First Runner Up

My hands have no blood.  I’m a rag doll with a too-heavy head cocked to one side.  Roving eyes blindly scan the room without focus, then stare hypnotically at the Star of Bethlehem softly shining in the darkness behind our nativity.  Maybe I should pinch myself.  There.  I did it. 

I’m here.  This is really happening.

A month ago I raised my sails, caught a stiff, very competitive wind, and courageously sailed into a non-fiction book contest.  It was gutsy business, and I spent countless hours refining the entry: a table of contents, first chapter, and overview of the forecasted remaining chapters.

I just received an email notification with the results.  My entry was awarded first runner-up!

This moment, this sitting-in-the-dark moment with the congratulatory news crawling across my screen, seems like a dream.  I’ve wanted to write for as long as I can remember.  Even in high school, some crazy-deep compulsion told me I must write (and dance, but that’s another story), but life crowded in with its throngs of screaming necessities and I didn’t give myself permission for almost half a century. 

Eventually, seven years ago to be exact, the cork popped off the fermenting internal brew. God Himself answered a tearful heart-cry and led me to an online writing guild where the pent-up words – decades worth – started spilling all over the page with every weekly contest.  Words upon words inspired still more words (you never run out, says Anne Lamotte) until eventually I wrote this year’s Page Turner Contest entry.

My head feels detached from my body - dizzy, floating somewhere else.  I’ve been recognized.  That means I must finish the book!  With God’s help I will.

Santa Doc

His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His wide open mouth chuckled softly non-stop,

And his plan was astounding - it made my eyes pop!

We saw a new doctor today who looked like a congenial Santa, except he lacked the beard, red suit, and round stomach.  This jolly but intensely professional 74-year-old also boasted a young physique, quick wit, and new approach to treating heart failure.  We’re on board with his plan that will entail hard work, but forecasts a stronger heart muscle and improved overall health.  To date, the drug therapies of cardiologists in our 11-year journey have focused on relieving symptoms more than treating the causes of heart failure, so this is an exciting new twist.

It’s a little bit of a culture shock, but is also exciting to step out of the conventional box with its stuffy sameness, especially when new hope runs high and the old routine just isn’t working well. 

The timing of our visit with Santa Doc, a spiritual man deeply in love with Jesus, seems to be no accident.  It is the season of advent.  Expectancy.  Hope.

Celebrating

 A long time ago, a child was born on this date, the object of much awe and celebration.   It doesn’t matter how many years ago really, only that the tiny encapsulated form within me came forth to live without me – to develop in body, soul and spirit, to prepare to eventually die to earthly existence and enter the forever life: birth, again.

While a pregnant mama’s internalized wait may often seem lonely, now we share the waiting, this child and I - the wondering, knowing, hoping, pondering, rejoicing - the ongoing developing as we embrace the journey toward eternity.   Like many before us, we believe the ancient Biblical accounts laced with promises that fit together perfectly, and have been reborn of spirit despite the surety of physical death.  We wait in faith, gratefully and expectantly.

All my children share this faithful wait with me here in the womb we call earth, a twilight place anticipating eternity’s endless day. But today, I embrace the blessing of expectancy in honor of just this one.

May peace attend thee, child.  What you and I long for is foreshadowed in this life, while still shrouded in mystery – but certainly coming.  Until the fullness of time appears, prayers abound and blessings prevail: God is nigh. Today we celebrate the anniversary of your birth again with great joy, and wait together.

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee

All through the night;

Guardian angels God will send thee,

All through the night.

Work and Play

Our piano tuner is a rare breed who consistently loves life’s dynamics: his instruments and work, his clients and friends, and the surprises, discoveries, and challenges that weave through the hours, days, and weeks. He and his wife (who has occasionally accompanied him on his visits to our house) both seem to exude balance – like melodies rich with just the right mix of allegro and andante, passion and rest.  

