A blog of benign neglect

Nau is gone...

Nau is was this high-concept, beautifully designed clothing business in Portland.
I have been ogling their stuff for ages. At C.'s school auction I lucked out and got a gorgeous cardigan from them for a song! Yesterday I heard that they folded...
Their concept was brilliant, but neglected the instance gratification that so many crave when shopping: You would go to their shop, pick the stuff you liked and they would mail it to you, since they would only make, what they could sell...
They also donated 5% (or 8%) to humanitarian organization... I think that that might have created enough good Karma to carry them though this - at least I very much hope so!

Feels like Napster or Webvan all over again!

A really bad ride home...

What is it with drivers?
As soon as it gets winter, everyone seems to get crazy: On my ride home Saturday, ----- needless to say with my son on the bike, too -- a driver nearly hit me frontally after taking a turn with too much speed, one cut me off sliding into a parking space and to the guy who left his car running for 10 minutes in front of the super market to get a rose -- I HOPE SHE DUMPS YOU!

Dark Crystal

Either I am really jaded or I was off the day I watched it, but the film didn't grip me...Henson did lovely puppet work and I think as one the early mixed media/special effects movies it has its place, but the story was pretty cerebral...
Liked Jim Henson tribute to Eartha Kit in his Aughra...

It's still hard...

Depression without anti-depressants suck...
Preventing yourself from sliding into one is even harder and often a lost battle...
Explaining all that to somebody who doesn't depressions is the hardest.

Heart in Throat: The story continues...

I talked to my mom today -- our weekly Sunday call to see what is going on...

5 minutes into the call after our usual exchange about my dad etc. I suddenly decided that I would tell my mom about the "Angle of Ahlem", about Vernon Tod's plaque at the Holocaust Museum and how he was trying to find all the survivors in the picture... and this is what my mom told me in a very eerily chatty tone after a few moments of surprise:

"One or two days after the Americans arrived in Ahlem, they went from house to house and each family had to designate a person [to help clean up the camp]. My mother (that's would be my grandmother) threw a fit and starting yelling and so I went. I was wearing my old Hitler Youth jacket and my mom remembered to remove all the emblems in the last second.
There were a lot of kids in the camp...we didn't really know. They brought them to the hospital in Westphalia, because all the hospital in Hannover were bombed out. We never went up again the hill where the camp was.

After she told me all that I mentioned that I hoped that I didn't upset her too much - my mom is 82 and taking care of my father...she needs all the energy she has. She said that she would probably be later on, once she would have time to think about.

So I connected 2 of the dots and I feel strange about how my mom told the story - I think I expected more sorrow. But then I don't know how I would react, if somebody would spring this story on me out of the blue.

PS: I am also totally pissed at my grandma... which mother would send her 19-year-old daughter to clean up a concentration camp?

Happy bloody Birthday, Lego!

The scene: Our bike shop on Satuday morning, about 7 customers, my son jammering to help him find a black onesy with a whole in it...
Me, frantically digging through about a 20 gallon container that contains all kinds of legos from Duplos to Barracki pieces, feeling my neck geting tight, scanning the room for new customers while making a hell of a lot of noise digging through these plastic blocks...

Happy birthday, you mom tortures!

Impoliteness

I don't like the views of Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, but I liked even less how Columbia President Lee Bollinger treated him.
On the other side: Who never dreamed to tell off a guest you really can't stand... that terrible uncle, the MIL who is constantly on your case (no, not you, P.), the former good friend who turned into a rude b.....h?
But we don't... because they are guests. Mr Bollinger is surely eloquent enough to voice his disagreement with his guest without ridiculing or attacking him.

So where do you draw the line?

More heart in my throat...

So yesterday aired the Angel of Ahlem story about Vernon Todd. I found it positive that Susan Stamberg stressed that Vernon was honored by the survivors for contacted them after the war. ...and I do understand that they didn't mention the clean up -- that is another story.
What became clear to me again, is that there are no good or bad guys in a war and that everybody can get PTSD... if you committed or suffered the autrocities.

For me the question remains, if I should contact the Ahlem survivors: I am not clear, what I would/should/could expect from them... perhaps it is just to connect the dots, form a new connection.

...and I still don't know, if I should tell my mom about all this - honestly, I think in this moment more about myself than her, because I am not sure that she sees the same connection I seem to detect.

Heart in my throat...

I was listening to NPR this morning about World War II veterans. One of the veterans mentioned was Vernon Tott.

In Germany in 1945, Infantryman Vernon Tott helped liberate a slave labor camp. He took some snapshots of the hell he saw at Ahlem, Germany. Fifty years later, Tott rediscovered his photos of the prisoners and spent the last years of his life trying to track them down. One of the survivors, Jack Tramiel, had Vernon's name inscribed on a wall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

My throat clamped up - My mom grew up in Ahlem and she told me her story: When the Allies discovered the camp, they were so enraged, that they forced all the people of the village to bury the corpses. My mom was part of that group. She was 14 (according to family folklore... but I calculated... she must have been 18/19 at least)

It is one thing when you hear your parents tell you these stories -- you see their side and self preservation stops you from reflecting. Hearing the story told from the other side, makes it very real.

Why, oh why?

Once in a while I am getting painfully aware that living without a car is hard!
Point in Case: There is literally no sports shop in biking distance (correction: biking after having worked a day) where I can get shin guards and soccer shorts... I tried to order them online, but the sizing is just way too confusing... grrr!