Things I wonder about

Inspired by Mali's similar post.

Things I wondered about this morning on the way to take girls to swim camp:

*Why does this train track see trains headed east bearing coal half the time, and trains headed west, also bearing coal, half the time?

*Why did suburbia decide that alleys were bad ideas? Was it an aesthetic choice? I hate following trash trucks down two-lane secondary roads as they stop at every driveway.

Things I wondered about while traveling from photo shoot to photo shoot later in the morning:

*What were the bad funeral directors in Columbia, Missouri, thinking, anyway? This wasn't a plan that would work itself out. You can't forever collect money for cremation and hide bodies in your basement. They didn't even try to bury them or anything. What were they thinking?

*What are those construction workers going to do with that giant pile of granite curbs they've taken out to replace with shoddier concrete ones? Is there a market for 100 year old granite curbs? Why couldn't they leave well enough alone?

*How long will these new in-fill houses look new, and how badly will they age?

*I wonder if Colleen's garden is doing any better than mine.

Things I wondered about as I drove kids home from swim camp:

*How is it that in 2 weeks this swim camp has taught Sophia the 4 racing strokes but swim lessons every summer for the past three years did nothing but make her dependent on fun noodles?

*Why is Maeve's neck so short? Who does she look like?

*Does Sophia's hair breakage indicate a vitamin deficiency? Should I even mention it to the doctor and risk blood tests? When am I going to get my health-act together?

Thing I wondered about as I had dinner with friends to celebrate Sophia's birthday:

*Maybe I could join Facebook. Maybe I could join as a bird or a cat or something and be all stealthy. But why? Why would I? What purpose would it serve?

Thing I wondered as I joined Facebook:

*My God, he's still married. He's still friggin married. How stupid can that woman be?

I Love Lists

From Mama's Losin It (I also love writing prompts): List your 7 favorite summer items. Hmm.

This has been an odd summer. June had no plan; July was jam-packed. July was also the coolest on record (so a good year for our HVAC system to fail, actually!). The garden is lousy because of the weather but I cannot complain. Really. I haven't seen much of either sister, but plenty of my mother, who is still recuperating from her knee replacement surgery. It's just been atypical.

So 7 items? Let's give that a try.

1. Iced Coffee. Leo is letting me drink coffee again, and life is better because of this. Hot coffee on hot summer days, though, is unappealing. I don't make coffee strong enough at home to take ice, so this is something I only do outside the house--Bread Company, Starbucks, the Gelateria on South Grand. Bevin and Bridgett Go To The Starbucks Drive Through could have been the title of last summer's movie of my life. This summer, not as often, but this week? I drive past coffee after dropping girls off EVERY DAY at swim camp.

2. Highlights. I have ash brown hair starting to go, well, a little more ashy (gray). And I completely, totally, trust my hairdresser, Jo at Salon St. Louis. I never thought blonde would be the choice for me, but 3 summers ago she lightened me up a bit and gave me some nice highlights (that match Maeve's natural streaks, I mean, could that girl have better hair?). Come October, she'll take them back out and let my hair go natural (minus the gray) for about 5 months. But March comes along and I'm ready for them again.

3. Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad. Stick your face in.

4. Sandals. I have bad feet. Really bad feet. All winter I wear orthotics in my shoes and try not to think about how old I am. But summer comes and I am rewarded for all my hard work with...birkenstocks! Yay! Just kidding. My feet love them but they look like...birkenstocks. And then I discovered, thanks to Ann, QVC (don't laugh). (Ok, you can laugh). QVC sells pretty birkenstocks. I have a pair of black leather ones that criss cross on the top. A pair of three-strap blue ones, but the blue is actually a paisley print. They last for freakin ever but next summer I'm going to get another pair.

5. Bike trailers. We're back on the bikes, now that Leo is sitting up and seems sturdy enough to ride on bike trails (not on the street, mind you) in the bike trailer with Maeve. It means I haul an extra 100 pounds behind me; Mike has Sophia on the trail-a-bike (temporary tandem). I love biking. My mind is blank when I ride bikes.

6. Clothesline. I am not faithful to the clothesline in the winter--I have a line in the basement for things that cannot be dried in the dryer, but for the most part, I use my dryer in the winter. When things warm up, though, I love my clothesline. I love the smell of sheets dried in the wind, I love the magic way the sun bleaches baby stains, and I do love the meditative process of hanging clothes up and bringing clothes in. Things get put away faster and everything seems to work better for me. Just me. Mike hates it when I line dry his jeans. Sophia things line-dried clothes are rough on her skin. So we still use the dryer some...

7. Flowers in my yard. The surprise lilies are up; a few weeks back were Sophia's stargazers. Before that it was flags and daylilies and vinca and iris. Marigolds try in my yard, but don't do too hot. Hostas are blooming, the live-forevers are starting, and that first harbinger of warmth, the daffodil, reminds me every year of the heritage in my yard. My grandmother Penny planted them, from daffodil bulbs in her yard, which are from her mother's yard, which her father brought home in his pockets from beautification projects he did with the WPA. Love them.

So that's my 7. Harder than I thought it would be. Like I said, it's been a weird summer...

Penny's Doing all Right. Huh.

Ok, so they've moved my grandmother out of the ICU. My aunts and uncles have found a place for her to sort of rehab after the hospital releases her (she's not sick enough to stay there, but too weak to go home). It's down my way, in south county, which is nice to hear. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. She's not out of the woods but she has a path, at least.

My aunt Chris says she still doesn't recognize her (Chris) but looks at her and knows she should recognize her. She didn't know my uncle Glennon, either, but for some reason knew his friend John. My aunt Paula fares better in her memory. She is the oldest, after all. Chris is blaming the narcotics for most of this. She gets worse in the evening, but starts the day pretty well.

I really didn't think she was going to make it. As my brother Ian put it last week "she's a trooper." She is. If any 82 year old woman was going to do it, she was.