Over the years we’ve shared quite a bit, and have grown to appreciate each other. Today he visited to tweak some souring piano strings, but also fine-tuned an inspiring conversation over a glass of freshly extracted green lemonade, and discounted his services in good conscience since the work did not require a full tuning.  I sent home a fresh cranberry-apple pie for him to share with his wife this evening, and he invited us to tour their new country home on 23 acres not far from our son’s property.

It’s interesting to compare this friendship to other long-standing professional relationships when the people involved stick to business - to the exclusion of each other.

Knitting Bag

My mother, an avid knitter, set me up with needles and patterns when I was newly married – everything I needed to realize my knitting legacy.  She even knit me a small accessory bag, sampler of unique stitch patterns worked in brown yarn, to hold tools like crochet hooks, needle size charts, and stitch holders.  Then she lined it with matching brown fabric, and sewed a zipper closure across the top.  I took it for granted.

I wasn't a knitting guru like my mother, and rarely used my needles and accessories.  Over time, the little bag’s yarn frayed by virtue of age rather than use.  Tonight, after finishing a knitted Christmas stocking, I took a final picture to preserve the memory of my mother’s creativity, and then threw the bag in the trash.

Funny how something so small can seem like a treasure when it is time for it to go.

Kale and Cookies

After our church service this morning, small groups of adults chatted in the narthex as our oblivious granddaughters happily munched cookies in their own little worlds underfoot. I was watching the girls, thinking how adorably lost in sugar reverie and cookie-happy they looked, when their mama said to me, “We need to stop at the grocery on the way home - (pause) - we’re out of kale already.”

Maybe it was her signature look – the cute of-course-we-must-have-KALE look – amidst the girls’ cookie crumbs falling like snow, or the context of church when you usually don’t expect to talk about leafy green vegetables, but I cracked up. When does anyone EVER run out of, ahem, KALE – as if it might fall in the same class as milk or bread or, goodness knows, coffee?  

This younger daughter and our older son (the two families are currently living under the same roof) have recently been easing into an extended detoxifying juice fast/feast by juicing through the day and eating one solid meal in the evening.  Last night that meal included surprisingly yummy gluten-free, refined-sugar-free berry pie in honor of their brother’s early birthday celebration – an atypical treat to celebrate the departure from solid food!

But as of today they’re into the real deal, which means mega-quantities of juice but no solid food, for the next week.  “I’m sure I’ll be spending several hours a day either prepping and juicing veggies, or cleaning the juicer,” she continued with that same impish-look, as if of course this is what we always talk about during coffee hour at church. 

Meanwhile, the dreamy-eyed girls chomped on their crispy rounds of refined white flour, sugar, and hydrogenated fat: dead non-food on the other end of the spectrum from nutrient-rich, living food: fresh JUICE.  It was just, well, a funny thing for cookies to punctuate conversation about kale juice.  Sort of like combining egg nog and sushi (shudder). Or beer and donuts.

On the way home, I thought how it’s an interesting time and place to be alive in regard to food.  Instead of gratefully consuming whatever basics might be available - the case with our ancestors and various people worldwide today - many in this country can choose to eat almost anything: sumptuous salads from endless salad bars; exotic ethnic cuisine; candy, chips, crackers, and snack cakes; bean sprouts and tofu; all-you-can-eat pizza buffets; organic produce, dairy, and meat; desserts like tira misu and fried ice cream….OR, would you believe, the extracted juices of carrots and kale.

The Star

I decided to purchase a small star-shaped light bulb to fit one of my electric candlestick-look-alikes made for window display – those modern-day candles that magnetize outdoor onlookers with “I’ll be home for Christmas” nostalgia.   

After calling the closest craft store (still 45 minutes away) and chatting with a perky, young-sounding clerk who gave me little hope of finding one, I turned the project over to Google.  In less than 5 minutes I’d ordered a 3” star bulb! The star won’t shine in a window though, but rather will become an elevated Star of Bethlehem behind the ceramic nativity on the piano.

The search for a star invited me to ponder ongoing realities like peace, acceptance, kindness, comfort and love, even in the midst of confusion, disappointment, frustration leading to gossip, physical pain, and (gulp) fear.  I am sadly human and limited, and yet the Lord faithfully leads me along well-lit paths leading beyond my own pettiness, criticism, and shortsightedness.

