Driving home yesterday, I came to the intersection of Rock Hill and Gravois (which is where Rock Hill becomes Tesson Ferry). We’d been to South County’s LLL meeting, where I filled in for Elizabeth. It was invigorating—the women who attend are engaging and knowledgeable. Fun. And then we opened a savings account out at the credit union for Sophia to deposit her birthday money into. She now has more money than one of my neighbors, I hear. So we were headed back home and there at the intersection is Seven Holy Founders Parish.
Seven Holy Founders. Until I checked their website just now, I had no idea who those seven people might be, if they were even people. So many parishes have strange names. Protestant churches, when they are named for people at all, tend to focus on the apostles, evangelists, and John the Baptist. Catholics, of course, have hundreds of saints to choose from, and also all the references to Mary, Jesus, and the Holy Family—like Holy Infant, Mary Queen of the Universe, Precious Blood, Mary Mother of the Church, Queen of Peace, Star of the Sea (yes, I have been to churches with all those names), and so on. There are also parishes that pick names like North American Martyrs and Holy Cross. But Seven Holy Founders was hard for me to decipher. Seems that the seven were merchants in Italy who got together and started their own Augustinian order, called the Servites. Hmm.
But what struck me was their marquee. Some church marquees are very simple, like ours, actually, listing Mass times and the general idea that you might be welcome there. Others, like Maeve’s godmother’s church, an ELCA congregation on Hampton, is big into puns. Like,” Church is a gift from God, assembly required.” Or the Baptist signs I’ve seen, “If you think it’s hot NOW…” Some list upcoming events: church picnics, rummage sales, bingo (especially Catholic in that case), and the annual Vacation Bible School.
Seven Holy Founders, though, reads: “We’re the best parish in St. Louis. Come see why.”
The best parish in St. Louis? According to what standard? Population? Per capita Catholics in the area? Money? School enrollment? How about number of baptisms in the past year? How popular the carnival was? How great a preacher the priest might be? The ratio of involved parishioners to total number of members? Outreach to the poor? I’m stumped.
Considering that most people in St. Louis are mobile, and also considering that Catholics are catholic—meaning universal, each church and Mass being essentially the same as any other, with the same readings on a given week, the same order of Mass, the same basic songbook, etc—if they were truly the best parish in St. Louis, wouldn’t the other ones have to shutter their doors and give it up? I mean, it would take me 15 minutes probably to get to Seven Holy Founders. Not so bad—my Protestant neighbors travel to Webster every Sunday. So why is it that I attend an obviously sub-par parish instead of the best in St. Louis? Why hasn’t my aunt out in Des Peres called to tell me, “oh Bridgett, you’ve just got to come to Seven Holy Founders with me this weekend!” How come all the signs in front yards here in south city advertise for local parishes, pathetic as they must be? Perhaps we just don’t know any better. Perhaps we need to get out more, find out what we’re missing.
The truth shall set you free, after all. Maybe it is the best parish. Just think--the parishioners would all know each other by name. There would be 2 or 3 priests, a full-time secretary, a school in no danger of closing with a first-rate curriculum and staff. The priests would be engaging and interested in their parishioners. Family nights and kids nights and dances. Volunteers would run a soup kitchen and a used clothing thrift shop. They’d adopt families every Christmas and help keep a north city parish up and running. They’d be good neighbors, run excellent retreats, and their fish fries and corned beef dinners would bring people in from far and wide. Of course, they would have just raised a zillion dollars in-house to build a new rec-center/gymnasium/theater/sacristy.
Or perhaps someone needs to tell the secretary at Seven Holy Founders that it isn’t, well, umm, very humble, perhaps, to brag about how much better your parish is than all the others.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Companions at the Carnival
I love etymology. One of my favorite English words, based on its etymology, is escape. It’s from the Old French word eschaper, which in turn is from the vulgar Latin excappare, which means to get out of one’s cape, to leave a pursuer with just your cape. You can imagine the cloak and dagger story. This weekend, I ran into two new examples, companion and carnival.
First, companion. I found this in Father Dominic’s little book about baking bread and how it’s related to spirituality. He’s a Benedictine from Peru, Illinois, at the St. Bede Monastary there. You might recognize him if you’re a fan of public television—he did several seasons of “Breaking Bread with Father Dominic.” Now, I like bread. I cheat, though—I have a breadmaker, and I know purists out there would snub me. On the other hand, I make wild yeast bread—I have a sourdough batter I keep in my kitchen in a plastic container. Smells like beer. Makes wonderful bread, but it takes two days from “hey I should make some bread!” to actually chomping down on a hot buttered slice. So I feel like I straddle the distance between the purists and the busy. I like my breadmaker. I have never been patient enough to knead dough enough to really make it rise successfully.
Enough justification. In this little book, he mentioned that companion comes from the Latin, meaning “with bread.” To share bread, to be two people who eat bread together. It makes Companion Bakery here in town make more sense, but it also makes me think about the importance of bread at family dinners, at teas, on car trips (the Carey Landry song “Companions on the Journey” comes to mind), in care baskets, at Mass. I am not going to do this anywhere near the justice that Fr. Dominic does. Pick it up sometime—it’s at the Carpenter library here in town. His explanation of the parable of the leavened bread is fascinating. St. Anthony Messenger Press interviewed Dominic here.
And carnival. We talked about this at our “cook all your meat so it doesn’t go bad” barbecue on Saturday at Mary & Brent’s house. We had electricity by then but several participants did not. Excellent pork loin and shoulder—Brent has a smoker. Yum. Mike and I brought banana peppers stuffed with cream cheese and salsa, wrapped in bacon, also on the smoker (thanks to Ian for the recipe). Just great food—it was the best stuff we’d eaten all week. 
And Brent mentioned that it was a carnivale, literally. And it was—carnival comes from middle Latin carne vale, or “farewell to flesh”. It passes through Pisa, carnelevare, meaning “to raise the flesh” and later, into Italian, where it became the term for Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday. Bye-bye meat, hello Lent. And that’s what we were doing, in essence—all this meat had to go somewhere, it was better to cook it up and feast than toss it in the dumpster.
Meat and bread. Companions at the carnival. I wonder if there’s a term for “sharing cheese” or “raising up the salad.”
First, companion. I found this in Father Dominic’s little book about baking bread and how it’s related to spirituality. He’s a Benedictine from Peru, Illinois, at the St. Bede Monastary there. You might recognize him if you’re a fan of public television—he did several seasons of “Breaking Bread with Father Dominic.” Now, I like bread. I cheat, though—I have a breadmaker, and I know purists out there would snub me. On the other hand, I make wild yeast bread—I have a sourdough batter I keep in my kitchen in a plastic container. Smells like beer. Makes wonderful bread, but it takes two days from “hey I should make some bread!” to actually chomping down on a hot buttered slice. So I feel like I straddle the distance between the purists and the busy. I like my breadmaker. I have never been patient enough to knead dough enough to really make it rise successfully.
Enough justification. In this little book, he mentioned that companion comes from the Latin, meaning “with bread.” To share bread, to be two people who eat bread together. It makes Companion Bakery here in town make more sense, but it also makes me think about the importance of bread at family dinners, at teas, on car trips (the Carey Landry song “Companions on the Journey” comes to mind), in care baskets, at Mass. I am not going to do this anywhere near the justice that Fr. Dominic does. Pick it up sometime—it’s at the Carpenter library here in town. His explanation of the parable of the leavened bread is fascinating. St. Anthony Messenger Press interviewed Dominic here.
And carnival. We talked about this at our “cook all your meat so it doesn’t go bad” barbecue on Saturday at Mary & Brent’s house. We had electricity by then but several participants did not. Excellent pork loin and shoulder—Brent has a smoker. Yum. Mike and I brought banana peppers stuffed with cream cheese and salsa, wrapped in bacon, also on the smoker (thanks to Ian for the recipe). Just great food—it was the best stuff we’d eaten all week. 
And Brent mentioned that it was a carnivale, literally. And it was—carnival comes from middle Latin carne vale, or “farewell to flesh”. It passes through Pisa, carnelevare, meaning “to raise the flesh” and later, into Italian, where it became the term for Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday. Bye-bye meat, hello Lent. And that’s what we were doing, in essence—all this meat had to go somewhere, it was better to cook it up and feast than toss it in the dumpster.
Meat and bread. Companions at the carnival. I wonder if there’s a term for “sharing cheese” or “raising up the salad.”
Monday, July 24, 2006
Hope, like Civil Society, is Three Days Deep
I’m not very heat-tolerant. I’m like one of those little Christmas trees in a pot from the Carolinas—can’t get too cold, can’t get too hot, or else it will not make it. I don’t think I was heat-tolerant when I lived in Houston, either, the Land of Air Conditioning. Marguerite Hall, where I dormed in college at SLU, had no A/C back then, and it took me awhile. Of course, in St. Louis, the big heat breaks the first week after Labor Day, pretty much without fail. So it wasn’t so long.
The first night of the power outage, I did ok. I was foolish and stayed up late reading a book by Fr. Dominic, the Benedictine priest who had the show on public television about bread. Yum. The second night, I gave in and stayed at Mary’s house. The third night, we were ready to go back to Mary’s, when the power came back on for us. The weather also broke that day and we probably would have been fine.
I had Mike go and stay at my parents’ house Friday and Saturday nights—they were without power still, and we were reaching the end of civil society, which I mark as 3 days. The first day is an adventure, the second is busy adjusting and getting tasks done, the third starts to make you lose sense of day and time. By the fourth, you’re in a different place.
I read—don’t ask me where—about this spiritual & nature guide who would take stockbrokers and lawyers and other stereotypical tied-to-urban-life sorts out into the wilderness for 1 and 2 week excursions. The first 3 mornings after sleeping outside without much more than a bedroll, they would talk about what they’d dreamed of the night before—phones ringing, the bus, making coffee, the office. Then the 4th morning, they would consistently report dreams about owls, wolves, walking under the pine trees, campfires. This guide theorized that our modern society is only 3 days deep in our psyches. I read this about a year ago and thought, oh, that’s interesting, and thought nothing else about it.
Then I was at my in-laws last August, watching CNN coverage of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina arrived. At first, it had that voyeuristic thrill, like driving past a car wreck and looking-but not looking-but glancing. But then it just made me sick. It was about the third day after the levees broke that the reporters lost any sense of detachment; riots for water in the street broke out; the superdome imploded. I remember staring at the TV, and Mike, sitting next to me, said, “remember what you said? Society is only 3 days deep.”
On Thursday night, “celebrating” Trisha’s birthday, I mentioned this theory to our neighbors, amidst other concerns about looters and hooligans. Brent stared at me unblinking and said, “Well, that’s because 3 days is about how long hope lasts.”
That’s been percolating in my brain a few days. As it turns out, our looters here in St. Louis are lazy or heat-intolerant. Nobody bothered us, although a couple of sketchy characters walked by, and my friend Ann got asked more than her fair share of nosy questions about her electric service by other sketchy people. The quiet darkness was unnerving, and I know a couple of instances of break-ins nearby. But overall, probably because we could still go to the bank and grocery store and work and the movies, we did just fine. Hope didn’t have to hold out for us because we really didn’t need to rely on it so much.
But hope lasts three days, Brent said. It made me consider something. Three days of waiting, seeing if what is promised is going to happen. Three days of sitting, holed up in the darkness, more than a little afraid. You’re not even talking anymore because there’s nothing left to say. Three days alone with your thoughts, and then early one morning, the women come in, breathless, telling you a tale you cannot believe. A few of you walk to see, but Peter, his hope is still there, what if it’s true? What if this is what he meant? And he runs.
The first night of the power outage, I did ok. I was foolish and stayed up late reading a book by Fr. Dominic, the Benedictine priest who had the show on public television about bread. Yum. The second night, I gave in and stayed at Mary’s house. The third night, we were ready to go back to Mary’s, when the power came back on for us. The weather also broke that day and we probably would have been fine.
I had Mike go and stay at my parents’ house Friday and Saturday nights—they were without power still, and we were reaching the end of civil society, which I mark as 3 days. The first day is an adventure, the second is busy adjusting and getting tasks done, the third starts to make you lose sense of day and time. By the fourth, you’re in a different place.
