around 17 years ago. As I recall, WAY back 17 years ago, we were living in Solon, OH, pre-OCK. The house was older, built in the 1930's and the land hadn't been disturbed for a long time which meant that the cicadas hadn't been disturbed either. I remember a bumper crop of them. But then I also remember other things in life that are colored by time and space so maybe there weren't as many cicadas as I remember. Oh whatever.

The last time cicadas were in the area, we had none, NONE at OCK. We had tons of trees, we had plenty of places where they might have been waiting, but nothing. Nada. Zilch. That was evidently because that particular "brood" of cicadas showed up in pockets.

How rude.

This time.....I am seeing them everywhere I go. Especially I am seeing them in and around the office. I try to go for a bit of a walk at lunch time, just to get my big fat bahookie out of the chair. This week, I was strolling along, minding my own business when...I saw something on the sidewalk. Was it? Could it be?

YEEEEEESSSSSS!!! An empty cicada exoskeleton. Thank goodness I tamped down my happy dance so the people in the neighborhood didn't feel the need to call the Popo. There was one on the sidewalk. And then there were a bunch on the sidewalk. And then it was all tiptoe through the tulips so that I didn't step on the platoon that were on the sidewalk and crawling towards the tree and molting right there in front of me. 

And then.....

RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!

Does it say something about me that I actually spent time on my walking taking pictures of all of the cicadas? We had better not go there.

I think this love for cicadas comes from childhood, from a particular summer spent at The Cottage,

Which didn't look like this when I was growing up. Both of those red buildings comprised "The Cottage" after the mid-1990's. Before that it was just the flat roofed red cottage. There wasn't a TV, if you wanted to do something you went and played in the lake, except for the whole "you can't go to the lake for an hour after you eat because you will get cramps and DIE" thing, which I think was really just the Parental Units way of getting an hour of dry quiet. One particular summer we were spending most of the summer, or so it seemed to me, at The Cottage. Papa was going back and forth to work and we were just hanging around. Bored. Well, if there is something to read I am NEVER bored, and therein lay the issue. I would have just laid on the REALLY scratchy horsehair couch (an entirely different story not told here), sweating and itching and read all day long.

But Mimi is a meany and she actually made me GO.OUTSIDE.AND.DO.SOMETHING. Which is just parental speak for, "You are bugging the CRAP out of me and no you can't have something to eat."

But what to do outside if I couldn't get in the water BECAUSE YOU MIGHT GET CRAMPS AND DIE! Hmmmmmmmm. She handed me a mayo jar with holes punched in the top and told me to go and collect some bugs. SCHWEET! Actually, it might have been that I already had the jar because I had been collecting fireflies the night before. But however I actually came to have the jar I put it to good use, sneaking up on cicadas, grabbing them just at the back of their wings, which makes them buzz furiously and gets their little legs scrambling, and popping them into the jar with all of their other unhappy brethren. 

And then I would give the jar a good shake, just to make them buzz. And then I would do it again. And again. And again.

It doesn't take much to make me happy evidently. And this memory is such a happy one for me, but perhaps not for the cicadas, that I have loved them and their noisy song of cicada love, ever since.

No one ever said I didn't have more than one screw loose.


 












 

We Corrupted the Missionary!!

The annual ornament bloodbath stealathon exchange has come and gone and we all survived with happy feelings intact.

Actually, my group of friends know what to expect by now and in the yearly recitation of the “rules” make it clear. Have I ever actually explained the rules for this bloody contest of ornament wills? 

1. Any given ornament can be stolen ONLY twice. The third owner of the ornament is the final owner of the ornament.

2. #1 opens a wrapped ornament from under the tree. Participant #2 can either open a wrapped ornament……or they can steal #1’s ornament. If this happens then #1 opens another wrapped ornament because…..

3. You may NOT steal back an ornament that is stolen from you.

4. You work through all the #’s with people opening a wrapped ornament or “liberating” an ornament from someone else. When all ornaments are accounted for then #1 has a decision to make. If she is satisfied with her ornament then the exchange is done. If she chooses though, she can exchange her ornament for one of her choosing from someone else. And then the game ends.

