Old Friends

Last week I went out to Columbia, Missouri, to visit Marita at her mother's house. I went to grade school with Marita, but as opposed to other situations where two people might have gone to grade school together, our lives have not been quite parallel. For instance, "grade school" in this case only means 6th and 7th grade. I moved to Columbia from St. Louis--the last easy move--and moved from Columbia to Dallas--the first hard move--two years later.

Marita's family is nice. That is actually the only word to describe them. They are mid-Missourians, one generation off the farm (Marita's mom grew up a stone's throw from where my own grandmother grew up). Marita's parents are active in their parish. Marita, the last of 4 children, grew up with foster babies in the house--I believe they kept over 40 babies in their time as foster parents, babies who just needed a transitional place while adoption papers got sorted out (most for less than 4 weeks at a time). Marita's mom is one of those women who can do it all--sew, cook, clean, dress pretty dolls in handmade wedding outfits, talk about the latest movies, stay up to date on all her children's friends' lives, and record it all in handmade scrapbooks. Marita's dad is nice. Marita's sister is nice. Marita is nice.

I am not nice. If you hadn't noticed. I don't know why we were friends--and I don't know why we still are. But we persist in this notion and it works, somehow. Marita got married to a very conservative Catholic and moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. She was done with her rumspringa and tossed out the college persona, which was always far more wild than mine, anyway. My life, in fact, has been far more predictable than her choice of husband makes her seem. But when I look back at her mom and dad, it makes sense. We drifted completely, until we both were pregnant--her with Max and me with Sophia. Two months apart, and neither of us had any support system or moms club or anything of the sort (except LLL, which of course her mother is a retired leader of, but a once a month meeting about breastfeeding wasn't enough). So we talked on the phone. And talked some more. We found that we did have things in common after all.

I do find that when I talk and write to her, I translate in my head first, from Bridgett to Marita. I don't do this with other friends very often--I do this with elderly relatives, in-laws I don't see often, etc. I'm reading up on Benedictine theology, she has a Schoenstatt shrine in her home. But when we articulate these things to each other, it sounds so similar in the way it affects us. Something about the translation makes my life more gentle in the telling, and seeing her on Wednesday was very good. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we still have things to talk about--how aggravating her mother is, for instance, is a constant ironic theme--and I listen and think about my responses.

She is the friend who has known me the longest. The only people, in fact, who have known me longer, share my family tree. And they have to keep knowing me. She doesn't. When her dad was taking our picture (probably for her mother's scrapbook of my life or something weird like that) Marita said to me that it always strikes her that everyone in Lincoln has only known her at the most, 7 years. That it was nice to have someone around who's known her for 20 years.

I smiled and nodded, about to add a similar fact from my life here in St. Louis, but I paused. Anonymity is easy for me. Honesty across two decades is hard. But worth it.

I gave my love a cherry that had no stone

I gave my love a cherry that had no stone
I gave my love a chicken that had no bone
I gave my sister a sweater that mysteriously has no gauge
I told my love a story that had no end.

Ann gave me this chunky purple yarn, called Sirdar Denim. In the bag was a pattern for a cardigan, done on size 15 needles, using this very same yarn. Since it was chunky and fast moving, I thought, hey, I'd make Colleen this sweater. Why Colleen? Because I had 7 skeins of it, and 7 skeins would give me up to a size 36, which was one more size than I needed for her, but 2 sizes too small for me. And since it was chunky and fast moving, again, I did not do a gauge swatch.

The knitters out there have all fainted dead away, so I'll explain what I mean to the rest of you. A gauge swatch is done to make sure that the way I knit matches the way the pattern wants me to knit. If my gauge is too tight, I need to use bigger needles, and vice versa. As opposed to quilting, embroidery, cooking, SAT test taking, and everything else I do pretty well, just following the directions is not enough. You can't just keep a 1/4 inch seam allowance, use three strands in a half cup and mix with a number two pencil until blended. There is individual variety. Which is the challenge. Therefore, gauge swatches.

My gauge is almost always on the mark. I have only once had to change needles to match gauge, and that is for the pink cable knit sweater I'm making, slowly, for me. I do gauge swatches. Really, I do. Why didn't I do one here? Because I checked my gauge after 10 rows of knitting on the back, after I was done with the trim. Meaning, ten rows of stockinette stitch. Or the stuff that looks like knitting as opposed to the funky little border at the bottom. My gauge matched, so onward I went.

