Not necessarily new ones, since I don't have cable and frankly don't watch much (this is not to say the TV isn't on--it's just not on anything current). And in no particular order as usual:
1. The science show with Alan Alda on PBS. I know, dork for not remembering the title. Alan Alda teaches me all sorts of things.
2. Law & Order: seasons 1-5. The Chris Noth years, basically.
3. Unsolved Mysteries: This was (is?) on Lifetime, and Mike would make fun of me when I watched it, which is when I snapped at him, saying, "that's why it's television for women and not television for critical husbands."
4. City Confidential: I watched this mostly for the narrator's voice and cadence, but I dig some true crime (sanitized for A&E, of course)
5. Mythbusters: I guess at heart I've always been a 9 year old boy...
6. Life On Mars (the British version): Oh my I loved this show. Watched it with Mike this winter sitting in bed trying to get Leo to go to sleep. I could gush about this show. The follow up series, though, Ashes to Ashes? Not so great actually.
7. The Price is Right: the Bob Barker years. Once again, I could always do better than the contestants.
8. Are You Being Served: Found this one just recently thanks to, of course, Mrs. Slocombe's namesake. I can't believe I missed this one when PBS showed it as repeats. I'm devouring it on DVD these days. I love Netflix.
9. How Clean is Your House?: Or whatever it's called. The British fussy lady show where they clean out disgusting houses and teach the inhabitants how to do it right (and then come back two weeks to see if the advice worked...). Rubber gloves with feather trim. Love it.
10. News Radio (the first three seasons): with Dave Foley and Phil Hartman. This was the first TV show I actually owned on DVD I like it so much. I'm currently watching it at night on the little DVD player when I'm nursing the baby.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Small Towns
Texan Mama just wrote a piece about small town America and, as often happens when I read other blogs, I got to thinking about small towns.
I didn't hardly know anyone from a small town (less than 10,000 people or so) until I came to college. Until I met Mike. Really--I lived in the suburbs of large cities or college towns (Columbia, Missouri is not a small town) and everyone I knew lived there, too. My great-grandmother might count--she was from DeSoto, Missouri--but frankly, I didn't really know her. My grandmother (her daughter-in-law) was from Maries County, Missouri, and then later moved to Marshall. So I suppose she was my only connection to small town life.
But by the time I knew my grandmother (Edith) or great-grandmother (Emma), they lived in St. Louis. My mom is from South County, my dad from Overland. His mother rode the streetcar to high school. His dad grew up within walking distance of where I'm sitting right now. All my high school friends were suburban or city dwellers; every boyfriend, every teacher, every girl I bummed a ride off to get home from my city high school to my suburban home.
When I was assigned to Marguerite Hall, 4th floor, Mike was the freshman adviser. He wrote me a letter (he wrote all the incoming freshmen letters). I had to find Cairo on a map. A speck. In contrast, my roommate was from Detroit.
I got to school, met Mike and his roommate Eric (Memphis), friends Carlos (Crestwood), Vanessa (Palm Beach), Elliot (suburban Chicago). Later I met Katy and Monica, from central Illinois, and Traci from Mexico, Missouri, but overall, we were all from the same place. Just different zip codes.
Mike didn't seem any different for growing up in a small town--he spent most of high school on the road to Belleville to attend CYO events. The first time I visited, just a month after we started dating, wasn't the eye-opening experience I thought it would be. It had to grow on me over time.
Mary ("the other mary") once said that meeting people's parents often explained things about them. Meeting my parents, for instance, or Elliot's. But meeting Mike's parents explained nothing. Going to see where he was from just made him all the more mystifying. She says this while laughing and sometimes giving a dead-on impression of my father-in-law's accent. And while this is all true, I still find myself confronted by the intricacies of small town, rural, life. And how much I just don't get it even after all this time.
Over on one of my other blogs, Most Nigh to Tears and Memory, I used to write about a song a day for a year. It's done now, but I still think about it a lot and how music is associated with times and seasons and people in my life. One of my entries was about the song "Ode to Billie Joe" and how, after all these years, I was finally grasping the difference between small town Mike and big city Bridgett.
It can't be that all small towns are Cairo, of course. A small town in northern Michigan would probably have a very different feel. Central California. West Texas. But I think I would fail to "get it" in the very same way.
It will always be a second language for me.
I didn't hardly know anyone from a small town (less than 10,000 people or so) until I came to college. Until I met Mike. Really--I lived in the suburbs of large cities or college towns (Columbia, Missouri is not a small town) and everyone I knew lived there, too. My great-grandmother might count--she was from DeSoto, Missouri--but frankly, I didn't really know her. My grandmother (her daughter-in-law) was from Maries County, Missouri, and then later moved to Marshall. So I suppose she was my only connection to small town life.
But by the time I knew my grandmother (Edith) or great-grandmother (Emma), they lived in St. Louis. My mom is from South County, my dad from Overland. His mother rode the streetcar to high school. His dad grew up within walking distance of where I'm sitting right now. All my high school friends were suburban or city dwellers; every boyfriend, every teacher, every girl I bummed a ride off to get home from my city high school to my suburban home.
When I was assigned to Marguerite Hall, 4th floor, Mike was the freshman adviser. He wrote me a letter (he wrote all the incoming freshmen letters). I had to find Cairo on a map. A speck. In contrast, my roommate was from Detroit.
I got to school, met Mike and his roommate Eric (Memphis), friends Carlos (Crestwood), Vanessa (Palm Beach), Elliot (suburban Chicago). Later I met Katy and Monica, from central Illinois, and Traci from Mexico, Missouri, but overall, we were all from the same place. Just different zip codes.
Mike didn't seem any different for growing up in a small town--he spent most of high school on the road to Belleville to attend CYO events. The first time I visited, just a month after we started dating, wasn't the eye-opening experience I thought it would be. It had to grow on me over time.
Mary ("the other mary") once said that meeting people's parents often explained things about them. Meeting my parents, for instance, or Elliot's. But meeting Mike's parents explained nothing. Going to see where he was from just made him all the more mystifying. She says this while laughing and sometimes giving a dead-on impression of my father-in-law's accent. And while this is all true, I still find myself confronted by the intricacies of small town, rural, life. And how much I just don't get it even after all this time.
Over on one of my other blogs, Most Nigh to Tears and Memory, I used to write about a song a day for a year. It's done now, but I still think about it a lot and how music is associated with times and seasons and people in my life. One of my entries was about the song "Ode to Billie Joe" and how, after all these years, I was finally grasping the difference between small town Mike and big city Bridgett.
....my family is a JD Salinger tragedy, not a Flannery O'Connor moment of tragic grace. Snappy dialogue peppered with profanity, lamentations over whiskey sours, a relationship goes bad and we just smoke more cigarettes in our pedal pushers sitting on the apartment balcony. Get rip-snortin drunk while playing pool and an uncle makes a pass at you. I'm not saying it's better. Just a different set of reference points.
The family I married into is not this way. I have not a single regret--the love story of Mike and Bridgett centers around the fact that his family didn't make me crazy. They are smart faithful people. They would do anything for me and Mike and my girls. But they are a southern family in a southern town. It might snow there but there are subtleties to conversation, relationships, gender issues, education, and religion that I'm only just now starting to scratch the surface and understand.
Imagine Boo Boo Glass walking into Scout Finch's house and having dinner on a Sunday afternoon. Repeat for 11 years and she still doesn't get it.
It can't be that all small towns are Cairo, of course. A small town in northern Michigan would probably have a very different feel. Central California. West Texas. But I think I would fail to "get it" in the very same way.
It will always be a second language for me.
Christmas Photo 1957
Penny, Dick holding Christine (1); Paula (8), Rick (7);
Terry (6), Patrick (5); Kay (4)
Terry (6), Patrick (5); Kay (4)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Weekend Notes
A few moments from the weekend:
*Trying a new thing to keep Maeve from chewing her hair. Bandannas as often as possible. She looks like a little housewife but I'm at the end of my list of ideas (next up, we chop that hair off).
*Went to the Art Museum Saturday morning and saw Migration (Empire), which is a modern art film, not very long, on continuous loop there until September. The subject is wild animals in cheap motel rooms. Really. Really.
*We had fondue Saturday night and totally stuffed ourselves on cheese and chocolate and Mike grilled salmon for the main course and it was all excellent
*At church today the second reading was one I'd never heard before, which of course is impossible, but it was one I'd never really heard this way, I suppose.
*After church, the gay pride parade starts right at our front doors (church, not house). There were these balloon things...I wish I'd had my camera. Each one was about 30 balloon art balloons, but not twisted into shapes. Just attached together at a point. Like giant sea anemones on long poles. They were hypnotic.
*Ann watched Leo (yay!) and the rest of us went to Forest Park and rented a paddle boat at the Boat House. Beautiful day and the girls didn't fight too often and we paddled around for over an hour.
*Tired afterward, we picked up Leo and came home. I put a chicken in the oven, beans in the dehydrator for our trip next week, and then managed to get Leo to nap. And I did too. Still groggy...but dinner cooked while I slept and now it's time to eat.
*Trying a new thing to keep Maeve from chewing her hair. Bandannas as often as possible. She looks like a little housewife but I'm at the end of my list of ideas (next up, we chop that hair off).
*Went to the Art Museum Saturday morning and saw Migration (Empire), which is a modern art film, not very long, on continuous loop there until September. The subject is wild animals in cheap motel rooms. Really. Really.
*We had fondue Saturday night and totally stuffed ourselves on cheese and chocolate and Mike grilled salmon for the main course and it was all excellent
*At church today the second reading was one I'd never heard before, which of course is impossible, but it was one I'd never really heard this way, I suppose.
*After church, the gay pride parade starts right at our front doors (church, not house). There were these balloon things...I wish I'd had my camera. Each one was about 30 balloon art balloons, but not twisted into shapes. Just attached together at a point. Like giant sea anemones on long poles. They were hypnotic.
*Ann watched Leo (yay!) and the rest of us went to Forest Park and rented a paddle boat at the Boat House. Beautiful day and the girls didn't fight too often and we paddled around for over an hour.
*Tired afterward, we picked up Leo and came home. I put a chicken in the oven, beans in the dehydrator for our trip next week, and then managed to get Leo to nap. And I did too. Still groggy...but dinner cooked while I slept and now it's time to eat.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
A Trip To Randall's
Maloki (real name Matt but college nicknames sometimes stick) and Mary and Heidi are coming over this evening for fondue. Maloki's doing a chocolate dessert that starts with a milk chocolate base and contains cherry liqueur. He called a little while ago and mentioned that he and Mary hadn't found the liqueur yet but were going to try again.
"Why don't you try Randall's?" I suggested. Randall's, for those who don't live in St. Louis and for those who are not borderline alcoholics, is a huge liquor store at Jefferson and 44. Amazingly huge. I've been there many times, looking for specific things like Liquor 43, as well as a good reasonably priced bottle of white wine. They are set up with large warehouse style shelving units and each type of alcohol has its own section. I didn't know they made that many kinds of gin. That sort of selection.
I offered to go for him, and he took me up on the offer. I like going there.
There were at least 6 different cherry liqueurs. I was stymied for a moment but decided if I just chose something middle of the road, I'd probably be fine. I mean, we were going to cook with the dang stuff. It didn't have to be the $50 bottle from Amsterdam or whatever.
I grabbed the bottle and walked on up to the cashier.
Who promptly carded me.
I giggled. I've never been carded in my life. She didn't crack a smile, and so I gave her my license. Then she smiled. "I've been working here about 6 weeks and I'm learning I'm a lousy judge of age."
"Hey, no big deal," I told her. "You made my day."
She kinda did.
"Why don't you try Randall's?" I suggested. Randall's, for those who don't live in St. Louis and for those who are not borderline alcoholics, is a huge liquor store at Jefferson and 44. Amazingly huge. I've been there many times, looking for specific things like Liquor 43, as well as a good reasonably priced bottle of white wine. They are set up with large warehouse style shelving units and each type of alcohol has its own section. I didn't know they made that many kinds of gin. That sort of selection.
I offered to go for him, and he took me up on the offer. I like going there.
There were at least 6 different cherry liqueurs. I was stymied for a moment but decided if I just chose something middle of the road, I'd probably be fine. I mean, we were going to cook with the dang stuff. It didn't have to be the $50 bottle from Amsterdam or whatever.
I grabbed the bottle and walked on up to the cashier.
Who promptly carded me.
I giggled. I've never been carded in my life. She didn't crack a smile, and so I gave her my license. Then she smiled. "I've been working here about 6 weeks and I'm learning I'm a lousy judge of age."
"Hey, no big deal," I told her. "You made my day."
She kinda did.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Heat + Shopping = Naps
It's another hot one today. It's been about 9 days of heat here in the Missouri-Mississippi River valley. The thing I like most about St. Louis summers is that we don't get 9 days above 90 in a row very often. Lots of fits and starts and ups and back downs and thunderstorms and cool offs and so forth. This doesn't happen as often as you might think.
So it's hot and supposed to be hot for a few more days--until Monday, when the high is only 88 (I'm laughing). Then it climbs right back up into the 90s.
Today we went to one of Maeve's friend's birthday parties at Turtle Park. It was also hot. But the kids played and that was fine. Afterward, we went to REI because Mike wanted an axe and I needed a hat (I've been "borrowing" his) before we go to Colorado. It was only one stop. But getting everyone out and in and out again and back in the car and back home...wore me out. The girls went to play at friends' houses and I lay down with Leo and nursed him. That was at 1:45.
I got up at 4. He's stirring but not quite up yet.
Naps are no big thing, sure, but I don't usually take really long ones and I certainly don't take naps more days than not. But I did this yesterday, too. Lay down with Leo after errands (swim lessons and a trip to the pediatrician and Target) at 2:40 and Mike woke me up at 5 when he got home.
Lock your windows. I am a summer zombie.
