Bonne Anniversaire, Papa!

Dearest Daddy,
Happy 60th birthday! I thought that I would follow the blog bandwagon and write a nice little note dedicated to all things Bainard. You also asked me to write something on my blog for your birthday, but I didn’t really want to recount my experiences in DC (they’re all tinged with too much of my sardonic realism). Who wants to hear about DC yuppy zombies when we can talk about the good things of Papa. Therefore, I’d like to say a few of my favorite memories of Dad from years past
Rewinding a bit, when I was little, I think Dad must have visited Albertson’s at least once a day. They all knew his name there, for sure (as the Subway lady still does), and I’d always beg Dad to tag along primarily to spend time with him and secondarily to yank some candy with my pity face. Dad, you always made grocery shopping an adventure to enjoy! And of course it wasn’t always Albertson’s; it was the produce market, or any sort of interesting place….you have such a love for exploring things and a real love of nature, which I have always admired.
I remember when I was a teenager, Dad loved to have a bit of an after dinner drink (cognac or some brandy or Maker’s Mark). One night after I came home from a soiree or something and you said, “Glencora, you have to try this raisin and brandy mixture!” When other parents are shielding their children from the evils of alcohol (what a myth), you were not only getting me to drink it, but put it in my food! I was excited until I actually tried it. Raisins and brandy were not that exciting, but you were thrilled to share them with me. I think now I could really go for a few.
On my way back from dance classes (which were everyday), Dad would pick me up and we’d listen to classical music on the ride home. There was always a storm of traffic, but I was delighted to sit next to Papa while he drove the Honda back (and I’m sure he was imagining it was a racecar) and we’d relax to some music. Thank you, Dad. Your calm and gentle nature has always made me feel so loved, and it’s a gift that I hope I’ve taken a bit of.
I apologize for the sentimental note, but I just wanted to tell the world how lucky I am to have such an amazing father! Love you, Papa!
Cora Lou

Snow Day = Imagination land adventure!

It's day two of snow day and that means round two of spending the day either writing, catching up on emails, or trying to make it to the gym in the snow :(
Yesterday I thought it was dazzling to run 5 miles in the snow; this morning, I felt better imagining that I was a bear buried deep in the heart of the earth and not emerging for a few weeks. Well, except to get some coffee and to use the restroom.
Nevertheless, in this cavern of creativity I have produced (as you you'll see) a new album of pictures of the house which include a pictures of the front of our house. I also decided to spend some time with an empty canvas and some pastels creating four skinny trees. I'm not a real artist (I'm too impatient), but it's delightful to imagine that I am :) Also, this free time has given me a little bit of space to start thinking about writing my next children's book. This past summer I had been trying to get my mind around an idea to write about, but it just wouldn't flow. My first book was called "Cora Lou and Veronique: Twin Tales from the Bayou," and now I think that I'm going to continue in this vein. However, this time I'd like to call it "Cora Lou and the Cordon Bleu." This one's still about Cora Lou (an adventurous little girl who is a bit spacey but spunky) and how she accidently gets sent to the Cordon Bleu. It's in rhyming couplets, and I'm hoping to write it, illustrate it, and at least publish it for my own sake. If anyone knows a good place to publish books, please help me out (I know of a place in Dallas, but not in DC.
Oh! And I should tell you--I didn't make it to the inauguration. Gasp, gasp! I know. I missed out on Elizabeth Alexander's lovely conversation with a wall. I know. I did actually do something very un-Glencora which was the March for Life on January 22nd. Despite all its naive, boisterous, and in your face participants, it was still nice to march with nuns and priests and all other people who choose all life instead of some. That was truly lovely.
Also, I finally made it over to the National Gallery of Art (the East side, I've been to the West side numerous times). I think the pieces of work that I enjoyed the most was Rothko's paintings. I don't recall what their titles were, but they were the quintessential abstract paintings, and I believe the best. Anyhow, I'll let you all enjoy your snow or un-snow day. I send my love and I'll be posting real soon. Love love love, Cora Lou

