Saturday, January 31, 2009

Open Letter From Fergus to the Person Who Out-Bid Him on EBay for a LEGO Vahki "Rorzakh"

i am not mad. not angry,either. i'm furious!!! if i had a 3000-ft
toilet, and if i could lift Taj Mahal,i would carry your house(or workplace)
to the toilet,then,i would dump the building into the toilet and flush it
down. hey! do you know that this message is haunted?! i know you work at a toy dealer,and you have the vahki i want! surrender it,or i give you a present. heh!heh!heh!



-THE GHOST OF HORROR

Friday, January 30, 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Time time ticking time time ticking away







This boy is nine years old today.



Amazing.


Monday, January 19, 2009

The Future, Part Two

D.C. in April


Over the weekend, HBO presented live coverage of pre-inaugural festivities from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. There were speakers, politicians, musicians. Will.I.Am sang a Bob Marley song with Sheryl Crowe. Garth Brooks did a medley that included "Bye bye Miss American Pie". Jack Black tried to appear sincere. It was kind of like the Grammy Awards.

But there has since been some controversy because the opening prayer for the event, by Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, was not included in the broadcast.

HBO and the producer of the event have said that that Bishop Robinson's words were always meant to precede the broadcast, and that this was at the request of the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). A subsequent statement from the PIC communications director said,

"We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson's invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday's program. We regret the error in executing this plan - but are gratified that hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the mall heard his eloquent prayer for our nation that was a fitting start to our event."


Bishop Robinson is the first openly-gay Bishop in the Episcopal (Anglican) Church--or any other major church, for that matter--and his ascendancy created a good deal of controversy both within and without the church--and probably in my father's heart.

But regardless, his invocation is worth reading, perhaps as a counterpoint to the invocation to be offered tomorrow by Pastor Rick Warren, a supporter of Prop. 8 in California (and pastor at a church which, at least until very recently would not accept gay members unless they were "willing to repent of their homosexual lifestyle").

Here's what Bishop Robinson had to say. Barack Obama was in attendance.

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears - tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger - anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort at the easy, simplistic answers we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

And God, we give you thanks for your child, Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for all people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain.

Give him stirring words; We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen.

The Future

D.C. in April

Friday, January 16, 2009

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

After-Dinner Reading





Turns out he was reading "Gus Was a Mexican Ghost," by Jane Thayer.




Sunday, January 11, 2009

Fergus Surveys His Domain

His Domain being East Montpelier and, beyond, Plainfield and the foothills of the Groton Range.

This picture takes my breath away.

January, East Montpelier, Sibley Road

From Our House

Norah Again, Riding Her Broken Pony in the Snow


Norah

Late afternoon, January, Vermont.

The Dilemma of Fay-Quaintances

Here's a dilemma.

The homeschooling children started school last week, an event that, momentous as it is has, I think, been a good thing overall, so far, as far as I know, to the extent that I--

--And I know it's been a bit of a roller coaster for Lauren this week, and I think she's feeling okay about it, at least over the last couple of days, but though I have sensed her feelings as they happened, I know that she has been making notations about this period on her Facebook page, and I wonder sometimes what she is saying. She tells me that a lot of her Facebook People are following along with interest, chiming in with comments of various kinds, etc etc.

And she taunts me, a little, and says I would know what she is thinking if I only joined Facebook. But I just--I don't know--I should join Facebook? Somehow it just feels like embracing the Dark Side. But Skywalker here is fighting it off, for now.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Oh, Snap.

--Cold snap, that is, at the end of next week.

Things get a little intense when the HIGH TEMPERATURES only reach -10F....

I hope our furnace holds out.
_________________________
From the National Weather Service:

Tuesday Night: Snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a low around -4. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Wednesday: A chance of snow showers. Partly sunny and cold, with a high near -4. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around -13.

Thursday: Sunny and cold, with a high near -2.

Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around -17.