So it's hot and supposed to be hot for a few more days--until Monday, when the high is only 88 (I'm laughing). Then it climbs right back up into the 90s.
Today we went to one of Maeve's friend's birthday parties at Turtle Park. It was also hot. But the kids played and that was fine. Afterward, we went to REI because Mike wanted an axe and I needed a hat (I've been "borrowing" his) before we go to Colorado. It was only one stop. But getting everyone out and in and out again and back in the car and back home...wore me out. The girls went to play at friends' houses and I lay down with Leo and nursed him. That was at 1:45.
I got up at 4. He's stirring but not quite up yet.
Naps are no big thing, sure, but I don't usually take really long ones and I certainly don't take naps more days than not. But I did this yesterday, too. Lay down with Leo after errands (swim lessons and a trip to the pediatrician and Target) at 2:40 and Mike woke me up at 5 when he got home.Lock your windows. I am a summer zombie.
(photo by Greg Turner)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Ah, Summertime!
Ok, so the air conditioner was fixed and did not require multiple thousands of dollars. In fact, just under $200 for a capacitor (which of course leads the to question: if the air conditioner goes fast enough, do we travel into the future?). New filter is needed, too, but otherwise we should make it to the fall when we can make an informed, not panicked, decision about what to do next.
And then we went to swim lessons after the repairman left. That was fine, if hot for Leo and me, but on the way home, Smart Sophie decided to teach Maeve some "magic" tricks. Like hide the quarter, pull it out from behind the ear kind. Except Sophia doesn't quite get that these are sleight of hand tricks. She thinks that people really store things in their ears and up their sleeves and so forth.
So you know where this is going. Straight to Southwest Pediatrics to have a wadded up piece of paper removed from Maeve's ear. We leave here in three minutes.
But the house is once again the correct temperature (meaning not 86, which is what it was this morning). Dodge one bullet, get another one stuffed in your ear.
And then we went to swim lessons after the repairman left. That was fine, if hot for Leo and me, but on the way home, Smart Sophie decided to teach Maeve some "magic" tricks. Like hide the quarter, pull it out from behind the ear kind. Except Sophia doesn't quite get that these are sleight of hand tricks. She thinks that people really store things in their ears and up their sleeves and so forth.
So you know where this is going. Straight to Southwest Pediatrics to have a wadded up piece of paper removed from Maeve's ear. We leave here in three minutes.
But the house is once again the correct temperature (meaning not 86, which is what it was this morning). Dodge one bullet, get another one stuffed in your ear.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Can You Believe It?
My air conditioning is broken.
Can you believe it? Can you flipping believe this shit?
Can you believe it? Can you flipping believe this shit?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Packing Up
Trisha's phone tells us we have about an hour before the rain hits. No problem. I unpack the van so we can repack the van. Things look pretty good. I clear out tents and then Mike takes them down. I roll up the girls' tent (which we had been able to repair successfully and girls slept in the night before) and just about die from the heat. Of course there's nothing to drink because of the boil order. I put some ice from the bag in our cooler into a water bottle and wait for it to melt.
That's when I realize I can't find my car keys.
It's ok in that Mike has keys, too. We're not TRAPPED IN WAKONDA. But still. Son of a gun. So I tear the place apart and offer a bounty to the kids and still no keys. Trisha finally tells me that they are somewhere in my stuff--they're nowhere in the campsite. She's right. I just feel uneasy leaving without knowing where they are.
We get packed up as the skies darken. After others finish, they come help us. We were definitely the Fail Family this weekend. The van gets all packed, rather well, I might add, and we decide to eat dinner together in Hannibal.
The Golden Corral looks like the best bet. You know times are tough when you can say that.
We all get in our cars to head out, just as the rain starts to sprinkle. Mike says in that voice of his, "Bridgett?" And I look over. He's holding my keys. They were under a bag in the front seat the whole time.
On the way to Hannibal, the real storm hits. We pass an overturned pickup with emergency vehicles and a fireman yelling at Steven (the front car in the caravan) to "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!" We couldn't hear him but you didn't need expert lip reading skills to know what he said.
But we all arrive at the Golden Corral, which, for my international readers, is a cheap buffet restaurant. And we all eat a the Golden Corral. We put the kids at their own table and eat our popcorn shrimp and mashed potatoes and pot roast and spaghetti and soft serve ice cream and you know what? It was just fine.
We get home around 9 and unpack. Bathe Leo and Sophia (Maeve was unwakable). Start some laundry, put away coolers. Fall into bed exhausted.
Trisha and Eric were supposed to do breakfast at the campsite Sunday, so they invited all of us over to their house for pancakes and bacon and coffee and commiserating. It was just what I needed. I had two cups of coffee and three pancakes with maple syrup and the kids played and everyone was witty and oh yeah, I like these people. I like these people enough to camp in a pit with them. In a 100 degree pit with no drinking water and three thunderstorms and an asshole park ranger.
It was a good time. Believe it, or don't.
That's when I realize I can't find my car keys.
It's ok in that Mike has keys, too. We're not TRAPPED IN WAKONDA. But still. Son of a gun. So I tear the place apart and offer a bounty to the kids and still no keys. Trisha finally tells me that they are somewhere in my stuff--they're nowhere in the campsite. She's right. I just feel uneasy leaving without knowing where they are.
We get packed up as the skies darken. After others finish, they come help us. We were definitely the Fail Family this weekend. The van gets all packed, rather well, I might add, and we decide to eat dinner together in Hannibal.
The Golden Corral looks like the best bet. You know times are tough when you can say that.
We all get in our cars to head out, just as the rain starts to sprinkle. Mike says in that voice of his, "Bridgett?" And I look over. He's holding my keys. They were under a bag in the front seat the whole time.
On the way to Hannibal, the real storm hits. We pass an overturned pickup with emergency vehicles and a fireman yelling at Steven (the front car in the caravan) to "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!" We couldn't hear him but you didn't need expert lip reading skills to know what he said.
But we all arrive at the Golden Corral, which, for my international readers, is a cheap buffet restaurant. And we all eat a the Golden Corral. We put the kids at their own table and eat our popcorn shrimp and mashed potatoes and pot roast and spaghetti and soft serve ice cream and you know what? It was just fine.
We get home around 9 and unpack. Bathe Leo and Sophia (Maeve was unwakable). Start some laundry, put away coolers. Fall into bed exhausted.
Trisha and Eric were supposed to do breakfast at the campsite Sunday, so they invited all of us over to their house for pancakes and bacon and coffee and commiserating. It was just what I needed. I had two cups of coffee and three pancakes with maple syrup and the kids played and everyone was witty and oh yeah, I like these people. I like these people enough to camp in a pit with them. In a 100 degree pit with no drinking water and three thunderstorms and an asshole park ranger.
It was a good time. Believe it, or don't.
Saturday In Wakonda
Saturday morning, I do breakfast. Deer sausage and eggs and juice. I cook on the coleman stove because all the firewood and charcoal is soaked. But that's ok--it's a decent breakfast and we decide a hike is in order before it gets too steamy. Then we'll head to the lake again. I want to canoe, but it looks like I'm the only one (which is different for Bridgett, frankly, because I don't like canoeing).
So we go on the Jasper Lake Trail.
It ain't a trail. It's a gravel road that leads to a dirt road (which of course is a sopping wet mud road that morning). Both sides are knee deep in poison ivy. There are mulberry trees, which is only interesting if you didn't grow up getting sick eating too many mulberries already. The kids like the mulberries, eating wild things right there in the wild. I mean in the "post-industrial almost repaired ex-gravel-quarry" that was standing in for the wild.
The trail is half shade, all mud, and a forced march around Jasper Lake. It doesn't really go anywhere. There's nothing to see. Halfway round, I announce I'm going back and anyone who wants to sit in my air conditioned car is welcome to join me. Sophia and two other kids do, and we drive around and relax for 15 minutes. Steven comes back, having gone to Quincy to buy a tail light.
Everyone else gets back from the trail and we head back to the campsite to pack up a lunch and go to the beach. I announce that Leo and I will be cruising. But that we will join them when we can. I drive Mike and the girls down to the lake and tell him to watch that Sophia. Poor sunburned Sophia.
I drive. I go back to La Grange, thinking about coffee at the gas station but deciding a cold drink might be smarter. I get to the Casey's General Store and find the electricity out. A transformer's blown somewhere. But the coolers are still cold and the register still works. On my way out the door I see a little taped sign that reads:
Huh, I think. I wonder if the campground is close enough to be on city water. I did notice that the water didn't taste like well water. Hmm. It's already close to noon on Saturday. Maybe I should go find out.
I drive back to the camp office. I explain to the nice woman behind the desk about the sign I saw at Casey's.
"Well, I live in La Grange, and I didn't even have water this morning," she thinks out loud. "I don't know. I guess I'll call the superintendent at the park. Because, yes, we are on city water."
We'd been drinking the water all morning, I thought. I thanked her and joined the neighbors at the beach for lunch.
Lunch was fine. Lots of people watching. Like...a pregnant girl in a bikini chain smoking. A shocking number of memorial "rest in peace" tattoos on men. More meth evidence (missing front teeth, really skinny people). And many many large people who should consider more supportive swimwear. I mean, I'm pretty chunky right now, as is my habit in that first 6 months or so post-partum. And I wear a pretty normal looking tank swimming suit. I don't hide under t-shirts and shorts and pretend nobody can tell. I get in the water at the pool and so forth. But I don't put on string bikinis. I could lose 80 pounds and I still wouldn't put on a string bikini. There were women there bigger than me--lots bigger, sometimes--and they were falling out of their swimsuits. Oy.
So that was fun. I reported about the water situation but said I'd follow up and find out what the deal was. They went back to the water and Leo and I went back to the office.
"Well, I just don't know," the woman told me. "The maintenance guy said he just wasn't sure what to do. But I wouldn't drink the water. I'm not going to drink the water."
Great.
I return to the beach. There's an ice cream vending machine and all the kids get dreamsicles and fudge bars and we sit and look at Trisha's phone at the radar. More storms are coming.
Storms.
No drinking water--hell, no brushing your teeth water.
We decide to call it a day. Throw in the towel. Pack up before the rain hits so we're not packing up Sunday in the wet.
We head back to camp.
So we go on the Jasper Lake Trail.
It ain't a trail. It's a gravel road that leads to a dirt road (which of course is a sopping wet mud road that morning). Both sides are knee deep in poison ivy. There are mulberry trees, which is only interesting if you didn't grow up getting sick eating too many mulberries already. The kids like the mulberries, eating wild things right there in the wild. I mean in the "post-industrial almost repaired ex-gravel-quarry" that was standing in for the wild.
The trail is half shade, all mud, and a forced march around Jasper Lake. It doesn't really go anywhere. There's nothing to see. Halfway round, I announce I'm going back and anyone who wants to sit in my air conditioned car is welcome to join me. Sophia and two other kids do, and we drive around and relax for 15 minutes. Steven comes back, having gone to Quincy to buy a tail light.
Everyone else gets back from the trail and we head back to the campsite to pack up a lunch and go to the beach. I announce that Leo and I will be cruising. But that we will join them when we can. I drive Mike and the girls down to the lake and tell him to watch that Sophia. Poor sunburned Sophia.
I drive. I go back to La Grange, thinking about coffee at the gas station but deciding a cold drink might be smarter. I get to the Casey's General Store and find the electricity out. A transformer's blown somewhere. But the coolers are still cold and the register still works. On my way out the door I see a little taped sign that reads:
The city of La Grange is under a BOIL ORDER from 6 a.m. Saturday 6/20/09 to 6 p.m. Monday 6/22/09 due to loss of pressure in the system.
Huh, I think. I wonder if the campground is close enough to be on city water. I did notice that the water didn't taste like well water. Hmm. It's already close to noon on Saturday. Maybe I should go find out.
I drive back to the camp office. I explain to the nice woman behind the desk about the sign I saw at Casey's.
"Well, I live in La Grange, and I didn't even have water this morning," she thinks out loud. "I don't know. I guess I'll call the superintendent at the park. Because, yes, we are on city water."
We'd been drinking the water all morning, I thought. I thanked her and joined the neighbors at the beach for lunch.
Lunch was fine. Lots of people watching. Like...a pregnant girl in a bikini chain smoking. A shocking number of memorial "rest in peace" tattoos on men. More meth evidence (missing front teeth, really skinny people). And many many large people who should consider more supportive swimwear. I mean, I'm pretty chunky right now, as is my habit in that first 6 months or so post-partum. And I wear a pretty normal looking tank swimming suit. I don't hide under t-shirts and shorts and pretend nobody can tell. I get in the water at the pool and so forth. But I don't put on string bikinis. I could lose 80 pounds and I still wouldn't put on a string bikini. There were women there bigger than me--lots bigger, sometimes--and they were falling out of their swimsuits. Oy.
So that was fun. I reported about the water situation but said I'd follow up and find out what the deal was. They went back to the water and Leo and I went back to the office.
"Well, I just don't know," the woman told me. "The maintenance guy said he just wasn't sure what to do. But I wouldn't drink the water. I'm not going to drink the water."
Great.
I return to the beach. There's an ice cream vending machine and all the kids get dreamsicles and fudge bars and we sit and look at Trisha's phone at the radar. More storms are coming.
Storms.
No drinking water--hell, no brushing your teeth water.
We decide to call it a day. Throw in the towel. Pack up before the rain hits so we're not packing up Sunday in the wet.
We head back to camp.
Steven Goes To Get Ice
"I'll go get some ice," Steven suggests. The camp store is a bit of a ways away, plus carrying ice back, so he takes the car and heads up. We sit and let the adrenaline rush subside before washing dishes.
Steven gets back with ice and a park ranger.
One brake light was out.
The park ranger gives him a ticket.
Yeah. Great.
