Guitar Keith

My 1st cousin, Keith Taylor, is an amazing guitarist. And a bit offbeat (not musically). Some of my favorite early memories involve sitting around a campfire listening to him play. His giant sideburns are gone, but he's still clearly amazingly gifted. Here are a couple of his latest videos:

Grr...attitude

Generally, I think I'm sort-of half-and-half on the half-full/half-empty thing. Like half "things are so great", and half "but why did THIS PART go wrong??" I feel lucky and grateful a lot, which I think I express. Sincerely. But when facing mixed blessings, maybe I've been a bit...cranky and cynical. Not my most endearing qualities. For example, when someone offered to give up their own time and personal life to help me cope with what is most likely going to be a pretty rough week, and did so in the most AMAZINGLY KIND WAY...I'm afraid I wasted a little time thinking it might be motivated solely by the proselytizing opportunities. Possibly that is because the BIG thing to worry about, like WHY ANYONE NEEDS TO MAKE THAT OFFER AT ALL, is so monumental that being cynical was easier. Time to say, "Duh, self! Get over your, er, self." So, in the spirit of opening myself up to the kindness that has been thrown so ENORMOUSLY in front of us all, I want to open my arms wide and say THANK YOU: To my Internet friends: Thanks. Even though we've never met, your supportive words provide a touching little bubble of good feeling that buoys me up daily. Thank you to my family, who has been IMMENSELY supportive to Jamie, even though they don't know him very well. The phone calls, advice, offers of help and yes, the prayers, are tremendously important to us. Thank you to Jamie's family, who have been very kind to me, and, some of them, SO VERY STUPENDOUSLY nice to Jamie since his diagnosis. Jamie doesn't see or speak to most of his family all that much. There's a lot of complicated history there. But they mean so much to him, and when his family does something nice like come visit and make a fuss over him, it is a HUGE, MOVING, VERY BIG DEAL. (You know who you are!) Thank you to my group of amazing friends. So many of you have made some great offers and just been generally supportive and kind and solicitous. And a few of you have listened to me go berserk over this latest development. Which I wish were anomalous to this one thing, but you know me well enough to know that my head spins around and I yak endlessly over trivialities too. Ahem. I hope to never need to repay in kind some day - but if the need arises, I'm 1000% there. Because I owe you all. A lot.

Gently reconnecting my head to my body

So I recently returned from a trip home to see the familial bosom and hang out with my sister and the rest of my family. My mind is still racing. Here's what I like about Utah: Here's what I don't like about Utah: I have a lot to say about the state of cancer, the state of my family and the state of Utah. But I think I'll sit back until I'm less frustrated and overwhelmed. Glad to be home, though. Yes indeedy.

Sweet and sour

Things have been a bit weird in Waffle land.

We had what was, with blinders on, a delightful holiday weekend. We didn't give or recieve a lot of presents, but what we did and had was meaningful.

We got to spend part of the 'smas with our favorite Naked Monkey friends.

On Boxing Day Jamie's sister and her daughter, who live in France, and a friend of theirs from Oregon, came for a visit and truly added to the pleasure of sharing in the best of Christmas spirit.

Minimal drama at home/maximum warmth. Lots of cooking, game playing and sweet, cozy times. In a normal world, the biggest blot on my horizon would be that the garbage pick-up didn't happen due to bad weather. Because? Chicken bones+wrapping-paper+boxes=Crap!

However, from an inner perspective, my holiday was...well, the suck. And typing this out makes my hands shake.

My oldest sister, easily one of the most vital, life-force-filled people I've ever known, collapsed on 12/22. Doctors found a mass in her pelvis and did a colonoscopy which found that her colon is riddled with tumors. Her liver shows some masses as well.

There are some good things to add, like her lungs are clear and the initial colon biopsy came back as precancerous. But basically, each phone call home delivered news that was/is more and more somber. By Christmas I was a wet wreck.

