Videos (but not Zadie, sorry!)

I have to turn in my list of 5 best cover songs this week for poker night. I don't want to give anything away, but having done so much thinking about this topic, I've really been sort of obsessed.

I have found that I often like covers when I like the original song AND the covering artist. Hearing an interpretation by someone I like of something I like is almost a guaranteed win.

Aretha covering Eleanor Rigby.

Amazing, right? I love how she brings her own style to it, and even changes if from 3rd person to first person.

I often find that a song I already liked, but in a shallow manner, is given new lyrical life by a cover.

Gary Jules' Mad World.

The original was a poppy and somewhat forgettable Tears for Fears song. I liked it, but I had no idea how melancholy the lyrics were.

Sometimes I learn something about a song. For example, what does everyone like about Purple Haze? The badass guitar, right?

Nigel Kennedy doing Purple Haze.

(Bit of a long intro -- skip to about 3:08 for Purple Haze only.)
I learned that I actually rather like the melody, and that part of what makes the song is its build to passionate intensity.

Sometimes I just like what happens when you change the voice and style a lot. It's such a unique way of looking at something familiar.

Tricky doing Black Steel.

If you don't know the original, it's a fairly intense rap song. It's a great song, honestly, but I really like this version, too.

Sometimes it's the personality or the story of the cover artist that lends something to the song.

Johnny Cash sings "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

I'm not crazy about the original of this. I mean, it's a good song, but not on my top 100 or anything. Yet knowing Johnny's love story with June, knowing how soon after he recorded this he passed on, and hearing his voice, older, breaking... It can make me cry.

Sometimes they're just funny. I love sending up serious songs.

Dynamite Hack covers Eazy E.


Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do Country Roads.


It also works to take all the passion OUT of a song and deliver it in a near-monotone, as John McCrea does so well.

Cake covers I Will Survive.

They do a pretty good "War Pigs," too. I mean, I don't think they're anywhere near the original, but there's something


Sometimes taking a song with a gritty male voice and giving it a melodic female one can highlight its beauty.

Tori Amos covers Bruce Springsteen.


Sinead O'Connor covers Nirvana.


And sometimes the artist adds something of their own and the result is just... epic.

Patti Smith does Gloria.

I read a critic write of this, once, that Van Morrison had written a song about a woman named Gloria, but Smith took it and made it a "Gloria" prayer praising rock and roll itself. Something like that, anyway.

And there are more, still more. But now it's time to check out Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Take care, and enjoy the videos.

What a cool kid.

She's so funny. She went with Sweetie and me to the rally today at the Capitol, and she really liked all the chanting parts. Although she didn't quite get them all. We briefly chanted "Where's Governor Brown" while she chanted "Where's going down?"

Then we went to a birthday party. I was so proud of her, and so frequently amused by her. In the bounce house, some boys were playing rough, and she got her hand smooshed. She came out crying, and I held her and kissed her hand and soon she was okay. She went back in, but she told me, "I'm going to stay away from that boy who smooshed my hand." Good thinkin'!

A while later, her cousin pushed her down. She didn't cry, but I heard her say "I'm going to push YOU down!" I called her name in a warning tone, and she hopped out of the bounce house, saying "Cooper pushed me, and I don't want to be around him right now." I could tell it was a struggle not to be physical back, and she made such a good decision with very little prompting.

I had to laugh, too. I really, really try not to be too stringent about nutrition. I mean, I care, and I try to make sure that we eat healthy, whole foods, but I'm not, like, super-yuppie-mom. If she gets Kool-Aid at Grandpa's house, I really don't care at all. But I do kind of have a thing about soda, and I've just told her that soda is not for kids. So today, when an 18-month-old whined until her mother gave her some root beer, Zadie watched in fascination and finally announced, in shock, "Babies don't drink soda-pop!" Luckily the mom didn't hear my judgmental motto.

Sort of also on that note, she was eating some food, and we were in a fairly quiet room. I was almost embarrassed when she announced "I love cherry tomatoes!" Then a minute later, she picked up a cheese puff and asked, "What's this?"

