Diaper Decisions

Once upon a time, Mike and Bridgett had the worst summer of their entire marriage. It involved the following:

a) no money: Bridgett wasn't teaching anymore and it had been a year since her paycheck.
b) no money: Mike was a consultant in an economic downturn (Fall 2001-Summer 2002)
c) lead paint: Sophia tested high enough on the blood lead levels to get the city to come out to our house and put up "toxic lead hazard" tape around our house and paint the whole dang thing with creepy rubberized sealant paint of some kind
d) lead paint: until the city came out (a true catch-22 I can tell you about some other time), we didn't know where the lead was and so in a panic repainted all the painted surfaces in our house


No money plus lead paint costs (the city job was free but the inside work we did ourselves--in the end, all was well, Sophia's lead levels plummeted almost immediately, and life. went. on. But at the moment...) meant we were broke. For really the first time--I mean, our first year of marriage, I taught in the city schools and made lots of money (the most I will probably ever make, actually), plus our rent was only $295/month. Things like that. Suddenly we had a toxic house and a baby with an uncertain future and an overwhelming sense of doom.

We made several small important changes that summer to our budget. We ate less meat. Mike took his lunch to work. I started doing his shirts at home. Little things, but they added up. I can't even remember all the little things we did because so many of them became ingrained in who we are now...frugality became important and we kept it up.

One of the things we changed was diapers. We'd always just used disposables and didn't think about it. And I will admit that if we'd laid out for a whole new set of cloth diapers that summer, it would not have been cost effective (she potty trained at 25 months). But my friend Cathy had this box of cloth diapers and covers. And then another la leche friend passed along some others. If I washed diapers every 5 days, I realized, it was feasible. Water is a flat rate in the city, so I'd only be paying to heat the water...and I was always a line-dry kind of girl. With Cathy's advice taken to heart, I took the plunge.

It was easy.

I made some of my own, out of flannel sheets I bought at Value Village. Being a long time fiber art person, I had the scary detergent that sucked all the fabric softener out of fabric (it's called Synthrapol and its warning label is literally bigger than the bottle itself). It roughs up fabric and makes it absorbent. So I would then cut the sheet into rectangles and sew them 8-ply. Stick two of them inside a polyurethane lined cover and voila. I also used the heck out of the hand-me-downs. And, like I said, Sophia potty trained early (for these days) and the diapers got packed away.

I pulled them out for Maeve. By then, we weren't in the financial position we'd been in with Sophia, but there was no reason not to use what we had. By then, we had a front-loading washing machine with a "sanitary" cycle designed for diapers (because, ahem, a year of breastfeeding saves you approximately the cost of a large household appliance that would otherwise be spent on formula). Baby Maeve was easy--in so many ways--and the first 9 months or so, we used exclusively cloth diapers. As she got closer to a year, we would occasionally sneak in disposables, especially when we traveled. By age two, I'd just about given up. Not entirely--see here for a horrible story about my diaper pail--but I got lazy. Maeve took forever to potty train and I was tired.

But here comes new baby. We unpacked baby clothes today and filtered out the over-the-top girly stuff. And Mike brought down the big rubbermaid container of diapers. I opened it and just stared. Sighed. And began to separate stuff into three piles: to use immediately, to use as he gets big enough to need them, and to toss in a far away trash can right now. I mean, really. Some of the diapers had been through two of Cathy's kids, Sophia, and Maeve. They were pathetic little rags. I feel bad enough about the "oh, I'm having a baby? Really?" attitude about number 3. I think maybe I can spring for a few new diapers.

I do prefer cloth to disposables, especially the first 6 months (exclusively breastfed babies, you don't even rinse them out). I have some very cute 0-3 month fleece all-in-ones (Mike's favorite--you take it off and toss the whole thing in the pail). Some small Bummis in really good shape (there's a reason people call them Bummi "Industrials"). The washcloths are usable. But the 8-ply flannel sheets with blueberry stains (Maeve)? I just can't. I can go buy another flannel sheet at Value Village and make all new ones. Or I can go down to that adorable store in South County and purchase a few new diapers.

So I tossed out over half of what I'd saved post-Maeve. I have a lot of my grandmother in me (oy, my basement), but not enough to rehabilitate these diapers. There has to be some advantage to being #3. I think cute new diapers will be part of that.

Thanks for the squash permission

I'm not going to feed the squirrels. We live a half block from Tower Grove Park and are overrun with them--I don't want them to think it's a good easy thing at my house. But I'm not going to stress about the acorn squash, either.

Last night, Mike made a butternut gratin that was awesome. Onion and swiss cheese, egg, milk, the squash sliced thin and baked for like an hour. It was good--savory instead of sweet for a change. So that's 2 butternut squash done. The other one is huge, and I think that one will be cooked in the crock pot, pureed, and frozen for baking (along with the pie pumpkin).

Tonight is homemade tomato meat sauce with Mangia Italiano's pasta and a spinach, orange, radish, and apple salad.

Squashed

Ok, I need help from anyone who knows how to cook.

I have 1 pie pumpkin.

I have 3 butternut squash.

I have 6 small to medium sized acorn squash.

While I have in the past made "pumpkin" pie out of butternut squash (it is a form of pumpkin), I just can't envision making enough pumpkin anything at this point in the season without a complete culinary revolt in my household. Perhaps pumpkin bread...that I will then eat entire loaves of...

I am also ok with pureeing and freezing the pumpkin and butternut squash, since pumpkin bread in May sounds novel...and the butternut often gets roasted with a chicken when we do that. But SIX acorn squash? I need a plan.

This would be another case of "worst of eating local" like getting sick of zucchini in September. It is now late December and I just can't figure out what to do.

Side note: the best of eating local right now? Nuts. Black Bear Bakery bagels. Trout. Hinkebein's pork. Canned tomatoes. Apples.

Ten Things That are Going Well

Ok, because I look around me in this room and want to light it on fire; because I can't really look around me without vertigo; because my kid is sick; because my heartburn will not subside...

Ten Things That Are OK

1. I have gained a mere 10 pounds this pregnancy. Holding steady. Of course, I put on 40 pounds last winter while I failed to notice my thyroid failing, but this will give me a good start this spring.

2. I love my bed.

3. The bathroom, my bedroom, the guest room, the kitchen: clean. Not perfect...my kitchen is really starting to bug me again...but clean.

4. My kids, really, they're not so bad. This break hasn't been bad. They've played and kept their room clean and they like legos and were gracious and nice for Christmas wherever they were. No embarrassing "I am a bad parent of bad kids" moments.

5. I made a blackberry cobbler this evening.

6. My kids, again, are nice. And they have no clue about pop culture--I mean, they're aware of things that other kids do and like, but they have no interest in Hannah Montana or High School Musical or consumer products I don't want to have around the house. I'm realizing more and more what a blessing this is (and what a job it was to get it to happen...but worth it)

7. The future of my knitting is wide open. I am not chained to any large project with a deadline. I know what I'm doing next, but I'm not in any hurry.

8. The basics: we have enough to eat, our house is warm (well, not the kitchen--it stays about 53 degrees these days), Mike has a job, our cars run, our health, besides the little inconveniences of pregnancy and childhood, is remarkably good. We have friends and family around us, people we can count on. We have a good life.

9. The baby that's coming, as far as we can know peering in with an ultrasound, is healthy. I have only one genetic thing to worry about, Friedrich's Ataxia, and since it didn't show up in my father's generation of siblings (his aunt and great-grandfather both had it), I'm thinking we're probably ok (plus, there's no sign of it anywhere on Mike's side, and, like cystic fibrosis, it needs both parents to be carriers to show up). I can't imagine waiting to find out if (or already knowing that) your newborn has inherited some terrible disease. I know there are no guarantees in life, but for the moment, I'm not worrying.

10. It is not sleeting. There is no freezing rain. It isn't even freezing right now--I don't want it to be 70 degrees, but it's nice to be able to step outside without bracing for ice covered steps, which, ya know, would be GREAT mixed with nine months of pregnancy and an inner ear infection.

Again. Really.

My inner ear infection is back. Last night I went to bed around 6:30 in the evening but failed to go to sleep until almost 4:30 in the morning. I couldn't read, I couldn't focus on anything, I just spun around and felt like I was on a train.

It's viral; they can do nothing for me. If I weren't pregnant (or subsequently nursing) I could take anti-vertigo mediation, but I'm not too keen on trying things out with the hopes that nothing will go wrong. I do have a Hale (the LLL bible of drug interactions with nursing)...scopolamine is ok (even approved for breastfeeding mothers by the AAP), meclizine a little more iffy. My information is 6 years old, though--I should probably invest in a new copy.

Or I could just figure on sitting very still and not moving my head back and forth. Which actually sounds a lot like night nursing, frankly.

Tonight is better. I was able to vacuum, for instance. I made dinner. I folded laundry. And that was it. Today we got to go to the pediatrician for Maeve--a middle ear infection in her case, which made the doctor say "ouchy" as he peered into her ear canal. That plus a trip to the Target pharmacy was all I could do during daylight hours.

So I'm at the point that I need to think of positive things. I think my next post will be 10 things that are going well.