5. You may not unwrap OR steal the ornament that you brought. If you liked it that much you should have bought two.

6. The Hope and Heather Rule: There will be no collusion between participants on the getting and retention of ornaments. We could also call this the Dottie and Carolyn rule if we so choose.

7. And last but really most important. DO NOT GET ATTACHED TO YOUR ORNAMENT UNTIL THE END OF THE GAME OR IF YOU ARE THE THIRD OWNER OF THE ORNAMENT.

And now on to the show.

 

We start the evening with food….lots of food. I always make enough to feed everyone and then many people bring things. Some year I should just not make anything, we would still have enough food! The first couple of years we ornamented first and then ate but the whole things works better if you go at the thievery with full bellies.

 Oooooo. Ahhhhhh. And the exchange begins. This year Hope was first and Heather was second. 

 

 Sue opened a lovely golden bell.

 

Lynelle promptly stole the bell from Sue. These women have known each other for many years. We have been in a small group together for 20 years………

On this one night of the year that has no bearing on our behavior.

 

 Can you see the pleading look on Dottie’s face when Kelly sauntered over to check out the absolutely adorable deer head ornament.

Amazingly it worked and Kelly went on to acquire another ornament and Dottie was able to keep the deer head….for a while.

Laura had absolutely NO scruples about stealing the ornament from the OCTAGENARIAN MISSIONARY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!

Aunt Virginia was actually new to the exchange. She came with her niece, Sue. I have known Aunt V for many years and have come to love her very (like the Sahara) dry sense of humor. I think she might scare some people, but not me…..much.

And so Aunt Virginia stole the deer head from Dottie.

Aunt Virginia might have been an Ornament Exchange Virgin….but that didn’t stop her from making her way, with her cane (she has a broken foot), over to Dottie and very politely but firmly stealing that ornament without a moment of hesitation or remorse.

WE HAVE CORRUPTED THE MISSIONARY! WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

I have known Sue for over 20 years. I do not think I have EVER seen her laugh that hard.

But Aunt V didn’t keep it for long. The deer head now has a place of honor in Michelle’s kitchen.
Michelle apologized the entire time that she was stealing the ornament from Aunt V.

But she did it anyway.

HHBL just likes to sit on the stairs like a child out of bed after hours and watch all the goings on. He seems to think that we are LOUD or something.

Dottie’s next very cute ornament.

She didn’t go home with this one either.

About this time I stopped taking pictures. It might have been because I was laughing so hard.

And so we came to the end of the evening. I think everyone went home with something they liked.
And I finally got my house cleaned up.

Until next year.

Time It Doth Fly

30 years ago tomorrow I said “I do” with my HHBL. I can tell you that when I said those words I had absolutely no idea what they really meant. I was just so excited to be married that it didn’t actually occur to me that I had to live with this guy that had given me a ring and promised to love me and cherish me and stay with me till death do us part.

We fought on our honeymoon. That might just give you an idea of the path that we started out on.

That is the part of marriage that no one tells you about, the part AFTER the party. The part where for the rest of your life you live with this person that you THINK you know so well but really and truly don’t.

Folks, if anyone ever tells you that marriage is a breeze, they are lyin’ to you. Lyin’ like a big old rug. Marriage is hard. Marriage is work. Marriage isn’t the lovely dovey feeling that you have when you see your beloved standing at the end of the church aisle looking all sweaty and nervous. Marriage is the fact that your beloved puts up with you when you answer a question with a diatribe (not that I would ever do that). Marriage is talking through the things that hurt. Marriage is waiting 4 seconds before responding because if you don’t….you will say something that you WILL regret. Marriage is putting that other person first even if you really don’t want to watch Taken3. Marriage is washing sweaty baseball uniforms that are covered with dirt.

 And I am going to tell you that I don’t know how anyone “does” marriage if they don’t have Christ in their life. HHBL and I would tell you that if we hadn’t known that we made a covenant before God when we said “I do” then we would have very quickly have said “I DON’T!” and gone on our ways. The first few years were that bad. The first 10 years were that bad. No communication. No weaving together two that become one. No understanding. Three progeny so obviously we were doing SOMETHING (oops) but that isn’t the kind of love I am talking about at the moment.

