Flattery and non-flattering clothes

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” right? Well, I was flat-out flattered when my fellow blogger Barb (also an A-Town native) copied my “Preferences” post at The Jester’s Needle last week. So this week, I’m gonna copy her copying idea by mimicking this list from Parton Ponderings, a blog by another A-Town original, Rachel. (By the by, relating to my “Small Town Stuff” post, Rachel is a first cousin of my college roommate Beth. Also, my “Will” was Rachel and Doug’s wedding photographer.) Here’s the list:

Recently, I’m…

Reading: Not much of anything besides my morning Scriptures (I would surely go mad without the Book of Psalms). Some baby name books. A feeble attempt at my book group’s most recent selection. Coming up: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

Listening: Brenda Tremblay on WXXI FM 91.5, plus this hilarious and delightful compilation of songs from my youth, played in bluegrass style: “Pickin’ and Singin’: The Biggest Hits of the 1980s, Vol. 1.”

Watching: Little House on the Prairie, Seasons 6 & 7 (borrowed from our local library).

Cooking: Mexican concoctions—making them up as I go.

Wearing: Clothes in the nebulous No Man’s Land between my regular size and the sizeable maternity wardrobe I have recently acquired from generous friends. Basically, nothing fits correctly these days. (I know, I know: Get used to it.)

Wishing: I could afford to go to London.

Thinking: I am very, very fortunate to have easy access to clean drinking water (and many more amenities).

Craving: Grapefruit. I’ve been purchasing, peeling and partaking of a grapefruit or 2 almost every day since Christmas.

Digging: Pearl’s new outfits from Grandma B. The flare leg pants are groovy.

Excited about: Going to see my friend Jess and her hubby Elton.

Laughing at: The sight of Pearl playing Wii Boxing.

Hoping: Everything will turn out all right for the non-profit agency where I work. (Times are tight—very, very tight.)

Annoyed with: The middle-of-the-night potty trips my body demands, only to leave me wide awake for hours to come.

Feeling bad: About the über-unorganized state of our household paperwork.

Working: A day at a time, a week at a time—all the while exceedingly grateful for the extraordinary graciousness of my colleagues.

Loving: God, family, friends, and A-Town (of course).

"Small Town" by Philip Booth

From Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac this morning. (Thanks to my friend Leena for alerting me.)

Small Town
by Philip Booth

You know.
The light on upstairs
before four every morning. The man
asleep every night before eight.
What programs they watch. Who
traded cars, what keeps the town
moving.
The town knows. You
know. You've known for years over
drugstore coffee. Who hurts, who
loves.
Why, today, in the house
two down from the church, people
you know cannot stop weeping.

Annie and friends and the stuff of small towns

Twenty-one years ago, I played the part of Pepper (sounds like “picked a peck of pickled Peppers”) in the A-Town H.S. production of the musical Annie. Twenty years ago, I played third horn in the All-County Band. Two decades later (and 2 nights ago), I took Vi and friend to see Annie at my alma mater Roberts Wesleyan (where playing horn in the Wind Ensemble was among the highlights of my college experience). The orphans hard-knocked our socks off and Daddy Warbucks was portrayed splendidly by Jeff Wilson, my All-County and Roberts Wesleyan horn section mate. What a delightful performance! I do love live theater (of the family-friendly variety). And I cherish connections—delicious, deep-rooted connections to this area and its people.

That was kind of complicated and convoluted, wasn’t it? But that’s the way these associations tend to work. “I knew So-and-so from 4^th grade and ended up being suitemates with her cousin in college, and then So-and-so’s brother ended up marrying my next-door neighbor.” That was a bad example. I should have used a real one. Here’s an actual for-instance that came up just the other day: The stepfather of my best friend from 6^th grade through college passed away last week. I went to calling hours Thursday evening but then decided to refrain from attending the funeral on Friday because I had Pearl with me and didn’t trust her to stay sufficiently silent during a solemn service. Late Friday afternoon, Vi and I went for haircuts at our favorite salon down the street. During the course of our usual salon chair chit-chat, I came to understand that my friend’s stepfather had been the uncle of my hairdresser’s husband. See? The real ones are even more convoluted than the made-up ones. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” said Twain.

