Class, Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation


Because there is untrammeled land in our county, it has become desirable for people with money to build beautiful custom homes. Because it used to be so far from Denver, only the hardy or the ranchers or the hill dwellers lived here, but not too many of the monied. Now because of the home building we also have a lot of Hispanic construction workers and their families who work in the food service industry.

Our elementary school is in one of the oldest, rancher type sections. It has some of the nicest homes in the state, yet we also have the greatest percentage of elementary school subsidized breakfasts and lunches.

It's an interesting mix and it has taught me that kids are kids, to a point. At the early grades in elementary school the kids take others as they come and react without being aware of the influence of varying economic classes. It's only after play dates have been set up and a long drive to another house shows the stark contrast can that exist economically between our students.

Emma invited a friend over to play this weekend and we were amazed when we drove to pick him up and the size and quality of his home. We could probably fit five our house into that house. Emma was a little worried because her friend (even though she talked to him on the phone a good part of the evenings when they were in second grade) is a boy and she's a girl. She thought it might be weird, a boy going to a girl's house. She's gone to two other boys' houses for play dates from school, but that was last year. As they've gotten older though they have to act like they hate the opposite sex on the school bus. But Emma can play soccer really well. The boys will tell her to be on the other side for a playground game and when she scores a lot of points, she gets asked back to the first side.

Emma was very nervous during the play date and was pretty hyper. We got to show Clayton our creek and and they and Dave threw some rocks in. Hiking to and from the creek he got to collect a crab apple, a green apple, a pine cone and a bit of creek glass.

Emma's friend has a black dad and a white mom. Emma mentioned to me after the play date that it's weird for a black person to marry a white one. We asked her why? We assured her that it is not weird. Earlier in the week she asked if she would grow up to be a brown person. I said yes, if you look at the actual color of skin, we all are brown, I'm a lighter one. Just now above I wrote "black...white". Actually Emma's friend has a dark brown dad and a lighter brown mom.

I wonder where she gets the concept that different race marrying is weird. Because so many parents in kids' videos have same race couples? Because Mom and Dad are? We have Chinese daughters, they know that a family can be intermingled. Do they get the feeling that it's weird at school? I know we have some pretty redneck beliefs floating around our neighborhood and probably at our school, like when one family's grandpa comes to a school musical performance with a t-shirt demanding that the US borders be enforced from illegal immigration.

For a time some of the kids wouldn't play on the playground with Emma because she was a flat face. Racial slur or not?

I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that kids don't judge by economics or race or gender when they first encounter one another. But as their awareness increases, they notice differences. But is the judging of the differences a learned or inherent quality. I'm not with my kids 24/7 so I don't know if they get it from classmates or if it's from hard wiring.

We have close friends and family members who are gay. Ana has always enjoyed them and they are some of her favorite people. But once Ana hit 6th grade she thought gay couples marrying was gross. Well anything having to do with puberty was gross, any kissing on tv of any gender was gross. But what made her single out same sex couples as gross, just hearing other kids talk about it? Or her insecurities about maturing and dealing in a world that has sex, gender, economic and racial differences?

These and the labyrinth below are from the Sanctuary, which is a building on a corner of land at the intersection of two rural roads near us. There used to be a one room schoolhouse there where the ranchers' children were taught. It became really dilapidated and people began to throw old tires around it. Eventually someone bought the land and came up with the idea to make a little spot of harmony there. There's the meditation room (pix above) and a really nice bathroom with herbal soap, a nice mirror and an automatic blow dryer. Also in the building is a little library with books you can check out.

Outside is the gazebo, and then throughout the park area is a path, a few little bridges, and meditation sites--like a Native American medicine wheel, the labyrinth, geometrical shapes, etc.

There are little nooks with benches for sitting and arbors. The altar at the center of the labyrinth has little treasures people have left. And people place pretty rocks, shells, crystals, windchimes and buddha figures in spots all over the area.

There's a sign by the sanctuary building that says, "Come in Peace, Leave in Peace"

Some money is donated from the Colorado Lottery and GOCO to pay for the materials and upkeep, there are donors and it seems that all the groundwork is done by local volunteers. It's really a nice place to stop at and take a little walk.

