My parents' parenting

Bill Cosby once advised, “always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell, the name will carry.” My parents took his advice for their first child, but after that, they knew they’d be mixing up names- and including a few of the pets’ names in there anyways- and they gave up. Now they just whistle for us.

It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.
APRIL LADY, GEORGETTE HEYER

"To say goodbye is to die a little."
THE LONG GOODBYE, RAYMOND CHANDLER

"My world was changing, and I was not ready for it."
DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST, JULIET MARILLIER

Mexico!

It's astounding how few vocabulary words I remember from high school Spanish class. What can I say? It was already 4 years ago (yikes!).
I'm going to try to explain this weekend.
We left Friday night for a quick Avodah excursion down to Mexico. We stopped for the night with some school friends and woke up at 5 to cross the border. Instantaneous change. To make things short, we went to 2 different rehab centers for guys who had come from prison and needed help breaking free from drugs/alcohol. We went to an orphanage where there was a party going on for someones birthday. We had a grand time. The language barrier completely didn't stand in the way. We played the games with them, and ended up laughing hysterically at each other since we couldn't understand a word the others said. What a beautiful thing laughter and smiles are. Stalin also took this opportunity for revenge. While attempting to piece together a puzzle with 12 other people, while none of us could talk, and they had taken half the puzzle out (which we didn't know!) so we didn't have the complete picture, he dumped a bottle of water down my back. I pretended anger so he'd be satisfied and be done, but really it felt amazing- it was such a warm day! We ate all our meals at one of the men's rehab centers, and it was great to hear their stories, and how the center was really helping them. Sunday, today, we went to a Spanish church which was crazy different. Wonderful, though, and so welcoming. Afterwards, we took some crazy dirt roads to another rehab ranch. Not many Americans make it out there, and it was apparent why. I'm astounded our cars made it- the most intense off roading I've ever done.
I want to tell you about the second place we stopped on Saturday. The people we went down with are helping out a family. Brenda is the mom, and she has 1 girl and 6 boys. They all are crammed into a room the size of our dorm. And they consider it a blessing. I walked into their home and caught my breath. The smell was horrid. Flies were everywhere, baby food was sitting on a high chair, evidently a few days old, and dirty laundry was piled in old trash cans. When I finally got past my nose, I was able to see the family. It took about 10 minutes of grinning at the kids, making silly faces and making a fool of my self, and using my limited Spanish to admire the soccer shoes they were wearing to make friends. After that, though, I was in. They brought me outside to show me the dead puppy born behind the water tank, and the 2 year old, watching me admire his older brother's shoes. came to show me his, and, in the end, I wound up sitting on the ground in the house that I could barely breathe in to begin with, playing marbles with three-and-a-half year old Emmanuel. Open yourself up, and they are so willing to let you in. The culture is incredibly warm.
I learned later a little bit more about this family. The dad doesn't offer much in the way of support and the mother has to leave the kids each day to go find work. This means Rosie, the oldest (15), is left to take care of 6 brothers. When a church started to help them out (bringing food and building a house), the neighbors became jealous. Food was stolen, they called police making false accusations- resulting in 3 days of interrogation for Brenda, and someone had tried to rape Rosie. Imagine being 15 and having had such a life. And yet they were happy to let a stranger share their life for an hour.

Utter Felicity.

Stalin has pranked and poked fun and thrown eggs at me basically since day 1. Well day 1 that I started to get to know him. So today after volleyball, when he is throwing the volleyball at me, I dumped my water bottle on him. He looked like a drowned rat! Then I convinced Brielle to dump her water bottle on him! He looked miserable. Then I went over to Bleeker who was serving root beer floats and asked him if he would pour the ice water that was keeping the root beer cold, on Henry. He did. A great way to end a perfectly stressful week! It was so much fun to see him soaked so many times over.

Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?


