"La coeur a ses raisons que raison ne connait point." -- Blaise Pascal
"The heart has its reasons that reason doesn't know."
This quote from Pascal originally applied to God, but it also applies to dogs. Why would anyone in modern society want a dog? I live in the city. I don't hunt foxes and I don't need an animal to herd my sheep or protect my chickens. I have an alarm system installed, so I don't need one to protect my family and belongings. A dog would likely do more damage to my new couch than an intruder. Seattle is known for its vermin (see "The Rat City Roller Girls,") but most people don't have dogs to keep rodents at bay. There is a whole book dedicated to the topic by John Homans called "What's a Dog For?" I haven't read the book, yet. We got it as a Christmas present for my husband who was reluctant to get a four legged pet.
We got a dog yesterday at the U Village "Fido Fest" sponsored by the Seattle Humane Society. His name is Fox and he is a Pomeranian Chihuahua mix, also known as a Pomchi. (Thanks to Mr. Heaps, my sophomore English teacher, who insisted we learn to properly spell and pronounce "Chihuahua," along with "poinsettia." It is somewhat ironic that he emphasized the spelling of a very small dog, considering he lived on a farm with chickens and goats an hour outside of Columbus. My guess is he had large working farm dogs that kept foxes out of the hen house.)
Our family now belongs to the dog culture. People stop us on the street and ask about out dog. They must think we are "dog people," even though we've had Fox for less than 24 hours. The purchase was an impulse buy after two years of deliberation. My husband would have happily researched dogs for ages, picking the right breed, size and temperament for our house and family. By the time he would have finished, the kids would be off at college. This dog passed two important tests that all of the research on the internet would not have told us. First, my daughter thought he was cute. Second, I held him for 10 minutes without a sneeze or tickle in my nose. While I would have loved a lab and border collie mix, they made my eyes itch after petting them for three minutes.
Nothing in my husband's research would have ever told me how a dog would make me smile, how he would give me a reason to walk in the rain.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Quilting
When I was a teenager, the Ohio State Fair came to Columbus every August. Amid the carnival rides, 4H animal competitions, and dumbo ears, there was the quilting competition. Most of the quilts were submitted by Amish women who lived in northeast Ohio. I was mesmerized at the complex patterns and colors. They were soft, giant kaleidoscopes that hung on a wall or covered a bed. I was amazed at the craftsmanship to make all of the squares and patterns come out so perfectly. The final stitches across the top completed the picture. I couldn't imagine I could ever have the skill, time, patience and planning to make something so beautiful and perfect. I imagined the quilting bees where groups of women worked together and taught each other secrets to sewing, cutting and color, passing this on from generation to generation.
My aunts and grandmother were crafty in the kind sense of the word. Needlepoint, crocheting, knitting, and sewing were all part of their repertoire. My aunt made me a Raggedy Ann doll when I was seven that I slept with every night for years. The doll was well loved, and soon came to fit her name. My father taught me to braid using her hair. My brother tried to steal her once, and I yanked her back, resulting in a rip beneath her chin. I loved her nonetheless.
I missed out on this crafting phase. My mom wasn't that into sewing and whatnot. While I appreciated what my aunts and grandmother could do, it never was something that became part of my routine. I tried to learn to knit in college, but studying math, history and the occasional art history class got in the way. Plus, I wasn't that good at it. Not seeing immediate success or progress made me move on to other things. After college, work, city life and graduate school kept me busy. My hobbies did not including noodling on a sewing machine or with knitting needles. Working in consulting, my medium was spreadsheets and PowerPoint. I can make a mean pie chart or bar graph and analyze data with the best of them. But I could barely sew on a button that fell off a blouse.
A few years back, my husband and I took the kids to San Francisco where we saw the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum. While the Pharaoh was the main attraction, the de Young also had an exhibit of the Quilts of Gee's Bend, created by African American women in Alabama in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Completely different in style and texture from the Amish women, these quilts were no less amazing. Art critics compared these works made from leftover scraps of clothes to artwork from modern masters like Paul Klee and Henri Matisse. While I still didn't have time to find a new hobby with two young children, I was inspired by the free form of these quilts.
