Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We're headed down the mountain today to spend Thanksgiving with my folks. Hope everyone has a great holiday. Check this out if you have a minute. A friend sent it to me, and I think it's a hoot (or rather, a gobble.)

Procrastination

I’m sitting here at my desk trying to write a prayer for Sunday morning, and all I can think about is how much I want a bagel with cream cheese. So I do what I often do when I’m procrastinating, I hit that little blue “e” with the ring around it at the bottom of my screen. I’m on the CNN homepage, and I see an article “People names its ‘sexiest man alive.’” I’m thinking, they do this every year. Does sexiness change from year to year? Matthew McConaughey won’t be the “sexiest man alive” next year. He’s not the sexiest man alive, he’s just the flavor of the month (or the year). How dumb. And then I flash back to the fifteen minutes I spent in the dentist’s waiting room this morning, fifteen minutes spend pouring over an office copy of the latest People magazine, how all these stars who’ve just had babies have lost all their weight in like, six weeks after giving birth. Again, not very helpful. But so seductive.

I’m off to get a bagel.

Blogging 4 Books Submission: Woodlawn Avenue

There are some neighborhood streets where I live that, if word got out a minister was moving in, the residents would be pleased, thinking that such a person would surely be an asset to the community. And then there are other streets in other parts of town where, when it became known that a pastor was buying the house on the corner, apprehension would settle in like fog. There goes the neighborhood.

I couldn't have been more clueless about this potential tension the day I walked across the front porch of that little bungalow on Woodlawn Avenue and through the door. At that moment I knew like I know my mother’s face that this was my house. It smelled like my grandparents' home, a blend of old furniture and gas heat, a scent buried in the recesses of my brain for over twenty years, but apparently ready to rise to the surface when recognized. I burst into tears. My realtor immediately called her engineer husband. “I need to you get over here as soon as possible to take a look at the foundation of this house.” There was an anxious edge to her voice. “I’m dealing with God here! I don’t want to sell my pastor something that’s got structural problems!”

I lived in that house from October 25, 1996 until September 12, 2002, four months after I married my husband and moved into his home, only four blocks away. I knew that I loved him when I realized I was willing to move. That house was mine the way my dog is mine, and even how my child is now mine. The imprint of belonging is there, waiting to be recognized and known and lived into. All you have to do is trust your gut and just live, which is exactly why I knew I had to move. That house would never be ours, and even though I grieved over the choice, it was obvious. Our marriage deserved a better start than that.

What I didn’t know back in the fall of 1996 is that Woodlawn Avenue would be a delightfully insane place to live. Once my neighbors realized that I wasn’t “wacko” religious and I believed in nearly all things liberal, we did just fine, for the most part. Today, on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, we had a reunion tea-party. We still call ourselves the “Woodlawn Witches,” even though Sharon technically lives on Flint, Kathleen is in Arizona taking care of her parents, and I’ve been gone for three years. Clare couldn’t make it. There was a peace rally this afternoon, and later a panel discussion about stopping the transportation of nuclear materials through the mountains. Such are the demands of Clare’s life these days. She’s a celebrity now, having gained notoriety for spending eight months at Alderson Federal Penitentiary for an act of defiance. She “crossed the line” at the School of the America’s during a protest rally. Oddly enough, her story gained more publicity once Martha Stewart was sentenced to that very same prison. I’ll never forget the morning I got a 6:00 phone call. “Clare’s on TV!” Irene was way too excited for it to be only 6:00. But sure enough, there was Clare, being interviewed by Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America. She looked all glamorous, giving Martha unsolicited advice about how to cope, encouraging her to get to know the other women at the prison and to listen to the stories they have to tell.

Peggy is a bit of a celebrity, too, known widely for her life-long devotion to folk music and protest movements. Someone told me years ago that she once had an audience with Chairman Mao, and to this day I think about the fact that I have had conversations with someone who had a conversation with Chairman Mao, and it overwhelms me a bit. She and Irene are a couple; they initiated the first gathering of the Woodlawn Witches. The circumstances at the time were far from fun. Mabel, down the street, had been abused regularly by her husband Scott for the first two years I lived there. He knew we could hear them, he knew we called the police, and he didn’t care. Clare, who lived right next door, talked to Mabel the day she left, which was the day after the night he took a belt to both children. That night, Mabel called the police herself, and when they arrived, she showed the officers the strap marks on her children’s backs. They took Scott to jail and Mabel packed her bags and took her kids in the car to her sister’s place in Louisiana. She left Clare with the address, and we all wrote to her asking how we could help. She responded, requesting that we appear with her in court the day of Scott’s trial. The first gathering of the Woodlawn Witches was a strategy session for Mabel’s court date.

