Why Georgia Is The Best Place To Live, Ever...Ever...Ever

(or, SNOW DAY, Y'ALL!)

The following graph displays the average and record highs and lows for Georgia.  (From Weather.Com)

Even at the records, there are still states in the contiguous US that get hotter and colder.  Georgia gives you just the right dose of delicious tropical summer days and days like today...

 

My mother-in-law's front yard yesterday as the snow began to accumulate.  My father-in-law (normally a rather stoic man) was giddy with excitement, continually calling out the phrase "White Christmas!"

 

The far end of my mother-in-law's yard yesterday.  I love how you can see the falling flakes suspended in the air.

 

The view through our big front window last night, with the tree lights reflected in the pane.

 

My front yard today.

 

My tree in front of the window.  It's like a dadgum Thomas Kinkade painting!

 

The walkway in front of our house.  I love how the snow outlines the bricks.

 

Sugar frosted foliage.  Also, the scarecrow from Halloween/Thanksgiving that still sits in my front yard.

 

The trees in the front yard.  (Taken from inside)

 

Even though we park under a carport, that sneaky snow managed to cover our rear windshields!

 

Tiny Snowman Whelchel says, "Ashley used her husband's gold panning gloves while building me, which is why I'm a little red.  Also, Happy Snow Day!"

Merry Christmas!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

'Tis The Season

I am currently seated at a back table at Panera Bread.  This is normally a 4-person table and my solo presence is in direct violation of their very polite request that single-person parties not hog tables at which larger parties would fit.  But I wanted to be away from people as much as possible and I needed room for my food, clipboard, laptop, post-its and space to be jittery because at this point, I've had a venti Caramel Brulee latte and a Mtn. Dew and am on the verge of blastoff.

Here's a look at my very exciting December:
1. Play a classical wedding with my former professor.
2. Play one of the most jam-packed choral concerts I've ever played (and it was awesome, btw)
3. Run a Christmas-themed workshop with the 4th graders that went over about as well as an Avenged Sevenfold enthusiast among Fanilows.
4. Plan and implement three Christmas Eve services at the church.  (Fortunately, I have lots of help here!)
5. Feed the hungry at Good News at Noon.
6. Five Christmas parties
7. Get a t-shirt and an All-State CD to my student (just happened today.  Yes, I am the worst teacher on the planet)
8. Christmas shopping
9. Retail adventures!

Rushed and flustered, movin' and shakin' and I couldn't be happier.

Song idea

Last weekend, I attended the wedding of an old friend and it got me all nostalgic and has sparked an idea for a song.  The buns are still baking, as Garrison Keillor would put it, but I have a few concepts tumbling around in my brain...teenagers fighting over stupid stuff, weeping to one another about boys, family/life upheavals, graduating, college, becoming teachers, mothers and one servicewoman...

And a line for the chorus and probably the title..."Like We Never Left."

Welcome to Marriage With A Gold Prospector

My thoughts as I pulled up to our house, our yard freshly raked free of leaves...

"Our beautiful home...

...our beautiful tree and stockings in the window...

...our giant shovel that I was not aware we owned..."

Ashley Decides...That Hans Landa is A Psychopath

Since the last post that contained my incessant mental unraveling of a couple of films seemed to go over well, I thought I would share the line of thought I enjoyed this morning as I was showering.

Hans Landa is the villain from Tarantino's Inglourious [CENSORED].  If you haven't seen that film, you need to get on that.  It gets the R rating for copious cussing and violence, so be prepared for blood and F-bombs in several spots, but aside from that it is marvelously written and acted.  The Landa character and lucky dog that got to play it, Christoph Waltz, have garnered much praise and plenty of meaty fodder for critics and students of acting to play with.  A big question that none of the interviewers and critics can seem to agree on is, "Is Landa truly evil?"  Now, I know there are plenty of black-and-white types who look at Landa and say, "Um, that's a Nazi uniform.  Of course he's evil."  And please follow me on this: The Nazi ideology was undeniably evil.  I am in no way alleging that it is anything but.  But to round Landa up with the evil that we associate with Nazism, we assume that Landa agrees with that ideology and acts according to its tenets.  If you've seen the movie, you know that isn't the case; he ends up a turncoat of the first water.  There were a couple of moments where Landa acted in ways that pretty much line up with anybody's definition of evil, political party notwithstanding, but I think the "evil" label in this context applies just as much to intent as to action.  To me, "evil" carries emotion, driven by things like anger or vengeance--Landa, cold as he was, never really got angry or vengeful until the very end, after he had done his morally reprehensible things.  Christoph Waltz vaccillates a little from interview to interview (possibly because of time constraints or differences of intellect during different interview), but more often than not, he asserts that the character isn't evil.  And I agree.

I think Hans Landa is a psychopath.

