creative.mother.thinking

June Just Posts

July 10, 2008 by Susanne 4 Comments

Welcome again to the Just Posts roundtable.

When last month I wrote about child poverty in the introduction to the Just Posts there were a lot of marvelous comments. I’m especially thankful to Hel for pointing out that not everyone of us is living in a “rich country”. I forget that, sometimes, in the same way that I’m not really comprehending the fact that it’s winter now, where she lives, while I’m in the middle of summer.

I knew instantly what to write about for this month’s introduction when I heard about the Expo 2008 on the radio. It’s all about water and sustainable development.

When I wrote about my guilty conscience when staying in the shower for too long, one of readers mocked me. And she is right, water is not that much of a problem where I live. It’s raining as I type this, and the water we drink comes from nearby. In past years we were advised not to give it to infants, and the town I live in helped families with newborns so that they could buy bottled water for them, but for the past years, and ever since my son has been born the water has been of good quality.

The situation in the nearby Bavarian capital is a bit different. While they have water that is pure and marvelous, and they have plenty of that, it seems a bit weird to me that that water comes from somewhere in the Alps. There are big pipelines fueling it to the city. But there isn’t a problem with the water as such. It’s good, it’s pure, and there’s plenty.

Of course, that’s not true for everyone in the world. Good water for drinking is a scarce resource and is becoming increasingly rare. Imagine living in a place where you had to chose between drinking something that makes you and your children sick, or not drinking at all. Imagine living somewhere where most of your day is spent fetching water from a place that’s hours away.

It’s sad that it always seem to come back to this these days, that there are people who have pools, and washing machines, and who take showers and baths every day, and who don’t even drink water because it’s so common, and there are people who barely have enough to survive, or even less.

I don’t know what to do about it, I know that I can’t send my unused shower water to the desert but it would be great if I could.

And now to something different, here is the list of posts that were gathered by you:
Andrea at Punk Rock Mommy with Planting the seeds of my own garden
Andrea with The burden of perfection
Averagebean with Freedom of speech?
Blog Antagonist with Speak English Me
Chani with Wellness Wednesday: take back your time
Christine Kane with Making Friends with Songs and Food
Defiant Muse with The mommy myth
Flutter with I am an omnivore
Girlgriot with Gotta do more than holla and We can, I mean WE can
Hel with Afternoon in an urban footgarden
Her Bad Mother with Joy, And Pain
Identity Theory with The weapon of rape
Indigenous people’s issues today with Five key indigenous people’s issues
Jen with Where the streets have no name and the shattered ceiling and what it means for our children
Julie with Kids and sex?
Kaliroz with indifference to me, is the epitome of evil
KC with Wheels
Mayberry Mom with 20 lousy pairs of scissors
MOMocrats with Moms need help in California family court system
Moosh in Indy with the healthcare of stereotypes
No Caption Needed with High Noon in Sadr City
The Expatriate’s Kitchen with World Refugee Day
Toddlywinks with The powerlessness of three
Tossing Pebbles in the Stream with To laugh or be outraged
Susanne with Corsets, coolness, caps, and cosmetic surgery
Suzanne Reisman on blogher with Banning the Pill Kills Women. Period. and “Third Genders” in Societies with Rigid Gender Roles
WhyMommy with Thank you, AmVets

The ones who read:
Janet
Moosh!
Alejna

And, as always, there are Mad, and Jen the ones who started this. Please, check out what they have to say this month. And Jen will be going to BlogHer and talk about this here roundtable, how marvelous.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something

July 8, 2008 by Susanne 5 Comments

First there was a blog post on the 50 songs in 90 days-challenge on the shy singer/songwriter-blog. Then I got my astrology newsletter where there was mention of a singer, and when I checked out the site there was a link to the Immersion Composition Society whose members challenge themselves to write 20 songs in a day. (By the way I like the music of Ultralash a lot but when I wanted to buy the CD I couldn’t because I don’t have an US paypal account. Meh.) I already sensed a theme here but I’m still not ready for writing music again. And just then I opened Neil Gaiman’s blog in my feed reader, and there was mention of his former web elf, and voilà, former web-elf has posted one-minute-songs to her site three times a week.

Humph.

Did I mention that I still have about a gazillion things to do without even having touched any instrument?

Humph, indeed.