The sweater fits me. So I washed it and blocked it as well as I could. It still fits me. A little big, even. And since I haven't lost any weight in a while, I figure, I must have screwed up. So I took out the ruler and randomly chose parts of the sweater to measure. My gauge still matched. It matched. The sweater also took only 6 1/2 skeins, instead of the 8 that would have been required to make a sweater for my size. Everything seems to add up. Except that it is all wrong. Peculiar.

In the end, I have a big purple cardigan that I never would have taken the time to make myself, and Colleen's going to get a bag from Janine's for her birthday. Everybody wins. In the picture above, the sweater isn't that lumpy in real life. This picture was taken with the sweater laid across my woefully unmade bed.

So, knitters who read my blog (that would be...one?), what the heck happened?

Eh. It's kind of a rhetorical question. But I'm beginning to think that gauge swatches aren't for math reasons but for magical ones.

Not Bridgett I Presume??

All I can say is thank God I have an ebay account. Ebay sent me an automated (please do not respond) email today, four of them, stating that someone with my name and credit card had started a new account using a web-based email system (like hotmail or gmail).

Wasn't me. I've been the same ebay gal since I joined. I use my home email address.

So I checked my bank information. No charges there...hmm. I then spent an hour with frustrating ebay online live help. Remember, I'm not very tolerant of gladly to be serving you today online live chat help. I really would rather talk to someone in person. Really. But that's not an option with ebay, so I talked to Chico, and then Adrina, via live chat. Adrina said things like I was making incorrect presumptions about her ability to help me. Meaning, I knew I hadn't bid anything outlandish using my account--I knew that the ebay name I use was fine--I wanted to know how to find out whether someone had created a new account in my name (the original email was infuriatingly vague). She kept giving me some great information about incorrect bids. There was a Dilbert cartoon about this. "Got some good information here on the days of the week," Dogber the Tech Support Dog tells the caller who can't check his email...

She finally showed me how to click and jump through this hoop and answer this question this way, and I got an email contact form. Sent the question. Thank you for contacting us. We will respond withing 24-48 hours. Well, by then someone could buy a car in my name via ebay and have it shipped to Quebec. So I decided it wasn't worth waiting to find out if it was a glitch in some ebay program. I called the bank.

Yup.

Three $1 purchases--two on EBAY HONG KONG INTL and one on a Yahoo site. She said, "well, are you in Hong Kong?" and I told her no, I wasn't, in fact. She said that $1 test purchases were the common beginning for credit card fraud. So we cancelled the card number and stopped payment and she sent me the paperwork that I will probably have to get notarized and blessed by a voodoo priest to submit to the credit check folks so this doesn't show up as a mark on my credit report.

Ebay's fraud pages suggested calling the FTC with any fraud situations, and I did. Very helpful, actually, although the last question the guy asked (and I reached a real person very quickly, a press 4 from the main menu and voila, Craig answered the phone), "what is the police report number?"

Huh? A crime originating in Hong Kong needs a police report from St. Louis? He said that yes, it did, in order to be saved filed stapled and processed. Ah, bureaucracy. I was thinking, hey, my work is done here from a selfish perspective--I got the $3 off my account, I saved myself from further charges, I corrected my credit, I caught the thing, thanks to ebay, in a single day--less than that. In 20 minutes. But I called the non-emergency line and asked to file a report.

Officer I. came by. Nice guy, looked like that angry bald guy on CNN, you know, James Carville. Missing his middle finger on his right hand. Radio didn't work. It worried me as much as it worried him. But before the radio problem, he told me that he'd never actually had to fill out a report about this before. We went upstairs and I explained things until the point that his eyes glazed over. He was nice, though, filled out the report, gave me the number.

I called back the FTC and gave them the number. And, four hours after it had begun, Mike got home, and he took me out for dinner for, as he put it, being aware enough to "save our butts".

CODE NAME: OPERATION HALLIDAY

I'm way behind on my 365 blog due to a disheartening email from someone I used to know--I had overstepped her boundaries. So I changed it. It sort of took wind out of my sails for a moment, and then of course I had to run to Cairo anyway so here I am a week or more behind.

If I ever overstep your boundaries (I mean talk about you, not talk about potty training and it grosses you out--that you can just skip over), please tell me. There isn't much that's secret in this brain of mine, and if I was there, it might show up. I try not to use pictures of faces of kids who don't live in my house...but I occasionally use a neighbor's name, or a friend's story to illustrate something else. Mike is always totally aghast at what I have the audacity to say in public, but I have never felt like I've dumped my purse all over the table too badly (as my neighbor across the street would say).

I guess I could invent code names for everyone.

