Winter Revery

Some pictures of Morgan Jane and her parents, sent to me by my wonderful daughter-in-law, Tricia Berg. Morgan's first snow.

Not posting of late, due mainly to trying to work on the treadmill more often. And there is nothing really new in our lives here. I am glad that Obama won South Carolina so big, but I do think that next week things could go many different ways. The unfortunate part is that now the Clintons have alienated a lot of their core support. And the election in the fall, who knows what will happen?

On the other hand, Florida today should tell us who the GOP nominee will be. I am pulling for McCain, because I don't think he does sleazy campaigning that well, and the debates might actually be about substance for once. We'll see. Romney is kind of creepy, don't you think?

I finally heard from my friend in the far east, who I was worried about, and he had one of those episodes of aging that do come upon you when you get past forty. But he is well and in a place where the healthcare is actually afforadable. I am glad I have state of illinois health insurance. Of course it keeps us tethered to this job, doesn't it? Kimberly-wise, I mean.

And Kimb is in Schaumberg this week, going to a training. So Piper and myself are both missing her big time. She comes back on Friday. It will be a long week. Oh, and a new revision of an ancient poem: Homage & Apology. Thanks to the Silver Wheel, Arian Rhod, for the days and nights that number this attempt to understand Her love.

Living Well Is the Best Revenge

Paige came for this three day weekend, though she did return to Chicago Sunday night, having class today (Monday). It was an excuse for some serious food and we all availed ourselves, however calorie carefully.

Friday night we had takeout chinese, simply because Paige came in on the evening train. But Saturday morning we had pecan pancakes that Kimberly created that were so lovely. Along with our usual iced coffees. Saturday night we went to one of our all time favorite italian restaurants, Biaggis. Not the most upscale italian in town, but truly good stuff. They are a midwestern chain, although there's a Biaggis in Colorado and they opened one in Jackson, Mississippi that we went to last time we were down south.

One of the things Biaggis does very well is creme brulee. And we pretty much always do the pasta there. This time though Kimberly had lambchops and spinach. Very nice. We did have desert, cappucino and creme brulee. In any case, a jolly time was had by all of us.

Sunday afternoon we had Dan and Tandy over for brunch. I made eggs benedict with broiled sockeye salmon and poached eggs with bernaise sauce. We also had Kimberly's waffles with blueberries and whipped creme. I had found a bottle of Stoli on Friday for a great price and we had a bottle of our favorite bloody mary concoction (Stirrings, actually), and we all had Bloody Mary's with celery, as can be seen from the accompanying photos. Tandy brought a remarkable spinach salad with a hot garlic dressing and that was Sunday brunch on Baker Street.

Today has also been a real food day. For lunch I broiled a small ribeye I had and I cut some potatoes thin and baked them in the oven with olive oil and sea salt. Then for dinner the Queen of Soups reined, another italian soup with some italian sausage and these little teeny square pastas. Kimberly also made the most remarkable biscotti this afternoon. I fell asleep on the couch watching Sharon, Lois and Bram with Piper and when I awoke there was all this wonderful food. I had three biscotti in short order.

It was great to see Paige, although it was bloody cold here in central Illinois. Paige seemed pretty well and we had a couple of nice talks before putting her back on the train to her life in Chicago.

It was also good to see Dan and Tandy. Their lives have been unsettled of late becaus they had wood floors put into the hall and the bedroom and were just moving back in yesterday/Saturday. But they seemed well, despite Tandy's bad dental experience on Friday. She was relatively chipper at our house. I hope she is better now.

I am so grateful at times like this, that I have survived and that I am with such a good person as Kimberly. Life is hard, but so beautiful and moving. It is tough being a self-aware species, and it means that we are always in mourning, but it also means we remember those of us who have passed from this life to another. That is a good thing. I hope you are all well. I I thank the Lady Arianrhod for Her art and for Her mercy. It is a good thing to be, and to be loved.

The title (of this post) is from George Herbert, I believe. 17th century Brit.

