Color

Asking me to pick a favorite color would be like asking my mom to pick a favorite child (although, that may be easier for her now that I've left the church :-). Anyway, we are building a house and I get to have my own office. I'm ecstatic, except that I can't decide on which color to paint the walls. I like reds because of the associations they've had with women, for better or worse, through out Western History. I like blues because, well, it's blue . . . and it was always associated with integrity back when I was still active and integrity has always been important to me. I like greens because I read somewhere one time that the Celts associated it with magic and growth, because the plants around them grew without a seeming explanation. I like purples because they represent royalty (and even though I'm totally not thrilled with the idea of monarchy, I find it romantic anyway). I like black because it gets such a bad rap. Browns are so warm and inviting. Yellows and oranges, while they aren't always top on my list, have some shades that just make me happy. And white, well, of course I like it. But I don't like being surrounded by it, and so that's why I want my walls to be colorful.
Anyway, this was totally superfluous, but I just thought I'd put it out there and see what you guys like. And if you have any suggestions, that'd be cool too.

Fourth

Here's what we did for Independence Day. Theron and I rode the Bonneville County Democrat's float. We kept it simple this year, mostly recycling the donkey from a couple of years back and then making signs based off the Idaho Democratic Platform. We had everything from "protect productive farmland" to "torture? not in my America". We also had some of our candidates walk along with us and hand out their literature. One candidate in particular, Debbie Holmes, is really exciting to me. She was a real estate agent in Boise and was seeing the housing crisis up front. She got mad and decided to run for Congress. The woman has no rhetorical/oratory skill, but is as genuine as you could want.

Obviously, I have no skill at uploading images, so forgive me. But there we are. It was a fun day overall. In what used to be an uber conservative enclave, our float got cheers and peace signs and thumbs up. It was a pleasant surprise. As for the rest of the political spectrum in the U.S. Yeah, we still have a lot of hurdles to make it over. But at least on the fourth, I was feeling a little glimmer of hope.

Corporate Conglomerate

This is in response to Chandelle's post about corporate food. Now, I don't know nearly as much as she does about the food world, but tonight, as I was skimming through the Sunday paper, I found a rather hefty flyer called P&G brandSAVER. Now, obviously, if Proctor and Gamble is putting all their brands into one flyer to advertise, then it's not overly concerned about folks knowing they practically own the household market, but still, I was surprised by how many of the products I use on a daily basis (and indeed, how many products I thought were competing products), were made under Proctor and Gamble's label. Also, here are a couple of links about their legislative pull. Just makes you all warm and fuzzy, huh? Note especially the part where they mention that approximately 80 percent of the rest of the globe hasn't so much as seen a disposable diaper and I wanted to hurl (but for full disclosure, I haven't made the switch to cloth yet). Anyway, here's a list of all the products they make (even though one of those links also outlines it):
Pantene, Aussie, infusium, Olay, Noxema, Covergirl, Herbal Essences, Clairol, Secret, TAG, Gillette, Always, Tampax, Old Spice, Venus, Crest, OralB, PUR, febreze, Swiffer, Dawn, Cascade, Iams, Charmin, Bounty, Pepto Bismol, Tide, Downy, Head & Shoulders, Metamucil, Prilosec, and Pampers. This may not be all inclusive, but it was overwhelming nonetheless. It certainly opened my eyes. Illusion of choice indeed. Thanks for raising awareness, sista!

Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth. Go to the website for more specific information, but basically, on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, the last African American slaves were officially recognized as free citizens. Now obviously, there were still problems. Many slaves at that time had no land, no possessions, no connections except those with their former owners, but many modern African Americans recognize this as their own Independence Day.

I just wanted to remind those of us here in the U.S. that while our constitution contains some worthy and high ideals, we have a long way to go before we reach them. I think we've made wonderful progress. I'm so glad I live now and didn't live then, but I still sometimes wonder how long it will be before we truly recognize the basic rights that we have claimed pertain to every human. Anyway, happy Juneteenth!

Fathers Day Miscellany

So, yesterday being Fathers Day, I went to an LDS ward with my hubby to show support. The opening hymn was "O My Father" which used to be one of my favorite hymns. Sure enough, at the last verse, I started crying and couldn't make it through the rest of the song. I sat there confused at my reaction and wondered if maybe I should give the church another try. The youth speaker spoke about obeying her dad (which is a generally good idea, within reason) and then the next speaker got up. She was young (approximately my age, give or take a couple of years) and was talking about how to honor, respect and otherwise kiss your husband's ass. She spewed the most disgusting patriarchal vomit that I've heard in a while. Her talk was full of archaic bullshit about how women shouldn't give their husbands too much trouble and assumptions that the husband would be the only bread winner in the family and so should be especially pampered. Ick, ick, ick. Her husband's talk was slightly more redeemable in that he spoke about not exercising unrighteous dominion, but it was still based on the idea that she should defer to him. I don't think either one of them even tried to touch on the equal partner language in the Family Proclamation (even thought that document has its own vomit issues). Suffice it to say that I left upset (although I tried to contain it since I didn't want to ruin hubby's day). Hubby simply found it amusing, because he knows how much it bothers me and thought that it was ironic that they would say those things on the one day I chose to come. Anyway, it was a nice reminder about why I was keeping my distance.

