13 Colors I Won't Paint My Bathroom in the Near Future

Thursday Thirteen #2

About three times a year, I wonder what it would be like to have bold colors on the walls of the house. Designers do it. All the time. So they say. (I don't even dream that audaciously, but I once painted a bathroom in bright teal. Granted, it was a teensy, tiny bathroom, but I think for bravery it counts.)
So if you had a bathroom that needed paint, would you try any of these big, bold colors with the names that required a full-time color inventing and naming professional to create? If you go online and visit painting centers, you can actually try their paint colors by applying them to a mock bathroom, complete with suggestions for agreeable second colors. I decided to scope it out. Hang on for a wild ride as we view bona fida paint swatches. Oh the joy of living dangerously!

I'll begin with a color close to my normal taste in rooms.
It's called Pinkish. Maybe because that's what it is.
It doesn't even merit the "blush" or "morning sky with
the sun coming up and reflecting on the clouds below
pink" label. Just Pinkish.

Now we get wild. Look at this one.
It's called Gutsy Grape.

















Note the subtle difference as the walls change
to Fabulous Grape.
















Then shift to a blue, but not just any old blue.
This one is called Rainstorm.
















Not that you'd want it to be too rainy in the bathroom.
Maybe we'd better check out a few greens.
Here's one called Pickle.

















And right beside it on the color chart is the color Dill.
Seems like we're scraping the bottom of the
name barrel for these.

















Of course neither of these measures up to the
lush green of Paradise. I'm afraid this one
is a little too lime for me, more like the color of
a serpent in paradise, or at least a lizard.
















Now for the opposite extreme.
Here's one called Smokehouse.
So why would you want a bathroom
painted in smokehouse?


















However if you like brown bathrooms check this one.
It's called Grounded. Probably after coffee--
you'd be surprised how many different browns
are named after coffee-- Java, or Kaffee, or Latte.
Well, I just imagine someone sitting in the bathroom
sulking because they've been grounded.


















Now this one is more like what one should
do in a bathroom. It's called Meditative.


















At least it's a quiet blue. Not like this one,
loftily called The Grand Canal, but certainly
not looking the color of any canal I've ever
seen, grand or not.

















This gold color is called Brittlebush. Yikes! If someone makes a smokehouse in here they'd better not be too meditative or they'll start a fire that neither rainstorm nor the grand canal will extinguish. And I fear they will be grounded, or at least in a pickle and expelled from Paradise with a pinkish posterior.



















So what's my absolutely most awful suggestion
for a bathroom color. This one.
It's appropriately called STOP. So I will.

Carina

On Mother’s Day she wrote a play for me, assigning parts to her brother and sister so they could borrow my video camera and act it out. It was full of pathos and moments of solemn reflection, as the three children dreamed of Moses and Joseph, and Samuel—all of whom were separated from their mothers at an early age. I don’t know if my younger two children fully understood the purpose behind this masterpiece of poignancy produced by their eleven-year-old sister, but it made a dramatic Mother’s Day present nonetheless.

My eldest daughter always wanted to be a journalist, to fearlessly oppose the evils of society and defend that which was good by blasting or commending with a shower of well-thought-out words. She promised me that she would never turn into a “teen-ager”—well, not one of those typical ones anyway—and she didn’t, surprisingly enough. She kept her head, and we remained friends throughout all those years that prove so difficult for some. One summer she worked as a volunteer apprentice at the Gunnison newspaper, and the next year she began college, declaring journalism as her major.

Then it happened. Even though her teachers encouraged her, and assured her that her name would make a catchy byline for editorials, she turned her back on the profession and began to seek another. Three things deterred her: first, she was instructed to write at the third-grade level, and that seemed like a galling retrogression; second, and more important, she was introduced to the “ethics of journalism” which bent the standards upon which her soul was anchored. To succeed in this world, she would have to give up precious values; the third troubling aspect was the realization that a true reporter must belong to the story first. By now, my daughter had met and married the man of her dreams, and she didn’t want to abandon him and any children they might have to be raised haphazardly while she dashed off for Beirut to impress the American public with her valor and/or disregard for personal safety. She graduated as an English major and left journalism untried. Perhaps she remembered Moses, or Samuel, or Joseph. I don’t know.

Today, Carina writes from home. She blogs, a major that hadn’t yet been invented when she attended college. Nobody makes her write at the third-grade level, but she sometimes willingly stoops even lower when making up marvelous stories for two-year-old Mim and three-year-old Zaya. She’s their Mom. She’s home. And I’m proud of her.

All Maestros Were Once Three Years Old

I'm going to try posting a video. (There's a first time for everything). If you are not amused by other people's three year old grandsons' pounding on the piano, don't even try this video. On the other hand, he is very cute. After the first pounding, he even settles down to what he considers real playing...well there is a kind of rhythm, and a little effort at dynamics, and a dramatic last note. His little sister accompanies on the organ. Only a grandmother would put up with this...or a mother. I don't think artistic tendencies should be stifled by people with over critical ears. Ha.


