Prayers for the Broken - My Al Chet This Year

"L'shanah tovah tikatevi v' taihatemi”

May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

There is the traditional Al Chet and then there is something more modern that I’ve encountered and I think it’s important because it grounds the sins from the formal and therefore the internal to the actual failures we commit during the year. The failures I have committed.

I need to remind people that a kind of personal god that looks like a human and has a form is not part of Judaisim – we use human shaped words to try to grasp something infinite – something not human. When humans use the word god the part of me that interacts with my religion hears a wordless/wordful thing that is “Universe”

God is not a magical sky fairy that is going to give me a puppy if I’m a good girl. The Universe is an immense thing that I struggle to engage with and understand and attempt to be the best human I can be inside of it. So the English formulation of “Ruler of the Universe” which is often used in translation is the one that speaks/works for me.

I am having immense difficulty with the things that represent Judaism in practice in the world being corrupted by specifically American duality and ideology. This is a day I will struggle with that some more.

One of the things that many people who aren’t religious practicitioners don’t know is the reason we say the Al Chet outloud during the day all together is because a sin cannot be forgiven unless it is admitted to outloud and publically.

But we say these things together to protect those who sinned so they can say it out loud without having to bear the burden or shame of it alone. We are all admitting to the sins because we are all people who share in the effects of the sin. In many cases we do actually bear the shared responsibility for allowing or condoning the sin as culturally acceptable or necessary in the first place.

So for all these things I ask forgiveness, in my version of public because right now it hurts to much to be in a prayer space – because there is currently no prayer space without politics and politics are nothing but methods of extraction for power interests  to enrich the already powerful.

And I have not figured out a way to stop that or stand against it yet – for that more than anything I beg forgiveness.

This was updated in 1978 – and it’s the one I’ll use tomorrow and here today.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of truth, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts,

and for distorting facts to fit our theories.

For using the sins of others to excuse our own,

and for denying responsibility for our own misfortunes.

For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,

and for condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of justice, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For keeping the poor in the chains of poverty,

and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed.

For using violence to maintain our power,

and for using violence to bring about change.

For waging aggressive war,

and for the sin of appeasing aggressors.

For obeying criminal orders,

and for the sin of silence and indifference.

For poisoning the air, and polluting land and sea,

and for all the evil means we employ to accomplish good ends.

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.

For our failures of love, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, we ask forgiveness.

For confusing love with lust,

and for pursuing fleeting pleasure at the cost of lasting hurt.

For using others as a means to gratify our desires,

and as stepping-stones to further our ambitions.

For withholding love to control those we claim to love,

and shunting aside those whose youth or age disturbs us.

For hiding from others behind an armor of mistrust,

and for the cynicism which leads us to mistrust the reality of unselfish love.

Teach us to forgive ourselves for all these sins, O forgiving God, and help us to overcome them.

For all these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement!

The sin we have committed against You by malicious gossip,

the sin we have committed against You by sexual immorality,

and the sin we have committed against You by gluttony.

The sin we have committed against You by narrow-mindedness,

the sin we have committed against You by fraud and falsehood,

and the sin we have committed against You by hating without cause.

The sin we have committed against You by our arrogance,

the sin we have committed against You by our indolence,

and the sin we have committed against You by our irreverence.

The sin we have committed against You by our hypocrisy,

the sin we have committed against You by passing judgment by others,

and the sin we have committed against You by exploiting the weak.

The sin we have committed against You by giving and taking bribes,

the sin we have committed against You by giving way to our hostile impulses,

and the sin we have committed against You by running to do evil.

For all these sins, O God of mercy, forgive us, parson us, grant us atonement!

Litany Source = Gates of Repentance:  The New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe (New York:  Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1978), pp. 327-331

It's the Holidays - and Friends Help

I am buried and overwhelmed and wearing my Don Quixote hat these days when my general outlook is more Sancho Panza on a good day and Aldonza on a bad one.