I read—don’t ask me where—about this spiritual & nature guide who would take stockbrokers and lawyers and other stereotypical tied-to-urban-life sorts out into the wilderness for 1 and 2 week excursions. The first 3 mornings after sleeping outside without much more than a bedroll, they would talk about what they’d dreamed of the night before—phones ringing, the bus, making coffee, the office. Then the 4th morning, they would consistently report dreams about owls, wolves, walking under the pine trees, campfires. This guide theorized that our modern society is only 3 days deep in our psyches. I read this about a year ago and thought, oh, that’s interesting, and thought nothing else about it.
Then I was at my in-laws last August, watching CNN coverage of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina arrived. At first, it had that voyeuristic thrill, like driving past a car wreck and looking-but not looking-but glancing. But then it just made me sick. It was about the third day after the levees broke that the reporters lost any sense of detachment; riots for water in the street broke out; the superdome imploded. I remember staring at the TV, and Mike, sitting next to me, said, “remember what you said? Society is only 3 days deep.”
On Thursday night, “celebrating” Trisha’s birthday, I mentioned this theory to our neighbors, amidst other concerns about looters and hooligans. Brent stared at me unblinking and said, “Well, that’s because 3 days is about how long hope lasts.”
That’s been percolating in my brain a few days. As it turns out, our looters here in St. Louis are lazy or heat-intolerant. Nobody bothered us, although a couple of sketchy characters walked by, and my friend Ann got asked more than her fair share of nosy questions about her electric service by other sketchy people. The quiet darkness was unnerving, and I know a couple of instances of break-ins nearby. But overall, probably because we could still go to the bank and grocery store and work and the movies, we did just fine. Hope didn’t have to hold out for us because we really didn’t need to rely on it so much.
But hope lasts three days, Brent said. It made me consider something. Three days of waiting, seeing if what is promised is going to happen. Three days of sitting, holed up in the darkness, more than a little afraid. You’re not even talking anymore because there’s nothing left to say. Three days alone with your thoughts, and then early one morning, the women come in, breathless, telling you a tale you cannot believe. A few of you walk to see, but Peter, his hope is still there, what if it’s true? What if this is what he meant? And he runs.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Thanatos Can Bite Me
Walker Percy writes about it extensively. His dense book of essays, The Message in the Bottle, asks it directly: at this safe place at the end of the 20th century (it’s an older book), when Man is safer than he’s been, perhaps ever, sitting in his living room looking out his picture window, why is he so unhappy? And why is that same Man, caught in a hurricane in Florida one summer night, gloriously happy in the face of such danger?
Why indeed.
Last year when Hurricane Rita was aiming straight for his house, my brother Ian called me to report all he’d seen—thefts of groceries out of the Wal*Mart parking lot, gas gouging, intense traffic jams. And he was thrilled. He was riding that adrenaline wave all the way back to his house where he boarded up some windows and got ready with his fajita meat and margaritas. The fact that Rita turned and missed him was wonderful news to his relatives up here in St. Louis; but I think he was looking forward to the challenge.
Nothing like that is happening here. Yes, in the moment of the thunderstorm, listening to NOAA weather radio, wondering if the next warning will be for a tornado in St. Louis City, there’s a bit of thrill, a rush. Gathering up the lanterns and safer candles, thinking about what needs to be done now that it’s dark—that first night, it was interesting. Plus, there were chances to make positive changes: Paul & Kristen’s babysitter’s car had a branch go through its back window, so we all rushed around to find tape and plastic to protect it from further rain damage. There were branches in the street that all needed to be dragged away from the main part of the road. We touched base with each other—do you need anything?
Trisha and Eric, getting their kitchen added onto, had water running down their walls. Standing on their porch watching Brent carry Gabby over to his house was one of those Walker Percy moments—we were doing tangible things that needed to be done. The answer to “do you need anything?” was YES, and we could do something. We all headed back to our dark houses and slept in the still air. Moist is a good description.
In the morning, the lights were still out. The radio reports were scary—a half a million people without power. Staggering numbers. National news covered it. We were part of something bigger—and that is interesting sometimes, too. I had so many things to juggle in my head: the funeral, the chipped tooth, dance class, what the heck we were going to do about the refrigerated food, how we were going to make it through the hottest day of the year. It kept me very busy. And it all got done.
That night, we sat out in the front yard for Trisha’s birthday.
It was hot. We were all sweating and staring at each other. I didn’t think I could do another night in our house—it was 86 degrees in my dining room, an unhappy reminder that my downstairs windows don’t open and the upstairs windows were not getting much breeze.
Mary called—do you want to come stay? The answer quickly was yes. I packed in the dark faster than I thought possible, with sweat streaming down my face and back. It was so gross. I couldn't believe how much we took, too--but we wanted to make as small an impact on Mary & Heidi's resources.
Our own sheets, pillows, blankets, towels. Walking into Mary's house, by the way, was like jumping into a swimming pool. And they gave us Heidi's room for the night, which was almost too much to ask for. If they'd said, "well, you can stay, but the cats get to sleep on your heads and we play reveille at 5:30" I would have said, "Yeah, that's great, thanks!"
We were back the next morning though, because laundry needed to be gathered, I needed to clean up in the kitchen and fridge; I needed to feel useful. The power fluctuated off and on—it even came on for 2 minutes that afternoon, and Jerry came out on his porch to do a happy little dance.
Trisha came home and announced: “I’m done.” She packed up to go to her mom’s.
We started to worry about looting—it was nearing the end of civil society (3 days). (More on that in the next entry). We passed out whistles and started to make a plan for the upcoming darkness. Mike and I left to take Mary and Heidi to dinner for being so nice to let us stay Thursday (and probably Friday at that point). While we were out, we got the call: the power is back on.
Sometimes, in an emergency situation when people come together to help, there’s this feeling of let down when it’s over. When your friend is released from the ER with the cast on his leg. When the firefighters leave the minor kitchen fire. When the sandbags are all full and the river starts to recede. Not that you want your friend to still be in pain, or your house to burn, or the neighborhood to flood, but there’s a camaraderie that ends when that sort of situation is allayed.
I did not have that feeling when I heard from the neighbors that our electricity was back on. I was relieved and thankful. I didn’t want to go on in the darkness, for the camaraderie or the bragging rights. I just wanted to sleep in my own bed with a fan blowing on me. I wanted to make an omelet the next morning on my electric stove. I wanted to run the dishwasher and the washing machine and the lawn mower.
Plus, all those comrades were already there--neighbors and friends alike.
I think I know my limit for hardship. Actually, I don’t, since I never really lost it and started freaking out. But my tolerance for hardship is, as tested as it gets right now, 3 days. Just like society’s. The first day is thrilling, the second is busy, the third just looms. I didn’t get a fourth, except vicariously through my south-side neighbors who are still in the dark, and my parents’ house, where Mike is sleeping tonight to keep potential looters at bay. Paranoid? Probably. But I wanted to be sure.
Ameren, it’s time to turn the lights on. Right now. Here in South City. Across the street, they’re on Hour 77.
Why indeed.
Last year when Hurricane Rita was aiming straight for his house, my brother Ian called me to report all he’d seen—thefts of groceries out of the Wal*Mart parking lot, gas gouging, intense traffic jams. And he was thrilled. He was riding that adrenaline wave all the way back to his house where he boarded up some windows and got ready with his fajita meat and margaritas. The fact that Rita turned and missed him was wonderful news to his relatives up here in St. Louis; but I think he was looking forward to the challenge.
Nothing like that is happening here. Yes, in the moment of the thunderstorm, listening to NOAA weather radio, wondering if the next warning will be for a tornado in St. Louis City, there’s a bit of thrill, a rush. Gathering up the lanterns and safer candles, thinking about what needs to be done now that it’s dark—that first night, it was interesting. Plus, there were chances to make positive changes: Paul & Kristen’s babysitter’s car had a branch go through its back window, so we all rushed around to find tape and plastic to protect it from further rain damage. There were branches in the street that all needed to be dragged away from the main part of the road. We touched base with each other—do you need anything?
Trisha and Eric, getting their kitchen added onto, had water running down their walls. Standing on their porch watching Brent carry Gabby over to his house was one of those Walker Percy moments—we were doing tangible things that needed to be done. The answer to “do you need anything?” was YES, and we could do something. We all headed back to our dark houses and slept in the still air. Moist is a good description.
In the morning, the lights were still out. The radio reports were scary—a half a million people without power. Staggering numbers. National news covered it. We were part of something bigger—and that is interesting sometimes, too. I had so many things to juggle in my head: the funeral, the chipped tooth, dance class, what the heck we were going to do about the refrigerated food, how we were going to make it through the hottest day of the year. It kept me very busy. And it all got done.
That night, we sat out in the front yard for Trisha’s birthday.
It was hot. We were all sweating and staring at each other. I didn’t think I could do another night in our house—it was 86 degrees in my dining room, an unhappy reminder that my downstairs windows don’t open and the upstairs windows were not getting much breeze. Mary called—do you want to come stay? The answer quickly was yes. I packed in the dark faster than I thought possible, with sweat streaming down my face and back. It was so gross. I couldn't believe how much we took, too--but we wanted to make as small an impact on Mary & Heidi's resources.
Our own sheets, pillows, blankets, towels. Walking into Mary's house, by the way, was like jumping into a swimming pool. And they gave us Heidi's room for the night, which was almost too much to ask for. If they'd said, "well, you can stay, but the cats get to sleep on your heads and we play reveille at 5:30" I would have said, "Yeah, that's great, thanks!"We were back the next morning though, because laundry needed to be gathered, I needed to clean up in the kitchen and fridge; I needed to feel useful. The power fluctuated off and on—it even came on for 2 minutes that afternoon, and Jerry came out on his porch to do a happy little dance.
Trisha came home and announced: “I’m done.” She packed up to go to her mom’s.We started to worry about looting—it was nearing the end of civil society (3 days). (More on that in the next entry). We passed out whistles and started to make a plan for the upcoming darkness. Mike and I left to take Mary and Heidi to dinner for being so nice to let us stay Thursday (and probably Friday at that point). While we were out, we got the call: the power is back on.
Sometimes, in an emergency situation when people come together to help, there’s this feeling of let down when it’s over. When your friend is released from the ER with the cast on his leg. When the firefighters leave the minor kitchen fire. When the sandbags are all full and the river starts to recede. Not that you want your friend to still be in pain, or your house to burn, or the neighborhood to flood, but there’s a camaraderie that ends when that sort of situation is allayed.
I did not have that feeling when I heard from the neighbors that our electricity was back on. I was relieved and thankful. I didn’t want to go on in the darkness, for the camaraderie or the bragging rights. I just wanted to sleep in my own bed with a fan blowing on me. I wanted to make an omelet the next morning on my electric stove. I wanted to run the dishwasher and the washing machine and the lawn mower.
Plus, all those comrades were already there--neighbors and friends alike.
I think I know my limit for hardship. Actually, I don’t, since I never really lost it and started freaking out. But my tolerance for hardship is, as tested as it gets right now, 3 days. Just like society’s. The first day is thrilling, the second is busy, the third just looms. I didn’t get a fourth, except vicariously through my south-side neighbors who are still in the dark, and my parents’ house, where Mike is sleeping tonight to keep potential looters at bay. Paranoid? Probably. But I wanted to be sure.
Ameren, it’s time to turn the lights on. Right now. Here in South City. Across the street, they’re on Hour 77.
Friday, July 21, 2006
So I was Wrong
Yesterday morning was spent with me at a funeral and Mike and the girls at dance class, and then I had to go to the dentist. None of these things had anything to do with the power outage. I had broken my tooth right before the storm, in fact, chewing on a gummy fruit slice (you know, the little rainbow colored candies in shapes of orange slices). I guess technically that didn't break my tooth, but the chunk came out with the fruit slice. This would be the third molar that has lost a cusp since Maeve was born. My teeth are terrible and only getting worse.
