Weeding the Church Garden

We have a new church garden committee. The garden, and all the outdoor plantings, sort of languished there on Grand or Utah, not really doing much at all once the school closed (I had been garden coordinator, but that was only for the raised vegetable bed. I wanted to do more with that space, something akin to urban farming, but it wasn't in the cards back then and I didn't have the strength of will to fight the committee. So I settled for a raised bed and went with that). Now it is a little serenity garden, where we lit the Easter fire, where we blessed pets on St. Francis of Assisi's feast day.

There is also a little strip along Grand behind our wrought iron fence, now planted with some very nice bulbs and perennials. It looks so much more put-together.

Last night, Eric, who is in charge of the garden and also sits on Parish Council, let us know that when the committee & volunteers did a big rehab of the planted spaces last weekend (the 20th of May), they found a marijuana plant growing in the bed along Grand. This isn't that surprising. It is right along Grand, a heavily walked street, and perhaps somebody dumped their seeds.

The amusing thing is that Eric didn't immediately pull the plant. He let it keep growing there, another week and a half until Parish Council. So we all went out after the meeting to look at it. Pretty little thing, about ten inches tall. We giggled and pointed and marveled that it had grown so tall without anyone noticing (passing by, that is). Then we started to walk away.

"Wait," said Fr. John. "What are we going to do about it?" Everybody just sort of stopped. Nobody wanted to touch the plant.

So I reached down and easily pulled it from the dirt. I mean, it's not like it was a dirty needle filled with heroin or something--it really is just a plant. I handed it to Sr. Mary who dropped it off in the dumpster on her way home (I watched to be sure--just kidding).

On Thursday I made brownies for the rectory staff. In case anyone got the munchies.

In the end, no big deal. But it made me think about my parish for a minute. Where else would this have grown without notice? You would need the specific combination of urban and garden. More urban, you wouldn't have ground enough to plant it. More suburban, and I think pot smokers would probably not be so bold as to walk down the main street and drop seeds on the ground. And where else would this be met with mild amusement, and where else would it become an agenda item for Parish Council (I called it Operation Paraquat, and if you don't know what that is, you're in good company: of the 9 of us sitting around the table, I was the only one)? It's a good place.

We really should have cultivated it, though. The plant booth at the annual church picnic would have made a mint on that sort of plant.

The Big Nap

So I took a big nap. Woke up somewhat better. Maybe it was just a little bug (as opposed to a little spider). If it weren't for the fever, I'd say it was psychosomatic. I used to be quite prone to that sort of thing.

The spider bite is not white and crusty in the middle. It has changed over time, moving from a painful itchy raised spot with two holes (fangs?), to that plus a large pink region (four inches in diameter) around it, with sort of a dark demarcation at the edges, to finally this afternoon, back to just the itchy raised spot. Same size as the first day. So I think the histamine reaction is ending.

For some reason, ticks don't scare me like spiders, I mean the bites, maybe because ticks don't build giant webs that I walk into when I'm 5 years old. I've gradually become accustomed to ticks...and of course we all know the retreat story from high school that made me accustomed to ant bites. Or maybe we don't. Later. I have to tell you about parish council first, well, not about the meeting, just about something that happened after....

Spinnefieber

Ok. What do they want, anyway? What do the snakes and spiders want from me? I am walking around today with fever and nausea. Perhaps unrelated to the massive raised red patch on my hip. Oh and the one on the back of my knee (it's actually smaller--perhaps some other kind of bite). But perhaps...

We saw 4 snakes this weekend. All of them at the creek. Here's one.

Lovely specimen. And here's another--I didn't get photos of the other two. Neither of these in the pictures are harmful creatures, although diamondback water snake (the second snake) bites tend to bleed profusely and are painful.

My eyes feel hot and i just don't feel well. But better than I did at 2 this afternoon when I brought the kids inside because I couldn't last another moment outside without lying down on the sidewalk. And while I feel rather close to my neighbors (all is well, at least where it counts), I don't think I need to lie down on the sidewalk and have the kids run their bikes over me.

And now I am returning to my room. Sophia just went outside to play with friends (thank goodness because she is on my last nerve. I won't even go there with you because nobody wants to listen to Tales Of My Annoying Child Part 44).

Spinne!

Oh, and another thing. I'm covered in spider bites from the weekend. Poison ivy doesn't get me (yet); mosquitoes bite and don't leave a welt. I react to fire ants, but they don't live here. Ticks are gross but obvious, and I've never had one long enough to get the big halo rash around it. I guess I have a low histamine reaction for the most part (unless it is oak pollen season and I'm frantically working with daisies wearing latex gloves, but come on, who wouldn't break out?).

But finally, finally, nature found a convincing, sure-fire way to get me. I don't think they're dangerous bites, but yikes, they are hot and raised and red. At least none of them are on my face. Small favors, thanks.

Mommy goes to more meetings

Tonight we had our block meeting, where the usual suspects showed up and talked. Plus the Tower Grove East board. They did most of the talking, actually. It was all about the concrete parking pad on the corner. We met in Corey & Amanda's backyard, the kids played at Mary & Brent's. They've opened up the fences between three yards, which is so nice. I wish my yard was part of that--but there is a house for sale between us, and the future owners don't have small children, so I somehow doubt we'll wind up in the conjoined backyard scheme. Of course Patrick compared it to a show on HBO about a polygamist and his families. We're not that weird.

But it did feel like a community. One that wasn't basking in its togetherness, in how great we are, in how powerful, righteous, or earnest. This is not something we can really get that fired up about. That house--that house was filled with drugs and prostitution. The general feeling is one of relief that this element is gone. Anything is better than that. True. But could we do better? Could I wring my hands some more over this? Could we talk in circles for another half hour without coming to a decision?

In the end, we almost unanimously opposed the parking pad by itself. I tried to be quiet and let this happen best it could. And I think it did. I did talk, but mostly to say that after the public hearing, then we really have to talk to the developer and extend the ole olive branch. Some (mostly the board) didn't think we needed to. But I think our block believes that we do. I'm not going to roll over for this guy, but I'm not going to leave him twisting in the wind. I want him to sell these units and do a good job and get the hell out of Dodge back to Chesterfield and leave us be--I want to compromise with the project, and right now the project's face is the developer.

So the board will send their letter. The board will go or not go to the public meeting. I'm going to go to the public meeting, with a letter that I've been asked to draft from the block. Which I guess I'd better get started on if I'm going to walk it around to get folks to sign. The whole thing kind of depresses me and I'm not sure why. Maybe because what is going on may be illegal, but is not directly immoral, and so I have a hard time taking a huge bravado stand against it. The drugs were illegal and the the prostitution and the whole opium den atmosphere was immoral and so it was easy to draw a line in the sand and push push push until something finally gave in. But this is a condo developer, out to make money, sure, out for his own profit and not for any real sense of making my neighborhood better, sure, but it's not the same thing.

In the end, I'm a block captain (which I became during the drug years) and my voice is loud and I guess I'd better use it the best I can. I'm not going to write an ultimatum-style letter, which I think is what the board will write. Maybe I'm naive, but I think I'm going to try to meet the developer in the middle. Can't we all win, somehow? Can't there be a middle way that works for everyone?

I keep having anxiety dreams. Last night, we were being forced to move somehow because our neighbors were selling their house. Whatever. I was so upset--I never thought I'd be the first to leave. Tried to cajole a neighbor into selling me his house. Other neighbors telling me to be sensible and give it up. Settling for a house a couple of blocks away. Being really depressed.

Maybe it's time to give block captain to someone else. Maybe that shouldn't be a for-life kind of job. I don't know. I know who I would pass it to. For that matter, he could be block captain too--there's no reason why there can be only two (we already have two, for goodness sake). I'll handle marauding thieves, drug dealing, and rabid dogs. He can handle the politics. Brent? You up for it?