But I have a friend named Liz. She's a new friend but I met her Doing Things. Things I mean to write about here but keep quiet when push comes to shove because the desire to hide has gotten larger than the desire to share. Doing Things is how I keep it from growing too big.

Liz and Nathan sent me a package in a plain brown wrapper. I have said before that you cannot stop The Taunting, but this year the windmills and the Don Quixote of it all made it very, very close. But here it is the Taunting in it's plain brown wrapper - it followed all the rules - I knew it was coming but I didn't know what it was, it had packages that needed to be opened in order. And shockingly and beautifully it had Poppets. A Poppet. You cannot lie to a Poppet.

One of the Red Poppets came over to help and check out the Paper Poppet. Like all good taunting Packages this one came with instructions. The Paper Poppet is so beautiful and so full of Poppet that it was decided that he was going to have to find a way to be. He has decided that he would like to be a Billboard on a rooftop in Poppetropolis or perhaps a wall mural in the side of a building but he thinks he would prefer the rooftop view.


The Paper Poppet carefully removed himself from his charge much to the delight of the local denziens. The Choco's appeared joyfully on the scene. Not only was it chocolate it was chocolate that they had never tried before! NewThings!

And then they noticed that they needed to call over their friends and shouted across to the circus where the Coffee Poppets had been working out logistics for a food stand.

Because there is very little that makes that particular social circle as happy as things that combine their two passions, and here it was!

In bar form for relatively easy transport!

Plans and recipes were being discussed with logistics being undertaken and plans made to return for the others  . . . which left Red alone until Merri wandered by with her red balloon.

Packages are very exciting. It's all the wondering; "What could it be" and the excitement of red yarn.

Merri helped Red with the package and they spent some time guessing because they knew that Liz is a Maker of Things, and that meant that the inside could be almost any Thing.

And when it was opened the Thing was the best kind of Thing - A Thing from a Friend that could live in Poppetropolis and also BE a Friend!

They have all informed me that her name is Scarlet.

Sunray is looking into a rental for her now.

Zombies . . . .Love and Midterms

About this time a year ago when I was working, I rolled the office chair I was sitting on over my own foot.

It takes talent sometimes.

It was about this time a year ago that the writing was also on the wall for the long term funding for my department. Dead Department Walking.

It was also this time last year that I was working towards the World Fantasy Convention, Lisa and I had collaborated on the House Where Halloween Things Live When It Isn't Halloween.

Which was the last Poppet Project I finished.

So the most interesting thing about running over my toe was that I didn't realize that I'd damaged it until almost right before I left for WFC, because I was trying on dress shoes and felt some pressure. My toe had done that thing toes do when they are bruised under the nail. I'd had experience with this before - it takes about a year to grow out and not look like Zombies Ate Your Toe.

I'm pretty good at predictions, not by being psychic but by doing the work. The department had a two week window at this point last year, if they didn't have good news by the time I was back from WFC, no matter what they were told in meetings they were going to be absorbed back into the larger group, their support staff would be let go, they needed to plan. Schemes were hatched , promises were made, but in the end it's gone down almost exactly the way I'd told them, and now, the zombified toenail is almost grown out - one professional pedicure and the damage will be gone, and the department is officially dissolved. Zombies Were Eating Our Department.

I had one more prediction, that even in "good" times, I'm such an odd collection of skills that it takes about six months to a year for me to be hired again. This time last year I had two months to go before my contract ended, I had finished an amazing accomplishment in 40 days, and I was preparing for the coming storm.

Some of it went the way I expected, and some of it not so much. It's been more difficult in ways. It all feels like circles. Like I'm riding the ripples as the move outward. Sometimes I've been a little zombified.

But at a particular point in time - which was scary and a little low - Lisa sent me some Zombie Love. I didn't know I needed or wanted Zombie Love but there it was.

Smiling it's little embalmed stitching smile at me, fresh blood running down it's ruff . . .