You know, I have bought myself a new recording thingy. And I already used it. Once. In April or so. Since then I have wanted to mix the recording. And I still haven’t done it. But here is the draft of the blog post I intended to write about it:

I actually got my own “connect the mike with the computer”-device last Thursday half a month six weeks ago. It’s called Onyx Satellite, hence this post’s title. [The post should have been called “I got my own satellite”.] However, due to life, and yarn expeditions I only unpacked it three days later. And managed to record a very short and not that exciting improvisation. Of course I wanted to present you with something really great but then I thought I’d better just post what I have. Because if I wait for something really great I might never get around to post music on my blog again. Using that thing is much easier than using the big mixer my husband has.

So now I’m doing something that no musician should do. Ever.

I’m posting a raw first take of a boring improvisation. Without having listened to it again.

There.

Nice post, isn’t it? Even if it is a bit incoherent. The only problem is that I then had to listen to the improvisation again, and it had the deadly flaw of being far too soft. Not loud enough. When it started to play on my computer I checked and rechecked three times to see if the loudspeaker was on. So I couldn’t post it.

There was only one thing to do. I recorded another improvisation today. Which is based on a groove idea that I had on May 1. I carried that idea around in my head for more than two months. Then I connected my new recording device, everything was fine, I even remembered to check the levels, and then I sang it. It was beautiful. Really. Unfortunately you can’t hear it because for no good reason the computer didn’t record it. Which I found out after more than two minutes of singing. Then I had twelve minutes left before I had to leave to pick up my son. I recorded the thing again, well, something based on the same groove. I had seven minutes to mix it which is why I’m not completely satisfied with that artificial sounding reverb effect thingie.

But here, finally, is at least some music by me:

[audio:improjuly.mp3]

I had wanted to make a new category on this blog like the “Story of the Month”-feature. “Monthly music” or, why not go wild, “Weekly Improvisation”. But, alas, it seems that a month in music is like six months in real life for me. But who knows. Maybe there will be something else before Christmas. Though I’m sure there won’t be 50 songs in 90 days.

Corsets, coolness, caps, and cosmetic surgery

July 4, 2008 by Susanne 15 Comments

A few days ago when my son, my husband, and I were having breakfast, the conversation turned to fainting, and from there to corsets. (What, you’re not talking about things like that at breakfast? Oh, you’re not talking at breakfast. Well, that’s the only meal we always eat together.) Let me explain: my son had been feeling a bit dizzy lately because it was very hot and humid, he has been growing fast, and so he started to ask me about feeling dizzy and fainting. My husband said that women used to faint all the time, and I said that was because of corsets. After my son had listened to my automatic lecture about the importance of drinking enough water he asked, “What’s a corset?” We tried to explain. He was puzzled, why would somebody want to wear something like that? Well, it all comes down to coolness, I said. “It’s like when you’d rather get heatstroke than wear the sun-hat you don’t like because your “cool” baseball cap is in the wash.” He wasn’t really convinced. (He wore his hat that day, though. After we had “talked it cool” by comparing it to a cowboy hat and such.)

Still, he couldn’t get over the fact that women would wear something as uncomfortable as that, something that makes you almost unable to breathe. My next thought was, “Today’s women would never do that!” But then I thought of high heels. Shoes that make your feet hurt, and your back, and your knees, and your hips, and you can’t even walk in them. And then – I thought of cosmetic surgery. And made the mistake of talking about that as well. Have you ever tried to explain to your kindergardener why some women want to put plastic bags into their body? Because they think it looks pretty?

Of course, I couldn’t really explain it to him because I don’t understand it myself. I do understand not feeling pretty, I understand not being content with the way I look (though I wish I couldn’t). But pay a fortune to have surgery that isn’t really necessary? And where do you stop, then? When you look like a Barbie doll? When you have grown so old that your heart doesn’t take it anymore?

Cosmetic surgery is on the rise, and I sense a paradigm shift that makes it more “normal”. Younger and younger women are thinking about it, and having it, even at an age where their bodies aren’t yet finished.

I’m really worried about a lifestyle where we are defined by our looks. Where we try to look like the ideal 18-year-old until we die.

I’m also very worried that something like cosmetic surgery seems to be much more available these days. Until not that long ago, in Germany, cosmetic surgery was only for people who really needed it. People with horrible scars and such. Nowadays it’s something that you just pay for. Don’t like your nose? Snip.

I’d love to be able to tell my son that people have evolved since the days of the corset but it seems they haven’t.

(And, please, don’t forget to send your links for the Just Post roundtable. My e-mail address is creativemother AT web DOT de.)

Pictures of my finished Storyteller Stole

June 30, 2008 by Susanne 8 Comments

So, today the sun was shining again, and I finally managed to take picture of the finished stole. It only took me ten days… (I wrote aboug the stole and it’s transformation in another post. That’s where those of you who want to know can also find the information about pattern and yarn.)

