Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

iz otay ...

Play Nice, Twerps ...

Defyin' Grabities

Susan Powter is a Lesbian ...

... and I'm just so thrilled about it! She's got a lover that is a commedienne and looks ironically like Rosie O'Donnell (in a strange way ... maybe it's just the vibe). Anyhow, I've always had my eye on Susan. Glad to see she's found her inner Goddess and chooses to express it with personal love, too. She looks absolutely radiant!

Read a wonderful article about Susan here on Hufpo written by my favorite writer, Jane Devin. Jane always nails it down succinctly.

You rock, Jane ... you absolutely rock!

D~

Christmas in San Francisco

The funny thing about Christmas in San Francisco is that it’s very low key. You go to the East Coast and all the mainstream radio stations are playing hard core Christmas carols, everybody’s got decorations in their yard, and attending church (Catholic church, specifically) is first on the list of things to do. That’s not to say that San Franciscans don’t decorate, although there really isn’t much room. Many homes in the burbs are decorated. There’s an entire section in South San Francisco off of Chestnut Street that runs a fabulous (somewhat unspoken) competition each year. People pull up in tour buses to see it. You can tell which homes are own by a Filipino family, in fact, by the really cool lights they have in their windows, the ones that clearly aren’t UL Listed. The way the lights vibrate in and out is awesome. But in the city itself, the Christmas decorating is done in the interior in office buildings and stores, and of course inside the world of its children. The adult San Franciscans are busy being diverse, which means hanging baby Jesus on the tree is a no no (at least in the office), and the most intense celebrating is done within the sanctity and safety of family. We spend a lot of time being nondenominational in this city. When Christmas rolls around, San Franciscans, typically bustling and working and running around intently, are anxious to get home to the hearth, and for many of them that means traveling to wherever they came from.

San Francisco is more about Halloween, really … and the drag queens for whom most every day is a day to dress up. Sometimes I wish I were a drag queen, because then I’d have an excuse to wear false eye lashes every day like Miss Connie did. It’s funny what things from childhood leave the biggest impressions on us, isn’t it?

Christmas is approaching fast … just two days away, and my mind has cashed out completely. Last week, the push at work was intense. Deadlines, deliverables, and two big holiday events in the office left me completely pooped and reflecting on my health, happiness and the lessons I’ve learned over the last years. I’ve got plenty to do and absolutely to desire to do it. Nobody’s paying attention, anyway. People are in the office working, but you can see the glazed look in their eyes. Visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Even the administrative assistants who say they are catching up are catching much needed and well-deserved down time instead. What they’re doing now makes my days as an executive assistant look like a cake walk.

How do I feel?

I hesitate to use the word melancholy because I don’t admit to those kinds of feelings readily, but okay … I’m a little melancholy. We had such big plans in Connecticut around the togetherness of family and friends, and having those plans go up in smoke with immense finality was difficult. The grieving goes on, and I feel it the most this time of year.

I miss my grandmother, too, even if she is losing her marbles.

You can’t spend too much time pondering broken relationships when you’ve got a hyper eleven year old bouncing around, however. Powered on a cocktail of hormones and sugar (which, by the way, is present is practically everything we eat), and navigating a world that moves at the speed of light, our daughter is so busy agonizing over what’s in the packages under the tree (Santa is long since gone here), that she can barely contain herself. Everything is a debate, easily escalated into an argument, if we’re not careful. Our headstrong Aries daughter is a two parented project whose main ingredients include restraint and reason, applied with firm consistency and lots of hugs. She’s got a thing for reading in bed until the wee hours, no matter how lousy she feels the next morning. She takes pride in tearing through the books she reads at night and then asking me to fetch her another one from the bookshelf. She came into the office with me yesterday, and it was wonderful having her to myself. She kept so close to my personal space that I was either bumping her in the chest with my elbow (“Nana, that hurt!”) or stepping on her feet (“Ow! Why’d you do that for?”), both of which were immediately followed by hugs all around … reassurance and love in the face of accelerated growth in a lighting fast world. After tomorrow, we’re all home until January 5 of the New Year, for which Leslie is eternally grateful. Single parenting, even for just a day, can suck at times.

