I’d like to say something about my grandma. I’d like to dispel the notion that Nancy was a superhero, with superhero powers to match. Judging by all the incredible and true things you will hear today, it would be easy to make that mistake.

Nancy had flaws. If you knew her well, I’m sure you can think of some. But the way Nancy always stepped up to do what needed to be done and to love who needed to be loved wasn’t the result of superpowers. These were choices she made and skills she cultivated. She also didn’t do any of it alone.

Nancy worked in community. Sometimes she failed. Sometimes she succeeded. Just like all of us, sometimes she thought later she should have gotten involved, or she should have done more. Just like all of us, sometimes she would overextend. Sometimes she made mistakes. Just like all of us. But she kept going.

To me, one of the lessons here, besides laughing hard and the beauty of a sharp wit, is that to be an amazing person like my grandmother does not take a superhero. It takes all of us, doing our best, not shutting our eyes, our hearts, or our minds, and working in community, together, to do what’s right. We owe that to ourselves, and to Nancy’s memory.

Oh, wait. I was wrong when I said my grandma didn’t have superpowers. She did have one, and that was being our grandmother. She will always be unsurpassable at that.

Thank you.

YAKIMA – Nancy Ann Tobin Putney Faller, 83, died July 17, 2010, at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital. Nancy was born on September 22, 1926, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Carrie Farmer and Tom Tobin, a Notre Dame graduate and Irish road construction contractor. Her father died when Nancy was seven. Two years later, her mother married Ellsworth Putney, whose daughter Virginia “GeeGee” Putney became the “sister of love” Nancy had longed for.

The Putneys settled in Seattle. When Nancy’s Japanese classmates at Broadway High School were sent to internment camps, she did not protest. This was a defining moment in Nancy’s life: she made a conscious decision that she would never again stand by and do nothing in the face of injustice, and neither would her children.

In college at WSC, Nancy joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, where she made lifelong friendships with her Kappa sisters, with whom she reunited annually until recently. As a drama major, Nancy starred in Penny Wise and other plays and was known to stretch out on a piano, belting steamy torch songs on request. She never lost her love of theater or music, delighting in taking others to shows whenever she could. During the summers, she worked as the proverbial riveter.

After a determined pursuit, she married Bill “Butch” Faller on September 3, 1949. They headed out for a “year-long honeymoon” while Bill finished his Masters degree and Nancy worked as a librarian at the University of Illinois.

The couple moved to Seattle and had their first daughter, Virginia “Gini.” Their second daughter, Elizabeth “Liz” was born in Prosser. Matthew, Janet, and William “Will,” were all born while the family lived in Wapato.

In 1961, Bill became the football and baseball coach at YVJC and the Fallers moved to the house on Barge Street which remains the family base. While Nancy had always worked to keep the promise she had made in World War II, it was in Yakima that her community activism became a way of life for her.

Recognizing the noxious effect of segregation in Yakima, Nancy was active in the beginning years of Southeast Yakima Community Center. She most enjoyed working with children: she created a swimming program and headed the literacy program. Nancy brought her children to volunteer and made sure they had diverse groups of friends and diverse life experiences. She took them to Black Awareness classes and to meet her friends amongst immigrant workers, making sure that her kids cared enough about different people that they would never let anyone be taken away in the name of fear.

Using her trademark stubbornness, sense of humor, sharp wit, and willingness to tell it like it is, Nancy, Pat Haas, and their friends caused enough a ruckus that Mayor Bert Broad created the Mayor’s Committee on Human Rights, where they worked on equalizing opportunity in Yakima.

Nancy made her house a haven with open doors for all of her childrens’ friends, some of whom are still family today. She encouraged everyone to be the best person they could be.

The protection of human rights was important in Nancy’s life. She demonstrated against the Vietnam and both Iraq wars. She and Bill were active members of the Washington State Rainbow Coalition. Nancy wrote articles for progressive magazines, taking up the causes of Indian rights, the rights of rape survivors, universal health care, farm workers rights, gay rights, and the rights of those she felt needed love and compassion. Nancy worked on antinuclear issues with Jackrabbit News. She partnered with Dick Lord to produce and present local radio and television commentaries. Nancy belonged to the League of Women Voters, and with Bill belonged to the NAACP and the ACLU, where she would take on leadership roles when asked.

