Pentecost

When I was a kid, I didn’t understand what Memorial Day was.  I just thought everyone took Monday off so we could have a cookout for my father’s birthday.  We didn’t cook out all that often in my family, so this was always a big deal.  We’d clean the house, and Mom would bring her old-fashioned coffee maker up from the basement – the kind that percolated the coffee in what looked like a stainless steel jug.  We would cut up veggies for what Mom called a “relish tray,” complete with olives and pickles carefully arranged on special serving platters.  Aunt B would make her special German potato salad, the forerunner of my own German potato salad, and there would be an endless stream of hot dogs and hamburgers from the grill.  It was pretty cool.

Last year, instead of having a cookout, we had a wedding.  It was a lovely wedding, but it sortof overwhelmed dad’s birthday.  This year, Dad, who is usually very laid back about birthdays & Father’s Day and things, let it be known that he would like to have his own birthday celebration this year.  So today everyone in town gathered at the Family Homestead.  Where a certain little lady stole the show.

She’s a whole pound bigger than she was at birth, though she’s still all long, skinny arms and legs, and funny facial expressions.

Including smiles.  And coos, She’s awfully good at them.  It’s pretty awesome.

It seems that once her parents figured out how to burp her properly, she became a much more cheerful baby!  And now her aunts and uncles are learning how too.

Seriously, kids are the best entertainment there is.

St. Bede

Everyone has a back up plan for their life.  You know what I mean.  Like, “One day I’m going to move to Paris and live in a studio apartment right up under the roof of an old apartment building in some historic quarter with cobblestone streets.  I’ll make hats in the back room of a fabulous atelier by day, and I’ll spend my nights sitting at a small table outside a bar that’s been there since before the Romans, drinking wine and eating ridiculous cheeses while arguing philosophy with sophisticated men.”  Mine always went something like this: “One day I’m going to live in a big, old farmhouse out in the country filled with books, with a porch covered with climbing roses, and I will grow flowers, and vegetables, and children, and maybe have some sheep out in the barn.  Or a cow.  I like cows.”

Sometimes I thought this was my Plan B.  Plan A was, at various times, either getting married and being the busy mother of a large family, or becoming a theology professor and being the busy teacher of many students and writer of many papers, or possibly becoming a small business owner – also busy.  I would often think of this plan while driving out in the country.  I have a thing for old farm houses, particularly the kind with big porches, that come with large, multi-storied interesting looking barns nearby, and possibly a large garden off to one side.

These days, my Plan B has shifted slightly.  First, since I started knitting, I’ve strongly felt the lure of spinning.  I’ve been resisting because, well, do you have any idea how much yarn I have?  If I started adding fleeces on top of that, well, let’s just say the combination could prove, um, expansive.  And expensive.  But the spinning wheels keep calling to me, the really old-fashioned ones, the ones you could imagine by the fire in a cottage somewhere, being used industriously back in an age before industry meant factories, back when “spinster” meant a woman who didn’t need to get married because she was economically independent, not a dried up old biddy full of resentiment because she couldn’t get a man.  I don’t know what it is about them, but I want one.  This past winter I decided that if I am still single when I turn 40 (and I’ve got a few years yet in which I can save up), I’ll buy myself a spinning wheel as a 40th birthday present, learn how to spin, and declare myself officially a spinster.

And then, there’s that big empty lot out back, right in between my house and my parents’ house, the big grassy empty area that’s been there since they tore down the shell of the apartment building that burnt down two winters ago.  Every time I walk past it, I stop and look, and visions of gardens start crowding into my head.  My current favorite involves planting lots of roses across the front hill (terraced, of course), with peonies and berry bushes along the edge with the alley, a big vegetable garden in the middle, and an herb garden/Mary garden along the opposite side.  Then at the back of the lot (where the garages used to be before they tore them down too), I’d have a pergola covered with climbing hydrangeas (good for part shade).  I’d have a big table and chairs under it so the whole family could eat meals together out there in the summer.  Behind it would be a massive stone fire pit, with a wrought iron rack to grill things on, and sides thick enough to use as counters and/or seats if the heat wasn’t too intense.

The funny thing is that, even though it would be a huge job, and expensive, and it would take years to make the real garden look anything like the garden I have in my head, I could do it.  And I’m so tempted to try.  I don’t even know who owns the land (though I think it might be our neighbor down the street, who likes my family and probably would let me do whatever I wanted).  Plus, it would mean being willing to set down roots in ground that isn’t really mine.  One of the hardest things about my latest move from Johnsy’s house to here was that I had to leave behind the garden I had loved so much, the one that really was something like what I’d always dreamed of.  I haven’t really planted a garden since, which is a big deal for someone who’s been gardening since she asked her mother for a piece of the back yard to plant flowers in when she was five.

