Thankful Thursday–we have a remedy!

Today’s Thankful Thursday is not much different than any other Thankful Thursday, only I am slightly wracked with guilt due to yesterday’s rant, hence this Thursday’s title (let the song-referencing contest begin!)

grateful for:

the crates of squash stacked high in the fields of Hadley (while many farms have suffered due to incredible amounts of rain on top of the flooding from Hurricane Irene, some of Hadley, Amherst, and Hatfield’s crops look okay; some not; Vermont got hammered)

fields of pumpkins

Nina Simone

Ewan McGregor (if you’ve seen much of Ewan McGregor’s ouevre, you know he appears buck naked in several films, not the least of which are Velvet Goldmine, The Pillow Book, and Young Adam)

Ewan McGregor naked

words

when I can write a decent poem or at least string some interesting words together in an interesting way

Hubby

my kids

not experiencing the news

early bedtime (before or by 11 pm)

the small card of this image that sits on my desk. I have had it for 28 years or so. It’s been with me for so long and I love it so much, but it’s faded and banged up with creases. I’d like a copy of it again and I’ve found it on google images with much maneuvering. I just can’t manage to track it down beyond a particular blog post, in German, from Germany. I know the painting is by Almut Gernhardt and I think it’s from a book called “Twelve Pretty Cat Paintings.”

kitty kitty

All of the serendipitous things that happened this week, like when I posted about quisling and as I was typing up my post, typing the word puzzling, I overheard Hubby on a business call to Belgium and he was saying the word puzzling and the next day on the A Word a Day, the word was quisling

almost never knowing when to use italics, boldface, or quotation marks in my posts when I am pointing out specific words. I love this so much!

how easily one can italicize and boldface in writing on a computer

Jeff Tweedy’s take on serendipity: people with broken hearts find things that reflect their broken hearts (okay, so I’m using it slightly out-of-context, but not really) (thanks to alpha dog for sending me the link to that particular interview)

the aforementioned (in yesterday’s post) Utz Red Hot potato chips. I love them very much and yet they are very hard to come by, so much so that a year or so ago, I ordered a case of them. Naturally, they made me sick, and I haven’t ordered them since. I’m grateful that they aren’t available in the stores around here, but I’d probably be grateful if they were. If you go to the Utz website, a darling cartoon-child will try to sell you Utz chips by reaching into her bag of chips and munching them right before your eyes!

the incredibly long period of my life in which I never experienced tinnitus

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Rent-a-Rant

Feeling too positive? Happy with life? Think we are here to be fulfilled and joyous? Come see how the other half lives as I, twinklysparkles, aka, Katherine, engage in a dangerous activity known as ranting….

the dead chipmunk in the side garden bed

the dead chipmunk in the back yard

the constant dead rodents all over my gdamn yard and driveway courtesy of my cats

Hubby says we are genetically determined to like or dislike cilantro. To this I say, “I was born with the gene that programs me to hate the Grateful Dead (except for the song Ripple).”

the new “GoBerry” frozen yogurt sensation in Amherst, Mass is made with its share of junky ingredients: WHY ME?

Frankenfood, including all the forms to which I am addicted: GoBerry original flavor, small please, with Oreo cookies layered on the bottom and top; Utz Red Hot potato chips (maybe the best bbq potato chips on the planet, including those ones I love in Germany); sugar; Starbucks coffee ice cream (even though they changed the original formula)

IF your blog is on a black or blue background, I will not be able to read more than 2 lines (prose) or 4 lines (poetry) at a time and I might get an ocular migraine. Do you really want to piss twinkly off with this black background on your blog? Think about it. I’m probably not the only one, just the only one willing to piss and moan about it.

tail+gate= asshole

tail+gate+highbeams=asshole cubed

idling your car for more than 15 seconds. You may be a Republican and/or Floridian and/or TEA partier to boot. But please, don’t remain ignorant and keep idling that fuel-injection engine.

If you cannot bring your own cup to get filled for hot or cold beverages and insist on littering America and funding the oil industry, then fuck it (not fuck you, just fuck the behavior)

Just because you come from a particular ethnic group does not mean you are not part of America. This cuts both ways.

Splintering into ever-smaller cultural factions whether they be based on gender, race, sexual orientation, parenting status, marital status, etc etc etc. Not sure how age fits in here.

