Every Monday at 6:30 PM, it suddenly becomes Tuesday at my house.
The smell of baking brownies and sounds of canine excitement signal the weekly time warp. Tails wag as teen girls, hungry for a combined spiritual and sugar rush, file through the front door. This weekly ritual played out every Tuesday night for ten years until I started my Masters program. After Tuesday evening classes forced a move to Mondays, everyone cheerfully adjusted to the time change, but not a name change. We’re still the Tuesday Night Bible Study. We just happen to meet on Monday.
What’s different about tonight is that instead of making the brownies ahead of time, I’m waiting for the girls to arrive so we can bake them together. The format change is for the benefit of a photographer who is coming to take pictures for a story about our group which will run in a local women’s’ magazine and, apparently, the newspaper as well. The brownie making angle is a concession to the fact that, for photography purposes, taking pictures of us baking would be more interesting than pictures of us sitting around on couches eating the brownies, which is what we usually do.
I won’t have the pictures to post, but, as I happened to write the article, I’d be happy to give you a sneak peek at it.
It goes something like this:
Who knew when I sat down in my living room one late spring evening with two teen girls, a pan of double chocolate brownies and a Bible that my life was about to change? Sure, I was excited about building relationships with some of the girls at church, but I had no idea I was beginning a chapter of my life that would be peopled by dozens of teenagers who would bring me not only encouragement and joy, but also inspiration in the pursuit of a lifelong dream.
But that’s exactly what happened. Our weekly living room sessions around the brownie pan are now eleven years strong. Over the years, I’ve been in two weddings, and another
two marriages exist because of friendships that formed in Tuesday Night Bible Study.
Along the way, we’ve prayed together over lost loves, sick pets, and plummeting grades. We once sat and cried together at a funeral, too. Sometimes the older girls come back from college or married life and get to know the new girls. It’s a continuous thread.
I was a late bloomer, of sorts. A caution-to-the-wind kind of gal with a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for impulsive road trips during school hours. Having managed to survive into my twenties, I felt a responsibility to extend a map of sorts to my younger sisters—a guide marking the best stepping stones around the tough neighborhoods.
But even my husband, who has been a constant source of encouragement in endeavors ranging from international travel to the ill-advised adoptions of numerous strays, was skeptical.
“It’s a great idea,” he said. “But I’m not sure if you’ll get them to come. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
But come they did—sometimes in trickles, others in droves. And our group quickly expanded as the girls brought their friends. Soon girls from all over the community began showing up at my door each week for a dose of scripture, a listening ear, and, of course, a brownie.
I keep a few trophies—but not the kind you have to polish. My favorite is a little Ziploc baggie full of “contraband” a couple of girls unexpectedly gave me one night at the end of a study. Not even 24’s Jack Bauer could get me to divulge the contents of the bag, but I promise you, it was worth way more than every chocolate chip I’ve ever had to buy and every hour that stretched beyond our usual two.
And that lifelong dream I mentioned? My experiences with the girls actually gave me the nudge I needed to jumpstart my frustrated writing ambitions! It began as a chapter-a-week online saga featuring a protagonist who, as one girl put it, “is a little bit of all of us.” The experiment grew into two young adult novels that have opened doors for me to talk with girls who would never have the opportunity to walk through my door on a Tuesday night.
Those who come usually hit the door with a single question: “Are there brownies tonight?” They claim my super-chocolaty recipe has “ruined” ordinary brownies for them.
I understand. A brownie isn’t just a brownie for me anymore, either. It’s a warm, gooey celebration of enduring friendship and the unexpected joys of giving.
Cynthia Davis is pursuing an MAT in English at Christopher Newport University. To contact her or learn more about her work, visit http://www.runningwithletters.com
Maybe you'd like the brownie recipe?
Bible Study Brownies (Nestle Double Chocolate Brownies)
This is the recipe for the authentic Tuesday night brownies!
3/4 cup unsifted flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 package Nestle semi-sweet morsels
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In small bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt--set aside. In small saucepan, combine butter, sugar, and water. Bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Add 1/2 package of morsels and vanilla. Stir until morsels melt and mixture is smooth. Transfer to large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually blend in flour mixture. Stir in remaining morsels. Spread into greased 9 inch pan. Bake 30-35 minutes.
Enjoy!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Knowing When to Say "When"
“Don’t end up at Barnes and Noble,” my daughter pleaded at the end of a cell phone conversation right before my husband came home from work on Friday.
We were going out on a date—spring break item #7, for those who are counting—and if history was any indication, about one troubled meal and ninety minutes away from aimless aisle wandering and a video on the couch.
My husband had given this date a pretty good trailer, though, so I’d looked forward to it with some anticipation. I’d categorized it in the “mystery” genre, as I had next to nothing to go on, but when he came through the door carrying a slender manila folder, I started thinking along the lines of James Bond, or Mission Impossible.
Inside the folder were three columns of numbered sticky notes with the headlines “Dinner,” “Shopping,” and “Film.” The rules, he said, were simple. Once an option was uncovered, I had to decide to accept it or move on, but the catch was, I couldn’t go back.
Twelve possibilities for dinner, seven for shopping—each with varying funds I could spend—and nine potential movies—what fun! I quickly removed the starting options in each category—obvious throw-aways (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and a movie called “Jumper,” which may be a perfectly fine film, but not one with which I was familiar.)
I kept going.
The options got better—a nice Mexican restaurant, a decent Target allowance, a fun romantic comedy. But all those uncovered options...what might I miss?
I continued peeling Post-its.
From bar and grill fare, Barnes and Nobel (“I can’t go home and tell our daughter I ended up at Barnes and Nobel”) and a well-reviewed drama, I wound up with: “Bag Lunch—PBJ,” “$25 at K-Mart” and some really scary sounding flick called “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.”
There was nothing I could do but keep peeling.
It’s a good thing my husband knows me well, that he’s no stranger to my “grass must be greener” urges. Because brown-bagging it in K-Mart duds at a B-movie is what people like me typically come to in the end. By the time I’d reached a tidy, three digit sum at Macy’s and WAS STILL THINKING my date had tuned into “Deal or No Deal” and I was the contestant poised to reject a massive payday and go home with a penny.
But my husband knows I can’t stand the unknown. That I have to know “what could have been,” that I struggle with understanding that the best things are the ones that you have.
Knowing it would likely get to that point, my husband saved some sweet options for the end, allowing me to enjoy a piping hot pot pie, a shopping spree at the mall (variety!) and the same romantic comedy I reluctantly passed by in the number four spot.
He says it won’t go down this way next time. He says I need to learn when to embrace what’s before me and stop second guessing my choices.
Otherwise, next time I’ll be wiping peanut butter off my Wal-Mart T-shirt as I trudge into the video store.
We were going out on a date—spring break item #7, for those who are counting—and if history was any indication, about one troubled meal and ninety minutes away from aimless aisle wandering and a video on the couch.
My husband had given this date a pretty good trailer, though, so I’d looked forward to it with some anticipation. I’d categorized it in the “mystery” genre, as I had next to nothing to go on, but when he came through the door carrying a slender manila folder, I started thinking along the lines of James Bond, or Mission Impossible.
Inside the folder were three columns of numbered sticky notes with the headlines “Dinner,” “Shopping,” and “Film.” The rules, he said, were simple. Once an option was uncovered, I had to decide to accept it or move on, but the catch was, I couldn’t go back.
Twelve possibilities for dinner, seven for shopping—each with varying funds I could spend—and nine potential movies—what fun! I quickly removed the starting options in each category—obvious throw-aways (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and a movie called “Jumper,” which may be a perfectly fine film, but not one with which I was familiar.)
I kept going.
The options got better—a nice Mexican restaurant, a decent Target allowance, a fun romantic comedy. But all those uncovered options...what might I miss?
I continued peeling Post-its.
From bar and grill fare, Barnes and Nobel (“I can’t go home and tell our daughter I ended up at Barnes and Nobel”) and a well-reviewed drama, I wound up with: “Bag Lunch—PBJ,” “$25 at K-Mart” and some really scary sounding flick called “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.”
There was nothing I could do but keep peeling.
It’s a good thing my husband knows me well, that he’s no stranger to my “grass must be greener” urges. Because brown-bagging it in K-Mart duds at a B-movie is what people like me typically come to in the end. By the time I’d reached a tidy, three digit sum at Macy’s and WAS STILL THINKING my date had tuned into “Deal or No Deal” and I was the contestant poised to reject a massive payday and go home with a penny.
But my husband knows I can’t stand the unknown. That I have to know “what could have been,” that I struggle with understanding that the best things are the ones that you have.
Knowing it would likely get to that point, my husband saved some sweet options for the end, allowing me to enjoy a piping hot pot pie, a shopping spree at the mall (variety!) and the same romantic comedy I reluctantly passed by in the number four spot.
He says it won’t go down this way next time. He says I need to learn when to embrace what’s before me and stop second guessing my choices.
Otherwise, next time I’ll be wiping peanut butter off my Wal-Mart T-shirt as I trudge into the video store.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Singed Finger Stymies Blogger
Readers,
I had a post planned for tonight, but getting ready to settle in to type, I made some tea, severly burning a finger in the process. You wouldn't believe how long it is taking me just to post this simple announcement: pauses to cool the digit on a cube of ice, repeated backspacing to correct myriad typos--I should have just left them as testament to the scope of my infirmity.
If I don't make it back tonight, I hope you'll stop by to check in on me tomorrow.
Need ice...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
...But What Can I Get for the Thousand Words?
It's not a good writing week. On the heels of yesterday's Upset with The Editor , The Antiques Roadshow series came to a screeching halt when the subject ended up with a broken foot. Although my editor--not the one who thinks it's "wierd" to pay for assigned work--still wants the stories when the subject is back on both feet, early projections are that the coverage will fall when I'm wallowing ankle-deep in school work. My relationship with the paper could, if fact, be on its last leg.
In the aftermath of all the literary trouble, I decided it was the perfect time to focus on list item #10:
http://athousandwordstospare.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!
In the aftermath of all the literary trouble, I decided it was the perfect time to focus on list item #10:
http://athousandwordstospare.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Tension at the Seams
I cringed as a sunbeam cut through the roughly-hewn piece of cloth I held in front of me. "Do you think this might be a little see-though?" I asked my daughter, hoping she couldn't see me behind the cloth sheath. She could, right down to my frown of disappointment.
And, just like that, I discovered another way I’d like to imitate Jesus. According to the Gospel of John, (19:23, to be exact) he wore clothes without seams.
