Today was the funeral. The temperature was chilly and dropping this morning, with a brisk wind and thickly clouded skies. It felt like late October for this part of the country. My grandmother is cautious about getting out in cold weather since a bad winter a couple of years ago during which we nearly lost her to pneumonia and heart complications, so she decided not to attend the graveside services, although she did still want to go to Jane's funeral.
As I sat beside my grandmother in the funeral home, I had to wonder if things could get much worse. The pianist was...well, rusty might be a kind word. The singers were...very...they knew most of the words. And the speaker was...well intentioned, I'm sure. I sat in a pink, vinyl padded chair that made startling noises when one shifted one's weight and tried to hold very still. I counted lonely looking carnations in a couple of scraggly funeral arrangements. I considered the wallpaper border, the strategically placed boxes of Kleenex and the polyester suit jackets of the gentlemen in front of us. I remembered passing out in this room when I was twelve, at my piano teacher's husband's funeral. I remembered standing jam-packed here when I was fourteen with my friends at a crowded funeral for one of our close classmates whose brother had shot him, their step-mother and step-sister after school one day. I remembered a double funeral here ten years ago for two of a good friend's brothers, killed in a car wreck when one fell asleep at the wheel late at night. I remembered visitation in this room seven years ago, after my grandfather died; it was overflowing with flowers then, full of friends and family, photographs and shared memories. That night, the night it should have been least bearable for me, given the closeness of our family, it was a good place to be. I listened again to the halting piano playing, the somewhat wandering singing, the rather befuddling (or befuddled) speaker. I let my gaze linger on the lavender roses in the lavishly lovely casket spray. I considered the way the men in the polyester jackets put their arms around their wives or bowed their heads during the prayer, the way they slowly made their way down the aisle to pay their last respects, hats in hand.
Good Lord, the last thing I want at my funeral is music like this or this kind of speaking! But..the people. If good people could say of me what I heard a young man behind me saying of Jane...I could maybe bear even this room. "The Bible says to man is alloted eighty years. Jane had ninety-three, and she used that gift well."
To use our gift well, not in light of accomplishments or successes, but in light of people, of lives touched. I cannot think of a better eulogy.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
If You Can't Beat 'Em...
Great Scott turned off the television tonight and walked over to my desk. "[State politician] has a new slogan for her campaign," he told me. "'There's something wrong in Washington.'" He paused. "I guess she wants to be in on it."
From Light to Light
Tuesday morning I took my nearly 90 year-old grandmother on a trip to her doctor's. From the waiting room windows I could see across the highway to a lovely golf course with a fountain and lots of trees and open swaths of grass, a beautiful view. Doing my best to ignore Family Feud on the waiting room television, I opened my journal and took out a fountain pen.
9:22 a.m.
The sun is shining this morning The trees throw light back from their leaves, leaves that are showing the beginning of the autumn change, some darkening, some paling, some shifting from the greens they've held so faithfully all summer. The air is relatively still today. The sunshine lies stretched across the golf course lawn like a languorous cat. In the fountain, water glints and flashes as it ripples to the sides. The air glows about us, a lazy, living thing.
I've always loved autumn, the quieting of the natural world, the softening of the crickets' and cicadas' intense songs, the hush of wind through drying grasses, the graceful silver of spiders' balloon threads streaming from every rising stem across the fields as the lowering western sun sets them afire.
3:10 p.m.
I've been at my grandmother's all afternoon, since we returned home. A few minutes ago she got a call from a good friend's sister, telling her that Jane died this morning. My grandmother had just been putting together a copy of the local paper, intending to take it to Jane this evening.
I'm not sure what "this morning" meant, whether Jane breathed from life to life in the sleepy darkness of predawn or in the bright sunshine of the mid-morning I wrote about only hours ago. Either way, I like to think she stepped from one world to the next nimbly, her feet newly quickened and sure, a bright smile on her face as her Beloved took her hand to steady her crossing.
