Function:noun Pronunciation: -'kwO Etymology: Latin, state in which : the existing state of affairs <seeks to preserve the status quo>
Had to look it up anyway for spelling. I've misspelled my own name.
It's raining in LA. Nice! Afterwards green foliage shows up more and everywhere. LA Fathers must have loved trees because they are everywhere. Across the street very odd shaped, tall trees hundred and hundreds of years old and still living just fine thank you, home to crows, squirrels and lots of birds.
It's as if there's a race in progress: who will birth first? Mark Andrew our hoped for son in utero, or four eggs of the finches, male and female? I know I know, really, how disrespectful it sounds to so moon over the eggs of a finch a bird so small it's half as big as your palm. But you see, up close they love each other. One sits, two sit, or both sit. Lately more often the latter.
Yesterday I received an email, in answer to mine, from a friend of very long standing, many decades in other words. I haven't seen him for more than twenty years. In my email I happened to mention that we were expecting in about ten days or so, maybe two weeks, groan. My old friend's reply was fairly long, and pleasant, if a tad critical at moments. What struck me as odd is that he replied to everything I said, except The Big News. That is, not a word about the impending arrival of Mark Andrew.
There is a sense in which we are all separated from each other. Perhaps, come to think of it, one of the functions of marriage is to provide an opportunity for true and complete closeness.
Good grief Charlie Brown, mention marriage and loose uppers fall all over the place, along with hair pieces, various implants, and commonplace dignity and decorum.
So THAT'S why for ten years I've never read an ENTRY or a message board post about the institution. Oh oh oh, but I've heard a heap of favorable opinions about it's time to give same-sex formal unions a chance. Bah humbug! Scrouge oughtta take over the whole subject. That's what's happening, come to think of it: and I thought I was joking!???
Barry
In America this morning (I just got up) the burning issue of the day is Brittany Spears is bald. Hey, everything is coming unstuck.
Marriage. Hmmm, who dare talk of marriage? Knotty subject. Yet,
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments; love is not love which bends to the remover to remove, but looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark........", ...... oh dear, I can't remember Shakespeare's sonnet after all. I thought I'd have it forever. I've looked it up; hard to post it here because to keep the individual lines intact I'd have to leave a huge space between lines.
Romance and poetry go together because both are ethereal.......or can handle that which is spiritual, etc.....
Main Entry: ethe·re·al
Function:adjective Pronunciation: i-'thir-e-&l 1 a: of or relating to the regions beyond the earth b:CELESTIAL , HEAVENLY c:UNWORLDLY , SPIRITUAL 2 a: lacking material substance :IMMATERIAL , INTANGIBLE b: marked by unusual delicacy or refinement <this smallest, most ethereal, and daintiest of birds -- William Beebe>
We don't think that way anymore do we? Or do we, secretly? In ten years Online, mostly on writer's message boards, I've yet to see anyone talk about marriage, nor have I read anything on the subject entered in anyone's Online journal. I've been hammered and jerked around continually for having what the disgusting writer insists is my Philippine, purchased bride. Of course that male 'writer' is gay, and as far as I know has no bride male or female. He must 'hug' himself, ha ha ha ha.....groan....
In watching my finches interact with each other I think they love each other as much or more than any human couple I've observed.
This subject is too hard. I'll maybe return to it on another day. Pity. I'm not tough minded enough, at least not today...
Four eggs survived okay and are continually sat upon by one or the other, or as at night, by both. I'm not positive but when I try to softly whistle the male seems either angry or happy that I'm paying attention to him. My goal is to make both feel relaxed and 'at home.'
At the latest doctor visit all was found AOK; next, and maybe last before delivery, is Feb. 26. Position is excellent. Movement incredibly reassuring, and our other children full of plans to take up their roles in our future, even busier household.
There are as of this minute five eggs in the finchs' nest. One of the eggs seems mishapen, like a long tube; but maybe that's what all of them looked like when first 'dropped.' I'm touched and inspired by the fact that the male takes his turn to sit on the eggs. It's all very exciting, but I'm being cautious about allowing the children to think babies will automatically arrive. Don't want them to associate birth with death. After all, they are wound tight waiting for the imminent arrival of Mark Andrew Bartle, due on or before March 7. Mark's heart on the ultrasound is strong and persistent-sounding like he's spoiling for the rollicking fun of being alive and no longer 'captive' of his mother. He moves with stunning abruptness and force. We'd all better hold onto our hats and say a prayer. Please join me, anyone so inclined. THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! in advance! ((hug))
The Finches have now produced, and alternately sit upon, two eggs. I've been warned, by the neighbor who gave me the female, that the eggs might not be fertile. What! Something not fertile in MY house? Impossible. There is a powerful and affecting love between the two birds. The bird lover journal keeper who used to be here moved to a private blog; when she was here it was birds birds birds. The birds I believe were a refuge from a beastly husband, I think. Or, substitute, as they were no longer together. Come to think of it, she never mentioned her birds, of which there were plenty, at any time as laying eggs. Not happy in marriage, she maybe took pity on her birds and kept them unmarried. No?
