Fives

So, this meme has likely been around a while, but I just ran into it over at Bad Alice's. And it seems that memes are all that I have time/energy for right now (sigh). So, with some modification:

Gord's 5 Meme

15 years ago: Newly married and in the middle of my grad program. Had just moved to rural village outside of Grad School Town. Two of those three things turned out to be big mistakes.[Hint: school is never a mistake].

10 years ago: Newly separated, in my second year of teaching at St. Somewhere's in northern New England. Heading into another Christmas that I wasn't prepared for emotionally or financially.

5 years ago: Had just finished my tenure file and simultaneously was in a discernment process to test my call to priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

5 yummy things:
Indian food
Thai food
CHOCOLATE
Anything pumpkin
Fried green tomatoes
Ice cream (oops, that's 6--oh well!)

5 things I would do with a lot of money
Pay off my student loans, and those of my children
Buy an apartment in NYC
Endow a scholarship
Give money to my alma mater(s)--well a couple of them anyway
Go shopping just once and buy whatever I felt like without looking at the price

5 things I would never wear
A fur coat
A bikini
A miniskirt
Stiletto heels
Shirts that expose my midriff

5 favorite TV shows
Ummm......I don't have a TV

5 things I enjoy doing
Reading books
Sitting in coffeeshops (esp. my favorite one in Seminary City)
Reading blogs
Taking pictures
Walking in the city

And I Always Thought I Was a Romantic...

The Movie Of Your Life Is An Indie Flick

You do things your own way - and it's made for colorful times. Your life hasn't turned out how anyone expected, thank goodness! Your best movie matches: Clerks, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Happy Birthday, Sk8tr Boy

Today is Sk8tr Boy's 14th birthday.

It is such a cliche to talk about time flying, but you know what? It does. Fourteen years ago just about this time I was on my way to the hospital, contractions 5 minutes apart. Of course they stopped as soon as we got there, but because I was having a v-back and because I lived 45 minutes from the hospital we decided not to go home. So we walked the mall, and we went for a drive, and we walked the mall some more, and I had a corndog for lunch (what was I thinking?) and finally late afternoon I was admitted, and he was born in the early evening.

I was in grad school at the time, and since he was born in November, I was able to take off until after the Christmas break. I thought that I would be able to do some reading for quals during those weeks. What was I thinking? Sk8tr Boy was one of those babies who preferred night to day, and who never slept longer than 30-40 minutes. I could just barely get a shower in between nursings.

For lots of reasons I won't go into here, the next couple of years were mega-stressful. He was two and a half when I finally finished my Ph.D. and we moved to New England for my teaching job. He thrived there. My college has a wonderful daycare--I can't say enough good things about that and how important that was for me. But the stress wasn't over because his dad left the picture for good just a year later, and he's had minimal contact with him since (actually he hasn't seen him in 7 years, nor talked to him in over two years).

Sk8tr Boy started kindergarten when he was still four. His preschool teacher thought he would be bored, and the public school had a wonderful full day kindergarten. He was in a multi-age K1 class with fantastic teachers, but it was still a hard transition in some ways. His fine motor skills probably weren't up to par for a kindergartener, but he coped, and eventually he flourished. He learned to ride his two-wheeler, tried soccer but preferred baseball, became a Little League catcher, read voraciously, took up computer games in the absence of a TV, took up the guitar and trumpet, spent lots of time with his older sisters, especially Lovely Daughter #1 who stayed in the area for college and afterwards.

When we moved to Seminary City, he was starting middle school--public middle school in the city, traveling by public transportation. Luckily, he loved the city, and adapted to public transportation (becoming the resident expert on the subway system). But school was a trial because he was picked on a lot in sixth grade. The school was very slow to respond to my complaints, too, believing that he should advocate for himself more. Well, yes, maybe he should have, but when it's your kid who's being bullied you want someone to stop it NOW! The saving grace was that there was a great group of kids his age at the seminary with whom he spent his out of school time, and the others students in my class were very good to him as well. The next year the bullying stopped--not sure why, but he was much happier in school. He also took up black nail polish and blue hair, but chickened out about getting his ears pierced.

