Thirteen Things about Raehan

1. I thought I had beaten my cold but it is coming back tonight stronger than ever. Whenever I feel a cold coming on, I drink a couple of gallons of water before bed. I usually wash the virus away, though I lose a lot of sleep running to the bathroom to pee. Once or twice a year I get one of these big guys, hell-bent on letting me know I am not in control. Big guy, back off. Please. Not now.
2. Congratulations to all my writing buddies who have successfully completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I know Indigo and Catherine finished. I’ll find out who else did and update this with links. Please go and congratulate them.
3. Congratulations also to all those who tried but got pulled away by life forces. Ahem. That would be me. I’m planning to pick the project up again in January with the title RaNoWriYe (rhymes with diarrhea, stands for Raehan Novel Writing Year. It will just be my experiment to learn more about the craft of fiction writing.
4. One more of my favorite bloggers is leaving. Why, Mere, why? What is this? National Raehan Friends Leaving Month? (NaRaFriLeMo, rhymes with Mississippi. If said in French.)
5. My sister ran a marathon last week (her second) and had a bad fall at mile 17. She injured her back/neck area but finished anyway. Now she is experiencing really bad neck pain. I’m worried about her. She has four kids and running keeps her sane.
6. My other sister is going to have a baby in December…unless it comes late. Which is very possible. She is a very loyal lurker here. Hi sis. It’s going to be a boy. He will get lots of attention from his girlie cousins.
7. We think Hannah has allergies. She has a clear runny nose two or three weeks out of every month. We’ve tried omitting dairy. No luck. Now we’re trying nuts. She has an appointment with a traditional allergist in a few weeks. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? She never has a cough or sign of asthma. Just the runny nose.
8. My schedule will free up on Monday when I have to mail in my last two assignments for my class. Then I get ready to have my entire house painted. Yes, it is a crazy time for that upheaval, but I’ll be excited to have it done before Christmas.
9. I have started doing yoga to my prenatel yoga video with the girls. It’s quite a scene. I really need a few more yoga mats to end sibling yoga battles. No, I’m not pregnant. I just find that the prenatal yoga refreshes me more. Go figure.
10. Hannah has been wanting to put herself to bed lately with me watching. She reads her books to herself (talking through the pictures, not reading words, of course). She interrupts me when I’m singing the lullabies with my little “doo-dee-doo” and says “No. I doo-dee-doo.” Then she sings “doo-dee-doo” and smiles.
11. I am thinking of keeping a second blog to keep all the stuff I don’t want to put on this blog. Things like my “75 good habits before next week” posts.
12. Don’t worry. You won’t have to visit. That’s kind of the point. It will be kind of like a garbage bin for this blog.
13. Are you having fun, yet? Oh well.

Bonus: I’m bummed that I can’t get Leanne’s pretty code to wrap around my painting. Boo-hoo.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

2. Better Safe Than Sorry
3.MommaK
4.Angie
5.Heather
6.Enigma
7.Carolyn
8.Sleeping Mommy
9.“D”
10. Running 2K
11. Jen
12. Leanne, of course.
13. J & J’s Mom
14. Rashbrae. Also finished NaNo!
15. Holly

Get
the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little
bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you
participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy,
and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you,
as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their
13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More
Thursday Thirteen Participants

Rachel: ‘No Mom. STOP.” Hannah and Rachel are playing night-night under the couch pillows and don’t want the “time for a nap’ lady around. I had just walked into the room.

I turn around and walk away.

Rachel: Following after me, concerned. “Mom, are you afraid that no one likes you anymore?”

Me: “No. I’m fine, thanks.”

+++++++++

In the car yesterday.

“Mom, Hannah’s looking up to me again!”

Gosh I feel so boring lately….

I hate having a cold. I get them so seldom these days that they really bug me when I have them.

So whine, whine. I’m sick. I feel yucky and unattractive and tired and have tons to do.

And I’m boring.

Did I mention unattractive?

Sorry.

Blah.

(Cough)

[Audience yawns]

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that my American friends had great Thanksgivings.

I did not cook dinner this year. Instead, we met relatives and had Thanksgiving dinner on a boat that took us around the bay. it was great fun. My girls danced a lot and we all went on the deck of the boat as we went under the Golden Gate bridge and cheered as we looked up at the bottom of the bridge.

After dinner we drove to Monterey Bay and stayed there for two nights. We took in the Aquarium and drove along the coast line, stopping to collect shells and watch the sea lions fight for their spots on the rocks.

Our moms came with us and the girls had fun running back and forth between rooms. When it came time to sleep, Hannah was so excited to be sharing a bed with us, but each night it took her two hours to finally settle down and fall asleep. We all were glad to be back in our beds last night, especially since we all picked up colds on the trip.

