Some of you are wondering why you haven't made my list of "People I Have Knewn." There's a simple answer. One, I'm adding names in bunches according to segments of my life. So far, I'm barely through high school. Some people have been added because they complained, even though it wasn't their turn to be added. So if I met you at UMO or USM or in New Jersey or New Mexico or New Hampshire or Alaska and/or just about anytime after I graduated from high school, it's not that I've forgotten you. You'll get on the list one of these days.
You can actually be of help. When you prod me to put you on the list, remind me of other people you think we both knew. (OK, maybe it IS that I've forgotten some people.) I won't add any names that I don't actually remember.
P.S. Kayti did not write this.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Hills Are Alive
These are exciting times here on the Stick Farm. For starters, Rex was out of the house for two days in a row, and I was totally ALONE!
I do love being alone. I think it stems from growing up with sisters who just made fun of me all the time, leaving me unwilling to do much of anything in their presence. For example, at a Bible camp we went to for a week one summer, my sister Janet and I were put in the same dorm room. The room was actually an attic, and a damned hot and stuffy one at that, and about 10 girls were housed there. I think I was 10. I was very lonely. I had no idea how to make friends. In contrast, Janet made friends easily and hung around with a large group. One day I was lying on my bed between classes, having a conversation with my stuffed bear. Janet came in with some other kids from some activity outside. She strode over to me and ripped my bear out of my hands, and told me to stop playing with a stuffed animal. It was embarrassing her.
At home in Falmouth, it was only when I would strike out on a walk "down back" with my nonjudgmental dog that I felt free to be. Maybe that's why the word and concept of freedom resonate so deeply with me. Freedom! Ain't that a gorgeous word?
Liking to have Rex out of the house has nothing to do with Rex, really. He tolerates whatever I do here, including, notably, my wretched attempts to rebuild my trombone embouchure. Still, I'd rather not have him in listening distance. It makes a difference in how I practice.
Also exciting is the response I've had to my search for music students. It's exhilarating (is that spelled right? I don't think so ...) yet scary to be opening myself up to sharing music. I'm not saying I have a lot of students -- just that I'm talking to people about music and seeing some enthusiasm and also seeing more possibilities. I'm discovering, too, that I hate the money aspect of teaching lessons. I just want people to come play with me. What I'd really like to do is charge people on the basis of how much they practice -- the more they practice, the less I charge, because the quicker they learn, the more fun they'll be to play with! Maybe Rex can come up with a practice-o-meter that we could imbed in students' instruments.
Last but not least, I have finally successfully papier-mache'd something. It's Kayti's mask for her parrot costume for Halloween (her best friend is going to be a pirate). I'm quite delighted with the result.
Now it's on to my own costume -- appropriately, a treasure chest!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
At last, a picture
At last, a picture on my blog. This is my daughter, Kayti, age 9, and her friend Finn, age 5, on that trampoline it took us six years to put up. Soon we'll have to take it down, because we live in the frozen North and outdoor equipment doesn't fare well in winter weather.
Well, it looks like this coming weekend will be the Time of the Great Rooster Slaughter. I'll kind of miss hearing 11 roosters crowing in chorus between 4 and 7 a.m. I did record them, and will try to upload it, but please, I just put up my first picture! Bear with me!
Why is it I think of a million things to say on my blog when I'm out walking, and then when I sit in front of the computer my head is completely devoid of anything resembling ideas? Must be all the Scrabble playing.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Deb Zone: A Separate Reality
Rex, my husband, made up the title for this blog entry. He said he wanted to write something on the subject, but he'll never get around to it, so I borrowed it.
You may have heard my dulcet voice last Sunday on NPR's Weekend Edition. The show's producers called me after I posted on their Soapbox blog about what kind of life I'll be facing in a couple of weeks when my severance pay from the newspaper runs out. In short order, they had me a) scheduled for a phone interview with Sunday host Liane Hansen and b) losing sleep thanks to my fear of sounding like a nincompoop on national radio.
After the interview, which took place at MPBN's studios in Portland, I was so horrified at the things I'd said that I didn't sleep for ANOTHER two nights, thinking about the clever responses I failed to make. For example, Ms. Hansen asked me if I had ever thought that at age 55 I'd be in this position, i.e., jobless, reduced to living in the cellar to keep warm and serving meals concocted from a pet or two. My on-air answer meandered around how Rex and I are unconventional and I've done a lot of jobs and blah blah blah ... the point being, I'm no stranger to belt-tightening. Which is an okay answer, but what I should have said was: "No way! I never thought I'd be lucky enough to have a farm, a husband, a daughter, and lots of animals! I expected to be living on income from bottle returns and picking my lunch out of a dumpster!" Which some people may take as facetious but it is the absolute truth!
Before I go, a funny observation by Kayti:
She'd picked up my trombone and tried to blow a note. I showed her how, and said, "It's kind of hard." She said, "I can't understand why you'd work so hard to play something that doesn't sound that good anyway."