By that, I refer to the clinical definition of psychopathy, not the pop culture one that makes us think of Hannibal Lector.  Per Scientific American, psychopaths are "superficially charming," "largely devoid of guilt, empathy and love," and "have difficulty inhibiting their impulses," among other things.  Basically, few to no feelings and no conscience.  Though they get the most media coverage and Hollywood treatment, violent psychopaths are rare, and most are still able to observe and understand various emotions, even if they don't feel them themselves, and thus learn how to function in society smoothly.  Despite all the cultural baggage and connotations, psychopathy is much like any other mental disorder, with varying degrees of functionality.

As regards Landa specifically, I think he has a deadly combination of high logical-verbal intelligence that allows him to anticipate his enemies' (and allies') actions, and psychopathy that "frees" him from moral and ethical dilemmas.  His actions throughout the film demonstrate many psychopathic symptoms:
1. To Monsieur LaPadite, his conversation seems to convey pride in his post and a fundamental belief that Germans and Jews are fundamentally different--he characterizes them as hawk and rat, predator-prey.  To Shoshanna in the cafe, he speaks condescendingly about black people, refusing to allow the black projectionist in her employ to work the night of the premiere.  But to Aldo and Udavitch, he's most boastful of his skills as a detective, with no concern for the religion or ethnicity of those he kills and obvious contempt for his superiors (there's an understatement...)  He knows what each party wants or expects to hear and he delivers.  To the casual observer, his moral center and beliefs seem obscured.  I'm saying that the closest thing he has to a moral center is his own well-being and material ascendance.
2. Landa kills three times in the film, the third being a bit indirect.  Not once does he show a speck of remorse.  The first time, he was simply doing the job.  The second, as he puts it, "Let's just say she got what she deserved.  And when you purchase friends like Bridget von Hammersmark, you get what you pay for."  And the third time, he kills in exchange for legal clemency and lots of shiny parting gifts.  Yes, I'm being metaphorical in an effort to avoid spoiling.  Anyway, he's most interested in either maintaining his secure position in the SS or moving to another position of security, the cost of human life a mere trifle to him.
3. Bridget von Hammersmark, mere minutes prior to her death, flirtatiously tells Landa to lay off the flattery, saying, "I've met too many of your former conquests to fall into that honeypot."  Sexual promiscuity is common in psychopaths because they don't form the emotional bonds prior to or during such activity that people not afflicted with psychopathy form.
4. Landa's reaction to Bridget becoming a British spy was extreme, especially given the plans he had for later.  Even on the outside chance that he didn't know what Raine's specific plans were at the premiere, he knew by his very presence that something was happening--why not just let Bridget deal with that?  I think that (1) he was upset because he thought he had all of Raine's moves anticipated to the T and Bridget's participation was like a needle to his ego balloon and (2) there was a chance she could escape, and even if he could still finagle getting everything he wanted out of the Big Deal, he couldn't let Bridget get away thinking she had snookered him when he's the Master Manipulator.  Also, I think his choice of weapon demonstrates the impulse control issue that psychopaths tend to have.  After all, he had much more efficient methods at his disposal and, of course, didn't need to worry about cleanup.
5. This is perhaps not as compelling, but there are holes in Landa's story that might also indicate psychopathic symptoms in his past.  We learn about Raine's family--"I'm a di-rect descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger."  We learn about Shoshanna's family, if briefly, and about her current lover.  But there's no mention of family or any major relationships at all in Landa's personal story.  The most we learn is that he was plucked out of a house in Austria.  Because of the aforementioned inability to form emotional ties, psychopaths tend to fail at long-term relationships and marriages.
6. Another small indicator--Landa could give a crap about social norms, to the point of never really learning anybody's name unless he has to know it.  Any man in a subservient position to him (waiter at the premiere, radio operator at the end) gets called Herrman, which is rather the German equivalent of "Mr. Man."  (per Wikipedia.) 
7. There are only two occasions when Landa exhibits what might loosely be called emotions.  He seems pretty angry with Bridget, but then again, he's angry because his Puppet Mastery got interrupted, and anger is one of the few emotions accessible to most psychopaths, especially if their efforts are interrupted or thwarted.  Also, because they don't feel the pressure of social or cultural norms, they don't feel obligated to rein in or conceal that anger.  The second time Landa gets angry, he is again protesting the fact that his control over the situation has been usurped.  His cry of, "I made a deal with your general for that man's life!" is made not as a protest of the man having been killed (since he doesn't even know the guy's name), but as a protest of the terms of his agreement being violated.