Today's thought

People who are weak have something to bring us...they are important people and it's important to listen to them. In some mysterious way, they change us. Being in a world of the strong and powerful, you collect attitudes of power and hardness and invulnerability.

--Jean Vanier

Good to be back

Got back into town and immediately noticed what a pit my house was. It's what happens when you combine travel with Christmas with pregnancy with children with who knows what else. Not the best way to come home from a trip--I remember my mother frantically cleaning before we would leave town so we wouldn't come home to a dirty house--but it happens nearly every year. So the girls and I went upstairs and cleaned the bathroom. Everything but the shower tile, mostly because it's too big a job for them and I'm too big for the job right now. Mike can work on it.

[Hearty round of laughter ensues]

But now it's done, even the window sills and the dusty panels on the back of the doors. The guest room and my room are ready for dusting and vacuuming (the girls will do the former, I will do the latter once the vacuum appears from downstairs). The library, where I'm sitting now, is disheartening, mostly due to the baskets of folded clean laundry that just need to find their homes. And the bits of stuff. Like a mancala marble. A lego. A marker. You know, it adds up. A 9 volt battery. From where? But this room requires too much bending for me to get it done right now.

Mike and Maeve are relaxing and watching a movie--Maeve is much better but I don't need her running around coughing right now. Sophia is desperately trying to find a friend to play with, but alas, they have all gone to Grandma's house or some equivalent. The cats alternate between smothering me with affection and turning their backs on me and sighing. The dog, of course, is sitting on Mike's feet downstairs.

Cresting the hill on the block just east of us, seeing the almost identical houses on our block, separated only by brick color and trim paint, noting that our parking space was still empty, and then, getting out of the van and hearing the robins above me in the sweetgum tree: it was good to be back.

Let the nesting begin.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

This baby. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was trying to make an early appearance. But then I have another big glass of water and put my feet up and it stops again--which is a good thing because really, I'm only 36 weeks and I like to start with fat babies so I can get nursing off to a decent start with no worries. Nothing used to make me more frantic as a La Leche leader than to see a new mom with a 5 pound baby who didn't have enough strength to stay latched on. Sophia was 8 pounds 1 ounce; Maeve was 7 pounds 14 ounces. My doctor thinks this one will be similarly sized--I'm measuring right on target, and although boys tend to be a bit larger, he will be a bit earlier. Eight is a good size to start with.

But I couldn't sleep for anything last night. Remembering all sorts of weird snippets of dreams, which always means to me that I couldn't stay asleep. Lots of arguing with imaginary people. Sigh. So I was up before 8 with nowhere to go and nothing special to do...we are coming home today, in the hopes that sleeping in my own bed will work better.

Maeve didn't wake up once last night--took her last albuterol at 11:30 and slept through. She's still asleep now at 8:30 in the morning, which isn't too shocking normally, but this weekend, she's been up far earlier. I haven't had a cup of coffee since, get this, Monday, and I can honestly say it's lost some of its grip on me. But still, on the way home through Cape, I'm bound to stop at the Bread Co. or Starbucks and get a little wired.

And knitting. Dreamed last night about knitting. What to do now? I feel like Inigo Montoya at the end of Princess Bride--I've been in the brown Aran sweater business so long, now that it's over, what do I do? Well, I do have that pair of mittens I want to line with something interesting, and both girls need boot socks (because once again, I've become my grandmother and bought my children good boots that will fit them NEXT year...this year they are on the large size). And then? I have an incredible amount of quilting to catch up on. My row robin project is due again on the 15th; Maeve's bunk quilt is sandwiched together but yet unquilted; there's a flannel pink and yellow thing that needs out of my to-do box and into the attic.

So now, I'm going to go pester Mike. Not directly--I'm just going to start packing in the room where he's sleeping. I'd like to be home soon after lunch today. We need to get a move on.

Improving

Maeve's getting better. The albuterol every 4 hours seems to be working. We even went outside to the park today for a while this afternoon and she did fine, no coughing. Cough is breaking up, sounding more, well, productive. And nobody else seems to be contracting it thus far.

It's a creepy 70 degrees down here with high winds and a tornado watch. The temperature is supposed to drop through the evening with a huge thunderstorm that's just creeping along towards us. I guess, at least it isn't ice.

Cause you know, it's Christmas

The coughing started a half hour before mass Wednesday night. She was in enough distress I pulled out the albuterol for the first time since October when I was given it for use in just these cases. Calmed it right down. Slept fine all night, had some coughing in the morning but nothing alarming. On the trip down to Cairo, it picked up a bit, her heart going a little fast. Dang it. Some then, some in the afternoon, some in the evening. Then she woke up this morning crying about 5, and by 6 was coughing uncontrollably.

It's Friday, between Christmas and weekend. I gave her more albuterol and sat there waiting for the doctor's office to open at 8:30. It worked immediately...and lasted an hour and a half. Since then, it's been honey and lemon, orange juice, vicks baby rub (the one that's eucalyptus and lavender), and tylenol for the fever. Cause it's Christmas and somebody has to be sick, right?

She's lying in Mike's lap now, drinking watered down orange juice and watching a movie with cousins and Sophia. I was up most of the night myself with the beginnings of (false, no worries) labor and a baby moving so strongly it made me want to vomit. As soon as the store in town (it's a one horse town) is open, I guess I'm heading out for more juice and some bottled water--I left the brita at home and the water here tastes like a pool. I have to set a glass out over night to be able to take my thyroid medication in the morning without gagging. St. Louis water really is the best water. Really.

So we'll be home sooner than planned, I'm guessing. Which is fine. Just tiring.

Christmas was fine. All is well. Just please let her cough and not wheeze or do that scary chest caving in thing.

All Ready

The morning started at Pius, in the basement kitchen, cutting pie. More meals for the homebound, like Thanksgiving and Easter. I love this project--I have a role, everyone there has a role (but new people get jobs too--Sr. Dorothy Ann is so good at making everyone feel integral to the project). I get to stand behind the cafeteria line dishing sweet potatoes into a sectioned "hot pack" and say Merry Christmas to everyone who walks past. What could be better?

Last Sunday, our pastor let us know that pies were needed for this project--we served 130 people today, so we would not have been able to do that with the 5 or 6 pies Dorothy Ann had been promised to that point. Well, embarrassment of riches doesn't begin to describe what happened. When I got there at 8:45, there were 49 pies. At least 5 more arrived during the morning. I told Dorothy Ann everyone could have a third of a pie with pies left over, but that just seemed obscene (I mean, that sort of slice wouldn't have fit in the cold pack styrofoam container). So we did quarter pies for the 8" standards and 1/6s of the big pies (12"?) that were mostly store-bought. It still looked over the top next to the tiny cup of jello and spoonful of cranberry relish in the containers. But it's pie.

So math wasn't that important today--anyone could have seen that giant pieces were called for--but it was still nice to be the pie lady and see everyone.

Afterward, I hung wreaths on the doors of church, noticed that when it was all said and done, the church looked wonderful, again. Then I went to Ann's knitting shop to weave in the ends of the Big Project.

Ann called me the knitting Rain Man. I've been working on this project since July, off and on for various reasons. One reason was that I was in a funk earlier this fall when I thought I didn't have enough yarn. But the mill still had it (small production mill in upstate New York) in the same dye lot. Another reason was that, come on, you can't always be staring at chocolate brown yarn. But the last two weeks or so I've really buckled down and gotten it all the way done. Last night I was up until 1:30 watching 30 Rock and trying to make the collar do what I wanted it to. I rode around with my sisters running last minute errands this week, winding the last skein into a ball. It sort of took over.

But here it is. It's an Aran sweater for my dad, not from a pattern but done completely by me. I swatched every cable pattern way back this summer, and then put them together in rows that worked out mathematically--the shape of the sweater is identical to the Aran sweater he wears all winter long, in a dark forest green. The yarn is, like I said, from New York, purchased at Rhinebeck in October 2007 with this intention.

This is the back, which is an easy enough pattern that after establishing the cables, I didn't need the pattern anymore. But the front. The front has traveling cables (the stuff that makes the diamond patterns) that meant I had to read the pattern the whole time. It took me forever:

If you can see them, the diamonds not in the center of the front, but running down each side, are a pattern called Ensign's Braid, except that I changed it so that it would match the fret (knot) design that makes up the Blake family crest.

Yeah, I'm kinda happy with it.

Home after the knitting, I wrapped the last few things, ate a sandwich and took a nap. Now I'm about 20 minutes from walking out the door, typing and eating a pancake instead of figuring out what I need to put on clothing-wise to be decent for Mass--I'm carrying in the banner tonight (sigh) and I fear I'm going to be in all black. How Benedictine. It's funny...I wear more and more of it all the time, and it isn't a conscious thing.

Merry Christmas!

My weekend in a nutshell

Almost there...this is the true downtime before the holiday, except in my case I'm still knitting. I'm crazy.

So this weekend was my parents' open house, which was a blur as usual. Being very pregnant meant I was the topic of conversation all by myself--I didn't have to think very much about what to say because I was inundated with "when are you do what are you having have you picked out names what do the girls think?" None of those questions bother me, and the only person with the huevos to actually touch the belly was my cousin Joe and that was fine.