It's been making me reflect on life, on what, if anything, is important. I mean, things are important, right? But can we know them? Do we make a difference? In any way that we plan? Lilies of the field, sparrows in the air kind of thinking.

And then Sophia and I made brownies last night and ate some while they were still melty hot. I read a history textbook before I fell asleep. This morning I had coffee. I'm getting my hair cut this afternoon. I'll take a bike ride with the family tomorrow. I'm living in declarative sentences. Trying not to overthink it all. Or fall into a trance. Or count too many chickens.

But I'm hopeful.

Ten On Tuesday: Ten Favorite Sounds

Hmm. Ten favorite sounds? Ok then.

1. Baby giggles
2. train horns
3. steamboat whistles
4. campfire crackles and hisses
5. ocean waves
6. electric fans (window, box)
7. bird song--especially ones whose "words" I know (who cooks for you? What chew, birdy birdy; oh sweet Canada)
8. orchestras warming up (the cacophony before the final tuning)
9. roller coaster cars on tracks
10. church bells

I haz a bored

We've started talking like idiots around our house, using the weird faux English common to the lolcats websites.

Just now as I noticed I had no email, the baby isn't sleeping, the husband isn't home yet, I thought to myself, in all seriousness, "I has a bored."

It's time for summer to draw to a close and routine to return. Srsly.

The Summer Sophia Came Together

I was talking with Mary and Maloki Saturday night about another friend of mine who already has it all planned out for her two kids, everything they will do, when, how she and her husband will handle it all.

"But kids don't always do what you think they're going to do," I lament. "They don't read. Or they have a seizure. You know. They don't always follow your plan."

I am not one to share great hopes about my kids and who they are and who they might be. Maybe it's the Irish in me (I say that only based on a college class I took that focused heavily on the works of Roddy Doyle). I have hopes for them, always kind of changing a bit here and there, but as much as I say about other things, I try to keep that one thing kind of close.

Sophia is my oldest, and things weren't all going well. Really. She's gorgeous and happy and good with friends and polite and agreeable and all those good things. But the reading. What the heck was going on? She could knock out fraction division problems and do square root problems but was showing classic signs of dyslexia (or perhaps more specifically, dysgraphia). I was starting to panic but tried very hard to keep that tamed down. I had always just assumed my kids would be early readers. I was, after all. But not so much with little Sophie.

But it's fixed now. I don't know if it was Kumon or believing that Kumon would help, or her teacher going over sandpaper letters again, or comic books, or what. Probably a synthesis, like everything. She reads now.

She reads. She placed in a dance at the feis. She learned to swim last week. Seriously. She attended a private swim camp and now she knows all four racing strokes. I don't even know the butterfly well enough to accomplish it for a whole length of a lane (I can do the other three--freestyle, back, and breast). But she knows it.

Piano is going well. Her ups and downs with one of the friends on the block seem to be over (and are now just relative ups). She still does her fair share of whining when it comes time to do chores, but even that is better.

We're going out for her birthday later this week. Suddenly she's 8 and it's all coming together. She's always going to have a bit of a left-handed brain, I realize, but it's made me make room for that in my life--made me grow, too--and the areas where she needed to catch up to speed, she has.

And so I have great hope (again) for this coming school year.

Now if we can keep Maeve healthy and well rested enough*** to let her mile a minute brain do its work, we'll be ok for a few moments before Leo comes tugging at my shirt tail asking me why why why.

***Maeve hasn't been sick since early June. Really. I can't believe it either--this is the first month she hasn't been sick in EIGHTEEN MONTHS. Oy.

Houston Memories on this Summer Day

From "H is for Houston" on my old Alphabridge blog:

Living in a two-bedroom furnished apartment in Clear Lake, looking for a house. Driving around in the station wagon, parking on the hottest asphalt parking lots you can imagine. Hard to breathe hot. Run from the car to the air conditioned building as fast as you can hot. Humidity rising from the ground like waves of mirage. Intense, the asphalt smelling like new tar on a roof.

Moved into suburbia--Houston is so big it takes my brother in Cypress, a northwest suburb, almost 3 hours to get to Galveston. When we lived there, in a southeast suburb, it took us about 40 minutes. Sticky grody Galveston. On a semi-dry day, meaning the humidity was only at about 85%, you could take a deep breath and smell the salt, my early childhood in the California desert.

In the summertime, the clouds would build up into giant thunderheads, and then at 4 o'clock, you could stand in the middle of the street and watch the storm come in. And pass over you, soaking you with warm splashes of rain. The mud smelled like my first grade classroom in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Coming from a snotty ritzy southern high school in Georgia, walking into my south Houston alma mater that first day was a shock. Bullet holes in the front door. The smell of too many floods and not enough dehumidifiers. Our hall passes were chunks of the gym floor--while at the school in Georgia, they still had the original 1945 floor in their gym, pristine and shiny, in Houston, Alicia had taken care of the last one. In Houston, there are hurricanes. And nothing lasts. Not always a wipe out. Just that things age faster there. Fall apart. Mold. Nothing is built to last, not the houses, the neighborhoods, the stores, the corporations, the oil. A mix of rot and volatile organic compounds off-gassing.

At night lying out on the driveway of his house, in Houston proper, but on the edge of Pasadena, the sky would be orange and glowing. We could hear trains. And cows. And then, if we paid close attention, the owl would pass silently overhead. The chinaberry tree dropping its detritus on my "Rebel with a cause: the cause is Christ" t-shirt from campus ministry while I helped his mother bury their German shepherd in their backyard. Dirt smelled just about as close to toxic as I want to stand 4 feet deep in. The salt from my sweat, running down into the corners of my mouth.

Cigarette smoke on my clothes, staggering out to my car, the whole world covered in a fine mist of dew. Trying not to breathe, the heavy presence of manure filling my lungs--6:30 in the morning, I've missed curfew for the second night in a week, and it's already 88 degrees.

