Category: Seen, Heard, Said

If I screw up raising my kids, nothing I achieve will matter much.
— Steve Martin, in Cheaper by the Dozen

My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself.

-Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually)

1.a. It was suggested in this thread of conversation that the dead person in the coffin was Michael, because the funeral home was located in an African American neighborhood. I thought this was a great observation. However, the first thing I noticed was how small the coffin seemed, suggesting it was a child. And since Walt (Michael’s son) keeps appearing to people on the island as a ghost of sorts, I think it might be him. Though I can’t say why Kate would be indifferent to his passing.

1.b. Before reading this thread, my prediction was that it was John Locke, and Jack was devastated by his death because he thinks Locke was right about staying on the island, and Kate was indifferent because she doesn’t agree with Jack and is bitter with Locke for creating so many obstacles in getting off the island.

1.c. I’m also holding on to the the possibility that the person in the coffin has not even been introduced to us, that it is someone we will learn about next season.

Which brings me to my two possible predictions for next season:

1. The rescue they are awaiting doesn’t happen right away (or one week on the island stretches out for an entire season. I mean really, in three seasons they’ve only been on the island two months, right? so it’s possible the next season will be a shorter period of time). And instead of providing flashbacks to give clues, we are now going to see flashforwards, and we have to figure out what happened on the island by interpreting how it all shakes out after rescue.

or…

2. They do get rescued, and the majority of the show is seen through their new lives, and we have no idea what happened to them on the island. We will now see a series of flashbacks to the island to give us clues about what happened.

Thoughts?

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting….
-Santiago, in The Alchemist

Jerry Falwell died. I have a feeling that right about now, he’s feeling very very surprised.
–Dry Bones Dance

These days it’s hard to tell what’s half asleep from fully alive…
– Cloud Cult, ‘Chemicals Collide’ from the album ‘Meaning of 8’

Bryan sent me this link, and it’s really tempting in a geeky sort of way. My favorite comment is, “Finally, a keyboard you WANT to get sticky!”

I fell asleep during SNL this last week, but my house mate told me about this funny Dora spoof done by the TV Funhouse people. If you subject yourself to your kids’ crack – I mean, Dora – habits, then you HAVE to watch this funny cartoon.

(With thanks to Mir for the link on one of Mommy Needs a Cocktail’s posts, or I would have never seen it for myself!)

I’m at my local wine bar for the usual afternoon of writing, and the owner is hauling out all the large tables.

Tara, the girl who serves me GREAT pinot, tells me the Seattle Sonics are hosting an open house here, no doubt to woo the community it is trying to move into.

Hey – I can be woo’d with free appetizers and beer!

[update] KOMO 4 News camera crews just arrived, and I’m not wearing any make-up.

[update] Hamburgers are on the BBQ, and I see potato chips on the table! I think I might not be cooking dinner tonight.

[update] Wondering if the guy in front of me is a Sonic’s player. I am not a sports fan.

[update] Seahawks player, Mack Strong, is IN THE HOUSE.

[update] This guy is sitting in the KOMO 4 news van.

[update] enjoying a free hamburger with another Met regular.

[last update. I promise] All my efforts to get on t.v. failed. Not that I was trying as hard as Peggy, my wine bar friend. She’s the gray haired elderly woman in this video walking toward the princess ballerina at the beginning, and getting a Sonic autograph at the end. She and I plotted all afternoon how we were going to get on t.v., and she even stalked the news van to keep tabs on the reporter. But in the end, she was a much better stalker that I was. I hung out behind the crowd with my two adorable children, hoping their adorableness would land them or me some camera time. It was obviously the wrong tactic to take, as I wasn’t even within the frame of the crowd shot.

And I was having such a good Hair Day, too.

One of the perks of living in an urban center is that you get to witness the occasional riot in your neighborhood. Last night was one such night for the Zugs when a party ended at the rental hall next door to us.

Around 11:30, just before SNL started, a stream of firecrackers went off in front of our house. Bryan, who was already in bed, put on his pants and went down to stare threateningly from the front porch. It worked, and four cars sped off as soon as he took his post. Fifteen minutes later when we were back in bed, we heard more firecrackers out the back door. When I went down to check it out and to call the police, I found hundreds of teenagers swarming the streets around my house.

Soon there was a police car in front of my house, one behind, and one on each of the two corners a block south, and they treated the scene like a riot – staying in their cars, not engaging, but slowly pushing and disbursing the crowd. The whole ordeal took about an hour, and then it was dark and quiet, like nothing had ever happened.

I must have the right personality for living in a neighborhood like this. Never at any moment did I feel afraid, though I knew there was the real possibility things could turn for the worse and a cop car could get turned over. I was irritated by the swarm of self-centeredness and the blatant disrespect. They hovered in the middle of the street, fighting, chatting between cars – all this happening directly in front of the cop as if he didn’t exist. And oh the teenage girl squealing – that was the worst part. It hurts my ears.

I love my house, and I love my neighborhood. Most of the time it is a pleasant neighborhood. Where else can you walk to the park and the library and the wine bar and the cupcake shop? This incident does not disillusion me. I am here to stay.

Want to see what happened? Watch this video…

I glean a lot of my news and current events from John Stewart on The Daily Show. Sad as that may be, he’s a lot more entertaining than Brian Williams.

Recently he had a woman on his show (I can’t remember her name) who criticized those who hailed Barak Obama as an ‘African American’ presidential hopeful, stating that Obama’s father came to America in the 60’s, which meant his descendants didn’t come from the struggle of slavery, and therefore he wasn’t REALLY an African American in the American sense.

She got a little ridiculous in her semantics, calling him an ‘African’ African-American, but I think I was getting her point. She felt Obama could not embrace the plight of the Black Man because his lineage has not had to press through the trials and tribulation of slavery, and overcome the effects and the dysfunction that this oppression has caused generations of African Americans.

In similar news, the other day John Stewart had the Reverend Al Sharpton on The Daily Show to talk about the shocking news that he is a descendant of a slave owned by a descendant of Strom Thurman’s. It was an interesting discussion, and I think what struck me the most was Sharpton’s point that slavery is really not that far removed from our generation.

The slave owned by Thurman’s descendant was his great-grandfather.

I didn’t know any of my own great grandparents because I am the youngest in my family, but Ruthie knew her great-grandmother, and my sister’s kids knew their great-grandmother. It is a generation that is within our reach; it is a generation with stories to tell while we sit on bended knees.

I know I, for one, think of slavery as something that happened long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, so I appreciated this perspective brought to me through the interview with Sharpton.

Any thoughts?

We already have this mall going in near my house, which will include a Target store, which will test my shopping willpower. Bryan says I should only be allowed to buy what I can carry while walking home – I think he underestimates how many home organizational items I can attach to my body with bungie cables.

This is the latest big news for my neighborhood today, because if the deal goes through I could WALK to a basketball game, or a concert, or whatever. Bryan and I recently saw Paul Simon at the current basketball arena – maybe in a few years I could have dinner and see a major show in my own neighborhood! Hopefully the unavoidable traffic problem will not want to make me pull my hair out.