It was very hard for him to leave the city. Schoolwise it was good timing--he finished middle school there and started high school here. He likes his school, and for the first time ever is GETTING HIMSELF UP IN THE MORNING. You cannot imagine what a big deal that is. But he still misses the city, and considers himself a city boy, and not a week goes by without a lament about what is missing here (Indian food, coffee shops, subways...the list goes on).

I can't believe how quickly this has all sped by. In just a few years he will be out of the house and on his own. When I am frustrated by the trail of debris he leaves behind him and his taking procrastination to a new level, I need to remember that.

Happy Birthday, Sk8tr Boy.

Friday Five: Kiddie Lit Edition

From the RevGals:

It's a Children's Literature Friday Five in honor of the opening today of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I just love this topic. I read all the time when I was a kid, and when my older kids were growing up I read to them and then generally read whatever they were reading, if I had the time. So I've read a lot of schlock, but also some really wonderful books.

1) Earliest book you remember (read to you or by you)--I remember my father reading to me on a rainy afternoon; I'm pretty sure it was a Little Golden Book, but I don't recall which one. It's a special memory, though, because I don't have many memories of my dad doing things with us.

My grandmother read to us a great deal. I still have a book that she read to us from, and that is probably the earliest one I remember--The Gateway to Storyland. It had some classics (The Three Little Pigs, Peter Rabbit) and some stories I've never seen elsewhere. Also she read Uncle Wiggly stories to us, and lots of Little Golden Books. My favorite Little Golden Book? The Postman of Bayberry Lane.

I also have a very early memory of Captain Kangaroo reading Make Way for Ducklings and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

Despite being read to all the time, and loving books, I didn't start reading on my own til I started school. Actually, I think it was discouraged. And our reading books were "Dick and Jane". Ugh. But I quickly made up for lost time. Early favorites: "childhood biographies" of famous figures. Had to have been mostly fiction but I loved them.

2) Picture Book you would like to climb into--Not so much into picture books so this is a hard one...hmmmm....I'll have to come back to this one.

3) Favorite series of books (then or now)--when I was in 3rd grade we moved to West Virginia, and the library in our town was in an old stone house. I spent many hours there where I read through the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Trixie Belden. There I also discovered a mystery series I've not seen before or since: Judy Bolton mysteries. I liked them much better than Nancy Drew (I liked Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew, too). I remember that in one of them, the protagonist was married, and her bridesmaids wore dresses the colors of the rainbow. Also, iirc, she had a baby in the series, but continued to be a detective--progressive beyond it's time! (this was the mid-sixties, but the books were old then).

My own kids read Babysitters Club (boring!) and Goosebumps (worse than boring!), and a little bit of Hardy Boys (didn't age well!). Sk8tr Boy learned to read just as the Magic Treehouse books were coming out--much better than other current series, imho.

I continued to read aloud to Sk*tr boy much longer than I read to the older kids. Because there is an 11 year difference between him and his closest sibling, he is much more like an only child, and I had more time to read to him than when I had three little ones. And when he was in kindergarten we discovered that he preferred to listen to chapter books over picture books. Our TV died about then (never replaced) so we read a great deal, and we read through all of the Little House books (where I discovered a great deal of racism which I edited as I read) , all of the Indian in the Cupboard books, all of the Castle in the Attic books, and the time series from Madeleine L'Engle--which I think is my favorite series now (although it is not a series in the way that Hardy Boys is/was). I don't know why I never encountered L'Engle's books when I was a kid. They were published then, but I never read then til I became an adult. Some of her references are out of date now, but I still love her writing.

4) Character you would most like to meet--Professor Dumbledore; Proginoskes (cherubim in The Wind in the Door by M. L'Engle)

5) Last childhood book you re-read (for yourself or to someone)--Harry Potter books, Madeleine L'Engle time trilogy, Narnia books (which I didn't read until adulthood, either).

