The Road to the Magick Circle

The Road to the Magick Circle
Originally uploaded by Fulana.

The old logging road leading past the Green Frog out along the side of Paddy Mountain to the Magick Circle. I yearn to be at Paddy Mountain. Events of the past two months relating to the health of me and my Grand Wagoneer, as well as turmoil in Transy House, have conspired to keep me from getting out to the country. I calm myself in my state of frustration by thinking how all things happen in their own time.

Caleb at 8 months in Holland

scan0020
Originally uploaded by Fulana.

Gabe and Amanda and Caleb came to visit Chelsea and me at our apartment in Rotterdam during the second week of July, 2005. Chelsea and I took care of Caleb a lot while Amanda and Gabe saw some sites and sights. Caleb was such a happy little fellow. He sat in the kitchen eating his vegetables with a smile on his face, with just two teeth in his mouth. We took him to see the deer every evening in Kralingse Bos, near our apartment. Nothing changes the pace of your life like a baby, even if you are mere grandparents. Chelsea tells me to appreciate Calab, he is the one carrying on my wonderful DNA. I do not know about that, but is does feel nice to be with a new generation of the family, and wonder at how so quickly I became the oldest rather than the youngest generation. My head is still spinning from this.

Destiny Goodwin, age 10 months

scan0012
Originally uploaded by Fulana.

This is Corine Goodwin's doggie, a long-haired Chihuaha. Destiny is wearing special doggie goggles which Corine says are to help protect the eyes. The pants are also good for the dog to wear. Corine is a great dog fancier. She raised and showed Shelties (Shetland sheepdogs) for many years. She also raises parrots. Corine lives alone in a small town near Allentown, in the house she grew up in, surrounded with family antiques. Her father was a blacksmith, country guitar player, antique car restorer, small plane pilot, and Lene Lenape descendent, who was a great influence on Chelsea Goodwin's life.

Chelsea Goodwin and Mother Corine Goodwin

Chelsea Goodwin and Mother Corine Goodwin
Originally uploaded by Fulana.

This is a nice shot of Chelsea and mother Corine which I took when we were on the way back from Paddy Mountain in April 2005. Corine seemed happy to see us. She showed me family scrapbooks which included pictures of Chelsea as a baby, child, adolescent, and teenager. I most remember Chelsea's high school yearbook picture. Such a callow youth. Life has been hard for Chelsea. It is difficult to be extremely intelligent and spiritual in a crass world. Corine and Chelsea have a better relationship now than they had 10 or 15 years ago. She seems to like me.

Vandalized LR in Green FrogApril 05

Vandalized LR in Green FrogApril 05
Originally uploaded by Fulana.

I was shocked to see the brutal vandalization of the interior of the Green Frog Cafe when Chelsea and I visited in April 2005. I have been working on this place for 31 years, and it is a repository of many memories of my children as they grew up, to say nothing of the things which were destroyed. I was devastated. I have struggled all this time to painstakingly assemble this building, hauling found windows from New York, carrying 2x12-16 ft. oak floor joists, working in every spare moment which I could find in the small periods between my career and family responsibilities. If I had been there when the vandals were there I would have been enraged, and would have confronted them fiercely. It is so frustrating to have faceless cowards destroy my painstaking handiwork. The windows and their frames were all smashed, but the basic structure of the house was not damaged. I shall carry on doggedly until I cannot carry on anymore.

look at those matching noses

look at those matching noses
Originally uploaded by amanda zug-moore.

The middle daughter on her 27th birthday, Amanda Lee.

Smile Squared

Smile Squared
Originally uploaded by Cat Whisperer.

I really like this picture of Jonica and me taken at Amanda's 27th birthday party at a bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn. My first born child at 35, Jonica Melanie.

Helping A Refugee Start Again

Originally uploaded by jambonchampignon.

Today Colin and I drove to Hofstra to see if he could set up a schedule for the Fall semester. He received good treatment (what else), and by the time I was out of my meeting of the GLBT Scholarship Committee he was admitted as a visiting student, had a course schedule set up, and was ready to get a Hofstra ID and a parking sticker. We were out of there by 3:30, with things all set up for him I learned today that his friends from Tulane, spread around the US, are feelingdepressed and disoriented by the aftermath of Katrina. Colin said that he is even felling relatively better than most. I had not realized that even people who have family support and who have landed on their feet still feel displaced by being put out of their homes in New Orleans. I hope the Hofstra semester turns out well for Colin. We will be going to the university together, as I teach and he goes to classes on a Tuesday-Thursday schedule. I Am meeting him at Jonica's tomorrow morning at 7:15 AM, after I cycle for 20 minutes from my home in Park Slope, across Brooklyn to Jonica's place in Clinto Hill. We shall see how this works out. I noticed today how easy it is to ride to work with someone else driving, even if it is in a Mini rather than a Lincoln Town Car.