I don't know what to add to that. That she has 7 kids, the youngest of whom is 5? FIVE! That she JUST became a grandmother this year and needs to see him grow up? That she, more than any of my living family members, made the greatest impact on me as a person and I want her to keep doing that for a LOT MORE YEARS? That she talks more animatedly than anybody I've ever known and that a phone call to her is the most fascinating roller coaster about nutrition, green-living, education, and 45 other random topics which interest her at a given moment?

She's intense and a force of nature and SO opinionated. She loves books. She loves music. She loves helping people experience the best of things, particularly with regards to health and nutrition.

I don't believe in God, which is good for God and good for me, because I'd be SO FUCKING RADICALLY RABIDLY CRAZY if I thought there was a being anywhere in the universe who could change what is happening to my sister. Which is to say, I held it together for Christmas. Had fun with the kids. Was loving and loved. And now I'm trying to figure out all the random intricacies of being a supporter of someone with cancer.

How does anybody do this?

Lie-y McLiarson's disingenuous, backdated blog post

I've been in a training session at work. And taking care of stuff at home. So I blog post backdatily to meet my Nablahblahblahpohmoh self-commitment. Does that count? Since I can't write and pretend to listen to the training session work, here's my cheaty-shameless-promotion-of-family-musicians post. These are The Mollies. My cousin Becky is the brunette and my niece Vivian is the blond. ENJOY!

A typical (week)day at the waffle house...**

(**Now with Chai Recipe**)

Mrs G. at Derfwad Manor is having a post-in* today.

*This is something like a pot luck for blog readers.

It's pretty easy to predict a Wafflehouse weekday, whereas weekends are a smorgasbord of chaos, kung fu and laundry. 12:00 AM-5:25 AM -

(Thanks, Lee, for this pic)

5:30 AM - alarm goes off
5:39 AM - alarm goes off
5:48 AM - alarm goes off...
5:49-6:15 AM - Shower and then dress in the dark (one of many downsides to the Family Bed not thoroughly investigated prior to implementation).

6:30 - 7:00 AM - Laundry folding. Dinner dishes washing. Start a pot of chai for myself and some breakfast food. Common options:
a) Dutch Baby
b) egg white omelettes
c) peanut butter toast and apples.

7 AM - Jamie wakes Milo without waking Zel (when possible).
Sometimes, I get to eat toast and drink my chai in the relative silence of our breakfast nook while that happens.

Usually not...

Meals are eaten here:
Because THIS is clearly not for food... ...it's for Legos. 8:00 AM - Preschool drop-off and commute
8:30 AM-5:00 PM - work
5:45-6:30 PM - I get home, nurse the baby, start a load of laundry, do breakfast dishes, and cook dinner
6:35 PM - Eat
7:00 PM - Commence battles...and put laundry in dryer...
8:15 PM - Bath and bed...and hopefully toothbrushing... Sometimes one chapter out of a book. Currently The Trouble with Jenny's Ear.
9:00 PM - Sometimes I get about 5 minutes of reading in before I crash...but usually by 9, it's lights out...
Chai Recipe ^
In quart+ sauce pan, heat equal parts water and milk (I prefer 2%) over high heat. For me, a heavy tea drinker, this is about 2 cups of each.
add:
1 t-T honey (it's all about your own sweetness, baby!)
2T tea (I LOVE the Tao of Tea's Sada Chai for this, but any black tea or, well, rooibus if you must, works) equal parts (about 1/8 t): - cardamom - cinnamon - nutmeg - ginger
4-5 whole star anise stars
Optional:
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t rose water
4-5 peppercorns extra cardamom (yum!)
Heat until mixture begins a rolling boil.
Turn off heat.
Pour through a strainer into mug or other mouth-delivery system.

^I used to make quasi-authentic claims that this recipe is from my ex-MIL, who is from a chai-making country. I don't think I actually remember how true-to-her-recipe this is anymore. But it IS? Delicious!

