Stuff Portrait Friday: Dance

This would be Mike holding Maeve, joined by Sophia. Dancing in the kitchen, December 2004. This would be "Irresistible You" by Taj Majal.

I don't know what you got
But it's got me
And I'm hooked
Like a fish in the sea
You make angels call from above
Make the devil fall in love
Tell me who wouldn't fall for irresistible you?

Putting a Face to the Earthquake

Now, I know probably you've seen these. I got the link from Stephen. But it's gripping--a wedding photographer in Sichuan was just doing his job when the earthquake hit. And captured the devastation on a very small personal level.

Leland Wong's journal.

Mrs. Slocombe tags me

I need a meme. I was thinking about posting "greatest hits of SCM" here because I have nothing to say lately. But instead, or first, a quickie with Mrs. Slocombe.

What were you doing 10 years ago? I was getting ready to sign the papers to buy the mortgage to this house. Some day we may own the house. I was finishing up the school year at the snotty west county private school and looking forward to St. Joan of Arc.

What are 5 things on my to do list today? Pick up Maeve and feed her lunch and take her to Atrium. Pick up Maeve and Sophia and bring them home and force them to do chores. Laundry (always). Go to the "feast" at school tonight (aka potluck and preschool play). Shop for weekend groceries.

What are 5 snacks I like? Hmm. If it has carmelized onions + feta cheese, I'm a big fan. I love peston. I love brownies, especially the ones I make. Shamefully I will admit that I love fritos and cream cheese dip. And anything from the berry family.

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire: Fund Sophia's school. Start a foundation for other schools like Sophia's school. I'd probably give a bunch away. Travel. Control others.

Places I've lived: St. Louis, MO; Broken Arrow, OK; Palm Desert, CA; Milwaukee, WI; Columbia, MO; The Colony, TX; Pearland, TX; Macon, GA. Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, it will be in the valley of love and delight (aka, South City).

Tagged: Annie and Elizabeth and Nutsy Fagan. I just don't know enough bloggers who weren't already tagged by Mrs. S (is there a support group?)

The Busy Month of May

Are you busy? I sure am. Which is why this has been rather lackluster lately. I just got to the peak of Mt. Laundry last night, finally, and now I'm focusing on the library (where the computer is and all our way too many books). Reorganization is coming.

Tonight is the last girl scout meeting of the year. Yesterday was the first Sunday in Ordinary Time (=banner completion). Graduations, spring cleaning, yardwork, end of the school year this coming Friday, etc. Yesterday we went for a 12 mile bike ride, very much needed, but now I'm sore on top of busy.

And so I'd better go make myself useful. Brownie meeting is just a few hours away. Ack.

Transitions

Second beautiful weekend day this spring. Everyone came out of the cocoons we've lived in since November. The Meramec River is high, but that's no surprise; traveling to Mitchell's Farm on Friday was exhausting but also like a long cool drink of water to this family.

I have pictures from the farm but they'll have to wait for tomorrow. The camera's downstairs and you know. It's been a busy day. It's after 10 and the girls are just now settled for night. Their cousins were here today and that's a rare treat.

I got to say something amusing by accident today while at lunch with the inlaws (Pete and Steve graduated from SLU today, and Wednesday, but that was pre-commencement). I had been at church in the morning, getting the Pentecost and Easter stuff out and getting things ready for Ordinary Time. But I'd forgotten the ambo banner, and the plants needed more work than I could do before meeting everyone for lunch. So I abandoned the project midway and rushed over to the Hill for lunch. We waited longer than we'd planned (and we had reservations, but it was a party of 20). So I realized I wasn't going to be making it back by 2:15 or 2:30 like I thought. So I called the rectory, thinking I'd leave our pastor a mesasage warning him about the mess I left in church. I knew I would make it there around 3 or so and take care of the rest before 4:30 mass. But I hadn't really made that at all clear in my leaving.

But he answered when I called his extension. And I said, "Fr. John, this is Bridgett. I just wanted to tell you the church is in transition right now."

After I got off the phone, Mike mentioned that Fr. John probably already knew the Church was in transition, had been since the second Vatican Council era began. He probably didn't need the news flash at this given point in time.

Stuff Portrait Friday: Lyrics

Now you're gone girl
And the time's slowed down till dawn
It's a cold room and the walls ask
Where you've gone

Sometimes In Winter
I love you when the good times
Seem like mem'ries int he spring
That never came

Sometimes In Winter
I wish the empty streets
Would fill with laughter from the tears
That ease my pain

-Sometimes in Winter, Blood Sweat & Tears

Revisiting St. Augustine (from September '07)

Flaming heart, pierced by arrows. Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. St. Augustine, revered by all three major branches of Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant), is renowned for his Confessions (thought to be the first Western autobiography) as well as his shady past before he converted and became priest and then bishop. His mother was St. Monica (the patron saint of disappointing children, by the way) and she finally had her prayers answered the way she would have desired, with her oldest son leaving his old life behind and turning to the light.