What We Do For Fun

on those Sundays when there won't be a golden globe ceremony. Yes, more pictures of Piper in costume. Piper has discovered the efficacy of jewelry, and her exposure to Mary Kate and Ashley has promoted a certain, shall we say, glamour in the way she puts her look together. It is really a lot of fun.

Politics
I wish I felt truly hopeful enough to write about politics. But the way the Clintons are carrying on it is now pretty much impossible for me to vote for the woman. Not because of the kind of president she would be, but because of what her campaign has done to respond to and take out Barack Obama. Everything they have done is a big mistake and it will be that which destroys the democrats comeback opportunity. But the rank and file dems have often been led by their insincere and corrupt leaders. Why don't we all start talking about Monica again? And, of course, the repubs will start that conversation, just as soon as Hillary becomes the actual nominee. And that is all we will hear from then on. A sad story, for sure.

We have hunkered down, it being cold again here, and are hoping to get through the next week or two. Winter again. I suppose I am just complaining to complain here. We did watch Two Lane Blacktop this afternoon. It starred James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, when they were barely out of their teens. Very artsy and pretty strange. Sad, but also very sixties. Wilson about that time was carrying on with Manson and his girls. Dennis just wanted the free cooze (as he would've said) and the Mansons ended up living in and trashing his mansion before getting kicked out.

It was through that weird connection that Terry Melcher met and recorded the Mansons. This is significant because not only does it link Doris Day (Terry is her son) to the Mansons, but it also links the house Sharon Tate was living in on Cielo Drive. Terry Melcher had lived in that house and Charlie had been there several times.

Yet another grisly subject I know a shade too much about. Just sadness now. Losers. I note this current rage about pirates and in a certain way it depresses me because pirates were really evil, corrupt thugs. Yet we romanticize the criminal in all sorts of odd ways. What a fucked up country we live in.

May the Lady show us Her grace. May we learn how to live in mercy and love.

Bat Girl

Every day we live with a variety of characters from stories, from legends, and from Piper's own imagination. Last night she insisted on being Bat Girl. This was her samhain costume from 2006, another handmade Kimb creation. Here are several pics. Good stuff.

New Poem, Ancient Error

I posted another tree poem on Homage & Apology. The year I lived on Washington Street, across from Springfield High School, 1979, was a weird and hard year. Because of my own ability to deceive myself I managed to get myself involved with a someone inappropriate. And I fell in love with her and that, coupled with my own ego, caused me to do things that were wrong and that still reverberate in my life.

I am sure the Lady has some sympathy for me, but She would never let me off the hook. That is okay. You have to learn from your error or it is just a small evil in the world. Part of being a moral person is to remove even the small evils, if you can.

Post New Hampshire Hangover

Odin's day in central Illinois. I admit to being disappointed that Obama lost in New Hampshire yesterday. But I wasn't really surprised. I believe that independents went to John McCain because the polls had them convinced that Obama didn't need their votes. I can totally see the reasoning involved. If the electorate had any idea that Clinton would win I think in a do-over that Obama would win. But it doesn't work that way. And now Hillary has a chance to come back.

And well she may. It's going to be an awful year, politically. No matter what happens. Until next November we are not going to have any real idea what the future will bring. And even then I am not discounting the current Pres and his evil henchman Veep doing whatever is necessary to hang onto power. Martial law, perhaps. Which will mean they have to contrive a terrorist incident. Not too hard for these boys.

And Hillary? She and Bill are very close to being evil, though evil on our side I guess you could say. But if the repubs nominate John McCain the general could go to the red side. And then the Supreme Court would be packed with conservatives for the rest of my life. Thus ruining the lives of my children and their children. So whatever happens I have to work to elect a dem president this fall. Even Hillary.

But I swear I will never forgive Bill Clinton this last weekend. Scumbag. Of course we all know the guy's a scumbag. His come all over Monica's dress pretty much nails down the title.

In local news, we are getting by as best we can. The furnace situation remains unresolved. But we have heat for the moment. My intellectual life seems to be slipping away right now. I finished the Frederick Pohl book Dan loaned me. And it was okay, interesting conceptually but not a great people novel.