In fact, that was the message I left at my mom and dad's house right before we lost power: "Hi, I just broke a tooth, was wondering if maybe you could watch the girls Friday morning while I got it fixed. Somehow, genetically, this is your fault, so you should step up to the plate." I hung up the phone and that's all she wrote.
The funeral was my Aunt Maria's, on my dad's side of the family. She's actually my grandmother's sister, but there's 16 years between them--she was 7 or so when my father's oldest sister was born. She was in her mid-sixties. Since she was diagnosed with, as the priest put it, an "ailment" when she was 5, she has slowly become debilitated. There are pictures of her reading me a story when I was probably 4 or 5, and she's sitting on the couch holding the book (she would have probably been 38 or so then). But by the time we visited St. Louis when I was 12 or so, she couldn't do anything with her hands and was completely wheelchair-bound. My grandmother always said she had MS, but then I've heard, I think from my dad, that it was Friedrich's Ataxia, which I believe is closely related. Whatever it was, it affected her nervous system but not her mind.
I didn't know Maria well, only seeing her on occasional holidays, although I had my 6th graders adopt her and write her letters at the nursing home when I taught at St. Pius. They liked this because she always wrote back. On Monday when I found out she had died, I wasn't particularly sad, because we'd seen this coming for months. She couldn't breathe very well, and swallowing was particularly challenging. I just kept thinking what I've been thinking for a decade--if only she'd been born in the 60s or 70s, what more could medical science and assistive technology have done for her? What a waste, I always thought, if only...
That is assumption number one.
The funeral should have been at All Souls, but it was at Ortmann's Funeral Home, since the church had no power and therefore, with its byzantine structure, would have been incredibly dark. This was sad, in some ways, because All Souls was very important to Maria, but in other ways, it was so intimate in that small room. We all could see each other and didn't get swallowed up in the cavernous nave of All Souls.
In walks the priest. He's Indian and looks a little nervous. This, I thought to myself, is a shame. Why couldn't we bring back a priest who would have remembered Maria from when she attended All Souls regularly? This is practically a Rent-A-Priest. We sang the opening song, he introduced himself and started Mass, and I was ready to be a bit disappointed by his homily, and at the very least, sad for my grandmother and her sister Jackie for having a priest with no clue.
That was assumption number two.
My dad read the first reading, from Isaiah 25. The Lord shall set a feast for all peoples, he will wipe away the tears from all faces. Patrick (my godfather) read the second reading, from Second Peter. The gospel was the beatitudes. All very nice. Then the priest, who goes by Fr. Roger, began his homily. He's known Maria for 2 1/2 years. He's the chaplain at the nursing home. He was plain-spoken, didn't mince words, didn't make her life more or less than it was. He didn't talk down to us. He mentioned that he already prays to her for intercession. He said he's been planning this homily for over a month. That he didn't want to miss commemorating Maria's life. That she was faithful and important to him. That we were at the funeral of a hero.
I was sitting there with my mouth open by the time he was done.
After communion, we had three eulogies--the first by my cousin Joey (the one who was on Oprah a couple months ago) that was well-written, contained beautiful imagery about faith, and mentioned many times how, even though she got discouraged or frustrated, Maria never got bitter or angry. She shared her life with her family and friends without expecting anything in return. Paula (my dad's oldest sister) gave the second, which remembered Maria from before she was really weak and debilitated--when she did her homework at the kitchen table, taught her nieces to put on lipstick, taught them all to play Authors and Crazy Eights.
Then my cousin Amanda, Paula's daughter (not the one who got married in her living room) got up, and you could tell she was upset. She has a beautiful singing voice, and she had a hymnal in her hand. The little funeral home organ began playing Amazing Grace. Amanda started, but made it about 4 words in, and broke down crying. People around me--my parents, uncles and aunts, cousins--picked up where she left off.
Something about relatives singing is sweet and powerful. My dad's family is full of musically-inclined people who know how to sing, or at least how to blend in with those around them. My voice is enough like Amanda's is enough like Paula's is enough like Christine's, that it was a beautiful tribute to Maria.
My mom and I left after the funeral was over, before the jello salad, cold cuts, and funeral corn was served in the front hall of Ortmann's. She had to go to work, I had to go get my tooth fixed (which turned out to be easy and quick, no crown or root canal needed, just a little filling--and I believe this dentist). My mouth is still sore from the shots, 26 hours later.
So I was wrong about the incompetence of the Indian priest; I was wrong about Maria not living up to her potential. I like being wrong those sorts of ways.
In fact, that was the message I left at my mom and dad's house right before we lost power: "Hi, I just broke a tooth, was wondering if maybe you could watch the girls Friday morning while I got it fixed. Somehow, genetically, this is your fault, so you should step up to the plate." I hung up the phone and that's all she wrote.
The funeral was my Aunt Maria's, on my dad's side of the family. She's actually my grandmother's sister, but there's 16 years between them--she was 7 or so when my father's oldest sister was born. She was in her mid-sixties. Since she was diagnosed with, as the priest put it, an "ailment" when she was 5, she has slowly become debilitated. There are pictures of her reading me a story when I was probably 4 or 5, and she's sitting on the couch holding the book (she would have probably been 38 or so then). But by the time we visited St. Louis when I was 12 or so, she couldn't do anything with her hands and was completely wheelchair-bound. My grandmother always said she had MS, but then I've heard, I think from my dad, that it was Friedrich's Ataxia, which I believe is closely related. Whatever it was, it affected her nervous system but not her mind.
I didn't know Maria well, only seeing her on occasional holidays, although I had my 6th graders adopt her and write her letters at the nursing home when I taught at St. Pius. They liked this because she always wrote back. On Monday when I found out she had died, I wasn't particularly sad, because we'd seen this coming for months. She couldn't breathe very well, and swallowing was particularly challenging. I just kept thinking what I've been thinking for a decade--if only she'd been born in the 60s or 70s, what more could medical science and assistive technology have done for her? What a waste, I always thought, if only...
That is assumption number one.
The funeral should have been at All Souls, but it was at Ortmann's Funeral Home, since the church had no power and therefore, with its byzantine structure, would have been incredibly dark. This was sad, in some ways, because All Souls was very important to Maria, but in other ways, it was so intimate in that small room. We all could see each other and didn't get swallowed up in the cavernous nave of All Souls.
In walks the priest. He's Indian and looks a little nervous. This, I thought to myself, is a shame. Why couldn't we bring back a priest who would have remembered Maria from when she attended All Souls regularly? This is practically a Rent-A-Priest. We sang the opening song, he introduced himself and started Mass, and I was ready to be a bit disappointed by his homily, and at the very least, sad for my grandmother and her sister Jackie for having a priest with no clue.
That was assumption number two.
My dad read the first reading, from Isaiah 25. The Lord shall set a feast for all peoples, he will wipe away the tears from all faces. Patrick (my godfather) read the second reading, from Second Peter. The gospel was the beatitudes. All very nice. Then the priest, who goes by Fr. Roger, began his homily. He's known Maria for 2 1/2 years. He's the chaplain at the nursing home. He was plain-spoken, didn't mince words, didn't make her life more or less than it was. He didn't talk down to us. He mentioned that he already prays to her for intercession. He said he's been planning this homily for over a month. That he didn't want to miss commemorating Maria's life. That she was faithful and important to him. That we were at the funeral of a hero.
I was sitting there with my mouth open by the time he was done.
After communion, we had three eulogies--the first by my cousin Joey (the one who was on Oprah a couple months ago) that was well-written, contained beautiful imagery about faith, and mentioned many times how, even though she got discouraged or frustrated, Maria never got bitter or angry. She shared her life with her family and friends without expecting anything in return. Paula (my dad's oldest sister) gave the second, which remembered Maria from before she was really weak and debilitated--when she did her homework at the kitchen table, taught her nieces to put on lipstick, taught them all to play Authors and Crazy Eights.
Then my cousin Amanda, Paula's daughter (not the one who got married in her living room) got up, and you could tell she was upset. She has a beautiful singing voice, and she had a hymnal in her hand. The little funeral home organ began playing Amazing Grace. Amanda started, but made it about 4 words in, and broke down crying. People around me--my parents, uncles and aunts, cousins--picked up where she left off.
Something about relatives singing is sweet and powerful. My dad's family is full of musically-inclined people who know how to sing, or at least how to blend in with those around them. My voice is enough like Amanda's is enough like Paula's is enough like Christine's, that it was a beautiful tribute to Maria.
My mom and I left after the funeral was over, before the jello salad, cold cuts, and funeral corn was served in the front hall of Ortmann's. She had to go to work, I had to go get my tooth fixed (which turned out to be easy and quick, no crown or root canal needed, just a little filling--and I believe this dentist). My mouth is still sore from the shots, 26 hours later.
So I was wrong about the incompetence of the Indian priest; I was wrong about Maria not living up to her potential. I like being wrong those sorts of ways.
And The Lights Go Out All Over St. Louis
Ok. As Carson's cut to commercial would say, More To Come. As you know, I'm in St. Louis. In 63118, where there are 12,000-plus households out of 15,000 with no power. That's UP FROM LAST NIGHT. Over half a million were without power at one point--I think the peak was yesterday morning. I'm writing from Mary's house, where she was so kind to let us stay last night in her recently restored power and A/C. We're on hour 39 back on Halliday with nothing. But some things I need to post about:
*Why hope is only 3 days long
*Maria's funeral and my tooth
*Silence & Neighborly aftermath of the storm (and Happy Birthday to Trisha)
*And maybe a tiny bit of taboo politics regarding our terrible school district problem.
So I'll catch up with that when I can. If we're back here again tonight, I might try to get something done. But most likely it will be whenever power is restored at my house. Which, rumors have it, might be as late as SUNDAY, which would be 4 days without electricity. One day longer than hope can last, according to Brent.
Stay cool. Think of us.
Bridgett
*Why hope is only 3 days long
*Maria's funeral and my tooth
*Silence & Neighborly aftermath of the storm (and Happy Birthday to Trisha)
*And maybe a tiny bit of taboo politics regarding our terrible school district problem.
So I'll catch up with that when I can. If we're back here again tonight, I might try to get something done. But most likely it will be whenever power is restored at my house. Which, rumors have it, might be as late as SUNDAY, which would be 4 days without electricity. One day longer than hope can last, according to Brent.
Stay cool. Think of us.
Bridgett
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
It was a hot, hot day
That's Sophia's version of "once upon a time." She begins stories with "It was a hot, hot day..." It used to be (before she graduated from speech at SLU) that the "hot, hot" was said with a Russian or Hebrew hard H sound, sort of a "It was a khot khot day." We spent the day outside, ironically--labeling the neighborhood trees (with chalk on the sidewalk, no trees were harmed during the lesson), walking to the library, and swimming in the pool with Francine and Paige. Maeve did a lot of whimpering. I got a ton of yardwork done, including celebrating millions of baby tomatoes and no squash vine borers yet...but we're not out of the woods. I harvested all the garlic, which is a smaller hardneck variety this year. We'll see how it does in food before I rush out to plant it again for next year. I trimmed back the vile locust suckers and trumpet vine that creep across the eastern fence. I did a lot of sweating. 
I debated tearing off the boston ivy on the western fence, until I saw this: Praying Mantis.
Later in the evening, Ann was so nice to invite me to the ballgame, where the Cardinals lost PATHETICALLY to the Braves yet again. She had fabulous, fabulous box seats, three rows from the little bitty wall that separates fans from field. We were about 6 seats down from where that net catches foul balls behind home plate. I could have leaned over and slapped Pujols on the rear. Ok, not quite that close. But wow.
One last photo, which I gimped up, a composite of garden pictures from today. I'm still learning. It's a fun little program.
I debated tearing off the boston ivy on the western fence, until I saw this: Praying Mantis.Later in the evening, Ann was so nice to invite me to the ballgame, where the Cardinals lost PATHETICALLY to the Braves yet again. She had fabulous, fabulous box seats, three rows from the little bitty wall that separates fans from field. We were about 6 seats down from where that net catches foul balls behind home plate. I could have leaned over and slapped Pujols on the rear. Ok, not quite that close. But wow.
