Lucky

It was dark already. T. was driving home from school, observing the speed limit as she always does since getting her first speeding ticket earlier in the year. Suddenly, Lucky dashed under her wheel and she could not stop in time to avoid hitting him.  The people who belonged to Lucky do not speak English. Fortunately, a neighbor was there who was able to translate. T. called me, almost hysterical.  My heart was in my throat when I heard her voice, but I was soon relieved when I heard she had hit a dog and had not been in some kind of terrible accident where she or any other people were hurt.  I rushed to meet her.  The family and neighbors were on the street.  A young man was huddled over the body of the dog, sobbing.  I took the dog and the mother in my car and drove to the veterinary hospital. The son, a young woman who at first I believed to be his sister, but later began to think was his girlfriend, and an older man followed in a separate car.  The mother did not speak English. I have been to this partciular vet hospital a lot lately as my cat had an injury that required a number of visits. The lady at the front desk recognized me.  She discussed treatment options with the family, including euthanasia.  They called their father in Guatamala.  They decided to treat the dog.  The estimated cost was approximately $1000.  The vet required a $500 deposit.  They had no money.  T. offered to pay, but as she does not have a checking account or her own credit card, of course, I paid the deposit. The young man, after ignoring us all evening, finally thanked us for our kindness. His gesture made T. well up, tears streaming down her face as she expressed how sorry she was for what happened. He could see that she is just a young girl, but did not have the grace or compassion to offer any words of comfort to her, or to even accept responsibility for the fact that his dog was let out, at night, on a busy street, without a leash. T. and I left, grateful to get home and into our pajamas, with our cats and our comfort.  I called to follow up with the vet.  I learned that Lucky did not make it.  I became incredibly sad about the whole evening.  I would not have minded spending $500 if Lucky lived, but somehow feel awful on so many levels that he died.  In theory, I support being compassionate and strive to model that for my children; I thought nothing in the moment of trying to help.  But now, I just feel irritable and depressed.

The Mixin' Kitchen 11 -- Ladies Rule!!!

The ladies of  ccMixter are rockin' it in this episode of The Mixin' Kitchen.  While the voices of the ladies are regularly picked up and mixed up, the majority of the remixers/producers at ccMixter are men.  However, lately, the ladies have been cuttin' loose and beaking out to make a strong presence as producers. 

You can listen at ccMixter by clicking here or listen via itunes (just search for ccMixter).

The White Cube Remix Project

I was invited with Gurdonark to spearhead a sonic installation for an art gallery in Oslo, Norway by coordinating the efforts of the ccMixter community. Gurdonark and I drafted an announcement seeking remixes of source material we created specifically for the project (my spoken word a capella and Gurdonark's ambient sample pack) and a blog where we posted additional information. 

The response of the ccMixter community has me reeling.  Mixters seem absolutely thrilled to be a part of this sonic installation, and the enthusiasim, the inspiration this project seems to have generated makes me giddy.  The mixes so far are gorgeous. I feel like I'm in love!

The Mixin' Kitchen 10 -- Halloween in the Kitchen

 Ghosts and vampires, shadow and shiver
A chill in the air that makes you quiver.
Disembodied voices, tinkling keys — these are the sounds of Halloween.
So come into my kitchen, with your bag full of sweets
And lets enjoy some tricks and treats 

You can listen to my latest podcast at ccMixter

or via itunes (just search ccmixter)

Jack is Fat

Evening derailed by cat urgency, not quite emergency. Had to take Jack to the vet. I was there for about two hours. At least I read a good book. But now I am covered with cat hair and I am wearing a black t-shirt. I left my cell phone at home. Then Haskel, very chivalrously, visited me at the vet and brought me my phone. Just in time too. Jack was done with his treatment. The cat carrier is very large (another story) and Jack is hefty so I let Haskel take Jack with him in his car. The vet suggested putting Jack on a diet, but that is impractical as we are a three cat household, much to the chagrin of my mother-in-law who despises cats, and the dismay of many of our friends who happen to be allergic to cats. Besides, Jack's heft contributes to his charm.

