Ten on Tuesday: 10 ways to lighten my mood

I'm actually not that hard persuaded...almost everything involves doing.

1. Get the kitchen clean. Living room too. By the time I'm done I'm usually fine.

2. Go to bed. When my mood is dependent on fuzzy thinking (assuming the worst, perceived conflicts that might not be there, etc), a good night's sleep destroys them.

3. Chat.

4. Change scenery--bike, run an errand (especially alone), garden.

5. Waste time online. Yeah...

6. Organize something: a drawer, clean laundry, bills, refrigerator, kids clothes by season, part of the basement...

7. Vacuum and clean the inside of my car.

8. Make a date with Mike, even if it's weeks away. Plans help.

9. Exercise. Yoga, walk, bike (this also usually produces a change of scenery.

10. Create something: a decent meal, quilting, finish up a project on pause.

House Work

Bill and Sheila's house is coming along. Here is what remains of their old house:
This is my father-in-law unloading his truck this morning when Mike got there. The "before" picture if you will:

And here's how things are going right now:Here are the "tools of the day": note the legos. I'm thinking models were made? (Just kidding--they belong to their grandson, who played with Maeve today, I hear)

Sheila's breakfast nook. She picked this house plan because of this little octagon shaped room. Jeff (my father-in-law) asked her, "What do you need with a nook?" and she told him she just wanted to sit there and watch the snow fall. He pointed out that with the angles, this nook would take more man hours than half the rest of the house to frame and sheet and all that. "Forget it," he told her (she does a wonderful impression of him). And she did, but it showed back up in the plans.

Mike's cousin Jennifer piggybacks Maeve around:

It's coming along:

Maeve and Eli take a break. Love the red liquid in the jars, but especially the gigantic bags of chips! They each have their own!

So that's why I had the feis alone with Leo and Sophia today. Mike is building a house. More to come--there's another weekend next weekend that we'll all probably participate in in some capacity. I can't wait to see progress.

Gateway Feis

So the feis today went well. Leo was insane between Sophia's jig and her treble jig, and then again for her St. Patrick's Day. At first he was content to sit in the stroller and hang out; in the middle of the morning he fell asleep in the sling on my back. But hard shoes are loud and he eventually woke up. We were done by just a hair past noon, which was fabulous, but results didn't get posted until 1:00 for the last dance. THAT was crazy. And then of course we got them engraved (we do this every time because I have a box of ribbons and medals of mine from track and from academic/art competitions, and none of them is marked. So I have no clue what I did when, and I hate that). But the engraver was backed up so we didn't get all that completed until 1:30. We walked around and went outside and investigated the revolving door and whatever. I basically stood up from 8 until 1:30 today, more than half of that with a 25 pound wriggling baby on my back.

Sophia placed third in her traditional set, which is like coming in second in a competition of heads or tails. There were 3 girls dancing and she knew going in that they were both going to beat her--which is a shame to already make that assumption, but one of them is in our school and has perfected that dance. But in more impressive news, she placed third in her treble jig, and that one was for real. Enough dancers to move her into Novice in January, which means she has placed out of 3 of her dances (out of 7)--she's already in Novice jig, and she placed in her single jig, but that one does not continue into Novice? I'm not sure what all that's about. Anyway, she really screwed up in her hornpipe (her words) and forgot to do half a step, which makes you end several bars before the girl next to you and it's obvious you've messed up. She was a little teary afterward but then going over to the results room erased all that.

So she didn't place in the top 3 in her reel, which is what she wanted, but the treble jig place was out of the blue--she's never placed in it before, even in Little Rock where they posted through 8th place or something crazy like that. But she's been practicing...

Good day. We got home and remembered we have a school picnic to attend that starts in just a few minutes. We're going to be late, that's for sure. And I think we'll be driving (it's about a mile and a half walk, which I should do, but like I said, I've been standing all day long and I'm done).

Tomorrow she dances at the International Festival, supposedly at 1 p.m. That should be a good day too.

What I'm Watching

We don't have cable, but we have Netflix, and the words "watch instantly" are in all of our vocabularies (even Leo, although not verbally--he has often fallen asleep on Mike's shoulder during something or another playing on the computer). So what have I been watching lately?

Well, I devoured Doc Martin. Completely. The story of a rude gruff antisocial surgeon (but am I being redundant?) who develops an extreme case of hemophobia (fear of blood), forcing him to resign and take a position as the GP for a small village in Cornwall. Sort of a Northern Exposure set up, with the quirky villagers and mysteries to solve (in that way, it's a bit like Murder She Wrote, with far too many odd ailments for one tiny village), but as opposed to the doctor on Northern Exposure, who is young, personable, and naive, Martin is none of those things. Mid-forties, hates people, excellent doctor, and never settles. It's wonderful. A drama, but comic in its situations.

And of course there's Leverage, although we're watching that week by week on TNT instead of Netflix. Every Sunday, last Sunday's episode appears online. What is Leverage? A modern day Robin Hood story, with a group of criminals who have come together (in the first episode, and then stay) to get something back for a "little guy" (by breaking the law and conning the real bad guys). The first season got a little distracted by the Timothy Sutton's character's personal problems, but the great majority of the shows have been engaging and fun (and I'm always surprised by something).

Last week at coffee, Ann suggested Hotel Babylon, another British show, and I hesitated at first because Ann likes shows like Dexter and Californication, which are things I don't think I could look directly at (although I watch Law and Order...I don't know...). But I was up late and sewing and, of course, Doc Martin is in hiatus until the spring (and then it will be new episodes so who knows when I'll get to see it on Netflix), Leverage is all caught up, and I was tired of watching old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I do love MST3K, but the ones on Netflix are not their best, in my opinion. Netflix tracks what you watch (duh) and you can grade the things you watch, creating suggestions for similar kinds of shows/movies. Netflix has never recommended Dexter or Californication to me....but there was Hotel Babylon. Ok. Ann and Netflix recommend it...