Nancy was not all about business. While she taught her children love and responsibility, she also had fun. Nancy taught her family to sing, to laugh and joke when faced with difficult times, and to swing dance in the kitchen. Sometimes she started food fights at the dinner table, not worrying about getting mashed potatoes on the walls.

After the children were out of the house, Nancy didn’t slow down. She kept all her political activities, and she gardened, read more, worked on her novel, joined a writing group, and went to writing workshops. She and Bill traveled to Mexico, most especially Santiago, Manzanillo, where they could enjoy swimming in the ocean and participating in Mexican village life, free of tourists. Even though Nancy never got her Spanish quite where she wanted it, she had no trouble communicating and making friends. At home, she loved to walk or bike down Barge, although she always had to stop and chat with someone.

Nancy is survived by her husband of 60 years, Bill Faller, her children Gini, Liz, Janet, and Will Faller; her daughter-in-law Diane Faller; her grandchildren, Jessica Holman, Robert Gonzalez, Will and Joseph Faller; two great-grandchildren, several nieces and nephews and their children, and many friends. She was preceded in death by her parents, Tom Tobin, Carrie Farmer Tobin Putney, and Ellsworth Putney; her son Matt Faller, and her sister Virginia Putney Neil.

Nancy will be buried in a small family service in Milltown, Washington. A memorial celebration of her life will be held at the Yakima Valley Museum on Saturday, August 14 at 3pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Yakima Valley Human Rights Scholarship Fund or Yakima Food Bank in care of Keith & Keith Funeral Home, or to the charity of your choice.

Wanangwa and Kate, two Zomba friends of mine, got married. It almost didn’t happen because their ankhoswe* was late and the law books say you can only get married between certain hours, and the only reason the guy marrying them took pity was that Kate’s mum was returning to Scotland the next day.

Anyway, so they got married (yay!) and invited me to the reception. I asked if I could bring anything or get anything and since I am Zomba-ly famous-ish for my baking, Kate asked if I could bake a cake. Turned out I couldn’t decide what to make, so I baked a chocolate chocolate chocolate cake and a vanilla lavender cake with lemon frosting. I might not have volunteered though, if I had known baking the cakes included having (miniscule) duties at the reception—which lead Wanangwa to call me, worried that I not be (too) late.

But I arrived, and although I had been worried about how many people I would know, I knew a fair number of people. I talked to Moira about my knitting for the other Moira; Susannah and I talked about Erin; Emma and I discussed Dignitas and whether Acela would kill me for taking pictures of her during perikani perikani; I told Fatima her veggie samoosas were the best I’d ever had in my life . . . .

And then I got to hold the cake while Kate and Wanangwa did the slicing and fed each other small bites (thank goodness the smooshing cake on the face thing is not a Malawian custom). Next I got to slice two 9” cakes into enough pieces for 40-60 people. I should’ve anticipated since there were two types of cake people would take one slice of each and cut a circle out of the middle to double the slices. But I didn’t.

There were nice little conversation spaces made out of circles of chairs, but many of the amayi had pilfered the chairs because they preferred to sit in lines, segregated by gender, in the traditionally Malawian way. Kate and Wanangwa tried to be respectful to both of their traditions, so, for instance, they had perikani perikani, but for a much shorter time than normal. And they didn’t have thrones.

Perikani perikani is when guests dance up to the (usually enthroned) bride and groom and place small bills (usually K20 or K50) in a basket. Often the MC announces what everyone gives the couple, but I assume the couple in question nixed that particular idea. Acela and another woman took it upon themselves to change out the smaller bills for bigger ones so someone who (like me) forgot and only had K500 bills could change them out to keep the fun going. People get pretty silly with the dancing individually and in groups, and giving the money dramatically enough they could be in a Nigerian movie, so it’s loads of fun to watch.

*ankhoswe, besides being one of my favourite words in Chichewa (right up there with akhaidi, which means prisoner), is sort of a combined best man/maid of honor/witness thing. The difference is that if the marriage fails, the husband and wife need to get their ankhoswe to agree to let them divorce, and then the ankhoswe will help with all the other steps. More or less.

Due to the weather, all my peoples who were going to help me move couldn’t this week. I’m leaving for Costa Rica on Saturday, but I’d really like to get out of here early this week. Renu is coming over on Tuesday afternoon, and I was wondering if anybody else could come and help me move Monday or Tuesday. I’ve almost got everything packed now, so I should be entirely done by then, and any help loading everything up *and* getting things packed properly in my pod would be lovely (It’s like Tetris–you know you want to do it.)

