Meagan Has A Birthday

My Sister turns 40 Today
Meagan is my little sister. She was born 7 years behind me and we share very limited memories of living in the same house...growing up together.
Over the course of the last year I've gotten to know her more than I could have ever hoped. And, she is one amazing person.
She lives in Colorado (as she has for the past 17 years) and she has 4 amazing boys. She has perfect nails and unbelievably enviable hair. She can sing like a lark and either doesn't know it or hasn't realized it yet.
When she laughs it's like a perfect wind ripping through a strand of evergreens.
She has some serious back bone.
She will sometimes tell me things I don't want to hear and other times tell me things that nobody has ever told me about myself. I value her for both of these.... Her candor is so precious.
Once, when she was very little I told her that my best friend had a tail. She believed me. Another time I told her that all those little utility stations along the turnpike were UFO tracking stations. I think she believed that till she was in college. And, once Meagan believes something it IS the truth. You've really got to work overtime to make her believe otherwise.
She still sends my brother money in prison.
She has hope.
I am so blessed to have her in my life...as are my children...and her children...and her great big ol' Irish Catholic family.
She is amazing.
And, it's her birthday.
So...Good vibe Meagan today.
Life is short...good vibes are forever.

Things I Remembered

To be fair, I may have known a lot of this stuff at some point in my life, but apparently that information got squeezed out and replaced with (what I can only fiugre is) random stuff that doesn't matter all that much.
1. You have to have the right tool for the job.
2. Even though something may look like it works and it's all good, it could be tragically and dangerously broken.
3. You really can't believe most anything you hear or read and it's probably best to hedge your bets.
4. You simply can't go back.
5. If you do lots of dishes by hand all your callouses will magically disappear. And, not in a good way.
6. Warm and clean clothes can turn a day around.
7. There really are no bad kids, just sadly misinformed and/or lazy parents.
8. Holding people to the same standards you hold yourself to will only lead to heart ache.
9. Expectations may, indeed, only be premeditated resentments, but there's no real way to live a full life without them.
10. There seriously is NO gain with NO pain.

So, there y'have it. Perhaps I just needed to leave this here so I can come back and find out what it is that I think I know.

Eight IS Enough!!!!

YES WE CAN!!!!!

For the first time in my adult life I am full of hope... hope for the future....hope for our children and parents...hope for the legacy I believe we can and will leave behind. GO OBAMA GO!!!! The DNC is taking place about a half an hour away from where I sit, but I can feel the energy clear out here on the plains near the western slope.

I actually had little tears of joy. The last time I cried about anything political was the 2000 election, and those tears came from a place of absolutely hopeless disillusionment and disbelief.

I sincerely believe we are on the brink of a change in America and I believe even more strongly that Obama is going to lead us to that change.

I wonder if this is how our parents and grandparents felt about Kennedy.

Now, I gotta go sign up to volunteer... You ought to do the same. Be the change you can be and do NOT let your dreams be deferred for one more moment.

There Are Never Bad Kids....

This is Riley, one of my nephews and king of my fan club.This morning, just as soon as he brought his naked little self down the stairs, this beautiul blue-eyed boy walked right up to me and acted like he was going to hug me.
He got to where I could almost wrap my arms around him and he smiled and spit in my face and said "I hate you Aunt Moses." Then he laughed and ran away singing something that I couldn't understand.
It's another bright and joyful day in the neighborhood.
Nothing but love love love and good times.
At least I always know what to expect.

Sometimes You Just Have To Stay Up All Night

Sometimes you just have to stay up all night.
or something just like it...
I'm pretty sure you have to experience hunger and exhaustion and a little fear and just a smidgon of hope.
I'm pretty sure, after tonight, that it's the hope that carries us forward....
Mighty powerful claim to fame for such a small agent.
I'm back in the land of no humidity.
Consequently, my hair looks like a million bucks.
Go figure.