I’m looking forward to my new star, and plan to leave it shining all through the month of December: an icon of ongoing hope in Jesus, the Light of the World.

Herby

When our daughter recently visited Turkey (the country, not the Butterball we roasted yesterday), she returned with a pierced nose and some interesting stories about salad.

Evidently the Turks like flavorful salads, but not because of calorie blowouts like bleu cheese dressing, fried onion sprinkles, or raisins.  Rather, Turkish salad greens are not lettuce or spinach, as we might expect, but fresh herbs.  Mint.  Cilantro.  Basil.  If dressed at all, these flagrant sinus openers get a few quick drops of olive oil and vinegar – that’s it.

Inspired by this kind of herbal boldness, I’ve been trying more herbs in my own salad concoctions. Yesterday I made an asparagus-corn salad featuring fresh basil, and a quinoa salad starring fresh cilantro, as sides for the otherwise sumptuous, gut-bomb dishes comprising The Big Meal. 

As I type this, I’m enjoying leftover quinoa salad in the company of our skinny “pencil” Christmas tree (I just decorated it today).  The cilantro, brimming with generous green goodness, insists its nutrient value is good, really good for me.  The tree, glowing with hundreds of tiny white lights, insists its visual ambiance is good, really good for me.  I’m just plain good…if also definitely herby. Not Herbie, mind you.  Herby.*

*adj. - Having the nature of, pertaining to, or covered with herbs or herbage.

Sing Along

Ahhhhhh.....!  It’s good to let down after a busy Thanksgiving at our son’s house, and bask in sweet new memories with yet another turkey under the belt (literally).

Our family jam session before The Big Meal was just one of many high points of the day, hilarious and emotional and inspiring and endearing and just plain fun.  I’ve not let my hair down like that for a long time.  The following instruments shaped our band that was crammed in a cubbyhole in the basement: keyboard, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, two violins, snare drums and cymbals, bongo drums, a flute, and various maraca-like shakers and wooden percussion-like striking instruments for the younger kids.  And honestly, the sound was REALLY GOOD!

Music varied from “Rock Me Mama Like a Wagon Wheel” (amusing, cute, peppy) to “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing” (reverent, grateful) and  “Joy to the World” (celebratory). The violinists played a beautiful classical duet, and we had two-part, three-part, and even four-part vocal harmony on some songs.

Enjoying professional music is one thing, but making it is another.  And we made it.  Together.

Tonight I’m thankful for all the unique, fascinating members of this family who help and support each other in both big and small ways (as my daughter-in-law so appreciatively said during a champagne toast to the family), who dance together in the trenches of everyday life, even when melodies fade.

Cookin'

The Ghost of Thanksgivings Past whispered my name when it was still too-too early this morning. I tried to turn a deaf ear, but to no avail: come on, get up and get busy… there’s a lot to do.  Trusty adrenaline kicked in, and I was busy clanging pans in the kitchen by 7:30.

The shift went on and on and ON – I didn’t stop until 4:30, and then wasn’t finished.   I’ll get to the two remaining projects – a spanikopita and corn dish - in the morning.

Why did it take so long to make three 11x15” casseroles, two salads, a pie, a batch of yeast rolls, and three loaves of cranberry bread?  Aren’t these the same hands that used to crank out similar volumes in no time flat?

A companion question: How quickly will people to eat all this stuff tomorrow at our Thanksgiving meal?  Very. Quickly. 

Seniorville

senior – n. - a person who is a specified number of years older than someone else

seniority – n. – higher rank than that of others, especially by reason of longer service

senioritis – n. – a colloquial term used in the United States and Canada to describe the decreased motivation displayed by students nearing the end of their school careers

seniorphoria – n. – 1. a condition defining seniors’ senioritis at the end of long careers marked by seniority deserving of recognition; 2. a condition of euphoria upon seniors’ discoveries of support for post-retirement

Now that you’ve had your vocab lesson for the day, I can recap what’s happening here before making my final statement.  

