Kings

B:  Has been working very hard on our garden.  I asked him weeks ago why my kitchen floor was not loaded with seedlings in trays lain out in the sun that shines through our glass doors and he explained that this year, he would be "ammending the soil." 

Planting vetch, for instance, in last year's corn patch.  I don't think I believed that "vetch" is a plant and not a Yiddish word.  He will also spend his summer building hot-boxes (low-lying green houses) using windows he bought at an auction.  He has been digging holes for the currant and raspberry bushes and has abandoned hope for growing blueberries.

All of which is to say that this year--with its structural improvements, climate-considered plant choices and long-term soil improvements--marks his own mental adjustment to being a resident of Colorado Springs, and not a guy who is going to move to a farm in Missouri any time soon.

One might ask why he should bother at all.  This is a high dessert.  Is food supposed to grow here? 

I think he does it for the fun of it.  (Though it never seems like fun when the hail comes in late June and wrecks shotgun-like havoc upon all his efforts.)  For something to do with the kids each evening as they go out and tend the garden together. 

I realize this time around that there might be one more reason:  He has dominion out in that yard.  He gets to plan what goes where.  He gets to yank out weeds that do not belong.  Until the hail comes, anyway, he gets to be King over a patch of Earth.


G: Gemma's performance in The King and I was this past Friday night.  Not the whole musical.  It was a 17 minute production where each of the 12 kids in her class had 3 lines to say and they all sang 3 songs from the show. 

Of course, once you take everything out of the original production that you don't want to explain to 7 year-olds (you know--the harem stuff, sexual slavery, xenophobia) you only have about 17 minutes left anyway. 

For 3 months, we've been driving around with the soundtrack of her 3 songs.  "Getting To Know You," which, before this, I thought was from an Oldsmobile commercial; "I Whistle a Happy Tune," which provides a helpful strategy for frightful situations:

Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune so no one will suspect I'm afraid. . .

The result of this deception is very strange to tell:
For when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well.

Got that, friends?  So, say, if you are ever cornered by a tiger who has just escaped the zoo and you feel afraid, put on a fresh face, whistle a happy tune, and you'll fool not only that tiger, but yourself as well.


I particularly liked her final song, 'Shall We Dance?'  Rogers and Hammerstein (or whichever one was the lyricist) could be so coy. . .or maybe it was a 1960's thing.

Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?

Shall we dance?
Shall we then say "Goodnight," but mean, "Goodbye"?

Or, perchance,
When the last bit of star has left the sky
Will we still be together with our arms around each other and will you be my new romance?
With the clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen
Shall we dance?  Shall we dance?  Shall we dance?

Love it!  "This kind of thing can happen."  Indeed! 

I'm not even googling for these lyrics, you know.  They're locked in my head.  For. Ev. Er.

They're locked in Joshua's, too.  His favorite is also this last one and he loves to shout out Yule Brennar's line--the numbers he calls out as Anna is teaching him to dance and he is trying to keep time. . .

That is, Gemma sings, "Shall we dance?"

And Josh says, "1, 2, 3 and!" 

"On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?"

"1, 2, 3 and!"


OK, OK, back to "G,"  -- the show was Friday evening.  She was so cute.  So cute.  A parent's job is to identify what special talent and fire and passion God has put into a child, and for Gemma, the theater is not it.

But she delivered her lines with great confidence and effect, and she danced away with the other children of the king and, this part  surprised me: she smiled the entire time she was on stage.  I'm telling you: crazy cute.


J: Gemma's was the second of 6 performances in a row, by classes that are all run by the same school.  We had planned to make a quick exit after Gemma's, mostly in consideration of him.  It was almost 8 PM, after all, and how long and late should he be expected to keep quiet and still?

(And this wasn't being rude to others.  It meant that we would be leaving our front row seats that I had arrived 60 minutes early to secure, and other parents could then sit closer and take great pictures.  Plus, there were several minutes between shows in which we could leave without interrupting anything.)

But he didn't want to leave.  He wanted to watch the next one!  So we did.  He and Daddy stayed in the front row and the Burches and I left our good seats and stood in the back.

Then Daddy decided that he had totally put in his time--his own kid's show? yes, but how many shows full of strange children should he be expected to endure?

Josh wanted to stay.

Daddy tried to bribe him with a reminder that we were headed to Applebee's with Miss Betsy and Amy for our after-show celebration. 

He wanted to stay.

So we did.  Through the fifth show, at which point I was prepared to lie to him and tell them there were no more.  There's no way I wanted to get stuck in the parking lot when the whole audience let out.

But after the fifth performance, he stood up and announced in the darkened auditorium (as one cast left and the set was being changed for the last time), "Mommy!  It's Time to Go!" 

I love that he loved all these performances. 

He likes to perform himself.  For Gemma, anyway.  Tonight, as we drove home from AWANA, he had put a cardboard crown onto a balloon and making the balloon-king announce all the laws of the land.  Things like, "You have to clean up your toys and you have to stay inside unless your Mommy or Daddy says you can go outside. . ."  Gemma was cracking up and he loved it.

We pulled into the garage.  He opened his door and shouted, "Announcing: The King of Colorado!" 

Furlough

Had the government shutdown this weekend, Bryan, a non-critical government servant, would have been sent home without pay. 

We would have welcomed a furlough because Bryan could use the time away right now to make one last trip back to the land in Missouri before we sell it.  (Praise God!  We have a buyer!  Perfect timing, too. . .)

And I kind of liked playing up the "buckle down" mentality.  Bryan told the cul-de-sac kids he would pay them to help bag up his dead grass rakings.  He came in to gather their salary and asked, "Do you have any singles?"

I said, "Singles?!  We're facing a furlough!  We should pay them with quarters."

Alas, the gummint men figured something out, Bryan will go to work on Monday and he will have to make his trip on Easter weekend, instead. 

Got me thinking of the nature of "furlough," though.  No pay, but no work, either. 

And how I, personally, can't be put on furlough right now.  The last time I worked regularly during hours that were counted by others was 2003.  And only half of that year. 

Maybe you're thinking, "You do work regularly, Amy, you just don't get paid a salary." 

Eh.  Not really. 

When the kids were babies, yes.  That was work.  It was work I didn't like doing, though I was thankful to be doing it. 

I consider my days now, though.  I get up and dressed before the kids awake.  I drink my iced coffee and eat breakfast while I read the Bible.  (Bryan and I are reading "The One Year Bible" that has all the scriptures arranged chronologically and then divided into daily readings.  It has been a real joy so far.)

Then the kids wake up. 

Gemma comes right down, says "good morning" and makes her breakfast.

Joshua sits on the top step, says, "Good morning, I love you" in a groggy voice and he sags and wavers so much from sleepiness I worry each time that he'll topple right down the stairs.

A few minutes later, he thumps down and sits next to me on the couch, curled up.  Gemma finishes eating.  I'm done reading my Bible.  I pick up theirs and read aloud, then we read library books, then Gemma reads aloud to me, then I read history aloud to them (by which time Josh is ready to make his breakfast and eat).  We practice AWANA verses, then the kids go upstairs to get dressed while I empty the dishwasher.

We have a snack and then go downstairs for schoolwork until a mid-afternoon lunch.

Our kitchen is sunny when we eat.  Sometimes the kids get out their little tray stands and have lunch on the soft rug by our back door, right where the sun is shining in.  They sit with their backs against the glass and feel cozy.

Then we play a game together.  And read more.  Have a quiet time when the kids can do whatever they want except talk to me or put their eyes on a screen. 

Then the cul-de-sac kids get home from school and they all play outside until dinner.  I work out upstairs.  Check e-mail.  Make dinner. 

Bryan gets home at a nice hour nowadays.  Usually by 5, often by 4:30.  After dinner, we play a game all together.  Read more.  Put the kids to bed.

This is my whole day.  It's not work.  It's a dream come true. 

I participated in a phone survey today, mostly because that's the only way to make the survey company stop calling back.  Towards the end of it, she asked me how I would describe my profession.  I told her, "I'm a superhero,"  and she laughed.

Why do people always laugh?

Maybe being a superhero each day is work.  If so, how blessed am I to have found my dream job?  No furloughs here, I'm glad to say.

B, G and J: Our Circles

B:

This story starts with me and a program hosted by a church here in town.  The program hosts Chinese teenagers for 2 weeks.  The kids spend the day learning English and American culture and their evenings and weekends with host families.

How exciting!  What a great experience for our kids, a great way to use our guest room in the basement, a great way to share the love and message of Jesus with a person who might not otherwise ever His Good News.

I flashed the brochure to Bryan and spooke rapid-fire about what a terrific idea this was for our summer.  Then I noticed the look on his face and stopped talking.

No smile.  Just a furrowed brow.  A quizzical turn in the corner of his mouth. "Are you serious?" he asked.

I don't know what my face looks like when it is dumbfounded, but I was dumbfounded.  "Yes. . .?" 

"Babe," he began, "I cannot begin to imagine what that would do to my security clearance. I don't think there's enough forms out there to fill out to make this OK.  I would have to be debriefed afterwards!"

Oh. 

"Especially the Chinese!" he shouted, shaking his head.

Oh. 

Good illustration of how our two lives are really one life--you know, same house, kids together, growing old together--and yet our two lives mostly happen in two different circles.  Mine, in a happy cul-de-sac, as we happily homeschool and toodle around town for this activity or that, where the daily plan is all about scheduling our days to limit stress and maximize work and the other part of the plan is having something ready for dinner. 

His world involves planning that I don't know anything about because he can't tell me, but now I realize it involves mental alarms sounding off at the mention of "Chinese teenagers." 

I wanted to test this out, though.  Was he being dramatic?  Was it really that big a deal?  At Col Putko's (I LOVE that guy!) fairwell party, I told this story to several of Bryan's co-workers.  Every one of them started laughing the moment I said, "Chinese." 

