Holly's First Report Card

Well, not really quite, but here's her "uniform" from Black Friday and the busy shopping-mall days. Usually the employees don't wear matching stuff. Maybe these were for new employees, on a busy day; she's not sure. She had a paper listing the sales per hour with a highlighted note that said "Good job" and some such other stuff... (click to enlarge)

Then she and Keith and I went to a parade downtown. When we were leaving we saw the mountains looking beautiful. I said "Pinky Pie" and she said "Pinky Sky." In the car on the way she got a phone call from Brett who's in Phoenix at his grandmother's. She told him we were going to the "Twilight Sparkle Parade." Actually it's called the Twinkle Lights Parade. All in all, though, it seemed like a My Little Pony world.

The parade was an interesting combination of lit up motorcycles, antique cars, RVs, lowriders, bicycles and souped-up bicycles, marching bands, cheerleaders, horses, ponies, big dogs, little dogs, bagpipes and mariachis. Here are some peeks, but nothing here can show the length of it, the cold, the silly happiness and the oddity of it overall. Click an image, and you can go through larger sizes.

This first video might need to be for background noise while looking at details of things above. Or if you have a laptop, turn it sideways. Holly pointed out that no matter how vertical my subject matter (I wanted to get the lit-up flagpoles of the honor guard), movies have to be horizontal. Oh; right. Sorry. You might want to hear the mariachi band doing "Feliz Navidad," though.

The videos aren't great, but I really liked the lowriders with lights a lot. A little boy near us was VERY enthusiastic about car details, and at one point he said "I'm so excited!" and I'm not sure if it will be on one of the videos, but he WAS excited, and that made it fun to be near him.

I like that it was a parade in the dark in the winter, too. These are strolling mariachis, as opposed to riding-on-a-float mariachis:

Operator failure caused me to miss the pipe and drum band's music, but here they are passing by. Bagpipes and mariachis in the same parade just says Albuquerque to me.

"More lowriders!"

Ponies, and a close-up pony, and more lowriders:

I know these aren't great but I thought... not everyone in the world could go to a dark, cold parade in Albuquerque and maybe I could share. I'm sorry the battery didn't last long enough to catch the all-lit-up VW busses (three or four of them) and bugs (two, I think). Maybe next year.

Quiet, overcast day

For me and Keith the day was pretty peaceful. Holly went to work (in a clothing and skateboard store in a mall on the Friday after Thanksgiving), and Marty worked the dinner shift at the restaurant, but their being gone only made my own day even quieter.

Here are some very still images:



That was about noon. This new camera identified his face, even though he was sleeping Although it was taken without flash, it corrected the light. Bummer. I liked the glow of the screen lighting up his face, and was hoping that would show.

Then this, a few blocks from my house, 2:00ish:





I was out a bit, not far, nothing exciting, and saw this fair-sized tumbleweed. I stopped to get a picture, and it wasn't going anywhere (posing, not tumbling). I thought what a lame tumbleweed, as tumbleweeds go, to be documenting. And that locals would think I was taking a photo of nothing. So I thought about what is "nothing" in different places. I would love to see a raccoon close up when it wasn't looking at me (not spooked and running away). Except for watching one tear our food up one night in Michigan when we were camping, they're rare. I'd like to see an armadillo that's not dead by the side of a road (and I haven't even seen one of those for 30 years). Some people live where they can for real see eagles (I've seen three or five in my whole life in New Mexico, and those were golden eagles, and I saw six or more bald eagles in Minnesota in just a few days. Some people live where they see alligators, or kangaroos. Kirby had a gecko on his porch for days, but it wasn't there when we got there. I thought the kudzu in South Carolina was fantasy-land beautiful (probably because it wasn't my yard it was burying). There are people in Hawaii and southern California who haven't seen snow (not while it was snowing, anyway), and I've never seen lava, nor felt an earthquake.

I guess this is justification for this tumbleweed, and a call for people not to hesitate to post photos or accounts of mundane local things, because foreigners are looking (like me, if you're not in the SW U.S.).

Embarrassing P.S. to all that. The photos had been done quickly and then brought home and uploaded without examination. When I was previewing this post I noticed something in the third photo:



It's not a tumbleweed. It's two or three dried up ragweed (our local version thereof) plants all grown up together with enough roundness to act like and pass for a tumbleweed. Mature tumbleweeds just have a thick stem at the bottom, not a major stalk throughout (usually). http://sandradodd.com/tumbleweeds

So anyway... It was a dark and not-at-all-stormy day...
And a while ago Holly got to talk to Brett (who's in Scottsdale) and I got to talk to Kirby (who's in Austin).

