Takes a Village

While my blog has been silent for the past few weeks rest assured that its creator has not been. Came back from a restorative week at the beach. Cape May to be exact. Now Cape May is one of my favorite beach towns for several reasons. You know food's gotta be one of them and it sure is. The great shopping is another reason but the real allure is that Cape May is a dog beach town. It has a long expanse of beach in which dogs can cavort and rest their salty wee paws in the Atlantic.

I was accompanied to the beach by my friend Nina, a dog lover and karoke singer. You should hear her do La Bamba. what a Mexican yodel! Watching her play with Duke I realized why I've never desired to raise a child. I can't fathom doing it by myself, the thought alone exhausts me. And by alone I mean with a father and parent to my child, but we are still only a couple. What Nina showed me was a remembrance of how Indian children are reaised by aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers. All pitching in to watch the baby so she doesn't totter on unstable legs and fall on her face. To feed the wee one so Mom can eat. To keep her amused, thereby connecting with the energy of another human being. To punish her when she's naughty. To admire, croon, shower love so she grows up thinking she is a magnificent creature. If I had that kind of support I'd have squeezed out a dozen kids. But my life as it stands only offers the prospect of support in the form of expensive daycare and even more expensive nannies.

But this became clear to me. Does it take a village to raise a child? Hell yeah!

Jonathan Stealing Seagull

Many of you might remember the book in the 70s titled Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The book was written by Richard Bach in what he called a stream of consciousness from a higher source. Of course this comment caused an uproar in the fundamentally Christian community in which I was raised who lived by this dictum: if it's not from God, it's from Satan. Now why Satan would inspire a writer to capture the higher aspirations of a seagull, I don't know. But it blew me away. I was just a wee lass enthralled by nature and thrilled by the fact that an animal, much less a seagull, was the protagonist of an entire book.

Some 30 years later and once again I'm impressed by a seagull. Although perhaps not in such a noble manner as Jonathan's. This clip came to me from a friend as a joke but I was so taken with it, I wanted to save it as a screen saver. If I could figure how to use it as a backdrop for my phone I'd do it. Calling all techies. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

So here's the story behind the clip:

A seagull in Scotland has developed the habit of stealing chips from a neighborhood shop. The seagull waits until the shopkeeper isn't looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos. Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds. The seagull's shoplifting started early this month when he first swooped into the store in Aberdeen, Scotland, and helped himself to a bag of chips. Since then, he's become a regular. He always takes the same type of chips. Customers have begun paying for the seagull's stolen bags of chips because they think it's so funny.

Bless them Scots.

Pups in a Cup

As the days shorten I can feel time slow down. Shift from frenetic to slower, more leisurely days. And thank the Gods for that eh? As summer wanes and the chaos of these the past months disintegrates into the ether, I find myself drawn to a "comfort food" state of mind. Ergo the cup of pups. How much more comforting can a cup of pups be, tell me?

The Day After

Sometimes we get caught up in the antics of the universe and pay the price of heady association with such celestial bodies like Venus or the Moon. Thankfully, the luminaries slow down and give us a chance to recuperate from their antics. Today is such a day and I for one am excited with the prospect of a long, slow day in which nothing happens other than an evening of leftovers and television.

9/11 Solar Eclipse

Fitting that I haven't written for 2 weeks, exactly since the last eclipse. But then, who can expect to churn through the waters of ultimate transformation AND blog at the same time? And for you show-off out there who can, please write and tell me how.

While this eclipse hasn't been as devastating as the last one, I thought I'd offer a few links to navigate it nonetheless. check out my favorite site on the undulations of the moon, Mooncircles. Also helpful is The Daykeeper Journal.