Photo Wednesday: Christmas Tonttus

Hi folks, Anna here ...

This past weekend, Hanna and I were up in Maine celebrating an early Christmas with the folks. This involved a lot of good food, a Christmas carols service at nearby Colby College, and the creation of our very own tonttu for the apartment. Tonttu are Finnish house spirits that Hanna's mother learned about from her Finnish parents and grandparents. Here are some photographs that we took of the process of making two tonttus. It took the better part of Sunday morning.

these fellows were our model tonttus

here are some of the supplies Linda provided

We started with a base of cardboard, Styrofoam, and felt

all self-respecting tonttus need hats

Mine is on the left, Hanna's is on the right.

Hanna named hers Ibrahim; mine is named Helga

We brought them back to Boston on Monday to grace our Christmas shelf

While tonttu is the Finnish term for house spirits, some of you may be familiar with the Astrid Lindgren picturebooks which tell the story about a gentle tomten who cares for a family farm in Sweden. This is essentially the same folk character, though seen through the lens of a slightly different Scandinavian tradition.

I hope all of you are finding small and pleasurable ways of preparing for the holiday season ...

Photo Monday: Maine and Back

This post brought to you by Anna.

This passed Saturday, Hanna and I drove up to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens to visit with her mom and dad. Linda was exhibiting at the Maine Fiber Arts Showcase. It was a rainy afternoon, but luckily the fiber arts event was inside the visitor's center.

As usually happens when we visit with Hanna's parents, we drove north with things to give/return to them and they met us with more things for us to take south again ... a new sweater for Hanna, the tam that Linda knit me for Christmas and finally blocked, and what Hanna has termed "the rudest thing ever":

Kevin with the rude squash (photo by Linda)

In exchange, we finally allowed Shirley -- the stuffed sheep from Michigan that we gave Linda for her birthday in July -- to move to her forever home in Maine.

Shirley and Linda at Linda's display booth (photo by Anna)

The garden is impressive in size and scope, although we didn't get a chance to see much of it in the rain. One section is the fairy house village. I think this is where these magical creations were headed:

fairy houses in the garden library (photo by Anna)

a fairy castle? tree house? (photo by Anna)

Shirley got a bit chilled (photo by Anna)

When we got home, Geraldine was pissy because we had left her alone all Saturday -- but she was somewhat mollified by the four new rag rugs we brought home, courtesy of Linda. Rag rugs are clearly for kitties to sleep on, not for humans to place their feet.

enigmatic cat is enigmatic (photo by Hanna)

Photo Monday: BU Bridge

Hi! Anna here.

Last Friday, Hanna and I walked from our apartment over to Cambridge via the Boston University bridge which has been under extensive restoration for the past several years. It was a gorgeous September day. Here are a few photographs that we snapped on the bridge.

Hanna looking west up the Charles river
(photo by Anna, obviously)

Moon over I-90 (photo by Hanna)

graffiti on the freight rail  bridge below
(photo by Hanna)

girders in the sun
(photo by Anna)

Cross-posted at the feminist librarian.

Photo Monday: Uneasy Detante

This is life in our household today. Hope yours is a relaxing!

Geraldine attempts to commune with
Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg

~Anna and Hanna, Labor Day 2011

photo monday: home improvement

Anna here, in charge of Photo Monday for the week!

In the midst of Hurricane Irene this week, Hanna and I not only managed a trip to visit friends in Providence, RI, but also built some shelving for the bedroom in order to better organize books and clothes ... the dressers we'd saved from the apartment building trash (yes, we have been known to dumpster dive) and the wine crates from the store up the street just weren't cutting it any longer. The downside, of course, is that we had to spend yesterday evening constructing a 9' x 7.5'x 1' shelving unit in our tiny apartment. In tropical humidity.

Ah, the price of literacy.

First, we had to clear a space for the new shelves.
(If only we could keep the wall empty! So restful.)

We moved one of the old bookcases into the closet to hold VHS tapes
and periodicals. Play spot the cat for extra points!

There were 72 bolts to tighten. Ouch!
Gerry supervised from her perch on the piles of books.

By 10pm we had the whole thing constructed and
called it quits for the night.

