I opened up my Facebook today to find out that Robin Williams has died, probably by his own hand, probably after losing a fight with his own demons of depression and addiction.
I found two things odd about this.
First, that so many people were expressing actual sorrow, saying that they wanted to cry, that they were personally grieved and felt personal loss. Only one of them - Lisa Jakub - actually met Williams personally, worked with him, and has lost someone she knew and loved. But I'm fairly sure that my friends Chris and Carrie and all the other friends posting messages of loss didn't know him other than as an image on a screen. I'm not saying that they didn't care, in the same way that I care about favorite places, or beloved stories or music, or about people in distant lands in a sort of abstract way that I don't want bad things to happen to anyone outside the Cheney family.
And, second, hard after that was that I didn't, not really, not about Robin Williams, and I immediately felt like a heel; everybody else is posting sadz about the man's death and my only thought as I read it was "Hunh. How 'bout that..?" like I was reading about a water main break on Burnside or a traffic tie-up on I-5 South.
Then I thought, y'know, I don't know the poor guy. I know him as "Mork" or his other pixel images on a screen, so essentially he's as "real" to me as Oscar the Grouch or the Wizard of Oz. I don't have any particular connection or bigger emotional investment in the man's death - or life - than I do in the water main break or the traffic tie-up. For me they're all just "news".
I think I've talked about this bizarre aspect of electronic media and celebrity culture before. We "know" all sorts of people from television and films that we don't really "know" in any sort of real sense. We may feel like Robin Williams' films, or part of his work, or just what we think of as his personality were important parts of our lives. But what did we really know of Mr. Williams? Of what he loved, of what he hated and feared, what made him happy or sad, why he did what he did and was who he was.
It may seem like we "knew" him, though, because his image was as recognizable as those of our own family.
So it still seems odd to me. Was this man a part of our lives, as much a part as any other friend? Enough so that his loss is grievous to us? Is an emotion based on a created intimacy as genuine as one from an intimacy that springs from artless Nature?
Joseph Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic"?
Perhaps one death is, too.
Or perhaps it isn't.
Showing posts with label socializing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socializing. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2014
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
I hear the pole gymnastics team is good, though...
So my friend Janelle forwarded this photo on Facebook:
and I have to give one of her pals (whose name - since I want to give him credit but not compromise his privacy - will call "Will") huge credit for what I thought was the top comment:
"Sure, you can get a degree from Girls Gone Wild University, but then you just end up with massive amounts of student loan debt, a job market still trying to bounce back and probably an STD. Start off with Girls Gone Wild Community College. It's just the smarter play."
And just think how much further your G.I. Bill would go there. Pay for a lot of Natty Light and see-through community college logo tank tops. Though I hear the GGWU "drunken limbo" team is offering a full ride. So, your call.
Personally, I hope my daughter finds a good trade school...
and I have to give one of her pals (whose name - since I want to give him credit but not compromise his privacy - will call "Will") huge credit for what I thought was the top comment:
"Sure, you can get a degree from Girls Gone Wild University, but then you just end up with massive amounts of student loan debt, a job market still trying to bounce back and probably an STD. Start off with Girls Gone Wild Community College. It's just the smarter play."
And just think how much further your G.I. Bill would go there. Pay for a lot of Natty Light and see-through community college logo tank tops. Though I hear the GGWU "drunken limbo" team is offering a full ride. So, your call.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Overmatched
Taken all together it was a lovely evening, with a caveat.
I spent Saturday afternoon cooking like Wolfgang Puck with ten ounces of crystal meth in his system. Beef tenderloin and barbecued spareribs, dijon mustard potato salad, miso-butter broiled asparagus along with lots of hobnobs; smoked salmon and sharp cheddar (the twin towers of the Tillamook Bay coast), wasabi peas and peanuts, salsa-and-chips, berries and black grapes. A wide selection of craft beers with some Islay malt in reserve.
The house was clean, the viewing area arranged for all our friends. The kiddos were terrific; friendly and excited, especially for their Aunt Kristi, who is like some sort of athletic, blonde kid-magnet; within half an hour they were stuck to her like adorable little iron filings.
And for all that the group had nothing in common but us everyone seemed to enjoy each other's company. After the match people lingered to talk, share observations and stories (a bunch of us gravitated to the kitchen; what is it about kitchens? Every party I've ever attended seems to end up in the kitchen at some point. Which reminds me - I need to go empty the dishwasher).
The only people I invited who didn't show up were, unfortunately, the guests of honor; the Portland Timbers.
