Building Christina's Playground

Volunteer with power sander







A lot of the work went on in small spaces.

Becca scraping by hand

There was sanding.  Lots and lots of sanding. Becca thought that the hand tools were more efficient than the power sander, and she was covered with the detritus to prove it.

There was plenty of time to get to know one another.

Workers were up top and underneath.

Some even bothered to read the directions.

Some of us were too short to reach our assignments and needed ladders and ladder holders to achieve our goals.

There were wheelbarrows of dirt to be toted.

And Christina-Taylor's girlfriend had plenty of time to supervise her elders.

Allstate's big wigs weren't afraid to get down and dirty.

"That's my supervisor" with the jack-hammer.

She has some serious construction skills, wouldn't you agree?

Volunteers came prepared with belts and tools.

Some of us used scissors to remove the bubble wrap.

Some of us had fun popping the bubble wrap (no photos available... I was too busy popping.)

These steering wheels really turn!  FUN!!

Then it was time to raise the slide.

"No, turn it the other way."

"No, the other other way."

And, as if by magic, the bottom was still connected to the top and no one lost a finger.

It takes a village to raise a playground.

Take a moment and notice the sponsors who transformed a schoolyard from boring to FUN!

The dedication is next Saturday.

There will be cameras and interviews and make-up and tears.

Today, September 17th, has been something else entirely.

It was personal .... intimate... connected.

Firefighters chose to hang out and help until they were called away.

Bloggers woke up at 5am to drive and be there on time.

Dr. Barlow came from Harlem and a Congressman came from Flagstaff.

He was a bit surprised that there was no media.... I'm not sure he got out of the car when he heard the news.

But that was just fine. 

We weren't there to show off.  

There was work to be done. 

So we donned our t-shirts and our caps and we did it.

Random Thoughts

The Shopper is taking the week off.  Stationary will be featured next week..... some of it still has to arrive and be photographed for your visual pleasure.  

Enjoy the Random Thoughts..... Shopping Secrets will return next week.

Everyone is excited about planning this wedding... right up until we actually start to do some planning.  Then we all go our separate emotional ways, it seems. My way is straight to panic and confusion.  I want everyone to be happy.  I want the cost to be small and the joy to be huge.  I want perfect weather and 100% yield on the invitation list so that we can be surrounded by everyone we chose to invite.... everyone we love.

Who knew that even in Tucson there would be only 2 Fall weekends left from which to choose?
*****
Arizona lost badly and Arizona State won deliciously and suddenly I realize that I have no idea how Cal or Stanford have fared this season.  It seems that I am truly a resident of the Grand Canyon State.
*****
Gabby and Mark have a book coming out and the ABC affiliate wanted my thoughts.  The reporter wondered just how this story could still be of interest all these many months later.  I admitted that I'd wondered the same thing but that earlier that afternoon I'd been startled into dropping everything in my hands by a woman bending down to the car seat I had just maneuvered myself into and saying "Aren't you....."

Yes, this story still has legs.
*****
Reggie's eldest is being married in NYC next Spring.  There's a hotel for the grown-ups and a hotel for the kids and a hotel for people who are more comfortable in a Best Western.  They all cost the same and they are all within the same distance of the venues.

Why would someone travel to Manhattan and stay in a generic motel?
*****
My post on Lunch seems to have prompted comments extolling the virtues of the egg.  Denizens like them hard boiled and scrambled and for 3 meals a day.

With all the blogs available for your perusal, I wonder if this egg connection has some relevance to your returning to The Burrow?  It's just a theory.....
*****
I went to a fundraiser for Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick last night.  It was sponsored by Arizona List, our version of Emily's List.  I went alone but I saw lots of friends,  There was a classmate from the Humanities Seminars and DreamyCakes' best friend and a stranger whose hug I remembered from a luncheon 6 months ago.  The presentation by Jef Pollock was full of statistics and absent of policy.

He's a self-described marketer.  This is what our politics have come to.  We're turning out and being sold a bill of goods.  Sigh.......
*****
There are meetings and there are meetings.

Since none of the people involved read The Burrow, I am safe when I say that I spent possibly the most frustrating hour of the last 9 months on a conference call this afternoon.  25 minutes on "when should we next meet".... with a decision made and then forgotten and re-made 20 minutes into the conversation.