3 Generations

3 Generations
Originally uploaded by Cat Whisperer.

Jonica took this picture last Sunday in one of our favorite haunts, "Tacos Nuevo Mexico" on 5th Avenue and 12th in Park Slope Brooklyn. This is one of the most authentic Mexican restaurants I have experienced outside of Mexico. Everyone in the family goes there fairly frequently. Yesterday I walked in alone after church at the Park Slope United Methodist Church, with Sunday New York Times in hand, ready for a solitary brunch reading the New York Times Magazine article about Osama Bin Laden, when I heard "Rusty, Rusty." I thought "who is this going to be now," since I run into people who know me in lots of places, being a teacher and all. I looked up and there was Jonica, with Amanda, and Caleb sitting in a high chair just scarfing down the last of his squash and green beans. Jonica snapped this "three generation shot" as they were going off to meet Gabe at the Smith Bar, watching the New Orleans Saints prevail in their first NFL game since Hurricane Katrina. I took a four generation shot once with my grandmother, mother, and Jonica when she was about 3. I hardly expect to be around long enough for Caleb to catch me with his three year old. I like the picture Jonica made. I also liked the perfect huevos rancheros I munched (washed down with a Modelo Negro) as I read the article about how the US has aided and abetted terroism in the past four years through ignorance and stupidity.

Stress and Fear

I just had a huge argument with Sadaisha. She again asked me for my metrocard, and it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I have asked her to leave by October 1. She told me back in May that she was leaving in October, but when I showed that I would hold her to it she wanted more time.

This is the person who swore to me last June that when I got back from Europe that there would be nothing here, just ashes, all of my home would be totally destroyed. She was angry at me for giving her a nice room to stay in, food, internet connection, a computer, clothing, telephone access, etc. when she was homeless. She was also angry because I would not put a friend of her's out of the house after she got tired of them.

I have a hard time putting someone out on the street, so I have offered to pay her security deposit and first and last month rent on an apartment, but she wants me to pay an additional three months rent for her. This is a person who has never had a tenant's relationship with me, never paid a nickel of rent, and never done a minut'es work in-kind. She sleeps all day and makes raucous noise all night in the room above mine, listening to hip hop, dvd's, and talking loudly with her entourage a friends which she has invited in to live with her as well.

I feel so drained from the expenditure of energy in dealing with her. Now she is working as an "escort", using my phone line and my computer connection even though I have told her that I want nothing illegal going on in my house. She threatened to bring the police in on me, but I told her fine, I would love to speak with them. She has driven Chelsea out of our home. CVhelsea has been living with Friends in the Catskills for the past two weeks on the verge of a nervous breakdown from this monster. Chelsea is the one who originally took her in.

No good deed shall go unpunished.

Gabe and Amanda in Paris, July 2005

Originally uploaded by amanda zug-moore.

Gabe says that he loved Paris. It was his first trip, and he seems ready to go back. I love Paris too. It was my first foreign city (if we don't count the Canadian side of Niagara Falls) and I loved it too. This past summer, though, Chelsea and I went to Metz instead of Paris in quest of the Holy Grail. We fell in love witht he smaller city in Loraine, once home of the Merovingian Dynasty.

rusty's house in rotterdam

rusty's house in rotterdam
Originally uploaded by amanda zug-moore.

Chelsea and I had the top floor of this beautiful house on Rozenburglaan in the Kralingse section of Rotterdam. The house has four floors, and was built in 1913. It has wonderful wood and stained glass details in original state of repair. This is a picture which Gabe took of Amanda, probably as they were heading out to do some shopping or sightseeing.

Living room

Living room
Originally uploaded by jambonchampignon.

Getting on to another topic of summer activities, this is a shot of me sleeping on the living room floor of Colin's apartment in New Orleans. We drove straight through from Brooklyn to New Orleans, leaving Jonica's place at about 1:00 PM Sunday, and getting to New Orleans around 10:00 AM on Monday. They were just putting the finishing touches on the apartment, which is a cement block building at the back of a traditional two family shotgun house. The levee and the river are about 100 yards away. We got some bedding out of Colin's storage room at U-Haul, and I crashed for several hours. Colin says that this place was not flooded, but he cannot get back to it because the city is closed, and he arrived in Brooklyn this morning, staying again at Jonica's place. He is homeless and clothingless at this point, but not really in such bad shape compared to many.