The most memorable of their comments:  "One e-mail home from the kid at your house and the whole family back in China gets a raise!"


G:

As you know, the superheroes frequent the used market.  Thus far, I've managed to clothe our children in about 95% used items.  Hand-me-downs.  Garage sales.  Collecting bigger clothing and keeping it in a box until it's the right size. . .  I have a pretty well-oiled system. 

But Gemma is growing out of this mode.  There's not as much used clothing around for elementary-aged kids because they don't grow as quickly as they did in the baby years, so that one dress is going to last 2 years, not a mere 6 months, at at the end of 2 years, it is not going to be in great shape, the way the one that fit for just 6 months did. 

I'm OK with all this.  I have no problem shopping in real stores.  Good values can be found on a sales or clearance rack.  So there Gemma and I were: in Old Navy, shopping for pants for me.  Also in Old Navy--and this is where they must make the majority of their money--is a kids' section, including a big rack of t-shirts and shorts, all in the cutest patterns.

The price was good.  I told Gemma she could pick out 2 tops and 2 shorts and that was a thrill for her.  I hadn't realized until that moment that part of having your Mom collect your clothes from the used market means that you don't actually pick out what you are going to wear. She's never complained about this.  But I could tell by her wide eyes that she was liking the opportunity to select. 

This one, this one, these and these, she decided.

I said, "Oh, I'm not sure these two really match," as I placed the top by the shorts.  I looked twice and said, "Oh!  These are cute together!" -- genuine surprise, here.

I looked up and she was looking back, a slight smile, serenely confident that of course they looked cute together.

I looked back to her selections.  "But these two, I think these might be too busy. . ." second take. . .she was right again.  They looked really cute.

"Oh," I said again.  Her look remained the same. 

As we walked to the register with our clothes, I said, "I think you might be better at this than Mommy is."

What was her look this time?  "Yyyyeah. . ." 


J:

He still loves to hug.  A very cuddly boy.  And I love hugging him.

The other day, I was cuddling him up in my lap and he said, completely, as a statement that needed no explanation:   "Mommy, my love goes beyond." 


A:

I judged a speech and debate tournament in Arvada, CO last Saturday.  I was so excited about the opportunity that I cleared it with Bryan, commited to being there and then mapquested the discovery that Arvada is a 90 minute drive from here.

Not ideal.  But I'm glad I went.

The tournament itself was a pleasure.  I just love judging these things.  Love it!   I used to to quite a bit of this work before Gemma came along, and this past Saturday marked my happy return to it after a 7 year break.  It's my idea of a great time.

But there's more:

I was chatting with a fellow judge who, I learned, lives in Manitou Springs.  I know just one other person who lives there, and it's a town of what?  40 thousand people?  I wasn't going to say, "Do you happen to know. . ." 

But later we got to talking about something else that related to this other person I know.  So I mentioned, in telling my story, "a doctor--he lives in Manitou, actually--that-"

"Is it Matthew?" this judge asked.

No way.

"Matt Mayfield?" I asked him, because this is that one other person I know who lives in Manitou.

Yep.  This judge is the Mayfields' neighbor.  His daughters dog-sit the Mayfields' akita.

Mathematically speaking, what are the chances of this, exactly? 

Nope, it's not a coincidence.  It's a God-incidence.  So fun. . . so fun.

All That I Do Not Know

Will posterity wonder why I've failed to post on two Sundays in a row?  I've been sick.  Really, really, totally-wrecked in my "upper respiratory" area sick.  (Why don't we just call that "upper lungs"?  Is there something more to it than the lungs?)

I was still able to function.  I even talked on the phone with a long lost friend, though I sounded like death.  But I hardly slept due to the coughing, and so was tired for a good 10 days.  I'm mostly better now, thanks.

***

Do you have sign holders where you live?  Human sign holders, specifically?

They are ubiquitous here in the Springs.  Pizza places.  Model home sales offices.  Car mechanics.  It's hard to find a busy intersection that does not have an employed sign holder on it.

Here's what I don't know: How do these people get hired?  And how much do they get paid?  There are men wearing Statue of Liberty costumes, waving to on-coming traffic, trying to drum up businesses for the tax preparation franchises.  A couple of Uncle Sams out there, too.

Do you get paid more if you're in a costume?

Is there some sort of national monument anti-desecration ordinance that would require such sign holders to first shave their beards before donning the Green Lady's crown? 

***

Speaking of sick, Gemma had it first.  For more than a week.  Then I had it.  Then Josh woke up with a fever and I braced myself for another week of sick-tending.  (Josh took his fever as good news.  He understood immediately that the word "fever" placed him on the "un-limited popsicle" list.  Cha-ching.)

By day 2, the fever was gone.  He frowned at me when I pronounced him "normal."  This seemed an un-just duration of popsicle access.

But what remained after the fever, and had gotten a little worse, were his eyes.  They were goopy.  A lot of green stuff coming out of them.

I thought, "Hmm.  Gemma fought the germ with a fever.  I fought it by capturing it in my upper-respriatory. . .area and Josh is fighting it in his upper-head--sinus, perhaps?--and draining through his eyes.  How about that!"

The next day, his eyes were worse.  I kind of realized that morning (was it the Holy Spirit giving me wisdom?) that I hadn't exactly heard of a child fighting a germ this way before.  I called Pedro, retired pediatrician, and asked if this was normal.

Because there was one thing I did not want: to go to a doctor here, and be told, "This happens, nothing we can do, go home!" 

Pedro said that this was not normal, it was an infection, he needed anti-biotics.

All of which led to an urgent care clinic PA telling me that Joshua had a "raging case" of pink eye.

Huh!

I had never seen pink eye before!  Had only ever heard of other people getting it. 

We got the drops, have been washing our hands obsessively, and it's already clearing up.

Bryan wanted to swing into more dramatic action. 
"Should we hot-wash his doggers?"  Sure. 
"Should we hot-wash all our pillow cases?"  We can. . . 
"Should we hot-wash all the clothing he's been wearing?"  Uh. . .

"Bryan," I said, "This isn't the scarlet fever."

***

Which reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit, who almost got tossed onto the burn pile.

I clipped one of our bushes in the backyard.  It had grown to crazy proportions and needed intense pruning.  I looked at the pile of long branches ready for disposal and asked Bryan if he could build a fire to burn them ASAP, before the children of the cul-de-sac found them and starting beating one another with them.

Sure.  He could burn 'em!

I had envisioned his using our metal, portable fire pit.  But I guess he had more to burn than my pile of branches.  Bryan set up operations in his big garden plot, which held a big fire, which made big smoke, which was sited somewhere in the neighborhood such that the fire department was called.

A full sized engine pulled up to our house.  I did not know this.  I was working out at the time upstairs and could only smell the smoke of what I thought was Bryan's small fire. 

The kids told me all about it later when I asked why they and all the other kids in the cul-de-sac were sporting fire department stickers on their shirts. 

Bryan filled in the details.  The firefighters were nice people.  Didn't give him a ticket, not even a formal warning.  They did request that he build fires in his pit from now on.

Mrs. Colorado filled in even more details the next day.  When they pulled up, the kids in front came yelling to Bryan, "There's a fire truck here!"

Then the firefighteres walked to our back gate and were peering over to, you know, see what they could see.  Bryan met them on his side of the gate and was talking over it to them, saying, "Oh, sorry!  I'm just burning some brush back here.  It's all under control.  Nothing to see here!"

They said, "Sir, we need to come back there." 

But.  No ticket.

Mrs. Colorado also mentioned, "Yesterday, of all days!  That Smokey the Bear warning system was on highest alert.  Because of the wind and dryness, there are warnings all over about controlling fires."

We were unaware of such warnings.  "Is that something that's been on TV?" I asked.  She smiled and nodded and rolled her eyes.

So.  No wonder I did not know.

***

I hooked up our new wireless router the other day.  I am not great with this sort of thing.  It requires a practical common sense that I don't have much of.  It's not embarassing to admit that.  I am a creative person.  Not seeing things the "common" way has made for a rich life so far.  It's been a disadvantage at times--not having common sense--but I married someone who has more than enough for both of us.

But he was too busy burning things to get around to the router hook-up.  So I decided, "If it takes me all day, I will do this thing.  I am certain that with my best effort, I can make it happen."

It doesn't help that we've had bad luck with wireless routers.  2 before have failed to work well.  So, if something were to go wrong with this one, it would be my inclination to curse the machine and overlook the possibility of, ahem, "operator error."

For this router, we kept shopping for one until we could find a salesperson who knew what he or she was talking about.  I finally found an ex-Airforce communications guy who hooked me up with something promising.  It includes a "set-up stick" which is the code for "made for idiots."  I felt really confident pulling it out of the box.

I put the stick in, and like a dream, it did its thing.  All I needed to do was connect the modem to the router, which I did.

But then the router couldn't find the internet.  I tried this, I tried that.  I tried re-sets. . .  Finally, I called Comcast with the hope that it was partly their fault.

The guys quickly determined that I had not, after all, done the one thing I needed to do.  I had plugged it into the wrong port, though both ports were clearly labeled!

"Argh!" I said, as I re-plugged. "I'll be you talk to idiots all day long."

"It's OK, ma'am.  This is your first time."  (That's not true.  I've tried to hook up routers before. . .)

"I'll bet you say that to all the idiots," I told him.  And he did not contradict.

The wireless is working now.  Despite my best efforts.

***

Bryan and I were out the other day when we passed a guy on a scooter.  The day was cool to begin with.  Scooting in the open-air had to have felt brisk.

He was tootling along, one hand on his handle bar, the other around a big travel mug.  He was sipping coffee at 50 miles an hour!