A Marmot for Indigo Bunting

A marmot, basking in the sun on a warm black rock at 12,000 feet in the Rockies.

Feis Report

Today was the St. Louis An Samhra Feis (which I believe means "summer feis" but correct me if I'm wrong). Anyhow, it's the one our school runs every year, out in westport. It was Sophia's 4th feis--last year at this one was the first time she competed, getting 4th place in both jig and reel for her class. Then at the Gateway Feis that August, she got 3rd in reel and 4th in jig. And that ended her career as a beginner dancer, which means jumping off the feis cliff into stiffer competition.

We've watched girls go from top of their game as beginners straight to the bottom for a year of "Beginner 2". And that's exactly what Sophia did in February at Irish Arts' feis downtown. Still only competed in jig and reel. We didn't sign up for email results so I have no idea where she placed. Not in the top four is all I know. And from that point, I figured we'd have a year or two ahead of us with no placing at all (either top four or top six depending on the feis, and I am no expert on this). In order to move out of beginner 2, a dancer must medal--first, second, or third--in any given dance. Then the next January, she moves up to novice in that dance. I figured we'd have a better shot come next spring when some of the better dancers move up themselves and Sophia had more experience and so forth.

Also between the February feis and today, she started dancing with an older girl who lives nearby once a week. She figured out the slip jig and single jig. Even started thinking hard shoe dances weren't as horrible as she thought. But she has been very restrained. She was willing to do all the soft shoe dances in beginner 2 this feis, but told me no on the hornpipe and treble jig (hard shoe--don't ask me to describe any of these; they all look the same to me). So I signed her up for the 4 soft shoe dances for today and (unbeknownst to her at this point) signed her up for those 4 plus the hornpipe for the feis in September...

Well, we figured she might have a chance to place in the top 6 of the single jig because there were only 9 competitors (as it turned out, though, there were 10 girls who danced single jig today in her class for some reason). Her other dances all had 14 girls. I suggested she concentrate on that one and dance the best she could on all the dances, of course, but don't get bent out of shape about them. She agreed, and I think her head was in the right place this morning at 7:00 when we started packing the van to go.

It was her first feis in a blue school dress and a wig. WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE. Not only does she look like she knows what she's doing, and like she's, oh, about 15, but it was so much easier to get ready this way. Maeve is getting a wig before her first feis. I give up on curling that dang hair. And dress as soon as our school director lets me. That white blouse and navy skirt and sash--it's hard!

So she danced and didn't seem too nervous and after she was done, around 10, she changed and we went over to the starbucks so I could have a cup of coffee before I had to go work (I was a stage runner for the champion stage--the older girls in their solo dresses and flying through the air and so forth). I headed back to check in and the rest of the family went down to the results room, just to see. I walked down the steps to join them after I figured out where I needed to go, saying a quiet little prayer of please let her place in something. Not medal, just place, even if the odds aren't with us. Let her number be on that board or I'm never getting her back to a feis, ever. So I walk in and she's showing her competitor number to the results volunteer, who is handing her a third place medal! In jig! Yay Sophie!

It's funny, in a way, how I go from "you danced really well and gave it your best shot and you are so brave and good at this" to "yay Sophie" stage mom in about 10 seconds flat. I did not make a scene of any kind, I promise you. But we were all very happy.

So this means next January she enters the next level of competition in the jig, which of course will be another long time of waiting and trying and not placing and that's ok. I feel like she's a middle of the road dancer in general and all is well with that scenario. She's happy, she's open to competing in the future, and Maeve's standing there pulling on my shirt asking if she can dance at a feis sometime soon. I'm thinking this time next year.

Photo Friday: In Shadow

At St. Pius, the St. Joseph Altar has a depiction of the death of Joseph. Christ supports him while Mary kneels in front of him in sorrow. It always appears to me that Christ is whispering something to him in the shadows there. Thought of this immediately when I got the photo friday email.

Penny's Hanging in There

The last from my aunt Chris was that they had pinpointed the infection (they knew its name and therefore what antibiotic to use) and that she was more aware of what was going on. Still in the ICU and still day-to-day but who knows? She has a rather strong will.

They Just Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

A writing prompt from Mama's Losin' It.

They Just Don't Make Kids' Winter Coats Like They Used To

Seriously. That's what I'm going to write about. As an aside, in high school, I used to attend academic competitions (yes, I am a dork, always have been). The second high school I attended, this was limited to team competitions in math and science and "academic bowl" which is a nice way of saying "trivia contest." Mike did these, too, by the way, I'm not alone. I think it's like gay-dar except it's for geeks. Anyway, at the third high school, I did the academic bowl but I also did these weird competitions that happened at the same time and place as speech and Lincoln-Douglas debate stuff. In my defense, I also placed in photography, but the ones I did really well on were spelling and essay writing. SURPRISE! We'd be assigned a topic, usually something to do with current events or controversies, and we'd have two hours. No research materials. Just go. So "They don't make it like they used to" is nothing compared to trying to fix the crack-addicted newborn population in 2 hours with no reference materials. I got first place at regionals for that one. DORK!

So, yeah. They don't make children's winter coats like they used to. I have these pictures of my brother and me in Wisconsin, in St. Louis, in Columbia, Missouri--we're wearing parkas. Anoraks, I believe they're called in other English speaking countries. Which, ironically, is a slang term for someone, well, like me. Yeah.

But these coats. They were navy blue or army green. Inside, they were blaze orange. The sleeves were sometimes fake-fur lined, and the inside of the hood definitely was, with a ring of fake fur around your face. The hoods were connected permanently to the coat. They zipped with sturdy metal zippers, they had pockets, they were warm and lasted and lasted and lasted. All of ours were hand-me-downs from cousins and uncles. They had our last name, BLAKE, hand-embroidered on the tag in red thread, sometimes with a laundry markered LUPO below that if they'd come from my dad's cousins along the way.