This year we will resurrect a long-standing Faber tradition and enjoy our Christmas dinner at The Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. It’s opulent and expensive, but I don’t care. We get all dressed up, enjoy the 150 foot tree in the main dining room, live music, and graze contentedly from a buffet that makes my knees weak. We will enjoy this dinner and spit in the face of an uncertain economic forecast for 2009. Like terrorism, fear will only give them a win. Fuck that. I work happily and my family and I enjoy our prosperity. Fresh shrimp all around on Christmas Day. I hope they have crab legs, too.

After that, it's back on the old diet. I've had to give up carbs completely to keep from blowing up like a blimp. Someone told me that all there is no such thing as whole grains or wheat any longer because the grains we eat off the shelves is re-engineered to make bigger crops. These hybrid grains are non-digestible to the human animal, which explains why our native American Indians have become obese alchoholics and why America is getting fatter by the minute. Sugars are everywhere. Now, I’m reading a booked called “The Zone” and am working on getting into it. I mean, just about everything accept meat is a carb, including vegetables, so it’s about cutting out the bad carbs, which is basically all the tastiest parts of our diet, and applying simple science to what we eat.

Food is a drug.

This is something I can understand.

It feels good getting these things off my chest …

Have a great holiday, ok?

No Time to Write ... More Cute Stuff

more animals

Cute Stuff

more animals

Our Christmas Newsletter

Um, yeah ... I write a Christmas newsletter. I know it's tacky and all that, but I can't help it. I always want to brag about my family's accomplishments come this time of year, and as I get older I find fewer reasons to avoid doing it. So here is our 2008 newsletter entitled ...

The Faber Girls 2007 & 8: Getting Ready to Jump

Hello all …

It is with joy in our hearts that we write to you from our favorite place in the world … The San Francisco Bay Area. We had to move 3,000 miles across the United States (again) to come to that realization, but we did, and with a lot of hard work, a little bit of luck, and Leslie’s good real estate karma, we sold our home in Connecticut in a bad market and high tailed it back! We may be dense, but we are determined … and so we arrived here happy and in good health. In fact, the last time we wrote a Christmas letter like this was in 2006, when, after moving to one of the teeniest states in the country, we were still high on our adventure and looking forward to what we hoped would be a holiday full of family & friend reunions. It wasn’t meant to be, and so we spent most of 2008 getting ready to jump and all of 2007 deciding we wanted to.

It wasn’t all a drag, however. Elizabeth thrived at the private school she went to. Hamden Hall was academically enriching, and she found her most bosom friend there. She and Margaret will be friends forever, we are sure. If we could’ve snuck Margaret away with us, perhaps hidden in a suitcase, to avoid missing her, we certainly would have. But then her mother would miss her terribly herself. She and Elizabeth talk on the phone almost every day, and see one another regularly on her laptop’s videocam. Isn’t that something?

We picked up another dog there, as well. Daizy Mae is a boston terror, er … I mean, terrier, who is firmly attached to her “brudder from anudder mudder”, Jack Boy. Always at the ready, she is diligent about watching our surroundings, and is very urgently protective of Leslie, who both dogs have decided is boss. Daizy is the family sheriff.

One of the best things about being in CT was watching Leslie in action. Not only did mowing that god forsaken lawn get her in good physical shape, but she applied her talent as an informal interior designer to get the house we bought in shape for resale. And I’m telling you, she did it all. She replaced the garage doors, put in a new front door, and a new sliding door to the three season room. She put new flooring in the lower level, retiled the foyer, blacktopped the driveway, and painted everything in sight. She installed all new window coverings, and a black railing along the front porch. She installed a beautiful light/fan in the three season room, and had insulation pumped into the attic. Home Depot knew her by name. Before we knew it, we ready to sell. It was a beautiful place when we left it!

I could tell you countless stories about that process, the sale. Let’s see … one Saturday, Leslie was out tooling about when she realized she had 15 minutes to visit an open house just around the corner from us. Doing her homework by reviewing the market, she found the agent we’d eventually sign with.