That doesn't fit in with my loose theme of "things I don't know."  But it made me and Bryan laugh and laugh and laugh.  How often do you and your spouse come along something that is not your kids and not in a movie that makes you both laugh?

***

Here's something else that doesn't fit:  The weekend we were out, the kids were with Betsy and Amy.  They went ice skating on Saturday, and that evening, we had picked them up and taken them to church.

Later, I was asking Joshua about his time with Betsy and Amy, and somehow, for some reason, asked whether he had told his children's church teacher about them.

Josh said, "I was going to explain who Betsy and Amy are, but I didn't think my teacher would understand, so I didn't."

This amazes me.  He's 4 1/2!

***

As for Gemma, I bought the game, Rummikube last week and taught her to play.  My dream is coming true: I am raising up children to love playing games with me.  And Rummikube is a really terrific game.  She's very clever to have been able to figure out how to play it well.

***

Back to the theme:

We went to a tax franchise located in Wal-Mart to have ours prepared.  So far, every year of our married life has included something tricky or complicated and we find it worth the fee to have someone else go through it with us. 

With Bryan, anyway.  While he's sitting with the Jesse Jackson-Hewitt-Do-It lady, I wander around Wal-Mart with the kids, finding things like Rummikube and other sundry items.  (Can I write off the total bill of Wal-Mart purchases on these trips as tax-prepartion expenses?)

Speaking of which, I should make it clear here that Bryan and I aren't the type to. . .oh, what's the word?. . ."be aggressive" when it comes to taxes.  We like being on the up-and-up.  If Taxman ever came to audit us, we wouldn't sweat a single moment.  We think God cares about this, too.  Keeping whatever amount of money isn't worth being dishonest.

That said, we want to give the IRS as little as possible.  Even if it is the government who has been paying Bryan's salary all these years. 

(The afternoon of our appointment, when I was explaining to the kids where we'd go that evening, I found myself explaining what the whole process was for, which Gemma found unbelievable.  Not the taxing part, this she knew about.  But the pay-roll deduction part and the figure-it-out-after-the-fact part and the pay-thousands-of-people-to-be-part-of-the-figure-it-out-at-the-end-of-the-year- part. . . she thought I was making it up.

Mr. Berger once announced at a block party on Hawthorne street that "The greatest act of sedition against the American people was the passage of automatic income tax deductions!"  It's the only memory I have of that neighbor.  And now I think he may have been right.)

Anyway.  I came to sit by Bryan and the tax lady as they neared the end of the process.

There was one question about something and she seemed so smug about knowing the answer.  But it was a tricky question, and knowing that the IRS code is thicker than a phone book, I asked her to look up the specific clause just to be sure "we" weren't missing something.

She found it.  She read it.  She was right.  So.  Good.  We want her to be right, right?

Then she got to talking about how when you make any improvement to your home--a towel holder, new counters, carpet cleaning--save the receipt so you can write it off the profit when you sell.

I said, "But you don't pay capital gains on your primary residence anyway, so why bother?"

She smiled smugly.  "There is a one time exemption."

What?

Still smug, she said, "You are exempt from capital gains on a primary residence one time."

I smiled at her and said, "You are wrong about that."

She shrugged and smiled.  "One time."

This made me laugh.  I couldn't believe she was saying it.  I know almost nothing about tax stuff, but I know this: no capital gains on a primary residence.  Period.  Everyone knows this! 

"You are not right about this," I said, and started listing off all the reasons I knew she couldn't be right. 

She shrugged again, and said, "I'll look it up to be sure!" as though to humor me.

I looked over at Bryan, who was staring with grim lips and a certain annoyed panic in his eyes and, surely, just one thought:  An idiot has just prepared our taxes!

She looked and looked and then said, "Oh!  I am wrong!"

Sheesh. 

I told this story to that long-lost friend whom I spoke with even though I sounded like death, and she said, "Maybe the person who did your taxes was really the person hired to hold the sign." 

A Great Week So Far

On Sunday, Gemma awoke with a fever.  We couldn't let her go to Sparks, where she would spread her germs.

But Bryan and I both needed to be at Cubbies that day because we were extremely under-staffed and there were jobs we needed to do.

So we dragged her along.  Set her up in a comfy chair, with a blanket, drink and movie player.  Away from other children.

Then we went about doing our jobs.  One of them (that I do not usually do, but love doing) was leading worship for the crowd of pre-schoolers.  We play up-beat songs.  We have a set choreography for them.  I go crazy on the little platform stage, with big, big motions and buckets of enthusiasm.  I love watching 85 little kids jumping and dancing and praising Jesus.

Then I found a crack in the stage where two platforms are pushed together.  I found it with the same ankle I broke 2 years ago, and I went down.  Hard.  Gracefully, I'd like to think.  But I took the flags down with me, so maybe it wasn't so graceful.

It huuuuuurt.  I lay there, just trying to breathe, somewhat conscious that a crowd of children were staring at me, mouths agape.

Bryan and another leader carried me off stage, to the back of the room.  A different leader jumped up and continued on with worship.  A call went over the security hand-held radios for a "Medical help--Cubbies" and there I lay for a while longer as the medical gal wrapped my ankle and foot with ice. 

I was feeling two things, aside from the intense pain:  1) How disappointing.  I had really been looking forward to our club.  It was a very important story time that I was going to give--the day we tell the story of how Jesus was crucified, how He bore every ounce of God's wrath so that those who believe in Him will not have to.

That's a pretty big deal, a day like that. 

Bryan did the storytime instead, and did a good job.  But, with 2 minutes to prepare, he pretty much read from the script whereas I'd been planning for a whole week how to present the whole thing. . .  Ah.  Well.  There's always next week:  Resurrection! 

2) Very deeply, I realized that I did not want to go to the hospital.  I have a friend who is a childhood cancer survivor, and to this day, her initial reaction to medical treatment is, "I'd rather  not."  I get that now.  It doesn't make sense, per se.  But it's a state of mind and emotion and. . .deep, deep aversion. 

ER? No, thank you.

Even if it could involve seeing your buddy, Mayfield, again?  It wouldn't, and even if it did, no, thank you.

I spent the whole club in the teacher's lounge, on a comfy couch, with frequent friends visiting when they had a few moments free from their own duties.  Bryan did not only his own huge job, but also mine and also those of a few other leaders who couldn't make it.  It's crazy how hard he worked. 

And, by the end of the 2 hours, the pain had recessed quite a bit, the swelling had not gotten worse and there is now no pain around the ankle whatsoever.

(The whole time, I had been explaining: we kept the plate and pins in so it would not break again.  This was comforting until a sports medicine guy, who leads games in the TnT group came in and said, "You could have sheared the pins right out.  Happens all the time." 

Oh great.  But it didn't happen this time!  Thank You, Jesus!)

In all, I'm tempted to say, "I should have just stayed home with Gemma."  But, I don't know, maybe it's a good thing this happened.  At the last, God will use this for the good of those who love Him.  That's a promise in the little things as well as the big.

I have been using my crutches and walking boot yesterday and today.  I can already stand on it full pressure without pain.  The swelling has gone down a bit.  I'll continue to stay off it mostly and flex it often.

Gemma's fever remained.  Was worse, actually, when she awoke Monday.  She threw up Monday night, and now I know what it's like to clean up puke with a bum leg.  But she's well trained, in that--here's a tip, parents of young ones!--she had a towel nearby, spread on the floor, and she threw up onto it.  Clean-up is fairly easy this way. 

Today, her fever is far better and she's actually drinking fluids.  It would be really nice if Josh did not get this. . . . Nor Bryan nor I! 

So.  A "down" week.  They kids are watching a lot of PBS kids programming.  I'm on the couch with my foot elevated, reading a lot as well. 

I could ask Josh to be our universal helper, but I am glad to get up and crutch around to wait on them both because it's great exercise.  Seriously.  Crutching is a full-body workout.  And I'm glad to have some pretty keen crutching-skills.

(Oh?  You don't think there are such "skills" to master?  OK, smartie pants, you tell me how to get up and down stairs safely while on crutches.)

This all reminds me of when the ankle was broken and Mom was here to help (especially with Joshua, who was just 2).  I would come down in the morning with my special stair-crutch method and Mom would lead the kids in a chorus of, "Here comes the lady with the walking sticks!"

I still hear their voices when I come down now. 

I've read aloud to them, too.  And yesterday, she had  a spell where she felt up to working on a giant floor puzzle.

They had just finished a little bit of fresh mango, so maybe that was what energized her.  But soon, she fizzled out.  She asked if she "had" to finish the puzzle.

I said, "No, of course not, honey.  But, then, it would feel nice to finish something today, wouldn't it?"  You know that feeling--of just sitting around vegetating.  It takes an emotional toll.  Maybe she's old enough to register what it means to feel satisfaction in completing a little something, at least.

She looked at me with a furrowed brow.  How could doing a puzzle help her feel "nice"?  So, fine.  She's not there yet.

Then Joshua said, "But Mommy!  She finished her mango!" 

Good point, son. 

We also played a few quiet games.  One of them is called "Patchwork," and it is terrific.  Like Sorry!, it's a game that Joshua can play with no help at all, and yet is still fun and challenging for everyone else.

It's extra-challenging with him, actually, because the point of the game is to gather "sets" of cards by swapping them around the table with other players, whose permission you do not need.  Joshua plays this game with a mischeivious gleam in his eye and lips set in a trouble-making line.  He swaps the cards like a mad-man.  There is no discerning his strategy, no way to plan ahead to protect your cards.  Your own plans can vanish at his whim.

Gemma and I look at each other often, shaking our heads at his moves.

When we were playing with Bryan last week, Josh was in fine form at this, and Bryan kept lifting his eyebrows to me as though to ask, "Why does he do that?"

