Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
"And these days I remember the days
that have your name on them, like a name on a ship,
and how we saw through two open doors
one man who was thinking, and how we looked at the clouds
with the ancient gaze we inherited from our fathers,
who waited for rain,
and how at night, when the world cooled off,
your body kept its warmth for a long time,
like the sea."
--Yehuda Amichai, "From Summer or Its End"
that have your name on them, like a name on a ship,
and how we saw through two open doors
one man who was thinking, and how we looked at the clouds
with the ancient gaze we inherited from our fathers,
who waited for rain,
and how at night, when the world cooled off,
your body kept its warmth for a long time,
like the sea."
--Yehuda Amichai, "From Summer or Its End"
Sunday, January 29, 2012
2011's bright and heroic moments. Things to celebrate.
"Dr. David Bowman, out food shopping on a Saturday morning in January with his wife at a Tuscon Safeway, hears gunfire and immediately begins to triage twenty-five shooting victims, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords..."
"During his morning commute on the New York subway, Joe Lozito disarms a knife-wielding attacker who had already killed four during a twenty-eight hour murder spree. Lozito is stabbed seven times before he is able to get the knife away from the man..."
"Ken Mehlman, former campaign manager for George W. Bush, who revealed last year that he is gay, sways four Republican state senators to vote for legalizing gay marriage in New York..."
"At least twenty-two states report budget surpluses in 2011..."
"State workers in Indiana are given bonus checks worth up to $1000 with the state's extra funds..."
"During an economics class, University of Washington faculty member Ali Tarhouni informs his students that he fled Libya as a young man in the early 1970s and was sentenced to death in absentia for his student activism against the Qaddafi regime. A month later, Tarhouni leaves to join the rebel forces in Bengazhi and is later appointed Libya's minister of finance..."
"Baffled by six-year-old Nicholas Volker's deadly intestinal disease, which forced him to eat through a feeding tube, doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee sequence the boy's genome in an effort to diagnose and cure him--a medical first. Identifying a never-before-seen mutation in his DNA, they surgically rebuild his immune system through a cord-blood transplant. After a 121-day hospital stay, Nicholas Volker returns home to enjoy his favorite foods: steak and vanilla frozen custard..."
"Running a 5K cross-country race in Minnesota, Andover High junior Josh Ripley hears the screams of a fallen runner who is writhing in pain and bleeding profusely from his leg. Ripley lifts the boy and carries him half a mile back to his coaches at the starting line. While the injured runner is taken to the emergency room, Ripley sets off on the course again and completes the 5K..."
"The GI Bill expands education benefits for post 9/11 veterans to include nondegree vocational and technical schools, flight programs, apprenticeships, and on-the-job training..."
"Joseph Edwards, homeless and taking refuge from a cold winter night under a bridge in Merced, California, watches as a VW Beetle skids off the road and plunges nose-first into ten-foot-deep Bear Creek. Edwards dives into freezing water and pulls three people from the car. Told that there's one more person inside, Edwards dives down several more times before he locates an unconscious man trapped in his seat belt and pulls him to shore..." (this one reminds me of my old friend Martin)
"Convinced that police are pursuing the wrong leads, twelve-year-old Jessica Maple begins investigating a robbery at her great-grandmother's house in Atlanta. Within days Maple locates the stolen items in a pawnshop, traces them back to the two men, confronts one of the suspects and elicits a confession..."
"Leaving a career as a Burton snowboard designer at the age of forty, Douglass Powell enrolls in medical school and, after completing his residency at Madigan Army Medical Center, accepts his first assignment: brigade surgeon with the 4th Infantry Division in Afghanistan..."
"Tea Obreht, twenty-six, who flex Belgrade as a young girl during the Balkan war, publishes her first novel, The Tiger's Wife, written while she was a student at Cornell. In June, she becomes the youngest woman ever to win the Orange Prize for fiction; in October she's nominated for a National Book Award..." (I read this book last March and it is remarkable and certainly deserving of every last award.)
