Love Dogs

I just found out that Coleman Barks is coming to Grass Valley next month. I am so there!

If you are unfamiliar, Coleman Barks is a poet and renowned translator of the ecstatic poems of Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Rumi. I saw him with Robert Bly in Ojai years ago and it was an unforgettable evening. Attending one of Barks’ performances is the only way to truly experience Rumi’s poetry. Prior to that evening, I had read some Rumi and it honestly didn’t do that much for me. Hearing Barks recite the poems to music was a whole 'nother world. It was absolutely amazing.



And if you’ve got an extra 81 minutes lying around, I found this webcast from the Library of Congress that you could watch. But, if you do have that much spare time, I recommend that you do something productive with it – like come to my house and fold some laundry! Slacker.

I want to verse you

You heard that little birdy right - my new photo site is up and running. It took several days of downloads, databases, mySQLs, phps, uploads via FTPs, and several small sacrafices to Al Gore, but I did it. So, without further ado, I give you -

dawnblanchfield.com!

Sure, there are only a few photos there now, but I've got a whole second hard-drive full of images, so I'll try to add one a day for awhile. Of course there will always be flickr for you baby-viewing needs. In fact, after a few more 4th of July beach shots, there is quite the run of family photos to be uploaded. Including before and after shots of Paul's head.

And speaking of haircuts, I did a few more things this weekend. There was the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk on Saturday morning in Old Town Sacramento. That was alot of fun and I met some very cool people. I'll have those shots up on Flickr by next Tuesday. And when I got home I did this!

Kyle on the first day of Middle School:

Kyle after I gave him a haircut:
Yes, I cut Kyle's hair. And I think I did a pretty good job of it. Of course, Kyle thinks it's too short. But after what I went through before the haircut (I don't want to talk about it) he is lucky he has any hair left at all! Hey, I had even forgotten that he had eyebrows.

So, regarding Me vs. my To-Do list, the tally is:
Me: 3.5 tasks completed (I finished my dad's cd, but still haven't mailed it)
To-Do List: 2.3 million things left to do. The bulk of that being laundry of course. And hey, my Fall Semester starts tomorrow so yeah... I'd best get going.

Sweet mother of Barry Gibb!

The tight pants, falsetto, and floating heads - what more could you ask for from an earworm?!

This gosh-blasted song has been stuck in my head for days now. And no amount of Joy Division or lullabies have been able to temper my tapping toes. I defy you to get to sleep when this song is playing in your head.



And where should we direct our righteous blame for this unbearable condition? At my niece Tonya Bean. She posted this video on Facebook (I’ll save that subject for another time) and I, trying to not be such an old fuddy-duddy and completely clueless to what kids are listening to these days, clicked play.

So, after you’ve listened to the song – and you should listen to it. It’s not bad per se; just stuck in heavy rotation- we’ll form a caravan, drive out to Michigan and beat Tonya about the head and shoulders with her disco ball.

A rare treat

It’s 12:15 pm and I am sitting on the porch waiting for Kyle to come home from this morning’s orientation. It is absolutely gorgeous outside. The tempurature has dropped from the 108 we hit last weekend, to the mid-80’s. And there is a glorious delta breeze. If summers were always like this I would never be in the house!

I don’t know how long the battery will last on Chris’s laptop and don’t see an electrical outlet near the bench, but I’m going to sit here until my butt goes numb it’s time to pick up Erin. When Kyle gets home, I’ll have him bring me a glass of iced tea.

I had to schedule a doctor’s appointment for Kyle tomorrow afternoon. He got bit by a dog yesterday, so I want the doctor to look at Kyle's leg. The puncture wound is shallow but the skin was broken, and he’s developing a nice bruise. Plus he is probably due for a tetanusSshot anyways. Bummer for him. But Kyle hasn’t had a well-doctor check-up since his 1st grade physical, so he is due. Lucky for us he is a healthy kid (tipping my head back, knocking it on the wood siding of the house). But I am also going to have the doctor talk to Kyle about his diet. The boys eating habits are not good. I keep waiting for his to get hungry enough to eat anything, but it hasn’t happened yet. He can't live on mac-n-cheese and cheerios forever right?! Don't answer that.

Well, Kyle just got home and it is time for him to do my bidding. Suh-weet.

I miss Communism

Laissez-faire capitalism has ruined my posture.

I am still reading Shock Doctrine and it is unsurprisingly making me crazy. I don’t even know what to do with this information. I shouldn’t read it before bed – Chris would most likely say that I shouldn’t be reading it at all. He’s probably right. My brain starts spinning round and then getting to sleep becomes impossible. I got up and tried to do some yoga, but all I could do was sit there slouching. That’s bad. So, here I am. I really need to go back to reading Chekov.

