In Defense of High School

Recently a friend said to me that he learned nothing in high school and that in general it is just a big waste of time. I hear people say this all the time. My husband will readily tell you that once he left the rigors of Catholic school in tenth grade, he never learned another thing. We both went to Kirby, where we met in drama class. That alone should make him think he was where he needed to be, right?

I think this is a bunch of bullshit, people saying they learned nothing in high school. I learned plenty. I learned about Willa Cather and Hemingway and Sylvia Plath, who became my teenage idol. I read "Our Town" and Joyce's "The Dead" and learned about epiphanies. I read the Spoon River Anthology and was asked to write a poem in the style of Edgar Lee Masters, which I found I was able to do quite easily and well. I read about the Transcendentalists and the oversoul and Civil Disobedience and the importance of self reliance. I learned about the basics of economics, opportunity cost and the law of diminishing returns. I learned passable French that I can still speak and read surprisingly well. I gained a fundamental understanding of human genetics and of biology in general. I learned when to say "lay" and when to say "lie" and how to make your junior English teacher laugh and blush during that lesson. I learned about Jung and universal symbols and about Freud and how sometimes the experts turn out to be completely insane but also sort of right about things in a wrong kind of way. I learned to kick a Geometry proof's ass, which is a good introduction to applied logic and which apparently a lot of people can't do.

Maybe you think I'm just listing random crap, but in fact I could tell you the teacher's name that corresponds to each example I gave. I can remember the discussions about Emerson and Thoreau especially well. I'm sure there's plenty that didn't stick with me, and I'm not claiming that my time was never wasted, but overall it was a worthwhile experience. Maybe that's not true for everyone, but I suspect it's true for a lot of people who claim that high school was terrible and taught them nothing. I'm sure there are kids who are better served in other settings. There are very intelligent kids who could wise up and go get their GED and move on to college, and there's nothing wrong with that choice if the traditional path isn't working. But I still argue that there is some value in a classical education, and that a decent-to-excellent version of that can be found in public schools in every city and district in the country.

I guess I take this particular staple of the cynical hipster canon personally because I am a high school teacher. Duh, right? But the idea that I am knowingly and willfully wasting people's time is so insulting because that is something I've given very specific thought to. Early in my teaching career, I had a student in the eighth grade named Jason Carson. He was smart and charismatic and the girls thought he was dreamy. He kind of attached himself to me, and in the remaining years of high school, (it was a 7-12 school) he would often return to my classroom to visit. At times I had to fuss at him and push him away so he would go to his actual classes. When Jason was a senior, he went to visit the college he was planning to attend, where his brother was already a student. Since his brother would be staying at school, they took separate cars. His brother said that one minute he saw Jason in the rear view mirror following him, and the next he was gone. He rolled his car in a ditch and was killed instantly. That was almost ten years ago and I still think about Jason at least once a week. My eyes fill with tears every single time because as much as the potential and promise of his life was wasted by his death, what was most devastating to me at the time was the possibility that I had wasted even one minute of the little time he had. I was a new teacher with a class full of unruly middle-schoolers I'd inherited mid-year after a series of subs. My intentions were good but I'm sure I didn't know what I was doing. What I took away from that is the knowledge that no matter what new test comes along for the administration to hang over our heads or what new crisis the media decides to blame on schools and teachers, my responsibility is to those kids. That doesn't mean I'm at my best every day or that I can't do better, but it means that I think of my students as individuals whose time is valuable. It means that sometimes I remind myself that I can live in a world where those kids might grow up to use incorrect punctuation, but not one in which they are cruel and intolerant and willfully ignorant. It means that I know who I really work for. And I'm not there to waste my employers' time.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

Late Great Planet 8

Happy birthday, Joshua. It seems fitting that I'm writing this post the day after your birthday. But this is not the time to talk about the day-late, dollar-short parenting afforded so often to middle children, and besides, I don't think you'd mind. You had a good day. Any day that involves a trip to Target is a good one in your book, right? You picked out a new bike from us and spent your adorably wadded birthday cash on a Transformer you don't have to actually transform and a Tomogachi. My little consumer.



