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Friday, March 31, 2006

Friday Feast

I actually am posting this on Saturday morning. I had it written and was about to post it last night when my monitor had a Great Big Freak-Out(TM). It has since gone to the big components store in the sky, and I am using a really awful fuzzy old spare that we just hadn't got around to shooting at yet. Good thing we're just rolling in dough, I'll just cruise down to Best Buy and pick up a new 30" flat-screen...

(um, that was a joke.)

Without further ado, the Friday Feast:
Appetizer
Name 3 things that you think are strange.

1) Fish with both eyes on one side of their heads.

2) That more people aren't skeeved out about eating lobster. IT'S A REALLY BIG BUG, PEOPLE.

3) Modal music.

Soup
What was the last ceremony you attended?

Can it be Jenn's wedding? I actually had to sit and think about this for a long time. I haven't gone to any graduations or other weddings, and I don't think I've been to any funerals, or even the Memorial Day ceremony in town. So yes. Jenn's wedding. A year and a half ago. Wow. I guess I don't get out much.

Salad
What is one lesson you have learned in the past year?

I must remember not to squinch up my face when I take pictures. It looks horrible. Also. Always Check The White Balance Setting.

Main Course
Tell us about one of your childhood memories.

Hmm. The thing is, I have zillions of childhood memories, but they're like little snippet-memories -- not much of anything that plays out like a little story. Even the things I could tell as stories are really, in my head, just the snippets with the details filled in by what I know happened without necessarily remembering it. Like, say, when I think of the day we bought my horse, when I was nine years old, I remember the anticipation beforehand. I remember the checked pants that either my dad or my grandpa wore. I remember sitting in the stands at the auction and watching my grandpa bid. I remember the horse that would be my horse at the end of the night walking around the ring, and I remember after we trailered her we noticed that someone had tossed a beer bottle in the trailer, so my dad pretty much crawled under my horse to get it out and she didn't bat an eyelash so, according to Grandpa, we knew she was A Good Horse. I remember sleeping on the way home in the truck and waking up and seeing cornfields lit up by the headlights beside the road. I remember waking up the next morning and remembering I had a horse and how that was quite possibly the happiest moment of my life up till that point. But I couldn't tell it to you like a story, really.

Dessert
If you could extend any of the four seasons to be twice as long as
normal, which season would you want to lengthen?

Spring. Double the flowers to photograph (evil cackle), double the joy of having the sun set a little bit later each day, double the nice fresh green grass and double the lack of stickers in my socks.

books for March

Title (bold indicates first-time read) -- Author -- Rating (out of 5)

1. All Things Bright and Beautiful -- James Herriott -- 3
   • This book is not quite as funny or engaging as All Creatures Great And Small, which was written first (I didn't know this until recently; after all, that's not how the song goes. Hmph). That's not to say, however, that it's not funny or engaging at all. I enjoyed reading it. I guess if I had to put my finger on one thing that made this sequel pale just a wee bit in comparison to its predecessor, it would be that Herriott occasionally lapses into a bit of very, very faint self-aggrandisement. Still, there's plenty of humor and warmth to be found here.
     
   
   


2. When We Were Orphans -- Kazuo Ishiguro -- 4.5
   • I tried to start this just after I finished Never Let Me Go back in January, but I found that Ishiguro is like a really rich dish -- you love it, but you need to savor it slowly or you'll overdo it. So I waited a month and picked it up again. It didn't cast quite the same spell as Never Let Me Go did, but still, this is a brilliant novel -- several million miles above so much of what is out there today. I have never read anyone who makes me work and think and catch my breath with realization quite like Ishiguro does. When I first finished When We Were Orphans, I confess that I kind of furrowed my brow and went -- that's all? Not because of the loose ends, but more because of the unanswered "why" questions. I've been trained by ordinary literature to expect to at least be able to figure out most of what makes characters tick by the end of the book, but Ishiguro doesn't play by those rules. You have to think about what you're reading -- not just while you're reading, but for days and weeks after you're done -- and apparently, there are some things you just might never know. He gives you nothing straight out; he conceives these brilliant stories and worlds and then hides them deep between the lines and under layers of the characters' memories, and you have to extract ideas almost with your peripheral vision. This sounds odd, but it's alluring enough to make it a bit of a comedown to go back to ordinary novels after one of his books.
     
   
   


3. Silver Wedding -- Maeve Binchy -- 2.5
   • Eh. Usually I like Maeve Binchy more than this. This wasn't a bad book; it was just that it was made up very nearly entirely of a series of expository character studies, loosely tied together by an event that makes up a brief last chapter. At times I found it interesting, and of course with Binchy you can count on reading about memorable characters in real-but-quirky circumstances. This one just fell flat for me, and I confess that I'm a bit tired of the Maeve Binchy standard marital-infidelity storylines too.
     
