When I started this blog, I promised to mix it up a little and include posts on all kinds of stuff. Lately, I've been drawn to the deeper waters, posting mostly on movies and my own mental muddiness, and I've realized that the deep waters are usually the coldest, and sometimes not the most friendly.
So I thought I'd write about clothes shopping, instead.
My family came up with the wonderful idea this summer to hike our first 14er (14,000-foot mountain, for those flatlanders among you), and then the summer suddenly just melted away. Now we find ourselves swirling about in the eddies of autumn and wondering if we can still pull it off, now that the weather will be significantly cooler, and I seem to be the only member of the family who actually has any concerns about not freezing to death. Hey, I attended a ladies' camping workshop at REI, and I know what's up! I know that it's a sheer miracle that mankind has managed to survive this long without wicking layers, and that, if you don't have your fleece in the middle, and water-and-wind-proof breathability on the outside, you're as good as dead. I know that you have to have Smartwool socks or your feet will die of hypothermia, and then frostbite, all at 45 degrees!
I also unfortunately know how much this thinking costs, and it hurts. I've been drooling over the *perfect* jacket at REI for a couple of weeks now that would set me back 200 smackaroos, and ruminating over the cost of layering up in true mountaineering style. It would probably be well over $1000, just for me. There are seven of us. And this is one mountain (maybe two) we're talking about. And 5 of us are growing, fast. Well, make that 7 of us, if you count my belly and its little inhabitant (which you really do have to take into account, especially when all these spiffy layers have to zip up over an expanding waistline).
So my natural inclination is to try and chinch, but not too much, because that's always disastrous--you do, after all, get what you pay for. I searched WallyWorld, Ross, REI's clearance rack, all the usual haunts, and came up pretty much empty-handed. But then I turned to Target, and was delighted to find a great variety of stuff: not only a wicking, long-sleeved base layer, but one that even has compression! Base layer pants that keep the moisture away from the skin; a mid-layer fleece jacket to add more insulation and moisture control; a water- and wind-resistant top layer jacket to round it all out. Now, I don't get the prestige of wearing around the REI or North Face or (gasp!) Arcteryx label, and I might not get quite the performance out of this gear that I would had I spent gads and gads of cash, but I can tell you that, for about $150, I got pretty much the entire shebang, plus some other camping gear and quite a bit of layering for a couple of the kids...not bad!
I'll let you know how this all works out after we get back from the weekend excursion up the long slope above timberline.
--Teri.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
the boy in the striped pajamas
Some films are like riding in a roller coaster: you pay your money, settle in, and you get some excitement and ya-yas.
Some films are like riding in your car: you know where you're going, you can predict a happy ending, you don't have to think too hard, everyone's happy.
Some films are like having triple bypass surgery in the back of a moving ambulance: you have no idea how it's going to turn out, it's scary, it's hard, it's bloody, and it's necessary.
We watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas a few nights ago, naively thinking that a Holocaust story involving children might have a just-in-time happy ending. We forgot temporarily that the Holocaust itself didn't get to have one of those nice tidy endings, and for a few moments after the end credits began to roll, I felt sort of ripped off, like Hollywood had cheated us out of a good time with this realism nonsense.
How myopic I sometimes am.
--Teri.
Friday, September 4, 2009
underthinkers anonymous
I think I finally got my fill of idiotic responses last night while trying to contribute a tidbit of perspective to someone's sentimental but not very well thought-out battle anthem for standardized healthcare in America. The original phrase went something like 'No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare, and no one should go broke because they get sick.' In other words, 'The government should pay for our healthcare, and the government should pay for our healthcare.' Which sounds nice. Really nice, especially for people who have health problems and are uninsured and are having a tough time paying for it. I get that. And I'll even qualify that by saying that my family constitutes a few of those 'millions of uninsured Americans' who can't afford 'decent' healthcare, and yeah, it's frustrating and insecure.
But really, at its core, that statement is oversimplified. People hear the siren song of free something-or-other and somehow forget that there is always a price to be paid. And the bigger the sugar cube we think we're getting, the bigger the pricetag. So I commented on this, that we need to remember that, for all the media hype about how wonderful universal healthcare is, I hear stories from our neighbors in the north that you have to be prepared to wait up to 2 years for things like major surgeries. Two years! That's a price to be paid. And I'm not even talking about the taxes, just the logistics.