I had saved my daughter's old and tattered dresses, the ones she wore to preschool that were stained or ripped and couldn't be given away. I tucked them in the basement hoping one day to make them into a quilt she could pass on to her daughter. I bought books on quilting, which I'd pour over. Before I had kids and was working, my boss and I both secretly subscribed to Martha Stewart's Living. Neither of us made anything from the magazine. Rather, it was a portal to another world where people found time to shop at flea markets and make their own soap. I would look at the quilting books in the same way, except now I had a bag of old clothes I wanted to turn into a masterpiece. I was afraid to take scissors to her old dresses, not believing I could make the beautiful and consistent color patterns. I didn't even own a sewing machine. Making this quilt was clearly a case of wishful thinking.
When my daughter was in 4th grade, she wanted a sewing machine. Her friend's mom introduced her to making homemade Ugly dolls out of fleece. We bought her a sewing machine, and in no time she was making all sorts of creations. I had to learn enough about it to show her, but then the student became the teacher. She mastered the machine faster than I did, making buttonholes and showing me how to load the bobbin.
Last spring, I was beginning to roll off my volunteer job. Instead of letting the old work continue to seep into my life, I decided start making my son's quilt. I had just cleaned his dresser, and pulled out more than a dozen of his most loved t-shirts that no longer fit. I couldn't give them away or turn them into rags. I looked up "T-shirt quilt" online. Most of what I saw was precise with evenly sized squares. That wasn't going to happen. I didn't need the quilt to be perfect. I just needed it to be warm and soft and cover the bed. The idea of re-using these well worm shirts appealed to me, but I secretly wanted to join the ranks of the Amish and Gee's Bend women.
One afternoon, my son and I got out the good scissors and took them to his shirts. We were committed. One step at a time: we cut the shirts, arranged them by color, and started to sew them together. I learned which stitch to use on cotton weave, and used old crib sheets as an internal backing between the t-shirts and the batting. The last step was the binding the edges, which perplexed me. In typical procrastinator fashion, I let the quilt sit over the summer, the weather too nice to be inside sewing. Once in a while, my husband and I flipped the quilt on the bed at night when the temperature dropped. It worked and served its purpose to keeping us warm in the night. But it wasn't done. I had to bind it.
Instead of asking my elders around the hearth, I watched several YouTube videos on binding quilts. The videos were perfectly clear and simple and...there was no way I could do it. I was afraid to cut the navy blue flannel for fear of doing it all wrong and ruining all of the effort I put into it thus far. At the same time, not finishing the quilt was not an option either. I was in over my head and past the point of no return. During the summer, I had the Seattle excuse of doing nothing indoors in order to celebrate three months of sunshine. Now the weather was starting to turn. On a cool and overcast day, my friend Diane showed me how to bind it. Now that I had a map for the final step, I felt compelled to get it done. I finished Sunday morning, right before lunch.
There are a few Frankenstein style stitches, but that it okay. I might not have the skill and sense of symmetry of the Amish or the flair and creativity of the women of Gee's bend, but now my son's favorite t-shirts are covering his bed. It is his and only his, one of a kind. It will never hang in a museum or win an award at the State Fair, but it is made of memories and will keep him warm.
My aunts and grandmother were crafty in the kind sense of the word. Needlepoint, crocheting, knitting, and sewing were all part of their repertoire. My aunt made me a Raggedy Ann doll when I was seven that I slept with every night for years. The doll was well loved, and soon came to fit her name. My father taught me to braid using her hair. My brother tried to steal her once, and I yanked her back, resulting in a rip beneath her chin. I loved her nonetheless.
I missed out on this crafting phase. My mom wasn't that into sewing and whatnot. While I appreciated what my aunts and grandmother could do, it never was something that became part of my routine. I tried to learn to knit in college, but studying math, history and the occasional art history class got in the way. Plus, I wasn't that good at it. Not seeing immediate success or progress made me move on to other things. After college, work, city life and graduate school kept me busy. My hobbies did not including noodling on a sewing machine or with knitting needles. Working in consulting, my medium was spreadsheets and PowerPoint. I can make a mean pie chart or bar graph and analyze data with the best of them. But I could barely sew on a button that fell off a blouse.
