Allez! Au Revoir! {just for a little while}

Long before Coldplay splashed the words Viva la Vida across the stirring battle panorama, and even before my Humanities 202 class, I was familiar with Liberty Leading Her People as part of the 100 franc notes I would spend on groceries at the supermarche. I felt brave buying vegetables in that funny French way the French buy vegetables. It's just different from here. {Before the Euro, French money was super cool. The 50F note had an image of The Little Prince on it. Seriously. I love the French.}

It doesn't surprise me that Liberty is a woman. Here in the U.S. we call her Lady, and our statue does have a strong sense of decorum about her. But what I love about Delacroix's version is the action, the passion and the calm determined look on her face.

Somehow, in looking for an image representative of this blog post I stumbled up this painting and so there she is, leading the charge.

While posting has been fairly light this summer, I am taking a blogging break for the remainder of August. It has something to do with making preparations, leading my troops, and a little bit of viva la vida as it turns out.

"For some reason I can't explain I know St. Peter will call my name."* So that's that.

Be back soon.


*a line, of course, from Coldplay's Viva la Vida

Municiple Schedules

One of the things I liked about New York was that there was some sort of trash pick-up almost everyday. Two regular garbage days, one recycling day, one day where you could throw out just about anything from an old couch to a dying toaster oven. Also, on that day, you could drive around and take stuff from other people's piles before it was removed by the able-bodied trash removers.

In our new town here garbage comes once a week, on the highly inconvenient day of Wednesday. It is virtually impossible to remember to take out the trash on a Tuesday night. Before the move, the garbage came Monday morning, which makes oodles of sense. Remembering to take the trash out Sunday night was pretty easy. A Wednesday pick up is just not intuitive. We've done okay so far. This morning was a little close.

Upon hearing the garbage truck right outside my house I dashed outside, waved and screamed at the top of my lungs, the driver relented, nodded and I hauled the garbage can to the curb, watched it mechanically wooshed up to the top of the large vehicle, contents dumped in and placed back before me.

I promptly returned it to it's place.

I have now officially labeled myself as that crazy woman who runs out in her pj's to yell loudly at garbage men.

August, Die She Must

That's the Simon and Garfunkle line that came to me this morning. Oddly, I blogged about that particular song last August as well. Simon and Garfunkle: They are securely ingrained in my psyche.

Though this year it's not the blazing heat, just the dying part of August that I am talking about.

Yesterday my daughter was the "Reverence Child" in church. The Reverence Child gets there early and stands next to the podium folding their arms and generally showing all those who enter the church how to be reverent. Because my reverence child is going through some separation anxiety we sat in the front smashed in to a bench that our family just barely fit on.

And then the meeting started and my children, including the Reverence Child, were extremely Un-Reverent as we sat at the front, where everyone could enjoy the sights and sounds of my family at church. And I was mortified. Which is why must-dying sounds like a not-so-bad idea at the moment.

Also, the current of things-to-do is slowly overtaking me and so if you don't hear back from me, just realize that I drowned in the many possibilities that life has to offer because I didn't have the energy to cling to any specific thing. I just went down grasping at straws. Farewell.

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Oh, I jest. I jest.

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Maybe.

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Okay, I really have to go clean my house, now. Have a good day!