Because the entire evening was centered around Portland's first top-division professional soccer match since 1982.
Perhaps it was first-match nerves. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Perhaps it was the misfortune of having to begin the new Major League Soccer season against last year's champion, the Colorado Rapids. Perhaps it was a little of all three.
But whatever it was, it sure was ugly.
The story in the newspaper claims the Coach John Spenser wrote the word "DESIRE" on the whiteboard in the locker room. He must had written it in Cyrillic, because whatever the team showed on the field, desire was not it.
Confusion? Yes. Passivity? Yes. Desire? Nowhere to be found.
The backline looked especially dire, with centerbacks Brunner and Wallace utterly unable to shut down Colorado's Omar Cummings. And I know I pick on him, but why the hell did we spend a roster spot on Kevin Goldthwaite? He's a terrible defender; slow-footed yet tentative. You could excuse the slowness if he was a typical MLS bashing defender, but the man doesn't even knock forwards down.
He was primarily at fault on Colorado's first goal, though there was more than enough blame to go around (except for goalkeeper Adin Brown, who played like a Titan but got the sort of help from his backline that Prometheus got from the vulture) on that goal. But my question is why doesn't Spenser know this? We watched him mark space all last August and September. Why he's starting ahead of Futty Danso I have no idea. Maybe Danso likes to juggle live grenades on the pitch, or something.
But I don't want to single out the defenders. The midfield was aimless, and both Cooper and Perlaza up front went nowhere, losing possession, or, after a potential Perlaza equalizer in the tenth minute, not even getting much of a look at goal.
This one was ugly, and I hope the entire team knows it.
This was just one match, and the first of a long season and, I hope, many seasons of Timbers soccer in the top flight. But it was a spectacularly bad match, and the team has only a week to prepare for Toronto. The failings we watched last night might be the basis for catharsis, or the catalyst for despair. It's now up to the men of the Portland Timbers to choose which direction they will turn.
The miso-butter asparagus was outstanding, the company entertaining, and the whiskey peaty and rich.
Let's just make sure the soccer is as good next match, eh, boys? "Oh, Rose City, Soccer City...score a goal!"
I spent Saturday afternoon cooking like Wolfgang Puck with ten ounces of crystal meth in his system. Beef tenderloin and barbecued spareribs, dijon mustard potato salad, miso-butter broiled asparagus along with lots of hobnobs; smoked salmon and sharp cheddar (the twin towers of the Tillamook Bay coast), wasabi peas and peanuts, salsa-and-chips, berries and black grapes. A wide selection of craft beers with some Islay malt in reserve.
The house was clean, the viewing area arranged for all our friends. The kiddos were terrific; friendly and excited, especially for their Aunt Kristi, who is like some sort of athletic, blonde kid-magnet; within half an hour they were stuck to her like adorable little iron filings.And for all that the group had nothing in common but us everyone seemed to enjoy each other's company. After the match people lingered to talk, share observations and stories (a bunch of us gravitated to the kitchen; what is it about kitchens? Every party I've ever attended seems to end up in the kitchen at some point. Which reminds me - I need to go empty the dishwasher).
The only people I invited who didn't show up were, unfortunately, the guests of honor; the Portland Timbers.
Because the entire evening was centered around Portland's first top-division professional soccer match since 1982.Perhaps it was first-match nerves. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Perhaps it was the misfortune of having to begin the new Major League Soccer season against last year's champion, the Colorado Rapids. Perhaps it was a little of all three.
But whatever it was, it sure was ugly.
The story in the newspaper claims the Coach John Spenser wrote the word "DESIRE" on the whiteboard in the locker room. He must had written it in Cyrillic, because whatever the team showed on the field, desire was not it.
Confusion? Yes. Passivity? Yes. Desire? Nowhere to be found.The backline looked especially dire, with centerbacks Brunner and Wallace utterly unable to shut down Colorado's Omar Cummings. And I know I pick on him, but why the hell did we spend a roster spot on Kevin Goldthwaite? He's a terrible defender; slow-footed yet tentative. You could excuse the slowness if he was a typical MLS bashing defender, but the man doesn't even knock forwards down.
He was primarily at fault on Colorado's first goal, though there was more than enough blame to go around (except for goalkeeper Adin Brown, who played like a Titan but got the sort of help from his backline that Prometheus got from the vulture) on that goal. But my question is why doesn't Spenser know this? We watched him mark space all last August and September. Why he's starting ahead of Futty Danso I have no idea. Maybe Danso likes to juggle live grenades on the pitch, or something.But I don't want to single out the defenders. The midfield was aimless, and both Cooper and Perlaza up front went nowhere, losing possession, or, after a potential Perlaza equalizer in the tenth minute, not even getting much of a look at goal.