Of course I just noticed that all the cushions are off the couches in my living room and on the floor in that video. Ah well, if I had put them all back first I would have missed the moment. Youngsters are pretty impatient.

All Misty-Eyed

It's hazy outside this morning, with mist filling up the crannies and the ends of streets, just the sort of weather that makes me want to go walking--slipping quietly along in silent shoes, ignoring the shivers inherent with January dawns. I only made it as far as the end of the driveway before the damp chill hit my bones. In a somewhat dignified manner, I picked up the paper, as if that had been my original goal anyway, and ran back into the house. There. Enough exercise until the sun comes out. I stepped back into the warm house, and the mist filled all the spaces where I had been as if in silent territorial conquest.


Usually, I see the fog as friendly, but this morning it reminded me of my husband's eyesight, or lack of it. This week he went to the ophthalmologist to address a rapidly deteriorating vision in his left eye. He was told that he had a cataract centered over his pupil in that eye, and another one in the right eye which was not over the pupil yet, but was headed in that direction. They are of the fastest growing variety and chances are that he will not be able to see much at all by the end of this year. In another lifetime, those words would have been laden with hopelessness. Today, there is a cure. In a simple ten minute surgery they can replace the lens with a man-made one and voila! You see again! Clearly now!

There are a few complications, however. Around ten years ago, my husband had LASIK, a laser procedure which reshapes the cornea. Before that surgery, his vision was 20-800, which is pretty bad. The surgery was like a miracle for him. With great joy, he shed the heavy glasses and gained some peripheral vision. Now the eye doctor needs to see those old records so he can adjust the new lens. (I don't really understand why he can't just measure what's there.) The problem lies with obtaining records, because the doctor who did his previous surgery has lived in several places since--one being the penitentiary. No amount of phone calls has brought us closer to the records, doubtlessly archived somewhere inside a filing cabinet in an ex-secretary's musty basement.

So we wait. His eyes are getting cloudy. How much mist will pour in before the sun breaks through?

Thirteen Interesting Facts about Roads

(Both literal and figurative)


A road doesn’t take you anywhere. It leads.

All roads don’t lead to Rome.
Only the ones that lead to Rome do.
Some roads lead to Anchorage and others to Gotebo.
Don’t expect to take off on any old road and end up at Rome.

At a crossroad, you can’t take both ways. You have to decide.

If you don’t care where you are going,
it doesn’t really matter which road you take.

A detour is still part of the journey.
You might as well enjoy the sights along the way.

It’s hard to walk straight on a crooked path.

Crowded roads make for bigger pile-ups.

Where a road leads is more important than how well it is paved.

If you can’t tell if you are going uphill or down, look back.
See where you were yesterday.

If you make a wrong turn,
you may have to retrace your path
to the last place you knew you were right.

A companion makes the road seem shorter.

If you help clear the road as you travel,
others will find the way easier.

You may not be able to remove every rough place in the path
for those you love, but sometimes you can carry them.

Check for more Thursday Thirteen.

Keeping Up?

Alright, so I don’t always think ahead…actually I don’t always think. Period.

Today, one of the eighth-graders let it slip that we were having Frito chili pie for lunch. (He was trying to make sure the class realized they needed to get to lunch on time… not two or three minutes after the bell because the overbearing teacher would insist, as she always insisted, that they all be finished with work and silent before they were dismissed.) Now the thought of Frito chili pie was pleasant to me, but, for once, I decided to obey my better judgment and opt for a lower fat diet. After the little magpies left, I scrounged around in my corner cabinet and managed to find some pretzels left over from the last academic meet. That would do. I filled a paper cup with them, replenished my coffee cup, and settled down in front of my computer to do e-mail instead of lunch. It turns out that those pretzels were of the modern, intrepid variety—mustard covered; they tasted strangely of pickles. However, when one is absorbed in e-mails, she munches contentedly without taking note of it. She also drinks her cup of lukewarm almond-flavored coffee, not noticing the sloshing and the whooshing in her stomach. Suffice it to say, I remembered too late that mustard and warm water is an excellent emetic. (That’s what all the musty detective novels say, anyway, when the heroine is full of chagrin for having inadvertently gulped down nasty-tasting arsenic).

You will be proud of me. I kept my cool…and kept my lunch…stilled the roarings and rumblings of my stomach, and survived past the critical next two hours. Today, this blog ought to have been called: Keeping Down.

Thirteen Reasons Why I Love My Job

The curriculum I’m inspired by what I teach. All that stuff I have to do in preparation for class is the very material that lifts my own soul. Like an aerobics instructor benefits physically from leading the workout, I benefit spiritually from studying the Bible before and while I teach it. (Hey, maybe I should incorporate an exercise into each class opening time. That way I would be forced to exercise six times a day. Hmmm. Nah.)