None of those are books from my childood, though. I haven't read too many of those lately. One thing that comes to mind is finding, at a church rummage sale, a copy of a book I got from Scholastic books in 3rd or 4th grade called Father's Big Improvements. It chronicles a family at the turn of the (last) century when cars, telephones, indoor plumbing and central heat began to come into people's lives. And it's still funny.

Long answers, I guess, but I couldn't just do a list.

Harry Potter

I have to confess: I am a big Harry Potter fan. I've read all six books more than once. I've been Dumbledore and McGonagle on Halloween. We were at Barnes and Noble at midnight to pick up our books when the last three books came out (and Sk8tr Boy was quoted in the NY Times one of those times about why he was there). And we bought multiple copies so that Sk8tr Boy* and I could both read at once. We own most of the books on CD or tape as well, and we have the first three movies on DVD.

So it is with great anticipation that we await the opening of the next movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) the end of this week. It just so happens that Friday is Sk8tr Boy's 14th birthday, and we are celebrating by going to see Harry Potter. I can't wait.


*Sk8tr Boy announced the other day that since he was never going to be any good at skateboarding that he was going to quit devoting time and money to that and devote it to his guitar instead, so I may have to come up with a new pseudonym for him.

The Fine Art of Procrastination and Other Ramblings

I am sitting at my desk at work--not that I am doing anything productive. I have two sermons to write--one for Sunday and one for an interfaith service next Wednesday--but does that motivate me? Oh, no. And a couple of adult forums to prep for. Nope, that doesn't motivate me either. I'd rather blog. It was probably are really bad idea for me to start reading blogs at work--and now I'm writing them here as well.

And a bit of irony: my (almost) 14 yo's most irritating trait? Procrastination. Is this some sort of pay back? I swear, though, that he takes it to a new height (or perhaps a new low is a better descriptor). I, at least, am motivated by a bit of perfectionism that means that I will finish whatever needs to be done. Not that perfectionism is a really positive trait, either, but it does somehow help to mediate the last minute thing. He, on the other hand, really could care less about quality most of the time, so slipshod at the last minute is usually okay with him.

That may be changing a bit. He's a smart kid, and he's in all honors classes this year for the first time, and he's found out what it is like to be with a bunch of high achievers. On his last English project he did a credible job, but when he saw what other people had done he was kind of blown away. His response--they all went way overboard. But I do notice that he is more concerned about how his next project turns out. It's due Monday. Hopefully it will be finished before midnight Sunday.

Day in the City

Sk8tr Boy had today off for Veteran's Day, and since it was my day off as well we made an excursion into Nearby City. It was only my third time in this city (one of the previous two being more than 5 years ago). We drove to the nearest train station and then took the train into the city and met some friends from seminary at the Aquarium. Of course, I forgot that if my kid had school off, so did everyone else, and the place was packed. We still had fun. My favorite: the penguins, especially the ones with the feathery yellow "eyebrows". When the sprinklers on their rocks were on, the largest of these "eyebrow" penguins stood on the very highest rock, and the others stationed themselves at various points around him/her. It looked as though they were standing at attention--some with both wings extended, and some with only one extended. They stayed that way for the longest time--in fact we left before they moved. Also very cool was the 70 year old sea turtle, Mabel, and the dragon seahorses which looked as if they had leaves growing out of their heads and backs. (I would post pictures, but unfortunately I left my camera at home).

After a couple of hours at the Aquarium we walked over to what seems like the World's Largest Food Court which is located in an historic old market. Way too many choices! But delicious--have to go back there to sample more goodies.

And then, alas, time to go back to the train and back home--not nearly enough time in the City.

I've mentioned before that I have lived in a variety of different places. I never lived in a city before I went to seminary three years ago, but I often thought I would like to. I visited a friend in Seminary City a long time ago, and fell in love with it then, never thinking that I would have a chance to live there. When I started seminary, I was entranced by the city. It was a difficult adjustment for some of my classmates, but I felt right at home. I love being able to walk most places I go, and to have public transportation for those places I can't walk to. I love the diversity, and the hustle and bustle, and the way each neighborhood has its own character. I love the trees shading the side streets and the varied architecture, especially of the older buildings. I love the green markets and the street vendors and the parks scattered through the city. I love the coffee shops and the bookstores--especially the one with "16 miles of books".

