Rural Dreams

Today my aunt sent a

Today my aunt sent a link to an amazing collection of old pictures of our family from Hungary.

The cutie on the left is my father and he looks so much like my brother it is amazing. He also looks a lot like Aidan. The one on the right is my Uncle Lajos and he looks just like my cousin Thyra in this picture. I never saw the resemblance before. The other interesting thing is that I never thought that my father and his brother looked alike, but if you scan across the faces in this photo, its pretty easy to see that they are brothers. The entire picture is here.

Killing the Buddha

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.

This is a really intriguing website for me - that made anxious in churches description really fits. I even feel uncomfortable with the "alternative" stuff - and yet I am obviously attracted to it too. I used to own a New Age store - and here I am about to produce a tarot website. But I am continually suspicious. Krishnamurti said, "Truth is a pathless land" and I say, "right on" - So when someone outlines a path, I knit my brows.

We have these great spiritual communities here. Pumpkin Hollow is a Theosophical Community where my yoga teacher happens to live. Abode of the Message is a Sufi community with a fabulous elementary school that offers child-led learning. Unfortunately I have an inherent distrust of these groups - and for no clear reason - I think just because they are "groups". At the same time, this kind of community is what I crave. I can't really imagine how that will resolve itself. Maybe we will have our own house (Steve would NEVER join a community) and I can be involved in these communities in other ways - unless they are a bunch of nut cases.

There I go...

Check out Killing the Buddha.

Ha

I had a web design client on Long Island that was a cheap pain in the ass. He was the kind of person who would insist on something that looked bad, making his site and consequently my work, look third-rate. I charged him almost nothing and he still went out and bought Dreamweaver so that he could do it himself.

Today I got an e-mail:

Christy,
Take me back.
JD 516-xxx-xxxx

Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation

We just drove back from Long Island and found a really good radio program. I absolutely love good radio. It is one of my most favorite things in the world. Will has told me many times that I am a producer - and sometimes I imagine myself producing radio shows. Steve and I have talked about starting a radio station. I think it might be an interesting proposition for the web. I've been wondering if internet car radios are on the horizon. Someone told me that there was such a thing in big cities, but I've never heard anything more specific. Anyone know?

We had some really smashing good radio in the NYC area. Music programs like Delphine Blue's, Shocking Blue, Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight, Fred Herschkowitz's Home Fries, Peter Bochan's All Mixed Up. Peter Bochan also does these sound collages that would air every New Years' eve that are fabulous. Delphine Blue's show went off the air when she left WBAI over a year ago. She DJs at WFUV now but sounds all strangely smooth and professional and the music that she plays isn't as interesting and groovy. Steve always says that her wings got clipped. She is so cool though - she probably needed health insurance or something. I need good music on the radio because if I just rely on my cds, I tend to just play the same things over and over. I'm cheap too and pretty reluctant to purchase new music.

I loved and miss the talk radio too - mostly programs on WBAI - too many to really name them all. There used to be a great Women's health show called "Snatches". Kara would have liked that! Michio Kaku's "Explorations" is a science show that dealt with a lot of environmental issues and also some more unusual things like a group of Physicists that believe in God based on science, not just faith. Armand DeMele's show, "The Positive Mind" originally bugged the hell out of me - he is a psychiatrist that talks a little bit like Sylvester the cat. I felt like he was just always trying to make his callers cry. I don't know what made me change my mind about him, but I really like him now. I think I wasn't really listening to him in the beginning. Steve tells me that it used to upset him to hear me make fun of the show because he always really liked it. There are also a lot of ethnic shows on WBAI: Radio Tahrir, Radio Free Eireann, Latino Journal, Circle of Red Nations, and a Jewish Women's show that I don't recall the name of. I used to listen to Talk Back a lot too when Utrice Leid was the host. Listening to that show was like going to school. Once, when there was a KKK march scheduled to happen in NYC that folks were upset and shocked over, she asked her listeners - why does the KKK want to march in NYC? It took about an hour to get the answer she was looking for - because there is Klan and sympathy for the Klan in NYC.

Her First Mouse

Our cat caught her first mouse a couple of days ago. I could see it in her mouth from a distance while I gardened. She played with it for a long time until Wes noticed it and stole it from her. Unfortunately, I don't think that either one of them actually ate it, so it is hanging out in our overgrown yard somewhere.

She is still pretty young - 8 months. I'm so glad she's mousing. That's why we got her. She still doesn't have a name. Any suggestions? Here's a picture.

We just came back from

We just came back from a very pleasant week in Florida and apparently it was terribly cold here while we were gone. It even snowed and killed my basil. Well, now it is beautiful and I just bought a ton of flowers that I am going to put in the ground today.

The previously vacant land across the street now has 2 horses on it. I am amazed that Wes isn't over there harassing them all day long. I wonder if he has even met them. I am a little nervous that Aidan is going to try to go and visit them. He noticed them today and didn't seem too attracted to them. He tends to follow Wes. Before I went to Florida, I discovered him on the other side of a 2 acre field, following Wes to a pond. I kicked off my Birkenstocks and ran, reaching him right before he got to a barbed wire fence. He was laughing hysterically and running from me - what a maniac. Half way across the field, as I carried him back to the barn, he said "I want to nurse". HA!

