Surprise Yard

We have planned and planted, but it's fun when plants do what they want to do. When people leave town, or have surgery, or are distracted, the yard can get creative, and beautiful.

9 weeks, 9 months, 9 years

On September 4, all the numbers lined up. They're still all 9's for a few more days.

Blog names

I want to start another blog. I already have several, for particular uses, and have some that were temporary, to document visits to other countries, or to serve as websites for conferences I put on here, a couple of which were glorified visits from out-of-country guests, for whom I organized some activities with other unschoolers. Those.... I like them. I used them, but now they're archives. I'll link some of those below, partly for my own benefit.

The new collection, I'm thinking, will be about zias and pickup trucks, in New Mexico. Photos of zia symbols, worked artistically one way or another, and of pickups, mostly those parked longterm in people's yards. Many pickups live as a sort of yard art, quietly, and peacefully. Some kind of still run, or are used occasionally. Some await restoration. Some are beyond all that. P.S. on September 14: Named it after all, "zia things" (as in ">ziathings.blogspot.com).

Naming the blog seems important to me. It probably seems more important than it is. In poking around blogger I find some names "in use" that aren't, really.

Someone named Annemarie created a blog called artZIA, using the URL ziaart. She never posted anything.
http://ziaart.blogspot.com

Thalia used zia.blogspot.com, and saved one photo of some English practice, at "ingles basico 3" thus tying up the use of "zia."

But "pickup" would be easy to remember! pickup.blogspot.com would be perfect, except in 2004, "sauce" created that blog, and never posted a thing. Bummer.

The word in local Spanish for pickup is "troca," but that's taken. In 2005, four posts in the same month, by someone in Spain, where they call a pick-up a camioneta. I guess they think "troca" is funny. (Is “Camioneta” Really More Correct Than “Troca”?)

I called my wheelbarrow blog "wheelbarrowThings." I suppose I should go with ziaThings.

Brie and Jonathan are going to help me spot and collect zia art and pickups. But first, I need to finish another project, so because I want to play with the zia collection, I'm more irritated with "the other project."

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P.S. on September 14: Named it after all, "zia things" (as in ">ziathings.blogspot.com).

Ten movies that influenced me

A facebook game, Cathyn tagged me in a post on Guarding Tess. I'll quote Cathyn's, and then list my ten. They're in the order I saw them. The idea was to show an picture from a movie that had influenced us. I would probably have played Guarding Tess if Cathyn hadn't.

"Guarding Tess", 1994, Shirley McClain and Nicholas Cage. This movie was recommended to me by Sandra Dodd, who has fantastic taste in movies, as well as being a phenomenal mentor, with the ability to know one needs a specific lesson at a particular point in their lives, and sometimes realizes the best vehicle to impart that lesson is not her words, but a movie she's seen. To say her recommendation and this movie influenced me is an understatement indeed. Sandra, if you're up for it, and haven't already been "challenged", and have the time, consider this your opportunity to jump in and share ten movies that influenced you. :)

I responded:

Very kind words, Cathyn! Thank you.
I might need to disqualify myself, as I've spent the past 3.5 years watching Korean dramas and not much else.

I did take a week off to watch the first two seasons of The Good Place (an American series—I hadn't watched American TV for.... 3.5 years, except for CBS Sunday Morning). Marty told me about it. I love it. It's not a movie, though.

Movies that influenced me, huh? That's a hard one, for real. I'm thinking of movies that excited my emotions and thoughts, that I still think about, but sometimes the connection is about who I saw it with, and what we were discussing! :-) So Guarding Tess would be on my list, I suppose. :-) But that would be stealing your post so I won't.

When I played mine, I played the most recent first, and accidentally skipped one, but this is the order in which I saw them, in my life.

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Peter Pan, 1955+

Peter Pan was shown once a year on TV when I was little. It wasn't easy to see a movie repeatedly otherwise. So it took years for me to see it enough times to really know it, but I spent a lot of time thinking about it!

Learned... keep some friends in the woods just in case, but it might be better to stay home anyway.

On facebook, with comments

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Wizard of Oz, 1939 (but I watched it from about 1959)

Annual TV broadcast, in those pre-video days.
I took from it:

People don't always know what they need, or what they have.

on facebook, there are some comments

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El Cid, 1961 (but I first saw it in 1963 or '64)

What I took from El Cid, which I saw twice as a kid:

Loyalty and logic. Service and the greater good.
The Middle Ages were awesome.

More details on when and where I saw it, and a clip.

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Brother Sun, Sister Moon, 1972

More medieval-fix.

My takeaway:

Money and parental expectation can be problems.
Maybe French moms shouldn't have married angry Italians.
It's cool when Obi-Wan Kenobi is the pope.

I'm not sure I took from that movie what Zeffirelli intended.

The ObiWan connection, of course, couldn't have been made in 1972, but in later years... yeah! It made the pope WAY cooler, and part of his speech is very "may the force be with you, too," though I think it might be "may the lord be with you." I'll look it up and come back.

"May Our Lord be with you, in your hands and in your feet." (watch that scene here)

More details on when and where I saw it, and other people's comments.

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The Empire Strikes Back, 1980

Don't trust what you think you know, even about your family.

More details on when and where I saw it, and other people's comments.

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Back to the Future, 1985

via GIPHY

Life's stressful one way or the other, but rock'n'roll's still good

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Commando, 1985

via GIPHY

This one had an odd effect on my self-awareness.

Keith asked why I didn't like Terminator, but loved Commando. I had to think about it.

In Commando, they dress like soldiers and go far away to save a young girl. In Terminator, he shows up where normal women are doing normal things, and is insanely violent. So I learned that I care about context. And costume- and make-up clues.

Context and perspective. I had a new filter through which to view other strong reactions in my life (or surprising lack of strong reaction, sometimes, in myself or others).
Original post, might not have much more.

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Searching for Bobby Fischer, 1993

Learn however and whenever you can, and remember no one person has everything you need.

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Crimson Tide, 1995

Duty and responsibility when there are constraints and obstacles.

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Secretly Greatly, 2013 (South Korean)

My most recent influence was a South Korean movie called "Secretly Greatly" which was based on a Korean Webtoon. It's about North Korean spies who were sent to live as South Koreans. The main character is assigned to portray the village idiot. The acting is wonderful.

One of my favorite things about the film is to consider what it would take to live convincingly as an idiot. What would you need to do? What could you absolutely not do? :-) And also to think about whether it's propaganda (well, it kinda is, but to think about points being made).
More, with links to where it can be seen.

International collection of a mundane tool

India, Australia, U.K., USA — all in use in Albuquerque

The one from India came from a cooking store. I got some plastic bowls, too, that we use all the time.

The Australian masher came from a big store with remainders from other stores, it seemed—new things, but more like a Big Lots or Tuesday Morning than a department store. I got kitchen towels that day, there, too, and use them every day.

One of the English mashers was bought new, and older and newer ones, used.

Full-size trompe l'oeil cars

Nice clouds, too, July 27, 2018. Those storage units are between our house and Fastino's, a drive-through Italian food place at Juan Tabo and Lexington. That's the back of our house, to the right of it, with the gate.



Here's what we see from our yard. This photo is from 2011, when Hollywood Video was still over past there.



We watched as that art was made, when that business was new.

Kirby Athena Denise Dodd

Kirby wrote:
"At 8:53pm MST, Kirby Athena Denise Dodd joined us. She is 6lbs 7oz. She is totally healthy with all the right parts."


Lovelace Women's Hospital on Montgomery, Albuquerque