It's hard for me to believe you are eight years old. For some reason, eight seems so much bigger than seven. Come August, you'll be in third grade. That was a tough year for me, and each time one of you approaches it, I worry a little. Your brother got through it without a hitch, but you are much more like me. Third grade was the year my rebellious streak first reared its head, but I did have an insane teacher, so maybe you'll do better. There's a lot ahead of you this year: a new school where your big brother has never been heard of, for one. I'm excited that you'll have the chance to blaze your own path, but also a little apprehensive. I know you'll do fine. Mostly I know that.



I try to make myself stay in the moment with the four of you, but it's hard sometimes not to look ahead and wonder what the future will be like. I imagine you will be a lot of fun. You will be in a band and have an endless string of pretty girlfriends that I will try not to worry too much about. Hopefully you'll hold true to the maxim that boys always love their mothers and help keep me sane when your sister is just one year behind you, rolling her eyes and hating me as teenage girls are required to do.

Anyway, that's a ways off. Right now, I just want you to enjoy being eight. Ride your bike, look for frogs with your idolized big brother, get excited over the prospect of a day at the pool. Just be your sunny, springy little self. Happy birthday, Joshua. I love you so much.

And the livin's easy

Clearly I cannot be counted on to post regular updates about my fabulous summertime existence. We went to Florida, which I couldn't talk about before or during because BD has this pesky thing about not wanting to tell the whole internet we'll be leaving our stuff unattended for ten days. But we did! We drove aaaalllll the way down to Naples. Which is far. Florida is long! We drove eight hours to BD's grandparents' place near Greensboro, Georgia, and then got up the next morning and drove another ten to Naples. In case you have never driven eighteen hours in a minivan with four kids and one adult who will not let you drive, let me tell you, it's a lot of time to spend in a car with those people! It wasn't all bad, though. I got through a good bit of Midnight's Children, which may go on record as the longest I have ever taken to read a book, and I napped some. The rest of the time I refrained from throwing myself under the wheels of passing trucks to get away from the shrieking. Three year old children are the worst idea ever!

So, Naples was fabulous. Since this is the first summer in ten years that BD has not been chained to a small business, it was also the first time he could take enough time off for all of us to drive down that far and still spend enough time there to make it worth while. It was great to be able to let the kids spend time with their paternal Nonna (we do not say the G word) in her own home for the first time ever. They had a great time getting reacquainted with her, and not just because she has a Wii and a wide-screen TV and a pool a block from her house, either. We alternated beach days and pool days, since the beach was a 30 minute drive and we are all a little spoiled from two summers in a row of renting houses directly on the beach for vacations. Walking two blocks from a public beach to paid parking in the ungodly equatorial heat is as close as any of us has come in a while to a sticky, lung-collapsing personal vision of hell. For about ten minutes, then it was all cool again.

On the way home, we were lucky enough to have the use of a townhouse in Panama City Beach for two nights. Thanks Robin! SAM decided on the spur of the moment to drive down and meet us for a mini-vacation of her own. Having two nights really helped break up what ended up being about a twenty hour drive home. We spent Sunday on the sugar-white Gulf beach in front of Schooner's, where I used to work, and where we had an awesome beachside Father's Day lunch. The water at PCB was a refreshing 20 degrees (according to me) cooler than it was in South Florida, which was nice, and also slightly rougher, which the kids enjoyed immensely on their boogie boards.

All in all, it was a great trip. But I'm still glad to be out of the car.

You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky

Fifteen years ago today, I stood in Fisher Gardens and promised to love, honor, and cherish the only man for me. I was 21 years old, a college graduate of two whole weeks, and absolutely certain that I was doing the smartest thing I'd ever done, or ever would.









I guess I was pretty smart, to be so young, but I had no idea how beautiful life with you was going to be. Happy anniversary BD. I love you more than I can say.

