Blatherskite

Foolish gibberish

recent posts

about

I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.

  • I take after my Granny Mary, Pt. 2

    grandparents
    Matt, Grandpa Ed, Granny Mary, and me

    One warm Summer night, when I was still living in Spokane, at a family barbeque at my mom’s house, my mom tells us that my uncle found a cassette tape in a desk drawer and he didn’t know what to do with it so he gave it to my mom. She came home and popped it into a tape player and listened. It was a tape my granny mary recorded when she and my grandpa were on vacation. The used to go on road trips to mexico during the summer and this was one of those road trips. Each day she would talk a little bit about the day and what she saw. Click on the link for a little snippet (you have to click through a couple of times. I can’t figure out how to embed the media file into this post):
    granny mary

    So my mom puts on this tape and it was absolutely mind blowing. None of us had heard my grandparent’s voices since they died. I had forgotten what they sounded like! I’m not sure I can even describe what I was feeling when I heard this. It was liking seeing a ghost, only a very friendly, loving ghost. It was wonderful.

    My brother made a CD of the cassette and I have it on my iPod. Last summer when I was at my cousin’s house I played it for him. As we listened to it we talked about her and how odd it was for her to have made this tape. She recorded all of this on her vacation so she could share her time with her grandkids but then stuck the tape in a drawer, totally forgetting about it. Then we marveled at how ahead of her time she was. My cousin is quite a bit older than me and saw my grandmother a little bit differently than I did. He mentioned that she loved technology and wasn’t surprised that she utilized the latest technology to share her life with her family.

    As we talked about this I realized that my grandmother would totally be a blogger if she was alive today. Seriously! Because isn’t that was this cassette tape is? She felt compelled to share her adventures with others. She was essentially “blogging” her vacation.

    It was kind of cool to realize this about her and to realized that we have another thing in common. Because I totally get why she made that tape.

  • I take after my Granny Mary, Pt. 1

    My grandmother, Mary Boucher I miss my granny mary so much. She died 18 years ago. I still think about her nearly everyday.

    As I grow older I’m realizing how much I am like her. For example, she liked to knit. And it just so happens that I like to knit, too. When I was younger I looked at her knitting as something grandmothers or old ladies did. I picked up this hobby around the time that she died, 18 years ago, because I was drawn to it. I think it was a way to keep her memory alive in my mind.

    I SO get why she knitted. And it wasn’t because she was old and that is what old ladies do. Like me, she picked up the hobby in her twenties or thirties and enjoyed it all of her life. She was this beautiful woman you see in the picture and she knitted. She was also my grandmother who knitted when she was older.

    I love that we have this little connection. If you are a knitter you understand what I’m talking about. There is something about the process that soothes the soul. To quote Elizabeth Zimmerman:

    Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn’t hurt the untroubled spirit, either.

    I also really like that, because of this hobby that I love, I have a little bit of insight into her as someone other than just my grandmother. She was also a woman like me. Someone who receives great joy from creating something from two sticks and some string.

    There is another way in which we are similar that I have recently discovered. This realization came with the discovery of a cassette tape found in a desk drawer of her old house, which my uncle now occupies. I will tell this story tomorrow.

  • An observation

    Front cover
    Image via Wikipedia

    So I talked about how I’m eating all healthily and not eating sugar and blah blah blah. Well, yesterday I was tempted by the evil that is known as the M&M jar. M&M’s are my downfall. They wouldn’t be so bad if I could just stop at one or two. But no. Once I start eating them I literally can’t stop. This blog post is pretty much an accurate description of me when I start eating M&Ms. this quote in particular:

    My need for sugar would become so massive, that it would collapse in upon itself and create a vacuum into which even more sugar would be drawn until all the world had been stripped of sweetness.

    So. anyway. I had a little sugarfest yesterday that started with M&Ms and ended with the cutest little japanese cupcakes ever.

    None of it even tasted that good. And eventually I started feeling terrible. I was reminded of the book that I read in storytime the day before, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and how he ate through all of this yummy food on Saturday but ended up with a stomach ache.

    I woke up this morning and seriously felt terrible. I still kind of do. I almost talked myself out of running. I’ve been on this really great streak for a couple of months and to have it all just collapse because of a sugar hangover? How sad!

    it was actually kind of enlightening to really be able to step back and see how my actions produced this result in the way I feel. I’ve never really noticed it before. So next time I will most definitely think twice before sticking my hand, mindlessly, into the m&m jar.

    Lesson learned.

  • I seem to have run out of ideas for NaBloPoMo.

    I seem to have run out of ideas for NaBloPoMo.

    Funny how that happens. How about a picture I took today on my way to work instead?

    Oh! but I do have good news! We are moving to a new place! We finally got sick of living in this hideous apartment (took us long enough) and decided to take a look at a townhouse for rent here in town. loved the place! it’s bigger than our house in Spokane! So we’ll be busy packing up our stuff and moving to our new place in the next two weeks.

  • A Song For You

    I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been hesitant to post it because it is so personal. But it’s such a beautiful story and  I want to share it. so here it is.

    In April my mom called and told me she needed to tell me something. She thought she was going a  little crazy and she needed to talk to someone about it. She felt like she could trust me to listen without judgement, and she’s right. If I’m not anything else i’m open minded.

    So she began to tell me this amazing story that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. I’ve told it to several people (I hope I haven’t already shared it on my blog).

    This happened about 25 years ago when Doug and she were newly married. Patrick (my little brother, Doug’s son) was a baby and had been put to bed. Matt and I were teenagers and were out with our friends, so they had one of those rare evenings when they were alone together.

    They listened to music. Doug had a fantastic album collection. At one point  he played my mom a Leon Russell song. He put it on and began singing the song to her. It was “A Song For You.” It was a beautiful, romantic moment and my mom said that she never forgot it. It was also kind of  a strange moment because it wasn’t a song that he would normally listen to. They lyrics were a little bit odd, as well (which I will get to in a moment).

    She hadn’t heard that song again and that moment between them was never mentioned again, ever. that song wasn’t really a very popular song and it’s not like one would hear it on the radio. Not even on the “oldie’s station.”

    So last Thanksgiving Doug died. And the bottom fell out of her life for awhile but she’s been getting things back to “normal” little by little. She went back to work delivering magazines to grocery stores part time. At one point she noticed “A Song For You” playing at the store. She thought it was kind of odd (since it wasn’t a very popular song) but she went about her business and delivered her magazines. Then she kept hearing it. Over and over. She said she heard it everyday for 6 months. Each time she pushed it to the back of her head, not wanting to deal with that memory from 25 years ago.

    Then one day she stopped in the store in the middle of what she was doing and just listened to the lyrics. This is the part of the song that really got her:

    I love you in a place where there’s no space or time
    I love you for in my life you are a friend of mine
    And when my life is over
    Remember when we were together
    We were alone and I was singing this song for you

    that sends chills down my spine even now as I write this post.
    “I love you in a place where there’s no space or time.”

    So anyway. My mom finishes this story and I’m completely, well, I don’t know what I was. I had no words.

    This story just made me think about how vast and awesome the universe it.

    And that’s all I need to say about that.