So tomorrow: more meetings. Parish Council. The one meeting I really actually like to go to. Ok, I like Art & Environment, too. But Parish Council is so, well, like me. I always leave in a good mood and am not driven to drink. Although I wouldn't say no. Never could.

Maeve Sings

Thanks to everyone for kind words, well wishes about our school choice coming up (of all the problems to have...once again, too much abundance...). I have a hunch we will go ahead and do half days at City Garden and half days at home (Spanish, art, knitting, gardening, sign language here; everything else there. Plus math in both spots). But we're heading to a meeting on Thursday to look long and hard at City Garden and whether this is the right fit for us, for her, for me. I mean, the woman who runs the Atrium is on their board; her daughter will be Sophia's teacher. It's a split-level class of K-2, with only 1 or 2 second graders. I think it would be lovely. About as much like homeschooling as possible. And the community doesn't drive me crazy like the local Waldorf school did.

Anyway, before I get down to the business of attic cleaning, basement cleaning, neighborhood meeting attending, church work, yard work, and potential new tutoring students that will define what this summer will be (if all goes well and the river don't rise and all that), I wanted to post a couple of songs Maeve has been singing lately.

Maeve is enamored with song. She knows the words to several standards (You Are my Sunshine; The Itsy Bitsy Spider; I've Been Working on the Railroad, etc) and makes up her own lyrics as well. Sophia did this too, but they tended to be repetitive phrases that did not change: My fairy wand. My fairy wand. My fairy wand. Imagine my fairy wand song for 40 miles on I-55 southbound.

Maeve's latest hits are these two gems:

Maeve is good
Maeve is nice
Maeve is good
Sophia is bad

and

Mommy and Daddy go away
Mommy and Daddy go away
Daddy goes to work
Mommy goes to meeting

Hmm.

Perhaps fewer meetings this summer?

All wrapped up for summer

Today was the last day for Atrium (Good Shepherd Catechesis). Yesterday was the end of City Garden. Monday was Sanja's last day as piano teacher until July (she's visiting relatives in Serbia (not Bosnia)). Oak Meadow curriculum is done except -ing word family, her knitting project, and we need to check on some pressed flowers. Knitting and flowers would continue through the summer anyway. And my add-ons: handwriting, math rote practice, the Bob books, the book of Centuries, art study, are all finished except the math, which will continue into the summer, until she is finished with the book.

I'm a taskmaster about math. It's complicated. I want her to do well with math, to know what she needs, to understand what she learns. But I don't need her to LIKE MATH. It would be great if she did, but few people spend their free time doing math problems. In contrast, many people spend free time reading novels and popular non-fiction. She needs to like reading. So we are more gentle.

My neighbor, a teacher with quite an analytical mind who can cut to the chase and ask the right question in pretty much any conversation, asked me about our school choices and specifically about Montessori vs. Waldorf. I don't know enough about Montessori to say for sure, but I do know about Waldorf, and I know I haven't swallowed the catechism whole on that one. I think it is lovely, the framework it sits in of handwork and art and soft colors and light on technology and heavy on natural materials. It is so me. And I love the novel concept that math is natural and reading is a construct. Every child wants things to be fair. They count. They divide. They add. Waldorf is very big into the concrete math first concept, which is how math should be.

Waldorf is light on the early reading. Which I also like, even though, as an early reader myself, I was hesitant. Of course Sophia would read early, I exclaimed. But she showed no interest at all in connecting phonics and letter recognition and all that to stories and narration and enjoyment and freedom, until about October of this year. Which I think is appropriate: she was just barely 5. Yeah, I read at 3, but my comprehension skills were about age-appropriate. I was a decoder that young. It wasn't till later that I learned how best to read. So Sophia can divide and multiply and knows her math facts and what a semicircle is, which is far beyond most kindergarten students, but her reading is right smack dab in the center of appropriate.

Anyway, next year is coming soon enough. For now, Cinderalla III is on TV and the girls are vegetating a bit before we run run run run out to do everything we have to do before the weekend plans.

Outside, wrapping up for summer, the forestry division is cutting back our street trees. It's like a hair cut. Which leads me to my new hair cut. It kind of scares me. But I'm working on it.

A little medieval literature for ya

I've started wearing a St. Benedict medal. I've never really worn any devotional things--I have a couple of crosses that were gifts, but I rarely wear them. I don't have any saint medals until now, either--my saint wasn't popular enough for a mass produced one (St. Brigid of Kildare), I don't have a separate confirmation name since I went through RCIA for that, Sarah is an Old Testamant name...anyway, I just never took to wearing one. There aren't very many outwards signs of Christianity (or more specifically, Catholicism) in my house, either. The Epiphany blessing above my doors (in chalk); I have one crucifix, and a St. Brigid's Cross. That's it.

In contrast, when I met Mike, he had a St. Michael's medal, a TEC cross, and a little dove that stayed on the same chain with it. His mother wears a large number of them. My mother has always favored dainty crosses. I don't know--it just wasn't my thing.

I received a medal at Christmas, from my mother-in-law, and I started wearing it sometime during Lent. I was doing a lot of reading and thinking and praying and it helped me remember to do those things. I think that's the whole point anyway--it's not a simple image, I don't think it's a badge for other pepole to see and understand. It's heavy, it rests right above my heart, and it makes me pause sometimes when I'm about to act like a jackass.

I showed it to Mike somewhere along the line, and he commented that it was pretty intricate. It is. It is very medieval. The oldest records of it in its current form date back to Columbus, but considering how much stuff is jammed into it, the thought is that it is older than that. It is two-sided. One one is Benedict, and the other is the cross.

Benedict's side has him standing in the center, holding a cross in one hand and the Rule in the other. Behind him in Latin: Crux S. Patris Benedicti (the cross of our holy father Benedict). Below him, a snake in a cup and a raven. The raven, the legend goes, took away a poisoned loaf of bread he was about to eat. And the snake coming out of the cup is an artistic depiction of another legend--he blessed a poisoned cup and took away its poison (the cup cracked, or a snake came out, or whatever--I've read it a couple of different ways). The snake on the medal represents the poison leaving the cup.

Along the outside of the medal on this side reads Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur--May we be strengthened by his presence in the hour of our death. Benedict is the patron saint of happy deaths. Of course.


On the cross side of the medal, at the top is PAX (Peace), in the center is an equal cross with CSPB going round it (Cross of our holy father Benedict, again). Around the outside, the initials VRSNSMV SMQLIVB, which stand for Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas! (Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!) On the cross is written CSSML NDSMD, which of course stands for Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! (May the holy cross be my light! May the dragon never be my guide!).

Benedict's territory as patron saint ranges far and wide, but includes Italian architects, schoolchildren, servants who have broken their masters' belongings, monks, farmers, spelunkers, and is invoked against the following: nettle rash, inflammatory diseases, kidney disease, fever, flesh-eating bacterial infections, witchcraft, gallstones, temptations.......and poison.

So Mike makes the connection--I've been safe from snakes due to the "anti-venom exorcism amulet you carry around with you all the time." This he says in front of all our Protestant neighbors. Sigh. But it's ok.

I just wanted them all to know that this is not the reason I wear this.

But I'm starting to wonder about a St. Patrick medal...

An Explanation Before Mike Gets Mad At Me

Nobody was bit by a snake.

Pictures tomorrow from the rest of the lovely day, the day that might convince me to have Sophia go to City Garden next year. It was great. We visited a "farm" down by DeSoto that has an artesian well that forms a series of ponds. Fabulous weather, fabulous day. And we went on a little creek walk. A bunch of kids, a bunch of parents. We haven't even really started the walk--we are still in sight of the picnic table and the well itself (which spurted water constantly--the earth is full of amazing things). And one of the moms said, "[Child's name]. Come see this snake."

