Dog lovin', death-defyin', and Liz-Phair-listenin'

"Greta/Mango" (as I have come to think of them) and I spent Columbus Day weekend hanging with the Foleys in beautiful Otego, NY. We romped with their doggies (gently with Maya, as she has an injured ankle), ate delicious food, and enjoyed one another's company.


On Sunday, we crashed Hartwick College's Alumni Day celebration at their beautifulPine Lake Environmental Campus. We had come to check out their famous Strawbale House, and happened upon a demo of their Challenge Education program -- a "ropes course", which involved various feats of tree-climbing and wire-walking, designed to be challenging and scary-feeling, yet quite safe. That's me in the picture on the right, navigating my way between two trees while being belayed from the ground by no less than three cheerful young hippies.

Driving back through the gorgeous, autumn-bedecked Catskills, Greta & I listened to some CDs that she had burned, in alphabetical order, from my iTunes collection (which led to some jarring juxtapositions, such as Barry White followed by the Beatles). When we got to the Ls, this song grabbed me ... I hadn't listened to it in years, and it jumped out at me for obvious reasons. I recalled that, back in my halcyon days in the Pioneer Valley, my favorite line from this song was: "I'm gonna tell my son to be a prophet of mistakes, because / For every truth, there are half a million lies." As I gazed out the passenger window at cows, red barns, and mountain streams, two questions bounced around in my head:

- What the hell happened to Liz Phair? Ten years ago, she could write something as unsettling and idiosyncratic as:
          Once you've left a lonely rage on its own it grows
          And dynamite stuffed in a mailbox doesn't smoke until it blows
          And oh, all the tears
          In four tiny years
          Now look at me, I'm frightening my friends.
... now her music is as sweet, nauseating, and nutrition-free as a McDonald's milkshake. She's like Paul McCartney after the Beatles' breakup, except she didn't lose Lennon, she lost herself.

- What do I want to teach Mango? I like "for every truth, there are half a million lies" ... I also like what young Daniel has learned, as Julie informed us today:
    ---
    Just when my sadness and anger was getting to me...we went to Danny's
    parent-teacher conference, and his teacher showed us an assignment
    he was given to write about what he would do if he had a Magic Wand.

    First, he would "get rid of McDonalds, Burger King, Jack-in-Box and the
    rest of the Axis of Evil." Then he would give "migrant farm workers,
    employees of WalMart and all homeless people better lives." Next
    he would "kick the Bush Administration out." After all that, he
    would "get an awesome surfboard and go surfing in Mexico."

    LOL. That's my boy!
    ---

... and then I also recalled what Fran had written to us recently:
    ---
    ... with a prayer that he will
    indeed be to his own self true; with courage, integrity, humor (read
    Pogo to him early on); a strong sense of justice (and the strength
    to work for that on every front). ... Above all that, as I
    always have hoped for my children: may he be happy
   and know true love.
    ---

After these weighty thoughts, I'll close with a couple more Foley-dog pictures as a palate-cleanser. Just because they're so damn cute.