Taking a broader perspective, I think Landa works toward maintaining the most advantageous circumstances for himself.  At the beginning of the movie, which is at the height of Nazi power, it is most advantageous for him to be the Most Feared SS Officer Ever.  However, he is well aware that the Nazi ideology is too extreme to last for long; while he personally could care less who is killing whom, he knows that there are lots of people in power who don't like genocide and will eventually topple the Third Reich.  As soon as he sees a clear way to move himself into more advantageous circumstances, he makes it happen.

So, to call him "evil" would be to assign malicious intent to him that he doesn't necessarily have.  He's not out to "hurt" anyone per se because he wouldn't perceive "hurt" the way we do.  He's interested in maintaining control and in meeting his own needs and desires.  Sure, he's completely unconcerned with the means he uses to meet those needs and desires and with the consequences of those means, but I warrant you that if he had been in a different time and place where there wasn't state-sanctioned genocide going on, he wouldn't have been killing anybody because to do so wouldn't gain him anything.  He didn't derive pleasure from killing; he wanted whatever "reward" issued from the killing, be it job security, a plugged leak or a "promotion" of sorts.

Thus, Hans Landa wasn't evil--he was a psychopath.

Yes, I think about this kind of crap in the shower.  No, I am not a psychopath.  (Believe me, I got emotions coming out my ears.)

Book Nerd Meme and Ramblings (Huge, Massive Post)

Editor's Note: I know this has been going around on Facebook, but the Facebook note function isn't working on my computer right now.  Dern.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!  (Sry, yo, but I don't tag.)


1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (how the crap is this on the same list as Jane Eyre???)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (King James and Hebrew) (working on it)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwel
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (listed separately from "Chronicles" because...?)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker (but I have read its predecessor, Carmilla by Le Fanu)
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

And I don't buy for a second the supposition that the BBC compiled this list as some representative sample of fine literature.  Perhaps I'm biased, but here are a few that I have read or started that I think could easily kick Rowling and Dan Brown out of their spots:
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Matilda - Roald Dahl
Silas Marner - George Eliot
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

And then there are my humorists that I love so dearly...
Pontoon - Garrison Keillor
Love Me - Garrison Keillor
I'll Mature When I'm Dead - Dave Barry
Family: The Ties that Bind and Gag - Erma Bombeck
Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night - Lewis Grizzard
Anything ever written ever by Ogden Nash. 

Editor's Second Note: From here, I descend into a pit of Movie Trivia from which there is no escape, largely for my own enjoyment.  Read at your own risk.

Incidentally, it was Nash who wrote "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  People mistakenly attribute it to Willy Wonka from the 70s adaptation of the Dahl book because he says it after Veruca's father points out the presence of a "butter gin" tank - most of Gene Wilder's lines as Wonka were quotes from literary and musical works, a quirk written in by the screenwriters (read: not in his original Dahl characterization) to make him seem "just a little off" as opposed to borderline antisocial.  Johnny Depp's Wonka is actually much closer to the one Dahl wrote in the book.

Another interesting Wonka tidbit: in the 70s version, when Wonka plays the "musical lock" to open one of the doors, Mike Teevee's mother hears the brief motive and says, "Rachmaninoff."  She is mistaken.  The musical combination is actually the first few notes from the overture to The Marriage of Figaro, composed by Mozart.

The 70s Wonka movie was filmed in Munich because the filmmakers didn't want American audiences to recognize any landmarks, making it easier for the individual viewer to identify with the town and perhaps draw parallels between Charlie's hometown and their own.

There is a difference of title between the two films.  The 70s adaptation is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, placing emphasis on the eccentric Wonka and using Charlie as more of a frame story.  The 2000s version uses the actual book title, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and sticking more closely to the book's portrayal of Charlie as a purifying force in Wonka's isolated world.

I don't remember the book clearly enough to know how or if it described the worldwide scramble for the Golden Tickets, but it does strike me as interesting that although the tickets are ostensibly sent out far and wide, all five winners are white, Western-hemisphere children, three of whom are American, one English and one German.  In addition, one of them magically lives in the same town in which the factory is located.  True, Charlie would likely not have had the means to travel a long distance to get to the factory, but still.  I suppose it's called "suspension of disbelief."  Or to put it another way, "Get over it and keep reading/watching."

