Being Thankful

Bumpa. Photo by C. Turgeon

I am thankful for Bumpa.

On November 25th, 2008, Bernard A. Booker, known as Bumpa to my family, passed away after a brief but fierce bout with cancer.  I can’t write “fight”, because after the initial diagnosis, Bumpa, age 85, decided to preserve the quality of life, rather than quantity, and live out his remaining time without dealing with hassle of chemo.  It’s a choice I respect and hope that I will be as brave someday if faced with a similar choice.

Today is the memorial service.  It seems a little weird to say I am thankful that it is on a holiday weekend, but it means that everyone in my immediate family can be there.  I’m not really sure what to expect from today, except that I will cry, console other crying people, and watch other people who I don’t know, but who knew Bumpa cry too.  It seems an odd way to mourn a man who was a decorated WWII vet, classic curmudgeon, grandfather extraordinaire, and avid outdoorsman.  If I wasn’t bound by family duty, I would hike up Bauneg Beg Hill with a bottle of scotch and toast him from the summit.

I am grateful that I had Mami and Bumpa in my life.  Neighbors of my mother’s parents, they adopted my brother and I as the grandchildren they never had.  The four of us led a charmed life, full love expressed in big and little ways.  Mami, married to Bumpa for near 50 years passed away 13 years ago.  I’m not sure Bumpa ever really got over that.  He continued to refer to her in the present tense into his last days.  This wasn’t due to senility or memory loss — she just continued to be present for him even though she wasn’t physically there.  I think he continued to love her in a way that no woman could ever replace, though he never had a lack of women friends who would stop by with a meal or invite him out.

Every child deserves grandparents who spoil them rotten and teach them unconditional love.  That was Mami and Bumpa for my brother and I.  There was a lack of grandparents/grandchildren in both our lives and we were lucky enough to fill that void for each other with love.

Thank you for being my grandfather.  I miss you.

rope swings in the back of Bumpa

Acton Fair with Bumpa and Mami

Happy Thankgiving

Early wishes for a safe and happy holiday!

Blogging will return Moday, December 1st.

Happy eating!

gobble gobble!

Malaysian National Fatwa Council Bans Yoga

The Malaysian council that oversees Islamic law has issued an edict against the practice of yoga by Muslims.

“The National Fatwa Council’s chairman, Abdul Shukor Husin, said many Muslims fail to understand that yoga’s ultimate aim is to be one with a god of a different religion — an explanation disputed by many practitioners who say yoga need not have a religious element.” -excerpted from the MSNBC news report

While fatwas issued by the Council are not legally binding, they do put pressure on people to behave in certain ways.

As a practitioner of yoga, a soon-to-be student in a teacher training program, and an aetheist, I find this very unsettling.  From the reading I have done so far, the practice of yoga is highly individual and I have enjoyed reading about how different people have adopted and adapted the practice and spirituality to fit their own needs.  Some texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, essentially the Yoga Bible, is obviously more strict within its reverance for the Lord of Yoga and other Hindu deities.  And yet, there are a myriad of translations, each with their own sublte variations about the spiritual nature of yoga.  Other, more modern texts, show an more inclusive perspective on the spirituality of yoga, like Erich Schiffmann’s book.

These readings have been very eye-opening to me, as I am learning the important lesson of separating the message from the delivery.  All the books I have read in preparation for the teacher training, whether they are the more traditional texts, or the radically modern ones, have all had the same essential message.  “Do what is good for you, because it is the good and right choice.  Do what is good for others, because it is the good and right choice.”  Sometimes there is a moral imperative of behaving this way for fear of retribution by a greater deity, sometimes it is simply because it is the good and right choice to make.  It all depends on what motivates the individual.

Is this a slippery slope for Malaysian Muslims?  Or is this a one-time incident that will not be followed by a majority of Muslim yoga practitioners?  What do you think about it?

A Dose of Random

Random picture of Brother and his roommates

There have been all kinds of interesting links coming in through the Google Reader lately, so I thought a weekly round-up of things interesting, odd, helpful, or humorous might be in order.

• How to decorate big wallspaces without blowing your budget from JC Penny (random source, very cool site.)

• The nation of Tuvalu will soon be underwater.  Photographer Shuuichi Endou took 10,000 pictures before the island disappears.  Link from Treehugger.

• From EKW, a great link from Craftster on first projects for new crafters.  [Note: My sewing machine is already booked through the month of December with projects for my Mom.  I'm think she's more excited about me having the machine than I am because she knows I'll use it and can make things for her.]

• Finally!  A group that recognizes women like and appreciate dark beer!

• Interweave Press announces the launch of Stitch magazine, a hip new magazine for those of us who are sewing-inclined.  (What are people called who sew?  Sewer (ew!)? Seamstress?  Stitcher? Crazy Person?)  Link from Craftzine.

• And to wrap it up, from one of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits, a great guest post on decluttering and living simply, which just so happens to be one of my favortie topics.
  [Note: I adore Zen Habits and I can't believe I haven't linked here yet.  Many apologies Leo!]

Cookstr

Lifehacker annouced the Beta launch of Cookstr: recipie finder and home for cookbook/chef interviews.  As it is still in Beta there aren’t a whole lot of recipes up just yet, but the site looks really promising!!  So far it seems to be a site that shills for cookbooks: posting a few selected recipes to entice homecookers to buy the print book.  However, I can see this site dovetailing nicely with my other favorite recipe sites (Eating Well, Serious Eats, and a whole host of food blogs that feed into my reader.)