This one was ugly, and I hope the entire team knows it.
This was just one match, and the first of a long season and, I hope, many seasons of Timbers soccer in the top flight. But it was a spectacularly bad match, and the team has only a week to prepare for Toronto. The failings we watched last night might be the basis for catharsis, or the catalyst for despair. It's now up to the men of the Portland Timbers to choose which direction they will turn.The miso-butter asparagus was outstanding, the company entertaining, and the whiskey peaty and rich.
Let's just make sure the soccer is as good next match, eh, boys? "Oh, Rose City, Soccer City...score a goal!"
Monday, January 31, 2011
Dictatus Papae
I hate to say this, but one thing that Facebook often lends itself to is a nattering lack of reflection.
I say this in a tone of rueful acceptance, mind you, not surprise or anguish.
It's a fucking "social network", after all.
Generally I like to think that my selection of "friends" helps me avoid the "I'm picking out my toe jam! :-b" sorts of status updates; luckily I'm not bombarded with much of that sort of brain-destroying crap.
Mostly the site does what it is supposed to do and provides me a sort of party line to check in with friends and chat about this and that. For all the handwringing about how the Evil Twitter, Facebook, and whatever other electronic media bete noir de jour are destroying civil society by substituting for "real human interaction", when you think about it these things are just replicating the slower means of distant communication humans have used since the beginning of literacy.
What is a "tweet" but a little postcard? What is a Facebook post but a short letter, a digital telegram, a typed-out phone call? "Having wonderful time, caught fish, weather fine. Come soon, Woosie."
I don't see how this happening in realtime, over a fiber cable, somehow makes the process dangerously antisocial. We've always enjoyed our long-distance relationships. Entire books have been published containing the epistolary friendships of pre-electronic times, when living a couple of tens of miles apart meant seeing each other once a year or so. People have always had ways of staying in touch with distant friends and lovers; these electronic means are just an adaptation of a very old gimmick, a quicker version of sending a house slave with a clay tablet to your brother and sister-in-law in Sumer.
But (and you knew there would be a but, didn't you?) to go with the advantages in celerity there is the disadvantage of brevity. If brevity is the soul of wit, it is the mother of inattention. A discussion limited to 420 characters isn't really much of a "discussion", and the one thing I find unlikeable about Facebook - I am not "on" Twitter and have no interest in doing so, since a tweet is even briefer than a Facebook post less informative, and thus more conducive to the ignorant-shouting sort of "communication" than Facebook - is that much conversation is necessarily brief and one-sided. A letter allows time and space for thought, and if two paragraphs are needed instead of one to dissect the issue they are there for the taking. The only limit is the paper and the patience of the writer, and reader.
Which may be the very heart of the matter. We as a culture are increasingly impatient; the notion of simply sitting and reading a letter - or a novel, or a long blog post - is becoming both difficult and challenging. Difficult because many of us are so busy, our days full of cascades of essential ephemera demanding our attention; challenging because our preferred style of prose is often simple and poorly suited to complex thought. While the text we read on paper or off the screen may be prolix the arguments are often crude, the exposition simplistic, and the argumentation circular or absent. So the quick declaratory statements of Facebook make us easier. We needn't marshal our overtasked intellectual reserve; the thinking is done for us.
This has become a very roundabout introduction to a topic that emerged on Facebook the past week. Specifically, a friend of mine linked to this article in the New York Times discussing the falling out between the Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, and a local formerly Catholic hospital.
It seems that the hospital in question performed an abortion on a woman who was in danger of injury or death if her pregnancy had progressed. The bishop, who had apparently warned the hospital that this sort of thing would put them outside Church law, used this surgery to sever the ties between the diocese and the hospital.
My friend was incensed. "Time to move into the 17th century, boys." is the way she put it. Another of her friends replied that the bishop had the right of it; that a "Catholic" hospital had the obligation to abide by church doctrine. Several more of us piled on and we had - especially for Facebook - quite a rousing little discussion. I don't think anyone's opinions were changed, but we at least got to hear a good bit from several sides on the matter.
