Against the Wind

I’ve managed to strip most of the ornaments off the tree. The Round Robin medallion didn’t arrive today. I didn’t really expect it, but I would have enjoyed having it to think about while I’m in Tulsa. I am headed out tomorrow right after a dental appointment. Mostly I imagine I’ll do some light duty nursing, and I’m packing the sewing machine because I really would like to finish the jacket I promised Mother a year ago. It is looking really promising. As with any project, the finishing will determine to what extent it is successful. And as I’ll be in Tulsa I may be able to get to to fit Mother decently. It will make a nice cozy wrap for heading out into air conditioned hallways next summer.

The dentist couldn’t fit me in today, so I’ll keep taking asprin and see the hygenist and head out the door from there to Tulsa. I’m staying with Ann’s mother which will likely be more comfortable than Dana’s home. She works tomorrow nigth and won’t be home ’til late, so I can crash on her, maybe AFTER she’s home from work.

I’ll hope to be home for Sunday. Mother seems to be reasonably stable, she’d had a heart test this morning when I called. She said that heart sounded awful sluggish to her. But she was getting some treatment, unlike over the weekend when she felt she’d been hospitalized just to vegitate. Anyway, I’ll do what I can to run interference with the hostpital and see to it, for example that she isn’t given any bandaging with latex in it. The last exposure to latex is the source of the infected wounds on her legs. She told the manor nurse she couldn’t be in contact with latex, but I guess when you’re 85 you don’t know anything about anything anymore?

Training has begun to run in the Crescent City Classic… ok, I’m a walker. Tara’s aiming to do it at a jog with A—. Tania and Marianne are aiming for running the race. I’ll have to make us all matching tee’s of some sort?

A– is back in town, moved back from Texas and trying to get a raffle set up, asking for contributions to defray the incidental expenses for her husband’s kidney transplant. A— lived here (in my house, here) a short while years ago and is now the mother of two young kids. A—, her husband has genetic predisposition to kidney issues, but who knew he’d be on home dialysis and waiting for a transplant before his 30th birthday. He’s working in marine architecture, and doing well, but of course his health is dicey. She’s part of the my children’s other family.

And another photo from Quilt Festival time. One of the joys of staying with Deb is her wonderful garden. Here’s some fall beauty from her front yard.

What’s a blog without a reading recommendation. My interest of late has been Gaza, the financial meltdown and the upcoming inauguration. This is Gaza related. Often in the rightosphere of blogdom, Hamas is compared to the Nazis. So Ron Rosenbaum who has written a book on the Nazis, so done a bit of research has an article on the differences.

Differences between Hamas and the Nazi Party

–The Hamas founding covenant explicitly calls for the extermination of all Jews. Hitler never made total extermination an official plank of the the Nazi party platform. (see Holocaust scholar Omar Bartov’s article in the February 2, 2004 issue of The New Republic. He points to the exterminationist 7th article of the founding Hamas covenant which cites the Hadith (saying of the prophet). Here is a translation of the Hadith in a deeply disturbing summary of Hamas’ exterminationist anti-semitism by the Brown University scholar Andrew Bostom:

“The Prophet, Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him, says: “The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985)

In other words, Hamas is not committed merely to the political goal of expelling Jews from the land of Israel but to what they believe is a sacred religious goal of exterminating all Jews everywhere behind every tree in creation. (I’m not pinning any hopes on “the Gharqad tree”). I’d suggest those who deceive themselves into believing Hamas is just another Palestinian rights group, maybe a little on the extreme side, read the whole Bostom article. The exterminationist anti-semitism of Hamas is more excessive than Hitler’s.

So that’s one difference.

I’ll also continue with the recurring Proverbs quotes.

Proverbs 8: 11 - 12 New King James Version, now my preference.

For wisdom is better than rubies,
And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.
“ I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.

Ok, back to the Christmas tree, dinner and packing.

Last minute addendum…. Dana just called and Mother has deteriorated significantly through the day today. She’s having a good deal of difficulty breathing even on oxygen. Drat!

Today’s blog is really just two essays. The first is from the New York Times, and titled The end of the financial world as we knew it. A taste….

Incredibly, intelligent people the world over remain willing to lend us money and even listen to our advice; they appear not to have realized the full extent of our madness. We have at least a brief chance to cure ourselves. But first we need to ask: of what?

