I actually wrote my answer to today’s writing prompt for the last day of the November Nablopomo on BlogHer, “What did you learn from doing Nablopomo?” as yesterday’s blog post. I am always so ahead of the game. It was called, “Posting 30 Times This Month – Nearly There, Nearly Insane.” I did forget to mention one thing in yesterday’s post – that in the absolutely brutal past month, my daughter also was in a fender bender in my car. But things are starting to shape up today. I figured out a plan of attack for all the things that have to be done in the next few days (Action Lists!) in order to assure a smooth “next month” that starts tomorrow. Yikes! And the other driver’s insurance company is going to pick up our repairs. And I crossed off several items on my “find the paperwork” and “schedule stuff” lists. Feels good to be moving forward and getting a few things done!
Somehow, during the course of the day, today, I decided to do Nablopomo again in December. I’m such a freaking masochist! But I’m going to have my I’m Done Nesting blog be the participating blog in December. The theme for the month is “Gift” and you can read about the theme or find out how to participate on BlogHer, hint: you can sign up through the 5th.
Okay, now I will respond to today’s prompt. What did I learn from doing Nablopomo this month? Well, first I was really hoping to win one of the prizes, but I guess that is a no go. * Sad Face* I learned that having something to focus on, such as a blog post done at the end of the day, actually can reduce stress. Next month I plan to learn that posting everyday can be fun and need not mean writing a research article every day. My brilliant and beautiful daughter will graduate from college this month, and my wonderful and witty step-daughter and her family (hubby and twin one year old daughters) will be here for much of the month, friends from a nearby state will pop in for a few days… and, well, basically there should be plenty of opportunity for photo-blogging, cute baby story posting, and for recipe evaluation. With any luck at all it will not be as difficult to post every day on a personal blog as on my business blog that has a professional nature and for which I have more stringent standards.
Posting 30 Times This Month – Nearly There, Nearly Insane
When I began writing a blog post every day as a part of Nablopomo, National Blog Posting Month, to join the celebration of Nablopomo officially becoming a part of BlogHer I knew it would be tough, but I had no idea how much extra stress I would be under. Why do we women always think we can do more than is humanly possible?
I will have accomplished something spectacular by following through with 30 posts in 30 days. I have also worked on a lot of other events, projects, and “things,” and it isn’t over yet. I have about two weeks of sheer insanity left and then the simple hectic rush of the Holidays will begin, and “No, this extra craziness I’m talking about isn’t part of the Holiday hustle and bustle.”
A Partial Menu of Stuff on My Plate
- My husband is on sabbatical and spending lots of time at home working on grants and other writing projects – mainly smack dab in the middle of our family space: with the laptop on the couch or at the kitchen table – now that he is back from his travels to several East Coast Universities during the first half of the the semester.
- I’ve been working on rearranging some of our financial concerns including a home refinance that rolls in a second mortgage that we had to take out when I moved across the country to take care of my mother as she was dying at the same time my daughter was graduating from High School and starting college. (Things do happen in clumps don’t they?) The appraisal required a tidy enough house to see the floors and walls that had been hidden by boxes of my daughter’s accumulated stuff from college that needs “going through” before we can pitch or sell the contents.
- My daughter moved back in with us this fall during her last semester of college. The car she had been using decided to die, so we also shared a car this semester. She also has a female 110 lb. Dogue de Bordeaux living here with her as well as our Neo Mastiff, a 160 lb. male, and our 60 lb. hyperactive rescue mixed breed. Yes, there is dog drool everywhere in our house, including the ceilings and high enough on walls that it takes a step ladder to get to them to wipe them down. (Two mastiffs ago I repainted the entire interior of our house with semi-gloss paint. We also have two cats. (Do I even need to say that the dogs and cats do not get along?) There is also my daughter’s aquatic turtle with his very large aquarium. Our male dog is intact. Her female dog was in heat all November.
- My daughter will graduate from university in mid-year ceremonies mid-December. We are trying to arrange all the graduation basics, plus a wonderful reception afterwards. Relatives are coming from the East Coast. My daughter is also applying to graduate schools with January deadlines on all paperwork, retaking her GREs, and getting ready to move to Minneapolis in early January.
- Did I mention we helping her buy a car this week?
- Oh, and I don’t think I mentioned that the east coasters who will be arriving are my step-daughter, her one-year-old twin daughters, and her husband who lost a leg in a boating accident this past summer? No shit sherlock, it has been an absolutely incredible year.
- This fall I’m also supposed to be finishing up my memoir that deals with a lot of the medical child abuse I experienced as a child and how I have continued to heal to a remarkable degree throughout my life. (No stress there! – Yes, I’m seeing my therapist while remembering and writing.)
- I’ve been neglecting my friends, and amassing huge vats of guilt that I’m lugging around like Scrooge’s night visitor, one who lost her home in foreclosure and is now Occupying Tucson and my childhood best friend whose husband just had bypass surgery, a stroke, and a very bad reaction to morphine?
- Step-daughter’s birthday is two days before Christmas, daughter’s birthday is just after the New Year.
- My dear husband and daughter told me tonight, as I melted into a simpering mass of babbling mush on the floor, that they want to have a garage sale the weekend between finals and graduation.
Blogging every day may have kept me sane this month. Now I just have to make sure that all the posts that I wrote and posted here or on my other blogs or on BlogHer show up here on this site as blog posts too and are labelled Nablopomo. And there are some that I posted here that I wanted to cross post on my other sites, but somehow I didn’t get them cross-posted.
Thank Heavens that next year is coming soon. I can’t wait!