"After crashing a single-engine plane in the Tetons, Joseph Richards, seventy-four, regains consciousness and, despite suffering from a broken back and jaw, rewires the plane's transmitter. Rescuers locate the plane and Richards within four hours..." (this one is for my gramps)
"Animal Kingdom, a 20-1 long shot who had never raced on dirt, wins the Kentucky Derby by two and three-quarter lengths..."
"The thirty-two Afghan men and women who celebrated commencement at the American University in Afghanistan's first graduating class..."
"Drunk driving falls to its lowest level in seventeen years..."
"Violent crime falls to its lowest level in forty years..."
"Rates of teens giving birth fall to their lowest level in seventy years..."
"As rising floodwaters threatened their tiny studio in northern Vermont during Hurricane Irene and cut off communication in the area, the staff of WDEV, a local family-owned independent radio station, remained on the air throughout the night, opening their phone lines to relay listeners' reports of road washouts, downed power lines, destroyed homes, and stranded villagers..."
"While serving in Afghanistan, Army major Glenn Battschinger encounters a young boy holding his own leaking bladder, which was outside his body because of a rare birth defect. Battschinger has him flown to the United States, where doctors in New Jersey perform corrective surgery on the six-year-old, free of charge..."
"Seven months after she was shot in the forehead, Representative Gabrielle Giffords returns to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast her vote on the U.S. debt-ceiling bill..."
"The front page of the Detroit Free Press on September 22, with the headline "UAW Talks Shift to Ford" unintentionally creased in a vending machine..." (see below)
--Esquire Magazine, December 2011, "The Best" by Andrew Chaikivsky
"During his morning commute on the New York subway, Joe Lozito disarms a knife-wielding attacker who had already killed four during a twenty-eight hour murder spree. Lozito is stabbed seven times before he is able to get the knife away from the man..."
"Ken Mehlman, former campaign manager for George W. Bush, who revealed last year that he is gay, sways four Republican state senators to vote for legalizing gay marriage in New York..."
"At least twenty-two states report budget surpluses in 2011..."
"State workers in Indiana are given bonus checks worth up to $1000 with the state's extra funds..."
"During an economics class, University of Washington faculty member Ali Tarhouni informs his students that he fled Libya as a young man in the early 1970s and was sentenced to death in absentia for his student activism against the Qaddafi regime. A month later, Tarhouni leaves to join the rebel forces in Bengazhi and is later appointed Libya's minister of finance..."
"Baffled by six-year-old Nicholas Volker's deadly intestinal disease, which forced him to eat through a feeding tube, doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee sequence the boy's genome in an effort to diagnose and cure him--a medical first. Identifying a never-before-seen mutation in his DNA, they surgically rebuild his immune system through a cord-blood transplant. After a 121-day hospital stay, Nicholas Volker returns home to enjoy his favorite foods: steak and vanilla frozen custard..."
"Running a 5K cross-country race in Minnesota, Andover High junior Josh Ripley hears the screams of a fallen runner who is writhing in pain and bleeding profusely from his leg. Ripley lifts the boy and carries him half a mile back to his coaches at the starting line. While the injured runner is taken to the emergency room, Ripley sets off on the course again and completes the 5K..."
"The GI Bill expands education benefits for post 9/11 veterans to include nondegree vocational and technical schools, flight programs, apprenticeships, and on-the-job training..."
"Joseph Edwards, homeless and taking refuge from a cold winter night under a bridge in Merced, California, watches as a VW Beetle skids off the road and plunges nose-first into ten-foot-deep Bear Creek. Edwards dives into freezing water and pulls three people from the car. Told that there's one more person inside, Edwards dives down several more times before he locates an unconscious man trapped in his seat belt and pulls him to shore..." (this one reminds me of my old friend Martin)
"Convinced that police are pursuing the wrong leads, twelve-year-old Jessica Maple begins investigating a robbery at her great-grandmother's house in Atlanta. Within days Maple locates the stolen items in a pawnshop, traces them back to the two men, confronts one of the suspects and elicits a confession..."