And I’ve just realized that there are only a few days left this month. I had to drop my NaNoWriMo wrting last week and now there’s no way I can finish by the end of the month. How are my writing buddies doing? Anyone interested in carrying this process through until Christmas. My time will free up in December, since my class ends Dec. 5. What do you say? Or are you going to finish on time?

Lucinda wrote an amazing piece about her childhood memories of Thanksgiving. You must go read it, if you haven’t already. It made me think about my Thanksgiving memories. I have nothing exciting to write about here. The thing that stands out in my mind is pies. My sisters and I got very excited about the pies we made every year. We would line them up the night before and admire them. Sometimes, we’d have five or six different types of pie. When we became teenagers, my sister and I shared each piece of pie so we could have “more”, but I don’t think we shared a plate, so I’m trying to get my head around what sharing the pie actually meant. Oh well. It was fun.

My family was never very static when it came to holiday traditions. We didn’t have to have the exact same menu every year for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I like to have the same flexibility now, even though it’s fun to keep favorite dishes from year to year. We’re doing something a bit different this year for Thanksgiving, and I’ll write about when it’s all over.

What am I giving thanks for this year?

I’m thankful that the biggest stress in my life last week was having to choose between finishing Wuthering Heights for my bookclub, working on a project for a class that I am enjoying, working on NaNoWriMo, or finishing a book for my other book club. I chose Wuthering Heights. Anyone care to romp in the moors with me? Oh, I forgot, all those other projects beckon. No bog hiking for me.

I’m thankful that I miss all of you when I am too busy to blog, and that my heart hurts when any of you say good-bye, or lose a loved one. It means I love you. And that is amazing to me.

I’m thankful that there will be color on my walls before Christmas.

I’m thankful for words, and that since I’ve started blogging I have become so comfortable and enamored with them. I look at my New Year’s resolution from last January and I see “Start writing for one hour a day” and I remember that I used to consider writing work. Now I consider it art.

I am thankful for mothers–my mother and mother in law who are both with us tonight, sleeping downstairs.

I am thankful for sisters–who are far away, one with four children, the other with a baby boy growing very large in her uterus.

I am thankful for daughters. In fact, my feelings of gratitude are so powerful that I had to create this spot in cyberspace to find an outlet for those feelings.

I am thankful for my husband, who is my rock and puts up with me on a daily basis.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers. I may be frazzled, but my heart is full.

Thank you all for making your way into my heart.

Tomorrow I will be co-hosting a farewell party for a friend who will be returning to Ireland after seven years in the States. So tonight, I am finishing a CD of contempary Irish women singers I made for her. We both have a love of Irish folk singers and she recently inherited her husbands ipod. I’m giving her lots of Irish music to upload.

So, I’m listening to this lovely Irish music feeling melancholy about my loss. My generous side is so happy that she will bringing her children home, to raise them in the land that she was raised. My selfish side is jealous. Part of me wants her children to grow up here with mine. Another part wants to take my family and go away with her to raise my children in Ireland.

And it is bittersweet for her, too. Because that is how it is when you learn to love another country. You are always torn between two loves, as I know so well. We both need to be home, but we will always be citizens of this world.

Perhaps that is why so many of my friends are from other countries. We understand that part of each other. And in befriending each other, it is bittersweet, because so often you have to say good-bye when one returns home. That is how it has been so often for me. This seems to be my way in life, how it’s supposed to be for me. And these friendships are worth every torn piece of my heart.

As some of you know, I haven’t shared this blog with any of my local friends. I’m not comfortable with that. Maureen has read one of the birthday letters I’ve written to my girls, and she’s asked that I send them to her every year. Tomorrow I will give her this website address.

I wish I could audioblog some of this lovely Irish music I am listening to, but I’m afraid I'’ll violate copyright. So instead here are some lyrics.

(This one is for Maureen and she knows why.)

Song For Ireland
Songwriter: Phil Colclough

Walking all the day, near tall towers
where falcons build their nests
Siver winged they fly,
they know the call of freedom in their breasts
Saw Black Head against the sky
with twisted rocks that run down to the sea
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Talking all the day with true friends
who try to make you stay
Telling jokes and news,
singing songs to pass the night away
Watched the Galway salmon run
like silver dancing darting in the sun
Living on your western shore
saw summer sunsets, asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Drinking all the day in old pubs
where fiddlers love to play
Someone touched the bow,
he played a reel
it seemed so fine and gay
Stood on Dingle beach
and cast in wild foam we found Atlantic bass
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

Dreaming in the night I saw a land
where no man had to fight
Waking in your dawn
I saw you crying in the morning light
Lying where the falcons fly,
they twist and turn all in you e’er blue sky
Living on your western shore,
saw summer sunsets asked for more
I stood by your Atlantic sea
and sang a song for Ireland

(This next one is also on the CD I made of Irish Singers with Dolores Keane singing. I adore the lyrics. I so wish I could put the audio of this song up here. It’s hauntingly gorgeous.)