I smiled and, quoting a line from Dark Knight, where the good guy is explaining the actions of the bad guy, said, "Just to see it burn." 

But then Josh came up with a 6-card set.  So maybe there is some reason to his mayhem. 

If this is as crazy as it gets--the foot sprain, the fever, the game plans gone awry, we're having a great week.

Noteworthy

B: Has been to Florida and back, where he helped his parents move.  They closed on their house.  They await their new digs within a few months.  We couldn't be more pleased by how smoothly it went.

Bryan met the new owner of his parent's house, a man who came by every single day to. . .to what?  Check up on the house?  Probably, he was just excited about it.

This man is wealthy.  In addition to making refurbishing plans for the house (which shall serve as a guest house to his big house on an adjoining lot) he and his wife are also busy outfitting their new jet.  The pilot they have hired to fly the jet wanted the job, but couldn't take it because his house in Las Vegas was underwater on its mortgage.

The rich man wanted this pilot, and not another, so he bought the guy's house at the underwater price.

My question:  Has anyone shared the Gospel with this guy?  For what will it profit him to be so wealthy--nice though he may be, philanthropic, even--to have so much of the world and yet have no redeemer of his soul? 


G: Some her friends on the cul-de-sac are walking around with cell phones now.  I do not know if they are operational or just toys.  I don't want to know. 

Gemma saw this, then sat down one evening for a fit of industry.  Out of paper, she fashioned a laptop, cell phone, holder for both with additional pockets and a wallet that fit into one of them. 

It was so cute.  And I was so proud.  My mother did the exact same thing when she was Gemma's age--minus the laptop and cell phone.  Just paper and glue!  This is all their little minds need.


J:  He went grocery shopping with me last week, which included a swing through the PX to check for any outrageous post-valentine's sales. 

We found, instead, a two-pack of light sabers marked 75% off.  This made the price of these really great.  I said to him, "But you already have a light saber." 

He looked at me with a certain expression, the words for which will come a few years later, the thought of which seemed to be there.  "You can never have too many light sabers. . ." 

Then this expression changed and he got strategical about it, "Then we'll have one for Gemma."

Fair enough. 

Even better, now there is enough for someone to fight him while he's holding two. You would think this would be enough for him to defend himself.  But while I was going after him, and had him backed into a corner.  He dropped one saber and shot his hand out at me with a great grimace and squinty eyes.

I paused.

"Force push!" he shouted at me. 

Geez.


Finally, something on a completely different track, it's something serious.  Something you should prepare yourself for.  It might mean something to you today, or one day. . .

A new child started coming to Cubbies.  I'll change her name to Kayla.  She is now in a loving foster family (seeking to adopt her), having come from a horrible, horrible, unspeakable background of abuse. 

Her new father told us a remarkable story:

When Kayla joined her new family, her new parents told her about Jesus.  He asked, "Do you know who Jesus is?"

Kayla is 4 years old.  She thought for a moment and said, "Oh. . . He must have been the one who kept it from hurting too much, but I never knew his name."

B, G and J Day: What We're Good At

Haven't had one of these in a while.

B: This Sunday was especially busy.  We hosted a pizza-party potluck at the church immediately following the Cubbies meeting.  The event was fun, and as Bryan and I are trying to create more opportunities to get to know our volunteers, the party served its purpose.

[It has been pretty neat to see how Bryan and I work as a team in these circumstances.  Bryan does nearly all of the set-up, nearly all of the take-down, and nearly all of the details administration.

I do all of the talking.  And some trouble-shooting during the actual club meeting.  And all of the e-mail writing to parents and leaders.  But mostly: the talking.  The joking around.  The chit-chatting.  The finding-out-how-you're-doing. . .

I'm really good at my job.

And because I'm an extrovert whose batteries charge up with human interaction, I really like my job.]

It was 7:30 by the time we got home from the pizza party.  We got the kids in bed by 8:00.  We were positively wiped out--Bryan from all the work and I, from. . .well, I'm not sure why I should have been tired.

We watched a movie together.  (Knight and Day, which was a very fun movie with a great plot--not at all sure why it tanked at the box office.)

By 10:30, we were both in bed and talking about the day. About the party.  How things went.  About the ministry.  About what we might do differently.

At 11:15 there was a pause in our conversation, and Bryan let an enormous lion-yawn out and asked, "So, are you ready to pray now?" 

I said, "Oh!  Are you ready to go to sleep?"

He blinked up his heavy lids and nodded.

"Were you ready to go to sleep 45 minutes ago?"

He kind of nodded again.

"Then why have we been talking all this time?"

He half-smiled and said, "It's after a party.  I knew I would need to talk you down." 

What a helpful guy.




G:

Speaking of AWANA, every year, we do an adopt-a-club fund-raiser.  The children in AWANA (from pre-K through high school) earn money to give to children in Zimbabwe so they can have an AWANA club, too.

Every year, the Cubbies bring in the most money.  This is not because they earn the most.  It's because their parents put all their loose change into a jar for the better part of the year and change adds up.

By the time children are in Sparks (e.g. K-2nd grade), parents figure the children should be earning the money for their collection jars.  Historically, they've never earned more than the Cubbies' parents drop wantonly. 

(The other levels are technically in the competition to bring in the most.  But their enrollment numbers are nowhere near as big as the younger levels.) 

So. 

Gemma really wants the Sparks to win this year.  She currently has $42.25 in her jar.  I do not know how she's gotten that much.  Something about that girl's efforts to earn money just. . .multiplies.  It's weird.

Every day, she asks me for a job to do to "earn money for adopt-a-club," and I think of something.  And pay her a quarter here, a quarter there. 

The other day she got the bright idea to hunt up loose change all over the house.  She checked couch cushions, nooks, crannies.  She got down on her belly and made a sweep under the washing machine, where she found a dime.

And she found a "strange black thing."  She showed it to me.

Hooray!  It was the remote control to my camera!  I thought I had lost it on the mountain where I broke my ankle over two years ago.  This was the last place I'd used it, and having not seen it since, I figured it fell out of my pocket as I lay, howling, and that it was long gone. 

I high-fived Gemma and thanked her.  This was truly a great find.  Did I pay her any reward money?  Well.  No.  She had already found a dime.




J:

Still enamored with Star Wars.

I've decided to start making hay out of it.  For instance, I challenged them both with the question, "Darth Vader is very powerful and everyone fears him.  But whose slave is he?"

They were both stumped. 

Until I reminded them that he calls the Emporer "Master," and he does the Emporer's bidding.  He was a slave to him. 

This rocked their world a little. 

And then came the hay:  "People think that they want to be free of what God says is right and good and they think they can live how they want to and by what they think is right and good.  But, really, every person has a master, and if the master isn't God, then their master is sin, and they are a slave to it." 

We'll find out later whether they get that. 

On a different day, Star Wars again came up in our conversation.  Joshua had a question about midi-chlorians, of which Annikan Skywalker had an astoundingly high concentration in his blood stream.  Midi-chlorians, those under 60 plus Helen may know, are the biological presence of the Force.

When I saw this in Episode I for the first time, I found it very satisfying.  Finally: the Force explained.    It did not correspond to a Biblical view of spiritual reality, but why should that bother me?  Star Wars was never meant to be a Christian allegory. 

I pointed out to the kids, "The interesting thing about Star Wars is that a lot of the parts of it are just like what we know is true from the Bible.  But some things are different.  For instance, in Star Wars, everyone is born as a good person and people on the Dark Side are those who have chosen to go to the Dark Side.  But what does the Bible say about all people?"

Answer:  All have sinned.  All.  Have sinned. 

"And that's why everyone needs a Savior."  Long pause.  "Can you think of anything else that's different?"


Long pause. 

Josh was ready with one: "In the Bible, no one has 4 arms like General Grievous."

Force Photos

I am no further beyond the realm of Star Wars this week than I was last week.

To whit:

1. A reader of this blog used precious moments of her life to track down General Grievous and update the rest of us as to his unique genesis. 

2. Even before this back story (thank you Helen, I am so much better off now that I know), a certain mini-DVD made its way into our home and on it was a 10 minute collection of light saber battles from all the Star Wars movies, including the animated Clone War features (which we have never seen).

(And I'm not sure I want to. . .  One of the battles featured all female characters, the good and the bad and they all looked very mean and kind of grotesque and I was thinking, "A chick fight?  In Star Wars?"

Then again, perhaps this is the answer to a certain woman I am related to who expressed her irritation with the franchise and disinterest in it because, in her words, "There were no good women in those movies."

"There was Princess Leia," I objected.

"But what did she ever do?"

"Well how about Queen Amadalla, the elected sovereign of Nabu?"  (And, hey Star Wars, how can a sovereign be 'elected'?)

But this relative was not going for it.)

Well.

On this mini-DVD of light saber battles was the moment where Obi Wan takes on General Grievous and, Josh was right, General Grievous does have 4 arms.  The battle ensues and Obi lances off one arm.  Joshua says, "Now he has three." 

Obe takes off another.  Josh says, "Now he has two." 

But before any more arms get cauterized off, the mini-DVD cuts off the scene with a "To Be Continued" heading.  Josh says, "But General Grievous does die."

Really, Josh?  How is that possible when General Grievous is just a cyborg?  Was he ever really living?

And why does he wield a light saber (or 4), I thought those were the weapons of Jedi Knights.

Bryan clarified, "He was trained by Count Duku."  Oh.. .  I guess I should have read Helen's research earlier.

(Gemma, this entire time, is kind of watching, but mostly she is making Valentines with pink paper and fancy-edged scissors.)

Where did this mini-DVD come from, anyway?  It was packaged with Joshua's light saber, which Daddy bought him a few weeks ago when they were out together. 


3. We did not watch the Superbowl last Sunday, but I did watch some of the commercials online the next day.  By far, this was the best of those I saw.  The kids heard it and came running.