So the evening has that sort of feel to it. The adults do sit by the fire, but even though Eric has come through with the mah jongg set, nobody feels like playing. I don't even feel like drinking, frankly. We're all in bed before 11. The one positive is that the thunderstorm hit at the right time to cool things off without steaming things up. The low is 70 and we sleep well.
Steven gets back with ice and a park ranger.
One brake light was out.
The park ranger gives him a ticket.
Yeah. Great.
So the evening has that sort of feel to it. The adults do sit by the fire, but even though Eric has come through with the mah jongg set, nobody feels like playing. I don't even feel like drinking, frankly. We're all in bed before 11. The one positive is that the thunderstorm hit at the right time to cool things off without steaming things up. The low is 70 and we sleep well.
Eye Witness Report From Quincy
Mike and I took the van and Leo and Maeve, who both needed naps, and went to Quincy. Left Sophia to play with friends and scooter around the campsites. Quincy was 5 miles south and 5 miles east and across a bridge over the flooding Mississippi. We get there, and guess what, the thunderstorm that destroyed the girls' tent also hit Quincy. Trees are down all over the roads. There's only intermittent power. We are rerouted and detoured. Finally find a Walgreens, where the duct tape and aftersun lotion is found. The clerk directs me to a grocery store and Mike finds the tortillas. Then the auto parts store for the hose clips. Things look good, even though the half hour expected time turns out to be almost an hour.
So we're on the bridge back over the river and we see it. More storm clouds. We are at least ten minutes from the campsite. I go as fast as I think is advisable. As we get over the bridge to Missouri, there's a flea market on the right hand side of the road. The wind whips up and picks up tables and junk and plastic tubs. And throws them at us. We are attacked by a flea market. But no damage--and we drive on. The rain hits about 5 minutes before we get back, and I'm totally stressing out because Sophia is there alone. Not really alone, because there are neighbors, but I'm having one of those moments when I have a flash of death approaching and poor Sophia. Her parents impaled on a highway exit sign. That sort of thing. The wind was that strong.
But we make it. God watches over drunks and fools. Sophia's sitting in Mary's car and is fine. Our tent is fine. Dinner is even fine--they had warning from Eric on the highway that it was coming and Steven put all the fajita stuff in a big pot. So dinner, you know, is the BEST MEAL I'VE EVER TASTED.
And we clean up again. And Steven goes to get ice.
So we're on the bridge back over the river and we see it. More storm clouds. We are at least ten minutes from the campsite. I go as fast as I think is advisable. As we get over the bridge to Missouri, there's a flea market on the right hand side of the road. The wind whips up and picks up tables and junk and plastic tubs. And throws them at us. We are attacked by a flea market. But no damage--and we drive on. The rain hits about 5 minutes before we get back, and I'm totally stressing out because Sophia is there alone. Not really alone, because there are neighbors, but I'm having one of those moments when I have a flash of death approaching and poor Sophia. Her parents impaled on a highway exit sign. That sort of thing. The wind was that strong.
But we make it. God watches over drunks and fools. Sophia's sitting in Mary's car and is fine. Our tent is fine. Dinner is even fine--they had warning from Eric on the highway that it was coming and Steven put all the fajita stuff in a big pot. So dinner, you know, is the BEST MEAL I'VE EVER TASTED.
And we clean up again. And Steven goes to get ice.
Friday Morning Report from Wakonda
Friday morning came really really early. Maeve had me up three times during the night to visit the showerhouse/bathrooms. So I got to see a lovely crescent moon and thought to myself that this was worth it. She would go back to sleep and Leo would wake up. Mike slept like a rock the whole night. Good, because I did not. But I expected this sort of thing going into this weekend.
We went down to the beach, which was a sand beach created by the seventy thousand tons of sand that had to be removed from the holes in the ground to find the juicy payload of gravel. The park department took the sand and made a beach, a nice beach, actually, and clean. We got to the beach and there were only two other families there. One nondescript group of fellow campers, and one mom and kids group that demonstrated first hand the effects of meth. It was sad. But only the beginning of the people watching we got to experience.
Kids played, adults stood knee deep in the water and chatted. It was nice to stand in the water, even though it was a brown lake. It wasn't mud bottomed, but sand, and that helped. It also didn't smell completely of fish. Leo was in a mei-tai carrier I made out of swimsuit fabric, and he was happy. But I didn't want him to burn so we left after a few hours and went back to make lunch. I sent lunch with Trisha back to the beach and then Leo and I hung out at the campground.
It got hot. Really hot.
So we drove around. Visited La Grange, Missouri, home of "Terrible's Mark Twain Casino." I almost took a picture but I was just too hot. Withering heat. But Leo got a nap in the air conditioned van and I got some peace and quiet.
I got back to find a sunburned husband and Sophia. Maeve, of course, was tan and fabulous, but Sophia was pink. Thunderstorm clouds were beginning to build and Trisha's phone showed they were, yes, heading our way. So we played a little Uno and waited for the rain.
Oh, it rained. A couple of hard drips and then BAM. The pavilion blew away. We rushed to the girls' tent to pull our daughters out and bring them to relative safety. Every other family went to their cars, especially after the other two extra tents blew away (each family had two tents except Trisha, who only has one child--the 12 year old down the street got his own, for instance; the 7-9 year old girls had our second one; and the two 6 year old boys shared another).
The Wissingers stayed in their tent.
Sophia sat on the air mattress crying. Maeve got into her sleeping bag and then asked to get into pajamas. Leo could sense the stress in the atmosphere and started to cry. And Mike and I? We held up the tent. We have a basic 3 season tent with fiberglass poles and the wind whipped and twisted it around. Our van was 15 feet away but might as well have been in another county. The storm was here. There was no getting around it or through it.
It started to ease up--just straight rain coming down, no more wind--and we peered out the screen to see the girls' tent, completely collapsed in a sad heap. Nothing we could do about it now. We waited another 5 minutes or so and then I got myself out of the tent. Mary and I went over to the girls' tent to inspect the damage. I don't know what everyone else was doing, because I got into the lump of nylon taffeta and started pulling things out.
Miraculously, Sophia's stuff was nothing more than damp. Two other girls fared about the same--sleeping bags went to the dryer at the shower house to get fluffed, maybe a pillow got some water. But one girl's stuff was at the bottom end of a slight incline and everything was sitting in water. A pool of water, because after the rain got in the tent, the waterproof floor held it there. Sopping.
We cleaned stuff up and Mike and the two other dads who were there already (Eric still hadn't arrived) inspected the tents. The girls' tent is also a three-season fiberglass pole deal, but even cheaper than ours (it was bought in an emergency a few years back when we got to the campground and realized we'd left the tent poles to our other tent at home). And one of the poles had snapped.
Not the end of the world, though. Mike and Steven and Brent made plans to fix it and a shopping list was created. Mike and I were going to head to Quincy, Illinois, about 10 miles away, to get duct tape, hose clips, after sun lotion, and tortillas. You know, the typical camping shopping list.
We went down to the beach, which was a sand beach created by the seventy thousand tons of sand that had to be removed from the holes in the ground to find the juicy payload of gravel. The park department took the sand and made a beach, a nice beach, actually, and clean. We got to the beach and there were only two other families there. One nondescript group of fellow campers, and one mom and kids group that demonstrated first hand the effects of meth. It was sad. But only the beginning of the people watching we got to experience.
Kids played, adults stood knee deep in the water and chatted. It was nice to stand in the water, even though it was a brown lake. It wasn't mud bottomed, but sand, and that helped. It also didn't smell completely of fish. Leo was in a mei-tai carrier I made out of swimsuit fabric, and he was happy. But I didn't want him to burn so we left after a few hours and went back to make lunch. I sent lunch with Trisha back to the beach and then Leo and I hung out at the campground.
It got hot. Really hot.
So we drove around. Visited La Grange, Missouri, home of "Terrible's Mark Twain Casino." I almost took a picture but I was just too hot. Withering heat. But Leo got a nap in the air conditioned van and I got some peace and quiet.
I got back to find a sunburned husband and Sophia. Maeve, of course, was tan and fabulous, but Sophia was pink. Thunderstorm clouds were beginning to build and Trisha's phone showed they were, yes, heading our way. So we played a little Uno and waited for the rain.
Oh, it rained. A couple of hard drips and then BAM. The pavilion blew away. We rushed to the girls' tent to pull our daughters out and bring them to relative safety. Every other family went to their cars, especially after the other two extra tents blew away (each family had two tents except Trisha, who only has one child--the 12 year old down the street got his own, for instance; the 7-9 year old girls had our second one; and the two 6 year old boys shared another).
The Wissingers stayed in their tent.
Sophia sat on the air mattress crying. Maeve got into her sleeping bag and then asked to get into pajamas. Leo could sense the stress in the atmosphere and started to cry. And Mike and I? We held up the tent. We have a basic 3 season tent with fiberglass poles and the wind whipped and twisted it around. Our van was 15 feet away but might as well have been in another county. The storm was here. There was no getting around it or through it.
It started to ease up--just straight rain coming down, no more wind--and we peered out the screen to see the girls' tent, completely collapsed in a sad heap. Nothing we could do about it now. We waited another 5 minutes or so and then I got myself out of the tent. Mary and I went over to the girls' tent to inspect the damage. I don't know what everyone else was doing, because I got into the lump of nylon taffeta and started pulling things out.
Miraculously, Sophia's stuff was nothing more than damp. Two other girls fared about the same--sleeping bags went to the dryer at the shower house to get fluffed, maybe a pillow got some water. But one girl's stuff was at the bottom end of a slight incline and everything was sitting in water. A pool of water, because after the rain got in the tent, the waterproof floor held it there. Sopping.
We cleaned stuff up and Mike and the two other dads who were there already (Eric still hadn't arrived) inspected the tents. The girls' tent is also a three-season fiberglass pole deal, but even cheaper than ours (it was bought in an emergency a few years back when we got to the campground and realized we'd left the tent poles to our other tent at home). And one of the poles had snapped.
Not the end of the world, though. Mike and Steven and Brent made plans to fix it and a shopping list was created. Mike and I were going to head to Quincy, Illinois, about 10 miles away, to get duct tape, hose clips, after sun lotion, and tortillas. You know, the typical camping shopping list.
The camping trip begins
Ok, so here are some compounding factors in the Wissingers' lives that made the camping trip set up for disaster:
*On Wednesday, I went to get my blood drawn to see if my Vitamin D was low. I had to wait a long time and then Leo cried the whole way home. You know how these things go. We got home and Sophia escaped to a neighbor's house. I called my mom to see if Maeve could just come over for a little while so I could lie down with Leo. Sure, she said, and came right over. While Maeve was picking out a movie, my mom was bouncing Leo on her knee: "You know there are white patches in his mouth, right?" Thrush. He had thrush AGAIN. AGAIN. HOW?? So that meant a trip over to the pharmacy for more nystatin and I debated what I was going to do about me. I had no symptoms...but to develop them while camping sounded nightmarish. I called Thursday and got a prescription for myself.
*Mike's car broke on the way home from work Wednesday. Something with the clutch. When people who know cars talk to people like us, who do not know cars, it sounds like this: "Kapata kapata clutch kapata expensive kapata kapata." The car was towed and Mike told our mechanic that we were leaving town and he'd get back with him Monday.
*So Thursday was the packing day. The frantic packing day. It doesn't matter how early I start this process. It always takes forever. It was also hot. The forecast for where we were going said, essentially, "HOT." Ah well. There's a lake with a beach. The kids will be fine. But this is the first time we've camped with Leo, and it was hard to make everything fit into the van with that one extra space taken. Oy. Why do we take so much stuff? How does that happen?
*We left on time but had to run to Target to pick up my prescription (because I started, yes, getting thrush symptoms Wednesday night). We got on the road for real at 4:50. And promptly hit traffic on the way out of town. In St. Louis currently, one of the main highways is closed for rebuilding, so rerouted traffic is thick everywhere. We were taking 40 out west to where it becomes 61 and taking that north. It was stop and go from the 270 interchange all the way to where 61 starts (at the I-70 interchange, I mean). My van doesn't handle 97 degree weather well and so we had the heat on and the windows down so that the engine didn't overheat. The whole time, the conversation went like this: "I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY!" and then Mike would reply: "Yup."
*We got free of the traffic and stopped at a gas station. I nursed Leo and decided it wasn't going to be so awful (pain wise, I mean). "I'll sit at the picnic table and nurse him to sleep and play mah---" And that's when I realized, after we'd been stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours, that I'd forgotten the mah jongg set at home. Expletives were uttered. Neighbors were called. One neighbor wasn't coming up until Friday and he was going to bring his wife's set. No problem. It'll be ok.
*We stopped in Hannibal because I needed to get lemons, corn, and M&Ms (of course). Mike ran in. I nursed Leo yet again, but five minutes after Mike disappeared, Maeve announced she was going to wet herself if we didn't get to a bathroom immediately. So I got to drag all three kids into the Country Mart and hunt down a bathroom. Everything was fine and we got back on the road for the last half hour of the trip.
*Even though we weren't the last to leave Halliday, we were the last to arrive. At 9 o'clock and at the actual moment when dusk becomes dark. We got the two tents up (girls from all families were going to sleep in one tent, and the smaller children and adults in their own tents), got things organized ok, and collapsed by the fire.
It. Was. Hot.
*On Wednesday, I went to get my blood drawn to see if my Vitamin D was low. I had to wait a long time and then Leo cried the whole way home. You know how these things go. We got home and Sophia escaped to a neighbor's house. I called my mom to see if Maeve could just come over for a little while so I could lie down with Leo. Sure, she said, and came right over. While Maeve was picking out a movie, my mom was bouncing Leo on her knee: "You know there are white patches in his mouth, right?" Thrush. He had thrush AGAIN. AGAIN. HOW?? So that meant a trip over to the pharmacy for more nystatin and I debated what I was going to do about me. I had no symptoms...but to develop them while camping sounded nightmarish. I called Thursday and got a prescription for myself.