Sophia could be Miss Bones. My father could be King Midas. Maeve of course would be Cab. Or Ella. Bing? Who else used to sing that way. Maloki would be, well, that isn't his real name anyway. Sr. Mary easily becomes Sr. Mimi. Elliot would be Big Strong Jew (if you aren't offended yet...), and of course if you read my comments you have already met Other Mary.

Bevin could take on one of the other anglacized forms of her name (Bebhinn), oh, how about Vevina? Collen would be Mistress Caile. My brother is already a fantasy character for many readers so he could keep his name or go by his nickname from high school, Tiny E. I could rename his daughter something like McKinley or Roosevelt. I would of course be Hickory and Mike would be subtly disguised as Zorack Ramone. Hickory and Zorack Ramone and their children Miss Bones and Bing. Hickory's siblings Vevina, Mistress Caile, and Tiny E.

We sould like a horrible roleplaying game about miscreant superheroes.

That could be interesting. But too much trouble. And the Okies, Jesuits, and Peace Corps, not to mention the House of Processed Refined High Fructose Bud Light, all down the street would bristle...

I mean all this in fun. Trying to process the end of a friendship and not wanting to be bullied anymore.

What do Cab Calloway and Maeve have in common?

Scat.

Ah well. Potty training continues in earnest. Sophia is at the in-laws and here I am with Maeve, a package of vinyl-covered training pants, a potty chair, and Taiko Drum Master!! Which is a PS2 game that Mike introduced her to. Never think I'm more crunchy granola than the next mom. Mike is there to undermine that when he can.

Heaven and Earth

Sorry I've been so out of touch here--I am now totally convinced that I do indeed require thyroid medication. Since going on it in May 2006, I have never missed a day. Until this week--I ran out of refills, I had a late afternoon appointment on the day after the last day, I couldn't make it to the pharmacy on Tuesday...by Wednesday afternoon I was swimming in mud. I sat down in my sister's living room and fell asleep while she changed clothes. Exhausted. Sluggish. Waking up was impossible. So I was back in the saddle on Thursday but I'm pretty sure this takes a while to catch up with me. Today was better than Wednesday, though. And tomorrow should be better again.

But this post is not about my slowly dying thyroid, it is about a computer game from 1991. It is called Heaven and Earth, and it is lovely. I play it, Mike plays it, even Sophia played a little bit this evening. The game has three parts: puzzles, card game, and a pendulum. The puzzles are visual IQ test style things--figures in space, tile puzzles, mazes--there are 12 different categories, and each category has 4 different levels. The card game is a matching game, of sorts--tricks are made from cards depicting various nature scenes. The pendulum is a little trickier to explain. It involves using the mouse as a gust of wind, blowing a pendulum around the screen until it hits the target.

We had this game 4 computers ago. I played it all through college. It went by the wayside, as did the company that put it out originally. I would search every so often to see if there was a shareware version, but never found anything that didn't seem completely illegal. For some reason today I went looking again, and found the website of one of the designers. He has free downloads for mac and PC. It took our gaming computer about two seconds to download this thing. If you go there, be sure to copy the list of copyright protection questions (Buena Vista Software's attempt to keep people from copying the disks and sharing them).

This game has no real end purpose--there is no big goal in the end, unless you take the "pilgrimage" at the top of the main menu screen (the retreat in the mountains). Then you go on a quest, of sorts, solving puzzles and card games and pendulum
scenarios, each time gaining another piece of the picture. It all sounds very low-tech, and it is, compared to what is available now. But it's completely child-friendly (reading skills aren't even necessary, although helpful if you want detailed directions) and I know it has made my brain grow.

I've been playing all evening.

What's on your desktop?

This is the photo that's been on my desktop for the past couple of weeks. It's Chip, my in-laws' new chocolate lab (yes, Chocolate Chip. The last one was Hershey, and the one before was Charlie, although Mike says that was just a coincidence (he wasn't named for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...)).

I just wanted to share the picture. I love this photo, not just because of the look on the dog's face. My father-in-law is the one holding the dog. I find this whole scene completely endearing. The half smile on Jeff's face, the wedding ring, the pen poking out of the pocket of the work shirt, the way he's holding the dog. I put it on my desktop because the dog looked so...resigned...but it's caught me by surprise in other ways since then.

Mah Jongg Fever

Saturday night. Headed over to Trisha's to play some mah jongg. It was nice to get together with people who knew how to play, who weren't meeting my every statement with skeptical glances and harrumphing noises. I walked in, put my machine gun (or clarinet) case down on her kitchen table, and instantly realized I had no cards in that case. Oh, I'll just walk home and pick up some cards.