Gemma laughed hardest at the doll part.

Joshua laughed hardest at the car part.

Bryan laughed hardest at the husband's eyebrows part.

I laughed throughout the whole thing.






It's not that I want to counter-act the Star Wars with "something other," but I do have some photos I've been meaning to share.


The morning of our first snow, which was back in late November or so. 

I took the kids to the "CandyLand" celebration that the MWR on Schreiver Air Force Bases hosts each year.  Joshua chose to get a 'knight' for his face paint.

Gemma picked little bunches of holly at the corner of her eyes, but it had gotten smudged by the time we arrived home.

Speaking of Christmas-time. . .  Here are Gemma and Joshua opening gifts that Aunt Helen and Uncle David sent down to them.  Upon seeing his Iron Man helmet, Joshua immediately felt fierce.  Upon seeing her master works set of Crayola art supplies, Gemma literally licked her lips.

Here is a photo of me and Bryan on Friday night, on our way to the Second Annual JFCC-IMD awards dinner.  Col. Putko is retiring in April (his wife, the other Col Putko, is as well), and he has been the driving force behind this event.  So who knows if it will continue in his absence.

But I looked forward to it, and enjoyed it through and through.  The people Bryan works with are nice and the food was, again, very good this year. 

Also new to this year was the Air Force Academy band, playing live.  Huh.  It included 5 members, all enlisted personnel.

What is their deal, exactly?  I wonder if they are part of the larger AFA Band, whose members are professional musicians for larger, full-concert performances.  And then maybe a few of them moonlight with these other instruments and form up little bands that do these little gigs?

It's mysterious. 

After dinner, they played a few pop songs, the first of which was Journey's Don't Stop Believin'.

The Major sitting next to me remarked upon the teenage boy at our table (e.g. the son of one of the guys Bryan works with--see?  a family-friendly command!) by saying, "He probably has no idea what this song is."

And I said, "Oh, I'm sure he knows it from Glee."

Both remarks this young man both heard and objected to.  "I grew up on the classics!" he insisted.  And I remembered feeling like him once: that it was an assault on one's aesthetic pride to be accused of knowing only contemporary music, or knowing it at all. 

He'll do OK, that one. . .

This was the dinner last year, long time readers may recall, when I met Esther, the woman who had participated in the Herceptin trials.  She was not there this year. 

Lisa, another b.c. champion was, though.  This time last year, she was suffering through her 9 months of "tissue expansion."  Her most notable comment was that she felt like she was "wearing hubcaps." 

She's all restored now!  And she looks lovely.  A very sweet gal and it was a pleasure to see her.

Last year, I remember looking at myself, all dressed up, and feeling like I really looked nice, what with that great wig and all.  Many of you saw the photos and said I looked great, too.  I believed you.

Then I looked at the photo about 6 months later and thought, "Yeesh!  I looked sick.  And that wig looked like a wig!"

This year, I did not feel sick and I did not look sick! 

My hair actually looked very nice in person, but in photos, it's so dark, it just looks like a helmet.  You'll have to believe me:  the short hair really works.

And after some deliberation, I decided not to wear any prosthetics, or socks, or other device to fill out the top of my dress. 

It wasn't noticeable.  Or maybe it was.  But if it was, then I guess the thought of someone noticing would have been, "That woman has no breasts."

True statement. 

But I'm pretty sure no one looked twice. 

Finally, what was nicest about this evening for me is that most of the co-workers who knew about the cancer have moved on to new jobs, and most of the people I met that night were new.  Presumably, no one even knew I was a breast cancer champion, and it was so nice to be, simply, Amy Ponce!, Superhero.

 

The Dull Fight

The new kid on our cul-de-sac is named Evan.  He moved in this summer and is a few months older than Gemma.  There is a boy a bit older than he who lives here, too, but this boy is never at home and when he is, he can never play.  It's kind of mysterious, actually.

So Evan is left to play with Gemma, Kate, Ayla and Bella (4 girls of the same age) and Joshua, Joshua (yes, there are two) and Riley (3 boys of the same age). 

Evan is a sweet child.  He has very good manners.  I credit him deeply for playing so well with all the girls and so gently with these younger boys.  However, nothing about this gender distribution has inhibited him from playing what is most interesting to him.  This, of course, is Star Wars.

I don't remember doing this as a child--e.g. making a game out of a movie.  But the cul-de-sac kids do. Among them is a broad assortment of light sabers and plastic guns and they kids run around most of the afternoon attacking each other.

I do not know if they have more rules than the overall point, which is "Fight!"  Are there teams?  If someone "gets" you, do you have to sit out or go tag something or do you keep fighting, immortal? 

Gemma is somewhat interested in this gaming.  Often, she and Kate will lose interest and do their own thing, probably with Ayla and Bella, too.  But Joshua.  Whew!  He is taken by the entire enterprise.  (Am I allowed to use the word "enterprise" when speaking of Star Wars and not Star Trek?)

Evan is obviously building into this play little tutorials about the world of Star Wars.  I know this because every now and again, Joshua announces a factoid to me such as, "General Grievous has 4 arms and 4 light savers!"

"General who?"

"General Grievous!"

"Who is General Grievance?"

"No, Mommy.  General."

"What?"

"Say, 'General.'"

"General."

"Now say, 'Greivous.'"

"Grievance."

"No!  Greeev. . . .US"

"Oh.  'Greivous.'"

"Now say it together."

"General Grievous."

"Yes.  And General Grievous has 4 arms and 4 light savers!"

(I sigh.  I sigh because there was--there must have been!--something interesting and valuable I was thinking about and had to stop thinking about so that I could hear Joshua tell me something about what Evan has been telling him. . .)

"How did he get 4 arms?" he asked me.

"I don't know."

"He's the all white guy but Evan said he used to be human but he how did he get from being human to having 4 arms?" 

Josh asked me because he is 4 and so completely convinced that his parents are all-knowing.  Would this be the moment he had to learn that I don't, in fact, know all?

"I don't know, Josh.  It's been a long time since I've seen that movie and I just don't remember General Grievous." 

Long pause.  Was my fallibility dawning on him?  No.  Because he then asked, "But how did he get 4 arms?"

Argh!  Would you believe he has been talking for 2 weeks about this General, asking me the same questions for which I still do not have answers? 

The biggest reason he thinks I do know and am just holding out on him is that he saw bits and pieces of all 6 Star Wars movies when we were in Florida this past Christmas.  The General must be a character from one of the first 3 episodes, which are not to be confused with Episodes IV, V and VI, which were the first 3 movies made and released starting in, what? the late 70's? 

[Side note:  Joshua quickly understood how it is that first 3 movies we watched, e.g. Episodes IV, V and VI, are not the first 3 sections of the over-all story.  So here he is, capable of understanding a complicated situation like the oddly ordered Star Wars movies, but unable to understand that I don't know who this General is!]

[Another side note: Because of Evan, my children refer to Star Wars, Episode IV, the first movie that started it all, as "New Hope."  That's its actual name, which I never knew until Evan came around.  It sounds wrong, though, every time I hear it.  Star Wars is just Star Wars, OK?]

[Another Side note: When these movies were playing marathon-like on some cable channel down in Florida, and as we were watching bits and pieces, my dear mother-in-law kept me asking questions.  Right in the middle of the movie.  Why wasn't she asking Bryan?  Not sure. . .
"Why are they dressed in robes?"

"Because they're Jedi Knights.  It's like a uniform."

"Well are those good guys?"

"Yes, they are Jedi."

"Well what are 'Jedi'?"

"The peace-keepers of the entire universe!"

"Oh. . .(30 second pause). . .Is that hairy guy a monster?"

"No, he's Chewbakka.  He's a Wookie."

"Well why is he with that guy?  Is he a pet or something?"

"No, he's like Han Solo's best friend.  They are renegade partners."

"How does that guy understand him, though?"

"Because he speaks Wookie!"

Finally, after, like, a lot of this, she asked, "Do you know all this because you're a big fan of this Star Wars?"  and I answered, after brief thought, "I think I know it because I'm an American under the age of 60."]

[Another side note: There was a headline in an English-language Korean newspaper shortly after we moved back to the States.  The article was about the yearly tight-rope walkers competition in Seoul, which, that year, crossed the River Han in the heart of downtown.  (I'm not sure if the competition always locates there.)  The headline read, Skywalker Crosses Han Solo.  So, really, it's not even just an American thing, is it?]

Back to, eh, let's see here. . .  Ah, General Grievous. 

Joshua is desperate to know about this character.  And we have been spending our family movie nights making our way through the episodes.  Return of the Jedi was the Friday before last.  Josh asks often when the next movie night will be, for then we shall watch Episode I, Phantom Menace. 

(Which happens to be the first movie Bryan and I watched together in a theater.  And that happened a few weeks after our wedding!  What a risk!  Imagine if he had been the type of movie-watcher who wants to talk and comment throughout the whole thing!  But he's not.  A narrow miss indeed. . . .)

When we were flying home from Florida, Joshua got tired at one point and lay on his seat, head on my lap.  He held his two hands in front of his face, pointer fingers extended, and started slashing them against each other, making light saber noises with his mouth.  Bryan tells me that he was like this as a child--fascinated by martial action. 

As far as the cul-de-sac goes, and in the movies, and in his imagination, it is all very, very exciting.

This boy doesn't know a different category of conflict awaits him in adulthood.  After the excitement of a bout with cancer, for instance, comes the bout with an old vehicle that keeps breaking down--not everything at once--just piece by piece so that you pay to repair it only to have another piece break a month later and is it good money after bad or is it sensible to nurse it along until such a time when you can responsibly buy a replacement?  There is no glory whatsoever in a conflict like this.

