Face me, I read lips

This week’s Photo Hunt theme is birds. These sea birds enjoyed resting on a rocky beach  in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. Here are some more sea birds further north, in Long Beach, Washington state.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get close enough to get a good shot. They began to scatter and fly away.  I don’t have a telephoto lense.  Wish I did.

Below is one of my favorite bird enthusiasts.  His name is Dad.  I have many great pictures of people watching birds, but  few photos of any actual birds.  This was taken on an Audubon outing a couple summers ago.

For more bird photos go to photo hunters

Taken from Jelly, who wanted someone to ’steal’ it.  I hope someone will steal it from me, or pass it on or whatever.

Outside my window:  clouds, gray, pine needles everywhere.

I am thinking about: work, food, staying warm, a December wedding, my daughter coming home for the weekend (YAY).

I am thankful for:

• my family, their support, love, and the way they overlook my many faults
• heat
• seasons
• friends
• furry friends
• the smell of cinnamon
• that I have lived long enough to learn from past mistakes.

I am wearing: jeans, black turtleneck, polka-dot socks — all thrift store finds. I am feeling happy that my outfit was recycled, that my $10.00 didn’t go toward supporting slave labor, that it came preshrunk so I already knew how it would wash up when I bought it.  I got compliments on this outfit — mainly because of the $1.00 beads I used as a name tag holder which perfectly accessorized everything.

I am remembering:

• to practice mindful eating habits
• to drink liquids
• to eat green leaves.

I keep forgetting: to pick up another neti pot.

I am reading: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. Interesting stuff.

On my mind: Today is my day off. I have no plans, but I tend to be a planner, so I’m cementing plans while typing here. It’s stacking up like this 1) tidy up a little 2) eye appointment 3) jazzercize 4) do nails 5) meditate 6) eat popcorn/watch a chick flick with daughter

Pondering these words: Perfect is the enemy of good– a reminder to aim for good, rather than perfection, which isn’t attainable anyway.

From the kitchen: coffee brewed with cinnamon– a blend I picked up from my last trip to Mexico.

Around the house: books, blankets, candles; where is molly??

in other stuff:
Yesterday I got a crown. This was the first time of having dental work done by this particular dentist and I’m happy with her work. I was just thinking how all of my doctors and dentists are women now, except for the spine specialist– who I’ll keep because he has accidentally cured my migraine headaches.  I am way overdue for physicals and tests of every kind.  I vow to make that a priority in the new year.

I have had a sore throat and stuffy nose for almost three weeks. I know it’s just a cold, but I can’t help thinking that it might be H1N1.  I have been told that I am one of those rare people who carries strep but isn’t affected by it all that much.  I get a small sore throat while others can’t swallow or eat.  I feel just a little guilty that I might be passing strep around, but I haven’t had time to see a doctor– and I don’t know for sure that it is strep.

I am happy to have the day after New Years off, so I can attend a meditation retreat. Wednesday someone brought a special cushion to meditation that she got at a Buddhist temple and she let me try her bench and cushion together. It was way more comfortable than it looks. The day after Thanksgiving we’re having a mini day long retreat, and a Zen Buddhist priest will be working with us on meditation technique. I am tired of the same meditation practice and looking forward to some guidance.

I sometimes wonder how much I should post about my involvement with this Buddhist group in my blog here.  I do not consider myself a Buddhist spiritually.  Because Buddhism is both a religion and philosophy, I would say that I share Buddhist philosophy and practice Buddhist meditation. None of it has changed my concept of God.  Yet my spirit has changed.  This is why I hesitate to write about it.  I’m not sure how much I identify with Buddhism because I’m still learning.  I don’t want a label that isn’t mine.  But the change inside is big, to the point that I sometimes want to share what’s happening with that.  It is a part of my life and journey right now.

I am super late with my Photo Hunt post this week.   I have posted about what it’s like to love playing the piano and then losing your ability to hear the piano, and then picking up a new instrument that you can hear better.  In my case it was the djembe.  For awhile I adored my little djembe, and then. . . eh.

It’s fun to play when I can convince people to dance to it, but that hardly ever happens. 

She is  a nice size for my hands.  She was made in Indonesia and was hand painted.    As much as I’ve written about her, and my attempts to play, only today did I learn what the word djembe means, after looking it up in wikipedia.  It literally means gather together.  “Dje” means gather, and “be” means everyone.  The whole point of the djembe is that it’s meant to be shared.  It’s a social experience.  Hence, the popularity of drum circles I guess.

To see more Photo Hunt pictures with a musical theme, go here PhotoHunt

Like most families, many men in my family have served in the armed forces.  Most recently my cousin was a Navy Seal.  I never knew the rigorous training they went through until reading the Perfect Storm, in which an entire chapter details what they go through.  Richard doesn’t talk about it.    As a kid he was sassy and rebellious.  Who would have guessed he would grow up to be a hero?

