humpty dumpty sat on a wall...

Child molestation is not a happy topic, especially when an American college football coach is in the middle of the scandal. You've probably heard enough about the man they call Jo Pa, too much in fact. His kingdom is crumbling and he is partially to blame. I have no sympathy for him and the wall of lies built around his unhappy valley.  I want to know where are the stories about the traumatized children and their families?

  

I am enraged.  I am sickened.  I am embarrassed, once again, for our country.  We are socially inept.  We've proven this in several ways.  We claim to help the world, yet at home, our residents are flailing.  Morality and ethics are lost a midst team jerseys and statistical polls.  Blinders must have been on sale this past decade, on the shelf next to the foggy glasses and rosary beads. 

Yes, I'm referring to the Catholic mess.  The entity who raped my generation of dignity and trust.  The church I trusted to teach my children about honor, respect, loving one another, and helping those less fortunate.  My fault, I didn't read the disclaimer:  'priests may seem holier than they appear.'  The Vatican cover up and the Penn State cover up are huge.  Two powerful, public, influential groups who have been revered and praised for good deeds.  Two groups of human beings choosing to look the other way, brush under the rug, deny, create excuses, and harm.  Once wronged, shame on you.  Twice, shame on me.  Action is needed.  

My interest is twofold.  I am a mother.  I am a psychiatric nurse. Protective maternal instincts cannot be matched.  Like the wild animal charging the invader too close to her babies, this mom feels like kicking butt and taking names.  My patients have shared horror stories of child molestation and abuse, sometimes  at the hands of their loved ones, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles...stories that explain the psychosis, dissociation, self-hatred, and self-harm of adulthood.  Where does the cycle end?  How?  When?  

I promise each of you this:  if I see an adult sexually molesting a child, I will be talking to 911 dispatch sooner than that predator can pull up his pants.  Period.  No second thought.  I knew this 22 years ago when my daughter was gracefully growing inside of me.  I know this everyday and forevermore.  Help is my middle name, even when I may be requesting, I can feel others' pain.  Maybe there in lies the motive for my anger today.  Maybe my anger is ever present because I so strongly feel the hurt around me.  I hurt for the children unnecessarily put in contact with predators, unhealthy adults who were given multiple chances to prey, given permission from their bosses, their confidants, their elders, their bishops and cardinals.  I hurt for the children who lost their youth and live daily with doubt, and wonder why they deserve their horror.  I hurt for the students at Penn State who do not understand the severity of their university's indiscretions, their judgement clouded by the pedestal's shadow.  I hurt for the believers who follow doctrine, blindly and unquestionably, their muteness deafening.  

Yes, to be human is to err.  I, of all humans, am a walking err.  I will not cast the first stone.  Too late for that pebble.  I'm looking for a rock to chuck, a boulder to roll, a stick of dynamite, anything I can use to awaken senses and knock heads.  Wanna' join me?

go green!

peace and love

~L

racing the battery

sitting at a local sports bar, just finished watching the Bears beat the Lions with the referee's help, drinking my 4th Oberon and playing beat the battery with my laptop.  I love Sundays in fall.  Chicago sports make all inconsistencies and frustrations seem doable.  Coach Lovie may not be loved by the best city in my world, but Brian Urlacher sure deserves my pedestal pushing today...can you say sack master?
Sitting by myself, but not alone, in a room filled with Detroit Lions fans, watching bad calls lead to a good start for the blue and orange.  Chicago rocks!  But I am researching a different city today: Seattle.  Jeff (husband) invited me to meet him in this northwest coast domain after his trip to China touches down in the US in a couple weeks.  Brother James lives in Seattle and he told me I could choose whatever I wanted to do or see or be while visiting.  Pikes Place Market.  Seattle Art Museum with Picasso's collection.  Alexander Calder's Eagle outdoor sculpture, to add photos to my chicago Calder flamingo visit.  I like collecting.  Local music and local coffee and local gay bars...yes my brother in law is gay.  All good choices.  All good reasons to live.

