She's got that personality. . . Meyers Briggs. . . INFP

So this is what you do on Friday nights when you are married and taking this night off from your usual obsessions. You take a test that is similar to the Meyers-Briggs personality test. I got on here between cleaning the kitchen and folding laundry. It's nice having my three older boys out for a couple of nights as I can clean their room.

I am always either an ENFP or an INFP. Tonight I am an INFP. I always score close to 50-50 on the Introverted and Extroverted portion of the test. I hate that I feel and don't think as much, but then again, I score close to thinking, but never test into a "T." I feel (NOT THINK!!!) like the description fits me perfectly.

Tonight I bask in the personal comfort of sharing the same personality trait classification with A. A. Milne, J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Diamond,  and Laura Ingalls Wilder, to name a few. As we are all introverts and I am feeling introverted, we are only in the same classification, but probably not the same room as alone, we are working diligently on our own great things.

PS: I linked to Neil's song, "Forever in Blue Jeans." I used to hear that and think that he was singing, "Reverend Blue Jeans." It came out in the '70's and I pictured and itinerant minister who smoked plants and walked country roads with a guitar, preaching about Jesus and holding revivals. (The idea didn't appeal to me and I lean strongly toward Judaism.) The lyrics were not for me to judge and didn't bother me in the least, but I pictured him seducing (or being seduced) by farmer's daughters between revivals.

Games People Play

From NPR: Queen as they never thought they'd be heard!

I found this at NPR. It is Jake Shimabukuro on the ukelele playing Bohemian Rhapsody! This man may start a new trend in ukelele playing!

This is a sweet video that Cloud sent to me

Pleasant Things in the Evening

We are supposed to be fasting (basically eating in a vegan form) for the six weeks of Lent. I try to keep the fast, but it's costly. I always do as I can. My husband gets paid in a few days and I will do most of my shopping in the Fred Meyer health food section. We'll have a lot of Indian food and tacos. I wish that I lived closer to Anchorage so I could browse New Sagaya and be seduced by all their products and do a Lent the right way.

Trying to cook everything that I have and getting low, tonight I made chicken and rice in the crock pot.I love cooking in the crock pot-- when Darin comes home, the smell greets him before he opens the door. I used another crock pot to make a bread pudding with some stale hot dog and hamburger buns and dates. The whole dinner was great. Cloud gave me a huge crock pot for Christmas and I use it all the time. I used to use two small crocks and make dinner, but this is bigger than the two. (They are cheap but we never had the cash to get one big one-- money just went to other things.)

While I made dinner, Guy read to me. Guy doesn't read well, but he has speech impairments and has an impressive vocabulary when you can understand him. He sloshed through the book and Darin made him read it again, but he had to enunciate. Guy growled and he did a better job. Darin was playing Chess with Basil who is getting ready for a tournament soon. Dmitri was assigned a couple of chapters of a biography (written for third graders) on Einstein. At first he whined that he didn't care "about that stupid old man," and asked why he should care about him! Cloud picked up the book and started reading in a fake English accent and drew him in. They took turns reading chapters to each other and within an hour the book was read and he was laughing and said he wished he had met him. That made me happy, then he mentioned that Guy has problems like Albert Einstein did in school and spoke late-- "maybe Guy will be like Einstein!"

Guy looked up from his book and said, "E equals M. . . what did he say, Dad?"

All while this was going on, Mudd was running around through the kitchen with a remote control car and chasing the cats and dog with it. They are not allowed to use the remote control car around me, especially when I am cooking, but he was a bit fast and my hands and lower arms were covered in flour. Before she ripped up bread for the pudding, Calamity Jane was coming in and asking me for Spanish words that she is learning, and at one point came in to sing "Get Rhythm" and twirled a jump rope over her head, knocking over a plastic bowl that was perched on the cupboard. Mudd would toss a salad for me, getting salad all over the cupboard, but he was having fun and I contained him all right. Starshine was dancing "to music that is in my mind!" She wanted me to guess and not knowing, I started singing, "Menomenah!" It wasn't what she was imagining but the whole family got into it! Puppets from the school cabinet popped up from behind the bar, courtesy of Basil and Guy, and we got a little crazy, dancing and singing!

The bread pudding was great-- the kids loved it and asked if I could make it a birthday cake for them some time ;) Darin had enough leftovers for lunch and Cloud was happy with that because we NEVER have leftovers, but "her" crock pot was just big enough to have seconds for everyone and a little extra. This won't last long though-- he asked me to plan to cook with the Giant Cloud crock pot and one of the smaller ones so I can freeze several lunches for him in the future.