In it's own weird and creepy little way, the Zombie Poppet made all the other zombifications kind of identifiable, and avoidable. Like having an actual Zombie kept all the other zombie wannabes away. Like a totem. It helped a lot.

So when I saw Lisa, I brought Zombie Love with me, and we made a joke about Same Time Next Year. October is now the month I seem to see Lisa in person. It seems so strange to me that I haven't ever cooked for her.

I felt guilty, there were things that we had talked about doing but the year happened without us. It was OK, maybe the year need to grow out, for the damage to work it's way out. Like the toe, maybe I hadn't realized the extent of the damage until it became really visible and it was too late to do anything other than let it heal on it's own.

So here's where I am - the Zombie Toe is almost gone, Zombie Love arrived when I received my Forgiveness Poppet ( who will be appearing here soon as the Embarrassed Ambassador's Younger Sister), Lisa and I are still playing with the House Where Halloween Things Live, because there's no rush, we did it to play. Here's hoping that my annoying streak of being right continues and I will find a job that works for me in the next few months since I predicted it and that the long dark streak of no work on Poppetropolis will end, since I didn't predict that.

It will be like a Halloween Resolution.

And everyone should go to the American Museum of Visionary Arts where some of Lisa's Dark Caravan is being shown in the Smile Exhibition.

My Zombie Love is at the edge of the roller coaster there.

I owe Lisa some pictures. . . . does this one count?

And all the Men and Women Merely Players

Sometimes, it's not the loss that causes the melancholy, it's the effort needed to rebuild.

There are things I thought I put away, not childish things in any form, but passionate ones. I played with little shadow versions of them, like puppet show passion plays. Those would/could/should be enough.

"Passion - Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latinpassion-, passio suffering, being acted upon, from Latin pati to suffer."

Isn't it funny how we've taken a word whose meaning is based on suffering and changed it into a kind of ecstatic frenzy - a euphemism for sexual love? A desire for more passion in our lives or our marriages takes on a whole different meaning when you bring it back to the root. Ultimately a possibly unhealthy meaning.

I was passionate about a boy once. When I look back on it, it seems like a derangement. Every moment was vibrant and alive with possibility, unpredictability, intese joy, intense sorrow. In the throes of passion doesn't mean the bedroom - it means all of the time you are controlled by this passion whatever it is, who ever it is based on. The connection to the suffering is real and immediate, everything else seems shallow and chalky and gray. Only the things related to what or who is the center of the passion seem real and bright. Everything is just something that leads you to the chance to surrender, to participate in that presence or action again. All the times you are not near or engaged are all the "moments before". The time of suffering while waiting to see what passion will bring. As poor fools in the throes of it all, we will call it many, many, things and we will try to use that word "passion" to make it fit those other, safer things.

But it will still be passion.

I got over the boy. If he even remembers me now he will remember our time together very differently than I do. Passion is a kind of insanity. You cannot build a life on it. Not the real kind where you don't die young, or end up stabbed 23 times by Senate.

Passion based on a person is by nature transient. The idea of suffering because I am not near someone if foreign to my understanding of love. When I am alone and I am loved, I am happy because I know my love for the other person is not based on proximity but security. I love them just as deeply two continents away, or two hemispheres away as I do when I am next to them, when we are entangled together. Distance is nothing to love. Love is like Damascus steel to me - tools we share, my beloved and I so that we can build and fight and defend to and craft together.

All of my beloved - family, lover, children - I am not passionate about them. The greeks who separated love: agape, eros, phillia, storge, they missed a word or category for this kind of love. Maybe "storge" but it didn't make it into a lot of literature, (possibly because it doesn't lead to tragic or comedic actions). But it is not passion.

I was passionate about an artform once. I had convinced myself that I could use the past tense. I could learn from it and chuckle with fond memories and traumatic ones and move on.

I am utterly and devastatingly wrong.

