FRUiTS

FRUiTS is a fun favorite. A free gawk at freestyle fashion.


And now you can check out some Spovegas (Spokyo?) street fashion of our own. The artist collective RiVerSpeAK, requested photographers to submit snapped representations of local identity. Two are mine. My descriptions for the submissions are as follows:

Twenty-something, aqua pashmina from Calcutta, mom's old sweater, floral long underwear, fallen leaves. Spotted: Spokane November 8, Regal & 77th.

Three-year-old, tutu, tights, pink cowgirl boots, apple, toy stroller. Spotted: Spokane November 6, Jackson & Washington.

This one is for you Stine, including the alliteration.

Dress to express? x

Sayonara nose piercing!

Hola awesome job!
     I just received the call, I am a brand new nurse in the Emergency Department at Sacred Heart. Thank you, thank you... now, no one better visit me at work! Dad... Christine's kids... etc.
     Late in the evening yesterday I received a call from the Emergency Department Director asking if I could come in for that second interview she'd mentioned (and in my head I had convinced myself I had hallucinated about..). But bright and early this very morning I met with two Assistant Nurse Managers and fielded questions about my experiences: Harborview's Level I Emergency unit, and Psychiatric ED and Trauma ICU, Thailand, my research in Indonesia and my experience with the Nursing Action Forum committee at Virginia Mason.
     Joey and I made bets on what day I would get the call, we both lost. Not two hours later good ol' Bob at HR, who I've met now several times, called to offer me the position (so long prospects on the step-down trauma unit and the pediatrics department)! I am the first new grad RN to be hired into the ED at Sacred Heart. A level II trauma center, serving the Inland Northwest, in the hospital where I was born.
     I start on Monday the 23rd (so yes, I'm coming to Seattle next week for a visit)!

Join me in my red tent...

Since moving to the Inland Northwest, I have joined up with some pretty rad ladies. The Shrinking Violet Society. We are young, we are free... wait no, we are entrepreneurial, motivated, active, and energized in general to connect to our community and make it work for us, as we work for, it.

Right off the bat, I got excited about the upcoming November Book Group read, Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Then all of a sudden, as I do, I was raising my hand, marking my planner and declaring myself capable of leading the discussion. So here it is a week away, and I am accumulating talking points.

I first read this book on my way to Calcutta in 2006. My mom says, respectful of my journey into poverty, "That's a downer." I had read the first few pages already, as I do when I pick up an unfamiliar book, and replied "It can't be, it's all about birth and midwifery!"

I want to share some talking points with this forum (whoever you are.. Mom, Chanel, Chelle, Elizabeth, Johanna...)

We don't have red tents anymore, we don't honor and celebrate womanhood in our society, we shun it and perpetuate the mystery and fear, we successfully maintain the taboo and thus the misunderstanding, the unknown, the false. This goes for coming of age, rites of passage, menarche or first menses or as a young girlfriend said to me one day in the fifth grade: Have you come to the end of your sentence yet? THE PERIOD. Awesome example in my opinion. This also goes for SEX, conception, pregnancy, BIRTH, breastfeeding, childrearing, loss of pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, and in the end (as it always is) DEATH. Big, heavy, important stuff.

All I want, if you are inclined, is for you to think about your experiences. Here's a lead; Reminisce fondly and fearfully with a splash of mortification, about your first menstruation. What went well (hahah!), and what did not? How could that experience have been better, more supported? If you could bestow a different experience on a daughter/niece/friend's kid/student/other, what might that look like?

There are zillions of ways to empower women, this is one that is WAY up there on the list of Best Ways to Ensure Empowerment/Disempowerment in our female youth.

Men, you are not excluded. I was a part of a curriculum committee for a new course in the Women Studies department for this academic year, a Masculinities course. Men are also (perhaps not equally, but nonetheless) disempowered in our society. Women and men must support all of our youth. This is how new generations can change the world.

If you want to share stories, gosh, I'd sure LOVE to hear 'em! .

Jane's delicious reads