For years I kept journals -- in composition, spiral bound, and French graph paper books. This blog is an attempt to get back to writing and documenting the world around me using photos, newspaper headlines, and other articles.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

On the road

I don't like being separated from my guys.  I made them take a selfie with me before I got on the bus to go to Logan Airport this morning,  After a bit of eye rolling and sighing, they posed with me.



I must admit, I was nervous traveling today.  Sunday after Thanksgiving is a huge travel day and with all the extra warnings around airports...I had a clenched stomach.  Turns out it was one of the easiest times I have ever had.  There was little traffic on the road so the bus made it there early.  With only one person ahead of me to check in, I didn't have to wait long.  And the nice lady behind the counter accommodated my request and switched my ticket to an earlier flight.  Bonus, less time at the airport.  With my TSA pre-check status, I got the short line and kept my shoes on!

Taking the earlier flight meant that I had time to get in an adventure after checking into my hotel.  I rode the Silver Line to Potomac Avenue station. I walked along Potomac Ave until I found the Congressional Cemetery.



I had trouble figuring out how to get in.  The gate was closed and the office was dark.  I passed by the Dog Club entrance because...well...I didn't have a dog and I'm not a member.



I walked on a bit and didn't see any other entrance way, so I turned around and went back to the main gate.  Just then a guy came across the street and told me that I could go through the dog entrance.  He gave me a map and showed me where Hoover is buried and how to find Sousa's resting place.

The atmosphere at this cemetery I found to be more relaxed than at Arlington.  For one thing, there were so many dogs.  And seeing dogs running all over the grounds, barking at the squirrels, sniffing under leaves -- lends a noisy and silly counterpart to the solemnity of the place.  I felt that I could explore the markers and not offend.

While walking, I thought back to 1991 or so when I went to Atlanta and visited the Oakland Cemetery.  I came across a worker who had assumed I was there to pay homage to Margaret Mitchell.  I wasn't.  But I followed him to her resting place anyway.  At the time, I didn't remember who Margaret Mitchell was and too embarrassed to tell that nice man.  It wasn't until I got back to Fletcher's parents' house and recounted my day that I made the connection.  Mr. Lokey had a great story about her and through that telling, I put the pieces together.  

I really liked the little chapel in the center.  We have had such hard frosts and freezes that I was taken aback by the blooming roses.





I didn't bring my good camera with me this trip since it is on the fritz.  How I missed it!  I felt naked without it.  My phone camera was all I had.  Walking towards Hoover's grave, I was surprised at the number of recent burials.  I guess I tend to think of historic cemeteries as monuments to the past and not for the recently departed.  I'm wrong in that.

Anyway, here is Hoover because it seemed like I should see it after it was pointed out to me.



And Anne Royall (1769-1854) who is "generally considered the nation's first newspaperwoman."



Because of the dogs, I passed by many a spigot and bowl.



And a few bee hives.



I appreciated the 9/11 Healing Pole and walking grove.





What might have moved me the most was this:




You can't really tell from the picture, but the butterfly shone gold, even though the sky was cloudy and the sun nowhere in evidence.  I can't remember what was carved, exactly, but I it made me think a child was buried there.

There were statues above the Hall sisters.  The light wasn't right, so I only took one picture.



And the last few pictures:





At this point, my shoes had gotten wet and my feet were getting cold.  So I missed exploring other areas.  I wanted to take pictures of the row houses that I passed by on Potomac, on my way back to the metro, but my phone died.  They reminded me of that famous stretch of houses in Charleston, SC.  They weren't as big or bright, but the different colored facades and architectural details around the doors and windows made me think of that.

I got off the metro at Federal Triangle so that I could stop at Barnes and Noble.  I took a left instead of a right on F street.  More walking, but fortuitous, because I passed District Taco and stopped to pick up some dinner.  I turned around and went to 12th street and stopped at Walgreen's for band aides and then down the hill to Barnes and Noble.

By the time I got back to my hotel, my feet were blistered and hurting.  I should have changed shoes before I went on my exploration, but I didn't plan for the wet shoes and the chaffing.  Sigh.  There is no way I will be wearing heals tomorrow to class.  I think I will be heavily bandaged inside my comfy boots.




I'm headed to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) tomorrow for a mandatory leadership class.  I've been told that it is a good one and I'm looking forward to it.  If only my guys could be with me...




Friday, November 20, 2015

Withdrawing from the argument

I was so keyed up last night by all the hatred and vitriol over Syrian refugees that I couldn't sleep. I understand fear, prudence, caution.  I get subtext, coded language, and propaganda.  I understand trying to gain political favor with us vs them language. It is easier to mobilize for war than it is for peace.  But it doesn't make it right or easy to swallow.

The thing is, I'm scared.  I'm scarred for my family, my hubby.  He looks every bit his ethnic background and he doesn't always speak English when he is out and about with his friends. He has been profiled and followed by police in the past because of his looks.

     "What are you doing here?" a policeman asked my husband as he bought cigarettes in a Cumberland Farms in Milford back in 2003/2004.

     "Buying cigarettes."