And I watched the first episode. Loved it. Ann's description of Love Boat that doesn't go places, or Upstairs Downstairs in a hotel is perfect. Lives of the staff of a high end hotel in London as guests filter in and out. I'm hooked. Luckily I have plenty of handwork to get done on these quilts...

Sweet Denial

I'm going to a feis tomorrow with Sophia and Leo. Mike has Maeve but it works out that I have Leo. Oh boy!

It's the St. Louis Gateway Feis, which she's only been to once, but with good success (she was a Beginner I that year, but she placed in both her dances). One of the judges was at Little Rock and judged Sophia 1st in her St. Patrick's Day. So I'm hopeful but that's tempered by having Leo all day. Pray that it is swift. She's on one stage the whole morning. I'm packing a lunch and ten thousand things for Leo to do.

She just wants to place in her reel. That's her goal. Mom, I'm so sick of this reel...

After the feis, we have a picnic for back to school in Tower Grove, where the International Festival will be going on at the same time. Empanadas...mmmm.

And Sunday Sophia dances at the International Festival, which is pretty darned cool, frankly, at the Forest stage at 1 pm if you want to come see.

Sometime in all this, probably Sunday post-dance, post-empanadas, I'm working in the yard. Building a short dry stack wall to create a faux raised bed--it's short both in height and in length. The faux part is because it's really going to hide some containers, since it's on top of an old concrete patio in a sad neglected yuck part of our yard.

So good night!

School Whips Up

Sophia and Maeve are exhausted.

I'm happy but also tired.

Leo is teething. Canines coming in. That's why I'm exhausted.

Maeve looks like a refugee, the dark circles under her eyes and sort of a sallow look, smiling.

She is now infamous at school, ala Ramona, already in trouble once ("I had to go to the safe seat today" she informed me). I introduced myself to the social worker/counselor in the context of girl scouting and she said, "Wissinger? Oh, you're Maeve's." Yes, I'm Maeve's.

Sophia had a so-so day after three "perfect" days. She came home and cried today for a variety of reasons, mostly due to her best friend two doors down having something else to do after school. But the other girls on the block, also close, made up for it by going to the park with her. I know that feeling, though, that looming "this day is crap and now it just got worse and there's no way to fix it" feeling. Letting yourself be cheered is so hard.

But everything is, of course, fine. And the year is shaping up nicely.

Brief note about my monastery

Written up in the NCR. I know the couple he's talking about (it's a small oblate group). Eh, I wish I was there this week. What a beautiful time to visit.

Maeve's Our Father

Our father, who are in heaven, let that be our name.
When thy kingdom come, life will be done,
whether if it's on earth or in heaven.
Let us pray over our daily bread
And don't have trespasses against us
Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil. Amen.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started College

1. I wish I'd known that being correct isn't the same as being right.

2. I wish I'd known that my partner in my Public Health class was going to screw me over on our group project so I could have headed her off at the pass. My only college C.

3. I wish I'd known my grandmother was going to die in February of my freshman year so I could have spent more time with her that fall.

4. I wish I'd known that I was going to put on 30 pounds my freshman spring semester so that I could have kept that from happening before it crept up on me.

5. I wish I'd known more about St. Louis geography instead of relying on what I remembered from grade school (meaning I spent too much time in South County instead of finding the same resources closer to school).

6. I wish I'd known (I kind of did) that my longterm relationship was ending so I could have ended it sooner (but not too much sooner, since it was good to be involved with someone going in to avoid the freaks asking me out).

7. I wish I'd known how to calmly argue a point. I came to that later.

8. I wish I'd known that working for Housing would be a complete waste of time, that I didn't have to punish both of us by doing that.

9. I wish I'd known how to say no to folks who equated my competence and friendliness with an offer to help them do everything.

10. I wish I'd known how better to play political games (see #1, #2, #7, #8, #9)

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

Back to school! Maeve is officially a kindergartner. Thanks Kate for the beautiful photo--I left my camera in Cairo this weekend (dang it!!!). So there will be fake first day of school photos next Monday. She won't know the difference in 12 years--uniforms and all.

Another story about the fire

We went to Cairo this weekend for my niece's birthday and to deliver a quilt and two fleece cheater afghans (the ones you tie together on the edges instead of sew) that Sheila just loves. I made her a couple along the way for Christmases and she'd mentioned missing them. So those were easy to make, and this actually was, too, out of blocks from who knows where I found at the bottom of the cedar chest. I wish I'd taken a better photo of it, but this is it finished, and below are some pictures from the process. The thing took me 3 days because the 42 blocks were already put together by some farmer's wife in the 40s. The whole thing is stripes and plaids and little floral calicoes, done by hand more precisely than I would ever have the patience to accomplish. So maybe that's why I picked it up. But really, I don't know why else I would have bothered--it's a simple set of blocks in colors I don't go for, in a pattern I could do in my sleep. But there they were at the bottom of the cedar chest waiting for Sheila.

I know there's a smudge here in the bottom right. It has since been cleaned off my lens. Thanks, Leo. Here below is a photo of the back--I always piece my backs because they are more interesting than a field of white. On this one I used a spare block from the front, some washed out calicoes, and some rice sacks from our local CSA. The illusion of age.Sheila cried and I cried and it was good. I didn't tell her, because I got all verklempt, but it's a variation on a simple pattern called Broken Dishes. And I quilted it in a pattern similar to the log cabin setting called Barn Raising. Sometimes in my quilts there are things only I know. And I kind of like that. The prayer inside the work.