While my fascination with this fact may not speak to some of the more crucial ways I need to emulate Christ, it was this detail upon which I found myself fixated as I struggled with my efforts toward eleven eleven list item #1, finish sewing the New York Capri pants.
I’d like to report that the hours of cutting, sewing, and pinning resulted in a happy, stylish conclusion. I’d like to post a photo of the finished product, or better yet, of me looking sharp modeling the finished product, but really, all I have to offer is a sad tale punctuated by events like the shattering of my glass button jar across the tile floor, and an emergency trip to the fabric store when the sunny conditions of my working environment revealed the transparent nature of the smooth, flowing fabric and I realized that some type of liner would need to be fashioned.
Now, common sense will tell you that if I’m struggling with implementing the basic pattern, the skills required to improvise a liner are way off my map. Furthermore, a liner for a smooth, slick garment must be cut from fabric that mirrors those qualities in order to retain the free-flowing characteristics of the piece.
Sewing pieces of slippery material together is even harder than cutting slippery material, which, I can assure you, is no job for a stay-within-the lines perfectionist.
Further complicating my attempts at the harmonious fusing of fabric was the fact that I was coming unglued by events unfolding outside the perimeter of frayed threads in which I’d been hemmed.
Seems that a new editor with whom I’d been excited to work found my request for payment for assigned work to be “weird.” (This is not the Antiques Roadshow series, referenced earlier, but, rather, even more promising work that apparently will not transpire.)
Pondering what led to this unsettling turn, I realized that my difficulty with seams extends way beyond the ten pieces of fabric with which I was wrestling. I don’t know how—or if—school fits into my life. The penny-pinching turbulence at the newspaper is evidently worse than I realized (I’ve been called weird before, but it’s usually for something like organizing the wares of store shelves into ROY G BIV order while I shop, but never for collecting a paycheck). I don’t know where to focus my future writing efforts.
It should really come as no surprise that seams are troublesome. Why else would we use the phrase “seamless” in admiration of work strangely free of flaws? Seams are where things come together, the intersection of incongruous elements, and are, therefore, inherently challenging.
If seams were simple, we wouldn’t talk about things “coming apart" at them, and “popping a seam” wouldn’t be viewed as a problem. Sewing kits wouldn’t come stocked with forked tools known as “seam rippers.”
Seams aren’t simple because they represent transitions, and if you’ve written as much as a high school essay, you know how elusive it can be to craft a smooth shift.
Seams are the creaky joints where the frayed edges of our lives converge. We jockey, we pin; tentatively at first, testing to see how the fit squares with the pattern we’re aiming to craft from the bits and pieces with which we have to work. Opportunities, ambitions, longings and hopes—these are the elements we must reconcile with the resources available: our skills, time, and tools. It’s arduous work, and success is never guaranteed.
Today, I need to spend some time contemplating my patterns—-the one printed on newsprint to guide me through the transitions of trousers, and the other to write upon my heart as I seek to become more Seamless.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Documenting my Wanderlust
I’ve always had it—it’s what ignited my ill-fated bid to summer in Cabrini Green when I was 13. It’s why I’ve never been able to hold down a job involving attendance in the mid-calendar months. It was behind the urges that led me to Africa and Mexico. It’s the force whispering into my ear even now, taunting and tempting me into the unknown.Wanderlust is a powerful mixture of idealism, curiosity, and passion for life. It’s an urge that’s satisfied only through acts that leave your hands dirty and feet sore. It’s never safe, usually risky, and always deeply fulfilling. At its best it’s spiritual, at its worst, it is self-destructive, even fatal.
I’ve been listening to the CD book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer’s account of the early 1990s explorations of Christopher McCandless, a young wanderer whose quest to quench his internal cravings led to a grim conclusion in the Alaskan bush. At times, excerpts from his journal read eerily like my own; his yearning for “unfiltered experience,” his belief that there’s “more” out there than most people allow themselves to discover. My current efforts toward fulfillment of eleven eleven list item #3—start cross country scrapbook—have turned my thoughts toward open spaces. Not just in the “go west” sense, but in the direction of self examination, of understanding the role and purpose of dreams, longings, and cravings, and what to do with mine.
Recent educational developments have caused me to reconsider the path on which I’ve embarked with my masters program. I had to drop the in-depth-examination-of-a-middle-school “lab”class—unexpected field work requirements in my other classes left me with no time to even start the time consuming project. Dropping that led to a realistic look at my remaining course requirements, and two important discoveries: that I definitely have to extend the program, and I’m not sure how much I want to. There’s a lot more field work, for one. More importantly, the field work I have done has led to the conclusion that as nice as a little part-time, private school teaching gig can be, Being a Teacher isn’t something I’m all that jazzed about. Perhaps the biggest doubts have originated from some professors I’ve consulted who have questioned the compatibility of my personal goals with this particular program.
In short, I can build a convincing case for staying, and an equally convincing one for cutting my losses. However, another semester will take me past the point of no return, and I have just a couple weeks to decide: is this just wanderlust, luring me away from the conventions of society? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve run from confinement at the first sign of longer days and warmer climes.
Or is the voice I hear the weak gasp of an author and journalist crushed beneath the weight of assignments I’ve turned down and projects I can’t pursue due to the demands of academia?
Oh, and did I mention that my old, very part-time job as a private school art teacher is available once again?
Abandoning free education—I’m studying on a full-ride scholarship— with the ideation of major success in print somehow doesn’t make me feel much wiser than McCandless. Armed with meager provisions and no charted course, he was last seen heading into the unknown, blissfully happy but thoroughly deluded.
The story of my own temptation to embark Deep Into the Literary Wild—and the results thereof— will unfold here, soon enough. If I don’t make it, just tell the authorities you last saw me with a pair of scissors, some colorful Sharpies, and a stack of photos of the Grand Canyon.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Sharing Dinner
I wish you could have joined us for dinner last night. A creamy blend of three cheeses and fresh picked parsley wrapped in paper-thin crepes beneath a layer of homemade sauce…manicotti as it's meant to be enjoyed. I satisfied eleven eleven list item #5—recreate my favorite dinner for my family—with a humble attempt at manicotti in the tradition of The Little Venice.Throughout my childhood, I looked forward to the times when the sluggish pace of a rural Saturday—monitoring motor vehicle sightings past the property, blowing a pickle-shaped Burger King piccolo to summon the neighbor boy, that sort of thing—was broken by my grandfather’s voice from the Ham radio on the kitchen counter, announcing that we were going out for dinner.
He’d pull up in front of the house with my grandmother in his Lincoln Town car, and we’d all get in—my parents, my sister and I—for the half hour ride to Binghamton. I never liked any of my grandfather’s Town cars—the ride was too smooth—but I loved the 8-tracks he’d play: John Denver, Kenny Price, and Loudon Wainwright III’s big hit, Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.
At the restaurant, there was never any question that the food was authentic, top-notch, and plentiful. I don’t remember everything I used to order, but I know I must have had my fair share of manicotti, because no rendition of the dish has ever sufficed since. Whenever I see it on the menu at an Italian restaurant, I always ask if they make their own crepes, or use pre-fabbed tubes. It’s invariably the tubes, and it’s a shame. The extra effort for the crepes isn’t just a nice touch—I won’t even bother ordering the dish sans crepes.
The really exciting thing is that I had the opportunity to revisit Little Venice in adulthood several years back—and I can report with complete certainty that the manicotti is every bit as good as I remember it as a kid. Well worth the trip to Binghamton if you live in North America.
Recognizing that real life prevents most of us from making the pilgrimage to the land flowing with marinara sauce and manicotti, I offer the following recipe, adapted from our friends at Taste of Home magazine:
Crepes:
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup milk
3 eggs
½ t. salt
Filling:
2 lbs Ricotta Cheese
½ cup Romano
½ cup Parmesan (not the stuff in the green shaker can!)
1 egg
1-2 Tbs. fresh chopped parsley (dried will do in a pinch)
(make ahead and chill in fridge for best results)
Sauce:
I use my home made sauce that involves crushing Italian tomatoes in a food mill and adding fresh herbs (basil, oregano, etc.), a pinch of brown sugar, salt, pepper and garlic to taste. Feel free to experiment, improvise, what have you, but please don’t resort to jarred sauce. You’ve come this far—don’t skimp here.
Mix crepe ingredients in a bowl. Spoon about two tablespoons into a hot skillet. Use spoon to spread into a paper thin 5 inch circle. Do not flip or brown. Set aside on paper plate, and continue making crepes until batter runs out.
Spread sauce on bottom of 13x9 and other various pans you may need to deploy. Spoon cheese mixture into crepes and place, seam down in pan. Top with more sauce and grated cheeses. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 minutes more or until heated through and bubbling.
Oh, and one more thing…this recipe lends itself nicely to a sweet ending I remember fondly—a tall, thin, crème de menthe parfait.
If you don’t have time to cook, feel free to stop by for leftovers. We have plenty, and they’re even better the next day.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Happy Welsh Heritage and Antique Guitar Appreciation Day
“Well, you would be headed in the right direction if we were open today,” the security guard cheerfully informed me, “but today’s a holiday.”My random adventure with the kids was off to a shaky start. I had to think fast. Yesterday, when I posed the idea of an adventure, both children announced that there was nothing new to see in our city. When I suggested they join me in eleven eleven list item # 6—fly a kite on the beach—they scoffed, claiming kite flying doesn’t qualify as an adventure. Tough crowd.
Undaunted, I asked them, over dinner, to each write down three things about which they wanted learn more. “Oh, no, research,” one child groaned, while the other dutifully scrambled for a library card.
“Who said anything about reading,” I demanded, mentally scrapping the library from my plans.
I used the kids’ reported interests—ranging from playing the guitar to native American history—as inspiration for some local, low-cost experiences. A quick internet search revealed a free museum with impressive Native American holdings less than 2 miles from our front door. Hidden within the campus of Hampton University—an instructional institution with which we are largely unfamiliar—the museum qualified as both something new to see and a non-print source of interest. Bingo!
But here we were, turned away at the gate, victims of some holiday of which we were not privy.
I was doubly surprised by the holiday angle, since I’d already scoured my mental database to identify the reason why both my kids and I were all off on the same day. In former times, those sweet days when all three of our lives included only one small school where I taught and they learned, we’d grown accustomed to having an entire week off together each spring. We’d usually tackle some project—one year we painted my daughter’s room, another year mine—and we’d scrub the kitchen floor, all the while listening to a carefully selected book on CD. In the afternoons, we’d visit parks and friends and libraries—good times that, this year, must be compressed into a single day, now that the three of us are all at different schools, each with a different spring break.