Growth rather than disintegration It's like breaking the second law of thermodynamics every day. Energy doesn’t seem to follow a downhill pathway in the classroom. (Well. Most days it doesn’t)

Great Students If they stay until they graduate, I get to see them for six years.

Serendipitous little bursts of creativity Today there was a chess piece tower on the table when I came into class. Four rooks stacked up and topped by a king. (All right. I know that’s a little thing, but hey, it brings a smile.)

Caring co-workers Today I needed fishing line for hanging stars on my ceiling. Guess what, the chemistry teacher offered me fish line, thin wire, or twine. She didn’t even have to dig very deeply for them. Also, when I walk in early for teacher devotions, the room is already warm and smelling of coffee, thanks to Coach who faithfully prepares it each morning.

Teacher Devotions There is something very special about reading a scripture together and then praying for students. It gives “Teachers' lounge” a sacredness.

Sudden Seriousness When a student realizes something you are trying to teach, really gets it, there is a “wow” moment, hushed and glorious.

Sudden Silliness Alright, I realize that this is usually considered a downside to teaching, but if you are as silly as I am, you might just appreciate someone walking into class with a garland of lilac-edged lilies in his hair.

Good Bosses You never appreciate an easy-going principal and superintendent until you hear stories about the ones who burst into the classroom with the intention of embarrassing the teacher in front of the students because they: missed a meeting, didn’t make complete lesson plans, failed to get grades turned in on time, didn’t volunteer to keep the gate at the basketball game or______ you fill in the blank. I don’t have to put up with any of that…and it makes me smile. And then there is a school board that actually asks for teacher input. Imagine!

Understanding Staff It’s not everyone who sends twenty five students to the office to get their maps enlarged on the copy machine…one at a time…over three days, or sends twelve students without warning to fill the janitor’s sink with paper mache paste, or who forgets to put the attendance folder back on the door and leaves it hidden in a new place every day so the secretary has to sneak quietly into the room and find it, or loses yet another pay envelope.Yet they never complain…they don’t even roll their eyes at me.

Alumni They come back and give me hugs. Sometimes they bring me their children to teach, and that’s a high compliment.

Freedom I can wander around if I want to--pottering, I believe they call it. No, I don’t abandon the classroom, but several of my classes are trustworthy enough to behave when left alone for a few minutes…and that is saying volumes!

Food Our cafeteria is renowned--home-baked rolls, fresh frozen apricots. Almost every day, a student, be it on the intercom during opening or in class, remembers to pray for the cooks, that they will do a good job in food preparation. Food is pretty important to an eighth-grader. Come to think of it, it’s pretty important to me too. (Hence the need for incorporating exercises into my classroom routine. Hmmm. Nah.)

Lessons in Patience or Grading Papers in Class

I know there are various good reasons why we grade papers in class. The most important reason is the opportunity it opens for deep discussions. As we talk about what the correct answer should have been, and what the very close answer could have been, we are able to address a wide range of relevant topics. (And a side range of topics which are not relevant, but may be opportunely inserted.)

Right now we are doing a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book of Mark. My seventh and eighth graders are split into boys' class and girls' class. (Opposite P.E.) Now if you have never directed a group of junior high-aged youngsters grading papers, you probably won't appreciate how long it takes to grade even the simplest of answers.

This conversation actually occurred yesterday as we graded Mark, chapter eight.

