The Lazy Catholic Intellectual Starter Kit

I read a piece last week for the National Catholic Register on what every Catholic Library needs.  I looked at the list and thought about how those are good resources, but what does an ordinary time type of person in the Body of Christ need in their library, and thus it generated this piece:  The Catholic Lazy Intellectual Starter Kit.  Feel free to leave suggestions for my growing library and happy Amazon account.     ;)

Rewards

Today, I spent the day at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Usually, it's a tad difficult for me, because I dream of being at one of those pavilions, giving a talk on the process and writing itself.  However this past week, we ran crafts as we always do at the fair, and we were so busy painting faces, I never had a moment to even grow whistful....until after the festival ended.

Life gave me a small irony, I received my writing scores on the Praxis today.  Scoring a 190 ought to make me proud, but I'm wondering what I lost the ten points for in the scoring.  (A perfect score is 200).   Now I just have to study up for the English Exam and the Pedegogy Praxis in July.  I'm thinking maybe next week will slow up, after the 5K, but before exams.  Maybe.

Everyone hosting a booth, selling books is really showing to the world, their dreams.  Their supreme goal is to be on that podium, or even if they are on that podium, to move the hearts and minds of whoseover listens.  Writing, while a solo act, is done ultimately with the goal of reaching everyone, of somehow being something as close to universal as we can make it.

So all the authors trying to convince us to part with our ten, twelve or twenty dollars, they're really trying to get each of us to be willing to peer into their minds, their souls, and see if they enjoy what they see.  I didn't get to browse the stacks for new favorites. Instead, today I've painted 35 unicorns, 27 Spidermans and at least 1000 pokeballs on people's faces.

I did meet one author because his kid wanted a Bird of Paradise.  We talked books.  We talked about the fun of researching books and writing.  I wasn't on the podium, but I was still getting to talk with someone who loved what I loved about what we both loved.  It was a nice little moment inbetween the glitter and the paint brushes.  

Maybe one day, I'll get to tell people about it on a bigger scale than one on one.  It's a dream of mine, to have a place as an author.  But the greatest moment in the whole day came when a four year old girl made her way back to my table to give me a pink puppet she made with stars and flowers and hearts all around it, as a "Thank you" for her unicorn.  It was a podium moment and a treasure.  

It also meant, I'll be back next year, happily painting more faces.

Interview with The Written Word

Last night I filled in as a last minute guest for The Written Word on blogtalk radio.  You can click the link and hear me talk for about an hour if you would like.   --Enjoy this discussion on "What Mattered" to the Greeks and "What matters today" all while discussing my book and writing, my children and family.  

Hey! I'm Excited because That was Fun!

There's a saying, "Act like you've been there." I've never liked that phrase.  To me, acting as if what is extraordinary is a walk in the park is a joy robber of what makes life so much fun.  So I'm bouncing up in down in my head, delighted to tell you about my first ever podcast. 

Here's the link:

Eat Sleep Write.net

It's the premier round robin with Adam Scull (host), and Roy Griffis and me discussing and deconstructing historical fiction.  

I hope you enjoy it, that you let Adam know if you liked it, maybe check out Roy's book, By the Hands of Men, and if you're a writer, consider taking the podcast plunge.  It was a lot of fun and Adam does a great job of walking you through the process and asking interesting questions to keep the ideas flowing.  

I'm not acting like I've been there before.  I'm acting like that rocked, I want to go there again.

Things I'd Tell Myself Before I Started Writing

10. I wish you read everything you read with more than half a mind on finishing. 

9. Outline. It's okay to change the outline, but honestly, outline.

8.  Rewrite and surrender your heart. It doesn't matter if it is pure poetry if it doesn't fit or drags the plot. 

7.  Know how your character would get ready in the morning, what they would do first, what they would wear, what they would eat, what they would hate.  Also how they would get ready for bed, if you can go through the ordinary in character, you can place your character anywhere and let them behave in a consistent manner. 

6. Just because it's beautiful, doesn't mean it reads. 

5.  EDIT and REREAD YOU FOOL.

4. Research. No matter how much you've read, you're not an expert or a scholar, you're at best, a rookie who has made it through the first half of the season and knows just enough to be foolish but not know it. 

