I needed a meme. As Lali said in my comments a few days ago, this season, this in between summer and autumn season, has been really hard on me. I developed a tremor in my hand due to too much caffeine and not enough sleep. I'm exhausted, everyone is sick from allergies, I'm stressed out and too busy. Too busy to think. So I like Question Memes. And here is one for you.
1. Name someone with the same birthday as you. My friend Ron. I like Ron. I like him because he is a constant, like e or pi, a quantity that does not change. I might learn a few more decimal points but he does not change. As someone who changes a lot, well, this is refreshing.
2. What has been your favorite age so far? The bronze age.
3. Where did you meet your husband? Marguerite Hall, Saint Louis University. He was a freshman advisor. I was a freshman. We didn't start dating for another year, but we were friends almost immediately. College is like that.
4. How many children do you have? I have 3. Sometimes known as Fiona, Daisy, and Billy.
5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? Only high school choir. I'm an alto. Carol of the Bells means I sing ding dong ding dong. I think that's what altos sing on every song.
6. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex? That could be the most awkwardly written question I've ever seen on one of these random sets of questions. And the funny thing is, I notice it about men and women. And it's the same as most everyone, I think. It is eyes. There's a mom at school whose eyes I cannot stop looking into. Gazing. I am such a dork.
7. What really turns you off? Misogyny and homophobia.
8. What do you order at Starbucks? Haven't in a while. But my sister paid the other day when she had me go through the drive thru. And it was, as always, iced grande nonfat caramel latte.
9. What is your biggest mistake? Wow. That's hard to narrow down. Most of my stupid mistakes make good stories later. And I know the big things I regret the most are wrapped up in a nostalgic haze of rewritten history. Biggest bad mistake would have to enter into the realm of sin. I'll just put down a category: It's always words with me.
10. As a child, what did you want to grow up to be? A nurse. Like my dad. In kindergarten I made a little cut and paste poster about it. My parents gave it to me, somewhat randomly, about 10 years ago. I would have been a bad nurse....
11. Say something totally random about yourself. I sometimes sit down and watch Hoarders on Netflix in order to kick start housework. It terrifies me into keeping a cleanish house.
12. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows? Mighty Machines. Big and mighty machines. Working for you every night and day, they're mighty machines. You can watch them all day and never know why, they're mighty machines. God yes.
13. Did you have braces? Yes. I keep hoping my kids get my eyes (20/10 vision) and Mike's teeth.
14. Favorite Social Network? Wednesday morning coffee with Ann and Janet and Colleen and others who join us because it is my favorite social network. Or were you asking about computer stuff.
15. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? Again with preferred sex. I just don't dig that phrasing. The most romantic thing anyone anywhere has ever done for me...the thing that pops first to mind is last year on my birthday, Jake (yes, I'm moving to pseudonyms here because I kind of like the idea of Bridgett, Jake, Fiona, Daisy, and Billy Kennedy living in my house), anyway, last year he gave me a beautiful recurve bow for my birthday. Weaponry. So romantic.
16. When do you know it’s love? Like what Tracey said on the blog I stole this from, when you start to draw a loop on a piece of paper in a pictionary game and I say “Tallahassee” and it's the right answer.
17. Do you speak any other languages? Ya govoroo pa-russky. Ni khoroshow. You know how hard that was to write? I kept trying to use the English letters that look like Cyrillic ones.
18. Have you ever been to a tanning salon? No but one time my brother and I found a pair of little goggles from one, down in my grandparents' basement that must have been my uncle's. We wore them around like the total dorks that we were/are.
19. What magazines do you read? I read Spirit and Life, the quarterly from my monastery. And that's really it. Sad but true. Or not...
20. What is playing on your iPod right now? I don't know. I actually don't own any iProducts. Hmm.
21. Have you ever ridden in a limo? Yup, day of my wedding. Took a big old shot of something as I got in. Don't even remember what it was but I remember my sister laughing at me.
22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? Not really. That's hard to say but really, no.
23. Do you watch MTV? Not anymore.
24. What’s something that really annoys you? People who are not what they seem.
25. Which television show were you sad to say goodbye to? FIREFLY. Those idiots at Fox. I still think about that show and then get mad. Don't even go see that danged movie. Just watch Firefly over and over and make up your own ending.
26. Can you dance? I can do a two step pretty well. And Mike and I know the fundamentals of St. Louis Swing, which is just about all we do at people's weddings.
27. What’s your favorite place in the world? Many places are interesting and exotic. The coasts of Northern California and Oregon. Rocky Mountains. Smoky Mountains. Lovely places. But I think Rock Eddy Bluff, the little cabin at the bed and breakfast on the Gasconade wins. Because as opposed to those great outpourings it is more like a spring rain. It makes my garden grow.
28. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No. My daughter has but not me.
29. If you could meet anyone (dead or alive) who would it be? I always answer this question with “Nebuchadnezzar” but really? I want to meet Bridget Blake from my family tree and ask her what the truth is.
30. If you could change one thing in the world for your child, what would it be? Wow. A part of me wants to say, “erase neurological dysfunctions” because two of them have them and the other one we're tiptoeing around hoping it doesn't establish itself. But except for that one (potential epilepsy), the other two problems (apraxia, dyslexia) are really kind of interesting. So I don't know what I would change, frankly.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Release repost
Oh, dear dad, can you see me now
I am myself, like you somehow
I'll ride the wave where it takes me
I'll hold the pain, release me
We'd driven down to Galveston. I always liked the idea of Galveston, even if the reality was never what I was looking for. It was always too sandy, too fishy, too filled with sweaty Houstonians looking for a cheap beach. Later on I learned that not all ocean is the Gulf, not all beaches are the Bay. But this day, we walked along, picking up shells, attacking each other with seaweed, we had a good day. We went up to the Strand to scrounge something to eat--wound up at a soda fountain. Got a bag of sourballs and started walking to the car. It was getting late in the day and I had to work at Walmart in the morning.
We took the long way, heading south down through San Luis Pass, to Freeport, and then up 288. It was dark when we got to the Brazoria County Airport. For old times sake, we agreed, and pulled off the road. Watched the moon come up, sitting on the back of the car. You were getting antsy, and I thought it was the darkness, or the possibility of making out (which was an open possibility, frankly).
Your dad had called the night before. And you'd been looking all day for an opportunity to tell me about it. It was the first time you'd spoken to him in several years. And it set you back. As always, you'd managed to tamp it down until the night got dark enough to try to say.
Dating fatherless boys, lemme tell ya, ain't no stroll down the beach.
I am myself, like you somehow
I'll ride the wave where it takes me
I'll hold the pain, release me
We'd driven down to Galveston. I always liked the idea of Galveston, even if the reality was never what I was looking for. It was always too sandy, too fishy, too filled with sweaty Houstonians looking for a cheap beach. Later on I learned that not all ocean is the Gulf, not all beaches are the Bay. But this day, we walked along, picking up shells, attacking each other with seaweed, we had a good day. We went up to the Strand to scrounge something to eat--wound up at a soda fountain. Got a bag of sourballs and started walking to the car. It was getting late in the day and I had to work at Walmart in the morning.
We took the long way, heading south down through San Luis Pass, to Freeport, and then up 288. It was dark when we got to the Brazoria County Airport. For old times sake, we agreed, and pulled off the road. Watched the moon come up, sitting on the back of the car. You were getting antsy, and I thought it was the darkness, or the possibility of making out (which was an open possibility, frankly).
Your dad had called the night before. And you'd been looking all day for an opportunity to tell me about it. It was the first time you'd spoken to him in several years. And it set you back. As always, you'd managed to tamp it down until the night got dark enough to try to say.
Dating fatherless boys, lemme tell ya, ain't no stroll down the beach.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Half Acre Repost
I am holding half an acre
Torn from the map of Michigan
And folded in this scrap of paper
Is the land I grew in
Think of every town you've lived in
Every room you've laid your head
And what is it that you remember?
Do you carry every silence with you?
Every hour your heart was broken?
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you?
February 2000. Martin had just died, and we were still sorting out the details to tell our kids. Third grader gets hit by a car, how close do the rest of us have to be? As the principal did her job with her usual inadequacy, the rest of us in the classrooms handled the facts. After school on the day they let him die, I sat down at my desk and put my head in my hands. I usually walked out with Troy to make sure there was an adult to witness the pick up. Make sure Larry wasn't drunk. Or armed. But today was too much. I'd been living life too connected to every single other living person breathing in this school. I needed to sit at my desk and stop thinking. Troy realized I'd changed my routine, and he hovered outside the door, anxious. He came back into the classroom and thrust a tiny scrap of paper at me.
"Could you write down the details for my mom, for the funeral? Nolan'll never remember."
I looked at him, through my hand, and obliged. Nolan, his brother, was in Martin's class. He probably wouldn't get it right. I started to write things down, including directions to the funeral home, the time for the mass, dates, what to wear--and he put his hand on mine.
"Could maybe she just call you?"
Without any mental debate over how this would be perceived in that house, I turned the scrap of paper over and began to write. But the numbers didn't look right to either of us.
"That's not what your number in the book was," he said, puzzled.
I looked again, and I realized in my befuddled state, I'd written down his grandmother's number. So we'd both betrayed ourselves to each other. He'd already had my number, and I had his only contact memorized. It was a test. I passed. He took his ballcap off and showed me--under the brim, turned up, written with a sharpie, was my phone number. I am carrying this scrap of paper/That can crack the darkest sky wide open/Every burden taken from me.
"I figure if I ever really needed to, I could run and find a phone." He put his hat back on.
It took every ounce of restraint not to kidnap him right there. We had to play the game, we were in the third quarter, we couldn't screw up now.
"Call 911 first, Troy. Then you can use that.' I touched the brim of his hat. Then I went home and waited by the phone.
Torn from the map of Michigan
And folded in this scrap of paper
Is the land I grew in
Think of every town you've lived in
Every room you've laid your head
And what is it that you remember?
Do you carry every silence with you?
Every hour your heart was broken?
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you?
February 2000. Martin had just died, and we were still sorting out the details to tell our kids. Third grader gets hit by a car, how close do the rest of us have to be? As the principal did her job with her usual inadequacy, the rest of us in the classrooms handled the facts. After school on the day they let him die, I sat down at my desk and put my head in my hands. I usually walked out with Troy to make sure there was an adult to witness the pick up. Make sure Larry wasn't drunk. Or armed. But today was too much. I'd been living life too connected to every single other living person breathing in this school. I needed to sit at my desk and stop thinking. Troy realized I'd changed my routine, and he hovered outside the door, anxious. He came back into the classroom and thrust a tiny scrap of paper at me.
