#343 The Suspense Is Ended!

Daughter is now formally engaged.

She ran a 5K yesterday in very good time, and Hercules was waiting for her at the finish line with a bunch of red roses.  "Because she is now an official runner" he presented her with a runner's id, which contained her name and address and emergency contact information, and, at the bottom, "Will you marry me?"  She said yes, whereupon he got down on one knee right out there on the street and presented her with the ring.

Perfect!

His mother and I had known that he was planning a formal proposal soon, because he had asked for advice on how to proceed.  He knew that Daughter wanted a public commitment, and he seemed to take that literally.  He wanted to pull together all their friends and propose in front of the crowd.   His mother and I both jumped all over him.  Daughter can be very contrary, a powder keg, and if he threw a spotlight on her, there was an excellent chance that instead of saying yes, she'd say "I'll think about it", or even "No", depending on her mood at that moment.

So he managed to still do it in public, but without a spotlight.  I admire his creativity.

I am amused that he called her father (Ex#2) to ask permission.  Daughter and Hercules have been living together for more than a year without permission, so I'm not surprised that her father acted like he didn't understand the question.

I asked Daughter if they were going to set a date.  (Sorry, but "my fiance/fiancee" has been diluted by all those couples who never actually get married, even after five kids, so I don't consider an engagement real until a date has been set for the wedding.)  She hedged.  I suspect that neither one of them really wants to actually get married, they both have issues surrounding marriage, but they want to make a formal and public declaration of their committed couplehood.  (Um, didn't that usta be called "married"?)

Ok.  One step at a time.  I can almost understand.  I want me a man too, but I don't intend to marry again, so I "get it".  Sorta.

~~Silk

#342 Saturday Night on the Town

Went to an art gallery opening tonight, to see the Twisted Tassels Tribal Troupe, who were to dance there.  The art was scary.  It seemed to have a heavy influence from the allegorical triptychs of Hieronymous van Aken, a.k.a. Bosch, without (thank God) the detail.  The artist is also a poet, and his poetry resonated more fully.

The dancers put on a good show.  There were only three from the troupe, but three was the ideal number for the space.  They did several enjoyable numbers.

I met up with some people there, and afterward we went to dinner at a Puerto Rican place.   The conversation was heavily mid-eastern dance and renaissance/gypsy faire and drums and rituals.  I've been missing that.

It was a pleasant evening.

~~Silk

Links in this entry:
http://www.twistedtassels.com/twisted_tassels_007.htm
http://fiordiligi.3dresearch.com/bosch/

#341 Saturday Six - Episode 73

 

From 'pattboy92' at Patrick's Place, the famous Saturday Six:

1. What is the price of gas at your regular station?   
I didn't look yesterday, but Thursday morning in the village it was $3.699, and I heard that it was $3.999 at another station down the road.
Have you made any changes to holiday plans because of gas prices? 
No changes.  Bite the bullet and all that.

2. Some people feel that the song that was #1 when they were born somehow helps shape their life.  Which song was #1 when you were born, according to  this site. 
I was forced to choose the 18th birthday option, and got "Monster Mash", by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers.
Do you think it relates to your life at all?
Dear God I hope not!

3. Take this quiz:  Which child does it say you are?  Is it correct about your birth order?
It says only child.  I am actually the eldest of five.

4. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #61 from De:  What animal do you equate your spirit with and why?  (This site may be helpful.)
My first thought was Cougar or Wolf, but when I read up on them I realized they didn't fit.  I read the "How To", and chose Deer.  Deer have always been a large and actively communing presence throughout my life.  Then I did the exercises in the "How To", and discovered that today, and for the past few months at least, it is Spider.  Spider is a very powerful totem, and a bit frightening, but spiders have been coming to me lately.  You can't simply choose a totem, and say "That's nice, I like that one."  Your totem comes to you, and over the past two months, spiders have been coming to me BIG TIME.  I remarked the other day that I wondered what was going on - July was too early for them to be moving indoors for the winter.... 

Scary totems.  I went to an Iroquois festival once, and I was stranding there almost in a trance brought on by a powerful drum ritual, when a very old man in tribal dress walked up to me and startled me by putting his hands on my shoulders.  He stared into my eyes for a moment, then ran his hands down my arms and picked up my hands, and said that I had power in my hands, and I must use them wisely.  Then he turned around and walked away.  I burst into tears, because Jay had died only a few months before, and my hands hadn't been able to help him.  I wanted to ask someone who the old man was, but I couldn't find him.

It frightens me that spiders are coming to me again.

5. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #62 from Psychfun:  If you had to describe your personality as a nut (as in the eatable kind) what nut would you be and why?
Brazil nut.  Very difficult to open without destroying, but worth the trouble.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #63 from Chris:   Who knows the "real" you better - - your real world friends or your Jland readers?
My friends know only what I show them.  Journal readers have seen what's under the covers. 