At present-opening time I got a little nervous. I know how hard it can be to watch kids open presents when they're not for you. Especially when they're pink girly things and the very princess dress you were eyeballing in the mall. So when Zadie was kind of all up in the birthday girl's grill, I was watching her carefully. When the girl got a pair of pink jelly sandals (again, very like something Z had coveted recently), Zadie helped her put them on. Isn't that cool? I was worried for nothing.

And finally -- I'll never be able to convey the tone, but I have to try. At one point I got her a plate of food, so her hands were kind of yucky with meat and cheese doodle powder. Although Z has a lot of toys, and they're spread around in several boxes and a couple rooms, she doesn't just have one big playroom full of pink plastic giant toys. The birthday girl does. Zadie ran into that room, looked around in awe, and then turned to me and half-whispered, "Waaaassshhh. Mmyyyy. Haaaannnddds. I'm going to touch stuff."

This is my baby.


When she was born, she needed some extra care. It was sad and scary, but luckily, she's fine. Also, because of my health care, we didn't go broke or into long-term debt paying for that care.

I had voted just a couple years before to forgo a cost-of-living increase in favor of keeping my health benefits intact. Glad I did.

These are my other kids.


Well, a fraction of the more than a thousand I've taught. I love them, too. And I do my best to educate them, not just in English but in how to talk to future bosses, how college will be, and how to believe that there is a future for them.

Please don't begrudge me my health benefits. They helped with this:

Lady builder

I'm a lady builder, and I'm building a new house. It's a really hard job, but I can do it. It's not hard for me, but it is hard for the boys.

More Native-y stuff, plus a TV news rant, plus an unplanned class war rant.

On Sunday, we didn't do too much on the Native American front, except that I tried to have a sort of Native waffle morning. I made cornmeal waffles and blueberry "wojapi." Apparently it's a sort of berry pudding. The recipe I was working with called for the following:
3/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3 cans water
1 can blueberries

Doesn't that seem like it would make a light purple, floury paste? I used fresh berries instead, reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup, the flour to a tablespoon, and I ended up with sort of a blueberry syrup, which was just fine. The waffles were good, too. The cornmeal gave them a pleasant crunch.

On Monday I had the day off, so we went to the Indian museum. We had such a good time at Effie Yeaw that I wasn't particularly excited about this small-looking joint, but in fact it was a very nice museum. They had a ton of artifacts in many, many displays. There were four just on ceremonial dances and the special attire for them. I really liked it. They also had a good selection of books. We walked away with two books, some tea and jerky to try, and a little ring for her.

*******************
I never voluntarily watch the TV news, and I have recently been reminded why. I made some changes to my gym routine, and I'm now working out in a room where I face three TVs, all with closed captioning. The one on the right is always sports, and for some reason the captioning is pretty much nonsense. It looks like this:

LeBron James pesshweq;ag sonnestu ja dunk smeigel fnstajs half-court smishhna.

It's like an Ikea catalog.

The left one, ironically enough, is usually Fox. Now, at that time of morning, it's a local affiliate, but it may be the worst news program I've ever seen. I swear, Scout's honor, that they spend about 80% of their air time either aiming the camera at a computer screen, specifically at Facebook, or on someone's iPhone, or showing a poll you can vote on. I would estimate that at least 50 percent of their "content" comes directly from what viewers say on their Facebook page. And I'm not kidding about the iPhone thing... just before Christmas I saw them interviewing people lined up outside a BestBuy, and the newscaster motioned to the cameraman to zoom in on the screen of his phone.

The center screen is news, but I almost want to put that in quotation marks. Every single thing they say sounds like a teaser for something coming up... but it's not. They literally spend about three seconds on every story. It goes, "Terrible earthquake in New Zealand today, here are some photos of the damage in Christchurch. Libya in turmoil. Puppies! Wisconsin governor orders Democrats back to the session. Snow?"

I'm not watching it, exactly, but sometimes I read and listen to music, and other times I listen to podcasts. When I listen to the podcasts, I don't have much to look at, so I'll glance at the screens, usually flicking my eyes back and forth to find something worth watching.

