February 25, 2009 @ 23:21

EVABODY!  Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not next week, but since Janet clearly hit it right outta the park on the first shot, seems only fair that I just commit to the moment now.  Everyone gets cookies!  If you didn’t read Janet’s version, you gotta go right now.  I’ll wait . . . 

So, I’m thinking chocolate covered gingerbread men?  Maybe with fabulous flaming frosting heads . . .  I’ll warn you all before I ship ‘em out. 

And because I know you’re all on the edges of your seats . . .  this is the story of what the Ubercreepies were actually up to . . . turns out, the natural course of a witch burning holiday is eventually truancy . . .  nice . . . 

Topienie Marzanny - powitanie wiosny, The Drowning of Marzanna - Spring Welcome Festival, Sources: Ogrodowska Barbara, Polish Rituals of the Annual Cycle, Warsaw, State Ethnographic Museum, 2001; Knab-Hodorowicz, Sophie, Polish Customs, Traditions, and Folklore, New
York , Hippocrene Books, 1993.

 In every culture, where the winter is long, dark and cold, people have made a great effort to ensure that spring arrives on time; they search for signs in nature to confirm that the long awaited spring is just around the corner. In Poland , one of these signs is the return of the storks from warm climates. These birds are a sign that nature is awakening to life after a long winter. In the past, along with the arrival of the storks, people would start to prepare for what is called “the drowning of Marzanna” (topienie Marzanny).

Marzanna was a straw figure representing death, winter, disease and, in general, all evil. The figure was braided from straw into the shape of a human, and dressed in a traditional local women’s clothing. Then Marzanna was thrown into a river or pond. Meant to bring about the change of the seasons, from winter to spring, this custom was known all over Europe . Its roots undoubtedly date back to the ancient, pre-Christian sacrificial rites of pagans. As a pagan ritual, the Polish Pozna? bishops’ synod of 1420 attempted to condemn the drowning of Marzanna and fought to end this custom. The battle was clearly lost and till this day the drowning of Marzanna is part of Polish culture. Though the traditional elements of the ritual remain unchanged the participants differ from those of the medieval period. Since the 19 th century, topienie Marzanny is primarily a ritual game played by children and teenagers.

What did the ritual drowning of Marzanna look like? The figure of Marzanna was made from straw and dressed in local women’s clothing. Then, it was carried in procession around the whole village, from door to door, so that it would take away the evil spirits. Next, Marzanna was carried to the river bank, burned, and, while still in flames, thrown into a local river or pond. Finally, everyone would run home as fast as possible. It was believed that anyone who fell while running home would die that same year. Today, topienie Marzanny has been made popular by media and television. Celebrated on March 21 st, the first day of spring, it has taken on the form of a spring festival celebrated all over Poland primarily by school children. In the late 1970’s high school students started skipping school on that day. Though truancy was strictly forbidden, year after year on March 2 st, more and more high school students would roam the streets of big cities. Finally, this became a real problem for the Department of Education.

In the late 1990’s, before the problem spun out of control, officials in the Department of Education gave up. They officially named the first day of spring Truant’s Day (Dzie? Wagarowicza). There are no regular classes on March 21 st. Instead, special school activities are organized. Students wear masks, funny costumes, and generally take liberty to do what they want. In the afternoon, there are also organized festivals for
teenagers. 

So there you have it, religious holiday, skewing, centuries of repetition and BAM, skip day!  Kinda cool . . .  except for all that burning and drowning stuff . . . 

February 23, 2009 @ 22:06

So today, I’m cheerfully browsing around some clip art looking for some quick and easy Spring images to throw on a project when BLAM!  I find these little Ubercreepies . . . 

And I’m thinking as I looked at the thumbnail, what are those kids holding up?  Funny . . .  click . . .  OH MY GOD!  Gosh, Timmy, isn’t the flaming head of a woman just the funnest toy ever!?!?!  Seriously, what the hell?  It’s like a greeting card from Clive Barker.  So here’s the deal, if you really know what spectacularly disturbing holiday this celebrates, email me privately.  In the meantime, I wanna hear your guesses.  Way more fun than the truth will be I’m sure.  So post your story in the comments and next week I’ll pick a winner and send that someone something fantastic and probably covered in chocolate.  Get to spinning your macabre tales folks!  I’m waitin’! 