Friday Fill-Ins for those not shopping

1. My stomach has nothing to complain about.

2. Doris's cucumber and sour cream dip is what I ate the most of on Thursday.

3. The yard is giving me seeds for next year.

4. With people I love is where I'd rather be at any given time.

5. The smell of a wood fire reminds me of singing with Keith (or sometimes of the hot tub, sitting with Keith).

6. Sleep is what I need right now!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Hearing how Holly's big Friday sales day went, when she gets home, tomorrow my plans include ...nothing... and Sunday, I want to ... these are hard questions. I look around and see dozens of things I would like to do, and that I might do, but none of them would sound interesting in writing.

Congratulations to Janet of Friday Fill-Ins. This is her 100th set. I've only been participating for the past some, but on her site it's a big anniversary!

Wednesday Gratitude, Thanksgiving Week

1. I'm grateful that Kirby has a job he likes, working for the company that made and operates this game, and that he got his name in the credits (along with thirteen pages of other names, two of which can be read if you click for an enlargement). He didn't press to use his middle name on officialness at work, so it says "Kendall Dodd" (his paternal grandfather's name) and not Kirby (my dad's name).



2. I'm grateful that Marty is healthy and happy, still enjoys his job, and has money left after he makes his jeep payments (and paid for that ticket he got early in the month, caught by a camera going a little too fast through a green light at 2:30 a.m. with no other cars around, poor guy). Marty works at Pars Cuisine.

3. I'm very happy that Holly finally got to start actually working at her job at Zumiez at Coronado Mall. She stayed late on her first day there, they asked her to come back in at 8:00 the next morning (that's today) and she's working on the Big Deal Shopping Day, Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm glad the mall's only four miles or so from our house.

4. I'm grateful that I got to talk to my cousin, Nada, the day before her birthday on the 16th, and again today. I'm sorry we didn't get to visit, but it'll be soon. Holly especially likes Nada. I'm glad I talked to my sister, Irene, on the 19th which is her birthday.

5. I'm grateful that our friend Ben/Dermod got to hang out here in a leisurely fashion and spend the night last night.

Those things might seem small, I know, but Kirby's in Austin, Nada's in Dixon, Irene's in Chama and Ben's in Silver City, all far away from here and none in the same direction. Marty and Holly I still see every day, and I'm grateful for that too!

---

P.S. Here's where I first learned Kirby's name was in there, and that's Diana Jenner's thumbnail, and I got it first by phone and didn't know where it came from and couldn't get it larger or into my computer and long story cut off right there, here it is!! And it's enlargeable too.

Things you might not want to know

20 questions

Self-tagged from Ronnie's "Blog of the Zombie Princess"

The rules:
A) People who have been tagged must[who want to might] write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question.

B) Tag 8 people to answer the questions.

1. How many songs are on your iPod?
I don't have an iPod, but I have iTunes on my computer. It says 1946, but some of those are conference presentations and there are a couple of books in there.

2. What music would you want played at your funeral?
"I Wish I Was Magic" (even thought it's not grammatically perfect) by Linda Arnold, which is on my iTunes.

3. What magazines do you have subscriptions to?
People, Entertainment Weekly, Smithsonian, Ode (about to expire; I'm not reading it much) and we get National Geographic after my mother-in-law finishes. She used to give us her New Mexico magazines, but is giving them to the library now, I just discovered. Hey...

4. What are your favorite scents?
Rain in the desert, chocolate cake or brownies baking, lilacs, my children's heads (with memories of when they were babies).

5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
Remodel the house so there would be a two story-greenhouse with a hot tub in it, with a deck accessible from the kitchen (which is upstairs) that opened into the top level of the greenhouse where the tomatoes would be ALL YEAR, and Keith would be saying "Why are we staying in this house if you have a million dollars?!" And I'd go Christmas shopping in Ireland.

6. What is your theme song?
Uh...
[blink blink]
Gilligan's Island (music, not the lyrics necessarily)

7. Do you trust easily?
Yes, but I'm increasingly philosophical about the failure of most people to be trustworthy.

8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
I think before, during and after.

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Nothing worse than mild irritation lately.

10. Do you have a good body-image?
Realistic, you mean, or satisfied? (Oh... we don't get to ask for clarification.)
I've never had much body-awareness. I lack spatial and kinesthetic, in the scheme of things, and so I'm clumsy and not athletic.

12. How do you spend your social networking (Facebook, etc.) time?
Here, I guess, if my social network time is limited to online "social networks" and the real world doesn't count. :-)

13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
... (thinking)
...
Temporary obsessions, not addictions: "My So-Called Life" (watched it on DVD and watched the special features), and gathering seeds from flowers in the yard. Not "addictions."