When everyone is in the room and I am on the phone I miss the social cues that would tell me if I am the only one who was rolling her eyes.
*****

Is This Our America?

Who Are We?

Have we really become a nation that would leave a 30 year old uninsured coma patient to die on the side of the road? Worse, have we come to the point where answering YES to that question in a crowded amphitheater results in cheers instead of stunned silence? Have we really fractured our social contract to that extent?

After 9/11/01, it was impossible to walk down the street without exchanging smiles with people you passed. There was a ruefulness to the grins, a piece of we're here and it's scary but we're in it together, that bound us together as Americans. It was wonderful.

Neither skin color nor a thick accent got in the way of the feeling that we were on the cusp of something new, that we were starting to see one another as members of a beleaguered group, as people who needed one another in order to survive. Bush 43's failure to capitalize on that sentiment is at the top of my Things He Screwed Up list.

I imagined a call to action. I waited for the renewal of the Peace Corps and VISTA. I looked for speeches exhorting us to volunteer and help America heal. Instead, he told us to shop. It was an epic fail, as the kids say these days.

We were kind and we were caring and we were one. We donated dollars but no one asked us to do anything else. And so, we gradually fell back into our individual silos, looking outward for government to fix things but not being pushed to do much on our own.

We argued about Gitmo and renditions and enhanced techniques and I wondered who had hijacked the American spirit. We don't do that seemed to have vanished from our vocabularies. The ends took on frightening proportions and seemed to justify the awfulness deemed necessary to get there. But where is there​?

There used to be that we are better than that. There used to be that's not America. There would never let a coma victim die on the side of the road.

Apparently, individual freedoms are triumphing over the common good. As a well-insured individual with enormous health care costs I have seen first hand how my bill is inflated and padded and creatively constructed to cover the costs of caring for the uninsured. Indian gaming revenues and donations make up the bulk of the hospital's income. The insured cover the rest, whether for their own care or to cover the unpaid costs of the uninsured. It's not a model designed for the long term health of any of the systems involved.

I am infuriated every month when I pay my Blue Cross bill. I pass helmet-less motorcyclists and bicyclists and I grimace. I hear young people talking about saving money as the by-pass purchasing health insurance. I know that I am on the hook for all of it. And that's not okay.

I know that not everyone has enough cash to go around. I know that purchasing insurance is complicated and that hardly anyone understands how to do it, let alone how to do it well. We've grown up in an employer-based system and it's killing our businesses, slowly but surely. I know all that.

But I can't be held responsible for caring for those who refuse to care for themselves. Nor can I let them lie comatose on the sidewalk, suffering without assistance because they didn't plan ahead. I wonder if the gentleman who shouted YES at CNN's Tea Party Debate is insured himself. I wonder if he has elderly parents whose basic health-care needs are met through Medicare. I wonder if he's rinsing catheters or re-using syringes to save dollars.

I doubt that he'd have run out of the Safeway and stuck his hand in my gushing wounds.

That's the America I love. That's the America that President Obama encouraged us to regain. That's the country my grandparents emigrated to. I'm not sure where exactly the Tea Party thinks they are living, but it's certainly not my America.

No, indeed, it's not.

Lunch

A meditation on food doesn't appear that often in The Burrow.  I'm not a big fan of cooking for myself, and I'm even less of a fan of preparing meals for others.  Hence, when no one else is around, I take myself out to eat.

This worked quite well for me when I was a single person and responsible for no one's belly but my own.  If I didn't feel hungry, I didn't eat.  Even if the clock told me that lunchtime had passed, if my tummy wasn't rumbling, I ignored the time piece and went on about my day.

Sometimes I'd have breakfast 3 times a day.  Scrambled eggs is my go-to staple for hunger pains when there are no other interesting items hiding in the refrigerator.  With or without toast, it soothes my soul.  It was the first meal I ate in the hospital after I woke up from 5 days of anesthetized stupor.  They were delicious, all piled up on the plate, yellow and fluffy and soft.  My throat was very happy.

Then, again, someone had cooked them for me.  It's a whole different story when I'm cooking for someone else.

Speaking ruefully of marriage, Dominique Browning's friend in Slow Love sighs about "all those meals, darling, all those meals."  The thought resonated with me. Big Time.