Autumn is a beautiful time of year. The leaves, of course, are gorgeous. It's the quality of light, though, that I love fiercely; there is something brighter, more immediate about it, as though it shines richly forth from another realm, one that draws closer to this world as the earth dutifully begins her descent into the winter darkness that precedes a more brilliant light and life. I'd never really thought of it all that way until Tuesday with Jane's passing and all this amazing, painfully glorious light.
9:22 a.m.
The sun is shining this morning The trees throw light back from their leaves, leaves that are showing the beginning of the autumn change, some darkening, some paling, some shifting from the greens they've held so faithfully all summer. The air is relatively still today. The sunshine lies stretched across the golf course lawn like a languorous cat. In the fountain, water glints and flashes as it ripples to the sides. The air glows about us, a lazy, living thing.
I've always loved autumn, the quieting of the natural world, the softening of the crickets' and cicadas' intense songs, the hush of wind through drying grasses, the graceful silver of spiders' balloon threads streaming from every rising stem across the fields as the lowering western sun sets them afire.
3:10 p.m.
I've been at my grandmother's all afternoon, since we returned home. A few minutes ago she got a call from a good friend's sister, telling her that Jane died this morning. My grandmother had just been putting together a copy of the local paper, intending to take it to Jane this evening.
I'm not sure what "this morning" meant, whether Jane breathed from life to life in the sleepy darkness of predawn or in the bright sunshine of the mid-morning I wrote about only hours ago. Either way, I like to think she stepped from one world to the next nimbly, her feet newly quickened and sure, a bright smile on her face as her Beloved took her hand to steady her crossing.
Autumn is a beautiful time of year. The leaves, of course, are gorgeous. It's the quality of light, though, that I love fiercely; there is something brighter, more immediate about it, as though it shines richly forth from another realm, one that draws closer to this world as the earth dutifully begins her descent into the winter darkness that precedes a more brilliant light and life. I'd never really thought of it all that way until Tuesday with Jane's passing and all this amazing, painfully glorious light.
Friday, September 22, 2006
In My Sleep
Great Scott tells me I've been shrieking in my sleep again. Not horribly loudly, but enough to startle him awake. He's been sleeping on the couch when this happens, although he often switches to the couch partway through the night simply because if he wakes up, he has a hard time falling asleep again.
When we were first married, I often had nightmares or night terrors in which I would try to scream and fight myself awake and couldn't. In reality, I WAS screaming--very loudly--and sometimes physically fighting, too, although I didn't know it at the time. Great Scott would try irritably to wake me up, usually to no avail and often with some element of risk. ("It was the punching me in the head...like a speedbag...that sort of...got to me," he says as he reads this now. Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe this has something to do with why he moves to the couch.)
I don't think this round is quite as bad. For one thing, I'm told I'm not nearly as loud, and I'm not attacking anyone, either. Still, it's one more thing that tells me something needs to give somewhere, one more small red flag flapping frantically in a rising wind.
When we were first married, I often had nightmares or night terrors in which I would try to scream and fight myself awake and couldn't. In reality, I WAS screaming--very loudly--and sometimes physically fighting, too, although I didn't know it at the time. Great Scott would try irritably to wake me up, usually to no avail and often with some element of risk. ("It was the punching me in the head...like a speedbag...that sort of...got to me," he says as he reads this now. Hmmm...come to think of it, maybe this has something to do with why he moves to the couch.)
I don't think this round is quite as bad. For one thing, I'm told I'm not nearly as loud, and I'm not attacking anyone, either. Still, it's one more thing that tells me something needs to give somewhere, one more small red flag flapping frantically in a rising wind.
Tears
This week I have cried three times.
I am not a crier, in general. Crying is not reasonable. It accomplished nothing and more often than not muddies conflicts and intensifies difficult emotions, is merely complicating rather than productive to any given situation. This is my stance on the matter. Nevertheless, Monday when I walked in the door from taking the girls to school, I sat down on the couch, dropped my head in my hands and sobbed; Tuesday night, reading Mary Oliver's newest book, Thirst, in a bathtub full of warm, rosewood-scented water somewhere near midnight, I had to close my eyes and lay the book aside, choking on tears; and this morning driving home from the school drop-off, I found my knuckles clenching white on the steering wheel, the road blurring before me, my body tight with tears yet again.