We came home today and got ready for school to start tomorrow. But then my mother-in-law sent me a note this evening. Basically, she and her youngest sister stayed behind after dinner today and went through some things--the fire has sparked, so to speak, a desire to have everything sorted and accounted for in many households. Mary Helen, my mother-in-law, as the oldest daughter, has a bunch of boxes of stuff from her parents' house, and when her older brother Tom died, she inherited the stuff that nobody else had claim to. She and Peggy were going to go through some things to see what could simply be gotten rid of, what should be split up, what should be kept, and so forth.

There was this box behind other boxes they sorted through. Mary Helen knew she'd gone through it before but she opened it anyway. On top was what she remembered, some birth certificates and marriage license and photos and stuff. And on the bottom of this under all the stuff was an envelope. Inside the envelope was a complete duplicate set of her dad's medals from World War II and a bunch of stuff they'd assumed burned up in the fire--some of it had, but here were duplicates, and other stuff had been safe in Mary Helen's bedroom the whole time.

Working on Trivia, I discovered...

Back in 1918, anti-German hysteria was so high that here in St. Louis, Germans had to carry identification cards. Germans were forced to resign from the school board. German street names were changed to honor war heroes (like Pershing Avenue in the Central West End). Luxembourg, Missouri changed its name to Lemay. The library burned all German language books. German language schools and churches shut their doors. Many German families anglicized their names. Most had lived in St. Louis for 40 or 50 years. Many had fought in the Civil War on the Union side. These were Americans.

This anti-German fervor came to a head with a lynching in Collinsville, Illinois, right across the river, of a 29 year old German man named Robert Prager. He was hanged from a tree in front of 200 witnesses. At the trial for those who lynched him, a band played patriotic songs outside. The jury acquitted them in 25 minutes. One jury member was quoted as saying, "Well, I guess nobody can say we aren't loyal now."

A week after the trial, an editorial in the newspaper the Collinsville Herald by editor and publisher J.O. Monroe said that "Outside a few persons who may still harbor Germanic inclinations, the whole city is glad that the eleven men indicted for the hanging of Robert P. Prager were acquitted." Monroe noted, "the community is well convinced that he was disloyal. ... The city does not miss him. The lesson of his death has had a wholesome effect on the Germanists of Collinsville and the rest of the nation."

Elsewhere, Irish Americans and German Americans were accused of disloyalty in a broader, less personal way because they generally opposed the US entrance into World War I. Theodore Roosevelt accused these "hyphenated Americans" of terrorizing politicians and engaging in treason against America.

Seventeen percent of Americans claimed German ancestry on their census form in 2000--the largest single ancestral group (as opposed to race, that is) in the US. Twelve percent claim Irish ancestry, the second largest group. I'm Irish and German. My husband is too. We're all just common white folk now in America, but maybe all of us had better pause and reconsider what some fellow common white folks are trying to do to the latest hated minority group in this country. Before we jump on the bandwagon to stop people from practicing their religion and their customs, maybe we should learn a little history.

Yeah, few if any of us alive today lived through World War I and experienced this sort of jingoistic terror. But if we have last names like Wissinger, Lohrum, Frick, Goebels, Wibbenmeyer, Buchheit, Grothhoff, Vorberg, Baumann, and Hoef in our family trees, if we're Blake and Donnelly, Aiken, Daus, Cronin, Kidney, Dwyre and Moran, it's fairly likely folks who share our blood did. And maybe, just maybe we should stand up with our 17% and our 12%. Maybe we should stand up with our Muslim neighbors and say Never Again.

Trivia Prep

I have a Trivia Night to prepare for--I'm writing the questions for the girls' school's trivia night on October 16. So computer time is potentially going to be sucked away into that black hole...

Note from Mike's aunt

My father-in-law is getting the basement dug this week; we'll be working down there in a few weekends. They got almost the full amount from insurance. There are fundraisers planned to make up the difference. But here's a note I got in my email.

Just wanted to drop a note to all of you and let you know how much it means to all of us what you have done. I am at work and don't have the list with everybodies email on it, so if you would, please pass this on to your children. "49" and homeless wasn't quite what we had planned. We are trying to understand what actually happened, I don't think it has all sank in yet. We are seeing progress of a new home, but it is still bittersweet.... we never asked for one and would take ours back in a heartbeat if only we could. When we think about all the stuff, like my granny's quilts she had made since she was a young girl, and Harry's medals, or the handleless roaster of Sarahs that I thought would magically make my gravy taste like hers :).... truth is we just want to curl up on our old dirty couch and have Dixie under the coffee table as she always was. I think once the shock and numbness wears off, we will be able to comprehend all of this.... but for now, please keep us in your prayers and know that we love you all very much and appreciate all of you.

Love,
Bill, Sheila, Marc, Susan and Eli (God love him, he just wants to go home)

Heebee Jeebees

I have a line dividing bugs into two categories. There are bugs that are innocuous and/or amusing and/or helpful. And there are bugs that make me want to run screaming away from them straight to the shower and never return to the outdoors again.

It's not that surprising list of happy bugs: ladybugs, even things that are kind of like ladybugs, including cucumber beetles; small house spiders (I know they aren't bugs but they are for this list), butterflies, wooly bear caterpillars, pill bugs, ants (I kill them in the kitchen but they are nuisance, not terror); non-flying beetle like things larger than ladybugs (I don't like them if they can fly); praying mantises, crickets, bees, and so forth. I swat mosquitoes but they don't scare me.

