jubilation 90....caught up

I am now officially caught up on my Jubilations.  

jubilation 89....picking up a Levi

We have to travel up a inclined road of about 2 miles on our way to school.   It was drizzling today as it has been for almost the entire month of March.  On our way today, I noticed a boy/young man ( I am no longer able to discern ages between 15 and 25....they all look the same to me) walking up the hill, hair slicked back and wearing a suit, battling the rain.  I passed him and had a twinge of guilt.  He looks like he has somewhere to be and will end up soaking wet when he arrives.  I turned around and asked him if he needed a ride.  He looked nervous and skeptical.

      "O.K.  Maybe just to the top of the hill.  Thanks"

He slumped in the front seat and tucked his chin to his chest.

"Hi.  I'm Vanessa"

"Levi"

I don't know what it is about the name Levi, but I have never met one that isn't the nicest person in the world.  How is that?   

"Where are you from, Levi?"

"Oh, just a little town called Grand Coulee."

"I know that town and I think it is haunted."

He laughs and I know that he is no longer nervous and worried that I will kill him and dump in off the nearest cliff.   He lets me drive him past the top of the hill to his final destination.

He talks nonstop all the way.  He arrives at his job interview, dry.   

88....Sharing the first read

Emmy and Savanna borrowed the first of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson from a friend.  They couldn't agree on who would read it first, so they compromised on reading it aloud to each other.   Hours on the bed tonight.  

87.....minutes from my front door.

Ipod....check
Great song......check
No people.....check
dancing in the trees.....check

jubilation 86....tiny beauty

Flip, this is a horrible picture of something so miniscule and beautiful.  This is a 2 inch by 2 inch patch I stumbled upon on my hike today.  These flowers were not much bigger than a pin head.   Oh, how I love this world.

jubilation 85...tobias wolfe

"I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now."
— Tobias Wolff

I just read "The Night in Question: Stories".  I have always meant to read some Tobias, but never got myself around to doing it.  I am in love with his writing because he is able to so gracefully include all that is wrong with the world and all that is right with the world in one complete bundle.   He is upbeat and realistic at the same time.   It is exactly how I want to be...finding the right balance between empathy and joviality.  

jubilation 84....family walk

jubilation 83......Ballyball

On the way home from school:

Ansel:   "When I was little, I used to think that Volleyball was called Ballyball."
Me:  "Really, when did you learn that it was Volleyball?"
Ansel:  "Today."

jubilation 82.....phat fat cat for 50 cents

Please direct all money to Ansel.


I love the glasses.

jubilation 81....Wooloomooloo Bar

These bars always seduce me while checking out at our local organic store...until I see the price of this seduction....$3.00 for 14 grams of chocolate!!!  Not quite enough to satisfy my chocolate needs.  But the possibility that the quality of the ingredients in this bar, which include hemp seeds and indonesian coconut, might outshine the morsility of the bar.  This year, I am trying to become a Yes Woman to those things in which I would have formerly said no.  I had to try it.  Even if just for the Winnie the Pooh thrill of saying, "I ate a wooloomooloo today."

I followed the directions on the back of the wrapper.  I breathed ujjayi breaths.  The bar seemed glossy and full of good temper.  I smelled.  I snapped.  I tasted and let the chocolate melt around my tongue.

It was very good.  But not life changing and I wouldn't blink twice at a trade involving cadbury milk chocolate eggs.  Now when I am buying my tomatoes and pita bread, craving something sweet, I can look at those bars and say, "I know what you have to offer, but I am saving myself for something with a little more satisfying."

jubilation 80....burned shirt

Just like his mother, Ansel has a hard time getting up and ready in the morning.  It helps when we have a routine and things that motivate him.  He also suffers, on a significantly lower level than his mother, from  cold body syndrome.  I have found that if we warm his clothes (without buttons, zippers or snaps, of course) in the microwave for a minute, Ansel will dress at lightning speed to enjoy the warmth of the clothes for as long as possible.   I have told him many times..."Never cook it a lot. Never more than a minute! Or something may happen. You never know what"

Well, today Ansel just had to find out what would happen if he put his clothes in for TWO minutes.  Maybe, he wondered, they would come out just warm enough for twice the amount of  microwave coziness.  After today, Ansel will probably never put his clothes in for more than one minute.  Cause something could happen and now he knows what!

I am so tempted to send him to school in this on April Fools Day.  What would his teachers think?  Should I do it?

jubilation 79...shooting with a harness

 Our summer trip this year is going to be a two-week epic exploration of southern Utah.  Corey has studied enough of the area to receive a degree in southern Utah recreation.  In addition to mapping each day of  the excursion to the nook, crag, slot, and cranny; he is preparing the kids for the more technical moves they will require (the photo is of the Subway in Zion National Park).   I don't think Corey knows how excited I am about being in this place that owns a huge portion of my heart....I am building protective walls of apathy just in case it doesn't work out..... and the kids better not complain while I am singing my psalms of jubilation.

Corey set up a rappel line this afternoon and had them practice.  

Ansel utilized his waiting time by shooting tongue- stuffed- cheek baskets.  I had fun spying on them from the office window.

jubilation 78....Spring!!!

