Birthday Joys

Helping my mate with his film project, I came across this photo of him and his brother (who is exactly 367 days younger than him) which is perfect.

Happy Birthday Teddy (Oct 24) and Peter (Oct 26)!

Concert Chaos?

Sitting on the grass, I am soaking up the last strands of the warmth before winter sets in; however, next to me a family discusses the ring tones of email versus a regular call, two women in front of me compare Blackberry photos and applications, and on the other side a mother and son discuss their sandwiches for an hour. By the way, I am sitting at a concert and a group is performing fantastic musical ensembles to deaf ears.

Luckily I sat near the speakers so I could tune out the surrounding distractions. The reasoning behind the distractions was the performers rarely come out on MTV, or Access Hollywood. I don’t know which stores they like to shop at or what ice cream they would eat if they wanted some. But I did know they could play.

I love watching performers play instruments and have fun creating an artistic piece for all of us to enjoy. Dancing is cool and I don’t feel people have to sit down to enjoy a concert, but I do expect some level of listening and appreciation. Is concert going changing that much?

Mind Fog

Sitting at a desk, staring at a computer that cannot do the work by itself, the papers sit next to me that need to be graded, but I cannot seem to work. Pure exhaustion is all I can ponder at the moment, the thought of my comfortable bed and warm hot chocolate.

Maybe with the onset of the fall/winter raining season, I am stuck. I need to move forward, but cannot move except for my fingers hitting these keys.

Tomorrow I have an evaluation, but I haven't submitted my end of the paperwork. How good of an evaluation can I get if I cannot even muster energy to write up the lesson for the principal? Seven years into teaching and the constant brain warp I go through each year seems more draining...you would imagine it would improve.

I wish I had the power to make time stop for 2-3 hours just so I can catch up at a slow, methodical pace.

I guess this tortoise should get back to work...

Celebrating in 2009

The year 2009 is not progressing in a joyful nature. The world still reels in financial panic, in February my mate’s father was diagnosed with cancer which claimed his precious life in April, our friend’s sister and brother are fighting severe medical issues, and many notable deaths including Ted Kennedy, Cory Aquino, Walter Cronkite, John Hughes, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett.

However, one major event this year suppresses the depression from those ills: my grandmother, Irene Schroedl, turns 90 years old on September 3rd. Contemplating all the events from 1919 to now boggles my young mind. Imagine her learning to drive on a Model-T type car, living through the Depression, World War II (which my grandfather served), the crazy 60s, 70s and 80s to see the technology boom of the 90s and living to see the century change, a second attack on US soil, and the world is still changing. She has lived in America with 16 presidents: one assassinated, one resigned and one is an African American!

Growing up, my brothers and sisters and I saw my grandmother about once a year, usually when she and Grandpa would drive from Nebraska in their Holiday Rambler trailer and Suburban to Virginia. We loved that trailer with all the cool secret compartments, peanut dispensers, and living spaces. They had a map with all the states and provinces they had visited in North America. Between my parents and them, my love for travel sprang forth.

Grandma and I played cards every time we would visit each other. Our games included gin, nertz (like a competitive solitaire game), Uno, Skippo and Go Fish. After writing that statement, I realize how little I play cards now since I don’t have anyone to play with. I hope when I become a momma, my kids like playing cards too.

Grandma remembers everything. She remembers every birthday, anniversary, historical event and person in Falls City and so much more. Even now, people go to her to find out some event or person who used to live in Falls City.

I love my grandmother very much and wish I could be in Nebraska during her celebration. She deserves every special wish during the 2009 year.


Grandma and I in 1998


Grandma and Barbara tend to the Ketter site in Falls City, NE (1998)


Grandma gives Barbara a big squeeze (Road trip 1998)

Cooking for All

So, my ears perk up whenever I hear Michael Pollan’s name on the news or radio. After reading two of his books, Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, I pulled into this world of eating, cooking and buying local. In defense of myself, I already believed cooking for oneself is the healthiest (and cheapest) way to enjoy food, but his books, articles, and talks made me feel less isolated. Tonight he spoke on NPR about his recent article in the New York Times Magazine , where he states people watch people cook longer than they do actually cooking:

“Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up)”

Really??? Am I an anomaly? I spend about 1-2 hours cooking, then about 20 minutes cleaning. I cook almost every night, and maybe go out 1 or 2 meals a week. Most of the time our dinner turns into next day’s lunch because I cook for four (we are only two) and use the leftovers for lunch, unless we have expected or unexpected guests. I love cooking…it’s one of my only consistent creative outlets each day, which is why I relate to Pollan’s assessment of Child’s view on cooking:

“Child was less interested in making it fast or easy than making it right, because cooking for her was so much more than a means to a meal. It was a gratifying, even ennobling sort of work, engaging both the mind and the muscles. You didn’t do it to please a husband or impress guests; you did it to please yourself.”