Laziest Post Evah

What have I been doing during all this aggressive not blogging, you ask? Why, this of course. And also this. Otherwise known as, throwing a Memorial Day cookout and throwing a summer-birthdays/end-of-school party for my kids and their friends. We have at least a few of our own pictures still locked up in the Nikon D40. I think.

So Genevieve is officially 3 now, and Joshua will turn 8 on July 1. And we're all out of school for summer, and all these things have been properly commemorated and celebrated with the blowing up and filling of inflatable pools and slip-n-slides and semi-charred foods and two flavors of cupcakes. Phew!

Wednesday was my last day of work for the school year. I have to move my classroom after three years in a brand spankin' new room of which I was the first and only occupant, so there was a lot of packing those last two days. Also a lot of bitching about a certain superintendent who shall remain unnamed because he made us do a full day of in-service the very last day. But whatever. I'm out!

If you need me, I'll be in the inflatable pool tanning my hide. Coming soon...15th anniversary post.

I don't know those people!

Why is my Flickr widget showing photos from a blog in China no matter how many times I reset it?

I've temporarily removed the Flickr widget until I can figure out how to make it work. One of my techier friends should help me. Consider that a hint.

John and Kate Plus Hate

For the record, I normally have a profound lack of interest in anything having to do with either celebrities or reality television (two categories that should probably be mutually exclusive but somehow are not), but I am finding myself sucked into the John and Kate drama. Why is that?

We watched the first couple of seasons, not religiously or in order, but here and there because reruns would be on at night while I was getting Genevieve to sleep in our bed. SAM and I used to tease BD about having a little thing for Kate, at least until he saw the belly surgery episode. We would shake our heads and say "Poor John" when Kate would treat him like her ninth child, and wish for a van like theirs so our crew of nine could someday travel in one vehicle. But then we lost interest, because really, it was never that interesting in the first place.

I've seen whole websites transformed by swarms of loyal J&K fans coming to duke it out with J&K haters on the basis of one editorial. There's a thread of comments over thirteen thousand posts long on a parenting site I frequent. It's nuts! And truly, I would never dedicate that much emotional energy to loving or hating people I don't even know. But I have to admit, I'm not sorry to see Kate getting her comeuppance.

Maybe it's that I find it harmfully dishonest to present such a shiny-happy false facade to the world, in which one woman pretends to (almost) singlehandedly keep her eight children clean, clothed, and fed an all-organic diet in an immaculate house with a perfectly-organized laundry room while maintaining individualized relationships with each child and having a hot date with the hubby on a regular basis. Girl, please. Who are you fooling, and why would you want to?

Here's something I've learned: if you make yourself look too much better than everyone else, they will take the very earliest opportunity to crucify your uppity butt. But if you make people feel like they are not doing so badly after all, they might just love you. Maybe if Kate hadn't been so busy allegedly elbowing people out of her way on the path to fame and fortune, someone would have told her that.

Open letter to Toilet Hoverers

Dear T-H-ers of the world:

The way this works is that if your butt is actually on the toilet seat, you are not able to pee all over it. In other words, the only one making the seat too nasty to sit on is you, the one who thinks you are too good to sit on it. Please stop doing that.

Yours truly,
Sweet Sassy Molassy

The New Math

Days since last nursing: 10
Weeks this fell before projected goal: 3
Months spent nursing Genevieve: 35
Months spent nursing Somerset: 36
Months spent nursing Joshua: 14 (he got the shaft because S was born when he was 14 months old and I'm not woman enough to tandem)
Months spent nursing Calvin: 27

Grand total of months spent nursing (drumroll please....): 112

That's 9.333 in human years.

Weeks before I got pregnant again the last time I had a weaned, diaper-free three year old: two
How sure I am that this will not happen again: 100%

Months not spent pregnant or nursing since 1997: 4.5

That's right. Four. And a half.

I just figured that out. No wonder I've been cranky!

Analyze This

Suddenly this past week, I've been having very strange and vivid dreams. One was very tactile and color specific, involving a lot of grit and the vomiting of orange feathers. One involved a group of roving attackers breaking into my house and keeping me hostage. We'd heard they were on the loose, so we were going around locking the windows, and then they walked right through the front door. That's probably significant.