The Man is working with two new (meaning not previously seen) heart specialists - both awesome, but coming from different perspectives.  We both had stellar reports from our live blood cell analyses today.  AND, this afternoon we discovered a very impressive and VERY INEXPENSIVE senior center in our county offering a walking trail and an impressive selection of exercise machines (complete with a professional trainer)!  The center serves an almost-free lunch every day if you want to eat while you’re there, and offers a miscellaneous activities and programs throughout the year. The Woman is happy and encouraged by the emerging medical and other support!

And so, all in all, things are looking good here in Seniorville, where we proud-to-be-seniors with seniority are senioresque (that’s a new one, you figure out what it means) experiencing both senioritis and seniorphoria.

Santa Came TODAY!

On November 6^th, the infamous day of our 2012 national elections, I posted a one-and-only Christmas wish here at the blog.  The ever-attentive, list-making, ahead-of-the-game Santa must have internet access, because he evidently took note of this request.  My wish came via U.S. Postal Service in a manila envelope…TODAY!

Anonymously, no less.* 

Now I have my very own RED BUTTON that says, “SPEAK SLOWLY AND LOUDLY, PLEASE.”  And another very pretty blue one with cloudy wisps across the center (a companion button) with this inscription, “It’ll be worth it – I am very wise.”  (blushing here)

Gulp.  A fan club?  REALLY?  Thank you, wonderful person…whoever you are out there in cyber-land (this said with deep megaphone-voice)! You are AWESOME! 

The good Doctor Luke had something to say about situations like this.  “Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  Smart man. So watch out special elf, your own personalized blessing is on its way.

*I have the teeniest, most miniscule hunch that I might know the identity of this clever elf, but it’s more fun to think I’m totally clueless, so that’s what I’ll do.

Small Gift, Big Hope

They stand behind the sewing machine – four women in a picture featured in Gospel for Asia’s catalog – dark eyes grateful but shy, olive skin the color of coffee with cream, hair jet-black like shiny coal.  One beautiful girl - she couldn’t be more than fifteen - carries a baby mirroring her same striking facial features in a sling on her back.

They’re from India, members of the lowest caste: the Dalits or Untouchables.

These women have just received a sewing machine that will enable them to make clothing for their families, but also generate an income that will feed their children and send them to school.  The sewing machine was a gift from someone on the other side of the world, a gift that might cost the same as, for example, dinner at a nice restaurant and an evening at the movies for you and me.

But this gift will impact many people for much longer than an evening – perhaps even years.   Maybe the baby on the girl’s back will even learn to use it.  She seems so small and vulnerable, her pretty little face peeking from beneath a white cap as she peers from the girl’s shoulder. Maybe she will live a different life because of this gift. 

The women at our church are buying one such sewing machine (or more, depending on the donations) as a Christmas gift for a recipient we have not met, nor shall ever meet.  And yet our hearts go out to this sister who also loves and hurts and cherishes and dreams.  I pray for God’s blessing on our gift.

Here are some related web sites:

http://www.gfa.org/donation/items/sewing-machine/

http://www.gfa.org/sewing-hope/

http://www.gfa.org/giving/christmas/sewing-machine/

http://www.gfa.org/news/articles/sewing-machine-provides-family-five/

Goodbye Hostess

Heart-broken Twinkie lovers visited my Facebook page yesterday in the wake of Hostess Brands’ shutdown, opening a cultural peephole into the never-never land of What Consumers Want.  It was obvious to me that in this land of opportunity where giant appetites have gone addicted, Twinkies and Ho-Hos and Ding-Dongs hold shares in American sweet tooths.

The history of Twinkies is interesting – the tale begins in 1930 – but that’s not what grabs me right now.  Rather, I’m curious to know how this giant corporate food ziggurat grew in the first place, marshmallow-by-marshmallow, to uphold counterfeit foods that aren’t even foods at all, but rather slow toxic killers.  Some of us know the truth, while others just want to have their cake and eat it too, and really don’t care.