Big Cuter enjoyed the same school lunch every day when he was small.  Kosher salami sliced thin and placed neatly on rye bread with Grey Poupon on both slices, please.  He nibbled across each half like a typewriter, starting back again at the left side each time.  It gave him peace.

I, on the other hand, suffered mightily through school lunches.  I hated sandwiches of any kind.  I liked the bread all right, and the turkey would have been fine if I hadn't had to smoosh it between my teeth smothered in carbs.  G'ma tried everything - pastrami, tuna, roast beef, and, yes, salami - but nothing made me smile.  I'd have been glad to eat rolls and butter and some fruit, but this was before light lunches were invented.  G'ma felt that I needed a sandwich, so a sandwich she packed for me.

College was perfect for me.  There was always someone willing to prepare a meal for my delectation.  I had tuna sandwiches on white toast with mandarin oranges on the side for a semester or two of lunches.  The lady behind the counter started making it as soon as she saw me in line.  Grad school and poverty came together; I fell in love with egg salad on challah and my bank account and my stomach were happy.  

I never carried my lunch to work.  I tried to avoid eating when the kids just had to have a Happy Meal.  PTA lunches were salads and once I got to Marin the home-made food far surpassed anything I could find in a restaurant.  I came to love meeting over lunch at a kitchen table. The meal was beginning to grow on me.

I became addicted to burritos from the tiny space just down the street.  TBG and I were regulars at the much-more-than-a-diner place across from the gazebo.  We went early or late to Sam's.  Lunch was suddenly much more fun than it had ever been.  It was even more fun than dinner.

But something happened to me when we moved to Tucson.   Today, with 3 hours free around noon, with all options available, I chose to make lunch at home.  A quick stop at the deli counter and I had fresh off the rotisserie turkey breast.  The bakery aisle gave me still-warm artisal multi-grain bread.  My refrigerator was truly my larder and there was no place else I'd rather dine than right here in my own kitchen.

Will wonders never cease?

Inspiration

I'm feeling blue these days.  My hip is acting like an inflamed joint according to Marcus the Master Manipulator.  I've been avoiding doing anything that hurt in the gym in an effort to reduce the inflamation.  It doesn't seem to have done much good.  My range of motion is expanding, and that's a good thing.  My strength and stamina and pain are about the same.

That's right, pain.  I'd stopped using the word for a while.  The memory of the real pain that I felt in the hospital and those first months at home was still fresh in my mind.  But now, two-thirds of the way through my first year of living with perforations, I'm willing to concede that the sharp, stabbing sensation radiating from my mid-thigh up and down every nerve ending within synaptic distance... it's pain.

I'm taking Aleve; cycling off it just makes me hurt more.  Acupuncture has been wonderful in releasing some of the tightness and bunching up feeling that has defined that hip joint since Dr. Boaz and his team put it back together again.  Yes, I'm feeling a bit like Humpty Dumpty..... all broken and unable to be pieced back together again.

And then the phone rang.  Would I speak on camera about the book that Gabby and her husband are writing? Was I aware that ABC had acquired the rights to producing a segment featuring the Congresswoman's rehabilitation?  Did I have feelings about the book?

And suddenly it's all in perspective again.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself because Christina-Taylor didn't get to go to NYC last weekend.  Just typing the sentence makes me realize how self-indulgent that could easily become.  Spending two or three days mourning our loss, TBG and I can handle that just fine.  But we are trying to keep it from overwhelming our lives, trying to maintain a balance between Christina's purple rubber bracelet on my wrist and the fact that the world is still rotating on its axis.  It's all too easy to forget that part of it and wallow in the sad places.

Sure, my hip hurts and walking is a struggle and it may be a very long time, if ever, before I can hit the hiking trails again.  All those things are bad and sad and awful and shouldn't have happened.  But I'm not learning to talk again.  I'm not searching for words.  I don't have a Congressional District waiting for my return.

Gabby took a bullet to her brain and was back at work 7 months later.  I'm abashed to admit that I'd lost touch with how powerful that was for me.  I gave myself a good talking to that afternoon, reminding myself of the courage and strength it took to take a damaged body before the television cameras.  I forced myself to focus on the smiles, on the hugs, on the raw emotion.  This is hard and you did it! they seemed to say.