Teacher: Are you all ready to grade?
Anna: Yes, I am, I think I am, Wait, I don’t think I got the right paper.
Teacher: Remember we are grading our own papers today?
Anna: But I didn’t trade…
Teacher: Do you have your own paper?
Anna: Yes
Teacher: Then grade that one.
Anna: But I don’t have a different colored pen.
Tosha: Here’s a purple one.
Anna: Well, but I…
Jenny: Here, I have a green one
Anna: Well, OK.
Teacher: Are you ready to Grade now?
Carrie: I am.
Lily: I am too.
Teacher: Read the first question please, Reagan.
Reagan: Why were the disciples concerned about the people who had been listening to Jesus?
Teacher: Ok, read the answer, Reagan.
Reagan: Ok, but I don’t think I have it right.
Teacher: That’s fine. Read it anyway.
Reagan: They thought the people were hungry?
Teacher: Yes, can you explain it more?
Reagan: Well, they hadn’t had anything to eat.
Teacher: How long had they been there?
Joanie: Mine says, “Three days.”
Teacher: True. So your answer should say either: The people had been without food for three days, or the people were hungry.
Lily: So what if you put both?
Teacher: Your answer would be right.
Robby: So if you only put one, you take off one half right?
Teacher: No. I said “either…or”.
Lily: You have to say “either, or”?
Teacher: No, you have to say they were hungry, or else you have to say they had been without food for three days. Either one is right.
Robby: I don’t get it. How many do I take off?
Katherine: So what if you didn’t mention how many days?
Teacher: Did you say the people were hungry?
Katherine: No.
Teacher: What did you say?
Katherine: I said the people had been listening to Jesus for a long time and they hadn’t had any food.
Teacher: Then that answer would be correct.
Anna: Ok, what about mine?
Teacher: What did you put?
Anna: The disciples were afraid the people would faint on the way home if they didn’t feed them.
Teacher: That, too, would be correct.
Robby: Wait. I didn’t say anything about them fainting?
Lily: Did they faint? I don't remember them fainting. Wait. What question are we on?
Reagan: I’m lost. I’m still on the first question.
Rebecca: So what if we put, “The people had been listening to Jesus for a long time. Many of them had not brought lunches, so they were feeling rather faint. The disciples were concerned that they might not make it home unless they fed them, but the disciples knew that they didn’t have enough money to feed them, even if a store was nearby, which it wasn’t.”
Teacher: Your answer would be correct.
Reagan. My answer isn’t that long. I just put that the people were hungry. I think she should get bonus points.
Lily: So we are supposed to give bonus points if the answer is long?
Teacher: No.
Robbie: So, pretty much anything we put is right? Right?
Teacher: Wrong. You have to put the right answer.
Lily: But you said that more than one answer could be right?
Teacher: Let’s read question two, Anna?
Anna: Yes?
Teacher: Would you read question two?
Anna: It’s not my turn to read. You skipped Tosha.
Tosha: It’s ok. I really don’t mind. She can read the question.
Teacher: Anna, read the question please.
Anna: How many loaves of bread and how many fish were the disciples able to find?
I put seven.
Teacher: Is that all you put?
Anna: Well, my Bible didn’t say how many fish. It just said “A few small fish”.
Teacher: Then that’s what you should have put. “A few” is how many.
Anna: Well no, it isn’t. It doesn’t say how many, see….I had the wrong translation.
Teacher: All the translations said the same thing: “a few”
Lily: I put seven and “a few”, but I didn’t say bread or fish. Is that ok?
Teacher: It’s fine.
Jenny: So If we don’t say they are small it’s ok?
Teacher: yes
Robbie: So if we only have “a few” we take off one half, right?
Teacher: Did you also put "seven loaves"?
Robbie: No
Teacher: Then take off one half.
Robbie: How many points is that?
Teacher: Just put “minus one half” beside the question.
Reona: Ok. I just found a pen. Could we repeat the first question please?

You get the point. Sometimes it takes the whole hour to grade and discuss thirty questions. They know that they will have the next set of questions to complete for tomorrow, and they realize that any not finished in class will need to be completed at home…and yet…somehow.

As an side note, if you get a chance to study the photos of the graded questions, you might chuckle at the difference between "boys' grading" and "girls' grading".

Unusual and Intriguing facts I found in the Bible.

I’m doing a read-through of the Bible again, and every now and then I run across something that makes me do a double-take, “Huh? I wonder why I didn’t remember that, or Wait? Why ever would they put that in, seeing how it doesn’t seem to contribute to the story? I decided to make a note of these interesting little tidbits every time I ran across one. I’m using a “Narrated Bible” which purports to put all the books in chronological order and sometimes that in itself lends itself to “ah” moments.

1. Moses and the elders saw the throne of God sitting on a sapphire sea—Exodus 24

2. What is the Book of wars? Exodus wars? It is mentioned in Numbers 21:14, 15

3. The angel of the Lord tells Balaam that he would have killed him if the donkey had not turned aside…but he mentions that he would have spared the donkey.

4. Mt. Hermon was once called Sirion. (It sounds like a name from a fantasy world. Or maybe a Japanese car...hmmm.)

5. The land taken by the Ammonites had once been inhabited by a race they called Zamzumites. ( I looked for a picture on Google images, but had no luck with Zamzumites.)

6. King Og was a Rephaite. His bed was made of iron, over 13 ft. long and 6 ft wide.

(He was not an original gangster and did not have a music group--at least I think not.)

7. Any man who hit his slave and blinded them in an eye or knocked out a tooth had to give the slave his freedom.
(Exodus 21)

8. An escaped slave who ran to Israel for sanctuary could not be extradited and handed over to his former master. (Deut. 23:15) All Israelite slaves had to be freed after (at most) six years;

they could not be sent out empty-handed.

9. Leviticus 19:32 says “Rise in the presence of the aged; show respect for the elderly.” (and I wondered where we got that, the standing as a sign of respect, I mean.)

10. Gideon’s servant had a name—Purah. (Judges 7) (Not a name I'd choose...but a name)

11. An inheritance was given in this order: son, daughter, brothers, father’s brothers, nearest relative.

12. The Levites were to receive 48 cities as their inheritance and 1500 feet out from the walls as pasture for their livestock.

13. This last one is really interesting to me. It involves the sacrifice that had to be made for the cleansing of leprosy.

After examination of one who declares that he is now clean, he must make a sacrifice: Take two live birds. One is killed over a bowl of water. The second is dipped into the blood of the first along with a piece of cedar wood, hyssop, and a scarlet yarn. (This is used to sprinkle the patient.) Then the second bird is set free.

