reverse threading

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galloping gishers. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

it was only later that i could put a name on it. after the onslaught, post-avalanche, suffering from shock (though no awe), swirling from being bombarded with zero chance for retaliation. and it all came from what-would-seem the unlikeliest of places – a person in esteemed position, regarded as powerful and wise – a person who turned out to be the wizard behind the curtain. it actively devastated all chance of truth and the cadre of co-conspirators rode the horses in this brigade of destruction. in the end, it was sad. in every way.

later on, i learned it was called the “gish gallop”…a strategy employed to distract, to overwhelm, to usurp any ability to correct the ship – there are simply too many false things, spurious statements at once – all being stated in rapidfire. it’s nicknamed “shotgun argumentation”.

in my experience, it was smack in the middle of the gish-galloping when i realized i had no way to counter all the untruths that were being said. it was too-much on purpose. if someone is going to resort to this sort of gallop – and there are no parameters or guardrails placed upon that person – the race is over before it has started. stating half-truths, misrepresentations, outright lies, it is a painfully sad strategy by wizards who lack decency and integrity, who need to hide behind the oz-curtain and blitz-word-attack. it’s ugly nonsense. and – unfortunately – it often works.

so…as we sit in the stands of this new horse race toward the attempt of demolition of our democracy, we have decided that we absolutely cannot listen or watch or cue in on every single gishy thing going on. it is not healthy. it is not truth. it is devised to make us all walk around in – live inside – the middle of the sickness that permeates this new administration. though – in reality – cantering completely the other way isn’t pragmatic – staying out of the horse race is.

winning is not about pushing all kinds of negative, hateful ish down others’ throats and convincing them that the sky is falling every second of every day.

winning is remembering to live best we can, to be the best we can, to live with compassion and solidarity and generosity and to call out the gishers galloping by.

i’d love to canter the other way – into the sunset. but i don’t have a horse.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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doing-do-bees. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

“i’m a romper room do-bee, a do-bee all day long.” (romper room)

oh geeez. about to write this blogpost, i looked at this image – of this stunning bumblebee happily lingering in the flowers of our coleus – and thought of the romper room do-bee song. where does this stuff come from???

my dear husband claims that i am a circular worker-bee, that i go from one thing to the next, doing a bit, then doing a bit, then doing a bit, then circling around again and getting a bit more done, a bit more done, a bit more done. i suppose that is somewhat true – though i would like to add that eventually it all truly gets done, circular or not. as i watched this bumblebee bumbling happily around the other day, i thought that maybe i am more of a bumble than a circular worker-bee. or maybe that’s the same thing…

this little bee seemed perfectly content to flit from one flower to the next, never lingering too long on any one nectar source. it reminds me of when i had toddlers, flitting from reading from a stack of books on the floor to the matchbox cars on the floor to the studio to jot down a lyric or a melody to the stove to stir the kraft macaroni and cheese or flip over the grilled cheese sandwich. in constant motion. just like the bee. eh, truth be told, it reminds me of now.

romper room was a staple back in the day. though the host never saw me (she never said my name aloud) in her magic mirror, i remained a fan through my pre-school years. the fact that i have the romper room do-bee songs 45 rpm record attests to the impact of this little show back then. it’s interesting that i still have it – in my 45rpm record case – the kind that perfectly fits 45s with a buckle on the front and the handle on the top. and it does make me wonder how mitch miller and his orchestra, along with the sandpipers recorded this side a/side b with straight faces. “i always do what’s right. i never do anything wrong. i’m a romper rom do-bee, a do-bee all day long,” the big finish has a predictably rising (and crescendoing) melody despite impossible-to-humanly-achieve lyrics.

we write blogposts six days a week, as you know. five of them are based on images of photography or quotes we have come across in our path, while saturday is the cartoon smack-dab that we produce. that you have gotten to this sentence is amazing to me and i want to thank you for reading – however often or sporadically you read. i’m never quite sure of what i will write as we open up our laptops (ok, well, not my laptop now as that is refusing to remember its role in life, so i open up my mini ipad). i’m never sure of how you might react or respond to what i have written. sometimes i feel vulnerable about what i have shared. sometimes i feel nervous about what i’ve put out there. sometimes i’m a little tiny bit proud of something i’ve written. nevertheless, i keep writing and telling you of life from my little corner of the world. it is, after all, a romper room rule:

romper stomper bomper boo, tell me, tell me, tell me, do.

