A Golden Vortex Party

As soon as the message was on the board, the plotting began... we Sunnyside-Up-pers were determined to have a holiday party truly reflective of, well, Sunnyside Up & Our Crew. First order of business, the employees invited their super cool friends & the bosses did, too ♥ It was the perfect blend of unschoolers and future unschoolers ♥The food? sorry, I couldn't stop stuffing myself long enough to take pictures. Didja know those almond-stuffed-dates-wrapped-in-bacon-thingies are totally dairy free? Me neither! But now I know ♥ Thank you Caroline for bringing such amazingness into the vortex, we will keep you. (Jon even made some with fakon, I don't think they were as good...) I even snuck a few pieces of Barack O'Brownie, because I had to; they went with my card that reads: (front) [photo of Barack] Christmas 2008 (inside) Thanks, Santa! hee hee hee.
The companionship? I got pictures of that! Our drum circle was the highlight of the nightThe dancefloor doubled as a hackey-sack fieldReally, it was such a blast I have few pictures...Then there is The Frisbee Sniper Incident, which shall be a post all it's own, so as not to hijack this one! Let me just say I am honored to work in such an amazing place, for and with the most amazing humans, following our most amazing paths, creating our most amazing connections, in this most amazing time and place - Namaste, for real my friends, Namaste.

I ♥ Secret Santa, 1996

This lil guy is why I LOVE having a Secret Santa exchange!
One simple little, hilarious, ornament has given me 12 years of giggles each time I spy these boots!
It was Hannah's first Christmas that year. I was working at East Dakota Educational Co-op, as secretary extraordinaire & Mitch was still working nights at Heartland Paper Company, in the warehouse. This was our 4th Xmas holiday together, he & I, our second as married folk, our first as parents. It was Christmas 1995 when we discovered we were pregnant (and again Christmas 1997). His brain tumor was still a big dark cosmic secret. We split our days to be fully present with our new daughter; she'd yet to have had a single moment without either of us by her side. It was near this time that she decided she didn't need a bottle of breastmilk while I was at work, I came home often enough for her to be patient & we were both happy for her to nurse to her heart's content all night long. My parents lived next door & Mitch was turning our garage into the coolest Clubhouse in town. Blissfully happy, Christmas 1996, blissfully happy ♥

When the man in your life dies...

it's time to go to Disneyland...gather your favorite people...swing at Venice Beach...and swim nekkid in 'netta's pool ♥ in December! He who has not looked on Sorrow,
will never see Joy.
~Kahlil Gibran

Never undervalue Handmade!

Made by my supervising teacher, Lu McComb and her children, when I worked at Highland High School as an interpreter, 20some years ago.
Seeing him every year reminds me of the 19 year old Self I used to be.
Let today be a testament to her.
At such a crossroads in diana development.
So much newness to life. Burgeoning wisdom.
Tough & fragile.
Celebrate the choices she made, which led to more, new, different possible choices,
which all lead to right here, right now.
Thanks past-self! You done alright ♥

Our Lady of Guadalupe

PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mystical Rose, help all those who invoke thee in their necessities, and since thou art the ever Virgin Mary and Mother of the True God, obtain for us from thy Holy Son the Grace of Faith, of Sweet Hope in Life, of Burning Charity, and the Precious Gift of Perseverance.

Amen.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Funeral Day, Take Two

On our way to the reception, I drove through the nearest McDonald's for the kids, with my Mother in Law in the car. Remember, her one and only child has been dead for 9 days and his ashes in the mission's cupboard a mere 30 minutes, when the following exchange occurred:

Hannah: Is Hayden gonna be our daddy now?
Me: (glancing at mil) Uh, no, Hayden will be daddy to his own kids. He's still my son and your brother.
Hannah: Well, who's gonna be our daddy then?
Me: (glancing even more nervously at mil) For now, we don't have a daddy who lives with us. Our daddy died.
Hannah: We can't be without a daddy.
Me: (now imploring the gods to strike my daughter silent) For now we can.
Hannah: You better get us a new daddy, quick!
Me: I'll work on that.

I kept her mouth busy, the rest of the afternoon, with amazing funeral food. This cake was especially popular with my two.

One Moon Ornament, Two

Remember when Christmas brought the
look of excitement this mouse is carrying?
I do!
Wait, it still does ♥
I love a hearty "Merry Christmas!"
merrily shared between strangers,
I love happy people, I love generosity,
I love the music, the singing, the pealing bells,
sharing the hope and joy and wonder,
the prayers of peace and brotherhood.
I love the returning light of the Sun,
I love to ponder the return of the Son.
And if I could,
I'd fly to the moon
and tell him all about it, too.