My latest remix. The Colour of Blue

This a song written by Narva9 (Yvonne). She offered it to me to sing. I was not satsified just doing it as an a capella to upload to ccMixter. I was compelled to do a mix. So I did. Meanwhile, rslane who I sampled on saxophone, asked if he could re-do the sax part. Jurgen Hermann also offered to re-do sax parts. Thus, this song may be updated in the near future.

The Colour of Blue by SackJo22

The Mixin' Kitchen 6 -- The Moon

This episode of The Mixin' Kitchen is all about the moon.

Bed Time Stories

I was out last night and did not get in until everyone else in my household had fallen asleep. This morning, as I checked in with S. about what everyone did last night, she told me that her father read her a bedtime story, just like when she was a little girl. "What did daddy read to you," I asked. "The Metamorphosis," she replied. "Kafka?," I responded. "Yes. Kafka."

The Mixin' Kitchen 5 - Red Hot Fire

The latest espisode of The Mixin' Kitchen is now up. (Somehow I was remiss in not posting episode 4). As the fire raged in southern California at the time I was curating the show, I could not escape, the heat and power of fire and all that implies. Best wishes for those who were victims of the recent blazes.

You can listen via iTunes or at ccMixter.org:
http://ccmixter.org/playlist/browse/5635

Vacation

1. Trattoria Contadina in North Beach. Nice, quiet, neighborly. White linen tablecloth, dry red wine, a waiter who smiles and the right amount of garlic. The four of us chatting amicably as we tasted everything, except for S. who was not hungry. The fog mist and fortune cookie parables leading us down the street. We were met by a friendly woman who shared her history. Inquiries at City Lights; I suggested John Irving, and Water for Elephants and the french book with hedgehog in the title, finally settling on the staff choice of the book with the illustration of the doves on the cover that left me breathless when I finished reading it, but of course, I cannot remember the title, or the author, only the feeling of having been swept away in a world of language and image that was deep and moving, and fulfilling to read.
2. My fortune: The Mystic Ray finds that you are sensitive, with master mind and organization powers analytical and can see both sides of a question. Keen sense of humor. Good money sense, diplomatic. . .
3. H. lost his keys. While he went into the hotel to see if they were found, I pulled his luggage out of the trunk of the car and started rummaging through in the hopes I might find them in a pocket somewhere. An elderly, toothless man, putting quarters in the parking meter, cheerfully started asking me a number of questions, his voice soft and accent thick so some where misunderstood: "You going now? . . .Why you go now? . . .Where you live? . . .It is hot there. . .Here it is very cold. . .You going now?"
4. Treated to tequila and dinner with our dearest family friends who happened to be staying down the road in Pismo. An early morning walk along the shore with S., collecting sand dollars -- one for each of us. The pelicans majestically floated above in perfect formation the grace of their flight surprising. The friendly fruit vendor who gladly packed up fruits and artichokes and beans for us, but looked as if he could easily knife us if we threatened his brother. Across the street, a building advertised a vaudeville show. The sand dunes peaked above the view point, between the houses weathered and faded. Accompanied home by hawks, soaring above the vineyards, inviting inspiration.

It was a Good Day

Today was my youngest daughter's birthday. We started the day early, waking S. up so she would have sufficient time to shower, dress and practice before her band concert. She played bass. Before we left for the show, she opened her birthday gifts which included clothing, a new drum pedal, a cow bell and tambourine for her drum kit, and a gift certificate to a local used cd store. We arrived at the show which was held at the Knitting Factory. It was packed. My father, brother and mother-in-law showed up to offer their support. S.'s band was surprisingly terrific, everyone playing with a high level of competence and mastery unexpected for kids their age. Despite the fact that S. did not smile the entire time she played, she claims she enjoyed herself. After the show, we all went out for brunch at a deli where we ordered way too much food so my brother took it all home with him. My husband and I dropped our girls off at the local vintage clothing store's weekly $1 parking lot store where they did a bit of scrounging. We then drove back home, checked in for a moment, and decided to go see the new Harry Potter movie which ultimately left me with the same feeling as the book did when I read it. I bought S. a new pair of boots. After the movie, we went back to my mother-in-laws to meet up with my sister-in-law and nieces, all of us walking to the local vegan Thai restaurant where we had a delicious feast in honor of S.'s birthday. Back at my mother-in-laws, we had cupcakes and ice cream. (S. requested a clown cone for her birthday.) Finally, we came home. My husband is in bed. The girls are watching a movie. I completed registration forms as my older daughter, T. has registration and orientation for school tomorrow. I listened to music. I wrote this blog post. S. came in to give me a hug and a kiss and to tell me she had a good day. It was a good day, a nice day, busy in a relaxed way sort of day, spent with the family. It was lovely.