In reading a bit about Augustine to write this up, I found that one of the phrases attributed to him is "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Something I don't think we as Christians get very right very often. It seems as if we lump them together--if you are sinning, you are a sinner, the two are intertwined. This can run both ways. The sin is often seen as no big thing, since we love the sinner, thus diminishing the sin and making everything comfortably relativist. Your sin is no worse than mine, and of course mine is no big deal because I'm generally a good person, therefore, we're all good people and there are no consequences. On the other hand, the sin can overtake our vision, and we can yet again intertwine personhood with action, making the sinner equivalent to the evil deed. But in fact, we can tread the center line without losing either our moral center or our hearts.

One of the spiritual works of mercy is to admonish the sinner. This is not meant, I think, to stand on the street corner and yell into a megaphone at the passing parade. What does that gain you or them, in the end? Inciting anger cannot be how it is done. Admonishment, in order to work best, must be done gently. Aha--here we are again at the Rule of Benedict. The prioress should always observe the apostle's recommendation in which it is said, "Use argument, appeal, reproof" (2 Tim 4:2). This means that they must vary with circumstances...they should not gloss over the sins of those who err, but cut them out while they can, as soon as they begin to sprout, remembering the fate of Eli, priest of Shiloh. (RB 2). But it should be done together, one on one, if true correction is to come about. Like in the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation. No fingers are pointed, nobody is scorned or banished or told they are, in no uncertain terms, evil sinners. Turn back to the light. Go and sin no more.

Photo Friday: Fire

The Heart of St. Augustine, afire and pierced by arrows. St. Pius V Catholic Church clerestory window, St. Louis, MO.

Pentecost at St. Pius

More here.

Mothers Day Memory

Tonight one of the neighbor kids stayed the night, and tomorrow Sophia will go over there in the morning to play and hang out whilst Mike and I (and Maeve...) go to the Old North St. Louis house tour with Rob & Janet (they are debating about house locations once they're ready to buy, and this is one of the debated places).

Walking into the kitchen after dinner, after girls were playing in the attic, I noticed that we had three open bags of cornmeal in the pantry. This sort of disorder makes me nuts, and so I grabbed the mouse- and bug-proof containers we keep grains and sugars in. I unfolded the top of the first bag. Yup. Moths. The second bag too. The third had actual weevils. Yummy.

This is not how one should keep a kitchen. But I get so busy that I miss these things. So it's the entire pantry unloaded, the walls and shelves washed down, the floor vacuumed and wiped down. Everything put in its spot. The grains are the only things that have succumbed to vermin, which is a positive note, but other weird things get tossed too--why do I have a half-used box of Knox gelatine? I can't recall ever using the first packet of it. And how many vials of red sprinkles do we need, again? The only sugar cookies I make are at my mother's house at Christmas time.

After it was all cleaned out, it struck me that it had been a while since the last batch of any sort of cookie, actually, and since the white flour and all the sugars are kept airtight, no problem. There was even a bag of chocolate chips in the pantry that was sealed and safe from whatever might try to eat dark chocolate (Mike?). So I made chocolate chip cookies and listened to the radio. Mike and the girls watched Star Wars and I scrubbed the rest of the kitchen to the level I can stand it. I didn't wash down the ovens or disinfect the top of the fridge. But it looks and feels much better.

As I was putting hot cookies on the wire rack, I had one of those flashes of childhood. My mother made cookies--usually oatmeal--and let them cool on brown paper bags or newspaper. I remember the greasy paper afterwards where the cookies had sat. And I recall one afternoon with Patti and Matt visiting our house--they lived down the street when I was in 3rd and 4th grade. Patti was my age, Matt was Ian's. My mom had fresh oatmeal cookies (and she was not one of those old school moms in mascara and pearls and fresh flowers on the table with petit fours or nonsense like that--it was orange juice and wheat bread pb&j's at lunch, and dinner, well, there isn't a cookbook of her recipes on the shelf like the tome I received from my mother-in-law. A lot of throwing things together. We survived).

So there were cookies. There was even, gasp, lemonade from a mix. Patti and Matt grabbed up the lemonade and waited for cookies. Ian and I each took our oatmeal cookies and Mom told our guests they could help themselves. They looked at the oatmeal cookies in the tin (that Ian and I were stuffing in our mouths) and then Patti let my mother know that they only liked store bought cookies.

I was in 3rd grade and I had to ask my mom, "What's a store bought cookie?" I thought it was some sort of odd creation like pfeffernusse or snickerdoodle. My mother witheringly replied, "it means their mother doesn't bake."