"Make sure they're 2007," Trisha called after me as I left.

At home, the horrific reality became only too clear: all the cards were in Janine's shop, where I'd taught the game on Wednesday. It doesn't make any sense why they were ALL there--I have 8 2007s, and 4 each of 2006, 2000, and 1994. I only needed a total of 12 cards to teach 3 tables. So...what was I thinking, again?

Janine was gone for the evening; we knew Larry had a key but he was down at the lake for the weekend. I thought Ann might have a key, alas, she was in Ohio. We considered other neighbors or friends who might have keys, and Trisha seemed to think that Amanda had a key to Larry's. Which means we could break into Amanda's (Trisha has her key), in order to break into Larry's, in order to break into Janine's. We decided to find another way.

I thought this was a great opportunity to learn "traditional" Chinese mah jongg. Others did not feel this way. Trisha turned on the internet and we tried to see what we could find. On ebay sometimes, they sell copies of the cards (each player needs a matching card to play, since all the hands for that year are on the card). But only two of them showed a photo of the inside of the card--the rest were only the front covers. The two that had photos were a 2007 National Mah Jongg League card (the third side of the tri-fold), and the 2007 American Mah Jongg Association card (the first side of its tri-fold). We'd never played AMJA (the rules are essentially identical), but we thought maybe we could cobble together a single card from the two. But only 2/3 the hands would not work. So I went to find a center picture--and found a scanned photo of a 1952 card on a mah jongg collector's site. I thought maybe, MAYBE, I could clean up the graphics enough to print out some copies, paste them together, highlight where needed.

Trisha picked up the little handbook I'd brought, which had the basic rules to Chinese Mah Jongg, and she and Mary flipped through to see if it was at all possible to find a picture of a card in it. It was! There was a 2003 example card with explanations of how to use the card. Jubilation. Natasha took it home and made copies. They were miniscule (we've been spoiled by the large print editions of the real cards), but we managed. Didn't feel a bit guilty--hey, I'm spreading this game like a virus through south city, NMJL will get their money.

When Natasha left to go make copies, though, I have to admit I felt a little silly. A little...hooked.

We played over 10 games--I know I dealt at least twice--Trisha won twice, and Natasha and Mary split the rest. I didn't win a single hand. Ah well. I got to drink bourbon slush and play.

Deep Thought For Today

So Mike and I stayed up late wrangling children. We have an extra girl this evening and this has put Maeve into a fever pitch. She is a crazy person. And we spent most of the evening booting her back into play (meaning, back into bed). So while we sat up too late, I was checking my oblate forum mailing list. Almost every message, to the point of irritation, is a prayer request. After reading 4 grisly stories, and the response of "Oh, I will pray for thus and such!" I turned to Mike and said, "What is the point of intercessary prayer, anyway?"

And then we talked for an hour.

I am always amazed when I ask a semi-serious question and someone comes up with a well-reasoned calm response without missing a beat.

Happy Birthday Sophia

When Sophia and I were in the hospital after her emergency delivery 6 years ago this evening, we received a lot of guests. I remember when I was pregnant, being warned that once the baby comes, nobody cares how the mother is doing. It's all about the baby, and be prepared to be invisible. But I wasn't invisible. I was so sick (e.coli infection I caught in the hospital)--I remember when Fr. Mike came to give me the blessing of the sick (also commonly known as Last Rites). I didn't even sit up. Folks would come into the room and stand at the foot of my bed, staring at me. They wouldn't ask about Sophia, even. Just about me.

In the end, all was well. Sophia came home eventually--she was never as sick as I was--and we started building a good life together.

Every floral arrangement that came into that room or came to the house had stargazer lilies involved. I didn't care for them much back then, but they grew on me. Sophia's flower. Stargazers. We planted bulbs a few years ago and they've really taken off. You can smell them 2 houses away. Pungent summertime. Plus, they're pink!

The last petals fell two days ago from this summer's blooming. At this point, besides some straggly phlox, there aren't any flowers in bloom in my yard. It feels like summer has turned the corner. I harvested garlic yesterday. Basil is Monday's work. Mint will be soon after, and the beans look just about ready. Tomatoes and peppers keep coming, and we might see a cucumber after all. Swimming lessons end on Thursday and I got my first call about next year's school uniforms.

It's like that chapter in Dandelion Wine when they see the school supplies in the store window. There's still August...but summer is starting to head down the hill.

Can't wait.

