for these and all God's blessings...

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,

and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;

though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,

and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,

and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,

O Lord our God, and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties

which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.
- Hebrew Prayer Book

i love thanksgiving. aside from my birthday, it may be my favorite holiday. i like that when i was a little girl, thanksgiving was always the same--utterly predictable, and utterly wonderful. i also like it that as a grown up, thanksgiving has always been the same--a moveable feast, different every year. i was bothered by that for the longest time, and then i realized the obvious--thanksgiving isn't about the place, or the food, or the silverware, or the house, or the time you eat, or whether you see a movie or go shoping or get a nap. it's about the attitude you bring to the table, even if you never actually sit down at a table, or if it's the grown-up table or the little kid table, or the take out counter at jason's deli.

i have so much for which to be thankful this year. the whole list is enormous. the short list reads something like this:

family--all of them, the crazies, the normals, the in-laws, and the out-laws, but especially my momma. family is sometimes a hard thing to be. we don't always understand each other, we don't always know the ways to love best, or say true things, or absolve hurts. but we are family, and that is something special. that's something that doesn't just fall off the cart every day. family is work, play, rest, and welcome. family is babies and old people, baptisms and funerals. it is change and it is changeless. family is where you go to say real things, to make up, to fight, to get married, to heal broken hearts, to let your mother brush your hair dry, to ask your grandparents to tell you that story one more time, to hear your aunt laugh in the phone, to talk to your brother about things you did when you were small, to learn about your sister-in-law's dreams, to put your nephew to sleep, to smell babies, to love and be loved. you are my family. you are me. i am you. we are in this together, for better or worse. i am so grateful that i was born into this family, into these stories, into this gumbo of people who are so different, so similar, so beautiful, and so funny. i can't imagine belonging anywhere else, and even on days when i know you wonder about what i'm doing next, how i'm doing, and what in the world i am thinking, i am so glad i belong to you.

friends--you are the family i have made for myself. each and every one of you--the ones i talk to every day, the ones i talk to once in a blue moon. you are irreplaceable to me. you have taught me more than i can imagine. you are my sanity in an insane world. you are the rudder and the wind in my sails. you are dinner and drinks, baseball and dancing. you are movies and sunrises, tents and starshowers. you are couches and futons and guest bedrooms. you are take-out, homemade, four-star, diner fare, starbucks, french-pressed, deep fried funnel cakes. you are my face aching from laughter, and my eyes tear-swollen, my overage on the cell-phone bill, you are text messages at 4 am. you are concert tickets, bob dylan, 70's soft-rock, angry girl music, beethoven, yo la tengo, bluegrass, funk, soul, hip-hop, and reggae. you are chocolate and peanut butter, salty and sweet. you are the ocean and the mountains, the shenandoah valley and big bend national park. you are all the capitals, all the ghost-towns. you are black and white, you are technicolor. you are the secret language that only we understand. you are the secrets and the truths. you are broken. you are beautiful. you are my face.

health.

work.

free time--for new paint in my powder room, for kittens with razor-sharp claws, for the giggles (which i seem to be getting with terrifying frequency, a la my 13 year old self), for good books on my reading list, for naps, for trips to see friends and family, for frequent flyer miles, for staying up too late, for over-analyzing things with my nearest and dearest.

memories--for learning how to remember without feeling sad, for being nostaligic instead of tragic, for knowing lessons and still being willing to learn, for the art of forgiving, for the ability to walk away without being angry.

for my whole life--all the intersesctions, all the contradictions, the ups and downs, the scary things and the exciting things, for chicago and dc and birmingham and brady and new braunfels and tyler and austin and houston and all the places i have been fed and slept and laughed and cried. for the home that lives in my heart, and the people who live there.

yes, for these and God's blessings, i am truly thankful. and while thank-you seems like such a small thing to say, it's all i have. and so this year, i will try to live my "thank-you" loudly, and try to be a blessing, as much as i have been blessed.

love, a many splendored thing, has spread itself so richly over my life.

mil besos--rmg

I think over again my small adventures,

my fears,

These small ones that seemed so big.

For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing,

The only thing.

To live to see the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.
--inuit song

pet post

well, since the law of the jungle is "ladies first", i'll introduce you to the latest stray to find its way into my life...this is juju. she's about a month old, has wicked sharp teeth and claws, and her favorite time to play is from 2:30am-3:30am. she's really great, though, and she provides a lot of comic relief. she's getting rather vexed with me, as i have taken to spraying her with lavender water every time she climbs on the night table, or my dressing table, or up the screen, or the shower curtain, or bites her brother on the tail. which brings me to the next member of my menagerie...

this is jinx. jinx found me in april, and has been providing enough cat hair to make at least seven other cats over the last 7 months. he's such a good boy, and is content to just be petted. juju came to live with us as a result of jinx being VERY emotionally needy. and by very emotionally needy, i mean that he was up in my face every five minutes. he's adjusted to juju very well, apart from his insistance on sniffing her hind-parts every five minutes and pinning her down to groom her (i think jinx may be suffering from some gender identity issues) four or five times a night. he and juju could care less what i do, so long as i keep food in their bowls. jinx's favorite toy is a string, just behind him in the picture--that's right, a string. he hates every toy i've ever brought, but he thinks a friendship bracelet from circa 1992 is the greatest cat toy in the universe. ( good grief, the carpet in my room is scandalous. i vacuum it all the freaking time, and it still looks like it's infested with funk...sick out. )

i struggled over the decision to bring another cat into the house...you know the old chestnut about single women and cats...but, jinx needed a buddy, and juju needed a home. i've managed not to fill my cabinets with unlimited cans of cream cheese frosting, and i am reasonably sure that i will not start eating cat food as a dietary supplement, no matter how bad the hair balls get.