Portland!

A friend of mine recently pointed out that Portland, OR is an entry in the Stuff White People Like book. And, while Portland IS full of things from that book (bumper stickers, hybrid cars, wine, coffee, organic farmers markets, pan-asian-fusion-restaurants, threats to move to Canada, bicycles, lawyers, dogs, living by the water...), his snarky take on our smug whiteness has made me take a step back from my adopted city to think about it. Portland has a LOT of public art. Some good. Some weird. And THIS:

Lots of alternative types. Like him (that's famous papa-Nomad):

Lots of new-age-bookstore-birkenstock-psychic-reading-pan-pagan-types (The Secret was published by a local Portland publishing house):

And we are the coffee/wine/book capital (per capita) of the US:

So that's a large city with a big load of, dancing/protesting/drumming hippies, a side of homelessness (we are bleeding hearts, but not foolproof, apparently), and naturally there's as much extreme yuppie-ism as the rest of the left coast, lots of strippers (really, like...a LOT of nekked here), and rain rain rain... (along with mold, mildew and some of the other fun things that go along with mold)...

It's a mixed bag of interesting and irritating, but I like it here. I've got access to several (although, sadly, fewer all the time) independent bookstores, including the BEHEMOTH of independence, Powell's. Yuppie, organic, beautiful coffee 24 hours a day. Lots of wine, booze, food. It's a city of excess about our excesses. And sure, smug about it. And very white. That's problematic. But not intrinsically wrong.. I grew up in Salt Lake.

Which has a lot of this:

Some of this:

and this... And WAAAY TOO MUCH of this:

I think it's ok here...away from that (hiking aside). My life is here. My kids are here. Hatred and unhappy, unloving people are here too, true, but mostly it is a city of love. Sometimes too much, shreepy, deepy, creepy love. Or nekked love. Or psychically-channeled, a bit off-the-track love...but it's love all the same. *some of these images come from Portland Ground

Good enough

So...I have a son. Maybe you've heard me mention him? Once or twice? Every 2nd post? And...I think he's a bit of a tough nut. Not particularly social. Pretty vocal. Pretty creative. Pretty gorgeous. Full of mischief. Full of ideas. Full of gifts. Full of challenges.

When I was pregnant with M, he was this super-active baby. Jab. Jab-jab. Jib. Jab. Flip. Flip. Flip.

I would just stare at my giant belly in awe...and pain, watching the shape of an entire foot protrude from just below my ribs. Hi-ya! And all that flipping and poking and jabbing was apparently tangling him tighter and tighter in his cord, until he was suspended in an umbilical net and unable to descend all the way into the canal without bringing the placenta with him. It was a dramatic birth, complete with an emergency race across town on Thanksgiving morning in the back of the midwife's car trying not to push.

And then there were three of us. On the most meaningful Thanksgiving day I've ever known.

Drama-filled and not how we'd planned, but...wow. Immediately, our lives were in orbit around this tiny person, who was promptly and thoroughly pissed off. And needy. And cranky...And delicious.

First pictures of him as a baby make me laugh, because he's wearing JUST the same expression he has now when he's peeved with everyone.

Pissed off from bath

Pissed off about bedtime

YOU are on my list...

Five years later, I have to think that his gestation and birth were pretty prescient. There are a million times a week (a day!) I find myself thinking I'm the worst parent ever...or (much worse) that he's the worst kid. I make so many mistakes. Mistakes of giving too much: too much stuff, too many distracting things, too much giving IN and being subsequently inconsistent; and more mistakes giving too little: time, energy, direction, baths...