Not much to report--Mike and Maloki spent the whole evening playing my parents' Wii on the third floor, which meant they were the kid magnet. Somehow word got out that there was fake bowling on TV to participate in, and my little cousins (the generations are spread pretty wide on my dad's side--I'm the oldest cousin, and the youngest is 8, and above when I say "cousin Joe," he's really my dad's cousin even though he's only 4 years older than I am) all trotted up to find Mike. The whole evening--we left at a quarter to one in the morning, Maeve still going strong.

Maeve sang her solo from the school program: This little nose of mine, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

I got to hear my uncle Joe (that would be cousin Joe's father, married in) refer to himself as a "dago" twice to Bevin's boyfriend.

My grandmother left wearing Fran's coat (Fran is her daughter-in-law), thus creating a large amount of accusatory havoc when it was Fran's time to go. But Penny (grandmother) owned up to the mistake and had my cousin Adam take her real coat to her when he left (along with her "wallet" in the pocket, which is, of course, a credit card, license, and several hundred cards and slips of paper, all rubberbanded together).

My mother was kind and did not make bourbon slush. She also did not label the bourbon fudge, however, which fooled several small children, with hilarious effect.

My mom's friend Yen brought a ton of egg rolls, good enough to prompt my uncle Pat to reminisce about the Philippines and how these were the best he'd had since he was there in the Navy. It also prompted my aunt Jackie (married to the Italian, Joe) to ask Yen what "kind of oriental" she was. And proceed to ignore the answer (Vietnamese) and refer to her as the Chinese lady the rest of the night.

So it was a good time. There are people I see at that party that I don't see any other time of year--some of them live out of town, some are coworkers or clients of my father's, but others I have no excuse for. My cousin Amanda lives in Shaw, for instance.

And then, on Sunday, I woke up with something that felt very familiar. Something like a hangover. But I hadn't been drinking...ugh. I went to church and then came back to pick up Mike and the girls (Sophia had a spend the night party down the street that wasn't over until 10:30). Then, it was time to get church ready for Christmas.

This is my 3rd year and I'm not comfortable being in charge of it yet. The first year, there were so many naysayers (we were decorating after the 4th Sunday of Advent, which happened to fall on Christmas Eve). Last year, I don't think I got enough people. And this year, it looked like enough people, but then.

But then they brought in the huge trees that we put behind the altar. See, the place where we get the trees called earlier in the week and said another church had cancelled their order--they had two 15 foot trees if we were interested. We always got 12 foot trees, but I thought, ok, sure. They even delivered them for us Saturday. But seeing them pulled into the church by three big guys apiece, well, they seemed really big.

They were really big. Too big. I'll just say that it took all afternoon and Mike had several un-Christmas-like things to say by the end of the process. Sr. Cathy suggested, and everyone wound up agreeing, that the stands were just too small for such trees (Mike said it was like balancing a cane on one end) and they should cut them off some. They did, creating two very full 12 foot trees. I left with my exhausted husband before Cathy had the lights on them, but I'm sure it's one of those all's well that ends well thing. I'm sure they're fine. The creche went up fine, the other trees, the poinsettias. We had enough helpers, I don't think I even accidentally hurt anyone's feelings, and I admitted that the 15 foot trees were a mistake I wouldn't repeat next year. Eh.

I slept a long long nap when I got home.

Monday night was mah jongg, and tonight, we went to Riley's for pizza. Now everyone has showered off the smoky bar smell, and guess what I'm going to go do. Knit.

Thundersleet

It's thunderstorming outside. And sleeting.

Oh boy!

Wrought

I'm rereading one of my favorite non-fiction books (in my infinite spare time), called Words and Rules by Stephen Pinker (I may have his last name wrong...the book is far far away on my bed table). It's about irregular verbs. Yes. Irregular verbs. Just when you thought maybe I was normal. I also like books about the history of zero. A discourse on the number phi (not pi, but phi). Language and math.

Anyway, I ran across a paragraph on the word wrought. Like "what hath God wrought?" or wrought iron. Do you know what the original present tense of wrought was? It's been separated (rent?) from its original present tense verb and now is used archaically or as an adjective, but once, it was an irregular past tense of a verb we all use today, but with a new-fangled (in language terms) regular ending of -ed.

It isn't wring, which was my guess. Bring-brought, wring-wrought. But when I thought about it, it seemed stupid.

It helps if you realize that the gh was once pronounced, and very close to the ch sound in Bach. Also consider that r, which is very close to vowel status, often moves around a word through time, switching places with the vowels it stands next to (the word "bird" used to be "brid", for instance).

Wrought is the archaic past tense of work. Wrought iron is worked iron. What has God worked?

I just found that very satisfying today. Now I must go knit, which is undergoing a transformation between regular and irregular verb status. Today I knit, yesterday I knit. But in some places, yesterday I knitted. Tension. Wait, that's crochet.

Christmas Class

Txmama wrote a thing recently about themed Christmas trees. You know, like an entire tree of only Italian-themed ornaments and red, white, and green striped ribbons. Or, like one I saw recently at a gathering, one completely done to evoke the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

I have contributed to charity trees before--there was a Victorian crazy quilt themed one that I did a little sewing for (and thus learned how to do paper piecing, but that's beside the point). I have nothing against themed trees, frankly--my neighbor Larry has a different theme in each room of his house (granted, he has too much time on his hands). But until I moved here (which probably is a time sensitive issue rather than a place issue), I never saw a themed tree in someone's house. Charity auctions, department stores, boutiques, only.

Steve and Jerry next store, alas, have moved to Amsterdam. Not that the replacement Steve who bought their house is a bad idea, but they were good neighbors and our block is less without them. Anyway, they had themed trees. I remember going to their Christmas parties and just staring at the frosted white tree in the front hall with the winter sports theme. Winter sports. Little ice skater ornaments and sleds and whatnot. I remember being really impressed, and then either more so or less so when one of their friends asked who'd done the tree. "Botanicals," Jerry told him. A FLORIST had come into their home and decorated their tree. Of course, they had a butler in a tux with chaps rented for the evening, too, so obviously, I was out of my league.

Soon after that first party, my mom sent me a quiz from the humanities course she was teaching--sort of a combination of English, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology--about socioeconomic class. It revealed, essentially, how class-based we really are in America on a day to day basis. There were questions about wide ranging topics like food purchases, transportation, family, jobs. For instance, I didn't know at that point how I might buy a bus pass, since I live in a city where very few people who don't have to ride the bus actually do (I know how to buy one now). But I wouldn't know where to go to find WIC forms. On the other hand, there were many questions about people who live in a higher income bracket than I ever have that were bewildering, too. I graded myself as solidly middle class, although that wasn't the point--the point was to show how stark the little differences between us really are.

One question was about Christmas trees. What does a Christmas tree mean, exactly? Does it mean a decorative object in one's house, to be themed and possibly arranged by an employee or professional? Or does it mean dragging out your great-grandmother's glass bird ornament collection and combining them with the little Snoopy ornaments you and your mom painted when you were 5 and the ornament-a-year club your godmother enrolled you in? The point was that the middle class uses the Christmas tree as a gathering place for sentimentality. The upper class uses it as a showpiece. I don't remember what lower class/working class Christmas trees were all about, although I vaguely recall the explanation of the question mentioning the lack of stability and/or storage space required to save 60+ years worth of ornaments.

That end of things didn't strike me the way the "rich are different" moment did. I had no clue that people didn't aspire to have a tree that looked like a collection of life. Now, about 9 years later or so, I know this backward and forward. Many of my friends and neighbors have themed trees--some are different every year. My mom mentioned recently that she'd like to get a second tree for the upstairs parlor with an Irish theme. In addition to the "normal" tree in the living room. And I'm sure, once they have the storage space and stability, both my sisters will have fabulously themed trees.

I just don't think I will. It wouldn't match my house, or me, really. My house, my life, is a huge collection of odd little things and everything, yikes, everything has a back story. I see myself turning into my grandmother bit by tiny cluttered bit, and it doesn't bother me much anymore. A themed tree in my front hall kind of would.

Unicorn Chaser

Ok, so I'm not back in bed yet. But I saw this and it made me happy because it is very, very true on the right hand side of the graph:

more music charts

And, as promised:

A Very Un-Christmas-like Thought

It's 5:45 in the morning. I've been up since Mike came to bed a little after 3. He came to bed that late because he was doing his last big work task for the year--upgrading a server at work that took a bit longer than planned. But he was able, magically, to do it from home, so he was sitting in the computer room with a blanket instead of driving through the cold night drinking too much caffeine.

I have a headache, just a sinus (or possibly stress) thing, I think, and it's come to the point that I'm uncomfortable lying down unless I'm too exhausted to notice. That said, I came home from getting the church ready for Christmas and took a 3 hour nap without noticing discomfort. It's all relative.

So it's been almost 3 hours of getting up, going back to bed, telling Dara the Rottweiler to get off the couch, drinking water, and trying not to think. Why am I trying not to think? Because it's here again. Simply stated: when your first birth almost kills you, it's hard to not consider this possibility with future births.

We will be fine. I know from Maeve's birth that about 60 seconds after I'm in the recovery room, I don't have these worries anymore. It's just the last month of pregnancy. I didn't have any problems post-partum with Maeve, and I don't expect to with this one either (frankly, I will be too busy--really--that's why things hit so hard with Sophia, I think--I didn't have enough to occupy my head with).