"Could you write down the details for my mom, for the funeral? Nolan'll never remember."
I looked at him, through my hand, and obliged. Nolan, his brother, was in Martin's class. He probably wouldn't get it right. I started to write things down, including directions to the funeral home, the time for the mass, dates, what to wear--and he put his hand on mine.
"Could maybe she just call you?"
Without any mental debate over how this would be perceived in that house, I turned the scrap of paper over and began to write. But the numbers didn't look right to either of us.
"That's not what your number in the book was," he said, puzzled.
I looked again, and I realized in my befuddled state, I'd written down his grandmother's number. So we'd both betrayed ourselves to each other. He'd already had my number, and I had his only contact memorized. It was a test. I passed. He took his ballcap off and showed me--under the brim, turned up, written with a sharpie, was my phone number. I am carrying this scrap of paper/That can crack the darkest sky wide open/Every burden taken from me.
"I figure if I ever really needed to, I could run and find a phone." He put his hat back on.
It took every ounce of restraint not to kidnap him right there. We had to play the game, we were in the third quarter, we couldn't screw up now.
"Call 911 first, Troy. Then you can use that.' I touched the brim of his hat. Then I went home and waited by the phone.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Nothing in my head
The weather. It makes me happy, for it is the turning of the year towards crisp autumn days and cozy winter. It makes me productive--the garden needs attention, the yard needs attention, school needs attention. I have taken many photos, from camping to dancing to cooking. But nothing is here. Because the happy productivity? It makes me tired. That combined with the slow decline of sunshine and the increasing need for wool sweaters just makes me tired. It makes me lie on the couch for a half an hour instead of blog for that same time period. It makes me glad for the beans in the crockpot on a Monday afternoon not so I can come up here and post pictures of how I made grape jelly, but so I can turn on "Mighty Machines" in the living room, let Leo use my leg as a choo-choo track, and close my eyes for just a moment between after school rush and dinner on the table long downhill slide to bedtime.
Zzz. More later. Perhaps.
Zzz. More later. Perhaps.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Two Step Repost
Do you believe that we
Might last a thousand years
Or more if not for this?
Our flesh and blood it ties
You and me right up tie me down
Celebrate we will
Because life is short but sweet for certain
It's hard to celebrate the sweetness of life when it is short. I stood in my sister's kitchen, washing dishes, my lower back hurting from a day sitting in a courtroom bench, taking frantic notes so that all the girls waiting to be witnesses would have some idea how things were going on the inside. When one of her roommates, Ellen, had come home that night, her eyes scanned my face as I told her what had happened so far, looking for some message that would mean everything would be just fine. It wouldn't be just fine, it couldn't ever be just fine. Jesse had been killed 10 months before, killed by a police officer he'd been having a secret relationship with, left to die with his throat cut so deeply it nicked his spine. Jesse had lived like someone who assumed he would live a thousand years. He took reckless chances sometimes, like getting involved with a married officer so deeply in the closet he had scratches from the hangers. Who then killed him out of fear of exposure.
I had met Jesse only once. But I watched my sisters and their friends be so brave and honest on the stand. Passing my daughter back and forth in the hall because something had to remind us of life, of joy, of the sweetness of a baby's smile. There was nothing sweet in that courtroom. The whole business was gruesome, the details sometimes more than we could bear.
Standing in the little kitchen cleaning up the first real meal some of these girls had eaten all week, I listened to Dave Matthews and pretended I wasn't crying. This life--it ties you and me right up. Death sometimes is the only thing that makes us realize we're alive.
Might last a thousand years
Or more if not for this?
Our flesh and blood it ties
You and me right up tie me down
Celebrate we will
Because life is short but sweet for certain
It's hard to celebrate the sweetness of life when it is short. I stood in my sister's kitchen, washing dishes, my lower back hurting from a day sitting in a courtroom bench, taking frantic notes so that all the girls waiting to be witnesses would have some idea how things were going on the inside. When one of her roommates, Ellen, had come home that night, her eyes scanned my face as I told her what had happened so far, looking for some message that would mean everything would be just fine. It wouldn't be just fine, it couldn't ever be just fine. Jesse had been killed 10 months before, killed by a police officer he'd been having a secret relationship with, left to die with his throat cut so deeply it nicked his spine. Jesse had lived like someone who assumed he would live a thousand years. He took reckless chances sometimes, like getting involved with a married officer so deeply in the closet he had scratches from the hangers. Who then killed him out of fear of exposure.
I had met Jesse only once. But I watched my sisters and their friends be so brave and honest on the stand. Passing my daughter back and forth in the hall because something had to remind us of life, of joy, of the sweetness of a baby's smile. There was nothing sweet in that courtroom. The whole business was gruesome, the details sometimes more than we could bear.
Standing in the little kitchen cleaning up the first real meal some of these girls had eaten all week, I listened to Dave Matthews and pretended I wasn't crying. This life--it ties you and me right up. Death sometimes is the only thing that makes us realize we're alive.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Stupid Mouth Shut (repost)
The hall light streams out through the screens
And the shadows capture me in webs
Just tangled up in what I've seen
And every word I have not said
I have not said
'Cause the sidewalk bends where your house ends
Like the neighborhood is on its knees
I put Dara, my rottweiler mix, on her leash. My heart knocking on my chest wall, I step outside into the winter air. She's confused--why aren't we heading to the park? But I have to go east today. And tomorrow. And every day until it's resolved. Or until I lose my job, my mind, my integrity, my marriage, my soul. Whichever comes first.
Still, she's happy for the walking, and we cross Arkansas, stop at Louisiana, head north up to Beverly's Market. There he is on the corner. He knows I'm coming. I told him I'd come by to make sure everything was still ok. He looks relieved to see me. We said goodbye less than an hour before, but nights are long and cold in that house with no heat, with no phone, with Shelia gone till after 4 in the morning. We part ways with only the briefest of words, and he ducks back through the alley. I stay on the sidewalks, but I turn on Compton and walk past the house from the front.
It's not a good block; Larry is not a good guy: hence, the rottweiler. The porch has no steps, and three of the four windows that face east are boarded up with scraps and plastic bags. He looks out of the intact one, sees me, and puts his hand on the glass. I glance up, and then head south to Magnolia, weaving my way back home.
The neighborhood isn't the only thing on its knees there.
I call the Department of Family Services that night. And every word I have not said--I still have not said.
And the shadows capture me in webs
Just tangled up in what I've seen
And every word I have not said
I have not said
'Cause the sidewalk bends where your house ends
Like the neighborhood is on its knees
I put Dara, my rottweiler mix, on her leash. My heart knocking on my chest wall, I step outside into the winter air. She's confused--why aren't we heading to the park? But I have to go east today. And tomorrow. And every day until it's resolved. Or until I lose my job, my mind, my integrity, my marriage, my soul. Whichever comes first.
Still, she's happy for the walking, and we cross Arkansas, stop at Louisiana, head north up to Beverly's Market. There he is on the corner. He knows I'm coming. I told him I'd come by to make sure everything was still ok. He looks relieved to see me. We said goodbye less than an hour before, but nights are long and cold in that house with no heat, with no phone, with Shelia gone till after 4 in the morning. We part ways with only the briefest of words, and he ducks back through the alley. I stay on the sidewalks, but I turn on Compton and walk past the house from the front.
It's not a good block; Larry is not a good guy: hence, the rottweiler. The porch has no steps, and three of the four windows that face east are boarded up with scraps and plastic bags. He looks out of the intact one, sees me, and puts his hand on the glass. I glance up, and then head south to Magnolia, weaving my way back home.
The neighborhood isn't the only thing on its knees there.
I call the Department of Family Services that night. And every word I have not said--I still have not said.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Mr. Jones Repost
When I look at the television,
I want to see me staring right back at me
We all want to be big stars,
but we don't know why and we don't know how
But when everybody loves me,
I'm going to be just about as happy as can be
My first teaching job only lasted a month and a half. I had a classroom of 14 fourth graders at Simmons School,an all-black "systemic" school on the north side of St. Louis. I was young, only 21, and I thought I could change the world with 14 fourth graders. But before we could get to know each other, or even learn to pronounce my last name correctly, I was told I'd be moving. Somwhere. Sometime. My kids went back to the other two fourth grade classrooms and I was told to "shadow" a few students from one of the rooms.
One of the kids was Tyrone, I kid you not. Tyrone was 10, in 4th grade, and hadn't learned to read yet. He'd been "homeschooled" down in Tennessee for 3 years. His mother had given him to his auntie up in St. Louis because she was "done with raisin him," as the auntie put it. She was hoping it wasn't too late to get him on track. We worked together for the whole month of September. I used Reading Recovery, bribery, song and dance, anything I thought might get him interested. Because in the end, he wasn't stupid. He'd gotten this far without reading, why work on something that might be hard? We got, essentially, nowhere. He knew the alphabet. Some sounds. A few phonics-based tricks and the -AT family.
He told me one day towards the end that he was going to be famous. He was going to play basketball, or maybe he'd be a rapper. He was going to make a lot of money and have everything he wanted and not have to do any scut jobs like teaching school. I'd see. He'd be awesome.
The day I packed up my empty classroom and moved to the "worst school in the district" to teach first grade for the rest of the year, I got down to my car, and this song was on the radio as I drove east away from Simmons, away from Tyrone.
I want to see me staring right back at me
We all want to be big stars,
but we don't know why and we don't know how
But when everybody loves me,
I'm going to be just about as happy as can be
My first teaching job only lasted a month and a half. I had a classroom of 14 fourth graders at Simmons School,an all-black "systemic" school on the north side of St. Louis. I was young, only 21, and I thought I could change the world with 14 fourth graders. But before we could get to know each other, or even learn to pronounce my last name correctly, I was told I'd be moving. Somwhere. Sometime. My kids went back to the other two fourth grade classrooms and I was told to "shadow" a few students from one of the rooms.
One of the kids was Tyrone, I kid you not. Tyrone was 10, in 4th grade, and hadn't learned to read yet. He'd been "homeschooled" down in Tennessee for 3 years. His mother had given him to his auntie up in St. Louis because she was "done with raisin him," as the auntie put it. She was hoping it wasn't too late to get him on track. We worked together for the whole month of September. I used Reading Recovery, bribery, song and dance, anything I thought might get him interested. Because in the end, he wasn't stupid. He'd gotten this far without reading, why work on something that might be hard? We got, essentially, nowhere. He knew the alphabet. Some sounds. A few phonics-based tricks and the -AT family.