Or even the bonafide wars of the world.  Joshua has been asking lately, "Is there a war in our world right now?" and I tell him that, yes, there is, since soon after the Garden of Eden, there has always been a war going on somewhere on this planet and that right now, there are 2 wars going on that Americans are fighting in, Bella's Daddy is fighting in it right now.

He is stunned by this.  Every time he asks.  How could there be a war somewhere?  He looks around.  Doesn't seem like there's a war happening.  Where are the red lazer flashes, and exploded Death Stars and get-a-way pods and star ships that travel at the speed of light? 

Not here, Josh.  Enjoy Episode I.  Later episodes are not nearly as interesting.

All Those Leftovers

***
I took Gemma to a birthday party at the roller rink this weekend.  I mentioned last winter that I took both kids often on Friday mornings for "Pixie class" where they could figure out how to stay up without swarming masses whizzing around them. Though it had been about a year since last we went to the rink, Gemma remembered enough to stay up most of the time.

I was among the swarming mass.  I love roller skating.  I'm not great.  I can't stop myself without something to grab hold of.  I can't skate backwards.  I can't maintain speed while rounding the corners. 

But I can dance a little as I go.  Oh, I'm sorry, am I supposed to not dance when the "I Like To Move It, Move It" song comes on?

The song selection, the sound system, the disco ball and colored spot lights--there's so much to like about a roller rink.  Thrown in there, too, is the quaint, slightly campy practice of "naming" each skate.  There's the "speed skate," in which certain age groups are to skate at once.  I do these--slowly, of course--as a public service to the one or two men who show up with roller blades and re-live their days of hockey glory.  There are always a few of this type around and it's obvious how much they enjoy lapping me.

There's the "Downtown" skate where they play that song and every time the singer croons "downtown!" skaters are to do a deep knee bend.  I do this one because it's good exercise.

There's the "Partner's Limbo," which I did with Gemma.  The two speed skating men partnered up as well, and were right in front of us in line.  I'm pretty sure they were friends who had brought their families together, if that makes you feel better about it.  I know it helped me to realize that their sons knew each other and had partnered up as well. 

They were self-conscious enough about it to turn to me and say, "We won't hold hands until the game actually starts--that would be weird." 

I laughed.  Said, "The two best skaters here should be partners!"  And they both shrugged off the compliment in the way that shows they were, in fact, glad to have received it. 

One said, "There's a big chance we're going to make fools of ourselves."  He was not wrong.  This was limbo-on-skates. . . 

I said, "I'm just hoping I don't do anything that is going to show up on YouTube and go viral."  There were many birthday parties there, far too many recording devices to count.

So we limboed.  The men didn't even attempt the 3rd setting.  Gemma and I did.  She got through, I felt my hair bump it as I approached, so I stood up and said, "I touched!" and so was spared trying to go even lower now.

Gemma was somewhat annoyed with me, but it was nothing that the rest of the party couldn't make her forget.

***

About the birthday present:  I suggested we get a littlel outfit for her friend's doll.  Gemma liked this.  And she determined that she wanted to make a tea set, too, out of colored modeling clay.  We worked all week on it.  (Hint to Mom and others who ever try Sculpey or Fimo: It works way better if you leave it in direct sunlight to warm up for a few hours before trying to kneed it.) 

She was pretty determined to make 4 cups, 4 saucers and a teapot.  Joshua helped, too, and made a serving tray.  When assembling the completed pieces together, she placed the teapot on the tray Josh made.

He said, "Hey, Gemma, that's a serving tray."

Immediate response: "I know.  And the tea needs to be served."

Cheeky!

***

Speaking of cheeky:

We have a phrase in our house, adopted from my friend, Xochitl's house, for when our children whine for something.

I say, "What does whining get you?"

And the answer, which they usually say grudgingly, is, "A whole lotta nothin'."

The other day, Josh was whining, I asked, "What does whining get you?"

Immediate response:  "A whole lotta yes-stuff." 

Get it?  Opposite of "no-thing" = "yes-stuff." 

But he still didn't get what he was whining for.

***

I mentioned fitness classes in Sanibel with my father-in-law, Pedro.  He is quite the role model for physical health.  He eats very, very carefully.  And he works out on cardio-machines (when his ear is troubling him) or brisk, long walks on the beach (when it's not) and at yoga several times a week (though he pronounces it "joga," which I love).

I've kind of become an avid exercise-er myself.  I never thought I'd be one of those people who does not feel right if I go more than 2 days without a work-out.  But.  Well.  I have.  There's an entire book to be written about how this happened.

So there we were, Pedro and I, comparing notes on what specific exercises we do for which muscles.  At one point, we were taking turns on the floor demonstrating different ab moves--he, from what he's learned in joga, I, from what I've learned from Pilates.  Am I too proud to be getting fitness tips from an 83 year old man?  Why should I be?

There is a terrific rec center on the island that we get a weekly membership to when we visit.  I did several of the classes there. (BOSU!  I hate the BOSU.  And yet, I love the BOSU.  Nothing has ever made my muscles work harder.)

Then Pedro invited me to go "Zumba Gold" with him.  "It is with Latin music," he said, his eyes bright with anticipation.  Pedro loves to dance as much as I do.

Sure!  I've seen Zumba on an X-Box commercial and the model doing that routine seemed to be getting a great workout.

As for the "Gold," I kind of thought it was the rec center's way of fiddling with the name so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the official Zumba people.

Uh, no.  "Gold," I realized as our class mates filed into the gym, is a euphemism that translates roughly to, "For old people."

Zumba For Old People.  That's the class I was standing in with my 83-year-old father-in-law, and we were standing in the front row.

Then the teacher walked in.  She was shocking.  Or maybe it's just that I was shocked.  Pedro turned to me and with a wry half-smile said, "I'm not sure how much work this class will be.  That teacher is. . .a little overweight."

Folks, there's no way she was an ounce under 200 pounds.  And she was shorter than I am, which is 5'4".   It wasn't a big-hips thing, or a "meaty" look.  She was obese.  If she were taking the class, I would not have thought a thing of it.  Other than, maybe, "Good for you, girl!" 

But leading a fitness class?  I think I was. . .annoyed.  Like the heart surgeon who smokes cigarettes or the financial advisor who's swimming in debt or the teacher who walks around saying, 'I hate reading!' (I worked with one of those once. . .) -- I was annoyed to be looking at an obese fitness instructor.

I'm not proud of that, you know.  I don't know if that reaction comes from being an avid exerciser.  I know it wasn't a judgement of beauty or appearance--come on, now, I was standing there with no breasts!--it was just shocking.

Then she took her sweatshirt off and Pedro turned to me again to say, "She looks like a wrestler." 

So I think he was worse than I.  Right?  Right?

The class began.  She led us in a simple choreography for each song and she clearly was loving every minutes of the music.  I'm sure it was perfect for the golden people behind us.

For my part, I added as many modifications as I could.  "Modifications."  This is when you do an extra move or a jumpier move or a deeper bend or something else that fits in with the routine and makes your muscles work harder than the regular move.  Parin and I used to hate "modifications" when we did classes together back in Korea.  Her words, I think, were, "Enough with the modifications!  Stop showing off and just do the routine."  And she was right.

But I promise you that I wasn't trying to show off.  I really just wanted to get my heart rate up.  Now and then, I looked over at Pedro and not once did I see him ever actually doing the routine.  He was just dancing.
There was a guy in a treadmill on the other side of the glass wall who was looking in on our class as he ran.  And he was laughing most of the time, with good-natured happiness, I think, to see that old guy dance and to heck with the instructor.

Her own health notwithstanding, she led a great class. 

Afterwards, she came up to Pedro, and I was standing right next to him.  She came with a big smile, wanted to know how old he was, and then started up a very condescending speech for him about how he "just has to keep moving," and "how good that you move so much at this age." 

This is the thing about Pedro: He looks and sounds like a sweet, simple man with a sweet, simple mind.  And he plays his cards close to his chest so that at moments like these, when I found myself becoming defensive on his behalf, he is just laughing on the inside about how this woman is underestimating him.  Because, in reality, he is actually a mental giant.  And he had said she looked like a "wrestler," so, really, how sweet can he be? 

But he smiled and nodded and then said something about how much he enjoyed her class and the music.  Then she asked me if I had "Zumbad" before.

No, this was my first time and I had really enjoyed it, too. 

Well, she went on, Zumba is all over the world now and there are DVD's and X-Box games and I could do it anywhere!  Then this: "You burn 1000 calories every time you dance." 

And I thought, "That is not correct.  But your belief in those numbers does explain a lot." 

She had moved on to asking where Pedro was from.  To me she said, "You're not Hispanic, so you are not his daughter. . ."

I feigned shock, "What do you mean 'I'm not Hispanic?'  How do you know that?"

She rolled her eyes and shooed her hand at me and said, "I can tell."

You know how she could tell?  In her routine, there were several times when we were to shake/gyrate our hips really fast.  I couldn't do it. 

The irony, I think, is that if Bryan had been standing there and she had been told to choose which of us was Pedro's biological, Hispanic child, she would have chosen me, hips or not. 

Zumba Gold with Pedro: Priceless.

***

I turned 36 this past Wednesday.  Our homeschool co-op was here and the ladies very sweetly put together an organic-sugar brownie and ice cream celebration for me, candles and all. 

I think I look a LOT better at age 36 than I did at 35.  (Get it?  Because last birthday I was bald, and burned on one side and walking around with just one sad, doomed breast?)  But now. . . the burned skin isn't even a shade darker.  My hair came back in, reached an un-ruly stage, I cut it (clipped it, actually) back down to one inch and now it's grown back in again.  (I can't decide whether to keep it short or grow it  out again.  But it now feels like my hair, and not like a post-chemo hair-do.)