3.  Don't talk about the book or the scene until after you write it.

2.  Keep a book for reading and a notebook and pen for writing plus post-its on your person at all times.

1.  Write legibly.  Every time.  Even when you think you'll remember.  

7 Quick Takes

1.  Happy Birthday to Me.  It's been a good week, complete with a completely indulgent trip to the bookstore with 120$ in gift cards to run amok spending.  Ahhhh.  A brand new stack of books on the dresser to read.  I feel sooooo much better, I'll go work on reading the book I already started, The Life of Pi.   Then I can tackle Dad is Fat, The Writing Life, Elegance of a Hedgehog, the latest by Terry Pratchett and The Night Circus. 

2.  Prayers for a friend's child who isn't a child, but who suffered a horrible accident this week and today, will lose his leg as  a result.  This is a hard thing for anyone to face, so I ask for all of you to pray for this young man, his sister, his parents, his friends, as they help him through this trial that will affect the rest of his life.   The family has the gift of faith, and they need their friends, both known and unknown, to pray for his healing.

3.  Today, I heard a young man playing a Cello as we walked from the bookstore, it is like the difference between a loaf of French bread you buy in a supermarket, and a loaf you find waiting for you at a bakery.  We forget in this age of saturated stimulation, the beauty of clean clear notes that are simply themselves.  May have to go plink on the piano a bit.  Then I will be reminded that all art is hard until it is easy. 

4. My daughter came in from a walk, she'd caught a boxer turtle.  Thus I spent the morning explaining why we were not going to own a reptile. My son caught some fireflies.  We could not keep them either.  I may have to stop encouraging them to go outside. 

5.  She can't read, but she knows the important things.   I had fallen asleep reading on the couch that always makes anyone who lies down on it fall asleep. She woke me by placing a can of cake frosting on my chest and saying, "Mommy?  I like chocolate."   I have only myself to blame. 

6. Yesterday, to celebrate the 4th of July, I put on some Kate Smith.  Didn't know God Bless America was arranged by George Gershwin.  My younger children gathered around just to listen, they got that this was something special. 

7.  Then I hit them with John Phillips Sousa, and I had a pantomime band going for an hour while we fixed dinner, listening to She's a Grand Old Flag, Stars and Stripes and the Washington Post. 

We topped it with barbecue, fireworks, looking for fireflies and constellations.  All in all, a perfect 4th of July.  I'd thought about writing a post about what we need to consider, discuss, fight and address in this country, but the 4th is a day for counting our blessings, all the rest of it can be tabled for another day, not as a means of ignoring our problems, but as a recognition that we are still, the freest people in the world, with the greatest opportunity, and a proud tradition of overcoming even our own worst impulses after trials. 

7 Quick Takes

1. So I'm trying to read Blessings and the English major in me says keep plugging.  The immature part of me says, "Hey! You've got some Rick Riordan and the 9 Lives of a Girl and three other books just waiting over here like lost chocolate chip cookies. Why not skip the vegetables and live a little?  I'm resolved, I will finish this book before I get to dessert, or gain five pounds thinking about it. 

2. There's a cute little fluffy bunny that lives in our back yard. I thought it was cute when my cute little toddler called me over to watch it for what felt like eleventy thousand minutes as it chewed clover.  I thought she and it were adorable until I realized the little rodent had dug up a flower arrangement of ours to create a new home.  I banged on the window.  The rabbit hopped off. It needs to lay off our garden or I'll get real Mr. MacGregor type mean and catch the little bugger for my kids as a pet.  Of course then we'll be back to spending hours staring at the bunny.  Still, when she does that, it's melt your heart cute. 

3.  Today is the last day of Sister Sharon working at my children's school. She's been so much more than just a kids' principal, she's been a friend.  I told her she was part of the bones of the school now.   It is a brave thing to spend a year in prayer discerning God's will in your life.  Prayers for her year in sabbatical to be fruitful. 

4.  Yesterday, I wrote about zombies.  Today, my daughter showed me a short film that blew my mind.  It is proof that a luminous story can be made even in the odd genre of horror. 

5.  Entering the World of my son.

Yesterday, I went outside to check the garden. Normally I bring my keys but with all ten kids at home, I felt fine simply leaving to harvest some lettuce.  When I returned, the door was locked and no one was in sight.  I knocked and my 4 year old son Paul walked by. He saw me. He saw I wanted in and tried to open the door, but the deadbolt was on so he couldn't.  At this point, I was prepared to go around to the front and ring the bell but I saw my son walk to the doorway to the basement and call very loudly for his sisters. I could see him gesturing and talking, trying to convey in muted muddled language, "The door is locked. Come open the door. Mom is at the door." I heard all three conveyed as he called out for his sisters.  When neither came, he looked over at me worried, put his had out as if to reassure me, and ran to the room where his other siblings were watching television.  By this point, his oldest sister came up, explaining she had heard him and was coming, but Paul also returned with three siblings to get the door open.  I remain amazed by his determination and focus given the level of complexity of the situation he had to communicate. 