They were gender-neutral, which is to say masculine, with no adornment, no bling. They were machine washable and could go in the dryer. They kept us dry in the snow, blocked the wind, and they were from K-Mart. Or Sears. Really. I remember the tags.

Nowadays, if I were to put Sophia in a winter coat from Target, say, it probably would not last a season. The plastic zipper would break. The detachable hood (who thought that was a good design feature?) would get lost. Plus, it would get sopping wet in the rain and snow and she'd be waiting by the curb at school pick up time hopping up and down because the wind would cut right through it.

So I don't dress her in winter coats from Target. I try to find coats on sale, or beg for hand-me-downs (or search the resale places) for better brands. And they still don't do what they should. They'll have rhinestones on them, which means even if they were good enough to pass down, what's Leo going to do, anyway? Wear a leopard print rhinestone winter jacket that says "Sassy" on one sleeve to kindergarten? These are rejected.

Many still have the hated detachable hoods, leaving a gap in the back where the wind gets in. Some of them are even dry clean only. Stupid decorative leather patches adorn the sleeves. They have extra ties and doodads to fall off and lose. Or they don't have pockets. Children's coats infuriate me.

I asked my mom out of desperation if she still had any of the parkas leftover. No, she told me, she'd passed them on to Adrienne/Amanda/Adam/Julie/Whatnot long ago. Oh well. So I got online and tried to find something that would work. I found similar parkas, well, of course updated and space age or whatever. Some are camouflage or solid black. Some are pink. Guess which ones my kids will have to wear. Most of them, if I want one with an integral hood, metal zipper, and parka length, are in the $150-250 range. Really? I am way too cheap for that, living in St. Louis where it just doesn't get cold like it used to. We're not in Fargo...

But then I envision little Maeve freezing her tuckus off last winter as we walked through the dry cold wind to the store/church/school and almost clicked to buy. Almost. But I have a few months and I'm going to keep looking. I keep envisioning walking into Value Village and finding three parkas, size 8, 5, and 12 months, all in navy blue, on a rack together. It won't happen, but maybe there'll be a sale at Cabelas.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

My grandmother is one of those folks who has become a bigger story than she really is. I guess that happens in every family. She's kind of a divisive figure in many ways, but that happens, too, when the family is a modified matriarchy and the matriarch isn't, well, the easiest person to get along with. Her name is Odelia, but she never went by that--always by Penny, which isn't a middle name or anything like that. Just what she goes by. Always.

She raised 8 kids up in Overland, in a two bedroom house that later had two rooms added on. My dad is third of those eight; I've written about some of the others (most recently, probably, Glennon, who took the tree down in my backyard almost a year ago). My grandfather, who died in February 2004, I wrote about just recently.

As a kid, I hated going to their house. So dull. Unless of course I had a chance to go down to the basement and snoop around. Which I did whenever I could, finding such amazing treasures as:

*A dresser, like a 6 or 8 drawer, taller than me dresser, filled with baby food jars filled with buttons. You know you want that.
*Musical instruments. Lots of them.
*a pool table, hot tub, and dark room. Seriously.
*jars of broken rosaries
*bags of yarn, cardboard barrels filled with fabric
*religious icons, heads carved out of coconuts, kids games from the 1960s, a fridge that still had the locking mechanism that was outlawed, extra sets of dishes (not extra dishes--extra SETS of them), food in the large cans, like the size school cafeterias would purchase.

Their garage was about the same--no room to really park a car, unless it was a British convertible or a motorcycle. Stuffed to the gills. Yet she always knew where everything was. Always. She would talk about having a garage sale, and my father would comment that she'd have to rent out Busch Stadium...they moved out of Overland sometime around 1999 and I got passed a bunch of stuff (in lieu of the sale, I suppose). Now she lives in a duplex in St. Peters, too small to really accumulate a bunch more stuff. Plus she slowed down in the last 10 years and didn't make it to as many thrift stores.

Because she would go to places like St. Vincent de Paul or Goodwill and knew how to shop. My sisters get some of their talent through genetics, I'm sure. My grandmother rebuilt my first sewing machine and passed a second one along to me later. She would find things and know whether they were worth the time to rehab. Now, she had more stuff saved up than she would ever be able to pass along to anyone--the back bedroom in their house in Overland, the last time I was there, had more lamps than the lighting aisle at Home Depot. She has a bucket of rocks on her back porch (so do I--it seemed like a good idea). She was not quite a hoarder--no stacks of newspaper or bags of kite string or 200 cats--but she was close.

She taught me everything I know about gardening and about laundry. Also quite a bit about sewing, although I've specialized in different areas. She could take measurements and make a dress, without a pattern. Or take a blouse and make an identical one. Or find something at a second hand store--a wool skirt, a tailored shirt, whatever--and alter it to fit your cat if need be. She could get any stain out of any fabric. Tell you what cleaning product was best to use in what situation. What tree to plant, and when. She could crochet a bedspread out of doily thread. She knows St. Louis like the back of her hand (by parish, of course). I'm pretty sure she could tuckpoint a house in a pinch. She couldn't cook worth a damn--I mean, really--but I have fond memories of onion and cucumber salad, strawberries and vanilla ice cream, and, well. Really.

As I get older, I see parts of her personality coming out in me, which sometimes makes me smile. Other times it makes me worry. Not just the basement full of bizarre things (did you know I have a spare sink, a bathtub, 16 boxes of marble tile, an old hi-fi, 18 boxes of yarn, a playpen that fails all safety tests, and a freezer full of deer meat in my basement? Golly I wish I had a dresser full of buttons...). It's the personality flaws that really shouldn't be genetic that worry me, like my tendency to say what I think especially when I shouldn't. A complete lack of filter in the wrong company. I work on these things because I don't want to be that person. I'll take the thrifty eccentric workhorse identity. But I'd like to be a little (or a lot) less confrontational sometimes. Most times.