The tense is present tense. It's much stronger than a simple passion for a boy. Everyone knew it then. People who knew me later knew it still. People who know me now got glimpses when I played with the shadow versions. Then I stopped playing with those. Now the people in my life are blissfully ignorant of it. All was quiet on the passion front. Not the modern one with it's garish calls to buy things at Victoria's Secret or the pretty religious ones trying to create some form of agape with ritual and structure. Those puny passions are fine. I put aside the suffering. I became an audience ( for the first time?)

For those around me it was a good call. True Roman Stoicism for the good of the community and all that. There is a reason after all that they call it "suffering for one's art" and it is pretty obvious that great artists that could truly be brave for art or scientists (those monomaniacs of discovery) always had someone supporting them or no ties at all. But if you are the support - parent, breadwinner, wife - your art is best something to be dabbled with, shown proudly by offspring or spouse when visitors come to call. Art for Art's sake as long as it causes no one else any inconvenience.

And I believed that so completely that I didn't even realize I wasn't putting things together, I was breaking them apart. Or maybe breaking me apart.

So now - when I checked the recent damage of self and current competencies - all of the ways I used to take inventory and maintain and repair had failed. Not because they were bad systems, but because I had used them up. They were finite measures meant for specific or surface damage. They worked bravely and well for over a decade. They are simply the wrong tools. There to fix- like love, not to upset and destroy and recreate - like passion.

That's not enough. Love does not conquer all, it cannot heal by itself and sometimes you can't fix things unless you break them a bit first. Maybe I needed to break them alot.

And so with a long hard look at what was broken, I stood on a crossroad with a different devil on every choice. I blinked instead, and refused the road alone. I invited the devils to follow me but I needed to go back. Or down. Everything that was wrong - all the pieces damaged, and battered and missing - I thought I had learned them in other places, through life or jobs or school or relationships and simple survival. That was the mistake. I had learned them all in theater.

All of them. Every last one.

Dammit.

Now I'm awake. The question is what am I going to do about it?

There are four devils following me to school. Dionysus is laughing behind them because they don't realize they're pulling the chariot. I'm hoping that Minerva is travelling with him.

We'll try not burn or break too much.

****

Passion - Date: 13th century

1 often capitalized a : the sufferings of Christ between the night of the Last Supper and his death b : an oratorio based on a gospel narrative of the Passion
2 obsolete : suffering
3 : the state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces
4 a(1) : emotion (2) plural : the emotions as distinguished from reason b : intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction c : an outbreak of anger
5 a : ardent affection : love b : a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept c : sexual desire d : an object of desire or deep interest

passion applies to an emotion that is deeply stirring or ungovernable passions.

Now for something completely random

I have suddenly found myself a student again, in the formal sense. I have taken a big personal push out of my protected zone and enrolled in a creative writing class- this means creative writing assignments. I was asked to rewrite lyrics to an existing song. Oddly, I chose a song I did not particularly like.

The feedback in the class is limited - we may be in the stage where we are applauding because the bears can dance. Since I expect this to be buried soon under a real post I will share my dancing bear here. The original song is "Torn" arranged for Natalie Imbruglia - we were supposed to write something new to match it.