6.  And now, an immature grouse.

The package says Bacon.  Serving Size.  1 Slice. 
And all I can think is, "Are You Kidding ME??????"  

7.  It's my birthday...or it will be....

I turn 47 next week.  Blogging will probably be light if only from the cake coma.  Just an FYI. 

Living Out of an Age

I'm quite convinced that every generation of parents looks at the gauntlets their children face and think, "Man, I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that." 

Recently, there have been a spate of articles about the link between staying online and mental disorders including depression.   It makes sense. 

Reading about the study and knowing of the tendency to search with ever increasing dissatisfaction for the next "hit" so to speak of news, of humor, of sweetness and light and having to journey ever farther in between successes but searching with hyper vigilance for lost hours, I am reminded of the quote of Gollum about himself when possessed by the ring. 

"And we wept, Precious, we wept to be so alone. And we only wish to catch fish so juicy sweet. And we forgot the taste of bread... the sound of trees... the softness of the wind. We even forgot our own name. My Precious."

And I see that my children will have to cope with televisions and phones and computers everywhere, always, with no time where they cannot be reached, or select the people they wish to interact with, and avoid all else.   I see the ubiquitous overload of access to pornography, the endless capacity for perpetual stimulation with 24-7 cartoons, political diatribes, stupidity, drivel and all the noise noise noise noise noise and wonder, how will they run through this with the cannons to the left of them and cannons to the right? How do we seize back time in the age of the instant, when twitter rules our attention span?   

Yes I know there's an off button and we unplug the Internet every night.   But it's a culture that we are having to both adapt to, and learn how to swim upstream from, and that requires a lot of will.   Our world is supersaturated with the icons of technology. My 18 month old can operate the Ipad and she tries very hard to use the phone, the remotes and the computer. We have kindle and Wii and one daughter bought her own Xbox with her own money.  We have four computers when my son is home. 
Everyone knows the advice to set limits and explain the consequences, but the way of things often circumvents the practice of said limits, like the one hour screen time rule that gets trumped by an assignment requiring online assistance.  Today it is 106 degrees.  Inside is better, more comfortable, even beckoning.  It is so easy to practice vigilant sloth.  It's like turning on the TV rather than parenting.  Five minutes becomes an hour, becomes longer.   Because it's easy to drift with the current of cable.

So I'm trying to live outside of the age today.  I gave them markers and paper, and the baby, a huge cardboard box.   It's rather like exercise. I expect them to hate it at first.  But I'm betting they'll discover this is a bit more satisfying than a touch screen.  We'll see if I can make real reality trump virtual, even though the real comes with winning and losing, scraped knees and bee stings.  I'm going to start small though, Hey kids...this is a book.  I'm giving them blankets, books and an ice cream...outside. (I said I'd start small. I never said I'd fight fair).

Books I Haven't Read but Should

In David Lodge's book, "Changing Places" there is a game wherein the participants admit to not having read something which is considered de rigour.  In this contest of "Humiliations,"  the protagonist eventually confesses in his desire to win the game more than to consider the consequences of his admission (He's a professor at a university), that he has never read "Hamlet." 

As an English major in college, the list of what I haven't read has always exceeded the list I have and the "important" books I've avoided continue to nag like a to-do list that I actually want to do but often forget to get around to in the course of every day life.  That being said, here are ten books/works of literature I hope to get to in the next 12 months and admit I have yet to read:

10) A Tale of Two Cities  While I've read Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol and Our Mutual Friend, this one remains on my haven't got around to it list.

9) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer --I read Huck Finn and Roughing it and Connecticut Yankee but not this one. 

8) The Sound and The Fury. --Actually, I've read this but acknowledge when I did read it, I really really really struggled and didn't get it so I'm going to try again.

7) The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers   --never read them.

6)  Some books, you read and they stick. (For me, the Illiad, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, anything by Pope, Swift, O'Connor).  I read the Great Gatsby, but I was a freshman in college and don't remember squat.   Figured I'm due.

5) James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man --fuzzy memories from high school of this, nothing more.

4) War and Peace --this is why I don't have 12 books with one for each month, I know this will take a bit of doing.