Here’s to A-Town! Here’s to Karin! Here’s to Life!

Karin would not have let this happen! I allowed the first anniversary of Life in A-Town (January 15^th) flit by with no notice whatever. My cousin, in whose memory and honor I began this blog, was a record keeper and datebook historian of the highest order. She remembered significant occasions of so many kinds…and of varying significance: birthdays and wedding anniversaries (of course), but also engagement days and pet acquisitions, friendship firsts and children’s milestones. Almost every day was a day to celebrate something. I knew this about her even though I didn’t know her very well. And when she passed away so swiftly in December 2008 (December 15^th, to name the date), I learned how much “the moments”—the big and small stuff of life—meant to her. Her friends and family reflected at length, with admiration, appreciation, and good-humored affection, her habit of marking the days.

And why not? Life is full of gifts and graces worth noticing. It’s one of many poignant lessons I brought back from North Carolina where we said goodbye to Karin…until we meet again.

So, by the by, today marks 12 weeks of gestation for our newest family member. Only 28 more weeks (give or take a few days) until we welcome him or her to this wonderful world.

By the by, part 2: My sister and brother-in-law had Life in A-Town published as a Christmas present for me! It’s a yearbook like none other, Life in A-Town 2009, and I cherish it. In case anyone else is interested in obtaining a copy, contact me or my sister via email or Facebook, and you can buy an A-Town yearbook of your very own. (This is, of course—you know me—a not-for-profit “advertisement.”)

Grace, the Cell Phone Fuddy-Duddy

Further speculation about how other people live and think…

I realize I risk sounding like a fuddy-duddy for saying this, but I miss the days when I knew most of my friends’ phone numbers by heart. I just knew them, you know—in my noggin. Nowadays, since so many people have cell phones (and home phones…or just cell phones…but they might change plans and numbers every couple-few years), I just can’t keep up. I’m neither a numbers person, nor a cell phone person, so this is a problem for me.

I think other people simply store the numbers in their cell phones and dial by name. (Or click…not dial.) My pre-paid cell phone (gifted and replenished by my generous father, used maybe twice a week for a 1 ½-minute convenience call) just doesn’t suit that purpose. I mean, sure, if I actually used the phone to make calls on a daily basis, it might make sense to store numbers in it. But since I’m typically traversing from point A (home) to point B (work) in A-Town, approximately ¾ miles apart, I’m hardly ever in dire need of the portable device. (Truth is, I should make myself more portable and walk to work. But I always seem to be running late.)

Back in the day, I could dial friends’ phone numbers using only the last prefix number and the 4-digit extension. For example—and I run no risk of a privacy problem here because I know this number has since been disconnected—my BFF’s number growing up (dialing the easy-peasy old-fashioned way…easy-peasy, except for the tedium of rotary dials) was 9-5306. That was it. Five numbers. And everyone in town had the same prefix, so it was 9-_ _ _ _ for absolutely all my friends in town.

Now, I have to remember several different prefixes for my friends, and—truth is—I don’t. I don’t remember. So, I have some very dear friends whose phone numbers I routinely look up because my brain simply won’t store numbers like a cell phone would. And because I don’t use my cell phone to store numbers like ’most everyone else I know does. (Sigh) I guess maybe I am a fuddy-duddy.

I prefer (with and without explanations)...

Morning to night

Lamps to overhead lights

Cinnamon toothpaste to mint

Cardigans to pullovers

Brass instruments to woodwinds

SmartWool socks to any other kind

Coffee to tea (except during pregnancy)

Facebook to Twitter (maybe because I don’t text?)

Hot cereal to cold (I especially like steel-cut oatmeal—it’s well worth the time and trouble.)

Used cars to new (takes the pressure off)

Messy to tidy (unless people are coming over)

Small towns to suburbs (Have I mentioned how much I love A-Town?)

What are your preferences (with or without explanations)?

