WEDNESDAYS

U2 No Line On The Horizon

  I have been in love with this band for many years.  I remember going out on a freezing New Year's Day in Fresno, of all places, screaming about how nothing changes on New Year's Day; dancing until the tiny hours of the morning and being all involved with Party Girl.  I knew a Crash.  I will never ever forget the first U2 concert I went to in Oakland which was the closest venue to where I lived in Sacramento.  The tour was for The Joshua Tree and the opening song was Where The Streets Have No Name.  The music that night left an impression on me unlike anything I had ever experienced before.  I have many vivid memories of that day and night.  Talk about a spiritual experience.  Joshua Tree really spoke to me and in many ways gave me a reason to keep going. 

  Music in general has always been a constant in my life even though I only learned to play a little piano just recently.  Maybe if I learned to play it wouldn't be so much the savior for me that it is.  I don't care for noise so much and I can't tolerate the sound of a fan but I am always better when I have the radio on or even a music channel on tv.

  I have been lucky enough to see U2 in concert many more times past that one fateful night in Oakland.  I saw them in New Zealand with BB King.  I went twice to the Zooropa Tour with the Fly glasses and all the Bullet the Blue Sky beauty.  I took Avery to the last Vertigo tour.  That was special for me because it was his first concert and he plays guitar.  They were awesome every time.  And now we have No lIne on the Horizon and it is a great record.  The band is still the next big thing to me.  I can't wait for the tour to come around here.  It is a stadium tour agains so that means lots of flash and bigger, outdoor venues.

  I could gush for a couple of more days but I will leave you with a photo of Avery at the concert.  He got lucky that night as they played his favorite song, Elevation which is pretty amazing since they have recorded around 500 songs to date. 

Hey, where is that hat?  I want it.

Alyssa turns nine

   this Thursday.  My little munchkin isn't so little anymore and she is still such a little girl to me.  I don't want her to grow up too fast despite all our drama of the last year (08) and my wanting her to get past some of her child like behaviors.

  Alyssa is extremely intelligent, very funny with a little bit of a twisted sense of humor, gentle with animals and organized.  The world doesn't make a ton of sense her but she keeps asking questions about how it works and why life is the way it is.  It can be a bit unnerving to have such big questions come out of a tiny girl.  Look out if you don't carry the expected answers within you because she is also a force of nature when it is all being thrown down. 

  She makes me laugh and she makes me cry and I love her more than she can accept sometimes.  And I recognize that this little girl knows many many wise things about life and people and relationships that maybe I don't yet; things that she can't hope to express in words just yet.  Alyssa gets it.  Her favorite thing to say to me is, "You aren't listening."  cosmic joke that

  She and I are going to spend her birthday at Disneyland.  She requested a day with just the two of us over a party with kids and family.  She also wanted a kitten but we all decided that maybe another kitty  wouldn't be the best thing for Jojo and jack jack right now.  And of course her hamster passed away last Wednesday.  She was so brave about it while we were burying him.  She held him and petted him, wrapped him in a piece of blankie from her piano cover, gave him some special flowers and placed him in the ground.  Afterwards she broke down and sobbed.  Alyssa loved that little guy so much everyday that he was with us and Greystripe was here for two years.  She was the only one he didn't bite.  She was the only one who wasn't afraid of him. 

  Happy Birthday to my little angel who got a pair of tiny horns with her wings.

Changes Are Always Afoot

  Yes, I have heard that the only constant thing in life is change and that is more evident at certain times in our lives than others.  I believe that because I have children who are in a constant state of flux, growing and figuring out what it means to be a human in a body, I get a daily dose of the whole 'change is constant' sentiment.  Other changes occur over such a lengthy period that we hardly notice them until they are practically screaming in our face for some attention. 

  I have spent many hours this year going through the old cards and papers that I saved; that my mother and father saved; that my father's family saved; that my husband saved (he, by the way, has kept his to a minimum).  One afternoon I reread a pile of cards that Danny and I have exchanged over the years and all the mother's days cards the kids gave me.  I started counting the years and I was a bit blown away by the idea that Dan and I have shared 16 Valentine's Days, no 17.  Where did all that time go?  I know that I have been radically changed by these years and mostly in ways that only I would notice.   This has been the slow change over time for me.  I think Lisa called it a deep settling.  Maybe it was just a great peeling of the layers of the onion.  Who knows?

  Recently I started feeling a change in the wind and this has a feeling of something swifter occurring, yet no less significant.  I want to be open to change and I want to be able to roll with whatever.  However I can feel a little bit of my age and my hesitation in the face of my feelings mostly because I haven't been that far off the mark where these things are concerned in the past.  Plus it wasn't all wine and roses in the past.  I hope that what comes next is a ride that I can handle with ease.  I am swearing off the Wild Toad Ride forever.  And no teacups.  Whoever decided that going in circles was fun had some serious issues.