Mourn

I woke with stardust in my grasping hand

It burned cold

but I held on, and I was petrified

I saw grey, broken walls and cried

There’s nothing left to hang the banner now

The floors are bare, the ceiling’s gone

Even ghosts moved on

I’m still wandering through the halls

Nothing’s whole that’s left inside

The population’s lost or died

I keep going on

I will Stand

or Fall

I’m all out of faith

All I have is steel

And the stardust that I hold

while exposed to Fate

Illusionary change

I’ll make something real

The enemy’s within, I will see this victory forsworn

No, it’s not too late

I’ve already mourned

If I take the writings at their word

I reach the gate and find escape

And this song will be heard

The creeping dread won’t hold me now

I won’t despair

I don’t need luck

The way ‘s made clear

through cold stardust

I've seen so many things, it hurts so much

That’s all

I’m all out of faith

All I have is steel

I am cold, I am enraged

Deep in shadows by the floor

Step within my range

I’ll win something real

The enemy’s ahead and I will see his perfect plan is torn

He’s moved in too late

I’ve already mourned

Cold ashes where he used to lie

Stardust, steel

his blood runs dry

Now I am alone

I will Stand

Or Fall

I’m all out of faith

All I have is steel

And the stardust left I hold

calling back to Fate

Illusionary change

I’ll make something real

The enemy is gone, I have seen this victory is cold

No more need for faith

Doesn’t matter what I feel

I'm cold, I’m not ashamed

Burned and broken on the floor

You’re a little late

I’ve already mourned

Not dead. . . . I promise

But things are very, very complicated for me right now. I believe I am doing the right things.

I hope I am.

But I'm not sure I'm processing any of them.

Drinne's Big Adventure

Before I start this story I think it's important to note that once upon a time, many years ago, my body forgot a few things, like how to hold a pen, or stand without assistance, and eventually for a short, terrifying time how to walk at all.

And when it slowly carefully relearned all the really obvious things which it had forgotten, it took the better part of two years to find all the little things that the brain had jettisoned or reconfigured in order to get things like Mobility back in the picture.

It's part of this story, "What I am Doing On My Summer Vacation."

I made choices, I went to the beach and negotiated a truce, and I have relearned how to ride a bike.

Which is not as simple as it should be.

And now I have a bike of my very own.

It was an adventure.

The Most Adventurous Red approves.

It started because of The Boy, who needed a bike ( because Boys need Bikes) went to the store with my Dearest Friend to repair his bike, (because Dearest Friends need Bikes too). I figured since my Dearest Friend's bike is unique and collapsable that the people who could service it would be people I could trust to advise me on the proper bicycle for the Boy. It would need to work in our environment by the House but it would also need to be able to do well here, by the beach in the far Northeast, where we punctuate our lives.

It did not take us long, the man who helped us loves bikes and people and speaks in sounds my ear associates with childhood. The bikes are just as fancy as my overly competitive, yuppified, sports minded area, but they are presented plainly, no fancy words, no branding, no "exclusive 10 point measuring systems". I was happier there. I trusted this person. The Boy doesn't ask for much so I tend to be careful when he does.

He asked if we could get the bike so that he could use it here. After some thought, I agreed. The Boy and His Bike were meant to be, matched by the Massachusetts Bike Man. It only took two bikes before we found the Right One.

The Boy brought His Girl with him on this trip. A new and possibly dangerous thing to do, and we learned that His Girl did not ride. Hmmn, this is not ideal - Girls also need Bikes.

Bikes are independence where we are, because the buses are disjointed inefficient money soaks that add obstacles rather than opportunities. Everyone, besides me, offered to teach her.

I could not- I was fairly sure I no longer knew how to ride a bike. But I encouraged her, and on hearing her concerns and the phantoms she threw up offered to try to ride a bike with her. She thought that seeing a grown up who could not ride easily try to relearn might help.

The other adults travelling with me and the Massachusetts Bike Man all reassured me that if I used to ride, I will remember no matter how many decades, but only my Dearest Friend was there when my body had forgotten, and some of the times over the years when I had to fight to keep what I had relearned. Some things are not the same after that. There was no guarantee for me.

When we got out of the car to buy his bike, I saw it. I walked around it. I took pictures of it. But I didn't think I would do anything about it.

It reminded me of Burning Man, of studying religious texts, of art school, of my first bike, of time travel. It reminded me of hope. The kind of hope where you look at something in the window and hope that someday you'll be rich/talented/old/good enough to be able to own it.

Pressed-nose -against-the-window-hope.

I put it on the mental shelf. There were no guarantees, I am too old to pine at windows and even if I were not, I am too realistic to hope without some basis in reality.

Then on the very first day The Boy's Bike had an epic failure of tubing and heat and needed to go back to the bike shop, which with great metaphoric symbolism is called "YesterYear".