So some other person wrote in with the stereotypical, "Wow, I guess these people want people to die and go broke! I thought the debate was a lot simpler than that!" Now, normally, I would calmly try to further elucidate my point, which I believe is valid to the discussion, but last night I just snapped instead, and whipped back, "Yep, I'm all into death and poverty, can't you tell? Good grief." Which is not a very diplomatic approach to a debate, to be sure, but really, how sad is it that people get so attached to what they underthink will be the cure-all for a bad situation that they cannot intelligently discuss factors they hadn't considered?
Now, I realize that some of you reading this may be proponents of Obama's healthcare plan, and for those of you that are, I can understand your reasons, and I respect that--a lot. I'm not presuming to hold a corner on the facts in this very heated debate, and I understand that there's a lot to consider. Maybe universal healthcare is a great idea, and maybe it's a terrible one. Maybe it's just so-so. Maybe it'll work, and maybe it won't, and maybe it will just sorta work. Our system as it stands is certainly broken and in need of major overhaul, so don't assume that what Obama says of conservatives is true, that we just want to keep things the way they are.
But please, please, oh, pretty please, whatever your leaning, don't underthink the issue and become the voices of a million clanging cymbals not saying anything at all. There will always be heated debate about every political, moral, and social issue there is, but that never, never, never makes one side stupid because they disagree or have something dissenting to factor into the conversation. Have we lost the ability for civil discourse entirely?
--Teri.
But really, at its core, that statement is oversimplified. People hear the siren song of free something-or-other and somehow forget that there is always a price to be paid. And the bigger the sugar cube we think we're getting, the bigger the pricetag. So I commented on this, that we need to remember that, for all the media hype about how wonderful universal healthcare is, I hear stories from our neighbors in the north that you have to be prepared to wait up to 2 years for things like major surgeries. Two years! That's a price to be paid. And I'm not even talking about the taxes, just the logistics.
So some other person wrote in with the stereotypical, "Wow, I guess these people want people to die and go broke! I thought the debate was a lot simpler than that!" Now, normally, I would calmly try to further elucidate my point, which I believe is valid to the discussion, but last night I just snapped instead, and whipped back, "Yep, I'm all into death and poverty, can't you tell? Good grief." Which is not a very diplomatic approach to a debate, to be sure, but really, how sad is it that people get so attached to what they underthink will be the cure-all for a bad situation that they cannot intelligently discuss factors they hadn't considered?
Now, I realize that some of you reading this may be proponents of Obama's healthcare plan, and for those of you that are, I can understand your reasons, and I respect that--a lot. I'm not presuming to hold a corner on the facts in this very heated debate, and I understand that there's a lot to consider. Maybe universal healthcare is a great idea, and maybe it's a terrible one. Maybe it's just so-so. Maybe it'll work, and maybe it won't, and maybe it will just sorta work. Our system as it stands is certainly broken and in need of major overhaul, so don't assume that what Obama says of conservatives is true, that we just want to keep things the way they are.
But please, please, oh, pretty please, whatever your leaning, don't underthink the issue and become the voices of a million clanging cymbals not saying anything at all. There will always be heated debate about every political, moral, and social issue there is, but that never, never, never makes one side stupid because they disagree or have something dissenting to factor into the conversation. Have we lost the ability for civil discourse entirely?
--Teri.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
goya's ghosts
It's not too often that I watch a film, and the first descriptor that comes to mind afterwards is "completely unnecessary", and the second is, " ridiculously superfluous", and the third is, "no, just ridiculous".
Netflix billed Goya's Ghosts as "the epic true story..." of Francisco Goya, the Spanish Inquisition, and the French Revolution. So we watched it, thinking we'd get a nice glimpse of a Spanish artist whose work was previously unknown to me, as well as a couple of intriguing events in Spain's history that I could use a little more information on. I really need to research movies before I watch them from now on.
The movie centers around Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish painter, and his connection to Ines, a young woman whose portrait he has painted and who is in deep trouble with the Spanish Inquisition for failing to nosh on a piece of pork at a dinner party. She is branded a Judaizer and a heretic, tortured, and thrown in prison for 15 years. Goya's role is to forget all about her for all that time and then try to help her at the end, the old 'too-little-too-late' thing. By this time, the French Revolution has reached Spain, a power struggle ensues, Ines is let out of prison and seeks the help of Goya to find the daughter she bore while in prison, etc. etc. The end of the film finds Ines pretty much insane, her ex-priest rapist dead, and Goya following lamely along as she walks with the death-cart along the streets of Madrid with somebody else's baby in her arms. Close curtain.
