Temperature: a nippy -5/23 degrees
Eating: Alas, the holiday treats are gone. Salad it is.
Drinking: Alas, the wine is gone. Water it is.
Watching: still working my way through GoT. (April is coming.)
Listening: to this year’s sambas de enredo. Carnaval is coming, and because of the stupid ankle injury I suffered in Singapore, no dancing for me in 2018. Try stopping me this time around, I dare you, fate! (Not really, no, please let me dance, please please please.)
Reading: the Roslings
Thinking: What happens to nature happens to us. When did we get so blind, so arrogant, that we forgot about Gaia, how everything is connected?
Feeling: Shouldn’t we welcome the new year like a child does, ready to learn and explore and be wowed, not full of self-involved gumption but humility? Well, as much as I’d like for us to welcome the new year as that child does, I think this baby needs to hit the ground running. You can’t pretend you’re not aware of climate change/breakdown or what it means. Yes, I know it’s easier than ever to mislead and be misled. It’s also easier than ever to get to the bottom of things, if you really want to. And why wouldn’t you? You don’t want to be misled, a tool, a puppet, do you, dearest denizens? No, you want to fight the powers that feed you muck and malarkey. Because you won’t be lied to, or lie to yourself. Because you know what is possible when you really put your mind to and back into something. Because, unless you’re E.T., you do have a horse in this race, skin in this game, insert your favorite idiom depicting being up to your eyeballs, no, your hairline, in this; you are, after all, a living, breathing, sentient being on planet Earth. Part of the problem but, more importantly, part of the solution.
Dita Parker
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Come, thick night (then go)
Temperature: -4/25ish, and finally: some snow! On the eve of the longest night of the year, thank you, universe, for every flake of light.
Eating: persimmons and clementines
Drinking: Hardys Brave New World Shiraz Black Edition. Well, not at this very moment, over Christmas, sure, and if you like your reds full-bodied and ambrosial, tim-tim, sweetie darlings.
Watching: Game of Thrones all over again. Yes, the whole damn thing, just so I’ll be on top of things in April.
Listening: to The Snowman, which celebrates its 40th birthday. I’m in my forties, so I can honestly say I don’t remember a Christmas without him.
Reading: Breaking news: the remaking of journalism and why it matters now by Alan Rusbridger.
Thinking: how strange and bittersweet the holidays will be for my father-in-law, for all of us, without my mother-in-law. I hope we can make it easier on one another by keeping her favorite traditions going. When I look closer at the traditions we do have, they’re all here. All the loved ones we’ve lost are here with us. In the recipes and decorations, in the music and stories, in the ties that bind us together.
Happy Holidays, dearest denizens, wherever you are. 😘
Eating: persimmons and clementines
Drinking: Hardys Brave New World Shiraz Black Edition. Well, not at this very moment, over Christmas, sure, and if you like your reds full-bodied and ambrosial, tim-tim, sweetie darlings.
Watching: Game of Thrones all over again. Yes, the whole damn thing, just so I’ll be on top of things in April.
Listening: to The Snowman, which celebrates its 40th birthday. I’m in my forties, so I can honestly say I don’t remember a Christmas without him.
Reading: Breaking news: the remaking of journalism and why it matters now by Alan Rusbridger.
Thinking: how strange and bittersweet the holidays will be for my father-in-law, for all of us, without my mother-in-law. I hope we can make it easier on one another by keeping her favorite traditions going. When I look closer at the traditions we do have, they’re all here. All the loved ones we’ve lost are here with us. In the recipes and decorations, in the music and stories, in the ties that bind us together.
Happy Holidays, dearest denizens, wherever you are. 😘
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Bake the world a better place
My children love gingerbread in any shape or form, and I love the holiday season, so I decided to surprise them with these tokens of maternal love and devotion and it's-almost-Christmas-why-isn't-it-Christmas-already. No, I didn't get up at the crack of dawn to bake. They're teens, barely conscious at noon on weekends, so I had p l e n t y of time.
Happy December 1st!
Friday, November 30, 2018
Under control
How has your week been, sweetie darlings? Everyone okay? Hanging in there? Thriving? Surviving? I had such a crappy weekend last weekend that it has taken me all week to get over it, not that I have, really. What made it worse: I wasn’t hurting, a dear friend was, in a way I could not change or make better and how frustrating is that? Unbearable, at least to me it is.
She had invited me and another friend over for drinks and dinner while her husband was away. Except he learned of her plans. Told her she could not have anyone over. Told her he would call the police on us if we came over. And they’d arrest us for what? Having drinks and dinner in a private home she co-owns? On Saturday morning he called to tell her he was heading back and no one was allowed to visit since he had fallen ill. Of course, he wasn’t actually ill, it turned out, to no one’s surprise, just determined to torpedo her plans after she refused to cancel them.
