• Uncategorical Weirdness

    Murph Burphday Memories

    I may have to crop this photo down a little. The light that day was good for photographing people outdoors – Mom’s hair looked nice in it. She was always particular about her hair – it was a luxuriant auburn halo when she was young. I haven’t seen any photos of her with long hair yet – and I looked at almost everything she had while I was helping my sisters clear out the house a little week before last. This photo was taken at her 90th birthday celebration at my sister Timmy’s house last September. Her cake was inscribed…

  • Blogs Wot I Read

    Tubatron: Oops, I Did It Again

    Boing Boing: Flaming Tuba guy David Silverman on NBC Tonight Show 6/23 If you saw something truly bizarre on The Tonight Show the other night, namely a flaming tuba being played by a genial man in a Utilikilt, here’s somethig REALLY good to watch. via BoingBoing

  • Politics, Schmolitics

    Keep The Story Alive: RFK JR and the Stolen Election of 2004

    This story came out while I was off in Utah, dealing with the family crisis (or not dealing, depending on whichever day it was). Since then, I’ve seen a few “mainline” news citations in Bloglines. The Seattle P-I wonders if this will be this year’s version of the infamous Downing Street Memo; a story that was so not “nothing new” that bloggers had to remind journalists to use their own noses and smell a hot lead. Just doing my bit to keep this one alive and smelly, too. Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Like many Americans, I…

  • Hot Off The Presses

    Sears Tower Plot Foiled

    Official: 7 arrested in Sears Tower plot – Yahoo! News MIAMI – Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago’s Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said. ADVERTISEMENT As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami’s Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. One neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a “military boot camp.” Ho-lee CRAP.…

  • Home Improvement

    Jiggety, Etc.

    It’s just so good to be home. It was even good to be at work. Hmm. I wonder why you can be home, but you can’t be work? It’s probably not that healthy to be work all the time, though. There wasn’t a horrible amount of backlog, but there were a couple of things that needed attention when I got in. It was actually pleasant dealing with manageable problems for a change.

  • Connections

    Walk On

    I made up a new playlist for myself in iTunes to try to help get my head screwed on straight after all that’s happened this week, Emotion is exhausting; so is grief, and so is dwelling on crap from the past (this is not all about Mom’s passing, but all the other issues and hurts that get fluffed up and revisited.Stuff between different people, from long ago. I hope some good comes of all of the crap I pulled on various family members. I’m the emotional one and it was hard to keep my junk dialled back. It was really better…

  • Connections

    Beautiful Things

    My time staying in Mom’s little house is drawing to a close – tomorrow I return home, and someone else will finish sorting, tossing and reminiscing over photos, knick-knacks, and clippings that fall out of books. I’ve got a couple of boxes left to pack up, while my sister Timmy has been packing up the family china for me. Actually, Mom had two or three sets of china from different family members; this one is the prettiest, but not the most valuable, because althought it’s Haviland, it’s “seconds.” That’s all my maternal grandparents could afford. You can see little flaws…

  • Connections

    Emotional Landmines May Take Any Form

    We three sisters have pretty much gone through Mom’s house and sorted things into piles and stacks; we keep finding things I call “landmines,” that have some emotional or sentimental value. For instance, I found myself crying over a blackened skillet today. Also, a boxful of old photos and cards yielded a Father’s Day card I sent to Pop in about 1967, the year before he died. I was staying in Grand Junction with my godparents while he was building my playhouse. Re-connecting with my childhood, after not seeing these objects that represent specific events in so long, is proving to…

  • Connections

    Marella “Murph” Baker: Gone Bowling June 7th, 2006

    Marella Elizabeth Stockdale Baker, also known as Aunt Lella and "Murph" to family and friends, went to a better place June 7, 2006. Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on September 2, 1915 to Charles William and Florence Jane Martin Stockdale, she was the youngest of five children. She is survived by her daughters, Marcia "Timmy" Smith (Frank), Teresa "Tudy" McCormick, and Virginia "Ginny" Gibbs (David) . She is also survived by granddaughters, Holly Martin, Raeanne (Rick), Heather Lloyd (Tally), Sydnee Crankshaw (Eric), and great-grandchildren Collin and Paige, Ezra and Haley Lloyd, and Alexandra Crankshaw, as well as numerous nieces, nephews,…

  • Connections

    3 south lobby

    Waiting rooms in hospitals, no matter how pleasant the view is, are not places you want to spend a lot of time. We’re waiting. Family has been called. There are ebbs and flows. Rallies and setbacks. We’ll see. Via: Flickr Title: 3 south lobby By: GinnyRED57 Originally uploaded: 6 Jun ’06, 2.14pm CDT PST