i’m an artist. always i know that there will be another flower, there will be another source of nectar. the next image, the next day. and i will happily – and bumbly – share words and thoughts with whomever wishes to read them.

you and i – we are together in this moment. we are doing-do-bees, sharing time in the world.

and, from the bottom of my trying-to-be-a-do-bee-all-day-long heart, i wish you plentiful flowers filled with plentiful sweet nectar as you flit from one moment of your life to the next.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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focused. yep. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

with plates spinning, spinning, spinning – all up in the air at once – women carry on, living in many parallel planes, doing life. i had an email conversation with a young woman yesterday who has a 15 year old, a 5 year old and a 1 year old. she was taking them to school – high school, elementary school, daycare – meeting many distinctly different needs, not to mention her own getting-ready and go-to-work necessities. she wrote that by the time she gets them all where they are supposed to be – first thing in the morning – she is already exhausted. she also wrote that she requires little sleep.

i remember writing albums and talking to retail outlets and concert venues and packing boxes of cds and practicing and doing laundry and reading golden books on the rug and playing barbies or matchbox cars and making grilled cheese sandwiches and grocery shopping and planning birthday parties and holiday shopping and overseeing homework and whipping up paper mache and washing the floor and running children to lessons or soccer or baseball or cross country or ballet and….

d is singularly focused. he pokes fun at me being “circular”. uh-huh. it’s called multi-tasking, my dear.

it would not surprise me in the least to leave him drawing at his drafting table for several hours and to come back to find him still there with little to no awareness that i had left. it must be a guy thing.

“i won the lottery,” i tease him, this artist poised over his work. “the big one. zillions.”

“mmm-hmm,” he mutters without moving his lips.

yep.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2023 kerrianddavid.com


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me and lucy and ethel. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

i would not call myself a whirling dervish. though there are moments we all must succumb to that. any time i have spent whirling and dervishing i have felt like i was in the middle of an “i love lucy” episode, all eyes on my fumbling and klutz. i truly don’t know anyone who can stake claim to getting all tied up in the vacuum cord, but maybe it’s just that no one else will admit to it. it is one of my nemeses. yes, you read that right. the vacuum cord.

my sweet momma had a maroon electrolux. it was the kind where there was a long hose and the canister tank was on metal sled slides and you pulled it around behind you. for some reason, it seemed easier to operate. i suspect this is solely my problem.

in recent developments of technology i see that there is a vacuum operated on battery. the dyson v15 detect has been getting a lot of attention. i’m wondering if there is any merit to this machine. i mean, we have an aussie. and aussies shed twice a year. the first half and the second half. dogga has an unbelievable amount of doghair and it is a constant battle with tufts gathering en masse in corners of the old wood floors everywhere. my continued war-with-the-cord challenges me at every turn – even if i hold up the cord that would tangle my feet – while dogga tries to stay away from the monster whose cord he chewed the very first day we got it. someday, it may be time for a new purchase. i’m hoping that they improve the battery-operated variety by then.

in the meanwhile, cleaning and chores will continue to be somewhat circular, spinning and twirling from room to room…thinking broom, dustrag, oh-what-about-that-pile, wait-i-need-a-drink-of-water, sheesh-throw-on-a-load-of-laundry, yikes-did-i-pay-that-bill-due-online-today, don’t-forget-to-take-something-out-for-dinner, oh-these-dishes-need-to-be-washed, what-about-THIS-pile, where-are-my-favorite-jeans, maybe-i-should-take-out-our-gloves-from-the-winter-bin, maybe-i’ll-go-work-on-smack-dab, does-this-still-fit, write-down-that-thought, make-a-grocery-list, the-bathroom-needs-cleaning, let-the-dog-out, let-the-dog-in, make-that-call, page-through-a-catalog, i-should-darn-these-socks and …….. vacuum.