But right about the 10 year mark God saved our marriage. HHBL would tell you the same thing. It took 10 years before we learned to love unselfishly, to talk with and not at each other, to put each other first because that is what the Lord asked us to do. To want to spend time with each other because there isn’t ANYONE in the world that can make me laugh harder than my HHBL. To trust each other enough to be vulnerable. To understand that if HHBL goes all “thin lips” on me that it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me, it just means that he is none too happy with me. It will blow over. To go to the yarn store because HHBL knows that fiber makes me happy and playing with pointy sticks means I don’t kill. To understand that it is fine if I get on the park bus and ride the last 4 miles of the Grand Canyon Rim Trail while HHBL hikes those miles. If he didn’t do it he would feel like he quit before the goal was finished and I have NO problem riding in cool comfort all by myself and waiting for him at the end of the trail.

Remember what I said in paragraph 4 about marriage being hard work? It is. But all that hard work and hours and hours of kneeling in prayer and asking the Lord to change YOUR heart and not change that person that you are married to….all of that leads to love. It isn’t love at the beginning. It is love at the end.

So I send my love out to my HHBL, the man who makes me laugh harder than anyone else in the world. The man who puts up with my crazy, who lets me use big words all I want and doesn’t look at me funny when I do, who makes my heart go ZING when he walks by in a suit. I would go through those first 10 years all over again just to have the last 20 years to look forward to as well as the years that we have ahead of us.

I mean, who else would think to take me to the butt end of the Taj Mahal or Bundibugyo, Uganda where I was viciously attacked by the beetle for heck. Life is never dull with you my love!

I love you my HHBL!

Taking It Back To Old School

You know how it is when you get a new piece of technology. You want to make it fit into every corner of your life and take over all those “old style” tasks just because it can.

You know you do this so don’t be shaking your head and looking the other way as you stuff your smart phone or tablet down in between the cushions of the couch.

When iPadfoot came into my life I had him take over all sorts of tasks. Note taking. Reading. Journaling. Occasionally blogging. Bible reading. I still use him for all of these things. But…I am going back to old school on one particular item.

This is my bible. I have had it for many years, over 20 at least although I cannot really tell you when I bought it. I can tell you that it was after HHBL and I were married. And I can tell you where I purchased it. But not when. When I purchased it really doesn’t matter, what matters is the fact that in many places in my “old school” bible, there are notes in the margins. And I can look at a particular passage and know if I have heard a pastor speak on that particular portion of the bible as I always made a note of it. And my memory verses are underlined. It is a precious thing to me.

Recently I realized that I really wanted/needed to start using my old school bible again. I always take notes on iPadfoot when I am at church, it is just easier that way, but for everything else at home I am going back to old school. I have missed my notes bringing further illumination. I have missed seeing which pastors have preached on which passages. I have missed my old friend. Every time I turn the pages and hear that familiar rustling it just makes me happy. It also reminds me of my growing up years when if the pastor went a minute over 12 noon on a Sunday the pages of Bibles started rustling, just to remind him to wrap it up.

But that is for another blog post I think.

Sometimes going back to old school is a good thing.

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick…..

Growing up I don’t have a memory of being that picky of an eater. There were things, of course, that I didn’t like all that much but the list wasn’t long. Parental Unit Mimi is a good cook. I liked what was served to me. I ate what was served to me. It never would have occurred to me to ask for something other than what was being served for dinner.

I am pausing to think about what the reaction would have been if I had said I didn’t like what she had made and please make me something else.

Crickets……….

I think she would have just looked at me and laughed, the thought would have been so ludicrous. When the progeny asked that of me my standard answer was, “Do you see Short Order Cook written across my forehead? No? Then sit down and eat what I cooked for you.”

But there were times when Pilot Man and I were growing up…..

Times when something appeared on the plate that wasn’t to my liking. Chun King Egg Foo Yuck Young comes to mind. To this day, despite Egg Foo Yuck Young being one of HHBL’s favorite Chinese dishes, I cannot eat it. I cannot even let it pass my lips. I shiver in disgust and bury my face in my General Tso’s chicken.

And then……..

There was liver.