    "No, what are you doing here?"
 
   "I live up the street and I'm heading home."
   
    "No, WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. HERE?"

My hubby had the audacity to be a naturalized US citizen, working 3rd shift at a power plant and minding his own business.  That is what he was doing there.  But that isn't what the cop meant.  Fast forward to 2015 and we just moved to a new town and I don't know if the local cops and town folk know him.  Luckily it is a university town that has some diversity.  But will he feel safe?  Will some ignorant wacko think he is a terrorist?  I'm afraid.

And I'm pissed.  Rhetoric is powerful.  There are consequence to riling up the masses and creating fear disproportionate to the situation.   How do we let our politicians compare Syrian refugees with rabid dogs?  How is that allowed in civilized political discourse?  Can we be considering a man for president who says we should have a national registry for Muslims?  Hello?  Religious registry, and those of other ethnic backgrounds forced to self-identify with a physical card or symbol -- ring any bells, people?  Where is the outrage, the indignation, the condemnation?   I wasn't alive then, so I don't "remember" but I am pretty sure that we fought a major war that put a stop to that.  All this verbal spewing on the national stage makes me ill and afraid for my family.  This is real to me.  It may be abstract for you, but it is not for me. What the average person hears in all this noise is Middle East = Muslim = terrorist.  My husband is from that part of the world and he is Muslim and he is not a terrorist.  But the reality of the situation gets lost in the shouting and outrage.

Folks on social media say that we are a Christian nation with Christian values.  My simplistic understanding of Christianity is that it calls for us to love our neighbors as ourselves...that we are to find God in all humanity because Christ dwells in all and that we treat others how we would like to be treated.  So how do we go from telling the world that we are a Christian nation, to slamming doors and our hearts to the needy, afraid, destitute, and the suffering?  These people fleeing their homeland are our brothers and sisters in God, neighbors on this planet.  We are interconnected as one humanity with God residing in all.  So I am at a loss as to how a Christian nation such as ours can demand such un-Christian like behavior from our leaders and citizens.

We seem to have the political will to keep refugees out.  But where is the political will or moral fiber or outrage over the gun violence that kills Americans every. single. day.  The gunmen who go into our schools, churches, movie theaters are somehow lone actors with mental health issues and we can't do anything about it.  Rugged individualism at its finest.  Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Blacksburg -- hand-wringing and excuses but no demand for change.  There is a Wikipedia page just on school shootings.  Sobering.  Why aren't we talking about having the FBI and Homeland Security Directors give their personal stamp of approval for every person who buys a gun in this country so that we can be 100% sure that the guns purchased will not be used to kill people? If we can create a database for refugees and Muslims, it shouldn't be too hard to add gun owners in another column.  Right?  While we are at it....I mean, we have more Americans killed with guns than we have had die from refugee perpetrated violence in this country.  According to one web site that tracks gun violence, over 11,000 people have died this year from guns. That is more than Paris.  More than the two brothers killed at the Boston Marathon.  Why isn't my social media feed clamoring for new laws and protections to keep us safe from our people already in this country who have guns? Crickets.

I'm also sad.  The other day I had a conversation with Selim about the nickname his friends have given him, Seymour.

     "Do you like the nickname?  Are you OK with it?  Or do you wish they would call you by your name?"

     "I like it.  Nicky gave it to me because he couldn't say Selim." Pause.  "Why did you give me a Turkish name?"

     "Because it was important to your Dad. I got your middle name."

     "But did you have to give me a Turkish name?"

My heart breaks a bit.

    "We named you after a dear friend who passed away right before you were born.  He was from Turkey and was like an older brother to your father.  I liked him as well.  He was warm and welcoming. When we would go to his house and everybody was speaking in a language I couldn't understand, he was the one that would translate the joke or fill me in on the heated discussion so that I would feel included.  He was a wonderful man.  His name was Selim and we named you to honor that friendship."

     "Oh."

     "I didn't let your dad give you a name that I felt would be really hard to live with.  I thought that Selim was different, but wouldn't be a burden for you."

I don't want my child to hate his Turkish name.  I get it that at this age he wants to fit in like the other kids named Nick, Will, and John Henry. And that is part of it.  But I don't want him to feel he has to hide part of who he is in order to be safe.  And if this rhetoric and grandstanding carries on much longer, it will become a safety issue.  I want him to understand that Islam is a beautiful religion.  The people that carried out the attacks in Paris are not the standard bearers of Islam any more than the KKK is the true representative of all things Christian.

So, this is this is my last rant on the subject. I'm not going to comment on the horrible things I'm seeing.  I am withdrawing from this field.  I'm sad, discouraged.  I don't want to spend the mental energy trying to get people to understand that not all Muslims are terrorists.  Not all refugees are terrorists.  That we already have in place a screening process for refugees.  It has worked pretty well.  I'm not advocating for stopping the process and opening our borders without any screening or due diligence.  If you are curious on what the process really is, look up some of the immigration attorneys who are writing about it, or check out the White House Blog.  The journey of a refugee is arduous and not a free ticket to the US.

