Love letter to my high school darkroom

I was holding my camera. It's a 5 year old canon digital camera, nothing special, not one of those dslr things. Just the run of the mill this is what I have. It has a nice heft to it, though, like a good 35 mm would, and it brought me back to another camera I owned, my father's, that I used throughout my senior year of high school in a photojournalism class. My dad had a set of macro lenses and I used them to take a picture of the laces of my converse all-star lace up high tops, back when they came in black, cream, and red. I had a pair of black and a pair of red. Back when no one wore them. But after the point when basketball players wore them. I placed 3rd in a regional school competition in photography with that picture.

And I was in this photojournalism class, with this camera with quirks--you couldn't use the timer anymore, for instance. You had to load film just-so. But it worked and I learned how to take a photo.

Maybe it's making an order for art class, the classes I teach on a volunteer basis, but for the first time ever I got to go through a catalog and order things. Buying things in bulk--maybe that's it. Or maybe it was Terri Gross interviewing Trent Reznor on Fresh Air. But suddenly I'm sitting in that darkroom in 1991, transferring film from my camera to the canisters where it will develop. Fumbling in darkness, hoping I don't drop anything necessary on the floor where I'll never find it. And then after developing it, going out into the bright classroom and using the little black machine to roll another canister of film off the bulk roll Mr. Sarver kept in a black bag.

I realized that more than cell phones vs. land lines, more than microwave ovens, more than the internet, actually, that this is the difference for me, the difference between me and now. My kids will never roll film or develop photos in a dark room, sitting on those metal stools that are never balanced right, chatting with John or trying not to chat with Heather, hoping we didn't expose anything, being trusted to do this task. They'll never take that film canister and take pictures at some ultra-boring volleyball game or NHS induction.

We don't have to make our own butter or know how to butcher pigs, either, and this isn't a "oh, these kids today don't understand" kind of thing I'm going for. I just realized, looking down at my camera in the front seat in front of me, that this is my version of my father's tooling around with a British sports car. I know how to do this thing that I never need to know how to do anymore.

But like a love letter from someone you've broken up with and never see anymore, it's nice to think about.

Wake up and fight

Most weekdays, Jake goes to work and I get things done at home and school and eventually, sooner or later, sit here at the computer. I take a break with a cup of coffee. On bad days, I sit down early. On good days, I realize it's lunchtime and I haven't checked my email. Either way, most weekdays, Jake wakes up a half hour earlier than he needs to so he can check things he reads and looks at online. Some we share: xkcd, for instance. The weather. But he also reads a number of websites I don't bother with--cool tools, boing boing, a bunch of political sites.

Many days, I sit down at the computer and find he's left open a tab for me. Usually it's a link to something interesting, like color photos from the 1930s Soviet Union. Or where to buy dehydrated food in bulk. We have many interests. My favorite was a blog of a woman who takes her motorcycle into Priapyet and takes photos of the destruction post-Chernobyl. Fed right into some of my greater irrational fears.

Today he left open Woody Guthrie's New Year's Resolutions, 1942 edition. You can go and take a look. Many wouldn't apply to me, but I could take 10 of those and make my own list, straight from his beautifully handwritten and illustrated copy.

1. Work more and better
2. Work by a schedule
7. Drink very scant if any
15. Learn people better
17. Don't get lonesome
18. Stay glad
23. Have company but don't waste time
31. Love everybody
32. Make up your mind
33. Wake up and fight

There would be little else on my list. Wake up and fight.

Twas 5 days before Christmas

and all through the house the kids were so ramped up on sugar that they couldn't think of a rhyme here.

We made a gingerbread house. House-ish. This was my entire day. My entire day.

I've made them before...my friend Matt even had his dad make me a set of cookie cutters for them. They're fun. For some reason, my kids think this is a tradition. I think we've made one since Fiona would be old enough to remember. I can't even find any photos. But it turned out ok. Mostly because I made it, with only two hands, and not with 6 extra hands helping me.