It's interesting to look at how the two films morphed each character for the big screen.  The 70s version went with a more traditional movie-musical and had to make it warmer and fuzzier because of that choice, whereas the 2005 version had the task of translating the children's vices into contemporary culture.
Charlie Bucket - Because Charlie was (1) the main character and (2) presented as deeply impoverished with specific lifestyle quirks (like the massive grandparent slumber party in the living room), the only differences between the two Charlies are energy and mood.  Peter Ostrum's Charlie is more morose and melancholy, while Freddie Highmore's Charlie is pragmatic and stable.  Highmore's Charlie didn't need his mother to sing "Cheer Up, Charlie" to give him the strength to walk home at the end of the day.
Willy Wonka - As I mentioned above, Wilder's Wonka got molded like Play-Doh into a different man than the one Dahl wrote in the book.  They used his frequent quoting and peculiar factory to make him "eccentric," but gave him the heart of an eternal child, pure in intentions and almost constantly delighted in demeanor.  Depp's, on the other hand, gets his eccentricity from a torrent of emotional baggage.  The 2005 writers added the father-as-dentist subplot to explain the baggage; the book never really does.  A good example of where the two Wonkas widely deviate from one another is their reaction to Charlie's suggestion that his family come to live at the factory, made shortly after he learns that his grand prize is inheritance of the factory.  Wilder's Wonka smiles warmly and immediately agrees, prophesying that Charlie will live happily ever after.  Depp's Wonka laughs derisively and refuses, claiming that family members would be a deterrent to Charlie's success. 
Violet Beauregard - The highly dedicated gum-chewer.  The 70s Violet is a chatty, assertive young woman whose downfall is caused by an inability to submit to authority or to listen to advice.  The 2005 Violet, on the other hand, is competitive and excels at several disciplines, one of which just happens to be gum-chewing.  Her competitive nature (and her mother's enabling) lands her in Wonka's juicer.  Funny how the exact same action - taking a piece of gum that hasn't been fully tested - can be so differently driven and executed by two actresses and screenwriter teams!  Also, she undergoes a change in geography; 70s Violet is from Montana, while 2005 Violet is from the ATL, shawty!
Mike Teevee - The 70s Mike enjoys his TV and carries around his little cowboy pistols, but he isn't really given a heavy "vice" beyond over-curiosity about Wonka's kinesthetic television device.  2005's Mike has a bulldozer streak; he's violent, aggressive and angry (the filmmakers show him playing video games, apparently as a means of explanation.)  That uncontrolled rage and aggression are what get him into trouble.  Again, same character, same basic action - jumping onto and activating a dangerous device - made to look very different in the two films.  The boys' reactions to Wonka's explanation of the device also demonstrate their differences very clearly: 70s Mike is excited at the prospect of being on TV himself, while 2005 Mike yells at Wonka for having stumbled upon teleportation and not even acknowledging it because he's so obsessed with chocolate.
Many of the other characters aren't developed heavily enough to be much different between the two films.  Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop and Grandpa Joe are all outlined like coloring book pictures and aren't given much room in the plot to deviate from their characterizations or background stories.  Veruca = spoiled brat.  Augustus = glutton.  Grandpa = Charlie's favorite grandparent, cheerful and full of Wonka folklore.  However, the portrayal of the childrens' parents and how it changed between the two films bears mentioning.  In both films, Veruca's father and Augustus' mother are painted as enablers.  But the two other non-Charlie parents get very different treatment - Mike Teevee's mother is an average, if talkative, woman in the first, but is replaced by a weak, ineffective father in the second, thus demonstrating how Mike's violent streak grew unchecked.  Violet Beauregard's father is a loud, smiley car salesman in the first, but is replaced by a hyper-competitive mother living vicariously through her daughter's achievements in the second.  In general, the 70s version was written as lighter family fare, trying as hard as it could to make the characters average and accessible to the audiences and to make the storyline as relatable as possible.  The 2005 version, however, ventured gleefully into absurd and surreal corners and drew very clearly a landscape of parent-as-villain, wherein the failings and obsessions of parents shape the children in a harmful way. 

This adult-vs-child theme runs through a lot of Dahl's writing.  Consider his other very well-known children's books (both of which have corresponding film adaptations), Matilda and James and the Giant Peach.  Two children in abusive and desperate situations find in themselves the power to strike back.  I got to read an excerpt from Dahl's autobio where he talks about having grown up in a really tough boarding school.  It makes it pretty clear why the theme of abused/neglected children comes up frequently.

Well, this post is getting so long that the AutoSave function is taking longer and longer to finish.  Which is probably a sign that I should stop.  If you've read all the way to the end, I am shocked.

Ashley Decides...That Manilow Needs Progeny

Or, Ashley Loses The Respect of Everyone

It is just such ultimate tragedy that Barry Manilow has no children.  (Double-checked: Wikipedia and Manilow.Com make no mention of offspring.)

So many facets of musical talent can have a genetic basis and the man who wrote "Weekend In New England", "Copacabana", "Ready To Take a Chance Again", "Soon" from Thumbelina, "Sometimes I Wonder" from The Pebble and The Penguin, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is There" and "I am Stuck On Band-Aid Brand" is getting on in years and stands nigh on the edge of letting those tonal chromosomes shuffle off this mortal coil right along with him.  J. D. from Scrubs once said of a Dido CD, "If my heart could write songs, they'd sound like this."  Well, my heart sorta can, but it wishes real dang hard that it could write 'em that well.