Still, I’m warming to the idea.  This year I actually planted a few things in the ground (yeah, I know I’ve been holding out on you).  I’ve got garlic and potato plants coming along swimmingly, and three tomato plants that are growing like crazy, and even one rosebush in a very large pot that has really truly little rose buds on it.  (Note: I still wasn’t able to bring myself to plant the rose in the actual ground.)  Maybe I’ll be able to bring myself to make the sort of commitment a garden like the one I’m dreaming of really deserves.  And then my Plan B will become my Plan A, in which I become, not a mother or a professor, but a busy HR person and gardener, the sorter out of benefits problems and harvester of raspberry bushes.  And maybe there will be a small shed at the back of the garden, where I might keep a few chickens (depending on what city ordinances permit), and maybe an alpaca, which will give me fleece to spin on my spinning wheel.

We’ll see.  :)

Pope St. Celestine V

I was going to go swing dancing this weekend.  I’d paid my registration, RSVP’d for my housing assignment, figured out my budget for gas, started planning my packing list, even informed my family that I would not be available.  I had been looking forward to this for a while, hoping that it would be the weekend that would remind me of why I love swing dancing so much, something that’s been hard to remember lately as it’s gotten progressively more and more buried under a load of relationship & community dysfunction.  It was kinda like when a couple’s relationship is strained, so they go away for the weekend to rekindle that old spark.  I figured, a weekend away, maybe a few really good dances, the kind I haven’t had in a while, seeing some old friends, and I’d be good to go again, at least for a while.

Alas, instead I am currently sprawled across the futon in my living room here in Dayton.  There is no dancing anywhere remotely near, and I couldn’t participate even if there were.  You see, on Wednesday I did Something Bad to my leg.  I was at the usual Wednesday Night Swing, dancing with Bounce.  It was my first dance of the night, to Madeleine Peyroux’s I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, which is my favorite version of one of my favorite songs of all time.  We were maybe a minute into the song, when I stepped back on my left leg, and felt/heard something go “pop” in my calf.  And that was it.  I was done dancing.  Bounce helped me get over to one of the chairs at the side, and then stood near me offering me water and grapes and anything he could think of to make things better.  It was very sweet.

Unfortunately, since the sudden pain was making me a bit nauseous, grapes and water weren’t much help.  However, soon after I was able get Swing Snark’s attention, and asked her if she would take a look at the problem.  Swing Snark is an Athletic Trainer, so she knows about these things.  She moved my foot and leg around, did the whole “Does this hurt?” thing, and told me that it appeared that my tendons & ligaments were fine, so it was probably either a muscle strain or tear.  I should ice it relentlessly for the first 24 hours, take ibuprofen, start stretching it after a day or so, and if it didn’t get significantly better in 3-5 days, see a doctor.  I found all of this extremely reassuring (I had been trying to worry through whether or not I could afford to go to the ER, and then which one would be best), and I’m so grateful that she was there.

Once I knew what the problem was, and that it wasn’t, like, life threatening or something, I had some other problems to deal with.  Like how I was going to get home.  My little car is a stick-shift, so I couldn’t drive it if I couldn’t use my left leg.  And then, if I could get someone to come get me, how would I get my car home?  And then how was I going to get to work in the morning?  Things like that.  As it turned out, the answers were as follow: Dad and Indy came to get me, the car stayed out by the dance studio until Thursday night when Johnnycakes and Pippi teamed up to help me retrieve it, Mariah volunteered to get me to work, and Pippi brought me home again.

Being a little bit disabled the last few days has made me realize how much crankiness and pride I have lurking under my usually sweet surface.  It’s hard for me to ask for help, even when I genuinely need it.  On Thursday I nearly didn’t get any lunch at all because I was too prideful to ask one of my co-workers to go get me a salad from the cafeteria, and too cranky to make the trip myself, knowing that I was going to have to be nice to all the people who would want to stop me to ask what happened.  And then, I know that compared to what some people deal with every day, this isn’t all that much pain, but it still has me completely worn out by the end of the day.  So I’m also getting a lesson in exactly how whiny I can be.