Two days before the open house, Jack Boy, our Golden Retriever, swallowed a small stuffed dinosaur which got stuck between his stomach and intestines. As we were working on the house, he was throwing up absolutely everywhere. I don’t mean little doggie barph either; I mean unbelievable projectile vomiting that destroyed two carpets, a beautiful king size bedspread, and whatever else was in its path at the absolute worst possible time. It cost us upwards of $2,500 to get him fixed after that fiasco. How about the agent lady who represented the buyer? She was nothing less than a psycho who made a stressful situation even worse, if it was possible. I’ve written numerous blogs on that topic alone. Our agent, Stacy, was terrific, however, keeping an even keel through our neurosis (which can easily achieve stratospheric levels at times like that). She didn’t lose it until it looked like the other agent might have blown our deal completely … argh! What an ordeal!

The house was sold to a man who bought for his daughter, who was ironically a lesbian. She and her girlfriend were moving from Florida, and I’m convinced it was Leslie’s conversation with the father that really clinched the deal. She made sure he understood the neighborhood was a good and safe one. After stormy seas, our sale closed, and a day later we were off to the West Coast on another Faber adventure.

So … In late June of this year, we landed in South San Francisco not knowing when our things would arrive. The economy adversely affected even trucking, and so our belongings took much longer than expected. Ironically, however, our van arrived in no time whatsoever (the last time we moved it was weeks in the waiting). We spent the time looking for a place to live, which Leslie nailed down in no less than four days. We spent the rest of our transition in a Marriot Residence Inn enjoying a quasi-vacation. In short, we gave up about 3,000 square feet in Connecticut to live in a box, and once again we are spending most of our time in a 15x15 foot livingroom with two rowdy dogs who begin their raucous happy dance immediately when everyone arrives at home. It’s a small two bedroom, in a nice section of Belmont, and has a lovely deck in the back,and an entire posse of hummingbirds living in the unruly foliage that is our backyard. The rest of our things are in storage until we decide the housing market here is soft enough to invest again.

Elizabeth is attending Taylor Middle School with all her friends from Green Hills. She’s also met new friends and recently spent a week away from home attending outdoor education, which was a memorable event. A social butterfly, she has nailed down the social adeptly … but, of course, without ever forgetting Margaret. Leslie and I are often amazed at how she is capable of navigating her complex social scene which snakes through middle school and reaches across the country.

I have a wonderful job as a location manager working for a highly competitive consulting firm in the San Francisco Financial District. It is hard to put into words how good it feels to be back in the city, not to mention back in the saddle. I am surprised regularly at how much I learned at PwC, however (19 years of corporate boot camp indeed); and can testify that PBMS taught me things I needed to know (not to mention the wonderful people I worked with there). I took almost a year off when we were on the East Coast, and it convinced me I’d rather be working. Truly. As much as I needed the rest, I’m not the stay at home type.

Last but not least … our old van, Vera, who Leslie adored, was finally put out to pasture to make way for a new Chrysler Town & Country van that has swivel back seats and a table in the middle. Leslie named her Sexy Sadie. She and Sadie are getting to know one another.

The three of us are anxious to re-experience our favorite Bay Area holiday tradition and enjoy Christmas dinner at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco. We look forward to many prosperous holidays going forward and wish all you the very same!

With Love,
The Fabers
December 2008

Christmasteria

Something completely arbitrary ...

Rainforest Butterflies

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our Resilience Tree: More Leaves

Like the national debt, the leaves on our resilience tree grow and grow and grow and grow ...

... and the red broom is at the ready.

D~

Post-Halloween

It’s raining today … I mean, really raining for the first time since we moved here in July. It’s kind of nice, too. Everything smells fresh, and the birds were raucous this morning. It gave me a reason to hunker down, get some rest, and even take a nap. Elizabeth has been heavy into her computer, we watched the “Sex in the City” movie (really a two and a half hour episode), and now “Lawrence Welk” is on television. Real cozy, family type stuff and I really needed it.

What a week … on Thursday, I pulled off a wildly successful Halloween event at work. It’s a trade off for what we can’t do on Christmas because we’re so busy honoring religious tolerance. I coordinated a week’s worth of decorating competitions, departments competing against one another with elaborate scary scenes, followed by a gathering and awards, with an office full of trick-or-treating for our children, and tables of children’s crafts projects. We had helium balloons everywhere, so when people arrived at the party, they would know they were some place special. Elizabeth came with one of her girlfriends, too and got more candy there than she did at home on Halloween night. The committee and I decorated everything in sight, casting aside professionalism in favor of fun and merriment. I’m talking about seriously cheesy decorations and tackiness around every corner! I worked for a week on my VooDoo Queen costume, too, determined as I was to dress for success. I hit the nail on the head. I had so much fun.