14. Why do people still believe in the supernatural?
Lightning, thunder, darkness, wind, sun, fear of lack of water, fear of too much water. Elemental forces and people's natural urge to find patterns.

15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
Pinky and the Brain

16. What’s your favorite item of clothing?
a green Albuquerque sweatshirt

17. Do you think Rice Krispies are yummy?
With enough sugar, yep. (Kept that answer...)

18. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
Depends where. Someone gave me a five dollar bill I dropped the other day. If I knew whose it was, I'd return it. If I found it wind-blown into my yard, or up in the mountains, I'd spend it. (I'd look around for some more, depending where I saw it.)

19. What items could you not go without during the day?
chap stick, my glasses, my phone

20. What should you be doing right now?
This right here. And I have a phone call to make, so I should do that next.

7th Anniversary of the Always Learning List

Today is seven years from the first day of the Always Learning list. The first topic was initiated by Deb Lewis, on Kids and Spirituality (questions of faith when kids ponder religion). The next day Dan Vilter wrote about Expensive games (Mordheim, 40K, and now Battlefleet Gothic). 40,000 posts later... still interesting!

The Always Learning list has had readers and participants from the U.S.A, Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ecuador and Costa Rica.

At the time I started Always Learning, I was sad that the unschooling.com list wasn't going better. I still missed the AOL unschooling message boards. Much water under the bridge and many years later, my children are nearly grown, I have a thriving site (nearly nine years at SandraDodd.com and a couple of years before that at expage.com; Holly was eight) and this blog, and I'll speak at two conferences, or maybe three, in 2009!

I appreciate all those who have written on the list, commented on webpages, found my typos, encouraged me and passed the ideas on to others. Thank you for helping make the world more child- and family-friendly.

Gratuitous Holly Photos:



If Marty and Kirby played with cameras more often, I'd have more photos of them. Kirby will be here in January and I'm sure Holly will document the visit, and Marty will turn 20... wow.

JCSuperstar, Friday

Last night we saw Jesus Christ Superstar in Alto, New Mexico. Alto is a kind of suburb of Ruidoso, which can't really have a suburb, having no "urbs" to speak of. We went to The Spencer Theatre, which is ten years old, high-tech, and in the middle of relative nowhere.

I'm going back. And I want the tour, but tours are never held on the same days as performances.

Earlier in the day when it was still light we passed through several very small towns on our way to Alamogordo to have lunch with Keith's parents, and let them meet Brett. We went and saw Keith's brother at work, briefly, to be familial and to introduce Brett.

Anyway, before we got to Alamogordo, there were many tumbleweeds I botched videotaping (sorry), but there's a bit of a peek at central New Mexico, maybe Corona? (One of those little towns between Moriarty and Carizozo.)


I missed making a video of tumbleweeds bouncing across the parking lot and into and over that motorcycle. A small one is still up against it, and a big one shows between the building and that pickup. (Clickably enlargeable.)



I made this video two hours before the show. Then we went back to Ruidoso to eat. Had I done it again nearer showtime, there would've been a stream of headlights on the two-lane highway on the horizon there. The theatre is that sit-up structure to to the right in the distance at first, and the lights to the left are the parking lot. When I go back again I'll plan to photograph more stuff. I'm so honest I left my camera and phone in the car during the show, and so except for the glass sculptures pre-show, I got nothing. I don't have the sneaky-gene, but the show was really good and there's a link to some of their images below.





The website of the theatre is http://www.spencertheater.com/. Production images from the tour's website.

The glass sculptures and sculptor are named and described here: http://www.spencertheater.com/Theater/chihuly.html.



1. The last band I saw live was Al Yankovic, or the pit orchestra from JC Superstar last night, probably more fairly to say.

2. What I look forward to most on Thanksgiving is ... potatoes? I've never really looked forward to Thanksgiving much. I don't dread it, I just don't 'celebrate' it. I like the food, though.

3. My Christmas/holiday shopping is mostly done and mostly secret.

4. Thoughts of everything I've ever thought fill my head. (It's kinda full in there.)

5. I wish I could wear my favorite clothes for years without them ever wearing out.

6. Bagpipes are unfairly maligned, but can be wonderful outside at a distance and I have fond memories of Rick Felix and his Umbrian pipes, and of another friend of ours playing some little electronic bagpipes, long ago, at a coffehouse in Phoenix.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward tohaving the hot tub ready for Marty when he gets back from work, tomorrow my plans include more of the merry fabric of my unpredictable life and Sunday, I want to write a book and design and make lots of clothes (but my eyes are always bigger than my calendar and attention span)!

And now the gratuitous least-useful image from yesterday. It's a giant pistachio sculpture in Alamogordo. It looks kinda like a desert version of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. The voices are Brett and Keith, and the laugh is Holly.