Computer time causing an increase in near-sightedness and fat asses (including yours truly’s eyes and ass)

roadkill

speeding, unless I need to get somewhere really fast; actually, just speeding in town. Maybe highway speeding is okay. Hmm. I’m simply unclear about speeding

drivers not slowing down for bicycles

bicyclists in traffic on cellphones without helmets (I kid you not, people)

waste

bad drivers

potholes

broken appliances and/or lamps (current tally in twinkly’s household? appx. 33)

mildew

bleach

disposable plastic cups of all kinds

bad singing mistaken for emotionally-powerful singing

Natalie Merchant, her voice, and moreover, her incredible sincerity

insincerity

exclusion for the sake of exclusion

88 degrees on September 26 in Western Mass

100+ degrees any day in Western Mass

spring peepers on September 27 in Western Mass

While I appreciate (I AM SERIOUS HERE, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT) anyone’s need to split their writing into different blogs, ie, the good woman, the bad girl, the sexy girl, the bad mom v. the good mom, etc, I have decided that I need to keep my whole self here, present. So kiss my tattooed ass if you don’t love me or my tattooed ass (it’s really my hip, but “kiss my tattooed hip” sounds neither powerful nor fun; well, it sounds like it might be fun actually)

Be kind to me, or treat me mean, I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine–Fiona Apple

(I LOVE YOU, remember, just not your habit of idling your car and using disposable grocery bags and drinking cups)

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Music Monday–not that Elvis, this Elvis

‘Cause somewhere in the “Quisling Clinic”
There’s a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes

I want to bite into those words and hold on with my teeth

I didn’t know Quisling (how’s that for an infamous eponym?) and had to look it up. I thought the word was quizzling, which I quite like. It would be akin to quizzical, like Joan was quizzical, studied metaphysical, but more like puzzling, like he puzzled ’til his puzzler was sore.

Here:

The sky had been cloudless and full of sunshine, so the afternoon’s quizzling rain made no sense to Jeannie Bright, Holden Elementary’s amateur weather-girl.

I’d love if each of you leave me a sentence with your particular interpretation, especially since my sentence is a rather piss-poor example. It’s hard to make up a good definition for quizzling!

(I won’t even tell you the other lyric I’ve had wrong all these years, but it’s when Elvis says “she takes all the red, yellow, orange, and green” I thought it was she takes all her radio unguent creams…

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Thankful Thursday–rasp, raspberries, and Tim Eriksen

I love the word rasp. It’s fun to say and it looks great.

I like the rasp I use to zest citrus fruits, but I also like the zester I use. Which is better? The zester makes long ribbons of the rinds and they are pretty and it’s fun and satisfying, but the rasp makes a better and quicker amount of zest.

I don’t use a wood rasp, though, because I am not a woodworker.

I like the nature of a raspy voice (not really, but that sounded good in my list).

I like raspberries (which you must know if you’ve been paying attention).

I love black raspberries maybe even more than red raspberries, but I only had them once this summer. They were incredibly delicious and delightful. At the farm, we just get red raspberries. I always think that I will plant raspberry bushes, but I haven’t yet. Hopefully, if and when we move, I will finally do it.

And this? How can you not be thankful when you hear this? New England’s own Tim Eriksen:

EEK! I realize that I don’t have a proper credit for the above photo. I am having a bit of a time operating my photo-uploader on wordpress. I also realize that I’m probably remiss in crediting a lot of the photos I upload onto my blog. I mean no harm. If you’d like to find the original, I put “raspberry heart” in the google images search bar. That should do the trick!

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emergency Wilco post

nick lowe opened. he sang beautiful songs like a troubadour he serenaded us. he sang alison. he played what’s so funny ’bout peace love and understanding. he played beautiful new songs. he claimed his voice was a bit croaky but it was beautiful and buttery good pipes he was elegant and lovely

wilco played really loud in boston last night my 15-year old did her first school night concert with her parents no less she is tired and grumpy but beautiful so pretty and full of piss and vinegar

they get carried away with just being boys on stage every boy’s hard rock guitar solo jam fantasy not my cuppa (tea) but i sort of get it because you are boys

yes they are a white band with a white sound and you can’t really dance unless you are the big-headed stoner who stood up through almost the whole concert blocking everyone’s view sit down and gave me the finger

i think of that guy and even feel sorry for him because those who can do, those who can’t play air guitar (if you use that, please credit me, but it’s so obvious maybe it’s been said before)

this new song rocks out not so much with its cock out i’d save that expression for other bands and other songs like led zeppelin in my time of dying but it rocks out nonetheless in a good wilco way eff the critics and only their old stuff was good when jeff was using drugs see forward he’s an innovator peeps

tweedy says that was influenced by ed herself he sang another new folksy one with lyrics about his dad i wish i could remember how it goes we had crappy seats but i bought them the day after they went on sale and almost sold out by then loyal fans

rare:

