Happy Birthday!

Happy 19th Birthday, Starr!
I love this kindergarten picture. She tried to be cool and hid lipstick and “jewelry” in her bag. She is looking so very proud of herself.

And…Happy 42nd, dear brother! Is really so bad “sharing” the day?
This is one of the slides I photographed the other day. Counting candles, it looks to be just about…or exactly 40 years ago!!

“Blankest Year” – Nada Surf (NSFW language)

Here’s hoping that next year is better one for all of us!!

From the Streets of Paris

We Don’t Dive, We Cannonball!

thao nguyen, originally uploaded by .sarahcass..

“Swimming Pools” – Thao with the Get Down Stay Down

We are sore the length of our bodies
We restore water we cry
We are nothing if not your granddaughters
We have been nothing but dignified

We, we brave bee stings and all
And we don’t dive, we cannonball
And we splash our eyes full of chemicals
Just so there’s none left for little girls
Just so there’s none left for little girls

Roll, roll, roll up your denim
We’ve got to pedal 10 hours south
They pour it down from their balconies
You’ve got to push all the doubt to the side of your mouth

We, we brave bee stings and all
And we don’t dive, we cannonball
And we splash our eyes full of chemicals
Just so there’s none left for little girls
Just so there’s none left for little girls

We are sore the length of our bodies
We restore water we cry
We are nothing if not your granddaughters
We have been nothing but dignified

We, we brave bee stings and all
And we don’t dive, we cannonball
And we splash our eyes full of chemicals
Just so there’s none left for little girls

“We don’t dive, we cannonball” this phrase caught me the other day. It carries feelings of freedom and uninhibitedness, both of which I’m finding elusive right now. I have had those things in my life and I am grateful for the memories and laughs.

I look forward to happy uninhibitedness in the future! Just avert your eyes please…it might not be pretty.

Here are a couple more songs:

“Bag of Hammers” – Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

“Beat (Health, Life and Fire)” – Thao and The Get Down Stay Down

Thao on MySpace

Thao Nguyen on Daytrotter

Blast From the Past

Starr and I went to my parents home for the weekend. They are preparing to move, and I spent some time helping my mom go through boxes and decide…throw, donate, garage sale? Or…um, take home.

My take home pile was fairly small (consisting of mostly books, many of which were mine to begin with), but it did include a huge box, and a few smaller ones, of old slides–100′s and 100′s of them. These slides cover about 20 years worth of our lives. Mom, Starr and I spent some time culling Sunday night…there is a lot left to do. Dad mentioned that he saw somewhere on the internet that you could take pictures of slides using a light box and get pretty good results. I spent a few minutes this morning taking pictures.
Here are some of the resulting photographs:

EJ (friend), DJ and me. Showing off our catch…there are a lot of fish pictures in those boxes!! 1970

DJ and his Christmas gifts probably 1969. *DJ, since you have yet to produce your Then and Now challenge photo, I will accept this one as an alternative…..

It was fun to see pictures that I thought were long gone, and also many more that I didn’t know existed. And I am excited about the idea of being able to save them digitally…and frugally.

Now it is just the “small” matter of finishing the culling, the sorting, the photographing, the editing and then burning to discs for safekeeping. I just might be done with this project in a decade or so.

My excitement is already waning…

Dance, Dance, Dance

The season premier of So You Think You Can Dance, Season 4, was last night. Starr has been really excited..I mean beside herself excited…about it. The girls have been big fans for several years. They love the dancing, they fall in love with the contestants. They cry over certain routines.

It is a bit bittersweet for me, as I recall Sunny and Skye spending lots of time over here watching the show. Laughing, screaming, disagreeing over which boy is the cutest, and who is the better dancer. Arguing with the judges. I loved being a part of their energy.

Here is Robert Muraine’s audition from last nights show:

And this is one of the girls favorite performances from season 2, one that brought at least one of them to tears, Heidi and Travis dancing a contemporary routine choreographed by Mia Michaels:

Sit Still and Shut Up

_DSC0582A – Thai Monk is in natural meditation, originally uploaded by hcchoo.

Like exercise, I keep thinking that I want to add meditation to my daily schedule. I have read books, bought cd’s, and taken classes. Mostly, I am impatient, I get fidgety and the more I try to calm my mind, the crazier it gets. I assume that with practice I will get better, but I want instant results…again, just like exercise.

Wednesday’s column by Mark Morford, Sit down, shut up, breathe, reminded me that this is still a skill that I wish to work on. From the article:

It’s a small study that goes handily with the umpteen similar bits of research lo these past years, all of which seem to indicate some other famously healthful aspect of meditation: stress relief, improved heart function, life extension, emotional stability, improved sleep, increased productivity, better orgasms, fewer ingrown hairs, brighter sunshine, better gas mileage and also merely learning to sit still and shut the hell up once in awhile, which I can promise you will make your wife and your siblings and your kids and your dog and even your own manic ego very happy indeed.

Better orgasms, gas mileage and brighter sunshine!! Say no more…I am back on the meditation bus. Exercise too.

Graduation Season

High School Graduation.