It’s a crucifixion analogy: slain bird, cedar wood, hyssop, and the red stripe for healing.
The bird dies, then “flies free again”. His blood cleanses from sin. (leprosy)

I can't believe I never noticed these things before, and I'm sure I'll come up with more as I read along. I think the interesting "asides" are there because the Bible is more of a history than a series of carefully crafted "short stories" which have to have only relevant elements.

The Chubbiness Conspiracy

I've just discovered who the real culprit is in America's losing war against obesity. It's the restaurant food industry; that's who it is.

Last night after church, a group of us trooped innocently into an ambush at the Pizza Pit. We should have known. There were the seedy-looking agents all around, ushering us smilingly to a table, arranging our chairs with oh-so-much room between them, offering us first a glass of highly-overpriced soda with double the fizz, warding off the occasional sane voice that might be tempted to ask for "mere water" by the condescending look they gave as they listed the choices.

Now anybody can understand that a restaurant makes more money if each person at the table spends seven dollars on a sandwich instead of two dollars on a sandwich, so two-dollar sandwiches were not even on the menu; neither were two dollar pizza bits. No, all the entrees were expensive, but, to justify the price, they were also enormous. My "ham" (disguised as Mountain of Fire and Delectable Oceans of Cheese) sandwich rested majestically on a large bed of fluffy, yellow potato chips next to a pickle. Of course, nobody pays those kinds of prices and then throws away half the precious meal, and if the sandwich is drizzled with enough dressing to make the Sahara soggy, nobody is tempted to take it home in a doggy bag so they can eat it for breakfast the next morning. There is only one thing a diner can do---choke it down, barely pausing long enough to dig out all the hidden jalepenos, which, by the way, were not properly warned against in the menu. So I forced myself to eat it all...and I had to drink two large glasses of diet Pepsi to help the missed jalepenos down. Meanwhile, the juke box played loud songs full of beat so we customers would bounce in time to the song, and have the illusion that we were exercising.

On the way home I repented in ashes and bitter tears. I felt like a cross between Vesuvius and the Dead Sea. Hiccups assailed me, like subtle warnings of imminent tectonic plate shifts...and I couldn't believe I had actually paid good money for the privilege of gaining another five pounds. Woe is me!

Ah well. Alas. Now I'll have to pay an exorbitant price to use the health club to walk off the pounds. So what I'm wondering is this: Why doesn't the money I pay to the health club compel me to take advantage of my entire work-out like the money I paid for the wicked sandwich compelled me to finish it. Life is so confusing!

Oklahoma Red

The new picture in the header was taken from a snapshot (When it's a digital camera, do you still call it a snapshot?) uploaded by my daughter last June. That is not a river. That is the street in front of my house. There is a little gully opposite our street, and when unusually heavy rains come driving across Oklahoma, that gully can't all empty into its handy little tunnel at the corner, so it backs up and becomes a swiftly flowing lake. Fortunately, it stopped at my driveway, so our basement wasn't soaked, but the road was blocked off, and for a few hours we had water-front property. Bring out the fishing poles! Stuff my pack with trail-mix! Sing Mississippi float songs! Oh wait; it's Oklahoma. You can tell that by the color: murky, red water. No, I didn't mess up in the photo shop with "tint". That's really the color of water that has brushed by Oklahoma dirt.I tried to think of something deep and meaningful to say that would tie this all together. Alas. My brain is too preoccupied with trivial things. We have company coming for lunch, and I have a million little tasks to do. Somewhere this afternoon, a great thought may rain down upon me, and I might rush over here and edit the blog. But for now. No snappy ending. No moral lesson. You are stuck...go ahead, dip your toe in the Oklahoma red water of our street...er canal.

The Great Escape

Yesterday, while I was nibbling on a piece of cafeteria-style sausage pizza in the lunch room, I noticed one of our new eighth-graders as she stood in line. She was oblivious to the squeals and smells around her, the jostling for a spot two inches closer to the food, and the inane banter which inevitably rises from young humans forced to be still for more than a minute. Her eyes and all her being were absorbed in a book, and she seemed pushed along the queue, oblivious, alone with her adventure. It took me back...

...to a day when I was that girl in the line, holding my book, hardly daring to breathe, not eating even after I had set my tray on the table, because the danger was profound and nothing else mattered. The author was Francis Clifford and the book All Men are Lonely Now. My hero was a double agent, undeserving of any mercy, allied to the wrong side and worthy of scorn, fear, and retribution...and yet...I couldn't stand to see him discovered. For although I knew exactly what the author had done--made me love his main character before he showed me that fatal flaw--and although I resented him for having done that to me, an innocent reader only escaping from the overwhelming crush of high school triviality, I still couldn't help but pity the agent. He was a gentleman; he had a girl, and he treated her like any man treats his adoring beloved. Surely for her sake, he would defect. He would walk into that building and confess his double allegiance, and life would truly begin for the two of them. They would move to Tripoli or Managua and start a simple life of bliss. But it wasn't going that way. They were going to find him out. Right there, while I postponed eating the creamed peas and fish sticks. They were finding him out. It was like a blow to the stomach. I was shaking and I wanted to run for him, faster, over the fence....escape! escape! you beloved rat!