Obviously, the Manilow isn't gonna be raising any babies, what with his touring schedule and arthritis and shaking his fist at rock music.  But I'm sure there are several musical couples out there who would be willing to Take One for The Team and raise up a mini-Manilow themselves.  I say several because it does occasionally occur that the children of musician parents deliberately eschew music themselves in favor of respectable trades like accounting and barista-ing.  Have to allow for the rebels.  We must protect the survival of good advertising jingles, heartfelt ballads and the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts.

In conclusion, I give you a photo from our California Choir Tour my senior year of college:

If I'd have had the right tools, I'd'a stole it.

The Thangs What Has Been Happening

As I described it to ACon today, this last week has felt like a huge crescendo, only to hit a subito piannisimo on Monday.

I participated in Honor Chorus for the first time as a teacher sending her own students.  I attended meetings, policed rehearsals and turned pages in the concert.  I want so badly to be accepted by these other teachers that all seem so confident and smart and great at their jobs...

Anyway, PIKTARS!

This is the front of the Sandy Beaver Auditorium at Riverside Military Academy, where the concert was performed.

This is the library just to the right of the auditorium.  We held a meeting in there Friday night and called it Hogwarts.

The lobby of the auditorium.  Gorgeous, yes?

Celena and me.  She's student teaching, so she had to do the door-troll dance.  Ah, professional hierarchies.

Then came Sunday.  I started off by running by the parent campus of my church to turn on the system and make sure people were equipped for the service, then I went to the North Hall campus to lead worship.  As I walked by the back-door driveway, I noticed that someone had spilled Fruit Loops all over it.  Turns out that spilling Fruit Loops on a driveway and then driving over them a few times is awesome!

It's a rainbow!

That evening, it was off to Aunt Lynn's for A Whelchel Thanksgiving.  Baby Luke decided that the grey tub that held his toys was a lot more fun than his toys...

I see you :)

And so endeth a great big weekend.  I'm very grateful for Thanksgiving Break, during which time I only have to work at 1 and 1/4 jobs.  What luxury!

Zen and the Art of Organization

I gots a faintsy new mariposa fountain in my office.

It is awesome.

Between the fountain, the lamp light, the oscillating ceramic heater, the Michael Chapdelaine playing on iTunes and the Pumpkin Spice Latte, I am surrounded by comfort and serenity.

Which is just a big help when I'm sitting here about to have a panic attack because "What am I going to teach the fourth graders on Thursday?  No seriously, what????"

I'm sitting here bitterly lamenting our lack of a keyboard lab.  How did elementary music teachers do it in the days before MIE labs and split-channel CDs and Orff instruments?  I wish I had a more thorough grounding in elementary methods - I feel like we were taught to lean on technology and resources that aren't universally available.  Dude, for Secondary students, I need one piano and one white board and there's a year's worth of classes.  But put me with 5th graders and down and I need a room full of P85s, books with seasonal songs and accompaniment tracks, little tiny xylophones and all those delightful Music Ed Films like Beethoven Lives Upstairs and Liszt's Rhapsody and Rossini's Ghost, lest I be reduced to playing Musical Hangman.

As both of my followers are (1) teachers/caregivers of young 'uns themselves and (2) used to dealing with kids younger than mine, I welcome suggestions with open arms!

Update: Mr. W just gave me a great idea!  So the lesson's all planned now!  That and I found time to practice for a December wedding coming up.  What a perfect day!

A Conversation

Scene: Whelchel Household, November 7th, 6:00 PM
Ashley retrieves a plate of deviled eggs she had fixed the day before from the fridge with intentions of eating the rest for supper.
Andrew (who has already eaten supper): Whatcha doing with those?
Ashley: Eating them.
Andrew: All of them?
Ashley: Well, most of...
Stops momentarily, noting the empty bag of TGI Friday's Potato Skins in the trash.
Ashley (in a non-accusatory, matter-of-fact tone): You ate all the potato skins.
Andrew (in Baby Andy voice): no
Pause
Ashley: I no longer feel compelled to explain why I'm eating all the eggs.
Exeunt

Dear Space Heater

You are my best friend.

You live in the Arctic Circle with Mr. Polar Bear Andy and me.

You faithfully supply me with a continuous, comforting wave of hot air.

And where some of your compatriots have adorned themselves with protective mechanisms that automatically turn them off because they're all paranoid about "fire" and "property damage" (wimps),

you will blow for 8 hours straight and not even bat an eye or get warm on your top and sides.

You come with me everywhere: the bathroom in the mornings, the living room when I'm reading, the foyer when I'm waiting for trick-or-treaters with an Edgar Allen Poe book perched on top of you while you toast my shins to Golden Brown and Delicious.