*Mike's car broke on the way home from work Wednesday. Something with the clutch. When people who know cars talk to people like us, who do not know cars, it sounds like this: "Kapata kapata clutch kapata expensive kapata kapata." The car was towed and Mike told our mechanic that we were leaving town and he'd get back with him Monday.
*So Thursday was the packing day. The frantic packing day. It doesn't matter how early I start this process. It always takes forever. It was also hot. The forecast for where we were going said, essentially, "HOT." Ah well. There's a lake with a beach. The kids will be fine. But this is the first time we've camped with Leo, and it was hard to make everything fit into the van with that one extra space taken. Oy. Why do we take so much stuff? How does that happen?
*We left on time but had to run to Target to pick up my prescription (because I started, yes, getting thrush symptoms Wednesday night). We got on the road for real at 4:50. And promptly hit traffic on the way out of town. In St. Louis currently, one of the main highways is closed for rebuilding, so rerouted traffic is thick everywhere. We were taking 40 out west to where it becomes 61 and taking that north. It was stop and go from the 270 interchange all the way to where 61 starts (at the I-70 interchange, I mean). My van doesn't handle 97 degree weather well and so we had the heat on and the windows down so that the engine didn't overheat. The whole time, the conversation went like this: "I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY!" and then Mike would reply: "Yup."
*We got free of the traffic and stopped at a gas station. I nursed Leo and decided it wasn't going to be so awful (pain wise, I mean). "I'll sit at the picnic table and nurse him to sleep and play mah---" And that's when I realized, after we'd been stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours, that I'd forgotten the mah jongg set at home. Expletives were uttered. Neighbors were called. One neighbor wasn't coming up until Friday and he was going to bring his wife's set. No problem. It'll be ok.
*We stopped in Hannibal because I needed to get lemons, corn, and M&Ms (of course). Mike ran in. I nursed Leo yet again, but five minutes after Mike disappeared, Maeve announced she was going to wet herself if we didn't get to a bathroom immediately. So I got to drag all three kids into the Country Mart and hunt down a bathroom. Everything was fine and we got back on the road for the last half hour of the trip.
*Even though we weren't the last to leave Halliday, we were the last to arrive. At 9 o'clock and at the actual moment when dusk becomes dark. We got the two tents up (girls from all families were going to sleep in one tent, and the smaller children and adults in their own tents), got things organized ok, and collapsed by the fire.
It. Was. Hot.
Where Did I Go?
I went camping.
After my last post, almost moments after my last post, I went onto the Missouri Department of Natural Resources website and looked up Onondaga Cave State Park. I'd been stressing out about this camping trip--we go once a summer with the neighbors--for weeks, waking up in the middle of the night and worrying about the Meramec River. The Meramec, for my non-St. Louis readers, is a twisty little shallow river popular with float trips and waders and canoes and whatnot. And people drown every year. Without fail. And not just drunks falling off their canoes. Kids. Adults. They get caught in eddies and whirlpools and undertows and go down.
So, to either feed my anxiety or try to allay it, I kept checking back at the state park website. We went to Onondaga last year, and it was nice in almost every way--a little loop of tent campsites, close but not too close to the shower house, playground, lots of trees. Two caves in the park. And access to the river. But the river access was a little close for my comfort with my crazy 4 year old who likes to wander away and explore. You know? So I was worried.
I checked the website to see what the cave hours were and how much the cave tour cost so there would be something else to plan for (and keep my mind busy with). And there, on the front page of the state park website, it read: "Onondaga Cave State Park is temporarily closed due to flooding."
Oh crap.
I alerted the neighbors and we began to make back up plans with other parks--the Missouri DNR website is really quite good, with campground maps and park descriptions and so forth. But the hope was still alive that Onondaga would reopen.
On Wednesday, I called Onondaga and threaded my way through the phone answering system: press one to hear the cave tour schedule, press two to speak to accounts receivable, and so on. Finally reached a person.
"Hi, we have camping reservations this weekend, starting tomorrow night, and I was wondering if you were planning to be open."
"Oh, sure, we're going to reopen tomorrow afternoon (Thursday)."
"Well, can I ask you a question--the lower loop, the tent sites, were they underwater, or was the campground closed just because of safety issues or the gate or--"
"Oh, it was underwater all right."
"Oh."
"Yup. Bring your waders. It's gonna be muddy."
I reported this conversation to neighbors and we all decided the Dead Fish Campground was not where we were looking to spend the weekend. Mosquitoes, dead fish, rancid mud...that campground needs a good dry 2 weeks before I'd go back.
So we looked at our other options. St. Francois, Wakonda, Hawn, Sam Baker, Mark Twain, what's in Illinois, anyway? We settled on Wakonda, up near Quincy, Illinois. It was a former gravel quarry (what could be more stupid, I later thought. Digging for gravel). All the quarry pits had become lakes, and the company, after all the lucrative gravel was sold, deeded the land to the state. So there were 6 lakes and trails and a campground right on a lake--which didn't bother me the same way as the Meramec. It was over two and a half hours away, but we thought, hey, we'll take a look up there for a change and do something different (we always camp southwest of St. Louis, near creeks and rivers).
I'm not saying that there was one big mistake this weekend that made this the Camping Trip From Hell, but there were lots of little decisions, little circumstances, and little mistakes that added up. Mostly circumstances. We had a good time. But it was kinda overwhelming.
After my last post, almost moments after my last post, I went onto the Missouri Department of Natural Resources website and looked up Onondaga Cave State Park. I'd been stressing out about this camping trip--we go once a summer with the neighbors--for weeks, waking up in the middle of the night and worrying about the Meramec River. The Meramec, for my non-St. Louis readers, is a twisty little shallow river popular with float trips and waders and canoes and whatnot. And people drown every year. Without fail. And not just drunks falling off their canoes. Kids. Adults. They get caught in eddies and whirlpools and undertows and go down.
So, to either feed my anxiety or try to allay it, I kept checking back at the state park website. We went to Onondaga last year, and it was nice in almost every way--a little loop of tent campsites, close but not too close to the shower house, playground, lots of trees. Two caves in the park. And access to the river. But the river access was a little close for my comfort with my crazy 4 year old who likes to wander away and explore. You know? So I was worried.
I checked the website to see what the cave hours were and how much the cave tour cost so there would be something else to plan for (and keep my mind busy with). And there, on the front page of the state park website, it read: "Onondaga Cave State Park is temporarily closed due to flooding."
Oh crap.
I alerted the neighbors and we began to make back up plans with other parks--the Missouri DNR website is really quite good, with campground maps and park descriptions and so forth. But the hope was still alive that Onondaga would reopen.
On Wednesday, I called Onondaga and threaded my way through the phone answering system: press one to hear the cave tour schedule, press two to speak to accounts receivable, and so on. Finally reached a person.
"Hi, we have camping reservations this weekend, starting tomorrow night, and I was wondering if you were planning to be open."
"Oh, sure, we're going to reopen tomorrow afternoon (Thursday)."
"Well, can I ask you a question--the lower loop, the tent sites, were they underwater, or was the campground closed just because of safety issues or the gate or--"
"Oh, it was underwater all right."
"Oh."
"Yup. Bring your waders. It's gonna be muddy."
I reported this conversation to neighbors and we all decided the Dead Fish Campground was not where we were looking to spend the weekend. Mosquitoes, dead fish, rancid mud...that campground needs a good dry 2 weeks before I'd go back.
So we looked at our other options. St. Francois, Wakonda, Hawn, Sam Baker, Mark Twain, what's in Illinois, anyway? We settled on Wakonda, up near Quincy, Illinois. It was a former gravel quarry (what could be more stupid, I later thought. Digging for gravel). All the quarry pits had become lakes, and the company, after all the lucrative gravel was sold, deeded the land to the state. So there were 6 lakes and trails and a campground right on a lake--which didn't bother me the same way as the Meramec. It was over two and a half hours away, but we thought, hey, we'll take a look up there for a change and do something different (we always camp southwest of St. Louis, near creeks and rivers).
I'm not saying that there was one big mistake this weekend that made this the Camping Trip From Hell, but there were lots of little decisions, little circumstances, and little mistakes that added up. Mostly circumstances. We had a good time. But it was kinda overwhelming.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Guess What
"Just talk to her and ask her if Sophia can get a school dress before the feis," Janine urged me on Sunday. Sophia's been in Irish dance now for 2 years and her beginner costume, a white blouse, navy skirt, and a sash, have served her well. But her skirt is now scandalously short, which helps the look of the long leg, yes, but it's really short. Like see the green bloomers when she walks around short. I knew that we would have to get a new skirt for her to compete in this summer, but the whole idea was bugging me--there were girls with far less experience already in "school dresses" and I couldn't believe that Sophia's dance skills were so far behind that she couldn't be in one, too.
But Janine reminded me that our school's director keeps about ten thousand things in her head at any given time and things can slip out. Or she might not want me to have to pay for a school dress if the beginner costume was still working out just fine. And until about three months ago, Sophia didn't seem to notice or care. But St. Patrick's Day season sort of brought it home to her that all the girls her age were in school dresses and in wigs. I was still curling her hair, which holds curl fabulously (obviously) but there really isn't that much hair there! And she was still in the beginner costume.
Then we went through this little crisis when she felt so confused about all the dances she was learning (think about their names: slip jig light jig simple jig treble jig. You think you might get confused?). So we found her a tutor, a 9th grade girl who lives about 10 blocks away and sees Sophia for about a half hour every Wednesday. Things really started to gel in Sophie's mind and her kicks got higher and things seemed to be going well--she was hitting her stride.
So on Janine's urging (her daughter is a year ahead of Sophia in dance, although they are the same age--and she is far more involved than we are at this point), I sent the director an email. She wrote back around midnight (when she always sends emails, it seems) and said of course. Come to the studio early for class Monday and we can try some on.
That was easy. I just had to ask. Huh.
Sophia was filled with instant dread--does this mean she was going to have learn a bunch of new stuff right away? I assured her that no, it meant that we should probably try to go to more shows, but that summer was light on shows anyway and she would be FINE.
We tried on three dresses at the studio; the oldest of the three fit her best and therefore was the cheapest as well. I need to wash and sun-bleach the lace collar and attach an inside ribbon around the waist to cinch it in a bit. But nothing needs doing to the sleeves (thank God) and suddenly Sophia looks like a big kid in it.
She tried it on for Mike and Maeve when we got home and did a jig in her bare feet. I think it was Simple Jig. She was happy. So am I.
Oh. Whoa.
Ok, so I've been thinking about my daughter Sophia a lot lately--I think about all my kids but on different levels and at different amounts as things go in life. Maeve has me all concerned behavior-wise and asthma-wise; Leo's breastfeeding techniques leave something to be desired. But Sophia has me worried when it comes to her emotional life. I feel like somehow she's downtrodden and I don't know how it happened nor how to fix it.
She is coming out of it, or I am, and this is good. I stood up for her with one mom who dealt with her daughter, who then apologized to Sophia and now they're friends again. Sophia's response to me, said with all the sighing and hand gesturing possible: "Apparently [girl] is going to be nice to me again for some reason." In other realms I try to let her fix it on her own. It's summer and friends get bored and boring and whatever. People come around.
I do worry that she's going to think of herself as a bad student somehow because the reading stuff is a little behind (but catching up fast, wow). She's not a bad student--she has mad skillz when it comes to math. She loves math. And her teachers love her. She'll be fine. But in the car the other night, one girl mentioned that she wants to be a jockey when she grows up. Sophia responded with her grow up desire: "I want to be a day care worker. Or maybe a preschool teacher?"
It's not that I don't value daycare workers and preschool teachers--on the contrary, Maeve's preschool teachers have been phenomenal. But to be going into 3rd grade and this is your aspiration? It just sort of hurt me. I said nothing. But why not vet or nurse or artist or glassblower or something interesting? Why already daycare?
I know, kids change their minds. She'll get exposed to glassblowing or acting or accounting and realize that's the job for her.
But it got me ruminating, especially because I've been wondering about what I'M going to do when I grow up (meaning, when Leo goes to kindergarten). I think back to what I wanted to do...
1. waitress (ok, ok, so Sophia doesn't fall far from any tree here)
2. nurse (my dad was one)
3. doctor (every kid goes through this phase, I think--mine lasted even through automatic admission to SLU's med school, though...)
4. teacher
5. writer
It's the last one that's tripping me up. Back in 6th grade Br. Stephen, himself a published writer, wrote a long response to one of my theology essays trying to persuade me to use my prose as a gift and part of how I would build the Kingdom of God.
I think I write pretty well. Another Benedictine agreed a few years back when I was writing essays as part of my formation year with the oblates. Thought I should try to do something for the community's magazine. I was flattered but put it on the back burner.
Listening to Sophia in the car, and the other girl, in fact, made me wonder if maybe I could--if maybe I should. If I should do something I always wanted to do.
So I am. Or, I did. I just sent my first submission today, to another small publication. Tomorrow I'm writing to my community's magazine and asking what their guidelines are.
Huh.
She is coming out of it, or I am, and this is good. I stood up for her with one mom who dealt with her daughter, who then apologized to Sophia and now they're friends again. Sophia's response to me, said with all the sighing and hand gesturing possible: "Apparently [girl] is going to be nice to me again for some reason." In other realms I try to let her fix it on her own. It's summer and friends get bored and boring and whatever. People come around.
I do worry that she's going to think of herself as a bad student somehow because the reading stuff is a little behind (but catching up fast, wow). She's not a bad student--she has mad skillz when it comes to math. She loves math. And her teachers love her. She'll be fine. But in the car the other night, one girl mentioned that she wants to be a jockey when she grows up. Sophia responded with her grow up desire: "I want to be a day care worker. Or maybe a preschool teacher?"