Battery lower, must finish beer and get outa' here before laptop explodes....

why do bartenders put an orange slice on the edge of a glass of Oberon?  The beer may look orange but it's not orange flavor.  doesn't stop me from drinking it, btw.

son is angry.  many loud complaints at our innocent dog.  audible and angry and unnecessary.  I try to talk to him...calmly, patiently.  I approach him with care and confidence....and I leave him with steam shooting outa' my ears and breathing expletives as I quickly walk toward the far end of our house.  What will kill this kid?  his anger.  what will cure my son?  peace.  He lives like I used to in my decade of depression.  Did I teach him how to negate?  Did I ignore him so much as a child that I branded his soul with doubt?  He's 18 years old and acts like he's 8.  He's a senior in high school and continues to tell himself that subjects don't matter...core classes are a waste of his time...he'll never use grammar or algebra or economics in his future.  This perspective does not originate with me.  I loved school, could be a career student.  I could also master a foreign language while high.  He is not me.  I am not my son.

battery dead...bye for now.

Congratulations Blackhawks and Chicago!!

2010 STANLEY CUP WINNERS

chicago chronicles, part 2: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I mentioned the long car rides into the Chicago skyline.  Our family auto was large and long and luxurious.  Seat belts were perfectly rolled up and tucked away.  Electronic windows and door locks and power steering graced our ride.  The soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever blasted from the 8 track tape player and taught me every word to every song the Bee Gees and Diana Ross sang in the 1970's.  Staying alive and stepping out.

Each Sunday we stepped into Hockey jerseys and headed to the city. Our destination: the Chicago Stadium and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game.  Dad had 5 season seats for the five members of our tribe.  Part of our routine and tradition of Sunday games was the dinner preceding.  Greek Town!  Roditi's or the Islands.  Either establishment welcomed my dad and his entourage.  Dad seemed to know everyone...host, server, guy cutting off the gyros meat from the lamb on the big spit.  My early journey into restaurant etiquette and fellowship.

I was a picky eater as a kid, so Greek food did not interest me.  That's OK, I had chicken.  Every Sunday in Greek-land I ate the same food:  appetizer of crispy bread and pats of butter, baked Greek chicken with rice, and a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cold metal dish.  I didn't eat the flaming Saganaki cheese, but I definitely wanted the waiter to light that fire at our table.  OPA! Boy did I have stories to tell at school the next morning.

For years I thought valet parking was how all visitors to the city were treated.  Our car was usually pre-heated by the man in the knit cap and gloves, and pulled up to the curb just as we  walked outside.  Bitter Chicago winds were no match for well-tipped valets.  Dad's regularity kept all parties in anticipatory trust.  And his children knew that a night in the city with father was never boring.

On the drive between dinner and hockey is when I realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  Maybe twenty minutes, sometimes felt like five.  Lots to spy out my car window.  Lots to learn about life outside suburbia.  Differences marked memories and similarities invoked imagination.  I was passing through someone else's life without invitation.  My visitor badge was not pinned on my lapel for quick identification.  My anonymity represented my naivety and I felt invisible behind the glass.

The Chicago Stadium is no longer.  In the 1970's and 80's it housed the Blackhawks games, almost two every week during the season.  Standing proudly on Madison Street, west of the blocks of sky scrapers and business and shopping and tourists, The Stadium, as everyone called it, was in the middle of nowhere.  In other words, I heard my parents say it wasn't in a very nice area. Reminder to lock the car doors and walk closely to the adults is ingrained on my childhood brain.  I never knew what I was being protected from.  I only knew what I observed through that glass.

Neighborhoods.  Schools with playgrounds.  Churches. Grocery shops and bars with neon signs.  Chain link fences and chain basketball nets.  Boarded up buildings with broken furniture on their stoops.  Row houses with front gates and little lawns and children playing.  Police station proudly wearing its number on the stone front,  above the giant double wood doors, in front of the regal staircase, like the one on Hill Street Blues.  Everything appears larger than life, more important, different.

Usually the drive was near dusk.  In the thick of winter we drove through darkness.  The games started at 7:30.  Dad brought us early to watch our team practice, or just following, so we could hunt for pucks shot under the red seats.  As we approached our destination we also approached fandom.  And my view changed.  Gone were the lonely streets and lives of citizens. We merged into a mild chaos of hockey fanatics.  

Walking in the same direction.  Wearing the same colors and emblems.  Shouting and waving tickets and holding signs.  "Need 2"  "Have 2"  "Parking $10" Red and white jerseys painted the once dull scape.  Parking lots filled up with queued vehicles.  Lot owners bundled in flannel and down and Indian head regalia, accessorized with waist aprons full of cash.  Flashlights bounced at the intersection where uniformed police directed our traffic.  Sometimes the cop held a whistle in his mouth, just like the ones on TV.  My eyes danced and my heart skipped.  My senses stimulated into overdrive.  This is it!  We're here! The rush and thrill and buzz emanated through the car and into my mind.  My first taste and touch and tour...of my kinda' town.