OK, I guess I'll Run For President

So, my main complaint about politicians is that they invariably have some miserable skeletons in their closets if they've achieved the kind of success necessary to run for the highest office in the land.
I've threatened to do this for years now, and it's clearly time to either dive in or take off my suit. Nobody wants me to take off my suit, so I'm diving in.
I believe it's completely unproductive to claim any kind of affiliation (like Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or Independent) and am therefore going to run, most specifically, without affiliation.
I'm banking on a fresh and clever platform to grab the attention of big time sponsors (like Tang and Oreos) to help me sell my new and much greatly improved political ambition to the largely uninformed and scary-simple masses.
I know I will probably have to acquiesce to some of the conventions that Americans embrace when being aggressively marketed to, and to that end I will recruit Sponge Bob or Flavor Flav to speak favorably about me in strategically placed medias and I vow to post hundreds of thousands of promo stickers above urinals and in bathroom stalls in all the bars from coast to coast.
My platform will consist of just a couple important elements.
1. In order to procreate (make new babies) all persons involved will have to pass a series of intelligence and personality tests. Failure to comply will result in mandatory sterilization. Failure to pass said tests will result in one of several different consequences that I will develop with my crack team of cabinet members.
2. All methamphetamine production will completely disappear and meth addicts (who make up, like, 70 percent of all incarcerated humans here in America) will have some sort of meaningful rehabilitation and be returned to society as useful and productive members of our culture.
So, there's my top two reasons for tonight.
One last thing: Respect. Just like Aretha said... Show it to me show it to me show it to me. Respect your families, respect your mad-expensive "stuff" that you can't stop acquiring... Respect the fact that everybody you do meet, for real, is fighting some kind of battle. We just need to see, feel, teach and be: Respect.

Top Ten Things That Make Me Happy

In the course of the last 20 years or so I've seen lots of stuff on My Little World Wild Web.
Both my parents, at some point called me and said, "My web is broken"... that always cracked me up because (one) it's not really "their" web and (two) it's most unlikely that it's broken.
It also made me remember that when our famliy started depending on the Internet -- we paid by the minute. Yep, for all you kids out there: It's true. When it all began, you had to pay by the minute, just like long distance. Aaaahhh, I'm getting all misty just thinking about our humble beginnings here...
But, most recently I've had cause to consider the "Vibe Content" of any and every thing I put out here. For that matter, I've had cause to pause regarding EVERYthing that ANYbody puts out there.... You know, the Easterners among us (I don't mean Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. Ferrreal, I'm thinking about the Chinese... Japanese... Zens and Taoists) belive that everything you think or say releases that "vibe" (energy, Qi...) into the universe
At this point, I can't help but believe that is true. Life is so very delicate and short.
And, then I find myself thinking about all the bonafide trash that's passed through my fingertips. The zillions of surveys that are so.... they just demonstrate a complete disregard for critical thinking... Stuff like "What do you think Brittany Should Do With Her Kids That She Refuses to Pay Any Attention To?" kinda surveys...
Things that just so don't matter.
So, Now it's a Wednesday night in Denver and I'm all wrapped up in thinking about Things That Mke Me Smile...
So, tell me... tell me do...
What makes you smile.
Ten whole things.
Here's mine:
1. The sound of kids laughing. Primarily mine, but a really close second would be any of my relatives kids. God it makes me happy to hear kids laugh.
2. The "Hello" from someone I love on the other end of a phone.
3. Songs that make me dance in the kitchen. There's just really nothing like Kitchen Dancing.
4. The sound of bacon sizzling on a stove top.... preferably mine. Yea, I know it will probably kill me, but... damn.... it's bacon.
5. Watching snow fall. Any where, any time. It makes everything so quiet and clean and ... quiet.
6. The smell of Chlorine.... A good, well-maintained pool...jumping a fence when you're all hot and sweaty... not getting caught.
7. A dumpster full of brand new Levis and Doc Marten shoes ... at the end of a semester... in a town where little rich kids are supported by their parents and they haven't learned the value of a dollar yet.
8. Any documentary that illustrates the ultimate battle between the "haves" and the "have nots" in any way.
9. Love letters.
10. The smell of Moon Flowers, Lilacs, compost, Lavendar and patchouli.

(and, an addendum to my Top TEN list: The smell of hippies at a bluegrass festival....Mmmm mmmmm mmm)

Ok. So tell me. I'm serious.
What's your Top Ten?