We all walked up to see. Because, really. It was going to be a garter snake. No question. We were going to gather round and look at the little green and black striped snake stick its tongue out at us and slither away. I also thought that it would be in the woods.

It was on the path. And it was not a garter snake. It was a shortish thick snake, not like a coach whip or a racer, not long and thin and sleek looking. Because I know a teensy bit about snakes, and most of that comes from ranger talks at campgrounds, and they always have an example of a good Missouri snake. Slender and beautiful. This looked like a bleached out ball python, the markings, the blotchy brown on a pinkish orange background. But it was not slender--I could call it a fat snake, actually--it was quite short.

It was coiled up on our path, with its head back ready to strike. Fight or flight.

"Sophia," I say to my daughter, who is 4 inches from the snake's head. "Come back here by me." I can proudly say that I made no sudden moves, that I said that calmly but firmly, and Sophia, entranced by the snake (all the kids just stood and looked. None of them poked at it. They have been taught something, I suppose). Sophia, completely unphased, came back and stood by me.

This was one of those moments when my fight or flight didn't kick in. I have lousy mothering instincts. I mean that whole mama bear protect the cub thing. My kid falls down, I don't run to her. I hear crying, I don't panic. I don't even lurch forward. Although I have caught more than my fair share of vomit in my hands, I really don't rush to their aid as much as I should. I don't get down about this. I just try to work on being more, well, there.

I was there this time. I didn't back away (with Maeve on my shoulders) until Sophia was behind me (I was between snake and daughters). The snake slithered up the hill into the woods, and we continued on the walk. Sophia whined about nature. She got over herself. Maeve--ditto.

The two dads behind me did speculate: was it a rattler? I said I didn't think it was--we were too far east in Missouri (I know now that this is WRONG). And it wasn't a cottonmouth. Nope. Nope. I didn't say what we were all thinking--could it be a copperhead? I simply said that Missouri had a lot of snakes. It made everyone feel better.

We got back to the picnic tables after our walk, after a canoe trip (which I OF COURSE DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN, although I let Sophia. Why? Look here. And then the first paragraph here). I sat down on the ground and watched Maeve play in the artesian well spillway, about 2 inches of cold clear water. Lots of kids. Lots of fun. The director of the preschool came over to me.

"You seem to know a lot about Missouri flora and fauna."

"Yeah, I have kind of made it my goal to be a part of the place. I live here, I'll be damned if I don't know what trees are in my backyard."

"You think that was a bad snake?"

"Yes, I think I do. But I'm going to look it up at home. I'll send you an email."

At home, I looked in the book. It was not the harmless water snake I was hoping for. I made up a little photo array and had Sophia pick it out of the line up. She did, no problem.

"It's a pretty snake," she told me.

Then I felt a little queasy.

Copperheads are the least poisonous of the American venomous snakes. Their bite is rarely fatal...except among the elderly and small children.

Yeah, like the 7 small children who formed a little ring around the snake Wednesday afternoon.

I'm still feeling a little queasy. And I'm starting to wonder two things:

1) Are the snakes out to get me?Is it because of my email address? (zmaya is a transliteration of the Russian word for snake). (I'm so vain--I probably think these snakes are about me).

2) What the heck is keeping me safe? My neighbor mentioned this evening that she's never seen a big snake--only garter snakes. She camps. A lot more than I do. But I have seen a snake every time I've camped--a big snake--and now I've seen two of the 5 venomous ones in my state. And nothing odd has happened.

Up next: Mike's offhand comment about the answer to #2.

Our Trip to the Country

Copperhead, originally uploaded by Plutor.

More later.

In Sweden, there are only 4 kinds of soap

I've got a problem of too many choices.

I've been spending a lot of mental energy narrowing down my choices lately. I buy only one kind of yogurt. I do not deviate according to sale price, flashy packaging, or whim. I buy only one kind of milk. It actually gets delivered to my door. I only buy organic strawberries, but I fudge on the oranges because I rationalize that I peel them (my neighbor Trisha will probably now inform me that I've made a deadly choice there). Most of my consumer choices have winnowed down to no choice--this is great from a mental energy point of view (if I only ever buy one kind of cereal, that whole aisle stops being so overwhelming). And I have enough variety in my life that I don't need a new cereal, say, every month. Really. Go with what works and stop worrying. This is a major drawback if a certain cereal, yogurt, laundry detergent is no longer carried or no longer exists. But even then, I can start over and figure out what works now that this choice is gone.

This was interesting today at Sappington Market. I don't often go there anymore because it is far away and I balance food dollars against gas dollars. But I was there browsing for red flowered plants (Pentecost!) and because I was conversing with my sister Bevin in the car and it was pleasant. Anyway, Maeve was thirsty and I failed to bring a sippy cup with me. So buying anything without a drip-controlled lid was out of the question (I couldn't even do what my first inclination would be--fill up something at a water fountain). So I thought, hey, we haven't had juice boxes in a while, I'll just pick up a package of them and we'll take them camping this summer or donate them to the Movie House down the street (a projector! on the back garage wall!). Anyway, we stood there in the juice aisle. Many juices. But all the kid-friendly (meaning with a straw or a non-drip lidded opening) ones had high fructose corn syrup and not much juice. So, oh well. We found a sports bottle of plain water and Maeve was happy. The decision was already made ahead of time. Didn't have to think much about whether I should go with the Hi-C with high fructose...or the capri sun with high fructose...I just said no, knowing they weren't options.

This has nothing to do with what I'm really concerned with.

Sophia is about to finish her school year. This Friday, in fact, except that we'll continue with math facts until we're done (sigh, i'm such a task master). Today, I picked her up from City Garden and the woman who runs it handed me a folder for interested parents for next year. Maeve is going to attend the preschool next year, but that wasn't what this was. This was for the emerging K-2 school they are starting (this year was the pilot kindergarten). She said I might want to look...and I might want to pass it on.

City Garden is lovely. But I'd already decided that she was doing first grade at home...right? But Trish then said she would let Sophia attend half days for first grade. I asked her pointedly if she was sure, for first grade, not a repeat of kindergarten. With the same kids and advancing curriculum. Yes, she said, she knows us, she knows Sophia. It would work. She would miss Spanish and extra-curriculars. Which of course are the parts I would want to keep up here at home anyway--our little Waldorf knitting projects and Spanish and sign language and piano and art at SCOSAG. I love the way City Garden works. And now I have another valid, beautiful choice.

Soulard School: our neighbors attend. Two neighbors teach there. The kids play on Sophia's ball team and soccer team. The philosophy matches mine. I think that is the only school I could find myself teaching in. If they let me (I sort of, umm, have no references, I, umm, burn my bridges to the ground and let the singed ashes fall into the river below me while I laugh on the shore). If I do wind up there, it is likely my kids will follow. Later. Not this coming year. It's future. It's not first grade.

Cabrini: our parish school. A little too traditional for me and kindergartners learn to read so I don't think Sophia would fit well in the first grade. Maybe later. Maybe. I feel like singing the Who song "Won't Get Fooled Again" when I consider Cabrini. (Reference, above, my lack of references and bridge destruction: I taught at one of the schools that combined to become Cabrini. This is a big reason why I homeschool--it is wrapped up in my desire for the best teachers and a whole lotta ego that got pretty badly bruised at Pius). But it is solid and well-run (so well run) and Sophia has many friends there.

Home: it's familiar, it's dirt cheap. I'm a good teacher. It's comfortable, we have a lovely curriculum, we can do what we want when we want and she thrived this year (until May, when SHE WAS SO DONE SHE COULDN'T STAND ME ANYMORE). The drawback is space--school is in the dining room. There is just too much damned stuff in that room. We have to finish the attic. I told Mike this tonight: finish the attic by August or we need to seriously consider City Garden. Or Soulard. Or Cabrini. Or French Jesuit boarding school. No, wait, that's for Maeve.