I know criticism of Hostess cakes sounds harsh, un-American, and theoretical rather than practical, so before you label me a hypocrite, here’s a true confession: I practically lived on Hostess Cupcakes (chocolate crème-filled cupcakes with chocolate frosting and that classic white squiggle on top) during my college years.  They were my staple.  Benevolent vending machines in every building provided cupcake-meals (would you believe two two-packs, or FOUR cupcakes at a time) for only a couple of silver quarters.  Because of those slot-machines with sweet payoff, I didn’t have to take time for real dinner.  A second confession: I still battle the inner monster I cultivated during that time.

All that to say, I get the addiction part.

But all these eons later, having grown older and wiser, I’ve been converted by the truth: what we cheerily name “junk food” truly is junk.  It trashes our bodies and minds, our whole selves.  However, as my second confession above says, I don’t pretend to be beyond the addictive shark-jaws of tyrannical Hershey bars and jelly beans (and fresh-baked cookies – oh my) in this senior phase, despite significant growth toward recovery.  I do, however, relish idyllic periods of total abstinence from sugar when everyday function reflects close-to-peak physical and emotional well-being for my age.

But I digress.  Here’s a ray of hope that could inspire those grieving the loss of the Hostess snack line… 

Recently I’ve been making gluten-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free desserts (some also all-raw, and goooood) that sometimes happen to be high-protein as well.  Just last week I baked a chocolate snack cake (almond flour, eggs, bitter chocolate, coconut oil, agave nectar and stevia) and topped it with gooey crème (cashews, vanilla, agave nectar and stevia, plus enough water to make it squishy-in-the-mouth like Twinkie filling).  It’s a bit on the rich (fatty) side, but at least the fats aren’t awful, one-molecule-away-from-plastic hydrogenated ones. I baked the cake batter in individual round ramekins – very cute – and then plopped the goo on top like thick whipped cream.  The result?  Mmmmmmauvelous, dreamy snack cake that snubs additive-laden Hostess Cupcakes. I named it Choco-Lot.

If you happen to be one of the frantic individuals grieving Hostess snack cakes (with their millennial shelf lives that could far outlive any of us) who is willing to pay ridiculous amounts for the soon-to-be infamous, last-ever boxes of Twinkies, take heart and lament no more.  All is not lost.  Choco-Lot, and other similar health-friendly alternatives, could be as near as your kitchen.

It's Coming!

Here’s the late-breaking news currently winding through the fallible neighborhood grapevine: poshness is coming to the boonies.

Lakeside culture doesn’t usually embrace poshness.  We’re sold out to relaxedness here.  And yet even we lake people (notorious for bare feet) have a sprinkling of royalty hiding out somewhere in our genes.  We clean up quite nicely.

New owners have taken over a large restaurant down the road.  Exterior log-look siding, currently being applied, suggests an outdoorsy lake-mood with a hint of swank.   Gossip says bacon-wrapped filet mignons, linen tablecloths, and ballroom dance music are headed our way. 

We’re sold out to swim suits and hamburgers on the grill, and yet this is exciting news.  With official retirement just around the corner, a glass of White Zinfandel with the chef’s special du jour over candlelight, and a waltz, sound like good weekly therapy – and all within walking distance.

Found It

“I’ll find it,” she said. 

I’d been blabbing on to Sandra about recent neck and back pain. 

“I’ll find it,” she repeated gently, as if to calm my descriptive anxieties.

“I’m sure you will,” I replied.  And, I WAS sure she would.

Sandra is my favorite therapeutic masseuse, ever.  To be honest, my only therapeutic masseuse, ever.  I think she’s gifted.  Her hands are lightning and velvet:  hot coals and heavy footsteps and ice slicks and baby cheeks. 

Sixty minutes later, my upper body was wrung out and rubbery.  She’d found “it”, a big knot in a muscle on the right side of my neck that was playing tug-of-war with one on the left.  The tugging muscle on the left had also spread the jolly fun all the way down the left side of my back. But it was all the fault of that bully on the right. 