To that end consider the strange story of Harry Markopolos. Mr. Markopolos is the former investment officer with Rampart Investment Management in Boston who, for nine years, tried to explain to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff couldn’t be anything other than a fraud. Mr. Madoff’s investment performance, given his stated strategy, was not merely improbable but mathematically impossible. And so, Mr. Markopolos reasoned, Bernard Madoff must be doing something other than what he said he was doing.

The second of two major links is to…. of all places, the Huffington Post. Harold Ambler has it well written…. Mr. Gore, apology accepted

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:

And another try at a Round Robin quilt top. The pictures aren’t as good as I would like, but I am getting faster at putting everything together, so I may continue to use this technology. Time will tell.

A new day, a new try at a round robin quilt slide show.

I got up, never expecting to get to the canning project that Marianne and I had planned for today. We were to go to the farmer’s market, buy some strawberries and make some preserves. But by the time she called me, I already had the backfield in motion to get the SOTC first round moved on its way. It went to Houston and I’ll get a piece from Salt Lake sometime early next week. Her back pain was not completely yesterday, but she was able to medicate and move about, so she was ready to do some preserves. Off late to the farmer’s market. No strawberries left, so we bought several bunches of kumquats. They look like miniature oranges and you eat them skin and all, spitting out the numerous seeds. I ate a few on the way home, reaquainting myself with this exotic southern fruit. Marianne and I cut and seeded a LOT of the little guys. We made a small experimental batch of preserves with the Splenda baking blend. Very good… very very good.

What’s to say about Gaza? Something must be said because it’s being reported with the lens of “Isreali agression.” Facts are irrelevant to much of the reportage. So a bit of counter reporting. Powerline on the interneccine warfare in Gaza. A ghastly disfunctional area, sick through and through.

Another web recommendation I’m offering is one that I found when I first owned an i-Pod. The Daily Audio Bible is starting another year of reading through the bible. Who know that every day about 20 minutes of listening to the bible and you can hear the whole thing over a year’s time. It’s not too late to get started. Anyway, there’s a red button near the bottom of the page that gets you to the days that have been recorded so far in 2009. Try it?

I’m a couple months behind to finish up last year, but Brian Harding does a super job of reading. His chat afterword I mostly just turn off and let the scriptural words speak for themselves. Many many parts of the bible were totally unfamiliar to me, and I’ve learned a great deal. Each podcast is essentially three parts, an old testament reading, (starting in Genesis…Surprise) a new testament reading (Yup Matthew) and about half a psalm and a verse or two of Proverbs. There’s no requirement that you be religious, or church type folks at all. I’m personally on a quest to learn what I can about “wisdom literature” of all sorts. I get in over my head pretty quickly as I’m no spiritual heavy weight. But it’s something of my nature to want to deal with the “important stuff.” Guess when I was young, I though mathematics was the “important stuff.”

Ok, Still quoting Proverbs 8, today verses 12 - 13

“ I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo. Start the new year right. Thanks for this Gail! (And astronomy pic of the day)

I may need to play that skyscape often in the next few days. I see some tough times in my future. But I may be wrong, and no need to assume troubles before they actually come.

I was glad to see Marianne on my cell phone this morning. “Happy New Year!” Well, maybe not so happy a New Year. She had such back pain that she was crying hysterically. “Mom, I don’t have medical insurance, and I can’t even walk.” Callous creature that I am, I let her friend Kate (my fourth daughter) tend her before Kate had to go to work. I went to WW and did my morning walk and THEN headed into New Orleans to watch a medicated but still pained person sleep, and get up and move very little. I walked her around the apartment a few times and made sure she could get back and forth to the potty before I left. The Sugar Bowl is in New Orleans sometime today, and traffic was going to get crazy. So while “amusing” Marianne with clever quilting essays (she just didn’t get Carol Boyer’s humor) my brother, Dana called. Not such a good thing in the middle of a Friday afternoon. “Good morning,” says he. Something’s wrong. He’s entered a paralell time zone. “Just called to let you know that they’ve taken Mother to St. Francis Hospital.” Oh great. I’m no medic, but I recognize heart failure when I see it, and that’s what I saw when I went to Tulsa. The attending physician for the folks in assisted living saw the same today. Her lungs are filling, and she was on her way to the emergency room. I’ll get in touch with family members with contact information when I have it. Things are not good with her. But she can’t give up the ghost yet, she’s not got her Christmas cards all written! Anyway, this evening I’m taking names, if anyone else would like to go on the sick bay list. Put Mother and Marianne on your prayer list all you prayer warriors out there.