Arizona Constitution Protects Occupy Tucson Yet Arrests Continue
For Tucson this past week has been a busy one. First the air was calming down after El Tour de Tucson, and gearing up for Buy Nothing Day and Shop Local Saturday, then on Thanksgiving the air was abuzz with how wonderful it was that Gabby Giffords was able to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the servicemen at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, which was uplifting, even though from my perspective it would have been more wonderful if she had served the homeless or the Occupy folks.
Then on the 23rd the busy-ness in Tucson became less upbeat as the Occupy Tucson movement geared up to stand up to the court’s decision to intensifiy of the nightly citations they received:
From what I can tell there are around 100 core occupiers in Tucson. That is a substantial number.
Mary DeCamp, the Green Party Candidate for Mayor in the recent election, was the first person actually arrested and jailed, rather than receiving a citation, on Thursday night, Thanksgiving Evening.
The next physical arrest, of a disabled woman, can be seen in the following video. Her statement that is read over the top of the following video, is well worth a read even if you don’t watch the whole video.
#OccupyTucson – Joan Zatorski Puca – A Disabled Woman Being Arrested by Tucson Police Dept 11 25 2011 from Mary K. Johnson on Vimeo.
Joan’s statement:
Friday, Nov. 25, 2011
After much personal introspection, I came to the decision today that this evening I will place myself in position to be arrested at Pancho Villa Park downtown (Veinte de Agosto Park) and jailed in relation to my involvement in the OCCUPY MOVEMENT in Tucson.
I’ve been carefully studying and meditating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s most erudite essay, his “Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)” this past week. I am convinced that it is essential for deliberate, immediate attention be refocused on the issues of economic injustice which initially galvanized the OCCUPY MOVEMENT world-wide (as opposed to issues related to local city curfew, park ordinances, or even this issue of First Amendment Rights).
I have come to this conclusion not as a leader of any movement or group but as a singular individual desperately concerned about the profound suffering presently experienced by millions of human beings across every economic and social class, generation, gender, sexual orientation, political persuasion, religious or spiritual belief.
In good conscience, I simply cannot let Mary DeCamp (recent Mayoral candidate, Tucson Peace Activist) be the lone Tucsonan willing to enter jail (as she did in the wee hours of November 25th) as a means of drawing attention to our country’s blatant issues regarding economic injustice.
As an educated white woman, legally disabled by illness, a civil servant with almost 20 years of service to children who were living at or below the poverty line, a mother, grandmother, spouse, avowed Christian, registered and consistently-participating voter, American citizen by birthright, granddaughter of immigrants, who has never been arrested, much less walked into a jail, I believe I am the most “common” example of the “common person” impacted by the devastatingly serious economic issues that thousands upon thousands of people are demanding be addressed.
I am you… we are all one and we are suffering. Only by uniting with one another can our most egregious issues be solved.
Look in my eyes and see the reflection of your own face, your own pain… Look again and see, as well, the possibility for redemption, for resolution, for renewal of all that is good within the soul of America.
In closing, I ask you to surround me with your personal prayers this evening. That I may stay committed to my decision to display non-violent behavior, speech, and attitude in the face of (what may be) a physically and medically challenging experience for me tonight (and beyond).
Joan Zatorski Puca
Tucson, Arizona
So, local ordinances that are being enforced by Tucson Police are being used as though they supersede both the State and Federal Constitutions.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – United States Constitution, First Amendment, Bill Of Rights
“The right of petition, and of the people peaceably to assemble for the common good, shall never be abridged.” – Arizona Constitution, Article 2 Section 5
The Constitution of the State of Arizona seems particularly clear in support of citizen protest of illegal financial practices by financial institutions and their state and federal regulators. Until the criminal financial abuse of the Citizens of the United States is stopped and the Federal Court system has equitably meted out justice to those who assaulted our financial system, it certainly seems like the State Constitution of Arizona explicitly protects the actions of the Occupy Tucson protesters.
–reposted from Build Peace
bread and cupcake crumbs
bread and cupcake crumbs
by nancy hill
today I am thinking about
polka dots
birthday parties
babies that i love
but scarcely know
trajectories
unknown then
a mothers sister’s mother
loved me less than all her other mothers
in decades beyond remembrance
her toddler tentacles of charm
and distributed intelligence
ensnared me no less
caught
between daughters
one of blood and heart
one of heart and law
distance has impoverished
more than our poverty
the distance of heart is quantum
the insurmountable distance of mind
between father and daughter
without motherly intervention
spawned a gulf
where shadows of resentment flash beneath the surface
school and move en masse
amid bread and cupcake crumbs
nov. 27, 11
nfh
More of Dorothea Lange's Images & Subjects
Continuing yesterday’s topic of parallels between the Great Depression and the current Recession, the fragility of families and children in the 99%, both then and now, is troubling. Lange’s photos personalized the migrants who took to the roads looking for labor in the fields of the west after their jobs were either lost to the mechanization of farming or the environmental degradation when whole geographic areas were pushed into ruin with the economic collapse of the late 20s due to unsustainable banking and investment practices.
Lange personalized the purportedly “shiftless” migrants changing the perception of the population about the people who had lost everything. Do the Occupy folks need a similar champion to document and distribute real information behind the families who have representatives occupying the various cities across the U.S. and the world.
Another of Lange’s photos suggests that the fat cats in New York stayed pretty fat during the lean years of the Depression.
Does this site serve the same purpose today as documentary photography did back then?
Photo Similarities Between the Times of the Great Depression & Great Recession
Spent some time today looking at National Archive photos and Wikimedia Commons pics and found these parallel pics.
Dorothea Lange’s photos of the Dust Bowl, Migrants in California, and the general sadness and despair caused by land abuse and economic abuse seem oddly contemporary.