And the more I got to thinking about it, the more I found that I tend to believe in what I first said; that the bishop's job, if he were to be any sort of bishop and not a windsock for popular opinion, was to insist that the mother, as a Catholic or at least as the patient of a Catholic hospital, give her life for the life of her child in the same sense that a bishop would expect his priests to give their lives, if they had to, to ensure the lives, or the spiritual salvation, of those who depend on them.
His understanding of God's Will as expressed by his Holy Father should admit no less, and the tenets of his Church - an authoritarian organization whose fundamental nature is spelled out by the "Dictus Papae" (which includes such statements as "That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet." and "That this (the Pope's) is the only name in the world.") - demand that those beneath him in the hierarchy submit to his interpretation of that Will.
That's cruelly hard. But religions in general ask us to put God first and ourselves afterwards; that's the nature of a religion, most religions. It's a feature, not a bug. Because of that demand religious faith can accomplish great things. Because of it faith can be the spark for horrible atrocities. The direction depends greatly on the nature of the person who "speaks" for the religion and the nature of those listening. But there is no promise that either the speaking or the reception will be beneficial and kind.
All we can only hope then is that our religions don't demand us to make choices that lead to suffering. But by their nature they can, and often do, and we can't really get one without the other, eh?
My bride, lovely woman that she is, is (if she only knew it) a classic American cafeteria Catholic. She has said that if she agrees with a doctrine, she would hew to it. If not, she would ignore it.
I can't do that or believe that.
To me the entire point of a religion - as opposed to a personal faith - is either accepting the doctrines of the religion or working to change them. But until they change, I don't thing that the adherent has an option to just ignore them.
Since I have yet to encounter a religion whose tenets I can accept without demur or disputation, I have no religion. Since I have yet to encounter a moment where my need to have an all-powerful Sky Daddy overpowers my skepticism of the entire notion, I have no personal faith, either. For good or ill, I am alone within my head when the moment for spiritual succor arrives.
And as ruthless as it is I wish that what happened to the hospital would happen more often. I wish that the Catholic Church, for example, would excommunicate people who use birth control, would stop granting annulments and force divorcees out of the laity. American Catholics haven't been forced to actually do what their church demands them to do for a long time. If they were, well, either the laity might change or the church might. Some people might find themselves alone as I do. Some may find that they can abandon themselves in order to have that Sky Daddy within them.
Either way, at least both sides would be consistent.
Because for me so long as a religion does not force itself into the public square and demand that people not its adherents adhere to its beliefs it should be true to itself. For some religions this is not a pretty or humane thing because by their nature they are not about the pretty and the humane but about the demands of a supernatural belief on a merely human soul.
This often makes them magnificent, grand, and terrible.
And it is perhaps the failure of my own soul that I would take the smallest common moment of human life; the sound of a sigh, the heat of a quarrel, the softness of a kiss, the breathless of lovemaking, the peace of a nap, the placid twilight of age, over all the magnificence and grandeur ever conceived.
I say this in a tone of rueful acceptance, mind you, not surprise or anguish.
It's a fucking "social network", after all.
Generally I like to think that my selection of "friends" helps me avoid the "I'm picking out my toe jam! :-b" sorts of status updates; luckily I'm not bombarded with much of that sort of brain-destroying crap.
Mostly the site does what it is supposed to do and provides me a sort of party line to check in with friends and chat about this and that. For all the handwringing about how the Evil Twitter, Facebook, and whatever other electronic media bete noir de jour are destroying civil society by substituting for "real human interaction", when you think about it these things are just replicating the slower means of distant communication humans have used since the beginning of literacy.
What is a "tweet" but a little postcard? What is a Facebook post but a short letter, a digital telegram, a typed-out phone call? "Having wonderful time, caught fish, weather fine. Come soon, Woosie."
I don't see how this happening in realtime, over a fiber cable, somehow makes the process dangerously antisocial. We've always enjoyed our long-distance relationships. Entire books have been published containing the epistolary friendships of pre-electronic times, when living a couple of tens of miles apart meant seeing each other once a year or so. People have always had ways of staying in touch with distant friends and lovers; these electronic means are just an adaptation of a very old gimmick, a quicker version of sending a house slave with a clay tablet to your brother and sister-in-law in Sumer.
But (and you knew there would be a but, didn't you?) to go with the advantages in celerity there is the disadvantage of brevity. If brevity is the soul of wit, it is the mother of inattention. A discussion limited to 420 characters isn't really much of a "discussion", and the one thing I find unlikeable about Facebook - I am not "on" Twitter and have no interest in doing so, since a tweet is even briefer than a Facebook post less informative, and thus more conducive to the ignorant-shouting sort of "communication" than Facebook - is that much conversation is necessarily brief and one-sided. A letter allows time and space for thought, and if two paragraphs are needed instead of one to dissect the issue they are there for the taking. The only limit is the paper and the patience of the writer, and reader.