There is a six month service plan. His Girl went with us for the repair.

I've never seen a repair done so fast without a planned pit crew. They wheeled it in and the owner called out "This just rolled out this morning - let's get it back out NOW!"

It was like magic. My favorite kind, where the magic is because of extreme competence. God, I love it when that happens.

I did show His Girl the Very Pretty Bicycle. I will love her forever because when she saw it she said, "It looks like it was made for you!"

That is not what most people who know me would think.

Lined up with all the other bikes, it called out to me full of things past and present and future. The others were talking with the crew up by the repair, and we asked the Massachusetts Bike Man if I could sit on it. It was our third visit to his shop. He pulled it out of the line up for me and I sat to see what would happen when I did.

I was disoriented.

It was frightening.

The edges of the parts of my brain that had been affected by the Great Forgetting fluttered frantically trying to make sure that the simple act of supporting a bike while sitting on it did not cause me and the bike to go tumbling down in the very public lot.

I told the Boy's Girl the truth, that I was shaky and having trouble keeping my balance, and I thanked the MBM and told him that I would practice riding back by the beach before I tried to ride around the parking lot. The one thing I was sure of is that I did not remember.

She told me she would learn if I would, because maybe then I would get that bike. I told her that I probably wouldn't be getting the bicycle, but it wasn't OK for me to feel the edges of Forgetting and just leave them there. Because if I leave it alone, the whole abyss lies under it and I won't know how deep it is. That is unacceptable. I cannot live like that.

I will not go gently.

So we would start from the beginning, together, me and the Boy's Girl.

We went back to the shipwright's house and had the first lesson.

First there were the parade of bikes to be tried. The Shipwright's House, like all the houses here collects bicycles. Tall ones, short ones, ancient ones, merely old ones and The Boy's Bike. The Boy and I are the same height now. We're both pretty tall with long legs, and his was the only one that fit. His bike is much more bike than I should be using. Oh well, nothing for that now. We found one for her.

At my insistance, we took our practice starts on the grass. My Perfectly Ordinary Husband demonstrated "push off" and then handed it to me and said "Ok - show me what you've got".

I admit, I'm not sure I would have tried going anywhere on my son's bike if it weren't for His Girl and the Very Pretty Bicycle. But I did try.

My son has a very nice bike. Much to my surprise, while all of the Forgetting Edges hovered around my balance center and my lungs, the act of pushing off helped me to find a new center, and I rode around the bush and remembered how to use a hand brake to stop.

It was only a little like remembering and nothing at all like learning. It was more like discovering. I discovered how I could ride a bike, even with the abyss underneath.

The Boy's Girl learned to ride the same day, within the hour.

I had forgotten how to breathe, but that happens a lot lately. I was able to use words and feelings and physical actions that helped The Boy's Girl be willing to take risks too. That and the inspiration of my shaky, wobbly, triumphant trip to and from the tennis courts, with occasional flashes of breathing.

I could ride a bike and not pass out. This was even bigger than riding in the first place!

My body, my brain and I have not all been on the same page for some time. We need a mediator, we need to readjust. We need to feed each other again and work towards something instead of trying to maintain equilibrium. We need measured successes, but with milestones we made ourselves.

We needed a bicycle. It's bigger on the inside than the out. I promise.

On the fourth trip, after the research, and the soul searching, and the permission to be selfish (I gave it to myself) I went back to the MBM and told him that I was going to get a bike, it didn't have to be the one I loved but it did have to be right. I trusted him. I would try what he thought was best for me and where I would be riding.

It ended up that the right bike was indeed the one I loved.

It's call the OM.

It makes me want to leave the porch. It makes me wonder if I'm good enough to ride on a wet road.

(No, not yet).

When the weather was clear I stopped the comfortable easy thing I was doing and took it out of the garage myself and went as far as I could.

I am learning.

I am willing to move.

I am learning to use a coaster break on a downhill slope.