Aidan got his last teeth while we were in Florida - poor guy was in so much pain and his cheeks actually had red marks on them. I read somewhere that chimpanzees (or some other kind of monkey) stop nursing after their last molars come in.

I came home to my Mother's Day swap package from blueroses - she sent me some homemade salve and a huge lavender filled pillow which smells divine. I immediately put it to good use since I had a persistent headache after flying all day. Thanks blueroses!

I made a necklace for

I made a necklace for a Mother's Day swap that I am quite proud of and blueroses posted a really nice pic of it here. My sewing machine just broke so I couldn't do the quilty projects that I've been dying to do - I haven't pulled out my beads in a long time for toddler chaos reasons - but Aidan was really good and actually helped me a little bit and paraded around the house with it on when I was done.

Yet Another Real Estate Deal Gone Bad

We have been working for some time on buying the last house that I mentioned. It is a fixer upper, right on a very busy road. The pros: lovely flat 1 acre backyard, easy access to things and people that we would like to be close to, possibly historic and charming house built in the 1760s that is plenty big. The cons: right on busy road (I mean RIGHT on and BUSY - actually, FAST might be a better word - think fast moving tractor trailers), the neighbors are very close and their houses are also fixer uppers - except they aren't being fixed up. The house basicly needs to be gutted on the inside. Now this last one was in our minds a pro and a con because we could get it for cheap and make it just the way we want it.

So Steve went to look at the house one afternoon with our landlord and bid on it - but he didn't bid the price that we had talked about, he bid the FULL price. The house was about to go into foreclosure, so the deal needed to happen very quickly, so we immediately started to set up inspections. We went to the seller's bank to see if we could assume their mortgage or negotiate with the bank if it did go into foreclosure. We started renovating it and landscaping it in our minds. (And building a tall fence around that 1 acre back yard.)

We've done all of this before.

Several times.

A few days later, Steve called the seller's realtor to set up an inspection. The realtor said that he thought the inspection was premature. This seemed strange to us since we had offered the ASKING price. Why wouldn't our offer be accepted? It turns out that he had someone else bid higher than us. Higher than the asking price. And he wasn't going to tell anyone because he would get a higher commission if he sold it himself. A ridiculous bidding war ensued that lasted a week. We finally won at $7,000 higher than our original offer. We hate the seller's realtor.

So then we finally set up the inspections this past Monday. We knew that the house had some serious problems. We counted on re-finishing the ENTIRE interior as well as possibly every single window and door. We knew that the stone foundation was going to need some work, but we figured that it had been standing since the 1760s, it must not be too bad. We hadn't counted on the rafters needing to be replaced (not just the roofing, but the actual rafters) or the beams (round tree trunks) that hold up the entire first floor to be so rotted you could punch a screw driver right through them. We thought that the heating system was sound, but it turns out it needs a $1000 part. Steve came home very upset, and we decided this week to not buy the house.

Harper Valley P.T.A.

I heard this song on the car radio yesterday (My shitty radio only gets 2 stations here - both oldies). I had never heard it before and I got a real kick out of it - I thought the HipMamas would too. The DJ described it as a one hit wonder. When I did a search for it I got matches for a movie and a TV show too. Who knew? Probably everyone but me.

The sound on my computer doesn't work, but I think you might be able to hear the song here.

If anyone knows of a

If anyone knows of a commenting system that is currently accepting new subscribers, please let me know.

Hell and Back

I drove to Hartford yesterday to pick up my mom, who is spending the weekend with us. I took a local route, US Hwy 44, through Connecticut. I had no idea what I was getting into, how fast I would be able to drive, how much traffic there would be, etc. As soon as I got into CT, the speed limit dropped and I found myself behind a law abiding driver. Most of the way was rich, white, Connecticut - towns lined with old mansions, horse farms and exclusive private schools. At a town called Winsted, it started to become suburban and I kept mistaking the word "Winsted" for "Twisted". I saw "Twisted Automotive", "Twisted Flowers and Gifts", "Twisted Insurance" etc. I don't know why my mind kept playing that trick on me over and over again, but I kept feeling like Connecticut was one creepy place. And then I saw it, I almost had an accident, but I think it explains everything:
Satan's Kingdom

Baseball Buddha

Aidan has been obsessed with baseball lately, and his obsession reached a fever pitch a few days ago. He wanted to play base ball all day long for two days straight. Playing baseball means we pitch the ball to him and he tries to hit it - which is a failed proposition 100% of the time. It can also mean that he piches the ball to us and we try to hit it which occasionally works. It also sometimes is just playing catch, which also hardly ever works.

I am blown away by his commitment to something that has such a high failure rate.

At the end of my yoga class this week our teacher asked us to notice our first shattering thought when we wake up in the morning. I was immediately reminded of Aidan's shattering thought for the previous two days. For two days, every time he woke up from a nap or in the morning he said very softly, "base - ball". Was he dreaming about baseball all night?

Last night Steve was playing baseball with Aidan and talking to me about all of the work that needed to be done on this house that we are trying to buy. He was stressing out and spinning his wheels a little bit - talking to me while throwing the ball for Aidan. Finally, Aidan shouted emphatically, "NO NO BASEBALL" and every time Steve reverted to the stressed out house talk Aidan reminded him again, "NO NO BASEBALL BASEBALL".

Its all about Baseball.