Indie Rock

Indie Rock
Originally uploaded by Cat Whisperer.

Here is the band at the wedding. Friend's of Gabe.

Getting Down

Getting Down
Originally uploaded by Cat Whisperer.

Another shot from the wedding, this one of Ian Bennett and his youngest daughter. It was very nice to see Ian and Andrea and children again. Ian reminds me of the Long side of the family for some reason, perhaps his studious easygoing manner.

Fancy footwork

Fancy footwork
Originally uploaded by Cat Whisperer.

This is a picture of Amanda Zug-Moore and Gabriel Soria dancing at their wedding in a friend's backyard in Red Hook, Brooklyn, last June. The picture was taken by Jonica Moore, who has become the family photographer of reference. Gabe and Amanda, and their son Caleb, returned from a trip around the US in early June. They visited friends in New Orleans, Austin, Los Angeles, Davis, and elsewhere, some of whom made the wedding, and others who did not. The wedding was quite an affair, with friends doing the flowers, and other friends playing their instruments, and still other friends working to make all the decorations and tables ready in time.

This is a picture of Caleb, Amanda, Chelsea, and me sitting in a sidewalk cafe near the Boymans-Van Beunigen Museum in Rotterdam taken by Gabe last July. It was wonderful to have Amanda and her family visit us in our apartment there for a week. The big event for Chelsea and me was to have the opportunity to take care of Caleb for a weekend while Amanda and Gabe made a quick trip to Paris. Chelsea and I like Dutch society and culture so much that we are planning to spend much more time there, and possibly emigrate. We particularly like the fact that GLBT folks have full civil rights in the Netherlands, in stark contrast to the pseudo theocratic USA.
Rhona McMahan

Well It's About Time! (That I posted Again)

I have not written on my blog since April 30, almost five months ago. In that five months another school year has ended, I had my fifth operation for kidney stones, and my third since 1998, my middle daughter (Commissionercoat in blogspot speak) was married, I lived in Rotterdam for the month of July teaching at Erasmus University, came home resolved to empty my house and live like an aging middle class college professor, spent August in an endless round of medical examinations focused on a (benign) cyst on my right kidney, and the stage of the basal cell skin cancer on my face, then my car went out of commisiion and I could not get out to the Green Frog at all before school started again. Now my lover has left for the hotel of friends in the Catskills because of stresses in trying to get people to move on and stop freeloading on us. I made a quick trip to New Orleans in late August to help Colin get settled in his new apartment, and now Colin is coming back to New York as a homeless refugee who may (horrors) have to study for a semester at Hofstra (free) and live in my home.

Today I got a family newsletter from cousin Dorothy Sipe Mull, who also had the wedding of a child this summer, and who also informed me that she is using a pseudonym in some on-line communication which employs my last name. THAT makes me feel good.

Both my digital camera and scanner are out of commission, which is one reason why I have not posted for so long. I am reduced to cadging pictures from the flickr sites of my children if I want to illustrate my own blog.

Speaking of Blogs, my daughter Amanda has a great blog, when she finds time to write. I am amazed that people even comment on it. Amanda was going to law school, but then she had a baby and now she is going to culinary school. She seems much happier. I could never image going to law school, it always seemed to be one of the dullest things a person could do.

I am very happy that Colin will be in New York. We never got much done on the dark room over the summer, but maybe we can get it going this Fall. Colin seems to be much happier now than he was last year.

Our back yard has taken a large amount of work this summer, but is actually in a pleasing state for once, with many pretty flowers, thriving grape vines, a jungle of tomato plants, and even some peaches off the ancient peach tree. We have been sitting in "the garden" quite a bit, and I find it pleasing to water the flowers and other plants, and wish them well as they grow. We have a lot of tomatoes this year.

I worked all day today to put a door back on the living room, and then to install locks on it. If Colin lives here this Fall he will have to use the living room as his room, since all the other rooms are occuppied by "guests."

Now that I have actually written something I will go into various topics in more detail in future posts: the wedding, the quest for the holy grail in Metz, France, deciding to emigrate to Holland, studying Dutch, the feeling of doing something for the last time after doing it for many years, and other topics.