Charles Bukowski.
Someone sent me this poem last Wednesday, and I just identify with it perfectly! It was crazy, though. I read this one and then looked up a few others also by Bukowski to get a feeling for him. The very next day we were asked in history if we had ever heard of Bukowski! Awesome coincidences are wonderful.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou

Do you want to go to Oregon?

Thursday (3/17), 11:30 pm:
Candace: "Do you want to Oregon?"
Me: "Ummm, yeah?!"
Friday (3/18), 2:53 pm:
We are on the road, filling up the gas tank.

Yes, indeed, Candace and I decided to drive up to Oregon this weekend-- less than 24 hours in advance (much less, I might point out.). Her family had rented a house in Coos Bay and brought all their quads down. Why not? The mountains of homework certainly didn't deter us. I skipped philosophy and the two of us were out of the parking lot by 2:45pm. It was a long drive. Long, long, long. I saw snow falling for the first time in my remembrance- but I wasn't so happy that it was midnight and we were forced to slow down considerably. I just wanted to get there, and we still had 5 hours to go. Yep, we got there at 5:30 am.
5:30, and we expected that everyone would be asleep- certainly not waiting up for us. Wrong. There are her mom and sister sleeping on the couch waiting for us. We walk in, utterly exhausted- but somehow, instead of bed, we wind up sitting around the kitchen island eating cookies.
I hear this bellowing in the background. Neither of them looks surprised.... they calmly tell us that Jack (2yrs) is sleeping in the pantry. All right, awesome. I love a family that can stash their kids anywhere/everywhere. We get ready for bed, and ask where the bathroom. "Well, don't use the hall bathroom. Olivia is in there (3months). She's in the tub." And Seth and Carter slept in the closets. I knew I loved this family before I'd even met all of them.
We slept on the couch that night and got maybe 4 hours of sleep before we were invaded by children.
All of Saturday was spent in riding the dunes. They were so stinkin' gorgeous, and so close. Basically in our backyard, and you could take them directly to the beach- also spectacular. Riding was so much fun, and her dad even got off and let me drive around for a bit.
In between rounds, we were all sitting in the living room talking. In walks Judy (no one knows her). She introduces herself, and asks if she could come in. At this point, Candace and I are pooped, and so we say we are going to go take a nap on her parent's bed. Apparently, Judy got up and wanted to follow us, thinking that a nap sounded like a good idea! She obviously had dementia or something like that.... I don't know what happened, but I hope she found her way home. She was very sweet, just happy to watch the kids playing around.
Saturday night we played Sequence- a game which involves no skill- but does require some mastery in the knowledge of how to cheat so that no one will find out. Pretty fun stuff, when everyone is getting caught and yelling at each other. And the dad exclaims over and over how good the wine is- and when he opens the second bottle for the family, doesn't even realize it's a different wine. :)
We had the MOST circular conversations I have ever witnessed. We talked about hockey- and how the US doesn't cover Canadian hockey- for about an hour and a half. We discussed a jump which Candace accidentally made and almost killed herself for about 3 hours. We talked about how the Yarro post office was broken into and the computers stolen- at which the mom exclaims, "so that's why I haven't heard anything about my Christmas letters!" Despite the fact that the break-in was maybe a week ago, and had nothing to do with the letters themselves. We talked about cell phone companies, and how they don't work when you cross the border- you get charged a $1.50 per minute. When Candace went to take a shower, her dad turned to me and said, "You know what's awful about America? The cheese!" He then went on about cheese production. I literally just said, I'm sorry, and left it at that..... well, except for the tears running down my face the whole night. I could not stop laughing. It was the funniest experience of my life. Darrel wanted to go see the sand dunes at night since there was a full moon. Her dad maintained that he would get lost in the night and we'd have to go find him (he was so serious about this). He stuck to this point, even after Darrel returned 10 minutes later.
Saturday night I slept in a bunk bed above Darrel and Melissa- newlyweds. So that might very well have been the most awkward experience of the weekend.
Sunday morning we got up around 8 and were on the road by 9:30. It took us 14 hours to get to Oregon, so we figured we'd be back around 12 or 1. Perfect for the fact that Candace and I had to go to OC elementary to teach a PE class at 8:45.
I had my first experience driving in snow- it didn't stick though, so it only slowed us down a bit.... and the same with the torrential rain. We were driving and driving (and had only brought one sandwich for each of us for the whole day. Well, it was 10 pm, and we were just about ready to enter the grapevine. About 2 hours more ,and we would have been home. Closed! The grapevine was CLOSED! We had to go back towards Sacramento (you have no idea how discouraging that was!!!) for about 60 miles, take the 46 West (an extra 63 miles) to the 110 South, where we still had about 200 miles to go. It took 18 hours to get home. We were so stressed that we were going the wrong way and that we wouldn't be on time to teach PE... and basically just tired all around. We though about sleeping in the car, but didn't know if the grapevine would be cleared in the morning or not.... so we took the ridiculous detour. I woke up at one point, and we were at a dead stop on the freeway- utterly, completely ridiculous. We didn't know whether to scream, cry, or laugh! We eventually made it back around 3:45, though. Into bed we piled for 3 hours sleep before having to wake up and drive out to Ontario. I showered and dressed, when the other girls who were going with us knock on our door and tell us it was cancelled. Again: laugh or cry? We went to breakfast and then went to bed.
This weekend was crazy ridiculous, but so much fun. It was so worth it- and I love the fact that you can just get in a car and drive! We'll see what next weekend holds for us. ;]

