Ideal Idyll

This summer.  Man.  While it hasn't been terrible, it has been chock-full of unexpected events and happenings.  For someone like me, who appreciates spontaneity provided there's been ample warning given, this has been a little stressful.

This week, however, all the members of our family are back at home, where we belong, where we should stay, forever and ever, amen.

With that in mind, you will understand why low-key summers are my love language.  Definition of low-key:


Having your dad assist you in your dreams toward superhero-dom:

Neither Adelaide nor Atticus could execute that Superman pose; both are way too gangly and leggy anymore.  My mom recently commented on the excess of limbs they're both sporting these days; I told her it was like living with spiders.  Caedmon's still compact enough- not to mention strangely strong- to make this look easy.

Bubbles are the definition of low-key.

How to know you've kept your kids' entertainment expectations nice and low, where they belong:  They lose their minds when you bust out surprise packs of cheap bubbles.  You'd think I'd announced we were going to Disneyland.

Bubbles:  The most exciting thing to happen to him all day.

Really, this is almost sad.

We've also been doing things like playing in the rain and playing with Legos and running and reading, not to mention my continued quest toward the title of Heartless Dictator (actual words spoken by one of our children) in the form of daily chore lists.  Atticus likes to get his list first thing every day, so he can get it done right away and have the rest of the day to spend as he pleases.  Adelaide does hers relatively quickly (with some choice muttering here and there, depending on the chore); Caedmon whines and procrastinates and plays the devastated victim until it becomes clear I'm about to lose it.

Ah, summer.

Being Misled, Being on the News, and Being a Reader: A List

• As usual, I relied on google maps to provide pre-trip directions to the church where my grandma's funeral was held, which was lovely, by the way.  Now, even before I typed it in, I was prepared for the fact that google may not be aware of the tiny church in the tiny town that was our destination, but what I did not expect was that google would not only refuse to tell me just how the heck I was supposed to get to Moran Baptist Church, it would continue to insist that Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka was where I wanted to go.  Gosh, google, thanks so much, but no, I do NOT want to go to Westboro Baptist Church.  I mean, not only do I have zero picketing signs prepared, I seem to have misplaced my utterly incomprehensible hatred in the name of Jesus.  

• I did a local news interview today because we have a son named Atticus.  Derek is wonderful on camera:  Self-possessed, well-spoken, natural.  I am weird.  My voice gets even more nasal than usual, I stare off pensively into the distance, unable to make eye contact as if my home is somewhere on the autism spectrum, and vocabulary normally available for use by my brain takes flight.  Strangely, I'm not nervous or anxious in front of a camera, but those on the other end- you know, the professionals- probably wince enough to give themselves premature crow's feet.  If I'm capable of watching the segment at all, it will be the way my sister Steph used to watch anything remotely scary:  thumbs plugging her ears, fingers covering her eyes.  

• Ask and ye shall receive:

If the remotest piece of you enjoys the Fantasy genre, this is for you.  A strong heroine overcoming adversity, an evil queen, magic necklaces:  It's like a Disney princess story for grown-up girls with functioning brains.  Thank you, The Queen of the Tearling and Alif the Unseen for breaking the mediocre book enchantment under which I was captive.

Elevation Change

Sometimes, the only thing to do after receiving a piece of sad news is to keep busy.  So you clean and clean and clean, all morning, and this is satisfying in the middle and throughout the process, and for right around ten seconds afterward you look around with some level of contentment.

Contentment quickly begins to wane, however, and you travel swiftly from, "My house is clean!" to "My house is clean and my grandma is dead."

This feeling is also short-lived, however, which is fine because you long ago decided that your mood swings are not a sin, especially when you're not forcing anyone on the swing with you.  This up-and-down is largely internal, and pretty well managed by dedicated daily exercise.  So, fine.  Back up we go, because yes, your grandma is dead, but how many people get thirty-two years with a beloved great-grandmother?  And your kids- man, how many get to know a great-great-grandparent?  This is lavish, superfluous blessing, so many decades being so loved by a woman such as Helen Stewart.

Who is now dead.  Back down we go.

But, hang on!  Grandma was 96.  Ninety-six!  She'd lived independently for all but her last few months of life, and these last few years, as her eyesight continued to deteriorate, she'd spoken of how she missed reading and sewing and the faces of her family.  She doesn't have to worry about that anymore!  We'll see her again!  Up and up and up!

But now my family is sad, and my sisters are sad, and that makes me sad.  Down.