I took those feelings with me to the gym the next morning, to PT that afternoon, and to bed that night.  If Gabby was willing to put herself out there, imperfect but striving, then what was my problem?

And now she's written a book and, as part of promoting it, she's given a piece to ABC.  I know just how intrusive the cameras can be.  I know how their reality often differs from my own.  I know that I saw myself as feeble and dependent when others saw fortitude and spirit.  I know that their mis-perceptions helped me to heal.

So I will change my blouse and fluff my hair and allow KGUN to take pictures of me talking about how, once again, Gabrielle Giffords inspires me.  If she won't quit then neither will I.

Thanks, Gabby.  I needed that.

On September 11th

I am at a loss.  I have no words.  I've tried all day.  TBG has offered suggestions, Little Cuter told me to stop apologizing for crying for no reason.... or maybe there was a reason.... I'm not entirely sure.  I do know that I was surrounded by love and concern and that I was able to offer the same to friends who were in need.

The words to write to you are absent from my brain.  Did Little Cheese know that when she sent me this poem?  Good friends do seem to have your pulse, even from thousands of miles away, don't they?

It needs no more introduction that that which Little Cheese had as the subject of the email: Read by Billy Collins at Ground Zero, 9/11/11

The Names

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

******

...barely room, indeed.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart

Remember when we spent the afternoon taking pictures of the flower pot in my courtyard?  You started out directing the shoot but quickly assumed control over both the creative and technical sides of the equation.  My role was to keep my shadow out of your light..... and to explain, once again, just how to press the button half-way down to focus and then shift the camera for visual interest.  You held your finger down and tried to look at me at the same time that you were re-framing the shot and it was all I could do not to laugh.

"Like this?"

Yes, sweetheart, just like that.  Just exactly and perfectly like that.  

Remember when you and your brother and I were at the Chinese buffet restaurant and I said that you could eat whatever you wanted and promised not to rat you out to your parents?  We discussed, seriously and thoughtfully, the question of taste versus obesity versus self-control... right before you decided that "every once in a while can't be bad"  and got up to refill your plate.  

I didn't tell you that your mom and I had had the same conversation ourselves as you were getting organized to get into the car.  We agreed with you, you see.  Every once in a while isn't bad at all, especially on a special day with Ms. Suzi.  Then, I made her the same promise I made you.  I promised not to tell.

I was the filling in a love sandwich and it felt just fine.  Just fine, indeed.

Remember when I tied the apron around your neck and gave you the glass water pitcher and asked you to deal with the ice and the tumblers on the Thanksgiving Day table?  G'ma helped you problem solve the logistics, but you did all the heavy lifting yourself.  You made sure we all noticed that it was done and done well, but only after you had finished the task.  And then you asked what else you could do.  After all, you said, "I'm already wearing the outfit."

Sweetheart, I want you to do the same this year, too.  

You should be on your way to New York City with the 49 other Children of Hope to join in the festivities they have planned to celebrate your natal day.  Sure, most of the people there will be feeling sad about the absence in the skyline and what it represents, but you'd have been certain that they were also celebrating the wonderfulness that was you....

You.... the future.... engaged and interested and willing to put in the effort to achieve a result.  You.... with your big smile and kind heart.  You.....

I'll watch that same cohort of kids grow older as the anniversaries roll by, decade by decade.  I'll wonder about your face and your shoe size and your hairstyle but will be certain of your spirit.  You were a cheerleader for the passions in your life - your family, your country, your teams.  The world was your oyster and you knew it.  You were going to be something, you just weren't sure what. 

"Look at what one 9 year old girl can do."  I've heard your dad say it again and again and I believe every word of it.  Look.... pay attention, because my girl did.  What.... a foundation, a statue, inspiring 8 girls to play hardball.  One 9 year old.... 

Who should be strolling down Madison Avenue with your mother right about now, shopping for accessories.

  

Who should be writing me a thank you note for the present we chose together, because the experience was part of my reward.  

Who should be the tallest kid in your grade and proud of it. 

Who should be here, right now.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.  I'm having a cupcake with a candle and I'm going to sing the birthday song and I'm not going to cry. I'm going to remember laughing over the camera and the greasy cuisine and remember the other thing your dad says... Don't be sad.  She would not want us to be sad.