But I knew the guns were waiting, and I feared that his own beloved had set them on him. She too, it seemed, was an agent-- his nemesis--and all her love was a sacrifice to a just and righteous cause. If he discovered that, they wouldn't need a gun to silence him. Poor man. Poor, miserable, wrong-sided, creature.

I couldn't bear it. He needed an out. I gave it to him.

Slamming the book, I ate my cold peas in silence, and he turned around. He fought his way through the darkness, back to the dock, onto the ship to safety. He had escaped. And I, well I had been forced back into the light world of sophomore silliness, but I bore my punishment with a smile, convinced that I done the right thing in freeing a villain before the blind jaws of justice had snapped upon him.

That was thirty-five years ago. I own the book. It sits quietly on my bookshelf...still daring me to finish it.


This is an entry in Scribbit's Write-Away.

The Magic Hours

Early this morning I was pondering the "wee hours".

I know that on New Year's Day everybody but me stayed up until then, visiting friends or attending church group parties, talking and eating and playing crazy board games. (Well, some families get a little wilder than that, but in my family that's about as wild as it gets.) I guess the "wee hours" are those low-digit numbers like one or two, those peaceful times when nobody is awake to call and ask you to do something for them. (They don't call because they think you are sleeping like normal sane people should.)

In my case, they would be right. I feel like ten o'clock is only good for nestling down in bed with a good book or crossword puzzle, preparatory to falling asleep and quietly resting until the "wee hours" when my husband finally comes to bed, having watched TV in the silent house, fallen asleep a couple of times, and awakened with a crick in his neck, but bearing that great satisfaction of having reached the magic hours before he went to bed...no idle early-to-bed sleeper is he!

Now, I would change the meaning of "wee" hours. I'd call them the "oui" hours. Yes! For me, those wonderful hours begin a little before six in the morning. I'm up, dressed, sipping coffee...and it's so quiet in the house. I check my e-mail, read a daily devotional, look at the blogs of all those people who were inexplicably up during the darkness typing away, and then check my puzzle pirate's apothecary stall on Viridian to see if I need to put in a bid for more yarrow or elderberries. ( I know it sounds crazy, but it's too complicated to explain.) If someone commented on a picture of me on facebook, I dash over there and read it. Then I usually poke them. They don't know it, of course; they are still sleeping too. All this before anyone stirs at all...except possibly my married daughter. She usually calls around seven o'clock. It's a morning ritual. I answer the phone in the den while her father--my groggy husband--grabs the phone by the bed and tries to sound like he has been up for at least ten minutes. She tells him to hang up because she really wants to talk to me. He falls asleep again (though not quite as soundly), and I have a little breakfast chat about the state of the world and how it has changed now that my grandchildren are rearranging it. Ah, I love those magic hours.

Of course occasionally--more often than not, actually--my two college kids are home. They too have "wee hours". But they call them "wii" hours. Those can happen anytime...and often happen all the time...at least until the "new" wears off of their latest game.

Ah well, tomorrow I go back to work like a self-respecting human being. My magic hours will dwindle into minutes, but there's always something to anticipate. Tomorrow, it will be a cozy car trip with my three car pool riders all excited about school, and we will listen to Beethoven's First and Seventh Symphonies with the volume up high while the sun comes poking through the mists of morning.

Eight Years After I Thought the World Would End

Back in ancient times, say the seventies when life was all about high school and making it to the right classes in a row before the buzzer sounded, I never thought the world would last this long. I wondered whether I should marry, have children, and ever live in my own home.

Now I sit cozily in a parsonage--not my home, but good enough for one so temporarily visiting earth and better than I deserve. I've been married over thirty years, raised three children, held two grandchildren, and washed a lot of dishes.

I've watched the escalator of time under my feet as it carried me reluctantly into the future; sometimes it made me dizzy.

One thing I've learned is not to think, "Well, when this is over, I'll.....", or "I just wish I could finish this and get it out of the way," as if life will really start when the current problem is over. Living that way creates bubbles of unhappiness that have to be rushed to reach the "real life", but the escalator never stops, and every little bubble we detest takes up time, just like the bubbles we enjoy. So I'm trying to look for bliss during the most difficult of times. When I can't take any more of a stressful situation, I call my mother or my mother-in-law. I visit my sisters' facebook accounts and look at old pictures. I play a computer game or take a walk, creating a lovely moment to plunk down amidst the raging realities. And I open my eyes. What I mean by that is, I come out of my sightless world of worry, and notice the sun on little green shoots of wheat, the squirrels stealing pecans from the buckets on my back lawn, the shy smiles of friendly souls I encounter.