I find it slightly amazing to have a creative outlet like this in the office. People keep asking me if I’m ready to quit because they think its so much work, when the truth is, I’ve hit my stride, and feel at home there. I got personal satisfaction out of helping everyone come together as a team, in the spirit of competition, and then coaxing them into fully participating and having a splendid time of it. It was terrific. It’s been such a serious and uncertain year, everyone needed a dose of silly.

It was satisfying and exhausting.

I approached Friday, Halloween, and a short day in the office, already tired, but there was cleaning up to do. In the elevator, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and discovered folks from the party committee arrived early and had everything in order! All I had to do was euthanize a bunch of tired balloons and take down the decorations in my work station. It was all I could do not to throw myself at Mary’s feet in thanks. I ended up giving them a bottle of red wine to take home.

Speaking of home … there it was another story. The neighborhood barricaded the street for a block party, so of course, we had decorating to do outside. We got the obligatory inflatable skeleton head and all the trimmings, which the little kids couldn’t resist and parents stopped by for photo opportunities. Mother Nature was apprehensive and threw sprinkling rain on us now and again, but for the most part, She kept the worst at bay until today.

I have to admit, it all felt a little strange. Elizabeth went door to door on the block for a little while, but her bag was already full of candy from the office. She was in full costume, an undead convict, and had more fun giving candy to the itty bitties … let’s see, we had witches and skeletons. There was Minnie Mouse and Buzz Lightyear, too. They were adorable, but it was too dark to take decent movies, and so you’ll have to take my word for it.

I’m not sure what Leslie and I expected, but it wasn’t this. Maybe it was the block party people (we stayed at the house), drinking their margaritas and lighting fire crackers down the street, or the young, yuppy parents lit up like Christmas by the time they got to our house. Leslie definitely disliked them, and I found myself tolerating them. I’m unsure if it was the horrible Halloween experiences we had in Connecticut compared to the warm and cozy Halloweens we had on Sunnyside Drive in South City. Maybe we just expect too much, in general. That’s entirely possible.

From this, Leslie has determined that we don’t belong in the peninsula, but rather should be closer to the city, where there is even more diversity (and less tipsy yuppies). I have to agree. It’s very nice here, and I love the birds. Yet the house is very small (besides, we’re only renting it), and we’re living on an anthill. Like I said, we expect so much.

At the end of the night, as the rain got a bit heavier, we left a cauldron of candies outside the door under the easement, and settled into the fresh crab Leslie picked up at Whole Foods. They were fresh and scrumptious and topped a long, busy week off deliciously. Before sleep, I went outside and brought in the decorations I didn’t want ruined by the rain … my ravens, brooms and our mummy … you know, the important stuff.

I’ve spent the day reflecting on all this, the mixed feelings, and ultimately feeling very thankful for the good fortune we have in general. So, with this, I cast all the Halloween spooks back to the land of the dead and with them all the expectations. Next, when they come back, I’ll have more candy.

Maybe I’ll save all this left over for then.

I’ve got to do something with it, don’t you think?

Witch Tribute #3: Three is a Magic Number

If you believe everything that Sesame Street taught you, and for the most part I do, you’ll believe that three is a magic number. You’ll believe that the Crocodile King really did need a worthy son, the lady bugs all attended that picnic, and Gracie Slick really did sing a very clever song about numbers. She did, really. Like me, from the time of early childhood, you’ll know that three heads are better than one. Larry, Moe and Curly proved it. You may even know that two’s company and three’s a crowd. John Ritter proved that before his untimely demise. Most of all, three is a magic number to me personally. It’s the number of people in my family … 1, 2, 3. It’s also the magic number that brings us to our next tribute witches.