Last night I dreamed that a group of domestic terrorists (label applied post-dream) killed everyone in the world who wasn't with them with poisonous gas, but I was part of a secret resistance that survived by somehow not breathing the gas while pretending to be dead. Once they moved on from where I was, I quickly packed one bag for myself and my kids. It was a white nylon drawstring backpack of the cheap fundraiser variety, if you want to know. I chose very carefully the clothes that would get us through life on the run. They turned out to be tshirts mainly. I asked myself if I needed to be stealthy, but since the terrorists assumed that everyone who wasn't one of them was dead, I didn't need to. But as I encountered people I had known before the attack and they acted normal toward me, I started to wonder if these were really the same people, or if their bodies had been somehow taken over. If that were the case, did they have some way of recognizing a body that hadn't been snatched?

What does it all mean??

The Ponderous Adventures of Cindabella and Bootie

In an attempt to act like a good mom and play with my kids yesterday, I parked myself in front of the three-story Barbie mansion with Genevieve. Delighted, she helped me pick a doll and parked her at table on the veranda with her own.

"What's your girl's name?" I asked her.
"Um...Cindabella," she replied. "You can be Bootie."

Clearly the Disney Princess indoctrination starts early. Genevieve has never even seen any of those movies. Oh well. I giggled at her interpretation of the names and dressed my brunette Barbie in a sundress that I could barely yank up over her misproportioned hips. We pondered the mystery of the stairs that go only from the second to the third floor, and the elevator that goes only from first to second. I noted that although the mansion seems spacious, Barbie is apparently the doll-equivalent of 8 feet tall. The bar-height kitchen table sits at her hips when she leans awkwardly against the stool. I guess it doesn't matter, since neither Cindabella nor Bootie was able to bend her elbow to take a drink of her "glass of line."

Barbies were a nice diversion in the middle of a day that both started out and ended up sucking. I have been working toward weaning Genevieve, with her third birthday at the end of May looming as our deadline. Sometimes she's been cooperative with the limits I've tried to set, and sometimes not so much. After she woke up at 6:00 yesterday morning and nursed without ceasing until I finally couldn't take it at 8:00, she screamed and cried and threw a fit about being denied. Then I pretty much screamed and cried and threw a fit at BD, and it was all just ugly and upsetting and the result of a lot of frustration and exhaustion and I think we all realized that we just can't do it anymore, any of us.

So we stayed in our jammies all day except when he took the kids to the book store for a brief outing before dinner, and we played Barbies and watched bad (really bad) tweener TV on Disney and tried to just be easy with each other, and when G asked to nurse and I told her I can't nurse her anymore, she handled it fairly well. Until bed time. We have never night-weaned any of our kids, because I'm too lazy and I can't stand all that crying. This is the first time in four kids and eleven years that I have not wanted to nurse more than I have not wanted to deal with difficult weaning rituals. (Usually I just take a trip or, you know, go to the hospital to have another baby.) BD had warned me not to come to her room no matter how much she screamed and called for me. It seemed to go suprisingly well for a while, then it went horribly. I read until I couldn't, and then I cried and felt like a selfish ass while SAM reassured me that she was in the hands of a loving parent who was taking good care of her, and that she was just mad and was making sure we knew it. I knew she was right, but it still sucked.

I never thought I would be anything but ready by the time she finally weaned, ending a nine-plus year nursing total, but I really hate the thought that Sunday morning will be the last time I ever nurse her, because I was just angry the whole time. And I really do have so many sweet, wonderful memories of curling around her little body, warm in the bed with the comforter around us. I can't decide if I can give us both a different last time or not without setting us back. I guess we'll see. In the meantime, I definitely feel like the Bootie in our little duo.

What Kind of Tree Hugger Are You?

