Happy Thanksgiving

The Life of the Primitive Baby

Stalking deep within the confines of her own primitive jungle, she hunts. Careful not to disturb the natives, she creeps along with confident quietness, continually scanning the area for sustenance. She knows that if she alerts the other creatures, her hunt will fail. She'll never obtain her goal. She must be a master of stealth and speed.

Such is the life of the baby forager.

The baby knows that even though food is brought to her, cut up, heated, diced, and smooshed, this is not real. This is fake food. Real food must be scavenged. Real food must be found. Real food must be hunted. So she rejects these paltry offerings with screams of resistance. When placed to her own devices, her real hunt for food begins. She crawls around on hands and knees, looking for any crumb, any speck that resembles life giving nourishment. Undoubtedly she'll be thwarted from time to time by the overshadowing giant that looms down on her. She'll be scooped up and her catch will be ripped from her grasp. Her mouth will be swabbed and her kill taken from her very mouth.

But there's always tomorrow.

Lissie meets her family

Lissie and I made the epic odyssey to Idaho the first two weeks of October. She did surprisingly well on the plane. By that I mean it was still miserable, but it was a slightly elevated level of misery. Flying with an infant is never an enjoyable experience.

She loved getting to know her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. She gravitated towards Jon the most, who tricked into thinking he was David. It was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.

It snowed while we were there. (Of course it snowed. It's Idaho. In October.) Lissie got the concept right away and when we went out into it she stuck her tongue out and faced the sky. 

We went to Logan to see Leslie, Peter, and the boys and Owen was definitely a favorite. All he had to do was look at Lissie and she'd start to giggle. 

And she loved her grandparents!

Yummy grandpa hair!

I think she had a good time.

The written word. Or, why I put books on my shelves

When I go to other people's homes, I take note of their decorating style. But in particular, above pictures and paint color, I look at people's bookshelves. One would assume that the purpose of a bookshelf is about as obvious as its name: a shelf that holds books. Surprisingly, that is not that case anymore.

People don't put books on their bookshelves.

Did you know that when you Google Image "bookshelf" over half the bookshelves that come up don't even have books on them? They have a random book placed here or there, but mostly it's vases of flowers, and bowls of marbles, and clocks, and vinyl plaques. I have nothing against any of these decorative accouterments. In fact, I have many of them in my home as well. Yes, I have a clock, contrary to my chronic tardiness. I even have a few vinyl plaques much to chagrin of David. But my bookshelf has...wait for it...books! Gasp.

Bookshelves are not used for books anymore. They are now hutch-like havens of decorative nick-nacks. Gone are the rows of vertical volumes of verisimilitude (alliteration, nice.) But where are people putting their books? Do they even have books anymore? Where have all the books gone? And of course I have a theories:

1) The ereader: people don't buy actual books anymore (how prosaic!) They simply download them onto their snazzy-jazzy ereader...and then they play Angry Birds. On their ereader.

2) Films: How many times have I heard people say, "Oh, I'll just wait for the movie..."

3) Illiteracy: Sort of. It's more that the joy of reading has been sapped from so many far too soon. I blame this on our current educational system (that's another dissertation in and of itself) and the fact that we are so addicted to fast/immediate entertainment. With the minute press of a fingertip we can see what our neighbor had for lunch, look up how to build a chicken coop, and download a new game while we wait for our email to update.

4) Style: I swoon at the sight of full bookshelves. But current decorative trends say otherwise.  Bookshelves bare of books but full of fastidious flotsam and jetsam is what is on the order now.

Now for the counterarguments of each of these:

1) Ereaders: Aside from the comforting weight of a book in your hand and the satisfying feeling of flipping each and every page, there's the visualization of progress. I know that these ereaders have little bars at the bottom that tell you a page of how many. But is that really a great visual? Looking at a nice fat book with a marker in the middle is so much more astute, succinct, pertinent. A book doesn't need to download, it doesn't freeze or crash, and it doesn't need to be charged. It's reliable. Additionally, I really feel that an actual book has a personality. It becomes a friend, a comrade, so to speak. There's no personalization with a flat, single screen. I know many of you are probably thinking, "Geez! This girl's like that guy off of You've Got Mail. The one so in love with his type-writer."