Today's started out good. I found a recipe that I think I've used before. I had this nagging feeling that I should google something, find something made for gingerbread houses, but I went with what I had in the cookbook. We cut out the shapes and baked them. While they cooled, we went to Target and bought cheap candy to decorate it with.

After we were home, we went to the kitchen and started the assembly. The girls were very excited. I was very nervous. I had memories of this not going well.

My memories were correct:Look at that Irish engineering. Quality right there.
The front broke. The roof broke. I pasted them together with royal icing and kept going. Eventually, my frustration reached a peak and I told the girls to go turn something on TV for Billy and I'd call them when it was ready to decorate--they hadn't really grasped that the assembly would be difficult or that it would be first.

I calmed down, got the thing together, and called them in. And it was fun. Weird mints on the roof. A makeshift chimney. Mike&Ikes on the front of the house, with two weird penguin cookies holding up lollipops. Daisy made a random front yard. Fiona designed a swingset and a playhouse for the side yard. I attached licorice whips to one side of the house, and then we went away for a little bit to let things dry before we added to it.

Something was wrong, I think, with my icing this time. It wasn't stiff enough. Or maybe it was the gingerbread itself, too crumbly. Some years things break, but they hold together with icing and are rock hard by the time January comes around and I think maybe we should throw that thing away.

We were upstairs chatting with Jake, who'd come home from work, I mean, literally, my whole day was gingerbread house, when Daisy yelled for us: "House emergency!"

We ran downstairs. Our lovely gabled house had collapsed under the weight of its roof. Too many mints. The side walls were intact, and the front and back walls were fine up to the height of the side walls--the gables crumbled with one of the roof pieces.

It. Was. A. Mess.

The girls were giggling--high on sugar, remember--but all I kept thinking was "this was my whole day, golly."

And I saw this vision. One of those two-paths-in-the-woods Frost moments. I could pick the whole thing up and throw it away, that was one path. Tell the girls we tried and maybe next year we could do it again. And I looked down that path and saw first our evening, awkward and probably disappointed, and then next year: "Nah, let's not make a house" and then never making one again. Yes. I saw this. And then the other path looked so clear. Laugh with them. Fix what you can. Let them play.So it's more of an adobe-style structure. I told them maybe it was Christmas in the Desert. Fiona really wanted the coconut to be snow, though. With no chimney, we posted a notice for Santa on the roof and made a ladder (you can't really see it--it's on the other side of the house) out of candy canes for him to climb down.

They had a good time. I did too. My jaw didn't hurt. I had Daisy sweep the floor and Fiona carry the creation to the front hall. They couldn't care less that the gables broke and it didn't look like something Hansel and Gretel would try to eat.

What do we learn from this? A few things. First, next year? Get the right icing recipe and the right gingerbread recipe and don't overcook them or make them too thin. Next, assemble it the night before while they are in bed and let them go at it in the morning when it is rock solid. Finally, that gingerbread assembly isn't really in my job description, but good childhoods are. And I need to keep that in mind. Always.

10 on Tuesday: 10 Things I have to do before Christmas

Only ten?

1. I have to finish my sister's awesome thing.

2. I have to finish 3 afghans. They are knit. I just need to seam them.

3. I have to iron and put buttons on a doll-sized Irish dance dress.

4. I have to finish the cool thing for my brother-in-law/sister-in-law.

5. I have to use freezer paper as an art supply.

6. I have to assemble a gingerbread house for my children to "decorate."

7. I should write a few cards to the few people who always write to me.

8. I have to go to the post office for my brother.

9. I have to finish 3 small knitting projects.

10. I have to arrange poinsettias at church.

Ok, actually? That isn't so bad.

Masseter II

I've had a week pain-free.

Not actually pain-free. But as close as it comes, really, with an inflamed masseter muscle.

During the day, I have this new white filling that is still sensitive to cold, on the same side of my mouth, so a swig of ice cold milk will get it all going. And that still sucks. But it is about a 6 month process for my mouth.