Witches and other magical women have appeared in threes since the beginning of time. Well, at least since the beginning of half way decent literature, making their first and precedent setting appearance in Shakespeare’s play “MacBeth”. As the official Three Witches or Weird Sisters, these supernatural women were drawn from mythology and legend, and represented rebellion and treason in the worst sense (as Wiki states it). We’re not talking about the Three Graces here, goddesses of charm, beauty and creativity. Or even the very lovely Maiden, Mother, Crone virtues in Wicca. Indeed, these are your more malignant types, representing deceit, betrayal and murder, all nefarious values upon which countless pieces of art and sculpture have been rendered throughout history.

The magic number three doesn’t lose its poignancy moving into modern media. It very simply transmogrifies into something more understandable, something that requires a lesser attention span. There are three sisters, all witches, in the series “Charmed”, which by the way, is set in San Francisco, the city I most adore. There were three vixens in the movie, “The Craft” before the fourth showed up and they all got greedy.

Three.

This leads me directly to my favorite witchy threesome, and the witches to which I give tribute in this installment … The Sanderson Sisters in Disney’s movie, “Hocus Pocus”.

Believe it or not, it was just on television yesterday.

These three sisters are my favorite for various reasons, not the least of which include Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy.

“The movie opens in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts where three witch sisters — Winifred, Sarah, and Mary Sanderson — transformed a boy, Thackery Binx, into an immortal black cat as punishment for trying to prevent them from absorbing the life force of his younger sister, Emily. He fails to rescue her and instead is cursed to spend eternity as a black cat. The witches are tried and executed by the locals. However, thanks to a curse created by Winifred's magic spell-book, they vow to return when a virgin lights the Black Flame candle on a Halloween night when the moon is full (wiki).”

Winifred is play by Midler. She is the loud mouth, red-headed, buck-tooth sister, who is the most powerful magically, and the brightest lit of the three dim bulbs. Demonstrating where the lines between real life and television can often blur, it is no strange coincidence that Midler has since become a headliner in the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, and holds her crowd in a hypnotic trance, just like she did in the movie. Her sister, Sarah, is played by none other than Sarah Jessica Park, aka Carrie Bradshaw, who reigned supreme in another fabled city known as New York, this time ruling with a a laptop, and an array of unusually hypnotic outfits. The last sister, the chubby one who was most prone to various canine tendencies, and rode on an airborne vacuum cleaner, was played by Kathy Najimy. Najimy also moonlighted as a plus size nun in Whoopie’s movie, “Sister Act”. Since then, she has lost considerable weight, shrinking & growing, shrinking & growing, thus demonstrating her powers of transmogrification. All three Sanderson sisters are undeniably stupid, so much so that they couldn’t outwit the three children who released them from 300 years of hell and then tried to send them back.

So, without further ado, I give you The Sanderson Sisters …

FROM OUR WORKSHOP: Anime by Liz

Our daughter, Liz, is heavy into anime or Japanese cartoons, these days. She's also nurturing a love of Japanese culture and Tokyo. I'd like to share her two most recent artistic efforts, which she created to be avatars on Gaia.com, her latest cyber-passion.

Witch Tribute #2: If You Want A Job Done Right, Do It Yourself

There is something inherently pathetic about a witch who won’t do her own dirty work. If you’re going to embrace the devil in your psyche, like those bitches on The O Channel’s television show “Snapped” (which we always seem to end up watching on Saturday mornings), the least you can do is wield the poison apple yourself. This is the lesson learned by the Evil Queen in Disney’s “Snow White”, who is our second tribute witch during this Fall Holiday Season.

One may argue that The Evil Queen, also known as Queen Grimhilde, is not a witch, but a royal matriarch, and therefore is disqualified from this tribute series. I would disagree with that. Any woman who is narcissistic enough to get hung up on her beauty, for example, or riches, or power, and then kill someone to protect it, should be elevated to witch status … um, evil witch status, that is. After all, every woman is a witch, and every witch is wise, right? Walt Disney certainly understood this. Glinda from “TheWizard of Oz”, for example, was incurably annoying, but she was, most certainly, what we might consider a good witch. It is interesting to note that Queen Grimhilde, voiced by Lucille La Verne, was also Disney’s first “serious” villain in a full length feature, and has yet to be surpassed for excellence in sheer malignancy.