Here are the shelves mostly filled (the wine crates remained ... but our
clothes are finally not buried at the back of the closet!

The cat's supervisory responsibilities exhausted her.

And now we have space for more books!

This time we've actually interfiled our books
for subject continuity!

And now as I type this, Hanna is making us Tassajara whole wheat millet bread which is one of my new favorite treats! I promise a recipe one of these days. We plan to enjoy it with Magic Hat Hex and matzo-vegetable soup.

Cross-posted at the feminist librarian.

Photo Wednesday: Back from Maine

Hi folks,

Anna here, standing in for your usual blog mistress -- who is currently in the kitchen making a delicious veggie roast with fresh beets and onions from her parents' garden and kale from our CSA subscription. Summer is upon us and, lo, we are drowning in vegetables!

the green tomatoes await

We spent the weekend in Maine with Hanna's parents, who have an expansive vegetable garden and feed us three times a day on scrumptious baked goods (bagels, Finnish coffee bread, lemon meringue pie, chocolate chip cookies, ginger iced cream ...) and fresh-harvested beets, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, onions, and more. Here are some photos I took while we were there.

Lunchtime!

This is not a hummingbird house,
but the hummingbirds were everywhere

In which in indulge my enjoyment of windows and doors.

Flowers in the garden...

...and vegetables (cabbage in this case; yum!)

The woodshed.

The old Norridgewock  public library ...

...and the model Hanna and her father made when she was small.

Two younglings at the artisan bread fair
grinding cornmeal using a modified bicycle.

Watch for Hanna's return on Friday.

Rage Dump

enough yogic herbal hyper-empathy. he slaughtered us. orphaned little kids. who are we, really, to deny him his martyr's heaven? a win win.
We got the last true remaining monster of the 20th century - a gruesome slice of humanity - and bam! It's red vs blue again
To all news reports about Osama unarmed, not resisting, etc. I don't care if he was naked & tied to a chair, shoot the frakker. Thx Seals!

In case you're wondering, the preceeding are three tweets from folks I follow -- big shocker here -- on Twitter for whom I used to have considerably more respect.

I have deleted their names and any retweet information because I hope that one day at some point in the future, I will be able to forgive them for this. Maybe even forget that they did it.

I really didn't think that anything could lower my opinion of the mentality of the American public when acting as a group any lower than it already is but just like a good horror movie, as soon as you think you've killed the boogey-man -- bam! Back in your face.

And this has been an absolutely atrocious week for me -- I'll admit it. I either have the flu or the head cold from hell; I've missed all my hours at one job and all my hours but one day at the other. I have accomplished nothing except the filling of many Trader Joe's paper bags with used tissues, the consumption of a lot of tea or TJ's Yuzu citrus stuff, and a lot of cat-cuddling. I'm tired and achey and depressed and the good weather outside is really just making me want to close all the blinds and hide on the couch.

And there are street parties because a man was executed. I don't care what the mother-fucker did: in the end, we executed him. And what led up to it is a series of unpleasant activities culminating in the violation of another nation's sovereignty that I don't really want to think about right now because the stupidity and the shortsightedness and the viciousness and the lack of either foresight or historical hindsight make me dizzy with anger. I don't believe that can ever have been justified or right or even a reasoned act. This is sheer revenge-laden viciousness and the reaction is nauseating.

I'm not being very yogic or Buddhist about this right now. I did, in my fever-laden snooze this week, sometimes think I could write a post in that spirit.

But mostly I want to grab people who write things like these heaven-forsaken tweets above by the scruff of the neck and shake them until their fucking teeth rattle. This is not how you behave, people. This is behavior that rivals Fred Phelps for sheer disgust and, believe me, it is going to take many years of dedicated metta meditation before I could put Mr. Phelps in the appropriate category.

And that attitude on my part isn't helping.

So I'm going to go and brush my cat and help my girlfriend rearrange her books and drink some green tea and sweep my living room and try to get through my day as calmly and empathetically as I can.

Even if it means feeling compassion for people I would really rather see going down for the third time in the middle of the Charles.