A few years back, my husband and I took the kids to San Francisco where we saw the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum. While the Pharaoh was the main attraction, the de Young also had an exhibit of the Quilts of Gee's Bend, created by African American women in Alabama in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Completely different in style and texture from the Amish women, these quilts were no less amazing. Art critics compared these works made from leftover scraps of clothes to artwork from modern masters like Paul Klee and Henri Matisse. While I still didn't have time to find a new hobby with two young children, I was inspired by the free form of these quilts.
I had saved my daughter's old and tattered dresses, the ones she wore to preschool that were stained or ripped and couldn't be given away. I tucked them in the basement hoping one day to make them into a quilt she could pass on to her daughter. I bought books on quilting, which I'd pour over. Before I had kids and was working, my boss and I both secretly subscribed to Martha Stewart's Living. Neither of us made anything from the magazine. Rather, it was a portal to another world where people found time to shop at flea markets and make their own soap. I would look at the quilting books in the same way, except now I had a bag of old clothes I wanted to turn into a masterpiece. I was afraid to take scissors to her old dresses, not believing I could make the beautiful and consistent color patterns. I didn't even own a sewing machine. Making this quilt was clearly a case of wishful thinking.
When my daughter was in 4th grade, she wanted a sewing machine. Her friend's mom introduced her to making homemade Ugly dolls out of fleece. We bought her a sewing machine, and in no time she was making all sorts of creations. I had to learn enough about it to show her, but then the student became the teacher. She mastered the machine faster than I did, making buttonholes and showing me how to load the bobbin.
Last spring, I was beginning to roll off my volunteer job. Instead of letting the old work continue to seep into my life, I decided start making my son's quilt. I had just cleaned his dresser, and pulled out more than a dozen of his most loved t-shirts that no longer fit. I couldn't give them away or turn them into rags. I looked up "T-shirt quilt" online. Most of what I saw was precise with evenly sized squares. That wasn't going to happen. I didn't need the quilt to be perfect. I just needed it to be warm and soft and cover the bed. The idea of re-using these well worm shirts appealed to me, but I secretly wanted to join the ranks of the Amish and Gee's Bend women.
One afternoon, my son and I got out the good scissors and took them to his shirts. We were committed. One step at a time: we cut the shirts, arranged them by color, and started to sew them together. I learned which stitch to use on cotton weave, and used old crib sheets as an internal backing between the t-shirts and the batting. The last step was the binding the edges, which perplexed me. In typical procrastinator fashion, I let the quilt sit over the summer, the weather too nice to be inside sewing. Once in a while, my husband and I flipped the quilt on the bed at night when the temperature dropped. It worked and served its purpose to keeping us warm in the night. But it wasn't done. I had to bind it.
Instead of asking my elders around the hearth, I watched several YouTube videos on binding quilts. The videos were perfectly clear and simple and...there was no way I could do it. I was afraid to cut the navy blue flannel for fear of doing it all wrong and ruining all of the effort I put into it thus far. At the same time, not finishing the quilt was not an option either. I was in over my head and past the point of no return. During the summer, I had the Seattle excuse of doing nothing indoors in order to celebrate three months of sunshine. Now the weather was starting to turn. On a cool and overcast day, my friend Diane showed me how to bind it. Now that I had a map for the final step, I felt compelled to get it done. I finished Sunday morning, right before lunch.
There are a few Frankenstein style stitches, but that it okay. I might not have the skill and sense of symmetry of the Amish or the flair and creativity of the women of Gee's bend, but now my son's favorite t-shirts are covering his bed. It is his and only his, one of a kind. It will never hang in a museum or win an award at the State Fair, but it is made of memories and will keep him warm.
Monday, September 16, 2013
So Close, and Yet So Far...
Last Friday, the family and I tried a new restaurant in our neighborhood. This spot has been there for ages, but it was new to us. We've lived in Seattle going on nine years, and there are pockets in our corner of the world we have never explored, gaps in my geography. The restaurant we visited is two blocks from our neighborhood school, and we have driven past it thousands of times. How could we have never visited a place so close?