I see the signs of it everywhere: on the news, in blogs, in my mailbox. The planning, the excitement, the possibilities for the future, a transition, an end of an era…graduation is to be celebrated.

I am painfully reminded of this time last year.

At about 3:30 in the morning, the day after the accident, I left Starr in the hospital under the watchful eye of her then boyfriend “Irish” and drove home to shower and change clothes. Still in shock, I was surprised that I was able to drive at all. I remember sitting alone at a stop-light, in the dark, wishing very much that I would just wake the fuck up, or that I could somehow do something to erase the last 12 hours, and fix it. Please.

I entered the house from the garage, and was faced with my life as it existed before. Before life changed so dramatically and tragically. Sunny’s graduation announcement was on the counter, it had arrived in the mail the previous day…the day she died. The invitation contained a lovely piece of colorful printed paper and a request for a story or memory of Sunny to be returned to her as a keepsake. I am finding it difficult to breathe.

In the living room was the unfinished blanket that I had started as a graduation gift for her. I can barely look in that direction. She asked me to make it for her; she wanted to have it with her in the dorm room she was sharing with Starr. Starr and I picked out bright orange, pink and yellow as the color scheme…as both girls claimed that color combination as a favorite. These were the same colors used on the paper in Sunny’s invitations. This same paper was later used at the visitation for visitors to record memories and stories of Sunny. It was the perfect paper for Sunny, those colors and beautiful flowers around the edges. It is quite sad that a happy idea for Graduation was, by fate, turned into what I hope was a touching tribute to Sunny’s life for her family.

I glance around the kitchen, and see the refrigerator covered with pictures of both girls. Can this be real? Sadly, it is. Heartbroken, exhausted, and lost I gathered up Sunny’s graduation announcement, the blanket, and Starr’s graduation invitations and moved them to a less used space. Everything else stays. I quickly shower (even the water seemed unreal) and return to my post at the hospital.

We were just a few short weeks from graduation. Starr was able to return to school before it ended, it was an important step for her, and for their classmates. She wasn’t expected to work, but just be. It was hard, as she was both physically and mentally broken, but it was crucial.

I didn’t want to plan a party, my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t have the money, the energy or the will. However, Sunny’s parents insisted that we should…looking back, I wish that we hadn’t. We were all just going through the motions. Existing. It is extremely difficult to “celebrate” when we were all carrying such brokenness (still are, really). What should have been a happy day, was just a day to get through. We managed commencement, we had the party, we pretended, we cried.

We missed Sunny. We were shattered over the incredible pain that her family was experiencing…and still are. Still are.

*I have posted a picture of Starr and Skye at commencement. They are holding a beautiful pink rose that represented Sunny. The girls are smiling for the photograph, but you can see that their smiles don’t quite reach their eyes.

Cute Overload

I ran into the cutest flash games the other day. Starr says “They are so cute, you just want to give them a hug!”Orisinal: Morning Sunshine currently showcases 59 flash games designed by Ferry Halim that positively charmed our little family. The graphics, the music…the whole package. We just fell in love. The pictures are from These Little Pigs and High Delivery which is a favorite of Starr’s for multiple reasons.

Tuesday Mix

“A Sweet Summers Night on Hammer Hill” – Jens Lekman

“Scene it All Before” – The Minor Leagues

“#1 Song” – Julie Ocean

“Love Revolution” – All Mighty Whispers

“Wouldn’t Believe It” – Get Up Kids

“Did Ya Ever Look So Nice” – The Samples

I had this idea to post a “summer” mix, but the songs that I had in mind weren’t available for posting, and then as I was searching my files, I wondered what exactly a summer song is? And what does it represent? Sunshine? Lakes? Icy cold beer? Laughter? Baseball? Skinned knees? Back yard grilling?

Damn. I am ready for some summer!

Anyway, here is a mix of some songs that I like and had available to me….summery or not.

Home For the Summer and Project Linus

Starr and I finished moving home the remainder of her things Friday afternoon. There was much more there than either of us thought. After two car loads of crap, and some goodbyes, we have closed that chapter.

Three days later I am still faced with this:

In two of these pictures, I see two things that are very important to us. In the middle photo, there is a quilt on the banister with stars on it. And in the bottom one, there is a cozy brightly colored blanket with flowers and hearts. Both of these blankets were given to Starr last year after the accident. She received one at the hospital and the other at the high school.

These blankets were Project Linus blankets. Project Linus mission:

Project Linus is comprised of hundreds of local chapters and thousands of volunteers across the United States. Each volunteer and local chapter all work together to help us achieve our mission statement, which states:

• First, it is our mission to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”
• Second, it is our mission to provide a rewarding and fun service opportunity for interested individuals and groups in local communities, for the benefit of children.

Together we have distributed over two million blankets to children in need since our inception in 1995.

The colorful flower blanket happens to have been made by Key Club students at Starr and Sunny’s school and was donated to Project Linus some time before the accident. Key Club is a volunteer organization at the high school that the girls were heavily involved with. It actually means a lot that the Key Club donation came back to Starr in this manner.

Starr and I have made plans to make blankets and donate when we can. The blankets really did make a difference.