Let’s acknowledge the presence of OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder, in most all of these evil women, as well. Cruella had to have a Dalmatian puppy coat. Trying to realize that desire in a number of nefarious ways finally did her in. The evil queen, Narcissa (what a name!) in Disney’s “Enchanted” had a thing for her stepson. I’d rather not analyze that too closely, thank you, because he was a completely self-centered dolt whose teeth were way too big for his face. Yet, despite calling on her powers as a shape shifter and turning into a dragon just like Malificent (from “Sleeping Beauty”), who by all counts was an evil feary and not really a witch, she managed to be outdone by Love’s First Kiss, which is about as pathetic as it gets … truly.

Disney’s Evil Queen is a regal bitch who probably started out as a scullery maid. She happened to be graced with good looks. Perhaps she got lucky enough to find the King alone in his office when, after a difficult day on the stock market, he needed a good blow job. She was happy to oblige, after which one might speculate it was her good looks that found him enamored of her, so much that he had his first wife tossed unceremoniously from a parapet. The king neglected to reveal that he had a daughter by his first wife, who was also lovely, although very young. She, of course, was quickly banished to the Kingdom’s projects, where she shacked up with seven little people, because, after all, there can be only one good looking bitch in the castle. Descendants of the Roloffs, these little people took advantage of Snow White for house cleaning services and singing with woodland creatures, when they weren’t in the diamond mines slaving for the precious gems upon which the Kingdom’s failing economy was based. Before too long, the Kingdom would be forced to purchase those precious gems from other countries such as Far, Far Away, and the seven little homeys would have no choice but to work at Kingdom-Mart, where they would be fired if they were caught whistling on the job. In fact, it was this crash in the market that drove the King to his own death shortly after being married.

What made Grimhilde, now the reigning matriarch in the kingdom, so darn special was that she could read crystal balls. Some women are just born gifted, I guess. Soon, scrying became her chosen tool of divination, and she used it to find and promptly dispose of other young, lovely and nubile ladies in the realm. Nobody knows why she ended up with that annoying Magic Mirror, but it was he who couldn’t keep his big trap shut when the banished princess got old enough to be competition. Maybe one of the little people, thrust into a personal alcoholic hell after losing his job, couldn’t keep HIS big trap shut in the local pub. After all, he couldn’t get any insurance at Kingdom-Mart and so his addiction was never treated.

Anyhow, The Evil Queen sent some fucktard Huntsman to kill the princess, and demanded her heart be returned in a pretty little box. I just love little boxes. She threatened the Huntsman with death if he failed. Naturally, he did, and if that wasn’t enough, he tried to deceive her, as well, because he needed his job desperately. Jesus, you just can’t find good help these days. The Evil Queen, an alchemist at heart, descended into her dungeon laboratory, where she drank polyjuice to look like the old woman who worked in the Castle’s laundry.

The rest is history.

The fact that the Evil Queen sacrificed the very thing she coveted to get what she wanted is what perplexes me the most. It is, however, a testament to the severity of her OCD, which is undoubtedly what she would blame the entire mess on if she were arrested for premeditated murder and put on trial. She wasn’t, of course. People in true power, no matter what time in history, can get away with raping the country they live in, and having others killed for the sake of convenience. This, after all, is fact and can be seen time and time again by watching cable television and YouTube.

The moral of this story, if there is such a thing, is two-fold. First, let’s acknowledge that the Kingdom did not have a decent plastic surgeon. If it did, the Evil Queen would never have bothered with the Magic Mirror and the whole crises could’ve been averted. Second, is the age old axiom, if you want a job done well, you have to do it yourself.

Pretty box or no, if Grimhilde wanted Snow White killed, she should’ve put aside her class bigotry and racism and ventured into the projects to do it herself to begin with.

Let’s take a look at The Evil Queen in action …

Witch Tribute #1: Oh What A World, What A World!

As if the debate wasn't scary enough, my strangerfriend, Dan-the-man, at The Stank Nasty, is posting a plethura of scary movie clips. He's got them all including the freakiest, most disturbing, trailer from "The Exorcist" I've ever seen. I imagine he is gearing up for some disgusting cinematic crescendo toward Halloween. Well, I think this is a wonderful idea. And because today I seem incapable of having an original thought of my own, I will follow suit.