With this being Lent, we started out the evening meal by lighting a candle in front of the icon wall and praying. The whole meal, the before-fun, made it wonderful.

I'm starting a mulch pile-- an old friends' mom who lives for gardening in our fair state told me to start a mulch pile. I have a clean trash can that she told me to put near my garage for tossing vegetable scraps, coffee and tea and their filters, and egg shells. We don't have a lot of money for the garden so she says this is where to start, buy composting. The kids actually like helping me peel vegetables knowing that they can dump the peels and whatever in to my sink-side container, I think because they are thinking of summer.

music I love

This is a very sensual rendition of Louise Tucker's Midnight Blue. It may not be safe for work. It's not tacky-- I think it is beautiful.

This second one is not sexy, but dramatic with the singer singing her song and in the video. I have two capes like hers, in black and green.



This third one is a song that I sing in the car when I go places that God sends me that I really don't like going to! It makes me very happy and I met a man who recognized me from weeks before (I live in Alaska; it's small) and he asked what I had been singing because he said that my "radiant face" cheered him up on a very sad day. When I sing this, in my heart I am dancing en pointe (in spite of painful toes) and my heart is free!

I Know You're Out There Somewhere

I'm too tired to write ATM-- a flu is going through the house. It's not the throwing up kind. It's chronic back aches! I have to study. I just watched this song and got reminiscent.

My writing prof brought up an idea for where my writing is going. I can't elucidate right now but she threw me for a loop. I'm signing up for a second semester with her. She and I just wrote back and forth last semester, I did a few stories for her, but nothing special. I thought she would fail me but I got an A because she was seeing growth that you are not seeing on this blog-- yet. She says that my muses get to me via various angels they put in my way and that I have the sense to sometimes recognize them. What I hate is how I don't get to write about fun froth. In an age where the economy is going south, I am writing about issues that are uncomfortable that she says society is ready to confront and that I need to write in a Jane Public sort of way. I'm really good at being shallow! Why can't I write about sex starved debutantes and hockey moms? (She said, "Because I'd have failed you. Next question?") Why can't I write a bad Disney movie about a hockey mom who wants to be Vice President? LOL I chatted up a psychologist who says my research will take me to dark places that I don't want to go. (It's not about witchcraft or anything evil on the surface.) I like to eat. I need to be a food writer. I should write children's books. I know my prof is right and that what she said is the right path for me, but I really want to be lite and shallow.

I'm really tired. More later.

Music, Corsets and Dentists

Do you love my music choice? I love David Soul and Bobby Sherman. Even though Bobby Sherman is old now, I think he's a stallion. I used to walk my gassy babies to "Julie-Julie-Julie do ya love me?" I love his voice, and David Soul is a complete babe. My sisters used to be "in love" with him.

I am getting another corset. My first is a basic one that I ordered from Romantasy. My waist, in spite of having not worn it every day or even half as much as I should have to break it in because even though summer was cool it was too hot for Tea, is down as far as the corset will go at 24". I started at 28" and had a deflated abdomen-- not fat by any means, just loose. Contrary to what doctors think when they hear of my corseting, it doesn't squeeze in my organs. Ann, the proprietress of this company, doesn't want her clients in pain.

The corset that I want will be leather-- a Sue Nice Victorian underbust, and my husband hates-hates-hates that I am doing this. He loves the results and the clothes that I wear with them, but he really doesn't like that I lace myself in to these things. I would like to get down to a 20" waist-- a little freaky, but not as small as I was before having children. I often wear conservative clothes-- I got scolded at church by a hen about not dressing mmodestly (I was fine-- she just thought I could do better than professional suits) and I think that when you get that hourglass figure, you really show off the modest clothes better! Could this be why women corseted in the earlier centuries? They couldn't show their legs or arms so instead of looking gender neutral, they corseted? I love how I look and feel in these. I'll probably be 60 wearing these things. (If I look like my mom, no one will know that I am 60!)

I'll be going 23/7 as soon as this gets broken in-- ordering takes a few weeks or months to get here. Hopefully I can be tightlacing by January.