I am becoming more and more amused by the proliferation of quizzes on Face Book. I love the "Which Grease Character Are You" quiz that asks questions from a purely male perspective, but assigns only female characters. (I was Rizzo, of course.) There are quizzes that ask you if you love the sunshine and hate rain and then tell you Seattle is your perfect city. There's the "What Kind of Parent Are You" quiz whose questions and answers look something like this:

Your child falls down. You

A. Laugh

B. Rub crushed glass into the skinned knee

C. Light up a smoke

D. Pick him up and put a bandage on the booboo

Guess which answer gets you the "You are a great parent" rating. I think my favorites, though, are the ones that are clearly written by someone who speaks English as a second language, because there is nothing more endearing that Japanese syntax applied to English grammar. It makes me feel like I'm living a David Sedaris essay.

Recently I took a quiz that was supposed to tell you where you fall on the political ideology spectrum. Now, you and I both know where I fall, but I couldn't resist getting that terribly unflattering photo of Nancy Pelosi published on my profile, so I took it. The questions were surprisingly valid and grammatically correct, and there were a lot of them, by Face Book quiz standards. I actually started to sweat it a little when several questions about the death penalty came up. What if I lost my liberal cred right there on Face Book for all the world to see? Because, yes, I believe in the death penalty. Not in all cases or for the full range of crimes to which it may now be applied, but yeah. Child molesters and serial killers cannot be reformed. And I don't care if it's a deterrent to others, or if it can't bring back the victims or change what happened. I believe there is a point of no return. I believe you can forfeit your right to share oxygen with the rest of humanity. I'm okay with the concept of purely punitive action in those cases, and yes, I believe I would be willing and able to push the button myself, so to speak.

I have come to accept this fact about myself--I am forgiving to a fault on my own behalf, but my capacity for grudgeholding-by-proxy is astonishing. I have let go of shocking personal betrayals and wrongs, but if you hurt someone I love, or an innocent stranger, I want nothing less than your utter destruction, and I usually want to be the instrument. This rage on the behalf of others is sometimes hard for me to reconcile. I value my inner peace; I loathe drama of any kind. In my personal life I strive for zen-like acceptance of reality and of people with all their flawed humanity. And yet, all the self-talk I can muster falls short of convincing me to let go of my anger on behalf of others. Maybe I should. But maybe, on the other hand, a little righteous indignation never hurt anyone.

So that's how I know the "Which Norse God Are You" quiz is flawed. Clearly I am not Frigg, as stated, but Vidar.

Oh, as for the political ideology spectrum, I guess my pro-gay marriage and anti-victimless-crime answers redeemed me, because it said if I went any further to the left, I'd be in Stalin's back yard. Phew!

Long Slide into Summer

There are years when spring break makes me feel rejuvenated and recharged enough to finish out the school year, and then there are years when it just makes me ready for summer. This year it did the latter. All I want to do is sit under the massive wisteria-dripping pergola and read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, drinking sweet tea with mint from the courtyard herb garden and tanning my legs while the kids run around in the yard. Isn't it summer yet?

This doesn't bode well for the 100 Othello analysis papers I need to grade, or the classwork for the six weeks that ends Wednesday. Senioritis happens to teachers too.

What Memphis is Like

Imagine that you are a young woman in the prime of your life. You have this boyfriend; he is sexy and smart and fun to be around, mostly. As soon as you met, he opened himself up to you and you could see all this amazing potential. He could be great, and you could be great by his side. The two of you have chemistry. There's just something about him that feels right to you.

You even like a lot of his friends. They're interesting and sharp and when you all hang out together, you feel so at home. You know that if you were dating some other guy, some Joe Schmoe from the office, you would never have found friends this cool. They introduce you to all this great music and they know all the best places to hear it. There's not a hole-in-the-wall or greasy spoon they haven't tried and judged, and you revel in the fruits of their searching.

He even cooks. He can make all kinds of things, but he has one dish, let's say barbecue, that is really special--the best you've ever had. Sure, maybe sometimes he gets in a barbecue rut, but even then, you have to admit it's good. It's what you want him to make when friends come over, and it's what you crave when you have to be apart.