Maybe it's just the season. Autumn has, as I've written before, always been a difficult time for me. Coming after the year it does, this time, it has quite a bit of deeply stored pain to tap into. Much has gone on this year regarding my extended family and church, and I've carried a heaviness that surfaces everytime we watch the movie Serenity (as we do often here at PossumBox Lane) and the character River Tam cries out, "...it isn't mine. And I shouldn't have to carry it. It isn't mine!"
"I need a month off from church," I told Great Scott, "as soon as the girls are back in school." How to explain the crush of sorrow when one sets foot in the sanctuary? How to explain the cessation of breath?
I am not a crier, in general. Crying is not reasonable. It accomplished nothing and more often than not muddies conflicts and intensifies difficult emotions, is merely complicating rather than productive to any given situation. This is my stance on the matter. Nevertheless, Monday when I walked in the door from taking the girls to school, I sat down on the couch, dropped my head in my hands and sobbed; Tuesday night, reading Mary Oliver's newest book, Thirst, in a bathtub full of warm, rosewood-scented water somewhere near midnight, I had to close my eyes and lay the book aside, choking on tears; and this morning driving home from the school drop-off, I found my knuckles clenching white on the steering wheel, the road blurring before me, my body tight with tears yet again.
Maybe it's just the season. Autumn has, as I've written before, always been a difficult time for me. Coming after the year it does, this time, it has quite a bit of deeply stored pain to tap into. Much has gone on this year regarding my extended family and church, and I've carried a heaviness that surfaces everytime we watch the movie Serenity (as we do often here at PossumBox Lane) and the character River Tam cries out, "...it isn't mine. And I shouldn't have to carry it. It isn't mine!"
"I need a month off from church," I told Great Scott, "as soon as the girls are back in school." How to explain the crush of sorrow when one sets foot in the sanctuary? How to explain the cessation of breath?
Friday Quote: On Prayer
"I know a lot of fancy words,
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray."
--Mary Oliver
an excerpt from the poem, "Six Recognitions of the Lord"
from Thirst
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray."
--Mary Oliver
an excerpt from the poem, "Six Recognitions of the Lord"
from Thirst
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Every year we observe International Talk Like a Pirate Day. At least, some of us do. Great Scott gives his students extra credit for answering roll with the reply, "Arrgh!" I roust the girls out of their bed with a cheery, "Avast, ye landlubbers and scurvy dogs!" And I see that Jeremy has posted a rousing pirate ditty.
For those of you who aren't as confident of your pirate lingo skills, Quotidian Light is happy to provide you with access to an educational video. (Link compliments of my father, who instilled in me my great love of all the finer things in life.)
For those of you who aren't as confident of your pirate lingo skills, Quotidian Light is happy to provide you with access to an educational video. (Link compliments of my father, who instilled in me my great love of all the finer things in life.)
Friday, September 15, 2006
Friday Quote: On Writing
"We should be told: Write fast, write close to the bone, write for ten hours straight until you're not thinking in words anymore but in colors, in smells, in waves of memory. Write what you care about. Don't waste any more of your life on what does not matter to you."
--Bonnie Friedman
from Writing Past Dark
--Bonnie Friedman
from Writing Past Dark
The Note
To: The Mighty, Mighty Powers of Jr. High Administration
[Older Daughter's Name] was absent yesterday (Thursday, September 15th) due to sickness. She spent the day pining. It was pitiful to behold, yea, verily.
'An it please your Worships, please allow her to collect make-up work today that she might labor upon it over the weekend and present it complete upon the first day of the new week next.
You have our gratitude,
Cindy Lawson
"Mom," said our older daughter, eyeing the note I'd written, "this note is a little bit..." She paused, then gave me a look that was part disapproval, part hesitation and partly a plea. The note dangled from her fingers like a small dead frog.
"Would you like for me to write it over?" I asked.
She wavered, then as I picked up my notepad and pen again, said sincerely, "Thanks, Mom."
