weeks where decades happen...

*Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide, I know the U.N. and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have made similar declarations, but Amnesty is somehow better known and represented in the U.S. 

I also saw that the Vatican's nativity this year features a sweet baby Jesus swaddled in a keffiyeh; the statues themselves are carved by carpenters from the West Bank, reportedly. 

*The CEO of the largest US health insurance company was killed and the killer immediately became a folk hero. Stories about the killer abound (the bullets were inscribed with insurance delaying feint words, the backpack was full of Monopoly money) and it feels like this is how it might have felt to hear Robin Hood stories back in the 1300s. Big A said that when he walked into the ER the day it happened, he had never seen so many people celebrating someone's death since Bin Laden. It feels ugly to celebrate anyone's death. But it's also obscene to make 10 million dollars a year for sucessfully turning people's life support off and denying life-saving treatment from behind a desk. 

I am in NYC on a six-hour layover at JFK (on my way to join my sister for our long-awaited vacation together!!!!) when a friend jokingly texted to ask if I was there for the look-alike contest. Apparently, New Yorkers were celebrating by holding a killer look-alike contest. 

*Martial law was declared in South Korea and FAILED WITHIN HOURS due to people's actions and protests. 

* The Assad regime has collapsed in Syria and people are already making their way back home! 

the resistance

I am a little nobody

anyway, you're about 

               to tell me how I've sinned

               and now have to pay for it

yet don't we all suffer

for our own pleasure

               wanting to find it or die for it

               an animal snarl between words

so you hold the book

you ask the questions

               I turn the page, I lose my place

               I close the book, can't turn back 

I learn to ignore the door

make it my job to send 

               messages so secret only kisses

               taste the words we're thinking

______

I've done all the things: graded everything, uploaded all the recommendation letters, reviewed all three journal articles that had been languishing in my folder, designed a take-home comparative essay for the Gaza class that feels do-able. (Steph asked if it would be a pass/fail and I'm asking the university admin if that would be ok.) 

________

Pic: Koi in this weather seem miraculous to me... Radiology Gardens. 

getting there

Our tree is up, and here we are trying to take a picture for our holiday card. This year's "theme" is Indian scarves from my closet, and although I just tied Huck's on as a bandanna, it's already unravelling...

Somehow I'm the shortest human in the frame, 3/6 are smiling, and 4/6 are looking toward the camera... Perhaps it can't get better than this? I kind of like the excited and slightly wild vibe.

Offices seem deserted at work, but it's SO BUSY! My online Gaza course is winding down too. The big challenge here is to pare down my lecture slides as students are accessing materials from internet cafes, so big files are a challenge to download. Also, it's grad school application deadline time, so recommendation letters are due everywhere. Over at my regular job, it's finals week, and grading is piling up. It's a breathless kind of busy. It will get better this weekend.

Also, Nance commented that I must be proud of At, and--omigosh--I so am. In 2022, it was pretty heady and I wrote, "We’re so very proud of At, our labor organizer extraordinaire, who made national news for leading the first Chipotle in the country to unionization. I like these articles featuring At and coworkers:

Slate "Two mad-online leftists. The Starbucks-worker playbook. And an accordion."

Labor Notes "How Zoomers Organized the First Chipotle Union"

Jacobin "Chipotle Workers on How They Won the First Chipotle Union in the United States"

Washington Post "Michigan Chipotle outlet the chain’s first to unionize"

Related story in the Washington Post "The labor market is still red-hot — and it’s helping union organizers"

NPR "Chipotle in Michigan first to unionize for the fast-food chain nationwide"

snow... and how they grow

Pic: Our first serious snow of the year... Nu had a snow day and slept in. Max LOVES the snow but is wondering what the heck Dad is playing at. 

Big A is channeling toddler At playing hide and seek by "hiding" behind a tree. (We still tease At about how they "hid" behind a pole, shutting eyes, and imagining no one would be able to see them.) 

How they grow... At was on the radio today...

slide to the left

FB memories brought up this old poster from December 2011...

The Occupy Wall Street movement had spread to university campuses by November 2011 and students had begun organizing. There was a viral video of a policeman casually pepper-spraying students seated on the ground (it later became a meme too).

It started out as a conversation with GG about basics: Pepper-spraying students is wrong. Before long, we were organizing a teach-in with Nathan Brown from UC Davis, Pranav Jani and Steve Conn from OSU, and various Yellow Springers. 

Sometimes people belittle Occupy, but it held the seeds to the popularity of Bernie, the resurgence of the youth labor movement, and current university protests... People supposedly get conservative as they age, but in my case, I think I get more radical and angrier as I get older and learn more.