But this guy, he has some issues. For a while you can overlook the problems--no one's perfect, right? So he's a little moody. A little bit of a slob around the house. The apartment you now share is starting to look a little shabby, especially when you compare it to your friends' places. Still, its better than what you could afford if you weren't with him. And really, you could let all of that go, every bit of it, if it weren't for this anger thing that just seems to be getting worse with every passing day.

At first you only hear about it. There's a story of how he lost it with some guy at a bar, or the office smartass. Then there will be a day now and then when he seems touchy, quick to raise his voice. After a while, it gets harder to relax around him. You're always wondering, in the back of your mind, when he's going to blow. And finally one day, it happens--he directs the full force of his anger at you. You probably didn't even do anything, just minding your own business when suddenly, Bam! He's in your face, screaming about nothing you did, and then the unthinkable happens, and he hits you.

You are stunned. Somehow, even though you knew it was happening all around you, you cannot believe this has hit home. You think about leaving, but it's so hard to wrap your mind around all the things you will lose. And even though it makes you hate yourself a little bit, you still love him. You can't forget all the good times, all the things you only feel when you're with him. You know that you won't get to keep his friends. Sure, you'll stay in touch, but it can never be the same. And you won't be able to go to the old hangouts--they're his territory. You imagine never tasting his cooking again--where will you get babrbecue that good? You look at other apartments and think of how you could fix them up, make them your own, and it all seems great, but then you go home and all your stuff is there, and your good memories, and it makes you angry that he has done this.

Why should you have to leave? Why can't he get himself together, why can't all those things you love about him be the whole story, why can't he see how perfect things would be if he would just deal with his problems? But in the end, you know that he won't. You know that you have to go. And you know, already, that you will never get over the feeling that he was the one, that it really was meant to be between the two of you, but he ruined it, and you just can't forgive him for that. You will never stop feeling angry about what could have been, the waste of it, the frustrating clarity of your vision of the man he could have chosen to become. You're young, you'll meet someone else, but you know there's some small part of yourself that you won't be able to give again, because you never got it back.

That is exactly what Memphis is like.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

One of the things I like about reading my friends' blogs is the way their thoughts and experiences can lead me to closer contemplation of my own. For example, reading Rita's post about people's reaction to her return to martial arts classes brought me back to something I've been thinking about lately myself. And really, what good are other people if they don't provide me with a platform to talk about me, me, me?

Really, though, Rita was saying that she's gotten a lot of "you're so brave" comments, which she can't help but hearing as "wow, you look so foolish, yet you get out there in that hideous uniform anyway" (to paraphrase). Wisely she has decided to enjoy herself and not care what people think. So how does that relate to me? It's kind of complicated. I think a lot of my persona is built on th foundation of "I don't care what you think of me," and on reflection, for the most part, I find that to be true. The trouble is more with what I think of me, or if your idea of me doesn't match up to my own idea of what you are supposed to think of me. That's reasonable, right?

I know that I have a problem with taking myself too seriously. Sometimes that makes it hard for me to determine why I'm really doing or not doing something. I think there are a lot of things I don't do because in no universe can I comprehend how those things are supposed to be fun. Which wouldn't matter, except they're always things that a lot of other people think are fun, and the end result is that I come across as a curmudgeonly or stuck up or more-highbrow-than-thou. It's hard to even list specific examples because of the mental list of friends who are going to read them and say "Oh, so you think all these things that I do are stupid, huh?" Which is tricky because, while those things do seem kind of unfathomable to me, that doesn't mean I think you're dumb for doing them. Maybe that means that I'm not so much worried about me or what you think of me, but about what you think I think of you? This is getting confusing.

Suffice it to say that even if no one would ever see me or know that I had done it, I would never, ever, ever stand in my own living room and play Rock Band any more than I would ever stand in front of a bar full of strangers and sing karaoke. Just like I really and truly do not like reality TV, even though you may suspect that I secretly watch and love it but just pretend I'm "better" than that. I know that makes some of you sad for me, but really, it's okay. Because knowing that I wouldn't want to do it even if no one were watching or would ever even find out assures me that it's not about making an ass of myself. That's just not what I think is fun. So I'm okay with that. And I guess I want my Rock-Band/various-other-video-game-playing/Rock-of-Love-watching friends to be okay with that too. I won't be embarrassed for you, and you don't have to feel sorry for me for missing all the fun.