Although I’ll confess to being slightly stymied by the museum’s closure, I recovered quickly, dashing into another museum around the corner (we’re loaded with ‘em here, what with all water, European colonization, and all) arming myself with tourist brochures, all of which highlighted the merits of places the kids have already been, none offering a single new lead.
My big break came in the form of a serendipitous parking place in front of a storefront sporting a British flag. Recalling the upset that ensued last spring when the children discovered their Welsh roots, I herded them into the store in hopes of helping them connect with their newfound heritage.
I knew I struck gold when the friendly lilt of a British accent greeted us at the door. The shop owner pulled out maps, recalling tales and recounting customs. The concept of tartans, plaid patterns worn by family groups, totally captivated the children to the extent that they went home and researched theirs.
We stocked up on British junk food for the afternoon—sodas and chips of unique flavour—and continued on to our next stop, involving an elderly guitar—a weathered electric cast off abandoned by my nephew—about which there has been much recent ado. Just that morning, my son had been strumming its 5 poorly tuned strings as it hung precariously from his neck by a broken leather belt sporting several dozen bent staples.
We drove to a cluttered but well-stocked guitar shop. You know the kind—dark and a little dated, managed by a Woodstock-era hippie strumming out peace and love on a battered acoustic. He replaced the missing string, gave the old clunker a good prognosis (“might even be a collector’s item someday, if you hold onto it”), and infused the kids with a good dose of fascinated inspiration. Today, they’ve got it plugged into some old stereo equipment and were last seen with a chord chart and some slightly roughed-up fingertips.
Although a second glance at the calendar still didn’t corroborate the security guard’s holiday story, I still think I might side with him on this one. Although we may well be among the select few who knew, the day certainly proved itself worthy of special commemoration.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Eleven Eleven
For reasons that have remained unclear and largely unexamined, I have, since childhood, taken an odd delight in noticing when it’s 11:11. Identical pairs of slender neon digits lined across the display of the clock radio or dashboard, the unassuming numbers never fail (twice each day!) to remain noteworthy. Maybe it’s an aesthetic appreciation for the element of line. Perhaps I’ve come to associate the hour with lunch, or repose. I suppose there’s even the specter of psychological disorder, which would be especially concerning, as I’ve recently learned that the affectation is apparently genetic. Seems my daughter sends a text message to her best friend twice daily to alert him of the time of day, but since he actually appreciates this service, I figure the habit is less weird than it initially appears.
Clocks aside, today finds me doubly enamored with the number eleven. Tomorrow morning, I begin eleven days of spring break, and, in celebration, I’ve created a list of eleven things I want to do. The plan is to tackle one each day (although there’ll be some overlap) and post the progress here.
In no particular order, here’s what we’re dealing with:
1) Finish sewing the New York print Capri pants I started last winter, and promptly abandoned once I realized they’re supposed to have a zipper.
2) Make amends for the mosaic-wedding gift mirror I managed to ruin during the final grouting last fall (a full 16 months after said wedding) by designing and beginning a replacement.
3) Use all the stuff I bought that time I emptied the scrapbooking shelves during that sale at Target to begin the scrapbook of last summer’s cross country trip.
4) Complete an assignment for a pair of articles about the Antiques Roadshow
5) Recreate my favorite dinner for my family
6) Fly a kite on the beach
7) Attempt a real date with my husband
8) Plant flowers in my window boxes
9) Stay up late watching movies
10) Start a new photo blog
11) Take the kids on a random adventure
Perhaps by now you're a little overwhelmed. You might even think you misunderstood, that I’m taking off the entire Spring season, that I must have said eleven weeks, not days. No need to scroll back for clarification—as usual, my expectations exceed reality. I figure at the very least, it'll make for interesting reading. Stay tuned.
Clocks aside, today finds me doubly enamored with the number eleven. Tomorrow morning, I begin eleven days of spring break, and, in celebration, I’ve created a list of eleven things I want to do. The plan is to tackle one each day (although there’ll be some overlap) and post the progress here.
In no particular order, here’s what we’re dealing with:
1) Finish sewing the New York print Capri pants I started last winter, and promptly abandoned once I realized they’re supposed to have a zipper.
2) Make amends for the mosaic-wedding gift mirror I managed to ruin during the final grouting last fall (a full 16 months after said wedding) by designing and beginning a replacement.
3) Use all the stuff I bought that time I emptied the scrapbooking shelves during that sale at Target to begin the scrapbook of last summer’s cross country trip.
4) Complete an assignment for a pair of articles about the Antiques Roadshow
5) Recreate my favorite dinner for my family
6) Fly a kite on the beach
7) Attempt a real date with my husband
8) Plant flowers in my window boxes
9) Stay up late watching movies
10) Start a new photo blog
11) Take the kids on a random adventure
Perhaps by now you're a little overwhelmed. You might even think you misunderstood, that I’m taking off the entire Spring season, that I must have said eleven weeks, not days. No need to scroll back for clarification—as usual, my expectations exceed reality. I figure at the very least, it'll make for interesting reading. Stay tuned.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Kicking it to the Curb
A couple weeks ago, I did something new; liberating; even brave: I took a deep breath and heaved a large percentage of my clothing into an oversized goodwill bag.I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, dreamed of it even, as I stared blankly each morning into a cloth maze of marginal pants, iffy blouses, and unloved dresses. You know the stuff, it’s in your closet, too: the pair of khakis with the grease stain from a hasty drive-thru lunch in late ‘06; the off-shade blouse you’ll find something perfect to wear with “someday”; the misshapen sweater Aunt Lib knitted for you several Christmases ago; the tired T’s.
I’d wade through the sea of fabric, eventually settling on trusted anchor pieces upon which I can always depend: a trio of jeans, dark solid tops, a shapely sweater, or, if the occasion called for it, a staple pair of slacks or skirt.
What with my daily deliberations and reliance on the thin ranks of the tried and true, I was convinced that purging my wardrobe would leave me with nothing to wear. This, of course, is the thinking pattern of those psychotic “hoarders” one sees from time to time on the evening news. The illusion of a vast and varied wardrobe imparted a false sense of security with which I was reluctant to part.
But part I did with a massive heave-ho to the curb on a recent Friday morning. Two factors joined forces in inspiring this bold move: a trip to the antique store and some financial backing in the form of Christmas funds.
The antique store trip was prompted by a do-it-yourself decorating book I picked up on the discount table at Barnes and Noble. According to the text, the antique store was my low cost, one-stop solution to all my household needs. With clothes in all stages of cleanliness spilling from laundry baskets and hampers bursting at the seams, I figured some sort of rustic shelving or chest of drawers would present a decorative-yet- functional storage option. The financial backing served as a safety net against public nudity should I get carried away in my zeal.
Sadly, the book was only half right. While I did find an attractive piece of functional furniture, I can hardly label the turn-of-the-twentieth-century walnut armoire as “low cost.” Let me skip over the droll financial deliberations (I, not my husband, was the reticent party) to say that my decision to limit my wardrobe to what could be contained within the armoire's confines was as solid as the piece itself.
True, I purchased a few new items, and, better yet, salvaged a few with the aid of a seamstress. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit to keeping a few ridiculous items, like the scoop-backed tuxedo tank I’ve always wanted to pair with a classy black jacket for some sort of day/night affair (“From boardroom to ballroom,” my husband mused, when I attempted describe the socially-improbable occasion that would prompt such garb).
As an English major, I’m not much for clichés, but if I did adhere to shop-worm maxims, my current wardrobe would certainly be a case of “less is more.”
Recent mornings, it seems I have more choices than ever, and they’re all good. My drawers are full, but not stuffed, and everything in them makes me smile.
In fact, my style’s so polished I’m looking for ways to extend the streamlined concept to every area of life, and I’m not just talking closets. I’m eyeing bloated corners in every arena and I’m poised to toss.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Musings Over a Warm Mug
Glug, glug, sputter, pshhh…glug glug…the coffee was brewing.My son, his hastily packed lunch, my daughter, her buzzing cell phone, and my frazzled husband were miles down the road en route to school and work.
I was alone. This is an important fact to file away at this point, because momentarily, you’ll want to foist responsibility for subsequent phenomena upon someone—anyone actually—in an attempt to maintain your sense of structure and order. But I’m going to take that from you here, at the outset, because I never had the sense that what happened inside my kitchen cabinet was normal, so I’m not going to let you think, or even suspect, it , either.
Because it’s simply not normal to reach into your cabinet for your favorite coffee mug, the one you always reach for when it’s clean because your daughter got it for you when she was seven and it makes you smile—it’s just not normal to wrap your hand around the mug and discover that it’s already hot.
I’m not talking maybe-some-stray-sunbeam-seeped-in-though-a-crack-in- the-cabinet hot. I’m talking just-came-out-of-the-kiln hot. So hot that the shelf beneath it is warm to the touch and the surrounding mugs have soaked in its heat sort of hot.
Now, of course, the first thing I’m thinking is fire, because it’s not like I haven’t been right in that very spot of the kitchen, warming leftovers with my walls on fire. It happens. And I’m feeling a little more confident about fires ever since I met a new friend at church who is a firefighter and says he’s totally got my back if I ever set the kitchen aflame, as I'm so prone to do. So I’m kind of looking for the source of the fire, wondering why I didn’t have the presence of mind to put Firefighter Friend on speed dial, when I realize that the cabinet is adjacent to another cabinet containing nothing but--what else--books— in this case stone cold books. All the other dishes in the burning mug cabinet—pots, pans, glasses, and plastics—were all behaving in their typical, cool-to-the-touch manner on the surrounding shelves.
Curious, I cradled the mug in my hands, enjoying the mystery of it’s warmth—which, I must note, did not measurably subside during the entire time I waited for my coffee to brew—even after I poured cream into the bottom.
See, as disturbing as it is to have an inexplicably toasty mug in my kitchen cabinet, I know better than to question the event. No good will come of it. There are no answers, any more than there were during that disturbing incident in the late eighties when I dozed off while watching a daytime drama and awoke to find that a wardrobe—complete with all my clothes, on hangers—had appeared in my dorm room.
It didn’t matter, then, how many times I retraced the events of that afternoon, meticulously interviewing witnesses and establishing timelines like a Crime Scene Investigator on a tricky case—there were no answers to be had. Yes, witnesses could verify that my clothes had been draped over chairs and heaped in corners for weeks prior to the arrival of the Mysterious Wardrobe. Yes, others had been watching the same daytime drama, and verified that indeed, I’d missed mere minutes of the eposode. Yes, everyone could plainly see the large wardrobe and my neatly hanging clothes, situated in the room. But not a single soul knew how, or when, it happened.