You’ll Never Be The Sun
By: Donagh Long

Chorus:
You’ll never be the sun turning in the sky
And you won’t be the moon above us on a moonlit night
And you won’t be the stars in heaven
Although they burn so bright
But even on the deepest ocean
You will be the light

You may not always shine
As you go barefoot over stone
You might be so long together
Or you might walk alone
And you won’t find that love comes easy
But that love is always right
So even when the dark clouds gather
You will be the light

And if you lose the part inside
When loves turns round on you
Leaving the past behind
Is knowing you’ll do like you always do
Holding you blind, keeping you true

We got home from preschool today, had lunch, and headed upstairs because both girls were Grumpeeeeee.

It wasn’t quite naptime, but they were both struggling to pull it together and play. After about 20 minutes, we all took a break lying on Rachel’s bedroom floor. Hannah found a spot with her blanket nestled under one of my arms. Rachel felt like she had been displaced, so I encouraged her to nestle under the other arm. We all closed our eyes.

Suddenly, Rachel, in all seriousness, says, “It smells like a skunk in here. Is there a skunk?”

Hannah’s diaper was wet, but she hadn’t pooped. I impatiently said, “No, there isn’t a skunk in here.”

A few more minutes went by. Rachel was quiet, but I could tell she was unsatisfied.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that her nose was nestled directly into my armpit and I had forgotten to put deodorant on. In my defense, I wasn’t sweaty or even that smelly, but if you had your nose smashed up against my armpit, it was going to be unpleasant, to say the least.

Another minute went by and I tried to decide whether to explain to Rachel why it smelled to her. I wasn’t really in the mood to give a puberty lesson, but I was feeling slightly sorry for her with her nose right there.

So finally I said, “You know, the reason that you are probably smelling a skunk is that I forgot to put deoderant under my arms this morning.”

“What?” She thought about it for a minute.

Then I explained that when people become teenagers their armpits sometimes smell and they have to start wearing deodorant. She had always wanted to wear deoderant, but never knew what it was for.

Suddenly, she started laughing and laughing. We laughed together on the floor for about two or three minutes.

When she stopped, she said, “This was like having a big arm meeting.”

Then she sighed and said, “I’m tired of laughing. Are you?”

I really wasn’t. It was such a relief after all the whining.

Now excuse me while, I go put on some deodorant.

Do you ever wonder if ten years from now we will have all lost each other, our blogfriends. Will we slowly drift away…and then ten years later, remember a certain friend we touched souls with on the internet, someone who changed our life in perhaps the simplest way, someone we had never met in the flesh.

Dear Bonnie has decided to say farewell to blogging so she can focus more on the essentials in her life, like her eleven childen, her husband, her art and music, her teaching, and of course, her yoga.

I will miss her terribly. I will never practice yoga or listen to classical music or view a glorious painting without thinking of her. And if I ever have a third child, and even if I don’t, I will think of her and her beautiful post to me about having another child.

I love you, Bonnie. You have taught me much. Put me on your Christmas card list, because I don’t want to be thinking of you five years from now and not know how to find you.

xo

Friendship, Oleg, Zhiveten.

So, here’s the deal. I am visiting you all. Really. I just get to your sites and I so want to comment but then I either fail the damn word verification (some of these have eight letters now?!!) or I suddenly panick at all I have to do.

If you don’t know, I am trying to write a novel this month, for NaNoWriMo. On top of that, I am taking a class. The final projects for this class are all due the first week of December. Oh yea, and then there are the kiddos. One is sick, the other is going through a bipolar thing–you know, she’s two.

So basically, life is very exciting and enjoyable for me now (despite the complaints) but I have become bad at commenting. I am trying. I promise all will be back to normal in a few weeks.

Those 25 good habits that I mentioned two posts ago. 25? What was I thinking. 25 new good habits? First, I can’t keep rack of 25 habits. Second, I can’t think of 25 habits that I would want to acquire. Third, if I did have them, do you think I would really list them here? Because by the time I get to 12, I’ll going to start thinking of things like, “Stop throwing the Hannah’s dirty diaper over the banister at nigh so you don’t have to walk down downstairs to the garbage” and that would be revealing too much of my dirty laundry.

So, I’m gong to aim for 12, and if I find a few more that are respectable, I’ll add those, too.