One last photo, which I gimped up, a composite of garden pictures from today. I'm still learning. It's a fun little program.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Oh, St. Louis. So Strange.
Two things struck me today.
1) On my way home from errands, I drove north on Arkansas St. to turn onto Halliday, and passed a man walking his dog. A man dressed in a Sunday-go-to-church suit (dark blue, pin-stripe, white shirt, dark tie, dress shoes), complete with a summer fedora. Keep in mind that it is 97 degrees outside, with a "heat index" of 112--which is just kind of a redundant way of saying "damned hot". And the dog. It was a shih-tzu.
2) While witnessing this, I was listening to the sort-of oldies station that I put on in the car when NPR starts to make me crazy ("Up next, an in-depth interview with a South Carolinian wheelchair bound Civil War re-enactment company"). And lo, I discovered to my horror that not only are Def Leppard and Journey teaming up and coming to St. Louis, but the concert is SOLD OUT.
Ian, you now know what is the matter with St. Louis. Well dressed men walking shih tzu dogs, obviously ignoring the sizzling heat, and sold out hairspray rock concerts. Or, as you would put it, Buttrock.
1) On my way home from errands, I drove north on Arkansas St. to turn onto Halliday, and passed a man walking his dog. A man dressed in a Sunday-go-to-church suit (dark blue, pin-stripe, white shirt, dark tie, dress shoes), complete with a summer fedora. Keep in mind that it is 97 degrees outside, with a "heat index" of 112--which is just kind of a redundant way of saying "damned hot". And the dog. It was a shih-tzu.
2) While witnessing this, I was listening to the sort-of oldies station that I put on in the car when NPR starts to make me crazy ("Up next, an in-depth interview with a South Carolinian wheelchair bound Civil War re-enactment company"). And lo, I discovered to my horror that not only are Def Leppard and Journey teaming up and coming to St. Louis, but the concert is SOLD OUT.
Ian, you now know what is the matter with St. Louis. Well dressed men walking shih tzu dogs, obviously ignoring the sizzling heat, and sold out hairspray rock concerts. Or, as you would put it, Buttrock.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Greetings To You Who Are Gullible and Greedy!
I got my first 419 letter (Advance Fee Fraud Scam) in many years today--I received one way back before I'd ever heard of them, perhaps 6 years ago, but today was my second, and what a nice one it was. It's from Theressa Stevens. Here's some details (and no, I'm not drunk, this is how it was spelled):
*It begins, Grace and Peace to You Lord Jessus Dear Friend,
*"She" is Mrs. Theressa Stevens. Her husband, Mr. Stevens James, is murdered white Rich landowner from Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe (personally??) murdered him. (This makes this 419 not the typical that I've seen--most are Nigerian or Liberian scams)
*Before he was killed, he deposited 20.5 million dollars into the Financial Institution
*God blessed them with tow children
*Theressa herself is suffering from inflammation of the Liver, which means she may not last the eight months, which leading her to 24 hour intensive care in Rep. of Benin
*Her husband's relatives are Trouble Makers and she doesn't want them to inherit
*If I respond NOW, I can have half the 20.5 million dollars, and the other half will before her children. But only if I am a cherity organisation that supports widows, orphans, and land mine victims
*If I respond NOW, I will be sent the name of her lawyer who will issue me a letter of authenticity that will prove me the peresent beneficiary of the fund.
*Any delay in my reply will give her room in sourcing another person. "Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein."
*Remain Blessed, You're Sister, Theressa Stevens
Ah, 419 letters. And they don't go away. I just don't understand how naive (and greedy) they think we must be. How funny. If you are confused, or if you want to just visit an awesome site Mike pointed me towards, regarding these letters, try 419 Eater.
*It begins, Grace and Peace to You Lord Jessus Dear Friend,
*"She" is Mrs. Theressa Stevens. Her husband, Mr. Stevens James, is murdered white Rich landowner from Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe (personally??) murdered him. (This makes this 419 not the typical that I've seen--most are Nigerian or Liberian scams)
*Before he was killed, he deposited 20.5 million dollars into the Financial Institution
*God blessed them with tow children
*Theressa herself is suffering from inflammation of the Liver, which means she may not last the eight months, which leading her to 24 hour intensive care in Rep. of Benin
*Her husband's relatives are Trouble Makers and she doesn't want them to inherit
*If I respond NOW, I can have half the 20.5 million dollars, and the other half will before her children. But only if I am a cherity organisation that supports widows, orphans, and land mine victims
*If I respond NOW, I will be sent the name of her lawyer who will issue me a letter of authenticity that will prove me the peresent beneficiary of the fund.
*Any delay in my reply will give her room in sourcing another person. "Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein."
*Remain Blessed, You're Sister, Theressa Stevens
Ah, 419 letters. And they don't go away. I just don't understand how naive (and greedy) they think we must be. How funny. If you are confused, or if you want to just visit an awesome site Mike pointed me towards, regarding these letters, try 419 Eater.
Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler
Happy Birthday to Sophia! Last night we didn't celebrate, but we did the little girl party in the park today, and the family party this evening. Right now, my sister-in-law has taken her and her cousins to the Galleria to get Maci's Build a Bear repaired or something like that--but it's the mall, you know, and every trip to the mall is special for Sophia (since we go so rarely--I can just imagine what it must be like to be four--I mean five!--and go to the mall).
Cute girl party. It was a horse theme, loosely. There was a book exchange this year instead of presents. We'll probably go back to presents again next year, but with the attic construction and Maeve still at the "put all the toys in my mouth and literally ruminate upon them" stage, I just didn't want to bring in a ton of more stuff just now. And my sister-in-law gave her clothes, which was fabulous. Roller skates and a scooter this year, too, from the grandmas, which is also big stuff that doesn't require tiny parts and a separate box in the bedroom and sorting and cleaning and shouting at Maeve. So all good.
So Sophia is out, and Maeve is asleep on my bed--she was exhausted 5 hours ago but lasted until 6:30 or so--and Mike is at Schlafly Brewery learning about how beer is made there, with the guys from the block. Cajun music on the radio thanks to American Routes, and a beautiful moscato wine in this glass. It's my favorite white wine right now--really a dessert wine, fruity, sweet, rich. Yum.
Last night was mah jongg at my house. Kerri brought awesome little butter cut out cookies with homemade jam, there was my hot pepper jelly, a good set of games with an assortment of winners (I won once, the first game out, on my now favorite hand, FF 1111 1111 1111--with any matching numbers in three suits). Talk ranged from labor and delivery stories (sorry Kerri, good luck to you, I'm confident you'll do well), which is actually pretty light for our conversation these days, to finances, kids, weight loss, the new rehab job across the street, and so on. Some of it is "sewing circle", I know, but a lot of it is deeper than that. We are real people with real concerns in our lives, and something about the kids not in the room, a few glasses of wine, and those cool tiles in our hands, just creates a little atmosphere of lighthearted honesty. I can think of few topics that could come up that would make me squirm during mah jongg at this point. I am pretty brassy, though, so maybe I'm a bad benchmark.
It's interesting how we were all strangers a mere 3 years ago. It doesn't seem that way. Maybe it's age changing me. It's just not so hard to become friends anymore. This probably goes back to the moving every two years thing.
The katydids are out. The sun is setting on Halliday this evening, the mosquitoes are munching, as the French language song on the radio reminds me, Let the good times roll.
Cute girl party. It was a horse theme, loosely. There was a book exchange this year instead of presents. We'll probably go back to presents again next year, but with the attic construction and Maeve still at the "put all the toys in my mouth and literally ruminate upon them" stage, I just didn't want to bring in a ton of more stuff just now. And my sister-in-law gave her clothes, which was fabulous. Roller skates and a scooter this year, too, from the grandmas, which is also big stuff that doesn't require tiny parts and a separate box in the bedroom and sorting and cleaning and shouting at Maeve. So all good.
So Sophia is out, and Maeve is asleep on my bed--she was exhausted 5 hours ago but lasted until 6:30 or so--and Mike is at Schlafly Brewery learning about how beer is made there, with the guys from the block. Cajun music on the radio thanks to American Routes, and a beautiful moscato wine in this glass. It's my favorite white wine right now--really a dessert wine, fruity, sweet, rich. Yum.
Last night was mah jongg at my house. Kerri brought awesome little butter cut out cookies with homemade jam, there was my hot pepper jelly, a good set of games with an assortment of winners (I won once, the first game out, on my now favorite hand, FF 1111 1111 1111--with any matching numbers in three suits). Talk ranged from labor and delivery stories (sorry Kerri, good luck to you, I'm confident you'll do well), which is actually pretty light for our conversation these days, to finances, kids, weight loss, the new rehab job across the street, and so on. Some of it is "sewing circle", I know, but a lot of it is deeper than that. We are real people with real concerns in our lives, and something about the kids not in the room, a few glasses of wine, and those cool tiles in our hands, just creates a little atmosphere of lighthearted honesty. I can think of few topics that could come up that would make me squirm during mah jongg at this point. I am pretty brassy, though, so maybe I'm a bad benchmark.
It's interesting how we were all strangers a mere 3 years ago. It doesn't seem that way. Maybe it's age changing me. It's just not so hard to become friends anymore. This probably goes back to the moving every two years thing.
The katydids are out. The sun is setting on Halliday this evening, the mosquitoes are munching, as the French language song on the radio reminds me, Let the good times roll.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Just a little bit more pig roasting
So as the evening wore on, and we started to investigate the possibility that the pool table in the hall wasn't just for show, I found a pristine box of billiard balls and 4 cues, not a single one with a tip. But we still racked them and Mike and I played Colleen and Tim. We, of course, lost. Tim and Colleen both look like pool players as they play. Bevin, too. And then, my parents found us and Bevin teamed up with my dad. He used to play for money. I think the term is "hustle" but I'm not sure if it was all that or just for pocket money. Either way, the basement pool table at my grandmother's house served him well. He certainly understands the physics and could have easily beaten us all.
My mom, though. Not so much. And while I find the game intriguing, and as I get older, would like to really know how to play, when I do play, I look like some sort of southern gentlewoman delicately tapping the cue ball around the table. I don't have any of the required finesse. 
Yet. I mean, come on, I can manage to fence a bit here and there. I should be able to figure this out. Hmm. Kareoke started about the time we started playing, and between bad singing, they played regular music. Colleen and Bevin, totally drunk, danced and acted silly. Mom wanted to have them sing together, and they did, although after I left. Me and Bobby McGee. I wish I could have seen that. But the pool game disintegrated once Bevin and Colleen were on separate teams, one with each parent. There was a lot of taunting. People cheated and took Mom's turn, I think Bevin and Colleen both smacked each other's rear ends several times as they took shots. They danced
and sang and got louder, louder, louder. Mike, Tim, and I sat on the sidelines until their game was over, eating butter mints and being amused. Then Mike and I played just one last game, lost again, although Mike, I will admit, isn't as awful at the game as I am. I think I'd be better if I had my own table or access to a smoke-free facility. Anyway, we drove the 50 minutes back home where the babystter had both kids still up, alas, Sophia didn't wear well. But she went to church in the morning anyway. I think this will be a recurrent theme as teenaged years approach. We're still a long way off, of course. Her birthday is Friday. Five.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Kindergarten, Here We Stay
So it begins. On Monday, Sophia starts kindergarten here at home. If you aren’t interested in curriculum choices, homeschooling, or at least Sophia, this post probably won’t be very interesting. It’s mostly because, hey, my description there on the sidebar lists Waldorf/Charlotte Mason as one of my first key interests. So maybe on occasion I should post about what I’m doing.
After much hand-wringing, we’re going to take the leap. Sometimes I wish we just had two choices: crappy public schools or homeschooling. That would make this so simple. But there’s our parish school, two or three other Catholic schools that are good choices, Soulard School, which one of our neighbor’s children attend, and actually she’s going to be teaching there part time next year. And this past week I found out about City Garden’s new kindergarten program, which would be half time (what I would be interested in), small class size, and a Montessori base. Montessori isn’t my all-time favorite, but I think it’s a strong curriculum for young children. And there are lesser choices, too—either because they’re religious but not Catholic, or they’re too expensive, or they’re too far away. But we have so many choices. We’ve decided, though, to start here at home. And we’ll take it a year at a time and see how things go. I’ve learned through enough ultimatum-style choices I’ve made that I should be flexible in life.