Meanwhile, tea anyone? Dean Martin and Phil Harris

Update: Four hours later, and they’ve still not admitted her. Dana says he understands the problem is that there’s no room in the hospital.

Ahh, the life of a social butterfly. I opted out long ago of the invitation to go to Metairie to a hang at the party of a friend from my Writer’s group. So yesterday J– called and needed a fill in because J— was too ill to come play bridge at their end of year bash. So I got called in as a last minute substitute. I’ll play with B—-, whom I’ve not played for years and years. She’s a good solid player, though she worries as much as I used to. I’ve finally learned to play the game and not get much bent one way or the other over the outcome. I just try to do my best and help partner do the same. Fun filled evening at the bridge table. The brownies are cooked and ready for finger food offering.

Today’s project was to find and embed a slide show viewer for the photos of Gail’s quilt top. This one is adequate in most respects but I never did see how I could drag and drop to reorder the photos to my wishes. I started with a cropped photo of the center, and since photo shop allows you to color match, I matched the colors of the remaining photos of the progression. Unfortunately when it came to the light yellow big border I added, the color settings are too far to blue, and the yellow is pretty muddy. The acutal fabric is not that color. So I included a couple photos that have been in the blog before, uncolor matched.

Tell me what you think of the viewer and the slide show. Two more quilts to give this treatment to, and I know I’ll shop for a different viewer for the next one.

The only link is to a blog post of editorial cartoons on the fun in Gaza. From a blog of photos that aren’t mostly to my taste, but decent photography nonetheless.

Marianne just got home from Trinidad, and she says they celebrate “old year’s night” instead of New Year’s Eve. So in the retrospective sort of mood that Old Year’s Night should bring, I was trying to decide if there was anyone/anything particularly admirable or notable in the old year. Resolutions are soooo tomorrow.

As far as events, the big family event was the wedding, as most of you know. On a personal level, in preparation for the wedding I began fretting a bit about needing a cash transfusion. I really decided that what I wanted was to teach in a gifted high school sort of setting.

I could go find the place that I journaled about wanting exactly that. And amazingly, a prayer was answered. That may not be the way most would like to describe it. We’re so hung up on not being ‘religious’ that it’s fearsome to say that a prayer was answered. Makes one tend to be labeled some sort of kook. I gotten a chance to earn some income teaching in a high school setting with some very talented young people. I will continue with the gig in the spring.

It’s rather unsettling having a prayer answered. A very specific prayer answered in a very specific opportunity. I certainly don’t think of God as some sort of Santa for adults, but I believe there is some mysterious force that we can work to align ourselves with. Some call it sychronicity, others call it God, to paraphrase a poem.

It all started with the writing, and trying to write in a journal as a form of prayer. From there I’ve allowed it to take its own path through my life, and something has been growing in response to a budding prayer life.

Less impressive was the interest in joining WW but I rather resisted. But with a wedding coming up, my two younger daughters expressed an interest and I jumped at it. I’m down 20 some lbs and still at it. That’s the big stuff in my old year. NYT has been asking people

What professional project do you plan to complete in 2009? What personal resolution do you finally hope to keep next year? And what problem should your industry or professional community tackle more effectively?

So that’s a reasonable jumping off place for thinking about 2009. But maybe not what professional project, but what personal project? How are you going to go about being as close as you can be to the person ‘God intended you to be?’ What problem or project should your church, your family or your quilt guild tackle more effectively? How can you be a catalyst for that?

I’ve a collection of links, but I think I’ll leave it down to one. I can’t embed this one, so you have to click through, but it’s Monty Python, six minutes, and should leave you smiling. Pete sent this recommendation.

Pete also finds the most appalling videos of Islamic justice and horrors. The one I saw a bit of today has no link anyway, but perfectly dreadful. He has some driving need to expose the horrendous applications of sharia law. I can’t imagine filming tongue cuttings, hand choppings and the like, and cannot seem to watch the horrendous footage. But it’s available to be seen. He’s like a Jeremiah wanting to let people know… says it’s closer to us than we know.