[props to pt dismal who unknowingly inspired me to write without caps] i think i like it the i s are the hardest punctuation would be even harder to let go of but who says i can’t experience new forms of writing look it’s not poetry but i’m trying

to break your heart

I would throw myself underneath the wheels of your train of thought

i ♥ tweedy

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Music Monday–the days grow short when you reach September

I know this seems like a summer song, but like any good summer song worth its salt, it goes a little deeper and ends up being about more than just sunshine and fluffy clouds.

You may be getting the idea that I’m a huge Sinatra fan. I’m not. I’m pretty ignorant of a lot of his work and of the bands and musicians that backed him. I don’t like a lot of what he did. I do like that he’s called The Chairman of the Board and let’s face it, he has lasting popularity because he had charisma up the wazoo, could really turn a phrase, and was one of the greatest singers of our time (not that we ever have to chose in these contrived “greatest” contests).

With the coming of the autumn equinox, this is perhaps a better song for the week.

You know I’m not for sappy without substance, so I love Ella Fitzgerald doing it, don’t much care for Sinatra, like Sara Vaughan (dozens more people sang it). And Lotte Lenya? She’s in her own category and in my sacrilege opinion, easy to make fun of because of that accent, just like we used to make fun of my mom because she couldn’t say “pants”–it came out sounding more like pents. Any female German torch singer cannot escape a comparison to Lily von Shtupp either. But don’t feel too bad for making fun of Germans. Trust me, we’re allowed to give them their comeuppance for decades to come.

I really love Lou Reed doing this (from the 1990s album Lost in the Stars whose greatest track is probably Tom Waits’ version of “What Keeps Mankind Alive?”).

I apologize to any of the purists among you, but as Hubby just said to me, “Weill was a communist and a Marxist, do you think he stuck to tradition?” I won’t speculate on what artists do and don’t do in reality even if they espouse certain ideas. Not to mention that once you align yourself to any one cause or affiliation, you are rather stuck, ja?

You can see from the lyrics that the song is actually pretty dark. Reed deletes some of the most beautiful lines, adds his own and turns it joyous and poppy.

September Song

lyrics, Maxwell Anderson; music, Kurt Weill

When I was a young man courting the girls
I played me a waiting game
If a maid refused me with tossing curls
I’d let the old Earth make a couple of whirls
While I plied her with tears in lieu of pearls
And as time came around she came my way
As time came around, she came

When you meet with the young girls early in the Spring
You court them in song and rhyme
They answer with words and a clover ring
But if you could examine the goods they bring
They have little to offer but the songs they sing
And the plentiful waste of time of day
A plentiful waste of time

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn’t got time for the waiting game

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you
These precious days I’ll spend with you

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Random Musings–just sit on down and THINK!

Is it good or bad that I didn’t put my contact info in the little black notebook that I lost this week? You know, the one with my random musings, interesting web sites for future reference, notes on good music I heard on the radio, inspirations for writing, and, gasp, my privatemost poems….(can you tell that I don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry?)

Why do some women’s breasts get smaller after menopause and why do some get larger?

Why can you get the same pimple in the same exact pore over and over?

Why isn’t the local police blotter as interesting as it used to be? This has been going on for almost 8 months.

What kind of paint was used to spray paint the giant penis in the road?

How can one man have this much soul?

When someone tailgates me, which I consider not only aggressive but dangerous, why do I allow myself to get aggressive in return by slowing down even more?

Would you say this post is more testosterone or estrogen?

Can you gently slam on your brakes (or gently slam on anything else for that matter)?

Blue mascara: discuss.

Really, how many rodents can my cats kill in one day (and those are only the ones I see)?

Am I really missing out since I don’t know how to text?

Do you realize that there is a universe of posts 180 degrees in the opposite political direction from yours on Facebook? What if yours is the incorrect direction?

Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought Luddite? I can assure you that I haven’t.

Why do companies discontinue wildly popular products, like the pink marshmallow bunny Envirosax that I recently lost? I am crushed, I tell you, crushed. (If anyone out there has one, please forward to twinklysparkles!)

Do I really have to post a photo of a naked or bikini-clad woman at least every-other day to maintain my site stats? What about Justin Bieber (not naked)?

True or False: I have never watched American Idol.