Your cousin, pretender-to-the-throne Electric Blanket, only has two modes: Not Warm Enough or Good At First, But Then I Wake Up Soaked In Sweat.

But not you.

You keep me dry, you keep me warm, and you keep it from snowing indoors here at Under Further Consideration Headquarters.

Thank you.

P. S. A.Con loves you too.  But you're mine.  So no wandering eyes.

Halloween 2010: A Picture Essay

I have been right at excited about Halloween for some time.  There are a lot of firsts for me this Halloween!

1. The first Halloween in which I've been settled enough in a home and had enough time to prepare for trick-or-treaters.
2. The first Halloween in years for which I have obtained a costume.
3. The first Halloween for which I have carved gen-yoo-WINE Jack O' Lanterns!

That was an adventure.  Let's experience it together, shall we?

Me and my pumpkin carving attire.  Yes, that is an apron emblazoned with pies.

I started with the hollowing-out process, protecting my coffee table with the pages from a fine publication (hence the photo of Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo making out.)  My whole house smells like gutted pumpkin!

The gut pile grows.

Ashley Pumpkin begins to take shape.

At this point, I turned my thoughts to means of illumination.  I had bought some little luminaries at Michael's...

...but they were wimpy.

So I turned to actual candles.  Problem: Lighting the candle.  If I lit it before placing it in the pumpkin, the rising smoke would burn my hand.  Potential Solution: Place, then light?  Perhaps with a sheet of the magazine?  ('Cause our faintsy long lighter is out of fluid)

So Much Fail.  But then, inspiration struck:

Tealight plus kitchen tongs equals win!

(Also, that's a from-behind shot of a shoulder and arm with a spaghetti strap top, not what you might think...)

Success!

Ashley Pumpkin gets her lipstick and she's ready to go!

Andrew Pumpkin needed to sit upside down because it's easier to carve his teeth that way.

At this point, he was almost done, just needed those teeth carved deeper.

Andrew and Ashley Pumpkin pose for a family photo.

Got the candy basket together!

A little mood reading while I wait for the kids.

Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin take their spots on the porch.

And Mrs. Whelchel dons the costume.  Come one, come all!

Our Hope Endures

It has been some kind of week over here at UFC HQ.  Jam-packed full of extra classes, extra hours at my day job, and a scare with The Big C.

See, The Man had some funny blood tests, so they sent him for a CT scan on Wednesday.  That turned up a spot that was described to him as either a cyst or cancer.  I spent Thursday and today wondering what we would do if it were the Big C.  Fortunately, today's MRI revealed it to be a cyst.

At times like this, when so many tasks and stresses seem to converge, I'm grateful that a dear friend introduced me to this here song...

"Our Hope Endures" by Natalie Grand

You would think
only so much can go wrong.
Calamity only strikes once.
And you assume
that this one has suffered her share,
so life will be kinder from here.

Oh, but sometimes the sun
stays hidden for years.
Sometimes the sky
rains night after night.
When will it clear?

But our hope endures
the worst of conditions.
It's more than our
optimism.
Let the earth quake,
our hope is unchanged.

How can we
comprehend peace within pain?
Or joy at a good man's wake?
So walk a mile
with a woman whose body is torn
with illness, but she marches on.

Emmanuel, God is with us.
El-Shaddai, All Sufficient.
Emmanuel, God is with us.
El-Shaddai, All Sufficient.
Emmanuel, God is with us.
El-Shaddai, All Sufficient.
We never walk alone,
and this is our hope.

How to Spend a Saturday

Sitting on your couch watching German movies on YouTube.  Teh awesome.

A Post-All-State Monday and Guilt

Subtitle: In Which I Hope My Readers Forgive My Narcissistic Use of Self-Portrait

Friday Night -- Do not sleep.  Just can't.  Keep thinking, "What if I forgot to tell them something?  What if I didn't study the letters and rubrics closely enough?  What if they don't do well because of my inability to read or follow directions?"

Saturday -- Spend all day (as in 7:45 AM to 8:00 PM) judging All-State auditions and waiting on scores.  Also fail to sleep because of excitement.

Sunday -- help Chad lead at church, straighten up house, take short nap, go to birthday party.  Because of short nap, fail to sleep a third time.

Monday --

Such lovely deep valleys under my eyes. 

I think it's a side effect of living in this culture that I am never quite certain I am doing enough.  Even on days like this, I don't feel like my tiredness is really justified.  I think to myself, "Well, Mom held down a job, went to school and had two young 'uns and you didn't see her whining about how tired she was!"  I compare myself to other women with much larger stressors in their lives and feel like I'm weak or defective for not being able to handle my little plate of responsibilities any better than I do.  This afternoon, I came home with Tchaikovsky's piano solo setting of the Nutcracker suite with hopes of learning it so I'll have some fun pieces to play over Christmas.  I thought to myself, "The only thing left to do at home is dishes and they can wait until tomorrow."  Just to be sure, I went ahead and called Andrew and asked if he was cool with me waiting on the dishes.  He said, "Yeah, that's fine...I may go ahead and do them just to get them out of the way."