He promised me we would have it ready. We went up and looked around, talked about what I would do, what he would do, how and where and so on. We're looking for 4 aluminum casement windows...18x24 inches. I need him to call his dad. Everything else we have on hand. We just need to do it.

And then home will suddenly seem so much more attractive for first grade. I am learning that I'm a list maker and she's a garden of delights person. Even when I taught first grade, everything was on a list and children thrived with consistency. Montessori is different, and Atrium and City Garden have made Sophia into a Montessori girl. And that is beautiful, believe me. But while list making type A's can thrive in a dining room with 15 other purposes and movable feasts, both literal and figurative, Montessori works best in a dedicated space with options. Carefully crafted options--not free-for-all--but I really need some dedicated space.

Or else I'm going to have a big migraine all summer while I choose which school she needs to go to. Times like these make me wish we lived someplace without so many good choices--like where Mike grew up. If we lived in Cairo, right now, there is no question: I would homeschool. Every year, it would already be determined. Just like the juice boxes.

Choice does not equal freedom. This doesn't make choice bad. It just makes choice difficult. The fewer stupid choices we have to make, like what kind of soap to buy, the more time and energy we can give to the choices that are really important.

SPV Blogging: Choirs of Angels Part One

There is so much detail in this building. Sometimes it feels over the top. This is one of those instances. On the arch above the choir loft are 5 little circles, each with an angel playing an instrument (ironically, probably not instruments they would have played at church when it was built. I wasn't there, but I'm thinking they stuck mostly to the pipe organ).

This one plays the tambourine. And looks almost ticked off about this. Like there is a lot of thought going into staying with the beat of the music.

This past Sunday was the Ascension, and Sr. Mary used my Ascension window photograph as the cover of the worship aid (the handout that tells you what songs we're going to sing, what readings we'll have, and so on). Put my name up the side with a photo credit, which is nice, but as I told her, it's not like I made the window, after all. But you wouldn't believe how many people came up to me after mass to thank me.

I'm going to put this on the fridge at home to look at during the week.

I never noticed that window until I saw it in the program.

It's so striking out of context like this. I didn't know it was in our church.

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. I never noticed these little angels playing their music until I saw them through the camera lens.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

I just finished watching "Smoke" which is a movie from the early '90s, not much fanfare, kind of a blip. William Hurt, Stockard Channing, Harvey Keitel, Harold Perrineau Jr, Forrest Whittaker, centered around a cigar shop in Brooklyn. The stories knit together and aren't really cast off the needles at the end. You're left hanging, but not in an infuriating way. In fact, the spaces left by things unsaid and unexplained are satisfying.

I haven't seen this movie in ten years. At least that long--I think before I was married. It's listed as one of my favorites, I always mention it when movies come up. But I guess I didn't realize how much it resonated with me until I saw it tonight. Saw it with different eyes.

It is heavy on the connections and symbolism, but it doesn't drive you crazy. It is subtly put together, but not the best-acted film on the planet. There is something about watching Auggie Wren, Keitel's character, that just screams out values that are becoming important to me--stability, hospitality, cloister, quiet, trust, faith, generosity--that cigar store is like some sort of miniature secular monastery in this film. It has been there, the same, forever, he's worked there, the same, forever. He's done the same things every day, forever. Nobody sees him until suddenly they need him--and he is there, and then he fades into the background again. But this is not some sort of sappy Frank Capra style thing--it is a movie about theft and illegal cigar importing and depression and grief and lying and reconciliation.

And I sat there tonight watching it thinking I can't believe I never saw it this way before. I'm not saying everyone should run out and rent this film (it isn't easy to find--it's the reason we joined Netflix). I'm just saying it's one of those movies that, intended or not, resonates with the way I see the world. And that seems to be kind of a rare thing.

Media Fast? How About Communication Fast?

Sophia was born July 2001. Then there was this thing a couple of months later, just as I was starting to emerge from that fuzzy new-mom state, you know, that "where were you when the airplanes hit the buildings?" moment that will define the lives of those around me like the death of JFK or Pearl Harbor did for previous generations (I know, some unlucky folks can answer all three questions, and many many more--but this is really the one for me thus far). We had cable back then, and I didn't have a job or, frankly, much else going on. I didn't know my neighbors, I didn't have any friends with kids, I had recently been banished from my parish (that's overstating it massively--I was banished from the parish school, but I still went to church there all vulnerable and sad). So I watched a lot of TV.

In October, I had to turn the TV off. We got rid of cable and I stopped watching news reports. I turned it all off. I stopped keeping track of the world for a while and I got a lot better. I slowly let it back in--but we never got cable again, because I fear I would sink into it in a dangerous way.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying that I need a communication fast. I need to stop reading emails with the subject line "death" (that was an actual email yesterday). I need to not pick up my telephone. I need to avoid the abbreviation ASAP and messages on the answering machine that start out with "I need to talk to you about..." Because it has been 5 days of bad news. Or complicated news. Or frustrating situations involving communication. Everything from prayer list add-ons to neighborhood "action items" to dirty gossip. Checking my email, I think it was Thursday, there were 8 new messages and each one required action or response from me.

This is not a posting asking for pity--poor busy Bridgett. Because none of this had anything to do with art & environment at church or parish council or homeschooling or wrapping up the school year in all the places Sophia learns. None of my busy-ness had anything to do with this.

Which is why it is hitting me like the dirty side of a hurricane.

So I think I'm going to board up and spray paint "INSIDE AND ARMED" on my front door. No more bad news. At least until next week.

Double Secret Probation

Last August, there was an assault on our block. Which is a bland way to describe it, actually. It was National Night Out and a group of thugs walked up our street and attacked one of our neighbors. If you need the background, it is here and here and a little more here.

The kid who was arrested that night was a juvenile and nothing, I think, happened to him. First offense and just a kid and whatever. But then later Joe was able to identify a non-juvenile who was present, and this man, Joseph "Doughboy" Newman, was arrested and charged. It was just a misdemeanor (it didn't feel like a misdemeanor, but it was), but he was on probation for armed robbery and had in the interim committed a couple of other misdemeanors. We really didn't think anything was going to happen with this, either. It was somewhat demoralizing, especially considering the final successes we had with the drug dealers on the corner, but at the same time, everyone was ok and we all, frankly, did what neighbors should do. What completely awesome neighbors that I couldn't have hand-picked better if I had a master plan and resumes should do. We sort of moved on.

But then a couple of months ago, Mariah Fulfer from the prosecutor's office called. The case was coming up. We were all witnesses. I talked with her eagerly. She talked with other neighbors, with Mike, and then it went before a judge--it didn't make the top 10 or 12 for that next week, but she called us back and let us know it would come up again later in the spring or summer and she'd be in touch. We were "in the system" and the difference in communication from the juvenile division was amazing. I told her so. I praised her.

So on Monday I got another call from her. Thursday, it was coming up again to see if it would be tried next week (meaning the week starting the 21st of May). I asked if we needed to be there--no, she told me, she would call if it came up on the docket. It was still kind of a new case so she said don't hold my breath or cancel my dentist's appointment. Very nice and up front. She tells me that she's looking into moving onto our street--two blocks up. Seriously.

On Thursday she calls while I'm tutoring Ann's daughter, and tells me that Joseph Newman plead guilty. He got probation, one where he has to check in regularly. If he comes near Mike or Joe Z., if he doesn't report, or if he commits other crimes, he goes to jail for 6 months.