"Leaving a career as a Burton snowboard designer at the age of forty, Douglass Powell enrolls in medical school and, after completing his residency at Madigan Army Medical Center, accepts his first assignment: brigade surgeon with the 4th Infantry Division in Afghanistan..."
"Tea Obreht, twenty-six, who flex Belgrade as a young girl during the Balkan war, publishes her first novel, The Tiger's Wife, written while she was a student at Cornell. In June, she becomes the youngest woman ever to win the Orange Prize for fiction; in October she's nominated for a National Book Award..." (I read this book last March and it is remarkable and certainly deserving of every last award.)
"After crashing a single-engine plane in the Tetons, Joseph Richards, seventy-four, regains consciousness and, despite suffering from a broken back and jaw, rewires the plane's transmitter. Rescuers locate the plane and Richards within four hours..." (this one is for my gramps)
"Animal Kingdom, a 20-1 long shot who had never raced on dirt, wins the Kentucky Derby by two and three-quarter lengths..."
"The thirty-two Afghan men and women who celebrated commencement at the American University in Afghanistan's first graduating class..."
"Drunk driving falls to its lowest level in seventeen years..."
"Violent crime falls to its lowest level in forty years..."
"Rates of teens giving birth fall to their lowest level in seventy years..."
"As rising floodwaters threatened their tiny studio in northern Vermont during Hurricane Irene and cut off communication in the area, the staff of WDEV, a local family-owned independent radio station, remained on the air throughout the night, opening their phone lines to relay listeners' reports of road washouts, downed power lines, destroyed homes, and stranded villagers..."
"While serving in Afghanistan, Army major Glenn Battschinger encounters a young boy holding his own leaking bladder, which was outside his body because of a rare birth defect. Battschinger has him flown to the United States, where doctors in New Jersey perform corrective surgery on the six-year-old, free of charge..."
"Seven months after she was shot in the forehead, Representative Gabrielle Giffords returns to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast her vote on the U.S. debt-ceiling bill..."
"The front page of the Detroit Free Press on September 22, with the headline "UAW Talks Shift to Ford" unintentionally creased in a vending machine..." (see below)
--Esquire Magazine, December 2011, "The Best" by Andrew Chaikivsky
Friday, January 27, 2012
A fantastic poem...and from someone I work with! I love being surprised about people. This is beautiful work.
Skin
My skin is mine it is not on loan
I met you and felt I had come home.
I got to know you and remembered my name
At last.
I had forgotten myself in the past.
I was trapped in darkness on the shelf
between Repressed Feelings
and Pursuit of Wealth.
You pulled me carefully down
Dusted my cover
Cracked my spine and stood back in wonder
At the magic that erupted
From my open pages
Fire and works never before seen by sages
Conversations continuing beyond ages
Sacred spirits set free from cages.
When our space and souls collide
The laws of nature are useless
The stuff of society seems so stupid
Fear and Anger cannot ruin it
The sickest thought cannot fumigate
This love for life and its human faces,
This love for you written on my pages.
My name is not immune to time
but I have breath that lives beyond life,
Salt on my skin from tears you have cried,
A beat in my heart that has known you’re alive.
- Chloe Sparacino
My skin is mine it is not on loan
I met you and felt I had come home.
I got to know you and remembered my name
At last.
I had forgotten myself in the past.
I was trapped in darkness on the shelf
between Repressed Feelings
and Pursuit of Wealth.
You pulled me carefully down
Dusted my cover
Cracked my spine and stood back in wonder
At the magic that erupted
From my open pages
Fire and works never before seen by sages
Conversations continuing beyond ages
Sacred spirits set free from cages.
When our space and souls collide
The laws of nature are useless
The stuff of society seems so stupid
Fear and Anger cannot ruin it
The sickest thought cannot fumigate
This love for life and its human faces,
This love for you written on my pages.