I envision little eyes on the tips of all her fingers, looking inside with x-rays, down deep, checking out the interior body-scape, and then shooting relaxation ammo from lazer guns at just the right spots until I burn and freeze and numb and soften.  It’s amazing, really.

It would be nice if she lived in my closet, and I could pull her out at will.  Or in an envelope, in which case I’d send her via US Postal Service to some of you out there who could also benefit from her remedial touch.

Two Pools, Two Pokes, and Magic

Daybreak cracked the shell on the day, dripping dawn through the slits in the blinds, waking the room’s contours: door, oval mirror, bedside table where my silver hearing aid charger stared back with tiny yellow eyes that said yes, they’re charged and ready for you. Yawning, I reluctantly threw back the covers, stumbled into the kitchen, and swallowed my morning pills. 

The trash man hadn’t come yet.  Three old throw rugs I’d forgotten to take out sat rolled by the door.  I threw a coat over my green striped pj shorts and shirt, slipped on my oldest Birk clogs, and waddled across the yard with the rugs under one arm, tip-toeing through wet mud.  Rain had fallen all night.  The sharp wind cut my bare legs. I felt silly, and hoped the neighbors weren’t watching.

After depositing the rugs in our brown trash receptacle, I turned into the wind, pulled the coat collar tight around my neck, and hurried back toward the house, passing the pontoon boat - a whale-like Gray Hulk beached on our new trailer. 

Something was wrong.  One of the support poles had fallen down inside, allowing rain to accumulate in the cover's low spots and drag it down.  This was not good. 

I hurried inside, changed into old clothes, grabbed the small stepladder, and headed back to do rescue duty.  Getting into the boat would prove challenging; we’d made sure the cover was fastened down securely for the winter. I twisted my body between the straps (between the second and third straps in the picture if you count left to right), cocked open the side door, and slithered into the boat with reptilian grace.  Well, almost.  My right heel got stuck.

Inside, two engorged double-D-sized breasts full of water hung before me, flaunting their great size, pulling tensely on the rest of the cover.  I poked one with the support pole, deflating it - sawaaaash - and then the other – sawaaaash-ssh-sssssh - and propped the pole back in place. My job was done.

But wait. 

Enchantment. The wind sang a breathy, hoarse song outside. I sprawled in the dimly-lit cave, an adult child in a charmed tent aglow with soft dawn-light leaking through the fabric cover.  Isolation got busy - scrubbed me clean, removed blinders, inspired imagination.  Magic!  Like a quiet fetus, I lay inside this separated womb of space - this whale - that belonged to all that wild, thrashing life going on out there.

After a few minutes, at just the right moment, I knew I must go.  I pushed my feet through the slit opening between the pontoon and the strapped cover – sort of like probing a shoelace through an eyelet – and felt for the ladder.  It hadn’t tipped over.  Good.  I crawled out, emerging from the awe and uncomplicated wonder changed and better prepared to embrace the rest of the day.

The Lens

A perceptual cataract prevailed before this transparent opaque disc-of-a-lens began magnifying and clarifying everything for me in just the right way.

LOOK.  See how it twinkles in the light as I turn it back and forth, refracting more, always MORE, from somewhere beyond what is perceived with the naked eye?  Through the lens, both beauty and ugliness (components of the human experience) zoom up close and personal with a focus on….gratitude. To God.  Big, eternal, everlasting gratitude. Sweep-me-up-in-your-arms gratitude. Make-me-whole gratitude.

Why?  Because gratitude always precedes joy. It makes me whole and complete in the midst of deep-drilling arrows and drought that cracks low in the soul. I whisper thanks to God - let the eyes well up wet - and He is near, gracing with His love that heals, His renewing springs and rivers. The Psalmist says it in a few words: Happy is the people…whose God is the Lord.  (Ps. 144:15)

To the skeptics I say, the lens is not about distortion, but rather about seeing everything more clearly rather than less – seeing the world, and hours and minutes, from an other-worldly dispersion and perspective, one grounded before the beginning of time.  It’s about letting go of both resistance and idealism and sharpening heart-eyes to walk hand-in-hand with God through life, even life in the midst of death.  Yes, this is possible.  Yes, it is overlooked when the lens slides under the rug.  There is an art in learning to turn your head and heart just so – to see from a different viewpoint, through this lens.