I was underwhelmed. "But he's already on probation," I complained. She explained that it didn't count because this crime happened before he was convicted of the other one. No, I told her, the armed robbery does count. The marijuana and assault charges are newer, but the robbery was old enough. See, we'd already been over this. There was this long pause, and some hesitant sounds. She would look into it. I asked her if it would have made a difference if we'd all been there--sometimes these things do matter, after all, but she told me no. I told her that WE WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE, A DOZEN OF US, but she said it was too late to worry about that, that she'd look into the probation thing. I told her no wonder the police got frustrated. I told her no wonder we're the most dangerous city in America. I got off the phone.

And immediately called Mary to warn her that she'd be getting a phone call. So she could have questions prepared. Which she did. Mariah talked with Mary, Mariah probably talked with Joe Z. (who is not short of words). Mariah called me back all perky about the probation and how she was going to report this to his probation officer and make sure something happened. She said she would "stalk" Joseph Newman. "Not that way," she reassured me.

I'm going to misquote what Mary said to her, but the paraphrase I can produce here is that we on Halliday were going to get justice done, through one (legal) avenue or another, whether with Mariah or above her head. I found that sentiment both satisfying and dismaying. What happens to blocks that don't have smart, educated people who have the time to keep up with it? What happens to victims who don't know how to decipher it all?

In comparison, without going into the mortifying details, I know of someone in the county whose teenage (I think 14 years old?) daughter met an adult (22) male over myspace. Started sneaking around with him, having some sex in his car, snorting some cocaine. Yes, they are felonies, and ours was just an unprovoked misdemeanor assault, but this guy got 5 years in big boy prison and a sex offender tag. He'll serve at least 4 because that's how long the sex offender program he has to attend is. I wonder if it was a kid on the next block he'd lured into Tower Grove Park instead of Trautwein Elementary's parking lot, if he would have gotten some community service. With teenagers.

The mayor and the police chief stand there in that press conference about the most dangerous city and I just can't take them and their rationalizations very seriously. I know a lot of it is statistical anomaly (and I'm good at arguing that with non-St. Louisans). But it can be dicey in the city. And even when the victims ID the suspects, when there are 6 witnesses eager to testify, when the victims get phone calls from the police chief and the (useless) alderman, when the block where it happened pressures the landlord to evict the suspects, when the moms who answer the phone have intelligent (if a bit ironic) questions to ask, when we know where the courthouse is and can go, when we are eager to be on juries and are good citizens and good neighbors, the justice system totally can fail. Just think what happens when the victims are poor, undereducated, overworked, busy, worried, don't have lawyers for friends, don't have allies in the police department, don't know their neighbors.

I guess then they don't even get double secret probation.

Call to Holiness (Oblate response #1)

Kit mentioned in the comment section earlier that maybe I could write about what I'm reading for the oblate program, and I just heard back from Sr. Jean today about my first essay/response, and I think perhaps I'll go ahead and cut and paste it here as well. Jean has asked me if I'd like to make my oblation this fall instead of next...but I don't think I will. I think I will spend the full year. But anyway, here is what I wrote--it is in response to an essay/talk by a Sr. Dolores, OSB, which has the premise that all Christians are urgently called to holiness. I was supposed to write about holiness and where this call might lead someone. Like me.

---

"We are urgently called to be holy." That statement would have meant nothing more to me than a demand to follow a moral code a few years back. Holiness = not sinning. Praying was part of that equation. But I’m starting to see that this is a somewhat immature attempt to know God. No wonder it didn’t work too well. But, Joan Chittister writes in her Insights for the Ages, “the God of mercy knows what we are and revels in weakness that tries” (p. 56). Revels in weakness that tries. Striving against the quicksand of my daily life, I keep reaching, however weakly, not realizing that not only is the mire of my own making, but God has the rope. I just have to grasp on and pull. Because of our great gift of free will, God is not going to reach into my quicksand, hog-tie me, and yank me to freedom. But the rope is there.

It has taken me a long time to see that light within. We don’t search for God—we don’t knock on the door—God is the one knocking on ours. However faintly, however loud the other noises in my life may be, if I acknowledge that call, the voice gets louder. (Samuel—here I am Lord). The more I say “I hear you, I know you hear me,” the more desire I have to integrate this newfound light into my whole life, which is fragmented and sticky. I want to shine that light into my parenting, teaching, into my interactions with neighbors, friends, parishioners, family, into all my actions.

I think (and hope) that the idea is that the more the light within becomes transparent in my external life, the closer my relationship with God will become. This snowball effect is the beginning of holiness—desire for God leads to a deeper understanding; putting my mind and heart and day in the right order lines everything up in its correct order. It challenges, but it also satisfies.

So I’m interested in becoming an oblate because…

Something about making a promise, a public promise, with a framework and a Rule, helps me towards that holiness. I can tell myself I will do it, but there is no one to hold me accountable except myself. I am not hermit material. If God does know what we are, that we are weak and in need of support, then God understands that community is the most logical situation in which to find that support.

I told my five year old daughter Sophia this afternoon that thunderstorms were expected this week. I like to warn her because she is anxious about storms and tornadoes. After the initial anxiety about the news, she said, “Mom, even if there’s just one other person around, I don’t feel so scared in a storm.” I thought about community and holiness—even if there’s just one other person around to support my desire for God, for what is truly important, that other person can buoy me up and help my pursuit of holiness. That's why I'm looking for a community of faith like the oblates. There is more to it than that--or I would just join a bible study group or an online chat room. But that is the beginning.

Finally, a post about our block!

Except that it is also intertwined with today's reading from the Rule of Benedict:

In all things, therefore, let all follow the Rule as guide,
and let no one be so rash as to deviate from it.
Let no one in the monastery follow his own heart's fancy

Benedict is speaking of the monastery, not of the city block where we happen to reside. He wants decisions to be made in community--big decisions should be brought to the whole community and everyone be given a voice. Small decisions can happen just with the abbot's/prioress' closest counselors. But if it's big, if it will change something about the way the monks live, then they'd better have a say in it. Even if the leader decides to go another way, s/he has been informed of the spirit of the community and does not make decisions blindly. Nor should any random community member decide to do whatever the "heart's fancy" wants. Communities are affected by renegade members. Communities are stronger when folks work together towards a common goal. Or at least know that when decisions are unpopular but must be made, that respect should be paid to those who didn't get their way.

I don't read the Rule every day--I click on the link on the right side of this blog on occasion, usually when things get busy or overwhelming. Sometimes it doesn't seem to apply--it's not a magic 8 ball, after all--but sometimes it makes me pause.

Many of you know why I'm close to my neighbors. Not why I continue to be close, but how it happened in the first place. I should frame our first block call list, with the add-ons and the notes. The cell numbers of DEA agents on the back and random jottings of things Anne said to me on the phone that I wanted to remember when I called the police again. Cab numbers, descriptions. The notation: "Cell phones do not show on log!!!" at the top. We used to have khat dealers and prostitutes on our corner. I suspect some human trafficking. I took some gross photos of basement detritus one summer afternoon right before the end of it all. The things you wind up doing when you're scared that Bad Men live on your corner. The Secret Service agent flashing a badge on my front porch. The, I'll be honest, total thrill about having the Secret Service sitting in my living room passing me photos and taking my information.

The activities at Halliday and Grand brought us together. Seriously. Suddenly we had a map, with phone numbers and names. We knew who people were. We could figure out whose cars were whose and which ones were dumped here after being stolen. It was an instant conversation starter: "Welcome to our block. We're so glad you bought this house. Here's our block list, there is some trouble on our corner but we're working on it..." And we did work. For over a year of consistent monitoring, knocking on the doors of every law enforcement agency we could think of. Talked with a lot of bozos at those agencies. And then were finally listened to. The rest is history.

The building sat empty. Life was GOOD. Then a developer bought the property, and the old police station at Magnolia and Grand. We were hesitant. We bargained. We fought. And finally, we came to the realization that there wasn't much we could do to stop development--beyond illegal activity that we weren't interested in--and we as a block started to work with the developer. Asked questions. Looked at plans, other projects he'd done. He hired good sub-contracters and we were satisfied.