How do you all do it? How do you cope when you've had the fifteenth stupid argument about whether or not the store you drove to could POSSIBLY have the SAME noodles the OTHER store, the one 20 minutes from where you are, has!?!?! How he CANNOT wear new underpants today because he LOVES the ones with SKULLS ON THEM - the ones in the hamper!!! Give him skull underpants or he will not! Will not! Will NOT! GET!! DRESSED!!! Is he a dictator and I'm the slavedog lackey? Sometimes. Would it kill me to drive to another neighborhood to buy noodles? No...but I don't always WANT to. Am I sometimes barely treading water? Ohhhh...yes.

Jab. Jib. Poke poke. Flip. Flip....flip.

I'd love to be one of those moms who is so serene she can offer advice, and little bon mots about the beauty of raising your kids and how precious and special and magical it is. How it burns away the layers of pretention and leaves you purer. Is that me? Oh...I don't know. I'm tired. I'm cranky. I love my kids and sometimes I wonder how people get through these years of figuring out how to go with the flow when the flow thinks you are too stupid to navigate your own pants, let alone how to be a good enough parent...

Some days I just want to get through it with all of us loving each other and forgiving each other on the other side of their childhoods. Am I aiming too high???

Gratuitous waffles...

I'm in arrears in kid-adoration posts. So here's one...

And some serious shots of the parents...

Cowboy, meet Prison

(subtitle: The Name Game)

Every few months I waffle around (har har) about changing my name to Jamie's, because his surname is COOL with my first name. Seriously. You'd NEVER mess with me if I had his surname coupled with Rebekah. It's just that tough sounding.

Rebekah Cowboy

MY surname is lame with all name combinations (no offense, all Prison-named persons everywhere, but if your name is famous in your country for sounding like a Prison, it's maybe not the best of all names). Also, it sounds a bit like the noise people make when they throw up. So there's that.

Rebekah Prison

But...this is where I have to think about screwing my feminism (and general philosophies about self-worth) to the sticking point. I don't REALLY believe in changing your name...ever. I mean, I've known people with Rainbow Hippie Sunshine names who changed their names to Mary Jones-ish-ities. And many MANY more Mary Jones-es who changed their names to "Running Heart Stone Awesome Pants".

And I do get the merits in that. Sort-of. But...for me? Self-loving, confident, 38 year old me? Eh. I think my identity is melded to being Lame-o-Prison-Gal forever. It's just part of the package.

Plus there's the fact that in three marriages I've kept my name the same. (Not the best argument to have with Jamie). And that it's a bit like a vanity plate. I'd LOVE to not be Rebekah Sing-Sing*, but I am. And I'd really LOVE to be Rebekah Cowboy**, but I'm not.

We did give Zel the Cowboy last name, which I'd protested with great reasoning and logic and many thoughtful thoughts since waaaaay before any child of mine was born (essentially: boy-baby=dad-last-name; girl-baby=mom-last-name). Until she was going to be Zel Prison. Which isn't that bad, right? But my sense of aesthetic won out over my sense of justice (soooo telling), so she's Zel Cowboy forever, unless she decides differently.

And I guess that's the point, really.

* not my real last name
** not Jamie's real last name

Wafol Pix

We had a great photo shoot with Amy Schmeets (www.funkywonder.com), and I'm SO happy with the few I've seen thus far.

Our family. Clearly we are NOT good at "posing"...

The clown and the endurer.


Awwww...delicious!


Me and mah baybeh walking...on goose poop.

Tattoos...

I've been contemplating getting a "family tattoo" which would contain sort-of oblique references to the four of us by way of the elemental zodiac. I'm a Water symbol (Pisces), Jamie is Earth (Taurus), Milo is Fire (duh...and he's a Saggitarius), and Zel is Air (Aquarius).

I don't know much about tattoos. Other than that they look cool but hurt to get.

So now I've got this design, but I don't know how hard it would be to use this image. If you remove all the background astrological "noise" and just incorporate the sun, symbols and primary text, I like it.

But would it be a bear to get? If I use Black and Greys and possibly the standard elemental colors for each symbol (Blue for water, Green for earth, Red for fire and Yellow for air)...? Erp?