It’s the same now, with the mug. It’s one of those mystifying events in life that defies rationalization. I’ve decided to embrace this ambiguity, and count it among the blessings of life. The random, unexplained events of life keep me interested and engaged—on my toes. In fact, if there is an explanation, I don’t think I even want to know. I'd rather spare myself the discovery that life might be mundane, because I’d find the news unbearably devastating.
I’m currently not inclined to view the semi-burning mug as any sort of sign. If I wake up tomorrow to find my bushes aflame, I’ll reconsider.
Monday, January 21, 2008
An Issue of Issues
Kids need to be surrounded by good literature.My husband and I began our family firmly committed to this shared foundational belief.
Accordingly, our children have grown up in a veritable sea of printed matter. Not only did we both bring every Little Golden Book either of us ever owned into our union, we fervently undertook acquisitions for the Davis Family Library before we even had furniture.
To my knowledge, neither of us has ever sold a single college textbook, a fact which in itself represents the bulk of our educational shelves, considering my husband has, like, 3 bachelor’s degrees and an MBA, and I’m working on my masters. (Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that my daughter just put Don Quixote on ebay.)
In early marriage we were members of book-of-the month clubs—yes, plural—the proceedings of which we read from lawn chairs in our aforementioned unfurnished apartment.
When our daughter was born, we showered her with chunky books, waterproof tubby books, and, as she grew, pop-ups and books with tapes.
Even our son, the poorly read black sheep of a fellow who only reads under the duress of an assigned book report, boasts numerous (and pristine) tomes. He’ll tell you he reads—and, who am I to say, maybe he does, at say, 3 AM, or perhaps in the bathroom.
Our personal collection numbers safely in the thousands, with our holdings typically supplemented by any number of grossly overdue library materials, but we won’t go into that. Off hand, I don’t really know how many book cases we have in the house, but we snatched up another one on sale at Target last week.
And did I ever mention our penchant to subscribe to magazines?
I’ve thought on occasion—and shared freely in this forum—that our magazine situation might be a tad out of control. At least, if you think it’s an issue to have every nook and cranny stuffed with periodicals. Personally, I find it comforting to have a wealth of knowledge right at my fingertips no matter where I am in the home.
Why, consider what happened to my husband one fateful day last spring, when he volunteered to cover an hour of two of our daughter’s babysitting shift. Seemed like a simple sort of thing—until I picked him up, and found him pale and off kilter.
“I forgot my book,” he lamented, “and there wasn’t anything at all to read in that house—nothing.”
“Don’t be silly,” I told him, knowing the mother was a teacher. “There must have been something.”
“Well, sort of,” he admitted, gasping something about a Billy Graham coffee table picture book.
If you’ve ever seen the shaken, pasty pall of a man deprived of meaty literature, you, too would regard a ready stash of printed matter as a medical necessity. (And I don’t mean to elude here that we don’t find Billy Graham meaty—it’s just that it was, well, a picture book.)
However, recent events have caused me to wonder if it’s time for a purge. See, I like a neat and tidy appearance around the home, and, although you can totally decorate with books, the look just doesn’t translate with magazines. They’re spilling out of every conceivable basket, end table, and magazine rack in the house—and that’s after I scooped some of the older ones into a stray laundry basket and hid them in the attic.
Worse, I’m now having some organizational trouble and it occurs to me that I might need the space for, say, file folders, or clear, labled containers like the moms in the magazines use.
I spent the better part of a day last week and a good chunk of the day before that searching though stacks of magazines for my son’s missing school pictures. When I failed to find them where they were supposed to be, I figured they must have gotten caught up in some kind of emergency coffee table sweep and stashed in a basket. I kept thumbing through the stacks, expecting at any moment to see my son’s face grinning back at me from the glossy pages of a National Geographic or Smithsonian.
As regular readers might remember, I tend to get obsessive and weird when things go missing. Adding to my trouble was the fact that every place I looked for the pictures, I discovered the absence of more and more things that weren’t where I expected.
So I decided it might be time to gather up all the magazines and you, know, see what we’re really dealing with. So I emptied all the baskets and gathered up all the stray piles and lined them up on the countertop in my studio area. Here’s what we have, minus the contents of the laundry basket, which have either become deeply engulfed within the attic or fell victim to foul play.
Here's an aerial view:
For a few lucid moments, I thought about recycling the whole thing and starting fresh. Then I knew I’d really need to read them before I could part with them in good conscious. After making it through 1.5 issues of National Wildlife in about the same number of hours, I became discouraged with the plan. Besides, the mailman came while I was reading, and now I’ve got three more magazines in my pile.
At that point, I realized that today it’s just my son’s picture that’s missing, but if this thing goes unchecked, maybe one day I won’t be able to find him. That would take the concept of surrounding the kids with literature to the ever-soaring heights of my hastily stacked periodicals.
It could be that this is one of those "less is more" cases, but I think I'll err on the side of good literary caution and just see if Target is having another sale. I’m sure I can squeeze a new bookcase in somewhere.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
It's All in the Spin
Six weeks. The words have been running in a constant loop through my thoughts for, well, the past five weeks.
My first semester of masters work ended five weeks and one day ago, after thousands of pages of reading, approximately 24,243 words worth of papers, and couple of last minute saves--including an emergency real-time edit of a presentation in progress (an offhanded comment by a professor exposed a critical misreading of a piece of literature as a classmate and I made our way to the podium to present the merits of said piece. Good thing I wore my hip waders and packed a shovel that day...)
Six glorious weeks between the end of my fall semester and the beginning of the spring term seemed like a Christmas gift that could best the entire contents of Santa's sleigh.
Six weeks! At first, the words swelled in my head like the Hallelujah Chorus. Every morning when I woke up, it seemed like the entire Boys Choir of Harlem sang out the refrain, complete with the backing if the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
No papers!
No research!
No vital up-or-downloads!
No Don Quixote!
You'd think that the last thing I'd want to do during this soul-cleansing time of catharsis would be to write. But write, I did. First, for the newspaper--that's right, I remembered, I used to get paid to write. And then, for my sadly neglected but dearly beloved YA fiction venture, as appeared in my previous post. Yes, I remembered, writing is beautiful, when you write what you love.
But it was more than the joy of writing for profit and pleasure that resonated in between the notes of my Ode to Freedom. There have been so many other facets of my hijacked life that I've been able to resuscitate, such as warm, homemade meals on our dinner table: Tuscan chicken, stromboli, risotto, pots and pots of minestrone--tonight we're having lasagna.
Then there's the world of friends and entertaining, into which I wholeheartedly delved one evening just prior to Christmas. Can you imagine ending a meal for 6 adults and 13 children around a chocolate fountain? I can, and the memories are precious.
Oh, and I can't neglect to mention the nearly lost art of reading for pleasure. That book that's been sitting on my must-read list for the past 6 months? Read it, and relished every word like a the last bite of a Hershey's Special Dark bar.
Looking back, it's kind of hard to believe the amount of things I've packed in around Christmas and a week-long New Year's trip to Pennsylvania. Those professional headshots? Done. Undecorating from Christmas and redecorating for winter? Done. Rearranging most of the major furniture in the house? Done. Book signings and school visits? Done. Done.
(See, here I am looking a little more authorly than I usually do, toting around my stuffed tiger):
Maybe all this activity is because that looping refrain in my head morphed into more of a cadence. The Boys Choir moved out last week, making way for The Corporal. The Corporal is intimately aware of the passage of time, and the parameters of the upcoming mission. Spring '08, I believe they call it. The Corporal is big into belting out marching orders, repeating the whole six week loop with a decidedly do-or-die flair.
The Corporal has me shooting off emails to my friends, informing them that it's now or never if they want to get that lunch, or catch up over coffee. The Corporal rides me hard if I sit, staring blankly, as I'm prone to do when overwhelmed. Don't just sit there, he barks, Six weeks, six weeks, that's all you have, six weeks. The Corporal's responsible for all references to the commencement of my studies sounding like the musings of one reporting for a court-appointed prison term, or beginning treatment in an Iron Lung.
Bad news is, an email from Dr P, a Spring '08 Sergent--er, professor, has now sent even The Corporal packing. Dr. P is teaching this pesky one credit "lab" --a "gimme" my son would call it. In the grand scheme of everything else I've signed up for, I didn't view the lab as anything worth much worry. Something about visiting classrooms. No problem.
Dr. P was kind enough to send her syllabus along early. I got bleary-eyed somewhere around page three, and a few paragraphs after that The Corporal's cadence morphed into a dirge.
Among other things, the syllabus outlined various tasks I am to complete during the course of no less than 15 visits to a local school where I will apparently become something of a fixture. These tasks range in complexity and scope. During the course of my tenure, I'll be expected to participate in parent conferences, attend extra-curricular events, observe student hallway interactions, and, perhaps, attend a PTA meeting. I will also be required to conduct interviews with teachers, substitutes, and--I'm not even embellishing here--bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and janitors. Essentially, I'll be examining the school from the ground up. At this point in my reading, the drone of the mourners silenced even The Corporal's most rousing calls.
The worst of it? I'm not even sure I want to teach, at least not in the full-time, public-school capacity.
See, I am, at once, an appreciative but reluctant student. I didn't really set out to return to school full time. Oh, I always intended to get my masters degree someday...after the kids were out of the house, and I got bored with all of my other pursuits. It's just that seeds of restlessness and dissatisfaction began to sprout in the drear, dank sunlessness of last winter, and one blustery February afternoon found me wandering aimlessly around the campus where I now attend. I thought I might pick up a catalogue, browse some selections, and sign up for a course or two; something to spark some new thoughts, that sort of thing.
I left that day with an offer for a full ride.
Suddenly, someday was upon me.
Some days I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity. Other days, I'm simply overwhelmed.
I even tried to quit once, when it looked like the timing of certain course offerings were going to tip life too far out of balance, with non-stop course work all summer long. The prof I work for wouldn't hear of it, and is teaching me the ill-timed course herself, just her and me. How could I quit, in the face of that kind of confidence and commitment to my success?
The trouble is, I'm a writer, and although this program will give me a masters degree in English, it's also a teaching program. I have a love-hate relationship with teaching. I love being with students. I love discussing deep topics, engaging them in life and learning. But I think it's a little like being a grandparent--it's great as a part time gig.