This is it. She's growing up. Becoming a little more her own person, and that means my giving her more room to do that, by making my communications with others in her everyday world a little more bland, a little more ordinary, a little more blend-in-ish. I wrote the note over. It was a small thing. Perhaps it was even for the best. I'm afraid my own reputation at the school is that of being somewhat eccentric, and my original note probably wouldn't have helped dispell the impression.
[Older Daughter's Name] was sick at home yesterday, as I explained when I called. Please allow her to collect and complete her missed assignments.
Thank you very much,
Cindy Lawson
[Older Daughter's Name] was absent yesterday (Thursday, September 15th) due to sickness. She spent the day pining. It was pitiful to behold, yea, verily.
'An it please your Worships, please allow her to collect make-up work today that she might labor upon it over the weekend and present it complete upon the first day of the new week next.
You have our gratitude,
Cindy Lawson
"Mom," said our older daughter, eyeing the note I'd written, "this note is a little bit..." She paused, then gave me a look that was part disapproval, part hesitation and partly a plea. The note dangled from her fingers like a small dead frog.
"Would you like for me to write it over?" I asked.
She wavered, then as I picked up my notepad and pen again, said sincerely, "Thanks, Mom."
This is it. She's growing up. Becoming a little more her own person, and that means my giving her more room to do that, by making my communications with others in her everyday world a little more bland, a little more ordinary, a little more blend-in-ish. I wrote the note over. It was a small thing. Perhaps it was even for the best. I'm afraid my own reputation at the school is that of being somewhat eccentric, and my original note probably wouldn't have helped dispell the impression.
[Older Daughter's Name] was sick at home yesterday, as I explained when I called. Please allow her to collect and complete her missed assignments.
Thank you very much,
Cindy Lawson
Monday, September 11, 2006
The Stinger
Tonight the dinner conversation whirled around a wasp I had just sprayed in the window. It lay kicking convulsively, and the younger daughter kept turning around in her seat to mourn its torment.
"The poor thing," she moaned, "it's in pain!"
"Nonsense," retorted Great Scott. "Your mother does not torture insects!" After a meaningful moment of silence he added, "She's a Republican." Another moment passed. "And she'll never do it again."
"The poor thing," she moaned, "it's in pain!"
"Nonsense," retorted Great Scott. "Your mother does not torture insects!" After a meaningful moment of silence he added, "She's a Republican." Another moment passed. "And she'll never do it again."
Friday, September 08, 2006
Creating Your Own System Error Message
Technically, I suppose this could go under the "Procrastination Aids" heading, but as you'll see, what I'm about to share with you is in a class of its own. This week Grumpy Teacher posted a link to a site with a customizable highway sign picture . After a little poking around, I discovered that this site also had an area for creating your own computer error messages.
Like this one.
Like this one.
Visit the Gallery of Errors at your own risk. Some are a little bleh, but most are more along the lines of the one above and great fun. Now if one of you computer geniuses can only figure out a way for us to actually USE these! (Jeremy, I'm looking meaningfully in your direction.)
Friday Quote: On Fools
A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.
--Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
--Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Procrastination Aids: If You Were a Major Romantic Poet
You are William Blake! Wow. I'm impressed. Not only are you a self-made artist and poet, but you've suddenly become a very trendy guy to like. It's not that we doubt that you have all your marbles, it's just that we're not quite sure what you did with them to come up with those terrifying theological visions. The people of your time were nowhere near as forgiving as that, and all your neighbors thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we love you, so rest happy.
Take this quiz!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Friday Quote: Stringing Beads
I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountaintop, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten: happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.
--Brenda Ueland
--Brenda Ueland
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Perspectives in Stone and Lead
Journaling: from the Lake Pond, August 29, 2006
I know now why I am so drawn to picture jasper. It is the color of pondbank stones, of the gravelbars in Ozark creekbeds. If I could string this pond, I would use picture jasper and nephrite jade, would add onyx and bloodstone and a little peridot. Perhaps some brecciated jasper, too, for the red clay earth, iolite and blue lace agate for the heavens mixed today with dark clouds and bright patches of clear sky. The waters themselves ripple-pleated by the wind? Something greenish grey or greyish green with pyrite flecking across its surface. The woods were all moss agate and silver moonstone.