   
   


4. Ginger Pye -- Eleanor Estes -- 4.5
   • I had such fun reading this book. I'd never read it before; when I saw it on a friend's shelf (said friend has four children and so, like me, she has a valid and watertight excuse for reading kids' books, which, let's face it, we'd both do anyway even if we were childless) and she asked if I'd ever read it and I said no, she insisted I take it and read it because I would love it. And I did. It's like you took eight parts Beverly Cleary, for her witty and genuine way of getting inside kids' heads and detailing what really goes on there in a way that's pleasing to adults and children both, and one part Charles Dickens for his wry sense of humor, and one part Enid Blyton for her characters' sense of mystery and adventure, and mixed them up with a little spotted dog and baked them into this really pleasant 1951 Newbery winner. I found it utterly uncanny at times, the way the narration read with exactly the same tone and thought mannerisms that I had myself at that age. Not uncanny, really, when you think about the fact that if I can remember how it was to be nine, Eleanor Estes could too, except she was skilled enough to write about it where I am not, but still. This book does have a plot but that's almost beside the point. The pleasure in these pages for me came in the way they transplanted me into the life of a nine-year-old in a simpler time.
   
   


5. All She Ever Wanted -- Lynn Austin -- 3
   • I admit that with one notable exception (Jan Karon), I generally stay away from the "Christian fiction" genre. I've tried a few of the type of books that abound there -- historical romances and the like -- and have found the writing to be amateurish, even if the subject matter is interesting and wholesome. Honestly, it seems as if the majority of the novels published by the Christian houses would not have made it if not for their niche market -- women who want novels to read that won't contradict their beliefs or fill their minds with un-Christian images. And more power to them and to the authors and publishers who fill the need, truly.

     This book isn't going to send me running to the Bible bookstore to pick up my next series addiction, but it wasn't too bad. The story itself is quite interesting if a bit predictable in general; it's about a middle-aged mother of a teenaged daughter from whom she feels increasingly distant until they take a weekend road trip to a gathering with the mother's estranged family, in the course of which she tells her daughter about her troubled childhood and learns a great deal she never knew about her family history, resulting in a much closer family on the last page. It's some testimony to how interested I was in how everything would play out that I read this 400-page novel in under 24 hours. It does provide a thoughtful look at mother/daughter relationships, the way families tend to fall into patterns of behavior, and the way Jesus will be the catalyst that helps us break those patterns if need be. The writing lacked subtlety at times. But for all its clumsiness it was at times poignant and usually had a believable tone, except perhaps in some of the historical sections, when I couldn't really feel the time period I was supposed to be in and hence kept feeling jolted by the Forrest-Gump-ish insertions of major events into the stories of the characters' lives. There's a murder mystery/mafia angle that's a bit of a stretch (although it's important to the story, I think perhaps the same goal could have been achieved without requiring quite such a suspension of disbelief), and at times when the author was laying on the foreshadowing with a spackling knife I thought, well, duh, does she NOT expect me to catch on to that? What, does she think I'm seven years old?. It's not Jane Austen; it's not Kazuo Ishiguro or Mary Doria Russell or even Jan Karon. I'm not going to go rush out and buy this. But I might recommend it to my mom, and if I see another book by the same author I may well give it a try.
     

   
   

   
   

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things about Rachel

1. I freak out easily about odd things. I've written about this in here before. (just search 'jump car battery' or 'bleach ammonia', as examples.) Added to this list just tonight: I was attempting (unsuccessfully) to photograph rays of light coming off a visible-line laser pointer refracted through a prism, and I'm quite sure I managed to blind myself in the process because now my eyes feel tingly and cold. Because of course tingles and coldness are the first two symptoms of oncoming ocular failure, right? (seriously, I don't recommend trying this. You DO get a lot of little lasery beams bouncing around. Maybe I AM going to be blind.)

2. I'm thirty-one years old.

3. It has been so long since I had a job or similar situation where I had to be up at a certain time and out the door whether I liked it or not on a daily basis that I secretly (well, not so secretly anymore, apparently) fear that I will totally fail at it if I try to live like that again.

4. I feel like I am really bad at being a friend. I'm pretty good at being a mom and a wife but somehow I always manage to be a poor substitute for a friend to the few friends I have. (I WILL write to you all soon, I promise. I might even call.).

5. I spend a great deal of time and energy taking photographs, and I love doing it. However, even though I haven't played an instrument with any regularity in nearly thirteen years, I still consider myself more of a musician than a photographer.

6. If I have spent more than two minutes talking to you "live" at any point in our relationship, rest assured that I went away from the interaction(s) kicking myself over having said something stupid.

7. I really, truly, completely hate my feet and toes. I mean, they're very useful, but they are absolutely at the bottom of my list of my favorites among my own physical features. I would rate the spider veins in my ankles and knees above my toes, just as an example.

8. I type 105 words per minute when I'm properly warmed up.

9. I don't miss having newborns (ogling and holding other people's babies is enough for me), but I do miss nursing and being pregnant.

10. If you asked me to describe myself in just one word, at this point in my life, that word would be 'mother'. But please don't ask me to, because that IS leaving out a lot of other important stuff.

11. Because my entire mental image of myself as a child and young teen is based on the many, many photographs I have or have seen of myself with a vacant facial expression and scrungy hair, I am borderline obsessive about my children having clean faces and tidy-ish hair before I take their pictures, and unless a photo captures an absolutely unique moment, I will delete it if it shows them in a way that they might be embarrassed to see later on.