My daughter, Piper Gwynne, is requesting the use of this computer, so I will sign off for now. May the Lady Arianrhod look upon us with both mercy and love. We can hope for the very best this universe has to offer.

Paige Weekend January 08

Paige came on the train Thursday evening. Piper has been very excited by the presence of her sister and she has been quite demanding on Paige's time and attention. But Paige I think is enjoying herself, too. Paige has also been down to see Dan and Tandy at their house.

Today we went out and got cheese and bread and various salads and olives and had quite the lunch. I talked with Tandy and she and Dan came up the street and had some of the repast. Dan brought us a copy of his new book, Elder Tales, and they had a solstice present for the four year old.

Now we are just waiting around another hour to take Paige to the train station. She heads back to Chicago tonight as she works at Barnes and Noble tomorrow morning. It is always wonderful to see the girl. Hard to believe someone so wonderful came from those strange years I spent with BB. But we make our own selves up, so as far as I'm concerned, Paige gets the credit for Paige. And credit it is, too. She's a very cool person.

Note also the bear and dolls from the Golden Compass that we bought Paige for solstice. She thoroughly enjoyed them and she and Piper played with them extensively today. Pretty cool stuff. One of them is a figure of Lyra, the young girl protaganist. Very cool indeed.





Later on we went to Krannert Art Museum. It was a pretty grey day.

May the Lady watch over my sweet girls.

Divine Bear in a New Year

Another number in the current list, 2008. Today it is bitterly cold here in the plains. It's about 18 degrees and very blowy, so it is not comfortable outdoors. At least the furnace is working well today. Yesterday when I woke up at four a.m. I could tell it wasn't on and when I checked the thermostat it said it was 64 in the house. With the current problems with the furnace still ongoing, I assumed it was broken and called the repair guy as soon as I thought okay (around 7 in the a.m.). He came out later and discovered that the thermostat had been set to "cool" and that is why the heat wasn't on. That cost me $67.00. So I felt pretty stupid yesterday, and a little broker than before. But, you must keep going and so here we are, January 1st in another year.

Piper has been having a great time. She's ever better at the computer and is very comfortable on the kid parts of the internet. Since she is mainly reading she can figure out most of the sites she goes to on her own. Piper is also in costume heaven these days, between Grandma's october booty and all that she got for solstice she has quite the wardrobe of costumes. Kimberly took the opportunity of having a lot of time off to clean out the closets in the bedrooms and to turn my old closet into Piper's closet, double barred, so she has things on two levels.

When we first bought this house we used the bigger bedroom for our room, Kimberly and myself. We put Paige in the other bedroom. This worked for a long time, but eventually Piper was born and after living with us for almost two years we switched bedrooms around, taking over Paige's bedroom. By then Paige was going to college and coming to see us much more sporadically. So we've got her sleeping in the middle room in the beautiful daybed Kimb bought for her when she eight years old. Too small these days, I am sure, but it's a place to lay her head when she comes down from Chicago.

Piper's room then was our old bedroom, and all our clothes have been in the two closets in that room since 2001. This has now changed, though I had to throw out several ancient computers from that closet in Paige's room. They were first level pentiums that would've cost more to get working right than they were worth. I took the harddrives out of them, and kept a couple of cd roms and tossed the rest of the hardware. I've been through a lot of that stuff and it never fails to amaze me how much time has passed, technologically speaking, since I started doing this computer stuff. I am still in the past, but working for the Park District has helped me crawl into the almost present.

Politics
Meanwhile the Iowa caucuses are day after tomorrow. We all know that Barack Obama should be the nominee, but there are many people committed to other concepts out there. I wish them all the best, really. I think it is too difficult to actually call this one, on both sides. It's going to be a bumpy ride, to quote Bette Davis. Most of the republicans are really pretty scary, anti-freedom, anti-sex, anti-life people (though pretending to be pro-life for the sake of the stupid easily led evangelicals). Only John McCain can be at all trusted not to destroy the republic, and even he will be a willow in the wind of the republican base.