It's not that I don't value daycare workers and preschool teachers--on the contrary, Maeve's preschool teachers have been phenomenal. But to be going into 3rd grade and this is your aspiration? It just sort of hurt me. I said nothing. But why not vet or nurse or artist or glassblower or something interesting? Why already daycare?
I know, kids change their minds. She'll get exposed to glassblowing or acting or accounting and realize that's the job for her.
But it got me ruminating, especially because I've been wondering about what I'M going to do when I grow up (meaning, when Leo goes to kindergarten). I think back to what I wanted to do...
1. waitress (ok, ok, so Sophia doesn't fall far from any tree here)
2. nurse (my dad was one)
3. doctor (every kid goes through this phase, I think--mine lasted even through automatic admission to SLU's med school, though...)
4. teacher
5. writer
It's the last one that's tripping me up. Back in 6th grade Br. Stephen, himself a published writer, wrote a long response to one of my theology essays trying to persuade me to use my prose as a gift and part of how I would build the Kingdom of God.
I think I write pretty well. Another Benedictine agreed a few years back when I was writing essays as part of my formation year with the oblates. Thought I should try to do something for the community's magazine. I was flattered but put it on the back burner.
Listening to Sophia in the car, and the other girl, in fact, made me wonder if maybe I could--if maybe I should. If I should do something I always wanted to do.
So I am. Or, I did. I just sent my first submission today, to another small publication. Tomorrow I'm writing to my community's magazine and asking what their guidelines are.
Huh.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Some pictures June 2009
Sophia has a "makeover" as incentive for reading.
Maeve on Art Hill
Maeve at Shakespeare (we always take a picture of one of our children holding an orange at Shakespeare)
Cleaning up after the picnic at Shakespeare
Leo at ShakespeareBusy
Busy here.
Friday we went to Suson Park to see the animals (it's a county park with barns with cows, horses, miniature horses, pigs, goats, chickens, etc).
Friday night we went to Shakespeare in the Park; today we went to Queeny park and while we were there, went to the horse trials that were going on. "Feis for horses" is how Mike explained it to Sophia and Maeve.
Tonight we clean the girls' room, which is also playroom and is only about 7/8 finished--the back dormer still has shelves filled with power tools and screws and so forth. But Maeve needs a cleaner space.
Tomorrow is church and who knows? It's our last free weekend for a while. Maybe it's time to flip the pool over and get it rehabbed for summer (it's been downright chilly for June so we haven't done it yet).
I am still fulfilling all my summer obligations. We're going places and doing things and having a good time still.
Starting to slowly come out of my weird funk. Post partum? I don't know. But it's dissipating.
Friday we went to Suson Park to see the animals (it's a county park with barns with cows, horses, miniature horses, pigs, goats, chickens, etc).
Friday night we went to Shakespeare in the Park; today we went to Queeny park and while we were there, went to the horse trials that were going on. "Feis for horses" is how Mike explained it to Sophia and Maeve.
Tonight we clean the girls' room, which is also playroom and is only about 7/8 finished--the back dormer still has shelves filled with power tools and screws and so forth. But Maeve needs a cleaner space.
Tomorrow is church and who knows? It's our last free weekend for a while. Maybe it's time to flip the pool over and get it rehabbed for summer (it's been downright chilly for June so we haven't done it yet).
I am still fulfilling all my summer obligations. We're going places and doing things and having a good time still.
Starting to slowly come out of my weird funk. Post partum? I don't know. But it's dissipating.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Mystery of the Universe #414
Why is it that it is two weeks into summer vacation and I'm still washing school uniforms? Where are they coming from? How many navy blue jumpers does Sophia own, anyway? Has she been storing them under her bed in case of some sort of polyester double knit shortage and she can make out like a bandit?
Pipilotti
I'm listening to weird music in the car. It's a CD I got for a single song called "Ever is Over All"
Which is from a modern art installation at the St. Louis Art Museum from, oh, 9 years ago? I love the internet--I was able to find a copy of this CD from a music seller in Spain. It's a collection of all the soundtracks of Pipilotti Rist's video installations.
I got it for that song, the ethereal humming dreaminess complete with crashing sounds, but I got a bonus. A spoken word track in French, German, and a bit of English. The English part says in a reassuring female voice:
we are on the way to find you ...
so please forget who you are
I need to scrawl that on a wall. These days....
Which is from a modern art installation at the St. Louis Art Museum from, oh, 9 years ago? I love the internet--I was able to find a copy of this CD from a music seller in Spain. It's a collection of all the soundtracks of Pipilotti Rist's video installations.
I got it for that song, the ethereal humming dreaminess complete with crashing sounds, but I got a bonus. A spoken word track in French, German, and a bit of English. The English part says in a reassuring female voice:
we are on the way to find you ...
so please forget who you are
I need to scrawl that on a wall. These days....
Sprawl Makes Life Fast
As opposed to slow.
Now, I grew up in the suburbs--suburbs around the country. I even lived in a suburb of Palm Springs. Outside of Tulsa, outside of Milwaukee, outside of St. Louis. So far outside of Dallas I think I went into the city once while we lived there. I went to high school inside the city of Houston but lived in a suburb. Even in Macon, Georgia, I lived in "North Macon" which wasn't its own town, but was definitely a bedroom community. There are many thousands of nice people living in suburbia. But the longer I live in the city....
I live in a streetcar suburb, built at the turn of the century and designed for commuting downtown (by streetcar) and for easy access to services right at home. Mixed use buildings on Grand, markets in walking distance, restaurants, specialty stores like cleaners and bakeries nearby. This sort of place, which now most people would call the inner city, is designed around the idea that during the average day, you shouldn't have to drive to get everything done--because when it was built, nobody was driving. It still holds true today--I do use my car, but I don't have to in order to survive. There is a pharmacy 5 blocks away; we can have lunch at several places, or there's a grocery store two blocks north (now, it's not one I like to shop at, but I'm snotty and will travel across the park to go to one I do like--but it's still easy biking distance if I am so inclined). The point is, I have a choice. I can take the car and go to the zoo with the kids, or I can stick around the house and walk to the library, post office, coffee house, church, the kids' school...
I can live slow.
When we lived in the suburbs (my parents, siblings, and I, that is), we couldn't walk anywhere but to a neighbor's house. We couldn't even buy stamps or a bagel or a movie ticket (granted, I can't do that where I live either at this point, although when the neighborhood was built, I could) without getting in the car. Everything was a 10 to 45 minute car trip away. And with no public transportation available at all, it was imperative that we own two (or three, or, at one point, four) cars so that all the drivers could do what they needed to do.
This made life the opposite of slow. Thirty minute drive to school; 30 minute drive home. So you don't get home from school until almost 4, and then you realize you haven't been to the grocery store for milk. Somebody run and do that and then somebody else stand in front of the open freezer and think about what to pop in the oven for dinner. I will give my parents credit: we ate dinner as a family 6 out of 7 nights while I was still living at home. But there wasn't much time to linger. The girls' (Bevin and Colleen this time, not Sophia and Maeve) friends lived far away, Ian had football practice, I had a soccer game. Our parish church was at least a 20 minute drive and big enough that nobody really knew each other. We were tied to our cars anyway and there wasn't time to do the sort of slow lingering after mass that I'm used to nowadays. No time to volunteer to be on a committee or council because that would have been yet another weeknight a month sucked away.
These days, well, if you read my blog you know how we live. The freezer is filled with deer meat and frozen produce, not convenience food. The girls' friends live two or three houses away. Our parish is 10 blocks south and integral to our lives. We do have two cars and will continue to have two cars until Leo is in school, most likely (since Mike's job is not at a single location but is consultant work, he needs that sort of flexibility as well), but there are many days when we don't go anywhere...but are not stranded.
During the school year, Sophia and Maeve take Irish dance at a local Catholic grade school, but during the summer, we have to hike out to the dance studio (since the school is closed for the summer). It's a highway trip, about 25 minutes, and that doesn't bug me as much as when we get close, we're on this horrendous arterial road called Manchester. It is lined with every shopping center under the sun, with cars ducking in and out constantly. There is traffic on that road all the time. All the friggin time. Forget turning left without a protected light. Be prepared to sit through a couple of intervals of lights, in fact, to get where you're going.
We just visit. I can't imagine if I had to take Manchester to leave my neighborhood, to go to the grocery store, church, post office, and so forth. It would wear me out. I know it would because when we visit my brother down in a suburb of Houston, I can see how I would walk from his house to the grocery store--it's probably not much further away than the library is from my house, frankly. But you can't get there from here, as they say. It's on a freeway feeder road with no sidewalks...and I'd have to cross a 6 lane arterial road as well. I have to get in the car and take, no joke, 15 minutes to drive there. Aren't you tired just thinking of it?
Mike and I were talking about this and came up with two reasons why people wouldn't live in the city, and later I considered a third. Yards is the first--which I will admit we do not have and there's no way to pretend we do. Secondly, crime. There is crime in higher density areas. But I was looking on the crime map a few weeks back and realized that here in "the most dangerous city in America" as St. Louis often gets named, my area's crime is focused on burglary, car break ins, and some simple assaults (meaning no guns). Not so great, sure, but people get broken into out in the suburbs, too. And cars aren't really safe anywhere. I think I'd rather know my neighbors (who aren't exhausted from a 45 minute commute and fear each other) and know they have my back.
The third thing that came to me later was the schools. We have lousy schools. But we have low property taxes...Mike's uncle pays enough in property taxes up in suburban Milwaukee to more than cover a year of Catholic school tuition. Seriously. Or you could luck out and find yourself a cute little Montessori charter school. It could happen.
I rambled here more than I wanted to; I could probably start an entire blog with the theme "why I live in the city and why you should reconsider your address in the exurbs" but I'm not trying to be confrontational.
My final point, what I'd planned to say at the beginning, is this:
When you eat up farmland to put down quarter acre plots and McMansions, there is less room to grow food. It doesn't make sense to continue to spread out so thinly when there is room in the cities--nearly all midwestern cities. It is not good stewardship of the earth. And you pay for it, one way or another.
Now, I grew up in the suburbs--suburbs around the country. I even lived in a suburb of Palm Springs. Outside of Tulsa, outside of Milwaukee, outside of St. Louis. So far outside of Dallas I think I went into the city once while we lived there. I went to high school inside the city of Houston but lived in a suburb. Even in Macon, Georgia, I lived in "North Macon" which wasn't its own town, but was definitely a bedroom community. There are many thousands of nice people living in suburbia. But the longer I live in the city....
I live in a streetcar suburb, built at the turn of the century and designed for commuting downtown (by streetcar) and for easy access to services right at home. Mixed use buildings on Grand, markets in walking distance, restaurants, specialty stores like cleaners and bakeries nearby. This sort of place, which now most people would call the inner city, is designed around the idea that during the average day, you shouldn't have to drive to get everything done--because when it was built, nobody was driving. It still holds true today--I do use my car, but I don't have to in order to survive. There is a pharmacy 5 blocks away; we can have lunch at several places, or there's a grocery store two blocks north (now, it's not one I like to shop at, but I'm snotty and will travel across the park to go to one I do like--but it's still easy biking distance if I am so inclined). The point is, I have a choice. I can take the car and go to the zoo with the kids, or I can stick around the house and walk to the library, post office, coffee house, church, the kids' school...
I can live slow.
When we lived in the suburbs (my parents, siblings, and I, that is), we couldn't walk anywhere but to a neighbor's house. We couldn't even buy stamps or a bagel or a movie ticket (granted, I can't do that where I live either at this point, although when the neighborhood was built, I could) without getting in the car. Everything was a 10 to 45 minute car trip away. And with no public transportation available at all, it was imperative that we own two (or three, or, at one point, four) cars so that all the drivers could do what they needed to do.
This made life the opposite of slow. Thirty minute drive to school; 30 minute drive home. So you don't get home from school until almost 4, and then you realize you haven't been to the grocery store for milk. Somebody run and do that and then somebody else stand in front of the open freezer and think about what to pop in the oven for dinner. I will give my parents credit: we ate dinner as a family 6 out of 7 nights while I was still living at home. But there wasn't much time to linger. The girls' (Bevin and Colleen this time, not Sophia and Maeve) friends lived far away, Ian had football practice, I had a soccer game. Our parish church was at least a 20 minute drive and big enough that nobody really knew each other. We were tied to our cars anyway and there wasn't time to do the sort of slow lingering after mass that I'm used to nowadays. No time to volunteer to be on a committee or council because that would have been yet another weeknight a month sucked away.
These days, well, if you read my blog you know how we live. The freezer is filled with deer meat and frozen produce, not convenience food. The girls' friends live two or three houses away. Our parish is 10 blocks south and integral to our lives. We do have two cars and will continue to have two cars until Leo is in school, most likely (since Mike's job is not at a single location but is consultant work, he needs that sort of flexibility as well), but there are many days when we don't go anywhere...but are not stranded.
During the school year, Sophia and Maeve take Irish dance at a local Catholic grade school, but during the summer, we have to hike out to the dance studio (since the school is closed for the summer). It's a highway trip, about 25 minutes, and that doesn't bug me as much as when we get close, we're on this horrendous arterial road called Manchester. It is lined with every shopping center under the sun, with cars ducking in and out constantly. There is traffic on that road all the time. All the friggin time. Forget turning left without a protected light. Be prepared to sit through a couple of intervals of lights, in fact, to get where you're going.
We just visit. I can't imagine if I had to take Manchester to leave my neighborhood, to go to the grocery store, church, post office, and so forth. It would wear me out. I know it would because when we visit my brother down in a suburb of Houston, I can see how I would walk from his house to the grocery store--it's probably not much further away than the library is from my house, frankly. But you can't get there from here, as they say. It's on a freeway feeder road with no sidewalks...and I'd have to cross a 6 lane arterial road as well. I have to get in the car and take, no joke, 15 minutes to drive there. Aren't you tired just thinking of it?