12. I long for a house with a 10-foot white ceiling (bounce flash, of course).

13. I prefer shopping for food and household necessities to shopping for clothes.
    

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Exodus 19 thoughts

A year or so ago I did a post on the chapter summaries that our family does for our weekly Bible study. This is mine for tonight, which I actually did last week. In typing it up just now, I felt led to share it. It's no Amazing New Revelation and it's not mind-blowing exegesis, but the "meaning" section was more, uh, meaningful than it sometimes is for me. :)

Theme: Extensive Preparations
Key Verse(s): 10-11

Teaching:
v. 1-8: God prepares His people to receive His ordinances
v. 9-15: The people must prepare for the nearness of God
v. 16-25: Moses and Aaron are prepared to receive the Law

Meaning:
It is interesting to note all the extensive life-or-death preparations and precautions that were required when God was to be near His people in the Old Testament. It struck me as I read that many modern people, believers and unbelievers both, seem to apply this chapter and others like it to their attempts (or lack thereof) to draw near to God, in two areas in particular:

Exclusivity. In this chapter, only Aaron and Moses could actually approach God or speak to Him. Everyone else had to stand off at a distance and watch. Sound like modern pew-warming-at-best Christianity to anyone? Many people still rely on "ministers", "pastors", and priests to go before God on their behalf, to study on their behalf, to provide them with a sense of God's acceptance.

Preparation: The people had to be "clean" (no consorting with us lowly unclean women, for example), even to stand back and watch while Moses and Aaron went up the mountain. You had to have all your ducks in a row before you could even think about approaching God, as an Old Testament Jew. This too is a common mindset today, often used as an excuse for putting off a relationship with God: "I'll start going to church when I get my life together." "I'm not good enough for God to take me the way I am now; I'm hoping I can get rid of this sin problem I have and then I'll go to Him."

However, those who build their outlook around these ideas are missing the person who fulfilled the Law, who rendered this sort of separation between God and His followers obsolete, who makes our relationship with God so different from what we see depicted in this chapter. That person, of course, is Jesus. Because of His complete atonement for our sin (which was the barrier between the Hebrews and their creator in this chapter and throughout the OT, as it is for unsaved individuals today), we can approach God directly. No priest is needed to go on our behalf; no ritual cleansing or purification is necessary. He is our priest, our cleansing, our purification. Praise the Lord for His perfect atonement, through which we sinners can come to God freely as to a loving Father.

Monday, March 27, 2006

It's Monday again

...and time for Monday Positives.

This means I can't dwell on stuff like how hard it is to get my son to rake leaves off the lawn, doesn't it. (Yes, in March. This is California. Also, we are not the most outdoorsy gardening family, hence there have been leaves on our lawn pretty much since November.)

OK. Here we go.

1. My weekend transcribing job was done on schedule.

2. The data-entry job I'm doing is past the most mind-numbing stage (checking a database against a printout looking for differences) and I have moved on to straight data entry which is not so bad. I just turn on some music, sip a Diet Cherry Coke, and tappity tap away.

3. The two abovementioned jobs will be contributing quite helpfully to our household economy, at a time when that's needed rather badly.

4. XM Radio has been having a really good day (on its Classics stations at any rate).

   Ah. Until just now, that is. Oh well, Yahoo Launch hasn't gone anywhere while I've been having this affair with XM's online player.

5. Apple pork for dinner, yum. Recipe:

   Apple Pork (the no-Trader-Joe's-required, non-Mac-using/non-granola-eating version)

   
   
   • about six cloves of garlic
     
   • about a tablespoon of really coarsely ground black pepper
     
   • a sprinkling of ground thyme
     
   • a couple tablespoons of salt
     
   • enough oil to make the above four items into a paste -- about 2 tablespoons or so. The original recipe called for olive oil (it also called for fresh and not ground thyme, fennel seeds you were to toast and grind yourself, and rosemary. We don't live at Trader Joe's and T hates rosemary, so, you know. Improvise, adapt, overcome, grunt grunt). I've personally never owned any olive oil. Vegetable oil works fine in this recipe.
     
   • a good-sized pork roast (today's is 5 lb)
     
   • six apples (I wouldn't think Red Delicious would be much good but I've used Granny Smiths and Fujis with good results)
     
   • A large yellow or white onion
     
   • A couple more tablespoons of oil
     
   • Some more salt and pepper
     
   • 1 c dry white wine (What kind of Freudian thing does it say about my day that I originally typed 'whine' there?)
     

   Make a paste of the first five ingredients and spread it all over the pork roast. Marinate this overnight, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or sealed in a big plastic zipper bag.

   About four hours before dinner, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, slice and core the apples, and slice the onions. Toss the apple and onoin slies with oil, salt, and pepper. Spread them out in the bottom of a roasting pan, and put the roast on top. Roast uncovered for 30 minutes. Turn the heat down to 325, add the wine, cover, and cook for 2 1/2 or 3 hours, until meat is falling-apart done. Mash up whatever solids still exist in the apples and onions, and use like gravy. Just do yourself a favor and don't weigh yourself for a few days.