You can add copy cat to your list of explicatives.

Instead of ticking off the clock before Halloween with scary movies, I will do it with ... witches. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, and tall ones. I've been called one, felt like one, and look like one frequently. I've cast spells like one, had 'em bounce back like one, and felt regrets like one ... even if it's only regret for having my hair messed up by the open window in the van. At work there are times when I must act like one, at home I get chewed out for being one, and my friends all wonder if I used to be one. I have at least one nemesis out there who maintains the belief that I truly am a witch, and gives me credit for a wide array of unfortunate events in her life, as if I had some insidious form of black magic at my disposal, and was bored enough to direct it at her.

Oh please.

I firmly believe that deep down, every woman is a witch, and every witch is wise. I've done a number of artistic pieces reflecting that belief. Here is one of my favorites. The original is a pen and ink piece, 16x24, done with dots, in 1999 ... the "Green Witch" (as its titled) holds her pentegram inlaid with the imagery from the tarot; the sword, the staff, the heart, and the flame, which is eternal. This work is inspired by a book on Faerie Magick.

So, with that, I'll begin the Sapphokinesis Halloween Countown with one of my all time favorite witches, The Wicked Witch of the West. At first, she seems a one dimensional, monochromatic parody of evil, perpetually doomed to play second fiddle to the effervescent Glinda, who will forever reign as a gay icon. I mean, you can't walk down the Castro in San Francisco without seeing Glinda's condescending smile beaming down at you from a greeting card. Then, the author Gregory McGuire helped us get to know The Witch in his book, "Wicked". Once that became a broadway musical, The Witch got a name, Elphaba, and a personal mythos, and shortly thereafter she became an icon herself.

She was a modern woman, this witch, who was unable to recover from a broken heart. When she got hung up on the wrong thing, she simply couldn't swing back.

And what was it she got hung up on? Booze, drugs or sex? No.

It was shoes.

A pair of ruby slippers.

Our Resilience Tree

This little tree, currently in our dining room, has suffered through four moves across country. The first was in 1987, then 1989, and again in 2006 and 2008. Each time we prepared to leave, it's branches were bent, pushed in a box that is lined with a black hefty bag, and it is deprived of light and fresh air for almost two weeks. More than once its path took it through hot summer weather in an eighteen wheeler whose contents grew hot enough to melt the rubbermaid tubs I packed things in. As we unpacked, it emerged tired and weak, almost dead, and each time we feared it wouldn't come back. It always did.

This time we feared the worst. It was bone dry, not a green thing alive on its withered branches. We left it on the back deck for almost a month. Suddenly, just a week ago, tiny shoots appeared almost magically. As if from a life line somewhere deep within it, its new growth is more beautiful than before.

This small tree is a a symbolism of resilience in our family and the 23 year relationship Leslie and I share.

The brooms? Oh, I use them all the time. The one on the left is my commuter broom. I use it to go to work. The one on the right, the fancy one, is our weekend broom, and we use it only for family outings.

A girls' got to get around, doesn't she?

I Love Your Blog

I’m screwing around on the net tonight. No work to do and we ate out, so there is time to spare (for once). I dropped by A. Venifica’s site Symbolic Meanings and was once again inspired. She’s done it to me before. In fact, there were a few months recently past when she wasn’t posting much, and, even though my life was crazy and busy, I truly missed her work. A. Venifica has launched her participation in what she calls the “I Love Your Blog” campaign, wherein bloggers set forth seven or so of their favorite blogs with comments and/or commentary. I’d like to weigh in on that.

So, here they are … my five favorite blogs for those of you who are interested.

Jane Devin’s There’s Always More to the Story … Jane is a widely read, and extremely talented author who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. She’s definitely my absolutely favorite blogger. I’ve been following Jane’s work for some time now, panting for her first novel, and I always look forward to what she has to say. She’s courageously tackled topics like child abuse and rape, at times speaking from experience on some of the most awkward and uncomfortable current events. But mostly … well, I really like Jane. She’s tough, sensitive, vulnerable, wounded, and adorable and has been touched atop the head by the Goddess with a true gift. Jane can make you feeeeel through her writing. You can’t help but get caught up in that narrative. I bet she gets hundreds of hits every day and has a loyal following that leave at least 30 comments on each of her postings. She’s one of those gals who simply must write, and in doing so touch our hearts.