He told me one day towards the end that he was going to be famous. He was going to play basketball, or maybe he'd be a rapper. He was going to make a lot of money and have everything he wanted and not have to do any scut jobs like teaching school. I'd see. He'd be awesome.
The day I packed up my empty classroom and moved to the "worst school in the district" to teach first grade for the rest of the year, I got down to my car, and this song was on the radio as I drove east away from Simmons, away from Tyrone.
Now This.
I'm just going to get an early start and blame the Blakes. My dad's dad's family. For it all. All of those folks, all of the descendants of my grandfather, probably of his grandmother, are neurologically bizarre--probably some of the most brilliant folks and they are all deeply flawed with things you've never even heard of. Think about my kids a moment. Dyslexia, childhood seizures, and now this. Childhood Apraxia of Speech. But maybe a little bit more than that.
It's a good thing he's my 3rd because this is kind of scary.
Dyslexia wasn't scary. It was frustrating, but it was educational, both for me and in general. Plus dyslexia tends to come with an affable personality that glides through life and that's Sophia to a T. So easy. So nice. So clueless about so many things (in a good way, like about her spelling skills). The other day I was reminded that this is a lifelong condition--she handed me a penpal letter written in Times New Roman and said, "Can you read this to me, it would take me all day." And not that she's lazy. Trust me. So I read it and she went upstairs to compose a response. But I have no worries about what's going to happen with her. And really, I didn't have a lot of them back when we first found out. Mostly because I could see the positives (dyslexic people tend to be spatial, "big picture" folks, artists, etc--and she is that sort of person and it's a good thing).
Potential epilepsy, of course, is scary. Very scary. And couple that with asthma and eczema and Maeve is kind of a ticking time bomb. It's on a different level than dyslexia--yeah, Sophia may have trouble spelling, but she's unlikely to drown from having a seizure in a bathtub. On the other hand, Maeve is unlikely to, as well, because she's only had 1 unprovoked seizure and we have a good epileptologist. Still, I don't think I'll ever fully relax when she's not in the room with me. Luckily, she hasn't been burdened with any sort of communication or learning problem. At all. She has some personality flaws we need to grind down a bit (but don't we all). In the end, she still wins the gold medal for most worrisome.
And it looks like Leo will take the silver.
Folks kept saying it: he's a boy. Boys are late talkers. He's fine. He's so expressive. He gets his needs met--big sisters, third child, mom who is there all the time. And so on. Well-meaning but it never rang true for me. It didn't. I never could brush off this nagging feeling that something wasn't right (and I've been able to brush off other nagging feelings, really, honest). We signed up for speech and language at the university we graduated from--Sophia did speech therapy there for 2 years for a language processing disorder that knit up quite nicely in the end (but voila, dyslexia...connection?).
And there were things all along that I chalked up to stubbornness. And they might still be stubbornness. But I'm starting to think that less and less. The professor in charge of the grad student who is working with Leo is thinking that less and less as well. She called it "motor planning" the first meeting. Today she said "apraxia" although I'd already looked it up. The short version: a disconnect between brain and oral muscles. Basically, he understands what we say. He might have lots to say. But he can't get the message from his brain to his mouth in order to say them.
Apraxia is the professor's specialty. She gives conference talks on the topic around the country. We're in good hands.
But still. Now this? Now I get to become an expert on apraxia like I did on dyslexia and on the protocols for medicating children after the first seizure? I know all about 504 plans but now we'll probably have a 504 and an IEP? Do I really have to advocate for yet another child? Like I've been saying since Thursday, why can't one of them just be easy? Why do I have to do this yet again?
I guess it comes down to the raven and the dove on Noah's ark. The raven got off that ship, found land, and thought, bah, I'm exhausted, I'm ditching them and staying right here. But the dove found land and then returned to finish the job. So many times in my life I've been the raven. But these little people on my ark need me to be the dove. So now this. Here we go again and still and evermore.
It's a good thing he's my 3rd because this is kind of scary.
Dyslexia wasn't scary. It was frustrating, but it was educational, both for me and in general. Plus dyslexia tends to come with an affable personality that glides through life and that's Sophia to a T. So easy. So nice. So clueless about so many things (in a good way, like about her spelling skills). The other day I was reminded that this is a lifelong condition--she handed me a penpal letter written in Times New Roman and said, "Can you read this to me, it would take me all day." And not that she's lazy. Trust me. So I read it and she went upstairs to compose a response. But I have no worries about what's going to happen with her. And really, I didn't have a lot of them back when we first found out. Mostly because I could see the positives (dyslexic people tend to be spatial, "big picture" folks, artists, etc--and she is that sort of person and it's a good thing).
Potential epilepsy, of course, is scary. Very scary. And couple that with asthma and eczema and Maeve is kind of a ticking time bomb. It's on a different level than dyslexia--yeah, Sophia may have trouble spelling, but she's unlikely to drown from having a seizure in a bathtub. On the other hand, Maeve is unlikely to, as well, because she's only had 1 unprovoked seizure and we have a good epileptologist. Still, I don't think I'll ever fully relax when she's not in the room with me. Luckily, she hasn't been burdened with any sort of communication or learning problem. At all. She has some personality flaws we need to grind down a bit (but don't we all). In the end, she still wins the gold medal for most worrisome.
And it looks like Leo will take the silver.
Folks kept saying it: he's a boy. Boys are late talkers. He's fine. He's so expressive. He gets his needs met--big sisters, third child, mom who is there all the time. And so on. Well-meaning but it never rang true for me. It didn't. I never could brush off this nagging feeling that something wasn't right (and I've been able to brush off other nagging feelings, really, honest). We signed up for speech and language at the university we graduated from--Sophia did speech therapy there for 2 years for a language processing disorder that knit up quite nicely in the end (but voila, dyslexia...connection?).
And there were things all along that I chalked up to stubbornness. And they might still be stubbornness. But I'm starting to think that less and less. The professor in charge of the grad student who is working with Leo is thinking that less and less as well. She called it "motor planning" the first meeting. Today she said "apraxia" although I'd already looked it up. The short version: a disconnect between brain and oral muscles. Basically, he understands what we say. He might have lots to say. But he can't get the message from his brain to his mouth in order to say them.
Apraxia is the professor's specialty. She gives conference talks on the topic around the country. We're in good hands.
But still. Now this? Now I get to become an expert on apraxia like I did on dyslexia and on the protocols for medicating children after the first seizure? I know all about 504 plans but now we'll probably have a 504 and an IEP? Do I really have to advocate for yet another child? Like I've been saying since Thursday, why can't one of them just be easy? Why do I have to do this yet again?
I guess it comes down to the raven and the dove on Noah's ark. The raven got off that ship, found land, and thought, bah, I'm exhausted, I'm ditching them and staying right here. But the dove found land and then returned to finish the job. So many times in my life I've been the raven. But these little people on my ark need me to be the dove. So now this. Here we go again and still and evermore.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Homeschool help...
I have a friend who would like me to help her come up with a good semester for her son, who needs out of his current school but cannot start at a new school until next fall. She's going to pull him at Christmas and hopes to enroll him in a good heavily structured middle school in 2012. He is a 5th grader. I know a few of you are homeschoolers and I may ask you specifically some questions via email. I know what I'll suggest for math (ahem, me) but I'm looking for suggestions for a good basic science curriculum or ideas for just a semester, for a student who has probably had zero science at this point.
And social studies? What about language/grammar skills for that age range? Physical education?
I am going to be helping her as an adviser probably pretty closely since I am a teacher and know him pretty well and know where she'd like him to be. I don't even know what to call myself here. Perhaps just tutor will be the best term. Is it ok for a homeschool parent to rely on a tutor for a subject? I gather that it probably is. But still. Not wanting to break rules.
Any thoughts welcome. Most welcome.
And social studies? What about language/grammar skills for that age range? Physical education?
I am going to be helping her as an adviser probably pretty closely since I am a teacher and know him pretty well and know where she'd like him to be. I don't even know what to call myself here. Perhaps just tutor will be the best term. Is it ok for a homeschool parent to rely on a tutor for a subject? I gather that it probably is. But still. Not wanting to break rules.
Any thoughts welcome. Most welcome.
Repost: I will not take these things for granted
One part of me just wants to tell you everything
One part just needs the quiet
And if I'm lonely here, I'm lonely here
And on the telephone you offer reassurance
I will not take these things for granted
May 1993. Telephone calls. Nine hundred miles and we sit listening to each other's silence. All I want is to hang up and go next door where they're playing games and having a good time. My roommate sits at her desk and eavesdrops without malice. She's engaged, too, except that she and Kyle are going to go through with it. I'm not, and I know it. I just have to figure out how to tell you.
I keep a sad little diary that semester. Ramble on and on. Hand it to you when I get back to town. Here. Here's what I've been thinking for 4 months without you next to me.
You take it home and read it. You make me a mix tape that starts with this song. I want so badly to be your friend, because I think you could use a friend like me, but we're only 19 (I'm not even that yet) and it's too hard to make the transition from fiancee to friend. It's too hard to not be too close. We can't do it, and I know it. We have seen too much to pretend to be innocent, in a way. There are things that a married couple need to be able to work out or work through or know or be, that a two friends don't. I watch the writing on the wall all summer.
I listen to the tape. Other songs on there--you always had good music, even if it ran a little hard for my tastes sometimes--expressed this idea. Please don't leave me. I'll stop being who I am.
I couldn't do that. I knew that was not going to work. It was going to be wrong. I knew we had the summer, and then we would be done.
One part just needs the quiet
And if I'm lonely here, I'm lonely here
And on the telephone you offer reassurance
I will not take these things for granted
May 1993. Telephone calls. Nine hundred miles and we sit listening to each other's silence. All I want is to hang up and go next door where they're playing games and having a good time. My roommate sits at her desk and eavesdrops without malice. She's engaged, too, except that she and Kyle are going to go through with it. I'm not, and I know it. I just have to figure out how to tell you.
I keep a sad little diary that semester. Ramble on and on. Hand it to you when I get back to town. Here. Here's what I've been thinking for 4 months without you next to me.
You take it home and read it. You make me a mix tape that starts with this song. I want so badly to be your friend, because I think you could use a friend like me, but we're only 19 (I'm not even that yet) and it's too hard to make the transition from fiancee to friend. It's too hard to not be too close. We can't do it, and I know it. We have seen too much to pretend to be innocent, in a way. There are things that a married couple need to be able to work out or work through or know or be, that a two friends don't. I watch the writing on the wall all summer.
I listen to the tape. Other songs on there--you always had good music, even if it ran a little hard for my tastes sometimes--expressed this idea. Please don't leave me. I'll stop being who I am.