I'm not waking up in pain, which is a huge improvement in my quality of life. During the day, if it's relatively low-stress, I don't hurt at all. If it is stressful, like Sunday when it was time for church decorating and only 5 people whose last names were not Kennedy stayed? That was stressful. But I kept pressing that pressure point and all was well. I came home and took a few ibuprofen. Heat helps, too.

Things are humming along. It's ok right now. But busy. More later.

Masseter

Clench your teeth while touching the sides of your jaw. The muscle that tenses and expands to make you look like Henry Rollins? That's your masseter.

Due to circumstances long in the making, the right side of my face hurts. Not an electric pain (my endodontist neighbor asked me if it was an electric pain, and then my father asked me if it was an electric nerve pain, and then I googled it and it's called tic douloureux, aka The Suicide Pain and I decided there was no way I had that pain).

It's usually due to grinding and clenching teeth. I'm not grinding and clenching teeth. But I set my jaw tight sometimes. Maybe a lot more than sometimes. And then back a few months ago I had a filling fall out and some tooth structure fall apart. New filling. Then two root canaled teeth hit each other. And more pain. Then this tumbles downhill into a muscle relaxer prescription and then something amazing happened the day after I started taking it.

I could close my teeth together on the right side for the first time in years. Years.

But the muscle relaxer is really only that good the first round through, and I ran out of it about 10 days ago. No big thing, really. I was better. I didn't hurt anymore. It was amazing.

Until Sunday night when I hurt again. Now, I'd spent the whole weekend on my feet at Girl Scout camp. And I was tired and overworked and stressed and trying to clean up and get ready for Christmas and I woke up in the middle of the night in crazy severe pain.

Then I ran my thumb down the inside of my right cheek while my forefinger met it on the outside. I did the same on the left side and noted the difference. I'm all HEnry Rollins on one side and not the other. I shouldn't be. My masseter muscle is inflamed.

I have so much to do. And I can already see that this will be like 2008 when I had an inner ear infection and could not sit up for very long. I was also 8 months pregnant. Guess what. Christmas will arrive. Whether I do anything else or not, it will still come. I have my kids taken care of and a limited number of other folks. And I'll do what I can and that's that.

Right now, I have knitting and sewing to do. And I'm going to bed. It's 8:30 at night and I'm taking some ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory) and going to bed. Calling the dentist in the morning and seeing if she wants to see me or if my GP would be a better call. I have a feeling it's going to fall through the cracks of both medicine and dentistry. And then I'll go to the chiropractor and her friend the massage therapist. And that will be that.

Sequoia Lodge

My girl scout junior/cadette troop has found their winter home.

We have camped in the winter before and have stayed at other lodges in spring and fall.

Petite Chalet at Cedarledge is nice, but the outdoor ETs (environmental toilet, meaning "latrine that doesn't quite make you want to die when you walk in") make it harder for winter camping. When we winter camp, we slumber party. I want to move to a more serious camping for spring and fall, but winter camping should be just a nice break.

Wohl Lodge was awesome because it has bunkbeds throughout and it's at Cedarledge as well (the closest camp to where we live). But there was little room for crafts or games when the whole main room is full of bunks.

Last winter we tried Sacajawea at Tuckaho, but I've decided, along with several girls, that I dislike Tuckaho. It's far away, it's big and crowded and feels less welcoming. Plus we've had our worst camp supervisor experiences there, which I know are not specific to a certain camp, but it adds to this feeling of discomfort.

But this past weekend we went to Sequoia. Camp Fiddlecreek is small, only about 90 acres, and it only has 3 lodges, so a full winter camp is 3 troops. That in itself is wonderful. You never run into people. You can go down to the archery range whenever you want. You could walk around and explore and feel like you're the only people there.