The voices in my head were started by the time I hung up the phone.  "What is wrong with you?  You can't take 20 little minutes out of your day to put some dishes in the dishwasher?  What sort of worthless wife are you?"  And so the guilt consumed me and I did them.  Now I feel a little more like a worthwhile person, except that there are still bits and pieces of clutter in our living room and I haven't really cleaned the hall bathroom mirror in a while and the kitchen floor could use sweeping and [insert a million other little things that anybody visiting my home wouldn't give a crap about].  The image of the coiffed and polished pearl-sporting homemaker of decades past hangs over my head beside the goal-oriented career woman of contemporary era.  Can I learn to buck up and satisfy both ideals like it seems so many of the women in my family do?

I sure hope so.  I hate feeling inadequate.

Can't Say "Tearjerker" Without "Jerk"

I heard me a song on the way to work the other day.  In the interest of not being libelous, I'm not going to say the title or artist, but suffice to say it's intended to be a heartwarming ditty about a high school sport and the camaraderie and memories and so on forevermore. 

I hate it.

I stocked a book of Christmas music at the store the other day.  The title song is a popular story-song regarding a child's aspiration to buy his mother a particular gift before she meets the Newborn King in person.

I hate it.

There's a certain author of a certain catalogue of books, several of which have been made into movies, that weave syrupy melodramas about lovers who sing, lovers who write letters, lovers who die, lovers who look penetratingly at one another as Chopin plays in the background.

I'm one of those who doesn't believe in hating people, so I don't hate the author.  But I do hate the books and the movies.

I'm pretty particular about my art and entertainment.  I'm not one of those that turns my nose up at anything that isn't classical and highbrow - shoot, I have two Ke$ha songs on my iPod.  Alls I want is for people to be committed to their particular artistic niche and to fullfill it with as much vigor and as little cynicism as possible.  And for me, songs and books like those above are heavy on the cynicism, light on the personal involvement.  They're cash cow works, written to dig at our emotions and earn lots of money for minimal effort.  Might sound harsh, but don't those works follow patterns you've seen all over the place?

Widely Admired Activity or Club + Nostalgia for Teenagerhood + Fortuitous Release Date = HEARTWARMING

Religious Holiday + Childhood Innocence + Possible Death = POIGNANCE

Boy From Wrong Side of Tracks With Heart of Gold + Uncertain or Hard-To-Get Girl + Deep Personal Tragedy + "You Have Changed My Life Forever" = MONEYS, Y'ALL!

The song or script sticks to the usual goalposts, occasionally making pit stops at such gems as "Acoustic Guitar Accompaniment for Intimate Feel" and "Let's Do The Dishes While Dancing Around to 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough.'"  What an insult to our intelligence!  These folks would do well to take some lessons from Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes), Robert Harling (Steel Magnolias), and Tanya Tucker ("Two Sparrows in a Hurricane").  Now that's how you do emotional content.

Stole it from Sarah

I'm bored, but not sleepy.  Ergo, while archive-surfing through my favorite blogs, I picked up this meme from Sarah.