Until I start seeing my social media filled with suggestions for our true national problems: housing homeless veterans, finding jobs from returning soldiers, raising minimum wage to get people out of poverty, making college education affordable for all who wish to attend, having career ladder jobs for our young citizens, the rising cost of necessary cancer drugs, finding ways to get food to the hungry, ending domestic violence, stopping sex trafficking and forced child labor, healing racial inequities, figuring out why we have so many drug and alcohol abusers in our communities, ideas for ending the epidemic of gun violence...I am not going to listen to the fabricated concern and self-righteous indignation over refugees.   La la la, I can't hear you.

Also know that I will never vote for a man who takes his political ideas from Hitler or who compares human beings to rabid dogs. Not. Going. To. Happen. Ever. I don't want a race-baiting bully driving the national conversation.  I want my government to show leadership and courage in the face of fear and terror.  As our Lady Liberty says:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.  "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"



Wednesday, November 11, 2015

WIP Wednesday

This Veterans Day holiday gave me a day off from work and allowed me to sew on my work in progress.  Last Saturday I arranged all the blocks.  I finished stacking rows 10 and 11 when I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of the lay out.  So these are rows 1-9.



As I began sewing the blocks together this afternoon, I realized that my patchwork sills aren't the best.  The corners of the raspberry triangles weren't lining up exactly.  Good thing I'm not entering this into any competition.  I kept reminding myself that the joy is in playing with color and pattern and having the end product.  When it is on top of my bed, I will be relishing the warmth and overall aesthetic and will not be scrutinizing the matching points.  That said, I did my best to have the pieces line up as best I could.

The pictures today aren't the greatest.  It rained all day and I couldn't take it outside to photograph. And I didn't clean up the day bed for pretty pictures.  I finished the first row in no time.



Then I sewed row number two.  And then joined the two together.


Detail


I spend so much time gazing in between pinning blocks together.  But still, in less than three hours, I had the top four rows finished!



I'm hopeful that I can finish the top and put together the back before the end of the year.  The end of the month is going to get busy with Thanksgiving and then I go to DC for training at FSI for the first week in December.   Before I know it, I'll be writing year end evaluations for my three folks and reviewing all their appraisals for their teams.  I'll try to get those done at work so that I can concentrate on baking and getting ready for the holidays in the evening hours.

Speaking of baking, I tried a new recipe this morning for apple cider doughnuts that I found at King Arthur Flour.  I took some liberties with the recipe -- I had apple cider, not boiled cider or frozen juice concentrate and I used only all purpose flour and not the fiber.  For the glaze, I didn't have a candy thermometer, so I winged it a bit.  And I dipped them in sugar just because.  They weren't as apple cider-y as the doughnuts that I remember from Atkins harking back to my college days.  However, I enjoyed trying something other than our standby Ina Garten favorites.  Next time I might use a bit less cinnamon or use a bit more glaze.  I have enough glaze left over that I might make them for my team meeting on Friday morning.





I didn't get started sewing until the afternoon because in the morning I was surfing around all the cool quilting blogs I have discovered along with drinking tea and eating doughnuts.  There are women in my general geographic area that are doing really inspiring work.  Next year, I might want to join the NH Modern Quilt Guild.  The only issue is they meet in the evening in Nashua. There isn't a quick way to get to Nashua from here and when I'm getting up at 3:15 or 4:15 to go to work...evening activity isn't that easy for me.  Anyway...

My witching hour of 8:00 is fast approaching.  Tomorrow is back to work.

I'm going to see if I can link this up with Freshly Pieced and her WIP Wednesday blog.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Quilting Update

We tested out our fireplace tonight. All went well until the smoke detector began piercing beeping sounds. Turns out my hubby was experimenting with some aspect of the chimney opening and not enough smoke was going up.  Lesson learned.



I hit a milestone with my Birdbaths at Sunset quilt tonight -- I finished the individual blocks.  All 115 of them!  I'm not sure if I will piece a nine by ten, nine by eleven, nine by twelve, or a ten by eleven block top.  I don't plan on having large borders, so I have to do the math and figure out how big I want it, exactly.

The last blocks sewed up quickly.  I was very aware that they were my last four.  When I was down to the last shot-cotton corner squares, I realized that I had sixteen little seams left.  And of course, I had to document.


The final four

I'm not certain how I am going to arrange the blocks.  I have nineteen different center square patterns, five are solids.  The main colors are pink, peach, yellow, orange, and purple.  Some squares are light, or dark. Some are tonal and others high contrast.  It will take some figuring out to have an overall pleasing and cohesive quilt top.

19 different center squares

Th project has given me bags of little scraps.  Some day I will get around to organizing all those little pieces.  On the day bed in my sewing room, I have a two big zip lock bags.  One has scraps and the other has under a half yard cuts.  I've bought books on scrap quilting and I'm sure I will enjoy a scrap-based project.



Getting back to my project has made me very happy.  My most recent queen size quilts have taken two years to complete.  I'm on that pace for this one as well.  I started fabric gathering in earnest in the beginning of February, 2014.  It will be 2016 before I am sewing the binding on and am snuggling underneath.  I can't wait!