Oh! But the title of this message is HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIA!

Today's Timewasters

A few timewasters for you. Or distractions, if you want to be more charitable. First, the Flower Garden is kind of hypnotic. Click anywhere. Click and drag. Show your kids.

If you're from the seventies or earlier, you may remember Wacky Packages. Fake product stickers. A gallery of them. I remember having Chock full of nuts and bolts coffee. And Schmutz beer. Also duckpond glue or something like that. I think I imght still have that one somewhere. For a long time I thought I imagined these, that they didn't really exist. But they did.

Mmm. Pong. In 3D. Curveball.

One last one. The Like Better Game. You click on the pictures you like better out of each pair. Every so often, the brain turns pink and tells you some guess it has about your preferences. It is probably completely random like fortune cookies but I like the pictures.

Pink Parisian Poodle Pool and Pillow Party

Tomorrow Sophia turns 6. She lost her first tooth two days ago. She is now a "kid" instead of whatever it is Maeve is. A new plateau.

Probably based upon birth records or something stupid I signed up for when she was born, we get a birthday express catalog about a month before her birthday. Used to be, I'd let her flip through if she wanted ideas. It never really mattered--we almost always did a variation on the theme for the birthday party two doors down. Neighbor has a princess party; two months later we have a fairy party. Neighbor has a pinata; we have a pinata. Etc. It's actually kind of nice because it's not like the neighbors are heading out to Chuck E Cheese or something obnoxious like that. The moms on the block long ago made a vow not to ever make any of us go to Chuck E Cheese, in fact. It is also nice that we don't seem to try to outdo one another. It's not like the ice skating party was one-upped with a trip to Macy's or a weekend at the Westin. It's never like we rent a hall or hire a limo or do anything insane. It's really nice, because I know folks who do go crazy with kid birthdays.

This year, since neighbors had a spend the night party with make your own food, that's what Sophia's first idea was. Spend the night, swim, make dinner and dessert and breakfast. In the intervening weeks, this was nipped and tucked to "individual pizzas, pancakes in the morning, turtle cake (minus the pecans to avoid the allergies!), movie."

The catalog arrived, and since Sophia demonstrated a "high interest in floam" earlier this year, I just tossed it in the trash to avoid any disappointment. Well, she definitely takes after her father: she fished it out of the trash and obsessed over it.

Pink Poodles. With Eiffel Towers. Parisian poodles, pink, pink, pink. On July 3rd, I finally said, "ok, how about we get the mylar balloon and the plates, and I'll pick up pink silverware and a white tablecloth at Target or someplace and then it will have a little bit of a theme without going overboard." This was met with happiness and I went online. I even threw in the napkins and cups. I was going to spend less than $20 and that was awesome. Until they let me know it would be arriving July 19 if I used the free shipping option. The quick option would double--more than double--the end price. Nope. Sorry, Sophia, we'll look around.

Trip to Factory Card Outlet and some other party store were useless. Sophia was resilient--maybe I could just have pink? But Bevin and I were determined by that point. We went to Hobby Lobby, found an Eiffel Tower stamp, some scrapbook paper, plain-color-but-satisfying plates and napkins, and a pink and white beaded ornament to hang from the chandelier.

So this week, I've been designing. Making placemats from the scrapbook paper, some sequins, and the stamp. I found a piece of 1950s era pink poodle fabric in my gigantic stash!! I made little scrappy nametags and set the table this morning. Sophia was quivering when she woke up and saw it. Here tis:

Blessed by Many Hearts

Janine's family got home from Lake Michigan and I ran into them the next day. Her daughter, Sophia's age, told me they had something for me. They found some heart shaped rocks for me when they were on vacation. This was such an endearing concept to me, I can't explain it. One large, two small--and the two small ones were nearly perfect. No imagination needed to say "heartshaped." The small gray one evey had a weathered hole through one lobe. My goodness. Let's set up a checklist of Bridgett's Favorite Rock Characteristics and see how many items we can check off:

1. Heart shaped
2. Natural holes, especially sand- water- or wind-weathered
3. Flat
4. Flat and disk-shaped
5. Smooth
6. Smooth and gray
7. Containing fossils
8. Containing crystals
9. From the beach

Sophia came home from Girl Scout Camp and brought me two more. Containing tiny skin imprint fossils. Also heartshaped. Her two are the ones to the left in this photo--rough light brown Missouri hillside rocks. The Lake Michigan ones are the rocks to the right--smooth rounded edges. The small gray one in the very center has the hole through it (you can't tell here, but you can up close).