I couldn't do that. I knew that was not going to work. It was going to be wrong. I knew we had the summer, and then we would be done.
It is Monday
It is Monday. It is a Monday post girl scout camping. My front hall is filled with bags (mine) I haven't unpacked, and two bins (troop) I have started to unpack but seem to be an endless bowl of spaghetti style packing job. I know I have good spatial reasoning but come on.
It is Monday. The girls are at school. Leo is downstairs eating a banana and some little rabbits that are knock offs of the teddy graham varieties. Bob the Builder is demonstrating how train tracks are replaced.
It is Monday. There is no food in the house except for 4 dark chocolate bars left over from smores and stuff in the freezer. I am finishing the last of the oatmeal. My coffee has no milk in it. But there is deer stew cooking in the crockpot with red wine leftover from last night's stewardship thank you dinner. And with the box of vegetable ends I save (bits of carrot, beans from the yard, chopped up tiny green peppers from the yard, etc) in the freezer for a month or so before turning it into stew. The last of the onions. The last of the frozen peas. Of course not the end of the garlic. But seriously? How did the larder get so bare? That will need to be fixed today.
It is Monday. I haven't written my lesson plan for art yet but I will. I haven't gone to Baisch and Skinner for florist foil yet but I will. I haven't yet done the grocery shopping but I will. The living room isn't clean yet but somehow it will. I have made one of the 3 phone calls I had to make (the one I knew would be home but alas not the hardest one (personality on the other end, not subject matter being the "hard" part)).
It is Monday. Bleys survived the weekend against the odds I was working in my head. I gave him the last of the chicken from the fridge for breakfast. I realized that what I had thought (last week) was evidence that he'd lost control of his bowels was actually coming from the other end. This makes me more hopeful for his longterm survival but only a little. He is 15. And he's always been fragile.
It is Monday after a camping trip and a stewardship dinner where I was headed for the bar (it was after a camping trip with 18 girl scouts) but got sidetracked by the coffee. I had 4 cups after 6:30 in the evening. And I still fell asleep a bit after 10.
It is Monday and my long hiatus from my parish, I believe, is over. Sometimes I like to reflect and I see my life as a sort of novel with too many words. There is a chapter that is ending or is about to end (perhaps the author is waiting for the best closing line). There are arcs in my life, as in most everyone's life, and this month has been a bit of a crisis for me personally and, it seems, surrounding me. There is a lot of death and injury and diagnosis and change. Questions were asked of me last night, good ones; last week in the rectory some nice things were said that reminded me that dang it, I need to be there. I can be other places too but I need to remember my center. My sister Bevin tells me I do this every year. I rearrange my priorities and pull back and give forth and things change. Maybe she's writing the novel. More likely she's illustrating it.
It is Monday and I realized last night talking to Jack by the bar that I said the phrase "had a falling out with" at least 5 times that evening. Again with the death, injury, crisis, diagnosis, change. But I'm thinking about that. Why I'm such, well, that way sometimes.
It is Monday. The camping trip went well until the last 45 minutes. Lisa suggested a post-mortum with the adults. I think it needs to happen, maybe Wednesday after the faculty meeting for Bridget. Hmm. Have dinner in the crockpot and abandon the house for an hour to sit somewhere with no kids and talk a moment about the weekend. I have ideas of how to make a few things run more smoothly. Our next trip will be identical in setting (winter camping is always in a lodge) and I think we can get it down to a science before we branch out for spring camping in A-frames or covered wagons or whatnot. Hmm. We've never done a post-mortum but it would have been useful in the past.
It is Monday. Bob the Builder has finished his instruction. Leo has appeared. Tomorrow we learn more about his possible diagnosis of speech apraxia. This weekend I got to think on that, process it, and explain it at three different times to the three women who were with me (who each had three different responses and all were good and helpful). It could be a long semester of adjusting my brain to yet another weird kid thing (I asked Rose last night: why can't ONE OF THEM be easy?).
It is Monday. The asthma coach just called and was disappointed in me. Bizarre. Maeve has zero symptoms but I didn't resort to albuterol as my first defense when she had a cough last week--because albuterol makes her bounce off the walls. I started with mucinex (guaifenisin or whatever it is) because it wasn't an asthmatic cough. It was productive and phlegmy. She told me I couldn't hear the difference. And yet Maeve didn't require albuterol nor did she wind up on prednisone. And the crisis has passed. Frustrating. She's calling next Monday to check to see how I'm doing.
It is Monday. Time to get moving.
It is Monday. The girls are at school. Leo is downstairs eating a banana and some little rabbits that are knock offs of the teddy graham varieties. Bob the Builder is demonstrating how train tracks are replaced.
It is Monday. There is no food in the house except for 4 dark chocolate bars left over from smores and stuff in the freezer. I am finishing the last of the oatmeal. My coffee has no milk in it. But there is deer stew cooking in the crockpot with red wine leftover from last night's stewardship thank you dinner. And with the box of vegetable ends I save (bits of carrot, beans from the yard, chopped up tiny green peppers from the yard, etc) in the freezer for a month or so before turning it into stew. The last of the onions. The last of the frozen peas. Of course not the end of the garlic. But seriously? How did the larder get so bare? That will need to be fixed today.
It is Monday. I haven't written my lesson plan for art yet but I will. I haven't gone to Baisch and Skinner for florist foil yet but I will. I haven't yet done the grocery shopping but I will. The living room isn't clean yet but somehow it will. I have made one of the 3 phone calls I had to make (the one I knew would be home but alas not the hardest one (personality on the other end, not subject matter being the "hard" part)).
It is Monday. Bleys survived the weekend against the odds I was working in my head. I gave him the last of the chicken from the fridge for breakfast. I realized that what I had thought (last week) was evidence that he'd lost control of his bowels was actually coming from the other end. This makes me more hopeful for his longterm survival but only a little. He is 15. And he's always been fragile.
It is Monday after a camping trip and a stewardship dinner where I was headed for the bar (it was after a camping trip with 18 girl scouts) but got sidetracked by the coffee. I had 4 cups after 6:30 in the evening. And I still fell asleep a bit after 10.
It is Monday and my long hiatus from my parish, I believe, is over. Sometimes I like to reflect and I see my life as a sort of novel with too many words. There is a chapter that is ending or is about to end (perhaps the author is waiting for the best closing line). There are arcs in my life, as in most everyone's life, and this month has been a bit of a crisis for me personally and, it seems, surrounding me. There is a lot of death and injury and diagnosis and change. Questions were asked of me last night, good ones; last week in the rectory some nice things were said that reminded me that dang it, I need to be there. I can be other places too but I need to remember my center. My sister Bevin tells me I do this every year. I rearrange my priorities and pull back and give forth and things change. Maybe she's writing the novel. More likely she's illustrating it.
It is Monday and I realized last night talking to Jack by the bar that I said the phrase "had a falling out with" at least 5 times that evening. Again with the death, injury, crisis, diagnosis, change. But I'm thinking about that. Why I'm such, well, that way sometimes.
It is Monday. The camping trip went well until the last 45 minutes. Lisa suggested a post-mortum with the adults. I think it needs to happen, maybe Wednesday after the faculty meeting for Bridget. Hmm. Have dinner in the crockpot and abandon the house for an hour to sit somewhere with no kids and talk a moment about the weekend. I have ideas of how to make a few things run more smoothly. Our next trip will be identical in setting (winter camping is always in a lodge) and I think we can get it down to a science before we branch out for spring camping in A-frames or covered wagons or whatnot. Hmm. We've never done a post-mortum but it would have been useful in the past.
It is Monday. Bob the Builder has finished his instruction. Leo has appeared. Tomorrow we learn more about his possible diagnosis of speech apraxia. This weekend I got to think on that, process it, and explain it at three different times to the three women who were with me (who each had three different responses and all were good and helpful). It could be a long semester of adjusting my brain to yet another weird kid thing (I asked Rose last night: why can't ONE OF THEM be easy?).
It is Monday. The asthma coach just called and was disappointed in me. Bizarre. Maeve has zero symptoms but I didn't resort to albuterol as my first defense when she had a cough last week--because albuterol makes her bounce off the walls. I started with mucinex (guaifenisin or whatever it is) because it wasn't an asthmatic cough. It was productive and phlegmy. She told me I couldn't hear the difference. And yet Maeve didn't require albuterol nor did she wind up on prednisone. And the crisis has passed. Frustrating. She's calling next Monday to check to see how I'm doing.
It is Monday. Time to get moving.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Hallelujah (repost)
Baby I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Why did he live alone before he knew you?
Well, it's just really something in the song. I guess he's just saying he knows what it's like to be alone.
But alleluia is a song of praise. Why come it's a broken alleluia?
It's hard to explain, honey. It's just, really, I guess it's just hard to sing praise sometimes.
But why? Why would it be cold?
Sophia, it's really just a grown up song. It's hard to explain.
Then why is it on a kids movie?
Now, that is a question I have too. I don't really know, though.
I just don't think an alleluia can ever be broken.
You're right.
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Why did he live alone before he knew you?
Well, it's just really something in the song. I guess he's just saying he knows what it's like to be alone.
But alleluia is a song of praise. Why come it's a broken alleluia?
It's hard to explain, honey. It's just, really, I guess it's just hard to sing praise sometimes.
But why? Why would it be cold?
Sophia, it's really just a grown up song. It's hard to explain.
Then why is it on a kids movie?
Now, that is a question I have too. I don't really know, though.
I just don't think an alleluia can ever be broken.
You're right.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Bridge over troubled water (repost)
I'll take your part
Oh, when darkness falls
And pain is all around
Omigod could there be a better preteen angst song. I mean, on the edge before you discover punk or grunge or whatever it is you discover in your own peculiar time and space. Before that, Art Garfunkel sings this and you either want to sing to someone you think you love or you want Art Garfunkel to come and sing it to you.
The way things were handled in the end of this tale were so bizarre, it is almost not worth writing down. But I will, from my 7th grade perspective. Hannah, Jane, Muriel, Sonia, and I sat on my swingset talking about how fat our thighs were. Except Muriel because she was complaining about the mole on her forehead. It was almost midnight, my tolerant parents were allowing me to have all these people over to spend the night. Sonia was visiting from Oklahoma, where she'd moved 4 months before, and I was always ready for a slumber party. Whining about thighs stopped and the topic turned to sex. Jane practically blurted out, as if she'd been waiting all night to say it, that her stepfather Vinny was molesting her. Reactions ran the gamut from stunned silence (Muriel, me) to indignation (Sonia). The next Monday, Sonia (who was on spring break back in OKC and had a week to tool around the old homestead) and I went to Mr. Weber. Told him exactly what Jane had told us. He told us he'd handle it.