When I went to seminary I knew that I would not be in the city forever, but I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to leave. If I could have found a job there, I would've stayed, but it really wasn't an option. So I moved back to New England, which I also love, to a part of New England I'd never visited before. It's beautiful here, and a place that attracts thousands of visitors each year, and I'm glad to be here. But I still miss the city horribly. Nearby City is some consolation, and I hope to spend more time there, but it's an hour to the train, and another 40 minutes into the city, so it's not something I can do just any old time.

The nature of my work means that I will more than likely move again in a few years. When the time comes, Seminary City will be at the top of my list of places to look. Meanwhile, I'll be planning more excursions into Nearby City.

Let Them Eat Pie

From the RevGalBlog Pals:

Share a story about a special pie in your life.

I would rather have pie than cake, but I come from a family of cake makers. So not too many pies stories.

1) Apple Pie--I love apple pie, warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. No stories, just enjoyment.

2) Cherry Pie--my mother has always belonged to a bridge club. The only time I ever remember her making cherry pie was for the bridge club. Actually they were little cherry tarts, and it was George Washington's birthday I think. They were really cute, and luckily my siblings and I got to eat the leftovers.

3) Pumpkin Pie--I never even tasted pumpkin pie until I was an adult. In my family we had sweet potato pie instead. Once I'd tasted pumpkin, I was a convert. I love all things pumpkin--pie, bread, bagels, soup, cheesecake.

4) Chocolate Cream Pie--although I love chocolate, and I love pie, I don't love them together. So no chocolate cream pie.

5) Pecan Pie--now we're talking. Pecans were always plentiful in my childhood, and we always had pecan pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I continued that tradition. I make it with a little maple syrup in addition to the corn syrup-yum. Favorite of Lovely Daughter #1.


Bonus Question: Do you have a favorite kind of pie not on this admittedly short list?

My grandmother was an innovative cook, in the style of the country cooking of the Piedmont and mountains of North Carolina. She made a wonderful lemon pie with Eagle Brand milk and whipped cream, but my favorite concoction (which I've never seen anywhere else) was Grape Hull Pie. She used grapes with thick skins--scuppernongs I think-- and squeezed the insides out (I think she made jelly with them), then cooked the hulls with sugar and lemon juice to make pie filling. It was soooo good. My siblings don't recall it as fondly as I do, and most people I've mentioned it to have never heard of such a thing. I would love to have it again.

Peach pie and blackberry pie are the two pies my mother made with some regularity when I was a child. Even today they evoke memories of hot summer days and juicy fresh fruit.

Why Do I Feel Guilty?

Subtitle: And should I?

When I was in grad school I swore that the first thing I was going to do when I got a job was have someone to clean my house. But I could never really justify the expense, so I never did it. Now I am living in the biggest house I've ever lived in, and I'm thinking that it would be really nice to have someone to vacuum and dust and mop and clean the bathrooms every couple of weeks. Really, really nice.

But then I start feeling guilty....Shouldn't I be able to keep up with this myself? Isn't' it awfully indulgent to pay someone to do my chores for me? Don't I need to just get away from the computer and get to work?

On the other hand, I'd be giving work to someone who needs it (is that the lamest justification yet?). It would be so nice to come home to a clean house, and to have a day off when I didn't have to think about all the cleaning chores that I ought to be doing.

Sheesh, why do I have to make everything so difficult?

Totally Random Stuff...

Because Thursday and Friday are my days off, today is my "Friday". And Wednesdays are always super busy because we have a mid-morning service, then a staff meeting which always runs at least an hour, and then I meet with the rector (my boss). Then I try to tie up all the loose ends so that I really WILL be off the next two days. It's amazing how all the little detail things pile up.

