I think I made a New Year's resolution last year to "talk less and listen more" but I can't find it anywhere, on blog or otherwise in print. If the universe speaks to one it is talking to me. Over the last few days I have contracted yet another flu/cold thing. Starting the day before Christmas a sore throat began to manifest but I was cooking this year so giving in to illness was not an option. S.O.v.2, the baby gal, had already been to the doc on Tuesday for pink eye but she too was not mending but getting worse. Christmas day I just concentrated on cooking dinner and getting everything out on time and warm - the constant challange! I was sort of oblivious to the family goings on - the kids opening presents, the kids throwing all the sandbox toys over the fence into the neighbor's yard, the toy explosion they detonated.
Dinner complete, everyone fed and a kaluha and coffee in hand and it really hit - I felt awful and had the worst sore throat I'd had since childhood. So, Friday morning, egged on by my mommasita (ironically enough I recall a Christmas dinner two years ago at her house where she was too sick to even come down the stairs so I cooked, she resisted all insistence that she get her butt to an urgent care) and S.O. I hiked mine and S.O.v.2's big and little (respectively) butts off to the urgent care. Two hours later and prescriptions dropped off at the Rite Aid I was beat and didn't emerge till late in the afternoon only to find my family heading off to their hotel.
Oh, did I mention that when I woke up on Friday morning I had no voice? And it has not surfaced yet, two days with no voice. So, yes, universe, I hear you. Talk less, listen more, that is my new year's resolution. Whether I like it or not.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Thursday, December 04, 2008
A Pretty Perfect Day
I say a pretty perfect day begins with art and ends with art.
This morning I began my newest job (yes, I have a few of these) as a Teaching Artist with the McCallum Theatre Institute. Well, technically speaking I have already started but hadn't been in a classroom. This morning I joined a fellow Teaching Artist to sit in on her first session in a unit studying flamenco with 5th graders from a local elementary school. I love kids because they aren't particularly charming or adorable or fascination or whatever the many adjective people lob onto them. They are just real, which is frankly, damned refreshing. They aren't particularly trying to 'be' anything or 'do' anything or 'accomplish' anything, they are so busy learning and being and absorbing that they can't help but be real.
Then as I was driving home I heard a thunkety thunk and thunk to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound good, better look at that when I get to my destination" Well some kind citizen honked at me to tell me my tire was flat. So I filled it up but that piece of rubber was having none of it. It blew before I was two blocks from the gas station. So I called S.O. told him the situation, called Triple A. All of this could have pissed me off but I was in such a great mood that it just seemed like the next thing to do. I did worry slightly that I would be late picking up S.O.v.1 from school but I was sure I could flirt the tow truck driver into swinging by the school, so I wasn't really worried about it. BUT the amazing thing was, when I was on the phone with Triple A (I had pulled over next to a vacant lot with a bunch of date palms in Rancho Mirage) I notices a squirrel running across the lot. My eyes followed him and then I noticed a red tailed hawk swoop out of a tree, follow him around and then land on him, grab him, hold him down till he was dead and then eat him. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Yella, weren't you appalled? Where was your compassion for the squirrel" and my answer to you would be "No. It seemed perfectly natural" and it did. It was fascinating. It was, frankly, just life and/or nature (whichever you prefer) in action and so it seemed kind of great that I was there watching it.
Then I had some minutes - uninterrupted!!! - to read over the notes from the session of that morning. Then the tow truck driver - who was a lovely human being - arrived and took my car to the tire repair shop. Whilst there the shop owner recognized my truck and remembered S.O. who had had a tire repaired there just a few weeks earlier. Apparently S.O. made an impression....
Then the tow truck driver dropped me off close to my neighborhood! Nice! I mean, I was well within walking distance anyway, but he just saved my bunions a little bit of wear and tear. I just had to tell him it was good karma.
So, got home, drove S.O. to work, went and returned an unneeded cork board and left with seldom seen cash right next door to a Coffee Bean. Had 45 min. till time to pick up S.O.v.1 so sat and had a coffee and !!!!45 min. of UNINTERRUPTED time to brainstorm some story ideas!!!
Picked up S.O.v.1, went to return my brand new glasses with the antireflective coating melted on and manager apologized profusely. HAD two quarters to get S.O.v.1 a treat from the candy machine, came home, did his homework, picked up S.O.v.2 from school, shopped for dinner, ate and then....