He handled it by telling Jane's mother.
That summer, I moved to Dallas and spent most of my mental energy adjusting to a large public middle school and an inexplicable developing hypergraphia that was taking all my spare time. I got letters from all the friends, but Jane's weren't coming from Columbia anymore--they were coming from Springfield where her dad had remarried and started a brand new family. On Christmas break I had the brief chance to visit Muriel, and I asked her if she'd seen Jane, and she said, "didn't you know?"
"Know what?"
"Vinny died. This guy on a job site ran a metal ladder into some live wires and Vinny ran over to save him. He was killed instantly, but the first guy lived. He sacrificed himself for this guy. At the funeral, Fr. Jerome compared him to Jesus."
"Was Jane there?"
"Until that moment. Then she walked out." Sail on, silver girl. Sail on by.
Oh, when darkness falls
And pain is all around
Omigod could there be a better preteen angst song. I mean, on the edge before you discover punk or grunge or whatever it is you discover in your own peculiar time and space. Before that, Art Garfunkel sings this and you either want to sing to someone you think you love or you want Art Garfunkel to come and sing it to you.
The way things were handled in the end of this tale were so bizarre, it is almost not worth writing down. But I will, from my 7th grade perspective. Hannah, Jane, Muriel, Sonia, and I sat on my swingset talking about how fat our thighs were. Except Muriel because she was complaining about the mole on her forehead. It was almost midnight, my tolerant parents were allowing me to have all these people over to spend the night. Sonia was visiting from Oklahoma, where she'd moved 4 months before, and I was always ready for a slumber party. Whining about thighs stopped and the topic turned to sex. Jane practically blurted out, as if she'd been waiting all night to say it, that her stepfather Vinny was molesting her. Reactions ran the gamut from stunned silence (Muriel, me) to indignation (Sonia). The next Monday, Sonia (who was on spring break back in OKC and had a week to tool around the old homestead) and I went to Mr. Weber. Told him exactly what Jane had told us. He told us he'd handle it.
He handled it by telling Jane's mother.
That summer, I moved to Dallas and spent most of my mental energy adjusting to a large public middle school and an inexplicable developing hypergraphia that was taking all my spare time. I got letters from all the friends, but Jane's weren't coming from Columbia anymore--they were coming from Springfield where her dad had remarried and started a brand new family. On Christmas break I had the brief chance to visit Muriel, and I asked her if she'd seen Jane, and she said, "didn't you know?"
"Know what?"
"Vinny died. This guy on a job site ran a metal ladder into some live wires and Vinny ran over to save him. He was killed instantly, but the first guy lived. He sacrificed himself for this guy. At the funeral, Fr. Jerome compared him to Jesus."
"Was Jane there?"
"Until that moment. Then she walked out." Sail on, silver girl. Sail on by.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Perhaps Thou Doth Protest Too Much?
The new girl scout books are out.
I picked up the brownie guide, and the cadette one. The junior guides are out of stock until mid-November, which makes me shake my head. Badges, too, aren't due out until at least then--maybe spring, according to the woman in charge of my district.
Jerks.
Oops did I say that out loud?
Reading about the books, we are inundated with the fact that the journeys MUST BE A PART OF YOUR GIRL SCOUT EXPERIENCE. You've all heard me complain about this pablum before. Somehow, if we don't do the journeys and only do the badges, we are only hitting 1 out of 15 key pieces of girl scouting.
Is it just me, or do the other 14 sound like not that important after all? I mean, the new legacy badges for the cadettes were actually good--I liked them--although I definitely think they could be easily accomplished by juniors. Again with the dumbing down of the program twinned with silly illustrations and too much reading for the daisies. Bah. And the creepy elves/brownies in the brownie guide. Goodness. Get a new illustrator. But I'm rambling.
Every meeting I attend--district, neighborhood--and everything I read and everything at training programs says, so fast, in bold letters or loudly so everyone can hear: HAVE AN OPEN MIND! PLEASE DO THE JOURNEYS BECAUSE HEY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO NOW!!!!
No we don't.
Ok, yes we do. Next year if my cadettes want to earn their silver award, they do. But my neighborhood chair has already written up a plan about how to "get it over with" in a weekend. Go to camp, wear pajamas, get it over with.
Why not just lie? Really. If it's going to be so dumbed down and silly and done in a weekend and so letter-of-the-law?
They suck. They are embarrassing and they suck. It's like New Coke all over again but at least Coke had the wisdom to admit it.
But I stay. I stay because of the cheap camping. Because of the archery and the canoeing and all the good things about scouts that are being quickly phased out all over the nation as councils sell their camps to property developers. I stay because of all the good things about my troops and field trips and all that. But journeys? No thank you. Actually, not even a thank you. They are still bad. And you're destroying what's good in order to cover up your mistake.
So I'm going to do the cadette badges. And the other councils' badges that are still legit and available. And we're going to camp and go on trips and enjoy ourselves. Next December maybe we'll go to camp and fulfill some onerous workbook to earn the silver award. Fill in the blanks and get it over with.
Maeve's troop, too. The next three years will be field trips and day trips and FUN. Like the birds and the bees, I won't let them in on the big bad parts of getting older until the bronze award comes along. And of course I will continue to hope that one day, Miss Corporate Girl Scout USA will come to her sense.
Sorry for the rant.
I just want more options.
I picked up the brownie guide, and the cadette one. The junior guides are out of stock until mid-November, which makes me shake my head. Badges, too, aren't due out until at least then--maybe spring, according to the woman in charge of my district.
Jerks.
Oops did I say that out loud?
Reading about the books, we are inundated with the fact that the journeys MUST BE A PART OF YOUR GIRL SCOUT EXPERIENCE. You've all heard me complain about this pablum before. Somehow, if we don't do the journeys and only do the badges, we are only hitting 1 out of 15 key pieces of girl scouting.
Is it just me, or do the other 14 sound like not that important after all? I mean, the new legacy badges for the cadettes were actually good--I liked them--although I definitely think they could be easily accomplished by juniors. Again with the dumbing down of the program twinned with silly illustrations and too much reading for the daisies. Bah. And the creepy elves/brownies in the brownie guide. Goodness. Get a new illustrator. But I'm rambling.
Every meeting I attend--district, neighborhood--and everything I read and everything at training programs says, so fast, in bold letters or loudly so everyone can hear: HAVE AN OPEN MIND! PLEASE DO THE JOURNEYS BECAUSE HEY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO NOW!!!!
No we don't.
Ok, yes we do. Next year if my cadettes want to earn their silver award, they do. But my neighborhood chair has already written up a plan about how to "get it over with" in a weekend. Go to camp, wear pajamas, get it over with.
Why not just lie? Really. If it's going to be so dumbed down and silly and done in a weekend and so letter-of-the-law?
They suck. They are embarrassing and they suck. It's like New Coke all over again but at least Coke had the wisdom to admit it.
But I stay. I stay because of the cheap camping. Because of the archery and the canoeing and all the good things about scouts that are being quickly phased out all over the nation as councils sell their camps to property developers. I stay because of all the good things about my troops and field trips and all that. But journeys? No thank you. Actually, not even a thank you. They are still bad. And you're destroying what's good in order to cover up your mistake.
So I'm going to do the cadette badges. And the other councils' badges that are still legit and available. And we're going to camp and go on trips and enjoy ourselves. Next December maybe we'll go to camp and fulfill some onerous workbook to earn the silver award. Fill in the blanks and get it over with.
Maeve's troop, too. The next three years will be field trips and day trips and FUN. Like the birds and the bees, I won't let them in on the big bad parts of getting older until the bronze award comes along. And of course I will continue to hope that one day, Miss Corporate Girl Scout USA will come to her sense.
Sorry for the rant.
I just want more options.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Pete Stein
I wrote this about him on my 365 blog a few years back:Typical rebel these days: high school dropout, piercings, tired-looking. But I know you’re brilliant and you’ll come out of it. You were always my favorite in that class. Smart, funny, charming, mature.
And in the comments, I mentioned that I wanted to take him home, adopt him. Not to save him, but because I thought he was fabulous.
I taught him for 5th and 6th grade at my parish school. I still remember my first day, him sullen in the back of the room, the only two girls in that class up in my face for my attention. Realizing with a bit of focus that the boy in the back with the chain on his wallet was part of the Stein family. His older brother was in 8th grade and my sisters knew his even older brother. And there were other younger brothers, and finally a sister the same age as Sophia (but that would be later).
As I focused on my own growing family, I fell out of close touch with his family, although we attended the same church and eventually his sister would be in my girl scout troop for a while. I remember being in his mother's house one day and he ran in. There was talk of some dumpster diving. I don't recall all the details. And then this past winter, Sophia was in the play with his sister, and so I saw him at one of the performances. He was there with his girlfriend and they were talking about how they were headed out to where, perhaps, her family lived? Again, I don't recall all the details. But there was problems with a transmission, I think, and trying to figure out how to get out there. He was pretty rough looking, but it was the same Pete, you know? So smart, funny, remembered me and Sophia and had come to see his sister's play. I know from knowing my dad's family that looks are often deceiving.
So Ann called me this week because we're starting up a freezer meals kind of committee at church for people with temporary needs. Not deaths, not funeral meals. Not longterm homebound situations. But things like, well, when Ann had her hip replaced. Lots of people made meals, even if the family could have technically gotten by without. It is just so nice, I know from meals made for me when I had babies come home from the hospital, to know that dinner is taken care of. Pete's mom, in fact, made us a meal every time I had a baby. Lemon meringue pie. Oh, she is also my source for the rum cake I indulge in occasionally.
So we had our first call, essentially, before we even got started. Pete was out in Oregon and was jumping a train. And it went horribly wrong. He wound up losing both feet--I don't know all the details, but I ran into his aunt yesterday and she said it was 10 cm below each knee and the doctors are hoping to keep infection at bay because he's a better risk for prosthetics with knees intact.
But I also know from his aunt that when he went into surgery--one foot was still somewhat attached--he asked the doctor if he could save it. Like in a jar. Preserve it to show people. And he was mad that the doctor told him they didn't do that. And that sounded just like Pete.
So there are donation jars all over South Grand, there is a fundraiser night at City Diner next week. He's one of those folks that everyone winds up knowing through something, and St. Louis is a small small place in the end. He did have insurance--his parents insisted he carry it--but even with that, this is a long expensive recovery and neither he nor his family (nor, really, any of us) is prepared for it. There are trips out to Portland, there is time lost from work, there's all sorts of things I can't even imagine handling.