What I like best about Cookstr is the search.  Initially you can search by chef, ingredient or recipe name.  Once inside the search, you have all kinds of filtering options including cost, skill level, season, dietary consideration and a wole lot more.

With great searching options, more recipes, and the promise of pages on “Tips & Techniques” and “Menus” Cookstr is a site to keep your eye on.

Sew What?!

It's old but not that old

New crafty-hobby here I come!  As of this Thanksgiving, I’ll be bringing home to Essex Street a beautiful old Singer sewing machine!  Originally my mother’s as a young girl, this machine is solid as a rock and weighs about as much.  After Thanksgiving it will be coming home with me and PUT TO WORK!    I can’t wait!

All the excitement leads me to a few questions for the great, wide world:

1) Are there any sewing blogs out there that you like?

2) What about print books/guides?

3) What should I make first?!?!?!

What I Read – October

Better late than never!!  (OK, it’s a lie, but I blame it on the insane amount of travelling I’ve done in the past few weeks.)

Here’s what I read in the month of October.  As before, the links go to my mini-reviews on Goodreads.

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, by Amanda Foreman

The Sweet, Far Thing, by Libba Bray

Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery

The Little Book, by Selden Edwards

No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure, by Sarah Hughes

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, by Deepak Chopra (for yoga certification class)

You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay (for yoga certification class)

Next month, look for more yoga-related books as I try to catch up and have it all done before February!

Seattle: Part II, Meeting “The One” after you’ve already met “The One”

The Inuit people of North America have a hundred words for snow.  The same is true with Seattleites and rain.  In the six days I was there we had mist, light mist, heavy mist, rain, drizzle, sprinkles, scattered showers, light showers, sporadic showers, downpours, heavy rain, and cats & dogs.  (Just kidding about the last one.  Though if I heard Renee Montagne say it, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.

Despite the weather, which really wasn’t all that bad, Seattle is an amazing city.  Socially-conscious, artistic and open, I felt like I was in a near-perfect hybrid of Edinburgh (weather) and Boston (kick-arse city on the water), but with the added benefits of liberal hippie/yuppieism with a dash of ironic hipster, lest everyone get too serious about it all.  It wouldn’t be a lie to say that if I had visited in 2007, I would now be writing this blog from Seattle instead of Boston.  And yet, how wonderful to fall in love with a place and know that it will always be there for a visit.

So, without further ado (and maudlin meaderings) here are some photographic highlights:

(More pics on Flickr!)

Steel girders at the breathtakingly modern Seattle Public Library

Yes. we saw them throw fish. Yes, it was very very cool.

Northwest Native American art in Occidental Park (I think!)

Sea Otters at Seattle Aquarium - utter cuteness

The hostess with the mostess and

Planes, Trains, Automobiles … and a New President-Elect

I knew, back in June, when I booked my trip to Seattle and realized I would be in the air for Election Day

Barack Obama

(don’t worry, I voted absentee), that it would be an interesting day.

Leaving Seattle, a city of social conscience, coffee and clouds for a layover in Phoenix did a lot to illustrate how big and different our country is in geography, personality and politics.  When I left Phoenix at 4:55pm MST there weren’t any real election results.  Some early polls from Kentucky and Indiana were reporting wins for McCain and Obama respectively, but there wasn’t any big news.  The sunset colored the mountains of the Southwest orange-pink persimmon, and the colors and the landscape slowly faded to indigo-hued colored plains of the Midwest.   Soon it was too dark to see, except for scattered lights of cities and larger towns.  I got involved in a delicious mystery novel and took a break from pressing my nose to the window.

Bright lights outside the window caught my eye and I realized we were flying over Chicago.  It was about 10:00pm EST, and I wondered: were the people of Chicago happy?  Sad?  What was happening in Grant Park?  How was it going?  I asked the flight attendant if there was any news but she didn’t know.  Not really one for praying, I nonetheless sent out a little prayer and thought how wonderful it would be to land and know that the world had changed for the better.

The American public granted my prayer, along with may other people’s prayers around the world.  Last night, when Barack Obama made his acceptance speech and I raced up Essex Street to my apartment, we made the first big step to repairing the damange done by the previous administration, especially in regards to foreign relations.  I shed a few tears listening to Obama’s speech, but what got me was the world’s reaction, chronicled here, here, here (interesting perspective from US troops in Iraq) and here (love the BBC for going for the juggular).  The joy, the concern, the myriad of emotions from Iraq, Iran, Kenya, Japan, Austrailia … it is almost overwhelming.

President-elect Obama has a lot of work to do, not the least of which is to manage the expectations of the world and of the people.  The world will not be healed, wars will not end, the economy will not right itself the moment he steps into office.  There is a lot of work to do – hard work, work that is not going to be fun or easy.  Yet the old agage is true: many hands make light work.  This is a call to positive action that has not yet been seen in my (albeit short) lifetime.  It is a call we cannot ignore.

Our grandparents remember where they were for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Our parents remember where they were for the assassination of JFK.  Our generation remembers where we were when the towers in New York City fell.  But we will also remember where we were when we found out that Barack Obama would be the new president of the United States.  I can’t think of a better way to put it than Obama did last night: “This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.”