Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope you are in a place of peace and love this Christmas and for the new year coming.  Season's Greetings to you.  With love, Jen

HO HO NO

The pressure is on to take little Ava to see Santa and I'm not so inclined.  One, she's only 1 year old, does it really matter if she sees Santa or not, she'll have no memory of it.  Two, who is Santa at the mall or where ever~  he's just some man hired to sit there and put kids on his lap.  He could be many things besides Santa, including a perpetrator~ And I'm going to make my child sit in a strange man's lap against her will, for what?  To uphold the Santa tradition.  I don't know if I'm going to uphold this tradition.  I believe that it was once wholesome, but, I don't think it is the same as it used to be.  People are tired from working so hard, patience and finances are low and how important is it really in this over stimulated existence to make a list of things not really needed or even wanted in order to fulfill the old Christmas tradition.  I could personally live with Christmas coming once every five years.  Maybe then it would have more value, like I believe it used to.  Maybe that should be my new tradition, Christmas only once every five years.  Wonder if it would work...........

George Washington Warned Us About a Two Party Political System..

And boy, was he right.

Excerpted from his farewell address, Sept. 26, 1796, about a two party political system:
"It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another." 
More on his address can be found at, http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/farewell/

Said Goodbye to LuBear last Wednesday.  My heart is broken and I miss her like crazy.  Bye LuLu, I love you

Sometimes You're Up and Sometimes You're Down

When the sun shines, the stock market should be up and when it rains, it should be down, the way I see it.  But, it doesn't work like that.  My doggie Lulu stopped peeing regularly on Saturday, she has cancer (they think), a bad infection in her leg and hasn't walked in about a year.  I don't know how much longer she'll hold out.  I know I'll miss her dearly when she's gone and wish she didn't have to go.  Crying doesn't help her get better or bring her youth back either, unfortunately.  That's just for me, but, I guess it fits with my theory though because it is raining today...

POETRY READING IN YORK, PENNSYLVANIA:

            Monday, December 5th, 7pm

                                    

                                     Poetry Spoken Here

                                              continues at

                                       YorkArts: CityArtStudio

                            118 West Philadelphia St in York.

Lancaster poet Jeff Rath will be our feature reader for the evening followed by the usual open reading.  Feel free to be early for solo acoustic guitar by Tyler Clever starting around 6:30.  Feel free also to shamelessly forward this notice to friends and enemies alike.  And if you're a reader of Ruth Stone's work, we will carve out a few minutes to share some of her work in memory of this incredible woman.  So bring your favorite Ruth Stone poem to share or else . . .

"Monet" is from Jeff's new book Film Noir which will be available at the reading for $10.

Monet

        for Barbara Strasko

With haystacks, poplars and cathedrals

you sought to decipher

the Morse code of light

at different times of the day,

and declare your eyes

the equal of god's.

What were art and life anyway

but light?

From the tortured camel's hump

of Etretat

to the infinite sun-puddled fields

wounded with poppies,

it would take a lifetime

and the graceful arc

of a Japanese bridge

hovering over a pond

throttled with lilies

to obliterate the boundaries of shape

and create a pure abstraction

of light.