"Take a look at our Facebook comments... public opinion seems to be| Vick back inuyasha stromthurmond kasku field| Future of unions? A man who studied tigers| Noordquist schoollassn PGA tour shnorck| If you just zoom in on the screen| One year after the earthquake in Haiti. Tiger mothers|

It's infuriating.

Speaking of infuriating, I'm kind of fired up about this war on labor and the working class. Everywhere I look, someone's pissed about teachers or state workers. You know what? I DO have better benefits than people in some other jobs. And I have pretty good hours and I'm happy with my pay. But even if I make more than you, even if you don't have kids and therefore don't benefit from public education, even if you're mad that I'll have a pension someday -- I'm a red herring. The rich dudes who run everything are LAUGHING THEIR ASSES OFF at us working class people being mad and jealous and petty at each other. They rub their hands with glee when some Tea Party douchebag gets asked whether the rich should be taxed more and they answer, "Heck no! He made his money the old fashioned way, and he should get to keep it!"

The fact is that the rich get richer, the people who run the government are rich, the people who donate the most money to politicians are rich, which means when they make laws, they make laws that benefit the rich, and then the rich get richer some more.

They WANT the slightly-less-well-off-middle-class to hate and resent the slightly-more-well-off-middle-class so that no one pays attention to the fact that the wealthiest 20% of Americans control 2/3 of Americans' net worth. That they pay LESS, percentage-wise, in taxes than we do. That the richest senators all voted to extend tax cuts for the wealthy. That the average CEO makes 185 times more than the average worker. That their current tax rate is the lowest it's been since the 20s.

This whole "We have to bust unions because teachers cost a lot" thing is what the magician does with the puff of smoke to hide the bunny -- it's a distraction from what's really going on, a war on the working class.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

On Wisconsin

So... let me get this straight.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker took a surplus and turned it into a deficit...

By rewarding his cronies (the wealthy, for the most part)...

And by giving $140 million dollars in tax cuts to multinational corporations...

And he's trying to bust unions despite their already having given concessions...

And despite the fact that he seems to think collective bargaining is okay for those who supported his campaign...

And people support busting teachers' unions despite the fact that schools in states with collective bargaining perform BETTER than those in states without...

And people still support this motherfucker?

Here is the real reason Republicans are busting unions:

It's long, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing, she says that unions are pretty much the ONLY groups contributing money to the democrats. If Republicans can get rid of unions, they can get all the power. It's frickin' evil.

Sweetie is always telling me I have too high an opinion of people, and I'm starting to think he's right; I really thought that, despite our obvious differences, Republicans believed in government by the people, in the two-party system, in democracy.

But this week, it is looking a lot like they don't.

At all.

Effie Yeaw Nature Center for Indigenous People week

After Japan week ended, I asked Zadie if there was any culture she wanted to learn about. She answered promptly: Indians! After I got the dot-vs-feather thing sorted, we went ahead and planned some stuff. I looked around online and found out that the Effie Yeaw Nature Center was having a Maidu exhibit, and I've always wanted to go there. One of my blog friends often takes her daughter, and I read with sadness that it was having funding problems. I've never been (disclaimer: every time I say that, my mom tells me "Oh, you have been there, but it was when you were pretty little so you may not remember), and I really wanted to check it out.

So away we went! When we first drove up, there was one of those self-pay booths, so I stopped and put my $5 in. Another car pulled up and the guy complimented me, saying he was glad to see us pull over and pay since so many people just breeze past it. Really? I mean, I feel obligated to pay on two fronts: First, I want to help fund the place, and second, I'm SUPPOSED to. I mean, there's a SIGN, man.

Anyway, once we parked, the first thing we saw was some Maidu (technically, Nisenan, the southern Maidu) stuff, including a "Hy" (pronounced like "who"), which is a shelter they used in summer.


There was also a grinding stone, a little pond with a sign about all the things they used that grew around it, and a few other things.