I love swooping in as a substitute, keeping things spick and span like an educational Mary Poppins--and flying away on my umbrella when the day is done. I love going into classrooms as a special guest, sharing my novels with students, listening to their questions and interpretations of my work, and inspiring them toward their own aspirations. Go in, stir things up a bit, go home. In and out.
Real teaching kind of looks like the anti-writing from where I'm sitting. Grading papers? No, thanks. Calling parents? I don't even call my friends! Attending staff development sessions? Arsenic seems like a more expedient way to go.
Which is why all this business about interviewing safety guards and grading surplus tests really packed a punch. I'm a writer, darn it, a writer. A writer who doesn't go to her own kids' PTA meetings because she'd rather be home, playing with them. I awoke this morning to the lamentation of the mourners. Six weeks, almost gone, six weeks, moving on.
Writers don't interview lunch ladies, I told myself. They don't do grunt work for teachers. They don't rove up and down hallways listening to students gripe, I insisted.
About this point, the journalist in me kicks in. I'm picturing myself walking all over the school with my digital voice recorder and notebook, making copious notes in hallways. We call that "getting the story."
Then it hits me. I write for teens, and I've been given an all access pass to their daily stomping grounds. This is research at it's best! I'm a writer, darn it, and I'm going in.
Someone had better call VH 1 and find out where the Spin Doctors are now, because I think I'm going to need them to pick up the refrain. It goes something like:
One week until I begin research on my upcoming novel!
My first semester of masters work ended five weeks and one day ago, after thousands of pages of reading, approximately 24,243 words worth of papers, and couple of last minute saves--including an emergency real-time edit of a presentation in progress (an offhanded comment by a professor exposed a critical misreading of a piece of literature as a classmate and I made our way to the podium to present the merits of said piece. Good thing I wore my hip waders and packed a shovel that day...)
Six glorious weeks between the end of my fall semester and the beginning of the spring term seemed like a Christmas gift that could best the entire contents of Santa's sleigh.
Six weeks! At first, the words swelled in my head like the Hallelujah Chorus. Every morning when I woke up, it seemed like the entire Boys Choir of Harlem sang out the refrain, complete with the backing if the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
No papers!
No research!
No vital up-or-downloads!
No Don Quixote!
You'd think that the last thing I'd want to do during this soul-cleansing time of catharsis would be to write. But write, I did. First, for the newspaper--that's right, I remembered, I used to get paid to write. And then, for my sadly neglected but dearly beloved YA fiction venture, as appeared in my previous post. Yes, I remembered, writing is beautiful, when you write what you love.
But it was more than the joy of writing for profit and pleasure that resonated in between the notes of my Ode to Freedom. There have been so many other facets of my hijacked life that I've been able to resuscitate, such as warm, homemade meals on our dinner table: Tuscan chicken, stromboli, risotto, pots and pots of minestrone--tonight we're having lasagna.
Then there's the world of friends and entertaining, into which I wholeheartedly delved one evening just prior to Christmas. Can you imagine ending a meal for 6 adults and 13 children around a chocolate fountain? I can, and the memories are precious.
Oh, and I can't neglect to mention the nearly lost art of reading for pleasure. That book that's been sitting on my must-read list for the past 6 months? Read it, and relished every word like a the last bite of a Hershey's Special Dark bar.
Looking back, it's kind of hard to believe the amount of things I've packed in around Christmas and a week-long New Year's trip to Pennsylvania. Those professional headshots? Done. Undecorating from Christmas and redecorating for winter? Done. Rearranging most of the major furniture in the house? Done. Book signings and school visits? Done. Done.
(See, here I am looking a little more authorly than I usually do, toting around my stuffed tiger):
Maybe all this activity is because that looping refrain in my head morphed into more of a cadence. The Boys Choir moved out last week, making way for The Corporal. The Corporal is intimately aware of the passage of time, and the parameters of the upcoming mission. Spring '08, I believe they call it. The Corporal is big into belting out marching orders, repeating the whole six week loop with a decidedly do-or-die flair.
The Corporal has me shooting off emails to my friends, informing them that it's now or never if they want to get that lunch, or catch up over coffee. The Corporal rides me hard if I sit, staring blankly, as I'm prone to do when overwhelmed. Don't just sit there, he barks, Six weeks, six weeks, that's all you have, six weeks. The Corporal's responsible for all references to the commencement of my studies sounding like the musings of one reporting for a court-appointed prison term, or beginning treatment in an Iron Lung.
Bad news is, an email from Dr P, a Spring '08 Sergent--er, professor, has now sent even The Corporal packing. Dr. P is teaching this pesky one credit "lab" --a "gimme" my son would call it. In the grand scheme of everything else I've signed up for, I didn't view the lab as anything worth much worry. Something about visiting classrooms. No problem.
Dr. P was kind enough to send her syllabus along early. I got bleary-eyed somewhere around page three, and a few paragraphs after that The Corporal's cadence morphed into a dirge.
Among other things, the syllabus outlined various tasks I am to complete during the course of no less than 15 visits to a local school where I will apparently become something of a fixture. These tasks range in complexity and scope. During the course of my tenure, I'll be expected to participate in parent conferences, attend extra-curricular events, observe student hallway interactions, and, perhaps, attend a PTA meeting. I will also be required to conduct interviews with teachers, substitutes, and--I'm not even embellishing here--bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and janitors. Essentially, I'll be examining the school from the ground up. At this point in my reading, the drone of the mourners silenced even The Corporal's most rousing calls.
The worst of it? I'm not even sure I want to teach, at least not in the full-time, public-school capacity.
See, I am, at once, an appreciative but reluctant student. I didn't really set out to return to school full time. Oh, I always intended to get my masters degree someday...after the kids were out of the house, and I got bored with all of my other pursuits. It's just that seeds of restlessness and dissatisfaction began to sprout in the drear, dank sunlessness of last winter, and one blustery February afternoon found me wandering aimlessly around the campus where I now attend. I thought I might pick up a catalogue, browse some selections, and sign up for a course or two; something to spark some new thoughts, that sort of thing.
I left that day with an offer for a full ride.
Suddenly, someday was upon me.
Some days I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity. Other days, I'm simply overwhelmed.
I even tried to quit once, when it looked like the timing of certain course offerings were going to tip life too far out of balance, with non-stop course work all summer long. The prof I work for wouldn't hear of it, and is teaching me the ill-timed course herself, just her and me. How could I quit, in the face of that kind of confidence and commitment to my success?
The trouble is, I'm a writer, and although this program will give me a masters degree in English, it's also a teaching program. I have a love-hate relationship with teaching. I love being with students. I love discussing deep topics, engaging them in life and learning. But I think it's a little like being a grandparent--it's great as a part time gig.
I love swooping in as a substitute, keeping things spick and span like an educational Mary Poppins--and flying away on my umbrella when the day is done. I love going into classrooms as a special guest, sharing my novels with students, listening to their questions and interpretations of my work, and inspiring them toward their own aspirations. Go in, stir things up a bit, go home. In and out.
Real teaching kind of looks like the anti-writing from where I'm sitting. Grading papers? No, thanks. Calling parents? I don't even call my friends! Attending staff development sessions? Arsenic seems like a more expedient way to go.
Which is why all this business about interviewing safety guards and grading surplus tests really packed a punch. I'm a writer, darn it, a writer. A writer who doesn't go to her own kids' PTA meetings because she'd rather be home, playing with them. I awoke this morning to the lamentation of the mourners. Six weeks, almost gone, six weeks, moving on.
Writers don't interview lunch ladies, I told myself. They don't do grunt work for teachers. They don't rove up and down hallways listening to students gripe, I insisted.
About this point, the journalist in me kicks in. I'm picturing myself walking all over the school with my digital voice recorder and notebook, making copious notes in hallways. We call that "getting the story."
Then it hits me. I write for teens, and I've been given an all access pass to their daily stomping grounds. This is research at it's best! I'm a writer, darn it, and I'm going in.
Someone had better call VH 1 and find out where the Spin Doctors are now, because I think I'm going to need them to pick up the refrain. It goes something like:
One week until I begin research on my upcoming novel!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
A Little Story in the Spirit of the Season
Here's a link to a short story I wrote freaturing the characters from my YA novels.
Enjoy!
http://www.greenroombooks.com/ACampEdsonChristmas.html
Enjoy!
http://www.greenroombooks.com/ACampEdsonChristmas.html
Monday, December 03, 2007
Whittier, and Why I'm Not
Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--John Greenleaf Whittier
Thus concludes every email sent by one of the university professors for which I work. Today, these poetic words summon memories of witty, incisive commentary I planned to post but have since been lost to the avalanche of research that descended upon me in violent fashion.
Forever lost to literary discourse are several humorous school foibles, a marvellous Thanksgiving Eve piece (half written) concerning some culinary misfortunes involving several lumps of substandard pie crust, and at least one semi-poignant epiphany of the life-appreciation vein.
I had pictures, too--beautiful photos of fall and food, fun and feasting.
But alas, the sad word emitting from my metaphoric pen is simply that there is but an empty void in cyberspace where words should have been.
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--John Greenleaf Whittier
Thus concludes every email sent by one of the university professors for which I work. Today, these poetic words summon memories of witty, incisive commentary I planned to post but have since been lost to the avalanche of research that descended upon me in violent fashion.
Forever lost to literary discourse are several humorous school foibles, a marvellous Thanksgiving Eve piece (half written) concerning some culinary misfortunes involving several lumps of substandard pie crust, and at least one semi-poignant epiphany of the life-appreciation vein.
I had pictures, too--beautiful photos of fall and food, fun and feasting.
But alas, the sad word emitting from my metaphoric pen is simply that there is but an empty void in cyberspace where words should have been.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Life is Good
“Grab the forks!” I stage-whispered to my sister as I smuggled the pumpkin cheesecake to the back room yesterday afternoon.
Generally speaking, we’re sharing, generous people. Really. Particularly when it comes to our brood of young. But for us, pumpkin cheesecake comes but once a year, a fall splurge of unadulterated goodness that we savor, bite by delicious bite. The thought of the children descending upon the savory circle of goodness, leaving mere crumbs in their wake, is not one we can entertain. Thus the cloak and dagger routine as we settled into the sunroom for pie and coffee. The sun filtered through the stained glass windows, creating pools of colored light on the tiled floor and a warm glow on my face as I scooped a forkful of cheesecake through a puddle of caramel and onto my tongue. Ginger and cinnamon, cream cheese and pumpkin mixed and mingled in harmony—-perfection by the forkful.
Life is good.
