beaulac ferris

Questionnaire:
completed by XIE

1. Character in a Wess Anderson film that you most relate to (if any): a tossup between Margot Tennenbaum and Peter Whitman

2. What is/are your favourite plant(s)? i love echeverias and euphorbias (very large families of succulents)

3. What fills you with dread? I fear oddly-timed phonecalls.  It seems like our lives revolve around a series of important and oddly-timed phone calls: someone has fallen ill; someone is dead; someone has done a terrible thing; someone is born; etc.  I am filled with anxiety if my mom or brothers call me at a strange hour.

4. Most influential creative person in your life? My dad.  I’m not sure why but when he died somehow it inspired me to start drawing more on my own and later pursue a creative field.  He was pretty good at drawing but decided to fix airplanes instead because that was his primary passion.  He taught me to draw, and even let me use those “How to draw 50 ___” books, which are terrible when I think about them now.

Today was my last final, and Seth and I are leaving for Colorado on Thursday. Still have a little sewing to do to finish presents, but aside from that, we are so ready for Colorado!  I have my reading all ready to go: “When you are Engulfed in Flames” by David Sedaris (I was in a queue for over 3 months to receive this); and “O Pioneers!” by Willa Cather.  I recently read “My Antonia” by Cather and liked it so I thought I’d give O Pioneers a try.  Boli thinks I’m sexist in my reading, but the reverse seems to be true also, as his books are mainly written by male authors.  I do mainly read literature written by female authors… or gay men (Sedaris, Wilde).  Why?  I have no idea, except that I apparently find it more agreeable.  Even Fitzgerald who seems like he sort of wrote for women was not especially to my liking…I tried twice!  Next I think I will try Joyce.  I think the last books I read by a male author and liked were the “Ender’s Game” series by Orson Scott Card– not really literature.

So yesterday we hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the first time.  I had decided not to venture to San Jose this holiday season, to save on stress (awkward political convos. with the step-father, the long drive, etc).  We were originally going to have a quiet holiday with Wess and Emily at their place, then discovered that a bunch of friends were going to be in town after all for the holidays, including parents-of-friends, and a friend-of-a-friend.  So we ended up having 12 adults, a 3-year old, and 3 babies over to our place for the event since we have the most space.

It was really nice, and we made a veggie potpie, roasted garlic rosemary mashed potatoes, and cornmeal crunch.  There were 2 turkeys (one made by Wess, and one made by Jen and Jeremy’s friend Alex); Audrey’s mom made a pumpkin dump-cake; Allen made a fruit crisp; Audrey made a mushroom ravioli and butternut squash salad; Emily made a wilted green and beet salad; and Jen brought some nice cheese and some wine.  It was delicious.  We left out some traditional classics like the infamous green-bean cassarole, cranberry sauce, and hot rolls, and were all the better for it.

If you were raised by Fundamentalist/Evangelical [read: Fundagelical] Christian parents or have hyper-Fundagelical Christian grandparents, you’ll appreciate this devotional cover that my brother found- and if not, you’ll appreciate it anyway (and maybe commiserate with me?):

My parents and grandparents were always trying to force me to read things like this.
(Also note: “Author of IF GOD LOVES ME, WHY CANT I GET MY LOCKER OPEN?“)

Things have just been generally weird this season.  There was the good outcome of the election (minus the bad news that Prop 8 passed), and then that was about it…

-We were needlessly hopeful and excited and stressed about Portland, after N**e basically guaranteed Seth a job, then come to find out that they actually can’t even hire anyone because of their company-wide hiring freeze.  They had basically asked us to make the stressful decision to move up there within a month, only to find out that it was all for naught.

-I had to make a tough decision not to go home for Thanksgiving…  a really stressful decision that I hope will have been for the best.  Though now we’re hosting it at our house with friends, which sounds a little stressful, but I think will somehow be more fun and less of a pain than San Jose.

So my last post I quickly mentioned my celebration of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. I truly am happy about it, and while I won’t repeat my comments just a few lines below, I was surprised that so many folks clearly were unaware that I don’t vote. It wasn’t a fact I have tried to hide, nor would I skirt the truth of it. However, I understand how if you didn’t know that I don’t vote as a matter of faith you could misunderstand why I feel that this is a form of pacifism for me, and indeed a great number of folks in the Anabaptist community. I won’t be defining Anabaptism, that is a topic better left for theologians (like wess who votes by the way!) nor will I necessarily write a laundry list of peace actions I’m currently engaged in. I will however try to explain how I came to my current position on voting and the government.

I have to say, that even as a non-voting pacifist I am quite happy that you were elected president. Perhaps only because I feared more the alternative, perhaps because I happily greet a historic moment in “our” nations history. Regardless I hope that you can seek justice in this nation, and this world, but I will forgive you if you fall short (as I would ask you to forgive me).

Christ called us to make peace in this world and I know I couldn’t do it from the the oval office, I will be praying that you can.

Well the good news is that it’s raining today… the bad news is that it’s still nearly 80 degrees.  So it really is like Southern California autumn today.  When we were in Portland last weekend, I was loving the weather.  It was about 60 degrees and breezy during the day, and about 40 degrees at night.  Like autumn should be!  We drove around a lot, and much of the time there were yellow and red leaves blowing down all around us, or gathered into big banks on the side of the roads.  It was lovely.  I loved being able to actually wear a sweater and/or jacket.

Last night for Halloween, Seth and I stayed at home.  Nothing seemed to be going on, and we are both recovering from colds we aquired in Portland.  I made a vegetarian pot pie (delish), and we watched “Dial M For Murder” and “Robocop”.  The first one Seth had never seen, and the second one I had never seen.  Dial M is such a classic, but Robocop was amazing…

i’ll post more relevant videos/images soon. i’m very excited. now to go get a helmet!

This is not a post about meta narratives or macro-theology or whatever heady thing, and it sure as hell ain’t about our economy. I just wanted to sing the praise of what is probably my favorite blog/rss feed ever.

The Big Picture

The Boston Globe has had the very good sense to start publishing aggregated photography based on relevant current events something like once a week. These aren’t your typical news photos, in fact they aren’t typical at all, this is world class photography with excellent curation and captions to boot. The thing that makes The Big Picture unique is that the pictures are well… really big. Big enough to really soak in the detail.

**EDIT**
WARNING: some of these images are pretty intense, and because they revolve around our (at times) very sad world. These images can also be very moving in a depressing way. Sorry Jessie! Since I look at photographs a lot I sometimes take this sort of thing for granted, my apologies.