Which may be the very heart of the matter. We as a culture are increasingly impatient; the notion of simply sitting and reading a letter - or a novel, or a long blog post - is becoming both difficult and challenging. Difficult because many of us are so busy, our days full of cascades of essential ephemera demanding our attention; challenging because our preferred style of prose is often simple and poorly suited to complex thought. While the text we read on paper or off the screen may be prolix the arguments are often crude, the exposition simplistic, and the argumentation circular or absent. So the quick declaratory statements of Facebook make us easier. We needn't marshal our overtasked intellectual reserve; the thinking is done for us.
This has become a very roundabout introduction to a topic that emerged on Facebook the past week. Specifically, a friend of mine linked to this article in the New York Times discussing the falling out between the Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, and a local formerly Catholic hospital.It seems that the hospital in question performed an abortion on a woman who was in danger of injury or death if her pregnancy had progressed. The bishop, who had apparently warned the hospital that this sort of thing would put them outside Church law, used this surgery to sever the ties between the diocese and the hospital.
My friend was incensed. "Time to move into the 17th century, boys." is the way she put it. Another of her friends replied that the bishop had the right of it; that a "Catholic" hospital had the obligation to abide by church doctrine. Several more of us piled on and we had - especially for Facebook - quite a rousing little discussion. I don't think anyone's opinions were changed, but we at least got to hear a good bit from several sides on the matter.
And the more I got to thinking about it, the more I found that I tend to believe in what I first said; that the bishop's job, if he were to be any sort of bishop and not a windsock for popular opinion, was to insist that the mother, as a Catholic or at least as the patient of a Catholic hospital, give her life for the life of her child in the same sense that a bishop would expect his priests to give their lives, if they had to, to ensure the lives, or the spiritual salvation, of those who depend on them. His understanding of God's Will as expressed by his Holy Father should admit no less, and the tenets of his Church - an authoritarian organization whose fundamental nature is spelled out by the "Dictus Papae" (which includes such statements as "That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet." and "That this (the Pope's) is the only name in the world.") - demand that those beneath him in the hierarchy submit to his interpretation of that Will.
That's cruelly hard. But religions in general ask us to put God first and ourselves afterwards; that's the nature of a religion, most religions. It's a feature, not a bug. Because of that demand religious faith can accomplish great things. Because of it faith can be the spark for horrible atrocities. The direction depends greatly on the nature of the person who "speaks" for the religion and the nature of those listening. But there is no promise that either the speaking or the reception will be beneficial and kind.
All we can only hope then is that our religions don't demand us to make choices that lead to suffering. But by their nature they can, and often do, and we can't really get one without the other, eh?
My bride, lovely woman that she is, is (if she only knew it) a classic American cafeteria Catholic. She has said that if she agrees with a doctrine, she would hew to it. If not, she would ignore it.
I can't do that or believe that.
To me the entire point of a religion - as opposed to a personal faith - is either accepting the doctrines of the religion or working to change them. But until they change, I don't thing that the adherent has an option to just ignore them.
Since I have yet to encounter a religion whose tenets I can accept without demur or disputation, I have no religion. Since I have yet to encounter a moment where my need to have an all-powerful Sky Daddy overpowers my skepticism of the entire notion, I have no personal faith, either. For good or ill, I am alone within my head when the moment for spiritual succor arrives.
And as ruthless as it is I wish that what happened to the hospital would happen more often. I wish that the Catholic Church, for example, would excommunicate people who use birth control, would stop granting annulments and force divorcees out of the laity. American Catholics haven't been forced to actually do what their church demands them to do for a long time. If they were, well, either the laity might change or the church might. Some people might find themselves alone as I do. Some may find that they can abandon themselves in order to have that Sky Daddy within them.
Either way, at least both sides would be consistent.
Because for me so long as a religion does not force itself into the public square and demand that people not its adherents adhere to its beliefs it should be true to itself. For some religions this is not a pretty or humane thing because by their nature they are not about the pretty and the humane but about the demands of a supernatural belief on a merely human soul.
This often makes them magnificent, grand, and terrible.