Is America degenerating that fast that we cannot enjoy cooking anymore? Although the media shows idiotic and stupid people quoting reality TV shows, does that really express us as a whole? Pollan even states, “Erica Gruen, the cable executive often credited with putting the Food Network on the map in the late ’90s, recognized early on that, as she told a journalist, “people don’t watch television to learn things.” I use television to learn things. I am an avid Saturday PBS cooking show viewer, from the obnoxious to the usable. I finally learned how to cut an onion fast enough so I wouldn’t cry.

Most people state they don’t have time to cook, e.g. they are too tired. I am discouraged when I hear why people cannot cook, and even more discouraged when I see the OBESE (sick people walking or not walking around). Even with a biology degree, most people could see how they are chronically ill and wonder how they get the food that makes them so sick? Why do we choose to live this way? I have a difficult time believing that marketing experts deserve our scorn for this chronic disease, although they excel at their profession.

Can we endure with less money to have more time to look for ingredients, cook and live life? I don’t think we need to go completely back to chopping off our own chicken heads (and plucking feathers, etc.) but I do think we need to get back into the kitchen and off the couch.

Peeping World

Listening to NPR the other day to Hal Niedzviecki, blogger and author to Peep Diaries, I decided I am interested in his perspective on the new “social” exposure on networks. Recently I was asked to join yet another social network so I could keep track of a former co-worker who I haven’t spoken to in two years. If I join (which I won’t), I will be a member of 5 different social networks, which apparently are helping me keep in touch with friends and colleagues while networking for future career options.

Honestly, I am overwhelmed with keeping in touch. Throughout my brief life, I found difficulties picking up the phone to just “chat” unless I had prepared something interesting to talk about. As I get older, I notice that my major events I could talk about are few and far between. When the question arises, “What have you been up to?” the response, “Same as usual.”

So I joined Facebook last summer as a way to stay “in touch” with people I was working with at Stanford. I experienced the initial rush and excitement of finding people I haven’t seen in several years or people I haven’t talked to since high school. Then comes the voyeurism—I want to befriend you just to see where you have gone in life, but do I really care about you now? But I believe you befriend me to do that same life-check. Will we chat? Most likely not. So currently I have about 100 friends, but I could shave about 20 off and we wouldn’t notice any change to our lives. I currently have a friend request that I don’t really want to accept because I haven’t talk to this person in 12 years and we were not that close 12 years ago. Interesting predicament: choosing “friends”. The blogger and author shared on the NPR piece that he decided to throw a party and invite all his 800 Facebook friends, partly to see them, partly to experiment with the friend aspect of Facebook. Only 1 showed up.

So, do we really have friends? I screen away students from Facebook for hopefully obvious reasons, and my contacts are mostly family. I check Facebook in a drug-like fashion (what is new?) along with Multiply, the various blogs I follow, LinkedIn, Ning.com, JPG Magazine, and the list goes on. Maybe I need to unplug for a while.

Time Warp

May??? Really? My mind seemed to have stopped in February, with grave news that exasperated during March and finalized in April. Now I listen to music I use for comfort, as I need strength to wrap love around my mate.

Strength to deal with the needs of my students, but push them lovingly out of the safety cocoon they made for themselves into the big bad world of deadlines, work and responsibility. To their benefit, they did deal with my lack of physical presence in the classroom and shared kind words and cards…for our loss.

Only one week has passed. Everything seems to have moved quickly but slowly at the same time. My mind has difficulties dwelling over aspects of life I have no control over…like cancer, and a resulting death. But this was a little different as I struggle with the idea of death like a child…what do you mean we cannot talk to him anymore?

Mario (Daddy) Silva, Esq. enjoyed life and people. He LOVED law and research. I admired him so much for being a scholar. He loved that I liked to find stuff out and listened patiently as I excitingly shared new information (or my mate would pass on the new information). Many times people don’t share my enthusiasm for exploring areas of information not in my particular background of science (or even within science as it is so vast). I am a geek and he liked me for it. Mario’s son, my mate and love, shares with him a passion for history and story. Daddy told great stories, with so much enthusiasm that you felt you were there as well. He lived through the invasion of Manila by Japan, then MacArthur, Marcos and so much more. My mate would listen to these stories several times and ask his dad to explain stories he already heard several times. Those are the moments I (and my mate) will miss. The images remaining in my head are Daddy Silva reading books, working on our computer with his silly (but adorable) skater beanie, and looking at my mate in a proud way. I still remember his laugh, which was quiet but full in spirit.

His spirit stays with the love of his life, Gregoria (Mommy) Silva. She is quiet like my mate, but I see why Daddy loved her so much.

Some Buddhist scholars and monks state that crying for the dead is normal, but should end after about a week, then celebrate the life that existed and live your life the way the person saw you. It’s been a week, and I will try to continue my quest to be a scholar and keep my mate’s passion for history and story alive.

We will miss Daddy Silva.

The Dreaded March

the dreaded march...
similar to the droll of november...
the grading,
the encouragement for me
to get my work done.

Students bored or apathetic
my disinterest to pull out one more unnecessary encouragement for students
to get their work done.

I have been listening to blues and jazz lately which matches my mood these raining, unmotivated days...

See side list for playlists. (Painting Artist: Theo Booth)