Except that one neighbor really wasn't, and from my point of view, it seemed really personal. I stopped listening to her complaints, stopped worrying about what she had to say--we liked what the developer was doing, and that neighbor didn't live on our street, but on the next block.

We still like what the developer has done--granted, we would have done it differently, we would have done different things with the density, but we already lost that battle. Time to move along. And we did. He's sold 3 of the condos and the others look promising. I've walked through one. Small but very nice.

Then the developer poured a concrete pad in the front yard of the building. Made a parking pad, a driveway, where there had been front yard. This had been discussed before--how to work parking into this project with no parking spaces. The project on Victor was comparable, in some ways, but this wasn't like Victor. The driveway goes right across the sidewalk. The gutter is blocked by the apron. The concrete is blindingly white and the workmen park right on top of the sidewalk.

He didn't get a permit.

Not only that, he would never have gotten a permit for what he did, according to several folks, including Steve of Urban Review (he took photos but hasn't posted yet about it) and the neighbor whose voice I'd stopped listening to because it all seemed so personal for her. And so there's going to be a public meeting on June 6 to discuss the end result of this illegal driveway. I'm going to post some photos later--once I can get down to the corner without people (contractors, developers, real estate agents) asking me what the heck I'm doing.

I had a conversation with that neighbor yesterday. Sat in the alley for an hour. And she convinced me. So we're going to have a block-wide meeting, with the Tower Grove East Neighborhood Association board, soon.

I've been a vocal part of this block--I'm a block captain and I don't keep my mouth shut. Pretty much at all. And I fear (don't reassure me) that I've been too vocally supportive of the project. That perhaps I have railroaded folks into thinking this parking pad, with the alderman bundle of money for end of the street monuments rolled into it, was something that was inevitable. We had to live with it because we had no method of revolt. But now, maybe we do. And because the messenger was irritating me, I wasn't listening to the message.

So I'm going to our block meeting, and I'm going to listen. Perhaps we just don't care. Perhaps it isn't worth it--there used to be drug dealers there--but perhaps we can work things out so they work for the developer, for the new neighbors, and for us. Perhaps there is a middle way. And I'm hoping I can keep my mouth shut long enough to hear people talk. Remember that newcomers sometimes have the clearest view. Keep in mind that I'm not the boss of this block, even if my voice is pretty loud and I easily slip into middle school math teacher mode. How easily a strength becomes a flaw.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I guess just that I've changed my mind, and I think that's a good thing. But that I'm also not going to take my change of mind and make other people think the way I do.

Oh, forgot to post these a month and a half ago...

We went down to Texas for my mom's spring break this March. A couple of pictures from that trip (somehow, my interest in photography waned the longer the trip went on--I don't have anything from Ian & Ashley's house, the lovely Italian Chicken dinner I made, the trip to the gas station to get change for the pizza guy, the little shows Kennedy and Sophia put on...just photos from Oklahoma and from one day at Moody Gardens in Galveston. But here they are anyway, just for completeness sake. I was thinking about how I didn't have any photos of my brother, any current ones, and, lo, I still don't).

The first one is us lost in Oklahoma. Well, not exactly lost, but at least waylaid from our purpose, which was finding the state park where we were going to stay. We were actually hoping for a grocery store to pick up dinner, and we went all the way through this town and only found a Walmart. When we got here, we realized we'd reached the end of the town, and we turned around, to head back to, gulp, Walmart. Where, to my shock, they had organic ketchup and peanut butter and bread without high fructose corn syrup. But I used to work at one and they're vile places. Especially since, oh, this town had no other options for groceries except for the corporate Walmart. I get a little--no, a lot--suspicious. But my father says I'm a socialist so I'll stop there. Anyway, so we turned around at the Shipman Funeral Home and Crematory, and at first glance, I thought it was Shipman Funeral Home and Creamery, like they served ice cream on the side.

There's the cute-as-can-be WPA era cabin where we stayed in Oklahoma. I've been having really good luck with picking "alternative" lodging options, like cabins and lodges. Our trip to California was filled with them. And here's another. Greenleaf State Park. Clean and cute and it had a full kitchen and bath. There were 15 cabins, and, being the off season, we were there almost alone. I could not get over how cute this place was, made of native stone and set into a little hill. The next morning, the girls climbed all over the sides of the house while we packed the rental car (an HHR, which has a tiny windshield but was comfortably sized inside even though we doubted this at first glance). The four of us posed quickly in front of the cabin before we did the long day down to Houston.

The last picture is taken at Moody Gardens down on Galveston, on the only really frustrating day of our trip. Really. This trip was much better than previous ones. But this day, we went down to Galveston, but instead of taking the girls to play on the beach or going down to the Strand to buy army surplus and hemp necklaces, we went to Moody Gardens. Where none of us had ever been. It took us a lifetime to get down there, and it was kind of an overhyped Botanical Gardens. Now, I hate when Chicago folks say things like "oh, St. Louis' art museum is nice, but it's no Art Institute.." because, duh, we are a miniscule little place compared to you. And so I won't get into this kind of "my city is better than your city" kind of smack talk. But it was a long drive for not much. I'll stick closer to home next time. Anyway, though, we walked through one of their pyramids, kind of like the climatron with live beasts, and took this picture. Kennedy, Sophia, and Maeve. Kennedy is 5 months younger than Sophia. And they all three are just so adorable together, if I do say so myself.

Three Down, One Still To Go

My sister Colleen graduated this weekend from Mizzou. We hiked up there on Saturday afternoon, came home the same night after sitting through yet another boring graduation ceremony. Not even a lot of pomp or circumstance. Just boredom. And the chancellor's speech, I swear, was the same as last year, just the names were changed to update it (Bevin graduated last year on the same weekend).
I missed the main speaker, whoever he was, because I was out buying nachos for Sophia to keep her busy and fed. My graduation didn't have concessions. That was a bonus this year. An amusing corn-fed central Missouri bonus. Can't have those folks come to the Hearns Center and not enjoy themselves some fine hot dogs and nacho chips with cheese and peppers. Diet Cokes all around!

Here are the three Blake sisters, the three graduates, posing together outside the Hearns Center. Bevin, Colleen, Bridgett. Bevin has a degree in Art History and Anthropology (double major). Colleen has a degree in English. Bridgett in Elementary Education. Name one of us who is going to use her degree anytime soon for a paid position....silence. Actually, not true. Bevin is working very part time at the Regional Arts Commission when it doesn't conflict with her regular job (where she just got a raise and a promotion, very nice). And I am technically teaching, and have taught in the past, and may in the future. Colleen is at that panic moment I remember Mike getting to (with his degree in psychology). What the hell am I going to do with this degree? Colleen will be fine.

There is a fourth Blake, one you don't see a picture of here because he stubbornly refuses to move to Missouri--my brother Ian, who fits between me and Bevin and completes the picture--he looks like me and he looks like Colleen and Colleen looks like Bevin and Bevin looks like me. But none of us look like siblings when it's just the two of us. Interesting. Ian has a year and a half of school left down at the University of Houston. He's had some ins and outs with his college career. At this point, he's going to be 29 in 3 months, and it's just time to finish it. I'm confident he will. But for now, it's just the three of us.

And lastly, another photo of the graduate, and a rare sighting of my father on film. It's like the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, right there!