Thanksgiving weekend has traditionally been a high-water mark: encompassing all the best of fall, my birthday, and a heralding-in of Christmastime all in one jam-packed weekend of family, friends, food and fun.
My sister and her family have joined us for a week of high-spirited festivities. Over the next few days, we’ll go through bags of flour, pounds of butter, gallons of coffee and sinkfuls of dishes. We’ll toast glasses of Pinot Grigio from the oversized cobalt blue bottle I’ve been saving since September. We’ll write messages of thankfulness across turkey-feather cut-outs and read them aloud at the table over pie.
Life is good.
After the turkey has settled and the dishes are once again back on the shelves, we’ll commence with our fourth annual pumpkin carving contest.
Right now, applesauce is simmering in the crock pot. My husband’s potato rolls are popping out of the oven with a quality and consistency capable of consigning the Dough Boy into an embarrassing early retirement. Soon we’ll begin baking the pies: two apple, two pumpkin. If tradition is any indication, our crusts will look terrible, but taste delicious.
Life is good.
Generally speaking, we’re sharing, generous people. Really. Particularly when it comes to our brood of young. But for us, pumpkin cheesecake comes but once a year, a fall splurge of unadulterated goodness that we savor, bite by delicious bite. The thought of the children descending upon the savory circle of goodness, leaving mere crumbs in their wake, is not one we can entertain. Thus the cloak and dagger routine as we settled into the sunroom for pie and coffee. The sun filtered through the stained glass windows, creating pools of colored light on the tiled floor and a warm glow on my face as I scooped a forkful of cheesecake through a puddle of caramel and onto my tongue. Ginger and cinnamon, cream cheese and pumpkin mixed and mingled in harmony—-perfection by the forkful.
Life is good.
Thanksgiving weekend has traditionally been a high-water mark: encompassing all the best of fall, my birthday, and a heralding-in of Christmastime all in one jam-packed weekend of family, friends, food and fun.
My sister and her family have joined us for a week of high-spirited festivities. Over the next few days, we’ll go through bags of flour, pounds of butter, gallons of coffee and sinkfuls of dishes. We’ll toast glasses of Pinot Grigio from the oversized cobalt blue bottle I’ve been saving since September. We’ll write messages of thankfulness across turkey-feather cut-outs and read them aloud at the table over pie.
Life is good.
After the turkey has settled and the dishes are once again back on the shelves, we’ll commence with our fourth annual pumpkin carving contest.
Right now, applesauce is simmering in the crock pot. My husband’s potato rolls are popping out of the oven with a quality and consistency capable of consigning the Dough Boy into an embarrassing early retirement. Soon we’ll begin baking the pies: two apple, two pumpkin. If tradition is any indication, our crusts will look terrible, but taste delicious.
Life is good.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Don Quixote, RIP
OK, so I finally made it to the end of Don Quixote and--at the risk of spoiling the end for any of my stalwart readers who may have chosen to share in the experience and read along—he dies. I must admit to being inexplicably stymied and even saddened by this turn of events. After all, I have spent nearly three months traversing alongside our well-meaning knight as he battled flocks of sheep, bludgeoned wineskins and pontificated upon the merits of chivalry astride Rocinante, his trusty steed. At several points today, I cancelled mental reminders to check in with Mr. Quixote—Oh, no need, I’d remember, he died yesterday. And then I’d feel oddly bereft for a moment or two.
On top of all this, things aren’t looking very promising for my planned outing to see Man of La Mancha, either. Among other impediments, I discovered that it is, indeed, a musical, and, as I’ve already indicated, I find this problematic. The risk of getting Quixotesque tunes stuck in my head for days on end seems just too great, particularly in light of my ambivalence concerning his recent passing.
It appears that I must now simply get to work tidying up the affairs of his estate, in the form of the 10-page dossier I must prepare. Before I can really move on, it is my duty to ascribe meaning to these long chapters of his life, and, by extension, my own.
The key, of course, is to delve into this scholarly analysis of a character driven to madness through the reading of too many books without succumbing to the same fate. Stay tuned.
On top of all this, things aren’t looking very promising for my planned outing to see Man of La Mancha, either. Among other impediments, I discovered that it is, indeed, a musical, and, as I’ve already indicated, I find this problematic. The risk of getting Quixotesque tunes stuck in my head for days on end seems just too great, particularly in light of my ambivalence concerning his recent passing.
It appears that I must now simply get to work tidying up the affairs of his estate, in the form of the 10-page dossier I must prepare. Before I can really move on, it is my duty to ascribe meaning to these long chapters of his life, and, by extension, my own.
The key, of course, is to delve into this scholarly analysis of a character driven to madness through the reading of too many books without succumbing to the same fate. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ghosts
I once heard it said that people seldom recognize the last time certain things happen in life.
When I was a little girl, for instance, my father used to put me on his back and "hop" me up the stairs to bed each night. I have no idea when the last time was that happened. There was no grand finale, no recognizing that the tradition had run its course...it just somehow faded away. Getting "hopped" to bed simply went the way of watching Sesame Street and reading Nancy Drew, and other things I don't do anymore.
As children, we seldom recognize the significance of this parade of endings, change and growth—for that is the real process these passings represent –but as I get older, my senses have sharpened, and I’m keenly aware of the fragility of the things we cherish in life. This is particularly true as I watch as my own children slowly shed the vestiges of their respective childhoods.
My son has this amazing giggle. When something really cracks him up, he succumbs to peals of high pitched giggles that take the wind right out of him. I had no idea, a week or so ago, that it would be the last time I’d hear him laugh in quite the same way.
For all the friends and relatives who may be reading, let me assure you that the little chap is fine—thoroughly happy and more normal than even I was able to recognize, as the following vignette will illustrate:
“What’s wrong with your voice?” I asked, Monday afternoon when he got into the car after school.
“My voice?” he answered, in strained and fractured tones.
“Yes, your voice. When did you get laryngitis?”
“What’s that?” he squeaked and rumbled.
“It’s when you lose your voice,” I explained, patiently. “Can’t you hear yourself?”
He seemed mystified. I dismissed the incident, chalking his altered tones up to damp conditions on a church campout last weekend.
Later that evening, he greeted the girls who come to our home for a couple hours each week to discuss their concerns about life, study the Bible, and eat brownies….roughly in that order. My son typically emerges when rattling in the kitchen cabinets alerts him that he’d better get his share of chocolate before the girls descend upon the pan.
“Little Brandon’s a man!” they all shrieked, seconds into conversation with him.
“What!?” I screamed, in horror.
The girls first regarded me with the same mystified stance my son had demonstrated earlier, before patiently explaining the facts of life. Evidently, twelve year old boys commonly develop cases of “laryngitis,” persisting for weeks or months, after which their voices adopt the deep inflections of manliness.
My son knew what was happening all along. He just didn’t want to be the one to break the news.
Of course, it shouldn’t have been news. I knew all this, intellectually. I just somehow forgot that my son was so close to losing his little boy giggle, that each time he laughed I needed to pay attention, and listen with the reverence with which one regards the fleeting and temporal.
This was the first October that we didn’t spend inordinate amounts of time constructing elaborate Halloween costumes. Halloween has always involved costumes that invariably required tools, trips to Home Depot, yards of fabric and the occasional altering of laundry baskets or other household wares. The kids would begin planning the next year’s costume around 9 PM October 31st, right after we revived them from their sugar comas. I used to impose an October 15 deadline for reporting final changes in costume choices, to allow time to sew, alter or construct the components necessary to transform them into miniature literary figures, superheros or machinery, such as the year my daughter became a life-sized, candy-dispensing vending machine and was subsequently mugged and toppled by a rabid gang of preschoolers.
Tonight was eerily normal. Not that the children were disinterested in Halloween —we hosted a costume party last Friday, and bought a lot of candy and watched a scary film—-but it was different. Ghosts of Halloween past haunted my thoughts.
Of course, life changes aren’t limited to the growth of children. Embedded in each moment are wonderful, amazing things we all take for granted. I try to recognize them as I go through my day: the smell of wood each morning as I walk into the sunroom my husband built for me, the way the sun intensifies the colors in my stained glass windows at certain times of the day, the sound of my Labradors barking too loudly and frequently in protection of me when I’m home alone.
My son still giggles. It just sounds a little different, and from now on, it always will. Our family still gathered around the TV with a big bowl of candy and watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. These moments, too, are special, and likewise, destined to become spectres of memory, in time joining the ranks of all that used to be and isn't anymore.
Recognize your moments as they parade past. Salute them. Acknowledge their significance, for each one represents a page of a story that with a plot that moves all to quickly…and that story is your own.
When I was a little girl, for instance, my father used to put me on his back and "hop" me up the stairs to bed each night. I have no idea when the last time was that happened. There was no grand finale, no recognizing that the tradition had run its course...it just somehow faded away. Getting "hopped" to bed simply went the way of watching Sesame Street and reading Nancy Drew, and other things I don't do anymore.
As children, we seldom recognize the significance of this parade of endings, change and growth—for that is the real process these passings represent –but as I get older, my senses have sharpened, and I’m keenly aware of the fragility of the things we cherish in life. This is particularly true as I watch as my own children slowly shed the vestiges of their respective childhoods.
My son has this amazing giggle. When something really cracks him up, he succumbs to peals of high pitched giggles that take the wind right out of him. I had no idea, a week or so ago, that it would be the last time I’d hear him laugh in quite the same way.
For all the friends and relatives who may be reading, let me assure you that the little chap is fine—thoroughly happy and more normal than even I was able to recognize, as the following vignette will illustrate:
“What’s wrong with your voice?” I asked, Monday afternoon when he got into the car after school.
“My voice?” he answered, in strained and fractured tones.
“Yes, your voice. When did you get laryngitis?”
“What’s that?” he squeaked and rumbled.
“It’s when you lose your voice,” I explained, patiently. “Can’t you hear yourself?”
He seemed mystified. I dismissed the incident, chalking his altered tones up to damp conditions on a church campout last weekend.
Later that evening, he greeted the girls who come to our home for a couple hours each week to discuss their concerns about life, study the Bible, and eat brownies….roughly in that order. My son typically emerges when rattling in the kitchen cabinets alerts him that he’d better get his share of chocolate before the girls descend upon the pan.
“Little Brandon’s a man!” they all shrieked, seconds into conversation with him.
“What!?” I screamed, in horror.
The girls first regarded me with the same mystified stance my son had demonstrated earlier, before patiently explaining the facts of life. Evidently, twelve year old boys commonly develop cases of “laryngitis,” persisting for weeks or months, after which their voices adopt the deep inflections of manliness.