Store bought. Never had store bought cookies. Well, I'd had vanilla wafers and those little cookies with the hole in the center that looked like flowers. And I already knew I hated oreos. So it wasn't that I was so benighted that I didn't realize cookies could come from a store. I just didn't keep them in the same category. It was like comparing a cheap felt teddy bear won at a carnival to the stuffed bunny my mother had made me when I was 3. Not the same definition.

As I put the cookies on the wire rack and consider this, I wonder if Patti bakes for her kids, wherever she is. Or if she still thinks chips ahoy could possibly be better than this crisp chewy warm creation sitting on my stove top.

Happy Mother's Day.

My kids are what I want for Mothers Day

I'm not a mothers day fan. I think it's another greeting card holiday, like Fathers Day and Valentines Day, and I'm just not a greeting card gal. I hardly do birthdays (kids, but not adults). If it isn't Christmas, Halloween, the Fourth of July, or the summer markers (Memorial, Labor Days), I just don't pay attention.

Mike grew up in a family where they paid attention. so Mothers Day happens around here whether I like it or not.

Today I let my kids play hooky. Maeve was up most of the night (meaning, off and on again) with a chesty cough, sounding a bit on the sick side, and she crawled into my bed when Mike crawled out of it. So at 8, which is the ragged edge of disaster for wakeup time, I went in to wake up Sophia. I told her Maeve wasn't going to school. She could do what she wanted today. She voted for watching Fantasia and eating oranges and granola bars for breakfast while Maeve and I snoozed on the couch.

But I still had stuff i had to do, and my mother was going out to lunch with her brother, Bevin was at work, and so on. So I drove over to City Garden and ran in to get the deposit for the week. I bribed the girls on the way to the bank. They were so good at the bank, I decided to double or nothing: if you are good at Baisch and Skinner, we will go out for lunch.

Baisch and Skinner is where I buy flowers for St. Pius. Sunday is not only Mothers Day, it is also Pentecost. Red. So I started to explain to them about Pentecost.

"Santa Claus?" asked Maeve. "Do you mean Santa Claus?"

"No. PENTecost. It's the feast of the Holy Spirit. You've talked about it in Atrium."

"Santa Claus is part of the Holy Spirit?" she continues.

"No. It is spring. It is not Christmas time. Pentecost. It's a church holiday--it's the church's birthday, actually. It's--"

"Santa's nickname is Penta? Penta Claus?"

"No. It has nothing to do with Santa. It is a church thing. That's all."

"Penta Claus!" she finishes with amused disdain for me.

So we get to Baisch and Skinner. Find some lovely red plants. They are just fine. Not complete saints (for that, they'd have to be in comas). But good enough. They don't touch anything, destroy anything, or throw any tantrums. Sophia's never been there, and you know how girly she is. It's a warehouse full of FLOWERS. So they were good.

"Where do you want to go to lunch?" I ask them. As a mom, I'm bracing for McDonald's or some such nonsense. In which case I'll either have to give them some sort of alternative or give in and compromise my standards. I lose either way.

"Blues City Deli!" Maeve yells. We're outside B&S by this time. Sophia chimes in: "Yeah! Yeah! Blues City Deli!"

They get their little kids po'boys. I have my pastrami and rye with yellow mustard. We split a chips and I get to indulge in a soda with no high fructose corn syrup.

They wiggled to the music while we sat at the little deli tables. They didn't fight.

And now they're playing in the mud in the backyard. They're the best.

I Wish I Had Something To Say

I really wish there was more to say. It rains. The plants grow. The daughters play. I hunch over the sewing machine working on Ordinary Time: Tree of Life.

I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

I watch Firefly DVDs and Law & Order. I think about drinking less coffee. I regret answering the phone.

I knit. Some. Mike comes home and thankfully makes dinner lately. I am worn out. May is as tiring as December the past few years. I listen to Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett and Paul Simon and Robert Earl Keen and Amy Winehouse (four of these things belong together/four of these things are kind of the same...).

The dumpsters fill. I suspect the developers behind us. I debate whether I care right this second. I decide I just can't right now.

I find bath soap that won't irritate my princess and the pea daughters' skin. I try to embrace the curl. I listen to Hem and try not to be overcome with self-indulgent melancholy.

Think about every town you've lived in
Every room you've laid your head
And what is it you remember?
Do you carry every sadness with you?
Every hour your heart was broken?
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you?

I think about driving to the smoky mountains this fall. I try to write in past tense and cannot. I keep slipping into present tense like that Joni Mitchell song. It's a Chelsea Morning. Except it's a late night St. Louis evening and the air outside tastes like a beer.

Photo Friday: Professional

I love people who can do things I can't do.

Here is Juggling Jeff, a professional juggler, last summer at Shakespeare in the Park. The whole play had the theme of western this past year, so instead of his usual poofy pants and pretend Elizabethan getup, here he is in levis and a black hat. Bandanna.

Bevin and I sat on our little blanket on the hill and watched him juggle. He looks nice in those jeans, she commented. I had to agree, watching him walk around.