Sunday, December 19, 2010

Un-Engelbreit-ian

I have just finished drinking a lovely hot cup of tea in a Christmas-themed cup -- I put aside all my regular coffee- and tea-drinking cups at the beginning of the week, since I have six or eight Christmas-decorated cups, and if I don't use them at Christmas, then what? This particular one is the third or fourth that I have taken down, and it is a faux-Engelbreit. Poor man's Engelbreit. Engelbreit manquee. Anyway, it was painted by someone imitating Mary Engelbreit, and not very well. The upper edge was neatly done -- a very familiar design of black-and-white squares, with a narrow, berry-bearing vine above. But then the background was made of two shades of green squares, and there was a chubby little blonde girl with wings made of large leaves, holding up a globe with a red ribbon round it, to two white doves. Hmmm. What do you suppose that was supposed to illustrate? Because M.E. always illustrated something. And I must say, this looks like nothing on earth. But the colors are pleasant, and the painting is done neatly, so from a distance of a few feet, it looks really quite charming. It's only when one picks it up and holds it in ones hand that one sees it's malapropiateness. If that's a word. Which I doubt. Sounds right, but then.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas Malaise

Wow, I opened up my work e-mail account a few minutes ago, and saw that I had received two messages overnight. Both of them adverts. Good LORD! Now, consider that I also opened my home e-mail account this morning, and had about thirty e-mails that I didn't want, and about ten that I did. And this is not a spam problem, either -- both accounts have spam-bots and do a fine job of removing all those obvious advertising idiocies. I know, I know -- it is December, and very rainy and nasty out, so few people are looking at houses or thinking of buying any, and it's close to Chirstmas, so everyone is occupied with trees and cookies. Still.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

...Somethin' 'Bout a Sunday...

Sunday mornings are definitely to be sought after and treasured. This is the belief that I have come up with after enjoying the hell out of this morning. It is now noon, so the morning is over, but it still continues. The peacefulness of it is hard to describe, but perhaps I can make you see if I tell you that there is no sound! No thumps, squeaks, doors closing, faint far-off music, car engines, children's voices or cats. Sitting in the living room with my second steaming cup of strong coffee and the Oregonian, all I could hear was the semi-synchronous ticking of several clocks from several rooms of the house. At one point, a pair of sirens, from, presumably a police car and an ambulance wound their way through the streets fairly close by, but when they died away, the peace returned. Looking out through my kitchen window as I brewed my second cup of steaming hot strong coffee, I could see no movement. No ducks, no seagulls, no people in the park, no cars in the parking lot through the trees. Nothing. And no sounds of them, either. I got up at seven-thirty, so I had nearly five hours of solitary peace and comfort and quiet. No phones ringing. No screen doors squeaking. No television muttering in the distance.

I was thinking, as I looked out the window, of the Kristofferson song, "Sunday Morning Sidewalk" but it is all so negative in its beauty -- the singer is a hung-over drunken ne'er-do-well feeling sorry for himself as he wanders out of his house into an empty city, where most people are at church (so presumably somewhere in the South) and thinks maudlin thoughts about frying chicken and happy families. Beautiful but self-absorbed and sentimental and not full of peace. Can't think of any song or poem that fits the mood, really.

Hmmmm. Happy. Maybe I should think about showering and dressing and starting the car.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Vive l'individualite!

Since recently on Facebook we've been posting shots of our favorite cartoon characters as our profile pictures, in order to identify ourselves as humans against child abuse, I've been thinking about the cartoons I saw as a child (not very many) and those I particularly liked. Which caused me, in turn, to ponder this. So many of the things I particularly like, are tangled up, in my memories, with my ex-husband. Since of course there was the whole getting-to-know you time, when you tell the person you are dating all about yourself, including all your favorite things. And then there are the things you found that you liked while with that person. And then there are the things that THEY liked, which you hadn't heard of until dating them. And so on.

Well, one's first impulse is to shy away from EVERYTHING that you ever shared with this person, especially if they demonstrated themselves to be an abuser, a liar, a cheater and a criminal. Or, if it just hasn't been long since you broke up with them. Cuz I know most people's exes aren't all those things. But, if you do that, if you allow yourself to shy away, then you are allowing that liar, thief and cheater to take from you all the things that make you YOU, even down to your likes and dislikes. For example -- I selected Judy Jetson as me, since I really liked the Jetsons, and Judy was blonde. Even though my ex had told me many times how when he was a little boy he had been in love with Judy, and had even hinted several times that he had had sexual experiences with Judy Jetson. And since by that time (within the first year!) I had already figured out that I didn't want to know about any of his weird sexual stuff, (since then I would be expected to join in)I didn't ask to have that explained. But I thought that over, wiped out the squirmy memory of my ex and his strange needs, and selected Judy Jetson anyway. And then later I chose Snagglepuss. In spite of Ex's habit of imitating his voice and sayings. I like Snagglepuss! He quotes Shakespeare, and is very erudite in his Cowardly Lion way.

I am going to go right on liking the things that I like, regardless of whether Ex liked them too, or whether I first heard of them in his company. Vive l'individualite!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Fortunately

Came to work a little earlier this morning, and was driving directly down the maw of the rising sun. It was just below eye level, and it was huge and golden and blinding and blurry and filled my whole windshield with huge, hot, unbearable yellow light. Sunglasses made it worse, blinded me completely, and the fold-down screen on my windshield only kept it from incinerating me there and then. I could see, with my head twisted and my eyes squinted, and one palm up to block part of the source, I could see about two feet at a time of the white line beside me, and the occasional red flash of the brake lights on the (invisible) car in front of me. For about four minutes, until my windshield completely cleared itself of the fog of the night before, I was a loose cannon -- literally. A weapon, let loose upon the world by me. Fortunately, no small animal ran out in front of me, no child toddled into the street, no car without brake lights came to a sudden stop, nothing like that. Fortunately.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Jammed

This morning the low-lying fog was obscuring -- no, not obscuring -- a word that means slightly less than obscuring -- hmmm. Dimming? No -- making it hazy? Well, anyway, in spite of my non-functioning vocabulary, there was fog and stuff. And I couldn't see through it very far. So it made the view all mysterious and stuff. Really beautiful, and full of ducks and all. And dim, and hazy. And mysterious. And evocative. Sigh.... can't... think...

In any case, today is my day in traffic court, to go and apologize to the judge and ask him to pretty please lower my speeding ticket. Please. On account of because I'm poor. And my vocabulary is jammed.