And Sequoia itself is lovely. A huge room, bigger than Petite Chalet, with a bench around the entire outside walls where girls can stash their stuff. Enough room that even if our whole troop camped, we could keep 4 or 5 tables up at one end of the room and not feel cramped. In addition, the kitchen is large enough to be functional, with a smallish commercial stove, full refrigerator, cabinets, and tables to work at. It has indoor bathrooms, two toilets that share a sink off the kitchen, and a separate bathroom with a shower off a side room that is the leaders' room. There's enough space for 4 bedstands and a dresser in the leaders' room, and the bathroom was decent. Knowing there is a SHOWER means next winter? Saturday night I'm getting cleaned up before bed for a change. There's also a shower off the kitchen for the girls.

It sits on the main road (really, there's only one main road in Fiddlecreek, except for driveways here and there) between a broken down "Trefoil Inn" and a cute little 1960s era building that is probably used as an infirmary during resident camp. Best of all, it looks over Walker Lake, which is a pond, technically, and the lake that my coleader and I got our canoe certification in. It was thinly frozen over, so the whole weekend our city girls kept walking over to the edge of the water or along the earthen dam to toss pebbles in. The sound they made was hypnotic.

We made candles under the watchful eye of my coleader. We made the BEST homemade baked macaroni and cheese I've ever eaten. French toast that was wonderful. Bacon that was ok. We went down to the archery range and started thinking about silver award projects (steps and pathway to the range, for instance, and decent signage throughout the camp).

Fiona HIT THE TARGET for the first time ever. Her dysgraphia and dyslexia are coupled with weak fingers, which is the usual situation with those conditions, and so she could never get enough oomph behind an arrow to get it to the target. But Saturday she used a release for the first time, which allows you to use your hand and arm strength to pull back the bow, and then release it with a trigger, like a gun.

Spring and autumn are going to be more camp-like (treehouses, tents, cabins) but Sequoia is going to be our winter home.

Stressful Morning

I'm having a stressful morning. Stupid stuff. Nothing for real. Billy was impossible at coffee. Daisy forgot her backpack (can you tell in the photo on the sidebar that Fiona is the older girl, Daisy is younger? Or would it be smarter to separate them into two different photos? From a design standpoint I mean). I had to get blood drawn at the doctor's office and then wait up to 2 weeks for a letter that says I'm fine or a phone call that says please come in. That will be the week before Christmas, by the way. Not a big thing, not like testing for cancer or something, but bloodwork and medication tweaking is always stressful for me. Jake is working late tonight and that always ramps up the blood pressure, too, dinner on my own and kid bedtime on my own. But then he'll be back and...I'll probably go to bed! I have a headcold that is getting worse, not better. It's the little things.

I'm doing Christmas sewing in the guest room with a fresh cup of coffee and I realize that my brain is going a thousand miles an hour and I need to listen to something on the radio. The local Christmas music schmaltzy stations are not what I want. My pandora radio has a jazzy Christmas station and so I walk into the library and see about turning that on. Pandora on my computer goes to either the most recent station I created or the last thing I listened to, whichever it is, my gregorian chant station came up.

I could feel the shift in my brain. Some men's monastery choir singing missa pro defunctis (mass for the dead, which I could have parsed out if my brain wasn't so foggy, but google let me know). It doesn't matter what the words are. It doesn't matter if it is women's or men's voices. A capella chanting changes my brain chemistry. Now I can go make a plaid dress shirt for a waldorf doll. Yes, that's what I just said. A plaid dress shirt. Button down. Because a guy needs his clothes as much as all those girls. He's alone out there. Poor Max.

Ok, I'm officially off my rocker. More later.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 favorite holiday traditions

My sister once had to write a paper about this topic and she came up with "shooting rediwhip into people's mouths." I think she wrote a complete essay on the topic.

But not here. I'm going to try to do some holiday traditions that don't involve pressurized whipping cream.