Mike and I were talking about this and came up with two reasons why people wouldn't live in the city, and later I considered a third. Yards is the first--which I will admit we do not have and there's no way to pretend we do. Secondly, crime. There is crime in higher density areas. But I was looking on the crime map a few weeks back and realized that here in "the most dangerous city in America" as St. Louis often gets named, my area's crime is focused on burglary, car break ins, and some simple assaults (meaning no guns). Not so great, sure, but people get broken into out in the suburbs, too. And cars aren't really safe anywhere. I think I'd rather know my neighbors (who aren't exhausted from a 45 minute commute and fear each other) and know they have my back.
The third thing that came to me later was the schools. We have lousy schools. But we have low property taxes...Mike's uncle pays enough in property taxes up in suburban Milwaukee to more than cover a year of Catholic school tuition. Seriously. Or you could luck out and find yourself a cute little Montessori charter school. It could happen.
I rambled here more than I wanted to; I could probably start an entire blog with the theme "why I live in the city and why you should reconsider your address in the exurbs" but I'm not trying to be confrontational.
My final point, what I'd planned to say at the beginning, is this:
When you eat up farmland to put down quarter acre plots and McMansions, there is less room to grow food. It doesn't make sense to continue to spread out so thinly when there is room in the cities--nearly all midwestern cities. It is not good stewardship of the earth. And you pay for it, one way or another.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A Slow Life
(Sorry it's a day late, Lali...)
Lali, over in Vermont, wrote a reminiscence about life growing up in 1950s Spain and how life was "slow." Slow like the way the "slow food" movement uses the term. I was going to sit down right away yesterday and write a response--not a rebuttal, not a "yeah, me too" but some kind of response. Of course it didn't happen because my own not-so-slow life intervened in the form of baby unhappy with my cruciferous vegetable diet, getting Sophia to Irish Dance tutoring (yes, tutoring...), picking up the CSA (with more cruciferous vegetables contained within), and going to a park with the family, a different park than usual, with a pond and ducks and playground...by the time the thunderstorm hit last night, I was exhausted and went to bed before 10.
So anyway, here I am again. Lali mentioned two things that she thinks will never come back and therefore, neither will a slow, purposeful life. I'm going to talk just a bit about those two and offer two more of my own. And then, since I'm terribly long winded, I'll explain my two in posts coming up later today. Lastly, I'll try to come up with what we have done as a family, a neighborhood, a parish, etc., to combat/change/come to compromise on these things.
1. Lali mentioned stay at home mothers as part of what allows life to be slow. I tend to agree, partially because I am a stay at home mother and partially because I was raised in a household where my mom worked sometimes and not at other times. When I'm at home, it means (usually) that the house gets cleaned during the day. It means that I have time to think about what to feed my family and can get that started before a typical work day would be over. It lets a family relax in some ways, while increasing tension in others--nobody has to worry about the kids getting a 24 hour stomach flu because nobody has to take off work. We don't stress about daycare because I'm the daycare. On the other hand, there is a financial choice that's made there, and some cannot make that choice (or the choice is made for them out of necessity). It would be nice to have an extra bit of income here. I do plan to return to some kind of work in 4 or 5 years, once Leo is into a daily routine (what that will be, I don't know). But having me home for now is something we decided was important. Kids need to be able to relax and have time to get bored at home during the summer, for instance. Not every moment should be planned and executed. Mike should be able to come home and hold the baby for a few minutes, a baby who isn't too terribly stressed out, while I get dinner on the table (or vice versa--my husband does cook).
This is not intending to be some sort of anti-working-mothers screed. There are many, many days when I wish I left the house to go to some clean climate controlled office and crunch numbers all day with a cup of coffee and muzack. Really. I'm just agreeing with Lali in that it is hard to live life in the slow lane if both parents are working full time. Kids will still probably have swim lessons and Irish dance and piano and school field trips and birthday parties, whether I work or not. Staying home lets that happen in such a way that it becomes, sort of, my job, and it eases the tension on Mike (and me) that would be there if we were trying to juggle another 8 hour work day.
2. Lali grew up, as I said above, in 1950s Spain, with live-in help. She writes that the disappearance of the servant class decreases the chances that a family could live slowly--essentially, that life takes work and it's hard to get it all done by yourself. I agree in some ways, but I also have to agree with the Vatican this past March when the washing machine was touted as the biggest advance in women's liberation in the 20th century. Much of what a live-in maid would have done, at least in my house, is done now by a front loader in the basement. And a dishwasher. And a vacuum.
The people I know who have housekeepers (I mean like every day housekeepers, not the once a week cleaning lady kind of thing) or nannies do not have them in order to live more slowly. They live more quickly. My second teaching job was at a ritzy private school where maids dropped kids off and picked kids up so that dad could stay at his private practice and mom at her high powered downtown job. The kids were not living slowly. They were packed to the gills with after school sports and camps and French class and so on ad nauseum.
So something else has changed as well--not only do fewer mothers stay home, and fewer people can afford to hire help, but even when they do, it isn't to ease up on the work load. It simply allows for more work load.
This is what Mike and I chatted about while the girls played on the playground last evening. Our conversation ranged all over the place. We had questions about the servant class themselves--my urban ancestors were definitely poor--they "took in laundry" and worked as chauffeurs for wealthier St. Louis families. Their lives were not slow at all. In fact, they spent their whole lives trying to put food on the table. We talked about technology, but we have been adding technology to our lives forever, a bit at a time, so it's not just technology that has changed us. In the end, I came up with two things that I think have changed in American lives that have made our lives a hurried mess and our meals about the same (since "slow food" was part of the discussion as well).
1. The rise of the bedroom community suburb and sprawl
2. big cheap conventional commodity farming practices
More later.
Lali, over in Vermont, wrote a reminiscence about life growing up in 1950s Spain and how life was "slow." Slow like the way the "slow food" movement uses the term. I was going to sit down right away yesterday and write a response--not a rebuttal, not a "yeah, me too" but some kind of response. Of course it didn't happen because my own not-so-slow life intervened in the form of baby unhappy with my cruciferous vegetable diet, getting Sophia to Irish Dance tutoring (yes, tutoring...), picking up the CSA (with more cruciferous vegetables contained within), and going to a park with the family, a different park than usual, with a pond and ducks and playground...by the time the thunderstorm hit last night, I was exhausted and went to bed before 10.
So anyway, here I am again. Lali mentioned two things that she thinks will never come back and therefore, neither will a slow, purposeful life. I'm going to talk just a bit about those two and offer two more of my own. And then, since I'm terribly long winded, I'll explain my two in posts coming up later today. Lastly, I'll try to come up with what we have done as a family, a neighborhood, a parish, etc., to combat/change/come to compromise on these things.
1. Lali mentioned stay at home mothers as part of what allows life to be slow. I tend to agree, partially because I am a stay at home mother and partially because I was raised in a household where my mom worked sometimes and not at other times. When I'm at home, it means (usually) that the house gets cleaned during the day. It means that I have time to think about what to feed my family and can get that started before a typical work day would be over. It lets a family relax in some ways, while increasing tension in others--nobody has to worry about the kids getting a 24 hour stomach flu because nobody has to take off work. We don't stress about daycare because I'm the daycare. On the other hand, there is a financial choice that's made there, and some cannot make that choice (or the choice is made for them out of necessity). It would be nice to have an extra bit of income here. I do plan to return to some kind of work in 4 or 5 years, once Leo is into a daily routine (what that will be, I don't know). But having me home for now is something we decided was important. Kids need to be able to relax and have time to get bored at home during the summer, for instance. Not every moment should be planned and executed. Mike should be able to come home and hold the baby for a few minutes, a baby who isn't too terribly stressed out, while I get dinner on the table (or vice versa--my husband does cook).
This is not intending to be some sort of anti-working-mothers screed. There are many, many days when I wish I left the house to go to some clean climate controlled office and crunch numbers all day with a cup of coffee and muzack. Really. I'm just agreeing with Lali in that it is hard to live life in the slow lane if both parents are working full time. Kids will still probably have swim lessons and Irish dance and piano and school field trips and birthday parties, whether I work or not. Staying home lets that happen in such a way that it becomes, sort of, my job, and it eases the tension on Mike (and me) that would be there if we were trying to juggle another 8 hour work day.
2. Lali grew up, as I said above, in 1950s Spain, with live-in help. She writes that the disappearance of the servant class decreases the chances that a family could live slowly--essentially, that life takes work and it's hard to get it all done by yourself. I agree in some ways, but I also have to agree with the Vatican this past March when the washing machine was touted as the biggest advance in women's liberation in the 20th century. Much of what a live-in maid would have done, at least in my house, is done now by a front loader in the basement. And a dishwasher. And a vacuum.
The people I know who have housekeepers (I mean like every day housekeepers, not the once a week cleaning lady kind of thing) or nannies do not have them in order to live more slowly. They live more quickly. My second teaching job was at a ritzy private school where maids dropped kids off and picked kids up so that dad could stay at his private practice and mom at her high powered downtown job. The kids were not living slowly. They were packed to the gills with after school sports and camps and French class and so on ad nauseum.
So something else has changed as well--not only do fewer mothers stay home, and fewer people can afford to hire help, but even when they do, it isn't to ease up on the work load. It simply allows for more work load.
This is what Mike and I chatted about while the girls played on the playground last evening. Our conversation ranged all over the place. We had questions about the servant class themselves--my urban ancestors were definitely poor--they "took in laundry" and worked as chauffeurs for wealthier St. Louis families. Their lives were not slow at all. In fact, they spent their whole lives trying to put food on the table. We talked about technology, but we have been adding technology to our lives forever, a bit at a time, so it's not just technology that has changed us. In the end, I came up with two things that I think have changed in American lives that have made our lives a hurried mess and our meals about the same (since "slow food" was part of the discussion as well).
1. The rise of the bedroom community suburb and sprawl
2. big cheap conventional commodity farming practices
More later.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Ten On Tuesday: Ten things I do during "me" time
What's "me" time? Just kidding. I get a lot of "me" time. So here's some things I do:
1. Antiquing. I love doing this. I have a lot of groups of things I'm obsessed with, after all.
2. Blogging. Most of my me time goes here nowadays, since I can't get away as much as I'd like (from the house, I mean, not from the blogs)
3. Going to the library all alone
4. Writing letters to Marita and Rachel
5. Going to Clyde (this is super specified "me" time, since it only happens, max, 3 times a year)
6. Genealogy
7. Quilting
8. Knitting (although most often this happens while waiting to do other things)
9. Watching reruns on DVD. Mostly Law & Order
10. Contemplation. Really. I contemplate when I can, but only when I know I have the time. Otherwise I just blog or knit or whatnot.
1. Antiquing. I love doing this. I have a lot of groups of things I'm obsessed with, after all.
2. Blogging. Most of my me time goes here nowadays, since I can't get away as much as I'd like (from the house, I mean, not from the blogs)
3. Going to the library all alone
4. Writing letters to Marita and Rachel
5. Going to Clyde (this is super specified "me" time, since it only happens, max, 3 times a year)
6. Genealogy
7. Quilting
8. Knitting (although most often this happens while waiting to do other things)
9. Watching reruns on DVD. Mostly Law & Order
10. Contemplation. Really. I contemplate when I can, but only when I know I have the time. Otherwise I just blog or knit or whatnot.
Monday, June 08, 2009
But Some Things Do Not Suck
Ok, time to count blessings. And then I have to sleep...
*Sophia gave me an impatiens at the end of the school year. It keeps blooming in the kitchen windowsill.
*I found a great birthday present for my sister.
*Last week, I got to sit at a local smoke free bar and knit while Ann held the baby.
*I love the pool we joined. Love it.
*Sophia is going to be really successful with this Kumon and in swim lessons this summer.
*Maeve might actually stop being terrified of the water. I have great hope.
*The backyard looks nice.
*Saturday night, we sat in my nice backyard and talked with Mike's brother and his fiancee (!!!) and our friend Mary. Exactly why I wanted the new deck.
*We can afford to have the cars fixed.
*Maeve has not had another asthma episode.
*The library, dining room, guest room, and our room are still clean.
*I found two pictures I thought I'd lost.
*I am going to try scanning them again tomorrow (it didn't work this weekend...)
*I have a plan for Sophia's sweater's sleeves.
*I saw an owl last night.
*I have a big clean rental car waiting for me tomorrow morning.
*Someday soon, I will play mah jongg again.
*We got a dehydrator and have already started trying it out. We are such dorks.
*I made the summer's first ice cream on Saturday: vanilla raspberry. The girls and I picked the raspberries on Friday morning. Lovely.
*I am, so far, living up to my summer commitments.
*Sophia gave me an impatiens at the end of the school year. It keeps blooming in the kitchen windowsill.
*I found a great birthday present for my sister.
*Last week, I got to sit at a local smoke free bar and knit while Ann held the baby.
*I love the pool we joined. Love it.
*Sophia is going to be really successful with this Kumon and in swim lessons this summer.
*Maeve might actually stop being terrified of the water. I have great hope.
*The backyard looks nice.
*Saturday night, we sat in my nice backyard and talked with Mike's brother and his fiancee (!!!) and our friend Mary. Exactly why I wanted the new deck.
*We can afford to have the cars fixed.
*Maeve has not had another asthma episode.
*The library, dining room, guest room, and our room are still clean.
*I found two pictures I thought I'd lost.
*I am going to try scanning them again tomorrow (it didn't work this weekend...)
*I have a plan for Sophia's sweater's sleeves.
*I saw an owl last night.
*I have a big clean rental car waiting for me tomorrow morning.
*Someday soon, I will play mah jongg again.
*We got a dehydrator and have already started trying it out. We are such dorks.