Then Sr. Mary and Sr. Cathy came back from California--a trip north up the coast I would have given, well, maybe one eye tooth, to go on--with 5 heartshaped rocks. Smooth, gray, flat, heartshaped rocks from the beach. Oh my.

These things are better than any souvenir anyone could bring me. These rocks mean that I was on someone's mind--either before they found the rock, or when it caught their eyes--ooh, look at this rock, you know who would like this? They are free and I can point to them all and tell you where they came from. Ruma, Illinois. Rock Eddy. Colorado roadside. Southern Utah. Playground in Hays, Kansas. Clyde, Missouri. Camp Fiddlecreek. California coast. Lake Michigan.

I don't want to read too much into a pile of rocks, but it's hard not to. Symbols are important to humans. I love that some of the rocks I have aren't exactly heart-shaped, until you put them with the others. I love that others are so obvious. Some are jagged, some worn down. Large, small, colorful, drab. A part of their place. I mean, they have stability. They're rocks. You don't find the Missouri fossil rock on the California beach. The ones I have from Southern Utah are nothing like the ones from Ruma. They are from where they are from--or they are transplanted by ocean waters and tumbled smooth to their resting spot.

Mm. Going to bed now.

Happy St. Benedict's Day

Sr. Mary just pointed out to me that today is the feast of St. Benedict.

I think I'll celebrate by being moderate in all things.

Just the Two of Us

Mike and Sophia had a great time. They made leather crafts (bracelet, key chain--I have mine from camp Tuckaho still), swam, canoed, sang songs, played games, and Mike had a tent to himself at the Hill & Dale Campsite in Camp Fiddlecreek. She brought home three patches for her Brownie vest. I'm ready to play Brownie Leader this fall.

I just wish Girl Scouts Corporate would get their acts together. So many forms...so little time...so little direction..such bad training. It kind of reminds me of La Leche League. Great basic idea, bad follow-through. Most big organizations probably get like this over time. I just got the Volunteers '07 guidebook in the mail. There are things in it I actually want to take this time. Brownies--there's more "meat" to that program than Daisies.

I've opened thre troop up to City Garden, and if that works, we could have girls from 4 schools in our troop. (And if I can convince Trisha to come over to our side, 5 schools). We are city scouts. really. I think it will be a good year. I'm going to make some phone calls...have a planning meeting...I'm ready.

Friday Evening with Girls

Summer. The stargazer lilies outside my front door are so fragrant, you start noticing them a house and a half away. I took the girls out on Friday evening to sit them on the stoop, take their pictures. Suddenly, and without warning, June is gone.

Steve and Jerry left a week ago, sold their truck and got on a plane. I think back to my early marriage, when Mike half-jokingly proposed moving to Italy--they were giving free EU worker status to Americans who were willing to run olive plantations. Seems there just weren't enough Italians willing or able to do that anymore--the birth rate is way down, everybody wants to be a professional. I was sitting in some Italian restaurant when he said this--I remember because the air was infused was olive oil. Perhaps Adriana's. But I think we found that later. Anyway, I remember looking at him, thinking of my crappy teaching job at Henry, thinking of our apartment, our bad cars, and I said, "let's do it." Then I realized he was joking--and really, that would have been a huge change we might not have survived very well--and I remained in St. Louis. But Steve and Jerry packed up and left. Headed out to Amsterdam and I hope they are happy there. They were probably the best next door neighbors I could have ever asked for, really. They were quiet, responsible, took beautiful care of their yard and house, but really didn't care that, to be honest, I didn't do that very well.

The empty house across the street from us, which I thought would never sell, finally did, to a couple with a 10 year old boy, who attend St. Pius V. That was a nice turn of events. They hunted first for a parish and then for a house. Which is a good way to do things, I would think.

The garden is growing, I have lots of potential tomatoes this year (just hope they all ripen in time--they are a slow season crop). Ate our first Early Girls two weeks ago. Waiting on the black tomatoes. The basil will be picked this week, most of it, anyway, for basil, and if I can remember how Ann makes her herbed butter, that too. I have a ton of mint, volunteer from last year. Sophia loves mint. I think it will be ice cream and...any ideas? I made tabouleh for the bock party on the 3rd with mint and parsley from the garden. I could put my face in that bowl and eat it. There's also garlic, all volunteer from last year as well, which is a good thing since my sprouts never came from that place in southern Missouri (they are the source of the originals in the yard). So I'm going to hold my breath and count on volutneers for next year, too--the heads burst open, the seeds fall, get mixed in with mulch and dirt and grass clippings, and lo, there is garlic the next summer. It's a native non-hybrid. Osage. Yummy pictures soon.