Liver is a tool of Satan meant entirely to cause pain and gagging at the dinner table. There isn’t anything that you can do with it (other than make it into Liverwurst, which is delicious especially on toasted bread with sweet pickles and mayo) that can make it palatable. Please do not tell me otherwise, I like to cling to my gagging unbelief.

We had liver approximately once a month when I was growing up. It was “good” for me. Ummmmmmm, doesn’t that smell delicious! Ummmmmmm, doesn’t that look tasty?

No.

I tried everything to get out of eating it. Moving it around on the plate to disperse the foul stuff just caused Mimi to come over, scrape it all together in a pile and pronounce that I hadn’t eaten enough of it yet. Hiding the liver under whatever was inhabiting the plate with it only served the same purpose. I KNEW that starving children in Africa would NOT be grateful for this particular nauseous meal.

And so, the meal would drag on. And liver, left to congeal on the plate, does not get any better with age. It starts to gray out and get a bit crinkled on the edges, looking like it has just come back from a short stint in the desert. As you slowly put a piece of cold liver in your mouth and attempt to chew it enough to swallow it gradually increases in mass and dryness until choking it down may very well cause you to pass out and DIE!

Did I tell you that I don’t like liver.

On those nights when it because a test of wills, mine against my mother’s, and the fate of liver for dinner hung in the balance……

She employed…….

The Timer

This sucker has a TICKTICKTICKTICKTICK that is loud and relentless. This is what would happen.

Mimi: Debbie, please eat the last few bites of your liver (sounding very Hannibal Lecter like). I asking you to eat three more bites.

Me: No.

Mimi (5 minutes later): Debbie, please eat your liver.

Me: No.

Mimi (heaving a gigantic parental sigh): Then we will need….to set the timer……..

And she would, with great flourish, get the timer from the stove, turn the dial to her designated time and then set the timer down on the counter….with the face turned away from me so that I could not actually SEE how much time she had given me. The uncertainty of the allotted liver eating time was worrisome. It could be 5 minutes. It could be 55 minutes. I just didn’t know. Oh the uncertainty! And as the time passed and the timer ticked down relentlessly to my unnamed doom, she never did actually specify what horrible thing would happen if the timer went off, I caved and gagged down the last of the liver.

As she knew I would.

She is an evil genius, is my mother.

The last time that I was out visiting her, my mom, with great ceremony, gave me the timer for my very own. I mentioned that I had always caved and eaten whatever before the timer went off. And she said,

“Oh yes. That is because, when you weren’t looking, I kept adding time to the timer. I had no idea what I was going to do if the timer had actually gone off and you hadn’t finished your dinner.”

Of course.

Socks for Remembrance

It all started with a podcast. Episode 36 of the TwinSet Design podcast. I love this podcast. TwinSet Ellen and TwinSet Jan make me laugh. And possibly snort liquids out of my nose. And make me want to own an alpaca. Can you just imagine what the development association would say!!

But I digress.

SO, I was listening along to the podcast and not paying totally close attention to TwinSet Jan telling about the new pair of socks that she had cast on with some Wisdom Yarn’s Saki Bamboo, that is until she mentioned the colorway.

Cedar Lake.

WHAAAAAAAAAAA?

Did she just say that the colorway of that yarn was called Cedar Lake? Wisdom Yarn, I haven’t ever heard of Wisdom yarn. Can I get it at my YLS (local yarn store)? I NEED this yarn. I need it because of this place…..

The Cottage. Place of happy times. Which happens to have this view if you turn around…..

And that, my bloggy friends, is Cedar Lake.

Mother of all that is holy and good and all the saints in heaven I needed to get my hands on some of that yarn. I knew that the time was fast approaching when The Cottage would no longer be a place where we would lay around and eat and then play in the water and then go to the Dollar store to by more useless plastic items and then go and get ice cream at Tastee Top…..every single day.

I knew that I needed some of that yarn because I knew that Parental Unit Mimi needed a pair of socks in just that colorway as a sort of parting gift. I didn’t even know what the colorway looked like. Was it self-striping? Was it hand dyed? It didn’t matter, I needed some. And so I got on the old internetz and found Wisdom Yarns, which is actually sold by Universal Yarn. There it was, a self-striping yarn in shades of green and blue and beige and altogether lovely. So I quick as lightening ordered two skeins. Cuz, if I was going to make a pair of socks for the Meemster I was also going to make a pair for me.