My son knew what was happening all along. He just didn’t want to be the one to break the news.
Of course, it shouldn’t have been news. I knew all this, intellectually. I just somehow forgot that my son was so close to losing his little boy giggle, that each time he laughed I needed to pay attention, and listen with the reverence with which one regards the fleeting and temporal.
This was the first October that we didn’t spend inordinate amounts of time constructing elaborate Halloween costumes. Halloween has always involved costumes that invariably required tools, trips to Home Depot, yards of fabric and the occasional altering of laundry baskets or other household wares. The kids would begin planning the next year’s costume around 9 PM October 31st, right after we revived them from their sugar comas. I used to impose an October 15 deadline for reporting final changes in costume choices, to allow time to sew, alter or construct the components necessary to transform them into miniature literary figures, superheros or machinery, such as the year my daughter became a life-sized, candy-dispensing vending machine and was subsequently mugged and toppled by a rabid gang of preschoolers.
Tonight was eerily normal. Not that the children were disinterested in Halloween —we hosted a costume party last Friday, and bought a lot of candy and watched a scary film—-but it was different. Ghosts of Halloween past haunted my thoughts.
Of course, life changes aren’t limited to the growth of children. Embedded in each moment are wonderful, amazing things we all take for granted. I try to recognize them as I go through my day: the smell of wood each morning as I walk into the sunroom my husband built for me, the way the sun intensifies the colors in my stained glass windows at certain times of the day, the sound of my Labradors barking too loudly and frequently in protection of me when I’m home alone.
My son still giggles. It just sounds a little different, and from now on, it always will. Our family still gathered around the TV with a big bowl of candy and watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. These moments, too, are special, and likewise, destined to become spectres of memory, in time joining the ranks of all that used to be and isn't anymore.
Recognize your moments as they parade past. Salute them. Acknowledge their significance, for each one represents a page of a story that with a plot that moves all to quickly…and that story is your own.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Engine is Running, but No One’s at the Wheel
“I don’t have my keys!” I said in alarm to my friend Kathy as we started out of the fabric store last week.I don’t often have my keys, making me the only one that’s ever alarmed by the fact. I gave my pockets the usual pat down and whirled around in alert surveillance as though the keys might miraculously materialize mid-aisle.
“Did you set them down somewhere?” Kathy asked.
“No, I never had them,” I said, slowly realizing that I must have left them in the car. I was already reaching for my cell phone so I could alert Onstar of our plight. Inherent in this course of action is the assumption that if, indeed, I’d been so remiss to have left my keys in the car then, of course, I’d locked them in.
Instinctively, I reached for the handle, and the door popped open. “Look at this,” I scolded myself, “I left the keys in an unlocked car!”
Kathy jumped in the passenger’s seat while I scoped around for the keys.
“It’s running,” Kathy observed.
“What?”
“The car is already running.”
I’d like to say that it wasn’t so, that’d she’d merely misinterpreted the situation; but as a journalist, I’m committed to factual representation of events. In the spirit of full disclosure, it is my duty to report that all of the evidence indicates that I simply existed my running car and proceeded to shop for upwards of twenty minutes. I should also probably mention that said events played out in a tired shopping center in the middle of the Homeless District.
There’s really nothing one can say in this type of situation, so I just made a beeline for the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru, which I later discovered was an ideal response. Turns out, all the latest research indicates that coffee in excess of three cups per day wards off dementia. Not having read that report at the time of these events, I can only assume that my most basic biological urges kicked in to compensate for my failing faculties.
Apparently the coffee didn’t have time to kick in before we were finished at the next store. Upon finding the ideal fabric, I had it measured and cut and, feeling done, headed for the exit.
“Aren’t you going to pay for that?” Kathy asked as I started out the door.
Sadly, the afternoon mirrored the rest of my life--a well oiled machine generating due dates, projects, family needs, and social commitments with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of Marion Jones on steroids. Trouble is, in the midst of all this accuracy and regularity, I’m browsing the metaphoric aisles of life, whistling and loitering while the engine of reality hums along with no one at the wheel.
Anyone up for a coffee break?
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Sound of Music
I thought I had the upper hand in the ongoing combat in which I’m engaged with my ever present Spanish adversary, Don Quixote.I was feeling pretty smug, due to a secret weapon I deployed several weeks back that has resulted in my not actually reading any of the text in say, 300 pages, yet still yielding a high rate of return on measures of evaluation.
Now, lest you jump to the conclusion that I’ve stooped to the shallow depths of Cliff’s Notes and their ilk or even some graver slight of hand, let me assure you that I have absorbed the text on a word-for-word basis. Let me further offer that my arsenal bears the stamp of approval of my sister, the essence of purism.
I gained command in the battle over this dry tome when my resourceful husband gave me a 36-CD audio accounting of the exploits of my armored foe. With the power of multi-tasking working for me during otherwise wasted commutes, I quickly overtook the forces—over 900 pages strong—that promised to seize control over my waking hours.
In my initial reveling over the success of my racket, I forgot that battles are costly to both sides. No one really wins.
The toll extracted from my person began in such an innocent, yea even uplifting, manner that I didn’t recognize what was happening. I found it a mere curiosity when in the middle of random Thursdays and Fridays I had the choruses from whatever praise and worship song we sang in church the previous Sunday running a continuous loop through my head.
When one particularly virulent chorus persisted well into its second week, I identified the problem and attributed it to its proper source—the Quixote CDs, which replaced the wide range of music I formerly enjoyed on my daily commutes.
Resilient, I laughed the problem off. I embraced the chorus, singing it aloud to dull the effect of its merciless grip. Not to be beaten, Quixote redoubled his efforts and struck back, this time taking advantage of an otherwise harmless gaming episode with my husband.
Following an evening of virtual boxing combat with our wii, I awoke the following morning to a disturbing loop of the tinny, computer generated notes from the wii background soundtrack. It goes roughly like this: Da da da-da-da…dat,dat. Over and over and over.
And over and over and over.
And…
Bordering on a level of insanity that rivaled that of my knightly nemesis, I chose to rebel today. Tossing aside the disk of droll Quixote verbiage, I listened to music....selections of jazz, nearly forgotten favorites, random clips from the radio.
The fact that I actually wept with joy and relief I find at once embarrassing and necessary to report. The horns! The piano! The percussion!
With The Big Project looming, the war wages on. But I’m already planning to have the last laugh. Turns out, Man of La Mancha is in town, and I think I’ll drag my husband to see it. I figure if I can still celebrate the story, then I will have truly won.
As long as it’s not a musical.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
"The Family" Tree
Last week, I received a newspaper assignment that sent me digging into my mafia heritage.
Which wasn’t quite as exciting as it sounds, but was still pretty interesting nonetheless.
My editor wanted an up-close-and-personal look into the activities of the Genealogical Society Library. This worried my daughter, since I announced that she’d be accompanying me on the investigation, and she didn’t think genealogical research held much in the way of promise either for her morning or my story.
I took this as a good sign, as most of my best stories begin this way. There’s some kind of ironic inverse relationship between the perceived potential of a lead and the story that results. I’ve come to take it as a challenge—the less I have to work with, the better. Often in these situations, the expectations are low, which gives me the freedom to find my own angle and surprise everyone—especially myself—with what my editor calls a “good read.”
I decided that the most interesting way for me to approach the story would be to test the capabilities of the library’s computer data bases by doing a little background check on the Italian side of my family.
Now, I knew there were some, shall we say, associations between my great grandfather and some gentlemen I’d heard referenced as “Italian businessmen.” There was also the specter of “Uncle Icy” that has long loomed in the backdrop of family lore. The stories most commonly connect him with some sort of hijinks involving large amounts of cash stashed behind a loose brick in the fireplace.
But I must say even I must that even I was surprised by the ease at which a clear, crisp portrait of Mafioso developed like an old school Polaroid right before my very eyes.
According to 1930 census records, “The Family” apparently resided in several improbably assessed pieces of real estate in New Jersey, the highest price tag undoubtedly belonging to a property that's always been referenced as “the castle.”
During a time in which the rest of the Patterson county, NJ residents were paying rents of, say, $25 to $35 per month, my clan owned real estate valued well into the 5-digit bracket.
There were the familiar names of my grandfather and his siblings listed on the 1930 report, but beneath their names appeared a mysterious other head-of-household with whom I share a name….not my generically American married name, but my real, thoroughly Italian family name.
By all accounts, the man listed as the head of this other household was my pseudo-apocryphal Uncle Icy. The Genealogical Research staff may or may not have located a photograph of Icy. If the photo was, indeed, Uncle Icy, then it my duty to report that Icy was, well, hot.
All of which I find rather alarming, because the actual identity of Uncle Icy has always been shrouded in an air of mystery, not unlike the fabled “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame,-- although I doubt my peers will recall that historical entity, as the Watergate scandal is just one of the dozens of news stories I was prematurely exposed to in my preschool years.
At this point let me pause to insert a photo of my daughter with a member of the Genealogical Staff:
Note the bored look of disinterest.
“How do you always know I’m going to like your stories?” my daughter lamented in mock chagrin upon leaving the library.
We came home from the visit armed with reams of documents and more stories than we could pack into an entire Genealogical magazine, let only one paltry newspaper article. My husband logged on the home version of the library database we’d used. After a lost night of sleep and a grilled dinner compromised by neglect while he followed a hot lead on a great grandmother, he’s managed to compile an impressive amount of data for our collective family forest.
Meanwhile, with the genelogy feature safely put to bed, I've moved on to a feature story on a 70-year old lady who has been golfing the same course for 55 years. The uneasy panic at the idea of crafting a “good read” based on that scant data really has my juices flowing. I can’t wait to read it.
Which wasn’t quite as exciting as it sounds, but was still pretty interesting nonetheless.
My editor wanted an up-close-and-personal look into the activities of the Genealogical Society Library. This worried my daughter, since I announced that she’d be accompanying me on the investigation, and she didn’t think genealogical research held much in the way of promise either for her morning or my story.
I took this as a good sign, as most of my best stories begin this way. There’s some kind of ironic inverse relationship between the perceived potential of a lead and the story that results. I’ve come to take it as a challenge—the less I have to work with, the better. Often in these situations, the expectations are low, which gives me the freedom to find my own angle and surprise everyone—especially myself—with what my editor calls a “good read.”
I decided that the most interesting way for me to approach the story would be to test the capabilities of the library’s computer data bases by doing a little background check on the Italian side of my family.