Today we went out to complete our school supply and curriculum lists. We’re going to use Oak Meadow’s first grade lessons, 36 1-week lessons in reading, math, science, and social studies. They have a strong emphasis on craft and art, as well (being Waldorf), so we have watercolors and paper, yarn, beeswax sheets, beeswax crayons, good-quality drawing paper, and a book called “Clay Fun.” There’s also a reliance on rhythm, meaning daily, monthly, seasonal, yearly rhythms and patterns, so there are 12 huge calendar sheets to create our family and nature calendar. Charlotte Mason suggests a Book of Centuries and a nature journal, so we have a big fat binder with paper and a sketchbook. We’ve been keeping a nature journal loosely for a year already. There’s also a pair of recorders (I play along with her), a book of bedtime stories, and starting in January, we’ll move from finger-knitting to crochet.
Added to that, I picked up a sign language book, which is something Sophia is intensely interested in. I’ve got my little New American Bible, plus she’ll go to Atrium/Good Shepherd program once a week (note, the link is to an Episcopal Church in Virginia, but it has good pictures representing what she does at St. Margaret of Scotland). I have a set of first readers (not basals, but books like Frog and Toad, you know, easy readers), my plan book, my daily log book, a log book for field trips, and her math, Bible, and general lesson books.
I think we’re ready. At least, I think I’m ready. I’m ready to teach again, something besides algebra II to high school girls. I need some coffee, just thinking about early mornings again.
After much hand-wringing, we’re going to take the leap. Sometimes I wish we just had two choices: crappy public schools or homeschooling. That would make this so simple. But there’s our parish school, two or three other Catholic schools that are good choices, Soulard School, which one of our neighbor’s children attend, and actually she’s going to be teaching there part time next year. And this past week I found out about City Garden’s new kindergarten program, which would be half time (what I would be interested in), small class size, and a Montessori base. Montessori isn’t my all-time favorite, but I think it’s a strong curriculum for young children. And there are lesser choices, too—either because they’re religious but not Catholic, or they’re too expensive, or they’re too far away. But we have so many choices. We’ve decided, though, to start here at home. And we’ll take it a year at a time and see how things go. I’ve learned through enough ultimatum-style choices I’ve made that I should be flexible in life.
Today we went out to complete our school supply and curriculum lists. We’re going to use Oak Meadow’s first grade lessons, 36 1-week lessons in reading, math, science, and social studies. They have a strong emphasis on craft and art, as well (being Waldorf), so we have watercolors and paper, yarn, beeswax sheets, beeswax crayons, good-quality drawing paper, and a book called “Clay Fun.” There’s also a reliance on rhythm, meaning daily, monthly, seasonal, yearly rhythms and patterns, so there are 12 huge calendar sheets to create our family and nature calendar. Charlotte Mason suggests a Book of Centuries and a nature journal, so we have a big fat binder with paper and a sketchbook. We’ve been keeping a nature journal loosely for a year already. There’s also a pair of recorders (I play along with her), a book of bedtime stories, and starting in January, we’ll move from finger-knitting to crochet.
Added to that, I picked up a sign language book, which is something Sophia is intensely interested in. I’ve got my little New American Bible, plus she’ll go to Atrium/Good Shepherd program once a week (note, the link is to an Episcopal Church in Virginia, but it has good pictures representing what she does at St. Margaret of Scotland). I have a set of first readers (not basals, but books like Frog and Toad, you know, easy readers), my plan book, my daily log book, a log book for field trips, and her math, Bible, and general lesson books.
I think we’re ready. At least, I think I’m ready. I’m ready to teach again, something besides algebra II to high school girls. I need some coffee, just thinking about early mornings again.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Drowning in Ancestry
Yesterday, 5 children drowned in the Meramec River, the same one we camped at in June and were oh so far up above on Saturday. They were at Castlewood State Park, on a church outing. The oldest was 17; he drowned trying to save one of his siblings. Four of the children who died were from the same family of 8 kids. None of the children were swimmers, but even that can’t keep you above water if the undertow is strong enough. As someone from the local sheriff department lamented, these kids weren’t drunk or stoned—they were on a little church picnic, and got swept under. The Meramec is known for it, but actually, over the years, there have been relatively few drownings. [Link to the Post-Dispatch Story, until it expires, at least]
My mother can’t swim. Never learned. The reason, as far as I can tell, is because my grandmother’s brother drowned. His name was Harold. He was seven and he could swim. My grandmother was five—her mom had her kids every two years. I may not have them all in the correct order, but it goes Overton, James, John, Archie, Roy, Emily, Harold, and Edith. James and John might be switched. They lived on a farm near Vichy, Missouri, near a swift-moving cold creek. They would play down in the creek throughout the warm months of the year. I think the story goes that on the way home from school, or town, or somewhere, Harold stopped over in the creek. Who knows—maybe it was too cold and he cramped up, maybe it was an undertow, maybe something random like a seizure. Whatever it was, he was alone, and Roy and John found him there. Roy, by my math, would have been 11; John, 15. It would have been 1922.
They brought him up the hill to the house, where their father laid him out on the kitchen table to try to revive him. He was a farmer, and he also had some book knowledge about first aid and medicine. But it was too late. They buried him in Vichy and made it through the winter. It was too much to go down the hill and past the creek for their father, and he moved the whole family to Marshall within the year.
I don’t know much about the clan—my grandmother was the youngest, and we barely knew her brothers except by name. I knew Emily, but she died when I was 10. Edith died when I was 18, and Archie died the following year. There’s nobody to ask the questions anymore. Only four of them had children, and my mother doesn’t know where any of her cousins live, except for vaguely, “San Diego,” or southern Missouri.
All I know is that my grandmother emerged from childhood afraid of the water. To protect her children, she kept them away from the water. There were no annual trips to White Cliff Park for swim lessons, no summers at the shore. Harold could swim, after all, and he still drowned.
It is interesting, though, how family memory gets passed in bits and pieces—I’ve only heard this story in snippets told by my mother. But what has passed to me is a healthy respect for drowning. I can’t watch movies where people drown or come close to it—that’s why I never saw Titanic. All those people die in the ocean. For that matter, I can’t even watch people play the Sega Genesis game, “Sonic” on the underwater levels. It makes me too nervous. And I am a strong swimmer—I can swim a good fast mile in one stretch, I know breast and crawl stroke, and energy-conserving strokes in case of emergency. I probably could pass the lifeguard exam.
So I was intensely nervous at the Meramec in June, and I’m sure I will be again when we go in August. As long as I’m the one downstream “catching” kids who slip past where they belong, I’ll be ok. But I don’t think I’ll be able to sit on the sandbar and have a beer. Nope.
And by golly, Sophia and Maeve will know how to swim. As sure as they will know how to read.
My mother can’t swim. Never learned. The reason, as far as I can tell, is because my grandmother’s brother drowned. His name was Harold. He was seven and he could swim. My grandmother was five—her mom had her kids every two years. I may not have them all in the correct order, but it goes Overton, James, John, Archie, Roy, Emily, Harold, and Edith. James and John might be switched. They lived on a farm near Vichy, Missouri, near a swift-moving cold creek. They would play down in the creek throughout the warm months of the year. I think the story goes that on the way home from school, or town, or somewhere, Harold stopped over in the creek. Who knows—maybe it was too cold and he cramped up, maybe it was an undertow, maybe something random like a seizure. Whatever it was, he was alone, and Roy and John found him there. Roy, by my math, would have been 11; John, 15. It would have been 1922.
They brought him up the hill to the house, where their father laid him out on the kitchen table to try to revive him. He was a farmer, and he also had some book knowledge about first aid and medicine. But it was too late. They buried him in Vichy and made it through the winter. It was too much to go down the hill and past the creek for their father, and he moved the whole family to Marshall within the year.
I don’t know much about the clan—my grandmother was the youngest, and we barely knew her brothers except by name. I knew Emily, but she died when I was 10. Edith died when I was 18, and Archie died the following year. There’s nobody to ask the questions anymore. Only four of them had children, and my mother doesn’t know where any of her cousins live, except for vaguely, “San Diego,” or southern Missouri.
All I know is that my grandmother emerged from childhood afraid of the water. To protect her children, she kept them away from the water. There were no annual trips to White Cliff Park for swim lessons, no summers at the shore. Harold could swim, after all, and he still drowned.
It is interesting, though, how family memory gets passed in bits and pieces—I’ve only heard this story in snippets told by my mother. But what has passed to me is a healthy respect for drowning. I can’t watch movies where people drown or come close to it—that’s why I never saw Titanic. All those people die in the ocean. For that matter, I can’t even watch people play the Sega Genesis game, “Sonic” on the underwater levels. It makes me too nervous. And I am a strong swimmer—I can swim a good fast mile in one stretch, I know breast and crawl stroke, and energy-conserving strokes in case of emergency. I probably could pass the lifeguard exam.
So I was intensely nervous at the Meramec in June, and I’m sure I will be again when we go in August. As long as I’m the one downstream “catching” kids who slip past where they belong, I’ll be ok. But I don’t think I’ll be able to sit on the sandbar and have a beer. Nope.
And by golly, Sophia and Maeve will know how to swim. As sure as they will know how to read.
Pig Roast Part Deux
Dinner was pork (obviously) with traditional St. Louis wedding food, minus the mostaciolli (which, by the way, for non-St. Louisans reading, is pronounced Musk-a-choll-ee). Bevin is the last of the Blake girls (and the first, mind you) to still be vegetarian. She dropped the meat back in high school; Colleen soon followed. I have been vegetarian off and on, usually depending on what sounded good when I was pregnant. So of course, this is Bevin. Having just found a chunk of pork stuck to the bottom of her roll.
Throughout the evening, it slowly changed color, until Mike picked it up and threw it into the yard.
And this second picture is of Colleen, posing in front of a car that doesn't belong to anyone we know. It's a Buick LeSabre, I think my father thought it was 1959. It was in excellent condition with striped red and white interior. There's a reason for this picture, too. We each (Bevin, Colleen, and I) posed in front of the car, hearkening back to a photograph of our grandmother, Edith, posed on top of a friend's car, way back, probably in the 40s. I actually just found this photograph, which we'd always figured went by the wayside when my Aunt Jackie (former Aunt Jackie now) raided Edith's house the week after she died. She has the blown-up framed version, but I found the original snapshot in an box in my parents' attic, filled with photos, baptismal candles, art supplies, and a transistor radio, appropriately labeled "Weird Stuff". So we're going to have copies made, along with several dozen other photos we found. I'll post copies once I get them done.
Pig Roast Part One
On Saturday evening, we went down to Camp Solidarity for a pig roast. Which actually means, in this case, an outdoor wedding reception for a wedding that happened last month. Karen is a friend of mine from way back when we were in grade school down at St. Bernadette's. She was a year behind me in school but we were girl scouts together and played on the same soccer team. Her parents, Barb and Jim, and my parents are good friends over all these long years. My mom co-hosted Karen's shower back in May with a couple of aunts and (sort of) myself.
Camp Solidarity is a resident camp. Sort of a commune. Without the hippies. Tempting...but not quite. It is past its heyday, from what I remember back when we camped there as scouts. The horseshoe pits are rundown, and there is a decrepit
outdoor bowling alley--cool, but not useful. Lots of houses, some indoor plumbing, access to the Meramec, and a general feel of comfortable decay. We were based at the communal hall, at concrete outdoor tables, a patio, and the hall itself (which did have a flush toilet, pretty much mandatory for me as I get older and less tolerant).
I was there with Mike and my family--my parents and sisters, and Colleen's boyfriend Tim. I have so many pictures to share, that I'm going to post them a few at a time over the course of the week. Probably a total of nine beyond the one above of the bowling alley. We played pool into the late evening, listening to drunk fools kareoke. Bevin and Colleen got amazingly drunk. I didn't--which was good, since I've finally broken the weight loss plateau I'd been in for 2 weeks (ok, not much of a plateau, I know), and alcohol probably would have nixed that effort. But it was so much fun. Bevin and Colleen and I, together, make more noise talking and yelling over each other than the rest of the people at the camp combined.