Okay, so what do you do at the end of an obtuse film like that? Why, you go to Wikipedia, that's what you do! You think, "This can't be the end of it--that's not even right!" You think, "Is this for real? What a weird story!" And so you begin to dig. And you find out that this movie is in fact bastardized historical fiction and bears no resemblence to any real events at all! You find out there was no Ines, no trouble with the Inquisition, no cross-mingling with the Revolution.
What you find out is that some sad little movie executive sat in the middle of his idea vacuum one day, when suddenly someone walked in with a preposterous idea for another Hollywood fricassee of history, and he just went for it. They must have figured that if they threw Natalie Portman in with all the no-name actors with schizophrenic Spanish accents, they'd have a sure thing on their hands.
I'll always maintain that the real victim of Y2K wasn't the tech industry at all--it was the movie industry. Evidently, on December 31, 1999, at 11:59 pm, Hollywood ran out of good movie ideas.
--Teri.
Netflix billed Goya's Ghosts as "the epic true story..." of Francisco Goya, the Spanish Inquisition, and the French Revolution. So we watched it, thinking we'd get a nice glimpse of a Spanish artist whose work was previously unknown to me, as well as a couple of intriguing events in Spain's history that I could use a little more information on. I really need to research movies before I watch them from now on.
The movie centers around Francisco Goya, the famous Spanish painter, and his connection to Ines, a young woman whose portrait he has painted and who is in deep trouble with the Spanish Inquisition for failing to nosh on a piece of pork at a dinner party. She is branded a Judaizer and a heretic, tortured, and thrown in prison for 15 years. Goya's role is to forget all about her for all that time and then try to help her at the end, the old 'too-little-too-late' thing. By this time, the French Revolution has reached Spain, a power struggle ensues, Ines is let out of prison and seeks the help of Goya to find the daughter she bore while in prison, etc. etc. The end of the film finds Ines pretty much insane, her ex-priest rapist dead, and Goya following lamely along as she walks with the death-cart along the streets of Madrid with somebody else's baby in her arms. Close curtain.
Okay, so what do you do at the end of an obtuse film like that? Why, you go to Wikipedia, that's what you do! You think, "This can't be the end of it--that's not even right!" You think, "Is this for real? What a weird story!" And so you begin to dig. And you find out that this movie is in fact bastardized historical fiction and bears no resemblence to any real events at all! You find out there was no Ines, no trouble with the Inquisition, no cross-mingling with the Revolution.
What you find out is that some sad little movie executive sat in the middle of his idea vacuum one day, when suddenly someone walked in with a preposterous idea for another Hollywood fricassee of history, and he just went for it. They must have figured that if they threw Natalie Portman in with all the no-name actors with schizophrenic Spanish accents, they'd have a sure thing on their hands.
I'll always maintain that the real victim of Y2K wasn't the tech industry at all--it was the movie industry. Evidently, on December 31, 1999, at 11:59 pm, Hollywood ran out of good movie ideas.
--Teri.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
the tenuous threads of faith
Ever so often (actually, much more often than I'm really comfortable with), I start a long and convoluted circle of thought about my faith. It starts out as a simple question what I actually believe. Then it gets a little deeper and into the less easily-answered questions about why I believe those things and what the rest of the world believes. Before I know it, I'm in up to my ear lobes in the mirey ponderances about the nature of faith itself in relation to my experience. And it gets very confusing, yet always draws me back ultimately to the very first question, and maybe this is why I start over and over again. It goes something like this:
"Okay, so why do I believe Christianity is all that, anyway?" (This leads to some preliminary and sometimes vague rumination on historicity, bibliographical evidence, the nature of man, et cetera. Okay, deeper we go now...)
"So what about Islam? Judaism? Hinduism? Taoism? Agnosticism? Aren't there some great Muslim apologists with air-tight cases for their faith?" (This gets more difficult to answer in my own headspace, but I can still track with some basic facts of history to provide some insight on the origins and underpinnings of these other religions. On to the murkies...)
"In my own experience, what has flavored my view of religion and of the nature of God?" (This is where I get hopelessly muddled in how my culture, my emotional wounds, my exposure to media, my geographical locale, my relationships, my education, my philosophical leanings, even the food I eat has influenced how I view faith and my relationship to God. At this point, I generally throw my intellectual hands up in dispair and figure that it's all impossible to parse out.)
And then I'm back at square one the next time, determined to someday complete (or break) that circle and get to the inside of what drives and informs this sometimes misunderstood faith of mine.