   There, now I've spread the joy.

6. Our Bible study meeting last week was cancelled, so we don't have to do summaries tomorrow, assuming we haven't lost last week's in the intervening six days. This is not necessarily a safe assumption.
   

Sunday, March 26, 2006

LT's tics

Shannon asked about LT's tics in a comment on my last post, and I thought I'd write up a quick post about them in case our experiences can help anyone else with this sort of thing at some point.

We started noticing LT's tics for the first time between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2003. He started out (usually when he was nervous or under stress) with blinking, a very deliberate, repetitive huge kind of blinking. When I asked him (about this and his future tics) he said that he felt like he HAD to do it, that he felt uncomfortable if he didn't, that his eyes felt "wrong" if he didn't. Of course that sent me to the Internet to Google 'blinking tic', but more on what I found in a bit.

So far, the tics that I can remember him having are the following:

• Blinking
• Not-yawning (looked sort of like a yawn but wasn't)
• Squeaking
• Grunting
• Throat-clearing
• an aversion to his own saliva which involved him feeling the need to spit all the time, especially when he was around a smell he didn't like or in a crowd of people. The necks of his shirts were unspeakably nasty for a while, and his lips got chapped. This was a VERY HARD habit for him to break, and we all rejoiced when it was finally gone.
• (this one worries me JUST a little bit) He'll kind of pluck at his eyelashes. I know that there's a syndrome (trichotillomania, if I remember correctly) where pre-teen and teen kids, girls especially but also boys, pull out their hair and their eyelashes. It's frequently stress-related, and I confess that any time I see LT fiddling with his eyelashes I have a difficult time repressing the little "I'm such a horrid mom" freakout when I remind him not to pull on them.

A couple that he never had but that a lot of people with tics do have are: a compulsion to repeat the last few words of what he or other people said, or to just say a word or sound repeatedly and seemingly randomly. Thought I'd include those for any future parents who find this page via Google. Hi future visitors! Be of good cheer. :)

Especially in the early days of his ticcing, I thought he had full-blown Tourette Syndrome, and to be honest in those early days I can't blame myself, because the onset of the tics seemed VERY sudden and he was much more prone to them than he is now, two and a half years later. I did a lot of research, and here's some of what I found out:

• For a diagnosis of TS, a person has to have tics for at least a year with breaks of no longer than... two months, is it? And at least one vocal tic and one motor (body) tic had to be present.
• Repressing the tics in any kind of tic disorder is very difficult for the sufferer, and can result in added stress and a veritable explosion of tics as soon as the need to repress them passes (like, say, at the end of a school day).
• Tics are literally compulsions, and for the person who has one, it's just as urgent as a yawn or a blink. Your brain tells your body "do this", just as it does when it's telling you to blink or yawn, and just as with those things, you can hold off but not forever. The difference is that there's a good reason for you to blink in a normal manner; what goes a little wrong with tics is that your brain starts telling your body to do things that don't necessarily make sense.
• LOTS OF KIDS have tics. In fact, anecdotally I found that I seem to be almost the only person I know who didn't have some kind of tic as a child. These are NOT NECESSARILY Tourette Syndrome; they're just 'transient tic disorder', which means, like it sounds, tics that come and then go away. WAY common. I think 'disorder' is a bit of a misnomer, since it seems to be so normal a thing for kids to have. This is what I think LT actually has.
• Even if he did have Tourette's, it was nothing to freak out about. It's not life-threatening in any way and is not an indicator of deeper psychological problems. It's a relatively minor thing, especially since we homeschool, seeing as...
• Most of the people I encountered online who medicated their kids' tics away did so because the tics were a problem at school, either in the classroom where they were disruptive, or on the playground where other kids would torment them, or both. We quickly decided that unless things got MUCH worse, we weren't going to medicate our son, as the side effects of the medications seemed much more daunting to us than the tics were.
• People who make jokes about Tourette Syndrome generally have no idea what they're talking about. It's not just about repeating swear words for no apparent reason, or saying whatever comes into your head without stopping to think, for crying out loud. Also, obsessive-compulsive disorder (which is believed to be in the same spectrum of disorders as TS, along with a handful of other things like autism and possibly ADD) has nothing to do with needing your cabinets to be organized. I am now really uptight about Tourette Syndrome and OCD jokes.

Right now LT is pretty much tic-free, except in situations of extreme stress when a few of them will pop up. Praise God!

In short, Shannon, don't worry. Even if your son has a nervous tic, don't freak out like I did. (oh, the Nameless Dread that I endured for weeks at a time in those days!) It's nothing to be upset about. It'll most likely pass, and meanwhile there's nothing wrong with him. Tics are great; all the cool kids have them. ;)

Saturday, March 25, 2006

happy days are here again

T and I had a big, heated, personal argument tonight. Just wanted to make sure I presented a balanced and fair portrait of our lives. It's not all new lenses and ... let me think, something I've done for him... uh, not all new lenses and -- biscuits and gravy. I make him a lot of biscuits and gravy. Anyway. It's not all new lenses and biscuits and gravy; we fight. Then we make up. And oooh, is the making-up part nice, once it's past that bumpy and uncomfortable "I'm not sure I'm ready to make up; I think I want to burn with anger against you for just a little while longer first" stage. I hate fighting so much. Man, am I glad that's over.