Now, I knew there were some, shall we say, associations between my great grandfather and some gentlemen I’d heard referenced as “Italian businessmen.” There was also the specter of “Uncle Icy” that has long loomed in the backdrop of family lore. The stories most commonly connect him with some sort of hijinks involving large amounts of cash stashed behind a loose brick in the fireplace.
But I must say even I must that even I was surprised by the ease at which a clear, crisp portrait of Mafioso developed like an old school Polaroid right before my very eyes.
According to 1930 census records, “The Family” apparently resided in several improbably assessed pieces of real estate in New Jersey, the highest price tag undoubtedly belonging to a property that's always been referenced as “the castle.”
During a time in which the rest of the Patterson county, NJ residents were paying rents of, say, $25 to $35 per month, my clan owned real estate valued well into the 5-digit bracket.
There were the familiar names of my grandfather and his siblings listed on the 1930 report, but beneath their names appeared a mysterious other head-of-household with whom I share a name….not my generically American married name, but my real, thoroughly Italian family name.
By all accounts, the man listed as the head of this other household was my pseudo-apocryphal Uncle Icy. The Genealogical Research staff may or may not have located a photograph of Icy. If the photo was, indeed, Uncle Icy, then it my duty to report that Icy was, well, hot.
All of which I find rather alarming, because the actual identity of Uncle Icy has always been shrouded in an air of mystery, not unlike the fabled “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame,-- although I doubt my peers will recall that historical entity, as the Watergate scandal is just one of the dozens of news stories I was prematurely exposed to in my preschool years.
At this point let me pause to insert a photo of my daughter with a member of the Genealogical Staff:
Note the bored look of disinterest.
“How do you always know I’m going to like your stories?” my daughter lamented in mock chagrin upon leaving the library.
We came home from the visit armed with reams of documents and more stories than we could pack into an entire Genealogical magazine, let only one paltry newspaper article. My husband logged on the home version of the library database we’d used. After a lost night of sleep and a grilled dinner compromised by neglect while he followed a hot lead on a great grandmother, he’s managed to compile an impressive amount of data for our collective family forest.
Meanwhile, with the genelogy feature safely put to bed, I've moved on to a feature story on a 70-year old lady who has been golfing the same course for 55 years. The uneasy panic at the idea of crafting a “good read” based on that scant data really has my juices flowing. I can’t wait to read it.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Winter Girl
“What’s with the shrine?” my daughter asked as she came down into our sunroom and observed the gathered assemblage of Yankee paraphernalia one will witness throughout this post’s illustrations.She awaited a response with the same sort of vague wariness with which I’ve been regarded since what we’ll simply refer to as The Events in the Bronx last evening.
See, my relationship with the New York Yankees goes back to the baseball-card collecting, back-yard-pick-up-game days of my youth. These were the days when the Bronx was Burning and the Son of Sam commanded headlines. I remember it clearly, despite my tender, single-digit years, what with the constant news of murder and mayhem. I recall one afternoon in particular when my father went into the city to catch a game with a group of Sunday School students. I was certain that I wasn’t invited because of the strong likelihood that the party would meet their demise at the hands of the serial killer.
Nevertheless, I do have memories from other trips to Yankee stadium, during safer times, documented in blurry images from my 110 film camera. There’s Bucky Dent running past the dugout, Billy Martin in the middle of one of his famed temper tantrums, and some sort of a post-game scuffle outside the stadium.
According to the team checklist of the back of my 1979 NY Yankee team baseball card, I have—or at one time had—cards of the same year for Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Lou Piniella and the rest of the roster, save five. I’ll have to take a look for those cards.
I also have an entry in an embattled journal for August 2, 1979 which reads, simply, “Thurmon Monson dided today.” I remember that day.
Considering the thematic matter of yesterday’s post, I should point out that it would be a mistake to read too much into the title of today’s missive. My team’s unraveling has not sent me plummeting into a premature “winter.” I have no plans on emulating Hunter S. Thompson, the deeply troubled journalist who offed himself after the 2005 Super Bowl, unable to face the bleak specter of another icy off season.
Today’s title is actually a reference to Fever Pitch, a movie I shouldn’t like, on principal, due to its pro-Red Soxs-theme, but I do, because it’s great baseball. In the movie, Drew Barrymore’s character refers to Jimmy Fallon’s character as alternately “Summer Guy” or “Winter Guy” depending on whether or not it’s baseball season. She fell in love with the versatile and attentive Winter Guy, but was less impressed with the ultra-focused Summer Guy, whose attention was riveted to the historical events that went down during the 2004 post-season. You can hardly blame him—as I mentioned, it was great baseball.
Which brings me to the current state of things in New York, what with manager Joe Torre’s job on the skids for his failure to pilot the team into the second round of the play offs. Sure, it’s a let down—but really, when the options for evaluating the season are pass/fail with the World Series earning a pass and all else is failure, that’s a fail-proof recipe for disappointment. Sure, it’s been six years since a World Series appearance, and seven since a win, but what about the Indians, who haven’t made it since 1948? The sold out crowds, the dramatic come-from behind games, the season’s second half comeback—it was great baseball.
Problem is, I’m a lot more like George Steinbrenner than I’d like to admit. I set my standards so impossibly high, the only direction I can go is down. It doesn’t matter what area—grades, home life, writing—I’ll accept nothing short of superlatives. It’s perfect or it’s failure.
When I was a psychology student, I participated in an in-class exercise involving some type of evaluation of how real life compared to our standards. Mine didn’t. Essentially, I gave myself an “F”. Part of the assignment was figuring out how to fix the gap between where we were and where we wanted to be. I calculated, I mused, I grasped at straws—nothing seemed to fit. Frustrated, I told the professor that the only thing I could do was lower my standards. This was offered as an admission of failure, not as a viable option. The professor wrote in big, red pen, something to the effect that I’d better lower my standards or understand I’d die striving.
For a long, long time I didn’t understand what I heard as a lot of mixed messages. On one hand, we’re supposed to “give our all” on the other hand we’re supposed to know when something is ‘good enough.” How can anything be good enough if you know better is possible?
I’m getting it now, in little bits. You do the best you can with what you have in front of you, and you move on to the next thing. If all you ever do is one thing, ever, I guess you can take the time to make it perfect. But if you want to do many things in life, at some point you have to say, “this is as good as I can do with the time and resources I have now.” And you move on to tackle the next thing.
Of course, my fall break didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted. I had two months worth of activities and projects I wanted to cram into four days. But you know what, I did the important stuff. And now that baseball season is over, Winter Girl is going to have one less thing vying for her attention. School starts back again tomorrow. There are papers to write, and much more Don Quixote to read. Plus, there are all those unfinished projects. Winter Girl is on it.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Full Bloom in October
“Don’t forget those drum lessons.”
I said this in parting to the woman sitting next to me at the Wynton Marsalis concert I attended with my son a couple weeks back. I’ve discovered that a college ID is a gateway to free and cut-rate culture, particularly when your university has just erected a multi-zillion dollar arts center striving to put itself on the “national and international arts map.” But I digress. During intermission, I learned that the woman sitting next to me had always wanted to be a drummer—sadly, social conventions of her time were not on her side. Her high school band director turned her away, explaining that “girls can’t be drummers.”
Aghast, I suggested that it wasn’t too late, that it didn’t matter that high school was decades past, that she, in fact, was facing senior citizenship; her dream could—and should—still be realized.
I hope that lady went home and made some calls. I hope she’s poking around an instrument rental shop even as I type these words, selecting the perfect drum kit to sit in the middle of the garage her grand kids cleared out last weekend. I hope it goes down like that, because way too often, it simply doesn’t.
Way too often people hit the brakes on their development as soon as some randomly selected birthday or milestone rolls in and suddenly the shadows seem to lengthen and the crisp snap in the air is mistaken for a deep freeze that ushers in a state of stagnancy marked by could-haves and should-haves and what-ifs.
I know people that don’t like October—the month when our physical world takes on long shadows and a cold snap. These colorblind folks see autumn in shades of grim-reaper-grey, missing the red-hot message embedded in the warm tones of the earth to live with vibrancy and urgency.
My New York Yankees understand the need to live urgently in October, and, facing elimination, they finally woke up and played like it last night. I know baseball is just a game, and it’s just another October, that the Yankee organization, win or lose, will have other chances, other years. But not with these Yankees. Not with this group of players, most of whom are my age, many of whom may not be back for another season. This is the team I’ve cheered, the team whose ups and downs have so eerily mirrored my own over the past few seasons, the team who has so much going for them, but just can’t quite pull it together.
Facing elimination once again tonight, I hope they can pull off a historic October rally—a tale that will live long and large in Yankee lore. I hope these guys, in the Octobers of their own lives, can bask in World Series glory this once before they hand the team over to the younger, leaner boys of summer already nipping at their heels, ready for their own time in the sun.
I love October. I number myself among those who look forward to autumn, who embrace it. When you love autumn, it’s not because you don’t know that winter’s coming—you do. You feel it intensely, but you also recognize that some of the best days of the year are sandwiched between the calendar page with the pumpkins and the one with the crystalline void of the next season. You love it because you understand that a well spent autumn of harvesting and planting can make for a better winter and a better legacy.
The picture at the beginning of this post was taken in my back yard last week. In August, a couple of weeks after returning from the x-country trip, I began to lament that there would be no sunflowers this year. The back of the seed package suggests April planting. I’ve already learned that leads to a late-June bloom. As I’m usually away that week, I typically start my seeds in May or early June and get July or August flowers. So I already knew there was some wiggle room in the suggested planting schedule. I just didn't know how much.
This flower exists simply because I said to myself in mid-August--a full third of a year past the perscribed sowing season--what have I got to lose? and started some seeds. These flowers grew sturdy and strong and beautiful, simply because I gave them a chance. From now on, I plan to stagger my seedlings so I can have sunflowers blooming for several months each year.
So here’s to fall gardens and drum lessons at any season in life.
Here’s to Joe Torre and the boys from the Bronx.
Go Yankees.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Fall Break
Readers, I am basking in the delight of four and a half days with nothing more on my agenda than focusing on all the important things that have fallen through the cracks over six weeks of school. I'm going to shovel out my desk area, finish some art projects, and add some posts to my neglected blog. There's a backlog of topics I'm planning to write about here over the next few days. Expect pictures, pontifications and some thoughts that will hopefully make you smile and think. Although my fall posting schedule has become a shadow of the summer schedule to which you may have become accustomed, don't give up on me. I have no plans to let this forum become part of the flotsam and jetsam of my current post-school existence. We'll talk more soon.
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