And, having written this down, I can now go back to bed and stop thinking about it. Up next: a much more Christmas-like review of the weekend...after the doctor's appointment and errands in the coldest cold damned weather thus far this winter.

No Limit Texas Dreidel

Well, I think it'll just be a link. The dreidel game, pumped up and made into an adult (?) version closer to poker. No Limit Texas Dreidel.

Photo Friday: Best of 2008

A few photos from the year. I'm bad at picking "best of" anything without giving out ties (cue Carly Simon song here). But here are a few from 2008 that I thought were interesting or decent.

First, from February, Maeve in the fort ruins at Belle Fontaine Park.



Next, from a girl scout field trip/publicity moment, girls staring at their reflections in the buildings downtown.


Our Easter candle at church.


Lightning--the first time I've captured lightning on film--at Rock Eddy.


Princesses at Shakespeare in the Park.


Conception/Clyde Wind Farm.



Grotto Falls, Smoky Mountain National Park.


St. Paul's Churchyard.


Mike and Maeve on our tree hunt

Not Far Now

In ten minutes, Sophia comes home from a friend's and eats dinner. Then she, Maeve, and another neighbor girl pile into my van with me and head out to Irish Dance class. Maeve and I will head on to meet Mike and Maloki for dinner, after which I will come home and sit in a corner and rock.

Last night Mike's brother Steve and his girlfriend Mary came over for dinner. We dumped all the stuff going to Cairo for Christmas in their trunk. Something to check off the list. Twenty minutes after they were gone, I found Jennifer's boyfriend's present, Mike's cousin Todd's, and then this afternoon, the item that was supposed to be delivered to Mike's parents' house came in the mail.

You ever heard of the story of the scorpion who keeps stinging itself when there's nothing else to sting? This one keeps popping into my head this week. But I'm trying (and usually succeeding, actually) to keep it together and sting no one. Not even me.

So at some point tomorrow, I'll deliver these last three items, without ire, to Pete and Kaylen or Steve and Mary to take on down so that everyone can do what they will Christmas morning and not have to wait for us.

Today during Atrium, Sr. Mary popped by with a phone message from Denny, I think was his name, who runs the tree place where our church trees are coming from. She introduces it this way: "Denny from the place where we get the trees called..." and she can see the look on my face. What has gone wrong now? Did Canada run out of trees? But no--another church decided against their 15 foot trees, would we be interested (as opposed to our 12 foot trees we ordered)? I can handle that kind of thing, and did so. Went back into Atrium and didn't yell at anyone.

Tomorrow is the last day before a two week break for everyone, Mike included. I plan to do a lot of lying around, frankly. It's getting harder and harder to breathe, or sleep, or eat. I plan to put on some kind of magic headphones that cancel out all questions and requests from small children. Does anyone have a pair of those? I think most football game-watching dads must have them...can I borrow them?

How To Wrap Up The Year

This January, I set myself a goal of writing here every day. Now, of course, I knew better than to say that. What I meant was that I wanted to average out at least once a day--by the end of December, to have 365 entries (like many of my methodical year-long projects). I realized a few days ago that not only would I easily get to 365, but that this was a leap year, and I should be trying for 366. That number doesn't have the same weight to me as 365, though, and so I still think I should note that this is my 365th blog entry this year. Sure--some of them are photos, or else three lines long and include such gems as "I am still sick" or simply a link to someone else's wisdom or hilarity. But some of them are more than that, I would hope.

I read a daily reflection written by Don Talafous, osb, maybe not every day, but at least a few times a week. Today's was well timed for me and I wanted to include a little bit of it here:

For our little part of the world and for many people around us we are irreplaceable; without the things we do or say they are diminished. Our lives, words and actions can build up or tear down. Our encouraging words or gestures help someone else through the day -- or the night. Our sympathy and listening tell others they are not alone, have worth. The respectfulness or dignity we bring to what we do helps others believe in the worth of living. What we do in response to our conscience is vital to the world around us and is our way of responding to the call of the Lord in the here and now.

For all of you out there who are so irreplaceable to me, have a blessed peaceful Christmas. Thanks for reading.

~Bridgett

The List

So I was mentally going over my Christmas list. Not the list of who gives what to whom. The list of EverythingBridgetthastodoinDecemberbeforeChristmas. I'm on the downhill side of the list at this point. After Sunday night, I'll be done completely 'cept for a little knitting project that never ends. A sampling of my December:

Advent calendar assembled (x)
Advent wreath assembled (x)
Decorate church for Advent (x)
Advent prayer service (x)
Order poinsettias for church (x)
Order trees for church (x)
Get tree for house (x) (technically happened in November, actually)
Register girl scout troop (x)
Painted Zebra field trip (x)
Last girl scout meeting before the new year (x)
Take Maeve to Painted Zebra (x)
Doctor appointments (x) (x) ( )
Dentist appointment (oops--rescheduled for January)
Car oil change and etc. appointments (doing it today, honest)
School days for Maeve (2 left)
School days for Sophia (3 left)
Book club (x)
Finish knitting ( )
Finish shopping (x)
Stay in budget (yes! I did!)
Christmas social engagements/parties (x) (x) (x) (x) ( )
Mah jongg ( )
secret santa activities (xxx) (xxx) ( ) ( )
Christmas cards (well, I have them...)
Deliver Cairo stuff to Pete or Steve to take with them Friday (it's not Friday yet)
Deliver St. Vincent de Paul boxes Saturday (it's not Saturday yet)
Pick up trees for church Saturday (again...not there yet)
Decorate church for Christmas Sunday (it's not Sunday yet)
Bake ( )
Try to be nice (this doesn't get a check mark until Christmas)

I know there are things that didn't make the list here...and hopefully, they're done because I can't remember them. I need to go knit now...

I am so frickin pregnant

I ironed Mike's shirts tonight. Usually when I do this, I do about 15-18 shirts, plus a once over on pants (dockers, right out of the dryer, are my friend). Sophia's broadcloth school shirts get done, a few of her jumpers, and usually some impossibly wrinkled dress of Maeve's. I watch a movie (on Netflix on the computer, thank you TXMama), I drink a vitamin water or coffee (depending on the time of day), and I get it done.

Tonight I got 4 shirts done and 2 pairs of pants and 2 jumpers for school. My lower back hurts so bad I think I need to go lie down. And it took me an entire episode of 30 Rock to even get to that point. My heart is beating faster than it should be for just standing at an ironing board. I am officially sick of pregnancy. I know I maybe have said that before, but this is too much.

Maybe tomorrow I'll iron throughout the day or something like that. Iron two shirts, walk away and do something else (like lie down). And then come back in an hour and iron a pair of pants.

Maybe the second week of January (the earliest I'll have to do more ironing, since Mike takes off some time at the end of each year), I'll take his shirts to a cleaners. Just...this...once.

Isaiah 35: 1-6

Last night I gave the reflection at the Advent prayer service. And I didn't freak out. Last time I did this, well, it was 2 months after Maeve was born and I was supposed to be talking specifically about pregnancy and Advent. Verklempt much? Last night was easier, although I still put this in the category of "I like knowing people who can do things I can't do."

It was not the easiest reading to wrap my head around. But here's what I had to say...

We stand here at a confluence of two major rivers. We have so much water available to us, our water department hasn't even bothered to retrofit our old houses with water meters. Just pay a flat rate. My kids swim in a pool in the backyard, I water my garden every day in the summertime, and frankly I got worried this past summer when we came close to having too much water in our little river valley.

This is not like one of the places where I lived growing up—I moved a lot, and my kindergarten year was spent in a place called Palm Desert, which sat just outside the retirement community of Palm Springs, California. Now, this wasn't a desert like the Sahara is a desert. A few things grew here of their own accord, and other things, like date palms, were easily tended. In fact, this is where most of the world's dates are grown. If you decided to spend the money, resources, and time, you could have grass in your front yard.

For that matter, you could have a golf course fit for Bob Hope. Armies of gardeners and caretakers maintained this life in the desert, but we and most of our neighbors had rock courtyards. Mica and white stone, a few jade plants in pots under the trellis that made our front porch. Tamarisk trees, native to the Holy Land, lined the wash behind our house. But it was gritty gray sand—desert—that these plants lived in. It was windy—one of the windiest places in the US—it was dry, and it was hot—summers were over 100 degrees every day, and winters stayed in the 70s and 80s.

The desert did not bloom. Streams did not burst forth. There was no coming of spring with daffodils and magnolia blossoms. The whole year I lived there, I saw no precipitation hit the ground. Then one day in December, our neighbor Virginia called to tell my mom to go outside because it was snowing. Now, I was 5. We'd moved there from Wisconsin. I'd been promised snow at Christmas when we were to travel to my grandparents' in St. Louis. But here?

We went outside, puzzled, and looked up. It was cloudy, which was remarkable in and of itself, and if we let our eyes unfocus towards the mountains at the horizon, we could see the snow. Moving our focal point downward, we could see where the snow, falling, turned into rain. And then a line closer to the earth, but still completely out of reach, where the rain evaporated completely. We stood there together, thinking of home.