I officiated at a funeral/memorial service today. The sister of a close friend of mine died. They're Scottish and a bagpiper played. One woman sang a hymn acappella in the gospel style and it was truly beautiful. I feel so sorry for Rita's two daughters to have to lose their mom when she was only 51.

The service was at the Grant Humphreys Mansion.
http://www.coloradohistory.org/ghm/rentalsGrantHum.htm.

I used to live nearby so I have leaned on the balustrades on its grounds to read homework during law school. The service was on the large porch to the south, covered by a wooden pergola. My girls loved exploring the house. Emma found a stage in the basement in front of a ballroom. It had footlights and spots, she sang a song for me while people were gathering at the reception above. Ana loved the food, especially the Havarti dill cheese.

There's a pull off down our road that leads to the two trees in the photos and the little bench that's been there for at least 24 years. Sometimes the road grader pulls over and takes a lunch stop there.

I've seen cigarette butts and alcohol bottles, even a sleeping pad under the trees. So it could be a trysting spot and an underage drinking spot.

One day I was walking with the girls and we heard music playing and saw a young man with his shirt off sunning there on the hood of his car. Later we saw that he must have locked himself out of his car, there was broken glass like he had to get inside with a rock. There were also the remains of a small fire, a small stuffed animal that had not been completely burned and a big, almost empty, glass bottle of hard liquor.

My imagination figured he must have been upset by a breakup, he went to the spot to get drunk and then in a purging burst of energy, burnt the small stuffed animal that was a gift from his former love.

We usually clean up the foreign detritus and our girls use the bench for their own ice cream stand from which they serve me imaginary cones and sundaes, whatever I order.

When I'm alone, I just use the bench to sit and think. I wonder how long it's been there. There's a wooden sign that was nailed on one tree that is way above human reach now, but the bench still remains at sitting height.

MAY I STEP UP ON THE SOAPBOX?

This morning before getting out of bed (the skunk odor worked like an alarm clock) I read an article in the most recent Atlantic about Karl Rove (written before his resignation).

Like the mean girls I mentioned earlier, he's a perfect example in his approach to campaigning by creating and exacerbating division between parties in order to unite and strengthen his party. It works to win an election, but in the machinations of D.C. power brokering, he didn't take into account the alliances needed from both parties, and the respect and decorum to be afforded to members of congress and his opponents to make the big neoconservative and realignment changes he had theorized he could effect.

If 9/11 hadn't happened he'd be a lot worse off than he was in his grab for a power shift. That tragedy gave the administration an almost blank ticket to react with whatever means they could fathom, regardless of human rights.

Unfortunately, if we had had a stronger leader, Rove and Cheney wouldn't have had free reign to selfishly push through their agendas which have been so detrimental to our country and the world.

Personality helps in leadership, but when are we going to learn that experience, intelligence, and respect for others are more important?

SCHOOL DAZE

Yesterday was the first day of school for both kids. Emma woke up at 4:44am. I guess she was excited. It was an opportune awakening because we got to see the night sky right before dawn and take in the meteor shower. Saw lots of shooting stars.

Ana catches her bus at 6:09 am, so that means she and Dave get up at 5:00, he drives her to the bus, then on to work. He said he can get a lot of work done early and then come home earlier. That should help during those cold, snowy evenings that are sure to come. Yesterday we were all up to see them off, and then got quite a bit accomplished at home before Emma caught the second school bus after 8:00.

Jake got skunked a little. It's mostly around his nose. He's so gentle and doesn't bark much, so he probably got pretty close before he got squirted. I think we still have a box of douche in the dog closet, so a douche with the hose should help a lot. (only on his fur, mind you, we use it like shampoo for skunking).

I took a picture of our bus stop, with Emma, her driver and his son.

Canning/Jarring?

I learned how to can today. Actually, it should be called jarring. We put up tomatoes and peaches in jars. Diane, my neighbor below me on the road, bought them at the farmer's market by her parents' house and she and Sherry, a neighbor from above the valley, taught me all the steps.

They said it goes a lot faster with three. I liked the tools Diane had, a jar lifter, a stabber type thing that has a magnet on one end, so you can reach into boiling water to pull the lid out.