Function:biographical name Pronunciation: 'shi-l&r (Johann Christoph) Friedrich von 1759-1805 German poet & dramatist; regarded as second only to Goethe in German literature and as first among German dramatists; renowned especially for The Robbers, Wallenstein, William Tell, etc.
Odd for the dictionary to omit this poet's poem Ode To Joy the words of which Beethoven supplies his enormous choir in his Ninth Symphony, the Chorale. You know, the two hour (?) work that is the anthem of The United Nations. Luckily the 'Ode' is non-specific as to denomination, or even religion, so it is universally admired, loved, and frequently performed.
The year of the second Olympics to be held in Los Angeles, 1984, was the year my two younger brothers visited me from Australia, thetwo brothers born in Australia. I had been born eight years earlier in California. During dinner my oldest brother, who unknown to me at the time knew he would soon die, blurted out at dinner that he never cared for Beethoven. He was a school principal in Australia. I have no idea why he launched into his non-Beethoven music preferences. At a loss for how to reply I noted that The Chorale by Beethoven had been adopted by the UN. It is a point of pride, or used to be, for the residents of the former penal colony to eschew culture and the arts. For example, Australia's most famous poem, The ManFrom Snowy River is about capturing an escaped race horse, an animal that in real life had probably been a big pony.
Even if a listener to Beethoven's 9th has perfect German it's unlikely that he'd understand a single word sung by the choir. The most thrilling sections sound as if they are being sung by over one thousand children blessed with angelic soprano voices. Since the composer was struggling with onrushing deafness at the time of composition I kinda doubt he cared whether the actual words were understood: it was the music pure and simple that carried his heart. Of the four major parts of the work, so numbered by my CD version, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti conductor, 1988, it is only the last, section #4, that is sung. Presumably the major content of this section is expressions of "Joy." Yes, it is indubitably joyfull. Early sections seem to deal with varying kinds of struggle. Can we assume the overall structure is about how Joy can triumph over intense struggle, showing that the stuggle was worth the effort? Let's hope the UN makes that thesis come to life. At present "struggle" is too mild a word to characterize our international, ongoing ghastly predicaments.
A funny, cute, odd, touching, piece of music recording history is that the engineers who created the first CD had as their aim to make a single disc on which could be placed Beethoven's entire 9th Symphony. They succeeded!
If I make this any longer this isn't going to get read is it? A grim AOL writer's boards female school teacher, with a screen name I forget, but it's something like ChockFullofNutsQPD, opined that I must make an outline before I leave any of my writing anywhere other than the toilet. Well, that sounds too much like hard work. I'm lazy.
But in age I am truly enthralled by Beethoven's intense desire to express for our pleasure his many transports of Joy. It is known that near the end of his life at the conclusion of conducting one of his works he had to be physically turned around so he could at least see, even if not hear, the thunderous waves of applause by the now standing audience.
Next I might try to isolate the many different methods by which Beethoven 'talks' to us. I can't read music so I'll have to do it by crude methods. Conversation is one method. A short 'statement' will be made by certain instruments, then the same statement will be repeated by different instruments, sort of in appreciation or in acknowledgement: perhaps a variation will add an additional feeling. So, one might daringly assume, "Joy" comes in part from conversation!
Oaxaca: A Mexican State facing the Pacific Ocean; Oaxaca, also the capital city of the state of Oaxaca approximately 100 miles inland from resort town Puerto Escondido site of an annual surfboarding contest in November when the waves are many and large.
The State of Oaxaca is home to a large Native Indian population, the majority of whom still speak native Indian language(s) as well as Spanish. The ones I met either owned stores on the Adoquin at Puerto Escondido, or were employed by those tourist stores frequented by people from all over Latin America and from Europe. The last surf contest I attended (as a spectator!) was sponsored by a French clothing manufacturer who told me soto voce that he resented the lack of sponsorship by local merchants. Mexicans, in general, are deeply resentful of foreign tourists: in fact, American tourists, especially elderly retirees, are routinely murdered, and I therefor strongly recommend that an American simply never go there. I lived in Mexico for nearly five years, in Guadalajara first, in the State of Jalisco, then Puerto Escondido; I was safer than I might otherwise have been because I was accompanied by my Filipina wife who spoke Spanish, and because I had close Mexican friends, one of whom had worked in America for several years, and who had three sons working in the USA Carolinas. At the end of our stay we lived in a beach front, two storey house owned by an employee of the PRI (ruling political party) in Oaxaca (city) but who lost her job when the PRI was voted out of office. We could have bought the house, but we'd had trouble owning anything in Mexico so we came home instead: we gave the piece of land we bought to Arturo, my close friend, who has built a house there with a great view of the Pacific Ocean with its sunsets to die for.