Always looking for any excuse to start another pair of socks!

Lickety split there was a lovely and squishy package full of two skeins of yarn. Sweetness! I took it downstairs and introduced it to the stash where it sat for a day or so, which was all I could really stand before I got out the trusty ball winder and started to wind up the skein of yarn for Mimi’s pair of socks. I wanted to get them started because I wanted to have them finished before I went out to The Cottage for the last time. I am a fairly fast sock knitter (2 weeks tops for a basic pair) and there wasn’t all that much time.

Winding, winding, winding…..knot. And when I say “knot” I mean a knot that was tied at the factory to join one section of yarn to another. I don’t stress out about a knot in a skein of yarn. I just cut it out and re-tie the yarn with my “never comes out no matter what you do to it” knot and continue to wind. No problems….until I come to the second knot in the skein.

OK, I can live with this. Cut out the knot, re-tie, move on……

Until I got to the third knot…..

And the forth knot…..

And the fifth knot, which was also the last knot. Not good. Not good at all my friends. In my world I can live with two knots in a skein of yarn. But five knots is not in any way shape or form acceptable in a skein of yarn that cost as much as this did. Heck it isn’t really acceptable in a skein of yarn that you buy for $4 at Hobby Lobby. I took a moment to finish winding up that skein and set it aside so that I could get the old blood pressure under control. I had a second skein of yarn that could be used for the Meemster’s socks but that still left me without a skein for myself. A skein with five knots in it is not a skein of yarn that should be used for socks. You are going to feel those knots eventually, no matter how close you cut the knot.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

So, after I calmed down a bit I went and made a cup of coffee and then went back to the computer and sent off an email to Universal Yarns. I wasn’t nasty. I wasn’t screaming IN ALL CAPTIALS. It was a fairly good Don Amsler type of email. My father had the capability of writing an email that was both soothing and blistering at the same time. Amazing. So, I channeled my inner Don and sent off my email, fully expecting that I might hear back from them at some point but not really expecting anything. I was venting. But nice venting.

I hadn’t even had time to get up from my computer to do something else when, DING!, I had a reply back from Yonca from Universal Yarn’s customer service department. She was SO sorry that this had happened. They would be sending me a replacement skein ASAP, no questions asked. She just needed the lot number so that they could make sure I got a skein of yarn from the same lot so that the colors would match.

Yowza! I love good customer service.

And then it got even nicer as I heard from Jackie, who was Yonca’s supervisor AND the Customer Service team leader Kathy. All so apologetic. All so helpful. And…

DING!

Two days later I had a replacement skein of yarn AND a lovely note.

Universal Yarns and therefore Wisdom Yarns you have a customer for LIFE! For LIFE I tell ya. And we KNOW how much sock yarn I buy over the course of any given year. Well, maybe you don’t know…and perhaps I am not actually going to tell you because it really is an embarrassing sort of addiction. I might have enough sock yarn, right now, to knit……..36 pairs of socks.

Don’t tell anyone, OK?

But when it is time to order some more sock yarn I am ordering from Universal. That should be sometime next week I am thinking…..or sooner.

Here are the Meemster’s socks. They came out PERFECT in every respect, including the total matching of the stripes. I love it when I accomplish that.

And here are my socks, in progress on my last day at The Cottage. They are just a bit different, having an afterthought heel in a contrasting color. My gosh do I love afterthought heels. I love them more than short row heels, which is saying something because I never thought I would love a heel technique more than short row.

Where were we? I feel like I am suddenly off topic.

And finished, as of yesterday, are my Cottage Remembrance socks. They have been washed and are now blocking. And every time I wear them from now on I will be flooded with all the good memories of a wonderful place.

And I am already half way through the coordinating pair of socks with the body of the sock done in the blue yarn and the heels and toes done in the Wisdom Yarn.

I love socks.