Maybe I am. But, I am a lone reed. Standing tall.

2) Films: The films are never, EVER, as good as the books. Enough said.

3) Illiteracy aka lack of desire: Do you think it is really good for us to be constantly given instant gratification? Do you feel that the immediacy of our society is setting us up for success? Most things that are worthwhile we have to wait for. Examples: Good jobs usually come from college education, food that's worth eating is usually not considered "fast," and a story worth hearing takes time to tell. 

This is the entrance to the New York Public Library. These lions? They have nicknames. One is Patience and the other is Fortitude. It takes both to read and gain true knowledge. Neither are apps that you can download from itunes. 

4) Style: Where else are you going to put all your books? In your car? Under your bed? How accesible is that? Really?

And so the long and short of it folks is that I am an advocate for the written word. Not the digitized, enacted, or lack thereof. And even if I end up being the last person who does not own a Kindle, Nook, or Cranny (heh, heh) I will stand by my bookshelves. Full to bursting with books. 

It just never gets old...

http://pinterest.com/pin/242555659/

Six Months, Lissie Is...

Today Lissie is half a year old! It's hard to believe that it was only six months ago. I would recap the day, but to be honest I don't really remember most of it and that which I remember, you wouldn't want to hear. But, instead let's discuss six great things about Lissie being six months old:

1) The SIDS rate decreases significantly when a child reaches six months. I am afraid of SIDS. A lot. It's a relief to know that we've made it this far and that she's okay and will be at less risk for something that seems so uncontrollably scary. Enough on the scary one.

2) Lisse loves to eat in her high chair now. She waves her arms up and down, blows food bubbles out at us, squeals when she likes something, and is generally adorable when there's food smeared all over her face.

3) Her head fits into her hat that my friend Annie made. I think it is perfect for her. Annie has an etsy shop. If you're interested, go here.

4) She loves playing outside and watching other kids play at the playground. Whenever she's grumpy and I don't know what to do with her, if I take her outside she calms right down. The swing is, obviously, her favorite.

5) Since it is six months since March, that means it is September! We are moving away from the painfully hot and into the unbearably cold. But we have some nice time in between. And that means Lissie and I can be outside more. Which, as discussed above, she likes.

6) We got to eat cake. I know, Lissie can't eat cake, but we wanted to celebrate. She got sweet potatoes, which are her favorite. I am not a cake decorator. I didn't post this picture for you to "oooh" and "ahhh" over my decorating job. I posted it so you know that we ate cake.

We love our Lissie Sue!

Waiting

I have spent the past few months waiting. And the more I look at it, not just the past few months, but few years. Maybe even a lot of years.
I've been waiting for things to happen so that I can (fill in the blank.)

I've waited for David.
I've waited for David to get home so that I can take a shower, do the dishes, lie down, rest my arms, relax, be happy. I've waited for David to have a day off so I can go do the shopping, or sleep in, or read something I want to read. I've waited for David to have vacation time so I could have a break, go somewhere, be together as a family. I've waited for David to be done with intern year so he'll have a better schedule, so I can have more help, so we can be sane again. I've waited for David.

I've waited for Lissie.
I've waited for Lissie to go to sleep so that I can take a shower, make dinner, go to sleep. I've waited for Lissie to wake up so that I can go to the grocery store, go outside, clean the bathroom. I've waited for Lissie to grow past one month, so she can maybe sleep through the night (ha.) For her to grow to four months, so she's out of the colicky stage. For her to grow to five months so she can move around more. For her to grow to six months so she can sit up on her own. I've waited for Lissie.

And I've waited for myself.
I've waited to get more sleep before I do something. I've waited until I feel more on top of my life. I've waited until I was finished working. I've waited until I have kids. I've waited until I finish my masters. I've waited.