Inside the visitors' center was a great display featuring a woven boat, many kinds of animals, some headdresses and belts for dancing, a small exhibit about cooking, one about basket-making, one that invites you to carry a basket via a strap on your head (I tried hard to get Zadie to let me get a picture of her doing this, but I wasn't fast enough), and much more. The one thing I wished they had was a few books on the Maidu for Zadie's age. There were several books on animals, but hardly any on the people, and the only one that really appealed was almost all text and no pictures.






I am quoting: "I wish I was a Native American so I could get in that boat."

Then we went out to walk the trail, and we chose the Discovery trail. I thought it would be a lovely walk, and it was, but I was surprised at how much we actually did discover! We saw animal tracks, scat, many birds, and then finally, some deer. Two were just hanging out and looking at us, and we stood and watched them for quite a while before something told me to look around. That's when I saw one even nearer, but only the head was visible. No matter how much I pointed, Zadie never could see this one.


Sorry for the terrible image quality -- I didn't think to bring the real camera, so this is a phone picture. They don't zoom well.

Just before we finished our walk, we saw a bunch of turkeys!


Definitely a worthwhile first Native American outing. In fact, I made a donation to the center. It would be a tragedy if it weren't available.

People are such D-bags (a long, unfocused political rant)

Man, I don't even follow politics particularly closely, but whatever I read seems to piss me off. Gov. Brown will fully fund education IF he can pass some tax extensions. But republicans have vowed not even to let that get on the ballot, so the voters likely won't have the opportunity to decide for themselves. And why not? Isn't this a democracy? Aren't they supposed to represent the will of the people? If they're so sure the people won't pass a tax extension, just let the people vote and show us "tax-and-spend liberals" once and for all.

And stupid Wisconsin and their union-busting! I'm reading people's comments on this issue, and they're just SO ill-informed. I actually read someone today who said something about unions "voting themselves another raise." Do people even make the slightest effort to understand how collective bargaining works? I'm thinking not. I mean, I used to work for a very anti-union establishment (a newspaper that rhymes with the Hackramento Flea), and the thing is, unions essentially have NO power other than the threat of a strike, which most workers don't want to do. In the best case scenarios, that threat doesn't get rolled out much and the employers work with the union to negotiate the deal that works best for both. In the worst case, it's a series of threats and bluster on both sides. We don't just get to say "We will take a 1.5% raise this year, thankyouverymuch." Generally, we go to the negotiating table and the employer starts with something like, "We'd like to cut your benefits, reduce your pay, and draw Hitler moustaches on your employee ID cards." And we go "Vacations in Hawaii for everyone!" And then we negotiate until we don't, on both sides, end up in the poorhouse. But the employer HAS to agree to the deal, and if it doesn't then there's no deal. Any big pension you're complaining that state workers have is a pension the state agreed in good faith to give.

And for the goddamn record, I don't have tenure. I have permanent status, which is better than probationary status. If I am a sucky teacher, the principal has to give me some bad evaluations, try to counsel me to make me better, and then he can fire me. That's not the same as a guaranteed job for life (even if I fall asleep at the desk and do nothing but show episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy). Do some sucky teachers retain their jobs? Sure! But why? Not because the unions are jumping up and down to save them, but because some lazy-ass principal doesn't want to go through the process to fire them. Heck, I've seen that in private industry, too. We had a customer service representative whom I was in charge of evaluating. She consistently horrified me and embarrassed the institution. But when I submitted a draft of my evaluation, my boss suggested I tone it down, because the employee had been there a long time. When I quit, she was still there. I think she worked there for about 15 years.

And I contribute towards my own retirement, which, if I retire after 30 years, will be 43.8 percent of my pay. People seem to think we get 100% of our salary, which would only be true if you were at least 60 and had worked 50 years (I'd personally get to retire at 75 - sounds like a blast).

I've said it before -- I think my pay is fair, and I have great benefits. I'm not complaining about what I've actually got -- just about what people seem to THINK I've got. And that's unlimited power, a job for life, and a cushy retirement.

