Pride in my progeny and other Saturday snippets

We survived a series of sicknesses in the Waters household. Since 2 Saturdays ago, 4 of the 5 family members have endured a 1-2 punch: head cold, followed by stomach bug. It was un-fun. Glad that’s (mostly) over. In the midst of it, I spilled half a cup of boiling-hot tea on the back of my left hand. Also un-fun. In both cases, though—my illness and my hand burn—I was somewhat amazed and duly grateful for my body’s ability to heal.

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In other news, my nonprofit agency has landed a big-name speaker for our upcoming fundraising banquet. We (my co-workers and I, plus our Board of Directors) are both elated and intimidated: Elated that she’s coming; intimidated by the shortened prep time. Our original banquet date was May 6^th. The date that works for our speaker and our banquet venue is April 13^th. So we’re “going for it”! As soon as the reality of the schedule dawned on me (about 10 minutes after receiving the good news), these prescient words of Leonard Bernstein came to mind: “In order to accomplish great things, two things are needed: A plan, and not quite enough time.” May it be so.

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Another tidbit that might interest A-Town readers: The Van has been replaced. (Can I get an “Amen”?) Thanks to Will’s excellent credit rating and 2 generous benefactors whose names I do not have permission to publish, we are now driving a 2004 Dodge Caravan SXT. The best part, according to Vi, is the TV/DVD combo for the passengers. The best part, according to me, is that it works. And that it came with a substantial warranty. (And, of course, that it’s not red. After the last lemon, any other color would have satisfied me. As it happens, the new van is a pretty light blue.)

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Lastly, I experienced a wonderful mother-son bonding moment with Ben the other night. I imagine this is how fathers feel when their sons first take to Star Wars, or Little League, or whatever it is that thrills paternal souls so much that they long to share the joy with their progeny. It was early in the evening, but late enough that I was “done dealing”—maybe around 7:30 p.m. It’s too late to take a nap but too early to turn in for the night.

I decided to put on a movie. Nothing heavy and nothing new because the likelihood of interruption is high that time of day (well, really, anytime the kids are awake), and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to finish the film before bedtime. So I turned to my old favorite: Pride and Prejudice, the BBC edition (with the admirable Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy).

Even though Ben was happily playing with his “guys” (action figures) in the corner of the living room, I feared he might object to my choice, so I presented my intentions in the perkiest manner I could muster: “I’m going to watch Pride and Prejudice!” I exclaimed brightly. To my delight, Ben piped up: “Can we watch the second one?” The BBC P&P is several hours long, you see—it’s a 2-volume DVD set. Since I also prefer the second part in many respects, I happily obliged. To my further delight, Ben abandoned his action figure play and cuddled with me on the couch while we watched the classic Austen novel put to film. My kindergartener interjected astute observations about the range of emotions expressed by “Lizzy” and “Mr. Darcy,” and he appropriately dubbed Mr. Collins a “dumb-head.” My spirit swelled with pride, I tell you. (But then maybe I’m prejudiced.)

Drinking habits...ad nauseum

Lately, Pearl has taken to drinking out of a measuring cup—milk, water, juice, her usual beverages. I let her do it. What’s the harm? And the truth is that our cup supply has dwindled to a pitiful collection of plastic tumblers—many of them given to us as holiday gifts from kindly neighbors, teachers and other caring adults who want to express their affection for our children in the form of inexpensive, non-cavity-forming presents. During a typical Waters Family supper, one of us might be drinking from a Disney princess pink cup, a scary black spider orange cup, an Easter egg-dotted pastel yellow cup, and or “The light of Jesus shines in me!” Christmas tree cup with the smiling star. We use these cups year-round.

When guests coming over (which is infrequently—as I’ve written before, the pre-guest cleanup process is prohibitive), we try to cobble together a collection of semi-dignified beverage vessels: we do own a few plain turquoise and lime green tumblers, plus we have occasionally borrowed (on a more-or-less permanent basis) some real glass stemware from my mother (and promptly broken them before they could be returned…well, at last check, there’s one glass left—and it has a chip in the base that wasn’t there before it arrived at our house).

