going outside

I have never seen this many people walking in the Civil War park, so many elderly. It is a beautiful day, sunny, in the high 70's. But there have been many days like this, and I have been the only one out there. In passing, people manage to muster a weak, insincere smile, as if they have lost a dear relative. Maybe this is a way of healing from the disappointment. Maybe the country going Democratic has brought them back to their roots with nature. Or maybe they are trying to reconnect with the past, a past that they feel is gone forever. Thankfully, it is.

after all is said and done

The sun has still risen in Williamson County this morning. The birds have not distinguished between this day and the last; they are busily going about their task of preparing for the winter, heeding the command of the trees decked out in stately autumn robes. The sun makes its way through a thicket of shrubs, comes to rest on a patch that becomes transformed into a glowing orb of yellow light that is brighter than anything seen on a summer dawn.

The sun has still risen in the South, shining over the red pool of lifeblood that courses itself up through the center of the country. This is a place that I have come to know as a welcomed guest during the past year and a half. Despite our differences, we have embraced eachother; sometimes reluctantly, but with the underlying understanding that we are, outside of any ideological disagreements that are historically North/South, fellow Americans.

The political yard signs are slowly disappearing into dusty garages. I can't help but cherish the pride I had last night for my native city of Chicago as she welcomed a new era in our country, yet I also realize a sort of empathetic sadness for these people here, who I now have a better, less biased understanding of, for their sense of hopelessness in the midst of a new consciousness of hope that has transpired over the past few months, culminated in the celebration at Grant Park last night.

But enough of the sentimentalities for now. My writing is tainted too much by them, and it is easy to be condescendingly sentimental when you are on the winning side of an issue. A simple task to say "Let us move forward together as a country" when you are not stinging from loss.

After living in Germany for over two years, I realized that the best way to overcome fear and misinformation about some things in life is to educate oneself about the other humans sharing this planet. "Love your neighbor" is a maxim that we should all aspire to live by, but "Embrace those with whom you have little understanding" is what we should all be striving for at this point in our history. Our country depends on it.

Early November--They're Back!

The fetid aroma of stinkbugs, or should I say Asian ladybugs, lingers in the cool dry air. These orange and black-spotted ladybug imposters whisk by me carelessly, occasionally slamming into the side of my face. As I bend down to examine a large mushroom, one lands on my arm. I knock it off and it unapologetically releases its fumes.

When we lived in Illinois, these nuisances would make their grand appearance on warm sunny days in October after the corn and soybean fields had been cut down, where they must have been lying in wait. There aren't many cornfields here due to the karst topography (in other words, rocky soil), so I have no idea where they've been hiding all summer.

I left a container of potatoes sitting on the kitchen table, engrossed in my blogging, and when I went back to put them away there was a stinkbug sitting on top. I love how they sound when they hit the floor.

Not to get on an Asian soapbox, but the Japanese honeysuckle is also thriving this time of year. While frost has claimed many shrubs, including my crepe myrtles, this invasive vine is still dark green.

For those of you from the north who've never heard of this, it bears a lovely-scented yellow and white flower that you can suck the juice out of. It smells so good that I was tempted to let it run wild in the burning bush shrub growing near my front door, pictured above. Now I've just decided to wait for the red leaves to drop so that I can search and follow each vine down to their shallow roots and pull them up. It is so evil and unlike me to kill a plant (other than a houseplant), but if I don't do it now, my house will be covered head to toe in honeysuckle vine, and like a scene from Jumanji, we'll have to hack our way out of the door.

Franklin Pumpkinfest 2008

Spiderman's alter ego seems to have another alter ego. Wonder what Batgirl is thinking...

Celebrities walking the square--guess who?

Balloon animals gone wild

sepsis of the profession

I recently discovered this fascinating line in The Emerald, a short story by Donald Barthelme. Being a critical care nurse, I could not help but be drawn to it.

For those of you not in the medical field, sepsis is a life-threatening full body reaction to an infection in the blood. That's a very simplified definition.

The dialogue contains a journalist, Lily, who is filled with disbelief at the sight of a 7,035 carat emerald speaking to her. She is told that disbelief is the sepsis of her profession. It hampers inquisitiveness. It kills the news story.

Indifference is the sepsis that plagues the nursing profession. How many times have I heard "I'm just here for the paycheck," or "I just do my 12 hours and go home?"

I guess it's because so many nurses have let go of the polished-white nursing shoe attitude that causes them to spring out of school proclaiming "I'm going to help someone!"

After several occasions of being threatened with a full airborne urinal, one can only muster so much patience and good-natured caring attitudes.