My name is not immune to time
but I have breath that lives beyond life,
Salt on my skin from tears you have cried,
A beat in my heart that has known you’re alive.
- Chloe Sparacino
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Choose Something Like a Star
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
--Robert Frost
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
--Robert Frost
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
"The Body is the Cause of Love"
The body is the cause of love;
after that, the fortress that protects it;
after that, love's prison.
But when the body dies, love is set free
in wild abundance,
like a slot machine that breaks down
and with a furious ringing pours out all at once
all the coins of
all the generations of luck.
--Yehuda Amichai
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Thursday, August 26, 2010
San Diego visit
So, Peter and Sandra called me to ask if I might be interested in house-sitting/cat-sitting for them for a few days if I was in town. I said, no, I am not in town, but YES, I would love to come house-sit for you! So I drove down Saturday (tons of traffic all the way from right after the grapevine to San Diego, my legs were killing me from all the stop and go/brake and gas). It was so lovely there. I miss it so much. The weather was a dream. These pics are just me playing around with my fancy camera. I wanted to try black and white and I must tell you, it is classy. It can make the most drab little photos seem like pure art. I love it!The photo above and below is taken from the farmer's market in OB (or Ocean Beach), a little hippy town right down the road from my alma mater. The tuberoses are intoxicating. You can smell them all throughout the little street market and I couldn't resist. This is one for the road.
This is my friend Josh (including new mustache). We worked together for two summers in Conference Services and he just worked a third summer this last year. Crazy man
Me and Julianne trying a jumping pic that ended up looking like a hilarious/ridiculous ghost picture. I love my hysterical facial expression. That is the problem with jumping pics for me--I always forget that the face is supposed to be involved and always end up looking really doofy.
This is Julianne and Julianne. We all met in London. Here we had just come back from the Mandarin House--great chinese food.
Julianne and Julianne.
These are all taken at OB. Dad loves OB. It makes me think of him now. I woke up early and drove down. It was the first time I had seen it in early morning (generally I don't function well in the morning). But I was charged with being in a place I love and couldn't stay in bed. It was foggy and I sat on the edge of the beach and drank some starbucks black iced tea, and eating an apple-fritter, called Dad to say "hey" and make him jealous of where I was, haha.
Narragansett Street. One of my fave Loma Streets. Straight shot to the ocean. gorgeous.
This was taken downtown. I have this love of Starbucks--difficult to explain. I love seeing all the different little shops and the variations between town and country and state.
Turk and Caico. Named for the tropical islands. They are such wonderful cats. I think even someone who hated cats would like them. You can't help but respect Turk. He is so dignified, haha. (turk is the big light colored cat)
Ahhhh, Chipotle. how I love your burritos...
Sandra grows plumeria out on her deck. I have never before seen them in bloom like this--normally they are just creepy looking naked branches. beautiful they are like this.
out on the deck.
Turk
This is the Swap Meet. Julianne and I went on Sunday to see what we could find for her new apartment.
Talbot Street.
Lemonade at the Swap Meet.
This is the view from Peter and Sandra's deck. This is a pretty good picture and still it does not suffice to describe the breathtaking calm of the harbor.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Texas...so far
This is Texas. Dad and I drove down on his Harley to see Galveston and Kemah. It was so great...really, really hot--but great.
This was taken at Kemah boardwalk. There was a place off the walk where you could feed the catfish. There were so many they were practically walking on each other's backs to get the snacks. Poor ducks barely stood a chance...
Home
Exeter
Jimmi
Lory...bah ahahahahahahahahhaa!
These pics plus the ones from Vegas and Texas are taken with my new Canon Rebel, my grad gift from my mom. It is the most wonderful camera in the world. I'm in love.
Vegas
Weird Old Man statue at 50's diner on the road to Vegas
Komodo Dragon at the Mandalay Bay Aquarium
Teeny New York
Paris!...in Vegas
View from the top of the Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower
Bellagio
Hoover Dam
My first trip to Las Vegas...grad gift from my Grandparents
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)