I have learned how to apply heat to the bruises on the back of my left calf until I get it right.

(F=ma)

I am finding a pace where I can ride and breathe and still enjoy movement and air and environment.

I have a plan for when my bike goes home to practice around my neighborhood.

I will have the prettiest bike on my block, confusing the hell out of the people who see me leave for work each day in my black suits.

If I get good enough, I can ride my bike to work wearing my black suits, and my dark sunglasses, carrying my technology in a shock proof case.

The check at the security gate should be fun.

I can ride a bike.

Take that Universe, I got something new back, even at this late date.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

(I certainly didn't).

But you're welcome to come along with us for the ride.

It will be an adventure.

Coffee and the Beach

The Coffee Poppets and I went to the beach.

This is kind of a big deal.

I got this little arm holster thingie at Trivia Night and we've been using it to figure out how to take Poppets On Tour.

The Coffee Poppets were willing to give it a go.

The other bit that is kind of a big deal is that I'm not supposed to be out in the sun.

Bah to all that.

When we got to the boardwalk they asked to be let down.

We went to the second dog beach, there is the "old boardwalk" (The dog beach is where dogs are allowed here, there is a people beach too but there is really very little point in being there if you are vacationing with your dog.)

I have been coming here for the last 20 or so years with my Very Dearest Friend. Here in it's own way is more consistant than the many places I have lived during the same 20 years.

Sometimes when I think about the milestones in my life they are marked or punctuated by my time here.

One step, One year at a time.

When I first started coming here I was allowed to be in the sun.

We were not known enemies then.

Times of course have changed. But this year, I will cover up and don the armor and sit on the beach. It is the first part of the maneuver. I am looking for an armed truce between the Sun and I and then I can move on to the Sea.

I suppose it's best if one's epic battles are with large things. It makes them seem less petty that way.

When we got to the beach at a platfrom straight down from the boardwalk is a large open outdoor oven.

It is functional and only partially affected by the tragedy of the commons, but it is part of the scenery. I have seen it in use over the years but it does not seem to be in use now.

The Coffee Poppets wanted to check it out. I brought them down and we discussed various methods of making campground coffee or other types of coffe preparation in rustic conditions.

We then discussed great campground coffee that we have had. I had more than they have, but they were willing to play catch up if left on their own.

Poppets like boats.

Have you seen the opening graphic on PoppetPlanet.com?

Of course human boats don't have hands. Well they do, but they are attached to humans. Sometimes the humans on a ship are called hands.

The Coffee Poppets took a little while to understand this.

They spend sometime looking for the hands.

Then we all continued to the beach.

When they hit sand they found someone who had spent a great deal more time on the beach than they were planning on.

The conferred for a bit, but I was not privy to their conversation.

I was working on my detente with the Sun.

The Poppets continued on their was to the Sea. It's not really the Sea, it's really a trapped bit of Ocean, or water in communication with Ocean but Sea sounds far more primal.

At least to me.

The Coffee Poppets explored more of the beach and took up the invitation of one of our hosts.

She likes to play ball by having her human throw the ball as far out as he can.

Then she swims out and collects the ball bringing it back and rolling around in the seaweed and generally celebrating the fact that she has fur and there is sand.

The Coffee Poppets weren't really sure about the ball part. The ball was considerably larger than they were and they weren't really sure that they could swim out to where a ball was anyway.

They did however try bodysurfing.

They decided it was too much like being a teabag.

So they dried out on a rock that was on the beach, mumbling a little something about not wanting to end up like the tiny blue man they had met.

Drying on the rock was pleasant and they decided that they did indeed like the Sun.

So do as I as matter of fact. When we are just dealing with light the Sun and I are great friends.

Like many relationships, it is sustained direct contact where we run into interpersonal problems.

After some time, we agreed that it was good all around. We had tried new things and while they were off on their adventures, the Sun and I found a comfort zone.

So although I must be careful about it, now I too can be at the beach.

That makes today significantly different than yesterday.