Grocery Shopping

I love my little family.

Even if my man has a horrible beard he's growing for a man-fest up at a cabin and my bad cat purposefully knocked our new lamp off the credenza.

Tonight I walked a mile an a half to the post office and supermarket. It was a little chilly, but that was okay. Many birds were singing and there was sunshine. On the way home it was dark, the strap broke off my reusable shopping bag and the park was kind of scary. But my sweet hubby picked me up on his way home so I didn't have to walk the last few blocks with my lopsided bag.

Not Sure What Gives, I Just Keep Running Into Herb Kohl at Eastside Restaurants...

So yeah, I ran into Herb Kohl again last night. Apparently he likes hipster digs and sitting at the lunch counter.

About two years ago Ry and I were out to eat with my Mom at Zaffiro's on the East side of town. An aside, if you haven't been to Zaffiro's and you like pizza, go. It's amazing! We noticed some random older man in a well worn suit and a Buck's trucker hat sitting on the radiator. We weren't sure what was up with that. Apparently, that man was our US Senator Herb Kohl. After chillin' for a while he decided to get up and go table to table greeting people. He eventually came to our table and we had a little small talk. Ry taught a kid who is related to Kohl and he mentioned that. Then Senator Kohl sort of stared at my Mom for a while and gave her a light shoulder punch, a look, and then walked away. Yes, a shoulder punch. It was sort of weird, but made for a good story and didn't turn us off. A man of the people, right? Just a man of the people who likes to hang out at local East side dives and just happens to own our local NBA basketball team.

Last night we dined at Comet Cafe with two sweet people from near-rural Madtown area, Andy and Darcy! In addition to thanking Scott Walker for the clarity of purpose from this whole budget fiasco, I'll also thank him for more time with new, cool, teacher friends. We spent a ridiculously long time waiting for our "uber hip table" among the "uber hip crowd" crowd, but our food was good and we enjoyed drinks and chatter.

Toward the end of the meal, I noticed an old man sitting at the cafe counter. Slightly rumpled suit, adjustable trucker-looking baseball hat and fluffy white hair coming out the sides. Appeared to be reviewing a big pile of papers. I said, that's got to be Herb Kohl. Everyone sort of asked me, "really, you think so?" We recounted the Zaffiro's encounter and I said, yeah, I'm pretty d*mn sure. We mused this idea a bit then I agreed to walk over to the dessert case and feign a look at them so I could feign a look at our senator. Through neat piles of cupcakes and glass, I confirmed, it. Herb Kohl, definitely. Clandestine mission complete, we then debated if we should say hello to him and ask for a pic. Ry decided to go up to him and said "hey". It was a bit awkward, it drew some attention to him, but it was worth it. We thanked him, took a pic that didn't turn out and went on our merry way.

Random, completely random. But makes a good story part two.

New Vintage Finds

This weekend has been kind of a rough and emotional one for me, not sure why. I'm not the kind of person who engages in "retail therapy" as a rule. But today on my way to return the coffee pot fabric ream to Drawstring Studio, I stopped into the Tip-Top Atomic Shop in Bayview. I hoped to come away with a vintage clock for our kitchen, which I did and happily enough came away with two other finds that make me smile. I even threw in a copy of Atomic Ranch magazine! So, I guess on a bad day I will accept the dopamine boost that comes from purchasing stuff.

Slowly but surely we are outfitting our home with sweet, mid-century finds.


I started out my day with yummy, nummy fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Unrelated to vintage items, I know.


Receipt from the Tip Top Atomic Shop!


Telechron wall clock circa 1950's.


Brand new West Bend Co. aluminum kitchen canister set, circa 1950's.


Absolutely awesome pink lamp, no info. Yes, we do have some work to do on the wall where our house's previous owner had her TV mounted. All in good time!

Sea Change

Sometimes you know things intuitively. For instance, I understand the term "sea change" in context. Enough to say that it accurately describes the shift I've been feeling inside of me. But in order to say that I knew for sure before putting words to paper, I had to look it up. Low and behold I find something more lovely than I could have imagined. Apparently the origin of this term comes from a verse out of Shakespeare's The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding dong.
Hark! How I hear them, 'ding dong, bell.'

I looked up several definitions but found the one on Wikipedia to be the most poetic, so though it's less credible than Miriam Webster, I'll take poetic any day. Sea change - a gradual transformation in which the form is retained but the substance is replaced.

