Archive for July, 2004

Someone left a Vanity Fair magazine (October 2003) on a table at work.  I picked it up.  I’ve never read it…and I had heard that the articles can be quite titillating and interesting.

I haven’t made it past the editor’s letter. 

He is talking about the same things that come out in Farhenheit 9/11:  the Saudis being ushered out of the country and comparing it to WWII and what would have happened if Roosevelt had done the same with Hitler’s family and other wealthy Germans.

Interesting concepts.

The most important passage, though, is this:

“People don’t want war…but [they] can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

~Hitler’s Luftwaffe chief and designated successor, Hermann Goring, to a psychologist in 1946, at the time of the Nuremberg war-crimes trials.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written.

There is so much going on right now that I don’t know where to begin.

I got a new camera…and that’s a big thing for me.  It’s beautiful….well, if you’re into cameras.  http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf828/  I am learning how to use it and hope to get out sometime soon and put it to good use.

I’m in the process of making a photo gallery of my photography.  I’ve been experimenting in some new arenas and I’ve gotten some good responses from friends.

I’ve put myself out there in some online dating forums.  I’ve met some fantastic people and am in the process of making some good friends…people that I think I will talk to for a very long time.  It’s a start and I’m being as casual as I can about it.  I don’t like to get my hopes up and I definitely don’t want to rush into anything.  I’ve done enough of that in my life to last a few life times.

My Spanish class is going very well.  I was recently told that this Spanish class is the most difficult one and that the 2 subsequent semesters should be easier.  That’s good news…because this one is hard.  I’m conjugating verbs up the ying-yang.  Heh.  Luckily, it’s done on Tuesday.

Which means…I can go back to my 3-day weekends.  YEA!!!  These 10 hours 5 days a week is really putting me over the edge.  I’m away from home and my baby, Dakota, for at least 12 hours a day.  That’s too much…especially when it’s not out doing FUN things.

I”m reading some interesting books in-between trying to learn the camera and doing homework.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into it soon. 

Except….school starts at the end of August…and we’ll be back on that roll.  This semester should be good:  rhetoric, linguistics, planetary geology, and spanish.  14 credit hours…and I will enjoy all of the classes.  That’s always a good thing.

I feel like I’m making progress on my degree.

I mean, I felt like I was making progress before but now, I really feel like graduation is so close I can almost taste it.  Next spring…less than a year…finally, I will have my bachelor’s…and on my 20th high school reunion.  Gack!

And for those of you who have known me for years, cre8in and cathelin, in particular, you know that it’s been a long time coming.

I started my second semester of Spanish yesterday.  I’m getting 16 weeks of Spanish mashed into 4 weeks:  3 hours a day for 4 weeks.  I still have 2 more semesters to take to graduate and that is the only think holding me back.

The one saving grace is that my niece will be entering the dual-language school in the fall and will be studying Spanish (and English and math and science and everything else) at the same time as I am.  She will be taking something like 4 hours of Spanish a day for the next 7 years.  So, I think that she will be a great resource for me and, maybe, one day I will speak fluently with her.

—

I’m proud of my small community for having a dual language school.  What is even more impressive is that it’s not one dual-language program but two.  It offers an English-Spanish track and an English-Navajo track.

There are parents who have protested this school.  I’m not sure I understand why.  Why would it not be beneficial to learn 2 languages?  Why would you not want your kid to learn 2 languages?  Whatever in this world would possess you to protest this?

—

And in line with silly protestations, I’m tired of reading the letters to the editor in my local newspaper. 

If I have to read about one more person complaining about the trains (that have been here for over 100 years and were here LONG before those Californians moved to this town) or the influx of suburban stores (which THEY brought with them because they complain that there is no shopping here so they petition corporations to come here and then don’t like what they want to do), I’m going to scream.

I’ve lived here, off an on, for nearly 20 years.  I remember when it was a small town…when you could drop your wallet and it would be returned to you completely intact.  I remember those halcyon days.

I’ve lived within 20 feet of the train tracks.  I know the rumble and the horn intimately.  It just isn’t something I allow to bother me.

I was telling a friend that if I allowed those kinds of things to bother me, where would I live?  There is always something.

Where I live now, I’m surrounded by all kinds of animals:  horses that neigh in the night, calling out to one another, dogs barking incessantly at the shadows in the dark, skunks, goats, llamas, elk, deer, and the odd coyote here and there.  They make a lot of noise.

Is it worth complaining about?  No.

Instead, I take pleasure in these things.  I’m glad I live in a place that has horses and goats and llamas and dogs and elk and deer and coyotes…and even skunk.  I’m glad I live in a town that reminds me about America’s roots and I’m able to see a train lumbering down the tracks (even if it can be up to 80 trains in a 24 hour period).  I’m glad that I’m free enough to move if I didn’t like it or to be free enough to avoid those areas when I drive.

I don’t get the complaining that goes on.  It’s so infectious.  One person complains and others jump on the bandwagon.  Are you really complaining about that issue or do you think if that issue was gone, you’d complain about another and another and another?  Is it really these external issues or is it an issue within you that drives you to complain?

And now, I’m complaining about complainers.

Oy!

The phone rings.  I pick it up.  “Hello?”

Heavy breathing.

I look at the caller ID.  It’s someone from my brother’s house.

“Hello,” I say again.

Heavy breathing and then a soft whistle.  Then a giggle.

“Omigosh!” I exclaim.  “You’ve learned how to whistle!”

She giggles again and tells me, “But it’s a sucking-in whistle.  Not one I blow out.”

She’s five and her previous attempts at whistling have been a vocalized whistle.  “Woo-oo-woo” she would sound off.  Now, she whistles in my ear…even if it’s just an inward whistle.  It’s music to my ears.

“Aunt Dawn…”

“Yes?”  I’m still reeling from one more action that is showing she’s growing up before my eyes and there’s nothing I can do to make her slow down.

“Is this how you learned?  Did you suck in before you learned to whistle out?”  She wants to belong, to know she’s doing it right.

“Absolutely,” I tell her.  “It’s the easiest way to learn.”  I suck a whistle in to show her.

She giggles and whistles, whistles and giggles.

And I’m in love all over again.

I am in the midsts of a plague.

Yes, a plague…and it is most probably that dreaded black plague.

I am surrounded by varmin that are the most irritating, most destructive, most annoying creatures on earth:

Gophers and prairie dogs

In my area, prairie dogs carry black plague.  Not only this, but if I look out my front window, I can see no less than 20 burrows of both gophers (the smaller of the two) and prairie dogs.

I’m afraid my propane tank is going to fall into one of their burrows.  Worse, I’m afraid my car will.  Even worse, I’m worried my house my fall.

I’m not joking.

These burrows are insidious.  They are multiplying.

I’ve been told to gas these varmin with the carbon monoxide from the tailpipe of my car.  I’ve been told to send flares down the holes and cover them up.  I’ve been told to use poisons and all kinds of other noxious things.

I hate killing, though.  I detest it.  It’s upsetting me.

It’s gotten to the point, though, where it’s either them or me because I’m living in a world that is slowly collapsing around me.  And it’s distressing.