I think about Isaiah's words in this context. God's salvation will bring new life in a desert—which of course speaks to our hearts more than to our geography. In the person of Christ is this fulfilled—we read of miracles and conversions, amazing works and God present right there in the middle of that desert. And yet, here we are two thousand years later, and all those things promised in the coming of the savior are not brought to fruition. Despite all our efforts, we still have disease and infirmity all around us. We all face death—and no amount of hope and prayer can change that. Through the incarnation and resurrection, we are redeemed, and yet, that hasn't come to complete fulfillment. We are caught between times. Historically, Jesus has come and gone. Yet we say he is here, and that he's coming again. But where? When? What a frustrating time to be caught in.

But I don't think that's God's plan for us. While we wait for Christ, we aren't to stand idly around hoping that one day it will all work out for us, personally and globally. In the middle of this passage from Isaiah is a clue: Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak. While the rest of the reading is about what God will do, what we can hope for, this line is about what we are called to do. Right now. God works through creation and through our hands, towards that time when God will be all in all.

In our baptism, we are brought forth in this glory and splendor of God. We can't waste this. We have not only the words of the prophet giving this clue, but the entire life of Christ cries out to us to do these things, in his name, to bring about the Kingdom of God. Yes, we celebrate Christ's birth so long ago, and we await his return, but in the meantime, how do we live? I suppose we can stand on our driveways watching the snow fall and not touch the ground, wishing for the miracle. Or we can recognize that Christ alive in the world is alive through us, and we are called, in no uncertain terms, to be Christlike, to bring hope, to heal, to transform these deserts—in our hearts, our homes, our world—ourselves.

Chow Mein Chocolate Peanut Cookie Thingies for Mali

1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup marshmallows
1 cup chow mein noodles

Those are approximate ratios. Essentially, melt some stuff, dump some stuff in:

Melt chips. Stir in nuts, marshmallows, and noodles. Spoon small globs onto wax paper to cool.

That's it. I should make them more often but they are equated with Christmas. I think some people call them birds' nests, or haystacks.

Yes, I plant garlic

Two recent comments expressed amazement that I grow garlic. I think (hope) it was because garlic isn't usually grown, and not due to a well-deserved astonishment that I can grow anything at all. I wanted to say, simply, that garlic is the second easiest thing I grow, after basil. I mean, you can't beat basil. Buy a couple seedlings, stick them in whatever ground you have available, and let it go.

Garlic is just about that easy. Since nothing will bother it (squirrels, rabbits, etc), i grow it right in my yard. In the fall after the first frost, I plant small cloves (the individual teeth, so to speak) about 6 or 8 inches apart. These will become next summer's actual garlic, the stuff we will use in food. I also plant the flower heads from this year's crop, just the little seeds, which will grow small bulbs that will be planted NEXT fall for the 2010 crop. It's really easier than that sounds.

They do need some water in the late spring and through the summer, or the bulbs are small. But they grow. They are completely edible--the shoots, the flower heads, the seeds, the cloves--and everything has the exact same flavor. I plant a hard-neck variety, called Osage, which is native to Missouri and continues in this two year cycle without a problem. Some years I have more than others, but I always have enough of the little flower head seeds, which are about the size of a popcorn kernel, that I know I can sustain the crop into the future.

It is the only successful heirloom gardening I do. I plant heirloom tomatoes, but I start new each year. I'm not so great at seed saving, and I'm lousy at starting tomatoes from seed. But garlic is easy. It is something I will probably plant forever, even if I give up on the other things. It's not a fill-the-belly kind of crop, not something that war pamphlet on victory gardens would want me to waste my time and space with, but I like it. I like the hard neck (all the garlic in the grocery store is soft neck variety), I like that it's silvery purple in color, and I like that it's slightly milder than store bought. It's worth the space and time.

This year's crop (August 2008) was small, not in number but size. So we're not going to eat as much this year, and instead, we planted more...in the hopes that non-pregnant Bridgett will be more diligent about that whole watering part of the process next summer.

The insulation of childhood

When I was in first grade, we moved to St. Louis from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I'd done a half year of first grade, and I tested into second grade, starting in January, which was an academically sound decision based on my reading skills, comprehension, and willingness to learn, but kind of an absolute disaster for me for several years as I played social catch up. Probably by 6th grade I was fine.

But it's not January yet. It's December, and I have on a velveteen dress in royal blue, a jumper with a pretty white blouse underneath with a peter pan collar. The tights are white and the shoes are black. My hair is in french braids and a few teeth are still missing. We're out the door to church at Mary, Mother of the Church down in south county, where I was baptized. It's Christmas Eve and there is snow on the ground.

After mass, we return to my grandparents' house and meet my uncle and his wife there. My grandmother's only sister, Emily, is up from Oklahoma, too, for the holiday. I'm sharing a bed with her tonight after presents. I remember this is the year of the dollhouse, the one my dad has built in the basement using plywood and plans from a pamphlet. It is better than any store bought dollhouse I could have imagined, and I'm floored. There's also a porcelain doll from my grandmother, and a white polar bear that now, in 2008, is upstairs in the girls' room along with the dollhouse. Don't know where the doll wound up in the mix--it fit my youngest sister better than me anyway, as time went by.

After Christmas, in January, right after I start school at Trautwein Elementary in Mrs. Chott's room (pronounced "trout wine" and "cot"), we have the biggest snowfall of my entire life. Snow so deep we build igloos in the backyard. No school for a week. A week. My dad takes the sled up to the Tom-Boy for groceries because in those deep cul-de-sacs, well, they weren't a snowplow priority. Nowadays we'd walk no problem to the weird little grocery store two blocks away...but that year, it was like Pa Ingalls setting out for another settlement.

But here's the part I didn't even know was happening: my father had lost his job down in Oklahoma over Thanksgiving. We'd moved back to St. Louis because we didn't have other options. And then, he found something else, but we still lived at my grandparents' house for quite a while before we rented the house down in Arnold and I started the next school year at St. Bernadette's. This was probably a real low point for all the adults involved. I saw it as a 24/7 vacation at my grandparents'. And I was clueless enough (still am) that I didn't even pick up on adult moods, which couldn't have been great.

These days, I don't keep it contained very well. Maybe my parents didn't either--but I swear I don't remember tension from that winter. I was shocked when I found out, in fact, what had brought us back to St. Louis. Not even that big of a deal--folks lose jobs--but I didn't recall anything negative about the move.

It makes me wonder if Sophia and Maeve are similarly insulated. Sophia does tend to be generally clueless, in a good way, and Maeve is still young enough to be completely self-centered. But I wonder, for instance, if either of them picked up on my tension last week. Or on the stress of this pregnancy as it drags on without end. I really hope they are removed from it, frankly. Life gets stressful enough soon enough.

25 Questions for Christmas

From Not Mary Poppins...I think I did this list last year, too, or one very similar, but perhaps my answers will be different.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I used to collect wrapping paper at Leftovers, the recycling store here in town, but then they closed their south side location (making me very sad and my husband very happy). This year, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought 4 big rolls: two are red and white for things that stay in St. Louis, and two are kraft paper with designs on them, for things that go to Cairo.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Always real. We cut our own, every year since at least 1983. We mulch the tree down at Carondelet Park. Somewhere, a bunch of blueberry bushes are very happy.

3. When do you put up the tree? Used to be, right about now (3rd week of Advent). But as my dad gets older, his tree goes up earlier, and since going with my parents to cut the tree is part of the layers of tradition we get caught up in, this year the tree came home NOVEMBER 30. It went up gradually that week.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime after Epiphany.

5. Do you like eggnog? In theory, I should. I love nutmeg. But every time I try it, I think I'm drinking the egg mixture you dip bread in to make French Toast. So then I feel a little sick and don't try it again for 5 years.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? The dollhouse my dad made me when I was 8. That was a fabulous Christmas. That dollhouse is in the attic (the girls' room and playroom).

7. Hardest person to buy for? Umm. Any male on Mike's side of the family. Mostly my father-in-law.

8. Easiest person to buy for? My sisters. I have a problem buying too much for them.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Three. Mike and I have one from before children; each girl has her own, received a piece at a time from my mother-in-law.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Oh, that isn't a nice question. There are things I've received in the past that have puzzled me ("Who does he think I am, anyway?") but most everything has involved at least some kind of thought or graciousness. OOH! No! I remember! When I was in college, my brother, still in high school, decided to shop on Christmas Eve. At Walmart (it was Texas, after all). I got a copy of the Tom Cruise movie "Far and Away." That was puzzling and weird and still had the price tag on. He got better. No, maybe not.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Charlie Brown Christmas. Seriously.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? October or early November, online.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. I agree with Mary's answer. Not everything is right for me, but that doesn't make it bad.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Those little chocolate covered peanut-marshmallow-chow mein noodle cookies.

16. Lights on the tree? Multicolored.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Heh. Dare I say Sleigh Ride?

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Cairo, Christmas Day, stay a while.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Yes, in fact, I can.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? One of those pointy glass things. Not quite a star. A spire?