Yup, we're hippies

My neighbor Paul, back before we all knew each other, had nicknames for each of the families on my block. Well, not all of them, but the ones whose houses he looked out at through the front windows. And a couple of not as nice names for some other neighbors that we won't mention (like the drug dealers on the corner). Anyway, surprise surprise, we were the Hippies. Imagine that. Mike has long hair, I had two braids, hair parted in the middle, back when he would have named us. We had tomatoes and peas growing on the front porch, a beat up minivan, no screens on the windows. Actually, the only things that have changed are the peas and my hair.
We've been, in pure Blake style (my maiden name is Blake, and it is a concept bigger than that sometimes...), slowly cutting down the mulberry tree in back. We eventually want to build a garage, and we want our tomato plants in back to get enough light to actually redden. In my newfound married life mind's eye, I think "take down the tree" and envision one afternoon, chain saws, a couple of volunteers, or, better yet, a tree service. Wow. But the tree service gave me a bid that would have, umm, paid for a year of Sophia's tuition at the two schools we've considered in the past (and future). So my dad says, "we can probably take that down ourselves." I still cling to this vision of one day. But no. Mike takes some down while I'm in Texas. Then he takes down some more this past week. Extends our 30 foot ladder, climbs into the tree, saws things until they crash into the parking pad. Eventually, we will have to have that afternoon with father and possibly uncle and appropriate saws and tools and beer and pizza, but right now, it's piecemeal.

I was left with a gigantic pile of branches to chop up and put in the dumpsters slowly--and I'm doing that--but I found about 6 branches that were long, straight, about an inch and a half in diameter at their base. So I built two tepee frames for the girls. Covered them in habatoi silk (that may be spelled wrong) that I hand-dyed long ago for Sophia's fairy party. Clipped the pieces together with clothespins. Cleaned up (first) all the dog poop. And voila, little hippie enclave in the backyard.
They love it. Now if only they would stop whining and bickering long enough to play in them, and let me do more yardwork. Alas, that may not be in the cards for now. But at least they're cute.

Happy Belated Mothers Day

If you can stand sobbing into your turkey sandwich, try this story for lunch today. It's a blog I read a lot of when I can, called Farmgirl Fare, the saga of a California girl who gives it all up to run a farm in Missouri. It's lambing season, and this is her Mothers Day Story for 2007. It's a happy one, but it'll make you cry.

What I've been up to?

Ok then. I have guilt popping up about neglecting SCM so here it goes. I'm reminded of The Onion's infographics, like "What are we doing to dull the pain?" or "What are we titling our masters thesis?"

What have I been up to?

*Hand to hand combat with the slugs in my backyard. I succumbed and bought slug bait. Not the stuff that kills your cats and makes you don a respiratory mask in order to apply. The other stuff. And I'm only using it in the "tomato cage", because I figure that even if it makes the slugs toxic before they are completely dead, birds won't be able to gorge themselves on them. I was totally losing before I brought out the chemical warfare. They ate 3 baby pepper plants and every single sunflower that sprouted. I was squishing them one by one between a rock and a brick and ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH.

*Rotating plants at church: please please please make it to Pentecost. More mums arrived today from Leshers, very cute, and I've been putting the other plants in the sacristy windowsills so they get at least some light. They are sad, though. They yearn for breezy porches and sunny afternoons, and they get darkness all week long. Thus, the rotation.

*Reading: a book on Benedictine hospitality (it has nothing to do with cruise ships or Martha Stewart, that's actually paraphrased from the introduction. An essay on the call to holiness by a Sr. Dolores from Clyde, my first reflection assignment: all Christians are urgently called to holiness. What does that mean, in general, and in my life? My reflection draws of course from Thomas R. Kelly's lovely book (A Testament of Devotion). And I focus on the need for community. Which ties back into that hospitality book. I know, it's too quick to make sense of what I just said. Perhaps I will draw that out some later. Also, Peterson's field guide to birds, Eastern and Central states. There's a bird. A bird I can't identify. It mocks me.

*Getting mocked by a bird. The bird shows up in the front of the house, usually by Mary's house, it looks like a sparrow-sized mockingbird, except with an all-white head. What?? The books, they are useless. It could be a white-breasted nuthatch with a bleached head. It could be a female tanager? Except it's too small? It is probably leucistic--partially albino--but I'm still pursuing its identification.

*Madly biking. Today we did 21 1/2 miles over in Illinois. Made a day of it, with a picnic lunch of sorts. It was a good Mothers Day gift, actually. We've been trying to go every other day.

*Planning the Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony, which happens tomorrow night, thus ending my obligations for Girl Scouts until August. It is very simple, pared down, pot luck, walk over the bridge, become a Brownie. I'm not big on ceremony. I'm big on getting these girls old enough to camp.

*Going to Columbia for one of the last times for a long time, to watch my sister graduate.

*Becoming addicted to Netflix.

*Slowly taking down the mulberry tree. SLOOOOWLY. But every bit helps for the eventual day in the future when my father or uncle or both come to help us take the rest. A lot of sawing and lopping. My arms ache.

*Planning the summer and knitting together the end of the school year. Some lying around in the hammock.

*Not actually knitting, that's for sure. I have a sweater started...I just need to bring it out and work on it. Yeah. I'll get to that in a few more days. I have to do this Brownie bridging thing first. Then I can think more about my stuff.

Have Fun at the Monastery!

hey.

So I did what Mark's mom suggested and had fun at the monastery. Actually, I debated the Scarlet Letter, analyzed Ephesians 1:10...talked about lectio divina, learned how Sr. Jean came to be a nun at Clyde, read, napped, walked and walked and walked, found 3 heart shaped rocks, prayed with the sisters 5 times a day, ate a bunch of meals with engaging wonderful women, slept through a thunderstorm, visited Conception Abbey, told my conversion/reversion story (again and again), praised Thomas Kelly's writing, sat in the chapel and breathed.

Something about that place makes my brain reorder itself. Like physically. I can feel the change.

I'm going to be invested (made an official candidate) at the end of September. As Sr. Jean put it this weekend, this is not like joining the League of Women Voters. I was given a cartload of reading and writing to do by this time next year. Funny--St. Bede's had none of that. But St. Bede's seemed to treat oblates as groupies. Little monk groupies who talked about Fr. Ben's orchard or how wonderful Fr. Dan's talk about bread was. And Clyde treats oblates like, well, messengers from Clyde to the rest of the world.

Dorothy Day was an oblate. So was Walker Percy. How can I possibly go wrong with those two together?

In other news, my sister Bevin crashed her car this weekend on the way to Columbia. She's fine, amazingly. Amazingly. She swerved to miss a car that was towing another car, going very slowly, as she turned a bend and saw him too late. Overcorrected for the swerve, spun out, went into the ditch. It's weird--when I passed through Columbia on my way home this weekend, I thought I should try to contact Colleen because if there was some kind of emergency over the weekend and she needed a ride home, I was in a logical position to help out. I think the world is a strange place filled with more than we can see.

So my goal this week is to take a bunch of St. Pius photographs and start back up where I left off. My tolerance for quiet work with Maeve in tow was at an all time low the past 3 weeks. But my brain is reordered now.

Monk?

And one other moment that struck me from today--my tutoring student this morning, Mark, geometry, remember, new book, new outlook? We were ending up the session and I mentioned to him and his mother that I would be out of town this weekend but if they needed me, I'd be home again Monday and Tuesday. Mother asked me where I was headed. I paused. I'm headed to a Benedictine monastery, I finally said. I explained that I was an oblate candidate and I explained with extreme brevity what an oblate was, using the words "not a monk, I don't take vows, but I try to live according to similar principles." I mentioned a couple of those principles--stability, conversion--and then I knew I'd overloaded her with information. It is so specific to my life at this moment that I can overtalk it. Among other subjects, including geometry. So I stopped and she had this quizzical look.

"What's a monk?" she asked.

Now, I have a Catholic worldview. I can't help it. It gives me a vocabulary other people do not have. Words that the secular world does not use, or even the world of other Christian denominations, and Jews and Hindus and so on. Ecclesiastical. Catechumen. Holy See. Triduum. Alb. Clerestory. Interdiction. Vespers. Nave. And I will also admit that as American lay Catholics go, I am a little more steeped in that tea than most. I like words and trivia and subcultures. Can't help that either.