Yesterday, my mom called and told me Penny was in the hospital with a kidney infection and septicemia. She's nonresponsive and has a "do not resuscitate" order on her chart. She has a broken vertebra from a fall earlier this summer as well. I know when she was in the hospital in May with internal bleeding, some sort of test saw a shadow in her pancreas. That's not good either. When I looked up septicemia, since that sounded not so great, I found that once you have that diagnosis, you have a 50% of it being fatal, no matter who you are. So I'm sure if you're an 82 year old in failing health, well, you know.

She's my last living grandparent; my mom's dad died when I was in high school and her mom died when I was a freshman at SLU. Death usually doesn't bug me--other people's sorrow always affects me more than the death itself. But this time may be the first. The last time she was at my house, she gave me a Mary statue that her grandmother gave her (oldest granddaughter to oldest granddaughter). It's a little thing, but it connects me back to an orphanage in Cape Girardeau, a civil war veteran abandoning his children and running to Texas, to a story, in other words. The last few conversations I've had with Penny have been fruitful, informative, interesting. I could have had a few more. I probably couldn't have had enough.

This week, I'm shoveling out my basement and our plan is to fix some drainage issues in the southwest corner of our yard to dry it out again. It means digging up a lot of the front yard garden Penny planted (without permission--I got home one day and there she was). But I'll replant it all (I know how now) and it will hopefully help the damp wall and floor in that corner of the basement. I think we'll put up a plaque to commemorate the passing of the torch from oldest granddaughter to oldest granddaughter. The Penny Blake Memorial Basement? Not quite the ring I'm looking for, perhaps. But it doesn't have to pretty to be true.

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Favorite Places to Eat

Hmm. I have a lot of places I eat. I'm not very cutting-edge, though, and I don't spend a lot of money because I often have kids in attendance. Let's face it: I'm lowbrow. I'm also going to limit myself to St. Louis or else I'll be writing a lot of stuff like "that bar Patrick took me to in high school down in Corpus."

In no particular order...and no chains except if there's a second local location...

1. Pho Grand (favorite Vietnamese)
2. Blues City Deli (my God, the pastrami...)
3. Chuy Arzola's (yes, it's back open!)
4. Dressel's Welsh Pub (I preferred it before it went a bit upscale, but still)
5. McGurk's Irish Pub (the chips, the beer, the wings)
6. Adriana's on the Hill (avoiding the provel...)
7. The Kabob House on Grand, whatever it's calling itself these days
8. Crown. Candy. Kitchen. (I don't think I've ever had a meal there, but I've had the calories)
9. Pizza A Go Go (favorite St. Louis style pizza)
10. The Royale (favorite bar at this point: smoke free and filled with women who look like my sister Bevin)

Photo Friday: My Favorite Spot

Rock Eddy Bluff Farm, near Dixon, Missouri.

I probably have been to more magical spots, or more majestic, but of everywhere that I go to and return, this is what I think about when I think about getting away. About being someplace just about perfect--a retreat, a vacation, not too far, with my family and friends, again and again and again.

This is the view from the house where we stay there.

Six Months Ago...

I was packing for the hospital. I was pretending I wasn't nervous about surgery. I was hopeful and frantic at the same time.

I didn't get to bed until after midnight, and stayed awake until after 2 thinking about prime factorization of numbers. The alarm went off at 3:45.

I had Leo 4 hours later that morning.

Things are good now.

Thinking About Former Students...

Finding those papers in my basement got me to thinking about kids I've taught. Some of them I see every Sunday at church, or at least I run into their parents and can find out what's going on. I saw Rachel just today--I'm still tutoring her on occasion (probably for the last time but it's been a good run after all).

But others, I was thinking, how would I ever find them anyway? Would I want to?

Well, Missouri has this handy little tool called casenet. You can search by litigant's name. This is how I kept up with the Rios trial and was able to update folks about when things were coming to a head with that.

I don't remember all the full names of the kids I taught, and some (Michael Robinson, anyone?) are so common it's not worth even looking. But some are rare enough to hunt for. And they have birth years so I can narrow it down and be pretty sure.

I was happy to not find Sophia or Darrell there. But I did find Sophia elsewhere. She's in college. Engaged. Looks happy.

And from the look of his facebook page...ah well, maybe Darrell will figure it out.

Pervis did something on a bus, a misdemeanor.

Jarvis has stolen some cars.

Justin's in jail for burglary, marijuana, theft--the page went on and on.

Other names I didn't even bother with.

Never found John, on casenet or anywhere else. I'll check for him again in 3 or 4 years.

Now I have to sleep.

Please pray

Please pray for my friend Rachel and her husband Marvin--Sophia's dear wonderful godparents who live in Kansas--and their family. Marvin lost his mother about three months ago, and now this past weekend his only brother Charlie as well.

We just saw Rachel and her kids (Marvin was on retreat) last week on our way home from Colorado. I was so exhausted from the trip I don't feel like I was completely present, although it was, as always, so good to see her and their new baby (two months younger than Leo) and their boys (Maeve's age, and between Maeve and Leo). The kids didn't fight much and I felt refreshed when we left that morning to head home.

I met Marvin's mother, only a few times, most surrounding their wedding, but I also stayed at their house when Rachel came back into town for a brief time during her two year Jesuit volunteer commitment in Nicaragua. That was the only time I met Charlie as well.

You know, Mike has two brothers and a sister; I have two sisters and a brother. Both of us have both parents still living and well; we each have a paternal grandmother still alive. I have a niece and Mike has two. And so forth. Big families. It's easy to take it for granted. Rachel is an only child and both her parents have died; now Marvin's brother and their children's only uncle is gone as well.