I even got to show Mike the spot where I almost died back 20 years ago. Barb and my mom were coleaders for girl scouts, and since Barb's inlaws were part of Solidarity, they let the troop come to camp. One trip, we stayed in the hall--it was chilly, late fall. There had been some sort of fall festival there, and Barb had me take a bunch of corn stalks out, telling me to take this trail down to the river and pitch them in. Well, "down to the river" really meant "to the edge of the crumbly cliff 40 feet or more above the shallow rock-bottomed Meramec". I remember the river suddenly being below me, my feet at the edge of the cliff. I calmly threw down the corn stalks and walked away--it wasn't until I told Mike this story back in college that it seemed more than a bit alarming. Going back 20 years later and taking the trail to the cliff's edge again lived up to the story, too. It's quite a little edge of the world.
We left around 10:15 after I lost yet another game of pool to my father and whichever sister was on his team that match (he used to play for money, ya know). I hope the summer outings that are still on our list--Rend Lake with Mike's family, Six Flags, Meramec River with the neighbors--prove to be as entertaining and invigorating.
Camp Solidarity is a resident camp. Sort of a commune. Without the hippies. Tempting...but not quite. It is past its heyday, from what I remember back when we camped there as scouts. The horseshoe pits are rundown, and there is a decrepit
outdoor bowling alley--cool, but not useful. Lots of houses, some indoor plumbing, access to the Meramec, and a general feel of comfortable decay. We were based at the communal hall, at concrete outdoor tables, a patio, and the hall itself (which did have a flush toilet, pretty much mandatory for me as I get older and less tolerant). I was there with Mike and my family--my parents and sisters, and Colleen's boyfriend Tim. I have so many pictures to share, that I'm going to post them a few at a time over the course of the week. Probably a total of nine beyond the one above of the bowling alley. We played pool into the late evening, listening to drunk fools kareoke. Bevin and Colleen got amazingly drunk. I didn't--which was good, since I've finally broken the weight loss plateau I'd been in for 2 weeks (ok, not much of a plateau, I know), and alcohol probably would have nixed that effort. But it was so much fun. Bevin and Colleen and I, together, make more noise talking and yelling over each other than the rest of the people at the camp combined.
I even got to show Mike the spot where I almost died back 20 years ago. Barb and my mom were coleaders for girl scouts, and since Barb's inlaws were part of Solidarity, they let the troop come to camp. One trip, we stayed in the hall--it was chilly, late fall. There had been some sort of fall festival there, and Barb had me take a bunch of corn stalks out, telling me to take this trail down to the river and pitch them in. Well, "down to the river" really meant "to the edge of the crumbly cliff 40 feet or more above the shallow rock-bottomed Meramec". I remember the river suddenly being below me, my feet at the edge of the cliff. I calmly threw down the corn stalks and walked away--it wasn't until I told Mike this story back in college that it seemed more than a bit alarming. Going back 20 years later and taking the trail to the cliff's edge again lived up to the story, too. It's quite a little edge of the world.
We left around 10:15 after I lost yet another game of pool to my father and whichever sister was on his team that match (he used to play for money, ya know). I hope the summer outings that are still on our list--Rend Lake with Mike's family, Six Flags, Meramec River with the neighbors--prove to be as entertaining and invigorating.
Friday, July 07, 2006
So I Guess I Need a Goat
Well, I told myself I wasn’t going to write tonight because I’m exhausted—I biked a total of 12 miles today—but I was lying in bed and kept thinking. And the best way to stop thinking is to put it down on paper. Then I’ll be able to sleep.
Tonight we had a little impromptu block party at Corey & Amanda’s house. It was Ian’s birthday (I’ve got all the boys’ birthdays hooked to other dates in my head—James is the day my parents got engaged (yes, I know that), Sam and Charlie are my birthday, and Ian is my anniversary. I love dates), and they grilled on this beautiful atypical July evening. They have an awesome backyard. Just about immediately upon entering the backyard, we split into gender-specific groupings: Mike, Brent, Paul, Clayton, Eric, Corey (I think—I was at the other table) there, and Mary, Trisha, Kerri, Natasha (Mary & Brent’s boarder, from Latvia, very very nice), myself over here. The men talked about beer. We talked about Russian, Kerri’s pregnancy, and about the men talking about beer.
Mike and I had to leave early—my mom needed a ride to the Muny, which is a complicated story, and then we thought we’d bike in Forest Park. It was hard to leave; I think if we didn’t have the obligation of driving my mother, we would have scrapped the bike ride. But we did have that obligation, so we dropped her off and then did a nice loop around the park. Mike had the trailer for the first time. He did well.
But what’s so funny is that as we were pulling onto Magnolia to come home, Mike said, “do you think they’re still out?” It was 9 p.m. and I wasn’t sure—it is a weeknight. We saw Paul coming back from walking the babysitter home (who was there as a guest, which proves something, but I’m not sure what yet), and we left the bikes in the van and joined the remaining guests on the patio. Anne and Patrick left, but then Brent sneaked over after taking out the trash to rejoin us. Too funny. He called Mary and she came over after James was in bed. We talked a while and then broke up around 10:30.
During the meal, we talked garden briefly. My garden is enclosed in a squirrel-proof (for now) pen covered in chicken wire. It looks like a chicken coop and I get comments all the time. We also, I think, are the Family Most Likely To Own Chickens. So someone suggested I build another for the chickens. Then someone else thought a goat might be good. I said that if we owned a goat and chickens, which of course would all roam free, no one would ever buy a house on our street. And Trisha chimed in, “and that would keep everyone from moving away!”
Which is interesting because Mike and I were talking about that just the other night when we were out for our anniversary. We are pretty confident that our friends from college here in town are here to stay, barring some freak accident. But relationships based on proximity are tougher. What if this or that family moves? Which of course will happen, someday—we’re not all going to be here when we retire. And I told Mike that I just didn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes, when you realize something is really great, just saying that out loud jinxes it somehow. I don’t want Paul to find that bigger house (like the ones he coveted on the house tour) or Brent to get transferred or anything to upset this moment (not that I think any of these are likely in the near future). And hearing Trisha say that, I knew that I’m not the only one who holds her breath when meta-block conversation begins (like when we talk about how great we are, frankly). I love the way things are and I of course don’t want it to change.
Growing up, we moved. A lot. Like, I went to 9 schools, including 3 different high schools. So we saw a lot of neighborhoods. Excluding one long-term relationship (Bevin’s godparents are former neighbors) and one aberrant example where I can still name the families in each house on the block (when I was 7 to 9 years old, down in south county), there was nothing like what we’ve found here. Nothing. Sometimes we’d know the people next door. Or someone across the street. Maybe the mom of one of Bevin’s friends would call to have her daughter come home. But, save those two examples, we never had anyone over to dinner or vice versa. We never had block parties. And it wasn’t that we were antisocial or outcasts—we didn’t observe any of this activity from behind closed blinds, either. We lived in some nice neighborhoods, in nice towns. We had friends outside the street where we lived. But we didn’t really know the people who lived and breathed and ate dinner in the same zip-plus-four.
And I don’t know what did it here. It can’t just be that we all have kids under the age of 7. Because there are other kids on our block whose families we don’t know as well. And Larry and Sharon have no kids and are also celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this fall. But when you look at the (math-speak) Venn Diagrams of interests, philosophies, backgrounds, and goals, you find that there are no outliers in our group of 8 families or so (with 2 or 3 others thrown in occasionally for good measure—we aren’t an exclusive club). What kind of odds are those?
It’s not just polite fluff, either. I have had discussions about intricate matters of Catholic dogma, Mike is always venturing into politics. We are beginning to learn important stories—births; weddings; deaths; how we met our spouses; whether we’ll have more kids and when. We’ve camped for two years in a row together. We are considering buying a cow (not to live in our yards—already butchered, just to split the cost). We watch each other’s houses when we’re away, we give out our keys. We recognize the grandparents when they come to visit. We play mah jongg, go out for a drink or two, and cook meals for new babies. It’s just too much, sometimes, to consider that this might end.
I know that it won’t all end at once, barring an earthquake, in which case our houses will all fall like dominoes and we’ll live in FEMA trailers somewhere near Festus (but probably together). It won’t be that I’ll wake up one morning and there’ll be 6 houses for sale on my block. Change that comes gradually can be welcome, too—there can be adjustments along the way. It’s not like we’re the original owners of our houses, all bought the same season, somewhere out in Chesterfield, already looking for a “better” place to live. I don’t think any of us live here because it’s fashionable. When and if we move, it will be out of necessity. I hope.
So I’m going to exhale and relax and enjoy. And consider shepherding as a hobby.
Tonight we had a little impromptu block party at Corey & Amanda’s house. It was Ian’s birthday (I’ve got all the boys’ birthdays hooked to other dates in my head—James is the day my parents got engaged (yes, I know that), Sam and Charlie are my birthday, and Ian is my anniversary. I love dates), and they grilled on this beautiful atypical July evening. They have an awesome backyard. Just about immediately upon entering the backyard, we split into gender-specific groupings: Mike, Brent, Paul, Clayton, Eric, Corey (I think—I was at the other table) there, and Mary, Trisha, Kerri, Natasha (Mary & Brent’s boarder, from Latvia, very very nice), myself over here. The men talked about beer. We talked about Russian, Kerri’s pregnancy, and about the men talking about beer.
Mike and I had to leave early—my mom needed a ride to the Muny, which is a complicated story, and then we thought we’d bike in Forest Park. It was hard to leave; I think if we didn’t have the obligation of driving my mother, we would have scrapped the bike ride. But we did have that obligation, so we dropped her off and then did a nice loop around the park. Mike had the trailer for the first time. He did well.
But what’s so funny is that as we were pulling onto Magnolia to come home, Mike said, “do you think they’re still out?” It was 9 p.m. and I wasn’t sure—it is a weeknight. We saw Paul coming back from walking the babysitter home (who was there as a guest, which proves something, but I’m not sure what yet), and we left the bikes in the van and joined the remaining guests on the patio. Anne and Patrick left, but then Brent sneaked over after taking out the trash to rejoin us. Too funny. He called Mary and she came over after James was in bed. We talked a while and then broke up around 10:30.
During the meal, we talked garden briefly. My garden is enclosed in a squirrel-proof (for now) pen covered in chicken wire. It looks like a chicken coop and I get comments all the time. We also, I think, are the Family Most Likely To Own Chickens. So someone suggested I build another for the chickens. Then someone else thought a goat might be good. I said that if we owned a goat and chickens, which of course would all roam free, no one would ever buy a house on our street. And Trisha chimed in, “and that would keep everyone from moving away!”
Which is interesting because Mike and I were talking about that just the other night when we were out for our anniversary. We are pretty confident that our friends from college here in town are here to stay, barring some freak accident. But relationships based on proximity are tougher. What if this or that family moves? Which of course will happen, someday—we’re not all going to be here when we retire. And I told Mike that I just didn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes, when you realize something is really great, just saying that out loud jinxes it somehow. I don’t want Paul to find that bigger house (like the ones he coveted on the house tour) or Brent to get transferred or anything to upset this moment (not that I think any of these are likely in the near future). And hearing Trisha say that, I knew that I’m not the only one who holds her breath when meta-block conversation begins (like when we talk about how great we are, frankly). I love the way things are and I of course don’t want it to change.
Growing up, we moved. A lot. Like, I went to 9 schools, including 3 different high schools. So we saw a lot of neighborhoods. Excluding one long-term relationship (Bevin’s godparents are former neighbors) and one aberrant example where I can still name the families in each house on the block (when I was 7 to 9 years old, down in south county), there was nothing like what we’ve found here. Nothing. Sometimes we’d know the people next door. Or someone across the street. Maybe the mom of one of Bevin’s friends would call to have her daughter come home. But, save those two examples, we never had anyone over to dinner or vice versa. We never had block parties. And it wasn’t that we were antisocial or outcasts—we didn’t observe any of this activity from behind closed blinds, either. We lived in some nice neighborhoods, in nice towns. We had friends outside the street where we lived. But we didn’t really know the people who lived and breathed and ate dinner in the same zip-plus-four.