I know most of my readers aren't St. Louisans, but if you are, and if you find yourself on South Grand, think of Pete.
One (Repost)
Another reposting
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt
High school boyfriends and higher aspirations. I left Houston after graduation and came up to SLU. Met Mike in the first 10 minutes I was there, and by the end of the year I was trying to figure out how best to dump Troy back home. It sounds fun, like some sort of chick novel, maybe even Sweet Valley High: Bridgett can’t decide between the fun new boy and the sure thing back home. Yeah.
That spring, when I told him I had to stop being engaged to him and figure out what I wanted to do, voices thin on the phone, he told me more than I needed to know. Why I should stay. Why I had to. It's too late, tonight, to drag the past out into the light. I juggled this in my head, all summer when I got back home. How to fix this, how not to hurt him more, how to make it all better. So I chickened out and didn’t break up. Well we hurt each other, then we do it again.
Back at college, trying not to think about any of it, one night I went out with a bunch of people I don’t know anymore. It was one of those sweet smelling September evenings when you remember the city is built on a prairie. U2’s “One” came on the radio, and I like that song, I turned it up, I was in the passenger seat, in charge. Love is a temple, love a higher law, you ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl—BAM—and I realized I’d hit the dashboard so hard with my hand that my wrist hurt, and I’d left a 9 inch crack along Nora’s dashboard.
One life, you got to do what you should.
I broke up with him that evening. Started dating Mike two weeks later.
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt
High school boyfriends and higher aspirations. I left Houston after graduation and came up to SLU. Met Mike in the first 10 minutes I was there, and by the end of the year I was trying to figure out how best to dump Troy back home. It sounds fun, like some sort of chick novel, maybe even Sweet Valley High: Bridgett can’t decide between the fun new boy and the sure thing back home. Yeah.
That spring, when I told him I had to stop being engaged to him and figure out what I wanted to do, voices thin on the phone, he told me more than I needed to know. Why I should stay. Why I had to. It's too late, tonight, to drag the past out into the light. I juggled this in my head, all summer when I got back home. How to fix this, how not to hurt him more, how to make it all better. So I chickened out and didn’t break up. Well we hurt each other, then we do it again.
Back at college, trying not to think about any of it, one night I went out with a bunch of people I don’t know anymore. It was one of those sweet smelling September evenings when you remember the city is built on a prairie. U2’s “One” came on the radio, and I like that song, I turned it up, I was in the passenger seat, in charge. Love is a temple, love a higher law, you ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl—BAM—and I realized I’d hit the dashboard so hard with my hand that my wrist hurt, and I’d left a 9 inch crack along Nora’s dashboard.
One life, you got to do what you should.
I broke up with him that evening. Started dating Mike two weeks later.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Discoveries (thanks to Gail)
Not that the discoveries are thanks to Gail, but the idea for the post is.
*Working a feis stage in the morning is much more fun than in the afternoon. All the parents are fresh and for many the whole feis thing is still new and fun. The kids are little and/or nervous and/or fun to talk to.
*No one could see a sign on my chest that said "We're Quitting". Imagine that. I walked through the place in cognito. We had a nice day.
*The last three weeks sucked a lot more than I thought they had. All of that is over (except one very minor bit I don't care much about, and another major bit that really has nothing to do with me nor do I have any power over).
*When you come down from 3 weeks of pretty high stress, you take a 5 hour nap through a headache that might have been a migraine if not for the nap.
*I am getting pretty good at planning what I'm going to say when I talk in front of folks but absolutely no better at executing said plan. I stood up at church this morning and by the end of the stewardship talk I was crying. Again. Jeez.
*The best thing after crying at church is to go home and take a 2 hour nap. And then go to a potluck.
*I really hurt my shoulder. Gretchen looked at it today. I have exercises. If I hadn't gotten weak pulling a pair of tights onto Maeve I wouldn't have thought anything of the soreness in my left shoulder. But I think I really did something. Six weeks.
*Sometimes it is best to just let everything simmer down. I'm talking about grape jam, but also interpersonal conflicts.
*Half of the two people I had to email to announce that Sophia was quitting dance, well, that one person, was so gracious and lovely and made me almost regret it (not on purpose, I mean in response to her lovely response). The other half, the other person, I had to write a second, firmer, email. I am dreading dropping off the dress. On the other hand, what, are they going to stone me? Read up above, about 3 weeks of stress? Everything is so blown out of proportion.
*In girl scout meetings there are definitely girls I would prefer to have run the show in comparison to others. As they get older I mask this slightly less (as I found out through an amusing retelling via another mom).
*The girls are old enough to hand them blank sheets of paper, have them divide into patrols, and plan some meals and activities for a camping trip. Bam.
*A lot of my paranoid delusions the last three weeks? Almost all of them came to nothing. Read between the lines.
*Turns out, the water doesn't all evaporate out of the pool. Tomorrow involves scrubbing.
*Most of the current guest room mess, again, turns out, isn't mine. Sophia has spread her stuff around the house, subtly, like a trailing vine.
*If you use the flovent how you should, and the expectorant as often as you should, and a bit of a suppressant at night, Maeve doesn't wind up on prednisone for the 3rd autumn in a row. So far.
I see around the corner now. Might even be a light. Here's to a bit of normal.
*Working a feis stage in the morning is much more fun than in the afternoon. All the parents are fresh and for many the whole feis thing is still new and fun. The kids are little and/or nervous and/or fun to talk to.
*No one could see a sign on my chest that said "We're Quitting". Imagine that. I walked through the place in cognito. We had a nice day.
*The last three weeks sucked a lot more than I thought they had. All of that is over (except one very minor bit I don't care much about, and another major bit that really has nothing to do with me nor do I have any power over).
*When you come down from 3 weeks of pretty high stress, you take a 5 hour nap through a headache that might have been a migraine if not for the nap.
*I am getting pretty good at planning what I'm going to say when I talk in front of folks but absolutely no better at executing said plan. I stood up at church this morning and by the end of the stewardship talk I was crying. Again. Jeez.
*The best thing after crying at church is to go home and take a 2 hour nap. And then go to a potluck.
*I really hurt my shoulder. Gretchen looked at it today. I have exercises. If I hadn't gotten weak pulling a pair of tights onto Maeve I wouldn't have thought anything of the soreness in my left shoulder. But I think I really did something. Six weeks.
*Sometimes it is best to just let everything simmer down. I'm talking about grape jam, but also interpersonal conflicts.
*Half of the two people I had to email to announce that Sophia was quitting dance, well, that one person, was so gracious and lovely and made me almost regret it (not on purpose, I mean in response to her lovely response). The other half, the other person, I had to write a second, firmer, email. I am dreading dropping off the dress. On the other hand, what, are they going to stone me? Read up above, about 3 weeks of stress? Everything is so blown out of proportion.
*In girl scout meetings there are definitely girls I would prefer to have run the show in comparison to others. As they get older I mask this slightly less (as I found out through an amusing retelling via another mom).
*The girls are old enough to hand them blank sheets of paper, have them divide into patrols, and plan some meals and activities for a camping trip. Bam.
*A lot of my paranoid delusions the last three weeks? Almost all of them came to nothing. Read between the lines.
*Turns out, the water doesn't all evaporate out of the pool. Tomorrow involves scrubbing.
*Most of the current guest room mess, again, turns out, isn't mine. Sophia has spread her stuff around the house, subtly, like a trailing vine.
*If you use the flovent how you should, and the expectorant as often as you should, and a bit of a suppressant at night, Maeve doesn't wind up on prednisone for the 3rd autumn in a row. So far.
I see around the corner now. Might even be a light. Here's to a bit of normal.
Friday, September 09, 2011
Killing Time
A repost. It's the change of seasons that does it to me. The end of autumn, the end of summer, the end of spring (the end of winter is so miserable here I don't note it the same way). It fills me with nostalgia. Plus this has been one of the crazier months for me and I'm getting up courage to do something hard tomorrow. It is good to go back and read things from before during these moments.
You were the first thing that I thought of
When I thought I drank you off my mind
My senior year of high school, I went on a lot of retreats. The first one that year was for Campus Ministry only, 3 nights outside San Antonio. A faculty retreat in late August was next, where the baseball coach/history teacher ran his foot up my leg as I sat across from him at lunch. The sophomores, the freshmen day trips; the separate junior girls and junior boys retreats. My own senior retreat, five days in A-Frame cottages, supposedly silent, yet 15 of my classmates got caught horsing around in mixed-gender situations...and got sent home. The spring was uneventful, and then campus ministry had their final retreat, down in Corpus Christi in a beach house Melanie's parents owned.
Days on the beach. Nights on the beach. Mass on the beach. A bit of a sunburn. Driving the 15 passenger van away from hooligans at the Stop-n-Go. Watching Thelma and Louise and all the boys laughing, but all the girls picking out their secret club names. Saturday night, Kevin, the youth minister, took us out to a bar (!) near the beach. We ate burgers and fries and listened to a local guitarist play country music.
This song came on; Adam and I got up to dance. I was two years older than Adam, at least 3 inches taller, and even though it was on the bare wood floor of a Corpus Christi bar, and we were high school kids dancing to a cover band, for a moment we were the only people in the room. The way he looked at me, the way he led (most boys thus far in my dancing career practically let me lead--it is hard to have a dominant personality sometimes), it was effortless. After the song ended, we sat back down amid applause from the team. Probably the best retreat moment I'd had all year.
It wasn't until later that summer, hearing it on the radio, that I came to realize this song was about drinking yourself to death.
You were the first thing that I thought of
When I thought I drank you off my mind
My senior year of high school, I went on a lot of retreats. The first one that year was for Campus Ministry only, 3 nights outside San Antonio. A faculty retreat in late August was next, where the baseball coach/history teacher ran his foot up my leg as I sat across from him at lunch. The sophomores, the freshmen day trips; the separate junior girls and junior boys retreats. My own senior retreat, five days in A-Frame cottages, supposedly silent, yet 15 of my classmates got caught horsing around in mixed-gender situations...and got sent home. The spring was uneventful, and then campus ministry had their final retreat, down in Corpus Christi in a beach house Melanie's parents owned.
Days on the beach. Nights on the beach. Mass on the beach. A bit of a sunburn. Driving the 15 passenger van away from hooligans at the Stop-n-Go. Watching Thelma and Louise and all the boys laughing, but all the girls picking out their secret club names. Saturday night, Kevin, the youth minister, took us out to a bar (!) near the beach. We ate burgers and fries and listened to a local guitarist play country music.