Went to see a Flamenco dance group from Spain at the McCallum theatre with S.O.vs1&2. The look on S.O.v.2's face alone was worth the imminent fuss that comes along with starting an extracurricular activity AT bedtime! She was just beside herself happy within the first two minutes of the dance. And during the second act I noticed S.O.v.1 doing flamenco hands in the air while watching riveted! For an artist there is just nothing better.
They were just amazing. Muscular, passionate (I do not use that word often), sinuey, emotional, raw and human. Compania Flamenco Jose Porcel. If they ever happen to your town, I wag my finger at any who miss it.
And then we went to pick up the S.O. at work. Yes, at 10:20pm there was indeed fuss but I would do the day all over again, exactly the same way. I don't even miss the nap I desperately needed all day after being sick with a cold for the past three days... sometimes joy just wins out over ill.
This morning I began my newest job (yes, I have a few of these) as a Teaching Artist with the McCallum Theatre Institute. Well, technically speaking I have already started but hadn't been in a classroom. This morning I joined a fellow Teaching Artist to sit in on her first session in a unit studying flamenco with 5th graders from a local elementary school. I love kids because they aren't particularly charming or adorable or fascination or whatever the many adjective people lob onto them. They are just real, which is frankly, damned refreshing. They aren't particularly trying to 'be' anything or 'do' anything or 'accomplish' anything, they are so busy learning and being and absorbing that they can't help but be real.
Then as I was driving home I heard a thunkety thunk and thunk to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound good, better look at that when I get to my destination" Well some kind citizen honked at me to tell me my tire was flat. So I filled it up but that piece of rubber was having none of it. It blew before I was two blocks from the gas station. So I called S.O. told him the situation, called Triple A. All of this could have pissed me off but I was in such a great mood that it just seemed like the next thing to do. I did worry slightly that I would be late picking up S.O.v.1 from school but I was sure I could flirt the tow truck driver into swinging by the school, so I wasn't really worried about it. BUT the amazing thing was, when I was on the phone with Triple A (I had pulled over next to a vacant lot with a bunch of date palms in Rancho Mirage) I notices a squirrel running across the lot. My eyes followed him and then I noticed a red tailed hawk swoop out of a tree, follow him around and then land on him, grab him, hold him down till he was dead and then eat him. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Yella, weren't you appalled? Where was your compassion for the squirrel" and my answer to you would be "No. It seemed perfectly natural" and it did. It was fascinating. It was, frankly, just life and/or nature (whichever you prefer) in action and so it seemed kind of great that I was there watching it.
Then I had some minutes - uninterrupted!!! - to read over the notes from the session of that morning. Then the tow truck driver - who was a lovely human being - arrived and took my car to the tire repair shop. Whilst there the shop owner recognized my truck and remembered S.O. who had had a tire repaired there just a few weeks earlier. Apparently S.O. made an impression....
Then the tow truck driver dropped me off close to my neighborhood! Nice! I mean, I was well within walking distance anyway, but he just saved my bunions a little bit of wear and tear. I just had to tell him it was good karma.
So, got home, drove S.O. to work, went and returned an unneeded cork board and left with seldom seen cash right next door to a Coffee Bean. Had 45 min. till time to pick up S.O.v.1 so sat and had a coffee and !!!!45 min. of UNINTERRUPTED time to brainstorm some story ideas!!!
Picked up S.O.v.1, went to return my brand new glasses with the antireflective coating melted on and manager apologized profusely. HAD two quarters to get S.O.v.1 a treat from the candy machine, came home, did his homework, picked up S.O.v.2 from school, shopped for dinner, ate and then....
Went to see a Flamenco dance group from Spain at the McCallum theatre with S.O.vs1&2. The look on S.O.v.2's face alone was worth the imminent fuss that comes along with starting an extracurricular activity AT bedtime! She was just beside herself happy within the first two minutes of the dance. And during the second act I noticed S.O.v.1 doing flamenco hands in the air while watching riveted! For an artist there is just nothing better.
They were just amazing. Muscular, passionate (I do not use that word often), sinuey, emotional, raw and human. Compania Flamenco Jose Porcel. If they ever happen to your town, I wag my finger at any who miss it.
And then we went to pick up the S.O. at work. Yes, at 10:20pm there was indeed fuss but I would do the day all over again, exactly the same way. I don't even miss the nap I desperately needed all day after being sick with a cold for the past three days... sometimes joy just wins out over ill.
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