Dita Parker

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Happy Lovember Solstice 💝

The year is winding down and we are gearing up for Christmas here in the land of elves, gnomes and goblins, forest spirits and fairies. And Santa.

It won't be fancy, it will be cozy. It won't be a silent night, I'm sure it will be an absolute circus, and I am very much looking forward to it; and saying farewell to 2024. So many deaths in the family. And then baby D came along to remind us that life goes on.

I hope your year has included light, dearest denizens. I hope you've been the perfect mix of naughty and nice. And if you are wondering whether you accomplished anything this year, let me leave you with this:

If you've done a kindness, or spoken for the silenced, if you've helped someone, anyone, or worked for the common good, if you've nurtured nature, or been a peacemaker, not only have you had a good year, you have lived a good life.

Happy holidays, sweetie darlings. 💋

Monday, December 9, 2024

There is a light that never goes out

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.


From The Presence Of Love by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Friday, November 22, 2024

Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.

Without a hint of sarcasm, cynicism, naïveté, or religious undertones, carefree Friday, sweetie darlings. If only for three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

With all that's going on, come on! Yes, with all that's going on. Precisely because of all that's going on. Day by day we're adapting to the awful, and for the sake of your sanity and ability to function, to some extent you have to adapt or lose your footing, sense of belonging, and purpose. It is genuinely quite stressful and demoralizing, even paralyzing. But let's not normalize the awful or it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So do look after yourself, your sanity and ability to function, in any and every way that works for you, or you will lose said sanity and ability to function. And you don't want that. You have work to do. So be it art, exercise, comfort food, friends, family, community, whatever puts your mind at ease while nourishing it, go for it. We're not winning battles on an empty stomach, a fried brain, or a famished soul.

The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

To be continued.


Friday, November 8, 2024

Enjoy your oligarchy!

Dita can't come to the Den right now, she is drinking glögg, eating cookies and watching cheesy Christmas movies for the next four years.

Okay! See you all in November 2028. And to the WASP guys in ties and their tech billionaire buddies: Try not to turn the climate crisis into climate chaos, half the population into second-class citizens, the country into your personal piggy bank, and democracy into a thing of the past.

(Not holding my breath for four years on those, that's for sure.)

[My sons, over the past few days: "They elected a criminal? That's not a serious country, that's a meme factory." "And people wonder why young adults don't want children. Who wants kids in a world that works like this." "Mom, are you crying?" I was. For a second I was. But I'm with Margaret Atwood, despair is not an option. Despair is paralyzing and exactly what those gloating in glee wish the rest of us to feel: defeat, defeated. Well fuck that shit. Not today, mister. Not ever, sister.]

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

❤️ like there's no tomorrow, 🗳️ like there is

Ask not whether a true American patriot could ever be called a fascist, ask whether someone who expects a cult-like following, mixes business interests with national interests, someone who threatens fellow citizens, political opponents and journalists with violence, and admires tyrants and oppressors, could ever be called a true American, let alone a patriot.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

In the dark times / Will there also be singing?

Harmonic Halloween, sweetie darlings! Wanna play Spot the Classic Horror Homage?

 

Friday, October 25, 2024

Hunting high and low

How's your week been, sweetie darlings? I've been a bit under the weather; there's no shortage of viruses to choose from right now. But. Friday! Frankenstein Friday!! Or so I hear, so why don't we kick off the weekend and say goodbye to this under-the-weather workweek with a topical tune, because I found a catchy one. What's it about? Death-defying love, dearest denizens, a woman inspired by Victor Frankenstein to stop waiting for the right guy to come along and start going about making one.🖤


 

Monday, October 14, 2024

More. Of everything.

Temperature: 10/50 degrees. October started off cool, got warmer, warmer still when the remnants of Kirk blew in, then cool again, soon warmer again, so who knows what winter will look like.

Eating: my version of a salade niçoise.

Drinking: Blossa’s annual glögg sometime soon. Because there’s whisky in it, I hear. And…algae? In glögg. O-kaaay.

Listening: to Trump speak of immigrants, the queer community, and non-Europeans as less than human. Who speaks of migrants in a dehumanizing way? A xenophobe. Who speaks of other minorities in derogatory terms? A bigot. Who speaks of races and in a denigrating fashion? A racist. And this is the man you’d have lead your country? O-kaaay. Sounds like a man for every man, maybe even some women, so long as you are white, straight and Christian. (Although what sort of Christian spouts that much hatred and division I’m sure I don’t know.) You do know who got there first, right? Happy Native American Day!