It hit me the other day while I was doing laundry that I should probably stop waiting. I've been wasting time that I could be happy and content. Sure, not every day is full of glamor and joy. Most days are just ho-hum. But does that mean I should wait them out? Because usually when the time awaited for arrives, it's either anti-climactic, not what I expected, or it doesn't come at all. And then what? What am I left with? The time that I waited.

Lissie's first proposal

Lissie received her first proposal of marriage today. We were at the park and a little boy was swinging beside us. He kept saying things like, "I like that baby. She's pretty." I was talking with him and we were having a grand time. Then he said, "When me and your baby grow up, we're going to get married."
What???
I have to start beating them down now. She's not even one yet. But I have to say, it's not surprising. I think she's pretty darling as well. Not to be biased or anything.

My crazy dream Saturday night

I think this dream is a result of
1) Reading a book called Cinderella Ate My Daughter. It's a nonfiction book about how our new girlie girl culture is really setting our daughters up for a very hard life.
2) I'm in the process of teaching Lissie how to sleep. Subsequently, I feel like a terrible, horrible, neglectful mother.

Here it is:

Peter could only remember the school. It was all he knew as far as memory would allow. There were times that he was jealous of the other boys. They had lived in homes for awhile; at least until 6 or 7 when they were transferred to a school. But Peter never had that. It was only ever the school.

The other boys didn't have strong memories of their homes. Nor were they such that they could draw upon them for support or comfort during a particularly brutal day at school. At the homes, they were simply tended to and fed. They were expected to help keep the house, taught to read and write, and even allowed slight amounts of playtime. Nothing to be very excited about. But it was different. There weren't mandatory trainings or endless, mind-numbing assembly. At least, that's what they told Peter.

Peter was born and raised at the school. His mother worked there. In fact, she was one of the women in charge. The only advantage found in this was that the other boys didn't tease him quite as much as they may have. Not that Peter's mother would have intervened. Although they shared the same last name, they shared little else. It wasn't Peter's fault. Neither, he thought, was it his mother's. It was the fact that she was a woman and he was born a boy. A fact that tormented and plagued him.
Sitting in his cot at night he would wait for all the other boys to be asleep. Once silence pervaded the air around him, he pretended that he had been born a girl and that his mother wanted him. He would never have been sent to the school then. She would have raised him at home. She would have loved him and cherished him. He'd be read to, sung to, taken places, seen things. But he hadn't been born a girl. He was a boy, and he knew his role. His mother could not love him. How could she be expected to? Boys weren't born to be loved. They were born to serve. That's what the schools taught them. That's what they were learning to be.

Peter awoke that morning to the usual routine. He ate breakfast in the same room that he slept with the other boys. Dry oatmeal with little to no salt. He pulled on his grey work shirt and walked in a line with the other boys down to the lecture room. There they participated in the usual training where their teacher would drone on about the inferior genetic make up of the male species, their lack of a functional, problem solving brain, and what they could do to perfect themselves as the perfect servants for the female race. Finally, the day was ended with the assembly line. The boys would enter the factory and assemble all manner of objects. From cars to computers, from lamps to lightbulbs, the boys assembled. And then they were shuttled back to their rooms for sleep.

Peter caught a glimpse of his mother that day. There were several days where he didn't. She wasn't a regular teacher of their class and was usually only around if there was a discipline issue. She was busy "running the school." But today, he saw her as she came to listen to Mrs. Caffers lecture on the differences between the male and female brain. He watched her nod as Mrs. Caffers stated that the main difference was simple reasoning: females had it, males did not. After the lecture, his mother stood up in front of the class.
"Boys," she said, her voice stern and unwavering, "We have a new set of books for you to study this week. They will be in your rooms when you return from lunch. I want every one of you to read chapters 1-5 before tomorrow. That is all."