I'm also glad (segue! no asterisks! go me!) that the audio quality on these recordings I'm transcribing is good. That makes such a difference in my mood. Give me an ongoing job where I have to repeatedly and continuously attempt to discern what two people are saying in an interview that appears to have been held either at a college basketball game or inside a jet engine, and I get terribly cranky. Whereas nice clear audio that enables me to rattle along at 65% without missing a word even when both people talk faster than I do (and anyone who has ever heard me talk can attest that this means very fast), and I go around smiling and humming and tipping flowers up to look at them and all those other stereotypical happy-woman sorts of things.

As if that wasn't enough to make my mood all that it should be, we had "quizzing" for Awana tonight. This is a sort of Jeopardy sort of thing where the kids from Awana clubs all around our area get together and answer questions about all the Bible verses and things they've been learning all year. It has served as an excellent gauge of LT's mental/emotional stability for the three years we've done it. The first year, his tics had really just begun to manifest themselves and he became a veritable ticcing machine during the competition. It was so, so painful to watch that poor anxious boy deal with a situation that was totally new to him, and a room full of strangers, and being up in front of people for maybe the fourth or fifth time in his life when he was also having to deal with these impulses that would take over his body any time he got nervous, which, of course, went beyond 'quite frequently' and well into the realm of 'constantly'. That was, I am not exaggerating, one of the top ten worst days of my parenting career. Last year was better but still a stressful situation for all of us. This year was fabulous. He sat up there, calm and completely in control of himself, seeming quite self-assured, laughing composedly with the crowd when he accidentally tossed an answer card across the room, answering questions. It took a great deal of self-restraint to keep myself from dashing up on the stage and kissing him repeatedly just for the simple joy of it. Several separate times. AND he went to sleep without a single problem tonight, praise God.

So. Life is good right now in our household. It's a busy weekend for all of us; I have two separate jobs going, and T is taking LT to again help his friend prepare for his move. So with that (notice the time and see above re: argument and transcribing), I'm going to go snuggle up to my nicely-made-up-with husband and sleep as long as C will let me in the morning. I wonder if I could nicely bribe God to keep her happily in bed until at least 8:30.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Be anxious for what?

The Boy is anxious again.

Today was a really great day in a lot of ways. The weather was nice for a change, so he spent a good amount of time banging on his fort in the backyard. I wanted to take pictures of popping water balloons (be afraid. be very afraid.), and he was my ingenious and efficient assistant, along with his sister. We had a really fun time. He got Burger King for dinner, what more could a boy who's nine-going-on-ten want? Maybe it was sugar, maybe it was having his friend over from after supper till bedtime, getting him all wound up, maybe it's a psychological disorder that will plague him for the rest of his life (you see how a mother's mind works at 12:30 am), I dunno, but for some reason tonight he was too anxious to sleep. Again.

I know he doesn't know this (and I kind of hope he doesn't find out because it couldn't possibly help the situation) but whenever he's anxious, I take his anxiety and multiply it by, well, a big number, say, if you could quantify love and trust, it would be the number for how much I love him divided by how much I really honestly truly trust God. And that amount of anxiety settles in the bottom of my stomach until I not only feel sure I've got a really spectacular ulcer, the kind that would bring all the doctors in the gastroenterological practice to stand around looking at the pictures and going 'hmm', but also, I wonder if I will ever sleep again. At the same time, my mama-bear tendencies kick in, and I want to cuddle him and hug him and protect him (even a little bit from his own father, who isn't a mother bear and who has to get up at 5:00 AM and so late-night anxiety just makes him a bit impatient really) and at least I want to stay awake until he is well and truly asleep because what if he needs me? And I worry about a lot of different things while I do this. Things like: what kind of mother am I that my precious son is too anxious to sleep? Am I raising somebody who's going to go on TV someday and explain that he'd have been just fine except for the way he was raised by those freaks that were his parents? There are only eight or so years until he might reasonably be expected to live on his own; will he ever be able to do that? Should we move so that his bedroom isn't so far from ours?

In other words, I kind of freak out a little.

And it's really a shame, too, because you know what I spend a considerable amount of time telling him when he feels this way? We talk about God. We talk about how big God is, and how powerful, and how he loves LT SO SO SO much and always knows what's best for him and takes care of him in exactly the way that is perfect forever and not just perfect for right now. We talk about Be Anxious For Nothing and Be Still And Know That I Am God. I pet his head and rub his back and talk in a low and soothing voice about Who's in charge and how marvelous He is.

And then I go back to my own bed, or I come out in the front room and eat Cookie Crush ice cream and read tomorrow's comics, and I try to will away that big ball of dread and all those feelings of inadequacy. Not because I'm a hypocrite, and not because I don't believe every word I just said to that boy, but because sometimes my belief just doesn't quite reach the pit of my stomach.

