Thematic Photographic - Signs 3

A week of Signs...
signs I cannot resist the human face...
most especially the joyful human face!

A.K.A. Signs I need to get me a DSLR of my veeery own ♥

Thematic Photographic - Signs 2

A week of Signs...Sure sign of a loving and generous husband ♥

Thematic Photographic - Signs

I love to look through my lens with Carmi's word theme niggling my mind.
From my week of full unschool love immersion I bring you:
A week of Signs...
Signs you've found the hotel containing the Conference

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Vex :: Power
   
2. Relapse :: Death
   
3. Twinkle :: SHINY!
   
4. Crawls :: Begs
   
5. Optimistic moment :: Only a moment?
   
6. Cage :: Safety
   
7. Superwoman :: Milker!
   
8. Personal :: Space
   
9. Vapor :: faint
   
10. Grocery store :: FUN
    

Thematic Photographic - Human 4

Friends are Majik! Especially if you're lucky enough to be surrounded by
perfectly flawed human beings like myself ♥
Just the acts of eating and talking, can change the world.
You're witnessing it happening right here.
Many children's lives were made a bit more peaceful by this gathering;
Including the children within each of us. RockBand, a Game the Whole Famn Damily can Enjoy! And does!
Not kidding! We're brave enough to fail right before each other's eyes.
I even sing. They let me and still love me ♥
Who knew Hannah Montana could be so much work?
The fun, joyful kind, of course!
Bubbles bring joy ♥ Bubble machines, when functioning, bring Joy 10-fold!
And this face? Well this is the most majik face of all ♥
She holds the power to heal; with every breath she takes, every smile she shares, each tear she sheds, I am healed.
If being a Human isn't the best thing in the universe, I can't wait to find out what is!

Thematic Photographic - Human 3

I am Of, By, Through, and With the most Amazing Human Family ♥
Gramma Bunnie's doctor told her blue milk would kill her babies.
Human milk is blue-tinged.
Trisha's not the first Tandem Nurser in the Family ♥

Hayden got a BIG dose of Cousin Love (and a bit of hero worship there from Rhonda).
Zach and Lily were a great surprise visit and much needed play outlet!

McKenzie, Vincent, Joseph, Bryce & Tyler ♥ I'm a Lucky Auntie!

Mom (DeLila), Claude (Uncle Jr.), Donna, [space left for Baby Sheila], Gary & Darla
Eli's lucky to be uncle to monkey Breann!

'Cause she's just the cutest darned thing to come out of this generation... 'cept for maybe her brother, Brayden ♥

Thematic Photographic - Human 2

When I was in the third grade, Mrs. Surts felt it very important that we pay homage to the new Michelangelo statue, recently placed in the brand new Fawick Park. Right Downtown, Sioux Falls, SD, 1976. The rumors were already flying; our city had awakened several times to David dressed in incredibly creative garments, his genitals so offensive to the midwestern Lutheran senses. The city made sure trees were planted in a circle, like a giant wooden skirt; so to see him, one had to do so on purpose. And we did.He was put a way for a while and when he reemerged, you can catch a glimpse of his nalgas even by accident as you pass by on the viaduct (fancy term for bridge over railroad tracks). My kids would squeeze his from their carseats, crying "Nagas, Nagas!"I checked David out pretty closely after Mitch died.
I figured this statue just became the only other penis Hayden would see on a regular basis.
[he's got a traditional jewish circ: only the end of the foreskin is trimmed]

When Hannah was sick, the Psalms brought more comfort coming from a guy willing to stand nekked downtown.

On my feet I shall have his words immortalized:

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
I will fear no Evil, for Thou art with Me.

I ♥ the Human Being once called David.

Music, Death, & Sandra Dodd

If you drew those three thinking sticks, would you have a connection? more than one?

So far, I've got two...

It all starts with Sandra's love of most everything music, including the game: Encore. See, she'd love nothing more than to have a constant stream of players to engage her, so she figgered out how to do exactly that: Lyrics Game.
I can be counted on to play obscure Elton/Bernie lyrics and I like to toss around some other obscurities while I'm at it. Like Mary LaFleur; I think every mama should sing "I love you 100" to their babies ♥

One day in March, I was honored to have the following e-mail exchange:

I'm the son of the late Mary Lafleur. If you didn't know she passed away after a 5 year bout with breast cancer two years ago. I was 18 when she passed away and will never be the same after such a loss. I googled her name because yesterday was my birthday and I came across you writing her lyrics on a website I was unfamiliar with. I just wanted to know what effect my mother's music has had on your life, I can only hope it was positive. I'm the subject of I love you 100, and I can't listen to it without weeping uncontrollably. Don

We've met, then :)
I was pregnant with my daughter, Hannah, almost 13 years ago, when your mom brought you to her friend's house in Iowa for a little house concert. I'm sorry I don't remember the friend's name, she was a LLL leader and a midwife, who lived near a lake with her family (I think the husband was a park ranger?). I think the friend had three daughters.

Your mom's music will live in my heart *forever* - you were just a little guy and the I love you 100 song embarrassed you and you asked her not to sing it for us. I played it on the way home and wept with an overflowing heart of love.

It was the first song I played for my first child. It was the last song I whispered in her ear as she died at a mere 9.5.