~~Silk
(My) Links in this entry:
http://www.animaltotem.com/deer.html
http://www.animaltotem.com/spider.html
http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/PatricksPlace/entries/1272

#340 Hope

Before Jay died, I had almost an arboretum in the diningroom, livingroom and bedroom.  The back walls are almost entirely glass, facing southwest, making for wonderful sunset views, and plants love it.  There were four huge spider plants, a ten-foot five-stem dracaena, a variegated hoya with eight-foot tight ropes looped back over themselves, a large constantly blooming crown-of-thorns, a nine-foot schifflera, and several more.  On the deck, there were planters on the railings with marigolds and portulaca, and pots of geraniums that I would bring in every winter, so they got huge and glorious.

During the last year of Jay's illness, they got very little care, but everything still struggled through.  After he died, they got no care.  I could hear them screaming, but I just didn't care.  Most of them died.  I left them.  Dried stalks  and brown leaves.  That's another thing I have to do before I can have company - get rid of the dead plants.  The schifflera in the bedroom has survived, looking a bit distressed, and the hoya, and the crown of thorns, but not much else.

I don't go out on the deck anymore, haven't in years.  It's too hard, plus Thunder wants to go out when I do, and then she jumps up on the railing and then down twelve feet to the ground, so I don't let her out, and then she shreds the curtains in frustration.  There has been nothing but weeds on the deck for four years.

I was sitting at the sewing machine in the bedroom hemming a dress today - I have to hem everything, and usually I do it at night.  A branch of the schifflera had pushed against the translucent vertical blinds, and created a gap in the blinds.  From my seat at the machine, I could see one of the deck planters.  It was full of brilliantly blooming red portulaca.

I swear they weren't there last year.

I guess there is hope for New Orleans, and hope for me.

~~Silk

#339 Stars

In my front yard there is very little ambient light.  Tonight there were no clouds, for the first time in ages.  The stars were incredible, the milky way thick.  It was vindication.  Absolution.  I am content.

~~Silk

#338 Weak in the Knees...

...but not in the head.

Well, I picked up Roman at the airport this afternoon (Thursday... yeah, it's late), and yeah, he melted my knees a few times. 

With a 12ish hour flight arriving just after 4 pm New York time, the wait at the airport for rush hour to dissipate, the drive home, and a stop for gas and dinner, it was a very long day for him, but he didn't show it.  I think I was more tired than he. 

Which is what I will blame for my getting into the "what do you want" discussion perhaps a bit too soon.  On the other hand, maybe it was the right time.  I don't like to play games or lead anyone on, or be lead on, and I wasn't too far into it to be hurt by wrong answers.

He wants casual.
I don't do casual.
This is good to know.
He is playing the field (which is completely understandable - wild oats and all that).***
I don't play.  I also refuse to compete for time or affection.  I value me.
This is good to know.
He likes me a lot, he says.
I like him a lot.  He's easy to talk with.
I'd hate to put him into a position where he feels he has to lie to me.

So I can hope we'll stay friends - I can be very philosophical about stuff like this and I like the way he smiles - but I prefer to back off from the knee weakening stuff for now.  I just don't want to get into all that angst.  Whatever is to be, will be.  And if it isn't, it won't, and that's fine too.  What I have taken away from this is that I'm finally ready for the right person under the right conditions, and right now it isn't him, and that's a good thing to know.

I wasn't entirely a good girl.  I left him with some things to think about, which things also made darn sure that I'll now be able to be more careful with my knees around him.  Curiosity killed the cat, you know....
~~Silk

*** Playing the field understandable? As in "What man would be satisfied with one woman when he can have two or three or more?"  I can answer that question.  The man who has ME!  (Giggle)

#337 Thinking About New Orleans - 2

There's talk of New Orleans taking " months to years to come back".  Talk of cleaning up and rebuilding.  I wonder if that's wise.

It might be worth it for all those other gulf towns and cities, like Biloxi, where all the damage was caused by the hurricane, and any future damage would likely also be storm damage.  New Orleans, however, wasn't wrecked by the storm.  It was wrecked by the breaking of the levees.  That could happen again from any of several causes.

The talking heads natter on about repairing the holes in the levees, then pumping the water out, which would "take several months".  They make it sound simple, but it's not.  The water is not pure.  It's full of pollutants - oil, chemicals, bodies, disease. It's not "running off", as it would in higher areas, so it's soaking deeply into very permeable soil.  You can't pump the water out of the mud.  You can't pump the pollutants out.  It's one big super-fund site.  It will be a very long time before some of that deep silty mud will be dried out enough to rebuild on.  I predict that within a few months, some of the remaining buildings will begin sinking, subsiding, tilting, even faster than they were before.

Maybe now is the time to give it up.  Maybe clean up the downtown and reopen it as a huge museum, a tourist mecca.  The downtown Canal Street area and the more touristy part of the French Quarter are relatively higher, so perhaps a small population could be allowed there, but don't allow anyone to live in the depths of that fragile-sided bowl any more. 

That would be stupid, and it's just too tempting.   

~~Silk