True or False: I have only the slightest clue who Justin Bieber is.

In the True and False portion of this post, who is I?

Will someone please throw out the last chocolate cupcake? Please?

HIT IT AND QUIT IT!

twinkly loves you baby!

photo: ©kgfarthing2011

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Thankful Thursday–quiet

(4 minutes to midnight, just getting in under the Thankful Thursday wire)

I am grateful for many things today, but I am feeling quiet.

I started teaching at The Alexander Technique School New England yesterday (assisting on the training course in an on-going internship) after about a 2-year hiatus. I will be teaching every-other Wednesday. (This is the school where I trained as an Alexander Technique teacher from 2000-2003).

It felt good to be back and putting hands on and giving good instruction. Really good.

In the world of the Alexander Technique, one thing we learn is how to recognize subconscious habits of tension and reactivity; hence it makes sense that I’ve been feeling quieter today.

I thought of a stupid pun:

undue tension

undo tension

Since I can’t seem to come up with much to write, maybe you’d like to take a gander at this (if you’ve got 10 minutes or so). Amazing and little slice of goofy film making:

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Music Monday–nine eleven anniversary

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law. Buddha

I didn’t know what other song to post.

I’m still appalled and angry and saddened and shocked.

Being born in 1963, I was subject to the zeitgeist of peace protests and the anti-war movement. I am not too sure how much came from my parents because even though they were Democrats and they hated Nixon, they were also Establishment and European and warned us of “hippies” and counter-culture types with long hair. I remember hints of racism in spite of their liberal views and in spite of our racially-mixed neighborhood in Detroit.

I watched TV yesterday for a while until the commentators took over and wouldn’t allow for even another hour or two of family members reading off the names of those killed. I loved hearing the names read off without interruption. I didn’t want to hear the politicians speak their speeches; I didn’t want to hear a poem; I didn’t even want to hear Yo Yo Ma play his cello.

I am not sure who the day belonged to.

I keep wondering how much money it takes to run the waterfall. I keep thinking about waste. I keep thinking about pride and its foil, humility. I keep thinking about our bodies and the pain of having a complex nervous system. I keep thinking about war and Elvis Costello’s words from “The Scarlet Tide:”

Man goes beyond his own decision/Gets caught up in the mechanism/Of swindlers who act like kings/And brokers who break everything

I think of Cheney and Halliburton and the billions of dollars made, wasted. And the extremists who visited strip joints in Florida when they trained to fly the planes. Guns produced by one country and sold to another. What difference does it make? Someone profits and a lot of people suffer.

And this one: why can’t men get their personal shit together and stop acting out? Why do people need to couch their hate in something larger than themselves?

The memorial looks beautiful and fitting and I’m glad it’s there and we’ll probably hop down to the city to see it, soon I hope, in the fall.

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Thankful Thursday–first day of school, more fungi, an exciting spam in my inbox, and Dolly Parton rockin’ the autoharp

My daughters are both back in school. Yesterday was monumental in that my 13-year old was in the annual Flower Ceremony at her school. The tradition at a Waldorf school is this: each 8th Grade student is assigned a 1st Grade student with whom they will spend time doing special things together throughout the year. On the first day of school, the 8th Grader (and at our school, a 12th Grader as well) gives a wildflower to her 1st Grader. At the end of the year, when the 8th Grade students graduate, the 1st grader then gives a rose (symbolic of a student progressing from wild to cultivated) to the 8th Grader and so on each September morn and each June afternoon for the first and last days of school respectively.

On the heels of last week’s Thankful Thursday, I took some photos of a few of the mushrooms that continue to emerge in my yard:

and

and

Aren’t those interesting?

This week, something else sort of special happened. “Best Penis” made a deposit into my spam inbox. I know we all get lots of spammy emails, but as you can imagine, this one had special appeal. Who doesn’t want a correspondence from [the?] Best Penis? Is it the best penis in the world or just in the USA? How can it write an email? All these questions…

In the same vein, one of the ways someone found last week’s Thankful Thursday was by searching for the following information:

can you trip from a phallus rubicundus?

I am sorry that someone out there did not get an answer to that question on my blog and I hope that person is sensible enough not to consume any unauthorized fungi in search of a great hallucinogenic experience.

All of this makes me think of the song, Wildflowers by Dolly Parton. Well, the toadstools and spam don’t make me think of it, but the flower ceremony does. I also predict that my pal pt dismal will be telling me all about Mama Maybelle Carter rockin’ the autoharp, too. Am I right pt?

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