So, that's my prayer for tonight. God, please help what I know about you to turn into something I can feel about you too.

Monday, March 20, 2006

It's Monday

Kat does this thing on Mondays where she lists a few positive things in her life. I figure, hey, if any day needs something like this, it's Monday, right?

Actually, things have been pretty good for me for a while. I'm a happy lady. And why shouldn't I be?

Just a few things that have made me happy lately (ooh! a list!):

• I have an array of machines that do much of my work for me. I am especially grateful for the dishwasher. That swish-swash-swish can still fill my heart with joy even after five years of hearing it.
  
• Speaking of heartwarming, yesterday was our twelfth wedding anniversary. Since we've been celebrating pretty much full-bore for the past month and a half or so, it was OK that we spent yesterday afternoon apart -- T helped a friend who is moving to another state in a mere two weeks or so (note: he, like T, collects cars and their paraphernalia. It has been snowing every weekend since the middle of February, which has put a cold, wet, white damper on any outdoor interstate-moving-related work. Read: still much to do.), and I cleaned our bedroom which was only a slightly less desperate task. We did go out to dinner, all four of us, even though we had multiple child-minding offers. It is our family's birthday, after all. Then we came home and watched The Cat From Outer Space, had brownies and ice cream, and crashed into bed. We are so happening.
  
• We are all in excellent health (and we're very good walkers, too. I wonder how many posts of mine do not have a Jane Austen reference in them somewhere?).
  
• I finally defrosted and cleaned out our refrigerator. And I mean really cleaned it out, not just emptied the unidentifiable moldy messes out of the Rubbermaid containers that have been shoved to the back of the shelves for who knows how long. It now smells pleasantly clean and is actually white on the inside. Who knew? Such a good feeling; it gives me a little jolt of satisfaction every time I open it (easily pleased? why do you ask?). Also, I'd forgotten what the house sounded like without the fridge running.
  
• I am married to the best person on the planet, and I'm exponentially more in love with him than I was when we got married and thought we loved each other as much as was humanly possible.
  
• School has been going well, and my kids love me in spite of my multiple mothering flaws (will they ever have clean socks in their drawers on a regular basis? do they even know what that's like?)
  
• The photographer's block is gone. woo hoo! Probably because in spite of our freakish weather for the past month, wildflowers are bursting out all over. Run for your lives!
  

See? So what if the house gets messy again as soon as I clean it? So what if dpchallenge still hates my photos? So what if our tenant is moving away in July and we're kind of wondering where our grocery money will come from if we don't get someone else in there right away? All the important stuff is covered, right?

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

growing up and other exciting things

C lost her first tooth yesterday. In a kind of reverse of the usual first child/second child dichotomy, while I don't remember LT's first tooth, I have very distinct memories of the morning we found C's. Incidentally, this is probably mostly because that was also the first morning we had our video camera. That first tooth, which made nursing an occasionally extremely painful event (C had this way, you see, of involuntarily clenching her gums together when she fell asleep...) came out yesterday, after a couple of weeks of increasing wiggliness. I'll spare you the gory details; consider yourself lucky that C isn't writing this, because she certainly wouldn't, and they really are remarkably gory. Needless to say, she's quite excited. If you don't like the sight of a newly-bare section of juvenile gum, for heaven's sake stay clear away from C for a while.

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Meanwhile I have another new Internet addiction. I can't even count how many this makes. I don't know exactly how to describe Librarything in a way that will adequately convey the feeling of joy and even glee that it gives me, so here are the bare facts: You create an online record of the books you own, and you can compare them with others' libraries, and give them little descriptive tags, and all kinds of fun things. Here is my profile, complete with goofy-looking photo. I'm not done entering my books yet; I still have two shelves of the schoolroom shelves to go, and that's if I completely ignore all the picture books (two shelves) and curriculum-oriented schoolbooks (about three shelves' worth). And that's not even bringing up the four wall-to-wall shelves in our bedroom full of T's religion section. Maybe someday, or more specifically, some night -- since I was up till nearly 1:00 doing my bedroom shelves last night. It all seems almost pointless when I tell about it, and I don't think T will ever understand the pleasure of it, but oh goodness is it fun.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

snippets yet again

I've not done anything funny or stupid, and I've no Great Spiritual Wisdom to hand down or Pensive Mothering Thoughts to relate. So, as usual, no posts. Finally, though, I think I've enough little snippets of stuff to sit down and write.

1) I've not felt inspired to take photographs AT ALL the last couple of weeks. Which is strange, especially in light of the fact that:

2) We've just had our third snowstorm in about three weeks. I don't remember this ever happening before in the thirty-one years I have lived in this area. Some years we'll get three snowstorms in a winter -- I think in 1998/1999 we had six -- but this close together, it's been interesting. Especially since in the few days in between the temperatures will frequently get up into the sixties and seventies. (and yet, I've not taken more than five or eight pictures of the snow. It'll pass. In fact I'm thinking about going for a drive and doing some shooting later this afternoon. If I have the energy.)