The end is near

Last night, I dreamed of the cows' demise. I heard the lilting voices a-callin' and I saw the cows a-runnin' for the fence on the other side of the field. Odd thing though, the couple was calling "Suuuuueeeeeey" and they were dressed in Amish splendor. With big shiny knives and perfectly pressed Sunday best. The little bit of Oregon sun reflecting off the black bonnet and shiny suspender buckles.
I'm reassured thinking they're treating this event like a worship service. Worthy of looking and acting one's best. Under the careful watch of a benevolent, mirthful, God. One who loves these bovine creations as much as any other being on this planet. Perhaps even more, should S/he be a connoisseur of grass-grazed-apple-treated-ethically-transitioned pot roast ♥
I'll be sure and feed my neighbors their apples with extra love today, reminded again how short this life is. And all there is to be grateful for.

Raggedy Ann & Andy, a tribute

I think it was the funeral visit, when we were staying at Gramma Baby's house in Pacoima, CA (the home of Ritchie Valens), when I spotted a Raggedy Ann & Andy garbage can. It was an old-fashioned vintage can, heavy & metal, probably painted with lead-based paint, in the USA. It'd been Mitch's ♥ when he was little and stayed often with his Gran, his room was Raggedy decor.
In place of the immediate feelings of having been robbed of knowing Mitch long enough for him to share that information with me directly, came an easy opportunity for me to bring that Little Boy Mitch into our lives in a real way.
Each experience with Ann & Andy reminded us that our family once contained someone who found joy in their presence. As if the characters were silent witnesses to experiences we can only imagine, experiences of that child who-once-was and who should-never-be-forgot. Never underestimate the value of sharing your childhood memories; it is through those memories - the conversations about them, the connections to them - that keep one truly alive long after the body is gone ♥

One Moon Ornament

It's Baby Hayden in a Santamoon ornament - 1999 ♥ Of course it's one of my favorites! Lookit how round and red-headed he is ♥ At the very moment this was captured, we were participating in our local LLL World Walk for Breastfeeding-- both kids were still nursing; Hayden was just days away from completing his first year (which means Hannah was days from finishing 3) and not yet walking; Mitch was back to work, in his created-for-him position in *computers,* after radiation and before chemotherapy - a moment of stasis in our lives, though we now knew the tumor had moved up front and the lobotomy humor had just begun; we'd moved into the big white duplex on Dakota Avenue; I was free-lance interpreting and the kids got to hang out with my friend Sandra and her Madeline almost every day ♥

I was so cute in 1977

My mom, Dee, made this for her grandmother's Christmas Tree. That'd be Gramma Bunnie's (Helen Jaques) mother, Great-Gramma Emma Ellis (nee Peterson), who lived as long as I knew her, in her white house on the corner in Canton, SD. It was this little girl who sat, curled up, under the buffet when the drunk antics of Uncle Lydell disturbed the peace of our Sunday afternoon at Gramma Emma's. This little girl learned, too, that death brings a deep complexity of emotion turmoil, when Uncle Lydell's drunk antics were ended, once and for all, by an exploding hay bailer. Every single birthday, this little girl got a birthday card from her great-grandmother containing one taped-in quarter and one-to-several sticks of Wrigley's gum du jour. Every year, it was addressed to a different variation of Diana Lambert in her shaky, old-fashioned, granny hand. Coffee reminds me of her; her house radiated warmth and coffee (and busom, I gotta say it, the woman was like 75% busom to me). Always the big enamel pot on the warming stove in the dining room. She'd dash to the kitchen to make a fresh batch when my dad arrived. If it was a baking day, she'd put aside some coffee to cool, to later mix with powdered sugar to frost a spice cake. A spice cake not from a box. Nor a recipe, for that matter. And this little girl would be invited to help. Not an imposition, a guest. Sometimes, in the summer we'd sneak to the kitchen and she'd give me an ice cream cone from her giant freezer that had a room of it's own. Aaaahh it was this little girl who forever linked baking in a kitchen (and busoms) to the most profound gift of love possible. Her scents hearken thoughts of acceptance and attention. When I make Spice Cake, I think of them, that woman and that little girl, the magic of a simple cake... yeah, and the busoms too. Thanks Emma ♥