The only thing to be done for it is to go outside, look at my flowers, pick the first of my newly-ripened Pink Lady tomatoes, make myself a thick BLT for lunch, and tell our children I love them, because if I learned anything from Grandma, it's that there is no such thing as too many times when it comes to "I love you."  If you want to be like Grandma- and in this case, you do- you won't just say it when you're leaving or hanging up the phone, but as soon as they walk in the door, in any and every lull in conversation.  And you'll say it to all the children, all the grandchildren, all the great- and great-great grandchildren, biological, adopted, married into the family, whatever, because she knew that love is no place to practice scarcity economics.

And back up again, where Grandma is.

A Measured Response

Earlier today, as I was cleaning out a cupboard, making yet another pile for Goodwill, Adelaide looked around and dropped this bomb:  "You know, what we need to get rid of are a whole bunch of these books."

I don't really recall what my response to this was, exactly.  There was definitely sputtering.  Indignation in spades.  My arms may have cartwheeled around my body as my psyche received this unexpected blow.

I eventually collected and calmed myself enough to bellow, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'WE NEED TO GET RID OF THESE BOOKS?'  I realize that parenting styles are more difficult to categorize than most self-help books would have you believe, but I'm quite sure my own could easily be defined as "Grace under pressure."  Obviously.

After that I yelled a few more things, Adelaide rolled her eyes, I gesticulated wildly at a Jane Austen here, a Jane Austen there, Daughter asked, "Is that the monkey lady?"  I snaked my fingers into my hair and tugged, hard, and through my teeth informed her that "You're thinking of Jane Goodall, DARLING."  Then I got a grip and plucked a book off the shelf, placing it in her heathen hands.

By pure happenstance the title I had handed her was Etiquette Every Child Should Know.  I've talked about it before, but this was Adelaide's first foray into the world of 1930's expected manners, and she proceeded to spend the following hour reading me the parts she found most entertaining:

"'There's the napkin, which has definite rules for furling and unfurling, and which is a necessity, not a stumbling block.'"

"'In using the napkin, do not scrub your lips with it but touch it lightly to your lips.  Always use the napkin in this way before taking a drink from a glass.'"  

"'Sad experience on trains makes one realize that the great mass of American travelers are constitutionally opposed to fresh air.'"


She derived such enjoyment from this random book I assumed she had realized the error of her ways and repented, but when I asked, "So, Adelaide:  Did Etiquette Every Child Should Know change your mind?  Do you see now why we have all these books, do you see that each one contains something useful and interesting?" her sad reply was "Not really," at which point I attempted to wrestle her into the Goodwill pile, because priorities:  I have them.

Bison bison, Broken broken

In addition to friendly, our local auto repair place is speedy, and got the van back to us with a new hood and new windshield on Friday, a mere four days post-trauma.  Somehow they managed to find a used hood that was the same color as the rest of our van, which was super helpful, as we requested they just get the thing drive-able, not necessarily pretty or perfect which was probably a relief to the mechanics as they are not miracle workers.

When I picked it up one of the mechanics assured me that the van will probably continue to run for quite some time, as "the engines on those things generally run forever; people just stop driving them because everything else falls apart."

What's that, Sir Mechanic?  "Everything else falls apart"?  You don't mean things like:

• The driver's side door handle half broken, thisclose to coming completely off,

• One of the outer sliding door handles coming off in the hand of a passenger who dared to attempt opening the door,

• The power doors being inoperable,

• The manual button you use to open the inside of one of the sliding doors sticking nearly every time you use it, often having to be pried out with a key,

• The volume knob slicing itself cleanly in two and half of it falling off,

• The handle of the back hatch no longer working, making it so we can't open the back door,

• A hole in the exhaust system making the van so loud our neighbors must surely think Sturgis has relocated to our town when we're still a block away,

• The two back automatic windows that are supposed to open a bit for ventilation no longer working, 

• The heat no longer working in the middle or back rows,

• The two black pieces of rubber on either side of the windshield coming loose and flapping like the wings of an irate goose anytime we're on the highway,

• The turn signals and hazards abruptly going on strike- they did fix those at the shop, as they're the tiniest bit important.

I'd say the maniacal laughter that threatened to erupt from me at his words was entirely warranted.  

A Weekend List

• I ran in my first 5k on Saturday.  I'm beginning to see why everyone was all, "Um, you might want to try a shorter race first," when I was training for the Des Moines Half Marathon last year, because being done by 8:30 a.m. was pretty dang awesome.  I also appreciated the lack of crazy nerves- hey, I can do anything for three miles, right?- and the fact that the shorter distance and less stress meant less asthma anxiety.  Plus I got second in the Female 30-39 category, which in my world means all the chocolate milk I want.

