Grasshopping Takes Over Longmont, the Boot Scoot Should RISE Up and Kick Them OUT of my Way

Why oh why...

I stepped on a HUGE ass hopper today on my walk home from Willoree's school. It was light green, 3" long – at least. It actually mounded under my foot as would a large rock...it also splatted up its light green death juice up on my shin and I screamed. It was really gross, and I am sorry to report that I don't think I love that someone likened me to a grasshopper a few weeks ago.

Why, oh why are there so MANY FUCKING grasshoppers around this summer? It's a never ending fireworks explosion of grasshoppers at every step. Dear God. What is this all mean?!

My BBF Teresa and I discuss, as we do all things, some grasshoppers. In an email:

imma try to share n expose the cute side of Grasshopper.

rhymes with grandmother.

see the cute front arms gently coddle-holding the delicate stem?

see the middle legs nice and open, like triangle pose, with smurf clap pose on the gentle stem?

and the rear leg – reminds me of a keith ellis pant and thigh, or maybe air jordan sweatpant.

mother of pearling on the bodice.

a frightening side-eye!!

and see the radar 'tennae on that head?
a pupal sac of body mass grub.

(wow i see what you mean)...

like a Trek mountain bike:  http://www.animalpictures1.com/postcard.img1115.htm

like a Grandpa gypsy: http://www.ponderstorm.com/2010/02/24/two-versions-of-the-ant-and-the-grasshopper/

you are only similarly strong in leg and fast in lighting upon the flower of life.  and you have great peripheral vision of the aquarian way...

LOVE

If you are not linking to the above, you non-linkers, here are Trek Mountain bike variety, old grandpa gypsy and the WOW one that gave Teresa realization of my ih woes (that one's about actual size), respectively.

Mother Nature knows best. Maybe I'll just get over myself and eat some, really get WITH the hoppers. Oh god, I am feeling the internal gnarl rising UP.

Little Mama, Don't you Love Her?

 

Love to my mother, pictured above, and her brother Terry. Love to THE mother. Aren't we all trying to just eat her up and become her, over and over again? Fathers, too. Good times.

We are Two, We Are One, Nicho Mini Mexican Folk Art

Happy Anniversary to Ben and me! Two years. Feels longer...all good.

We wore cotton as per tradition, almost; we ate American; I gave Mexican, I used glitter in an art project, which I think is universal; the love was noted as galactic and beyond; and here we are already in our third year.

So I made Ben a mini nicho. I love folk art very much. I especially love Japanese packaging (food, etc.); African textiles and Mexican Day of the Dead stuff. So I fashioned a mini nicho for Ben, all wrapped up in mid-century sheet music (Corazon, anyone?) from Spain. The lotus up top is from a photo at Angela's lake house in MI. The eye is the I; the we is the we; the background is part sheet music (reads: "And your eyes told me all was well") and a colorful, nice looking piece of trash I found at Angie's house. There's a little bird hiding up top under the lotus, couldn't resist. The coiled wire is in homage to Kundalini; the screws are both screws and allusions to the metaphor of construction, which was heavy heavy at our wedding, and remains a decent way to consider the marriage and being married.

Foundation seems to be key. And good contractors.

I like that from "trash" -- valued, not, what IS trash anyways? -- comes bloom. I like that from bloom comes "eye", comes I. I comes we comes I. I like that from the tangled mess of coil, screw and lowest layers come stalk, stem and support for thousand petaled openings.

I mostly like the way this petite art project turned out. I am excited to make more, and from a strictly aesthetic stance, the more I make the less cluttery they will look. This is my hope. I'm forever fighting clutter. And I don't like seeing it creep into my designs, either. As within, so without, I attest. But oh yes! Less is often more.

But of course we got dessert. And giggled at the big bill presented to us al final.

We noted that we have spent the year heavily invested in my pregnancy, our new daughter, and a lot of individually tailored delvings...and while it was less focused on "marriage" per se than parenting, or growth, or ?, it ends up that the work isn't wasted, or lost, or diluted. We become stronger because of it all.

And I suppose being alive, being married, having a mess of kids, etc. etc. we do indeed get it all.

Must keep getting used to this. Life is indeed a prayer. Blessings to all of you who bless us! We have a box of them handwritten on origami paper from the ceremony, shining down on our dining table. And it is good...

Mind Your Manners, Or Don't.

Table Manners, in particular.

And what role do they play in the modern or not so modern family? In my family? Manners are conventional. We all operate from conventions. Some staggering stat I read said that people operate from our subconscious minds roughly 96% of the time. That means that only 4% of what we do, say, how we act, react, respond is "clear" for lack of a better word. (A discussion of that could be its own  little project.) But seriously, that's insane. I'd bet that manners are among the things that we value just because someone else who had influence over us at an earlier time valued them.

Why do some people require manners so hard? Who are these people (besides my grandparents and my Dad?) Who are manners really for -- seems always the other people at the proverbial table. So I don't get it, but yet I like manners. I feel like they're valuable. I appreciate and use (most of the time) "good" manners, or I try to. I even have gone so far as to lightly judge (?) people around me to don't -- which is perhaps the uglier side of the "nice", social convention. There are things that to this day (and because of my grandmother's sneering disapproval) annoy me in restaurants. It doesn't bother me that my daughter reaches across the table for more bread, per se, but I notice it...for better or for worse.

Do manners become outdated? Or are classic manners just that -- never to die or change. Maybe there's value in their antiquity? A New vs. Old Money-like stigma, if you will. Do they bring us closer together, or make us feel ostracized from one another? Classism? Elitism? Middle Class-itis?

For me they are an easy and interesting target. I keep my "manners" in my back pocket and use when necessary. I hadn't given much thought to manners until recently when my dad got somewhat annoyed at a restaurant at Willoree's not using nice table manners. She was eating a spaghetti noodle with her fingers. She's four. When asked to use a fork, she asked Why? And my dad's answer?

Because I said so.

OK. So that tells me nothing and so much all at the same time.

I am certain that manners are more or less benign things, but they have some serious potential to trigger deeper, uglier, more loaded emotions I've suddenly been confronted with. This is interesting to me. I'd like to know more from you, my dear readers. Please pass the the commentary.

The above photos are of my grandparents, Bess and Walker Geitner, on a trip to Egypt ca. 1955.