*I made the summer's first ice cream on Saturday: vanilla raspberry. The girls and I picked the raspberries on Friday morning. Lovely.
*I am, so far, living up to my summer commitments.
Things That Currently Suck
I know, how uplifting. But my lack of creative thought and posting has to do with:
*The van is broken. At least somewhat. We may have it back tomorrow evening.
*The car is broken. Still a mystery. It's getting towed tomorrow morning. I predict expense.
*It is hot now.
*Sophia is having friend conflict that I can no longer fix like I could when she was 4.
*The ants in my kitchen have yet to retreat.
*Sophia is still viewing herself as a "bad reader."
*Maeve is off the prednisone but still crazy.
*Book club did little for me last night but depress me.
*Leo got up at 5:30 this morning. That had better not repeat tomorrow.
*My new doctor is keeping me at the same thyroid medication level (this is good) and investigating things like Vitamin D levels (also good). But I really need some answers (this is the sucky part). Plus another blood draw on Wednesday. Unless the cars aren't fixed...
*Maeve's friends are out of town.
*Mike is grumpy about the car stuff and because there are things we have to do in the house and he hates doing house repair/rehab.
*We need to do house repair/rehab for Maeve's asthma. Or maybe send Jack on vacation to my sister's house...again, no answers and I'm not sure I want them if I can magically make things ok but how likely is that?
*I finished the 3rd Netflix disk of "Are You Being Served" in one day (5 episodes) and now have none for tomorrow (I watch while I sew or clean the kitchen).
*My hair keeps falling out and I just hope it's mostly to do with postpartum hair loss and not something more sinister.
*Laundry. Laundry sucks.
*I keep having out-of-step conversations with folks. My timing is off or something. This bums me out.
*I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.
*The van is broken. At least somewhat. We may have it back tomorrow evening.
*The car is broken. Still a mystery. It's getting towed tomorrow morning. I predict expense.
*It is hot now.
*Sophia is having friend conflict that I can no longer fix like I could when she was 4.
*The ants in my kitchen have yet to retreat.
*Sophia is still viewing herself as a "bad reader."
*Maeve is off the prednisone but still crazy.
*Book club did little for me last night but depress me.
*Leo got up at 5:30 this morning. That had better not repeat tomorrow.
*My new doctor is keeping me at the same thyroid medication level (this is good) and investigating things like Vitamin D levels (also good). But I really need some answers (this is the sucky part). Plus another blood draw on Wednesday. Unless the cars aren't fixed...
*Maeve's friends are out of town.
*Mike is grumpy about the car stuff and because there are things we have to do in the house and he hates doing house repair/rehab.
*We need to do house repair/rehab for Maeve's asthma. Or maybe send Jack on vacation to my sister's house...again, no answers and I'm not sure I want them if I can magically make things ok but how likely is that?
*I finished the 3rd Netflix disk of "Are You Being Served" in one day (5 episodes) and now have none for tomorrow (I watch while I sew or clean the kitchen).
*My hair keeps falling out and I just hope it's mostly to do with postpartum hair loss and not something more sinister.
*Laundry. Laundry sucks.
*I keep having out-of-step conversations with folks. My timing is off or something. This bums me out.
*I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.
Remember Me: Second Grade
Second Grade was with Mrs. Chott at Trautwein Elementary. I am only vaguely aware of where this school is located, but I have a good picture of it in my mind. I was only there a half year--I skipped from the middle of first to the middle of second. But I have vivid memories of time with Mrs. Chott.
Again, though, I remember no classmates at all. I think there may have been a Kimberly in my room. Heather? I just don't know. I was a spazz and remember Mrs. Chott more than anything or anyone else. She held art as equal to or more important than the three R's, although at the time it didn't seem so unique. We painted and drew and recited poetry--and wrote poetry.
We wrote poems as a class, composing them on big pieces of construction paper. Every child was at some point the special person of the week. We put on plays. Memorized Shel Silverstein poems and recited them for parents, grouped by things like eye color and syllables in our first names.
We had a tornado warning at some point that spring and spent a long afternoon bent over in the hallway with our hands over our necks and heads. As if.
I remember not being sad at the end of the year that I was transferring to a Catholic school nearby. Not even about the uniforms. Later I regretted not being more demonstrative about how wonderful Mrs. Chott was. But I think she liked me: she illustrated and gave me a copy of Millay's "Afternoon on a Hill." It probably no longer exists, but I memorized it all on my own.
Again, though, I remember no classmates at all. I think there may have been a Kimberly in my room. Heather? I just don't know. I was a spazz and remember Mrs. Chott more than anything or anyone else. She held art as equal to or more important than the three R's, although at the time it didn't seem so unique. We painted and drew and recited poetry--and wrote poetry.
We wrote poems as a class, composing them on big pieces of construction paper. Every child was at some point the special person of the week. We put on plays. Memorized Shel Silverstein poems and recited them for parents, grouped by things like eye color and syllables in our first names.
We had a tornado warning at some point that spring and spent a long afternoon bent over in the hallway with our hands over our necks and heads. As if.
I remember not being sad at the end of the year that I was transferring to a Catholic school nearby. Not even about the uniforms. Later I regretted not being more demonstrative about how wonderful Mrs. Chott was. But I think she liked me: she illustrated and gave me a copy of Millay's "Afternoon on a Hill." It probably no longer exists, but I memorized it all on my own.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
It was easier
It was easier before Sophia learned to read.
I didn't have to spend 10 minutes explaining the concept of "for rent" because she read a sign while in the car.
I didn't have to promise to take her up in the water tower in August because she read that it's open every first Saturday.
I didn't have to assist her in learning how to send her cousin an email.
I didn't have to listen to retold plots of Magic Treehouse books.
I didn't have to find the song in the church music issue so she could read (sing?) along.
I didn't have to explain jotted notes and lists I make.
I'm glad she's reading.
Now to fix the asthma problem with Maeve...
I didn't have to spend 10 minutes explaining the concept of "for rent" because she read a sign while in the car.
I didn't have to promise to take her up in the water tower in August because she read that it's open every first Saturday.
I didn't have to assist her in learning how to send her cousin an email.
I didn't have to listen to retold plots of Magic Treehouse books.
I didn't have to find the song in the church music issue so she could read (sing?) along.
I didn't have to explain jotted notes and lists I make.
I'm glad she's reading.
Now to fix the asthma problem with Maeve...
Friday, June 05, 2009
Remember Me: First Grade
We lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, when I started first grade. I was only in first grade for half a year--we moved to St. Louis over Christmas break and I started second grade in January. So it doesn't surprise me that I actually remember less about this year than kindergarten...
*I don't remember any classmates at all. Not a single face or name.
*My teacher was Mrs. Smallwood and she and her husband had the same birthday. But that's all I know.
*My classroom was in a portable building with chainlink fence on the windows and no facilities (drinking fountain only). The main school had air conditioning. The outside walls were white and chalky (the paint...probably lead...).
*I went to second grade, also in a portable, for reading every day, and ate lunch with the second graders which made me a total social outcast in both grades.
*There were see-saws on the playground, the metal ones with the chain so you could change the weight distribution.
*One day two boys had a fight in PE. I remember the look on the one boy's face as the other knocked the wind out of him. I remember avoiding both of them after that.
*There was a haunted house at Halloween in the cafeteria. I remember it scared me but don't remember how or why.
I think the biggest obstacle Sophia faces is the fact that first grade, second grade, and most likely third grade will happen in the same classroom. It will be one long year...
*I don't remember any classmates at all. Not a single face or name.
*My teacher was Mrs. Smallwood and she and her husband had the same birthday. But that's all I know.
*My classroom was in a portable building with chainlink fence on the windows and no facilities (drinking fountain only). The main school had air conditioning. The outside walls were white and chalky (the paint...probably lead...).
*I went to second grade, also in a portable, for reading every day, and ate lunch with the second graders which made me a total social outcast in both grades.
*There were see-saws on the playground, the metal ones with the chain so you could change the weight distribution.
*One day two boys had a fight in PE. I remember the look on the one boy's face as the other knocked the wind out of him. I remember avoiding both of them after that.
*There was a haunted house at Halloween in the cafeteria. I remember it scared me but don't remember how or why.
I think the biggest obstacle Sophia faces is the fact that first grade, second grade, and most likely third grade will happen in the same classroom. It will be one long year...
Remember Me: Kindergarten
Thanks to Lisa, I started thinking about grade school and what I remember. Fuzzy amalgamated images of kindergarten all the way through the sharp cold-water-splash of the beginning of young adulthood in 8th grade. Because Sophia says things similar to what Lisa's daughter says. Will they remember me? Will I still know them? I can't even remember the friends from preschool...
Kindergarten. I attended George Washington Elementary in Palm Desert, California. I remember:
*My best friends were Luke (last name?) and a girl named Ariel Champion (isn't that an awesome name?). But while I can figure out which boy is Luke in the class composite photo, I can't pick out Ariel. Or remember any other names.
*Our classroom was on a breezeway, not a hall. Some parts of the afternoon happened out there.
*I spent part of the day in first grade (I was an early reader). I can't recall that room, the other children, or the teacher at all.
*The kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Gretch (what a great kindergarten teacher name, I think now. Nothing sweet about that name!). I know she was old.
*Our spring show had a Hawaiian theme and all the girls wore swimsuits with grass skirts made of shredded trash bags. Leis made of kleenex flowers.
*Paste. I was never there for cut and paste time, which I deeply regretted at the time. But I'd come back from reading and the slower workers would be finishing up. I remember wishing I could put my fingers in the paste jars. That's so weird to me now.
*Scissors. I'd learned to cut with leftover surgical scissors my father brought home from the ER. Scissors in kindergarten were a bit of a shock.
I don't remember the layout of the classroom, the playground, the route to the bus, how the school looked from the outside. Were there chalkboards? I don't recall. There was a picnic table outside. I think. I remember the bus. But that's about it.
Sophia has already forgotten where kindergarten happened. She has the same teachers and classmates (her kindergarten class had only 5 students). But it was in another church common space--she tends to remember it happening in the current church basement. Same denomination, even, but not the same place. She sees the park they used as a playground when we drive by sometimes, and remembers that, but can't pick the building out. I wonder if this will be true about the current school--of course, she'll be there longer and that helps cement things.
Hmm.
Kindergarten. I attended George Washington Elementary in Palm Desert, California. I remember:
*My best friends were Luke (last name?) and a girl named Ariel Champion (isn't that an awesome name?). But while I can figure out which boy is Luke in the class composite photo, I can't pick out Ariel. Or remember any other names.
*Our classroom was on a breezeway, not a hall. Some parts of the afternoon happened out there.
*I spent part of the day in first grade (I was an early reader). I can't recall that room, the other children, or the teacher at all.
*The kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Gretch (what a great kindergarten teacher name, I think now. Nothing sweet about that name!). I know she was old.
*Our spring show had a Hawaiian theme and all the girls wore swimsuits with grass skirts made of shredded trash bags. Leis made of kleenex flowers.
*Paste. I was never there for cut and paste time, which I deeply regretted at the time. But I'd come back from reading and the slower workers would be finishing up. I remember wishing I could put my fingers in the paste jars. That's so weird to me now.
*Scissors. I'd learned to cut with leftover surgical scissors my father brought home from the ER. Scissors in kindergarten were a bit of a shock.
I don't remember the layout of the classroom, the playground, the route to the bus, how the school looked from the outside. Were there chalkboards? I don't recall. There was a picnic table outside. I think. I remember the bus. But that's about it.
Sophia has already forgotten where kindergarten happened. She has the same teachers and classmates (her kindergarten class had only 5 students). But it was in another church common space--she tends to remember it happening in the current church basement. Same denomination, even, but not the same place. She sees the park they used as a playground when we drive by sometimes, and remembers that, but can't pick the building out. I wonder if this will be true about the current school--of course, she'll be there longer and that helps cement things.
Hmm.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
What Blogs I Usually Read and Why Part Five
Ok. Things I read when it's late at night and none of the people I usually read have updated and I'm stir crazy and should really be in bed.
I Can Has Cheezburger, of course. I'm such a dork. But I love pictures of cats with stupid captions. Love them. From there I sometimes go to Fail Blog, although those pictures don't seem as pure and simply amusing. They are darker. More cynical. And sometimes painful...although the Fail Dog link is good--they are animal "fails" that are not harmful to animals (G-rated, you could say). And the link to There I Fixed It is sometimes worth a look, too. But the cats, the cats are best.
Cake Wrecks. Oh my. These are professional cakes, ones you buy in bakeries, but gone horrible wrong. Misspellings, bad art, horrible renditions of Spongebob. All sorts of bad.
The "Blog" Of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks is just what it sounds like. People send her photos and she posts them with commentary. Punctuation is not decoration.
And more English abuse: Literally. A Weblog. A collection of news snippets where people use the word "literally" the opposite way it is intended.
XKCD is a webcomic about geekery. Math, language, sarcasm, I believe is the tagline.
And although I fear I cross a line by mentioning this one, Psychotic Letters From Men is like watching a car wreck. Sometimes I just have to. It is not G rated. It is not even PG-13 or R sometimes...but what it is, well, the title explains it pretty well. Women send PLFM the letters, text messages, or emails they've received from the boyfriends they've dumped and the stalkers they've had arrested. The author writes some great commentary, also not at all family friendly, and then publishes the letter. Which is always bad.
Cockeyed's How Much Is Inside isn't a blog, per se, but it does get updated now and again. He investigates how much is inside. Inside what? Oh, a pumpkin. A keg. A bottle of mustard. And so forth. Complete with photos.
Again, not really a blog, but well worth your wasted time, is McSweeney's. May I further suggest Open Letters to People or Entities Not Likely To Respond and Lists.
Cool Tools is self explanatory, I think. It's an often-updated review of cool tools. "Tools" can mean just about anything you use, by the way.