The other list is just what you'd think, too: gnarly hairy spiders, anything large and flying at me, June bugs, ticks, roaches (especially tree roaches down in Texas), stink bugs, cicadas, etc.

In the garden a few weeks back, waiting for me on a cucumber plant towards the back, was the spookiest bug I've ever seen. Black and gray, with huge legs, weighing down the leaf. Staring at me. This spiky shield on its back like some kind of medieval armor. Or like some kind of steampunk rendition of bug. About scared me to death. I got real still and listened to the humming of bees and other bugs in the garden that don't bother me. I backed away so I wouldn't disturb plants or this bug, which of course I assumed to be sentient and scanning me for my most vulnerable arteries. I got to the entrance of the garden and then, yes, I ran back up to the house.

A week later I saw it before it saw me. I wasn't knee deep in tomato plants this time. On the path, I could see its shadow and a shiver ran up my spine. I backed away, again, but I controlled myself. My kids were on the swing set.

Well. We're having a cat problem--our most frail cat, Bleys, is getting ganged up on by the other two (Hickory is the same age, but powerful strong, and Jack is living up to his name if his full name was three letters longer at the end...). So I've been trying to protect him, feeding him separately, letting him hide places they can't go, etc. Not sure what the problem is, but anyway. I hear this sad mournful meow from downstairs, and I figure it's Bleys cornered in the dining room and I have to go save him. I head down the back stairs in the dark and get to the bottom. But it's Hickory sitting there, and Jack is in the kitchen. Bleys is nowhere to be found. But something on the ground is moving. I quickly reach into the dining room and turn on the light.

AND THERE IS THAT BUG. IT'S COME FOR ME.

I stand paralyzed, as does Hickory. We both watch it as it ambles into the wall--it moves between the pocket door and the doorframe, disappearing into my house's innards. I shake the door, hoping it reappears so I can, what, kill it with my bare foot? I realize my error and back away. Hickory stares at the crevice. I stare at the crevice. And then carefully shut off the light and back away, assuming that I'm about to step on any number of these same bugs.

But I don't. I make it up here where I am safe from its spiky sawmill wheeled back and long long legs.

I google "hideous bug in my garden." Not kidding. I narrow it down somewhat, but I find the bug. It's a wheel bug. These photos are from Wikipedia--I have not taken any. It's called a wheel bug because it has that wheel shaped armor on its back. Its bite is painful and can leave a scar. It's related to the assassin bugs, killing lots of nasty insects like Japanese beetles (also on my bad list). So in some ways I have to like the wheel bug, like how I like praying mantises. But no.

The Crying Pile, No Pictures on Flickr, but some soon here...

I didn't have the girls clean their room all summer.

Their room is almost the footprint of our entire house--it is the 3rd floor and there are a few knee walls, but seriously, it's a huge place.

Today I did the crying pile method. Got it set up and 1/4 done before it was too late to do more. You know--toss everything into one gigantic pile and start working around the edges to sort it into the places where it goes. I don't make them do this often, but when I'm up there to help, I find it is the most efficient. Breakable things get put away before they hit the pile but everything else just gets dumped.

Their room was a colossal mess. Epic. Ballads will be written about this mess.

Computer update: I still can't upload to flickr, which makes me sad but we'll work it out. But I'm going to spend the time to upload a few onto the blog so everyone can see what we've been up to. There are block party photos on Between the Sycamores; more this week from our barbecue earlier today. Made cucumbers and onions because, dang it, the cucumbers will not stop.

Then it was off to my parents' house for another barbecue, this time brisket. More dinner than barbecue, but it was brisket. Oh was it brisket. Mmm. Brisket. It's been such a busy weekend, from Friday afternoon until right now. So much got done and we were far more social than we appear. But more tomorrow after Maeve goes to her kindergarten orientation and I go for my "parent interview." Whee!

Thryoid results

So my doctor sent my results from the ultrasound, full of words I don't know, but whatever. What I did understand is that nothing is weird from a nodule/tumor point of view. What is weird (and confirms what I can feel in my neck/throat) is that the thyroid, which is a butterfly-shaped gland, is dramatically different in size from left to right. The left side is completely within the normal range of dimensions, and the right side is larger. It is a centimeter and a half larger in one dimension (I assume height), a half centimeter larger in another, and just a few millimeters larger in the third. It only falls outside a normal range on those first two measurements, but there again, I'm not crazy.

Is it wrong to feel confirmed in my not-crazy-ness? To have some satisfaction that it's not just in my head?

So this was sent to me with cover sheet signed by my doctor that simply states "results show no abnormality." I assumes that this means they were looking for serious problems, not just enlargement. Bloodwork won't be back until next Thursday at the earliest, so I'll wait to see what she sends me then. It's hard not to worry--but in this case I'm just worried that this will be ignored and my prescription will stay the same. It's so nice to worry about that (I don't worry much) instead of either worrying that I've got a malignant tumor, OR, like last year, that nobody will pay attention to me.

Let the waiting continue.

In other news my tankini from the British bra shop arrived. Love it. I love how Brits don't fear big-busted women. This has an underwire bra built in. And it wasn't expensive, even with shipping. Pink and white!

Bee My Honeybee

Sweeter than a honey bee oh, baby been sweet on me
Sweeter than a honey bee oh, my queen bee

Lali mentioned in a comment that she hasn't seen a honeybee all year. I have, but I think it's becoming more and more rare, if you listen to the news about the state of honeybees across the country. Hive Collapse Syndrome and cell phone towers and disease and all sorts of theories. They are definitely down for the count.

