Next weekend in a kingdom across the sea, there will be a coronation. I’ll watch it. It comes on here in the middle of the night when I am usually in bed wide awake anyway.

No one much thinks monarchies are any use nowadays. Probably never were.

Still, Disney has created generations of little girls who fantasize about becoming princesses, either by being rescued by Prince Charming or by finding out that they were stolen at birth and have been living with the wrong, commoner parents all these years.

The only Disney princesses we had when I was a little girl were Snow White and Cinderella and I certainly did not want to be either one. Ghastly mother figures.

I did, however love to create royal trappings.

When I was ten-years-old, my grandfather died at a very young age. (The rest of my forebears lived for many decades.) Papa Harrison died the month Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. There was no TV in our town then, but we did have lots of magazines with lots of pictures. Life and Look and the Saturday Evening Post, so I knew all about the royal trappings: The orb, the mace, the scepter, the crown.

Mama Harrison had received many potted plants in sympathy. The pots were all covered in colorful foil. We called it tin foil. Foil, whether it was tin or aluminum, was very special in those days. It was not that mylar stuff you get today.  It was real thin sheets of malleable metal.  You could smooth it out and shape it into anything.  And I did.  I was an odd child.

Charles’s and Camilla’s  crowns won’t be made of crumpled foil but of metals and jewels so priceless they will only be brought out of the Tower of London for the occasion.

I can’t bring myself to say “King Charles,” or “Queen Camilla,” not that I’d ever need to.  King Charles sounds like a spaniel to me.  And Camilla will always sound like the woman who made that real princess’s life a nightmare. Or maybe that was Charles.

Amazing how Lady Diana, the Princess of Wales, survived for as long as she did. There must have been at least a couple of times when she “closed her eyes and thought of England.”

Her younger son, the heir-presumptive, determined not to neglect the mental health of his lady, ran away with her and their children to one of the colonies.  I guess you can say they are shirking their duties. I mean, where are they getting the money to live in Montecito?  That’s certainly where I would want to live if I lived in California. Would I marry a prince in order to do that? 

 

I used to contend that “pride” is the noun form of the adjective “proud,” and pride is one of the deadly sins.  I’m over it.

Joannie is going to Oklahoma on business this weekend and called to make a reservation at the Choctaw Resort. They now have a smoke-free casino and hotel.

When she asked whether they offered any discounts, she was asked whether she had a DIB (Degree of Indian Blood) number. She supplied hers and was given a generous discount.

Of course, today we know that there is really no such thing as “Indian Blood,” but in this scenario, just go with it. It is a legitimate way of documenting our native heritage. Our mother went to a lot a trouble to be sure we are all registered on the Choctaw rolls. Her father was the last one of our ancestors to be on the “original” rolls before Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma.

This ancestor, whom we call Papa Harrison, was born in Lehigh, Indian Territory, in 1901. He would be so happy that he indirectly could make this small thing happen in his granddaughter Joannie’s life. I believe he earned it. Serving as a teenager in WWI, he was shipped to Vladivostok. He was very proud of his service.

He died very young (52), and at that time I was his only grandchild. He lived very modestly and never really had much of anything. He was incredibly “proud” of me. I have no idea why. As a ten-year-old, I hadn’t done anything particularly laudable when he died.

He was also very proud of his Choctaw heritage and talked to me about it often. I am the last of his descendants who was blessed to know him, and  I am proud. 

 

 

I am not checking the news today. It’s all a free campaign event for the defendant. And I think he truly believes he has done no wrong. Ever.

Of course, I hope they throw the book at him.

Oddly, this has called up some memories for me of accompanying my then-husband to the SF Courthouse to be arraigned. He had been charged under the RICO Act and with hundreds of counts of mail fraud.

I had pretty much forgotten all the details of that day and looking back, it seems surreal. Really. Like a bad dream that didn’t actually happen. I mostly kept this nightmare-ish episode in a box and went on with my “real” life. I was raising three little girls and going to work every day.

But it did happen and I learned a lot.

This is how criminal justice works in the US:

No kangaroo courts. All court rooms are open, except in the case of children. No one is above the law.

You have the right to a speedy trial by a jury of your peers.

If you are not a threat, you can pay bail and go on about your life until a trial date is set.

You can cop a plea to avoid prison.

You can decline to answer questions put to you by the FBI, but never, ever lie to them.

If you are ever detained by officials, ask whether you are under arrest and what the charge is. You must be arrested or released.

It always amuses me on TV shows when someone is arrested and claims the right to call his lawyer. Seriously? Do you have a criminal lawyer on speed dial?

But here is a question I have never been able to find an answer to: How can someone really believe he has never done anything wrong.? I must be the most self-accusing person in the world. I pretty much see myself responsible for everything I ever did or said or failed to do or say, no matter how well-intentioned I was. Maybe it’s egotistical of me to assume so much responsibility.

This is Holy Week, and although, as mentioned here many times before, I am not a person of tradition faith, I know that, traditionally, this week is a time of self-examination. Roman Catholics are required to make a confession to a priest during this time. Where does this put one who goes to confession seriously believing he has never done anything wrong?

Written on my heart are some of the words of the confession in the old 1928 edition of the BCP: “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.”

I am not suggesting that we need to “bewail our manifold sins and wickedness.” But do acknowledge. Do own up. Do make amends if you can.

Say “sorry.”

/Users/jeanurbanski/Desktop/337844724_518458650453344_3025841628547072029_n.jpg March 25 is the Feast of the Annuciation. This date is nine months before the date set by the ancient church to celebrate Christmas, which was called feast of the nativity. Somehow, the annunciation became a highly-favored subject for Renaissance painters. For some very-disrespectful reason, these pictures always make me chuckle. When I was in Florence for a month with a bunch of students, the depictions were ubiquitous. Seeing the first few, I just smiled. A beautiful, well-dressed-fair-skinned young woman, often painted reading a book in a beautiful courtyard is depicted calmly glancing up from her book, to see a huge, winged, very fancy angel confronting her with the news. Often, simultaneously, she is being impregnated in her head by a bolt of light from the heavens, usually emanating from a dove. She doesn’t even flinch. You would think, even though she was purportedly only about fifteen, she might have thought about it for a second and said thanks but no thanks. What we have her saying is, “My soul doth magnify the lord, and my spirit rejoices.” Clearly, these paintings and these words were by men. I remember being very happy when I discovered I had fallen pregnant, but I was a married woman in my late twenties. Still, I had lost of qualms. Over the centuries, the church came up with lots of names for Mary, some of them relatively recently. “Queen of Heaven” comes to mind.”T he Immaculate Conception” is an idea the church put forth in the late 1800’s to make sure everyone understands that Mary was born without original sin. From her conception, she was immaculate. There is also a lot of art depicting her bloody heart in an open breast. Sometimes, Jesus is painted and sculpted this way too. People worship and adore the depictions of the “sacred heart.” I find particularly troublesome, Mary’s being referred to as “Mother of God.” From that I infer that she existed before God. From what I remember from Sunday School, nothing existed before God. I love Renaissance art and I envy people who are child-like, unquestioning people of faith. But I think the traditional faith of my childhood was lost somewhere in Florence. Too many annunciations