50 Questions1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? There are two answers to that question...one version claims that it's a Gone With the Wind thing between "Ashley" and "Tara."  The other (truer) one says that Mom picked a pretty first name and Dad picked the middle name after the prettiest girl he'd ever known.  No, the name "Tara" does not appear anywhere in Mom's name.  Little wonder they didn't last...
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? 1:30 today
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? yes
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? turkey
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? not yet, hopefully soon
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Considering Ashley Conway, I pretty much already am
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Do you ask questions?
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Nope, they were evicted after repeatedly violating my "No swelling and creating a perfect environment for strep" policy
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Nope. 
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? it varies.  Today, it's Lucky Charms
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Nope
12. HOW MANY CAVITIES HAVE YOU HAD? 10.  I have superb dental habits, but crooked and oddly shaped teeth.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? ben and jerry's birthday cake or ben and jerry's creme brulee
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? demeanor--whether he/she looks passive or assertive.  I tend to shrink around assertive people because I'm a wimp.
15. RED OR PINK? Pink (see, told you I was a wimp)
16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? The fact that I am a wimp.  And my genetic predisposition to zits.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? at this particular moment, a mentor that has moved away
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST? No one follows my blog, and reading the answers of the literal "everyone" would take a long time.
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? blue and brown polka dotted pajama pants, no shoes
20. CAT OR DOG? dog
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? the faint echo of South Park as Andrew watches in the bedroom
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? hot pink
23. FAVORITE SMELL? perfumes.  There's only one that Andrew isn't allergic to, so when I'm shopping without him, I sniff every perfume and body spray on Earth.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? The young man at Papa John's who takes orders
25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Was stolen rather than sent, but Sarah is pretty much my role model for family life and mommyhood when I get there someday.
26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Football!  If only the Dawgs would stop getting arrested and win some games already.
27. HAIR COLOR? Kinda depends on the lighting.  Some say brown, some say very dark blonde, some say red, some say auburn.  So it's Aublondrown.  Or something.
28. EYE COLOR? Blue
29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No, but I've always been curious about how it feels to wear them
30. FAVORITE FOOD? Varies.  Today, it's Poor Richards' French Onion Soup.
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?  Neither.  Light comedy with sharp verbal humor that doesn't get too melodramatic.  I'm hard to please.
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The Mystery Science Theatre 3000 take on "Puma Man."
33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Black with the BigStuf Band logo for that year on it.
34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer
35. HUGS OR KISSES? Both, though mouth kissing is reserved exclusively for Andrew.  If I had my way, everybody would hug all the time.
36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Creme brulee
37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Who's the most ambitious in a blog follower group of zero?
38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Ditto
39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? I just finished "A Marriage Made in Heaven - or, Too Tired for An Affair" by Erma Bombeck.  Next on the list is "Shoot Low, Boys, They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies" by Lewis Grizzard.  See, told you I like sharp verbal humor.
40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Is a laptop, so the "mousepad" is just a small gray square.  There's a green Skullcandy logo under my right hand as I type, though.  That's sort of interesting.
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Scrubs reruns.
42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)? Good choral music that isn't flufftastic or opportunistically written (which, sadly, excludes great swaths of SSA literature). 
43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles.  I have never understood the allure of the Stones.
44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? California
45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? On my left foot, when I try to spread out my toes, my pinky toe goes backwards and crosses over on top of the neighboring one. 
46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Less than a mile from where I'm sitting now.
47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Nothing rhymes with orange.
48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER? At Lanier Hills.  I was 14, he was 25.  I had a crush on him from the start :)
49. CUP HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? Who's been drinking out of my glass?
50. IF YOU COULD SIT DOWN TO DINNER WITH FIVE PEOPLE WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE? Jesus, i think that would do it.  <--I'm with Sarah on that one

Family Reunion

We had the yearly Garner family reunion today.  A billion eaters, talkers, singers, organizers, all converging in one fellowship hall to again laugh at the unending joke that is just how many of us there are!  We talked about long-gone relatives who believed in hard work and treating all people with respect when the prevailing wisdom said otherwise, we talked about fewer-than-three-months-gone relatives, we shushed babies and handed pens and napkins to restless children and made multiple passes at the dessert line and asked our aunts what everybody's name was.

At one point, most of our branch of the family went out to the playground.  After a few minutes of play, Daniel excused himself to the restroom...

...whereupon he locked himself inside and couldn't figure out how to get out.  He fretted greatly, believing we would leave him behind when we went home.  Finally, Papa (aka Dan, our grandfather) heard him beating at the door and freed him.  It was quite a study in generation gaps and family, this picture of a tall man in his Sunday suit carrying a weeping little boy in his church's T-shirt and silicon bracelet declaring the sermon series we're in.  There were no misgivings, no sneering at the one's staunch traditionalism or the other's loud contemporariness.*  Only sharing and security.

And they're both named Daniel.  How about that.

*Yes, that's a word.  I looked it up.

Introduction

My name's Ashley.
Two of my very favorite blogs just closed their e-doors and I am unhappy about it.
So I gots my own blog.  Yay!
Hopefully I'll post meaningful content.  Or maybe I'll just rant about french fries and busted laundry baskets and Draconian grammar rules.  We'll see!

Bits and Pieces

Classical guitar music is great for unwinding.

God wants me to go to the library.  I know this because the humorists are right beside the poetry.

You always remember that you need an oil change when you're late to an appointment that will last all day.

Music theory grammar has ruined me.  I used to be able to call E-flat minor "E-flat minor" regardless of the context because that's how everybody really thinks of it.  Now, if I'm in F# major, I just can't.

On crime dramas, you'll meet the perpetrator in the first fifteen minutes.

I identify deeply with the relationship between J. D. and Dr. Cox on Scrubs.

Who's buying Fushigi?  And the Shake Weight?  Dear actors in the commercials: You look ridiculous.

(Personal crap alert) We want a young 'un and I just got confirmation that we have again been unsuccessful in this endeavor.  So perhaps all these Bits and Pieces are less an effort to give any people who sniff out this blog something to read and more an attempt to cheer myself up.  Two birds, one rock.