Because I wouldn't. I don't want them to die; I didn't want him to die. I would like them to wake up magically tomorrow morning and think, "Oh, my God. What have I been doing? Did I go crazy? Well, enough of that -- lets go volunteer at an animal shelter." Or words to that effect. It would have been nice if the same thing had happened to bin Laden. It didn't and now it never can.

P.S. If you want more reasoned, thoughtful reactions to this, I suggest you check out thoughts on the death of a man or Ramblings on the death of Osama bin Laden.

Photo Thursday

So for some reason, this seems to have been the week from hell for a lot of folks. Here in our household, Hanna has the flu, which is why I've volunteered to break radio silence with a photo post so you don't think she's been, you know, abducted by Mulder's alien friends. Or something.

Yeah.

Anyway. Here are some pictures by Hanna from our walk last weekend along the Charles River Esplanade. May 1st, through some strange coincidence, happened to be one of the first truly gorgeous spring/summer days here in Boston -- and we took photos to prove it!

Even the sailboats were enjoying the weather

Joggers and walkers were out in spades; and leaves
are finally starting to fill out along bare branches.

About halfway along the walk, we found that someone
had been busy with chalk writing encouragements on the pavement.

Encouragements like this -- charming in their artlessness.
(And to be honest, moving as well -- that someone took the time.)

This was my favorite. The text reads:
"<-- DUCK. Don't be afraid to fail (even at drawing)"

This was Hanna's favorite. The text reads:
"Just keep swimming!" (and a picture of a fish)

All of which reminded me of T.J Thyne's little gem of a film, which really should be broadcast on a weekly (daily? hourly?) basis across all forms of media worldwide. Possibly then there wouldn't be so many people doing stupid things which make us sad. It's 16:24 and I swear it's worth it. Make time in your day. You'll thank us.

We hope to see you again next week for our regularly scheduled programming.

The Pleasures of Sitting Down

This month has been rough for me and my meditation practice. Things haven't been going well between us: I got a new job which always kicks my over-achiever self into over-drive (see what I did there? Clever, no? No, you're right, not really) and I got sick. It's very hard to be disciplined enough to do any amount of sitting on a daily basis when the simple act of inhaling turns your sinuses into...well, not to put you off your dinner or anything so we'll just say into a very painful place. Not to mention the fact that, I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, if I can drag myself to work and back when I get home, the last thing on Earth I want to do is anything that isn't sleeping. Or dozing. Or napping. Or just lying down in general, really. Lying down = good.

The downside of all this, of course, is that I lose 5-20 minutes a day which help to focus and clear me after the day or, if I'm very lucky and got up early, for the rest of the day. That's not a good thing. When I was sitting regularly, I was having better days. It was easier to take criticism; easier to keep my temper; just generally...easier.

So my goal for next month is to get back into my regular practice and one of the ways I aim to do this is to start visiting one of these two sites regularly again.

The Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, is kind enough to tape the dharma talks given by visiting teachers and the resident monks and make them available online. I've listened to most of the teachers listed on here, but my two favorites are Ajahn Amaro and Ajahn Sucitto. Ajahn Amaro is one of my meditation teacher/acupuncturist's teachers and he's told me some great stories about listening to talks in person. On a less spiritual level, I have to say that I love the Ajahn's voice and his sense of humor. He's English; it's dry; it's all good. Buddhist philosophy is extra-wonderful when it comes with jokes about Marmite and Monty Python. Ajahn Sucitto, equally, has a wonderful speaking voice and a great sense of how to bring daily examples into his talks.

The other site I visit regularly is Dharmaseed.org. They also archive talks by a variety of teachers and I have spent less time exploring here, but I have had a great time listening to Rodney Smith and Bhante Gunaratana. Smith is another teacher I found through my teacher who has worked with him in the past and I think his sense of humor and passion really come through in his talks. He claims to be a "one note dharma teacher," but I don't think that's true: or if it is only "one note," it's a very...flexible note. Bhante Gunaratana I originally found through his books -- a post for another time -- but his talks are also excellent. I would caution you, though: when I downloaded a couple of his talks I found they were incomplete and there was a "Part 2" or "Part 3" on the website that wasn't clearly redirected from the original part. So check the titles carefully!