I can almost see you here in front of me, hands on your hips, head tilted and eyes blazing.  No, ma'am.  I promise.  I will not cry.

*******

Were you looking for this week's shopping tip?  Worry not, denizens.  I have not forgotten my obligation.

The Christina-Taylor Green Foundation is selling handmade ceramic butterflies, modeled after a drawing CTG did last winter.  These are a nice addition to the rubber bracelets and patches and pins which have been available for a while.  You can have a copy of the picture for $1.

Take a look.... there are more on Facebook at Peace Butterflies and Christina's Butterflies.  The money goes to the good deeds the Foundation is doing.  The quality of the craftsmanship is exquisite... and you can feel the love.  

Click here to shop.

Slow Love

Isn't that a sexy title?  Sad to say, Dominique Browning's homage to unemployment is many things, but sexy is definitely not one of them.  Reading this book was like running into a girlfriend I don't see all that often because of her bad choices in men. She's witty and charming  and she makes me nutty.

I loved this book right up until that man arrived.  Afterward, I turned each page in dread, fearing his reappearance.  When the acknowledgments told me that he'd critiqued her manuscript I nearly threw the book across the room. 

There is much to love about this memoir.  I, too, have felt much better a little bit; There is exquisite writing - become insouciant, one of the desirable states of human evolution. There's her slacker's connection to cooking. There is the visceral connection to her sons and her books and her garden that felt as real to me as if I'd written the words myself.  She is good with nuance and tone and I have to admit that I enjoyed her horror stories of Conde Nast just a little bit too much.

But I'm left feeling that this is a better series of magazine articles or blog posts than a stand alone book.  Not much happens in the year Browning chronicles, though she would like us to think that it did.  Ultimately, I didn't find her as interesting as she found herself.

*****
This review of Slow Love by Dominique Browning is part of BlogHer's Book Club.  Though I received the book for free and am being paid for this review, my opinions are, as always in The Burrow, my own.

Click through to here to follow the rest of the conversation.

*******
This review was limited to 250 words.  I've never had to pare down my prose for money; it felt somewhat unseemly.  But only for a moment.  Yes, I've sold out to the women.  Yes, I'm loving it.

Gardening a Year in Advance

I understand why she wants to get married from home.  Her parents did.  It feels comfortable. It minimizes unforeseen circumstances.  We won't charge a nightly rate for the use of our facilities.  

Still and all, having the wedding on the Carolina coast felt like a great adventure to me... at least that's what we told the bride and groom.  In reality, there was a big part of us that was relieved.  Hosting family - old and new - is stressful under the best of times.  When many in that family are gardeners, well..... one of us is quite in a tizzy about the whole thing.

TBG says "Whatever you think it needs to look good" and then pauses as he sees just how big my smile has grown.  "Within reason, of course."  Of course.  A gardener can always find a reason.

I lost an entire planting season and the yard shows it.  The euphorbia rigida, which were on their way to making a nice short hedge on the berm by the walkway, froze in January and were never cut back in the spring. Four of them have vanished.  The remaining plant looks very very sad.  

I'd cut it back if I could get down there.  I can't ask anyone else to do it; the sap is itchy and milky and hard to remove.  Gloves and tools and then some time spent cleaning them are required.  It's really more than I've felt like doing.

The hesperaloe parviflora blooms are spent and the seed pods are looking particularly despondent. 

I usually leave them up until I need them for Halloween decorations.  I would take another tack this year because they look so dreary, but, again, bending down and making a clean cut is more than I'm up for.

We've been going back and forth between installing a short concrete pony wall around the front of the yard.  We're trying to establish a visible separation from the street without blocking the view from the inside or appearing unfriendly from the outside.  I worry about cleaning bird poop off a wall which is 150' from the nearest hose bib.  That argument seems to be winning the day.

I've called Beth at Rillito Nursery and she's promised to come over on Thursday morning and give me some suggestions.  I'm getting smarter the longer I live here.  I'm going to select native plants from a reputable grower, distributed by a nursery I know and trust.  I'm going to have them planted and I'll ask the workers to install the irrigation they'll need to become established.  

