Gobble Gobble

Hey,hey, hey --

Happy Thanksgiving Day my dear friends. I hope you have a wonderful time with your family and friends. I will be thinking of all of you. I am certainly thankful for our friendship. Please say "HI" to the entire family. Oh, and take a peek at this for a little laugh...it seriously made me pee my pants:

http://www.youtube.com/v/5nYoahyaPuA&hl=en&fs=1

OH, also...Kathy I will be in touch about setting up a skype call. Roh, what a blast chating! Kristen WHERE ARE YOU???

LLove

Happy Turkey Day

Happy thanksgiving everybody. Even though we are on the other side of the Pacific we will be having some friends around for roast turkey and all the trimmings on Sunday. I will post photos when they are available.

Kathy, I expect to see photos from your fabulous Turkey Trot around Prospect Park. Kristen, are you running yet? Get with it woman!

Lily and I have communicated in a very special way (!!!) and a 3 or 4-way Skype conversation will be happening very soon. Stay tuned.

When giving thanks, give special thanks that there are only 55 days of the Bush presidency to go.

Gouls & Gals

Lily, you rock...the New York Marathon and a promotion in a depressed economy, wow! Yes, 2008 is certainly your year! It was so much fun having the chicks back together again, but I must admit we were a little bereft without our Rooster! Roh, (as Lily said) we talked about you a lot and we even tried to catch you on Skype one evening. Where were you... the cafe or the pub?

Here are some photos from Halloween. The cast from Harry Potter was spotted in our neighborhood!

Hurrah!

Outstanding performance Lily. Fantastic news. Well done indeed. I think we will call 2008 the Year of Obama and Lily Love Shaw.

Promotion

I did it! I have been given a promotion at the Guthrie - in only 7 months - not bad huh?! As of December first my title will be Education Manager and my direct report will be my boss Louise who has been made Director of Education. I am NO longer a F---ing Assistant!!!! Oh my god -I am VERY pleased. OH - AND I will get a raise! Pretty crazy, especially in this economic market. It is not even so much that my duties are going to change I have pretty much been managing since I started, but I am now actually getting the permission to fully do it. There will be more work - but I am up for it. Things are so much better in the department since the nasty woman left and since they decided to move the 77 year old director to another area of the Theater - an area where she will actually have more of an opportunity to do what she loves (you should have that opportunity by the time your 77 - don't you think?!). So all is well!

I have to say I have been looking over my shoulder when I write since reading Roh's last blog entry...hmm...I certainly miss all of you!

I get to see my little niece this weekend! yeah! I will have a ton of pictures to post I am sure.

We are performers

This is weird. I plugged our blog into Typealyzer and it said that we are Meyer-Briggs ESFP - The Performers. Collectively Red Rooster and His Chicks are:

"The entertaining and friendly type. Especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don't like to plan ahead - they are always at risk of exhausting themselves. They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

The drawing that accompanies the ESFP type shows an attractive young woman at a bar with a cocktail in her hand. Spooky. It's like they have been following us around.

Yeah Friends!!

WHEW!!

What a week! I could not have been with better people... in a better place then NYC last week. It was buzzing with Halloween parades, a HUGE Marathon and one of the most historical Elections ever. It was fantastic!

It was so wonderful to see you Kathy and Kristen! I already miss you a ton. Roh we talked about you often - wishing you were there with us - wondering what you are up to - and deciding we need to do a skype conversation...how would that work?

I had a good time seeing other friends to - all gatherings were brief but fulfilling. I swear I leave and people have babies, move, get pregnant, fall in love - man o man - change is good.

I have decided that the best thing to do before any vacation (at least for me) is an extreme sport...maybe I am a masochist...but I have to say I felt fully deserving of the rest of my vacation after running 26.2 miles. So Roh start training because in 2010 we need to run an Australian marathon...do they do those there? is there a beer every mile:)?!

Below are a few marathon photo highlights ...I have to say it was an absolutely amazing experience - I think I had a smile on my face the entire time...I really honestly am surprised I was able to do it. I believe I now have a new found confidence in myself - it really hit something in me! I will say...I am proud. Oh I will say in addition to the photo's below Brightroom got a few goodies during the race...http://www.brightroom.com/estf.asp?EVENTID=34924&PWD=&BIB=47516 (you might have to cut and past it into your browser to get to them).

Here are more:

coming into 8 mile pit stop #1


yeah, friends!!!


A quick change -- gotta get rid of a couple items to avoid "chaffing"


Off we go Kathy in tow!


Pit stop #2 -- 22 mile mark


I think this is the moment I realized that this marathon was changing something in me...


Whew!!! 26.2 miles


The end!!! where else can you have a better Manhattan then...in Brooklyn!!!!



I will post more pictures of the chicks and I later...just wanted to get this post up before you thought I had forgotten!!!

miss you all!!!

Now what?

I think this blog could be up for some kind of award. We have gone from Sarah Palin's vagina to a beautiful poem by Maya Angelou in just two posts. Amazing.

The election is over and I don't know what I am going to do with the rest of my life. For months I have been watching polls, looking at electoral maps, fretting when Obama's lead dropped below 5%, out of my mind with joy when it went above 7%, reading blogs and pundits and now...nothing. Sure, Rahm Emanuel is a fun guy, but it's just not the same thing. I watched the election on four different channels and a dozen websites, and I was still worried until the last minute that somehow California was going to go Republican. Maybe I'm just going to have to watch the West Wing yet again.

On the Pulse of Morning

Received this today from MUG....had to share it!

On the Pulse of Morning
by Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers—desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot …
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours—your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

Oh, what a night!

I am exhausted & giddy with relief.

This morning, for the first time in eight years, I woke up feeling proud to be an American.
I am bursting with hope for change.
Change that will narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Change that will allow all of us to discard prejudices and move towards a more unified country.
Change that will allow us to proudly join the rest of the world in solving our global issues.

WHEW! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! We did it!

As my kids would say, "OBAMA ROCKS"!