Watching: The Summer Book as soon as it releases. What? January?! Nooooo!!!

Reading: picks for Halloween? This will give you the heebie-jeebies. How is capitalism, the demand for constant growth and consumption, compatible with our crumbling habitats? It isn’t. Tell that to Ultrarich Inc. consolidating wealth and power at a pace that will be the end of us, including them. For supposedly smart people they don’t seem particularly wise.

Writing: to tell you that space colonies won’t save those rich enough to reach them. Mounting evidence suggests that space travel severely harms the human body.

Thinking: we’re screwed, aren’t we, and in no hurry to course-correct. After thirty years of agreeing to curb emissions, emissions have gone up by seventy percent. Humans have spent but an eyeblink on this planet and we’re already running out of road.

Feeling: When not an instrument in service of aid, cooperation, common good, sustainable development and innovation, money ruins everything.

Friday, September 13, 2024

Friday the luckyteenth

Temperature: a rainy 17/62.5 degrees after a really warm start to autumn.

Eating: lentil Bolognese once it’s simmered to perfection.

Drinking: the cooking wine. For quality control purposes. Obviously.

Listening: to Sergio Mendes. Astro, lenda, ícone.

Watching: Lee the first chance I get.

Reading: Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders.

Writing: the lot of you to tell you to stop vilifying Friday the 13th or else I’m sending both Frigg and Freya after you.

Thinking: but isn’t Friday the 13th an unlucky day? Not in this household, it’s not.

Feeling: like dancing now that the weekend is almost here? Why not? Dancing utilizes all planes of motion (forward, backward, side-to-side, rotation) plus up and down if you’re feeling bouncy, and builds agility, mobility, body awareness, balance, coordination, endurance and strength. That’s not why I’m always going on about it, all of that is just a bonus! Dancing is whole body fun to the music of your choice. [And you don’t need full mobility to dance. You don’t even need legs. Remember that Paralympian I mentioned? We danced at their wedding with only two fully functioning legs between us. "Now I've had the time of my life..."]

Friday, August 30, 2024

Et la fête continue !

Temperature: a sunny 25/77 degrees with thundershowers on the way.

Eating: sopa de frijoles.

Drinking: iced tea.

Listening: to Harris & Walz gives me hope.

Watching: the Paralympics! We have a retired Paralympian in the family, so this is just as important as the Games we just had.

Reading: What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama.

Writing: to apologize, but I really did not feel like complaining or explaining. (See below.)

Thinking: where have I been these past six months? Attending to troubling things. Attending to tiresome things. And my godfather died. My uncle. My aunt’s first husband (father of my cousins). Soon, her second as well (the sweetest of men). I've been feeling quite depleted of any extra speech.

Feeling: It’s not all bad, though, of course not. Life goes on, and it will burst into pink bloom in December when the boys get to welcome one more cousin into the family. A girl, we hear, and her mom being a girly girl of great feminine flair (and enviable energy), everything is coming up rosy and roses. We’ll see if the newcomer agrees with the palette. Babies, aww, can’t wait! 💗

Thursday, August 29, 2024

All right all right all right all right

But just because you asked.

(Just give the Parker girl a day or two to reorient.)

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Sapere aude

Temperature: a bone-cracking cold came in from Siberia and parked over us, so we experienced winter as we haven’t experienced it in a while. It's gone now with warmer winds and rains coming in from the south. ‘Zat you, spring?

Eating: a simple and savory feijão.

Drinking: tea, Maracanã-sized kettles of it. (Yes, Maracanã can also be used as an adjective, e.g. a Maracanã-sized pizza is a big-ass pizza, as in big and ass-widening, if you’re unwilling to share. Then again, there are greater tragedies in this world than having a big butt.)