The Mixin Kitchen 3 -- "Tell Me"

The latest episode of The Mixin’ Kitchen is now up! “Tell Me” features mixes of words spoken or whispered, announcing to the world the intent of a message, the cadence and rhythm carrying the meaning, melody superfluous as the speaker sets for the images in poetry or prose. This episode includes just a handful of the hundreds of wonderful spoken word mixes in the ccMixter archive.

You can listen directly at ccMixter. org here: http://ccmixter.org/playlist/browse/5389

or subscribe to the ccMixter podcast for direct delivery here: http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists/podcast

Purged

Post-garden party. Old friends, and older friends congregated with new. Those who were here enjoyed an abundance of food and sunshine. The cats unusually social. Children running around the house grasping cookies. Many guests never appeared due to sickness, and forgetfulness, leaving us with way too much food. My disappointment drowned during the late evening after party with the lingering few in candlelight with dry red wine amidst our laughter, reminding me how happy I am to be with those who choose to be with me.

While the day was clearly a success, every one's enjoyment of each other clear as people stayed, my desire to entertain any time soon has been purged, despite my natural inclination to host.

RIDE -- The Mixin' Kitchen 2

"Ride" the latest episode of The Mixin' Kitchen, is now available through the ccMixter podcast channel. Featuring mixes that get you places! Ride, drive, bump, cars, trains and busses. Perfect for listening to when you are on your way! Just search ccMixter on iTunes if you are not already a subscriber or check it out at ccMixter's featured playlist page: http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists

The Dad & The Suitor: Threats of Macho Guitar Violence

My elder teenage daughter, T., has been spending the summer hanging out with a co-ed group of friends, and seems to be having the time of her life. There is one young man in the bunch, D., who has been around a bit more frequently than some of the others. He plays guitar. The other day, he was serenading T. and her friend in our garden. (Originally, they were sitting in the front, but my husband, thinking that appeared unseemly in our fairly conservative neighborhood, asked that I move them inside.) D. is actually quite an accomplished guitar player, and he is seriously into classic rock, idolizing, over all others, Eric Clapton. My husband, who is a fantastic guitarist appreciates that about the boy.

Yesterday, a group of teenagers were meant to meet T. at our house to take a two mile walk to another girl's house. Only D. showed up to escort T. My husband insisted the young man come into our house to say hello, and not just have T. disappear with him. D. came in, shook my husband's hand, and D. and T. went off alone together.

After they left, my husband started huffing and puffing, formulating all kinds of nefarious fantasies of what kind of intentions this young man might have for our beautiful daughter. As he stomped around the kitchen while I was cutting watermelon, he started shaking his head and his finger. "Yep," he tries anything, my husband said, "I will challenge him to a play off and then I will wipe the floor with that boy!" "Of course," he added, "I can only do that because the kid is into Eric Clapton . . . if he was into Yngwie Malmsteen, I would be toast."

Independence Day

Independence Day has a lot of meaning for me. My mother died on July 2, 1984 and her funeral was on July 4 - so that day is always a day of rememberance. As a family, we celebrated 4th of July together, often going to the beach to watch fireworks, and usually in the company of close friends. My dad would go to one of the unincorporated cities nearby where he could buy fireworks -- sparklers and poppers -- and we would set them off in the street in front of our house. As a girl with a lot of compunction, I was a bit timid as I did not want to become a poster child of the dangers of fireworks! Nevertheless, I would gamely hold my little sparkler as far in front of my body as far as I could, drawing gilttering, spark and smoke circles in the air for others to decipher before the smoke dissipated. To our delight, my dad was brave and set off the fancier fireworks in the street. All of us, including my mother, would watch from the curb, clapping our hands as the fireworks shot colorful stars into the air that fell toward the ground like broken fairies, until they disappeared into the night.