We live just south of SLU, which is in a neighborhood that has seen both better and worse days. One of the neighborhoods the medical school campus borders is called the Gate District, and it used to be really scary, but is now mostly fallow fields surrounded by black iron fencing (meaning SLU owns it), a Missionary Baptist Church that is grabbing up land as well for all sorts of projects, a few new houses, and a few older ones left standing. But it's those fallow fields that are interesting to this topic.

From what I gather (I have no official information, just what I hear around), one of those fields is now an experimental community garden. There are plenty of community gardens around--our neighborhood has one, there's one to the east of us, and so forth. Empty lots, new life. But this one we always assumed was just the Gate District's version, until recently. Seems that the nutrition program at SLU has taken it over for whatever purpose--to try their hand at growing? To teach their students to run community gardens? I don't know. But I like it.

It's not just raised beds and wilting scarecrows. They have two plastic buildings, like opaque greenhouses. Don't know what they're growing in them. Then a henhouse showed up. And then the bee boxes.

Mike and our neighbor Brent carpool downtown when Mike works down there, and drive past this every day. Both of our families are highly interested in raising bees (and chickens, well, I don't think Mike and Brent are as interested in that). We're watching this lot to see how they do. Hopeful.

There's no law in St. Louis that I can find under their prohibited animal laws regarding bees (we can keep up to 4 chickens, but with the size of my yard I think that's ridiculously high, frankly). Of course with small children, bees probably aren't practical. And we're not running out to do this tomorrow. But we're watching and thinking. Mary does lament the fact that we don't have an empty lot on our block where we could do these activities without interfering on our children's yard access...I think I agree (although I'm glad we don't have empty lots for other reasons!).

Our medians on Grand are full of perennial flowers, and when I stop at the light at highway 44, those little purple ones are always full of honeybees. I want to root for them, have a little cheering section right there. Go bees!

Sauce Day

Last week I finished the last round of pickles--any other cucumbers on the vine we're going to eat. The plants are getting weird out there--cucumbers are a little deformed looking, and the leaves are covered in ladybugs--the red ones, the good ones, not cucumber beetles. But it means they must be infested with aphids. The garden is full of bees (bumble and honey) and many other beneficial insects, but also ants and cucumber beetles and who knows what I'm not noticing. So the cucumber plants are getting elderly and sickly. I harvested the last of them today--many were yellowed, but I'll just peel them before I slice them for cucumber & onions this weekend. And it's done. Hopefully a month of sun will persuade my tomato snarl to produce something red. I'm getting big green tomatoes and nothing is ripening.

So I went to Soulard Market, one of those things in St. Louis that is the "oldest west of the Mississippi" things. It's a farmer's market, although in the last 40 years or so it has degenerated into mostly produce resellers and bizarre things like incense and unlicensed knock off sports t-shirts. Ten years ago I declared it hopeless and stopped going, but then about 4 years ago I tried again. Mary on my block goes religiously every week and knows who's good and who's not. And there were more local farmers and fewer bananas. She has one produce reseller she trusts completely--she calls him the "Fruit Guy", and if you're in St. Louis, he's the one closest to the inside cross in the northwest wing. Merkel, I think.

There are various other people there--Mennonites who make cheese, grungy produce resellers I wouldn't buy a potato from, several butchers, a place in the center cross building (the place is shaped like an H, with the legs half-outdoors and filled with stalls, and the center bar with more permanent stores, like butchers and spices and snacks to eat while you shop. At near 100 degrees today, I allowed the girls each a small snow cone and there was peace as I went around.

So there are two local farmers I buy from when I go (and I suspect I will go more and more in the coming months, now that I'm back on a frugal kick), Scharf's, and the place in East Carondelet, IL. I can't remember their name. I got a veritable ton of green tomatoes from E. Carondelet today, which will be joining my pile of tomatillos and a few jalapenos and onions to make my favorite salsa verde. But at Scharf's, I picked up a cantaloupe--you could smell them through their skins, just standing in the walkway--and more tomatoes than I could carry. They put them in a flat for me and put them on the dock. I drove around after I was done and put them in my own bags directly into the car.

Got home and started chopping--6 onions, 2 green peppers, a bowlful of peeled garlic cloves. Olive oil in the bottom of my big stockpot and simmer. Cored and de-seeded the tomatoes and ran them through the food processor. Mike prefers me to boil and peel but life is too short. The food processor gets everything nicely liquefied and into the pot to break down and condense. I smell like a rotten tomato now, and my lower back hurts (the table is too low, the counters are too high). I'm not going to can it, just put it in freezer containers in the basement freezer. But I just spent $12 on red tomatoes, combined them with onions from the store and peppers & garlic from my yard, and I have tomato sauce for the year. Seriously.

Now it's the heat of the day, so I'm going to clean the sewing room (it's the "Guest Room" although we rarely have guests, but it really is the "dumping ground") and get to work on the in between blocks of my sunbonnets. Hang some laundry. Get Leo down for a nap. If it weren't for the lazy girls watching a movie on the DVD player downstairs, you'd think it was 1935. Sometimes I shiver when I consider this. And then spend three evenings working on genealogy and come back to the present.

But then again...

Sophia's been invited to join a ceili (kay-lee) team that will go to the oireachtas (oh-rock-tuss) in November. I didn't find out about this until last night over email with the dance teacher, and I am filled with mixed emotions.

Pros:
1. It would be a great experience for Sophia. As Gail put it (I've been emailing her back and forth today because she's done these before with her girls...and she's sane...), the level of competition and scrutiny is such that later competitions on a smaller scale are almost non-events. Not to mention school presentations, recitals, and other non-dance activities that happen in front of people.