Tomorrow instead of being off, though, I have a "Fresh Start" meeting. This is a program for newly ordained and/or newly placed clergy--sort of a mentoring/support group kind of thing. It's mandatory, but I think it will be a good thing--tomorrow is only the 2nd meeting, so it's too soon to be completely sure.

Last week's days off were partly taken up with Diocesean Convention--Episco-speak for all the clergy and lay representatives from each church in our diocese (judicatory/geographical area) to get together and hear the Bishops report on what's happening. This diocese is MUCH bigger than the one I came from and I don't know many people in the diocese yet, so the crowd of people was a bit much given that I'm an introvert. But interesting to hear what's going on.

But on Friday Sk8tr Boy is off school and we are going to Nearby City for the day--our first trip there for fun since we moved here in July. We both miss seminary City a LOT so being in any city should be a good diversion. What will we do? Meet a friend for lunch, perhaps go to the aquarium, just walk around. I've not spent much time in this city, so I have a lot to learn.

I totally forgot that there was an election yesterday. No state offices up for election here, and I know nothing about town politics yet. It's cheering to see that Maine managed to fend off attempts to overturn a law guaranteeing civil rights for LGBT folks. And a thumbs up to CA voters for defeating all of Ahnold's propositions, and to VA voters for electing another Democratic governor in a mostly Republican state. If only we didn't have three more years to bear GWB.

And speaking of Bush, this editorial in the New York Times gives a pretty grim appraisal of the Bush presidencey and the chaos at this point. Looks like he's used up the political capital he was so loud mouthed about last about this time.

Getting to Know You

As seen at Badger's and various other blogs...

100 Things about Me

1. I have four children.
2. Three of them are self-supporting adults.
3. I’ve lived in 10 states and one foreign country.
4. I’ve never lived in any one place more than 8 years.
5. I’ve lived in 21 different houses/apartments.
6. My father lived in the same town all but 20 years of his life.
7. I’ve had gray hair since I was 25.
8. The older I get, the more liberal/progressive I become.
9. Jimmy Carter is one of my heroes.
10. I paint my toenails in the summer but not my fingernails.
11. I’d rather live in the city than just about anywhere else.
12. Although Vermont is a close second.
13. I’ve always believed in God.
14. But I haven’t always gone to church.
15. I had my first “mid-life crisis” at age 30.
16. I started college the next year.
17. I’ve been to school for a total of 28 school years—more than half my life.
18. My ears are the only thing I have pierced.
19. I love to read, but I don’t read as much as I used to.
20. Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favorite authors.
21. I own more than 40 of her books.
22. I haven’t had a TV in nine years.
23. I’m afraid of flying.
24. I’m afraid of snakes.
25. I don’t like spiders much either, and I detest cockroaches.
26. I love chocolate—the darker the better.
27. But Tootsie Rolls and Skittles are an abomination.
28. And I can’t stand grape soda or grape gum or grape candy.
29. I’ve studied Latin and Greek.
30. I hate to clean house.
31. I don’t cook much either.
32. I used to do counted cross stitch and to smock.
33. I wish I could sing.
34. I wish I were artistic.
35. I am a klutz.
36. I am a kick ass “Trivial Pursuit” player—the original version at least.
37. I’ve not been successful at marriage.
38. But I don’t want to grow old alone.
39. Libraries were my favorite places when I was a kid.
40. But now I prefer bookstores.
41. I like iced tea with sugar and lemon.
41. Okra is one of my favorite vegetables.
42. I like Brussels sprouts, too.
43. I don’t like carrots.
44. I can’t roll my tongue.
45. But my fingers are double-jointed.
46. I like silver better than gold.
47. I don’t wear high heels.
48. Blue and purple are my favorite colors.
49. I like snow.
50. My mother-in-law was one of my best friends.
51. I have three siblings.
52. I share the status of “black-sheep” in the family with my younger brother (but for very different reasons).
53. I’m an introvert.
54. My Myers-Briggs’ type is INFP.
55. I love trees.
56. I’m rereading the Narnia series now.
57. I’m a semi-vegetarian.
58. I love ice cream.
59. I’ve never smoked.
60. My oldest child was born in Iceland.
61. My grandmother let us eat ice cream for breakfast.
62. I had the measles during summer vacation.
63. I had the mumps during summer vacation (different summer).
64. When I had the measles my dad bought me the sound track of “The Sound of Music” to make me feel better.
65. My grandmother had red curly hair (all natural) when I was a kid.
66. I hoped one of my babies would have red curly hair.
67. But all of them have plain brown hair like mine.
68. And three of them are getting early gray hair like I did.
69. I like to preach.
70. But writing sermons is hard.
71. My younger son and I have names that sound the same but they are spelled differently.
72. The only bad grade I ever got on my report card was in gym.
73. The second worst grade I ever got was in hand writing in 3rd grade.
74. Because of that I learned to write very well.
75. I won the DAR Virginia History Award in 7th grade.
76. I’ve never been to the west coast.
77. I remember when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan.
78. I saw John Denver in concert twice.
79. And Linda Rondstadt once.
80. I’ve been on a submarine (but just tied up at the dock).
81. But I’ve never been on a sailboat.
82. I like old things better than new.
83. I once invited an Icelandic family to Thanksgiving dinner and cooked the turkey with the plastic bag of innards still inside.
84. There are no turkeys in Iceland, so the turkey dinner was a big deal.
85. Luckily we carved the turkey in the kitchen so they never saw the bag.
86. I’ve seen the aurora borealis.
87. I had one C-section.
88. Thai and Indian food are my favorites.
89. And seafood.
90. Tomato sandwiches in summer are the food of the gods.
91. But the tomatoes must be vine ripe.
92. And you must use mayonnaise.
93. I don’t like scary movies.
94. I am a pacifist.
95. I am a cradle Episcopalian.
96. If I weren’t Episcopalian I might be a Conservative Jew.
97. I like happy endings.
98. I cried when I finished the last Harry Potter book.
99. My facial expressions always give away what I am feeling.
100. I am finally done!