As my mother had been seriously ill for a long time, I often thought of her passing as a day of independence -- she was finally freed from her pain and suffering. After her funeral, I took all of her medications and burned them in the bar b que. I even wrote a song about it. . .although I am not sure what happened to that song. I cannot believe that this year is 25 years. She has been gone now for more than half of my life.

The Mixin' Kitchen

The Mixin' Kitchen,

my new internet radio show/podcast

is now up, running and open for business!

A tasty musical feast

filled with remixes harvested from

ccMixter.org.

It's a great way to sample

all that ccMixter has to offer!

You can listen here:

http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists/featured

or subscribe to the podcast: http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists/podcast

The Nature of Life by Tami Ackerman

The Nature of Life by Tami Ackerman

1.How to have a good life: Try not to suffer too much.

2. Don't pick mean friends.

Look both ways before crossing streets.

Avoid Philosophy.

Take your pillow with you on trips.

See an attorney when you act VERY greedy.

Don't run out of bubble bath.

Where there is love, I'll be there.

Lovely

"Lovely", in and of itself, is such a lovely word. Melodious and expressive by its combination of vowels and consonants alone. But the sentiment of "lovely" just tickles me, alluding to something delicious, delightful, touching, pretty. It is one of my favorite words. I use it liberally, peppering my speech with "lovely," as a delicate spice and an emphatic superlative. I love when men use the word "lovely." I know many women who readily release "lovely" from their lips. But when I hear it from a man, I actually feel the sensations associated with that promising sound.

Enter

The door is open.

Improvisation

• Yes, and
• Focus on your partner(s)
• Commitment to the moment
• Choices
• Remember that you do not have to do it all yourself
• Give gifts
• Anger, fear, sadness, happiness
• Play

These basic precepts of improv are applicable anywhere, indeed.

Bit

Spring in the garden,
Dusk falls and the night blooming jasmine bursts with fragrance.
Suddenly
I want to check on the newly planted blooms and my new friends.
All is thriving in the warmth of this new season.
I watch the jays taunt in evening song and cacophany
The cats nonplussed and disinterested.
A star, or is it a planet, becomes visible as the evening sky darkens
Brightening in reflections of other stars, oh so far away.
The light continues to fade.
Noctural pests begin their scavenging
I am bit.

ccMixter.org

It is official -- I am addicted to ccMixter.org, a shared music site where musicians from all over the world create colloborative pieces under the Creative Commons license. Artists upload tracks which are then available to remixers who invariably do something magical with the source material. The talent pool is vast and varied. Additionally, there is a kind community of artists who provide feedback and support. It's totally awesome. I can be found here: http://ccmixter.org/people/SackJo22 where my acapella vocal tracks are posted, along with links to remixes.

Therapy

I'm thinking about going into therapy so I can unabashedly talk about myself. I have strong enough narcissistic tendencies that I would enjoy that tremendously. According to Freud, I am perfectly healthy as I work and love just fine. I do not believe I am totally neurotic. I have sufficient self-awareness to understand that in most situations, people are generally more interested in talking about themselves than talking about me; thus, I do try to refrain from unfettered "me-isms" when I'm in social situations. However, the desire to talk about myself is ever present and growing as I listen more and more to others talk about themselves. Sometimes I feel like I could burst with myself. I think the only way to satisfy this need may be to seek the services of a professional.

The Satisfaction of Completion

I uploaded two new demo mixes on my myspace page -- www.myspace.com/mrsjoseph39skitchen. I get so jazzed when I make something new -- just the accomplishment of finishing a project. Quite satisfying, indeed.