3) Summa Theologica  --was given a glimpse into it back in college but only a glimpse.

2) Jane Eyre --I did drawings for friends for their assignments on this book when I was a sophomore though I never read the book. Must have sketched three red rooms in one lunch period. 

1) Titus Andronicus --why?  Because it's important to remember that even the greatest of writers wrote some major clunkers and so it's reassuring when one is stuck in the throws of writer's block to see that sometimes, not being able to write, might be better than writing something like this...based on what I've heard. 

If you'ld like to play along, link back to this post and list 10-12 books you think you should read but haven't and hope to get to in the next 12 months. --Now, time to hit the books.

The Boring Parts of the Book

With summer upon us, I am trying to remind my offspring that reading is a richer better and less likely to be disturbed by Mom means of passing the time.  Having taken two opposite children to the local Borders to garner a few new options, I had to pitch some tomes to get my 10 year old to acquiesce.  I had to set a limit on the 14 year old who would spend every last sou at a book store and finish all she bought before we got home. 

When we got home, I saw that my oldest had babysat and thus while all were accounted for, dinner loomed and dishes from lunch still needed doing.  I began my evening routine only to be interrupted by the call to change a diaper, settle a fight, plunge a toilet and reset the television code so they could watch Arthur.  Back to dinner, I received two requests to opt out and eat cereal instead and a reminder that I needed to make 24 muffins for the next day for one kid's breakfast party at her class.   I realized that my life was largely spent managing interruptions and plodding about the daily tasks that must be done to make any day run sooth.  I was the filler in between the action points of school or a game or test or birthday.  I was as my son called it, "the boring part of the book." when no actual climatic action is taking place but which get you to the big chapters.

You can't ascribe that sort of a comment to your life without pausing to wonder 1) should I be happy to manage being the seamless strand that allows everything to hold together? And if I'm not, 2) was the fact that I chaffed personally at being only the mortar and not the brick, only the page and not the words or only the words and not the action a sign of pride that was healthy or sinful?  and 3) What if I wanted to pop off the page too?  

The rest of the day, when there was the crazy tripple run where I had to drop child one off at her playoff game then return for the next child to get her to her class then double back to the first field to get the first child to then return for the second and all within a two hour span while putting back together a third child who was having a hard day, I thought I may not know how to sew but this motion I'm doing is stitching.  When the daughter who had been tucked in by her brother with a story and a sippy cup and prayers came down demanding to be put back to bed by me, again it was stitching.  In and out, up and down, putting into their lives the thread that held things together even if I felt frayed like I was falling apart.

My two oldest came to spend a few minutes visiting and they rubbed my shoulders in a conga line (it's part of the mandatory make Mom have fun rule of the house), and we were again, going in and out, back and forth and I could see the boring parts of the book that held it together in that moment.  And while I know I'll still want to star and still want to soar, I also know, all those boring parts of the book get you to the good parts and you won't appreciate the good parts if you skim over the rest.   So I've dusted off a few books for summer and I'm hoping this year, I can plow through them, because this time, I'll understand more how important the boring parts are to the whole story.

The Best Nest for the Littlest Reindeer

With my associative only memory and nine children, I live in perpetual awareness that I am forgetting something. Seldom do I discover what those little unanswered worries are.

Last week, I thought it might be that I'm still sweating over a library book, "The Best Nest" from when my oldest, now about to be 17, was 20 months old and I took him to a biblioteque in Houston. We moved shortly after the visit and the book was shipped up to Maryland where it promptly got lost in the one hundred and fifty thousand books that first time parents must buy for their child so as to ensure they won't become illiterate before the parents become broke. If I'd known I would have eight more kids, I might have paced myself a bit better on the book buying front but I doubt it. Moderation is also not a watchword in my brain.

Many years later, "The Best Nest" was unearthed when I began searching for an alternative to "The Littlest Reindeer," a book that had been donated to us and which my daughter had fallen in love with, but which I personally could not abide after the 15th night of reading the treacle melancholy of the crying reindeer. "The Best Nest" suddenly was in my hands, but what to do about it. "The book was long since replaced." I reasoned. The ten year fine at that point would be astronomical if I ponied up admission, and yet the book sat there like a scalding nag on my record. Even worse, the book had been checked out under my son's name.