Peter tried maintain his excitement. They rarely got books to read, and usually they ones they received were about brave young girls saving the world from terrors and havoc spawned by men. Usually, there were no male characters at all, except as the girl's servants or as the villan. But still, it was something different than the school. As he walked into the room, he noticed a brown covered book on everyone's cot...except his. He look under his blankets and underneath the wooden legs, but there was nothing. They had forgotten to give him a book. He looked around at the other boys, beginning to open their books. "What should I do?" he asked the boy next to him.
"Go ask your mom."
It was a joke, a saying, really, among the boys. It was a way to say, "I don't know," or to express indifference. Peter suppressed a sigh, but then really thought about what the boy said. He knew he wasn't suppose to take it literally, but maybe he should. Maybe he should go ask him mom. What harm could their be? He knew where her office was. He'd just go and tell her that they hadn't given him a book.

He walked casually through the halls, aware that he wasn't walking with his normal group, but alone. When he reached his mother's office, he knocked quietly. There was no response. He waited tentatively and pushed open the door. Maybe there would be extras on her desk. There was no one in the room. His mother's large armchair was angled toward a huge fireplace. Behind her desk were large bookshelves. Not seeing the brown covered book on the desk, Peter decided to search the shelves. He had never been so close to so many books. He couldn't even count them all. And everyone of them had titles he had never seen before. The temptation was too much. He grabbed the first book he saw that he thought he could slip under his work shirt unnoticed and stole back up to his room. The other boys were still on their cots, reading, and he sat down on his unnoticed. He brought out his book and began to read. The book was called Black Beauty and he fell into it immediately. He knew from the start that it was a make believe book. A world such where a boy was allowed to do more than serve was certainly fantasy. And the boy was telling the story. In fact, he was the hero! Peter enjoyed the book immensely, and when reading time was over, he felt a sense of loss. But he knew he would be in trouble if he skipped assembly, so he stuffed the book under his pillow and followed the boys out the door.

Peter's life began to change from that moment. He went back to his mother's office at least weekly to return and "borrow" books. At least, he told himself he was borrowing them. That way he didn't feel so badly. But really, it was his mother who had the books, so it seemed justifiable. He read story after story. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Great Expectations, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were his favorites. Especially Huck Finn. He loved Huck as he had never loved anyone. And Huck wasn't a servant, although his friend Jim was. And Huck helped him. He had helped Jim escape. Peter began to wonder if anyone would help him escape. And if there was anywhere to escape too. He wished with all his heart that he could find a place like he had read about.

One day Peter entered the lecture room to find all the heads of their school there, his mother included. He thought it would be an important lecture. It turned out to be one that he would never forget. His mother began, "It has come to our attention that one of you has been behaving beyond the normal expectation. Although we shouldn't be surprised at this horrific behavior, given your gender, I am still shocked that one of our own, well trained students would do this. Someone has been stealing things
from my office."

The room was tense with silence. Peter's stomach plummeted. He thought he had been so careful. How could they know?
His mother's voice rang through the room, and for the first time in 12 years, he heard her say his name, "Peter Sanders. Come forward."
But something snapped in Peter. He thought of how loving Mrs. Bucket had been to Charlie, even the old women who took care of Huck Finn loved him. And suddenly he knew that the world he was living in was wrong. All of it. His mother should love him.
He stood up.
"Peter Sanders. Have you been stealing books from my office?" his mother's voice rang out.
"Yes," he said quietly at first, but then he got his strength.
Peter whirled around and ran from the room. He burst through doors and hallways until he found himself outside the front doors. He knew it was pointless to run. They would find him, and he would be punished. He looked around him at the trees and back at the school. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise coming from above. He looked up and saw a silver plane coming down upon him. Had his mother called for the military to contain him?
The plane landed quickly, and two girls and boy about his age popped out of the top.
"Hi," said one of the girls, "Need a lift?"
"What?" Peter asked in disbelief.
"Let me handle this," the boy said, pulling off his helmet. Peter gawked as the girls allowed the boy to speak and to "handle" whatever the situation was. "I'm Warren. We're here to take you away from here. We're here to take you to planet earth."
Peter's mind was reeling. "I am on earth," he stammered.
"No, no. You only think this is earth. All the females here have made you believe that. But really this is a comet that's attempting to be a perfect earth. Some people traveled here eons ago to set out the perfect society. They were so disgusted with our own. But now their's is even worse. They just don't see it. Come on. We'll take you to the places that you've read about."
"Those books are real?" Peter asked.
"Sort of," Warren shrugged, "More real than this place. But you'd better hurry. It looks like your teachers are a little mad."
Peter looked back up at the school. Pouring out of it's front doors were all the teacher, his mother at the front, looking menacing. Peter plunged into the plane and Warren signaled for the girls to take off.
"Welcome, Peter Sanders, to real-life."