Friday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near -10.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Noon, January, Vermont, Twelve Degrees

Noon, January, Vermont, Twelve Degrees. Dog on steroids nosing his Elizabethan collar into everything, direly in need of a walk. A perfunctory lunch of organic CSA applesauce and an 8 oz. Swiss Colony ham(let) dating from Christmas of 2007. The first week of school, ever, for my two children and already they seem to be louder then they were. And they giggle about the word ass--as in, he fell on his ass on the sledding hill and not as in, what's the difference between a donkey and an ass?--and L, stretched thin with lack of sleep and these changes we've made, is swept with emotion and backs out of the room. The boy wakes giggling uncontrollably over dreams of Caillou, the cartoon character, falling into a swimming pool into which a dog from Clifford the Big Red Dog has shat (this was followed by dozens of small cartoon animals turning their asses--my word this time--in Caillou's direction). Then it's an hour of breakfasts and dressing and toothbrushing and dinosaurs I've never heard of, and tales of fighting Bionicles, and the theatrical re-staging of scenes from Star Wars films I have not seen--with Young Padawans and Hutlets--and then off to the school in time for Morning Circle, and goodbye. After which the briefest of pauses. Then the shopping--antidepressants, groceries, etc. Home to clear yesterday's 8 inches of snow; to call Lou, who owns the local Sears, to arrange for a dryer-swap. And this lunch, which now includes coffee and Grape Nuts, and how can I possibly escape a stomach ache later?

All of which, somehow, might explain why this poem had some resonance for me when I read it this morning in the New Yorker:

Alien vs. Predator

by Michael Robbins
January 12, 2009


Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.
We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s
berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys
for a living, you’d pray to me, too.
I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.

That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree
making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.
I set the controls, I pioneer
the seeding of the ionosphere.
I translate the Bible into velociraptor.

In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,
but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?
I fight the comets, lick the moon,
pave its lonely streets.
The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.

I go by many names: Buju Banton,
Camel Light, the New York
Times.
Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.
I have few legs. I sleep on meat.
I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

Originally appeared in the Jan. 12, 2009 New Yorker.
Subcribe here.

There's a potluck at the school tonight. Shit; I've got muffins to make.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Vermont Commute, January, Midafternoon

Well, it hadn't snowed at all in Burlington....

Vermont Commute

Vermont Commute

Only 3 cars off the road this trip.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Three Sisters Chile


0107091309.jpg
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas
Even blurry and reheated in a microwave this stuff is delightful. Another winner from the Pete's Greens CSA!

Pork! Black beans! Corn! Beer! Broth! Garlic! Maple syrup! Chipotle chiles! Cumin! Oregano! Pureed winter squash!

¡Ay, caramba!


(Three Sisters)

Friday, January 2, 2009

A Grad School of Chickens

I got a circular saw for christmas, which has me musing about:
  1. 1. Tree-houses.
  2. 2. Chicken coops.
Fergus tells me I have between March 20th and September 22nd to design and build a treehouse. That's the Vernal Equinox and the Autumnal Equinox, respectively. What is he, Wiccan?



Perhaps to avoid the pressure he has put on me I find myself thinking more about chicken coops than tree-houses of late.



I have never owned chickens, so research must be done.



Sometimes we must rely on Wikipedia to remind us that there are schools of thought and controversies surrounding most everything these days:



There is a seemingly permanent controversy over the basic purpose of the chicken coop. One school of thought is that chickens are generally hardy creatures, but can brought low by confinement, poor air quality, and darkness, and need a highly ventilated coop to provide conditions more like the outdoors, even in winter. This is the "fresh-air school."




...would we call this a Post-Structuralist school of chicken thought?



The other school of thought is that chickens cannot tolerate outdoor conditions and are prone to illness from drafts and poor weather, and need a controlled-environment coop. The two schools of thought lead to radically different housing designs, with fresh-air houses featuring large, permanent openings with only wire mesh between the chickens and the weather, even in Northern winters, and the closed houses featuring doors, windows, and hatches that can be shut to eliminate most ventilation."




...and this school could be called--what?--the John Crowe Ransom "New Criticism" school of chicken tending?