Last week festival season transitioned to fall arts, and as usual I wanted to see it all. On Wednesday I attended the opening of Seattle’s Decibel Festival (not to be confused with the also-excellent touring metal festival of the same name). On Saturday I brought my daughter to the first Pacific Northwest Ballet repertory of the season, Jewels. I was sad to have missed the Jewels preview at Seattle Public Library earlier in the week.I really wanted to see the Erased Tapes showcase at Decibel on Sunday. I didn’t even try to make it to Your Feast Has Ended before it closed, despite how significant the exhibition at the Frye seems to have been. I love the arts; I love the numerous ways they enrich my life. I had a major epiphany at Bumbershoot last year. It reinforced my enthusiasm for the arts, but it’s also the reason that I missed more events than I attended last week. Read More
ByGD
Holding Back
ByGD
Stevens Passages: Breakthroughs
Little A and I took a couple of weekends off from snow sports while her face healed and my entire left side stopped hurting. XX started her snowboard multi-week course. She had a tough first class. When we finally all went up together again, the circumstances weren’t auspicious. The day started with half-healed injuries and fear of failure, but it ended with breakthroughs all around. Read More
ByGD
We Got a Family Here
Pollyblog: 1. When you don’t want to say too much, but 140 characters just won’t cover it. 2. Good ideas that haven’t got their legs yet.
Family, Defined
Because our family is partly built through adoption, we spend a little more time defining what ‘family’ means.
I mentioned that I returned from Iceland Airwaves to a lice breakout at my daughter’s school. Ever since, I have spent up to two hours each night checking every head in the house for recurrences. Like the monsters in horror movies, every time I think it’s over, they rise from the dead to attack again.
This has resulted in some very cranky exchanges, as my daughters begin to take every tugged tangle personally, and I fight the urge to scream in frustration. Tonight the girls’ dad tried to break the negativity by letting each girl pick the music we listened to while they got their heads checked.
My oldest immediately shouted, “Lady Gaga!” A second later, she said, “No, wait. Journey, because that’s less annoying for mommy.”
The result; me and my daughter belting out “Don’t Stop Believing” as I searched her head for lice.
And I thought of the words of H.I. McDunna, “What! We got a family here!”