I took the kids to the dentists today. I had 7 of them with me and we were there for 3 hours. They wanted me in back when the kids were being worked on. The assistant was really nice and she said that last time my children were there they told her why I hate dental assistants! Word for word! I can only imagine her amusement upon hearing my 8 year old tell her that they hire the most insipid bores who like to talk at dental offices! Oh dear goodness, that must have amused her! She is from Canada, recently learned to play violin (she is my age) and is quite intelligent. I was very happy to have spoken with her. She said that they would love to have me as a patient and I said I couldn't because she is too interesting and would complain of chatty patients! She is very dedicated and does a lot of volunteering in a community south of where I live that is renowned for it's drug use and parents passing the kids to the grand parents so they can stay stoned. I was very much enjoying her discussion and hearing of what she does.

In the wait room there was a drama going on-- they have a room for TV and it has three doors-- one to the regular waiting room, one to the main hallway of the business office building, and one to the dentists' offices. My six youngest thought the doors were really fun. They were not clamming thembut apparently opening them and sneaking around in to the room through the other ones. There is a window so the receptionists could keep an eye on them and they said that while the kids were not angels that they were at least original in how they teased one another.

I'm buying Guy a clarinet. Kids cost a lot of cash.

Camping Trip: Part 3 The Cemetery

The camping area that we went to was right next to a cemetery. I have always annoyed my family with my interest in cemeteries. My mom would say to me, "We are in a different city! You don't know anyone!" It didn't matter that I knew no one-- behind each tombstone was a story and I liked looking at them, noticing if flowers were still put in vases and what they showed of the person buried or their survivors, be it pictures, trinkets left behind or wedding rings carved on the tombstone. I'd take fresh flowers in if I could and put them on tombstones with vases embedded in them.

On Saturday night I took several of the children to the one that our campsite was near. Cloud, Dmitri, Calamity Jane and Mudd came with me. The kids acted scared at first, little victims of Scooby-Doo shows and scary ghost stories. We just walked and Cloud wanted to sing, so we sang some pretty hymns that I've sung to them since they were babies and O Danny Boy which I have been singing since my music class last semester. As we walked, I noticed a very elderly lady sitting at a grave and I shushed the kids but she invited us to come over. She told us about her long marriage and her husband who also loved to sing even though he sang out of key. (Perhaps like us!) She asked us to sing for him so we stood behind her and just sang. We sang three songs, I'll Fly Away, Down to the River to Pray, and O Danny Boy. She was crying as were we. Her son who was with her but standing a ways off came over and lead us in Danny Boy-- my voice started to crack and I had a rough time going on and we kind of pulled each other through with the kids having the same problem. The first two songs in what we sang for her husband are from the movie, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" We love that sound track.

I wonder if my music teacher thought that I'd be croaking out music with my kids in this manner. . . it was very moving. I think the greatest performances are the ones that few see. I may not produce great musicians, and I don't have the money or the time to invest in lessons, but on Saturday night I felt like we did something very, very special.

As the kids and I walked through the cemetery, Cloud and Dmitri were doing the math and figuring out ages. Old people over the age of 20 die and that's normal, but they crossed themselves for the babies and young children. The grass had just been mowed and they were kneeling down on the flush tombstones and wiping it away.

Later Dmitri thanked me for taking him. I asked why and he explained that there is a story behind each stone. . . that made me happy that he thought so much about them.

On Sunday Dmitri wanted to go up to the playground with a new friend. Darrin reminded him of the rules and he said, "Do you know why you don't talk to strangers?" Dmitri said, "Because they will ask you to sing and you will feel sad for them."

PS: I almost posted a picture of a little boy's tombstone but then wondered if it would upset his parents. Anyway, it moved the kids a great deal.

Out but not Down

I went to the audition on Sunday. Last night I got a phone call from the director personally thanking me for showing up and asking if I wanted a critique. I did. He asked me what I thought went wrong and I told him that I felt wooden.

He said that my fatal weakness was my vocal quality-- he said that my poise was great considering that I was doing dramatic scenes. "Loose"would have not worked. He said that my body played to the audience, but that I had this weak voice. He considered calling me back but told me that while vocal diction can be brushed up on, if an actor doesn't have it, it may or may not be learned and he couldn't risk that. He didn't know me well enough or my history to know this.

He could tell that I was a singer which shocked me. (I'm not a singer.) I want to get private voice lessons because I cannot afford to drive to town for more classes at the college, but I would not say that I am a singer. I love to sing but I'm not quite there.

Anyway, he asked me if there were any plays that I am really interested in and I told him that there are and which one it is that I really want. He advised me on what to do and what I need to overcome.