A year ago feels like a lifetime ago.

***

A sign that 36 is "middle age" is that I actually wanted to stay in that evening, have dinner at home with my family, play a game of "Sorry!"

(What a great game!  There aren't many out there that a 4 year old can play and enjoy AND that Bryan and I can enjoy, too.  Josh wins half the time.  He's very shrewd. . .  And at this game, when he drew a card he could not move on, he said, "A whole lotta nothin'!") 

This is what "a good time" feels like for me.  I'm glad to say.

***

The other sign that this is "middle age" is that the frequency of my doing my mother's thing has been going way up.  To whit:  Our fridge was full of left-overs.  One serving of this, two of that.  Dishes that do not belong on the same palate. But food that should not be thrown away.  Food that didn't need to be cooked, only re-heated. 

That was lunch and dinner tonight:  A bit of this and that, heated, set on the table with the declaration, "None of this is going back into the fridge." 

Bryan surveyed the table and declared, "It's a smorgasborg, kids!" with great delight, and so they were delighted, too. 

Kind of nice, though, for variety, when I offer a bit of this and a bit of that--all these left-overs that may not go together, but go well enough.

How To Make Painting

First, see the need. Not as in “the need to create.” But as in “You need to hang something on that wall, but that wall gets direct sunlight, so either the wall stays empty or you keep the shades drawn all morning.” Or, option three: Paint a picture of your own and then it won’t matter if the sun fades it.


Go to the sale at Michael’s. Stretched cotton-canvasses are 50% off. You find the right aisle. The biggest one—the one you need—is three by four feet. Those numbers sound small. Before you, wrapped up, sitting on the shelf, daring you to buy it and actually put paint onto it, that canvass is massive.

Your mother is an artist. When you cast your memory back to your earliest years and let the sinker float to the bottom of your faintest recall, this is what you know about your mother. She was always making something. There was a book on her shelf titled The Courage to Create. You never read it, not even the dust jacket description.  For all you know, it was about procreation.  But that phrase. . . You’ve always held that with you. That it takes courage to create something.

Take a deep breath. Take that canvass off the shelf and stand it next to your cart.

Next aisle: paint. The oils are first, don’t even consider them. You have no idea what to do with oil paint, you would have to worry about it staining your floor because you plan to do your painting right there in your open family room where the sunlight that started this project is because you've always heard that artists "need good light."

Acrylics are down a few feet. Grade 3, for professionals. Grade 2, for hobbyists. Ah, Grade 1, for students, that’s all you need. You would pay for the best if you were planning to paint something stunning and worthy that your children would one day fight over. But that kind of investment—that kind of hope—is too much pressure.

Now for the colors. You arrive in this aisle with a plan. You will paint layers of color and then use a silver marker to write words over them because this lines up with your lifelong conviction that everything is better with words.

The art you already have in your home, like the government issued OWI posters that say “Keep Him Flying!” or “Strong in the strength of the Lord we who fight in the people’s cause will never stop until that cause is won” feature words. And the others are so realistic, they may as well come with a typed explanation of the artist’s point. Knowing that you are going to write something on top of what you paint is the only thing that gives you the courage to be standing here. And, you realize, that’s kind of cheating.

The colors. . . You like that periwinkle blue. And white, of course. And you’ll need black, that much you remember from your junior high art teacher.  You look over and see an older lady examining the oils, sighing in the same way you have been.

“They are more expensive than they used to be,” she says with a German accent. You talk with her. She used to paint, and is now getting back to it at the age of 82. You are not an artist, you explain to her. You just want to make a painting. She wants to know what you’re planning, she “oohs” and “ahhs” over your idea and makes you feel like you’re a little bit brilliant and that this might actually work out OK.

You don’t quite believe her. You say, “This canvass intimidates me.”

“Yes,” she nods. “I don’t know that I can take it up again, either.” You ask about this, learn that she was a hobbyist before, but she says this with a wry smile and you think she tried a show here and there.

“It takes courage to create,” you say. She grabs your forearm and nods vigorously, like it was the phrase she had been looking for.

What are the words you plan to write, she wants to know. You think of them. You get choked up. You can’t say them out loud right now. So you sum up, instead, “A scripture that meant so much to me in the past year,” she nods and smiles. This doesn’t weird her out. You explain about the breast cancer, that there were some verses from God’s word that helped you out of recovery and into the rest of your life.

This woman lost her sister to breast cancer. She tells you that you are too young to have had it. She dares to ask “Which one?” and looks at you, which makes you smile because only an old woman from the old world would be so bold.

You talk with her for a while longer and she remarks again that she might not paint after all. So you tell her that, as far as creative outlets go, you are actually a writer. Who’s never published anything. Because you’ve never submitted anything, ever, to be published. “But I finally did,” you tell her. “And it’s OK if they say ‘no’ because the important part was actually making the submission.”

She grips your arm again, nodding, again. “Good luck to us” she says.

After she leaves with her oils, you pick out a yellow because you know enough to mix your own secondary colors. And you take a silver as well. Because you are dying to know what silver paint mixed in would do to an ordinary color.



Find yourself on a Monday afternoon in a well-lit family room. The kids from next door are inside playing with your kids because the school districts gave them a snow day. The laundry is folded. Dishes done. You don’t know how long this will take, but it’s a good idea to start now because chunks of open time when the room is bright are not common.

You know there is a value pack of 25 brushes you bought for the children several months ago. Get those out. Their palettes are too small, though. Built for small paintings. You have 12 square feet to cover. A lot of paints to mix. The easel is downstairs and right next to it is a box of antiques your husband is staging up to bring to the auction house. In that box, find several metal trays that the Army mess hall used for meal time. They are big. Full of sections. Perfect.  Will he mind that you are using his antique mess hall trays for paint?  Probably not.  When it comes to allowing a woman a room of her own, your husband is Virginia's dream come true.

You have bowls of water ready. Soft cloths ready. You are even wearing slippers to keep your feet warm as you stand on the cold tile. Unwrap the 8 by 10 inch practice canvass you bought. Notice that the label says it is "treated."  Plastic off, you whiff a chemical you've never smelled before.  Huh.  Be glad they treated it for you because you certainly didn't know it needed treatment to begin with.

Well. It’s time. Squeeze paint. Mix it. Put it on the canvass. Get an idea of what colors belong there. See what silver does—ah, what silver does! Makes the color rich, makes it almost glow. Before the practice canvass is even done, you love this. You love putting paint onto stretched cotton.

Tear off the wrapper of the big canvass, the Real Deal, the Big Guy, The One. Paint it. Paint and mix colors and paint and paint and mix and paint with big sweeping motions and small dib-dabs and watch the colors do their own thing that you couldn’t have made them do if you tried but they just happened to be there and not here and even the canvass itself kind of does something, it’s so rich in texture. You can’t believe it. As you are painting and watching what it is doing and painting and hardly thinking of anything and

You hear, “What are you doing?”

It’s the neighbor girl. Smile. Keep painting. Say, “I’m pretty sure you can figure out what I’m doing.”

“Painting?”

Yeah.

Now all four children are by you. The neighbor girl wants to know why you’re painting. Your son wants to know what you’re painting. The neighbor boy wants to know if it’s the sky. Your daughter wants to know if you’re going to sell it.

Give answers: Because you want to paint. You can’t say. It could be. No, you’re going to hang it.

The boys go back to Legos. The girls ask if they can watch. Your mom always let you watch. It seems not to have harmed either of you. So you agree.

Your daughter and her friend narrate what you are doing. Every little thing—she’s using the little brush to mix, she’s cleaning that brush, she’s putting on the next color. Then they start offering suggestions and opinions. Tell them, “You can watch, but you can’t say anything.”

“Can we whisper?” your daughter asks.

Tell them, “You can whisper, but not to me.”

Keep going. Keep going until, about 40 minutes after you got the brushes out of your kids’ art supplies cabinet, you finish.

The boys come in. Your son declares that it is a beach. The neighbor boy, too. They are four and they need—very badly—for it to be something. Your daughter tries to make sense of it, too. Say, “A pretty good sign that a piece is abstract art is when the artist is not sure which end is up.”

The neighbor girl nods with approval at this. She has heard of abstract art before.



Clean up. Look at your painting. Consider it. There’s so much to take in, which is ridiculous, because it’s just layers of color. But you can’t help but gaze at it. Maybe that’s because it’s yours. Just as you are convinced that your children are the most gorgeous of all children on the planet.



Your silver markers wait for you. In betrayal of lifelong conviction, decide not to use them. Psalm 1, the one about you—

. . . Her delight is in the Word of the Lord, and on His law she meditates day and night
      She will be as a tree planted by streams of living water
      Whose leaf does not whither
      Which yields its fruit in season
      Whatever she does prospers.

Well.  No need to write it on that canvass.  This is your life now.
Is the painting any good? You have no way of gauging. You suspect, with near certainty, that it is not “good.” But the blessing in not knowing enough to know means that you can enjoy it. You don’t need to submit it to anyone, because you don’t want to be a painter. You just wanted a painting.  So you made one.

Sanibel Part II--or. . .uh. . .

Yikes!  Monday night! 

Our church is having a praise and prayer series/yearly kick-off/gathering time for several days in a row and I have been distracted in a deeply good way.

Brief word on that:  Whoever you are, do you hear from God?  The Creator of the entire universe knows every depth of your heart.  And He is not just mine to know. 

"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." 

That's a promise from God to every person who would lay down her pride and ask for the help of a Savior. 

Snapshots from Sanibel Part I

The unexpected part about our trip in mid-December was the weather.  The high in the Springs the day we flew down was higher than the high in Sanibel.  (Should that be "on Sanibel" because Sanibel is an island? . . .)