Summer Time and the livin' is easy

So it's not quite summer yet, but I am completely looking forward to it! Red, red watermelons, light till 8 o'clock, sun, beach, time away from lists and deadlines, walking barefoot all day long.
My feet now heave the healthy glow of use. It's wonderful. Time to start breaking them in to see how dark I can get them by the end of the summer.
Can't wait.

And it's times like these I am so happy I could explode! And yet, so stressed I could implode. Oh well. It makes for a good balance, I suppose.

It is times like these that convince me I can't wait to graduate and start life.

Summer

Summer is with it,
she's wild,
she likes
bare legs and cutoffs
and camping
and hikes;
she dives in deep water,
she wades in a stream,
she guzzles cold drinks
and she drowns in ice cream;
she runs barefoot,
she picnics,
she fishes,
digs bait,
she pitches a tent
and she stays up too late
while she counts out the stars,
swats mosquitoes and flies,
hears crickets,
smells pine trees,
spies night-creature eyes;
she rides bareback,
goes sailing,
plays tennis,
climbs trees;
she soaks in the sunshine;
she gulps in a breeze;
she tastes the warm air
on the end of her tongue,
and she falls asleep
reading
alone
in the sun.
~ Myra Cohn Livingston

Just once...

Soon I will begin to live-
But today I must prepare for tomorrow,
And tomorrow I’ll solve the problems of the world.
Perhaps I’ll have to wait till I’m old, but just once, I’ll live.

I’ll rock my rocker to the bone, as I watch the boys dropping their girls off after a night out,
And I’ll spend summer nights camped on the trampoline.
I’ll splatter-paint the walls,
And throw pottery in the barn;
I’ll hog the swings at the park,
Wear two spots of rouge, one on the apple of each cheek,
And just once I’ll chase the children off the grass- just to experience being a crotchety old woman-
Just to experience life.

Perhaps I’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s tomorrow,
But just once, I’ll live.

I’ll feign deafness, and holler into the telephone,
And go wading in the river with my dress hiked well above my knees.
I’ll sit on my roof to gaze at the stars above, or the cars filing past below;
I'll drive a paint-stripped, old Chevy,
And chase little dogs with my umbrella.
And just once I’ll whistle at the boys playing basketball in the park without their shirts on.
Just once, because it’s a part of life.

Perhaps I’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s tomorrow,
But just once, I’ll live.