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? I grew up with Midnight Mass followed immediately by presents (at, yes, 2:30 in the morning). So nowadays, we go to the 10 p.m. vigil at my parish, go back to my parents' house for presents. Get home and crash for, like, 5 hours, and kids wake up for Christmas at our house. Then we get in the car and go to Cairo.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Besides bad versions of Christmas classics? I think the lack of regular routine. I like routine.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Old glass ones with sparkle flocking.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I prefer Thanksgiving. My mother-in-law's house often has some sort of marshmallow-jello-fruit concoction that I could eat by the bowlful.

25. What is your favorite thing about the holidays? That moment when everything is ready and Trisha says "let's play mah jongg." It's been a couple of years of a small gathering and it's a lovely pause. But that's not my absolute favorite. I love my parents' Christmas party and seeing people I don't see every day (or any other time of year) and watching how things change. But that's not really my favorite, either. Crowding my whole family, sisters included, into a pew at St. Pius and the incense and poignant homily and sleepy kids? Watching Maeve open presents like they are made of pure heroin? Falling asleep Christmas evening in my mother-in-law's recliner with some Tylenol PM? Bourbon slush (sigh)? Every year it's something new--I look back and think "that was the moment."

Tag from Cakes

Simple little exercise, and then I have to go drink coffee and vacuum and tear myself away from all this. Can you tell I finally feel better, finally??

The Rules: go to Your Pictures file go to the 5th folder open up the 5th picture and post it then tag 5 people when you are done (although I'm always naughty about tagging--I figure I am the place where all memes go to die).

Of course, I'm married to an IT guy, so I had to go to the 5th folder, then open the 5th folder, and then open the 5th folder, and finally count over to the 5th picture.

This was taken this July in our backyard. Girls in the horse trough pool. Someday it will be warm like that again.

Christmas Music: Bad Ideas

There's a station in town that is gradually changing its format to a sports network. Starting back in October, they quit doing what they used to do and just put Christmas music on. Then there's another station that always switches format to Christmas music starting the week of Thanksgiving. So this year, if I get tired of It's a marshmallow world in the winter, thank you Dean Martin, I can switch over to hear some weird sappy tear jerker by Alabama or something bizarre like that. And immediately switch back.

It seems that everyone has a Christmas album. Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Melissa Etheridge. Lots of cheesy sounding young men I've never heard of before. Everyone seems to sing O Holy Night. Badly. But this doesn't bother me the way that so many many people have ruined Sleigh Ride.

Sleigh Ride technically has lyrics, but no one should sing them. No, scratch that. The Ronettes, of all people, are allowed to sing them. Johnny Mathis shouldn't. Really. And no one recording after Nixon resigned should ever, ever do this song.

A few nights back, I got on seeqpod and forced Mike to sit through 15 versions of this song. That's like preaching to the choir, of course, the Dave Brubeck Miles Davis Glenn Miller Choir, but I needed to demonstrate the horrors of Sleigh Ride remakes to someone (and he's married to me, so, ya know, he's used to it).

A few worth noting:
*Like I said, the Ronettes do a reasonable rendition. And it's been a long time since I've heard the Spike Jones version, but I think I remember that not sucking.

*The Squirrel Nut Zippers play it, instrumental, like it should be (the lyrics were written by someone else two years after Leroy Anderson published the score). Dixieland jazz, which is hard to mesh with the idea of "sleigh" ride, but is interesting.

*Ella Fitzgerald, who of course understands how to swing, but you have to get past the elevator music in the background. Honestly, the song opens up and I think I'm on an elevator in Stix, Baer & Fuller with my grandmother in 1982.

*The Ventures. Again, instrumental, and it's done in surfer guitar. So that's amusing.

The worst offenders?
*Amy Grant sings it in strict 4/4 time. Every note gets the very same stress and beat. There is no swing. And so much forced cheer.

*Neil Diamond. 'Nuff said.

*Spice Girls. Attention Spice Girls: You are not the Ronettes. Have you ever even been on a sleigh? Seen one?

*TLC sings some other song with these lyrics. It shouldn't even count.

*Brian Setzer Orchestra. They just try too hard. Really.

*But the worst I've heard? Air Supply. Air Friggin Supply. Again with the strict beat--in this case, a huge thudding synthesizer booming out the beat just in case the singers thought they'd do anything differently. There are evil background singers straight out of, well, Air Supply. They sample the original (or drugged a bunch of high school band members to play in the background). But it sounds like a weird joke. My high school choir could do better. My girl scout troop could do better. The last verse,


Our cheeks are nice and rosy
And comfy cozy are we
We're snuggled up together
Like two birds of a feather would be

actually sounds twangy, in a "I've never heard any country music but I'm trying to sound folksy" way. I don't know anything about the individual members, but when they are put together, the gestalt, as it were, proves that Air Supply has no soul and should be treated as a threat to our children and a weird plot against our culture.

For my money, it's Boston Pops or just turn off the radio. Maybe "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" is on the other station. Or the Jackson 5 watching mommy kissing Santa Claus.

What's going through my head this morning

But if there's one thing in my life
That these years have taught
It's that you can always see it coming
But you can never stop it

Speed River at my feet running low and flat
I'm sitting here burning daylight,
Thinking about the past
And that distance out there
Where the earth meets the sky
The slightest move and this river mud
Pulls me further down
John's at my side,
But he's standing on firmer ground
--Cowyboy Junkies "Bea's Song (River Song Trilogy Part II)"

Yup, it's an official change of season and here I am thinking about the past. Last night I was talking about something I'd done about a year and a half ago, regretting it, and I was asked, "why now? What brings this up now?" Which was really funny, in a way, to hear, because the other thing I was about to say was a half a lifetime ago (literally). And it was time to say it out loud.

I was at a reconciliation service at church, which I've come to appreciate in a way that I did not appreciate, say, when I was 17 and probably needed to go more often than I did. The opening song was Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, which is where the tag line above comes from, and, frankly, I'd been working on this examination of conscience for about two weeks. It was inevitable that I would be there and that I would actually have something to say. It was catching myself in an undertow--but not from the stance of drowning in the Meramec. More like looking up and realizing I'm a quarter mile down the beach from where my family is. Not in any danger, but not where I intended to be.

I'm always surprised by what a priest will say to me in a confessional. I remember a former pastor doing a lot of sighing and rubbing his eyes like I was the most exasperating case he'd ever encountered (which I know I couldn't have been). And then let me know that nothing I'd just said--nothing--was worth all this angst. Last night, and several previous instances with this current priest, it was like reading a novel, the dialogue at moments just a half step removed from my usual reality.

I believe in grace, in moments when God comes into your life and changes something about you. Sometimes these are big moments--baptism, confirmation, birth of a child--and other times, they are subtle and only seen in reverse. Fr. Dominic (the bread baking Benedictine) says this is why the examen is so important--not just examination of conscience, but really looking at your life, at your day, to see where God was in all that. He uses the example of a World War II era orphanage where the children were war-traumatized and terrified. The people who ran the orphanage started giving the children a chunk of bread at bedtime. They could eat it right then if they wanted, or they could save it for tomorrow. The idea was (and it worked) that you were fed today and you would be fed tomorrow. So sleep.

I slept last night.

Photo Friday: Weathered

Arches National Park, Moab, Utah

Cake

The Other Mary sent me a link to Cake Wrecks and I've just wasted a half hour of my life there, which is a good thing, really. The recent posts aren't so much, but click on, say, September or August of 2008 and make sure you aren't drinking or eating anything that could come out your nose.

Brace Yourself, Bridgett

It's coming:


I guess it's time, Saturday, to make hay while the sun shines. For a brief moment, it will be warm enough to dig in the dirt and I will feel ok enough to do such a thing (garlic needs to get in the ground a month ago). Mike can stack wood and bring in all the lawn furniture that has been neglected and I can plant teeny little garlic cloves.

Oh boy!

Etsy Fever

So if you're on my Christmas list, you're probably going to receive something from etsy.com. If you've never been over there, well, it's like ebay, except not an auction site, and instead of offering everything under the sun, the things for sale are handmade. Not necessarily "hand"--chainsaws, computers, sewing machines and so forth can be employed. But the idea is that you make it, you sell it, I buy it, I pay you. It is fun to search and easy to use.

I've had a great experience this fall shopping for various people on etsy. Sophia and Maeve are each receiving a Waldorf doll from one of the crafters--they arrived about a week ago and I'm astounded at the detail and care. Absolutely beautiful. I won't say what else I've picked up (Sophia and Maeve don't read my blog yet, but others do). But it's been lovely. And then I purchased an item from a woman in Toronto with an approval rating over 200 all positive. Seemed like a safe plan. In fact, I bought two of her items. She sent me an email receipt and all was well.

That was November 15. I read her feedback, and folks who have purchased in late November--like the 27th--have received their items (in the U.S.) and have given her feedback. So I was concerned. If she happened to send things Fedex, for instance, well, they're BASTARDS as far as delivering to my neighborhood is concerned. As opposed to Speedy Delivery Brett from UPS who knows my dog's name and recognizes my van when we pass on Grand, the Fedex guys play funny games. Really funny. Like leaving large boxes on my porch unconcealed in the middle of the day. Ringing the doorbell and running away immediately with the package in hand so that I have to open the door and yell for them. One time, they left a package on my air conditioning unit in the backyard. I found it three days after. No note letting me know where it might be.