A year ago I'd have saved money by doing a lot of the work myself.  This year, with that not an option, I am placing my hope and trust in professionals.  It's not exactly the Master Gardener way, but I think I can live with it.  

After all, I have a wedding to plan.

*****

Are you the Floridian nursery representative I met at BlogHer'11 after my panel?  I've lost your card and I'd love to reestablish a connection.  Leave me a comment, eh?

The World Book

If he's in law school (and sees the humor in an asymptote joke), it sounds like all that smart parenting paid off.

Any advice for a dad trying to raise knowledge-hungry little girls? 

I admit that I basked in the glow for a moment or two.  An accomplished man paid me a compliment and then he asked me for advice.  He's in the knowledge business himself and he's curious about my child rearing techniques in his bailiwick.  It felt good.

Flattery will get you everywhere, my friends.  It got him don't talk down to them, and read and expect them not to fear the big words or the long stories but all that came after I asked him the most important question: 

Do you have the World Book?

Growing up, it saved my academic career.  Sixth grade meant writing 6 paragraph essays every night on one of 5 topics or choose your own.  Research was done in the library or in your own home if your family had an encyclopedia.  Lots of my friends had The Encyclopedia Britannica.  Its onion-skin pages and over-sized volumes covered in tiny font with a British accent were anything but enticing.  Care had to be taken.

G'ma and Daddooooo took the more family friendly route, and bought us a set of red bound World Books.  I wished they'd paid for the white bindings, because they were much much prettier.  But, times and finances being what they were, the red ones sat on my lap as I typed biographies of presidents and artists and empires on my IBM Selectric.... a blue one.  

Every year the publishers sent us a Year Book.  They also sent us stickers so that we could cross-reference the articles in the main set to the Annuals.  The glue tasted awful and the perforations weren't worth much but I can't remember having more fun at home than when they arrived and had to be inserted.  

It was a treasure hunt, an expedition, a door opening into topics I'd never before considered.  I learned who had died and what had been invented.  The pages were bright white and the typeface was easy to read, even from the side as you were affixing a sticker and trying not to lose your place.  

When Big Cuter was a talking toddler and Little Cuter a still-countable-number-of-cells, the doorbell rang at our apartment.  This was a rare and unusual feat.  The building sat behind a video rental store, the entryway a narrow gap between the building and a very large parking garage 18" away, the buzzer around the corner and two steps in.  No one found us.  Pizza delivery was nearly impossible.  

Yet someone was ringing my bell.  He was selling World Books.  Walking door to door in the 1980's in Chicago.  He was truly down at the heels, a cobbler's delight.  Slim, black, early 30's, he talked to me through the locked door for 15 minutes before we decided to move him inside.  I'd seen the contents of his suitcase; there were no weapons inside.

He explained the payment options and the delivery choices and the value of the books themselves but I was barely listening.  I was watching another brick being mortared into the wall of my adulthood.  I was buying an encyclopedia for my family.

We moved those books from apartments to houses and from state to state.  I used the Human Body with its clear overlays to explain biology to Little Cuter, and TBG checks historical facts and dates and people without having to turn anything on.  But my favorite memories are of Big Cuter and the A book... the one that still, more than 2 decades later, falls open to Airplanes.  

It was no surprise to us that he loved Top Gun.  He'd been reading about and distinguishing between fighter planes since he was old enough to hold the book himself.  He went to Aviation Challenge and had no problems in the simulator; he recognized all the planes like the old friends they were.  He knew where they lived.

In the A book of The World Book.

It's a good way to raise smart kids.

A Moment

When I need some peace and beauty, I head over to margie and kath at soeurs du jour.  Today, with my world going 90, as Tana French would have it, I clicked and was rewarded with exactly what I needed, a gentle nudge to take a moment and breathe.

I've been caught up in the beginning of school madness since the beginning of August and it's Labor Day and I'm exhausted.  It's all good, as the Cuters say, but it's a far cry from 12 weeks of watching the sun cross the western sky, perched on Douglas, healing.

I want a warm to the bone lazy afternoon.  I want a short but purposeful walk, all alone.  I want to feel at ease.

I had that feeling of ease all through January and February and March and into April.  Does that surprise you?  It seemed to me, then,  that I had the easiest job of all; I only had to heal.  I lay still and I was working.  Like an infant or an 8th grade boy, there was nothing I could do but watch my body grow.