Little emotional being

This morning we had one crying jag after another. She cried because she wanted to wear tights. She cried because she wanted the purple shoes, not the pink boots. She cried because she didn't want to wear a jacket. And it wasn't a continuous cry -- it was crying, then I'd calm her down, then she'd start again. At the jacket, I decided to walk away from it for a minute. "Fine. I'm going to do something else now." I left abruptly and stomped down the hall to my room to put my shoes on. We were running late and I was sure there were three or four more crying jags coming, so I thought I might as well get myself ready.

She followed me down the hall, crying. She was really upset this time, tears streaming down her face. "Mommy!" she sobbed. "We're friends, and friends don't hurt each others' feelings!" I picked her up and cuddled her, my cheek against hers. I almost wanted to laugh, really. But I kept my composure and instead said, "I'm sorry for hurting your feelings." She drew back with her arms still around my neck and said, "I'm sorry, too."

And yes, there were more jags -- I accidentally popped her balloon, for one thing, and for another, she decided she desperately missed our cat, Mina, when we left the house. But it was important to remember that as silly as these things are -- tights, for god's sake! -- they are important to her, and if I dismiss them, I am hurting her feelings. And we don't do that to the people we love.

Speaking of love, Happy belated Valentine's Day! Zadie and I both got new books from Sweetie, I got her a few small treats (including a balloon I managed NOT to pop), and she made me a "heart train" valentine card. Mom helped her pick out the letters, and she glued them on, so it says "omm." I made Sweetie his favorite cookies (which I've been planning to make since Christmas). It was a lovely, quiet day. On Facebook, there was some thing going around where people were posting pictures of themselves with their partner and stating how long they'd been together. I did the picture (of us sneering at the camera, naturally), and forgot to put the years. When someone asked, therefore, I had to start adding. And as of this spring, we will have been together eight years. Time flies when you're having fun.

One other thing on my mind has been house stuff. The current interest rate is significantly lower than the one we're locked into, so I thought about refinancing. But we owe more than the house is worth right now (I knew that, I just wasn't sure it meant we couldn't refinance), so it looks like that's out. Too bad, because we could have paid the same amount per month, but knocked about 10 years off our loan. We can do it in a few years when the market picks up -- no biggie. It's actually a pretty nice place to be to be underwater, yet be able to afford the payments and not be worried about our future. I know that's not the case for a lot of people.

Vintage week 2 1/2 and the recalcitrant mermaid

I'm calling it week 2 1/2 because I didn't wear all vintage on any day. Mostly it was one piece of vintage mixed with new stuff.

Monday, my Annie Hall look. Probably works better on Diane Keaton. My mom made this jacket for my dad in 1973. He only wore it a few times, but kept it all these years, and he gave it to me a couple weeks ago.


Tuesday, sort of mod. I got this shirt from a friend's garage sale. She had good stuff, but it's all polyester, so I can't wear it if it's at all warm out or I just steam inside like a fat lady dumpling.


Wednesday, floral. I felt great in this silly thing all day. It was my grandma's, and i just love the yellow flowers.


Thursday, neon! This one was also from the garage sale. The girl's name is Francing, and I just love her style.


And Friday. My friend Erinn gave me this one when she got rid of a bunch of her vintage stuff. Can you believe I've known her since 1984? Even though this looks super-70s to me, my students said I looked like Rosie the Riveter (1st period) and a pin-up girl (2nd period). Those are the kind of compliments I'll totally take. In fact, I felt a little flush all day.