I'm thinking about these things because I'm proud of At, who is off to Seattle today as an invited speaker to the UFCW about democratically organizing a union. One of our dinner table jokes is that Pete Buttigieg's and Kamala Harris's parents must be disappointed in them--both of them had professor parents whose Marxist politics were probably more radical than that of their kids. We're definitely on more equal footing over at our place.

fathomless

people meet prayers        meet poems        meet promises        in overcrowded hearts      in empty situations        our fists in the face of fate      of gods        facing clandestine enemies        for survival eaten raw        what feeds us        what do we feed on          whom do we feed         where do we go        how do we go home        go back      go back to where we came from        home, home        home, home on the rage          what parts do we play        how many parts do we break into       spinning like stars        like dancers       like fragments        there is no hiatus to hate        sometimes they never suffer        but they never resurrect        in this life's assignment         I remember their faces      their names       what they used to do        and that they used to be

__________________________
Note: Mahmoud al-Madhoun, chef and co-founder of Gaza Soup Kitchen, who fed over 3000 people a day using whatever supplies he could scrounge up was targeted and killed by a drone strike this week. Three workers with World Central Kitchen were also killed this week (seven were killed earlier this year in April.) In a week where food and feeding people was dominant for most of us, I'm so broken by these daily reports of the targeted deaths of those trying to feed people in this engineered famine. 

a kind (of) bereavement

 

            our old house has new folks 

                       and so... now we are ghosts

              no one sees although we lived

                    here barely 12  years ago 

         morning  mists cling  to  us 

                        ghostly as nights of regret 

             our older selves are yet silent, 

                      uncertain, unknown outside

            we find we forget to exhale

                         are reminded there are no 

             songs in sighs and although

                          not quite death, cold-ness 

                 takes away our breath, leaves 

                          us to mourn a different lack 

                 of warmth despite being back

__________

Note: I felt a bit strange walking on our old street in Yellow Springs early in the day. I think I imagined that a neighbor or two would be out and that we'd have a warm impromptu reunion. I had plans with friends later in the day, but wanted the chance encounter too! Speaking of friends, I'm ordering a few copies of Rebecca Kuder's Dear Inner Critic Workbook to give as Christmas presents. 

____________

Pic: Our descent into Glen Helen for a long hike yesterday. Back in the day, when we lived across from the Glen, I feel we solved many of our parenting dilemmas and disagreements over a walk through these woods.

Three generations; three dogs

Pics: I snagged a photo of Nu, Big A, and his mom/Nu's gran for the family holiday card while we were in Yellow Springs...

And I like how when we pull back a bit from the tight frame of my three people, I can see the happy chaos of Max, Huckie, and Izzy making things a bit more festive.

I can't believe it's December!

Surprise Pizza!

We headed to Ohio this morning for Thanksgiving #2 with my lovely MIL. When we got there, we were a bit confused that all was calm and really relaxed with no signs or smells of cooking. Indeed, there were no signs of Thanksgiving at all. 

So we hung out and chatted and ordered pizza when it was time for dinner and all was well. I'm kind of glad my MIL didn't have to go to all the trouble of starting a big meal all by herself.

Pic: Max and Huck have always been suspicious of the robot vacuum, and it didn't help matters that it seems to be making off with Nu's ukulele here.

Some Thanksgiving Ubuntu

At the end of Thanksgiving dinner when everyone was saying what we were thankful for, I said I was so thankful for all the people we had around the table. This was true. We had a very full table. 

But the table was also full of a staggering amount of leftovers. I made 12 dishes not counting the pies (which I did not make) or the appetizers (which I did assemble/make)... and people loved the appetizers and the soup and then seemed to run out of steam for the meal itself. Even after people rallied and took leftovers home, there was still A LOT on the table. 

I'd really worked my butt off all day and I wanted people to enjoy it today instead of stockpiling leftovers forever, so I offered it on a local Facebook group. Then there were like 200 people blessing me (just for donating extras!?!) and quite a few takers. I had to take food to my grandbaby's family and drop At off anyway, so I loaded up the car and set off. And then At said they'd like to go with me to drop off food, so I got so much extra chatting time with my older lovey. (Jenny--see what I mean about my older one being a bit like yours?)  

At the end of the evening, as I dropped At off and headed home, I felt so satisfied: as though I was flying home, as though every traffic light in my way was green... I realized later that it could have just been because this was a day when the roads were empty... but it still felt pretty awesome.

It reminded me of my Ubuntu Canteen days.

Pic: A reasonably vague shot of the table when Big A and I got up to set up the dessert station.

flowers, food, and "face-wrestling"

I decided to do the flowers for the Thanksgiving table myself and that reminded me of Mrs. Dalloway saying she'd get the flowers herself. Then I briefly wondered if I was like her in surrounding myself with events as a way of avoiding the void.

Anyway, the day before an event is always suspenseful for me. I tend to make a lot of food, but we have just the one fridge and freezer, so I can't overshop or cook in advance, and it's a gamble if I'll find everything on my list. I didn't find parsnips today. But I suspect no one cares about the parsnips but me.

Pic: Max and Huck in a post-dinner "face-wrestle." There's a lot of groaning-growling-baring of teeth and positioning of jaws in scary ways... and they seem to be having so much fun. It reminds me of my two boy cousins--whoever arrived first at my grandmother's place for the weekend would wait anxiously for the other one, and the minute he arrived, he'd be greeted with the affectionate invitation, "Let's go fight, da!" And then my baby cousins would kinda fight like Max and Huck do now.