And it was wonderful. This little Greek restaurant had the most perfectly roasted chicken I have ever tasted. The wait staff was friendly, the decor was comfortable and we ran into neighbors. I have my daughter to thank. It was her idea to try this restaurant. Otherwise, we rotate through a list of three restaurants. My kids generally prefer the familiar. I tried an experiment where every other time we ate out, we had to try someplace new. I'd let them scroll through Urban Spoon and pick a place. This plan fell by the wayside, and we were back at our usual bar and grill or Mexican place.
It is not just this cozy corner restaurant that I've skipped. Here I confess the places I've never been: Bainbridge Island. The Olympic Peninsula. Alki Beach. Whidbey Island. Unless this summer, I had never been to Mercer Island. I had driven under the island on I-90, but never set foot on it.
This the challenge of living in such a rich and vibrant part of the country. There are so many choices, yet we stick with the familiar. Stepping off of our well worn path was like taking a mini-vacation without the hassle of traveling. I love to travel, yet I wonder why I have to leave town to try new places. It is time to bring my spirit of adventure mindset home.
And it was wonderful. This little Greek restaurant had the most perfectly roasted chicken I have ever tasted. The wait staff was friendly, the decor was comfortable and we ran into neighbors. I have my daughter to thank. It was her idea to try this restaurant. Otherwise, we rotate through a list of three restaurants. My kids generally prefer the familiar. I tried an experiment where every other time we ate out, we had to try someplace new. I'd let them scroll through Urban Spoon and pick a place. This plan fell by the wayside, and we were back at our usual bar and grill or Mexican place.
It is not just this cozy corner restaurant that I've skipped. Here I confess the places I've never been: Bainbridge Island. The Olympic Peninsula. Alki Beach. Whidbey Island. Unless this summer, I had never been to Mercer Island. I had driven under the island on I-90, but never set foot on it.
This the challenge of living in such a rich and vibrant part of the country. There are so many choices, yet we stick with the familiar. Stepping off of our well worn path was like taking a mini-vacation without the hassle of traveling. I love to travel, yet I wonder why I have to leave town to try new places. It is time to bring my spirit of adventure mindset home.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Why I Love Macklemore
This Seattle boy makes his hometown proud. There are lots of reasons to like this self-depricating rap star with a great sense of humor. Let me start with "Thrift Shop."
1. The sax riff is awesome.
2. This is a song about frugality. Gotta love it.
3. The clothes are epic. You have to love a young buck who isn't afraid to wear footie pajamas.
4. The swearing. If you are going to swear, do it big and do it right.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Heaviness
(Warning: Self-Reflective Blog Post)
I just posted two complicated topics with the short themes of guns are bad and love is good. I usually don't post thoughts like that on Facebook. I view Facebook as if I were meeting people at the mall and giving them a quick update on the events in my life: just got back from vacation, school started, etc. I wouldn't necessarily start a conversation on more complicated topics.
I view this blog as sitting around my kitchen table and talking to my friends over tea. The conversation can veer from the serious to the silly.
Thanks,
Lauren
I just posted two complicated topics with the short themes of guns are bad and love is good. I usually don't post thoughts like that on Facebook. I view Facebook as if I were meeting people at the mall and giving them a quick update on the events in my life: just got back from vacation, school started, etc. I wouldn't necessarily start a conversation on more complicated topics.
I view this blog as sitting around my kitchen table and talking to my friends over tea. The conversation can veer from the serious to the silly.
Thanks,
Lauren
Thoughts on Gay Marriage
I know I am way past the vanguard of this conversation. The limo has left the wedding reception. For many, their honeymoon in the State of Washington was over at the end of August and now they are back to work and living in wedded bliss, just like hetro-ly married couples.
When I think of gay marriage, I think about kids. While I am happy for the grown-ups who are able to celebrate life with a partner legally defined by the state, gay marriage sends a very strong message for kids growing up today: It is okay to love who you love.
I don't recall the exact statistics (and I don't want to guess at what I remember and spread bad data on the internet), but a disproportionate number of homosexual adolescents commit suicide and runaway from home. They are more likely to be bullied at home and at school. I would hope that gay and questioning teenagers who are feeling depressed and confused look at right to marry laws and realize that the citizens of Washington think it is okay from them to love who they love, even if the unenlightened kid sitting next to them in homeroom doesn't.