 

~to be continued soon... GO HAWKS!!!

NIEMI...my hero

Since I'm having a hard time motivating myself to clean, plant, cook, or grocery shop, I'm dabbling in blog land. Going through my dashboard reader I peruse the variety of magz, blogs, and photo ops I've bookmarked for my reading pleasure. 

The chosen article this morning is an ode to my hero, Antti Niemi, Chicago Blackhawks goalie extraordinaire.  Stanley Cup game 2 recap @ RosenBlog. Add this author to your reader if you like sports, he won't disappoint.

2 more to WIN the CUP

Keeping with my current Chicago theme (the Blackhawks beat the Flyers tonight), and before I finish my second installment (read this for part one), I pulled this out of my rough draft pile to share some thoughts I recorded after my Chicago photo walk in March.

this city is incredible.
people talk and gesture to themselves while walking.
the stairs to the river walk smell like piss.
Lincoln Park residents were the only pedestrians who made eye contact with me and my greeting.
pigeons are slow to walk, low to fly, and colorful up close.
Chagall rocks.
I love the L.
thrift stores floweth over with used goodness.
buildings are marked with a name on their exterior which has nothing to do with their interior contents (the chicago cultural center lives in the former chicago public library).
many outdoor clocks.
six street intersections can be puzzling to the newly initiated.
your sales taxes are double mine.
drivers like their horns.
a river runs through it.
there's only one michigan ave bridge :)
the big body of water is on the east side instead of the west.
I heard a lady call the bean a shiny silver ball.
crazy photographers aren't given a second look.
statues and domes and gargoyles, oh my.

and my awesome family and friends let me visit...sometimes.
future chicago resident,
L

chicago chronicles, part 1: A river runs through it...backwards

In honor and elation of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team playing in the Stanley Cup finals, I have written a two part post, essay, ode to, obsessive rant...about a city I love and why.  The Hawks skate Saturday night at home in game #1.  The caliber of hockey during May has been outstandingly exciting, so if you've not really liked to watch because it seemed boring or like slow motion (because it can sometimes), then NOW is the time to experience how furious and fast and ferocious men can be with pounds of sweaty padding taped onto their already buff bods while balancing on two blades, slamming against bodies and boards, sprinting and slashing and scrumming on ice, all the while strategically planning the puck's next route into the net.  Genius!

Chicago seemed so far away.  The big buildings and bright lights.  The long car ride on the busy highways.  The unexplored territory heard so much about on the TV, radio, in song lyrics.  Didn't Frank Sinatra sing that song?

Suburbs of Chicago.  That's where we lived.  Wheeling first, then Palatine.  You may or may not have heard of them.  Famous for nothing.  My husband grew up in...wait for it...Arlington Heights!  Yep, the one with the horse race track.  Now that's special, if you gamble or own horses or live nearby.  So we are suburbabies (I just made that up).  Where our parents landed.

As the big city grew and caught up to our forests and farmlands, as the highways and byways widened and exited into our lanes and boulevards, the mess meshed and we emerged as one.  One big happy family called Chicagoland or Chicago Area or northwest suburbs of Chicago.  My kinda' town, she is.  No matter what you call her, she's a gem of the Midwest.  Really.  Trust me on this.  The city is unique and cultural and secretive and warm. 

...walking among the sky scrapers, which claim the tallest of the world at one time or another, watching the walkers and noticing news, visiting Sue at the Field Museum and touching everything scientific and industrious, catching a ball game at the friendly confines or Sox park (I refuse to rename any of it:  what you talkin' 'bout Willis?).

Fireworks and music and parks and gardens. Museums and galleries and mom and pop greasy spoons. Street vendors and tour guides and homeless citizens begging for attention.  Daley and Ditka. Peyton and Picasso.  Buckingham fountain and the Flamingo business district.  Blues on the Mall and Taste of Chicago.  The Bears and Blackhawks and bus routes and boat tours.  Ferris Beuhler and ferris wheel at the pier.  North Avenue beach volleyball, Lincoln Park zoo.   Namesake University, O'Hare's airport,  remnants of the fire.   I-90, I-94, I-80, the Kennedy, the Borman, the Eisenhower, the Skyway, the Loop, the circle and the "L."