I had plenty of extra mental energy, albeit in brief spurts.  I hand wrote thank you notes and took an occasional phone call.  My SuziSitters and I fell into a habit of quiet late afternoons.... well, all but Heidi, who is constitutionally incapable of sitting still ..... and those quiet afternoons, when I wasn't napping, those were really special.

I was inside myself and completely safe, because I was never alone unless I wanted to be.  Without concerns beyond my repairing hip, I could watch the clouds.  I was employed in what everyone who loved me told me was the most important job I had at the moment; I was getting better.  I did my exercises and considered the connections between my ankle and my calf and wondered if I'd ever feel my thigh again but that's all I did.  I wondered.

I didn't panic that it would be numb forever.  I examined the concept of a styrofoam adductor and moved on.  I was working on growing acetablulae and I wasn't diverting any energy from that chore.  Besides, as Bubba used to remind me, "You'll have plenty of time to worry about it when it happens.  Why waste today?  It might be your last time to be happy."

Once you stop giggling about how she managed to turn a positive into an unbelievably strong negative I hope you can see her point.  Today is today.  Tomorrow is not promised - with or without a smile.  It was nice visiting with her, there on Douglas, and I took comfort in letting the worry go.

It's simpler to do that when you can't move.

My actual inbox while I recuperated

Once I was up and around, once the limping and the scrunching stopped limiting my ambulation, I became over-scheduled.  Therapy and projects and weddings and anniversaries and ailing friends .... it was nice to be needed but I missed my quiet time, too.

I liked having my inbox fit within the confines of a gift bag. It made me smile to cart my life around, dangling from my walker.  It was nice to feel that whatever I did was more than enough.

I had time with my own thoughts.  I tried to avoid the sad and scary places and, for the most part, I was successful.  I wondered about who I was and what I wanted to do but mostly I wandered through my life, as cards came in from college friends and childhood neighbors and high school teachers.

I pondered my cousin insisting that I was a hero. A volunteer firefighter, he runs into burning buildings, yet he demanded that I accept his appellation.  I thought about being fast and redefining myself at a slower pace.  I rejected that, and moved on.

I spent 4 months at ease.  I spent 4 months rushing around, again in Bubba's words, "like a chicken with your head cut off!"  Today, before I jump into the next 4 months, a season of anniversaries, of fresh starts, of new beginnings, today I am following margie and kath's advice and I'm just going to take a moment......

A Two-Fer

I am learning to market myself. I sold today's post to BlogHer for real cash money. I wrote it and polished it and pitched it and they bought it.  I'm feeling pretty good at the end of a fairly crappy day.  If you want to read my take on the infamous Raffle of the Glock, click through here. I'm sad and I'm peeved and, as usual, I spill the raw details. I can't tell you how or why, but it does help me heal.


Here in The Burrow, on the other hand, we'll be shopping for t-shirts.  It's Friday, and though the world may try to throw me for a loop I am keeping true to my promise about these holiday helper weekly posts.  So, deep breath, put the craziness aside, and get back to the happy place.


Breathe....... Breathe....... Breathe......... ahhhhh, here we go......


First of all, there's threadless Tees, my favorite first stop every Fall. Available in all kinds of styles, from girly to manly to sweatshirts, they are haunting

http://www.threadless.com/product/3119/Blast_Off/tab,guys/style,shirt

and silly

http://www.threadless.com/product/342/Cookie_Loves_Milk/tab,girls/style,shirt


and often ridiculously inexpensive, like this one, on sale for $10.

http://www.threadless.com/product/2801/Love_is_Love/tab,guys/style,shirt

A lot of why I like threadless Tees so much may be the fact that their only retail outlet exists right around the corner from Little Cuter and SIR in Chicago.  It makes me smile every time we walk past the storefront.  I have a virtual relationship with them and feel no need to enter and be tempted.  And trust me, tempted I would be.

After I shop myself silly at threadless, I usually stop in at Mental Floss. (sorry about the pop up box that opens when you click..... it closes quickly... that's its only virtue).