I think about my kids and their friends. It is highly probable that some of these kids I know are gay. Even if they aren't "out" yet to their friends, families and communities, passing these laws are like wrapping a warm, fluffy blanket that just came out of the dryer around their shoulders that says, "It is okay to love who you love." May this thought bring them comfort on dark days and make them reconsider drastic measures.
On a far less romantic note, gay people should have the rights of divorce, and you can't get divorced if you aren't legally married in the first place. It is a right hetro couples have; gay people should have that right, too.
Jeremy Irons said a while back that gay marriage could make it legal for a man to marry his son. Is it legal for a man to marry his daughter, or a woman to marry her son? No. Please stop using bad logic to question love between mutually consenting adults.
When I think of gay marriage, I think about kids. While I am happy for the grown-ups who are able to celebrate life with a partner legally defined by the state, gay marriage sends a very strong message for kids growing up today: It is okay to love who you love.
I don't recall the exact statistics (and I don't want to guess at what I remember and spread bad data on the internet), but a disproportionate number of homosexual adolescents commit suicide and runaway from home. They are more likely to be bullied at home and at school. I would hope that gay and questioning teenagers who are feeling depressed and confused look at right to marry laws and realize that the citizens of Washington think it is okay from them to love who they love, even if the unenlightened kid sitting next to them in homeroom doesn't.
I think about my kids and their friends. It is highly probable that some of these kids I know are gay. Even if they aren't "out" yet to their friends, families and communities, passing these laws are like wrapping a warm, fluffy blanket that just came out of the dryer around their shoulders that says, "It is okay to love who you love." May this thought bring them comfort on dark days and make them reconsider drastic measures.
On a far less romantic note, gay people should have the rights of divorce, and you can't get divorced if you aren't legally married in the first place. It is a right hetro couples have; gay people should have that right, too.
Jeremy Irons said a while back that gay marriage could make it legal for a man to marry his son. Is it legal for a man to marry his daughter, or a woman to marry her son? No. Please stop using bad logic to question love between mutually consenting adults.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
My Favorite Quotes from "Les Miserables"
This summer, I picked up "Les Miserables." It is surprisingly easy to read. I feared it would be one of these long, dusty, irrelevant tomes but it is far more lovely that I imagined. This is from the Julie Rose translation.
Once Madame Magloire had said to [the bishop] with a gentle kind of malice, "Monseigneur, you are always to keen to put everything to good use, yet there is a useless garden bed for you!"
"Madame Magloire," the bishop replied, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is just as useful as the useful." After a pause, he added, "Perhaps more so." (page 21)
Here is another one about the bishop...
He went easy on women and the poor, feeling that the weight of human society fell upon them. He would say, "The sins of women and children, domestic servants and the weak, the poor and the ignorant, are the sins of the husbands and fathers, the masters, the strong and the rich and the educated."
He would also say, "Those who are ignorant should be taught all you can teach them; society is to blame for not providing free public education; and society will answer for the obscurity it produces. If the soul is left in the darkness, sin will be committed. The guilty party is not he who has sinned but he who has created the darkness in the first place."
As you can see, he had a strange and idiosyncratic way of looking at things. I suspect he got it from the Gospel. (page 13)
Once Madame Magloire had said to [the bishop] with a gentle kind of malice, "Monseigneur, you are always to keen to put everything to good use, yet there is a useless garden bed for you!"
"Madame Magloire," the bishop replied, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is just as useful as the useful." After a pause, he added, "Perhaps more so." (page 21)
Here is another one about the bishop...
He went easy on women and the poor, feeling that the weight of human society fell upon them. He would say, "The sins of women and children, domestic servants and the weak, the poor and the ignorant, are the sins of the husbands and fathers, the masters, the strong and the rich and the educated."
He would also say, "Those who are ignorant should be taught all you can teach them; society is to blame for not providing free public education; and society will answer for the obscurity it produces. If the soul is left in the darkness, sin will be committed. The guilty party is not he who has sinned but he who has created the darkness in the first place."
As you can see, he had a strange and idiosyncratic way of looking at things. I suspect he got it from the Gospel. (page 13)
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