2. Maeve likes hotels. So do I, frankly. We found one with an indoor pool that Mike's frequent traveler stuff will pay for.

3. It would get our feet wet. Do we like going to higher level competitions, or will she/our family be satisfied with the 4 local feiseanna and a few here and there in our region (or even none at all)? Or will this be a taste of something larger that will catch her attention? We won't know until we try.

4. Chicago isn't that hard a drive and it's on Thanksgiving weekend when we're off anyway, not missing school and work.

5. It's kind of nice, from my inner stage mom perspective, to see her join a team and make this next step, even if it's only one time.

6. She really does like Irish dance. "She's always spontaneously breaking into treble jig steps," Mike pointed out. She is. In the kitchen, waiting for me to get to the car, in stores, and so forth.

7. It's one weekend. I know, lots of practice beforehand and extra class and all that, but if it isn't all she wants, next summer when they form teams again she can decline and volunteer to be a sub for shows or something like that. It isn't like signing a book deal for the next 6 years or something.

Cons:
1. It happens Saturday of Thanksgiving. This means leaving my in-laws on Friday morning and heading up to Chicago for the rest of the weekend. We'd still be at Thanksgiving proper, but our lazy weekend is dashed. (On the other hand, we have 17 days off at Christmas, and 6 of them will be at the in-laws)

2. It's expensive. The hotel is free, but travel and food and new shoes and socks and wig and tanner for her legs (again with my question about tan Irishmen. We aren't tan). I don't think it'll break the bank, but it is an investment.

3. She is going for one dance. Gail indicates this isn't uncommon, though, and so that shifts my thinking. A first oireachtas is often just the team dance, or the team dance and a traditional set. I have a feeling she will balk at the idea of dancing her TS at the oireachtas, but maybe not?

4. The hotel where everyone is staying is down to just king sized rooms. No two-doubles at all. So that means we would have to stay off campus. This is fine, and in fact it will be free for us, but I am getting the vibe from the teacher that it would be better to be all together.

5. It will be a feis on steroids--all the stress and high maintenance kids and parents and so forth. My heart starts beating faster when I think about it.

6. She just joined this team and there is a girl on the team who has been mean to her lately and I worry about how this will progress. They've been friends a long time but they run hot and cold. Sophia was very upset after class on Tuesday. She's not sure what she's doing wrong, but she's also coming to the point that she doesn't much understand why this girl acts this way across the board.

7. The biggest con? She doesn't want to go. She gave me a look of disappointment and doom this morning when I told her. If this one wasn't so, well, we'd be packing our bags. But this makes me very hesitant. I do not want to push her. I don't want her to resent me or the other girls on her team or feel like, as the least experienced, that she is responsible if they don't do well, or any of that. She's kind of a complicated kid (they all are) and I'm not getting a good read from her. She loves dancing, she likes class just fine, but I don't think she knew this was in the works when she was so enthusiastic about joining the ceili class. Of course at that point the girl who is currently being so mean wasn't...I think a lot if her hesitation stems from this issue, in fact.

8. She's starting to broaden her horizons. She and Mike are at the fencing club right now, her first night. She took my gear--except she's left handed so she just wore a winter glove. And obviously she didn't wear my jacket. But foil and helmet in the bag. I hope she enjoys it.

So here I am. On Monday I'm going to ask her teacher more questions. And this weekend ask myself some others, like, what's a childhood for?

My day by the numbers

22: the number of still shots the ultrasound technician took of the right side of my neck.

5: the number of still shots the ultrasound technician took of the left side of my neck.

14: how many minutes I waited past my appointment time, trying not to do much thinking.

1: number of words on my "results" sheet: Normal.

x < 2 : inequality describing number of ounces of toothpaste Leo consumed before I took the tube away and called poison control.

6 * 1/3 : how we determined how many ounces he could have possibly consumed. Probably no more than a half ounce, all said and done, but still.

5: the total number of calls made to poison control from Chez Wissinger in my children's lifetimes.

1: the number of times I accompany children to the Magic House in one summer. Today was the day.

15: the number of minutes Leo was obsessed with any given feature at the Magic House: the green slide, the ball track that makes noise as it hits fry pans, the worm crawl tube, the giant legos.

3: how many hours we spent at the Magic House

1: how many times I had to have Sophia and Maeve paged.

58: number of miles I put on my car today.

9: how many apples we got at the CSA. Apples are in season. Why is it still so dang hot?

97.1: my temperature at the Red Cross.

11.9: the number my finger stick blood received, testing my iron levels to see if I could give blood.

12.5: what it needed to be.

12.5: what it was on the second finger stick. I think this is a scam, but I got to give blood.

5.6: the number of minutes it took my bag to fill (that would be 5 minutes, 40 seconds)

2500: amount of dollars some NASCAR driver won for charity on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" (he wasn't) that I watched while giving blood.

7: how many seasons "So You Think You Can Dance" said it had been on (also viewed while giving blood and recovering from giving blood)

0: how many rooms in my house are presentable at the moment.

x < 0 : how much I give a damn

24: the chapter of Mossflower I have to read now.

8: the chapter of Clementine I have to read next.

: The limit of 1/x as x approaches Infinity is 0. Just so you know.

Goodnight.

Normal

The ultrasound tech took lots of pictures on the right side, which is where I can feel the lump when I swallow. Like, four times as many as the number she took on the left side. I went back to the waiting room to wait for the "instant" results. The results woman came out and called my name (how would you like that job??) and took me into the hall.

"Normal," she said. And that was it. On my little card it said the word normal.

"But--"

"Normal is good," she stopped me.

Ok....but I can feel this lump and so can my doctor. Umm.