There is enough beauty in this world to heal a thousand uglies. And when we truly admire the beauty around us, it opens a door to God. We want to say thank you, and so we do, and in His greatness, our little bubbles of trouble fizzle back down to a reasonable size.

Ah well. It is a new year. I know it will be a great one. At least the escalator is going up.

From the Dust of the Earth

Her favorite gift from Mom and Dad was a little play dough factory. You put the bright dough into a squeezing machine and from the other end you could cut long ribbons and snakes of yellow, blue, white or red. She played for hours that Christmas at the dining room table under grandpa's watchful gaze, rolling the dough into balls and forming shapes of stuff. She was three years old.

Today my second daughter still plays with clay, hours and hours of it. Only now she is an art major at college, trying to find a profession that she fits rather than squeeze into the mold of other professions. It's not an easy proposition, and the term "starving artist" takes on new relevance when one is in the family. I can see her job application now:

"Do you like working with math?
"no"
with writing?
"no"
as a salesman?
"no"
greeter?
"absolutely not. I'm never cheerful. I hate talking on the phone, dressing up, and smiling--unless I want to smile--and then I certainly don't want to explain to anyone why I'm smiling."

All that to say, I think I'm seeing some real growth in my daughter's skills. When she began as an art major, she was years behind the others. She had not taken art since elementary school, and the few lessons she managed on the side were short-lived. Her term papers, however, were about her heroes: Thomas Gainsborough and Charles Dickens (who while he wasn't an artist gave descriptions as vivid as paintings). So she struggled through drawing drafts and piles of paintings, some fair, some fine, and some...well...finished.

This year, in her third year of pottery and her second year of sculpture, she produced an amazing likeness of one of her art student friends in a bust of clay garnished with triple layers of acrylic. His name is otherwise, but she calls him Des. He is gorgeous--I'm talking about the statue, not the guy (Hey, I don't even know the guy, but I did recognize him one day in the art lobby)-- from his long pony tail to the collar of his tunic-looking peasant shirt. Now certainly there will be a market for this skill. Aren't there hoards of people out there who wish to be immortalized and made to sit on a grand piano or on the shelf of a library?

I can see her now, not in a dusty fourth-floor corner of her shared studio in the old art building on campus, but in her own little messy studio, slaving away at creating men and women, not having to smile and nod, not bothering to answer the phone--or at least not politely--hiding that long signature on the back collar, beneath the pony tail.

Yes, that's my daughter, the artist....the one with clay on her shirt and paint all over her jeans.

Complete Systems Check

Several days ago a message began appearing on the dashboard of my little silver Buick. "Service Engine Soon" or something of that ilk. Since I had just spent way too much money having my heater repaired and getting the oil changed and all those car juices replenished, I was a little annoyed. After all, I give the car a bit of tweaking and it starts demanding more service! What's up with that? Anyway, I took it into the shop and they checked it. They reset the button (which means they turned it off...stilled its whining mouth...pulled the plug on its audacity). However, it left me a little jealous. Why can't we have a system like that? Just stick our finger in a socket and get a computer reading?

Oh doctor, I'd like to schedule a service visit for myself. Yes, I've got a few nagging lights, and no, I'm not ready for a new model yet. Could you just hook me up to a diagnostic machine and tell me what needs tweaking. Add a few vitamins and minerals and change my transmission fluid. It seems that those messages aren't getting to the brain as fast as they used to. I think you should lubricate the joints as well. Ah yes, and check the pressure. (That easy-to-use home machine keeps giving me readings that are higher than normal, and there is a lot of difference between the left and right arm pressure which can be a scary thing if you do all that medical internet research.) My valves are sticking and I need some engine coolant for all that steam.

Then, in a few minutes they could tell me exactly what was wrong and what I should fix, or they could turn the warning off and tell me it was just a false pain and I am good for another fifty thousand miles. It would sure beat emergency room expenses, cat scans, calcium scans, all those grams and graphs and oscopies...especially the oscopies.

Sigh.

Today I noticed that the message on the dashboard was lit again.
"Service Engine Soon," it said smugly.

Ah well. Nobody ever said we live in a perfect world, and if they did say it, they need an oscopy of the brain.

Strange White World That Has Such People In It

Yesterday I met my new sister-in-law, fresh from the sunny Philippines with flip-flops on her feet and I'm sorry for the loud bed set I gave her--maroon with magnolias all over it. She smiled and said thank you, but I wonder if she was really thinking: "Oh my goodness. How garishly shocking! How will I ever be able to sleep in the same room with that?"

She doesn't say much and I think we overwhelmed her with all our talking and singing and laughing. Mom says she watches and learns quickly. Good thing. She had never used a washer and dryer or a dishwasher, but after seeing once how to run them, she has done the laundry every day. Mom showed her how to make the tea (in the microwave) and she now runs in and does it as if she had been an American Southerner all her life.

We brought her mittens and scarves and hats and jackets for Christmas and she asked us all to choose a gift she had brought from Davao---adorable little purses and exotic new candy made of fruits we had never seen or heard of.