Mental Floss is a magazine of information that would most likely be called trivia if it didn't come in so damn useful all the time.  The boys who put it together were college buddies and there is still a certain adolescent snarkiness present in everything they do.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/store/Praise-Cheeses-T-shirt/

I'm sorry if it offends you.  It just seemed harmlessly childish to me.

There are political statements (kinda sorta)

http://www.mentalfloss.com/store/Amish-T-shirt/

and gentle rants

http://www.mentalfloss.com/store/I-m-an-English-Major-T-shirt/

and shirts for that guy on your list who knows that he is just smarter than everyone else

http://www.mentalfloss.com/store/High-Five-T-shirt-SHIGH5/

There are other places I love, but that should keep you busy this weekend. Enjoy the official end of summer, at least as far as I am concerned. And remember, if you followNannie's advice, and buy it when you see it so that you have it when you need it, you will be a happy non-shopper come the December crunch.

At least, that's the plan.

Name This Relationship

Elizabeth and Amster are in love. It's really quite wonderful to watch.

Amster went from a perfect-for-the-3-of-them house with two young gentlemen enjoying peeing duels into the toilet bowl to a fancy house with a pool and a boyfriend and 2 very feminine young ladies. It's been an adjustment for all of them.

Once the bedrooms and custody and bus schedules were figured out they settled into a school routine involving a rotating cast of people who love the children. Today was my turn to share the love with 2 of the 3 littles, my favorite boys on the planet. Da Rock Shop was obviously our destination. We spent a blissful hour fondling and choosing and changing our minds. We read signs and did the math required to spend only the $5 each I was giving them for being my favorite boys on the planet. We contemplated the unfairness of a universe with so many choices and so little funds. We debated the wisdom of spending allowance money on a trilobite or saving it for the weekend, to fund adventures at Dad's house. We began to run a tab when the long-suffering young man behind the counter started his third paper receipt; we left with our treasures securely bagged and bubble wrapped.

They fastened their own seat belts and we were back at the fancy house in no time. Snacks? "No, thank you." Someplace else? "No, home would be good." This blended family is obviously working for them.

I bought a pink quartz heart for the littlest little, since we all agreed that anything pink would be perfect.for her. Mr. 8 wondered about the ungifted Elizabeth. He was vaguely unsatisfied with my answer. I took her to Starbucks where she got her favorite double chocolate something or other yesterday and lunch and pilates last weekend and she's a big girl and knows I love her just didn't pass muster. He has the most serious face when he's thinking and planning and plotting; when we got into the car he informed me that the last item he'd purchased, with his own money, the change from his wallet, was for Elizabeth. He didn't want her to be the only one without something.

This is turning into a family, isn't it?

We got home to an exhausted firefighter in a recliner, opened a bag of cheddar cheese and sour cream chips that Safeway (yes, that Safeway) presented to me at no charge after I bought 4 Coca-Cola products yesterday, and watched Mr. 8 do his math homework in a race against his mother, who was on her way home. He beat her. It took me right back to my own kitchen with my own 8 year old who was wearing the exact same look of supreme satisfaction and I saw on the little boy in front of me. I missed the one and hugged the other so fiercely this afternoon that I got a "Leave me alone" and I did as he reached behind me for his DS, his reward for finishing his homework. He'd complied with the List of Rules posted on the refrigerator.  We were all proud of him. There had been no arguing. There was compliance.  It was peaceful and lovely and calm.  We all enjoyed it.

If ever I needed an exemplar of my main parenting mantra, this was it. Kids Like Rules.

Elizabeth came in the front door as Amster came in the back. The exhausted guy kept on sleeping and the kids began talking at her while Elizabeth grabbed her in a hug that wouldn't let go. Amster, balancing mail and legal pads and a purse, hugged her right back. She didn't let go, either.

 I told you, they are in love.

So, what should they call one another? I'm Elizabeth's faux grandmother, and her actual grandmother doesn't mind at all. Amster and the firefighter have boy/girlfriend for one another, tho as adults it rattles around in the mouth just a little. The kids are at a loss. Spare Daughter was suggested and rejected. Quickly rejected. My boy/girlfriend's daughter/son takes too long and implies a distance that just doesn't exist between them. Biology isn't necessary for parenthood to exist, but the names take on a significance in this situation.

That's it. We can't go any further. We have no more thoughts on the matter. Do you?