These are the other two photos of my Grandma that were taken at the same time of the one below. I love the series, they show so much of who she was.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
BBK
Barbara Bennett Kline
November 20, 1911 - September 20, 2007
One of the most wonderful, powerful, creative women even known. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this life without her. I will ache for her forever.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Weirdo
I feel boring.
I spent my twenties moving around the US, taking whatever job sounded cool and having one crazy experience after another. I road tripped around the country for two months by myself. I've been to acting school and massage therapy school. I dated a guy who ran dungeons for the local S/M scene in the city I lived. I was tear gassed and shot at (with rubber bullets) by cops at many different protests and demonstrations. I sat through a bomb threat at a Mumia rally wondering one moment if the person who called the threat in was serious and realizing in the next moment that if they were, I would be dead, and I sat in anyway. I biked through Ireland for a month by myself in the soft season buzzed on Guinness most of the time.
I'm going to stop revealing my twenty something shenanigans at this point because my Mom and my son read my blog, but you get the idea.
So here I am in my thirties and I feel like I'm already a granny. I happen to love grannies, especially my own, but I don't want to be thought of as one until I'm well into my 80's. Even then I won't start acting like one until a week before I die which will be when I'm 103.
I haven't been to a rally or a demonstration in almost 8 years. I haven't traveled much, gone to school for anything new or learned the best way to restrain someone in a good long time. I have a 9 to 5 job, occasionally sing karaoke, write in my journal and my blog (mostly about the good old days. Horrors!) and have a very steady beau with whom I'm swamped in the love with.
Fuddy duddy doesn't even begin to cover it.
Today I had lunch with a few ladies from GM. I work in the automotive industry, and even though I'm on the back end of operations, I still manage to get out to see our clients here and there when my ad director is in town. I really like the people I deal with at GM, they are helpful to the point of being moms to me. They patiently walk me through procedures as long as it takes for me to understand their complicated billing procedures. They are friendly, sweet and usually spend most of our lunch meetings talking about food (one of my favorite topics).
During the conversation, it grew apparent to me that just because I haven't been on the brink of arrest or exploring a new country alone, those rebellious, inquisitive, unsatisfied parts of me are alive and well and very much who I am.
I'm not sure if it was one of the women telling me that she hated women or the group conversation about the new Britney Spears album being pretty good, but I felt like a bearded lady at a Miss America luncheon. I was rattled by FishTacoMama (NOT her given name!) saying she couldn't read anything "deep" and had to keep her reading limited to "puffy" best sellers. I don't know, maybe it was the part of the conversation where someone said they couldn't stand reading about the plight of the poor, southern African-Americans because it's not like she was going to ever meet these people, that made me feel out of place. Then again, I was probably being "too sensitive".
Walking back to my car after lunch, I fumed and questioned. I really liked these women, really, but I wanted to slap the shit out of all of them. The amount of apathy and prejudice displayed in one hour was more than I could take. The woman hater (CrunchyCrabRoll) was enjoying the benefits of the sacrifice that so many feminists took on to make the world that much better for the ladies. The hater of "deep" reading didn't express any concern for how global warming might affect her child's future or how our national deficit, down the line, will probably fall on the shoulders of her offspring.
One thing I did notice about all these women. They all loved the musical adaptation of "Wicked" but the actual book was too long and full of too much boring information. Maybe that's the problem. There are people who want to dive into the juicy expanse of life and there are people who want to get a happy musical version so they can go on buying crap for really cheap (another big topic of lunch conversation today. For your sake, Dear Reader, I'll save you the slave labor diatribe).
I have always been aware of the issues that are important to me. When I was a kid, I always took the new kid in school under my wing so they wouldn't have to face a new school alone. I brought home strays and wanted to give money to our poor relatives. I've always wanted to fix and help wherever I could.
Lunch today was a great awakening. I learned that my twenties weren't about rebelling or sticking it to the man, my twenties were about finding what really mattered to me. Those things still matter to me. Although I find it sad that feeling and thinking as I do makes me a weirdo and a minority, I also feel empowered because neither Pottery Barn nor E! Entertainment will ever dictate what's important or real and worth fighting for.