Yesterday after work I took a much needed step when I walked into the Literary Services of Wisconsin to attend a volunteer orientation. I haven't given any of my time on a consistent basis since 2004 when I served as a high school youth group advisor. Before that it was hours in a soup kitchen during high school on a required basis for my senior honors seminar. I'm embarrassed to say that I have not willingly volunteered myself to serve others for most of my life.

I'm not sure why the idea popped into my head recently, but I decided I wanted to give some of my time to help others. From the plethora of options, I determined that I wanted to focus on literacy because reading has been such a gift in my life. I often day dream about what it would be like to be an English teacher and to help people hone their comprehension of language and the written word. At this point anyway, I feel that is not a path I am going to pursue.

Though I usually hem and haw other everything and drag my feet, one afternoon I looked up organizations related to literacy in Milwaukee, found LSW and signed up to volunteer in an instant. I thought, heck, "why not? don't be afraid of something new for once!"

Last night I attended the orientation session and was thoroughly moved by the stories of adults with the courage and determination it takes to step forward and say that they want to learn to read or improve their reading. Several stories were so touching that I nearly started bawling right at the table in front of ten other people. I kept it to one tear that I quietly wiped away and then let excitement take over.

LSW offers several different types of tutoring including adult basic reading education, GED preparation and English as a second language. I decided to work in the GED program. My next step is to observe GED tutoring and then start my training to become a tutor. I'm so excited to meet new people, to give and to learn something new myself. I climbed to the roof of the building after the orientation was over and had the urge to weep out of sheer relief. It was magical and easier than I expected to take an active step toward living my life, on my terms in an expression of something I value deeply.

Then after doing my little grocery shopping, I made my way home and started looking up other opportunities for civic involvement. I'd already contacted the people from the Jackson Park Community Association over the weekend. Last night I found myself surfing the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County site getting all jazzed. I had this spark of a moment where I realized, there are so many opportunities to be a part of this community and to act in ways that are in line with what's most important to me and I can probably even meet some new people and oh, this is just so marvelous...I can be the kind of person I'm meant to be, the kind of person hiding in there that hasn't been able to get out.

Now, to your average reader who volunteers or is involved or is quite self-enlightened that may seem a little dramatic and well, for lack of a better way to describe it, kind of a "duh moment." But it wasn't obvious for me. I felt like something deep inside of me woke up. A part of me that's been dormant for a long time. The me that felt the power to be herself like I could before all of this adolescent bullsh*t and experimentation and sadness. It was wonderful and relieving and many other things. I feel like a big kid now, new and yet the same me I was all along. I am thankful, just thankful for that.

Cat Vets Pineapple

Melt

It's awesome to see little signs of spring popping up everywhere! Since our yard doesn't have much southern exposure we don't really have anything green showing itself just yet. We have, however, seen a massive melt. Nearly all of the six foot tall snow drifts we had are completely gone except for about a little six inch snow mountain.

I was in the Tosa Village earlier this week for an appointment and took some time to walk around. I visited the Little Read Book, Salamander and nosed around near the river. The torrent of water in the river interested me and I caught what I felt was an artful shot. Funny how we went from this just a month or so ago...


Huge wedge after the neighbors snowblowed us.


Snow shoeing on our street before it was plowed.

To this now...


Massive melt!

Not much new happening in our lives except trying to get out from underneath a pile of mess created over the past few weeks as we completely abandoned our personal life for our political life. Ry gets nearly all of the credit for any cleaning that's happened this weekend. Though I managed to cook a few things for the first time today: a nummy soup with ingredients from the new Asian food store around the corner and some Veganomicon banana bread muffins.



Other new things, I'm starting volunteering as a adult literacy tutor this Tuesday and I'm attempting to make curtains for the first time ever. A friend who owns Drawstring Studio ordered the fabric especially for me and even let me take the bolt home to measure out what I needed. Talk about accommodating! Measuring stressed me out because it's my first real sewing project with my sewing machine and even simple math is scary to me. But I accomplished it with Ry's help. He was especially patient with me and my crabbiness at doing something new. New things are very, very hard for me. But hopefully when I am done these curtains will make our retro kitchen look even more awesome!



Lastly, I've apparently become the type of person who writes my municipal officials as well as my state legislators. Today I wrote to my Alderman, Bob Donovan, because there is a new business that opened in a vacant store front around the block from our house that looks absolutely horrible. I guess the owners' idea of advertising is propping a twin mattress wrapped in plastic with a shoddy handwritten sign in Sharpie outside their storefront. This just does not cut it for me. It especially doesn't cut it for me when it's out there in the rain or snow sopping wet.