And who was it who said we needed more parking on this street? I fear it was probably me. Ah well. As you can see below, it really isn't so.


Bevin has an apartment now. I'm helping her do some moving this evening. If I can kick this shigella infection down to a manageable level (yes, that's what I have--my mother-in-law broke down and got tested. I think we can thank Sophia, and where she got it, nobody knows. Pool? Hmm). The most depressing part of this is that I haven't lost any weight even though I can't keep any calories inside me for very long at all.

But back to summer...halfway through...Sophia's birthday party is Friday, the house is reasonably clean, the attic, oh my, the attic is coming along, and as you can see below, some things are remaining completely constant.

Lucky Mike!

That's meant ironically. Mike and Sophia left this morning for Camp Fiddlecreek, one of the St. Louis Girl Scout Camps, for a "Just the Two of Us" overnights--essentially father/daughter but it could be uncle, grandfather, etc. According to Ann's husband, who did this with their daughter, it consists of one long hot day followed by a night sharing a tent with men complaining about the lack of beer.

The girls sleep in unit tents, and the men assigned to them (fathers, etc) sleep in the same unit but not the same tent--they sleep with strangers who have brought their own daughters to sweat it out in the July Missouri heat.

Meanwhile, Maeve and I watched a movie, we're thinking about taking an outing here in a minute in our air conditioned van, my parents have invited us over for dinner, and tonight I get the bed to myself. Oh, except that Maeve probably won't let me, but she can be moved once unconscious.

I want to stress here that Mike wanted to take this trip. He was upset when I hadn't sent in the application by the first lottery deadline. I sent it in a month late (what does that tell ya), and he was happy when they got a spot. He brought it all on himself.

I'm sure they'll have a nice time. Really--and two years from now when I take the troop camping and we all get dysentery or something, he'll be the one laughing. But right now, it's me.

Conversatio Morum

Here's my latest essay for Sr. Jean Frances on the third Benedictine vow, conversatio morum, which, in contrast to stability and obedience, is not translated to English very easily (of course, obedience has a different connotation in regular parlance). It could be translated as conversion of life, but this is not a St. Paul style conversion. One thing I read said that the -atio made it a continuous activity, as opposed to one with an end. Nuance of language. I started thinking about this as a slow turning towards God...and then I wrote this.
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Every day begins with promise. I rise with the children, we forage in the kitchen for breakfast, we face the challenges and opportunities that await us. Every day I have a chance to be a better parent and a better Christian. Whatever mistakes yesterday witnessed, I am not bound to them like an addiction. I forgot to pray in the evening. I was too tired to read a story and so I didn’t do it the way I would have liked. I was overbearing in my speech with the neighbors or on the phone with my mother. I didn’t look my husband in the eye and ask him how his day was—I just handed him a plate for dinner and got on with the evening’s meetings, bedtimes, ironing, exhaustion.

But today could be different. And by recognizing for the first time that it could, it will, even if it’s just for the first fifteen minutes of today. Perhaps remembering good habits and good practice from today, I will do better tomorrow. And even better the next day. But I don’t think conversatio morum is simply the building up of good habits and gentle dealings with those around me. I think it is related to a kind of obedience, an obedience to God, that starts with deciding to open the door to that relationship. I am not so much the actor as the one acted upon. It’s actually kind of frightening, the idea that if I just not be afraid, like all those angels keep saying all over Scripture, that in God’s own time and fashion, I might just find myself made new. Or at least newer.

Saying yes to that voice of God, to the knocking on the door, only makes the voice louder. Suddenly, where things seemed so comfortable, I am no longer at ease. Things must change. I have too much stuff. I’m wasteful in the kitchen. I start to pare down my belongings, I start to recycle, eat less meat. I answer those little mundane calls. And then bigger phones start ringing. Why do I keep thinking about prayer first thing in the morning? What is the nagging voice in my head that seems to think we can get by on one car? One car? When did the pause start, the pause before I nag my husband about the little things that just don’t matter? When did I decide it was gentler, kinder, and, frankly, easier, to just be nice to this or that person? Since when do I not hold a grudge about what happened 12 years ago?

It started happening without warning. Sort of a voice of conscience, but more of a voice of simply awakening. It’s morning, and I need to do what needs to be done.

ASCII Cats: dorky, yet fun

Don't ask why I went to this site. I need to detach myself from the computer and get a life. But it was hot outside and Sophia was playing and Maeve was napping and Mike was out...and it just happened.