We were vastly amused every Christmas to New Year when Mexican tourists flocked to that beach, Playa Zicatella, and stripped. During that time of year I made it my business to walk from our rented house to the post office in town and view the scene, male and female nudes, three miles of them along the whole length of the beach. The rest of the year, in the State of Oaxaca, I believe, almost universal decorum reigns. Another beach, further South,smaller, has year round nudity, but for reasons beyond my knowledge the show there is somehow furtive, and perhaps guilty, so embarrassing to be looking even briefly. Swimming at that beach is really dangerous because of the currents that when I swam there seemed to travel strongest parallel to the shore. If you swim with the current you'll be safe, but swimmers panic and try to fight the current and drown. The same thing happens at Playa Zicatella: there are small plaques cemented into the rocks, remembrances of the dead, mostly young people who very likely had never been to the ocean before their trip from Mexico City for the holidays. There are no lifeguards. There are no shark lookouts. As a former Australian such ommissions seem deliberately suicidal, or just plain dumb ass macho suicidal.
One of several reasons I retired to Mexico, beside the obvious strength of the dollar against the Peso, was my fantasy that The Church would be strong there; I wanted to be a better Catholic. The truth turned out to be that the Church in Mexico is primarily decorative. I saw more ardor for spirituality when a rain stain on the walls of an overpass was taken as a reproduction of a portrait of Mary, the Mother of God. The site became a shrine. A trucker left a picture of himself and his truck attached to the wall of the underpass near the water stain. Others left letters and prayers. On TV I watched the Catholic wedding of a Mexican movie star and his movie star woman. They giggled and looked at each other during the entire ceremony. I'm not positive, but I believe Pope John Paul skipped Mexico on one trip to the New World.
We left Mexico, myself, wife pregnant, and son Vincent on September 10, 2001. The next day, 9/11, we stopped for gas en route to California. A laughing, gas station attendant, told us that Boston had been bombed. What he'd gotten from the news he garbled: he meant that a plane leaving Boston had turned itself into a bomb in NYC. See? Mexican just dote on seeing Americans in pain; oh how he laughed!
When we crossed into California the border guard was oh oh oh so pleasant and welcoming!!!! With a very broad grin he walked to our vehicle and asked, "Well, what have we got here?!" I replied "A wife and kids." "Welcometo America" he said. He wouldn't even glance at our papers.
The kind words from ladeeoftheworld's Comment to the previous ENTRY give me pause. She strongly suggests, at least to me, that Finch eggs rarely hatch - my neighbor's bird, which he gave to me, didn't reproduce from two batches of eggs. Hardly a reasonably large sample, but worth mulling over.
Any suggestions? Should I simply just get over my aversion to incompletions? Ha ha ha. The current situation, on day three, is that the male sits in the nest during the day (they are together in the nest at night when the cage is covered) for short periods, as well as 'pretending' to line the nest with Pet-Store-supplied material, but he makes the same kind of short visits to the bird seed container. He's nervous? Warming up?
I've seen the face of war. A young man, still in his thirties, a neighbor, served I've just found out from my son, age eleven, in the Gulf war. Oh my God how can I explain this? So help me I was involuntarily shown his condition during our discussion of the care and maintenance of two finches in a cage. The cage, and one of the birds, he had given my son as a gift when he moved to the house next door and decided to give up trying to have his female finch lay fertile eggs. He has children roughly the same age as mine.
The female bird he gave my son had twice lain eggs but they were not successfully fertilized. Furthermore the female could not fly. Now she flies with astounding skill, and is coupled already with a new lover. The latter is preparing the nest, while she keeps watch. At night they stay together in the nest not yet prepared for eggs. I bought the male for $9.95 at a pet store my neighbor directed me to. I've never owned a bird. Everything else, but never a bird. This bird converses with me when I whistle softly, improvising. I tried to woo her. Now I don't have to. I step aside. Of course.
In discussing how to support the couple my new neighbor becomes manic, his face twisting and eyes spreading wide. It's as if he needed to rebuild the cage with metal-working tools, shift the cage to another spot, add another wooden perch add drops to their water and cover the entire cage at night. With intense urgency he almost ordered me to remove the tiny round mirror (a mirror HE gave us!) from the cage lest one or the other become jealous seeing the other peruse the feathers of the mirror image of a 'stranger' bird. (I will do no such thing!) He reached, and almost began the removal; I didn't flinch or change my expression, just remained benign and still, smiling. He withdrew his hand as if almost caught in violence. What on earth can be going on inside? What conflagration can he have witnessed?
Much earlier in the day I met him crossing the street as I was driving off to find a male finch at a pet store. My neighbor came to the window and gave me directions to a second pet store since the other store was closed. In giving directions his face had contorted then too. At first I felt I was 'doing it' to him, that I was being too difficult in not immediately getting the details of his directions. Almost as if it were life and death.
How on earth am I going to handle this?
At present, she is sitting high in the cage on top of the mirrror frame, and he is hopping down lower from 'his' nest to one of the perches, all the while perusing his beloved higher up. Such dear devotion. Inspirational really.