Last summer I took advantage of the deep-discount display of picnicware at the A-Town Dollar General. I purchased two 4-packs of plain red cups for 25 cents each—50 cents total for 8 cups. We have a red accent wall in our kitchen. I thought the cups would sort of “go” with our…ahem…“décor.” And obviously the price was right. Except that when I got the cups home, washed them out and set them on the table, Little Pearl almost lost her head in one. Apparently the cups were made for very thirsty picnickers—each holds roughly a liter of liquid. The red giant cups quickly became the cups of last resort in our cup drawer. Until 2 days ago, when I decided they were detracting from our quality of life and I threw them into the recycling bin.

(Does this post really have a point? I mean, besides airing our pathetic houseware habits? Not really, but now that I’m this far in, I’ll finish by mentioning the mugs.)

Like almost every household in America, we have too many mugs. (Am I wrong in this assertion?) That’s why you can find them so easily and inexpensively at garage sales all summer long—sometimes in the cardboard box marked “FREE” next to the rickety garage sale checkout table. Our collection grows more copiously than some because of Will’s profession as a small-town journalist. He attends lots of banquets, fundraising events, grand (and not-so-grand) openings—the sorts of occasions where fledging and/or flagging organizations distribute “free mugs” as tokens of thanks, signs of support, and promotions of their products or services.

Some of the mugs have significance to our everyday lives:

• The one from our local library, for example, where we are frequent patrons. It makes sense for us to incorporate this object into our household.
• The “Good Morning Baltimore” mug I bought on a business trip last fall—that one earns its keep because of the catchy song and the charming Inner Harbor.

A few of our mugs have extra-special sentiment attached to them:

• The water tower mug from Ypsilanti, Michigan, for example. Will went through a water tower obsession about 11 years ago, and my dear aunt from Ypsi sent us a pair of burgundy mugs bearing a line drawing of that city’s somewhat famous public utility structure. One tragic day, 1 of the 2 water tower mugs broke, but we still have the one, and it adds enjoyment to our hot beverage consumption experiences.
• Then there’s the “I Gopher You” mug that my friend Amy gave to me as a birthday present approximately 25 years ago. She bought it at Peterson’s Drugs here in A-Town. The first mug she had purchased as my present had been dropped and damaged in my driveway during the chaotic 15 minutes prior to my party. So, her dutiful dad drove back to the drugstore and bought this replacement one, which has lasted an impressively long, long time.
• (I probably should leave out the unfortunate incident recently when we stood up with our friends at their infant daughter’s baptism. Afterward, the baby’s mother sweetly gave us gifts, including a mug for Will that read, “I am the godfather.” He promptly dropped his present into the freshly christened family’s ceramic sink. Cringe!)

Some of the mugs are mysteriously meaningless—why do we keep these??

• A “Learn To Earn” job fair mug dated 2005…from the nearby correctional facility?!
• Another from a 2008 benefit auction for “Aplastic Anemia Research”?! (I don’t even know what that is, much less know anyone personally who would be helped by such study.)

The presence of so many mugs in our cupboard—and so few normal-sized other drinking vessels—is part of the puzzlement of this wild and crazy life we live in A-Town. Do you think we should have a garage sale?

The Perfect Lenten Sentiment for a Messie Like Me

Practicing Lent:
Cleaning Our Messy House

By Ruth Haley Barton

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

Psalm 51: 10

http://www.thetransformingcenter.org/pdf/ash10.pdf

Oh, to be a holiday hermit

OK, so is this pathetic or what? In previous posts, I have asked amateur psychologist A-Town readers to refrain from offering diagnoses, analyses and/or prognoses about my seemingly strange thoughts, dreams or habits. Today, however, I’m actually curious to know what people think this means—here goes:

On most major and minor holidays, I want the world to myself. OK, not necessarily the world—just my house. I want everyone to go away, do their celebrating (or whatever it is that people feel compelled to do on holidays) and Leave Me Alone so I can clean my house and finally, once and for all—or at least for one blessedly uncluttered day—get things in order. I have often thought, “If I could just start fresh, I might be able to maintain a tidy household.” But I can never seem to “get there.” Life keeps happening. Projects and people keep beckoning. And I respond. (Shouldn’t I respond? I am a responsible person, after all.)