I’ll wiggle my toes in the mud,
And perch in the trees, singing with the birds.
Art will fill the kitchen cupboards,
And coffee will be brewed, whether it is drunk or not, simply for that pungent, earthy smell.
I’ll walk under the trees, holding my husband’s hand- slowing down traffic together.
I'll sneak candy to the children sitting in pews in front of me at church.
And just once I’ll hollow out the center of a pie- and leave the crust behind.
Just once, so that I can glory in life.

Soon I will begin to live-
But today I must prepare for tomorrow,
And tomorrow I’ll solve the problems of the world.
Perhaps I’ll have to wait till I’m old, but just once, I’ll live



As seen a couple posts below, Jenny Joseph's "Warning," inspired me to rant about what I dream old age contains. Well a list very easily translates into a poem, and here you have it. I can't recall ever having written a poem just for the sake of doing it, so don't be too critical! I don't want to fear old age, so instead I dream dreams: and these are them.

Losing my identity.

I've been warped into a Canadian. Three or four people in the last day have made general observations of "those Canadians," including me in this. Oh boy. I have nothing against Canadians- I've loved all the ones I've been able to get to know. I am, however, very happy to remain an American, eh.

There's one inside each of us

Friday night, and Student Senate planned a Revenge of the Nerd Rollerskating event. Too much fun. It was great to go out and make a fool of myself- both in costume and out on the rink. I made it through without eating it- but just very barely. I do, however, have nice blisters which will make tomorrow's hike just that much more interesting.

Warning- by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple

I was talking to Dave Monday night, and telling him how I was kind of excited to be old. I want to move to the South and sit on my porch with my shotgun. I want to throw pottery in my barn, and I want to spend nights camped out on our trampoline. And I want to splatter paint and not worry about washing the paint off the walls. Just once I want to chase children off the grass- just to see what it feels like to be a crotchety old woman. I want to drive a beat-up, old Chevy. I want to sit out on my roof at night and watch the stars above, and the cars file past below. I want to pretend like I can't hear, and holler into the telephone. I want to go wading in a river, with my dress hiked up well beyond my knees. I want to sneak candy to the children who sit in the pews in front of me at church. I want to hog the swings at the park, and chase the little dogs with my umbrella. I want to wiggle my toes in the grass, and sit in the trees with the birds. I want to cover my walls, and ceiling for that matter, with art. I want to squeeze the life from oranges and drink the juice each morning, and I want to brew coffee each morning just for it's pungent odor. I'll whistle at the boys playing basketball in the park without their shirts on. I want to stroll under the trees while holding my husband's hand, slowing down the traffic. He read this poem to me- it captures what I want PRECISELY- and sent me off on a tangent of what I'd like to be like. I love, love, love it.

I left my heart in Sacramento

Seriously, I'm completely enamored. What a wonderful trip to visit with Mary and Luke. Ben is at Calvin teaching a class for a month so they are home alone; I went up to visit and fill time. The weather was quite cold, so we didn't end up doing much- at least as far as outside goes.

Wednesday Morning I arrived (After waking up at 5:30!!!) early, around 8:30. I think we went to the park- where some adorable old men shared their crumbs with Luke and helped him feed the ducks. We ran general errands, and I got to babysit while Mary had some time out of the house. Thursday was a lazy day- we lit a fire and enjoyed that so much. We did go to the train museum where Luke emphatically pointed to every train and shouted "choo, choo!" We made Indian curry (which I have been wanting to do all break!) for dinner- so simple, and so yumm. I again babysat that night so she could go out. Friday morning I dropped Mary off at an appointment and took Luke to a church where there was an organized class full of jungle gym equipment- but for babies. Saturday we again went to the park- this time equipped with our own food for the ducks.

The whole time, Luke was so fun. He decided to try standing on one leg, hiding all his toys and making you ask where ______ was (difficult when you don't know what he hid in the first place), and he was even trying to say my name! Granted it sounded more like Dedus, but it was definitely what his name for me. He introduced me to another kid when we were at the park. :)