Why did I think a 20 month old needed his own library card? I chalk it to first timer madness. But why did the library see fit to issue a right to check out books card to a 20 month old? Again, I subscribe to the, "Don't mess with the Momma there, she's a first timer." theory. Veteran Marion the Librarians know better than to tangle with the women with pristine strollers and matching diaper bags; they just nod and smile and think, "Schadenfreude when she gets to number three. She'll be grateful to have me check those books out with her Driver's license or phone number since the cards will have been long since lost in the wash."

I did the cowardly thing; I returned it with the other stack of books that needed to go back to the local library. Maybe they had a universal central processing unit based on the Dewey Decimal system that would scan said book and return it to its point of origin, hopefully without the capacity to access such archaic Windows 2.0 materials such that the actual responsible party would remain unknown. I could hope. That week, I expected the lost book to return to my home via the mail like a bad horror movie. But after a week, I stopped reaching into my mailbox with trepidation. It hadn't come back and seemed to have returned if not to its natural surrounding, an appropriate adoptive home.

Why did all this come up? My oldest is taking the SAT. He's looking at colleges and I'm wondering, if he goes to school in Houston, will the book police be out in force to get him? And which will cost more, the library fine or the first semester of tuition? As I sat at the computer looking over several emails from potential universities that I might have to rule out to prevent an investigation into my past or my son's, my husband called. "Hi Sher, don't forget, the kids have altar training tonight at seven." And sheer relief flooded my being. That's what I'd been forgetting all along, I had nothing to worry about, my son's future was secure at least, as far as libraries were concerned.

Then the doorbell rang. It was the mailman with a small flat package. I don't know what it is, but I'm dropping off "The Littlest Reindeer" as a donation at the local library as a safety precaution and then, I promise you I'm not opening it.

Lock Out

I didn’t intend to cause a screen free experience. I’d just meant to limit children’s exposure to television by locking every channel. I couldn't compete with the 27 channels we got using an antenea, so I knew cable and its 275 flavors of crude would be too much. "If you want to watch something, just ask." I explained.
"But you might say no." they wailed.
"Exactly."

“But Mommmmm….what are we going to do?” Pointing to the bin of unread library books brought howls of derision. “But that’s boring…..” they echoed like a Greek Chorus.

Now I have a stock pile of standard responses to that charge, usually involving the allocation of a dreaded chore. “There are socks to be folded, dishes to wash, floors to mop and carpets to vacuum.” I say to such words. Oddly enough, no one ever takes me up on my offer to fill their free time with valuable domestic duties.

So it came to pass that both remotes to the television got lost somewhere in the home. One child when so far as to remove all books from the floor in an attempt to locate the magic controllers that govern the two TV’s.

I’d also had my daughter create a password I didn’t know to my own computer so I wouldn’t spend too much time surfing the net or blogging, when I should be exercising, getting kids to do their summer projects, preparing meals and enjoying books during the unscheduled hours that define in my opinion, the best part of summer. I’d locked the kiddos out of the net free machine as well when a fight broke out over who could play Miss Spider or I Spy between the five, seven and three year old.

After an hour of unsolicited cleaning, the kids despaired of finding the controllers and resorted to old fashioned entertainment. THEY WENT OUTSIDE. Six children, ages 11-2 were playing zoo, coming in only to grab a cup of water. From 4-6, it was blissful. I cooked pancakes and bacon without worrying about people underfoot or resolving a single fight. The oldest two grabbed their respective assigned books and MP-3 players, plugged in and tuned out. By the end of the evening, two had practiced their musical instruments. Two others had done their math work books. Five had read to themselves and four had helped with sorting socks.

In the spirit of solidarity, I turned on the classical station and stayed off the computer even though my daughter logged me on that evening. Over dishes, the children were talking about what they would do tomorrow using legos and about playing capture the flag and maybe making a cake.

Don’t tell them but, I found the remotes. I’m keeping them an undisclosed location in my room until further notice.

Shopping Spree

I don't like shopping. The only actual purchasing I enjoy honestly, involves either books or food. I could spend every last penny on either. I love browsing the gourmet grocery store and the book store with equal lavish abandon.

Because my kids have music lessons in the evening, my husband is home with the littles. I can gallantly volunteer to bring the olders to the music store and spirit myself into another world for the thirty minutes. Sometimes I go to the upscale grocery and stare at the beautiful foods my kids won't eat. Other times I go to the Borders and pour over the new books and imagine my name there.