This song came on; Adam and I got up to dance. I was two years older than Adam, at least 3 inches taller, and even though it was on the bare wood floor of a Corpus Christi bar, and we were high school kids dancing to a cover band, for a moment we were the only people in the room. The way he looked at me, the way he led (most boys thus far in my dancing career practically let me lead--it is hard to have a dominant personality sometimes), it was effortless. After the song ended, we sat back down amid applause from the team. Probably the best retreat moment I'd had all year.
It wasn't until later that summer, hearing it on the radio, that I came to realize this song was about drinking yourself to death.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
First Two Art Lessons
I'm teaching art to the 1st-3rd graders this year at my kids' school. One is a classroom of 13 (a developing classroom--next year they will grow by a large number and the third year they'll be the same size as the other two 1st-3rds), the other has 30. Maeve is in the larger classroom (there are 2 teachers) but I had a parent request to teach art in the other as well, and the teacher was happy to let that happen (it would be hard to resist a volunteer with a decent track record for showing up and doing her job, frankly).
I've decided to do a 3 year arc, in the hopes that they will want me back next year, of art history and projects relating to it. We are starting at the very beginnings of human history and slowly moving forward. This year I hope to cover the stone age up through the Migration Period (early medieval times).
So our first lesson was cave paintings. I will post pictures another day but what we did was a short lesson about cave paintings and a pass-around of pictures from caves around the world. Then everyone found a seat under a table or desk, I turned off the lights (there are windows--it wasn't totally dark), and they painted on brown paper bags with brown tempera and drew with sticks of charcoal. Most of the 33 children involved drew things based on the designs they'd seen--people on hunts, animals of various kinds. One boy drew spaceships, but we reasoned together that if spaceships had landed when people were drawing in caves, they surely would have recorded that. A few kids went crazy with the paint, pretty much just covering the page with brown. But we'll get there.
Then I had them come over to a table I had set up with a spray bottle of diluted black tempera. I had them put their hand somewhere on their paper and I sprayed over their hand like a stencil.
This was a popular lesson.
Today's lesson was about paint, and about the Azilian culture of the mesolithic era, who used red ochre to paint pebbles. We don't know what the symbols mean, but there are 1500 pebbles with dots and lines on them. I started a timeline on freezer paper to show where we've been and where we are today (meaning lesson, not modern times).
Then we made paint. Equal parts powdered milk and water, and then added pigment. In this case, crushed brick, crushed charcoal, and dirt from my backyard. I also used henna powder because it was a different brown--more like a sienna--and it gave us the 4 basic colors we've seen in pictures of cave paintings.
Making paint like this was gross and wonderful. They really enjoyed it. They decorated some pebbles I brought in and laid them on paper strips to dry.
Next week I'm going to cover the Neolithic Era and use megalithic monuments as my example: Stonehenge, for instance. And then they will build miniature monuments (minilithic?).
I cannot express enough how excited I am about this year.
I've decided to do a 3 year arc, in the hopes that they will want me back next year, of art history and projects relating to it. We are starting at the very beginnings of human history and slowly moving forward. This year I hope to cover the stone age up through the Migration Period (early medieval times).
So our first lesson was cave paintings. I will post pictures another day but what we did was a short lesson about cave paintings and a pass-around of pictures from caves around the world. Then everyone found a seat under a table or desk, I turned off the lights (there are windows--it wasn't totally dark), and they painted on brown paper bags with brown tempera and drew with sticks of charcoal. Most of the 33 children involved drew things based on the designs they'd seen--people on hunts, animals of various kinds. One boy drew spaceships, but we reasoned together that if spaceships had landed when people were drawing in caves, they surely would have recorded that. A few kids went crazy with the paint, pretty much just covering the page with brown. But we'll get there.
Then I had them come over to a table I had set up with a spray bottle of diluted black tempera. I had them put their hand somewhere on their paper and I sprayed over their hand like a stencil.
This was a popular lesson.
Today's lesson was about paint, and about the Azilian culture of the mesolithic era, who used red ochre to paint pebbles. We don't know what the symbols mean, but there are 1500 pebbles with dots and lines on them. I started a timeline on freezer paper to show where we've been and where we are today (meaning lesson, not modern times).
Then we made paint. Equal parts powdered milk and water, and then added pigment. In this case, crushed brick, crushed charcoal, and dirt from my backyard. I also used henna powder because it was a different brown--more like a sienna--and it gave us the 4 basic colors we've seen in pictures of cave paintings.
Making paint like this was gross and wonderful. They really enjoyed it. They decorated some pebbles I brought in and laid them on paper strips to dry.
Next week I'm going to cover the Neolithic Era and use megalithic monuments as my example: Stonehenge, for instance. And then they will build miniature monuments (minilithic?).
I cannot express enough how excited I am about this year.
More Balls
Juggling, I mean.
I have hurt my shoulder. I don't know enough about shoulders to even communicate it to you, but I talked to Gretchen on the phone and she asked me pointed questions and gave me serious advice. It's not a major tear, based on my level of pain, but it's something.
It's my left shoulder, which at first made me say "Whew! Could be worse!" And then I realized that my left arm is my gross motor arm. I hold the pot with the left hand and stir with the right. I pick up the bag of flour with my left hand and scoop with my right. I hold the book with my left and turn the page with my right. Great. This evening after getting off the phone with Gretchen, I started watching myself. It will take some retraining. It hurts right now. Lovely.
Sophia's ceili team was just now announced to be at a noon show in Manchester on Sunday. That means getting there at 11. Which means...church? I've written a desperate letter pleading for a sub. I am now officially done with Irish dance. Sophia was already but this is the last straw. Saturday is Sophia's last feis and if it weren't downtown, I might be tempted to just skip it. Drop off the dress on Tuesday and say goodbye. But we signed that pledge about the oireachtas and here we go. I need to stop saying OK to things. Just as a general rule.
One ball that was in the air I think I've caught. But that's all I can say about it now. I had a long talk with a friend this afternoon and it was like a combination lock getting all the tumblers in the right place, just before you yank it open. It's unlocked, but it's not yet off the locker. Goodness.
And seasonal allergies are back. As my neighbor Lisa put it, walking by earlier, there's always something to complain about. First it's too hot, now the weather is good and I feel like curling up in bed and sobbing. Next it'll be too cold. Before I know it.
It's been a really stressful 3 weeks or so. Not a novel. A short story. And probably written by Flannery O'Connor. Moments of grace coming too late to be of any use.
“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
I have hurt my shoulder. I don't know enough about shoulders to even communicate it to you, but I talked to Gretchen on the phone and she asked me pointed questions and gave me serious advice. It's not a major tear, based on my level of pain, but it's something.
It's my left shoulder, which at first made me say "Whew! Could be worse!" And then I realized that my left arm is my gross motor arm. I hold the pot with the left hand and stir with the right. I pick up the bag of flour with my left hand and scoop with my right. I hold the book with my left and turn the page with my right. Great. This evening after getting off the phone with Gretchen, I started watching myself. It will take some retraining. It hurts right now. Lovely.
Sophia's ceili team was just now announced to be at a noon show in Manchester on Sunday. That means getting there at 11. Which means...church? I've written a desperate letter pleading for a sub. I am now officially done with Irish dance. Sophia was already but this is the last straw. Saturday is Sophia's last feis and if it weren't downtown, I might be tempted to just skip it. Drop off the dress on Tuesday and say goodbye. But we signed that pledge about the oireachtas and here we go. I need to stop saying OK to things. Just as a general rule.
One ball that was in the air I think I've caught. But that's all I can say about it now. I had a long talk with a friend this afternoon and it was like a combination lock getting all the tumblers in the right place, just before you yank it open. It's unlocked, but it's not yet off the locker. Goodness.
And seasonal allergies are back. As my neighbor Lisa put it, walking by earlier, there's always something to complain about. First it's too hot, now the weather is good and I feel like curling up in bed and sobbing. Next it'll be too cold. Before I know it.
It's been a really stressful 3 weeks or so. Not a novel. A short story. And probably written by Flannery O'Connor. Moments of grace coming too late to be of any use.
“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Juggling
All balls currently in air.
Everything that rises must converge. And it is.
I am so busy right now it is ridiculous. Old dance, new dance, parish picnic dance. School, art, homework, six ways from Sunday craziness. Maeve has a cold that I'm trying to tame down before her asthma ignites. The yard needs a clean up for autumn. The dining room needs a deep cleaning and then the floor sanded the rest of the way. Tutoring. Girl scouts. New girl scout stuff that annoys. House projects. Laundry. Kitchen. Genealogy, which, I know, shouldn't be stressful, and it isn't except that I feel like a few of these people are purposefully hiding from me. Christmas quilting. I am taking a class to reactivate my teaching certificate.
But three related items:
The Desiderata (Go placidly amid the noise and haste), most of us know, is not an anonymous list of thoughts found in 1692 in an old church in Boston. It is a prose poem by Max Ehrman.
The St. Francis Prayer (Make me a channel of your peace), is not by St. Francis of Assisi but instead was published anonymously in the early 20th century in a French magazine. It is also the anthem of the Royal British Legion.
And the Oscar Romero workmen prayer/homily (We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own) isn't by Oscar Romero, but by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw.
Ruminating.
Everything that rises must converge. And it is.
I am so busy right now it is ridiculous. Old dance, new dance, parish picnic dance. School, art, homework, six ways from Sunday craziness. Maeve has a cold that I'm trying to tame down before her asthma ignites. The yard needs a clean up for autumn. The dining room needs a deep cleaning and then the floor sanded the rest of the way. Tutoring. Girl scouts. New girl scout stuff that annoys. House projects. Laundry. Kitchen. Genealogy, which, I know, shouldn't be stressful, and it isn't except that I feel like a few of these people are purposefully hiding from me. Christmas quilting. I am taking a class to reactivate my teaching certificate.
But three related items:
The Desiderata (Go placidly amid the noise and haste), most of us know, is not an anonymous list of thoughts found in 1692 in an old church in Boston. It is a prose poem by Max Ehrman.
The St. Francis Prayer (Make me a channel of your peace), is not by St. Francis of Assisi but instead was published anonymously in the early 20th century in a French magazine. It is also the anthem of the Royal British Legion.
And the Oscar Romero workmen prayer/homily (We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own) isn't by Oscar Romero, but by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw.
Ruminating.
Monday, September 05, 2011
The Last Two Weeks: A List
2: the number of weeks I'm going to discuss
9: the number of days the girls have been back at school (they missed Friday).