An Enduring and Unexplainable Love

45 years ago today, May 25, 1969, I attended an event that marked the start of a love that endures to this day and is totally unexplainable to some.

I went to my first Indianapolis 500.

I was 9 years old....and a girl....and I would most likely rather have been reading a book. In fact, I did have a book with me, although I have no idea what it might have been. We were living in the Indianapolis area and Papa was a serving in the US Medical Corp. I was more likely concerned on a daily basis with getting on the bus whithout Pilot Man splashing (deliberately I might add) mud on my tights. Or perhaps playing with my next door neighbor. We were an odd couple who might be found on a nice afternoon cutting tunnels in the grass with scissors so that we could make paths for our dolls.

And then there were the endless hours of singing showtunes in her basement.

But I digress.

I know that we sat in the infield on this particular day. That I do remember. And there were A LOT of people...but not nearly as many people as attend now. At least I do not think so but then younger kids never really have a sense of how many people are in attendance at a big event. I think we drove into the infield parking area in a van but I do not remember whose vehicle that we went in. I remember, as if it were yesterday, sitting on a folding chair and looking around at all these people and wondering what the heck was going on.

The pace car came past with 33 cars in it's wake. So loud! So much excitement! Once around. Twice around.

And then the checkered flag and life changed for me. A nine year old girl who really, even today, could care less about how a car works just so long as it works. But by the end of that day in 1969 I was hooked. I couldn't yet tell you which engine was in which car just by the sound of the engine. Nor did I understand yet why the car was shapped as it is and what all of the different parts did, why adjustments of a fraction of an inch can make the difference between first and second place. I did not know that there is a fully functioning hospital in the infield, staffed with the best physicians and nurses that can be found, with the sincere hope that they will NEVER be needed. I had no idea at that time that the drivers all start with the same amount of fuel and tires and there is no borrowing either. I did not know at that time what the rules were whether under the green or the yellow or, heaven forbid, the red flag. I knew nothing other than that I loved this thing called Indycar racing with a passion that made no sense. That passion has endured through 45 years.

I have had the privilege of attending "The 500" 5 times in total and ever time has been an truely unique and special occasion. And on the years that I have not attended I have watched. It has been many years since I have been to an Indy, since college years I believe. HHBL would tell you that in very large and highly packed crowds.....

I do not do all that well.

People in my personal space make me as jumpy as a Democrat in a room full of Tea Party members. But if anyone EVER offers me the chance to again attend an Indy 500 I will get over that phobia and right quickly I can promise you that.

Race well gentlemen and woman (there is one competing). Race safely.

My heart is already beating faster than usual and there is still at least 20 minutes before the classic "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

Indiy 500 I will love you forever.

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An Anniversary That Should Have Been Remembered

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan Genocide. I only saw one small article appear and that was in a UK paper. I looked yesterday, here and there, to see if anyone remembered. And I saw nothing. Nothing in my local paper. Nothing in the national papers that I read online. 60 Minutes didn’t cover it. CNN, MSNBC and FOX, all were silent on it. We have no problem remembering the anniversary every year of the death of Princess Diana.

But we can’t seem to be bothered with this.

Just like we were all silent before and after April 6, 1994. I include myself in that group, by the way. If asked, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where Rwanda was on the map let alone be able to distinguish who was killing who. It didn’t really hold any meaning for me in my small and child filled life at that time. We do not want to remember.  We do not want to be reminded because if we do remember April 6, 1994 and what happened that day and in the following 100 days, when between 500,00 and 1 million people were killed, then we will be reminded that genocide does not happen in a vacuum. President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane wasn’t just shot down over the Kigali International Airport and then people said, “We have to blame someone! Let’s blame the Tutsis!” The road signs for the genocide were all there for people to see if they chose to look. People did see, they just chose not to act. The increase in importation of machetes and guns and grenades and knives. The rise of the Hutu Power movement. The arming and training of the interahamwe.  Previous genocides in 1959, 1964 and 1990 were all smaller in scale, just a precursor if you will, to the 100 days of 1994. But no one did anything about them. And if no one does anything about smaller genocides then bigger ones will occur because the perpetrators think they can get away with it.