You gotta keep ‘em separated

Tomorrow morning Kyle has student orientation at his new school. I have been so busy this last week that I haven’t even had a chance to think about the fact that on Tuesday Kyle will be starting Junior High! Oh right, they call it Middle School here. Whatever Kyle. He’ll be in 6th grade and in Lincoln that means Middle School, with the 7th and 8th graders. But we have been assured, repeatedly, that they keep the 6th graders separated from the older kids. And after Kyle came back from his SoCal vacation, where he spent a week camping with a group of older cousins, that isolation is now looking mighty good. Because while ‘Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool’ is good advice, learn it – live it, it’s not something I want to be hearing from my 11 year old!

Hey, speaking of school…

My semester ended last week. I got an A. And I don’t want to sound like a complete braggart, but I got a 99.3% and I’m pretty damn proud of myself. It's getting harder by the day to deny it when Chris calls me a geek. The fall semester starts on the 25th and I’m taking Web Programming II which uses that same 5lb book. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m having a hard time not starting early on the next chapter. I really am sick and twisted. So to keep myself occupied between classes, I’ve been focusing on photography projects. I have finished the cd of photos for my dad, and have finally made a decision on web hosting and will start working on my new photo-blog this week. Finally. I am also trying to meet the deadline for this year’s Utata’s Big Project. I’ve got plenty of photos but the writing part of the Photo-journalism project is gonna be tough. As you can see, I’ve got nothing to say.

Keep your pants on!

Well. The baby has learned how to take her diaper off.

What more needs to be said?!

Olympic migraines*

So, we arrive in Santa Cruz last night and my in-laws were watching the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. Cool. We unloaded the car (ok, Chris unloaded the car) and settled in in front of Bob’s big screen TV. We had missed a lot of it, but what we saw was pretty awesome. But then came the Parade of Nations. And all I have to say is wtf Olympics? Why are all those wonderful athletes forced to dress like color-blind airline employees? Didn't the women look like flight attendants? And what is with all the hats? Is there some kind of un-written Olympic rule that you have to not only wear some god awful suit-like attire in hideous colors, but you must top it with a jaunty hat?! Are fedoras the national chapeau of 90% of the countries on this planet? How did I miss that little tidbit of trivia? And some of those patterns caused me to want to poke my eyes out. I pretty sure Hungary was trying to kill me!

It was getting late, but we stayed up long enough to see the US team, who looked rather subdued with their navy blazers, white slacks, and obligatory caps. At least the women weren’t forced into skirts and ugly pumps. God bless America.

I was informed that the US team’s outfits were designed by Ralph Lauren. So there you go. And suddenly I began to twitch. For I too was once forced to wear Ralph Lauren by an evil overlord. Or the co-owner of the Rattlesnake Club in Detroit, who was from California, and wore ocelot boots to the grand opening. The staff at the new riverfront restaurant had to wear pink button-down Polo shirt, khakis, deck shoes and a very colorful bowtie. I’m wondering if there wasn’t a belt too, one that might have matched the bowtie. Either way, we sure looked dandy. I’m surprised those preppy threads didn’t give me a rash.

The Sain’t, me, and several of our friends were part of the original staff when the restaurant opened 20 years ago. And the only reason I know the actual year is that last month Kim told the Sain’t that she was going to attend the restaurant’s 20 year anniversary celebration. And this is where we again encounter “bad math”. Math that ages me. Math that if done properly states that I was 22 years old when I worked there. Sweet mother of Barry Gibb how did I get this old?!

And to place you squarely in 1988, the music piped into the restaurant was a mix of Roxy Music and Sade. Suh-weet.


*Although I have had headaches the last 2 mornings, I’m happy to report they were not even close to Olympic in size or grandeur. More like a small regional qualifying events at best.

Talk about peer pressure...

When I started this here little blog, my tag line was "all my friends are doing it" - which still makes me snicker (it seems that Kyle is not the only 11 year old boy in this house!) But hey, I was right. Everyone who is anyone has a blog these days. Including George Orwell! Who's not letting a little thing like death stop him!

And I know this has been reported all over the internet, but I found it on PRI's the World while looking for Bosnian folk music. And you found it here, while looking for… what? Reports of my still tight hamstrings? No? Maybe it’s a picture of the baby that you are after.

Well, you'll have to wait. Blogger is not cooperating. I'll try again later after a round of deep cleansing breathes.

Ok then - yoga does fix everything! That and a new flash.

Hurts so good...

Hmm, I told you to come back today to get a status on how much pain I would be in two days after my first yoga class in approximately 730 days. And here you are! Nice. Schadenfreude never fails. Let me direct you to the VIP “Laugh at Dawn’s Suffering” section. Pull up a chair and help yourself to a nice cold drink. Chris has been getting rather lonely in there all by himself, but let me tell you – he’s been roflmao big time! Literally. In the spirit of “my best interests”, he made me do more yoga last night! And not being able to stand hearing the pained noises I was making without actually seeing what I was doing (or attempting to do) – he got out of bed to do some stretching of his own. “All the better to view the extent of your discomfort my dear.” He is Big and Mean! (trade-mark pending)

So, yeah, I’m sore. Tight. Wimper with the smallest movements.
There. Happy?! I bet you are.

Me too.