Then there is the ritual. At the grocery store, I examine the vegetables I've never cooked, chocolates I've yet to taste and fantasize about making a French Onion soup that taste just right or Stromboli on some Friday night just for fun, or artichokes with melted butter that I don't wind up just eating by myself for four days. It's fun to dream.

If I'm at the bookstore, a similar ritual plays out. I pick up at least three political books to read the back cover, a history or two in a fit of dutifulness, and then head to the area I really love.

It happened over time, my love of food and my love of books merged. I noticed it with the book Like Water for Chocolate, and again as I found the cook books I liked best, had stories sprinkled in them like extra ingredients. "The Frugal Gourmet," "The Texas Cookbook" and Don DeLouise's "Eat This, You'll Feel Better" all shared a common thread of tasty mental tidbits in addition to awesome chicken and pasta, deadly delicious smoked burgers and a sponge cake that my kids still ask for whenever I offer them the option.

So now I go to the cook book section and drool.

Over the years, I have amassed a collection of cookbooks that is roughly 50 strong, ten of which are so used that they either have lost a back or pages, or have been repurchased used, as they are out of print. As such, I tell myself, I don't need another cookbook.

For a while, I'd managed to justify getting new cookbooks by restricting my purchases to when we were out of town. If say, we were at a civil war battle field touring and the gift shop touted "Cookbook of the Civil War, Union and Confederate dishes," I'd buy it and say, "We can learn a lot from this about the lives and history of our country." But most of these type of cookbooks, if accurate, are largely filled with recipes more inedible than hard tack. Conversely, if they contained "Cajun Spiced Sushi" or other inventive meal offerings that wouldn't have been found within 100 years or 1000 miles of the historic site offering the book, I can't be bothered. As such, I had abandoned this excuse to buy new cooking tomes and allowed my collection to top out at 51 as of last year.

So when I ducked into the book store and was hit with the sales pitch for Julia Child's Joy of French Cooking as I'd picked up the book "Julie and Julia," it took all my mental will not to plink down the extra forty bucks and get the matched set. But the addictive/suggestive part of my mind had been triggered.

By the time the kids got back in the car, my brain was already firing on the gourmet experience I'd spring on my husband. There were mushrooms and potatoes and fresh cherry tomatoes and chives. The neurons were so busy making connections and plotting the whole meal they didn't register that the cell phone rang so my daughter picked it up.

Their father had treated the kids to some fast food and had some waiting for us at home.

"That's great." I murmured. The kids cheered in the car. My pseudo foodie rush crashed hard.

But I vowed silently, next week I'd be serving artichokes and everyone would be eating them. That, or I'm going back to get those two bonus Julia Child cookbooks.

Wasabi Awards of 2008

There perhaps is no greater minefield in the world than the relationship between a woman and a mother’s son. Mother-in-laws get a bad rap in television, in movies and in story books. The Evil step-mother, the Wicked Queen, it doesn’t matter where you turn, if there is a mother and a son and a third person enters the picture—a female, there is friction.

Nominees for the Wasabi-in-law of 2008 are as follows. For those who don't venture into the world of Sushi, it is a horseradish based garnish that has a sharp acrid taste and I presume is used to avoid tasting the rawness of the fish.



The following are snippets from various friends over the years who have given actual MIL stories that in many cases, were more intense than I describe. Living life that sharp seems neither real nor possible. In all cases, names have been changed to protect if not the innocent, the related.

Sue of Carol County, MD, MIL cut her picture out of a family shot of her and the kids in a photo album. “Where is my head?” Sue asked. MIL: “Well, it wasn’t a good shot of you…your eyes were red and you looked really tired.” Sue had been recovering from recent surgery. Finding the cut head in the wastebasket, they glue-sticked it back into place. No word on how the subsequent Easter Dinner went has been available.

Lisa of Oneida, New York, MIL sat down at the table at dinner. Food had been placed in a buffet style on the island. When Lisa brought her own plate to the table filled with food, MIL took the plate from her and proceeded to eat. When Lisa started to protest, MIL explained, “You were up.”

Kathy of Santa Clara, CA, MIL gave her a vacuum for Christmas. She also keeps a picture of her son’s ex on the mantle at her home and once sent a beautiful silver framed picture of her son and his former wife as a birthday present to her son. When asked about it, she said, “It’s a good picture of him. He looks so happy.”


There is still time to put in your nominee for the Wasabi Award for MIL. They’ll be collected and submitted to the Wordtree press to see if we can create a Your Chicken Soup isn’t as Good as Mom’s type book for the Soul.