Well, my dad explained it later--sonograms look for different densities in tissue, and the word "normal" means not cancer or benign nodules. It means it's probably a goiter, and I don't know what the plan for treatment will be but it will probably be medication since sometimes that can reduce the size without needing surgery. Which would be a happy choice (no surgery).

So that explanation was helpful...because simply being told "normal" when I can feel it when I swallow was not helpful. I can see if someone was coming in for a mammogram, to be able to leave with the word normal on a card, but in my case, something isn't normal and a bigger explanation would have been nice. But at least my doctor listens and has adjusted my medication each time (three times now) to account for my changes in bloodwork numbers and symptoms. I'm not worried about twisting in the wind like I was last summer when another doctor told me it was PCOS or adrenal tumors or vitamin D deficiency--and set about to test them one at a time. We know what's wrong and it's being handled. And knowing it's not cancer is a good thing. Now let's get the size of the thing down so I can stop thinking about it all the time....

Bloodwork tomorrow and I'm going to try to get a question into my doctor about this.

Now this.

I went to the doctor today for my regular every six months thyroid check. She felt my throat and asked me questions like "do you have difficulty swallowing."

In fact, I do. I was thinking it was some kind of swollen gland thing, like I was getting a cold. But that was over a month ago it started. And I never got that cold. Sometimes, you know, when things become normal for you, and you don't realize how bad they are until you say them out loud? I had one of those moments.

"Yeah," I told her. "Sometimes, you know, like when you eat peanut butter on bread and you have to swallow twice? I have to do that with all solid food now unless I drink water with it."

She gave me that look. That "I'm so glad you said that out loud" look. And she had me swallow some more. "Does it feel like a golf ball, or like a strangle-hold?"

"Like a strangle-hold."

She nodded. "Sometimes is it hard to even swallow saliva?"

"Yeah."

"It's really swollen," she said, going back over to her desk. "We need to do some bloodwork and some other tests."

I get to have an ultrasound of my thyroid tomorrow. Most likely it's just what it seems to be, but either way, it needs to be treated and we'll have to wait and see how large it is. So there's that.

AND, I can't manage to upload photos to flickr anymore. Something is going on with the computer. Mystery. Maybe leftovers of the virus we got last month. But everything else is fine. I finished a quilt that I'd love to show you. I made more pickles. The cucumbers are about done and I'm going to tear them up soon and plant some spinach for fall. The house is in decent shape, the girls are ready for school, Leo is taking a nap, and I'm going to go get a big glass of water and try to stop thinking about this tight feeling in my throat.

Fire-retardant

Lying next to Leo just now, getting him down for a nap, a question came to mind. Children's sleepwear in the 1970s was sold with a fire-retardant chemical (I wonder if it had perchlorate in it...). Lately I've noticed that the sleepwear I'm getting out of boxes to switch to late summer/early fall wardrobes is not coated in this rough but slimy feeling stuff.

It makes me wonder when it changed, and why. Did the agency responsible for this change realize it wasn't making much a difference, or that parents weren't dressing their kids in that gross fabric? Did the rate of house fires at night go down and fewer children had burn injuries overall?

I don't know, but the main question that came to mind was if children were sleeping in these fire-retardant fabrics, but between two cotton sheets and a flannel blanket, on a mattress in a wood bedframe, why did we bother? I have never seen crib sheets with fire-retardant on them. Why did we dress kids that way if they were going to put their non-fabric-covered heads on a flammable pillow?

The only thing I can think is that we were just truly very silly.

Heat Wave

We're having a hot summer. I don't know if St. Louis is having the hottest summer ever recorded (I haven't read the statistics) but I know it's been hot. Last summer was creepily cool, so this one was a special slap in the face. My garden is loving it, but it's hot.

I know the northeast and Canada have been hot because I read blogs based in those places. That's more noteworthy, I think, than St. Louis heat--it is often hot here. We often have summer days top 100 degrees, sometimes several in one summer. But I think what is different about this summer is that we haven't had the respite weeks that we usually do. We'll have a day in the 80s, but followed immediately by more 95+ for a week.

But one blog I read is Wunderblog, written by Jeff Masters, who is Weather Underground. This is where I get all the good information I want about hurricane season (having roots in Texas makes you, well, at least me, obsess about tropical storms). And today his headline is Over 15,000 Likely Dead in Russian Heat Wave. In Moscow alone, 330 people die every day from the heat and air pollution.

That is a heat wave. How awful.

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Reasons to Love Bacon

Are you kidding me??? I swear I don't make these up. The advertisement I could star in for bacon: "Bacon: the reason I can't be a vegetarian."

1. For as much flavor as it has, it is really not that bad for you. You can crumble up a few bits of bacon into a salad or casserole without making a big change calorie-wise.

2. BLTs in late summer with tomatoes from the garden.

3. Thin crust bacon and mushroom pizza.

4. Hinkebein's bacon is like a different thing entirely. Lower grease, more like meat, actually.

5. Cobb salad. I love things to be organized and cobb salads are nicely organized.

6. I've started experimenting with a bit of bacon grease in biscuit dough. My goal is to get better at biscuits over the course of the year and this has helped flavor-wise, although the consistency is still blah...

7. Cooking at camp, bacon in a pan over a fire.

8. Waking up in the middle of winter to that sound of sizzling bacon and a husband taking care of that for me.

9. Jalapenos, split in half, stuffed with cream cheese and cheddar, wrapped in bacon, smoked on the grill.

10. Any dog anywhere that needs to take a pill? Bacon.

It must be the weather

I'm kind of MIA. Yeah, still posting a bit here and there, but I'm having a hard time answering emails or doing anything new. Nothing bad or cryptic...baby is having a hard time with the teething, the girls are off a schedule, the house, eh, the house. That kind of stuff. And I'm a zombie. So more things relevant to your interests in a few days.