And it is perhaps the failure of my own soul that I would take the smallest common moment of human life; the sound of a sigh, the heat of a quarrel, the softness of a kiss, the breathless of lovemaking, the peace of a nap, the placid twilight of age, over all the magnificence and grandeur ever conceived.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Orphanpalooza Portland
The last hardcore partiers finally toddled off into the night, Mojo is curled up in bed and I've retreated downstairs to put this into pixels for the record. Portland ALTercation "Orphanpalooza" 2007 is history. Wow.
Before I go on - this is the view out of little Nola's window in Millicent and Floyd's beautiful Victorian house. Is this great, or what? It's like she's going to be living in the treetops!
--
Anyway - what a cacophany of ALT-parent energies! We had meself and Mojo (and the Peep), the Austin inamoratas from Walternatives, B-gal from Moonbeam, W&J from Buttercup, Millicent from Different Dirt and Kelli from Waiting for Sprout. Much emotion was outpoured, much drink was intaken. All things adoption were thrashed out (with dark looks cast towards the Dark Lords of the Adoption Sith, who hold us all in their thrall), much else was dragged out and beaten to death (you haven't heard impassioned until you've heard Millicent talk about getting mugged and the unreal experience of getting U.S. fire-and-murder-news in the E.U.) and a genuinely good time was had by all.
--
In my experience there are few who I would trust implicitly with my money, my drink or my woman. These people...they're paisans. My muckers. My companeros. Good times...good times.
--
We started over at K's with an incredible Chinese dinner Saturday evening. Her "village" showed up in force, with little adorables in tow, one of whom to my inexpressible delight decided to take up residence on my knee while endlessly dipping her green bean in the soy sauce and sipping it (her mom said that it wasn't exactly a shock - she's a soy-sipper from 'way back...) She nibbled tiny chicken bits from my fingers and was, in all respects, a darling. Don't get me wrong - the Peep is mah boyee - but this little sweetie captured my heart with her gentleness and her incredible personality. And only two!
--
I only hope our mei-mei can be such a little darling!
--
The next morning we foregathered at Millicent's to admire the work her people have put in on her beautiful Mississippi district Victorian home. As you know if you've followed her - or this - blog, she and husband Floyd have been working to get their home back in shape after a disastrous fire for little Nola, the girl from Fujian they're bringing home within a month. The fire was horrific - I don't think I realized just how awful until today, when I stopped to look at the back fence. As you can see from the picture, the fence post was charred by the heat - and this post was at least twenty feet from the back house wall where the fire was the most involved!!! I stopped taking pictures and reached out to touch the post: deeply charred on the house side, nearly untouched on the far side. This is what the fire was doing. All I could do was stop in wonder. My god.
--
But, like a phoenix, the Victorian house is rising from its pyre. The inside is lovely, grand, but still a home, from the gorgeous Roman mosaic on the shower floor to Nola's eyrie on the top floor front. The group all loved the promise of Millie and Floyd (and Nola's) beautiful home...
But, like a phoenix, the Victorian house is rising from its pyre. The inside is lovely, grand, but still a home, from the gorgeous Roman mosaic on the shower floor to Nola's eyrie on the top floor front. The group all loved the promise of Millie and Floyd (and Nola's) beautiful home...
In the Fire Direction Center tradition (started last week), I have protected the group's identities in the attached snapshots by giving you just the feet to work with. So here's the ALT-gang in Millie's future family room: from left to right, Mama Sprout, JzBoy, Millie, wzgirl and Poodlemama. C and H were already downstairs, gloating over the gorgeous countertops, the rich detailing of mouldings and wall colors and the sensuous texture of the fir floor underfoot.
OMFG. There's a little girl waking in Fujian province who has no idea that this loving home is waiting to enfold her.
--
Later today the group coalesced again, this time at the Fire Direction Center for an afternoon BBQ and hang out. Much drink was taken, everything from quinoa salad to lamb shish-kabob was ingested and the conversation ranged far and wide. Again, here's the nether regions of the group: Mojo on the right, buttercup, Millie and walternatives right to left. A nice snapshot of the gang breaking in the new deck...
And, of course, no evening would have been complete without the Peep adding his unique brand of entertainment to the mixer. And sweetBabyJesus does this boy love him some Kelli. It'd be embarassing in a sort of Anna-Nicole-and-J-Howard-Marshall way except that the Peep is totally clueless on how to gain the affections of his beloved: the closest he came was to badger her to come downstairs to listen to BlueGal sing "The Meanest Mommy" song. We're still unsure what this meant to him. It sure didn't work for her...
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