CHOCOLATE MIIIIIIILK

• Derek and I were reunited with the children Saturday morning after they spent most of the week at the grandparents.  I spent the time they were gone doing exciting things like shampooing the carpets and cleaning out filters (washing machine, vacuum, etc- I find cleaning filters to be strangely satisfying) and attacking the bathroom with six consecutive magic erasers.  I'm expecting a certificate in the mail any day now that will state something like "ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL UNLOCKED:  ADULTHOOD."  The rest of the time I was reading and running and gardening because I think we all know what happens if you're all work and no play.  

• I read this book:  
  

Let's say you're a professor of Shakespeare at an Indiana university.  You have a busy workload on campus and the pressure of achieving tenure is constantly at the back of your mind.

Do you:

A) Work feverishly to publish something, anything, achieving that tenure and finally finding job security

B)  Make sure to cultivate your interests outside of work so that your brain doesn't melt in your skull and ooze out your ears

C)  Drive many miles each way to volunteer at a prison, offering to teach inmates, many of whom couldn't care less, many of whom are dangerous, all about a guy who wrote a bunch of plays 400 years ago.

If you chose A or B, then congratulations!  I hereby offer you this Certificate of Sanity, to be shown to your spouse/friends/coworkers at appropriate times.  (Oh, you'll know when.)

If you chose C, you can only be Dr. Laura Bates, and I don't understand you.

Now, don't get me wrong:  I enjoyed this book very much- three cheers for librarians who recommend books you wouldn't otherwise even touch!- and I admire the work Dr. Bates has done immensely- but I can't imagine turning to Derek one Friday evening and saying, "You know what?  Let's forget Midsomer Murders tonight and drive to our local friendly SuperMax prison and hang out with convicts.  It'll be SuperFun!"  

Then again, if God sent me a vision that said, "Hey, you!  I know this whole visiting-a-prison thing seems crazy, but not only will you find a group of men there that connect to the works of Shakespeare in a meaningful way, I made this one guy who will provide more insight into Shakespeare's stories than most scholars relying on previously published studies and critiques, and who will use the intensive, multi-year study of Shakespeare to intensely reflect on his own mistakes and decision-making process, and will in turn pour into the lives of the prison population around him, asking them hard questions begging careful introspection that could certainly change lives, the way it changed his.  Oh, and remember that one guy?  Jesus?  [Proof God is smarter than me:  He only had one son, and therefore cannot constantly mix up their names the way I do.  Plus every single other thing He does.]  This is exactly the kind of thing Jesus would do.  GET OFF THE COUCH."  If He did that?  Then I would first:  Examine my own Certificate of Sanity, and second:  Get off the couch, the way Laura Bates did.

All that to say:  You should really read this book.

Two Books

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

Remember how I was recently whining about how I just couldn't find any good books, the kind of good that makes you stay up too late and turn your to-do list over so it's not staring you in the face as you ignore it in favor of obsessive reading?

This book is that kind of good.

Alif is a gifted computer hacker living in a rigidly controlled state in the middle east that looks down on things like computer hacking.  His character starts the story as naive and a bit shallow but still likable, then evolves throughout the book into someone who knows what he believes and why and that there are things worth fighting for.  All he has to do to achieve this depth is flee from government agents, suffer betrayal, face the supernatural, and re-evaluate everything and everyone he holds dear, among many other things.

I loved the setting, so foreign and relatively unknown to me; the characters, imperfect but trying so hard to do The Right Thing, whatever that is; the plot, perfectly paced and thrilling, and that Ms. Wilson somehow made the unbelievable believable.  Un-put-downable, indeed.

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

I passed this book up a number of times because I thought and still think that cover is ugly as homemade sin.  When Shonya recommended it as something light but fun, however, I decided I could do with something light and checked it out.

I think this is one of those books you could solidly put on a "Beach Reads" list:  It's entertaining; you come to really love the characters enough that not finishing the story isn't an option, not at all; there's nothing in this book that's going to cause any unnecessary brain straining, but it's also not one of those where you have to take a deep breath and say to yourself, "I'm just going to pretend I don't need my storylines or characters or their dialogue to be remotely believable."  (I'm looking at you, 90% of Christian fiction.)  I especially appreciated the many quirks of Moyes's cast of characters, and the way she used an underdog/romance/ family comedy to illustrate the reality of surviving on little money in a middle class world.