The Hills

The light was very clear. The sky was uninterrupted by clouds or haze or birds. It was just blue. It was sharp. The hills were soft, mohair covered swells like camels sleeping, their lumberous backs still as the air was still. The trees that lined the base of the hills, each of the many of them, were deeply green as if shadowed, but there were no shadows. The pieces of earth and sky were so perfectly matched that the distinct boundary between them was as much a connector as a separator.

What Is In a Name?

All of the women in this picture share my name. I have been googling. I googled several of my old friends that I no longer keep in touch with -- just to see if I could find them. I did not find anything substantial about any of them. Then I wondered, what would my old friends find if they googled my name? They might find that I have become a well respected feminist theologian, or a neurobiologist, a taxi driver, a music teacher, a realtor, a radiologist, attorney, artist, anthropologist, political science professor at Yale. . .

Of course, I am none of these things.

Saturday Afternoon

We talked about regrets and identity
over tepid cups of milky tea
satiated
this languid afternoon interrupted only by
slamming doors
the children came and the children went unconcerned
their wet hair fragrant with the first chlorinated taste of summer
with hints of jasmine lingering in the air every time the door was left ajar.
The cats snaked back into the house flopping sloppily on cool wood floors sobered by the heat that kept us indoors watching with envy as the shadows crept across the lawn.
We were deceived.
The monarchs in the bushes, the breeze in the trees
There was no comfort in the garden today – only the heat.

We have a past and a future
And are still trying to come to peace with who we are and who we thought we would be.
This is a recurrent theme extending our adolescence into middle age
Wizened questions unanswered by our mature unwillingness to make assumptions about anything – we know better than that after what we have been through and what we can now surmise
It takes so much more to be surprised
It is easier to see the changes in others than the changes in ourselves
Our temperaments unaltered by time despite experience
Choices may change but our hearts remain
the same.

That's Entertainment

This past week, an article about Chelsea Clinton stumping for her mother, Hillary Clinton, was published in the Los Angeles Times entertainment section. Now, the fact that Chelsea is "finally" campaigning for her mother is not necessarily front page news -- but the entertainment section. . .Actually, perhaps all of the stories about the campaign should be published in the entertainment section.

Happy New Year

I am not resolute.
I hope for the best.
I linger in the quietness until worry spurs my tightened chest.

I sit among my papers waiting for motivation to rush to me as if I were sorely missed and then, then I could attend to the sorting and the tidying that I glibly declare I shall complete.
What a treat – to start the new year clean.

David cannot wait for 2008.
It's just another year for me -- growth and more maturity.
Perhaps this year I will keep the gray.

I need not reflect.
I hope for the best.
I cherish my daughters and their lovliness.

Not at all tired, I spy a satellite, or a star it seems, in the brief visible patch of sky between
the window and the window pane, and upon that I meditate until I fall asleep.
These days, they are active, my dreams.

Today is not the head.
‘Tis merely, the turn of the calendar page and the date of my age.
I have no intentions to change.

I do not project.
I hope for the best.
I hope for the best.

Death in the Family

My father in law, A. died last Sunday, December 16, 2007. This past week his wife and his children (my husband and sister-in-law) sat shiva for him. Prayers were held at the home every morning at 6:15 and every afternoon at 4:15. There was always a minyan. We had a lot of food. Too much food perhaps. The atmosphere was lively. There were 40, 50, 60 people at the house every evening reminiscing about A. My mother in law, E. veritably held court as people came to offer their condolences and share stories of the subtle, yet influential ways in which A. touched their lives.
My husband assumed the obligations of his grief respectfully and without question. He has not shaved since A.’s death and his beard is peppered and thick already, after only a week. We seem to circulate around each other as he leaves the house early to attend shul.
After ensuring there was enough food in the house for the mourners and the visitors during the week of shiva, I became ill and have not quite recovered.
My oldest daughter has been a woman through all of this. She too cooked and served food. She stayed with my mother in law to comfort her. She got up at 6:00 on the morning to make sure there was coffee for the men who came to the house to pray in the morning. Her heart is generous and kind.
My youngest daughter returned to school after a day or two. She seems fine.
A. was a strong, giving, decent, observant, caring and humble man. He was 85 years old at the time of his death. He lived a good life and died a good death – peacefully, quietly. We are going to miss him.