the last two nights, i have shut myself up in the guest room to escape what i will lovingly describe as "juju's late night fun hour". i can tolerate a lot, and i know she's only a kitten, but i can't really deal gracefully with having my face jumped on and my ears swatted in the middle of the night, so rather than throwing the sweet little creature against the wall, i opted to just changed rooms. she and jinx were curled up next to each other, right in front of the door when i went into my room to get dressed this morning.

mil besos from the pseudo cat lady in waiting...

rmg

chaos theory and stream of thought

"Ich sage euch: man muß noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können. " trans: "I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. "fwn
***
things to remember on a monday...

life throws his head back when i tell him that i'd like a two week notice on change. he laughs so hard that he actually cries a little bit. if sharon really gave a shit about my reproductive possibilities she never would have suggested using the whitetrashtownie in front of the car as my "sperm donor". stop censoring. stop checking up on things and people. things are the way they are, and no amount of shoring up, checking in, due diligence, etc. is ever going to change a single thing.

people are who they are, and you can't love them into being anything else, and even if you could, that would be a bad choice. causality is everything. everything is eventual. death and life are just opposite ends of the spectrum, and dying isn't too much different than being born. there's a change and a party. someone always cries. things move on. there is integration.

in the grand scheme of things, i think it's dangerous for me to know how powerful i really am, how powerful i really could be. i hate the obvious questions that no one thinks to ask out loud, so i ask them and am always suprised at the answers that come around. i'm even more suprised that anyone with an ounce of sense would deem those questions "insightful". morons make me so angry. shallow people make good morons.

blue is a nice color, but it befits spring. i was glad to wake up today, and glad that it was overcast, because i like gray and red and dark brown in the fall. i wore a green sweater today, even though it's not nearly cold enough. mom gave it to me for christmas. it feels like her hugs.

sometimes, i am afraid of dying. mostly i'm afraid of dying alone, and wondering if the cats would eat my eyeballs. and then i remember that i would be dead, so it wouldn't matter. i was very relieved when the doctor told me i wasn't going to die and that my ekg looked great. i almost cried. i'm glad the medicine is working. i'm glad i'm going to be ok. i'm glad my head isn't exploding anymore. sometimes i think that if i lost 80 pounds i could snap up a boyfriend quicker than anything. that makes me angry. it makes me hopeful, too. that thought makes me feed the cats, and go to the gym, anyway.

there's always a princess. there's always a fairy god-mother. always. always. always. and even when i can't swim out of the dream fast enough to save them all, i know it's a dream. and that i can breathe underwater. and that there is enough time to do what i must do to have things come out right. they will come out right. i just know it. i just have to stop checking. stop checking. stop checking. because things are how they are, and you can't get a two week notice on change. things don't really ever change, anyway. they are how they have always been, you just sometimes learn to open your eyes wider, or squint a new way, or put on fancy new glasses and see things from a new view.

tomorrow is going to be a long day.

mil besos--rmg

episode #241, in which rachiepoo takes pictures in san antonio and learns to drive in chicago...

see, even when i'm not writing thoughtful and witty posts, i'm still always moving, trying to find the next thing to write about or take a picture of. i'll need a nap soon, but since it's national blogging month, i figured i better get with the program, and write some posts already.

i love trees. i'm mesmerized by them, to tell the truth. the "ents" in Lord of the Rings are some of my favorite imaginary creatures, not the least of which is because they are trees. this particular tree is in the couryard of the alamo. it's a live oak that was transplanted there in 1912. it's amazing.

this is a detail taken off a bridge crossing the san antonio river on presa street. it's a great old bridge, and marks the entry into la villita, my favorite part of san antonio. i always park near this bridge so i can walk across it.

our lady of guadalupe is my favorite of all the marys. i took this picture out side of mission san jose, in san antonio. i plan on cleaning the shot up some, flipping it to black and white, and maybe using it for a christmas card. the mission is really beautiful, and i very much enjoyed the afternoon i spent walking around the grounds, looking at the buildings, etc. all the art work in and on the building was done by the indians who lived in the mission. what a beautiful place!

i can unequivically say that i would rather have all my fingernails pulled out than drive in chicago ever again. it's horrible. there's a word to describe it, but seeing as how i send this blog to my grandparents, i can't use it. but the first syllable is cluster...you get the point. this is really the only picture i wanted in chicago. i fought hard to get to wrigley field, and braved a 2 hour traffic jam to snap this. i am very much, on occasion my father's child, not only because i got lost five times while actually using a map, but also because i drove 60 miles roundtrip to take a picture of the front of baseball stadium. here's to ya, pops.

does anyone else see the total irony of proclaiming a restaurant "the wieners circle" while advertising it as the "home of the char-broiled cheddarburger"? i do. and i stopped traffic to get you this picture. you are allowed to show your pleasure in the form of gratuitous praise. cash is also acceptable.

this is the best shot of the sears' tower i could get from the street. i got honked at. a lot. but there was no way i was coming home without some damn pictures of chicago landmarks. not after fighting my way downtown in obscene traffic and having paid money on tolls. geeze louise. that being said, chicago is a great town. maybe one day i will attempt to conquer it, and add it to the list of cities i have pillaged with my awesomeness. i will be hiring a driver to cart me around, for sure.

that's pretty much all i have for you from this side of the funny farm.

mil besos--rmg