Today’s gathering was a sad one, too. Peggy has gotten a job teaching at a university in Boston, and Irene, after a failed attempted at starting a coffee house, is moving back to England because her visa has expired. Kathleen is only around for another week or two, at the most, if her parents can handle her being away that long. She and I stood on her porch as I was leaving, looking across the street to my old house. Two of the ancient maples are gone, cut down by the new owners to the devastation of the rest of the folks on the street. Kathleen lamented inevitable change. I looked at that house, still feeling it call to me, grieving the loss of my single years on my crazy street. One life comes to a screeching halt when a new life begins. I wouldn’t trade the new one for the world, but I am also very aware of what I left behind.

If you are interested in "Blogging 4 Books," check out this site.

Tonight

Tonight I am home alone. Yesterday afternoon I packed up Cowboy Buddy and Lil’ T and sent them down the mountain to his mother’s home on the family farm. Let describe to you my present setting. The only sound I hear is the gentle spinning of the dryer and the occasional jangle of Rufus’ dog collar. I just finished a favorite meal of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken soup with cheddar cheese on saltine crackers. I’ve spent the evening working on my “Blogging 4 Books” submission, which may get finished or may not, I don’t care. I remember a weekend a year and a half ago. I was so very pregnant, and CB had to be out of town. A good friend offered to spend the weekend with me, but I declined, having this strong and undeniable sense that it would be a long, long time before I would be in this house alone again. I am in some recovery from the past week. Lil’ T has not been sleeping well lately, and as a result, neither have I. And then there was the poor parenting incident on Thursday night when I decided it would be fun to take a bubble bath with her. She didn’t like the tub (we still bathe her in the kitchen sink—it’s big), she didn’t like me in the tub, and she definitely did not like the bubbles, which I could not for the life of me get off either one of us once she made this known.

Tonight I’m going to take a bubble bath all by myself, and then be asleep by 9:00. Here’s to the good life.

Results

Go Holly, go Holly, go Holly, go Holly. Go Robin, go Terry.

Lil' T's Lesson Plan

This came home from “school.”

Monday: Counting blocks while dropping them in a bucket; act like animals; group art; “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song; obstacle course, follow the leader

Tuesday: Build tower with legos; pretend to go camping; sponge paint hand turkeys; water play; “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” song; balls

Wednesday: Build houses for people (that’s nice, I think); play where does this belong?; coffee filter art; story time/finger plays; exercises; basketball

Thursday: Baby dolls/pretending to take care of baby; crayon drawings; noodle table; jump up and down song; balls; slide down the slide

Friday: Free play (finally!); puppets; paper collages; dancing with a partner; poppers; leaf collecting

Hey, EM. I wrote a paragraph. It’s pretty bad; I only had about 15 minutes. But I did it.

It's finally come to this:

• I go to bed at 9:00.
• I have watched my child eat crayons and dirt without trying to stop her.
• At 37, I still acquiesce when my mother asks me to “call when you get there.”
• I only get angry with my husband for staying out late if he wakes me up when he gets home.
• I expect my dog to understand me.
• I try to fix stuff with duct tape and paper-clips.
• I get angrier about loosing time than loosing money.
• I need my friends now more than ever.

Our Ever-Lovin' Dog

Thanks to everybody for your comments. It’s great to get going and have so much feedback so soon.

Here’s a picture of Rufus, the ever-lovin’ dog. He turned nine years old yesterday. Still acts like a puppy, and I’m so grateful for that. Someone told me during my pregnancy that I should begin to “detach” from my dog, so that he wouldn’t blame the baby when the baby got more attention than he dog did. I was appalled at the thought! Rufus was my companion all during my single years. He deserved better than that. Besides, I knew we’d be home A LOT with a new baby, and that is his idea of heaven. He hates being left alone. Rufie’s claim to fame was being Best Dog at our wedding. He didn’t actually come in the church, but he was there to greet folks as they came in the front door, big bow tied around his neck, tongue hanging out. Priceless in my eyes.

Rufie’s life, like mine, is much different than it was nine years ago. We've both had to cut back significantly on our morning runs and trips to the river and the dog park. Still, I watch him with Lil’ T, patient and trustworthy as she takes away his chew bone, only to give it back, over and over, and I know he’s happy. When I find myself picking dog hair off of every raisin, cracker, or sippy cup that hits the floor, I know without a doubt that I wouldn’t change an ever-lovin’ thing.

My Lurking Days Are Over

Big thanks to Eddo and Edgy Mama for getting me going on this site that I think is so adorable and fun. Happy to be out and about in the blogging world. Lil T is home with a cold today, so our schedules are all turned upside down. But it's a beautiful day and she's down for a nap (I just had one). All is well.




Here is Lil T in this adorable bear suit that was a hand-me-down from G.J. who got it from K.B and G.B. I've just passed it on to a friend who will be giving birth any day now. Hand-me-downs have such good karma. A friend of mine's wife died several years ago. She had a lovely wardrobe full of fine clothes, and he let me bascial have whatever I wanted (and I took most of it). I felt funny about it at first, but then I realized that everytime C saw me in something that belonged to N, his face would light up with a big smile. A week rarely goes where I don't wear several pieces of her clothing. And every time I do, I remember her.