Friday Rant

President Bush is apparently threatening to veto a military appropriations bill because it was amended to require prisoners ("detainees") to be treated in accordance to the Army field manual on interrogation and the UN Convention Against Torture and Cruel Treatment. Read more about this here. Bush and Cheney have proposed all sorts of other "compromises" that would basically allow them to permit torture whenever they feel like it.

I am ashamed to be an American when things like this come up. How low can we sink? How can we argue that torture is acceptable when is works to the advantage of the US and not acceptable when it is others doing it to us? This just sickens me.

Meanwhile the Senate passed spending cuts yesterday that will have a serious negative impact on Medicare and other social programs. Supposedly this is to pay for Katrina relief. But how about rolling back those tax cuts? How about bringing our troops home from Iraq? How about paying for things that way?

For All the Saints

Today is All Saints' Day, one of my favorite days in the Church year. One of my favorite hymns is associated withAll Saints' Day. It's not great music but it is one that has stuck with me since childhood--I remember singing it in children's choir. It begins:

I sing a song of the Saints of God
Patient and brave and true.
They toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor and one was a queen
And one was a shepherdess on the green.
They were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping to be one, too.

Now the "toiling and fighting" part doesn't speak to me so much, but what grabbed me even as a child is that saints are not just "holy people", not just the figures of scripture, not just story book myth and legend. No, the saints are everyday folk, struggling just as we all do, to live the lives to which we are called. We encounter the saints, often unaware, in the midst of out daily lives--on city streets or country lanes, at work, at school, in our families--wherever we go about our life and work.

Today I remember the saints in my life--all those who touched me in various ways, who loved me, who nurtured me in ways large and small and helped me to become the person that I am. I remember especially my father and my beloved mother-in-law, both of whom died too soon. And I remember those saints whom I never met, but whose lives nonetheless shaped mine--especially today Rosa Parks whose fortitude is an example to all of us.

Who are the saints in your life?