But monk? 49,800,000 hits on google. Granted, many of those are for the TV show and for Thelonious Monk. But monastery gives you 14,800,000. Buddhist monks? European history? I mean, monks existed before the Reformation, long before, so it wouldn't be a Catholic slant to mention that, oh, monasteries were pretty important in the Middle Ages. Monastery fruitcake jokes? What about Gregor Mendel? Wouldn't that come up in a biology class, that he planted some pea plants in his little garden? I mean, I learned that while atending a public high school in Texas. Help me, Jewish and Protestant friends out there reading this. Did you know what a monk was by the time you were 53 years old?

I summed up as best I could for her and she said, "oh, that's neat. Have a good time."

Yikes.

And summer? Right around the corner

Just a few things.

We are ready for summer. It is May 2 and we're done. Sophia and school. Sophia and City Garden. Maeve and putting up with school. Got a little spring fever in the house. It helps that it's raining today--might as well do some reading, right? A couple extra pages in the handwriting book? How about writing a story?

We made our first popsicles of the season yesterday--cut up slices of strawberries in white grape juice. Didn't puree them--just stuffed the cups with strawberry slices and poured juice around them. They are pretty AND tasty. Yes, I had one today with them. Ready for the pool yet?

Spring, finally.

It is finally spring. We had some spring, after our shockingly cold February, but then we had some more winter right around Eastertime. At 90 degrees yesterday, 83 today, and thunderstorms in the evening, it seems more like the spring I expect. The rest of the week in the sixties with thunderstorms every day. As stressful as this will be on Sophia, it will be good to focus inside for a few days.

I've spent the last 4 days in the yard--not so much today, but before that. Starting with Operation Brightside on Saturday morning (for non-St. Louisans, that is a day set aside for neighbors to help each other clean up yards, alleys, streets, share tools, get things looking good for spring, and also a bulk trash pickup day, when you can put essentially anything out by your dumpster to get hauled off. Oftentimes it gets hauled away by unofficial folks, but that's even better, frankly). Mike went out to help with neighbors and I kept the girls for a while (and recovered from late night at the symphony, except it wasn't late...what was my problem, again?). I joined at the last minute, did no work, but chatted. I'm pretty good at that, you know. Mike and Brent took my dad's truck out to get good mulch at Kirkwood Materials, which was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be, and I spent the day getting the vegetable garden ("chicken coop" or "tomato cage" as neighbors refer to it) ready, laying chunkier free mulch (from all our tree loss in the past year in the park) along its path, and starting to really assess the damage my yard received.

Not in any storm or freeze (although that magnolia tree looks distressed by the frost). No, my yard suffers from three separate but linked ailments: total lack of planning, total lack of follow-through, and children. The third part is a big reason for the second, and I blame my parents for the first (you know, that whole "move every two years so don't get attached or plant any perennials" internal drive). But now we've been here (gasp) NINE YEARS and besides the tomato cage, the yard is not at all better than when we found it.

Ok, not quite true. There are a lot of hostas and daylilies. A nice little dogwood tree and a redbud. Some pretty little purple irises I like. And the galvanized horse trough pool, of course. But somewhere around the summer of 2004, pregnant with Maeve, in the midst of FBI surveillance and enough high anxiety to put me in the Psychneurotic Institute for the Very Very Nervous, I forgot I had a backyard.

Yeah, I walked through it on my way to the alley. Sophia played back there a little bit, and in the intervening summers. The pool is fun. We use the grill. But landscaping for a family of 4 has yet to really happen. There's Mary's old rosebush. Some lovely bulbs my grandmother planted in 1998. Hostas from Steve next door, from my grandmother, from my mother, from Bayer's, from the homeschool list. But nothing was really planned. Well--it was planned, poorly, and only with the most limited amount of foresight. It got to the point, soon after Maeve's arrival, that I stopped letting people into the backyard. If you didn't have a badge from a utility or law enforcement, it was off limits.

So now I have energy. Perhaps it's the sun finally showing its face. Perhaps it's Maeve learning some English. It could very well be that my real catalyst is peer pressure. I don't want prospective buyers one house west to look at my yard from the second story windows and say in dismay, "golly, I don't think we can live next door to those people."

Whatever it is--I'm ready for yardwork. And I have it on a Soviet style 5 year plan. This year is simply clean it up and maintain. Next year will fill in some gaps--both plant and infrastructure gaps--and then, well, you know how I don't like telling folks my plans. High anxiety indeed. But my east-side neighbor's trumpet vine seems to be dead, the locust tree in that yard is nearly so (those are both in the category of "good news" for both myself and those neighbors--they inherited those terrible things). All my perennials need dividing, and I might plant some grass seed. Might. And Sophia. Ah. She LOVES to help, and she is finally at the point where she can. Every little pot I empty into the vegetable garden she fills with potting soil and seeds. It could be an adventure.

So the Archbishop and the Singer Walk Into a Charity Dinner...

I wasn't going to comment. Really. At Operation Brightside when it came up amongst Catholic and non-Catholic neighbors, Mike started going off on some conspiracy (which is always a little frightening for me), and I just said, "It is hard to be an American these days, wanting to vote your conscience but not having the choices we need to fulfill that." But Ann posted something on her blog and I commented. I slept on it (sort of--Maeve's allergies didn't let her or me sleep much) and decided to say something.

What an opportunity the archbishop missed to draw people closer to God instead of dividing them and losing them in the process:

When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves the the householder came to him and said, "Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?" He answered, "An enemy has done this." His slaves said to him, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" He replied, "No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them." (Mt 13:26-29)

So often we as Church (Catholic or otherwise) use Church as weapon. So little is said about the Jesus who cured on the Sabbath or ate dinner with tax collectors. Not that the archbishop should condone sin, but in the end, it isn't his beliefs that bother me. It's the manner in which he chose to make public his beliefs. Did he sit down and talk with Sheryl Crow? Did he try to have a true dialogue? Jesus sat with the woman at the well and told her personally, in private, what she was doing. Didn't tell her how she might go about changing that--he left that for her to decide. He made her thirst for truth, for the better way. He did not publish her story in a secular newspaper to try to shame her into a better way. He made her see the error of her ways privately, and then, lo, she came to believe. People grow, people change. To assume evil intent in the hearts of those around you--and to assume they will never change--is to live a very small life.

We as Christians (or at least as Catholics...) are told to admonish the sinner. Unfortunately, we aren't given step by step directions. If Burke truly believed that Sheryl Crow was sinning by her beliefs, by her political statements, than it is his position, perhaps, to speak with authority (not meaning "commanding obedience," from 16th century French, but from the Latin "auctoritas," meaning "to promote, influence, or advise") to her.

If we agree with Burke, it feels good to pat ourselves on the back and say, "see? That woman, she's a sinner." To withdraw from the world, to know we're better, and have the catechism to prove it. But in the end, that makes God very small. Jesus didn't tell the woman about to be stoned that she'd better go read up in the catechism. He knew better than that--he wasn't there to act high and mighty and proud of himself. He was there to draw people to fall in love with God.

Perhaps Sheryl Crow is wrong--perhaps Bob Costas should have done something differently--perhaps she will change her ways sometime along the way, but perhaps Costas will decide this whole episode isn't worth it, and decide to support some other worthy cause. To publicly admonish the "sinner" reminds me of the speck in your eye, the plank in mine. It is one thing to be right. It is another to use that correctness as a club. Dividing and conquering is not what his position as bishop is about. That shepherd's crook he uses--it's to put sheep back on the path. Not to beat them to the point that they have no free will, spark, life, or desire for God.