I am just one person, we are just one family. But besides the connection with Sophia, I need to remember to remember to be there, be here. To not lose touch, as it gets so easy to do with kids and school and neighborhood and church and so forth. Rachel has been so dear to me, since college, and I need to remember that Kansas City just isn't so far away. And I can type and make a telephone call.

I wish I could be there, Rachel. Let me know what I can do.

A link for Lali (and anyone, really)

I read this on Eric Carle's blog and thought of your stories of childhood farming.

Eric Carle is, hands down, my favorite children's author. When I taught first grade (the third year, at the catholic school in south city), my kids wrote to authors and illustrators. A lot of kids picked Carle, granted, but of all the recipients, he was the only one who wrote back. A hand-written note on a postcard. I think I was more thrilled than they were.

And now he's 80 and I read his blog.

Photo Last Friday: Eyes

I was busy. Here's last week's subject...

Tell Us About Grandpa

A writing prompt from Mama's Losin It (via Texan Mama):

Tell Us About Grandpa....

My dad's dad was old by the time I knew him. I remember him driving me to the airport one time with my uncle in the front seat and the two of them reminiscing about motorcycles. When he caught another uncle using the oven to dry out marijuana, he told him disdainfully that he used to "throw out shit better than that."

Here are two things I've written about him.

My grandfather was the local union leader of airline mechanics for Ozark Airlines here in St. Louis. He'd been wary of the union (IAM) coming in. And when it did, they always managed to work things, bargaining, and never went on strike. Until they did. And he told his men, ok, now you've done it, and we're going to do this right. If you cross that line, I'll be waiting for you at the end of the day. I always envision him like John Henry hitting the ground with a sledgehammer or something at the end of this strike vote. But what probably was happening was a bunch of nervous young men standing around a musty hall, smoking, worried about what their wives were going to say when they got home.

Cause it ain't no picnic to feed and clothe 8 kids on strike pay. My dad recalls my grandmother coming home those days from her job at the A&P with sketchy produce and cans that had lost their paper labels. They'd shake them and she'd open. Ate a lot of odd mixed vegetables. Didn't eat the dog food, though. They weren't that bad off. But there's a lot of skills you learn, a lot of habits you pick up.

At my dad's house, at my accountant small-business owner father's house, with his expensive suits and cowboy hats that cost more than my couch, you open the pantry, and there you go. "Dad, why do you need all these cans of soup and corn and all this stuff?" Bevin asked. She joked that he was getting ready for a nuclear winter.

"No," he replied. "You just never know when you're going to be out of work for 6 months and then what do you feed your family?"

------

And my father remembers:

I only saw him lose his temper twice.

Once, when my mother was trying to hang a clothesline, and kept changing her mind. Over here. No. Let's start it here. Here. No, it would be better--and he put his hammer down and told her when she made up her goddamned mind, let him know. Went inside.

The other time, my sister and her boyfriend at the time--not Charlie, the guy before him--had this huge fight and she stormed out of the house. And he followed saying unrepeatable things. Dad grabbed a gun and followed him out the door.


------
It was all history by the time I knew him.

Tough Girls.

I love them. They're awesome. I didn't even tell them to pose. They just did this together.

Mark 6:31

Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while

Ann asked me yesterday what my favorite part of the trip was. My mind flashed past scenes like these:







And then I replied: doing laundry.

Something about camping makes everything hard work. It's good work, and I like hiking to beautiful places and being in the mountains and doing things out of the ordinary. But I get spoiled by vacations where I do those things and then go back to a hotel room, or at least a cabin with electric lights and a kitchen.

Cooking over a fire (we even baked! We're so cool!), sleeping on the ground (albeit on air mattresses) on kinda chilly nights, having to keep everything food related in the cabin of the truck...it just makes things a little bit harder. On the plus side, well, here's a nice little list:

1. kids loved it
2. campfires are lovely
3. food tastes great when you work for it that way
4. it's so so much cheaper than staying at a lodge or hotel or what have you and, therefore, far more accessible in a year when we weren't planning to take a vacation at all

And the other thing it did is kind of this intangible thing, this perfect exhaustion. After one hike, I was sitting in the truck headed for the place we were going to eat lunch and I finally exhaled, saying, "There is nothing in my head right now."

Mike decided that this was why Benedictines prayed and worked. Work produces a good feeling of work accomplished, but also creates this semi-hypnotic exhausted altered state.

The last two days in Colorado were consumed by this feeling. A feeling of being right now.

On Sunday evening, though, there was no way around the fact that laundry must be done, immediately. I loaded everything--bedding and towels and clothes--into the truck and went over to Dad's Laundry and Public Showers.

I did 6 loads. I walked around with Leo in the mei tai, I sat in the laundromat, I thought about almost nothing.

When I got back and changed all the beds and put all the clothes away while Leo slept in the carseat in the open truck, Mike asked how laundry had gone.

"You know," I started to answer, zipping up the girls' suitcase. "This probably isn't a surprise, but I'm kind of a solitary person. I mean, I'm an extrovert and I love being with people. But I just needed to be alone, get something accomplished, and then come back to all of you."

"So it was good!" he summed up enthusiastically.

Christ and his friends didn't stay away forever. Just long enough to recharge. Then they fed the 5000. Probably over a campfire.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

While I was scanning the blogs I read, which, by the way, has increased by one (my brother has started blogging over at We Are Not Saints, but it is definitely still fledgling at this point), I noticed that today is the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock in the 13th century at Mt. Carmel, which is a mountain in the holy land. It's odd, but I don't really know much about this apparition, frankly, or the Carmelites, even. Odd because my alma mater is Mount Carmel High School in Houston.

I wrote about this earlier, back last spring, but my high school is no more. The diocese shut it down last year after the last class graduated in May 2008. A small group of parents and interested parties started up a charter school called Mount Carmel Academy--almost immediately after the first school closed. I don't know how the charter school is going, one way or another. I don't live in Houston and I didn't have a lot of ties left anyway.