1. The Annual Blake Christmas Tree Hunt. We head out with my parents and sisters to a tree farm somewhere in the sticks. We hunt the perfect trees and cut them down. We throw them in the back of my dad's truck and then go have lunch somewhere like Cracker Barrel. This usually happens on a Sunday after church and so by the time we get back to the city it's 4:00 and almost dark and naps sound soooo good. But then it's time to decorate the tree and get in the spirit of things. Sometimes this works (this year). Other times I'm 8 months pregnant and not so much. But the tree part is a tradition that stands firm.

2. The nativity sets. This tradition was started by my mother-in-law when she got a set for Fiona's baptism. Then the other kids got them too. And each year they receive more pieces so that there's a city of animals and villagers and wise men and shepherds in my living room. They're made of plastic so no worries about breaking Joseph. Fun in the making: a playset you only get to see for 3 weeks a year. Elaborate storylines develop. Each night when I turn off lights there are weird scenes to find. All the animals in a heap like at a slaughterhouse. And all the people in a line. Or all three stables/buildings pulled together to make a house, and fisher price little people come to visit.

3.My father's fruitcake, dark, soaked in rum or scotch. You only need one piece. And a big glass of milk. And then you're good for the year. But that flavor--the fruit-like objects, the rich dark spicy cake that gives you a hangover--that will always be Advent for me.

4. St. Nick's Day--not Christmas, but the pre-Christmas scrimmage. Did you put your shoe out last night? Did you when you were a kid? It's weird--many of the places I lived, this was unheard of. I was the only kid who got chocolate the night before.

5. This is a logistics thing: my family opens presents on Christmas Eve after midnight mass (or, at our parish, 10 pm mass, which is actually nice to not be so ridiculously late). You shiver in the cold and emptiness of Christmas Eve night, rushing home to my parents' place, where we have, alternately, hot chocolate or bourbon slush, and everyone is sleepy and the kids open gifts and it's so nice because the next day? It's at home. And then we go to my inlaws after we have Christmas at our own house. I will never travel at Christmas if I can help it. It's just too hard. My family has always done things Christmas Eve, and this has made Christmas work for my immediate family. Perfectly.

6. I get to my inlaws on Christmas Day and I'm exhausted. I've been up to the wee hours of the morning, and then my kids get me up early for presents again (they're like little addicts, don't need any sleep when there are presents to open). Then we travel and visit and eat and see folks and kids cry because of the exhaustion (and coming down from the fix, perhaps). I used to fight this but the past 3 or 4 years, I've just gone with the flow. Christmas night, I usually post something on my blog, change into warm pajamas, and go to bed early. This is an important holiday tradition. Followed by:

7. I do nothing on December 26th. Nothing at all.

8. Fruit in stockings. This is one from Jake's side of the family. We never had fruit in our stockings. But now Santa brings fruit. I'm sure this hearkens back to something.

9. Advent Calendars. Every year I try to do something different. This year,I went upstairs and gathered all the Christmas books from the girls' shelves and wrapped them up. Numbered them at random and put them on the dining room table. Each day they open a book and we read it at bedtime. I threw in a couple of oddballs (because I didn't have quite enough in a Christmas or winter or Advent theme): the old National Geographic Our World book that I love, and the book The Family of Man from the MOMA exhibit in the 1950s. That was tonight's book. My sisters were over and we looked through it. I don't think the kids cared much but I love that book.

10. Well, ok. This Thanksgiving I made real whipped cream and real whipped cream with cinnamon. Wow. Amazing. But most holidays? It's whipped cream in a can. And most of that? Gets shot right into kids' mouths. And it's pretty awesome, frankly.

Why do we do that, again?

I went to a Christmas party tonight, a neighbor's Christmas party. Most things I attend with neighbors are sedate barbecues, national night out parties that end in random violence, blackouts where everyone sits on the stoops and sweats, you know, FUN times. Actually, most things around here are like the sedate barbecue. But once a year, Joy and her husband through a Party. They invite, I think, everyone they've ever met. The street fills with cars and double parkers and craziness. As the evening wears on, people are more and more drunk and stupid. The last year I stayed late, I got drunk and stupid and told Mason, a police officer, that I hated cops. But that I liked him. Drunk and stupid. But that was ages ago. Now, the last several years, I go early and leave when I can't hear myself think. Last year, I think that happened 20 minutes after I arrived.