As for the American Idol thing, well, maybe we don't need to talk about that right now.

Dirty Santa

Genevieve has a habit of fixating on ideas and events. For a long time, she was obsessed with her birthday party. We could see a motorcycle and she'd say "I had two motorcycels at my birthday party. They were pink and purple." If she saw something she liked she would insist that she either had or would have that thing at her birthday party. Every day was about her birthday. The funny thing is, she's never even had a birthday party. My kids have their first real party when they turn five and are old enough to remember me spending that kind of money for a Spongebob cake at the bowling alley for them and their spazzy friends.

Lately, though, she has changed her focus. Christmas seems to have been the catalyst, although the effect was slightly delayed. Now it's all about the fat man in the red suit. And even though she sometimes speaks of him as a friend who is going to bring her things, she also blames him for all her injuries.

It started as Christmas approached and we tried to get Genevieve excited about Santa bringing her toys in the middle of the night. Without fail, she would insist that Santa was going to punch her in the stomach. I have no idea where my two year old got the mental image of a jolly old elf sneaking into her room in the dark of night to punch her in the gut as she slept, but it seemed to be firmly entrenched.

Now whenever she has a mysterious bruise or scratch, if I ask her how she got it she replies witout missing a beat "Santa hit me." Where is she getting this? Am I going to catch some stranger lurking around my house at night dressed as Mr. Clause?

Refreshed

I did not touch a computer all weekend. It was an unplanned break, one that happened naturally, and that's probably for the best since the minute I set a limit for myself, I will defiantly break it just to prove that I can. Such is the life of the ODD sufferer. Anyway, it was nice!

We hosted a group yard sale Saturday, since we do have plenty of yard to go around. I amused SAM and BD by taking seemingly random strangers on a spontaneous tour of the house, including my closet. Because if you come to my house, I'm showing you that closet! But they were not in fact random strangers. They were Kristen from the MOMS' board and her husband Josh and their baby girl whose name, I believe, is Ella. So there.

In other acts of gregariousness to total strangers, I introduced myself to our new neighbors and ended up sitting and chatting with them for an hour on their lovely back porch while my boys joined their boys on their trampoline. Also, last night while going through the U-Scan line at Kroger to buy exactly one tub of Cool-Whip for a terrible pie I attempted to make, I allowed two different people to use my discount card since they didn't have one. Like I do.

Slain

I read this story on this blog this morning and it just immobilized me. It's from Bird by Bird, by Anne Lammot. I own that book but I've never read it, because she's kind of Christiany and spiritual and I tend to avoid that stuff.

Here is the best true story on giving I know, and it was told by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. An eight year old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight.The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney beside his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IVs. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girls' IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, "How soon until I start to die?"

Now, I know this story has some problems: why would it be blood and not bone marrow? Why would it only be a pint of blood? But still! What killed me when I read it was thinking of an eight-year-old boy making what he thought was the sacrifice of his actual life, and doing so while believing that his parents were willing to trade his life for his sister's.

I really hope that is not a true story.

Samoas and Other Mysteries of the Universe

My girl scout finally located her cookie order form and took a break from edging out the Chip-Juices to bring me my four boxes: Samoas, Trefoils, Lemon Chalet Creams, and of course, Thin Mints. This prompted a discussion on the beautiful mystery that is the Samoa. How is it that none of us likes coconut but cannot resist the luscious Samoa? We talked briefly about the new flavors but agreed that the Samoa is still Troop Leader #1.

This indisputable fact was confirmed whenI shared the fact that I was a girl scout for many years and always sold the most cookies in my troop. This was thanks to the fact that my mom worked at Methodist Hospital and would take my order form in to work with her, then bring it back with several sheets of notebook paper stapled to it and covered with orders. A girl in the class smacked her hand on the desk and said with an earnest face and a voice full of longing: "That's because Samoa's ain't no joke."