February 22, 2009 @ 21:44

Miles:  30

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  1

Pounds lost:  3

A little better, large room for improvement. All three of us got sick last week, so surely I can do much better this week.  I’m grateful either way for the 3 pound loss. And I passed the 200 mile mark for the year.  I’m at 201 as of this post.  Only 799 to go? 

February 21, 2009 @ 20:24

Today’s wedding cake delivery . . .  Good. 

Today’s time spent hanging out with my friends after work was done, even better. 

The four bucks and one hour that I’ll never get back because I purchased Mama Mia! from On Demand . . .  very very bad . . .  It only took one hour because I fast forwarded through most of the horror.  Seriously?  How was that a box office smash?  Seriously! And I was in my happy place all day today, even. You know those movies where people who don’t sing, give their best and it’s okay.  Like Richard Gere in Chicago.  Not scary at all, right?  This was not like that.  Poor Charlie was so scared that he ran away and hid under the bed.  I had to fry up some bacon to coax him out. No . . .  really . . . So hope there’s no offense if you loved it, but excuse me now, I’ve got to go watch The Godfather or maybe The Thirteenth Warrior to get back to my happy place. 

February 19, 2009 @ 23:45

Today, Puppy and I spent a long day at the big doctor.  This is what we call the developmental center here in our home state that specializes in treating special needs children.  This wasn’t a day full of surprises.  We stared down the A word long ago.  Autism.  But they’ve been teeth grindingly slow at placing us on the spectrum.  Giving us the ole rubber stamp so that I can feel better.  Yes, I know what I just said and I knew it would happen eventually and when it did that it wouldn’t change anything.  But I wanted it.  Badly.  I have been waiting for this day with baited breath and false hopes.  Well, maybe not false.  Let’s not get maudlin here . . . 

When they called us back, instead of leading us to our regular room (the one Puppy loves, with a basketball goal and a big net swing bolted to the ceiling right there in the middle of the room) they took us into a large room with several chairs.  And in those chairs were four, that’s right, four doctors, and a social worker.  Oh, and one nurse, too.  Now I don’t know about your life’s experiences, but I’ve never seen more than two doctors and staff in a room before.  Outside of an operating room, you just don’t get a round table like that, it’s the kind of scene that only happens on television.  Mostly you spend four times as much time talking to the nurse, then doc breezes through and asks two questions and breezes right back out.  This day was special.  They spent nearly four full hours with us.  We met, talked about this entire past year and a half’s work, broke into smaller groups and discussed finer points of certain areas, met back all together again.  I swear if there had been some bland box lunch and somebody droning on in front of a dry erase board, I’d have thought I was at a work conference.  And then they did it.  They rubber stamped our boy.  We knew already.  In fact the very first question they asked me when we sat down was what I thought his diagnosis was.  As I knew him better than anyone, what were my thoughts.  I was grateful to be given the opportunity to say it.  High Functioning Autistic, I said.  They all smiled, two laughed (kindly), and the social worker said out loud, “well, we’re done here, then, right?”  She later tried to apologize for being glib.  I told her, please, I like glib.  Glib makes me feel like I’m not going to cry.  For all the months that I’ve been wanting this.  Wanting this answer.  This definition, with what one would imagine would carry some instructions, guidelines, some by-god what to expect when you’re expecting sunshiney plan to follow.  But no, there are none.  In fact we were signed up to participate in a study that perhaps someday will help provide answers for others. 

