Changing horses

I kept this blog a long time, through a lot of changes.  And for a long time I didn't keep it, then tried again.  I came back to it today wanting to start it back up, but that doesn't feel right.  I think this blog is done and another one is hatching.  It will be similar, but new for this new Jewish year.  I'm not entirely sure what it will be.  There is some excitement in that.  So, if you want to follow my thoughts, hopes, fears, memories, opinions, and fancy, try out And Now Again.

Is there value in writing here every day?

I'm not sure.  I  want to keep the habit up but tonight there is really not anything new.  We had first Monday supper with jean and Mark, which was a touch point and very very good.  I love that Bob started that tradition and that all of us maintain it.  Most of the dishes are washed.  I feel sleepier than usual and still need to walk the dog.  All of that is good, feels good.  But none of it is profound.  I don't know yet what I want to do about writing on days when I don't have much to write.  I'll figure it out.

A good day

Today the weather was beautifully mild and breezy.  Attending All Saints Day service was just right.  The Catholic words aren't my words, but the music was beautiful and the sense of blessing was profound in the church.  the priest read the beatitudes in a beautifully resonant voice and being in that church, near the campus where I went to college, and with dear friends from that era, was exceptionally sweet.  After church I helped a friend who has chronic health problems with some cleaning.  That felt good too.  Being able to help is one of the things for which I am most thankful.

It's funny how months get associated with different themes.  If October is about a mystical shift into fall and a thinning of the veil between the living and the dead, November in the USA seems to be about thanks(giving).  On this first day of November I feel especially thankful for my beloved dead and the world's beloved dead - those who have created art, literature, music, science, great ideas, as well as those who have loved and touched me personally.    

After yesterday's crazy, dangerous weather its been good to have a dry if muggy Halloween.  And after my  early sense that I hadn't put enough focus on Halloween this year, it was good to spend the morning doing yard clean up and a little decorating, then going out wiht Ruth and Liam this evening before handing out candy at tthe door. Our street has really regenerated. Ruth and Liam and I dressed up in Faire garb and walked down to a neighborhood potluck. Yum! I think the young families on our street cook better than my friends and I did when we were the young families.  A treat was meeting a neighbor I haven't met before who had her house a street away built 55 years ago when there was nothing where my house is now. We've been 38 years in this house now and the neighborhood is on a definite second crop of little ones. I love it  Bob and I. gave out a bunch of candy and watched kids and adults alike parade by. My favorite adult costume was worn by the guy who stuck a giant tomato cage over hs head and body, festooned it with bean plants, and stuck on a sign "human bean". The guy with the white T shirt inscribed with "Error message Number 476 - Can't find Costume" and the woman with "Identity Thief" written on the back of her shirt and about twenty name tags with different names on them on the front wasn't bad either. I enjoy Halloween because it gets neighbors talking and out on the street and because it encourages a sense of play in those adults who like "dress up". My dress up box was always one of my favorite playthings. Some things never change.  I still think I might try to host a witches tea next year.  We'll see.  At a  more important level, I want to see that I take more of a leadership role in my life and MAKE things happen when I really want them to instead of following along and letting others take the lead and the responsibility too much of the time.

I also am thinking about the more uncanny sense I have about this time of year.  I talk about the veil between worlds being thin and our beloved dead being somehow closer than they usually are.  jewish girl that I am, I'm going to the All Saints mass with friends in the morning.  It just feels right and is a service i have always loved.

Record Rain for one day in Austin

I think its worth recording here that we had record rainfall for one day in Austin today - fourteen inches at the airport!  I went into work truly soaking wet for the first time ever, and during my ten o'clock phone session the rain was so loud on the skylight that I had trouble hearing myself. Apparently it was better on the other end of the phone!  Fortunately the rain slowed way down before noon, but there was flooding and numerous road closings anyway.  Tracy and his trainee are still stuck in the truck on I 35 because the highway was flooded near Troy/  They were supposed to be in San Antonio by five and are just starting to move north of Austin now at eleven thirty.   Liam's school was evacuated into the sanctuary of the synagogue where they rent space (and Liam's math group was forgotten and left in the classroom for too long.  Eventually someone remembered the math group and got them into the sanctuary for the tornado warning.  Thank goodness the tornado didn't hit!)   Tonight the holding pond is full but not flooding and Shoal Creek is not as high as it was at noon.  We may have more rain in the morning.  I'm glad Sweets and I got our walk in before the rain started up again.It's ironic that we were expecting major weather last weekend because of Hurricane Patricia and just got rain.  Today it was just supposed to rain and we got major weather.  I'm one of the odd ducks who kind of likes it that weather, even these days, is not completely predictable.

Tonight I'm thinking about Halloween weeks past when costumes, mine or my kids, were a big deal and brought much joy.  I love dressing up and setting days and nights apart, but I don't seem to take a leadership role in doing it when others aren't.  At least I'm not this year.  The absence of costume plans makes me a little sad.  We'll have to see if I do anything about that during these next two days.

Mistakes

I don't know what's wrong with my hand hands and brain today but I have had three false starts on the yarn bomb neck piece I'm trying to make.  It's the fourth one of the same pattern, and the first three are lovely - exciting for me because I have not knitted with patterns before.  But today's start just eludes me.  I have something on the needles now, but it seems cockeyed.   I'll figure it out or take it off and start yet again but in the mean time I'm thinking about mistakes.  Everybody who knows me knows I collect sayings that I use as charms against perfectionism

Perfection is the enemy of excellence.

Perfection equals paralysis.

REAL IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.

I'm thinking tonight about the humility touches in some traditional art., The intentional mistakes in Native American weaving and beading are  examples of this and so is wabi-sabi, the Japanese tradition honoring the beauty of imperfection.  As I understand it, some potters but a thumb print it pottery items to show they were made by hand.  I am definitely not at a place, in any aspect of my life where I have to make mistakes on purpose.  They just happen.