I will.
I spent my twenties moving around the US, taking whatever job sounded cool and having one crazy experience after another. I road tripped around the country for two months by myself. I've been to acting school and massage therapy school. I dated a guy who ran dungeons for the local S/M scene in the city I lived. I was tear gassed and shot at (with rubber bullets) by cops at many different protests and demonstrations. I sat through a bomb threat at a Mumia rally wondering one moment if the person who called the threat in was serious and realizing in the next moment that if they were, I would be dead, and I sat in anyway. I biked through Ireland for a month by myself in the soft season buzzed on Guinness most of the time.
I'm going to stop revealing my twenty something shenanigans at this point because my Mom and my son read my blog, but you get the idea.
So here I am in my thirties and I feel like I'm already a granny. I happen to love grannies, especially my own, but I don't want to be thought of as one until I'm well into my 80's. Even then I won't start acting like one until a week before I die which will be when I'm 103.
I haven't been to a rally or a demonstration in almost 8 years. I haven't traveled much, gone to school for anything new or learned the best way to restrain someone in a good long time. I have a 9 to 5 job, occasionally sing karaoke, write in my journal and my blog (mostly about the good old days. Horrors!) and have a very steady beau with whom I'm swamped in the love with.
Fuddy duddy doesn't even begin to cover it.
Today I had lunch with a few ladies from GM. I work in the automotive industry, and even though I'm on the back end of operations, I still manage to get out to see our clients here and there when my ad director is in town. I really like the people I deal with at GM, they are helpful to the point of being moms to me. They patiently walk me through procedures as long as it takes for me to understand their complicated billing procedures. They are friendly, sweet and usually spend most of our lunch meetings talking about food (one of my favorite topics).
During the conversation, it grew apparent to me that just because I haven't been on the brink of arrest or exploring a new country alone, those rebellious, inquisitive, unsatisfied parts of me are alive and well and very much who I am.
I'm not sure if it was one of the women telling me that she hated women or the group conversation about the new Britney Spears album being pretty good, but I felt like a bearded lady at a Miss America luncheon. I was rattled by FishTacoMama (NOT her given name!) saying she couldn't read anything "deep" and had to keep her reading limited to "puffy" best sellers. I don't know, maybe it was the part of the conversation where someone said they couldn't stand reading about the plight of the poor, southern African-Americans because it's not like she was going to ever meet these people, that made me feel out of place. Then again, I was probably being "too sensitive".
Walking back to my car after lunch, I fumed and questioned. I really liked these women, really, but I wanted to slap the shit out of all of them. The amount of apathy and prejudice displayed in one hour was more than I could take. The woman hater (CrunchyCrabRoll) was enjoying the benefits of the sacrifice that so many feminists took on to make the world that much better for the ladies. The hater of "deep" reading didn't express any concern for how global warming might affect her child's future or how our national deficit, down the line, will probably fall on the shoulders of her offspring.
One thing I did notice about all these women. They all loved the musical adaptation of "Wicked" but the actual book was too long and full of too much boring information. Maybe that's the problem. There are people who want to dive into the juicy expanse of life and there are people who want to get a happy musical version so they can go on buying crap for really cheap (another big topic of lunch conversation today. For your sake, Dear Reader, I'll save you the slave labor diatribe).
I have always been aware of the issues that are important to me. When I was a kid, I always took the new kid in school under my wing so they wouldn't have to face a new school alone. I brought home strays and wanted to give money to our poor relatives. I've always wanted to fix and help wherever I could.
Lunch today was a great awakening. I learned that my twenties weren't about rebelling or sticking it to the man, my twenties were about finding what really mattered to me. Those things still matter to me. Although I find it sad that feeling and thinking as I do makes me a weirdo and a minority, I also feel empowered because neither Pottery Barn nor E! Entertainment will ever dictate what's important or real and worth fighting for.
I will.