We went to Ikea yesterday to get Z some curtains for her room. She has real sleep issues, and I'm devoted to fixing them. I bought her a white noise machine, but I think the amount of light in her room, particularly in the morning, is a problem, too. Anyway, we went out there, ate lunch, and then I was ready to shop. She didn't want to be in the cart, and I had a lot of heavy things to get, so I asked whether she wanted to go to their child care area, Smaland. She enthusiastically did, so we went to the window... and waited... until someone told us we were at the wrong window (there was no sign, by the way). We went to the window on the other side and waited... in a long line... until we got there and realized we hadn't filled out the paperwork. They directed us to the paperwork "above the birdhouse," which we found and promptly filled out, and returned to the line, and waited... to be told we'd filled out the wrong paperwork. It was above the OTHER birdhouse. So we filled out THAT paperwork... and waited... and finally got her checked in. Then I shopped as fast as I could and found almost everything I needed, and got back to Smaland, where I waited... to check her out. I heard the lady call her name, and I saw her come running, and I waited... while she apparently argued that she couldn't *see* her mom, so she didn't believe that I was there. I was informed of this and waved wildly through the window. The Ikea lady pointed, but Zadie is notoriously bad at following pointing fingers, and furthermore, the view was blocked by the line of people trying to check in. I also had a large package that didn't fit in my bag and two 55" curtain rods, so it was hard for me to negotiate my way through the crowd, but I moved closer to the window. None of the people in line really seemed to want to let me get close, and in the meantime, Zadie went back to playing. The woman came back to the window.

She was going to get someone to let me in. It would appear that there's some kind of regulation that parents can't be in there without a chaperone. So I found a cart and put my stuff down, they got the guy, they let me in, and I went to the ball pit. It was on a large, raised platform, and the only access was via a small set of steps. Another Ikea employee was standing right in the middle of the steps. I called for Zadie. She saw me, and seemed happy to see me, but wouldn't come out. I cajoled. I begged. I threatened. I counted to 2-and-fifteen-sixteenths. She was apparently a mermaid and didn't want to leave her river home. I kept eyeing the stair-guard. Finally, I just asked "Am I allowed to just go in there?" I was. I grabbed her, slung her under my arm, and we were outta there, no shoes, no more discussion, no "say bye-bye to Smaland," just the promise that she could come back when she was twenty.


Onward and upward. This weekend has been beautiful, and we've been taking advantage of it. We took a long bike ride today. I think I might have to reconsider the car naps, though: today I drove over 50 miles (to Dixon and back), and she still hadn't even yawned. Then when I took her out of the car, she burst into tears and promised she'd try to go to sleep if only I'd keep driving. I did, but my god, I put 60 miles on the car today, and goodness knows what it's doing to my carbon footprint!

Some pics -- fashionistas

I owe you three pictures now, because I wasn't at all diligent about taking pictures of Vintage Fashion Week Two. Still, here are a couple.

This one was my Grandma's, too, I think. I always feel super-fly in it, but I can really see that extra poundage I need to work on in this picture.


I call this my stewardess dress, but two students pointed out that I look a bit like Velma from Scooby Doo. I can see that.


Here are some Zadie pics now.
Ready for soccer:


In her overalls, trying to stave off people's perceptions that she's a boy (she loves to look girly).


And today looking adorable (yes, I got her into pants multiple times this weekend).


She's so funny. Last weekend I took her for a drive in the hopes that she'd go to sleep. She did. I tried it again today. I just hit the road, and after about 20 minutes, she hadn't stopped talking. In a pleasant and soothing tone, I suggested she try just being quiet for a while. She answered, "No! I'm not putting my head back and I'm not going to stop talking, because that spells a nap!"

She was also cracking me up at the park, going on and on about driving her RV and going camping and seeing Bodega Dunes, and alternately going to space in her pink rocketship and visiting Mother Cafe. Apparently the living room of her RV is "very cool."

Three reasons why I am not concerned about the pretty princess phase

1: "I was playing with Layla Barbie and Jezebel Barbie and they were playing ninja!"

2: Me: "Remember, at Paesano's, they give you pizza dough to play with, and you can make things with it."
Z: "I'm going to make Godzilla!"

3: "I love rock and roll!!"

This morning, I said something like "then there will be noodles galore." She asked, "What is galore?" I said, "Oh, it's when you have a lot of something, like you have toys galore or mama has shoes galore. What else do you have galore?" She said "I galore want a dog!" I said, "Well, it doesn't work like that. You use it after the thing, like 'we have books galore.'" She says "I want a dog galore!"

Later she figured it out -- now she wants multiple dogs. "I want dogs galore!"

Zadie says "Bye bye and I love you and hello and I love you and I-I want to show the earth lots of things and I koo-see-na-na and I a-koo-la-na. Is that a lot of words?"