And I don’t know what did it here. It can’t just be that we all have kids under the age of 7. Because there are other kids on our block whose families we don’t know as well. And Larry and Sharon have no kids and are also celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this fall. But when you look at the (math-speak) Venn Diagrams of interests, philosophies, backgrounds, and goals, you find that there are no outliers in our group of 8 families or so (with 2 or 3 others thrown in occasionally for good measure—we aren’t an exclusive club). What kind of odds are those?
It’s not just polite fluff, either. I have had discussions about intricate matters of Catholic dogma, Mike is always venturing into politics. We are beginning to learn important stories—births; weddings; deaths; how we met our spouses; whether we’ll have more kids and when. We’ve camped for two years in a row together. We are considering buying a cow (not to live in our yards—already butchered, just to split the cost). We watch each other’s houses when we’re away, we give out our keys. We recognize the grandparents when they come to visit. We play mah jongg, go out for a drink or two, and cook meals for new babies. It’s just too much, sometimes, to consider that this might end.
I know that it won’t all end at once, barring an earthquake, in which case our houses will all fall like dominoes and we’ll live in FEMA trailers somewhere near Festus (but probably together). It won’t be that I’ll wake up one morning and there’ll be 6 houses for sale on my block. Change that comes gradually can be welcome, too—there can be adjustments along the way. It’s not like we’re the original owners of our houses, all bought the same season, somewhere out in Chesterfield, already looking for a “better” place to live. I don’t think any of us live here because it’s fashionable. When and if we move, it will be out of necessity. I hope.
So I’m going to exhale and relax and enjoy. And consider shepherding as a hobby.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Happy Anniversary to Me, to Me!
Well, that’s ten years well spent.
Mike and I went out for our anniversary last night. We pedaled like demons around the Forest Park Lake—they have paddleboats—and I got to check off, woo hoo, another two birds off the list! The Green Heron stalked its bug prey along the side of the island. It looks like a blue heron that’s been colored by a 3 year old. And we also saw a Little Blue Heron. It’s a Heron Week. Sorry no pictures of my own--they're on Mike's phone. Didn't know we'd be seeing birds.
As we pedaled, we talked about the loose goals we’d set down for ourselves when we were on our honeymoon, drinking Bon Terra wine in Carmel at that bed & breakfast. And you know what, we’ve checked all those goals off the list, too. So we set some new ones, fewer but more specific and concrete. Then we had a salad downtown and went to Bailey’s Chocolate Bar for dessert.
Oh my. Over a “lovers plate” of flourless chocolate cake, carmelized bananas, mousse, mead, and truffles, (with decaf on the side, of course), we reminisced about how we got together. How our breakups with the previous monogamous relationship coincided appropriately. How we each tested the waters that first month back at SLU my sophomore year. We laughed at the very strange people who used to be in our lives, and suddenly it struck us that Mike’s ex, Vanessa, has an early October birthday. We can’t recall the exact date—it’s not the 2nd, we know, and it’s not in the twenties (I remember people with October twenty-something birthdays, since I have one myself). I think our daughter Maeve may share a birthday with her. Of course, now I am obsessed with learning this fact. Strange how there is nobody I can ask, pretty much. I don’t know who would remember, if Mike doesn’t (although that doesn’t set the bar very high—he gets confused about his parents’ and brothers’ birthdays too—always knows his sister’s, somehow). Vanessa died 6 months before we got married. Strange how things go.
So we remembered suddenly that we had kids at home and that perhaps our babysitter would like to be released. Walking out of Bailey’s was like climbing out of a suitcase, both physically and emotionally. It is a tight tight space, but stepping out into the relatively cool July evening, it was like stepping back into the present time.
Here we are.
Here’s to another 10. And another. And another....because, you know, God uses a base ten system and likes round numbers. (paraphrased from Dilbert about why the year 2000 would be the End of the World).
Mike and I went out for our anniversary last night. We pedaled like demons around the Forest Park Lake—they have paddleboats—and I got to check off, woo hoo, another two birds off the list! The Green Heron stalked its bug prey along the side of the island. It looks like a blue heron that’s been colored by a 3 year old. And we also saw a Little Blue Heron. It’s a Heron Week. Sorry no pictures of my own--they're on Mike's phone. Didn't know we'd be seeing birds.
As we pedaled, we talked about the loose goals we’d set down for ourselves when we were on our honeymoon, drinking Bon Terra wine in Carmel at that bed & breakfast. And you know what, we’ve checked all those goals off the list, too. So we set some new ones, fewer but more specific and concrete. Then we had a salad downtown and went to Bailey’s Chocolate Bar for dessert.
Oh my. Over a “lovers plate” of flourless chocolate cake, carmelized bananas, mousse, mead, and truffles, (with decaf on the side, of course), we reminisced about how we got together. How our breakups with the previous monogamous relationship coincided appropriately. How we each tested the waters that first month back at SLU my sophomore year. We laughed at the very strange people who used to be in our lives, and suddenly it struck us that Mike’s ex, Vanessa, has an early October birthday. We can’t recall the exact date—it’s not the 2nd, we know, and it’s not in the twenties (I remember people with October twenty-something birthdays, since I have one myself). I think our daughter Maeve may share a birthday with her. Of course, now I am obsessed with learning this fact. Strange how there is nobody I can ask, pretty much. I don’t know who would remember, if Mike doesn’t (although that doesn’t set the bar very high—he gets confused about his parents’ and brothers’ birthdays too—always knows his sister’s, somehow). Vanessa died 6 months before we got married. Strange how things go.
So we remembered suddenly that we had kids at home and that perhaps our babysitter would like to be released. Walking out of Bailey’s was like climbing out of a suitcase, both physically and emotionally. It is a tight tight space, but stepping out into the relatively cool July evening, it was like stepping back into the present time.
Here we are.
Here’s to another 10. And another. And another....because, you know, God uses a base ten system and likes round numbers. (paraphrased from Dilbert about why the year 2000 would be the End of the World).
Pix from the Fourth
Here's my girls, waiting for the fireworks to begin. We went to the SLU medical school/allied health garage to watch again this year, although, due to the rainy misty weather, we stayed on the second floor instead of the roof. Still had a decent view through the mist and smoke--the smoke due to the gazillion illegal fireworks being set off throughout the Gate District just east and south of us.
This second photo was a test picture for how long I was going to keep the shutter open to capture some downtown lights. This one was too long: 2 seconds. But I liked the eerie semi-daylight post-apocalyptic look.
Although if it were post-apocalyptic, I guess we wouldn't have street lights on.And the last is just one of about 5 photos of downtown fireworks that turned out decently. Next year perhaps there won't be rain and we'll have a clearer view. Of course, maybe next year I'll be in Cancun or Oslo instead of St. Louis for 4th of July. Our alley was the staging ground for a mini battle, I do believe. Dara whined all night, trying to get under our bed. I know, it was wet enough, the trees probably wouldn't catch...and if the people setting them off get hurt, it's their own problem. Right? But still.
Unfortunately, remember my "life list" of childhood experiences? Having your dad or uncle set off fireworks is not on mine. It is on Mike's. So sometime we will be in Mounds or Cairo or somebody's tater patch and my kids will watch all that. While I sit in the car. I know, Ian, if you're still reading, you're rolling your eyes and wondering what's wrong with me. I can own that.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Three Birds, Ice Cream, and a Crooked Bridge
Happy 4th of July. Here it is intermittently raining while the neighbors behind us and up a few houses illegally set off fireworks. I don't enjoy this holiday. I think I enjoy it less than Halloween, and Halloween used to be at the top of my list of irritating holidays. Then I had kids. So now 4th of July stands up at the top of the list with, oh, say, bank holidays where we don't get mail but Mike still has to go to work. Fireworks stress me out. Dara too.
But this afternoon, we drove up to Chain of Rocks Bridge, which is the old Route 66 bridge between Missouri and Illinois. It's been closed for a long time, and recently was reopened for pedestrian and bike traffic only. It's a mile walk from one side to the other, and the bridge has a scary turn in the middle. It bends. You can kind of see that in this photo (note the indigo bunting on the deck as well). It is narrow, it is high up above the Mississippi, and it has a turn in the middle. Fabulous.
From the bridge, you can see these cool water intake places--it's where the city gets its water, I've been told. One is dated 1881, the other, in Roman numerals, 1913. They look like summer homes. What a shame that industrial places look, well, industrial, nowadays. A hundred years ago, there was a keen sense of architectural beauty in utilitarian objects that just isn't seen anymore. Probably not cost effective. Looking upstream, you get the exciting view of a vehicle bridge (I-270). And a dim, tiny outline of what is probably a blue heron down left of the sandbar. Probably too small to see.
That's ok, though, because indigo bunting and blue heron have been checked off my life list already. The one that hadn't, until today, we saw on the Illinois side of the bridge. It was all overgrown--the river is low--filled with vines and weed trees (silver maples, tree of heaven) and the more appropriate river birches. And while listening to a song we didn't know, Mike saw a flash of orange and black flying between some of these trees. I at first was sure it was just a redwing blackbird, but then I saw it. I'd never seen a bird like this before. So I tried in vain to get a good picture, and got two--one far away of it perching, and one of it in flight, but blurry. Came home and 
sat down with the field guides. Narrowed it down to American Redstart and Baltimore Oriole, but I've decided on the oriole because the redstart has a white breast, and this bird we saw was all orange and black. If any of you know better, please tell me. I keep my life list in pencil for this reason.
So we made the two mile walk, discovered that the bridge is part of a 12 mile trail that intrigues me--we do 6 miles in 37 minutes these days with the trailer. It intrigued me so much...we wemt out for ice cream. Oberweis. Love it. Now Mike is taking a well-deserved nap and Sophia is cleaning her room. (Pretty much by default, if you wonder what Sophia is up to, she's cleaning her room). Maeve is looking for kisses, so I better get on that. Happy 4th!
But this afternoon, we drove up to Chain of Rocks Bridge, which is the old Route 66 bridge between Missouri and Illinois. It's been closed for a long time, and recently was reopened for pedestrian and bike traffic only. It's a mile walk from one side to the other, and the bridge has a scary turn in the middle. It bends. You can kind of see that in this photo (note the indigo bunting on the deck as well). It is narrow, it is high up above the Mississippi, and it has a turn in the middle. Fabulous.
From the bridge, you can see these cool water intake places--it's where the city gets its water, I've been told. One is dated 1881, the other, in Roman numerals, 1913. They look like summer homes. What a shame that industrial places look, well, industrial, nowadays. A hundred years ago, there was a keen sense of architectural beauty in utilitarian objects that just isn't seen anymore. Probably not cost effective. Looking upstream, you get the exciting view of a vehicle bridge (I-270). And a dim, tiny outline of what is probably a blue heron down left of the sandbar. Probably too small to see.
That's ok, though, because indigo bunting and blue heron have been checked off my life list already. The one that hadn't, until today, we saw on the Illinois side of the bridge. It was all overgrown--the river is low--filled with vines and weed trees (silver maples, tree of heaven) and the more appropriate river birches. And while listening to a song we didn't know, Mike saw a flash of orange and black flying between some of these trees. I at first was sure it was just a redwing blackbird, but then I saw it. I'd never seen a bird like this before. So I tried in vain to get a good picture, and got two--one far away of it perching, and one of it in flight, but blurry. Came home and 
sat down with the field guides. Narrowed it down to American Redstart and Baltimore Oriole, but I've decided on the oriole because the redstart has a white breast, and this bird we saw was all orange and black. If any of you know better, please tell me. I keep my life list in pencil for this reason. So we made the two mile walk, discovered that the bridge is part of a 12 mile trail that intrigues me--we do 6 miles in 37 minutes these days with the trailer. It intrigued me so much...we wemt out for ice cream. Oberweis. Love it. Now Mike is taking a well-deserved nap and Sophia is cleaning her room. (Pretty much by default, if you wonder what Sophia is up to, she's cleaning her room). Maeve is looking for kisses, so I better get on that. Happy 4th!