This year I lasted almost 2 hours, and Jake left right before I did. I walked home and into my very quiet house. I took off my clogs and sweater and stood in my sock feet in the kitchen eating a cookie.

"Why do we do that, again?" I asked him.

"Do what, make cookies?"

"No, why do we go to the loud party where we just talk to the same people we talk to all the time when we can actually hear them?"

"Well," he began, "it comes at a time of year when it's been a few weeks since we've been out on the stoop seeing people. And even though most of the people we talk to are there, sometimes we catch up with someone else."

"Yeah," I admitted, "Zelda and I talked with Barb Brunwin and got the lowdown on Bruce's stroke."

"See?" he says, proving his point. And it was good to talk to Barb and find out about Bruce's stroke, which was bad, which put him in a rehab center and left his wife with their three kids, two of which have some very special needs. It was hard to hear about, especially because our relationship with that family is always a little strained, never as natural as the other folks on the block. But they are neighbors still, and Barb said Lorraine was definitely open to help.

"Meals, she said," Barb yells to me and Zelda over our wine glasses. I'm standing close enough to her that she keeps gesturing with her hand and hitting me in the chest. There's a lot to hit there, but still. "No allergies, no dietary requirements. They just, Lorraine is going back and forth to the rehab place, like, daily."

Zelda and I both nod. I can't even imagine.

"It's a family, though, that it would be easy to get sucked into," Barb says what I'm thinking. I nod in agreement.

"But meals," I repeat. I can do that. Bring a casserole over.

Bruce and Lorraine own the house across the street, the one that has failed to sell. And now more than ever it really probably needs to sell. I wish I could help them with that. But Barb is right. Meals.

So there were good reasons to go to the party. We listened to Justin tell a hunting story. Tara tell about the competitions Iris was in. Zelda and I talked garden. Jen and I talked about future job plans for each of us. And dance schools. No, it's good. It's just, walking out after an hour and a half of noise and bodies everywhere, it's nice to come home to the quiet mess of my own house. And maybe that's part of why we do it, too.

Two steps forward, one step back

I woke up at 2:30 last night with that same toothache/headache. In the shape of the number three, traced from my forehead down to my cheekbone and then again down to my jawline. Only on the right side. I was on the muscle relaxer too, took it at 10:30 when Jake woke me up to take it. I went to bed before 9.

Tuesday afternoon, though, I went to see the chiropractor who did so much good for Leo when he was little and was killing me nursing. She is trained in cranial-sacral therapy (CST) and it did wonders for him. She also fixed his hiatal hernia and he stopped spitting up. Some good old fashioned lay on of hands kind of medicine, where his pediatrician had started to hint around the not-approved-for-infants anti-heartburn drugs.

So I went to see her and she realigned my jaw. She also realigned my spine while she was at it. And I floated out of there completely pain free. I remained pain free all day and all night and then all day on Wednesday.

Waking up in pain means I'm clenching or grinding my teeth at night. Even though things are much much better--I can close my teeth together all the way around--they aren't perfect. I don't want this to be the way I handle stress.

The dentist took x-rays and looked at my teeth, which are bad, by the way. But nothing has changed. I don't need a root canal. I don't need anything, dentistry-wise. And until last night, I thought I was on the upswing. I could open my jaw all the way without it clicking or twisting. I didn't hurt in the middle of the day. I took the hygienist's tip and chewed gum in the car, the place I find myself tensing my jaw the most.

Then I woke up in pain again.

Today? I'm headed out to speech therapy and then to art at school. I'm going to do my best to just float. Just float through the day. Let things roll off my back. I don't know if you can make yourself be less irritable but I'm going to try. I have too much to do to let this dominate my life.

We'll see how today goes...