So I sent the etsy lady an email four days ago, just to check in. She hadn't changed her "Seller Status" note from "received payment" to "shipped item" and I tried, friendly-like, to ask if she'd shipped it, and what company (US Mail, UPS, Evil Delivery Inc.) I should be looking for.

No answer.

I sent a similar message through the "conversation" link on etsy yesterday morning. Still nothing.

It isn't that big of a deal. Both the people I was shopping for are easy to shop for; I can easily find something else. And there are methods of revolt on etsy, too. But I don't want to cause a stink if it's on the way or whatever...I just wish she would email me back and let me know. I HATE not knowing. I'm an ENFJ. Things must be decided and concrete as fast as possible. I'd rather have bad news than no news. Really.

So I guess I'll pretend all is well through the weekend. And then Monday, start plan B.

Yummy!

Just in case you haven't started your Christmas baking yet, here's a recipe from Mike's mom's grandma's handwritten cookbook, for "Springerlies" (with my comments in italics):

Dissolve 4 cubes of ammonia or 3 level teaspoons of powdered ammonia (powdered or cubed ammonia? Ammonia in food? I'm confused) in about one-tenth pint of whiskey and set aside. Powdered ammonia is easier to dissolve than cubes.
If cubes are used, pulverize them with a rolling pin before adding to whiskey.

Separate 12 eggs. (I have never made anything that required a dozen eggs)

Beat yolks and gradually add 3 lbs. powdered sugar. Beat for one hour. (ONE HOUR?)

Add ammonia dissolved in whiskey. Pour over 3 quarts flour and 1 1/2 tsp. salt. Beat egg whites and add.

Knead well. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick, a little at a time. Press into board, cut off, lay on boards overnight. (What happens overnight? Do they rise? They frighten me)

When ready to bake, grease pans, sprinkle with anise seed, lay cookies on top of seeds and bake. You need 15 cents worth of anise seed. (I like how there is no temperature listed--I assume 350 degrees--and also no time listed. Considering you beat them for an hour and you leave them alone overnight, what, do you cook them for 2 weeks?)

Makes 300 cookies or more. (I hope you have a lot of friends)

Ah, SLU

Mike and I are both SLU (Saint Louis University) graduates. This brings with it all the responsibilities and privileges of, well, any university degree, but as a bonus, we get a little monthly or bimonthly magazine called Universitas. And occasional "please give us money" phone calls and a few little postcards alerting us to alumni events we never attend because, dang. Life is too short.

And then we stopped getting the alumni magazine and postcards. Not a big deal, really. We didn't even notice. It's not like I take my cup of coffee out onto the stoop and chat about the latest article about what scandalous art object the president has purchased and displayed. I live within walking distance (technically) of the place, but it's not like I yearn for the good old days of living in a dorm room the size of a largish saxophone case.

So my mother-in-law, Mary Helen, emailed me and let me know that the boys' Universitas magazines arrived. Pete and Steve graduated in May, and live here in St. Louis. But I know Mike kept the address in Cairo for some things until we bought the house--his mom's address is far less likely to change than any given apartment we lived in. But not only did Pete's and Steve's arrive...so did one for Mike and me. Seems that our last name triggered some over-editing of the alumni database. It is true that we're the only ones, the four of us, in St. Louis, with our last name. So perhaps they thought we all...lived together in the same house in Cairo, Illinois. Maybe they thought we were Pete and Steve's PARENTS.

But not only that--they had changed Mike's name to Edward and mine to Sarah Blake. Which technically is my name on the ole birth certificate. So we are now Mr. Edward Wissinger and Mrs. Sarah Blake. I wonder who I'm married to. I know there are other Blakes in the world, but I haven't actually met one in person. Perhaps it's some sort of marriage of convenience, green card kind of thing. Hmm.

The alumni office had a hard time accepting that the address change was legitimate, especially when Edward becomes Mike and Sarah becomes Bridgett and changes her last name to boot. But she claimed she was writing it all down. Next time, maybe my brother in Houston will start getting my high school alumni mail.

In the end, it's all stupid because I don't read the dang thing 90% of the time and I could do with fewer postcards and junk in my mail.

(I wonder if I'll get hate mail in my comments for this from the alumni office...I did when I posted about another college I visited back in high school...well, not hate mail, more like passive aggressive harrumphing).

Come Monday, it'll be all right

Still dizzy, but making it. My doctor was rather unconcerned about it (just like he was with my persistent diarrhea back in July and August and my stomach bug in November--which is a good foil for my nail-biting freakishness about health concerns). He said it was almost certainly viral, which, of course, ticks me off because his nurse practitioner gave me azithromycin in that "z-pac" form, not only did the generic cost me $21, but it gave me diarrhea as well. I haven't been on an antibiotic since Sophia was born (and I was on 4 different horrible antibiotics intravenously). I am wary of them, because that infection when Sophia was born? Antibiotic resistant. Which is due directly to the overuse of antibiotics for things like, well, I'm dizzy...maybe it's an ear infection, here take this. Dr. A said that almost ALL inner ear infections (he called it labyrinthitis) are viral. "You'll be better by Christmas."

What else? I finished a Harry Potter hat for Sophia's friend's birthday party next week. Yes, I know I'm supposed to be working on a cable knit Aran sweater for someone else. But I needed a day off from the brown to do something in red and yellow. And it's nice to finish something once in a while. I will post a picture...someday.

I hung a Christmas wreath on the front door. That's all that's going to happen this year. No outdoor lights this time around, unless Mike gets to missing them and puts them up himself.

The girl scout field trip to the Painted Zebra (one of those paint-your-own-pottery places that then fires the pieces and has them ready for pick up in a week, so cute) was a total hit. It ate up quite a bit of last year's cookie money, but that was good because I was going to get a sharp rap on the knuckles from our district chair for hoarding cash. Sixteen girls went on the field trip, with moms and a tight space and nothing got dropped on the floor. I was pleasantly shocked.

I have gained a wonderful total of 10 pounds this pregnancy. I've been holding steady for a month. Not intentionally. See--last winter my thyroid started failing again, and I put on a nice 40 pounds before I realized DUH IT'S MY THYROID AGAIN. So I had some rearranging of poundage to do. But here's hoping that come January 30th, I have a nice chunk gone from baby and water weight and so forth and can get back down to where I belong. Or, well, to within 20 pounds of where I belong. I'm not too hard on myself. I like fudge, after all.

Christmas shopping is almost done. Trying not to feel like I'm drowning.

My sisters seem to have survived their week. I haven't talked to Colleen in person, but she's posting again on her blog, just bits. Bevin talked my ear off last night about OTHER THINGS, which was a wonderful sign. Time will help this, some, I know. It helped last time. Damn it all that it had to come up again and start all over. Tonight was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Sr. Mary and I decorated the Marian altar at Pius yesterday, and I admitted it would have been a hard thing to come up and do if the verdict hadn't gone the way it did. Funny how, as we get older, the layers of meaning around dates and actions and places multiply and reflect.

Mike is downstairs watching "Heroes," which, after last season, I can only mock, so I'm hiding upstairs instead. I'm looking at the MSD bill which we always fail to pay on time. Sighing. It's 8:50 in the evening, the girls are in bed. If I weren't so durned scrupulous about it all, I'd have myself a glass of wine. Not far now.

Credit for Blog Title

1. Simplicity, 2. Sun Halo, 3. DSC_0380, 4. Borders, 5. Out on Lake Towada, 6. Vindens spor, 7. neige herbe.jpg, 8. Baleine au large d'Húsavík, 9. Untitled, 10. Brr..., 11. DSC01434, 12. lateAPRILsnow

And now we know

TxMama (and anyone else): you can find a brief rundown of the verdict and the background at the Columbia Tribune article this morning. But it is slanted, of course, in the direction of already knowing the outcome. I wrote about this story several hundred thousand times, it seems, over the past two years...some of these links below might be helpful. And here's a rundown of the story from the beginning. My apologies to Bevin and Colleen who know the story more first-hand, because I am prone to fictionalization--and this story has become one of those oral tradition stories, with details lost and found and forgotten and suddenly remembered. But here it goes:

Jesse was a MU student from Kentucky, a friend of Bevin's and many other people--Bevin knew him as predominantly Ellen's friend (Ellen was one of 5 roommates who shared a house in East Campus, a neighborhood not technically on campus, but, amazingly, east of it). He was a party kid, openly gay, had lots of friends and sexual partners. And then, one night, Bevin had a party. I think it was a birthday party for one of her other roommates, but Bevin was the "owner" of the party when the police came by the first time to tell them to cool it. See, the permanent residents of East Campus HATE MU students. So then the police came a second time. And, just like in the fairy tales of old, a third time, but this time it wasn't just one car with a female officer telling them to chill--it was a couple of cars, several officers. Bevin, among others, was handcuffed and put on the front porch. Tickets were issued. The party was over.

But one of the officers, whom Bevin referred to at the time as "Angry Cop" took Jesse back to his car to write the ticket. They exchanged information, well, Jesse's information. And from that point onward, Jesse bragged that he was having sex with one of the city cops and that this guy was going to "fix" his tickets for him.