Most days, though, it got into the low 70's.  While this is colder than the usual, it felt great for us.  It was nice not to sweat AND to have temps high enough to enjoy the beach.  And, yes, the water was ice cold.  Since when does that deter a child from a beach?

***

The very bright side to this weather was that the same storm systems that ushered in the cold front also churned up the sea and washed thousands of shells from the deep to the shore.  Sea urchins.  Sea biscuits.  Coral-covered sea fans.  We walked to the beach our first afternoon there and were stunned at the bounty.

Before that day, though I'd been to Sanibel many times, I had never collected a really great shell by myself.  Gayl had boxes upon boxes of them already washed and bleached, and we would take some of hers home.  Her collection alone was a marvel:  How does one woman end up with 3 cubic yards of sea urchins? 

I now know the answer:  She goes to the beach after a big storm.  10,000 sea urchins died at the same time and got washed up.  I made a sampling in six different spots of this beach.  In sections of 9 square feet, the average number of sea urchins was 58! 

We gathered.  The kids were even more delighted than I was with each find.

On a day soon after, Gemma, Josh and I were walking up to the lighthouse on the shore when Joshua spotted a star fish.  I looked a lot closer.  He was right.  That sucker was hard to see because it was the same color as the sand.  We picked it up-it was about the size of my palm.  Small and cute and brilliantly designed.

Two minutes later, he spotted another.  And then another.  He has eyes like an eagle.

Then Gemma and I started spotting them, too.  It was as though Joshua had taught us what to look for.  But here was Gemma's emotional arc:

First--kind of a little jealous that her brother was finding these awesome star fish.

Second--absolutely thrilled that she could find them, too.

Third, and here is our human nature, summed up in her statement, "I want to find a really big one!"

How quickly treasure wears out.  And we didn't find any big ones.

***

I have mentioned that Gayl and Pedro hope to move soon.  They have been divesting themselves of Gayl's massive collection of antiques, collectibles and memorabilia because their new place won't have the room to store it. 

She is almost done with this process.  Their "basement" is first floor below their home that must sit on pilings because of hurricane codes.  So it's a 4 car garage, and half of that used to be full.  Now, she's down to one wall. 

Which prompted Gemma to say, "It's not any fun to go into Grandma's garage anymore." 

***

Pedro's atemoya tree was producing while we were there.  This is a Peruvian fruit he remembered from his childhood and tracked down here in the States where a California grower has developed a hybrid ideal for Florida. 

You won't find this fruit in stores, I imagine, because they would not ship well.  Bryan thought they were OK.  The kids liked them, but in small doses.  And I ate the heck out of 'em.  When ripe, they are soft enough to break in half with your hands.  Then you use a spoon to scoop out the flesh, which is white and with the texture of a mango.

It has big black seeds, beautiful as beads, that are easy to spit out.  And it tastes like nothing else I've ever tasted.  It's a citrus.  Kind of.  It's sweet.  Atemoya.  If you ever get the chance to eat one, eat it.  (Which is advice you would need if you ever met this fruit without an introduction.  Given only its outside appearance, eating it might not seem like a good idea.) 

***

Bryan went deep sea fishing our first Friday there.  I went with him back in 1998, before we were engaged, because I had this young, romantic notion that couples were supposed to share each other's past-times and Bryan loves to fish. 

About 36 minutes into our trip aboard the "Bobby B," I threw up and continued to do so until I ran out of gas and fell asleep in the door jam of the boat.  My afternoon was better as I was empty and the water was calmer.  I spent it sitting on the captain's deck, where I asked Bobby B to tell me his sea stories.  He had quite a few.  I'm pretty sure that some of them included drug use that he did not mention.

Since then, I have not gone out.  But Bryan tries to each time we visit and each time, he hardly catches a thing.  It's not because he's a "bad" fisherman.  Give me a break.  You drop the bait down where the captain has parked the boat and you hope that something bites the hook.  It's not like he's tying his own flies. . .

This time, Bryan went out and everyone on the boat caught the legal limit.  He came home with 3 big ziplock bags full of grouper and snapper. (The crew cleaned the fish for him.) 

And, for the first time in my life, I ate an entire meal of fish.  Twice, actually!  The fish was so fresh, it didn't taste like fish.  It just had a texture and tasted like whatever spices Gayl had used for the dish.  So, in this sense, it was delicious.

***

We took the kids out one night to see all the Christmas lights on the island.  The business go all out.  But the best display of all was by the Sanibel Community Church that had decked out their entire courtyard and all their palm trees and hung a beautiful sign, 'Wise Men Seek Him' by their beautiful, huge nativity. . . I had an easy time imagining how much Jesus enjoyed their decorations.

We drove into the parking lot so the kids could have a good long look and Joshua exclaimed, "I want to be a church!!"

Why?...

"So then I could be all lighted up!"

***

Another from Joshua:

What is your favorite Christmas song?

"I Wish I Married Christmas." 

***

And another, when we told the kids we'd be going to low tide.  (That is, when the tide is low, low, low, we can walk all the way to the second sand bar.)

"We're waking up early tomorrow to go to low tide,"  Byran said.

Josh asked, "Is there ice cream there?" 

***

We went to the Farmers' market on Sunday morning.  It was the kind I like--e.g. some food grown locally, several merchants selling tasty things in small quantities so we could get a little of this and a little of that--like an amazing wheat bread, a small bag of figs (which the kids had never tried) and, best of all, a wensleydale and cranberry cheese.

Wow, did I ever enjoy that cheese.  Had never had wensleydale before, but Wallace mentions it in one of the Wallace & Grommit movies, so I seized the opportunity to try it. 

The whole experience demonstrated to me how much I like cheese.  Since getting home, I've tried a new one each week from the commissary cold case--a safe bet like Gouda, an unknown like "Blarney," which I have liked.  Hoorah for cheese.

***

We were to fly home on Christmas Day, but our flight was cancelled due to the snow in Atlanta.  3 extra days there!  No complaints here. . .   Bryan had to leave on Monday, the earliest possible, to get back to work.  But my flying alone with the kids is no problem.  They are such pros at travelling. 

(When we boarded this flight, on which we'd gotten the last 3 seats, they saw that we were in the very, very last row.  I was thinking, "Sigh. . . it's going to be hard to get off this plane in time to make our connections."

They were thinking, and saying, "Hooray!  We'll get our drinks from the drink cart first!")

On that Monday, then, Bryan left first thing and the weather had turned cold--down to the mid-50's.  No beach.

I spoke to my kids in my "Attention!  Announcement!  Plans for the Day!" voice.  They know this voice.  They listen attentively when I use it.

"Did you know that when I was a child, my mommy didn't drive?  That's right--Grandma Anne doesn't drive cars.  She never has.  So how did we get places when we wanted to do things?"

Their eyes narrowed.

"We walked," I said. "Now let's get our sweaters.  Off we go."

And off we went.  I love walking.  Getting from here to there.  Or just taking a long walk.  One of the things I loved most about our time in Korea was that I walked nearly everywhere on post, pushing Gemma along in her stroller.  I hardly ever walk outdoors here in Colorado.  How much sense does that make?

I want my kids to appreciate walking, too.  Especially when they have a whole day to spend on nothing in particular. They seemed to sense that it was an adventure.  They knew I planned to call Pedro and ask him to come pick us up when we had gotten "there," and there was something about not having to walk back that made the afternoon spill out in front of us with ripe potential.

Early on, Joshua found a stick of sorts.  It looked almost woven, with pine-cone-like leaves closed in all around it, running its full length.  It was amazing.  He held onto it.

We stopped on a bridge and looked out from there for a while.  We stopped for lunch a little over a mile from the house, at the Lazy Flamingo.  Soon after leaving, I realized we'd left Joshua's stick on the table and we rushed back for it, but they'd already cleared our mess. 

"Did you come back for your Frisbees?"  The waitress wanted to know.  The kids' meals come served in them.

"No," I said, "We came back for his stick."

"A stick?"

I started telling her all about it, trying to describe it, not because I thought she would say, "Oh that?  I kept it for myself, but now that I know it's yours. . ."  I just wanted her to know that it really was an extraordinary stick and that we weren't crazy to come back for it.

I tried to console Josh.  "I'm sure there are more.  We'll look for one the whole time we're walking."  We found several other remarkable specimens--a weed that looks like a starfish, these leaves that are velvety and softer than even lambs ears--but no woven stick. 

We walked into the trailer park (yes! on Sanibel Island!) where they keep exotic birds and a few lemurs one of whom Gemma and Joshua called "King Julian."  (Of course they did.)

By the time we got to the end of our walk--a little shop at Periwinkle Place shopping center where Bryan needed me to get 2 more gifts for his office people--we had not found another woven stick. 

Pedro and Gayl came and got us.  According to the car odometer (which did not measure our foray into the trailer park), we had walked 3.3 miles. 

We told them all about our adventure, including the stick.  Gayl found what we were describing in a book of trees native to Florida, and she happened to know where one such tree was growing.

The next day, after we were done packing but long before we had to leave for the airport, she drew a treasure map for us to find that tree.  It was in the neighborhood and Gemma navigated for us.  There it was!  A Florida North Pine (maybe that's not the right name. . . I would check, but it's 2 AM Sanibel time as I write).  I've never seen any tree like this one.  It's technically not a pine because it's. . .green stuff is not technically a needle.  Not a leaf, either.  It's boughs are made of these woven sticks, attached the same way needles are.  They grow long and beautiful and the kids were again astounded by the bounty. 

***

So, this trip was delightful.  Simple.  The looking and finding didn't happen in Grandma's garage this time.  With a beach and a few extra days and good legs to walk on, it didn't need to.

***

There are a few more snapshots to share, but they will keep for next week.  Here's a hint about them: Amy and Pedro Attend Fitness Class Together.

Yes, Pedro.  The guy who is 84 years old. . .