3) T's been off work all week. He sprained his back a week ago today and just in the last couple of days, after three chiropractor visits and a lot of lying flat on his back on a heating pad with his legs elevated on our daughter's blue daisy-printed beanbag chair, has he been able to be up and around doing stuff.

4) Then yesterday we took him to the ER because out of the blue he had one of his incidents of severe, mind-numbing pain brought about by what is essentially a muscle cramp, in one of the muscles that makes his esophagus do what esophagi do best. He hasn't had one in years, because in the past they've always been triggered by certain foods, and he's avoided those very carefully for a long time. So yesterday at the hospital, after they hooked him up to an EKG because anytime anyone presents with any kind of pain in the chest they have to treat it like a heart condition (thank you, malpractice lawyers), they gave him an opiate for the pain. This caused him to (in his words) go from intense pain to outer space in about thirty seconds. He stayed in outer space for several hours, until he returned to earth with a nauseated jolt. So that all made for an interesting afternoon.

Other than that (unless you wanted to hear about the trials and tribulations of having a cat who has decided that your closet floor is a MUCH better litterbox than her litterbox is, and, uh, you don't), there's nothing to report. I'm fine, the kids are fine. School is fine. The house is cluttered and messy and I'm behind on laundry. There's a Star Wars Trading Card Game set up on my coffee table that's been there since Friday morning sometime. Or maybe it was Thursday night. Just, you know, the usual.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Rachel: The Owner's Manual

1. How can I tell if you are angry?
a. I slam things around.
b. My mouth does this... thing. It does the Angry Mouth.
c. My angry body language is pretty classic.
d. I'll eventually come out and discuss what I'm angry about but it takes me some time (minutes or hours, generally not days) to formulate my thoughts sometimes.

2. How should I behave around you while you are angry?
You can't win. If you act all rational and calm with me, then I know that you're just doing it to show your superiority (I get angry and you do not). If you mouth off to me, well, that's no good either. Actually a hug, and an 'I love you' can really help to defuse the situation. Also, once I've got those thoughts all formulated and ready to go, let's have a nice rational discussion so we can make up after.

3. How do you want me to behave when you are hurting emotionally? (How is best to comfort you?)
Just be nice to me.

4. Are there things we should ~not~ discuss?
If there are you'll know when I evade those particular topics. (not really. but I don't like confrontational discussions with people in that middle ground between can-call-at-2-am and relative strangerhood.)

5. How should I treat you if you are physically ill?
Well, hmm. Make food for my family and wash my dishes. :-D (actually, with my entire immediate and much of my extended family living within half an hour of me, illnesses are pretty well covered. Just be nice, I guess.)

6. What makes you happy? (that may be in my power to grant, as a friend?)
Hmm. Paper letters. But I'm really, really bad about reciprocating, I'll let you know right now. Remembering things that I like. Inside jokes.

7. How would you like for us to recognize your birthday?
Just a 'happy birthday' is fine. (It's Christmas, so you get bonus points if you tell me Happy Birthday before you tell me Merry Christmas.)

8. Are there any standing categories of presents that would be inappropriate or unwelcome?
That depends on who you are. Nothing flirty from males who are not my husband. Nothing risqué unless you are one of the few people who could get away with that. Nothing "dirty" or with foul language or potty humor. Other than that, I'll be glad you thought of me. :)

9. Are there times of the year that are difficult for you? (please explain if you are comfortable.)
Not so as to require people to walk on eggshells around me or anything. I wouldn't even say hard anymore, really, just... poignant? Natalie was born on December 26th and she died on March 2nd. Her funeral was March 6th. The time of year when the almond orchards are in bloom in the Valley, I find myself thinking about her death a lot. Breezy days with cloud shadows and green grass do the same thing.

10. Are there important anniversaries that we should recognize in your life?
My wedding anniversary is March 19th but you don't need to do anything about that if you don't want to.

11. Who are the most important people in your life to whom we should defer when making plans on your behalf?
Making plans... on my behalf? Like I'm incapacitated? Or -- ooh, a surprise party! you're planning a surprise party, aren't you?! Definitely my husband and kids, and then probably my parents.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Today, and a Friday Five

Things that were nice about today (I should make "ooh, a list!" a category, don't you think?):

• Last night (close enough) at AWANA, C recited nine verses from the book of John (10:10-18) without one mistake, in front of the whole group.
• It snowed. Granted, it was slushy and wet, but it looked pretty coming down.
• The power went out for a while.
• I had about an hour and a half of quiet in which to read, and so I finished Oliver Twist.
• It was T's Friday off, which meant that all day I kept thinking it was Saturday and then I'd remember it was only Friday and get that extra-weekend-day little mini-rush.
• My Pride and Prejudice (2005) DVD arrived in the mail.
• I went for a drive and took pictures.
• T took us out to lunch and I didn't totally destroy my diet.
• We had brownies and ice cream tonight and once again I didn't totally destroy my diet.
• I've lost three pounds since Monday (it always comes off way fast in the first week, so don't send me alarmed notes yet).
• I just finished a LONG-awaited update on one of T's pages which I won't link here because it has all kinds of stalker-friendly personal information on it.