I was skeptical....but Spring has made a slight appearance right on time.  Happy first Day of Spring!

jubilation 77...Ansel's last basketball game

 Chick out Ansel's air

 Mean defense

 Looking for the pass

 More Big "D"

 Running down the court....he was often the first one down

 Team spirit

 Tongue in cheek offense

The odd hours of his Saturday day afternoon games completely destroyed any plans for day trips.  I wouldn't trade these games for a million day trips.

jubilation 76....antiquing

My favorite find of the day was this old leather trunk.  I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with it, but I will figure something out.  In the meantime, I will just open it up and sniff years yonder and wonder what kind of adventures this trunk had.  So many possibilities.  It did have a name inside.  Maybe that will be a research project for another day.  

This book was published in 1936 and is hilarious.  One quote from his "Green Postures" chapter says, "I wasn't to emphasize the fact that it is not necessary to sit like an indignant dowager at a risque show, or walk like a Prussian goose-stepper to keep correct posture.  When I read through this, I though of all those men and women in the 30's and 40's who always had perfect posture.  I wonder if this book helped straighten them up.

This was perhaps my strangest purchase.: Chamberlain's Colic Remedy (c. 1935).  After reading the ingredients, I had to do some research on the quack medicine.   It was introduced in the 1880s by the Chamberlain Medicine Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. It seems to have been sold into the 1940s.

There are several reports in the early 1900s to this medicine and it is not hard to see why. The ingredients included45% alcohol, ether, chloroform, and chlorbutanol (1930s)...earlier formulations included narcotics such as morphine. This troubling report appeared in the July 1906 issue of the Homeopathic Envoy:

"Up in Vancouver "Chamberlain's Colic, Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy" was too much for a baby. The Vancouver World published the facts with the coroner's verdict in the case. The Chamberlain people then sent a defense to the World with a large advertisement which was refused. The medicine company then sued the newspaper for libel. The newspaper is now demanding and will probably get such legislative enactment as will in future control the sale of such dangerous medicines...Ella Clark went to the Insane Asylum at Mt. Pleasant in January, 1906. She was a morphine fiend and used the Chamberlain Colic Cure in large quantities. In Shelburne Falls, Mass., there is a man who began to take the same remedy for diarrhoea and now takes from two to four ounces nightly for its sedative effect and his doctor says he is a nervous wreck."

Wow! 45 percent alcohol just for flatulence.  Online I found some persons who are desperately trying to find out if it is still sold because apparently, it was very "helpful".

My cheapest purchase was this post card, also from the 1930s.  I especially loved the letter.  I think I love antiquing because each thing I buy is connected to someone else life that had a story.  It is a mystery or a build your own adventure.  I started wondering what relationship did these women have.  Did the marriage end.  "I hope you and tip don't kill yourselves when you get in a fight," sounds pretty serious.  

It is a small peak into what things were like many years ago.   I would like to write a book tracking down the origins of all my antique finds and then finding out what I can about their lives.  I am sure that it has been done, but I would like to take the same journey.   

So my strange confession is that holding this stuff almost makes me feel like I made a dead friend and that I am helping to pass along a piece of their lives.   Holding something that they help or finding value in something they found value in....it is a small connection to a stranger...and I guess you could say that I have feelings of kinship and may even feel ghost vibes around them.   

And nothing finishes off antiquing better than Pho and my sister in law with whom to share the adventure

jubilation 75....Savanna's viola concert

Middle school kids make me cringe much of the time.  I want to take each and every one of them and wring out all their drenched teen angst.  Listening to and watching Savanna's orchestra class reminds me that there possibly be something good coming out of this time of life.  

jubilation 74....Spokane's Banksy

A few weeks ago, Corey and I watched the film above, which goes to great lengths to illuminate the viewer on the "street art" movement, and was absurdly helpful to those people, such as I, not familiar with urban culture or  Shepard Fairey (most famous for the Obama poster that we've all seen, the one that's all red, white, and blue), Banksy, or...Mr. Brainwash.  The movement consists of artwork that some would call "graffiti":  paintings,  stencils, sculptures, and posters glued to walls in public.  He did a series of 9 pieces on the wall of Israel's West Bank Barrier that left me choking down tears (although I have to admit that I cried at the gym just at the sight of this darn Subaru commercial).  I have since been fascinated, wondering how I could become Spokane's  political commentator via street art.  I mean, who would ever suspect me.   I even have a few masks I could use.   Here's his website-and some of his work.

The other day when I was running at Manito park, I saw this and realized that someone has beat me to it.   But I think I can do better than rats and guns.  

jubilation 73...meanwhile back at the homestead....

If we didn't pick Marne up from the airport, I would have sworn she was blown in by a very strong wind complete with her traveling carpetbag and umbrella.    While we were soaking in the arizonan sun, Marne kept the kids busy with all sorts of adventurous projects that I am not capable of providing.  I am pretty sure that they had a tea party on the ceiling with Mr. Wigg, although they aren't confessing to any such occasion.  Thank you, Marne!  You can blow back around any old time.  

homemade rubber stamps

1000 layer lemon crepe cake.