A long-winded story about a stick...and my mirage of other people’s perfection

Human creatures are such studies in contradiction. For example, me. When it comes to words, I’m pretty particular. I try very hard not to be a pedantic snob, mind you, but I do notice when people misspeak. And typos pop off the page at me, on everything from church bulletins to The Wall Street Journal (just spotted one yesterday in WSJ). However, when it comes to so many other little things in life, I’m scatterbrained and/or oblivious.

It’s 15 degrees outside. Do I wear mittens? No, because I’m in too much of a hurry to get to work (or wherever I’m going) and because I can’t find a suitable pair in my rush out the door.

Or…

It’s 75 degrees and super-sunny. I am driving Vi to camp, an hour and a half away on winding country roads, Old Sol blazing brightly the whole way there and back. Do I wear sunglasses? No, because I can’t remember where any are and if I stop to purchase a pair at the drug store I’ll be late getting my girl to her summer excursion. Plus, I’d probably promptly misplace them anyway—why waste the money? So, I squint.

Not all my flakiness is weather-related (perhaps if Will were awake while I write this, he could suggest some more examples…although he himself is over-the-top “adaptive” in so many practical matters), but my most recent example also has to do with the elements:

By way of background, you need to know that both of our vehicles, the(typically) Trusty Tercel and the Ford Windbag, have been dead in our driveway for approximately 2 months. Since my dad could not drive for the few weeks following his heart surgery, he insisted we borrow his truck, which we did. And it was working out just fine until recently when Dad could drive again and had appointments to attend.

Now, you also need to know that my father is generosity personified and would willingly carry on loaning us his truck for the foreseeable future. But, of course, we had to do something about our deadbeat automobiles. We had mostly postponed the pain because of tight funds and freezing temperatures. The other night, however, I decided to give the van a go. It’s a persnickety machine, and I thought it possible that, after sitting in stone-cold silence throughout the holiday season, it might just decide to start. I was right. At the first turn of the key, the engine fired up like nothing had been wrong all this time.

So, voila! I got the broom, brushed about four feet of snow off the mean red driving machine, and took it out for a short spin, taking care to back into the driveway so we could more easily jump the stinker if it wouldn’t start again. But, the next morning, it did. And the next, and the next. But yesterday, I got hit with a detail dilemma. I had brushed off the snow with our broom the first night, and the snow the next couple of days was the fluffy sort the wipers could slough off. But Friday’s windshield included a smidgen of ice, and I discovered the Windbag contained no scraper. As usual, I was rushing to get to work, so I made do with a stick that I found next to Ben’s booster seat—an inch-thick, foot-long stick that a boy like Ben can’t resist confiscating from the woods to use as a play weapon. In this case, it armed me against the ice.

The stick substituted as scraper just fine in the a.m., but by late afternoon when I was ready to head home after a tiring first week of the new year, the stick did not suffice. I tried to chip away at the coating on the windshield, but ultimately I had to sit for several minutes with the van’s defrost function on full blast and wait. While I waited, I wondered: How do other people do it? How do they tend to all these little details of life—the mittens, the sunglasses, the scrapers, the facial tissues, the laundry cleaned, sorted, and put away, the home-cooked meals on the table every night of the week? Is my perception of “perfect people” a mirage? Maybe. Probably. I hope so. I don’t know. I just know I’m not one of them. When the ice had half-melted, I hopped out of the van with my stick, poked at the windshield for a few more minutes, turned the windshield wipers on high, and drove home.

huge little blessings

Getting my teeth cleaned, checked for cavities, and cleared for another 6 months sans drilling-n-filling.

Watching my 4-year-old pixy Pearl get her teeth cleaned, sporting shades to block the hygienist’s light, and rinsing like a big girl.

Coming home moments before the Sears truck arrived to deliver our new clothes dryer. Hanging wet clothes in a dim basement for one week in the bleak midwinter was enough to inspire sincere appreciation even for this energy-inefficient appliance.

Baking the season’s last batch of anise-flavored sugar cookies…to test the fortitude of our strong teeth?

Meeting with my midwife for the first time in 4 years—and hearing the steady thumping of a tiny heart, 160 beats per minute. Momentous.