New Year's Resolutions

I apologize for getting people excited about changing the blog's name. I sort of like the title and the fact that its in French probably makes me sound more important and cleverer.er. So, here I am back in Washington, D.C. in the cold and wondering what the hell I'm doing here? I wish there was something here to lure me back like twinkies or possibly twinkies with glitter. But I think all the twinkies are wrapped with a picture of Obama.
Being in this 20's limbo, I've been thinking about all things I shall resolve to do this year (as I did last year, last month, this morning), and I think these resolutions perhaps may answer my questions.
By the way, I've sent in all the 8 applications to graduate school, so I'm in the waiting period before I hear back from different schools as to their decisions. I applied to Southern schools for the most part, simply because I can stand bleeding liberals, but I can't stand below freezing temperatures. Can you imagine the combination of the two? A nightmare, most certainly.
I've applied to LSU, Duquesne, UT at Austin, Vanderbilt, Washington U at St. Louis, UC at Boulder, SMU, University of Arizona at Tucson. I'd be more than happy to get into any of them--they all offer good programs, good scholarships, and good cities. The coolest, I suppose, would be to get into UT at Austin, their program in modern poetry is great, and the city is just full of coolness. We'll see.

So the resolutions:
(1) keep the blog name, (sorry Victor)
(2) take some hip hop classes, and consider my dream of becoming a Britney backup dancer.
(3) Check out the DC museums...they're free!!!!!!
(4) Use my French knowledge and start cooking some good meals (well, as long as its not duck thats been drowned by cognac :(
(5) Seeing a new indie flick and maybe writing a review of it on my blog
(6) Write about any good new poets or poems that I come across

Would it be annoying to comment on movies and poetry (this is a question to the general public)? Well, I haven't come across any good poetry today, surely tomorrow will be a new day.

I'll think about going in to see the inauguration and maybe posting some pictures :)
Enjoy your day off tomorrow.
Ciao ciao,
Cora Lou

Blog Name Change

So, I apologize if I haven’t written anything in, like, forever. But, I’ve run out of anything clever to say. Not to mention, the time that I could have been writing, I spent watching on YouTube clips of fat cats watching TV/ and fat cats watching YouTube—hilarious and fun for the whole family. Except for the cat; he may be offended or he may get ideas.
Well, now that the year is over, I suppose I should change the name of my blog, since Im not in France anymore. So, I thought Id throw out some ideas for a blog name and you can vote and tell me the best:
(1) Knock, knock its Glencora!
(2) The Chronicles of a Kindergarten Cop/Italian teacher
(3) Great Blarney, its Bloggin’ with Glencora!
(4) 23 and no way out…
(5) Sunshine magic blog
(6) meow meow meow
(7) Tales from the crypt-ic girl, Glencora
(8) The Adventures of Cora Lou
(9) Since I never became a flygirl on In Living Color….
(10) 13 ways of looking at a blog girl

Good luck with this one!
If you've got any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Grazie e Buon Natale!

I pittori per Mama

Mama, these are you for you. Sorry they are devoid of people; I think our house is sad about that, too.

La Prima di novembre

Ciao, ciao! I'm sorry I havent written in about a few ages, but Ill go ahead and give y'all the scoop on life in Wheaton. Ok, so the last time I wrote (which was a bit too melancholic..sorry), I had been working at a Greek diner with a Greek family. Definitely a wonderfully nice family, but the work just wasn't quite for me. There's only so long that you can hold a smile on your face and then you start seeing weird smile wrinkles, and when you're not smiling there's a pain in your cheeks. Probably a bad sign. I suppose cheerleaders get used to it and perhaps even camp counselors--but not me. Although the doctors in Marseilles claimed that I came out the womb as a clown, I beg to differ. (Why wasn't Veronica the clown!?!?!?!)
Well, Washington DC is just beautiful right now, despite the fact that I like to think of this city as a turtle shell without the turtle, or simply the city without a soul. The leaves are absolutely stunning and our little house has turned out just swimmingly. Veronica ended up decorating the whole house, so we have some really cool designs everywhere. For instance, our den is a mock Florentine sort of room; our kitchen is an orange and blue repsite(not for them Gators), and a few other rooms are very very artsy. And then there's the basement where I live (along with a few spider cricket things....ewww). Sometimes I feel like oscar the grouch, except I dont quite have the privacy of a trash can. Veronica's usually reading her aldaily.com while I grumble in from downstairs, and Veronica looks at me then pans over to the trash can and back to me again. I think its her symbol for, "go, git in there!"
Im also in the midst of applying to graduate school for...guesss....guesss......cmon, this is so easy: ENGLISH!!! well, maybe comp. lit, but who woulda thunk, huh? Ive been taking the GRE's like they were candy. And I'm also writing all these statements of intent. Im trying to think of an introduction for each, and I was thinking about starting with something like this:

"From the beginning of time, there was literature. Literature is very important. Who ever doesn't think so, raise your hand. That's what I thought. I not only believe literature is important, but I also eat, breathe, and drink literature. Like a fish (metaphor). That's why you need me. Glencora C.L.C. Cowan"

That sounds pretty good, huh?
Anyhow, right now since I'm not working at the diner, I've been teaching children K-4 beginner's Italian and helping with the first graders and Kindergarten. I got a picture of a family of gourds the other day. One's name is Ruby and the other's is Max. And also, I got a picture that said, "Ihetmissescowin" and on the same picture there was "Iluvmsssscowen," so I suppose its already the rollercoaster of emotions time in their lives. For Halloween, I brought them some lollipops and made ghosts out of them, and they all told me a story about their ghosts named Giovanni. In honor of Ghost Giovanni, I'd like to say, Happy Halloween, Happy All Saints and All Souls, and much love to you all! ciao ciao! Cora Lou

Sunday in Wheaton; a Coda for August

You never become fully accustomed to the stream. Yes, fidgeting in a car, eating a handful of walnuts with those Omega 3 fats (the government says its healthy), measuring the coffee, brushing, sneezing, breathing--it's all routine that seems to constitute a normative if not comfortable blanket of life to wrap and unwrap yourself with according to the temperature. Sometimes even the Mexican men hooting and hollering at you because you decided to wear that pique red scarf (with the tortuous golden waves), well, that too molds to your memory as just another step of your daily strides.
But today I caught from the corner of my eyes the gargantuan beggar standing on the median. No doubt, he frequently looms over the cars while his eyes like burning black coals try to pierce through the reflection upon their windows. Most people don't get scared they simply think, "What an awfully annoying giant." I'm not quite sure why today the scene caused me to glance away from counting the wrinkles in my hands. Usually I simply observe the world outside the window, like a camera which has no insides--just takes and produces. It doesn't need to tell its own story; it has none, except for its mechanical birth from a faraway factory. Nevertheless, today, I caught that image. The poor gargantuan soiled man, and it wasn't the pitiful circumstance he was in (I've seen beggars all over Europe, and some have had much worse ailments, including a drunkard from Rouen whose diet consisted of all things--champagne); no, in fact it was the precise look upon his face. There it was for a moment, the look of being utterly lost and foreign. He amidst the sea of cars was trapped and rendered incapable of speech. As he inched a bit further from one car, another machine zoomed by unaware of this tree-like homeless man. From the startle of the cacophony of the honking car, I saw in my mind a moment of my former self in France. As I had elevated from the depths of Gare de St. Lazare, I stood in the midst of Paris a few times not knowing where to go, where I may end up at the night's commencement, or how to ask, "Help, please?" The Parisians armored themselves in slate grays with trench coats and pea coats that offered no glimpse of brightness but simple and dark impenetrable lines. As long dark trousers trampled the cold wet ground near me, my eyes glazed over the enormous city and my ears heard only a foreign buzz that mimicked the cries of an army of insects. Its strange about suffering; I wonder whether if just knowing that others have and will always suffer makes the load easier. Simply recalling that infinitesimal suffering of my life in France inextricably linked me to a strange, overweight, smelly old homeless man. I may have felt kinder towards him, and it may have gathered a few moments of sympathy, but what of him? If others empathize with the suffering, do those thoughts go unheard as bootless cries towards heaven? Do we regard him as you would seeing a three-legged puppy in a cage? Or do we really not understand that we’re in that cage, too? There must be a chain of suffering that brings us together as we walk blinded, foreign and weary towards something beautiful and good. Because there the tree-like man burgeons in my recollection as a contretemps to the daily flow of bland comfort and self interest. I hope one of those cars opened the gates of its windows and let flood out to that man a kind remark, a wink, or even a damn good cheeseburger.