They gave me a first 100 days kit.  I appreciated the sentiment, but we did that a year ago.  Our first hundred days is four hundred days gone.  And here I am, still asea in my head about it all.  I still haven’t shaken all my defensive responses.  After Puppy’s first hour with one of the specialists, we were regrouped and he told me about the evaluation they had just completed.  I had to work to keep my face blank through it as he repeated back to me all the phrases I know so well.  His robotic speech that he still reverts to in times of stress or confusion.  I still want to jump in at moments like that and say it’s my fault.  He didn’t have a good breakfast.  He didn’t get to sleep early enough.  Counter it with a retelling of one of his amazing moments of clarity.  Those moments that keep me hanging in there.  I want to throw some sort of shield over him.  When it’s not necessary, and maybe even not accurate.  I still struggle with the underlying feeling of if I could just do better.  I look at Bear as he’s about to turn fourteen, see the amazing young man he’s becoming, and think I did that.  I can pull it off twice, can’t I?  But I cannot compare these two boys.  They are both undeniably mine, but equally their own. 

So we had one more day of . . .  what do I even call it?  One more day of what does this mean?  And one more day of we really can’t say.  But here’s the label you’ve been waiting for.  And since you’ve already been doing what you should have been for that label, we have nothing new to offer you.  No plan.  No answers.  No definitive anything.  Only encouragement to keep up what we’ve been doing.  Confirmation at least, that we’ve been doing it right.  Praise for the progress he’s made.  But no reassurance that the day will come that he will able to overcome it.  I knew I wasn’t going to get that one.  But you know, I still buy lottery tickets every now and then.  I still flip through the channels expecting to find something good on.  I still believe in love at first sight.  I’m still crazy like that.  I still hope. 

February 19, 2009 @ 22:56

For Gracie, who is three . . . wow, at that girlie pallete . . . 

February 16, 2009 @ 21:38

Puppy is now tucked into bed for the night with a tiny box under his pillow holding his very first lost tooth.  Anybody know what the going rate for a tooth is nowadays?  When I was a kid it was fifty cents.  *sigh*  But then, we also had the opportunity to lose them in candy apples made by neighbors we didn’t know on Halloween, too.  I heard somebody say that they give their kids twenty bucks!?!?  Whatever it winds up being, he’s already pretty convinced it will be enough to parlay into the Hot Wheels Color Explosion something or other . . . Guess that’s the going rate for this tooth, anyway. 

February 16, 2009 @ 09:36

Saturday afternoon, my friend Steph came over and did my hair for me.  I’ve been covering my gray for decades.  Literally.  I started going gray at eighteen.  I am still, even though now forty, not ready to embrace it.  But I really don’t love the chemicals.  And the older I get and the more gray there is to cover, the harsher it seems to be.  But then one day when hugging Steph goodbye I noticed that her hair felt like silk.  We’re the same age and her hair is dark auburn like mine, so I asked.  Henna.  That’s the magic answer.  Of course only if you are up for being some version of a redhead.  I am.  So she walked into my kitchen Saturday afternoon with a bowl full of the most god awful looking stuff.  Seriously, like the first time you feed your baby spinach awful looking.  But it smelled like heaven.  Dark earthy spicy heaven.  No chemicals, just the henna itself, olive oil, spices and coffee.  How could it not be magnificent?  Now, two days later, with no roots showing and no feeling like I’ve got hay on my head and barely redder than I was before, I still smell like breakfast in some exotic place that I’ll probably never be able to afford to go.  But it’s certainly got me thinking about this summer and where I could go.  Maybe this will be the year I manage to catch Big Head Todd at Red Rocks and do some mountain hiking.  Or get to wander about the Grand Canyon.  Maybe Mexico . . . 

February 14, 2009 @ 20:06

Miles:  10 (oh, so bad, yes that’s just one night only on the bike)

Hours of other fitness pursuits:  1 (not any better)

Pounds lost:  0 (not sure how I dodged that bullet) 

I’ve been fighting a cold for half the week, fighting a deadline for the remainder.  I did not do well.  I’ll just be thankful I didn’t gain and tomorrow’s another day, yes? 

February 12, 2009 @ 21:37

Or, why E is the best daddy evah. 

As promised, pics of our new back yard fort. 

We expect to have conquered the whole neighborhood by June. 

Mommy isn’t sure if my first loose tooth is really my first loose tooth, or my first Fort Puppy injury. 

I’m not tellin’, I’m just gonna put it under my pillow and wait for the cash. 

This swing is making me sleepy, probably time to go jump off something tall again . . .