I can date my Rwandan awakening to a small used book store in Lahaina on the island of Maui. I don’t even remember the name of the store, it is somewhere on the main street I think, or it was in 2005. We were on vacation and were spending some hours wandering around downtown on our first day there. A used bookstore! Sweet! I went downstairs to check out the books in the History section and there, on the bottom shelf was a book with the longest and most arresting title that I have ever seen.  We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. That is a mouthful of a title and I was intrigued. Rwanda? Genocide? I sort of remember something about that but not much. The book was a whopping $2. I bought it and was forever changed. Since that first book HHBL and I have read many if not most of the books that cover the Rwandan Genocide. We have visited Rwanda and would go back in a heart beat.

But we must never forget what happened there and our responsibility as a nation for the genocide. And yes, the United States holds responsibility. I am currently reading Leave None to Tell The Story by Alison Des Forges. Written in 1999 for Human Rights Watch it is considered the most unbiased and detailed account of the genocide. This is what Ms. Des Forges writes about international responsibility:

The Rwandans who organized and executed the genocide must bear full responsibility for it. But genocide anywhere implicates everyone. To the extent that governments and peoples elsewhere failed to prevent and halt this killing campaign, they all share in the shame of the crime. In addition, the U.N. staff as well as the three foreign governments principally involved in Rwanda bear added responsibility: The U. N. staff for having failed to provide adequate information and guidance to members of the Security Council; Belgium for having withdrawn its troops precipitately and for having championed total withdrawal of the U.N. force; the U.S. for having put saving money ahead of saving lives and for slowing the sending of a relief force; and France, for having continued its support of a government engaged in genocide. In contrast to the inaction of the major actors, some non-permanent members of the Security Council with no traditional ties with Rwanda undertook to push for a U.N. force to protect Tutsi from extermination. But all members of the Security Council brought discredit on the U.N. by permitting the representative of a genocidal government to continue sitting in the Security Council, a council supposedly committed to peace.

April 6, 1994 is an anniversary that we should remember. Not to celebrate but to be reminded that even friends and neighbors can kill other friends and neighbors simply because their identity card says one thing and not another. If genocide continues to rear it’s head in other parts of the world (Darfur, Christians in Iraq and Iran and Egypt, North Korea) then we continue to bear responsibility for it.

Below are other blog posts on the topic of Rwanda.

We must remember.

Genocide Made Real

Rwanda (this post contains a small reading list of books that I would recommend on the subject)

Heffalumps and Woozles

I have made an absolutely fabulous discovery.

I can watch Winnie the Pooh via Netflix streaming.

How did I miss the fact that up in the left hand corner of the Netflix app screen there is a little button that says "Kids". I am sure that it has been there always and if you have small children you will know this. But I don't have small children...although there is the boyfriend. And it is because of the boyfriend that I discovered that I can watch Winnie the Pooh on the Netflix app.

My Babysitting Boyfriend, he who shall be refered to as MBB from now on, needed a bit of "wind down" time before setting off on his afternoon nap. I had my iPad in my lap, he wanted to look at something on it, I pulled up Netflix....and that is when I saw the "Kids" button up in the left hand corner. I figured that I could find something to look at for a few minutes.

Scroll.....scroll.....scroll....

Mulan is too long. Some of the other stuff I had never even heard of. And then I saw it.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Did the sun just come out and are those angels that I hear singing?

It isn't like I haven't watched this is the years since it first started showing up on TV. I am not even sure when was the first showing but I am sure that it was on The Wonderful World of Disney. Pilot Man and I used to watch that on Sunday nights, plunked down in front of the TV with a tray full of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That is most likely why I feel that grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup are forever linked together, never to be separated. You cannot legitimately have one without the other. It just isn't right.

Where was I?

Oh yes, Winnie the Pooh. When the progeny were little we had all these Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes that they watched. All the time. I have an aversion to Sesame Street so that was not on the TV much. But we could fire up Winnie the Pooh whenever they wanted.

I just spent a very enjoyable 30 minutes watching Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin and Piglette and Owl. I sang the songs. I said all the dialogue. And I am going to admit that there might be a time in the not too distant future when you might find me watching this again.....without MBB even being around.

I love Winnie the Pooh that much.