I will conceed that one day, God willing, people will want to marry my offspring. I fully expect to be a nominee in at least three if not five of the subsequent award years following nuptials. If not, clearly I am falling down on the job.

*Author’s Disclaimer: My mother-in-law is wonderful. She adores our children, she’s nice to me and in no way inspired any of this post. My husband says my Mom rocks too!

To Blog or Not to Blog

If blogs are this new century’s version of the old fashioned diary, I will stick to the ludite version of things for one very distinct reason. I can destroy the evidence. When my family moved this past February, a seismic shifting of books from their old dusty book shelves to built-in bookcases that have yet to suffer from neglect took place. Ultimately, the move resulted in the discovery of some long abandoned journals; mine.

These private tomes have jumps that can be measured in eons of life experience: newly engaged, a color sketch of the ring is provided. Next entry: Newly married, most every sentence is exclamatory! Several practice signatures of new full name with various flourishes are also available for viewing. I winced at my own over the top enthusiasm, it all seemed so superflous and high schooly. Next entry: Moved to new city, working a new job, pregnant. Multiple pages detailed my neurotic worrying about being pregnant and then nothing. Next entry was placed strategicly in the middle of the journal to indicate a desperately crazy notion of filling in the unwritten pages and back dating them.

By my best estimation, that next entry was two babies later and focused on weight. One entry on the next page is recorded half a year later and talks about taking up guitar. (I took about six lessons in the summer). Next entry: A New Year’s Resolution. Three days of vapid entrees in a row chronicling the fact that I went to the gym. Four years later, “Just found this! Lost 2 pounds!” chronicled with explanation points. One year later, “just found this. Gained fifteen.” no explanations given.

I could have tolerated most of my children eventually finding this, and then there was a poem; a really bad poem; a what-was-I-thinking-kind-of-shoot-me-now poem. Another lost journal holds thoughts from when I was dating my now husband of nineteen years. It also has my high school locker code and a long screed about how unfair it was to have to sell candy bars during lunch on the Friday of Homecoming. I have secured both items in the laundry basket that holds socks, certain they will remain undisturbed by any of my children for at least three decades, by which time I should have gotten around to having a good book burning.

Part of the reason for the writes-like-she-drives-a-stick-shift style entrees was the dawn of computer use in my daily life. The journal would move from room to room, meaning sometimes I’d forget where I left it. The computer could not move, so it became an easy place to pour out the thoughts of the day. I liked writing a daily log just for myself as a teacher; I even printed it up for the next day, to remind myself of what had worked or not the day before.

The journals would occasionally turn up like an old friend from out of town, but the computer became a cozier companion for my personal memories and ideas. These were the days of a more innocent time of the internet, before I discovered that Emails and blogs and computer journals never die. They are stored somewhere, even if you turn the ancient monitor into a fish tank and strip the old computer for parts; some teckie somewhere like my brother can wire it, juice the sucker and discover every rough draft of a thought ever written. At this point, there are three old computers, not counting the Texas Instruments one we had when I was a kid, holding enough intellectual compost from my past to make the five o’clock news or at least the Drudge Report if I ever run for elected office.

The crinkled pages of my old books do not illustrate every nuanced thought that popped into my brain. There was something of a natural editing process, I wrote when I needed to write. I had to find the book. I had to find the pen. I scratched out stuff. I edited my own work. It was private. Blogs on the other hand, while infinitely editable, are also retrievable. Do I really want my children to know how innane I could be? No. If they were going to think I was stupid, it would have to come from their own memories and not my memoirs!

When I proposed the diaries be destroyed, objections were raised.

One day in the far off future, my children could happen upon the uncensored unplugged thoughts of their mother in her youth and find solace. I considered this possibity, that some child that felt estranged in life will find sympatico feelings with me post mortem through my own words. It could happen but I doubt it. The journals are more likely to confirm to even the most gentle and loving offspring of mine that their mother wrote in a Jackson Pollack style at best, and made a gulash casserole journal of her life most of the time. Plus it seems all she ever wrote about was how much weight she either gained or lost.

I've decided I would prefer their memory of their mother in the edited and in some cases, even mythic version. In the mean time, I’ve started a new hand written journal. I’m keeping it in the computer room in the sock basket, just in case.

Joining the Gamers' Club

What we don’t know innately, we marry.