Ok, a bit of Wisdom to lighten up…

Proverbs 8:10 - 11 (Wisdom still calling)

Receive my instruction, and not silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold;
For wisdom is better than rubies,
And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.

This always reminds me of my students in Uganda saying, they wanted an education, as no one could take that from them. Seek wisdom. Not affected by market crashes.

And a couple of photos…. shifting gears. The wedding photos are now finished. I was busy being m- o- b, not photographer for the event itself.

The day after we went to the Frenchman and delivered some shoes to Tania. Here’s Carlo on the stoop of the Frenchman.

And then shifting completely away from wedding stuff, a picture of Sisters of the Cloth, on the way out to dinner.

One more link… This is over long, but the trend to making obesity a disease, and overeating a sickness of some sort is well SICK! I’m a fatty boobalatty, and I’m fighting the battle of the bulge, but I am not sick because I’m fat. I’m damn healthy. My metabolism would be the pride of a nation in times of famine. Luckily we’ve not seen famine in my lifetime. Obesity is the product of genetic tendencies and choices about what to eat. Nothing more. It does not ask for a tax on soft drinks or a special class of people who deserve some sort of phony sympathy. Keep your platitudes and let me deal with my own problems, thank you.

As respects the fusalage in Gaza, Linda’s remark is in the vein of “same ol’, same ol’.” True, but guess I’m crazy. I’d like to see the war fought till there was a clear winner and loser and we could go on to other battles.

The wedding photo of the day… here I have one that is almost as good as the photographer’s photos. Tara and Marianne attend to the last details of getting the dress in order.

Proverbs 8:8 - 9 (More words from Wisdom, crying at the gates)

All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.
They are all plain to him who understands,
And right to those who find knowledge.

Reading weekend type reading I ran into an old (2006) Jonah Goldberg article which says a lot about the other side of the political gulf. I’m sure I couldn’t say it better, but the nuts and bolts of his argument are almost like my plaint as I passed through the rebirth of jumping the abyss. My cry was, “how do you know what you know?” His is “are you certain about that?” Worth a read if you’re in a philosophical mood.

If you’re more interested in action, there’s some twitter chatter about the bomb throwing going on in Gaza. Johan Goldberg on certainty/uncertainty.

I always have trouble keeping my emotions on an even keel here at the end of the year. But the worlds wobbles on, with me or without me.

I managed with two days on the road and Christmas last week to neither gain nor lose weight. That’s a good thing, I suspect. I’ll have more trouble through the New Year’s festivities, but with a bit of luck and a glass of champagne I’ll get past this too.

Here’s ten too long minutes of a video found on the internet. What do you see here? My suggestion is to watch a couple minutes and let it go. What do you notice? I saw so many things that seem quirky.

A brief “magic of Christmas” moment. I slept on Tara’s sofa Christmas Eve, so the boys could open their gifts at home and then head over to their other Grandmother’s for a Christmas celebration there. I woke up with Tootie at my feet, Cameron’s little hiney near my face, and Quentin by my tummy. Their eyes were alight with anticipation in the pale morning light. I wanted to take a photo so badly, I ran for my camera and, “Oh crud…” one of the few things I took out of the car after the 12 hours of driving Christmas Eve. “Don’t wake up your Dad boys, let me go get the camera.” Ok, a Grandma can dream. But that look of anticipation, of delight thinking of the things that might be in those packages, it’s a lovely sight to behold.

Here comes a photo…

Tania wanted her Grandmother to come to the wedding. But it was a no go. So we made a sign and she presided over the festivities.

Quilting continues a bit now a bit later. I’ve made two 3.5 inch strips to add like racing stripes to the back of last year’s round robin quilt. Lots of dark fabrics. Now if I can figure out how to sew that on so that it’s reasonably straight with the quilt already half pinned. Do I have to unpin and work with the backing alone? I suspect that’s the right answer, but I don’t like it a bit.

So, fighting the midwinter grims, praying does seem to help. A bit more from the Proverbs…

Wisdom is still calling to man
Proverbs 8: 6 - 7

Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
For my mouth will speak truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

Praying for wisdom seems appropriate!

In the time after the gifts get opened and life moves on to it’s next little phase, let me recommend one of the gifts that moved into that particular moment for me. Tara bought me a book of essays by Lisa Boyer. Who says quilting can’t be just laugh out loud funny! I think I have a new favorite author.