I guess another good thing about the political ridiculousness of our state right now is that it is getting me more involved at the local level. I now know all of my state and city representatives by name and overall, I am pleased with my representation. At this point there is only room for me to become even more aware, which I fully intend to do.

Speaking of seasonal change and impending spring, I hear thunder outside for the first time in months!

Thank You Governor Walker

Dear Governor Walker,

For the past few years I have felt lost. I have been unsure about whether the work I do is worthwhile. I have been unsure about how I spent my free time. I have been unsure about what's important to me. I have struggled to define my values from a chaotic stream of mental and emotional chatter. In short, I have been unsure about who I am as a person and whether I matter in the larger scheme of things.

So, Governor Walker, thank you for the clarity of purpose. Your actions and those of your republican compatriots around this nation have provided me with such a clear sense of purpose that everything I have struggled over internally over for years now seems simple. It is in fact so simple that I beam from ear to ear and laugh the calm, centered laugh of the Buddha despite the fact that everything I believe in is currently under attack and my family's livelihood is threatened.

You have emboldened me to shout from the rooftops, strong in my heartfelt defense of the public good. No matter what happens, no matter how little money we have or how far we're backed into a corner, I am secure in myself and my convictions. I will never stop fighting for what's right.

Love,

Your life-long progressive adversary, Megan

We Are A Union Family

I've been absent in my writing here for so many reasons, mostly because I feel like my life has been hijacked from me. I have so little time for most everything and my brain races at a mile a minute worrying about what I'm not accomplishing or what is half undone. I'm in place where nothing feels good enough. I know that is not a healthy place, but unfortunately it's where I'm at right now. I will work to make tomorrow different.

The last five days or so have been hijacked by a severe ear infection complete with an allergic reaction to ear drops, Cipro (so, I'm safe from anthrax just in case I might find myself exposed) and a visit to the St. Luke's ER. This has been the most painful physical ailment I've experienced in a long while. It was miserable, but it was a little wake up call to appreciation for my general state of health. Knowing pain is temporary makes it better. When I was in severe pain for several long days, it made me think about people with cancer or other terminal conditions that cause frequent pain. I am lucky by comparison. I am thankful for my health.

The last three weeks or so have been hijacked by the recent state of political events in our fine state, namely Governor Walker's Budget Repair Bill. Since I fell into a bad Facebook, newsjunkie habit that is completely counterproductive to my sanity, I will try to stay away from debate or politics here. I believe everyone has a right to their own opinion(hopefully their informed opinion) and they certainly don't have to agree with me. But I do want to share a few observations.

My first observation is that I am now very aware I am a part of a public sector, union family. It's not that this didn't occur to me before, it's just that now it seems to have become a defining factor of our lives. For better or for worse, this is who we are, it's our livelihood, it's important to us and it's worth protecting.

I chose to work in the public sector because serving the public good, specifically through education, is something that is extremely important to me. I married a wonderful man who is a dedicated teacher. His work and his dedication to what is, much of the time, an uphill battle bespeak something noble to me. I have watched his involvement and his leadership in his union grow over the time that we've been together. I can say with certainty that I have never been prouder of him than in this tough fight. Baby, I know you are fighting for the right thing. We are fighting for the right thing and contrary to what many say, it is not about money.

My second observation is that it seems many women I know are reluctant to involve themselves in politics and in this issue in particular. I'm sure there are many reasons. A few I've heard seem to involve not wanting to rock the boat with the men in their lives or not feeling confident they are qualified to make an educated decision. I'm here to say to those women, you are smart enough, you are qualified enough, your opinion matters, your voice is needed. We need to pay attention, we need to speak up, we need to protect our voice and our rights, lest they be taken away. Please women of the world, I implore you...read the paper, talk to someone you trust, talk to someone with an opposing view point, talk to other women, vote, write your legislators. Your voice is needed!

My third observation is that social media is polarizing and absolutely disgusting in this debate. And I am 100% guilty of engaging in political chatter on Facebook which is for the most part a complete and utter waste of time. Besides the organizing and information possiblities that are enhanced by social media, most of what I see are people slinging insults at each other. It's polarizing, it's mean and nasty. It's easy to hurl an insult into cyberspace when you don't have to look someone in the eye. All of that junk hurts rather than helps. I've tried not to be hurtful, doesn't mean I haven't been. I'm done with it though. I'm going to spend my valuable energy on something that can actually make a difference.

Any who, those are my observations. Love 'em or leave 'em.