But still. It's weird to find out your high school no longer exists. The charter school might continue some of the charism, maybe, but the place isn't the same. Things are tied to place, for me at least, and it brings up a wave of melancholia every time I think of it being gone. Even though, for the most part, high school kinda sucked.

Seeing that today was the feast day of the namesake, I thought about MCH for a moment. Looked at the alumni association website, noticed who my class rep was. Decided that was enough for today. Maybe next feast day I'll do something more.

Fruit Cocktails and Memorial Day Memory

The first year I taught, I had a hard time. That's sort of an understatement of the highest order. I had a miserable time. But I kept going back, day after day, and I made it through the year. This, by the way, was such a baptism by fire that nothing, nothing, no classroom, no student, no administrator, no degradation at the hands of powerful people, no parent, nothing will ever surprise me or grind me down again. Seriously.

In the classroom, I could shut my door and be with my 18-27 first graders (depending on what time of year it was) and be a teacher. Almost all those kids learned to read by the end of first grade. My three favorite kids (every teacher has them, every year) were Pervis, Darrel, and Sophia. Note my oldest daughter's name. That Sophia was a lot more like Maeve than she is like my Sophia, but it got her name stuck in my head and it stayed there for 5 years until I had that first baby.

I could write a friggin book about that year and it would probably be banned, but there were moments that were worthwhile, times that weren't steeped so far in blood and dirt and despair to be worth remembering.

I was in the basement earlier today, looking for something I did not find, but I found these two pieces of paper. I was hoping there would be another, the one by Sophia that went something like "I am Sophia. I am mad. Sophia. Mad Face." But that one wasn't there. Instead, I found these two. The one above is Darrel's treatise on fruit cocktail. In case you can't read it, it goes, "In the afternoon I eat fruit cocktails all afternoon I eat fruit cocktails. I said all after[noon] I eat fruit cocktails." This one was one of those moments when I just liked my job for a split second.

The one below was curled up and hard to get a good photo of. I had these big white pieces of paper (like butcher paper or newsprint on a roll--I found it in my closet and we used it as often as we could because, of course, we didn't have supplies enough to use writing paper every day), and I'd lay them out on tables and assign topics. This one was "What I did on Memorial Day" and Pervis wrote:

"We (celebrated) Memorial Day and we wint to my Grandpa's grave yard and my grandpa didn't have a tombstone and my grandpa grave was two steps from Kevin's and we put a wreath his grave."



I wonder about Pervis and Sophia and Darrel--hell, I wonder about all of them. But this little sentence, this view of life, is one I memorized long ago and keep with me.

A Few Links About Songs

A few links. To the songs from the list Tuesday, the ones I've written about, over on my song blog. In case you don't have anything better to do. :^)

Hearts and Bones
Roll With It
One Tree Hill
I'm On Fire (I'm especially fond of this one...)
Haunted When The Minutes Drag
Goody Two Shoes
Closer To Fine

Alas, Indigo, I never wrote about Wicked Game. Too bad...

Ten On Tuesday: 10 Favorite Songs from the 80s

Ok, they're some of my favorites from the 80s. I'm not claiming they're any sort of stunning amazing feats of musical talent or watershed moments in music history. Nor am I saying for sure and for all time that these are my favorite all time hits from the 80s. They're just the first 10 that came to mind when I thought about it. Enough disclaimer? ;^)

1. Hearts and Bones by Paul Simon
2. Roll With It by Steve Winwood
3. One Tree Hill by U2
4. I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen
5. Haunted When The Minutes Drag by Love & Rockets
6. Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant
7. 200 More Miles by Cowboy Junkies
8. Faith by George Michael (did I really just write that down??)
9. Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls
10. Wicked Game by Chris Isaak

Kansas Night, Kansas Morning

Girls (And Mike) on Horses

The first evening in, we rode horses. Or, rather, they rode horses. I drove the truck to meet them halfway with Leo, and we had dinner (a cookout, part of the ride they went on). After, I took Mike's place on the horse with Maeve and rode about 20 minutes back to the stables. I don't know how Mike did it for an hour. I'm not a great (or even average) horse person to begin with, and then to have a 4 year old sitting in front of me. It was hard, but fun, really. Maeve sang songs and didn't pull on the reins too much.

The stressful part was before I met up with them, listening to guides as they came back from trail rides. "Yeah, Hobo threw his rider, got a big scrape on the guy's leg," like it was just no big thing. By the time I saw them at the cookout, I was expecting the worst. But all was well and everybody seemed to have a good time.

Girls in Kansas

I have mountain pictures but I loved Maeve's hair here and decided to post it first.

Air Conditioning

So here we are, no air conditioning. It's not so bad. We have a high powered window unit in the bedroom that keeps our room and the front guest room frigid, so sleep isn't a problem (except that the girls have to share a bed, which brings out the worst in them at this point). Ceiling fans in the library/computer room and the bathroom make them livable (plus the bathroom is all ceramic and marble tile, so it has the feel of cold even if it isn't). The kitchen is tough. Even with a fan, it gets warm. I'm trying to figure how to cook without the stove heating up the house. Crock pot and microwave here we come.

We have estimates coming Monday and Tuesday and I guess we'll plunk down the money Tuesday or Wednesday. Sigh.

Something about this sort of thing brings out my hoosier roots. Like, the AC failed because of something I did or didn't do and I spend a lot of time reminding myself that it isn't because I'm poor white trash, it's because my AC unit was really old (29 years old, actually). I never think this about other people when things like this happen. I just have a hard time convincing myself that these are things that just happen in life. I have an overactive intrinsic responsibility gene or something. It is always my fault...dipshit.

So anyway, posts may be erratic. Or maybe overabundant. Depending on how much else I have to do or how much time we spend at the art museum, library, mall, anywhere with cool air blowing.

Birds Report

Of course, the bird report from the trip.