Regardless of my address, this city is where I LIVE.  My family, my friends, my schoolmates, my memories live there.  Elementary school field trips, family outings with Annie and the Nutcracker, visits to friends living with doormen and valet parking,  hosting relatives from out of our town, Water tower shopping and Michigan Avenue wishing, fancy restaurants serving escargot and baked Alaska, Frango mint sundaes at Marshall Fields on State.

Chicago is my constant.  My rock steady.  I count on the colors and comfort of the usual suspects.  I visit for verification, for reminder of my reality.  She sorts me into my slot and nudges me nearer to now.  Change doesn't wait for me to catch up.  Names and numbers and nuances must be relearned.  Even mine.  She's keeping me aware and awake as I age.  Teams and tourist traps guide my growth.  The elevated train drives me to reconnections and new views.  I believe in this metropolis and she believes in me.  We're friends.  Old friends.

I may have mentioned my infatuation with Chicago sports teams once or twice.  Chicagoans are fanatic for sure.  Affiliation with a team may be in your blood or inherited from your best friend.  Lifelong.  Games and stats and predictions fill bars and coffee shops and water cooler conversations.   Lovable losers and the billy goat.  Jim McMahon and the Superbowl Shuffle.  Jordan's air and Harry's specs.  WGN and WFLD.  Jerseys and ball caps and banners decorate children's walls and parents' party rooms.  Flags fly on game days and our own private civil war rages April through October.

I've attended each men's pro events.   With or in place of friends, tickets purchased or gifts received, sporadically or seasonally, icicle eyebrows or sweaty seats, win or lose...each experience remembered and savored and enjoyed like no other since.  Despite my lack of organized athleticism, I learned to respect the rules of Chi-town fandom.  Even today, living in Michigan and paying several sums of money to Michigan State University to educate our daughter, even despite my enthusiasm for the young Red Wing who skated into our community's heart, besides the fact that I graduated from a college in Indiana, my love for Chicago sports reigns supreme.  Wherever I travel I spy Chicago team logos.  Chicago fans relocate but never jump ship.  Next time you watch a Chicago team play an away game, notice how many supporters are in those unfamiliar seats and listen for the chants and cheers made famous only in Chi-town...my kinda' town.

...to be continued soon.
PEACE,
~L 

game 6

saturday's six words

Detroit Red Wings must win tonight!

...6 word saturday @ Show My Face

she's babbling again!

My new favorites are Coldplay and Virginia Woolf.  Last week I re-listened to a Coldplay disc in which I have no idea the name, partially because all the writing is Chinese.  Jeff goes to China a few times every year, for business, and he gets great deals on music and bootlegged first run movies.  Once we started watching 'The Producers' and realized we had company.  On or in the movie, we heard the audience.  Yea, the cinema audience where the movie was running for all to pay their hard earned Chinese money on popcorn and juju candy, and apparently, to produce home movies of other people's work.  Poor quality, annoying movie audience, five American bucks down the drain.  In retrospect, the barely there cardboard cover with a nearly there photo and exclusively foreign writing, should have clued one of our intelligent brains in before we hit play.  Live and learn.

So, back to my new faves...Coldplay just happened to be in the cd pile and I just happened to be rearranging and procrastinating nearby.  Put it in the trip pile.  Oh yeah, I took an unexpected road trip through a few mid western states last week.  Dad went into the hospital in Milwaukee so I volunteered my day to sit with him, bro and sis did their time, and to hang out and help out with my aforementioned siblings' families.  Well, really I don't have to be asked twice to play with my nieces and nephews.  Had a blast, shot lots of pics, got outdoors, raked up the automobile miles, saw stuff from my youth, remembered why spring is a popular season.  All is well now with Dad.  He's home and so am I.  States traveled:  MI>IN>IL>WI>IL>IN>MI.

Other music travels with me, in my car, one cd player, no itunes, no ear buds, just me and the cd.  I rock out, big time.  If you pass me on the highway expect to see every part of my visible body moving.  Arms flailing, head boppin', hands drummin', feet tapping (cruise control is my friend) and mouth mouthing.  One way to stay awake.  The best music is familiar.  If I know the words and my body knows the beat, I'm on cruise control too.  The other listening option is a baseball game on AM radio.  Driving home last week I listened to 2 Chicago ball games at the same time.  Good thing my steering wheel is equipped with radio station controls.  Oh, by the way, both teams won and I am happy for both.  Yes, I can root for the Cubs and the White Sox at the same time, regardless of what most of chicago thinks.  I bat to the pitch of a different...what?  you get the point.