ASCII cats. Another timewaster brought to you by People Avoiding Work (PAW).

Like Bridge with a Chinese Accent...

Tonight we went to the Commune for a 4th of July party--the backyards of the three neighbors down the street, who have opened their fences to each other's yards. Trisha and Eric have a movie projector, and the plan was dinner followed by kid movie followed by a “grown up” movie. This is so reminiscent of a scant 2 years of my memory growing up on Orangewood Trail. The kids playing at one house, the adults at another, after it was too dark to still manage a game of kick-the-can. When you think of it later, it seems like my whole childhood, but really it was only 3rd and 4th grade, with three summers thrown in. Three endless block party summers. Three summers of continuous “can Patti spend the night/can I go with Patti to Jean’s volleyball game/can Patti go get snowcones with us/can I walk around the big block with Patti and Amy and Cammy?”

Those questions are coming soon enough—they are starting to creep in already. Which is lovely to me. But back to tonight—great food, the kids were kinetic, Trisha had other friends over that made the kids branch out and be less group-thinky (or cliquish, perhaps?), and I met another mom who is sending her kids to Maeve’s preschool next year. Nice time. As the kids settled in front of the garage movie screen (on the outside back wall of the garage), cake came out for 1 year old Katie Jane, and soon after, mah jongg came out.

In the beginning, mah jongg was an entire evening. I remember one night, I think at Trisha’s, that went until after 2 in the morning. Intense. It was a lot of getting to know each other and not so much about playing the game. But the game was the scaffolding around the evening. It was set up for baby showers and relief for cabin fever in the winter. We’ve been playing, I realized as I wrote up a quick set of rules and a FAQ for the upcoming class at Janine’s, since 2005. It was a slow start, but it has been over 2 years. And as time as gone by, the game is easier and takes less concentration, so we can talk and play and talk some more. We are far less interested in impressing each other with the food we’ve made and how clean our houses are. We sit at that table and play. Recently, we’ve played two games at once.

So tonight Trisha was itching to play, and I’d of course brought a set with me. We put it out on one of the tables, over the groan of men who said we were being antisocial, and four of us sat down. We only played two hands, but it was good. And not at all antisocial—the whole evening had been little groups around the backyards, not some huge pow-wow in the center. We played two hands, the grown up movie started, and then a couple of us stayed to chat at the table a few more minutes (or, like, an hour).

I’m starting to feel like I’ve been attending Jewish get-togethers. Or Chinese family dinners. Dinner’s over…get out the mah jongg. Our grandparents did this, just in a different accent. At the Wibbenmeyers’ house it would have been bridge. At the Blakes’ house, pinochle. The Lupos played variations of dice games, or the interestingly named “Screw Your Neighbor”. I think my parents’ friends the Flowers played that, too…in college for me it was rummy, and post-college it was hand and foot. Pause in the action, get out the game.

Perhaps this time next year I’ll be writing an entry that starts, “after the obligatory mah jongg, we settled in for a movie…”

Down for the count

Ok, it's not sympathy-pains. It's the real thing. So glad Mike had decided to take today off already.

Pray for my sister that she and her potential roommate get this apartment, or some apartment. It's very cute, reasonably priced, and nearby.

Going back to bed now.

Paranoid and under the weather

Ah, July.

Got a touch of something; we may have spread it from Sophia to Maeve to my mother-in-law and to me. Don't know. But we picked girls up this afternoon. My mother in law didn't even get out of bed she felt so bad, and I think she would wake up the morning after she dies and plan her own funeral. But now that I'm feeling a little of it, I can see why she didn't.

There were two tickets on my windshield today. Both for expired plates, both from 9:30 this morning. We live in 3rd District, the #1 place to steal the year inspection stickers off the license plates. Ours aren't stolen--we keep them in the glove box. We've been stopped on the road about it before but always had the officer check our number and find out that yes, it is ok. So now we get a parking-style ticket about it. It's $50, which is irritating, and we might be able to prove it down at the ticket office. It's Mike's job. I handed it off.

But I gotta wonder if somebody thought Halliday needed a little extra patrolling, you know, a little more police coverage. Hmm. I'll know for sure if we get a letter stating how many violations the outside of our house has according to city codes. Then I'll know someone is looking out for our welfare. Golly.

Or it could have been some bored officer on a Sunday morning thinking maybe he'd cruise down our street looking for expired plates. Cause that always happens.

Fluke or tip of the iceberg. I hate being paranoid but these are not nice people.