ALS Millions from Ice Buckets

In the past week, the Ice Bucket Challenge has swept through the ranks.

Bob was challenged

Post by Bob Mask.

Sam got roped in by Jason.

The Southwestern Soccer team called out Nick ahead of Bob, who in turn got the entire football team on board and called out the President of Southwestern University, Dr. Edward Burger. as well as Dean Munt and the entire SU Cheer Team.

Post by Nick Mask.

(you can just spot Nick behind Dr. Burger in the suit)

Drs. Burger and Munt accepted the challenge the following day:  

Of course, the backlash is inevitable. Lots of cynics decry the "look at me!" boast of the challenge and the fact that most people aren't donating as well as doing it. 

Except, and here's the really strange but fantastic part, it's working like gangbusters.

I'm kind of the mind that the cynics who suggest posting these challenges is stupid and self-aggrandizing take a look at what else gets posted on social media. It's ALL self-aggrandizement. At least this fun, harmless thing has somehow, rather inexplicably, actually worked to raise over $20 million and counting for a degenerative disease that has no cure because there isn't enough money to put into research. 

August Family/Photo Update

Not the greatest past two days here.

How does one manage to throw out one's back just stretching?

I spent all of yesterday prone on the heating pad hardly able to move my head any direction and knocking back Vicodin like candy. 

This morning, I was able to move again, although a bit stiff. But I had to take my computer in to work to try and get the blue screen of death problem solved.

After wiping the OS (goodbye Photoshop . . .  still weeping), which took FOUR HOURS at the office while I waited, the blue screen popped right back up on us, so I'd wasted the entire day and ended up taking the damn thing back to Best Buy where it will take THREE WEEKS to get back. 

It's not even a year old. But, hey, it's still under warranty, right? Ugh.

August cannot be over soon enough.

In the good news column, Nick is doing well in camp. They changed his number without asking, which was pretty crappy, but he managed to finagle #55, which was the first jersey he ever wore (Junior Seau). 

(then)

(now)

(the team helping freshman move into their dorms)

In Bob news, he just finished filming for a music video that has its big debut next month, complete with a Cast and Crew Q&A

And he spent part of Sunday at the hospital visiting with Malachi, who is fighting a spinal infection that's paralyzed his lower half and stuck him in the hospital on his birthday. 

And Sam started classes today and is really looking forward to the semester. Today was art history and drawing, tomorrow ceramics! But no pictures to share for her. The girl goes to Oregon for two weeks and doesn't take a single photo. On that front, I'm a failure. (Nick doesn't take any, either, but the SU Football photos suffice.)

The only thing I seem to have snapped was a cookie cake she'd already cut into on her return.

Oh, and some more weird art at DIA when I picked her up at midnight:

Friday evening photos of the new fire pit, margaritas, and nachos with Amber:

And there's always the sunrise, even in August.

God Abandons Antony . . . and Robin Williams

Thinking on the death of Robin Williams this evening, grateful for the laughter, saddened by the knowledge that depression won the final round, and this poem keeps flitting to the surface of my thoughts.


When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

~"God Abandons Antony", C.P. Cavafy, translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

From my childhood memories of Happy Days, and then Mork and Mindy, I owned the suspenders and the lunch box and a notebook with his goofy grin on it. I was a teenager who ate up Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poet's Society as gospel. I raised my children with him as the Genie's voice in Aladdin, as Mrs. Doubtfire, and Jumanji. He was Osric in the Hamlet I showed hundreds of times to so many students.

He was just . . . always there.

And, as always, whenever a death is too soon, too unexpected, without a lingering illness or very old age, the shock of his passing stings just enough to stir the sadness for a while.

I'd prefer to remember the laughter tonight, and always.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest

8/10/14 August Moon and Morning

Moonrise from the window, 8/9/14

Moonset this morning and, thanks to heavier cloud cover than expected, just about didn't get out of the house to get anything at all.

So we went on to the dog park for sunrise

Moon disappointment made up for by the hawk who had taken up position along the path, nearest the hen house in someone's back yard. The chickens were squawking away and she just sat their, rotating her head around, fluffing herself in the morning sun, taunting them.

The First Apartment

Interior decorator, I was not, but I still have that comforter.

Nick has called five times today so far. It's the day he's moved into his first apartment.

And I wasn't there. 

No one was.

One of the drawbacks of going to school 1000 miles away means there's no piling up a UHaul trailer full of secondhand furniture and helping him get settled. 

His roommate doesn't move in until Monday, and Ali's family is bringing up some furniture in another weekend to help out. 

But today, tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday, it's him in an empty apartment except for a mattress (just delivered, which he shopped for and bought on his own) and his clothes (no hangars or drawers), not even a trash basket.

He does have his T.V. and game system, which has to sit on the floor. But he can watch Netflix in high definition. 

That's an improvement.

25 years ago, almost exactly, I sat on the floor of my apartment, no couch, a T.V. on the floor, catching all of one, scratchy, squiggly channel out of Austin with antenna extended as far as they would go. I had my bedroom . . .  and four bar stools. 

Marci would arrive the following day, with living room furniture handed down from an aunt, and we'd make it our own. 

But on that night, scrounging around with the one saucepan I had with the couple of bowls I'd brought from my dorm days, I managed a bowl of macaroni and cheese and sat, in the middle of the floor in the dark, watching some show I cannot even remember, with just the light of the television to keep me company.

Rite of passage, I told Nick.

It makes you appreciate everything you left at home, that you took for granted, and that you realize you have to build from scratch, because you are, finally, on your own. 

Later, with Marci's microwave and kettle and breadbox and blender.

But my bar stools and bulletin board, which, strangely, I also still have.

This morning's sunrises (so far)

This one really caught me off guard. 

The sun is not really up at this point . . . so how is there a rainbow in the sky? 

And why is it almost entirely red?

(The answer is here.)

And on the walk this morning, no rainbow, but still great color in the clouds.

What's most magical about this time of day is that there is no one else around. I am standing in the middle of this light show that happens for only a few minutes and that comes out of nowhere. Really, every morning, I look at the skies as Evan and I set out on our walk and think, nope, it won't happen today. And every time, if there are any clouds anywhere, there it is, just exploding and then disappearing. Anyone who gets out one minute later will never see it. 

That Mad Men Carousel Pitch

when the ad man gets sucked into his own pitch? Great scene

My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old pro copywriter. Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is "new". Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of... calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It's delicate... but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means, "the pain from an old wound". It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. 

This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the Wheel. It's called a Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again... to a place where we know we are loved.