This isn’t another one of those “I Hate Valentine’s Day” rants. I don’t hate Valentine’s Day. I don’t dislike any of the holidays I wish to ignore. I just feel ambivalent about many of them, I guess. If there’s a day off, I want to seize it. I want to do all the things I feel deprived of doing on most “regular” days of the year: Laundry, dishes, organizing, painting… On Mother’s Day two years ago, I gave the upstairs toilet a thorough scouring—and that was truly what I wanted to do on my “special” day! Yes, yes, we chip away at these mundane tasks every day at our house. It’s just that none of it ever seems to get “done.” Not completely. There’s never enough time, it seems. And our version of “keeping up with the housekeeping” seems to fall far short of most other people’s. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t compare. But I do. And so do you—admit it!)

I’ve grown too vulnerable and possibly (just a little bit) whiny in this post, so now I’ll stop and let the “masses” have their input. Why, oh why, do I wish to be a holiday hermit? (And do any of you, too?)

P.S. My holiday of exception is Easter. I love celebrating Easter. It’s my favorite.

Goodbye & good riddance to justly maligned lemon

Well, there’s nothing like a crisis to get a body moving on a long-postponed project. The mountains of papers awaiting my sorting services in the attic got their first visit in many months when we had to try and track down our van title last evening.

Yes, The Van. It finally hit the fritz. This, after enduring (and financing) its multitudinous ailments in the few years we’ve owned the vehicle. I suggested we junk it about 6 repairs ago. But Will was loyal to the Windstar ’til the end. He took it for one final drive to B-Town, and when he got there, the engine choked—overheated. Gaskets blown, oil throughout. The mechanic who came to look at it when Will barely managed to coast into a gas station advised: “I wouldn’t put another dime into that thing.”

And so we shan’t! But we shall be buying a new means of transport. Likely not new-new, but new to us. And here’s hoping for a better bargain than the last loser.

(And now that I’ve had a forced start on the paper-sorting project, I am hoping that momentum will keep me going. I had a horrible dream about a year ago, in which Will I and both died in a car accident. Did I envision our grieving family and friends at our funeral? No—I imagined their horror when they climbed the steps of our attic and saw the sloppy stacks of untended junk mail. I must conquer it!!!)

Feeling big and bold but not beautiful

Monday morning—Gah!

What to do first?

Wash clothes?

Watch out for the black hairy dime-sized spider Will said he saw scampering around the machine.

Sweep floors?

The crumbs accumulate with astonishing alacrity, along with tiny toys, paper scraps, unmatched socks and Barbie clothes that seldom cover the dolls’ unrealistic body parts but often end up in the laundry, adding to the already overwhelming piles (with spiders lurking around in them, apparently).

File paperwork?

What a relentless, onerous task—even though I’ve signed up for every paperless statement imaginable, my mailbox still fills with the compressed pulp of tree carcasses demanding an answer, or a check, or a decision to recycle the envelope for the umpteenth time.

Sort my wardrobe?

That swarming smattering mass of textiles ranging from size 12 to 22, with maternity clothes mixed in—about half of them well-intentioned offerings of formerly pregnant friends whose bodies at 9 months with child were still slimmer than mine at 15 weeks along.

Last week I read a blog entry by a friend of a friend of a friend who wrote that she felt most beautiful at 8 months pregnant. She testified that she had received more compliments in recent weeks—for her “belly bump” and her “glow”—than ever before in her life.

And I thought: Ha! Pregnancy, while miraculous and wonderful in many ways, wears well on women who start out thin and then gain their perfect 25-35-pound weight allotment primarily around the middle, from whence their adorable “baby bump” will diminish to pancake flatness within weeks following the delivery of their child.

On women like me—born big and seemingly destined to remain so—the baby bump only presses out the flab at first and pregnancy proceeds to pack on double the recommended poundage, not only on my abdomen, but also on my bottom, hips, thighs, ankles, arms, wrists, neck and earlobes. I’m not bitter—it’s just...

Monday morning—Gah!

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Another Sabbath Slumber: Super Bowl Sunday Edition

Dear Sunny Sunday,
You are cold but beautiful
and deliciously sluggish.
I am cheered by your brilliance,
calmed by your slowness,
satisfied by your fullness—
not hurried and harangued,
nor stressed, pressed, and “duressed”
from so many sides—
but freed to breathe…and sigh…and wait,
for nothing in particular.
(What “Super Bowl”?)

Sabbath Slumber

Sleep seems somehow thicker

On a Sunday afternoon

When the world awaits,

Upon my waking,

Not with work,

But with more blessed rest.