The Des Moines Register poll, published yesterday, puts Obama out front of Hillary by 7%. They do it, however, by claiming that the people who attend the caucuses will be 40% independents and 5% republicans. Thus Democrats are more likely on base to be for Hillary.

Sullivan and the blogosphere talk alot about how most Democrats want to wage war with the Republicans that created the current situation. Sullivan says this is a very bad plan, and I'd really like to see Obama come in as a consensus choice. But that isn't going to happen. What Sullivan won't admit to himself is that the Republicans are nasty people at base, most of them, and they will say and do whatever it takes to cow the indies and the marginals into going along with their program.

So, even if it is Hillary Clinton we all must make sure a democrat is elected next fall. Any republican will seal the supreme court as a rightwing organization and the democrats have already shown they cannot be trusted to shut down the republican machine. Even now the Dems in the senate should be forcing the Repubs to actually filibuster every bill they won't allow to come for a vote. When the situation was reversed the Repubs threatened the "nuclear option" and the docile dems did what they were told.

Frankly the real story is that to avoid a second american revolution there will have to be a culture war fought in washington and we need democrats that will fight it. I think, however, that Obama could go along way into negating the power of the republican rightwing machine. They are truly scared of him because if he can win the presidency (and in the landslide that many predict) that will destroy the Southern Strategy of counting on the racist vote to keep things the way they are. It will never pertain again if Obama makes the white house.

Of course he's likely to be assassinated by some good old boy with NRA membership. So whoever he picks for VEEP is an important choice.

I am starting to feel like my time going through the notebooks is ending. That the cycle of all those statements about my lovelife and my relationships is lived through and what I have gleaned from it is all that is there. This could still turn out to be only a pause, but for now, time and all, I am too tired to face anymore of those weird old days. I get no feedback, so the learning experience is strictly internal. With no idea of what's good or bad, or what the value is in the images, I am just not that interested anymore. There are a few more things to post, however. And I will do that eventually. Thanks for your patience.

Food
I bought these "long peppers" from Bali recently. They are about 3/8 inches long and you have to chop them up with a knife. But they have the most remarkable flavor. Highly recommended. And I've started making beef broth from an expensive jelly that I bought at the good deli. Worth it.

But as for meat, it is now officially too expensive to eat. I just can't bring myself to spend more than $10 for a piece of meat for dinner. Tonight we are having bacon and scrambled eggs. Last night I recycled some of last week's beef roast into a nice chili. Tasty, as the Soup Queen says.

I will note that Kimberly baked the best cookies I have ever had yesterday. She used some imported french chocolate I found on sale at the import store, and some ghirardelli cappucino chips and put them into a shortbread made with real butter. This stuff is remarkable. Best cookie, ever. Seriously.

Paige is supposed to come at the end of the week. Hopefully this will happen. We haven't seen her since t'giving, but that is often the story with your kids. They grow up and have their own lives. Well, then there's my sister Diane who's kids are in their forties. Her daughter lives with them and hasn't worked for several years now, and her son has a condo across the street from them and has all his meals with them. I don't think she'll be having any grandchildren, frankly. But it is surely nice that they all get along so well and support each other. These are hard times. Conversely I am proud of Joel and his life that he has made for himself, job, wife, daughter, house, Porsche. He deserves it all and if it is two thousand miles away from me, that is just okay, you know? We all do the best we can. And I wish Paige a wonderful life, and Piper, because another twenty years and Dad will be on the other side, dealing with the actual truth of being.

Well, enough of all that. Time for Tim to go have a gin and tonic, or vodka and lemonade or something like that. I give thanks to the Lady Arianrhod, in this cold time I should call her Freya, but I long more for Cerridwen's cauldron right now, with its delightful smells and the knowledge that Her recipe involves all truth and being and that being open to it and filled with it is all the protection anyone ever needs. Thanks to the Lady. Even in Her frigid breath there is laughter and comfort.