Halloween... Hello Over There...

The veil between the worlds is thinnest today.

If I remember my shamanic training correctly, Samhain (pronounced Sow-when) is the Celtic New Year. And the veil between the worlds is thinnest. Today. Hence all the ghosties and ghoulies, and Dia de los Muertos altars, and things that go bump in the night.

It's our family, and friends, coming to say "Hello. How are you doing these days?"

So today I honor my loved ones on the other side - my brother Keith. I love you. I hope you're having a wonderful time. My friend Janine - I hope you're dancing all the time. Tommy, old friend and newest crossed - I smile when I think of you, without pain now and happy, I think. Ray. You too had an October death, like Keith. Janine. Tom. Aunts and uncles and cousins, we love you and we'll see you again, we trust. Phyllis. Mother-in-law. Your son has been talking about you lately. We hope you are living in love and ease.

And now I'd like to share with all of you, those reading alive ones and those who are reading over my shoulder and whispering around me, a little glimpse of the liveliest boy and his plans for Halloween... he had a fever last night, so we stayed home from his school halloween party... a bit sad, that, but we're going out for trick or treating this evening.

And he is going to be a giant pumpkin -

With:

2 boots going clomp clomp
1 pair of pants going wiggle wiggle
1 white shirt going shake shake
2 gloves going clap clap
1 tall black hat going nod nod
and
1 big scary pumpkin head going BOO! BOO!

He's had the big pumpkin part decided since late August (although said pumpkin is really like a big round shirt - I still have to figure out to deal with his desire to have it on his HEAD) - and then he learned this story in school last week and adapted his costume to the story...

We invite you all to walk a little ways with us tonight and today. Let us know how you are, and if there's anything you've learned over there that we should know. We are listening. We love you.

Wow, the wind is blowing the tree branches outside my office almost sideways. Everything is listing north. With sun glancing off all of them. It's gorgeous.




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Simple Pleasures

The wind is blowing ever so slightly out there, outside my window. A small airplane hums; I can hear it but not see it. I can hear the saw of our neighbor next door, working on something. All faint, these sounds, quiet and purposeful.

All shades of green and gold and brown, amber, yellow, burnt orange, lime, umber - all flick and swish and quiver in the wind. Massive trees and new young trees, against the best kind of Northwestern sky. Dove grey, pale blue, soft light.

New shelves adorn my office, thanks to my husband.

Wait - holy anachronism, Batman! A ginormous stretch limo, black with a pale pearly gray top, just drove past my idyllic view. Turned down Benefit Street. Wow. Who was in there? Why are they out in a stretch limo on a sleepy fall Sunday afternoon, in our quiet little neighborhood?

Well. Now. Where was I?

Too late, I'm off on a limo wonder. It's turning the other corner now, heading out of site. Did a neighbor get a new job as a driver? Coming to show his family his new gig? Did someone get rich and decide to celebrate in a really weird way?

Anyway. Maybe it's a good reminder of pleasures that are not so simple. That take way more gasoline than that crow who just swooped by. That smell differently than the fall bouquet I had so much fun making an hour or so ago (dark green shiny laurel, fading red tree branch, orange & green & yellow & red maple, bright golden wisteria curling on long brown twisty branches, a pale yellow sunflower, a bright gold sunflower, hydrangea turning deep wonderful maroon, and one lone cornflower blue hydrangea to remind me of summer).

And now there is a house to clean, laundry to fold, a bed to make up with fresh sheets. And a dinner to make for friends coming over. Fish and sausage and chicken on the grill, squash, brown rice sauteed with red and yellow and green peppers and the last of the basil and green beans.

It is our first fall here in Seattle since 2006. Three years.

I am in love with my home.



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A letter to President Obama regarding the Nobel Peace Prize

I just sent this letter. I decided to post it here as well.

Dear President Obama,

First of all, congratulations on this honor. I continue to be proud for supporting you and working for you and contributing to you.

I know little of the details of the overwhelming issues that you deal with on a daily basis, so I know that my opinion is just that - an opinion.

But I hope that you will consider some actions in light of receiving this Peace Prize.

I hope that you will resist the urge to send more troops to Afghanistan, and that you will bring home the troops already there (as well as those in Iraq).

I hope that you will continue to support peace here at home by insisting on a public option for health insurance.

I hope that you will hold the banks accountable for the bailout money they have received, and make sure their mistakes do not further indebt me and my son.

I hope that the joyous sense of hope we all had last November will be fulfilled in a country that is better for all of us who live here.

I do not envy you your job. I am grateful that you are leading our country. I hope that you continue to follow your conscience and not give too much of our dream away.

We are with you.

Humbly,

Maria Glanz



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Lavendar sky updates...

I was going to call this post Twilight updates, but now that word has become less than it used to be. Too specific. Sad, that.

Just a quick school update, for friends who've been sending prayers. The State of Washington and City of Seattle, in their infinite wisdom and let's-focus-on-kids-first strategies, have declined to offer my son a spot in their subsidized get-ready-for-kindergarten ECEAP program. The sweet little school right down the street. He can't go there. Because he is FIVE YEARS OLD and OLD ENOUGH FOR KINDERGARTEN.

I finally got to talk to the head of the Department of Early Learning for the City of Seattle, after three + weeks of waiting. He can't go, because it's a "performance standard" and a "mandate." It's "legally binding" - whatever it is, this un-named rule that says he can't go to this free program that's supposed to help kids get ready for school.

We could pay for him to go. $560 per month for 4 afternoons - 12 hours - per week. Which we cannot afford. We qualify hands-down for this program in terms of financial need, no doubt.

So - that is my update on that.

But there is good news. We go tomorrow to visit the Capitol Hill Co-op preschool, where a good friend goes with her son. She'll show us around. We'll see if we like it as much as I expect we will. And hopefully that is where Finn will go to school. Much less money, and I get to work there in the classroom once per week.

We'll have to drive quite a ways - the co-ops closer to us are all full.

There is one closer, where another friend goes, and they do have an opening one day per week - so somehow, someway, I hope that Finn will be settled at a school by next week.

No idea how this will play out in terms of my work life. Other than I have to go buy a laptop this week. So I can sit in coffee shops and the Capitol Hill Library and work on my grant-writing and my novel.

If you need any grants written, shoot me a message. And check out my new blog -

Adventures of a Would-Be Novelist: www.would-be-novelist.blogspot.com -

and send me messages if you notice I haven't posted anything in over a week.

I need some help with this nose and grindstone business, I think.



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