80/20

At work we frequently use the "80/20" rule, which means that you can't fix everything and sometimes you have to focus on a solution that resolves 80% of the problem and not waste all your time on the 20%.
The world seems to have gone mad, or maybe we are getting what we deserve, I don't really know, but today I want to focus on the good stuff.
*
I was lucky enough to get to a couple of farmer's markets this week. It's been a mild summer and we are beyond fortunate to enjoy scrumptious vegetables and fruit--I scooped up Nash's first carrots of the summer, along with plump cauliflower heads and a big bag of broccoli, amazing garlic from Jarvis (Spanish Roja and Polish Hardneck), lovely fresh-picked peaches, green beans, zucchini, corn, and a big box of Mutiny Bay blueberries.

Yesterday I bused over to the Seafair Pow Wow at Discovery Park (at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center). All around, people greeted friends, an SPD officer mingled with the crowd and got in line with us for frybread with honey, a giggling couple let me help with their frybread selfie, vendors sold drums and bundled herbs and t-shirts and the line for plank-grilled salmon stretched dozens long. At 7pm the Coastal Grand Entry began, dancers and performers in their tribal regalia proceeded into the big grassy circle, in front of elders and drummers and hundreds of viewers. I wept a little. Despite the mass murder and deprivations we've inflicted upon our tribes for centuries, they persist, they thrive, and this weekend, they celebrate.

And in music: a couple of weeks ago I went to a show at High Dive with some friends. Ever So Android was the headliner and they slayed (and I realized the female half of the duo works at one of my favorite coffee shops!). The second opener tho--Monsterwatch--wow. I wouldn't identify myself as a metalhead but I heart these kids. There was crowdsurfing, a smallish mosh pit, and at one point, the lead singer flung himself to the floor between me and one of my buddies, continuing to play guitar and sing as he lay there. I lost half my whiskey when he wrenched himself back to the stage, but it was a fun night of abandon and a great show.

resourceful

I've been told that I'm resourceful.
The word makes me suspicious. Is it code for something? A back-handed compliment, the way my father would tell me I was "attractive" and we both knew he meant "not as pretty as your sister?"
But then I think, well I am resourceful.
Once, when I was younger, my parents went out and left me in charge. There was a fight and my littlest sister slammed my hand in the bathroom door. I knew if our parents found out about the fight, we'd all be in trouble, so I concealed my injured, rapidly blackening index fingernail. Over the following weeks, as fluids built up under the dead nail, I meticulously drilled a hole in the nail bed with a safety pin, relieving the pressure. The nail eventually curled up and flaked off, replaced by a tender, snail-like new nail and I was still called on to be in charge, sometimes.
There was the job I got when I was an exchange student in Germany. My Spanish boyfriend had accidentally crushed the bumper of our group's rental van, after a weekend in Berlin. Everyone else's parents sent them money to pay for the repairs. Not me. My parents were broke as a joke, so, I studied the Marburg classifieds and found a job helping a doctor's wife in Elnhausen with housework. I still remember my German mother Ilse's incredulity when I announced my new position over dinner.
During college, I lived on $10 a week for groceries. (Thank you, Food Giant.)
Anyway, the thing is, I come from a long line of hard-headed Kansan women. One great-grandmother emigrated to western Kansas on a wagon train from Oklahoma. The other taught in a one-room schoolhouse and raised my grandmother as a single parent. My beloved Gram has had three careers so far--mother, schoolteacher, and real estate mogul. So I guess when someone says hey you're resourceful, it doesn't resonate too much.
Being resourceful what's expected. It's how we do.
It's who we are.

he looks good

I've been posting a lot of videos and links lately. It's been a dizzyling busy summer and while yes, I have been writing, I have so little time and energy left for blogging. A friend introduced me to Steve Kardynal videos not long ago and I watched a half dozen and fell in love. He's talented and funny and yet I'm almost more in love with the reactions around him. The world is scary and sad and this wriggly, sassy little performance artist makes people laugh and dance in the most un-self-conscious way. It's a gift.