His friends did not believe this story, of course. So one night, Ellen and another friend staked out at the Columbia Inn because Jesse said he was going to get picked up by the officer after his shift (he was a desk worker there). A dark green Ford Explorer pulls up, and I don't remember if Ellen recognized Angry Cop or not, but it started to become obvious that yeah, Jesse did have a friend with power and influence.

Now, what did not come out in the trial was that Jesse referred to this cop by a name that wasn't Steven Rios. It was Ted Anderson. But Jesse did tell friends as June approached that he was starting to get a weird sense about this relationship--Rios would let himself into his apartment at all hours, had sex with him one time with one of Jesse's friends present in the room and didn't seem to care, and he wasn't fixing the ticket after all. Jesse told a friend he thought maybe the cop wasn't being truthful. He thought he might be married, and he didn't want to be involved with someone who was married. He thought he was using a false name and he was going to confront him about that, and tell him if he didn't fix this ticket, he would go to the chief of police and tell a dirty little secret.

So he doesn't see the cop for 5 days or so. Bevin and Jen are the only girls living in the house for the summer session. And one afternoon, a knock on the door, and a police officer is standing there with a photograph in her hand. Jen doesn't recognize the face, but Bevin puts it together. That's Jesse. Bevin and Jen take the officer over to his apartment, walking past a huge crime scene between two houses a half block from Bevin's house. Jesse was dead, choked into unconsciousness and then killed with a cut across the neck (I remember the medical examiner's quote: "deep enough to nick his spinal cord").

That was a Saturday. On Monday, a tips line call is made that lets the police know that Jesse was involved with an officer. And one detective, John Short, starts hanging around Bevin's house, as sort of a center of activity after Jesse's death. He comes to the memorial they hold (the funeral is in Kentucky), because sometimes killers come to memorials. He tells the girls the cops are working on it. And then one of Bevin's friends, the one who was in Jesse's bedroom the night Rios came in, goes down to Short's office to look at some photos.

The detective pushes a photo across his desk of the officer Ted Anderson. A balding guy with a mustache, in his forties or fifties. The friend tells Short, no, that's not the guy. The cop I saw is right down the hall in that workroom we passed. But that's--I don't care who it is, that's the guy who was there that night. And the detective starts to put it all together.

The timing is tight--his pre-crime alibi is strong (he was drinking beers with colleagues on top of the municipal garage until 4:37) and his post-crime alibi, his wife at home (now his ex-wife), is less tight because she perjured herself at least once (either at the first trial or the second, or perhaps both!). She says he got home either at 5:25 or 5:30 or at 5:15, whichever she decides. There is DNA evidence--Rios' arm hair right along Jesse's upper chest, consistent with a restraint-style choking. And Rios' DNA is under his fingernails. No murder weapon is ever recovered, but he wasn't even a suspect for the first week or so after the murder. Plenty of time to get cleaned up. Rios showed a lot of peculiar behavior the day after the murder--it was his day off, but he spent the whole morning at a substation checking on calls. Jesse's body, even though it was in plain view, was not reported until mid-afternoon. As an aside, it must have been driving Rios crazy not to have it resolved. Then he shows up, on his day off, to "help" at the crime scene. Stuff like that. Small, if it wasn't for all the other bits of evidence.

There's a lot we don't know, of course. There are other rebuttal witnesses that weren't used--girls he'd arrested and then stalked (again, favors for sex)--and evidence we didn't get to see--the highway patrol uniform and badge they found in his locker (he's not a highway patrolman). The fact that he used a false name was also suppressed because it was hearsay (he never introduced himself to Jesse's friends).

And so at the first trial, Jesse's friend Joan mentions that Jesse was going to go tell about the relationship. And Rios is convicted of first degree murder and armed criminal action. But the appeals court looked at that statement and decided that it was hearsay. It is hearsay, but it could be a special case, which is "immediate plans of the deceased." For instance, if a woman tells a coworker that she's going to go home and confront her husband about his affair, and then that night her body is found in the park, it is admissible. But because Jesse wasn't getting up that instant and heading out the door to go tell the chief, it isn't immediate enough. So there was a new trial.

That, plus Rios did not testify on his own behalf (he did at the first trial and, as Morley Swingle, the prosecutor, put it, showed himself to be a despicable character). Those were the two major changes. And this time, the jury found him guilty of second degree murder and armed criminal action. Second degree murder has a variable sentence, and armed criminal action is like a roulette wheel of sentencing (3 years to life, just depending). So the jury decided on a life sentence for the murder charge, and 23 extra years for armed criminal action (which was how old Jesse was when he died, but I'm not sure if that's the jury's reason).

So, with time already served, it's guaranteed he'll serve at least 27 more years (he's already served three) before he's eligible for parole.

Bevin said last night that one of the jurors smiled at her and the other friends sitting in the gallery, and then the decision was read out. He then glared at Rios and looked like he wanted to climb over the railing and get him. The news reported that two jurors were in tears. I know when I served on the jury, I didn't cry when we announced our verdict of guilt (and stupidity, on that jury, yikes, that case). I can't imagine doing this job. But I'm so relieved somebody did.



Related things I've said in the past:

Strange Anniversary Approaching
Sudden Crash
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for Us
Two Step
So Much to Say
We've Got Tonight
Praise You

The Infinite Capacity to Not Know

The trial is over
It's in the jury's hands now
The waiting begins

There's my little trial haiku. Yes, this week was the retrial for the police officer who is accused of murdering one of my sisters' friends. It made me crazy to not be in Columbia this week, but there was no way, I mean, COME ON. I couldn't get off the couch. The double-edged sword was that CNN got a camera into the courtroom and showed testimony all week, so I was able to lie on the couch here in the computer room (the one that is 20+ years old that smells like rottweiler, it's been lovely) and watch. This is good because I was able to talk intelligently with Bevin about it when she would call in the evening. This is bad because I'm not seeing the whole picture, just the witness and a bit of whichever lawyer is asking the questions. I'm not seeing the jury's reactions or hearing their gasps like last time. I'm not seeing the prosecutor in the same way, either--he is meeker than I remember, although in a good way, but he's two-dimensional on my computer screen.

Because it was filmed, people with no lives whatsoever from around the country were able to go on CNN.com and find the blog entries related to it and then post comments. Which I then, of course, read. Completely frustrating--there is no way someone watching this flat image of the trial can have any idea of the complexity of this case.

But in the end, it's all circumstantial. There's no eye-witness, no photos of the murder being committed. No murder weapon was ever found. There's DNA evidence under fingernails, several arm hairs found on the victim's chest (he was choked into unconsciousness with a typical police move called a bilateral neck restraint, and then his throat was slashed so deeply it nicked his spine). But because he wasn't a suspect for a while after the murder--I mean, those college kids claiming a cop was involved, they're crazy, right?--there's nothing to catch him red-handed. But there is a lot of circumstantial evidence (a missing knife he used to own, his weird behavior before and after becoming a suspect, the voices heard through the wall, and the lies on top of lies that he recanted one by one as the evidence and testimony piled up).

My sisters and their friends, they know who committed this crime. The police officers who investigated it know. I know. And I'm not saying that just because I want somebody to pay for this. I say this because I was at the first trial, and before that, I was on the phone with Bevin that whole summer and spring leading up to the murder, and the whole year between the murder and the trial. There are things they know that can't come up at trial, for one reason or another. I've got to think, to trust, that the imported suburban Kansas City jury can see through the bluster and confusion of the defense attorney and see the facts.

But I was up before dawn thinking about this. Going over what I'd seen this week and what I'd seen in 2005. Trying to make it work in my head. Trying not to be totally infuriated. Or despair. I find myself wondering things about the last trial, which was overturned due to an instance of hearsay that the first judge allowed (it was about the upcoming plans of the deceased, which is a tricky subject, and the appeals court decided it wasn't upcoming enough--he didn't have a date or time for what his plans were, essentially, more of just a threat of what he might think about doing, which was rat out the cop to the police chief). In interviews with the jurors from the first trial, not one has said that this was the piece of evidence that swayed them. It was always DNA and timing and the relationship to begin with (the cop was having an affair with this college student, while married and with a 4 month old son at home, and it was getting more and more reckless). If the prosecutor hadn't tried to push it with this "plans of the deceased," would we even be talking about this now?

And the prosecutor, he's good. If he ran for office anywhere I could vote for him, on any ticket, I would vote for him. He's reasoned and reasonable, intelligent and calm. I referred to him during the first trial as my courtroom boyfriend, which Bevin's friend Ellen pretended to be offended by, since obviously he was HER courtroom boyfriend. After the case went to the jury today, Bevin called me. Morley (as of course we all refer to him by his first name because he's that knight in shining armor...) had come over to these friends, folks in law school and grad school, married in other states, gone from Columbia, who had put their lives on pause for a week to do this all over again, and admitted he'd been up most of the night last night, too. But that he felt good about this trial, even better than the last.

"Did he really say that, Bevin," I asked her on the phone. "Because I don't."

"I don't either. But his closing arguments, they were so good. And he's so good. I just have to keep hoping, you know, that the people on that jury," but she didn't finish.

There is so much we cannot know today. Guilt, innocence, future appeals, what the jury is talking about right now as they eat their sandwiches from some Columbia deli and make this horrible decision. What might have happened if only. What's going to happen if. We just can't know.