Monday, July 03, 2006
June Mah Jongg
This past Friday, the girls on the block--most of us with delightfully gen-x names: Trisha, Bridgett, Kristen, Janine, Amanda, Kerri--the only outliers are Mary (eternally popular as a name choice) and Sharon (she's an older member of the mah jongg group). The rest of us just need a Christy and a couple Jennifers and we're my 5th grade class back at St. Bernadette's--threw a baby shower for two of our members who are/were due this month (Janine had her baby this morning, no word on any details, and Kerri still has just under a month to go). We pretended we were getting together for mah jongg, which is the game I shyly introduced to a couple of them back about a year ago. We did play, after the chicken salad and the cake and the presents. Kristen even put out her good china and crystal.
It was quite a little event.Mentioning that this was coming up has provoked several non-players to ask what I mean by mah jongg. So I thought a brief, brief, brief tutorial might be in order, since I mention it on occasion.
We play a version developed by the National Mah Jongg League, which seems to have a large number of older Jewish women as members. [Note: there's conflicting theories about why Jews play mah jongg in such disproportionately large numbers. One theory, which I like, is that Jews fleeing Europe in the 1930s landed in Shanghai, where they didn't need visas. They assimilated. Then they moved on] They're based out of New York, and have updates yearly on what hands are allowed and for what points. Mah Jongg is from China originally, although it is played around the world under several sets of rules. I am not going to get into the nitty gritty of the rules, just a few that make it more sensical.
Mah jongg is a game for 4 players. We should sit at a card table, directly across from each other, but since we almost always have other people waiting to play the next hand, we sit at a dining room table and sort of at a slant. But that works ok. It uses tiles, kind of like dominoes uses tiles, but the similarities end there. It is much more like gin rummy, actually. Or gin. Or rummy. Whichever.
Each player is dealt 13 tiles, which she puts on a rack, somewhat like a Scrabble rack, and arranges to make the most sense. We do a series of Charleston, which I think is an ironic term (like the dance?) that means we pass tiles back and forth, like in hearts. There are 6 of these passes. Then the game itself begins. Each person in turn picks up a tile from the "wall" (like the stack of cards in a card game), and either puts it in her hand or discards it. If she keeps it, she discards another tile from her hand. The whole time, she is working towards one of the hands written in the yearly card. For instance, a hand might be:
FF 11 333 555 77 99
This hand requires that the player has each of those numbers (the tiles are numbered 1 through 9, in three suits), as well as two flower tiles (F). In this case, the tiles would all have to come from the same suit. When the player gets this hand, finally, usually after much table talk and consternation in our group, she calls out mah jongg or just "mahj" (which is how Jody taught me long ago) and displays her tiles.
This description does not take into account the use of jokers, how to play pairs and singles, how to call for a tile that has been discarded. Don't worry about all that. Unless you'd like to play sometime...
Sort of an Analogy for This Week
On the way down to Mounds yesterday, I kept trying to see the oak trees near the highway edges. My view kept getting blocked by the scrubby eastern redcedars, essentially a weed tree. Thoroughly frustating.
Twists of Teaching Fate
On Friday, Sophia, Maeve, and I biked to Schnucks, then over to my League friend Cathy’s house for a glass of water, and on to Missouri Bakery and Viviano’s. Sophia has requested lasagna for her dinner next week (I help her plan one dinner a week, usually a Wednesday, and teach a bit about balanced meals and what makes food tasty, and then we usually go on a special shopping trip for those ingredients because she never requests chicken soup with rice or something I would be able to throw together with ingredients at home—it’s always enchiladas or lasagna or soufflé. Just kidding about the soufflé). And I’ve been feeling like I’ve hit a weight loss plateau the past week or so (long time coming; I’ve lost 23 pounds since April 7). So we biked. We have a bike trailer that fits two almost comfortably, and if I ply them with dry cereal and library books, they don’t fight the whole way.
We’ve been biking in Forest Park in the evenings, which is a 6 mile loop. That is a fabulous ride except for one hill next to Highway 40 and the zoo parking lot. The trailer with girls inside weighs about a hundred pounds, and my bike, a wonderful, well-built Motobecane from the 70s, is old enough that when the bike shop refurbished it for me (I got it off Freecycle), they had to remove one cog from the back set of sprockets. I am not using the correct language here, but I think you know what I mean. The effect is that I am missing the first gear, which is the best gear for terrible hills from hell. So I have essentially an 8 speed, missing the most crucial piece, and an extra 100 pounds whining behind me. So yesterday, I thought, I’ll get the bike ride in earlier in the day (also, mah jongg Friday night would have conflicted—more on that this evening), I won’t have to do that Hill, and we’ll get shopping done.
My mom says these blog entries are a bit convoluted. But I kind of like them that way.
Anyway, the trip to Schnucks runs through Tower Grove Park, which is, for those not from St. Louis, a beautiful Victorian-era “walking park”, which runs from Grand all the way to Kingshighway. The Schnucks I go to is just two blocks further west along Arsenal, so it makes sense to cut through the park and not worry about cars buzzing by for the majority of the trip.
Halfway through the park, we run into Kate Hartz and Mary Witt, who are sisters deeply entwined in my life. They live just a few blocks away, across the street from each other, and they walk at least a few times a week in the park with Kate’s dog. And after we chatted for a minute, I rode on towards the grocery store, thinking about how it is that things happen. Essentially, it boils down to this: I am the teacher I am today because I was a lousy teacher to begin with. And here’s the way that goes:
1. I was a lousy teacher to begin with. I was (am?) pretty antisocial, I didn’t work for other people very well, I interviewed badly, and alienated my best references in college. Therefore,
2. I took the less odious of the two job offers I received and worked in the city of St. Louis schools my first year. The other choice was to be a special-ed “shadow” in the Hancock Place district. This tainted my resume and killed my ego to the point that,
3. I had no bites at the old resume in the spring of 1997, when I was just about to die in the public schools in the city, therefore leading me to live in a cocoon most of that summer, finally making me so demoralized that I:
4. Took a job as an assistant teacher at Andrews Academy out in far west county, where I spent my days making copies, teaching computers and science, doing Important Errands with the other first grade aide, Dawn—oh, like going to go get Cindi and Stephanie (our lead teachers) diet coke with lemon, pick up lunch, purchase thank you notes—and soaking up every bit of teaching knowledge I could, thereby,
5. Somehow impressing the librarian, Mary Witt [note: who also taught my friend Brian in 3rd grade], such that she asked me if I’d like a tutoring job over the summer for her niece who was terribly bad at math, which I accepted, leading to:
6. Two summers tutoring Rachel Hartz at her kitchen table and really learning the ins and outs of the tangled web of her math abilities. Got to know her family and more about her school, St. Pius, and how lousy the math teacher was there. This did not lead to, but coincided with
7. Fr. Mike asking me if I would be interested in applying for the math teacher position at St. Pius, since the teacher was leaving to have a baby. I jumped on it because I was tired of St. Joan’s (which is a job I got because Andrews made be a better teacher) and their school was going to be in a year of limbo with a new principal. Plus, Pius was my parish, after all. I got the job at Pius, which led to
8. Teaching Rachel for 2 years, for pre-algebra and algebra, as well as revamping the curriculum at Pius and making it competitive finally. I left to have Sophia at the end of the two years, but continued tutoring Rachel for 4 years of high school, at the end of which
9. I had Maeve and asked Rachel’s mom to be her godmother. We’d become close friends and I wanted to continue the connection after Rachel went on to college and wouldn’t need tutoring. Rachel did go to college, and came home this summer to take her final math class, Finite Math.
10. She made an A+ in the class. I have come to the point that I can teach any math up through pre-calculus, and I can do a good job at it. Mostly because of Rachel, because she was bad at math but also eager to learn and not afraid to ask questions or make mistakes. I honed those skills over the past 9 years (my goodness—I’ve been married for 10 years) making sure that she understood. I could probably market this skill. Alas, I’m way too incorrigible as an employee.
We’ve been biking in Forest Park in the evenings, which is a 6 mile loop. That is a fabulous ride except for one hill next to Highway 40 and the zoo parking lot. The trailer with girls inside weighs about a hundred pounds, and my bike, a wonderful, well-built Motobecane from the 70s, is old enough that when the bike shop refurbished it for me (I got it off Freecycle), they had to remove one cog from the back set of sprockets. I am not using the correct language here, but I think you know what I mean. The effect is that I am missing the first gear, which is the best gear for terrible hills from hell. So I have essentially an 8 speed, missing the most crucial piece, and an extra 100 pounds whining behind me. So yesterday, I thought, I’ll get the bike ride in earlier in the day (also, mah jongg Friday night would have conflicted—more on that this evening), I won’t have to do that Hill, and we’ll get shopping done.
My mom says these blog entries are a bit convoluted. But I kind of like them that way.
Anyway, the trip to Schnucks runs through Tower Grove Park, which is, for those not from St. Louis, a beautiful Victorian-era “walking park”, which runs from Grand all the way to Kingshighway. The Schnucks I go to is just two blocks further west along Arsenal, so it makes sense to cut through the park and not worry about cars buzzing by for the majority of the trip.
Halfway through the park, we run into Kate Hartz and Mary Witt, who are sisters deeply entwined in my life. They live just a few blocks away, across the street from each other, and they walk at least a few times a week in the park with Kate’s dog. And after we chatted for a minute, I rode on towards the grocery store, thinking about how it is that things happen. Essentially, it boils down to this: I am the teacher I am today because I was a lousy teacher to begin with. And here’s the way that goes:
1. I was a lousy teacher to begin with. I was (am?) pretty antisocial, I didn’t work for other people very well, I interviewed badly, and alienated my best references in college. Therefore,
2. I took the less odious of the two job offers I received and worked in the city of St. Louis schools my first year. The other choice was to be a special-ed “shadow” in the Hancock Place district. This tainted my resume and killed my ego to the point that,
3. I had no bites at the old resume in the spring of 1997, when I was just about to die in the public schools in the city, therefore leading me to live in a cocoon most of that summer, finally making me so demoralized that I:
4. Took a job as an assistant teacher at Andrews Academy out in far west county, where I spent my days making copies, teaching computers and science, doing Important Errands with the other first grade aide, Dawn—oh, like going to go get Cindi and Stephanie (our lead teachers) diet coke with lemon, pick up lunch, purchase thank you notes—and soaking up every bit of teaching knowledge I could, thereby,
5. Somehow impressing the librarian, Mary Witt [note: who also taught my friend Brian in 3rd grade], such that she asked me if I’d like a tutoring job over the summer for her niece who was terribly bad at math, which I accepted, leading to:
6. Two summers tutoring Rachel Hartz at her kitchen table and really learning the ins and outs of the tangled web of her math abilities. Got to know her family and more about her school, St. Pius, and how lousy the math teacher was there. This did not lead to, but coincided with
7. Fr. Mike asking me if I would be interested in applying for the math teacher position at St. Pius, since the teacher was leaving to have a baby. I jumped on it because I was tired of St. Joan’s (which is a job I got because Andrews made be a better teacher) and their school was going to be in a year of limbo with a new principal. Plus, Pius was my parish, after all. I got the job at Pius, which led to
8. Teaching Rachel for 2 years, for pre-algebra and algebra, as well as revamping the curriculum at Pius and making it competitive finally. I left to have Sophia at the end of the two years, but continued tutoring Rachel for 4 years of high school, at the end of which
9. I had Maeve and asked Rachel’s mom to be her godmother. We’d become close friends and I wanted to continue the connection after Rachel went on to college and wouldn’t need tutoring. Rachel did go to college, and came home this summer to take her final math class, Finite Math.
10. She made an A+ in the class. I have come to the point that I can teach any math up through pre-calculus, and I can do a good job at it. Mostly because of Rachel, because she was bad at math but also eager to learn and not afraid to ask questions or make mistakes. I honed those skills over the past 9 years (my goodness—I’ve been married for 10 years) making sure that she understood. I could probably market this skill. Alas, I’m way too incorrigible as an employee.
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