Diane has super strong finger tips that could grab a lid from the hot water and could handle the hot peaches and tomatoes pretty well. She reminded me of the cooks I've worked with who could grab hot plates out of the oven and flip them to the counter without a hot pad. YIKES.

It was hot but we worked in the guest house which has thick, concrete block walls, so it was refreshingly cool to walk inside. The steam from all the boiling water felt kind of purifying for the skin.

The time went pretty quickly, almost five hours, and we laid up a nice store for winter. I only took home one jar of peaches since I was learning, but now I can ask them to help me if I decide to do more for our pantry.

Friday morning hike

If you enlarge the flower photo you can see how well the camera did on the petals.

SOME PRACTICE SHOTS TRYING OUT THE NEW CAMERA FUNCTIONS

EARTH LABIA

WoW!!

I was playing with my anniversary present today. It's so much fun. It's a Nikon Coolpix L10. I can record sound, make movies and take photos with a camera that's so small it fits easily in a shirt or jean pocket.

When Dave turned 50 I wanted to get him something special so I shared some emails with Matt Haughey at a.wholelottanothing.org because I really enjoyed seeing photos from his hikes in the San Francisco area.

I asked him about his Coolpix and after hearing his report, I ordered one online. Then I got the old switcheroo call from the supplier saying they were out of the smaller Coolpix but they had a Coolpix 995. I went ahead and got that because I wanted it to be delivered before we left on a birthday/spring break trip to Santa Fe.

It's been a great camera but it was expensive, in 2002 it was around $500.00 and the memory card was pretty expensive. But this one was only $100, and a one gig memory card was only around $16.00 or so.

It's so fun. I've made my first two movies, very, very short snippets; and recorded a memo to me, and recorded the girls getting too loud so they could hear themselves, and I took a picture of our family room in sepia tone-and it looks so 1940's.

Dave's Mom gave us each $100.00 for mad money in a card when she left right before our anniversary. She gave each of the girls $20.00. What a treat!!

The camera will be great for hiking and especially for recording bird songs. I'm excited. I really enjoyed Rabi at wockerjabby.com providing a link to the sound of a toucan from Belize, so now I can share some Shamballa birdsongs.

MEAN GIRLS

Today we got Ana registered for middle school, it was fun to walk around to all her classrooms, get her photo id and see a lot of new kids as well as a few familiar faces from her elementary school.

While Dave and I were waiting in the line to pay school fees, two girls in front of us were whispering and laughing. It became apparent they were making fun of a couple of girls up in the line ahead a few places. I tend to go for the underdog, if an animal or person is being abused, I react and try to stop it before I think of the consequences.

I muttered "girls, girls!" They glanced at me and then continued on. They were mocking one of the girl's overbite. The thing is that both of the mockers had braces on and were kind of scary the way they looked with harsh makeup, skin tight jeans that showed how exactly shapeless their legs were and overly dyed hair.

I said again "hey, don't make fun of people." The denied any such activity but I was not the only person in line noticing their meanness.

After thinking about how they looked and how the girls they were making fun of looked, it seems like their own insecurity made them feel better by ridiculing someone else. One of the girls they were talking about looked uncomfortable and tried tucking her bra strap in her shirt more. But the thing was that her bra strap showed no more than the bitchy girls'. In fact she was a lot more approachable and just looked nice and friendly.

So as an adult, and this probably doesn't mean as much as someone who is mocking you, it's about them when they say mean things and laugh, it's not you, if anything, they are jealous of you and want to try and bring you down to their level.

I'm glad Tina Fey wrote Mean Girls, I hope people will realize what they are doing, and their parents will be a little more aware of their children's behavior.

It's not just children though, it happened at law school, even among the evening students who are older and supposedly wiser. Power brokers throughout history have used a common scapegoat or enemy to unite themselves with others by opposing someone else. Religions do it all the time in their judgments against others who believe differently. I hope we learned something from the Holocaust, from people who think they are better than others. If we can stop it at the junior high level, it would be a really good thing. Maybe Earl needs to talk to them about karma. I only hope when they are alone and think about it, they feel a little shame, and next time try harder to come up with something to talk about, rather than their perceived criticism and their false sense of superiority that they have the right to belittle others.