Oh … one last thing … I discovered one of my new favorite words on Jane’s site; the word “fucktard”. For this, I am forever grateful!

Sue’s Coming Out 101 … If you know me, you know that I am not a political person, and that I generally disdain labels. I am in a long term relationship with a woman (my Leslie), but the only time I identify as a lesbian, per se, is when I’m with other lesbians. At work, I’m a manager and a leader. At home, I’m a mother, a family member, a donut maker, a lover, a best friend, and a life partner. When with my grandmother, I was always a granddaughter first (and Leslie was a second cousin – ha!). It may not be a popular opinion, particularly in San Francisco, but I am first and foremost me and only me. Sue seems to get it. Coming Out 101 celebrates a person’s right to choose how they want to be addressed in the privacy of their lives. She acknowledges that while our sexuality may not be a choice we made, for better or for worse given our personal circumstances, coming out certainly is. Sue is articulate, makes good points, rarely letting headlines get by without voicing her opinion, and can really let fly with some fabulous web magic! Sue rocks!

Liara’s Dream Builders… A. Venficia listed this as one of her favorites, and I have to echo that vote. In fact, it was she who indirectly turned me on to Liara’s fabulous work. Dream Builders is an Australian site written by a learned woman who is an expert at dream interpretation. I’m confident Liara is expert at many things and probably has a hundred degrees, but more significant to me, Liara is a student of the positive. Encouraging us to take a look at how we participate in the tapestry of our lives, she asks us to identify how we may be contributing to our sadness or happiness, and then challenges us to seek a greater destiny. I discovered a while back that the Goddess helps those who help themselves. I can’t speak to the greater evil that lurks in this day and age, the strange but frighteningly familiar streak of independent evilness that touches us from time to time; however, I can say that getting our heads out of our ass will most definitely improve the quality of lives overall. Liara never lets us forget this, and while I am sure Jane would hate Liara’s work (am I right?), I for one think it’s awesome.

Symbolic Meanings by A. Venifica … I wish I knew what A. Venifica’s real name is. There is a picture of her on one of her sites, and she’s got the kind of looks that surpass space and time. If she were alive in ancient Roman days, I would think she’d look exactly the same. She is a translator by trade, and admittedly seeks to understand the hidden and esoteric meanings in our mundane lives. So much so that she’s dedicated more than one entire website to the topic. A. Venifica will answer specific questions from readers, set forth elaborate dream interpretations, or spend one post pondering the esoteric meaning of the number 7, for example. Her writing style is succinct and unflinchingly respectful of the opinion of others, as well, which I appreciate personally. She also has a sense of community and encourages us to participate in Synchroblogs (I had a ball with that!) and this most recent “I Love Your Blog” campaign.

Last, but certainly not least …

Dan’s The Stank Nasty … this is my dirty little secret! I ran into Dan in Roseanne Barr’s website and forum, and while that is most assuredly an eclectic group of fans, queers, spiritualists, mountain people, and wierdos, Dan just sort of jumped out at me. He is what I would lovingly refer to as an irreverent queen. Prone to using naughty words to describe his infatuation with all things edible, all things retro, and all things screwy, Dan’s typical blogs range from boring, to amusing, to downright hysterical. The thing with Dan is just when you think he’s thrown as many lost or archived 1980’s music videos as he possibly could, when you’ve seen more Prince than you ever (or never) wanted to in your lifetime, he writes something so perfectly succinct, so perfectly observant, and so courageous that it gives you pause. Take for instance his post Obamary Clintrack, written last January. Dan the Man, midst all the retro poo-poo, knows how to call it when he sees it, and for this I will always check back to his happy little corner of the web to see what he’s pulling out of his derriere.

So that's that ... my participation in the "I Love Your Blog" campaign. You can take it or leave it. If you like it, that's wonderful, and I'm so glad you stopped by. If you don't like it, you can shove it. This is my blog and nobody's dragging your sorry ass here.

Take care, everyone!