Mom enlisted her help with wrapping presents and the results were such that we all took cell phone pictures of the elaborate bows and folded wrapping paper. Maybe she should work in a flower shop or a gift store...that is when she's ready to work. She is certainly creative.

Some day, I'm sure, she will tell us how she felt this first Christmas in our cold winter world.
Right now, I'm remembering her eyes when I hugged her goodbye. Big, brave eyes. I asked her if they did a lot of hugging in the Philippines. She shook her head. Maybe she misunderstood me...or maybe she was just thinking, "Why does this plump, bouncy woman keep blanketing me with hugs as overwhelming as white magnolias on a maroon field?

Noodles

Tonight when I came into the house there was a pot of hot chicken noodles on the kitchen bar. Wonderful delight! No. My husband didn’t cook supper. His idea of cooking is a sack of Sonic sandwiches or a bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes, and I’m not unappreciative of that, mind you; he could be the kind of husband who insists upon my cooking supper at six—sharp. Of course that would mean no academic team practice and we would never make it to the area tournament and my team of brilliant young minds would …but back to the subject, the noodles. One of our parishioners had brought them by, somehow guessing that I’d soar into ecstasy. Have you ever been overwhelmed with unnatural kindness-- People rushing over to shed caring upon you so that you feel like a lizard in the sun? Well, that's Christmas around here. My students bring hot cocoa and little coffee singles and notes that sing affection. At church the cards and letters pile into my lap. The school board had a banquet for us and the superintendent's wife cooked breakfast for all the teachers this morning--coffee cake and quiche and frozen fruit cups. I just want to say sometimes: "Enough! You are being too nice! I will never, ever be able to do enough good to deserve it all. Don’t you know that I’ve been surly and grumpy and certainly not worth one raspberry of all this?” Yet they come with gifts and I decide to be worthier and I work harder and I love more and I give all I can. Not food. It’s a skill that eludes me. I can pray, and I can teach, and I can say, “That’s really splendid…you’ve put so much into this assignment,” and in the eyes of all my students I see sparkles. Those are my noodles I guess.

One of the seventh-grade girls tiptoed silently into my room at lunch today. She didn’t say a word, just walked over and gave me a smile and a hug. I read her mind. It said: “Glad you’re back. I missed you Friday while you were at the funeral. I know you missed me too. Sorry you were sad. Your friend is gone. But I’m here.”

More noodles. Who am I, God, to deserve such joy?

Let the Snow fall

This afternoon a delivery truck brought a replacement phone for our son, who had somehow broken his old one, and, since the week has been a dreary one for the church as well as for our own family, I was glad to open it and hear its cheerful ring tone.

Almost three weeks ago, on a Sunday evening that was cool and dark, yet fair somehow, we gathered in a warm family room, the bottom story of a recently renovated old milk barn out in the country, all the members of the church choir. We ate warm soup--home-baked bread, cheese, dessert--and we sang and sang, practicing the Christmas cantata. Our hosts, Ken and Carolyn, deacons of the church, were gracious, and we felt a peace that only comes when old friends meet...no strain of keeping up pretenses or small-chatting one's way through the coffee. As we arrived, Ken made sure nobody tripped on the little step at the entrance. "Watch that step there. Here, let me take your coat." It was a time to treasure, particularly in light of this week.

Last Sunday morning we awoke to drizzle. We knew that the weather was supposed to turn ugly later on, but thought little of it. There was not any ice yet. By the time I arrived at church, however, sleet was falling and the deacons were discussing whether to cancel services.

It happened quickly. First, David, a member of the worship team, slid on the ice as he left his front step to walk across the street for choir practice. Ken drove him to the hospital, and my husband, the pastor, accompanied them. After they delivered David into the care of the emergency room, while he sat in the vehicle, Ken began to feel faint. In the emergency room his blood pressure plummeted. The ambulance to the city took longer than usual because of the ice storm, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. Little by little we heard snatches of news--a three-centimeter tear in an aortic aneurism. He was conscious most of the day and was able to see all of his children and grandchildren and talk to them. Around eight-thirty that evening they decided to try a surgery, but offered little chance. We all knew the surgery would last four hours...so we waited...and nobody wanted the phone to ring.

But it did.

For the fourth time that day we called everybody in the church. People picked up their phones, hung them again, and their stooping shoulders told the news to their families. It was over.

Today we buried Ken. We followed him to the graveside and laid him into the arms of God. It was cold, rainy, and made easier by so many people hugging each other and wiping tears and sharing smiles as they remembered how this gracious giant of a man had lived a life that glorified God. And the church still smells of flowers.

"So what happened to this phone?" I asked my son, as I packed its mangled body into the mailing envelope for the return. "I don’t know," he replied, somewhat puzzled himself. "I had it in my hand when I heard the news about Brother Ken."

It's going to snow tonight. And peacefully the flakes will fall...softly.
I'm ready for the snow.