I am so glad that I got through that audition and I am really happy that I met the director. I wish him the very best and will probably go to any play he directs just because I have decided that he is a super person.

~~~~

One of my sons today decided (out of the blue) to flip cars off. He's 10 and knows better. Well, he said, the kid across the street was doing it. He said that the kid across the street told him to. I just about burst out laughing. "Too bad he can't help you with your homework."

My son said, "It's summer and I don't have homework."

I said, "Oh yes, you have homework. And before you go back out to play, you need to have your times tables memorized."

He complained. He's in a special ed. class! He doesn't have it easy! Can't he have a second chance? I said no-- I graduated from UoMM on the and made straight A's. ("What's the U-oh-M-M?" "University of Mean Mommies.") He's working on his multiplication tables. He has a second chance to learn his multiplication tables. Lucky him!

I never, ever thought that I would be one of those mothers who couldn't wait until summer got over-- but I think it is too long. I am not homeschooling the older kids. They have to be occupied every-single-second or they get into mischief! It's not just mine-- it's the kids on the street, too. We live in a decent area. When I got bored in South Central Alaska, I hiked or mucked stalls. I don't have the money to put them in summer schools and I wish that I did.

I feel like Private Benjamin when she was in Boot Camp saying, "Where are the condo's?" I did not expect this in parenting. My husband is talking to the kid across the street's parents and to the house where he and one of my other kids were allegedly throwing rocks. He is nipping the problem in the bud. (I hope.) Two of the kids were playing with some kids who were throwing rocks. My kids are in trouble for not immediately coming home. We don't know the involvement level-- you know how it is with kids, everyone is blaming each other. My husband dragged our kids over to apologize for their involvement. This same house where rocks had been thrown at has a couple of dogs, one of who bit one of my sons and just nipped him, but didn't break the skin. My husband went and talked to them-- he said that when our kids do something wrong, they have to be able to admit it.

I am starting to get headaches. I know a lot of women who are around my age with kids the same ages. They start getting headaches and I think that I know why. Is it teeth grinding? Stress? Summer is half over. . . I can make it. So will they. Their teachers will all be telling me at the parent teacher meetings what great kids I have, just like they always do. My kids will glow with pride. I will not tell them that they can be naughty or how awful they can be-- they are not naughty or awful most of the time. They are not awful-- just mischievous at times.

I hope this won't be like this all the time. I do feel that my husband's actions will stop them from ever doing it again.

One of my friends told me that in China, they would take kids between the ages of 11 & 13 and put them on farms just to give them manual work. I see the need for it. I don't believe in the Mao's mandates, but they had a point in occupying kids of this age.

Watch the video that I just posted

That is a the song that made me love music. I first heard it at 2AM on the radio when I was 12 and woke up and unable to sleep, turned the radio on. It's haunted me. I did not hear it again for over 30 years then one night I wrote a few lines, "I forgave you, couldn't save you drove you from my mind, midnight blue lyrics" and found it in about thirty seconds.

Louise Tucker on 6Lyrics.com

I never did choir in high school-- the teacher didn't want me because I stuttered, but the debate coach did and it's just as well.

I have this CD and I blast it in my car. Louise Tucker also sings a song that I will one day sing for people called, "Only For You." I love it. It makes me happy when I sing it.

Louise Tucker on 6Lyrics.com

Music, Parking Tags, etc.

I am taking my very first voice class. I went to it yesterday. The professor is the wife of my music appreciation prof from many, many years ago. She is very funny. There are only three or four music/theater majors in the class. The rest of us just like music. We have a dedicated accompanist and everyone seems super nice. We have to sing from the book-- most of the songs are classics but I do not recognize them in sheet music form. We sang O Danny Boy and Amazing Grace yesterday. I got weepy. I have heard those songs before and not paid much attention to them. Yesterday the sadness behind ODB-- the harsh life that was lived in Ireland at the time, that women couldn't do anything when their husbands/boyfriends were conscripted into the armies by the lords-- made me sad. Amazing Grace even got to me-- the professor was singing and while she is a professional and is supposed to do this, she still got to me and I was ready to cry as I sang along. If I were bent toward American Evangelicalism, I'd have thrown myself at the alter right there!


I spent $150 on a parking pass for the one semester. Will I park in the good spots? Most of the time I will drive to town and park where my husband works and either have him drive me over, walk, or take the bus to school. I bought that damned thing for the ten school days that he's out of town and I will have to park at the college. I got the "platinum one" so I can park in a fancy-schmancy garage that is near none of my classes, but I will park in it if there if nothing else is available. I drive a tank and park in no-man's land as it is, but parking is so hard to get on that campus! Next semester, they will charge students $10 for giving a pass out on campus, God help us, if the student doesn't want to have it mailed to them. I hate this college's administration for it's contempt of students. Why is handing out a pass in person such a problem?