I found the pattern when I followed a link to the Hanami stole I had seen on somebody else’s blog. It’s by the same designer. The swirls and ornaments appealed to me instantly. I wanted to knit this stole for myself.

It’s called Scheherazade, and I thought of mine as my storyteller stole. Telling stories seems to be more important to me than I have recognized in the past. So this stole became a symbol to me.

While knitting I imagined myself on stage, singing, and wearing it. Not very practical, but then.

Of course it’s a writing talisman too

I wanted to write about last weekend for the whole week

June 27, 2008 by Susanne 6 Comments

Sorry, for leaving you hanging with the promise of a picture before disappearing. (In my last post I promised a picture of a finished stole.)There has been a lot of teaching this week which is good but a bit time-consuming, the weather has been a bit crazy so that every time I had the time to take a picture it was raining (in between the rain it was blazingly hot), and then, in the evenings, I absolutely had to watch soccer, of course. You know, the German national team has reached the finale of the Euro 2008. I’m not much into soccer otherwise but these games are really exciting.

Apart from that there’s the usual craziness that is June and July, kindergarten summer party tomorrow for which I spent one morning cutting out cardboard squares and attaching pieces of string to them while the other mothers talked about how disappointed they are that there kindergardeners are neither interested in playing tennis nor golf. I reminded myself that this was a good networking opportunity and told everybody that I’m teaching voice, guitar, piano, and recorder. I don’t know if I left a favorable impression though, I was un-showered, and without make-up since I planned to work-out later that day like every morning, and somehow these mothers and I never clicked. For the party I will have to bring the cucumber salad, and I volunteered to supervise the “Sackhüpfen” (sack race).

I also volunteered (I don’t know what has gotten me, I’m not the volunteering kind, usually) to scan the kindergarten group photo and photoshop something on it before having it printed on tees as gifts for the kindergarten teachers.

I wanted to write an elaborate post about the things I do for my son but then, here you have it in a nutshell: I hang with people that feel like aliens to me, I spend my time and energy on things I find boring and confusing, and I’m smiling all the time while I do it. I’m secretly hoping that it will rain tomorrow, though because then there will be the play, and the buffet but no sack race.

Last weekend I spent a most enjoyable day, and I have thought about the fact that I spent the best portion of that day all alone for the whole week. I feel seriously unsocial. I thought I’d spend a whole weekend bonding with my son, well, either that or arguing with him the whole time, because my husband was visiting a friend, and then, what happened was that my mother-in-law knocked at the door in the morning because she wanted to take my son to the museum. Off they went and suddenly I had a day to myself at home. I know myself and so I was certain I’d spend the day surfing the net, eating too much, and feeling terrible afterwards.

Instead I pulled out the sewing machine, and spend five hours on it, barely stopping to pee and drink tea. I even skipped lunch. I made myself a new knitting bag because I was coveting the Charming Handbag from Amy Karol’s book “Bend-the-Rules Sewing”, and also I was sick of the way my lace knitting in its plastic bag looked on the kitchen bench all the time. If you want to see hundreds of these bags, you can click here.

This is how the bag hangs int he kitchen when not in use.

I made the bag bigger by enlarging the template by 150%, I put a pocket in that is big enough to hold my lace charts (which makes the bag quite stiff), I lengthened the handles so that I can put them over my shoulder, and I added a button closure and a loop through which I can thread the yarn. If I were making it again I’d make the handles broader, and maybe use facing on them. Also I find that I really like bags that can be zipped up. I tend to lose things from open bags. Which is not an issue with this one as it’s destined to wander from kitchen to TV, to backyard, and back only.

Bag from the outside. (The color is truer to life in the picture above.)

Interior view. (Sorry for the bad pictures, every time I pick the camera up it starts to get cloudy or rains.)

I also finished reading “Spook Country”, and I enjoyed it so much that I promptly started reading “Pattern Recognition” for the second time. Sometimes I forget how much I love William Gibson’s books, and they keep getting better and better. Also I knit something like 130 rows of the Mystic Meadows stole since Friday. It is getting into that state where it’s annoying me for not being finished yet because I want to cast on for the next two shawls. So I’m trying this new tactic of not starting something new but taking that “being annoyed, and a bit bored”-energy to finish something first. Which leads me to furiously knitting lace while watching soccer. Which isn’t recommended usually, especially for beginning lace knitters.

So, how was your weekend? Wait. It’s already the next weekend, isn’t it? Any plans?