Who does that? He does that. Any chance he gets. All the time. So often over the course of their marriage she doesn’t know what to think or feel or say anymore. He has taken control of her life. He has imposed his will on her. He has crushed her spirit. What once seemed like interest and attentiveness was in truth a hunting and gathering expedition. Every vulnerability he now uses against her. Every hurt is an opportunity to wound her further. Everything is her fault, her doing.
You better believe all of her closest friends have begged and pleaded, ranted and raved, for her to leave before the emotional abuse turns physical. But she is in such a paralyzed state she can’t find the strength to make decisions let alone pack up and go. (We have offered to fricking carry her out of there along with all her belongings, if that’s what it takes.) He has messed her up beyond all recognition and even though she acknowledges that theirs is not a normal relationship, that she is not the woman she used to be, that she does not like the woman she has turned into, a future alone, the great unknown, is such a terrifying prospect she hangs on to every sliver of hope she can, wishing they could just start over.
Because they have. They have been here before. And ended up in the very same spot they are now. And still she seems ready for one more cycle of tip-toeing, trying to please, wishing, hoping, dreaming, dreading, all he has to do is signal he’s ready for another round. We have tried and tried and tried to tell her that he won’t change, he has shown his true colors time and time again. She can’t change him, and he hasn’t given any indication he is ready, willing or able to grow as a human and a husband. Whatever his demons, whatever makes him so very unhappy he has to make those around his as miserable as he is, it only makes him more determined to take her down with him. And we’re supposed to watch her drown, admit we can’t change her any more than she can change him?
Fuck that and screw him. I used to feel sorry for him. Now all I feel is anger and contempt. I will never forgive him for how he has treated her, his wife, and numerous other people in his life. (And he has been cruel. Deliberately so.) He needs help. Well, he can get it on his own time and his own dime. She owes him nothing. None of us do. We tried to be there for him too. Didn’t make a lick of difference. He knows best, as always, and the rest of us are idiots. Okay thanks bye. Now let her go. Just leave her alone. Damn right we will see her through this.
If only she’d take the hand that’s offered.
She had invited me and another friend over for drinks and dinner while her husband was away. Except he learned of her plans. Told her she could not have anyone over. Told her he would call the police on us if we came over. And they’d arrest us for what? Having drinks and dinner in a private home she co-owns? On Saturday morning he called to tell her he was heading back and no one was allowed to visit since he had fallen ill. Of course, he wasn’t actually ill, it turned out, to no one’s surprise, just determined to torpedo her plans after she refused to cancel them.
Who does that? He does that. Any chance he gets. All the time. So often over the course of their marriage she doesn’t know what to think or feel or say anymore. He has taken control of her life. He has imposed his will on her. He has crushed her spirit. What once seemed like interest and attentiveness was in truth a hunting and gathering expedition. Every vulnerability he now uses against her. Every hurt is an opportunity to wound her further. Everything is her fault, her doing.
You better believe all of her closest friends have begged and pleaded, ranted and raved, for her to leave before the emotional abuse turns physical. But she is in such a paralyzed state she can’t find the strength to make decisions let alone pack up and go. (We have offered to fricking carry her out of there along with all her belongings, if that’s what it takes.) He has messed her up beyond all recognition and even though she acknowledges that theirs is not a normal relationship, that she is not the woman she used to be, that she does not like the woman she has turned into, a future alone, the great unknown, is such a terrifying prospect she hangs on to every sliver of hope she can, wishing they could just start over.
Because they have. They have been here before. And ended up in the very same spot they are now. And still she seems ready for one more cycle of tip-toeing, trying to please, wishing, hoping, dreaming, dreading, all he has to do is signal he’s ready for another round. We have tried and tried and tried to tell her that he won’t change, he has shown his true colors time and time again. She can’t change him, and he hasn’t given any indication he is ready, willing or able to grow as a human and a husband. Whatever his demons, whatever makes him so very unhappy he has to make those around his as miserable as he is, it only makes him more determined to take her down with him. And we’re supposed to watch her drown, admit we can’t change her any more than she can change him?
Fuck that and screw him. I used to feel sorry for him. Now all I feel is anger and contempt. I will never forgive him for how he has treated her, his wife, and numerous other people in his life. (And he has been cruel. Deliberately so.) He needs help. Well, he can get it on his own time and his own dime. She owes him nothing. None of us do. We tried to be there for him too. Didn’t make a lick of difference. He knows best, as always, and the rest of us are idiots. Okay thanks bye. Now let her go. Just leave her alone. Damn right we will see her through this.
If only she’d take the hand that’s offered.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Step back in time to November 9, 1918
...for a story of friendship, loyalty, betrayal and...sorry, can't say more without ruining the ending for you. Guess you'll just have to watch it, then, to commemorate the WWI Armistice Centennial [this Sunday], and to celebrate masterly storytelling and cinematography.
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