My linguistics professor is a big nerd. I love him, but he a tsunami of information. I remember why I failed his classes before. He teaches linguistics like I would-- he gets so wound up that he can't possibly get enough time to teach all that he wants to!

I went to the hospital training. I went to the abbreviated one for professionals. It lasted 300 years-- 3 hours in real time. It felt like 300 years, but it's what you have to see. The flicks of people trying to make something boring watchable. I hurt for the actors. These are the shows with the actors playing new employees, talking to their bosses, "I don't want to rat anyone out, but if I see someone not washing their hands, do I tell someone? Do I talk to them?" The boss says that "A gentle reminder to the person is good, but if they keep not sanitizing, you can bet that someone else has seen it, but you should tell a supervisor anyway and they will discuss it with the group!" It was hand sanitizing, harassment, all the usual stuff that they have to show employees and volunteers. It's critical for them to show and with what my father went through with MRSA before he died-- important, but painful to sit through. I cannot imagine that lasting the 8 hours that they also offer for people with more time.

One of the greatest nights. . .

Last night my husband and I went to see the Romeros, a national treasure of Spain. Last year when my dad was dying, he spoke of their music and said that if there was anything that I must do in this life, it was to see them in concert. He said that their music never left his soul. (It was right around this time last year that I went down to be with him.)

I came home and shortly after that received a postcard stating that they were coming up here. I was in a drawing class at that time and took the post card to my teacher along with some CD's to play in class while we worked and asked her if she'd heard of them. She laughed, "My husband knows them! They'll probably be at our restaurant afterwards!" I was ecstatic and we spoke of them several times during the semester and she played more of their music and told me stories about them.

Last night I watched them and cried and I don't know why. It was so amazing. Pepe was playing and I kept looking to see if his classical guitar was electric-- he made his guitar make sounds that guitars don't usually do. The four of them got together and "talked" with their guitars.

At the intermission, I was standing in line to buy a drink and saw an anthropology professor who I knew almost 20 years ago. He came to me and addressed me by my first name and asked how I was doing and how my children were. He remembered me from that long ago and I was pregnant with my second baby and he remembered! He was one of the most interesting people ever and I got to introduce him to my husband which was really nice because my husband honestly told him that I brought his class up quite a bit after all these years!

After I saw him, my art professor caught my eye and she came over to me and hugged me. I'd written a nice letter to the administration about her and she said it helped secure another invitation for her to teach the class again this spring. She whispered to me to come to her restaurant afterwards.

After the show, the Romeros came out and I started crying when I met Pepe. I told him of my father and he kissed my cheek three times and hugged me. I had felt like my dad had been at that performance and meeting him and seeing him play-- I understood why my dad said his music never left his heart. I told him of a PBS special where Pepe was teaching a little boy the guitar ("that was my nephew! Bernardino!") and-- I cannot tell you how happy I was. All of them were so nice! And Pepe's English-- I love how he speaks!

We went to my prof's restaurant which is one of the nicest, most friendly restaurants in the City. The sign said they were closed but we stepped in and I was nervous and told the hostess that I thought my professor was expecting us. My prof came around and hugged me again and said of course she was expecting me. We went to sit down and she brought us wine and food. There was an older lady who was eating a lone and I went to talk to her-- she had a cool artistic blazer on and I knew she was an artist. Her son was a chef who worked there and she is a children's book writer! We asked her to sit with us and she hadn't seen the Romero's play but had been a guitar teacher and the conversation was so exciting! As much as she knew the restaurant, she hadn't met my professor who came around again and we made introductions. My prof was like, "All this time I have seen you but had no idea that you were _____'s mom!" They had a lot in common of course and were happy to meet each other with their interests! My husband and this lady had quote a bit to talk about because her family is deep in the city's history as is my hsuband's family and they knew many of the same people and had great stories to share.

As we were getting ready to leave, the Romeros came in. Pepe came over and posed with us and invited us to stay and have something with them, but we had a long drive and had to leave. He told me that eleven years ago his father died and that he played for him as he died. He said that my connection to music is a connection to the eternal.

That had to have been one of the nicest evenings of my life. To think that had my dad not told me of them I'd have missed it. . .