And we won't even talk about the original stuffed Eyeore that might be residing at my house.

It is the little things in life.

 

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The Workroom

Day 22 - A Workroom Floor Well Used

I have started a small photo project documenting the things in my father's world. I am not sure what I will do with the photos or even if most of them will ever see the light of day. Only time will tell.

My dad had a very well used workroom. The floor tells many tales of paint and furniture stripper and electrical work and the occasional sump pump flood. The concrete is worn smooth from 42 years of use. If something needed to be repaired or replaced or altered, it all began in the workroom.

 

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The Last of the Pansies

Pansies are such a happy flower. And they have a fragrance that I love. They scream “SPRING” to me almost as much as snow showers in May.

But they do not last for very long. Warm/hot weather makes them go all leggy and insolent like a teenager and then you need to rip them out by their little roots and show them whose boss.

Today was that day.

But before I consigned them all to the compost bin I cut one last glass full of flowers. They won’t last all that long but whenever I look at them I will be reminded of Grandpa.

It Smells Like Worms Out There

Oh certain Spring days, when the temperature is warm and the air is full of rain.

It smells like worms outside.

You didn’t know that it could smell like worms?

Well it can. At least according to my friend Nancy it can.

Ah Nancy. She lived just down the street from me 6th grade through freshman year in college. We would walk to school together….until we learned to drive that is. I would walk the two blocks to her house and arrive to find her in the same state every day….

Late.

Guzzling her glass of WHOLE milk and eating two, not one but TWO, Double Fudge Frosted Pop Tarts.

Two of them. Every day. I don’t like those kinds of pop tarts but I was still envious. Perhaps it was just the whole milk.

But I digress.

Once Nancy had eaten her pop tarts, drunk her milk and disposed of the inevitable milk moustache we walked to school. An uneventful half mile to Edison Jr. Hi or mile to the high school. All would be fine and dandy. We would talk boys and stuff (I have no idea really what we talked about).

All would be fine and dandy except on the days when it had rained. And then……

There would be worms.

Now I don’t have a great aversion to worms. I like them actually because they are helpful in the garden and they make the soil happy and you can snap them in two to make two worms and they make a lovely squishy sound when you step on the really big ones and……

Ummmmmm……..

Never mind about that.

I didn’t mind worms on rainy days but Nancy did. And when there were a ton of worms on the side walk then the trip to school was more like tip toeing through the dog poop, I mean the tulips. Nan didn’t want to step on any of them (I had no such qualms) nor did she like the “worm smell” that seemed to flow, like the 10th plague of Egypt, along the ground as we walked to school.

That half a mile became as difficult to traverse as the Khumbu Icefall going up Mt. Everest. I could see the final destination but I never thought I would get there because we had to walk past,around,over,beside all the worms along the way, all the time holding our breathe against the dreaded worm smell.

It smells like worms today.

And I must go out into it.

Help me.

2012 in Pictures

Here we are, another year about to end. Another year filled with photos and blather. Lets see what happened here at Chez Knit in 2012

I hung around with some alpacas on a Saturday afternoon.

There was a summer filled with watching baseball and only a few minor injuries to contend with.

An Easter filled with family, the Easter Monkey, chubby thighed little boys and Max the Magnificent taking a chunk out of Cousin Ben’s thigh. Good Times.

The posteriors of various animals on full display at the Geauga County Fair. Who knew that was such a racy place to be!!

We might have taken a trip or two

New York City

Atlanta. Where I got to spend every night with Brooklyn the snake and I had to curb my tendency to spit into available trash cans.

We hung around in Florida where we saw alligators, chubby cheeked babies and Monarch butterflies. And I got to have fresh squeezed OJ every day. Joy.

Peru! Where we ate an ocean full of fish, had an encounter with the Pepper of Death, got to eat boatloads of Causa and perhaps some alpaca….and went to Machu Picchu.

We hung with family

We DO take pictures that are all serious and good. But the crazy ones are much more reflective of WHO we are. Are you surprised?

The garden dominated the summer months.
And I might have taken my fair share of iPhone photographs……

AND……………

We had an engagement!!

Who knows what might happen in 2013!!!