Mary and Brent spotted, and then I snapped a photo of, a dark eyed junco, but the southern rockies "gray-headed" version, with the gray body and the brown patch on its back. This one was nearly tame, up at Emerald Lake looking for a handout (which it didn't get from us but an amazing number of obviously illiterate people were more than happy to oblige). I at first thought this was some kind of bunting, but the field guide didn't have the imaginary bird I was looking for. Huh. This winter when the slate-back juncos return to my magnolia I'll have to let them know I met some cousins.

Stellar's Jay waiting to steal our lunches, although not as bold as the Californian Stellar's jays we met three years ago. Those seemed to work together, triangulating positions and chirping like mad for us to put down the sandwich and nobody gets hurt. This one was on its own, watching as the ground squirrels got fed potato chips by some dolt and his family: "Look, they'll eat right out of your hand!" Sophia and her friends were just about to tell that guy to stop it...I was just hoping for hanta virus...but in the end we just cleaned up and moved on.

Mountain bluebirds on a couple of occasions, but too quick for my camera. Ravens, of course, which always seem like they're going to walk up to me and tell me something important ("I know what your trouble is, it is such and such. I have the answers for you. Meet me at Lindell and Euclid on the 21st of July...") (Ok, I'm a little sleep deprived). Western meadowlarks and common yellowthroats in Oklahoma on the way out.

Magpies, too, which look like crows until they turn and you see the white wing patches. I like them. I think they were yellow-billed but this one of course is shy.

Clark's Nutcracker, up above the treeline, waiting for us on the road. My guide to western birds mentions that these get tame enough to eat from your hand as well. Once again, not from our hands. But anyway, I like the Peterson description of habitat: "High mountains, conifers near tree line, mountain resorts." I like birds that decide that resorts are the place to live. Better than one of the eastern gulls, which has in its habitat description "dumps, shopping mall parking lots, fast food restaurants." Sounds like the American Teenager.

Also saw a ring-necked pheasant, mallard ducks, a variety of sparrow and robin sized brown birds that I didn't get enough details on in the moment to look up later, and broad-tailed hummingbirds all over our campsite.

Good and Bad

The good thing is that we took 9 days and went to Colorado.

The bad thing is that the first two nights out there I just about froze to death.

The good thing is that after that, the night temps rose about 5 degrees and we got things figured out.

The bad thing is that we only stayed out there for 4 nights (the rest of the time was a leisurely drive there and back).

The good thing is that our campground was in the National Forest.

The bad thing is that the nearest city was Estes Park. A little crowded.

The good thing was 3 days in Rocky Mountain National Park.

The bad thing (not really bad) was sore feet from a 4 mile and a 5 mile hike.

The good thing was traveling Trail Ridge Road.

The bad thing was the negative fantasies of plummeting to our deaths off the highest continuous road in the US.

The good thing was seeing Rachel and her children on the way home.

The bad thing was the Chinese food we had the night before. MSG delight, anyone?

The good thing was a Kansas state cabin on the way out to Colorado one night.

The bad thing was forgetting to call for late arrival instructions on the way back.

But the good thing was a great hotel room in Salina instead.

The bad thing was the sheer exhaustion from 4 nights in a tent and 4 days seeing all we could.

The good thing was borrowing my dad's truck instead of trying to take the van.

The bad thing was getting used to having the girls RIGHT BEHIND YOU when you drove.

The good thing was coming home to pets and not too big a mess and almost everything is put away.

The bad thing was that the AC is broken again and now I get to call for estimates today.

The good thing is that Gina is here to tune my piano.

The bad thing is that I could have slept a few more hours!

Pictures later. They're all good things. Looks like rain outside. Maybe I'll get a nap later on...

Be back shortly

With lots to say.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things That Turn You Off About People

Ok, I'm thinking none of these will surprise anyone. In no particular order (although #1 bugs me most of all):

1. People who think that because we agree on X, we must agree on Y. Just because my kid goes to your kid's school or just because we're both Catholic or stay at home moms or whatever.

2. Political bumper stickers

3. Folks who tell me how to be a better mother (like strangers or semi-strangers who say such helpful things as "that baby should have socks on!")

4. People who talk to me through my kids. Like: "I'm sure your mommy wouldn't want you to do that!" when I'm standing right there.

5. People who refer to secret information to each other in front of others not in-the-know. It doesn't matter if I'm the other one in the know or if I'm out of the loop. The moment you say, "well, you know what was said, you know, umm, you know..." you've lost my support.

6. People who think they are better people because they've been a part of a given set longer than I have. Whether that's political or religious or how long their family has been with the preschool--whatever. If you say "well, I've been ________ for a long time" knowing that I haven't, you've lost me. This also applies to folks who throw around their education level. I catch myself doing this sometimes (the former, not the latter, with my lowly little BA in education) and I always kick myself. Because I hate it even when I do it.

7. People who think the world is their ash tray.

8. People who think dogs are welcome anywhere.

9. People who use Christianity as an excuse to hate people. This often gets coupled with #1 on my list. Not only do they hate people, but they assume I do, too.

10. Pulling a poor little rich girl act. If life is so hard, how about downsizing it a bit? Sure, some of this might be envy on my part but some of it just makes me shake my head and wonder why it's so important.

Wasting Time

My mom is having surgery in the morning--it's about 2 in the morning right now and she's due to go under around 9. Knee replacement. I helped her parse out some sentences on a living will she was about to sign. One section that started with the word "Notwithstanding" and just got more confusing from there.

No worries. She's 58 and it's knee surgery.

But I'm still up at 2 in the morning listening to music and reading stuff I've written, which is about the most self-indulgent habit I have. Only more so if I drink while I listen to maudlin crap and read stuff I've written.

But luckily the alcohol is downstairs and I'm too lazy to drag myself down there to drink alone. Haven't done that since...well, since Monday, but anyway.

Sigh. I'm an idiot.

I'm going to bed.