Maybe it's time to play her some J.J. Johnson.
My very best to all of you,
LOVE, Debbi
You may have heard my dulcet voice last Sunday on NPR's Weekend Edition. The show's producers called me after I posted on their Soapbox blog about what kind of life I'll be facing in a couple of weeks when my severance pay from the newspaper runs out. In short order, they had me a) scheduled for a phone interview with Sunday host Liane Hansen and b) losing sleep thanks to my fear of sounding like a nincompoop on national radio.
After the interview, which took place at MPBN's studios in Portland, I was so horrified at the things I'd said that I didn't sleep for ANOTHER two nights, thinking about the clever responses I failed to make. For example, Ms. Hansen asked me if I had ever thought that at age 55 I'd be in this position, i.e., jobless, reduced to living in the cellar to keep warm and serving meals concocted from a pet or two. My on-air answer meandered around how Rex and I are unconventional and I've done a lot of jobs and blah blah blah ... the point being, I'm no stranger to belt-tightening. Which is an okay answer, but what I should have said was: "No way! I never thought I'd be lucky enough to have a farm, a husband, a daughter, and lots of animals! I expected to be living on income from bottle returns and picking my lunch out of a dumpster!" Which some people may take as facetious but it is the absolute truth!
Before I go, a funny observation by Kayti:
She'd picked up my trombone and tried to blow a note. I showed her how, and said, "It's kind of hard." She said, "I can't understand why you'd work so hard to play something that doesn't sound that good anyway."
Maybe it's time to play her some J.J. Johnson.
My very best to all of you,
LOVE, Debbi
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Hits Parade
So much posting, so little interest.
One of the things I hated about my former employer, the Portland Press Herald, turning Web-crazy was that the editors who switched to online journalism became so hooked on hit numbers. Every day my email would contain self-congratulatory messages about how many hits the damn site was getting. Half the hits (or possibly more) probably involved people either posting mean comments or people checking for mean comments and hotly protesting them.
You want a reason to especially dislike the human race, check what people say in reaction to political blogs. I've stumbled across a few, purely by naive accident, thinking someone might have something intelligent to say, and I've been blown away by the vituperation.
So do I care if my blog gets hits? Well, first of all, it appears that I have no way of checking. I used to have a tool called "Analytics" that let me track the number of hits, what search engines sent them, and what keywords were used. That seems to have disappeared in the most recent round of site "improvements." Second of all, I find myself not really caring. It's fun to write. And I've never really cared about being popular.
Good thing, huh?????
One of the things I hated about my former employer, the Portland Press Herald, turning Web-crazy was that the editors who switched to online journalism became so hooked on hit numbers. Every day my email would contain self-congratulatory messages about how many hits the damn site was getting. Half the hits (or possibly more) probably involved people either posting mean comments or people checking for mean comments and hotly protesting them.
You want a reason to especially dislike the human race, check what people say in reaction to political blogs. I've stumbled across a few, purely by naive accident, thinking someone might have something intelligent to say, and I've been blown away by the vituperation.
So do I care if my blog gets hits? Well, first of all, it appears that I have no way of checking. I used to have a tool called "Analytics" that let me track the number of hits, what search engines sent them, and what keywords were used. That seems to have disappeared in the most recent round of site "improvements." Second of all, I find myself not really caring. It's fun to write. And I've never really cared about being popular.
Good thing, huh?????
Friday, September 5, 2008
Options Narrowing
In a way, it's great to age. There's so much stuff you can't do anymore, the upside being that you can't berate yourself for not doing them. One of my sisters finds herself unable to vacuum because of the arthritis in her back. Do you think that bothers her? No, indeed! She lounges around eating bonbons while dust kitties collect under her counters. I myself can no longer bend to empty the cat litterbox. Bummer!
Some things, however, are tough to bid goodbye to. Trampoline jumping, for example.
We bought this trampoline at a yard sale five years ago, and every summer I'd say, THIS is the summer we're putting the trampoline up. Well, the years went by, the trampoline parts lay around in boxes or in less intelligent storage places, like the yard, and I got older and fatter and sorer.
It finally happened, though, and yesterday the trampoline rose like the phoenix as my husband and I dodged wasps and slapped mosquitoes and got really hot and sweaty, not in a good way.
At last, it was ready for the test. After five long years, so was I, and up I climbed.
Maybe this shouldn’t have surprised me, but the experience was not like I remembered from high school. When my feet left the trampoline surface, my skin and its underlying material (a.k.a. "blubber") seemed to leave a split second later. I could almost hear parts of my body faintly crying, "Hey, wait for me!" like a kid following her big brother. When I came down, my outsides -- two items of which in particular are quite substantial -- were still on the way up. It's like two of me were rising and falling in a slightly unsynchronized fashion.
As if this weren't enough, I think the bouncing affected my sinuses. Even 24 hours later, my face hurts and my eyeballs feel like they've been put in a blender on high.