It also reminds me how much work dealing with a disability is.  For example, I need to go grocery shopping.  However, while I think I could do the actual shopping (I’d have a cart to hold onto after all), getting to the grocery store is a problem.  I haven’t tried driving again yet, and I’m worried about whether or not I’ll be able to make it both there and back.  And then once I get the groceries home, how will I get them into the house?  The answer to this problem seems to be to get someone to go with me, but I’m so unused to having to coordinate my schedule with anyone else’s that it’s taken me a few days to arrange things.  So far the plan is that Johnnycakes will go with me, both to help carry things, and to drive the two of us home if I can’t, and we’re going to go just as soon as he gets up from his nap.  Any time now.  I think.

The bright side is that little by little, my leg is getting better.  Today I’ve been able to walk around the house without the cane, and with only a few mishaps.  I’m starting to be able to stretch my calf muscle.  My steps are still slow and halting, but I’m getting there.  Hopefully by Monday I will be able to get myself both to work and home again.  And maybe before too long I’ll even be able to dance again.  I’ll look forward to that.

St. Dominic de la Calzada

So you know you’ve been spending too much time in a hospital when your wake up song, “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” (my love for which is well documented), sounds to your ears like “I Want A Cute Phlebotomist For Christmas.”  And just so you know, the reason why that particular song is my wake up tone is because it’s just annoying enough that I’ll wake up, and just endearing enough that I don’t want to hit people when I do.  (The Breakfast Song by The Newsboys also falls into this category, btw.)  But, um, yeah.

Also, in the Guys Are Strange category, one of my friends recently purchased a new car.  This is a big deal for him, his first brand new car, and he’d been kinda preoccupied with it for a while (understandably so).  When he finally got the car, he wanted to show it off.  So he brought it around, and I went out to see it.  It’s quite a car, the kind of low slung black monster that looks like it’s snarling at the world on the front end, and ready to leave everything behind in the dust on the back.  It’s really a perfect car for him.

So he’s showing the car off, and talking about his plans to get the Supercharger when it’s released, and tinting the windows, and stuff.  Then suddenly he starts pointing out all the safety features, the multiple air bags, and blind spot sensors, and the really very roomy trunk (Me: “You could fit a couple of bodies in there!”), all of which make it “a good family car.”  I just had to laugh.  Friends, this is not a family car.  This is a car in which, perhaps, my friend might start a family.  But I really don’t see this particular car waiting in the preschool pickup line.

In other news, I get to see The Young Queen tonight.  She’s finished her first year of grad school at Notre Dame, and is heading to her summer internship in West Virginia (Me: So, you know what’s between Indiana and West Virginia, right?), so she’s making a pit stop in Dayton.  I haven’t seen her since summer before last, so I’m looking forward to this a lot!

Other than that, I don’t have a lot to report.  Work has been going well.  Home life has been pretty uneventful.  My car got fixed, and has been running like a charm.  On Wednesday I danced on my ankle again for the first time since I sprained it, and it didn’t hurt too badly, so it looks like that is healing well.  Flo came to have lunch with me on Thursday, which was fun.  And today I’m going to get to see The Young Queen.  Life is good.

Bl. Rose of Viterbo

Sometimes I get restless.  I get bored.  I start feeling sortof… on edge.  Without realizing it, I start wanting to take risks.  Cut corners.  Do something… inadvisable.  I’m itching for an adventure, a jolt of adrenaline, something different enough to break up the routine.  I want something fun.  Sometimes I find what I’m looking for, and I end up, say, watching high speed car chases in the police office, or trying to plant a light up manger scene king and headless cow outside my sisters’ house late at night, or, you know, stuff.  It doesn’t have to be something big, just a little something kinda stupid, and then I’m good for a while.  Sometimes I don’t get what I’m looking for, and I’m just vaguely cranky and dissatisfied, thinking dark thoughts about how boring and dreary my life is for a little while until I snap out of it, and all is well again.  At least for a while.

Last week I was feeling restless.  I wanted something, and I didn’t know what it was.  Combined with the usual birthday “you’re getting irreversibly older, and are really old now instead of just sortof old like you were last birthday” angst, I was spoiling for something big.  For a while it looked like I would be disappointed.  Everyone else in my life seemed bent on being, like, respectable.  Responsible.  Boring.  No one seemed at all interested in breaking out of their routine.  It made me sad.