If you can see this post, you are invited. Yes, you. No, seriously.

Anybody got any cool plans that can/already would include me if it wasn’t so damn early and why am I trying to plan a month and a half in advance, anyway?

It took me over an hour and a half to get there thanks to the rain (although I-5 seemed to clear up immediately after the 405 exit I got off on and 405 appeared to clear up immediately after the 167 exit I got off on. 167 actually cleared up one whole exit before I got off of it. It must love me.) Luckily, from pearl’s to the Tacoma Dome was relatively pain free.

Thanks to eBay, I got awesome tickets for about the same as the “cheapy” tickets would’ve been. We were up close enough to see everything but far enough away that we didn’t have to crane our heads up. Both Pearl and I noted that Natalie Maines didn’t seem to be into the concert in the beginning–not until they did a song which they wrote after the filmmaker of “Shut Up and Sing” previewed the movie for them (Mirella wanted to know if they were going to take me to that movie, which I hope they do and also I love that she thought of me). The chorus had the words “You can’t keep me down” and Natalie began rocking out to it. I have a couple of theories about this: One is that the quieter, more reflective songs about “the Incident” were in the beginning of the set and if I were Natalie, I’d dread going there every fucking day. The other is that until she sings the first kick ass, I’m glad about “the Incident” song, she doesn’t know if anyone is in the audience with the sole purpose to make her life miserable. But since we practically brought the house down (the bleacher-y things felt less than stable and we were singing along and screaming and stomping and yelling and we could feel the vibrations up through our legs) I think she felt safer. Alhough pearl had a good point in that Natalie didn’t say anything about the election until after 11, probably to make sure they wouldn’t end up on the news. How *hard* it must be to live life like that.

One funny, non political moment was when Natalie dedicated a song to K-Fed because “No one is dedicating any songs to him in his time of need.” The song: White Trash Wedding.

After the concert, pearl and I drove up to the Vogue and made it in time to have an hour of dancing. I thought I should feel out of place since I was in jeans for the Chicks concert. But I guess I’m goth enough to pull off pink flowers and jeans (hee.) The DJ was awesome, although i don’t know who he was. For the first time in a long time, music was played that I didn’t know and I liked–and even the songs I didn’t want to dance to were danceable. I had forgotten how much I love VNV Nation. I went to look for some of their music on my computer and then was reminded that I lost it in the Great Laptop Theft of whenever that was. So, I’ll have to go get more.

We drove back to pearl’s and I spent the night. pearl had given me a 20% coupon which I used to buy Absolute Sandman (which is cheaper on Amazon, but this way I don’t have to wait for it). I’m kind of afraid to breathe on it though–it’s SO pretty. I got the 5th book of the collected Ultimate X-Men and Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things. I also bought the new(ish) George R.R. Martin. I had been holding out for the paperback to come out and was about to give up and buy the hardcover, but it just came out in paperback, yay! I also got the new Isabel Allende book–I wasn’t going to, but it jumped into my basket while I wasn’t looking. And I picked up the new Imogen Heap CD and while I was looking to see if they had the Paperboys I found Gaelic Storm. Apparently they were the steerage band in Titanic–which was almost enough to make me not buy the CD, but there’s some good reels and jigs and some fun mash ups of more classic Irish songs. There’s only a couple songs that I think are boring, and that’s pretty good for me and an Irish CD.  So what I’m saying is I bought everything that I’ve been thinking about buying but haven’t in the last year. And some of it is even Christmas presents. Not much, but some.

Currently, I have the Chicks, Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, Gaelic Storm, and Snow Patrol randomized on my playlist. If I had VNV Nation on there, I’d be extra happy, but i’m enjoying the combination at the moment. And I just made Fester’s recipe of Pumpkin Soup from scratch and it’s super nummy.

Now, off to jump through more hoops for the PC. I can’t wait until I’m jumping through hoops in an actual other country instead.

Why, when nothing interests me for months, are there 4 concerts in a week? I know I have to decide between these all because there’s no way I won’t need to sleep for 2 weeks if I try to do them all, but I really can’t decide.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to go the Imogen Heap concert. I think. Unless I’m going to Deck the Hall Ball. Or maybe I can do both as long as I don’t do Devotchka on sunday. Or maybe I can do Devotchka and Imogen Heap if I don’t do Deck the Hall Ball.

The tragedies in my life are astounding.