I was full of thoughts to write on the walk here. Now I arrive and find the thinking was enough. Sometimes lining one's interior rooms with precious things means not bringing them out and spreading them over the lawn.
The air is cool today, breezy. I wrapped in a throw, puttering around the house this morning. The first hickory nuts have fallen in the woods. One small tree flamed scarlet against the deeper greens and forest greys to the side of the path. Small golden leaves scattered from another as I stepped into the hidden meadow. Not until the sun blazed from behind a cloud did I realize my arms had goosebumps, so subltly had they risen. Daddy-long-legs spiders are daily brushed down from the ceilings in the house and transported outside.
I want to leave something beautiful behind. Perhaps not great or amazing, but something small and lovely, something that glows softly like light caught in fog.
Alchemy. Lead to gold. Science or art? Art, I believe. One well worth pursuing. It does strike me that to turn lead to gold, though, one has to begin with lead.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with B. She's got some topics she wants to pursue in writing but finds herself putting them off because of the heavy emotional price she knows she'll have to pay in order to write well about them. It takes a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy to write well about some things, to write what you know needs to be said in the manner in which you need to say it. Lead is heavy. When one works with it, one becomes fatigued.
I know now why I am so drawn to picture jasper. It is the color of pondbank stones, of the gravelbars in Ozark creekbeds. If I could string this pond, I would use picture jasper and nephrite jade, would add onyx and bloodstone and a little peridot. Perhaps some brecciated jasper, too, for the red clay earth, iolite and blue lace agate for the heavens mixed today with dark clouds and bright patches of clear sky. The waters themselves ripple-pleated by the wind? Something greenish grey or greyish green with pyrite flecking across its surface. The woods were all moss agate and silver moonstone.
I was full of thoughts to write on the walk here. Now I arrive and find the thinking was enough. Sometimes lining one's interior rooms with precious things means not bringing them out and spreading them over the lawn.
The air is cool today, breezy. I wrapped in a throw, puttering around the house this morning. The first hickory nuts have fallen in the woods. One small tree flamed scarlet against the deeper greens and forest greys to the side of the path. Small golden leaves scattered from another as I stepped into the hidden meadow. Not until the sun blazed from behind a cloud did I realize my arms had goosebumps, so subltly had they risen. Daddy-long-legs spiders are daily brushed down from the ceilings in the house and transported outside.
I want to leave something beautiful behind. Perhaps not great or amazing, but something small and lovely, something that glows softly like light caught in fog.
Alchemy. Lead to gold. Science or art? Art, I believe. One well worth pursuing. It does strike me that to turn lead to gold, though, one has to begin with lead.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with B. She's got some topics she wants to pursue in writing but finds herself putting them off because of the heavy emotional price she knows she'll have to pay in order to write well about them. It takes a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy to write well about some things, to write what you know needs to be said in the manner in which you need to say it. Lead is heavy. When one works with it, one becomes fatigued.
Indignity
The girls spent the weekend with their grandmother not long ago. She took them to the Build-A-Bear Workshop and bought them stuffed animals for which they were able to select clothes and accessories. Both girls chose stuffed cats. Imagine their delight this morning when they discovered that the stuffed cat clothes fit The Great Golden Sun Cat.
He should have been grateful. The other option was a pink cheerleading outfit.
He should have been grateful. The other option was a pink cheerleading outfit.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Friday Quote: a Mishmash
Actually, this is a sort of meme, unabashedly stolen from Seeker, who consistently posts quotes and snippets that make me suspect someone's been "reading my mail." The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."
Mine:
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
---Will Cuppy
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
---F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), Tender is the Night
What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.
---M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972), Quoted in Comic Sections, D. MacHale (Dublin 1993)
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
---Joseph Chilton Pearce
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
---R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
---Paul Graham, September 2004
Yes, I know I used six. That last one was entirely too good to pass up.