Listening: to Tucker Carlson “interview” Putin would have been hilarious if it weren’t another horrific example of the Russian propaganda machine in vigorous action. No one interviews Putin in any conventional meaning of the word; it’s a manuscript carefully curated by the government so that there are no surprises, nothing inconvenient or embarrassing. If Carlson’s aim was to get the so-called other side of the story, he succeeded, and the story is whatever the Kremlin says it is at any given moment, because the truth may change at any given moment, the truth being whatever the Kremlin says it is. (These people have a black belt in gaslighting and subterfuge.) Carlson got his doe-eyed “interview.” He should visit Ukraine next and see and hear for himself, and show to his followers, what happens when Russia sets its sights on something, and how going along or looking the other way hasn’t made the world a safer, more peaceful and stable place. Go along or look away, Russia latches on to every concession made and immediately or over time makes new demands, asks for more concessions to see where you draw the line, to see if there is one, is it movable, by force if necessary, and before you know it, your borders and your sovereignty and your national security are somehow their business; you find yourself under coercive control. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why? They acted with impunity in WWII, and they’ve acted with impunity ever since, because too many countries go along or look away. It’s all about maximizing power and reach, using violence if necessary, because who's gonna stop them? Unlike Germany, they've never come to terms with or been held accountable for war crimes committed in any theater of war in any decade, so why would they stop? Unable to change or evolve, they are at it again, forcing their will on others. If Ukraine (and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and other once-occupied parts of the former Soviet Union) wanted to be a part of Russia, they would still be a part of Russia. They got out of Dodge the first chance they got. Given a choice, people tend to choose freedom over oppression.

[An American who still doesn’t get it? I know that looking from afar things don't always seem so very bad, but if you're not concerned, I'm afraid you don't understand how serious a situation this is. And seriously, the world doesn't expect you to pay for everything and police everything, but it is in your best interest to take an interest. As a European much closer to the thick of things, let me paint you a picture. Imagine (a nuclear weapon state) Mexico falling into the hands of a tyrant and this tyrant deciding they want Texas back. They had it at one point so it is actually still theirs and now they want it back. They start claiming America mistreats Mexican citizens so they have no choice but to intervene on their behalf. Without presenting tangible evidence, fabricating proof and spreading lies instead, they insist America is governed by fascists. There are neo-Nazis all over the place. In the name of regional peace and stability, Mexico has to act. Won’t give up Texas voluntarily? Okay then, you leave us no choice but to take it by force. You could have avoided all the death and destruction raining on you if you’d simply handed over Texas as asked, but no, you declined, so you brought this on yourself. You wouldn’t listen, now look what you made us do. Once they're in Texas, they start eyeing Alta California, and you're wondering where does it end, how dare they, what gives them the right. They will spout nonsense nonstop, and they will keep attacking you, unless you put a stop to it before it even begins. (Russia = Mexico and America = Ukraine in this analogy.) If you don’t think that’s absurd, if you believe Mexico has a legitimate claim, if in your world big trumps small every time and needs but a cock-and-bull excuse for its aggression, then go along, look the other way. Just don’t think you won’t pay the price one day, somewhere along the way. Enabling a criminal, undemocratic, ruthless regime, in any way, will come back to haunt you. And I know Biden v. Trump is the rematch no one wants, but a Trump presidency is a risk without reward to the free, rules-based world. Autocrats and dictators don’t care for rules and they sure as heck don’t care for freedom and free thinking, and you bet Putin’s bots, trolls and minions will be working overtime to ensure a Trump victory because there’s a man they’ll be able to steer by simply stroking his ego. And you really have to wonder and worry about Trump's adulation of Putin, a man who is the antithesis of freedom, justice and equality. America, you deserve better, and so do the rest of us. Sorry, but what you do still echoes in the world and right back at you despite how much you might prefer isolation and a hands-off approach. The Kremlin desperately wants you to choose Trump, isolation and a hands-off approach because in their books that gives them wiggle room. That's what it's all about.]

Watching: The Lazarus Project.

Reading: how 80 years ago, in February 1944, Stalin decided to make Finns suffer by bombing Helsinki to the ground. Thanks to Soviet ineptitude, and a tight ring of barrage fire, despite three attempts, they failed, but there are visible scars around the city if you know where to look. Finns haven't forgotten; how could they, and why would they, all things considered. Oh, you wanted a book! For a chilling, start-them-young look into the Putinjugend: Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth by Ian Garner.

Writing: all manner of things.

Thinking: Not a single word about Gaza? (Or Yemen, Sudan, Syria; whatever happened to the Rohingya, or the Uighur...) Not sure what to think? Books to the rescue once more: Étoile errante by J. M. G. Le Clézio, available in several languages. No, it won’t tell you what to think, but it will take you places, and you'll get there by walking in shoes other than your own. What do I think? This is overkill, pure and simple.

Feeling: all manner of things.