W drew this rocket to decorate one of his "rockets" (plastic tubs that he or his tools 'ride' in) - it amazes me how sometimes he just scribbles and then sometimes he busts out with some very representational image like this.
Part of W's co-op preschool is participating in a huge fund raiser for the school. The school has an annual rummage sale where they make ~30k selling other people's used stuff. It is quite amazing. The week of rummage (this week), each family has to work 20+ hours prepping for the sale (picking up donations, unloading donations, sorting donations into categories, and selling donations and then hauling unwanted donations to the dump). In addition each family has to donate 2 "treasures" to the sale (suggested treasures include real jewelry, persian carpets, fur coats, etc.) and cook 2 baked items to sell at the sale (where a dozen cookies counts as 1 baked item). It is a massive amount of time and energy (esp. when you have logistics of daycare of not only your preschooler but also a baby in our case). In some ways it is a cool event, where families get to 'bond' on their work days and the school gets to encourage re-use and recycling and of course make money for the school to do cool things (like buy more fun art supplies for the kids, etc.), but in many ways it is a huge waste of time and given the option, I would rather donate our share of $ to the school and have a sane week... but all that aside, what it really has been making me think about is people and their relationship to their possessions... After 9+ hours of unloading and sorting other people's 'donations', I am a bit mystified by people and their stuff (myself included!). Now, I am a big supporter of re-use and re-cycling and I regularly pack some used, now unwanted possessions into bags for donations to second hand stores, etc., but after sorting through all this stuff, I just have to say:
I mean, about victory and all that. Anyone?
P and I watched the season finale of The Wire last night on HBO, after watching season 3 this summer and then backing up and catching up with the first 2 years while we were watching this season. It only got a little confusing, but I guess It's obvious that I liked it and found it totally absorbing enough to watch it all convoluted like that. Last night's episode was one of the more bleak of the lot, although I think that's true of the whole season, and I am sure that part of what I respect so much about the show is its commitment to being honest when illuminating realities about life for poor African-Americans in (mostly Western) Baltimore. (Season Two dealt more with working class white people, also taking an unblinkling look. This season added issues of education and NCLB testing to the ongoing themes of street life, policing, drugs, 'soldiering', class issues, and city politics. I was totally addicted, not only to the great writing and compassionate character development, but also to the honesty I already mentioned. It's not for the faint of heart, though.
Song Of The Day
Tom Waits, Way Down In The Hole
opening credits, The Wire (earlier seasons)
And...how could I not? It's just not as good, to me, but why not?
Richard Thompson isn't only good at serious songs. Part of why he's worth seeing live is because he's so damn funny (both between and within songs). This is one of his only lasting covers, part of his 1000 years of Popular Music album. I just had to post this as a b-side to the other one.
We saw Richard Thompson at Villa Montalvo last night, and he was as FUN as ever. He has many hilarious and silly songs, but since I'm in the winter mood, I had to post this one.
1) A good song helps everything.
2) This song helps because it reminds me not take the destruction of my email account so seriously. Life gets a lot worse.