Mine:
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
---Will Cuppy
Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.
---F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), Tender is the Night
What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.
---M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972), Quoted in Comic Sections, D. MacHale (Dublin 1993)
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
---Joseph Chilton Pearce
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
---R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity.
---Paul Graham, September 2004
Yes, I know I used six. That last one was entirely too good to pass up.
One Book: A Meme
1. One book that changed my life: Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster
2. One book I've read more than once: Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
3. One book I'd want on a desert island: Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. One book that made me laugh: The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4 by Adrian Plass
5. One book that made me cry: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
6. One book I wish had been written: I wish Jane Kenyon had written a book of essays on her experiences with mood difficulties and on living well with them, something I believe she did.
7. One book I wish had never been written: I feel unqualified to comment. Possibly Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for which I have a somewhat unreasonable antipathy..
8. One book I'm currently reading: Introductory Psychology through Science Fiction—a used bookstore find. Fun.
9. One book I've been meaning to read: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
10. One book I'd like to write: Something beautiful and strange, like mist when the sun rises through it, something at once simple and hidden, something bright in the midst of great darkness.
Tapped by Kristin
Tapping Great Scott and Julie Carter.
2. One book I've read more than once: Od Magic by Patricia McKillip
3. One book I'd want on a desert island: Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. One book that made me laugh: The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4 by Adrian Plass
5. One book that made me cry: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
6. One book I wish had been written: I wish Jane Kenyon had written a book of essays on her experiences with mood difficulties and on living well with them, something I believe she did.
7. One book I wish had never been written: I feel unqualified to comment. Possibly Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for which I have a somewhat unreasonable antipathy..
8. One book I'm currently reading: Introductory Psychology through Science Fiction—a used bookstore find. Fun.
9. One book I've been meaning to read: De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
10. One book I'd like to write: Something beautiful and strange, like mist when the sun rises through it, something at once simple and hidden, something bright in the midst of great darkness.
Tapped by Kristin
Tapping Great Scott and Julie Carter.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Pragmatic Romanticism
We are romantics at our house. We watch "Lord of the Rings" together over Christmas break every year, sniffling throughout. Scott even tears up during "Serenity" and "Lady Jane", and the girls...the girls are all about daring rescues and hope and love and drama. Ah, the drama! Still, we live in a very real world here at Possum Box Lane. The house is old with all sorts of quirks and problems, and we have to adjust: when the wind blows just right during a storm, the windows in the downstairs bedroom are going to leak; spiders (wolf and brown recluse) are a seasonal issue; and the plumbing is temperamental. It makes for a funny mix sometimes, living in any number of ideal worlds and in the real one at the same time.
This morning "Return of the Jedi" was playing in the living room, specifically the climactic scene complete with intense music and flaring blue lights as Darth Vader makes his redeeming choice, lifts his evil master, the Emperor, and hurls him over the guard rails and down the Death's Star's shaft where a final explosion of electric blue billows deep in the core, signifying the end of the evil empire.
After a moment of silence, the older daughter speaks. "That's bad. That's gonna plug something up."
This morning "Return of the Jedi" was playing in the living room, specifically the climactic scene complete with intense music and flaring blue lights as Darth Vader makes his redeeming choice, lifts his evil master, the Emperor, and hurls him over the guard rails and down the Death's Star's shaft where a final explosion of electric blue billows deep in the core, signifying the end of the evil empire.
After a moment of silence, the older daughter speaks. "That's bad. That's gonna plug something up."
Friday, August 11, 2006
Jr. High
Yesterday the girls and I went to the schoolhouse to register the older daughter for Jr. High. She saw some of her friends and said hi. She was measured and weighed. Her vision was tested. Her lunch account was brought up to date, and she was given her lunch card. Then came the biggie--her very own locker. Number in hand, she walked the hall, her younger sister running excitedly ahead of her to locate it first: her very own space within this institution of higher learning, her home away from home. She found it. She fingered the latch and opened it at last. Inside the door, scrawled in dark marker was the word, "WHORE".
Welcome to Jr. High, my dear.
Welcome to Jr. High, my dear.
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