These are some happy feet...

Two pairs of Chacos apiece? It almost seems pretentious. But then I realize my feet can be happy in the summer with sandals AND in the winter with close-toed Chacos. And then it just seems necessary.

Trim the Fat

I'm not a pork person. I sort of knew that from the onset of life, but it wasn't until recently that it became an affirmed fact within my personality. It's not so much the taste (although it's not my favorite) it's more the fact that it is completely vile in preparation that makes it wholly unsavory in the end.

Saturday: David buys a behemothic pork roast resembling a small elephant baby. David's thought process: Pork is cheap. Pork is prolific. Pork is good.

Monday: I decide to do something with the pork. Having never really dealt with anything but ham or bacon, this is new territory for my culinary capabilities. I find a recipe and begin the process known as "trimming the fat." Now on this recipe, they make it sound like this a small, trivial step in the process. Like draining grease off of something, or adding a pinch of salt into a recipe. When really, it should have said something like this: Step one: TRIM THE FAT (i.e. spend two hours elbow deep in pig carcass attempting to strip the minute layers of meat from the copious amounts of slippery fat.)
But it doesn't say this. So I'm lured into a false sense of simplicity. I take our 8 lbs. pork and lug it into the sink, gently snip off the plastic, and am immediately blasted with an odor something between fish and hot cooking oil. Steeling my stomach, I begin to "trim the fat." Thirty minutes into this process, I realize that I really don't have appropriate kitchen utensils for this. The fat has subsequently broken my scissors at the joint, and I am currently hacking away with the sharpest kitchen knife that we own. Pork juice squirts into my eye and that is really the last straw. Pork is flung across the room as are expletives that remind me of my kinship to ancient sea captains of the Canadian Maritime provinces. These brave captains also had to face unknown dangers in less than ideal circumstances. Situations such as these broaden one's vocabulary.
In the meantime, Lissie is screaming on the floor but I can't pick her up because my hands are covered in pig lard and I don't want to contaminate her along with the whole of my kitchen. Eventually, a few pieces of meat are tossed into the crock pot, and I am left muttering oaths that I will never cook pork again. Never.
Trim the fat indeed.

One more and I'm done...

Actually probably not. But this one is so funny!

To Autumn

I've felt a little blue lately, with summer coming to an end. It doesn't affect me in the way it has in the past. I'm not going back to school or teaching, David's not "going back" to work because he never left it, and I'm not sending any little ones to school or anything. But there still is something slightly mournful about the ending of the summer season. Each summer is born with such hope and joy and life. And when it ends, it ends. It's not coming back. I read Dandelion Wine this summer. I loved it. Not at first, but by the end it had me. It describes how each summer is encapsulated in bottles of dandelion wine made from that summer. All the events and memories can be found in a single bottle. I wish I could concoct an elixer such as that. The narrator made a list of rites and traditions as well as revelations and new events. This summer was filled with the rites of swimming, campfires, ice cream, libraries, reading, walks, etc. But there were several new revelations that filled it as well.
With all this, I was reminded of the poem that made me fall in love with John Keats. I read it in high school and have been a devote Keats reader ever since. And it made me think I could be a poet. That ship has sailed, but I still love Keats. His word choice is so full. His images, like a painting. This poem helps to remind me of the beauty of Autumn. It has a melancholy radiance. But enough describing the poem. Here's the poem.


 TO AUTUMN.
                                            1.
    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
                                            2.
    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
                                            3.
    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Thank you, Keats. I can move on to Autumn now.