On to other Fathers Day stuff. I will now do a tribute to my own father. My dad is a pretty good guy in general. And we've definitely had our times when we didn't see eye to eye. In high school, when I was at my most zealous, I had no use for anything that my agnostic father wanted to tell me. As I look back now, I realize that even though my father's politics are generally conservative (as are his views of what married women should do), the things he tried to tell my sister and I about being independent were pretty much spot on, and I should have listened to him a lot more. He still annoys me at times, I still get angry at him sometimes, but I'm also finally learning to appreciate some of the things he says. So, here's to you, Dad. I love you.

Death

Well, I have a new job. I edit obituaries for the local newspaper. For the most part, my job consists of reading about old men and women who have lived long, meaning-filled lives. But every once in a while, I have a day like today. First, a funeral home director sends me the obituary of a two month old infant. The grieving parents have written up some beautiful nonsense about how this baby made everyone want to live a better life. Then, a woman calls me to ask how to submit an obituary for her son.
"I'm sorry," I say, about to cry since I'm still upset over the baby.
"I've already buried two daughters," she says, "And this is so wrong."
"I know," I say, and again, "I'm sorry."
These are the ones that affect me the most, perhaps because they hit so close to home. The thought of losing one of my babies, or my husband (who is probably about the same age as the second woman's son) almost immobilizes me.
I will be honest, death scares me. It scares me badly. The thought that I could possibly be happy again if I lost one of my boys just seems ludicrous to me.
I recently read The Voyage Out by Virginia Wolfe, and she describes a poignant death scene. The fiance sits and listens to Rachel's breathing slow and finally stop. He sits quietly with her for some time, and then, when his friends come and get him, he finally realizes what death means--he will never see Rachel again. All of a sudden, he understands. That's how it's been for me lately. Death is final. And even though eternity scared me (maybe I'll go into that later), finality scares me even more.

Mothers Day

This will be somewhat eclectic. More and more efforts are being made to remind the American public that Mothers Day was originally founded by Julia Ward Howe in an effort to prevent more wars. Howe looked around at the devastation of the Civil War and thought, "I didn't teach my sons this. I taught them love, peace, and kindness. Maybe if more mothers spoke up, we wouldn't have as many wars." In the spirit of her original intent, many places around the U.S. are holding peace rallies today. I plan to participate in two--one where we are going to write the names of the fallen soldiers and civilians in Iraq (and maybe Afghanistan, I can't remember), and the other one a simple protest where we'll all congregate by the bridge here in town and let folks know that we support alternative ways of dealing with other countries.

On to the next point I wanted to talk about. Mothers Day has been hideously hijacked by Hallmark and the like. So for the last two years, I've been trying to approach Mothers Day from a non-consumerist ideal (although I admit I'm still consuming far more than I need to, so don't think I've made as much progress as I plan to). Last year, when my girl friends were getting bread machines and ice cream makers (neither of which is bad, I suppose), I told Alistiar that I wanted a day to myself. He took the boys and I rode my bike to a local park and read a book. I took a nap, I wrote in my journal, and all the time I was uninterrupted by my boys unless I went to them first. This year, as I mentioned, I'm going to the peace rallies and maybe my local UU service. I will probably ride my bike again. However, this year I'm also insisting that my boys (all three of them) join me (except maybe for the UU service). I want my boys to know how important peace is to me, and I want to set that example for them.

Lastly, a tribute to my own Mother. Right now, I admit that I have a lot of anger issues with my mom. I'm unashamedly blaming her for some of the things that are happening in my life while still recognizing that I am an adult now and will have to deal with these things from my own initiative (but that's another, whinier post). Let me just say that while I feel that my mother did some major things wrong (although nothing in the way of abuse, just not really preparing us for the real world), I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mom loves me. I know that she did her best and meant only the best for me and my sister. I know that my mom has her own demons to face and that raising children in the face of demons is daunting. I hope I do well by my children in the face of mine. I suppose the one thing I'm grateful to my mom for trying to teach me (even though I eventually had to learn it the hard way) is compassion for others. My mom realized how difficult it is to make judgments about a person's choices in life when we don't know their inner workings. She reminded me of this several times in high school when I would make blanket judgments of the kids around me. I now realize how right she was and try very hard to keep my assumptions about people to a minimum. I'm even trying really hard to do this concerning her (although it's hard considering the anger I'm harboring right now). Anyway, even though I don't plan on my mother ever reading this, I love you Mom. Thanks for everything. I hope I can succeed in raising good kids as well as you did.