  
  

Man. No wonder I'm happy.

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I found a Friday Five. Remember the Friday Five? It's appalling that I can be nostalgic for something that recent, but in Internet years, I've been writing in one online journal or another for a geologic age at least, so you must forgive my silliness on that.

1. What color is your hair?
Brown. It's gotten darker since I was a teen and now it's actually a shade of brown that I like. Really brown with no real blond in it. Maybe the contrast has something to do with the Sun-In fixation my friends and I had in early high school, I dunno.

2. When is the last time you accepted a dare?
I can't remember. I make bets with T all the time; does that count? No? Dare me to do something then. I'm just in the mood.

3. Do you think you could have an affair?
Ah, no.

4. How often do you feel like walking on air?
Often.

5. How about despair?
"To despair is to turn your back on God." It's Kevin Sullivan and not L.M. Montgomery (as far as I know), but I still think of that line whenever I hear the word. Somebody stop me before I go off on a huge wild tangent about how very much Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla Cuthbert reminds me of my grandmother. Oh. I guess I should answer the implied question. No, I don't think I've despaired much, ever. I'm too much of an optimist for that, and even when I'm depressed (which does happen) I always have a sense that it's temporary and that as much as it doesn't FEEL like I'll ever feel happy again, rationally I KNOW I will.

That was... a little weird.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Hello. My name is Rachel and I'm a libraryoholic.

I just got a lump in my throat reading a blog post about library catalog cards. You know that sentimental, nostalgic feeling that people have for the schools they attended? I have that feeling about our local library (or any library will do, really, but ours is best). I spent whole days there more often than not in the summers for many years, and after school I could always find solace in the quiet, cool place filled with my beloved books, where nerdiness was an advantage, or at least a non-issue. I could entertain myself for free all day long, and I did. I read my way through entire shelves of the Youth section, and when I go there today just the sight of the same plastic-covered spines sitting there in a row can make me choke up and smile at the same time.

Part and parcel of the library experience when I was younger was the card catalog. It's definitely convenient to have library catalogs computerized now, but I confess that I miss the soft thump-thump sound of a search through the rows of cards, the precision of the alphabetization, and the smooth heavy slide of the drawers opening and shutting. I tell my children about card catalogs and it's like telling them about cash registers that went ching-ching instead of beep-beep, or about, say, Atari game systems, or the Revolutionary War. All are equally unreal for them.

It's been years since my library had a card catalog and I'm sure they disposed of the cards long ago. Which is a shame -- or, rather, it's a shame I didn't think of this before -- because if I could get them I'd love to have the cards from the books I loved to read twenty years ago, or from the classics I so enjoy in adulthood (not to mention the really old cards displayed on this site; our library was only constructed in the sixties and early seventies so I doubt there's much chance of its catalog having had anything handwritten in it). Bookmarks, wall decorations, greeting cards even. What a missed opportunity.

However, this makes up for it in some small degree. Believe it or not, a guy wrote a program (thank you thank you) that generates a graphic of an authentic-looking old-style catalog card for any book you've looked up at the website for the Ann Arbor District Library. I don't think a printed version would have the effect I'm looking for, but at least I can have these (and so many others -- oh dear, I must pull myself away or I'll get nothing at all done today) popping up in my screen saver now:

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Books for February

Just one completed book this month, and one short story. I've read partway through several others but not finished any. March's book post will be all the fatter for that. :)

Title (bold indicates first-time read) -- Author -- Rating (out of 5)

1. All Creatures Great and Small -- James Herriott -- 4


• I can't put this in bold because I read it years and years ago -- I'd say I was under ten. I barely remembered it, so in many ways it was like reading it for the first time. Still, rules are rules. ;)

  Reasons not to read James Herriott:
  

  • He's light on plot; his stories are highly anecdotal by nature.
    
  • He's not edgy.
    
  • There's no Really Deep Meaning to be found in these pages.
    
  • There's no foul language, sex, violence, or foulness, other than the biological sort inherent to his profession.
    
  • He sticks his arms inside the orifices of large animals and tells you about it.
    
  
  If this won't bother you, at least for an occasional light read, then by all means DO read Herriott. I really enjoy his books. His stories about the humor and frustration found as a country veterinarian in pre-WWII northern England may not have been PEN award material, but his writing style is unpretentious and cheery, the bucolic lifestyle he tells about appeals to me, and, well, he's really funny. I may have wondered at the ethics of laughing loudly enough to wake the family at a description of an episode wherein Herriott's partner gets covered in bovine, um, digestive secretions during an operation on a constipated cow, when we've taught our children that Potty Humor Isn't Nice -- but I definitely wondered while I laughed. (It's worth noting that it's not all like that. That was just one very memorable incident.)


2. Rikki-Tikki Tavi -- Rudyard Kipling -- 5 (short story)


• I had forgotten how much I loved this story. I think reading it as an adult is especially rewarding because now I notice just how brilliant Kipling's writing style was. It makes me want to read the rest of his works. This would be a wonderful family read-aloud; I'm planning on doing it next time we have a car trip. :)