So which comes first: getting in shape -- including strengthening my eye muscles and undergoing breast reduction surgery -- to be able to bounce on the trampoline, or bouncing on the trampoline to get in shape?
I don‘t really care, because frankly, it makes me ill now just to think about bouncing. I've got better things to do, anyway, like figuring out where to build the shuffleboard court.
Some things, however, are tough to bid goodbye to. Trampoline jumping, for example.
We bought this trampoline at a yard sale five years ago, and every summer I'd say, THIS is the summer we're putting the trampoline up. Well, the years went by, the trampoline parts lay around in boxes or in less intelligent storage places, like the yard, and I got older and fatter and sorer.
It finally happened, though, and yesterday the trampoline rose like the phoenix as my husband and I dodged wasps and slapped mosquitoes and got really hot and sweaty, not in a good way.
At last, it was ready for the test. After five long years, so was I, and up I climbed.
Maybe this shouldn’t have surprised me, but the experience was not like I remembered from high school. When my feet left the trampoline surface, my skin and its underlying material (a.k.a. "blubber") seemed to leave a split second later. I could almost hear parts of my body faintly crying, "Hey, wait for me!" like a kid following her big brother. When I came down, my outsides -- two items of which in particular are quite substantial -- were still on the way up. It's like two of me were rising and falling in a slightly unsynchronized fashion.
As if this weren't enough, I think the bouncing affected my sinuses. Even 24 hours later, my face hurts and my eyeballs feel like they've been put in a blender on high.
So which comes first: getting in shape -- including strengthening my eye muscles and undergoing breast reduction surgery -- to be able to bounce on the trampoline, or bouncing on the trampoline to get in shape?
I don‘t really care, because frankly, it makes me ill now just to think about bouncing. I've got better things to do, anyway, like figuring out where to build the shuffleboard court.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Dog Days
The last of our pups will be going to her new home in Bethlehem, N.H., at the end of this week. Today is Kayti's first day of fourth grade. And Rex is finishing up his task of shortening the Quonset hut so we are in compliance with setback rules.
It's been kind of a busy summer here at my little farm. We hatched a bunch of chicks, birthed and nurtured five shih tzu puppies, grew a huge pumpkin vine and a dizzyingly tall group of electric blue morning glories, and watched much of our garden succumb to sogginess maintained by daily downpours.
More than once this summer I literally fled from the house at 10 p.m. or later to take a walk. I was starved for time alone. Much as I dreaded getting back into the routine of rousting Kayti for school, now that she's back, the six hours of silence is more than golden. It's platinum. It's uranium.
I've started volunteering for a free health clinic, mainly to keep myself in touch with how much I don't want to work for anyone else. We're having a little trouble with my training, though. For three consecutive Tuesdays, the training has been postponed because of car trouble, trainer's unavailability, and trainer's forgetting to come in.
I was there alone this last time, and not knowing what to do or how to do it, I passed the time discovering through an online questionnaire that physically, I am actually 2.5 years older than my chronological age.
This, believe it or not, was good news. I've been complaining for years that I feel like I'm 80 years old. So discovering that I'm more than 20 years younger than that gives me kind of a new lease on life.
As usual, it was tough answering questions about my life. One of the questions, for example, gave me the choice of "happily married" or "unhappily married." I checked off "happily married," only because I have a handy kind of guy at my beck and call. That makes me happy. So although Rex drives me insane much of the time, I'm glad I've got him.
But does that throw off the results? I don't know, and I won't know unless they add a third choice: "tolerably married."
It's been kind of a busy summer here at my little farm. We hatched a bunch of chicks, birthed and nurtured five shih tzu puppies, grew a huge pumpkin vine and a dizzyingly tall group of electric blue morning glories, and watched much of our garden succumb to sogginess maintained by daily downpours.
More than once this summer I literally fled from the house at 10 p.m. or later to take a walk. I was starved for time alone. Much as I dreaded getting back into the routine of rousting Kayti for school, now that she's back, the six hours of silence is more than golden. It's platinum. It's uranium.
I've started volunteering for a free health clinic, mainly to keep myself in touch with how much I don't want to work for anyone else. We're having a little trouble with my training, though. For three consecutive Tuesdays, the training has been postponed because of car trouble, trainer's unavailability, and trainer's forgetting to come in.
I was there alone this last time, and not knowing what to do or how to do it, I passed the time discovering through an online questionnaire that physically, I am actually 2.5 years older than my chronological age.
This, believe it or not, was good news. I've been complaining for years that I feel like I'm 80 years old. So discovering that I'm more than 20 years younger than that gives me kind of a new lease on life.
As usual, it was tough answering questions about my life. One of the questions, for example, gave me the choice of "happily married" or "unhappily married." I checked off "happily married," only because I have a handy kind of guy at my beck and call. That makes me happy. So although Rex drives me insane much of the time, I'm glad I've got him.
But does that throw off the results? I don't know, and I won't know unless they add a third choice: "tolerably married."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