For example, my husband has a built in GPS in his head. He can tell North on a starless night without a compass or those pesky Auroras Borealis. On the other hand, I still navigate the town that has been our home for thirteen years with mild trepidation. There is a Bermuda Triangle within its radius that plagues me still to this day. The directions for getting to the Victory Center where our daughters play basketball have imprinted on my brain such that I cannot get there….without getting lost first. I have come to terms with my faulty brain. I don’t take them to games anymore.

I dance, love musical theatre and enjoy reading the classics. He reads history for pleasure and can remember it without a test the next day. In other words, ask me if you’re playing Trivial Pursuit for the brown or the pink slice of pie, ask him if you need the history one. I don’t even remember what color that pie piece is.

Where are my…?

During our dating years, I marveled at how organized and put together my future spouse was. He never lost anything. I lost my purse and found it later the second night we met. My I.D. card fell out of my pocket in December. When the snow finally melted that semester in April, I found it again.


I have learned to look in the place where things ought to be first when beginning a mission to retrieve lost objects. Cue Mission Impossible music here. I am now the GPS for all items within the household.

"I can't find my music stand."

"It's next to the computer in the study."

"We don't have lunch boxes!"

"They're still out in the car where you left them."

“Where are my papers from yesterday?”

“They’re on the table under the lunchbox in the kitchen.”

Actually, I’m more like the brown paper envelope in the middle of the Clue Game. I have the answers, I just need the right question.

Scrabble, Upwards and On Words…

We play cards and strategy computer games and every board game there is in our house. My husband is the master of the set battle plan, thus he usually wins at hearts and always at “Go.” My method of play is more on the fly, I school him at chess and occasionally have a run of victories at cards. Where we both are evenly matched is Scrabble. He can plink down amazing words.

Because I’m a non-speller, my victories have been mostly moral ones, but there was one where I put down the “J” on a triple letter score to catapult to the lead, forming the word “Jo.” “That’s not a word. I challenge.” It was a bluff, but I lucked out. It means sweetheart. I tried calling him that for a time, it didn’t stick. It’s a stupid word and even I concede, I won, but with dishonor. (You have to say that last part with a Klingon accent).

Speaking of Klingons,

If anyone in cyber space has Quest for the Throne, the Klingon version of Star Fleet Battles (STB), I’ll buy it from you. Back in my sophomore year of college, he bought the game to teach me about STB quickly and I was undefeated in seven tries despite being an absolute rookie. Then the game vanished mysteriously. He promises he didn’t throw it away.

Gifts and Gift Giving

November 15, 1992 A day that remains pivotal in my spousal relationship. No, it’s not our anniversary or the anniversary of an anniversary or anyone’s birthday. It’s the day we stopped being newlyweds and became a “settled” couple. My husband came home and saw me putting away some shirts from the drycleaners. After dinner, he gave me a pensive gaze and said with recognition in his voice, “You don’t iron for me anymore.” I laughed.

December 20, 1997 We were wrapping up the last of the loot when it occurred to me I hadn’t bought my beloved a present. Expecting a baby, I could have punted and just allotted the oversight to pregnancy hormones. My admittedly feeble attempt to rectify the situation was worthy of spousal scorn, but he’s a very gallant man. My folks were in town for the holidays and I had purchased several books. Having overheard my mom talk about having read one of the books I had bought for her, I regifted on the spot. The problem was, he knew about that book in particular and the fact that it was originally intended for my mom. The inscription on the inside says it all. “I was thinking of you as I wrapped this book, Love S.”

The other day, my husband called me about a sign he saw talking about giving your wife a rock to remember. “How about some quartz?” he offered. “Wow. That would be great!” He showed up with what I estimate to be a 90 lb. boulder that looks very nice in our back yard. The sparkly earrings came later. I countered by getting him something I swore when we dated I’d never do, some practical gifts, fresh pants and socks. Then, feeling bad, I impulsively bought him a beautiful red blanket, and “The Man of LaMancha.”

Romance may be about getting hearts and flowers but love isn’t about getting what you want. It’s getting what you most profoundly need, even if it’s to be told to shape up. We’ve both demanded that the other become more of the person God intended us to be over the years. We diet and budget and struggle with organizational systems to manage our many charges together. He’s learned to bring chocolate on any occasion and how to dance, and I’ve discovered the History section at the book store under his tutelage. I’ve introduced him to musicals and classic film and he’s taken us to civil war battle grounds and explained the campaigns. He’s even navigated me over the phone to the basketball center. And together, we’re a tough match in cards or Trivial Pursuit.

Think I may buy an ironing board, just to surprise him.