That's all I can think of at the moment. I need others sometimes, so if you think of any in this same genre, let me know...
I Can Has Cheezburger, of course. I'm such a dork. But I love pictures of cats with stupid captions. Love them. From there I sometimes go to Fail Blog, although those pictures don't seem as pure and simply amusing. They are darker. More cynical. And sometimes painful...although the Fail Dog link is good--they are animal "fails" that are not harmful to animals (G-rated, you could say). And the link to There I Fixed It is sometimes worth a look, too. But the cats, the cats are best.
Cake Wrecks. Oh my. These are professional cakes, ones you buy in bakeries, but gone horrible wrong. Misspellings, bad art, horrible renditions of Spongebob. All sorts of bad.
The "Blog" Of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks is just what it sounds like. People send her photos and she posts them with commentary. Punctuation is not decoration.
And more English abuse: Literally. A Weblog. A collection of news snippets where people use the word "literally" the opposite way it is intended.
XKCD is a webcomic about geekery. Math, language, sarcasm, I believe is the tagline.
And although I fear I cross a line by mentioning this one, Psychotic Letters From Men is like watching a car wreck. Sometimes I just have to. It is not G rated. It is not even PG-13 or R sometimes...but what it is, well, the title explains it pretty well. Women send PLFM the letters, text messages, or emails they've received from the boyfriends they've dumped and the stalkers they've had arrested. The author writes some great commentary, also not at all family friendly, and then publishes the letter. Which is always bad.
Cockeyed's How Much Is Inside isn't a blog, per se, but it does get updated now and again. He investigates how much is inside. Inside what? Oh, a pumpkin. A keg. A bottle of mustard. And so forth. Complete with photos.
Again, not really a blog, but well worth your wasted time, is McSweeney's. May I further suggest Open Letters to People or Entities Not Likely To Respond and Lists.
Cool Tools is self explanatory, I think. It's an often-updated review of cool tools. "Tools" can mean just about anything you use, by the way.
That's all I can think of at the moment. I need others sometimes, so if you think of any in this same genre, let me know...
What Blogs I Usually Read and Why Part Four
Through the x365 project, I started reading Indigo Bunting and Mali (below). Then Mrs. Slocombe started commenting on IB's blog and I went over there to see what that was all about. And from that, I found Kate and Kate...
Every Day I Plant a Tree is Kate's response to the massive wildfires in southern Australia this past summer (our winter). She plants trees now. And she writes about it here.
Mrs. Slocombe writes about everything. He (his real name is Peter and he lives with aformentioned Kate--he took his handle from the hilarious double-entendre-filled Britcom "Are You Being Served?") is a poet and a father and a widower and a transplant from England and just amazing to read. He once compared me to George Orwell and then gave it the caveat, "not in the feverishly dystopic way" but as a compliment. When he comments I know I've done good, you know? I love to read anything he puts up--stories of his life, his lovely daughter, poetry, and so forth. And I always have to have an English-to-English dictionary page open...it's expanded my vocabulary, going there.
Mali has two blogs. Right now. I think she's had a total of at least four since I started reading her. She currently has A Separate Life and Travelalphablog. A Separate Life chronicles life in her New Zealand home--past and present. This is all made richer by the fact that I read her x365 and an alphablog she kept over the past few years. I feel like I really know her, even though I don't even know her real name...and she's had a fascinating life, which is made apparent in the Travelalphablog (try saying that three times fast), which is an A is for Apple kind of blog, except all the of the "is for's" are destinations. Places where she has visited. And she's been, wow, everywhere. I mean it. The pictures alone. Envy.
Lastly, another Kate, this one Going In Circles also in Australia. I found her via Mrs. Slocombe, and I come to read it when it is updated, not as often as I'd like. She wrote a series about the death of her sister that made me feel like I was standing in her kitchen watching the whole thing happen. She later took it down on request of other relatives, which I can understand, but it was amazingly good and bitterly sad. She writes sort of like how I would like to when I have teenagers. If that makes sense. Still in the thick of it but able to take the long view.
Lastly, next post, is a listing of blogs I visit and read because I must be amused when I'm stuck nursing a baby and have nothing to say (it does happen, really).
Every Day I Plant a Tree is Kate's response to the massive wildfires in southern Australia this past summer (our winter). She plants trees now. And she writes about it here.
Mrs. Slocombe writes about everything. He (his real name is Peter and he lives with aformentioned Kate--he took his handle from the hilarious double-entendre-filled Britcom "Are You Being Served?") is a poet and a father and a widower and a transplant from England and just amazing to read. He once compared me to George Orwell and then gave it the caveat, "not in the feverishly dystopic way" but as a compliment. When he comments I know I've done good, you know? I love to read anything he puts up--stories of his life, his lovely daughter, poetry, and so forth. And I always have to have an English-to-English dictionary page open...it's expanded my vocabulary, going there.
Mali has two blogs. Right now. I think she's had a total of at least four since I started reading her. She currently has A Separate Life and Travelalphablog. A Separate Life chronicles life in her New Zealand home--past and present. This is all made richer by the fact that I read her x365 and an alphablog she kept over the past few years. I feel like I really know her, even though I don't even know her real name...and she's had a fascinating life, which is made apparent in the Travelalphablog (try saying that three times fast), which is an A is for Apple kind of blog, except all the of the "is for's" are destinations. Places where she has visited. And she's been, wow, everywhere. I mean it. The pictures alone. Envy.
Lastly, another Kate, this one Going In Circles also in Australia. I found her via Mrs. Slocombe, and I come to read it when it is updated, not as often as I'd like. She wrote a series about the death of her sister that made me feel like I was standing in her kitchen watching the whole thing happen. She later took it down on request of other relatives, which I can understand, but it was amazingly good and bitterly sad. She writes sort of like how I would like to when I have teenagers. If that makes sense. Still in the thick of it but able to take the long view.
Lastly, next post, is a listing of blogs I visit and read because I must be amused when I'm stuck nursing a baby and have nothing to say (it does happen, really).
What Blogs I Usually Read and Why Part Three
My Canadians.
There's a joke I've heard, told by someone in mid-Missouri. "What good purpose do ticks serve?" asks the visitor to the country. "They keep the Californians away," answers the farmer.
I think winter keeps me away from Canada. Because I like the idea of Canada, just like many Californians have liked the idea of central Missouri bucolic farming. But here I remain. I read them, though:
The Danforth is Deloney's spot on the web. He writes about his cat, and his past, and his present in a walkup apartment in a neighborhood of olive oil dealers and Greek restaurants and sidewalk cafes and parks and so forth. He sells books and seems to maybe read quite a few. I found him via the x365 project, although I don't remember if he participated in it or just read ours....
I, pundit is Stephen's blog. I found him when I was looking for a reference about how the date of Christmas was set (it was set after the Annunciation, by the way--we stole the pagan festival traditions afterward). He had an entry about it, and then some other intriguing religious topics--he's what I would call a liberal evangelical, if you can believe that. Nowadays, he usually writes about politics, but not like how those political blogs do.
Not Mary Poppins is Stephen's wife--she's an in-home day care provider for toddlers and she writes of her daily life as well as other things, like what's she's up to when she's not taking care of young people and listening to their often hilarious dialogues.
Helen writes at Procrastinitus Interruptus. She's another x365er who evolved into what she is now, which is often hilarious and always a good read. She is a faithful commenter on my own blogs, which makes her especially well loved here. She writes about work and cats and lots and lots about her life. She had a series last year on Helen's Bad Hair Through the Years. That alone was enough to hook me forever.
Next up: The Southern Hemisphere
There's a joke I've heard, told by someone in mid-Missouri. "What good purpose do ticks serve?" asks the visitor to the country. "They keep the Californians away," answers the farmer.
I think winter keeps me away from Canada. Because I like the idea of Canada, just like many Californians have liked the idea of central Missouri bucolic farming. But here I remain. I read them, though:
The Danforth is Deloney's spot on the web. He writes about his cat, and his past, and his present in a walkup apartment in a neighborhood of olive oil dealers and Greek restaurants and sidewalk cafes and parks and so forth. He sells books and seems to maybe read quite a few. I found him via the x365 project, although I don't remember if he participated in it or just read ours....
I, pundit is Stephen's blog. I found him when I was looking for a reference about how the date of Christmas was set (it was set after the Annunciation, by the way--we stole the pagan festival traditions afterward). He had an entry about it, and then some other intriguing religious topics--he's what I would call a liberal evangelical, if you can believe that. Nowadays, he usually writes about politics, but not like how those political blogs do.
Not Mary Poppins is Stephen's wife--she's an in-home day care provider for toddlers and she writes of her daily life as well as other things, like what's she's up to when she's not taking care of young people and listening to their often hilarious dialogues.
Helen writes at Procrastinitus Interruptus. She's another x365er who evolved into what she is now, which is often hilarious and always a good read. She is a faithful commenter on my own blogs, which makes her especially well loved here. She writes about work and cats and lots and lots about her life. She had a series last year on Helen's Bad Hair Through the Years. That alone was enough to hook me forever.
Next up: The Southern Hemisphere
Pictures from the baptism party
Godfather Steve; Mike and Leo; me and godmother Trisha. In front, Sophia and Maeve.
Neighbors in the backyard.
This is my mom and my aunt Gracemarie (the woman who gave me my stove, my wonderful stove).
The cake is vanilla with raspberry filling/frosting on top: "Let your life proceed by its own design" which is of course from the Grateful Dead Song, "Cassidy" from where we get Leo's middle name.
Leo with my mother-in-law. Big Day.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Ten On Tuesday: Ten Great Songs From the Past Year
Yeah, right. Like I would know 10 songs from the past year. So here's what little I have. One great song from the past year...
Bad Horse from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Actually, most of that little web series. But that song. Nice.
Bad Horse from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Actually, most of that little web series. But that song. Nice.
Bourbon Slush
Ok--recipe. Easy as pie, but has to be made the day before.
2 cups strong tea (bring water almost to boil, soak some tea bags in it, and then add it to the mix)
3 cups bourbon
12 oz can frozen lemonade
6 ounce can frozen orange juice (sometimes I do the full 12 oz)
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 cups water
Stir. Freeze. Sno-cones for grownups.
On the way out the door, my pastor mentioned his family makes it with amaretto. That will have to be tried. Soon.
2 cups strong tea (bring water almost to boil, soak some tea bags in it, and then add it to the mix)
3 cups bourbon
12 oz can frozen lemonade
6 ounce can frozen orange juice (sometimes I do the full 12 oz)
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 cups water
Stir. Freeze. Sno-cones for grownups.
On the way out the door, my pastor mentioned his family makes it with amaretto. That will have to be tried. Soon.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Leo: No More Original Sin
Title thanks to Pete, who wrote that on the sign-a-frame for Leo's baptism Sunday afternoon. We laughed at that a long time.
Highlights from the baptism:
*My pastor almost drowning Leo on the third try (In the name of the Father, and of the Son went just fine, but the Holy Spirit got him in the face). Later Janet mentioned that this might be considered waterboarding, which of course you may take, seriously, at face value. Please do not flame me. It was very amusing.
*Because the AC was turned on in church, Steve (godfather) had a difficult time keeping the baptismal candle lit between the Easter candle and where we were standing. Third time was the charm.
*I forgot to mention to the godparents, Steve and Trisha, that they would be bringing up the gifts, until my pastor kind of gave me the eye and I realized, oh crap, it's time.
*Mike afterwards said, "this is what makes our baptism a good one: drama."
*I had 52 people in my house after mass. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it kinda is. There was just enough brisket...
*Did I mention the amazing brisket? Yikes.
*Cake was good--not as spectacular as the first communion cake, but good. I made fruit salad and cole slaw, but someone else (whee!) made the potato salad, a candy apple salad, cookies, and brownies. There was enough to go around.
*Folks stayed till 3:30 or so. It was a good day. And my house is so danged clean that it wasn't hard to clean up, except that
*I was drunk. Bourbon slush. I did it on purpose. I love that stuff. Bevin, my pastor, and I finished almost a whole recipe by ourselves--sure, other folks had a bit in the bottom of a plastic cup, but the three of us, umm.
*The house still cleaned up fast and I was asleep before 10. Good day.
Pictures tomorrow...
Highlights from the baptism:
*My pastor almost drowning Leo on the third try (In the name of the Father, and of the Son went just fine, but the Holy Spirit got him in the face). Later Janet mentioned that this might be considered waterboarding, which of course you may take, seriously, at face value. Please do not flame me. It was very amusing.
*Because the AC was turned on in church, Steve (godfather) had a difficult time keeping the baptismal candle lit between the Easter candle and where we were standing. Third time was the charm.
*I forgot to mention to the godparents, Steve and Trisha, that they would be bringing up the gifts, until my pastor kind of gave me the eye and I realized, oh crap, it's time.
*Mike afterwards said, "this is what makes our baptism a good one: drama."
*I had 52 people in my house after mass. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it kinda is. There was just enough brisket...
*Did I mention the amazing brisket? Yikes.
*Cake was good--not as spectacular as the first communion cake, but good. I made fruit salad and cole slaw, but someone else (whee!) made the potato salad, a candy apple salad, cookies, and brownies. There was enough to go around.
*Folks stayed till 3:30 or so. It was a good day. And my house is so danged clean that it wasn't hard to clean up, except that
*I was drunk. Bourbon slush. I did it on purpose. I love that stuff. Bevin, my pastor, and I finished almost a whole recipe by ourselves--sure, other folks had a bit in the bottom of a plastic cup, but the three of us, umm.
*The house still cleaned up fast and I was asleep before 10. Good day.
Pictures tomorrow...
Perfection
Perfection means to completely perform--to come to fruition. To mature, if you will. Sr. Jean put this at the end of her oblate letter this month. It doesn't mean flawlessness. It means completeness. Hmm. Thinking about that today.
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