It does bring me great comfort to imagine your mama singing to all those children on "the other side" I hope it does for you, too <3
~diana

I wept when I read what you wrote. The only sadness without compare in my life has been the passing of such a wonderful person as my mother. To know that I was not the only person so effected by her is a wonderful thing to know. I hope you help keep Mary's music alive for as long as you live.

Don

This was a Big Impact moment for me. I knew Mary's music had touched my heart and I wanted to share that effect with others; I had no idea the story in my heart would directly affect Mary's family ♥
Life went back to normal, after the initial glow of the contact. The game reverted to being a game, the impact of one contact was relegated to fluke status. At least in my conscious mind.
~♥~
Then I played a very special song for the word "Steel" - Hymen Made of Steel was written for me in 1987 by my friend, Maggie Fette.
Maggie also happens to be Hannah's Godmother and as she's Italian, you could call her Fragile.
When Hannah died, Maggie's family asked that I not tell her at that time, they were ill prepared to deal with the potential emotional fallout and I was unable to be there for her myself, obviously.
On our way home from Los Angeles, Hayden and I tried to contact our Bakersfield friends, to no avail, and resigned ourselves to sprinkling Hannah's ashes to the wind. We thought of Maggie and how Hannah's spirit could now visit her at home, unbeknownst to Maggie herself!
When Gramma Bunnie died on May 5, I had to tell Maggie. She was the one, afterall, who laid eyes on Gramma in 1986 and said, "You guys don't call her Bunnnie?! She's a Gramma Bunnie if I ever saw one!!" It just so happened to coincide with Gramma's, uh, rabbit-like reputation for physical intimacy and the timing of Eddie Murphy's Aunt Bunny falling down the stairs schtick. So we kept it secret for a while... then she overheard us, and immediately adopted it as her name! In her passing, I knew we'd be speaking Maggie's name.

found out , quiet by accident last month about hannah. damn. who the hell did you fuck with to bring such karma down upon you & yours...di you force feed Ghandi? kick john paul under the table....:0) i'm glad your still smiling (just flashed on your giggle)
honey, your still the Greatest & Bestest Fweind this sponge cake could ever hope to have-

you probably learned about Hannah because her ashes are now free-wheeling around Bakersfield!!! Me and the boy drove thru not long ago (with NO ONE'S phone numbers) and put her over panorama drive and edison highway and highland highschool... everywhere... so now you should read the hannahashes blog, she really IS everywhere!
I love you
And I'm still laughing :D
~diana :)

no, actually- I looked up maggie fette instead of margaret on google last month & came across something you posted about hyman made of steel...i then followed links and found a site dedicated to spreading her ashes all over the earth (i loved the apple) ...

No one I know would have thought of this way to ease Maggie into Hannah's new state of being! She got all the information, through the back door; a way I'd never foreseen ♥ and Exactly the way she should have found out ♥

~♥~
Thank you, once again, Sandra Dodd, for the space you create in the world; the space in which magic happens! I'm honored to be a-swirlin' in your vortex!

Thematic Photographic - Human

A moment of intense humanity.
Of which I shall remain honored to have witnessed.
49 years and some days ago, Baby Paul David was born.
49 years ago, in a few weeks, he left his Birth family and soon became Baby Claude to his Life family.
49 years ago, Uncle Gary was 15 and horribly scarred by these events, and the ones he believes led up to them.
12 years and some months ago, we welcomed Uncle Junior into our lives. (coincidentally, mere days after welcoming Hannah into our lives)
12 years and some months ago, Uncle Gary decided he'd never be able to acknowledge the existence of his brother without accepting the existence of his mother's own human frailty - sin, just like the rest of us. As one is impossible in his heart, the other won't sit well in his head. Better to ignore it all. Uncle Gary's (whispered:)Catholic, which is meant to explain that we let him reconcile those kinds of things in his own head, as he will, in his own way, with his own years of human experience.
In this very moment here, we're at their mother's wake. Gary, with tears streaming down his face, approached Junior with outstretched hand, saying, "I don't know what to say to you..."
I left them in peace, just glancing back to snap this pic, to make real what I very well could have been dreaming. As I'd dreamed of this moment 1,000 times before ♥
Our family took one giant step towards Whole.

A small tax rant. A big one'd be taxed.

After Mitch's death in 2000, it was determined by the IRS that we had royally fucked up and owed them 1,200$ that I royally fucked up and didn't pay one iota of attention to. I was busy eating bon-bons, watching soaps, mourning and raising 2 babies while resenting all of the above.
So they charged me an amazingly embarrassing & greedy percentage of interest; once again and still, I had other things on my plate and this one issue just rolled off.
Then I discovered, circa 2005, that the only debtor in the universe that has the autoriTAY to garnish Social Security earnings is, viola!, the IRS.
They've garnished monthly 70$ for more than 3 years. Last year I had the honor of paying down the debt through my first tax return, nearly 3,000$. They continue garnishing and kept last year's return, another 3,000$.
I guess they finally got enough.
The monster may indeed be sated.
I got a tax refund check for $121.18;
of which .07$ is returned interest.
There is a God and one day he visited the IRS.
True story, kids.
I just got another way to afford the rent on the new house.
Oh YEAH!