Many of my family members and ancestors have fought in wars, been injured or died.  Some of them were spared by pure luck, while others perished by strange accident.  Even in peace time, a veteran is someone who gives up his/her life for a few years to make the world a better place.   Peace time can turn to war quickly.  When a young person joins the armed services, their futures are uncertain.  Though I consider myself a pacifist, I realize we always need to be ready to fight for the ideals we Americans believe in.  I guess I’m not a true pacifist after all.

I would like to list those known heroes in my family who have served–

• Richard, Navy Seal
• George, WWII.
• Bruce, WWII, died in action.
• Tom, WWII.
• Sam, WWI, lost a leg.
• Wesley, WWI.
• Glen, WWI.
• Tom, WWI.
• Eric, WWI.
• John, WWI, died in action.
• Joshua, Civil War, Union.
• Charles, Civil War. Union.  Died, age 16.

Every family has a hero.  Today is their day.

I want to say THANKS!

I was happy to see this article about ‘plus-sized’ models in Glamour magazine tonight.  I think these women are beautiful.  One reason I almost never read fashion magazines is because it’s depressing to see skinny young naked women on every page, knowing they eat kleenex since they can’t eat real food.  The fashion industry disgusts me.

These ‘plus-sized’ models look like real women.  In fact they ARE real women They look like they eat and enjoy eating.    They look like the kind of women bring brownies to the office, and eat pie.  You can go out to lunch with these women and share a cheesecake.  They won’t make you feel guilty.  The average dress size in the US is a fourteen.  These models wear between a ten and fourteen.  Why doesn’t the fashion industry design clothing for real women instead of fake women who starve themselves and wear a size zero?

The average woman hates her body.  Sixty percent of all women in the US are overweight.  Many of those who aren’t overweight suffer from anorexia– the third most chronic disease of teenaged girls.  You would think the fashion industry might be concerned that their constant parade of skeleton women encourages unhealthy eating habits of young girls and low self-esteem of all women.  Basically the fashion industry makes most of their customers feel bad about their bodies.  Strange, isn’t it?

Why do we put up with it?  Why do we hate our own bodies instead of boycotting fashion magazines and clothing manufacturers who use skinny, bulimic women to model their clothing?

Consider that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 10, and Renoir painted buxom beauties who looked like this.   Real women have always been curvy and soft.

Kudo’s to Glamour magazine and these models who were brave enough to show the world what REAL women look like.   Yay for fat!

I was in Puerto Vallarta just prior to the Day of the Dead  and it was fun as they have lots of festivities leading up to their holiday, which is much, much bigger than Halloween here.   The skeleton decorations seem morbid, but the Day of the Dead is not a time for evil spirits.  It’s  the day the spirits of your dead family and friends come back to participate in all their favorite earthly vices.   A Mexican friend recalls the entire neighborhood camping out in graveyards in a kind of party atmosphere when he was a kid.  Shrines are erected to the dead with flowers, candles, photos and favorite foods the departed once enjoyed.  Its roots are Aztecan, but the heavy influence of Catholicism has impacted the holiday so there is now a religious aspect involving prayer, as well.  I guess the best way to describe it would be a combination of Halloween, Memorial Day and a wake or something.  We have nothing like it here.

So anyway, the first night in Puerto Vallarta we had a tropical rainstorm.  Perry and I had to walk back to our hotel in pouring rain.  We got drenched, which wasn’t so bad as the rain was warm. As we rounded one corner, we saw a welcome sight up ahead.  A Woolworths!  There is nothing like the smell of Woolworths popcorn.  It drew us in with its tantalizing perfume –a combination of buttery bliss, new bicycle tires and Barbie hair.

As we entered I was mildly surprised to see racks and racks of Halloween costumes, just like the pre-Halloween displays of the Woolworths of my childhood long forgotten.  Little plastic jack-0-lanterns with black handles formed a pyramid next to a jumble of sugared skulls.  I did not realize that Mexican kids trick-or-treat.  Though I had seen a few paper jack-o-lanterns around town, October decorations  seemed over shadowed by colorful Aztec skeletons.

So what do Mexican kids like to dress up as?  There were a number of the usual princess and vampire costumes, and a few devil costumes– but one outift struck me as uniquely Mexican.  A Monk.   I don’t recall seeing  many trick-or-treating monks in my day, but it must be a popular get up, as there were two entire racks of them in all sizes.   I saw no Che costumes anywhere, though they were popular in the US this year.

Later a friend mentioned she had attended a Halloween party with a Mexican man who wore an overly large sombrero, carried around a large bottle of tequila and wore a wide leather strap with shot glasses across his chest the way a Mexican bandito might wear a holster of bullets.  Essentially he went as a stereotype of himself.

This made me wonder how a deaf person might dress in a way to humor people while at the same time pointing out the ridiculousness of d/Deaf stereotypes.  Some thoughts. . . Huge ears and ear muff type ‘hearing aids”, carrying around a bullhorn type thing for the ears, dressing in the shape of a big ILY hand, putting large plastic ears with heaing aids on other places of the body like the middle of the forehead, back of head, butt, belly, arms, legs, etc.  Or maybe dressing up as a ‘deaf hero’   A  person could really have fun with this.