It is not days or years I seek from you,
not infinity and enormity,
but small things and moments of awareness,
awareness that you are in what I am
and in what I have been indifferent to.

It is not new time I seek,
but new eyes,
a new heart,
and you, always you.

O Patient God,
make something new in me,
in this year,
for you, for others,
for the abundance of this life lived in your presence.

—From A Prayer for the New Year: I Hold Up My Life to You Now

By Rev. Ted Loder (http://www.thetransformingcenter.org/)

Midnight Mass and Happy Epiphany

Now that the news is out, I feel like I can write again. Keeping secrets is something I can do, but not without angst. And angst squelches creativity for me—unless, of course, I can tackle the problem with my proverbial pen. But in this case, I felt compelled to keep quiet, so I found it difficult to say much of anything in this public venue.

Now, about Christmas…..

I failed to mention that our own Christmas Eve service at the Free Methodist Church where we are members was also very, very lovely. Kudos to A-Town reader Sherrie for her decorating excellence. I especially enjoyed the multitude of tea lights—dazzling.

Part of what makes Midnight Mass so marvelous and magical for me is the timing. My last-minute preparations of the holiday are accomplished. The children are nestled all snug in their beds. Santa has visited our house and eaten her his cookies. And Will’s best present to me every December 24^th (the years we are in A-Town) is going to bed, keeping the kids safe, freeing me to shuffle up the quiet street to the big old sandstone cathedral where the stained glass windows glow with the radiance of the season.

I slip through one of the church’s three front doors—usually the most westward one. I tiptoe down one of the side aisles and find a place to kneel and pray. The choir is singing. The place is filling up. Everyone is quiet, taking in the resonant, sincere song-offerings of the church musicians. I finish my prayer, I sit back in my pew, I sneak a peek around me (typically spying some fellow A-Town-ite I haven’t seen in ages)…

And I breathe. A long, deep calming aspiration of gratitude and gladness. A wave of relief sweeps over me, recalling the Aldersgate experience of my own church’s fervent founder John Wesley; my heart feels “strangely warmed.” It’s Christmas.

I would trade all the tinsel and toffee in the universe for that hour of hearty holiday worship. OK—not all the congregants are as enthusiastic as I am. Three or four Christmases ago, I sat next to a girl who was, I’m quite sure, stealthily texting throughout the service. But it didn’t matter. All that matters to me in that moment is belting out Adeste Fideles (I love that we get to sing in Latin) in earnest adoration of the King of Kings: “O Come, Let Us Adore Him: Christ the Lord!”

Lest anyone think this reflection past its prime, a reminder that this Wednesday marks Epiphany in the Christian calendar. May Christ’s Spirit of Love be made manifest in my life in 2010.

Image: Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 17th century (Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Pregnant? Yes. Peppy? Not yet.

A week and a day ago this vacation stretched out before me like an open road of adventures in good housekeeping. I had grand plans for scrubbing the kitchen floor, folding baskets-full of unmatched socks, sorting and shredding paperwork dating back to 1996, stacked in banker’s boxes in the attic..... And what have I done?

Well, there was Christmas, of course – the frenzy of wrapping, packing, traveling, unwrapping, repacking, and traveling some more. (I am, as ever, thankful beyond words for the beauty of Midnight Mass at St. Joe’s Church up the block. My year would be incomplete without it.)

There were new DVDs to watch:
- Hannah Montana: The Movie,
- Little House on the Prairie: Season 5,
- Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, and
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

There’s our new Wii, a gift from Grandma which elicited ear-piercing squeals of delight from our elder two children (and inner squeals from Will). Watching family members make happy fools of themselves playing Wii Sports and Lego Stars Wars has provided hours of passive amusement.

And then there’s the morning sickness. Yes, that’s right. There’s something about the first trimester of pregnancy that drains this mama of ambition, gumption, and feel-good get-up-n-go.

So, instead of doing all that organizing I’d envisioned, I’ve mostly sat around and loafed, nibbling on anything and everything that might assuage my nausea. All in all, a relaxing week, as Christmas vay-cay should be.

This is not a very peppy announcement, I realize. I guess I just don’t have the energy.

2010 and Baby #4, here we come!