Post Thanksgiving

I went away for Thanksgiving. Thankfulness is all about perspective. I am really thankful to have someone like my sister in my life. We did lots of kitchen types of things and lots of outdoorsy things before the kitchen things.

When I got home I discovered some new tenants on my porch: Smoop and Lucky, two cats. They keep on coming on to my porch and I think I'm going to let them without too much grief. I have the room, they need a porch. However, I won't be feeding them no matter how tempting. Besides, they are far from skinny, which makes me wonder how many porches they frequent.

Beyond all of that I thought I would share some travel observations and some noted unnotable moments which are numbered for no reason--

1. The airport in San Francisco is not a warm place. They even have a large piece of public art with the word "void" across it. It felt like being on the campus of KU. Everyone is walking around like everyone else is invisible. I really dislike those places. In spite of that I would like to visit (I've never been there). Flying out and looking down I wondered if I could visit some day and drive over every single bridge in one day.
2. Exercise makes life easier. I've been trying to be more diligent about taking care of my body for the past few months and I was pleased to discover that my Oregon hiking was much easier. We didn't do any strenuous hiking, but I did notice that it was all a bit easier.
3. I ate pomegranate for the first time the day before I left for Oregon. While I was in Oregon I cut open and seeded my first one. Before last week I had never thought about them and now I think that they are great. Yes, there is a huge life lesson in the pomegranate.
4. I don't think that I get enough hugs. Just an FYI. In case you see me, I'm open for a warm one.
5. If your little dog is hacking while you are hoofing it through the Denver airport, he would appreciate it if you stopped and checked on him. The girl walking behind you would appreciate it as well since your little dog's hacking is not a dry cough.
6. I will get dirty if given the opportunity, always.
7. Just because someone is rude to you when she gets on the plane, she might feel guilty by the end and be extra nice at the end of the flight. She didn't hate me just because she was mean to me.
8. Seeing old friends is magical and seeing old friends in the redwood forest makes you believe in magic.
9. God has blessed me with a wide berth of thought and a really entertaining mind. It's pretty fun to be me and I get a kick out of having pretentious reading materials when I'm travelling, but when it's late at night and my flight is delayed it would be nice to have something besides poetry, Dostoevsky, The New Yorker, and Harper's to read. I watched Larry King Live for an hour.
10. The issue of the The New Yorker that I was reading was the "cartoon" issue. As much fun as it is to have pretentious reading materials, I also love getting to an entire page of cartoons and not getting a single joke.

Thanksgiving Haiku

Happy Thanksgiving. Last year we started a little tradition here that I believe ought to continue: Thanksgiving Haiku. It's a bit early and nothing too Thanskgivingy has happened yet, but I'm afraid the next few days will yield little time for poetry. So, here you are:

Rotten pumpkin stink
A disposed decoration
One less for Thursday

Please join in.

I throw like a girl

I do not like to admit certain gender differences. I hate saying that someone "throws like a girl", but last night at church I was watching the girls throw the football and they were all throwing like girls. I also hate to admit that I am a girl that throws like a girl. It's terrible to assign typical gender abilities to anyone let alone myself, especially when I generally have "typical" female weaknesses without having too many "typical" female strengths (like cooking a delicious supper or keeping a neat house or being a great flirt). I realized watching those girls that I must look like a girl when I throw a ball too. For some reason, I had never thought about the way I look when I throw a ball. I hope I can still throw a ball without feeling too self-conscious and embrace throwing like a girl.

I started thinking about writing and whether or not there is such a thing as writing like a girl. I thought of certain works by women, especially feminist writers, and how most of their works could only have been written by a woman. There are also works by men that could not have been written by a woman. This conclusion is strange to me because I want to believe that genders can write the same things, but our experience differs. I did finally think of a few people whose work seems to be non-gender informed, but how can I be sure? I wish there were a way to read without knowing the author so that I could really examine the issue without prejudice. It sounds like a grad school project.

I'm pretty sure that I mostly write like a girl, but I do love to create gender ambiguities.

Question Authority

My brother had me watch this Youtube video. I think a few of you will recognize the star.

I just watched Luther which happens to also have a strong message about questioning authority. I do wish I had read a brief biography before I watched so that I would be more prepared for when exactly the movie would end. If you hadn't thought about how amazing it is to have freedom of religious belief, then you ought to watch it.

I also wanted to provide a link for your questioning pleasure that relates to a conversation that I had at lunch. I was wondering how long this particular political point had been an issue and I think this got me a bit closer to the source.

Finally, not that many little girls are authorities, but my niece has seemed to accurately assign the names of various Winnie the Pooh characters to real people in her life. I have been assigned "Pooh". I'm a little afraid of the implications.

Squirrels

These are two squirrels that I met recently in a small southwest Kansas town.