Speaking of Chicago and sports and my incongruent alliances...HOCKEY!  Blackhawks are my childhood memories and Red Wings are my adult admiration.  More for a later post.  Be ready.

Almost forgot Virginia.  The story begins a few weeks ago at a thrift store I pop into occasionally.  I always peruse book selections at resale shops, antique outlets, and garage sales.  I mean, for 50 cents or a buck you can find great words in a somewhat shabby chic binding, with intentions to share with your friend later, or add to your collection of favorite authors like the one I have strewn throughout every room in our house.  I digress...so I picked up the biography of Virginia Woolf by her nephew Quentin Bell.  I have not read the iconic Ms Woolf and am very interested to know why my friend G likens my work to hers.  Thus, I have been searching for Woolf at all cheaper book seller establishments.  It's all about the hunt, don't ya know?  OK, so V Woolf did not write this book.  Close enough.  50 cents, remember?  I got my fifty cents worth on page one and haven't looked back!  I love this man's writing style, the careful research he has amassed from the plethora of extended family authors, and the story reads like an historical novel.  Some biographies or auto-bios are starchy and plain.  Not this one.  Ms Woolf's life is fascinating.  Her modus operandi is incredible.  Her family is entertaining and artistic.  Her journey is full and colorful and true.  Bell writes with the utmost respect for his ancestors and weaves his Aunt's tale precisely.  Excerpts from Virginia's work, as early as her sibling childhood newspaper and personal familial letters, allow me a peek into her thought patterns and a glimpse of her writing genius.  My brother-in-law owns Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" so I will begin there.  Intrigued and inspired to say the least.

I'll keep you updated...on Woolf, hockey (game tonight), and my travels.  Photos are in process of being batched, uploaded, and shared soon.  Spring is overloading my computer memory!
peace always,
~L

shameless plug...ATTN: CYCLING ENTHUSIASTS

My brother-in-law is a cycler.   That's bike rider for those of us who drive on four wheels, sitting in the comfort of a reclined cushioned seat, blastin' tunes and sipping our soy latte.  He has an online business selling "the highest quality competition-level carbon bicycle components at prices you wouldn't expect."  I'll let him convince you...please link up here and spread the word about  http://www.j2-velo.com/index.html.  Thank you.  

We now return you to your already in progress blogging journey...

and btw:  30 day challenge, day 22=website

PEACE

Sunday night blues

Sitting by herself, watching two screens.  One shows the football game, the other displays her life.  Her throat feels dry and she fills her glass, the one sporting the losing football team logo.  Water first, then white wine, to take off the edge of the Sunday night.  She keeps tissues nearby because of the lingering effects of the upper respiratory infection.  They also come in handy when the tears flow.

The screens are attempting to distract her from her thoughts.

She's wondering why she says and does stupid things.  Like telling her coworker she didn't give a shit.  Maybe it was her fever talking.  And why she left work without an explanation to her boss, although her hacking cough made explanation unnecessary.  When she steps into tomorrow morning, she will face the consequences of her feverish actions and get back to work as usual. 

She thinks she insulted a friend.  Kinda' hard to tell over the internet when her friend only uses a few words at a time.  The screens encourage  more questions.  They remind her of the football team he watches and the city he lives in and his inbox she used to fill.   She can't stand hurting people and this time she may have done damage.  She doesn't know for sure until he tells her so. 

She doesn't really know him.  She wants to know him and she tries to know him.  Her opportunities are limited.  Circumstances are not ideal for getting-to-know-you-better conversations.  She feels out of her element since she is usually the one who asks all the questions and then sits back to listen and learn.  Physical distance prevents her routine.  His  schedule prevents phone conversations. They are left with emails and infrequent chats.  She fears this won't be enough to clearly present herself.

A fine line is drawn between them.  Old friends holding energetic youth and unfinished business.  New friends claiming families and adult responsibilities.  Two friends who see each other for the first time.  She is conscious of keeping the fine line in place and of keeping her place in line.  Unconsciously she reaches toward his strength.   She craves more than the balance allows.