How do I want to view the world situation, and the contours of my individual life, in this place and time between the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Eternal Paradise?    

Through a lens.  Of gratitude.

The Look

It was a sunny afternoon, September-warm rather than November-cold, and I kept thinking about him, wondering if he spent the day inside the house or out and about in the soft wind, exploring the waving grasses and mysteries of nature.  The memory of his eyes haunted me and replayed his questioning look: who am I, do I matter to you, do you believe in me, and how I am to live in this world?  What can you show me?  Should I trust you? Will you listen?  Will you care about the things that matter to me?  Will you explain to me what matters to you? Should I risk it, or play it safe? The look stayed with me, like a sharp arrow probing for answers as deep as it took.

It happened in a matter of seconds – so fast.  But in revisiting the look after-the-fact, I had the luxury of considering my answer and returning the gaze, thoughtfully if not verbally, if only to practice.  Maybe there will be another time.

My teacher friends who recognize these kinds of questions are not allowed to get close enough to discover the specific questions lurking behind them.  They risk serious reprimand, or worse, if they dare hug a student or “get personal” in conversation. In a purely objective and almost clinical way, the system requires they prove themselves according to their students’ good grades.

Meanwhile, my husband, who will retire as a college professor in a matter of weeks, feels a huge paradigm shift continues to define K-12 public education: it has become the teacher’s fault when a student performs poorly, rather than the student’s.  

Something is amuck.

One friend (an employee in my bakery when she was a college student), a committed 40-year-old elementary assistant principle and art teacher, insists the only way to educate children is to gain their trust and respect FIRST.  She contends academic goals can’t be fully reached without getting personal – without calling forth the inevitable questions lurking behind a student’s look (either probing or askance) and responding to them honestly.  Such relationship opens the door and invites the child to come outside in the fresh air of exploration, discovery, and learning…and become.

Dirty Work

Today’s lake-girl mission: clean and winter-wrap the pontoon boat. Alllll…hands…on…deck…!

Alas.  The crew. Clearly…absent. 

All those torpedo-ing swimmers and manly-pancake-grilling midnight card players (who kicked over a waxy citronella candle and left a grease ring and pancake batter) and little-kid-cracker-eaters and hairy dogs (well, just one dog) and fishermen who slimed black-black worm dirt everywhere - those crew who had a part in its current state - were obviously Somewhere Else.

No surprise.  I usually do the Cinderella work around here.  Aye, aye, some of us play and some of us scrub the deck.

With no responders in sight, I grabbed a big tub of hot water, three scrub brushes of different sizes, a handful of old rags, bottles of Tilex and Murphy soap and carpet cleaner, and went to work until my back and neck and shoulders screamed for mercy: “MUUUUTINY!”  But I cracked the whip and they kept working anyway, for a long time actually. A stern (tyrannical?) taskmaster, I am. 

Five hours later, I slithered down the one-foot-wide steps on the boat trailer like one of those cartoon characters gone flat and worm-like. At the bottom, suddenly aware of my limp body, I wondered about the alternative “better way” currently on the table. Very simple: don’t do it.  Let the pontoon boat get trashed.  Isn’t that why we bought an older, used boat in the first place? (This counsel straight from The Admiral.)

Personally, I’m FINE with old stuff, but not so fine with junky, neglected old stuff in the sense of invading green moss and black mold and obvious dirt (like black worm dirt in the cracks of the seats) that advertise compounding sloth and demean the boating experience. Those should not be allowed. 

REVEILLE is sounding.  Wake-up! If indeed I’m the only one who cares, I will continue to be the one-woman cleaning crew for this newest Mulie vessel.  But then Dirty Work has always been my middle name.