And then, on Wednesday, things changed, and without realizing it, I embarked on, not one big adventure, but a couple of small adventures that served just as well.  It happened while I was sitting in Dublin Pub, having a CL Leadership Team meeting.  We had pretty much finished the business part, and were mostly sitting around talking.  A man started making a circuit of the bar, stopping at each table and talking to the people there.  When he got to our table he told us that he had four tickets to the Dayton Dragon’s game that night (that’s our minor league baseball team).  He couldn’t use them, and he was willing to give them away to anyone who would be willing to use them.  At first, all of us turned them down.  Everyone had plans, or obligations, or things they really ought to be doing on a Wednesday night in order to be responsible citizens.  I even thought guiltily of Wednesday Night Swing, which I’d skipped last week due to my sprained ankle (still not completely healed, btw), and turned them down.

After the man left, those of us still at the table kinda looked at each other.  Sugar Ray confessed that he would be really, really tempted to go if someone else were willing to go too.  Then Flo pointed out that, since she’s still on leave after her ankle surgery, she didn’t have to be at work the next day.  And little by little, I started letting myself be tempted until finally I said I would go home to change my clothes (I had no intention of attending a ballgame wearing my lovely, lovely polyester work uniform), do my best to find a taker for the fourth ticket, and meet them at the ballpark.  We asked the waitress if the guy with the tickets was still around, he was, and just like that, we were going to a baseball game.

It was a perfect night for baseball.  The sky was blue and clear, there was an early moon out, the air was soft and warm, and there was just enough breeze to make things entirely comfortable.  It was lovely.  The view was markedly improved by the opposing team’s third base coach.  Flo particularly enjoyed that part so much that towards the end I took a video of him running from the dugout to his post just for her.  And then while the three of us were talking, somehow we got around to the fact that The Avengers was coming out that weekend, and that all three of us really wanted to see it.  Sugar Ray said that his weekend was really booked up, but that he could maybe go to the Thursday midnight premiere.  Flo again mentioned that she didn’t have to get up for work the next day, so she was game for just about anything, and just like that we had a plan to go see Avengers late Thursday night, and I started texting people to see who else wanted to come along.

In the end, we were able to assemble a small company.  The first person to really commit was PM, whose initial weak protests that he would be all sweaty from lacrosse practice were easily overcome. (Him: “Midnight is really late for me… If someone volunteers to let me shower at their place, and if I can somehow feed myself and keep myself busy until midnight… I am willing to forego all sense of reason, I will ignore all responsibility and prolly show up to work on Friday as a zombie, I am willing to go.” Me: “I like your spirit, sir!”)  In the end both Sugar Ray and Flo ended up bowing out, so it was myself, Indy, Pippi, and PM who headed off to the movie theatre on Thursday night.

Friends, Avengers was awesome.  So awesome.  I won’t say any more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet (which – why not?  Go now!), but it was worth staying up stupidly late, paying a ridiculous price to see it in 3D, getting three hours of sleep before getting up again to go to work, and having to fight my way through the day.  It was worth all of it.  It was that good.  Also, remember back last August when I was IMing with Zanzibar, and we decided that I was going to marry Captain America, but Z could have Tony Stark for his awesome eccentric uncle, and we’d split Thor as our big brother (tickle fights with Thor.  Nuf said.)?  Yeah, Ryan Gosling may still technically be the man for me, but sigh… those tall manly men with the blue eyes and sterling characters are sure tempting.  And just like that, I’d had my dose of adventure for a little while.

Also, I should mention that my birthday was Tuesday, and it was a good one.  I got ridiculously spoiled at work.  When I arrived, I found the hugest balloon boquet I’ve ever seen, plus roses and a card from my boss & coworkers.  All morning people kept popping in to say Happy Birthday, which puzzled me, because how did they know?  The volunteer services ladies brought me a very sweet present, and the head chef from the cafeteria personally brought me a special birthday cupcake that looked like the archetype of all cupcakes, with three inches of pink icing and sprinkles.

My parents and Pippi came to have lunch with me, and that was when I discovered how so many people somehow knew that it was my birthday.  It seems that one of my work friends had taken a birthday card around to half the people in the hospital and gotten them to sign it, and had it waiting for me in the cafeteria with another balloon (Me as I’m shepherding my parents out into the cafeteria seating area: “Now let’s find a seat… oh, it looks like I already have a seat!”)  And then there were more presents, including Star Wars Lego watches from Pippi.  She had originally been going to just get me one watch, but then she realized that the included figures came complete with lightsabers, so she had to get me two so they could fight. For the rest of the day my work desk was one big bower of balloons and flowers and gift bags.  It was rather amazing.

I am loved.