Summer Marches On

Today will be 103 degrees. I don't like any temperatures that are higher than a math test score. I would have to get a perfect score and all the extra credit to get 103. People keep hearkening back to previous summers in their histories and how they compare to this one. But I just keep saying: "Houston. Every one of them" and it's not the same as "remember back in '80?"

Ah well.

Block party complete. More later--nothing to report, very pleasant hot time. Today we head to the Old Courthouse (you know the one, where Dred Scott was deemed not a person?) for a junior ranger program. We might stop by the stadium to see about using our free summer reading baseball tickets in September. Ugh. Did I say that out loud?

But right now it is Play Date Time--we're taking another 5 year old with us to the Old Courthouse, due here in 5 minutes. Joy.

Ready for autumn now.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 things to bring on vacation

Ok, so it isn't that different from camping, frankly. Lack of matches and other fire starters I suppose. Here are some thoughts from successful vacations:

1. Camera. Duh.

2. Agenda. My really good vacations have been intricately planned with my whole family in mind. We often strayed from the agenda without complaint, but there was never a day of "what should we do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?"

3. A roll of quarters. I do laundry on vacation. Often our vacations are long and often they are on the go from place to place. Scheduling in a few hours at a laundromat means I can refocus and be alone and think and do essential tasks.

4. The portable DVD player. We drive everywhere. Sometimes (Nevada) we drive through boring (northern Utah) places. Kids don't care about the sky or what the clouds are doing to the mountains. There is no need to punish them.

5. A spirit of adventure. We don't skydive or climb mountains, per se, but it's almost always been worthwhile when Mike has said, "Let's turn in here." Only one time in 14 years, in fact, has that not gone completely charmingly. That was on our honeymoon, a "walk" to see seals on an island. Except that they weren't there. And it took 3 hours round trip.

6. Plenty of clothes for kids, especially for different seasons. It is cold in the mountains. It is cold in San Francisco. It is hot in Houston.

7. Knitting or other handwork.

8. Snacks. In the car, gas station and fast food get too tempting. But not if you have homemade chicken salad sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, complete with pickles, and peanut butter crackers and fresh cookies. Mmm.

9. Pillow. For me, at least. I have a hard time with foreign pillows.

10. Money for kids to blow. Souvenirs, patches, salt water taffy. There's always something, and if they have a budget and decision making power about their purchases, there is far less whining. There is still whining....just less.

Making Sense of Ecclesiastes

You know that old phrase that we've been saying probably since there were enough people speaking the same words: why do bad things happen to good people? Today's first reading at church was from Ecclesiastes. Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity. You work hard and crap happens to you anyway. Awful crap sometimes.

Ecclesiastes is a fascinating little book--most non-Catholics know it from the passage about a time for everything under the sun. A time to sow, a time to reap, a time for Crosby Stills and Nash to sing a song. From the introduction in the New American: Merit does not yield happiness for it is often tried by suffering. Riches and pleasures do not avail. Existence is monotonous, enjoyment fleeting and vain; darkness quickly follows. Life, then, is an enigma beyond human ability to solve.

But we all try to solve it. We all puzzle around things that happen, trying to make sense out of the suffering and loss around us, as well as what seems like ill-gotten gains by those we deem unworthy. We read into happenstance and coincidence and wonder at God's plan. At our best moments, we simply hope to understand someday and come to a peace with the unknowing.

This was all very poignant this morning at mass because Mike's aunt and uncle, Sheila and Bill, lost everything in a house fire yesterday. Everything is gone except the people who lived there--themselves, a son and daughter-in-law, and their 3 year old grandson--and their vehicles and whatever else they kept in the garage. Everything else burned up in a house fire so hot it was still burning 8 hours after the fire department arrived. By the time Sheila's brother saw it (he lives on the same property, in rural Illinois) and called 911, it was too hot to even get the dog out. All gone.

It will take them years, maybe decades, before they come up with a mental inventory of what they've lost. My mother-in-law keeps calling with updates and I can't even give her minimal responses like uh-huh because I'm sobbing on this end of the line.

This morning three parishes heard Ecclesiastes and the gospel parable about the wealthy man who tears down his barns to build bigger ones, and then took up a collection for Bill and Sheila. Three parishes because they share one pastor, and the boundaries between parishes are pretty fluid. Each of the three have relatives in attendance, friends, people who knew them from when. St. Catherine's, the parish they personally belong to, is a building about the size of my living and dining room. Seriously. Everyone there is related to you one way or another. After mass they gave Bill the collection and there was a lot of money--hundreds of dollars from one of the most impoverished counties in Illinois and one of the tiniest parishes I've ever known of. Bill said he had money in his pocket he didn't even know from where. Again, hundreds of dollars people just pressed into his palm when they saw him in the past 24 hours or so. Sheila said she hated taking from people, but really, when this happens, all people want to do is feed you and try to do something to ease the suffering. And it's not like they have a place to put donations that aren't cash, after all. Ma in Little House on the Prairie, as she cooks up the seed potatoes because they've been forced to move on from Indian territory, sighs and says there is no great loss without some small gain. Maybe that's so.

But they will--my father-in-law is a contractor, as is probably already known here--and he said once the insurance comes through, they could get a house up fast. Like a long weekend kind of fast. Mary Helen asked if we'd come down. My goodness I wouldn't miss that for anything.

The author of Ecclesiastes has something here, too:

If one falls, the other will life up his companion. Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up. So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken. [Eccl 4:10-12]