Was religion meant to be this hard-thought upon?
--Teri.
"Okay, so why do I believe Christianity is all that, anyway?" (This leads to some preliminary and sometimes vague rumination on historicity, bibliographical evidence, the nature of man, et cetera. Okay, deeper we go now...)
"So what about Islam? Judaism? Hinduism? Taoism? Agnosticism? Aren't there some great Muslim apologists with air-tight cases for their faith?" (This gets more difficult to answer in my own headspace, but I can still track with some basic facts of history to provide some insight on the origins and underpinnings of these other religions. On to the murkies...)
"In my own experience, what has flavored my view of religion and of the nature of God?" (This is where I get hopelessly muddled in how my culture, my emotional wounds, my exposure to media, my geographical locale, my relationships, my education, my philosophical leanings, even the food I eat has influenced how I view faith and my relationship to God. At this point, I generally throw my intellectual hands up in dispair and figure that it's all impossible to parse out.)
And then I'm back at square one the next time, determined to someday complete (or break) that circle and get to the inside of what drives and informs this sometimes misunderstood faith of mine.
Was religion meant to be this hard-thought upon?
--Teri.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
let the craving begin
Sushi...for breakfast. (Hold the wasabi. No, wait. Gimme that wasabi! Ugh--I HATE wasabi! Where's the wasabi??)
McDouble in the afternoon (just one).
Cheese pizza for dinner.
Brownies.
Tartar sauce at bedtime.
Why does Starbucks close so dang early?
This was day one of the cravings. Pray for my husband.
--Teri.
McDouble in the afternoon (just one).
Cheese pizza for dinner.
Brownies.
Tartar sauce at bedtime.
Why does Starbucks close so dang early?
This was day one of the cravings. Pray for my husband.
--Teri.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
thoughts from afar
I dropped a bombshell on Facebook this afternoon, confessing that I've finally come to terms with the fact that I've been involved in a very intimate long distance relationship for a very, very long time.
We'll see if I get any turned heads.
Who is it? What is his name? Does Christopher know?? Well, yeah, Christopher knows. And I'm pretty sure he's happy for me. I talk about this relationship all the time with him, in fact, even when things feel a little rocky and I'm not sure that both sides of the relationship are working out.
It's not too hard to guess that my distal infatuation is with, in fact, the God of the universe. It just struck me finally this morning that my relationship with Him is so like a long-distance romantic relationship, always longing for more, never spending enough quality time together, worrying that something is wrong, interpreting and misinterpreting silences, always giddy over the next encounter.
Maybe this makes it a little easier to wrap my mind around the intangibility of my faith and the awkwardness of not having a sense of solid presence of God in my life all the time.
--Teri.
We'll see if I get any turned heads.
Who is it? What is his name? Does Christopher know?? Well, yeah, Christopher knows. And I'm pretty sure he's happy for me. I talk about this relationship all the time with him, in fact, even when things feel a little rocky and I'm not sure that both sides of the relationship are working out.
It's not too hard to guess that my distal infatuation is with, in fact, the God of the universe. It just struck me finally this morning that my relationship with Him is so like a long-distance romantic relationship, always longing for more, never spending enough quality time together, worrying that something is wrong, interpreting and misinterpreting silences, always giddy over the next encounter.
Maybe this makes it a little easier to wrap my mind around the intangibility of my faith and the awkwardness of not having a sense of solid presence of God in my life all the time.
--Teri.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
the two trees
Just thinking on this poem by William Butler Yeats today...
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart;
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody;
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
--Teri.
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart;
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody;
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
--Teri.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
the weight of the world
Christopher and I were sitting in a bagel shop downtown the other morning, having shuffled our children off for the weekend so we could enjoy some alone time together, when our conversation came around to the weightier issues of the world and what we're supposed to do about them. It ocurred to me that, while the world is a mighty big place full of mighty big problems, it shouldn't really be that hard to 'spread the love', so to speak, and start making a dent in the suffering experienced around the world.
On our own, it's easy to think that our small contributions to humanity can't possibly make any difference. Christopher turned to me at one point in our conversation and queried me about whether we needed to be doing more about the homelessness problem in Colorado Springs, and it suddenly felt as if we were neglecting the needs of our fellow man completely. But I asked him, "What would it take for us to feel like we're doing enough?" And that question didn't have an easy answer until we began to consider how easy it would be to solve a great many problems if we all just did a little.