in my spare time – the time that no woman i know has – i’ll be hanging out with lucy and ethel, honing my handy dandy vacuum skills.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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frogs, sausages, monkeys and hiking boots. [merely-a-thought monday]

we were talking about hiking boots. she said that her tread was so smooth and nonexistent when she was in banff that they had to go buy yaktrax. i talked about sliding on wet leaves as we climbed up a nearly vertical trail in the mountains of north carolina. we wondered how many hundreds – or thousands? – of miles we each had on our respective footware. then, with no modesty or guilt and maybe even a little proudly, we compared how many tabs we have had open in one sitting as we researched new boots. she won, at 20 tabs. my old and intrepid laptop would surely crash with 20 tabs open, though i can totally relate. i asked her, my physical therapist, to let me know when she decided on a pair so i could avoid all the rest of the research. it does occur to me, though, that, at her age, she does not likely have any kind of foot or knee or hip or any-for-that-matter issues. nevertheless. i’ll take her recommendation under advisement. i am tired of looking. we laughed together about our analysis paralysis – as brad calls it – as she manipulated my shoulder – i’m positive she was trying to take my mind off of what she was doing – and she told me she called it “decision fatigue”.

i think decision fatigue is why i have to move around my clearing-out tasks in a circle. i can’t stay in the clothing-decision arena or the shoe-decision arena or the paperwork-decision arena or stuff-decision arena too long. it’s easier for me to spend some time communing with one set of bins, suffering the choices, pulling ruthless from thin air and then moving on to the next. circular. in a circle. i’ll be back and it will all get done, but i’m too exhausted to finish it out in one fell swoop.

it took me a long, long time – and many, many tabs – and a few returns – to come to the decision to tap on “order now” when i was looking for some new lightweight everyday winter shoes. rykä – shoes made for women – won me over and every day i am glad when i put on my boots. i read all the reviews (the one where the mom bought these boots for her daughter when they went to iceland had me dreaming of trips with my daughter to iceland) and i checked multiple sites. by the time decision fatigue set in i had ordered two pairs in different sizes from different websites. one was perfect and the other went back. (what song does that sound like??? speckled frogs “glub, glub” or sizzling sausages …”ten fat sausages sizzling in a pan. one went pop and the other went bang”….come to mind….) (or is it….”five little monkeys jumping on the bed. one fell off and banged his head”…). whatever.

decision fatigue has delayed a new bathroom faucet, the possibility of new kitchen counters, whether the fireplace should stay wood-burning or gas logs or insert and…and…and, most definitely, new hiking boots.

and don’t ask me how many winter outerwear vests i ordered. ya gotta love “free returns”. manna for the decision-fatigued.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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productive avoidance. [merely a thought monday]

productive avoidance box

i’m thinking this is just a fancy term for procrastination?  you know, those moments when you have a list-of-things-to-do and you do something NOT on the list.  to be honest, i ALWAYS add the things i ended up doing TO the list so that i can cross them off.  there is something i find so very satisfying about crossing things off.  even if i haven’t gotten to the crux of what i need to get done.

d says that i work in a circular manner.  i suppose he’s right.  but i swear it’s a woman-thing.  we are spinning many plates at the same time, keeping them all in the air, and, although everything will eventually get done, we move from one thing to the next and then circle back.  i know very few gals who – in an OCD kind of way – stay cemented to one task until its completion without punctuating it with others.

when The Girl and The Boy were little i was constantly moving from writing at the piano to reading books aloud to playing with matchbox cars to making business calls and back to the piano….many layers all at once. i remember having a phone conversation with one of the VPs of barnes and noble when they were placing one of my albums on the listening station wall.  in the middle of this phone call, you could hear one of my children in toddlerhood – i will not mention which one – in the background, beckoning me from the bathroom, yelling, “i finished!  i pooped!”  the VP heard it too and he was gracious enough to tell me he would hold on.  it’s a mom thing, right?  those spinning plates.

we work differently, d and me.  we are both productive, but i’m guessing he would oft label me productively avoidant.  eh.  he just doesn’t see how i accomplish that ever-growing-ever-crossed-off list in my head (or on paper, for that matter.)  it’s amazing what i can accomplish when i am “supposed” to be accomplishing something else.  i know you know what i mean!  #allwillgetdone #whatdoesitallmeananyway?

read DAVID’S thoughts on PRODUCTIVE AVOIDANCE

arapahoe basin copy website box

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