Maybe it is indifference that enables us to carry on with the job, though. To learn to not care about so many insignificant little things, to not take so many words to heart, to let them go in one ear and out the other. To be able to go home, sit down with a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV, open a book, read about someone else's life, and forget about the day where you successfully fended off an old lady who simultaneously wanted to bite you and get her pants off so that she could play tug of war with her foley catheter.

on the road with history

Sometimes I wonder if I am being too hypervigilant when it comes to Tennessee drivers. But the other day I spotted an unusual sight that deserved mention. The strangest thing about the scene was that nobody else seemed to think it was strange.

A woman pulls out of a fast food restaurant in a red sedan, maybe a Honda or Toyota. She was black, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't from this country.

Why will I do that? Because she had a Confederate flag plate on the front of her car!

It was almost like I had entered some alternate universe.

Perhaps she is not a student of history. Could it be that she is trying to fit into her new homeland by using a symbol that she has frequently seen? Maybe she thinks the Confederate flag is trendy.

That's almost as bad as what I have been up to lately--a Northerner, innocently carpooling to work with a guy who sports a "Sons of Confederate Veterans" license plate. Hypocrite am I? No. Broke from gas prices? You betcha.

Sometimes you just gotta sell out to survive.

Chattanooga doo doo

The "trained naturalist." He is probably thinking "Why do they keep letting little kids on this boat? Are we that strapped for cash?"

Daddy and the girl face eachother down

Dark green kudzu grows unchecked near the shore of the Tennessee river. It seems impervious to the cold temperatures.

An oxymoron

Development on the banks of the river

The Tennessee aquarium in Chattanooga

The woman in the above photo is not a drug overdose. She is still breathing, but barely. This poor tired soul is the personification of the boat ride we took yesterday down the Tennessee River gorge in Chattanooga.

The worst part about taking a trip is waiting for it to start. Finally, after 15 minutes of holding down, cajoling, and bribing the 2-year-old, we were on our way.

Our first stop was to the sewage unloading dock, where the trained naturalist who narrated our cruise explained that the previous passengers had unloaded a bit too much themselves.

Ten more minutes of painful waiting, this time worrying that the little girl would make a break for the rear (no pun intended) of the boat and get caught up in the pumping hose while the toilets were being emptied.

Finally, we were on our way. We cruised for about 10 minutes, came to an abrupt stop, and tarried along for the next 2 hours looking at trees and hills.

Now, for those of you who follow or who have even taken a cursory glance at my blog, you know how much I am enamored by trees. However, the two-year-old does not yet share my views on nature.

The trained naturalist was quite well-informed. Unfortunately, I didn't catch a single sentence of the spiel, and he spoke for the entire 2 hours. Every so often I would hear "eagle," "old tale," "mermaid," or something along the lines of what you would expect to hear on a cruise like that.

Caught a few good photos in-between struggling with the girl to keep her from flinging herself overboard.

This is what family memories are made of.

VOTE, dammit! Just pick someone!

I am a blue girl living in a redneck state.

My neighborhood is pretty much a solid advertisement for McCain/Palin, and all it cost the party was the posters. Just recently in a white upper-middle class subdivision across town, the car of a black man was vandalized with a sharpie. You can only guess what was written.

This worries me. Makes me think that maybe my vote won't count for much here in Tennessee. This is wrong thinking, though. If everyone thought like me, elections would turn out differently.

Vote your conscience and what you truly believe will be the best choice for this country. Don't vote for McCain because Palin has great legs, or for Obama because he has such a non-threatening, non-"Dr. Evil" smile. I hate to even say that, but I know that this may come down to a popularity contest. The nursing station at work is littered not with news journals, but with tabloid magazines. Americans love celebrity. There's no sense in denying it.

I read an article that interviewed people from Detroit on how race and gender will affect their voting decisions. One man replied with something along the lines of "It's come down to a black man or a woman, so what's a [white] guy like me to do?"

This election is forcing a lot of people to confront their stereotypes and prejudices. I would not vote for Palin just because she is a woman like myself, even though I have espoused many of Gloria Steinem's ideas. I would not refrain from voting for Obama just because I grew up in the midst of white-flight in Chicago's south suburbs.

I will vote for who I believe will lead our country down the right path. I will vote for ideas.

The Bible teaches that we shouldn't cling to ephemeralities and materialism. The two are synonymous. Whether you believe in the truth of the Bible or not, in light of the economic situation of the country at this moment, this is wisdom.

My ultimate point in all of this rambling is: Vote for America, and the ideas that you still believe in, even though they may seem nonexistent in this day and age of lobbyists and bought politicians.

Or be a revolutionary. Screw both of the pre-packaged candidates and vote independent!

September at Winstead Hill

You can travel a familiar path a hundred times, but the moment you turn around and walk in the other direction it becomes a new place.

Amo

You will surely be missed