What if each of us supported just one other person in some way? What if, for each child in the United States who has been blessed with an economically stable home, there was a poor child in a third-world country being supported financially, educationally, spiritually, and medically? What if a family with enough sponsored a family without enough? What if a pregnant woman in the United States helped provide prenatal support for a pregnant woman in Afghanistan? What if a single adult in America sponsored a single adult in Haiti?
Then the weight of the world would be on all of our shoulders, where it belongs, where we carry each other, where we are carried by each other, and where we all carry the world forward.
--Teri.
On our own, it's easy to think that our small contributions to humanity can't possibly make any difference. Christopher turned to me at one point in our conversation and queried me about whether we needed to be doing more about the homelessness problem in Colorado Springs, and it suddenly felt as if we were neglecting the needs of our fellow man completely. But I asked him, "What would it take for us to feel like we're doing enough?" And that question didn't have an easy answer until we began to consider how easy it would be to solve a great many problems if we all just did a little.
What if each of us supported just one other person in some way? What if, for each child in the United States who has been blessed with an economically stable home, there was a poor child in a third-world country being supported financially, educationally, spiritually, and medically? What if a family with enough sponsored a family without enough? What if a pregnant woman in the United States helped provide prenatal support for a pregnant woman in Afghanistan? What if a single adult in America sponsored a single adult in Haiti?
Then the weight of the world would be on all of our shoulders, where it belongs, where we carry each other, where we are carried by each other, and where we all carry the world forward.
--Teri.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
confessions of a reluctant jesus freak
Jesus lives in me. There-- I said it. That hurt.
I was challenged at church on Sunday morning to resist the urge to pandyfoot around my religion and to start being more up-front about what I believe. I didn't think that would be too much of a problem--until the speaker challenged the crowd to use the words. At that moment, a quote I learned in childhood popped into my head: "If you tell people you talk to God, they say you're religious. If you tell them that God talks to you, they say you're crazy." For me to say 'Jesus lives in me' is even crazier-sounding than 'God talks to me', and yet it's pretty much the core of my belief as a Jesus-freak.
So what does it mean?
Good question. Maybe I haven't spent enough time thinking about that. If we're talking about a manifestation of an actual spirit, that's awefully hard for me to get my head around. What's easier to think about is the essence of Jesus' teaching and ethos living on in my heart and mind. Then again, maybe I'm tempted to limit the power of the supernatural, and maybe there is some sort of mystical possession taking place. And I guess I'm okay with that, though it's a lot harder to explain and feels pretty woo-woo to write or speak about. I do know that when I have moments of extreme clarity or above-and-beyond patience or understanding, it doesn't feel like it comes from me, but Someone higher granting much-needed grace in the middle of my lack-of-wisdomness.
Maybe faith is like skin, strong and yet tenuous, and I've never felt completely comfortable within either one, but I've never been able to do without the essential nature of either one, either. So somewhere inside of my faith and inside of my skin, Jesus lives in some fashion, and I hope He understands the relationship better than I do and that He's comfortable here.
--Teri.
I was challenged at church on Sunday morning to resist the urge to pandyfoot around my religion and to start being more up-front about what I believe. I didn't think that would be too much of a problem--until the speaker challenged the crowd to use the words. At that moment, a quote I learned in childhood popped into my head: "If you tell people you talk to God, they say you're religious. If you tell them that God talks to you, they say you're crazy." For me to say 'Jesus lives in me' is even crazier-sounding than 'God talks to me', and yet it's pretty much the core of my belief as a Jesus-freak.
So what does it mean?
Good question. Maybe I haven't spent enough time thinking about that. If we're talking about a manifestation of an actual spirit, that's awefully hard for me to get my head around. What's easier to think about is the essence of Jesus' teaching and ethos living on in my heart and mind. Then again, maybe I'm tempted to limit the power of the supernatural, and maybe there is some sort of mystical possession taking place. And I guess I'm okay with that, though it's a lot harder to explain and feels pretty woo-woo to write or speak about. I do know that when I have moments of extreme clarity or above-and-beyond patience or understanding, it doesn't feel like it comes from me, but Someone higher granting much-needed grace in the middle of my lack-of-wisdomness.
Maybe faith is like skin, strong and yet tenuous, and I've never felt completely comfortable within either one, but I've never been able to do without the essential nature of either one, either. So somewhere inside of my faith and inside of my skin, Jesus lives in some fashion, and I hope He understands the relationship better than I do and that He's comfortable here.
--Teri.
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