1: the number of days it took me to open mouth, insert foot.
A number between 4 and 8(pi)^2: how many things I'm ticked off about that I can't talk about just yet or perhaps ever because there are too many players and I'm bewildered by it all because seriously, I am not a Machiavellian. Not even close. If I were a character on Leverage I would be Elliot. I can't steal, I can't lie, I can't play people, I can't even read nuance. Not that I can hit, either, although Master Warren told me one time I have good instincts. But the point is that the last two weeks have knocked my mental teeth out and I keep putting my fists up at shadows and don't know what's coming next. And you know what I think about that (sorry)? Fuck that.
30: the number of minutes our train home from Kansas City was EARLY. Does that ever happen on Amtrak? The trip out and the trip back were absolutely pleasant and relaxing. Yes, we went to Kansas City this weekend for the feis and the Irish Festival. Never have I found myself in a larger group of light eyed freckled folk.
1118: Our room number
532: Sophia's feis competitor number
16: the number of girls in Sophia's slip jig event, which she did not place in and was somewhat disappointed by.
14: The number in her hornpipe, which she also did not place in and I was disappointed by because it was the most confident I've seen her with the hornpipe. But 14? They show the top 3 on the board.
3: The number of competitive dances Sophia has left. Reel, hornpipe, and slip jig, this coming weekend. We compromised. She wasn't going to go at all, but our school has co-opted the feis and we sort of have to. So she's dancing her 3 in advanced beginner and skipping the novice ones. Maybe she'll go out on a bang. There are 8, 6, and 8 competitors in those. This of course isn't counting the oireachtas ceili dance. She has now decided that the moment she takes her wig off in Chicago, she's not looking back. "Irish dance has taught me many things, but I've learned those things and I don't have anything else to learn from it." Well. Then.
5: approximately the number of minutes it took her to shake off her lack of placing and get on with her life on Saturday afternoon. She's had two big zeros in a row, after always placing in something at every feis we attended (except for that one awful one in St. Louis that you all in St. Louis know what I'm talking about, but actually, she was in a 3 hand that day that placed, so never mind).
1: how many tips I learned at the Irish genealogy talk I went to on Sunday (yes, I did). One tip that I didn't already know. And in the end it didn't help me. But one amateur genealogist listened to my story of Tooheys and Kidneys and the lot and finally reassured me: if it were her family, she'd probably go with it. Still look, but know that it was likely they were all the same people in the end. She was very reassuring. I'm going to keep looking.
1900: the year of the census where the one tip is located: naturalization status. If it says Na, they are naturalized citizens. But Bridget's is blank. Did she prefer not to answer? I don't know. Nobody else on the page was foreign born. Maybe the census taker didn't care.
16: the number of bento boxes I've packed.
3: the number of art classes I've taught.
1: the number of panic attacks I've had (seriously, it's been a hard couple of weeks). Never had one before. They're cute.
4: the number of pounds I've lost.
45: the approximate number of socks that sit on the couch next to me right now, unsorted.
2.4: how many miles I walked round trip on Saturday post-feis to the grocery store. It was good to clear my head.
12: how many baby tomatoes I counted in the garden this evening. I have hope, finally.
5: the number of watermelons coming along nicely. Eep I hope they make it.
30: the degrees dropped from the high this past Thursday to the high today. Whew.
1/2: the fraction of nights the past two weeks I've gone to bed dreading the next day. And as a smack on the head of "See, everything was all right", well, most of the times I was right to dread.
100%: the percentage of days when I reassured myself through some sort of Benedictine moment. Mostly stability reminders. Why I'm here and why I remain.
80%: the percentage of days I found myself repeating the phrase, "it's not about me." Because the other 20%, it kind of was.
A number between, oh, 6 and 10 to the power of something on the smaller end of positive numbers: how many hard tasks and conversations sit on my plate starting tomorrow morning and extending throughout the next week.
1, maybe, probably closer to .47: how many of those I want to do.
12: the number of Mike's shirts and pants I need to iron tomorrow, which isn't one of the hard tasks, by the way.
4: how many pints of raspberry jam I made with a new-to-canning person I met online who wanted to learn.
0: the number of alcoholic anything I consumed
15 < x < 39: the number of cups of (homemade) iced coffee I consumed.
4: number of Leverage episodes I caught up on
2: how many nights it took me to read Hound of the Baskervilles before bed, in exciting preparation for Sherlock's return...in 2012...
x > 6: how many times I had to put Hound of the Baskervilles down in order to ruminate on how they might portray this or that. At least 6 times. I said to Mike, "I really want them to do a good job" and he replied with something like, "because they're the sort to just slap something together, you know."
And the rest of the numbers: 6 hours, 6 dances, 2 confusing ancestors, 1 line jumper, 1 negative fantasy involving line jumper, 3 conversations I'm still ruminating on, 2 amazing conversations with Gretchen, 3 cases of mastitis (not me, someone I'm helping), 1 chewable zyrtec, 9 bags, too many good conversations with Zelda to count, 3 batches of cookies, 1 wedding invitation, 10 years of milk delivery come to an end, 2 visits to the library, 3 quarts of chopped okra, 11 jalapenos, 8 second-season beans, 3 days of porch painting, too many days above 100 degrees.
Ok, we're in now. It's the school year. I'm ready for routine. And perhaps fewer algebra problems and more geometry.
9: the number of days the girls have been back at school (they missed Friday).
1: the number of days it took me to open mouth, insert foot.
A number between 4 and 8(pi)^2: how many things I'm ticked off about that I can't talk about just yet or perhaps ever because there are too many players and I'm bewildered by it all because seriously, I am not a Machiavellian. Not even close. If I were a character on Leverage I would be Elliot. I can't steal, I can't lie, I can't play people, I can't even read nuance. Not that I can hit, either, although Master Warren told me one time I have good instincts. But the point is that the last two weeks have knocked my mental teeth out and I keep putting my fists up at shadows and don't know what's coming next. And you know what I think about that (sorry)? Fuck that.
30: the number of minutes our train home from Kansas City was EARLY. Does that ever happen on Amtrak? The trip out and the trip back were absolutely pleasant and relaxing. Yes, we went to Kansas City this weekend for the feis and the Irish Festival. Never have I found myself in a larger group of light eyed freckled folk.
1118: Our room number
532: Sophia's feis competitor number
16: the number of girls in Sophia's slip jig event, which she did not place in and was somewhat disappointed by.
14: The number in her hornpipe, which she also did not place in and I was disappointed by because it was the most confident I've seen her with the hornpipe. But 14? They show the top 3 on the board.
3: The number of competitive dances Sophia has left. Reel, hornpipe, and slip jig, this coming weekend. We compromised. She wasn't going to go at all, but our school has co-opted the feis and we sort of have to. So she's dancing her 3 in advanced beginner and skipping the novice ones. Maybe she'll go out on a bang. There are 8, 6, and 8 competitors in those. This of course isn't counting the oireachtas ceili dance. She has now decided that the moment she takes her wig off in Chicago, she's not looking back. "Irish dance has taught me many things, but I've learned those things and I don't have anything else to learn from it." Well. Then.
5: approximately the number of minutes it took her to shake off her lack of placing and get on with her life on Saturday afternoon. She's had two big zeros in a row, after always placing in something at every feis we attended (except for that one awful one in St. Louis that you all in St. Louis know what I'm talking about, but actually, she was in a 3 hand that day that placed, so never mind).
1: how many tips I learned at the Irish genealogy talk I went to on Sunday (yes, I did). One tip that I didn't already know. And in the end it didn't help me. But one amateur genealogist listened to my story of Tooheys and Kidneys and the lot and finally reassured me: if it were her family, she'd probably go with it. Still look, but know that it was likely they were all the same people in the end. She was very reassuring. I'm going to keep looking.
1900: the year of the census where the one tip is located: naturalization status. If it says Na, they are naturalized citizens. But Bridget's is blank. Did she prefer not to answer? I don't know. Nobody else on the page was foreign born. Maybe the census taker didn't care.
16: the number of bento boxes I've packed.
3: the number of art classes I've taught.
1: the number of panic attacks I've had (seriously, it's been a hard couple of weeks). Never had one before. They're cute.
4: the number of pounds I've lost.
45: the approximate number of socks that sit on the couch next to me right now, unsorted.
2.4: how many miles I walked round trip on Saturday post-feis to the grocery store. It was good to clear my head.
12: how many baby tomatoes I counted in the garden this evening. I have hope, finally.
5: the number of watermelons coming along nicely. Eep I hope they make it.
30: the degrees dropped from the high this past Thursday to the high today. Whew.
1/2: the fraction of nights the past two weeks I've gone to bed dreading the next day. And as a smack on the head of "See, everything was all right", well, most of the times I was right to dread.
100%: the percentage of days when I reassured myself through some sort of Benedictine moment. Mostly stability reminders. Why I'm here and why I remain.
80%: the percentage of days I found myself repeating the phrase, "it's not about me." Because the other 20%, it kind of was.
A number between, oh, 6 and 10 to the power of something on the smaller end of positive numbers: how many hard tasks and conversations sit on my plate starting tomorrow morning and extending throughout the next week.
1, maybe, probably closer to .47: how many of those I want to do.
12: the number of Mike's shirts and pants I need to iron tomorrow, which isn't one of the hard tasks, by the way.
4: how many pints of raspberry jam I made with a new-to-canning person I met online who wanted to learn.
0: the number of alcoholic anything I consumed
15 < x < 39: the number of cups of (homemade) iced coffee I consumed.
4: number of Leverage episodes I caught up on
2: how many nights it took me to read Hound of the Baskervilles before bed, in exciting preparation for Sherlock's return...in 2012...
x > 6: how many times I had to put Hound of the Baskervilles down in order to ruminate on how they might portray this or that. At least 6 times. I said to Mike, "I really want them to do a good job" and he replied with something like, "because they're the sort to just slap something together, you know."
And the rest of the numbers: 6 hours, 6 dances, 2 confusing ancestors, 1 line jumper, 1 negative fantasy involving line jumper, 3 conversations I'm still ruminating on, 2 amazing conversations with Gretchen, 3 cases of mastitis (not me, someone I'm helping), 1 chewable zyrtec, 9 bags, too many good conversations with Zelda to count, 3 batches of cookies, 1 wedding invitation, 10 years of milk delivery come to an end, 2 visits to the library, 3 quarts of chopped okra, 11 jalapenos, 8 second-season beans, 3 days of porch painting, too many days above 100 degrees.
Ok, we're in now. It's the school year. I'm ready for routine. And perhaps fewer algebra problems and more geometry.
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