++++++++++

Does anyone remember my conversation with Hannah about everyone’s private parts? It was a few months ago, but I’m too frazzled to find it and line it. Anyway, she was afraid of her own poop, and Charlie’s (our dog) private parts, so I told it too her straight one night and four days letter, she was over what ever was haunting her.

She likes to talk about our conversation still. Something usually triggers it. Say, I let Charlie outside to do her business. Hannah will say, “Charlie ‘gina. Daddy Peeenas.” Or, we’re at the table with company, “Charlie ‘gina. Daddy peenas.” Charlie IS a girl, by the way.

So one day, it was just Hannah and I at the table. I don’t remember what set her off. “Charlie ‘gina. Daddy’ peenas.” I was feeling a little sassy, so I asked, “What does mommy have?”

“Poo-poo.”

+++++

Those three hours I mentioned a few posts ago? They went something like this.

1. I’m cooking dinner.
2. Hannah wakes up from a nap. I go get her.
3. When we settle downstairs, I have a great idea. We’ll watch my yoga video and get some exercise. Secretly, I’m hoping we can developing a little routine of doing yoga at this time every night. Cause you know, Bonnie does yoga with her kids.
4. We start. It’s cute. We’re having fun. But Rachel wants my yoga book. She heads up stairs. Hannah wants to go with her, so I have to follow.
5. We get the yoga book and head downstairs again. Once we’re downstairs Hannah notices the yoga book and wants the Harry Potter book that I’ve barely started. “Pottah Baby! Pottah Baby!” she says with excitement. I am in a pretty good mood. I head up with her. We find the book. Then I spy “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” which I need to finish for Kimbofo’s book club. I grab it. We go downstairs.
6. We’re downstairs. I forgot “Pottah Baby” and Hannah is asking for it. I start to run upstairs quickly by myself, but Hannah wants to come, too.
7. So we’re downstairs again. Hannah and I look at the pictures in “Pottah Baby” for five minutes. Rachel is doing yoga. Hannah joins her. I resume cooking.
8. Hannah tries to roll up the yoga mat Rachel is on. (insert whining and screaming) I try to zone out and go to that numb, happy place while I finish dinner.
9. Hannah gives up and starts playing with her stroller. Something is not right. She gives this low-grating whine that I really can’t describe. Think finger nail on chalk board. I try to fix the problem. Nothing works. Uh-oh. We’re headed for a tantrum. It’s kind of like the beginning a contraction. You know it’s starting and its going to get worse and there’s nothing you can do about it. The frustration is building for her.
10. Dad comes home. We get table ready.
11. Contraction peaks 7 minutes into dinner. Inconsolable crying. Can not be comforted. Can not be held. We do what we always have to do, tell her to let us know when she’s done crying. It lasts another five or ten minutes. Dad and Rachel go upstairs. I stay down with Hannah. Finally it’s over. “All done cying.” I dry her tears. We sit as she finishes her entire plate of food. We are calm again.
12. We go upstairs, take a bath, and she goes right to sleep.
13. I go into my room and face my homework and NaNo.

Did I say two was easy? Scratch that. Thank God they are cute. No, really. Thank you, God. It helps a lot.

Rachel and I are sitting together trying to think of something fun to do.

Suddenly I say, “I know! We can clean the playroom together!”

I am pretty good at marketing things like this to kids, but this time I just really thought it would be a fun thing to do.

Rachel just stared at me blankly.

Like anyone else, I love the holiday season. We celebrate Thanksgiving, Hannakah and Christmas at my house, so it’s quite a lot of fun. However, my most private self loves New Year’s Day the very most. I love taking a clean pad of paper and making resolutions. In fact, the whole holiday to me is just crisp and clean and white. I hate to be a scrooge, but as much as I enjoy them, every other holiday is messy. The clutter gets under my skin. I’m not a neat person by any means, I just hate clutter.

So, while most of you are looking ahead to Christmas, I have New Year’s on my mind. I’m going to start early this year with my resolutions. I figure that New Year’s Day could be even more wonderful if you didn’t have to waste your resolutions on on things like exercising or dieting. What if you could concentrate on all the good ones like, “I’m going to be nicer to my dog this year.” (Which was one of the few resolutions that I kept this year.)

My plan is to spend these weeks before New Years developing good habits, so I have them out of the way for New Year’s Day. I’m not even going to plan what they are. I’m just going to pick on good habit at a time, and once I’ve gone two days of it seccuessfully, I’m going to add one more–until I’ve reached 25.

Every time I master a good habit I will put it on my sidebar. If I stop doing it every day then I have to take it off my sidebar until I have done it for two days in a row.

My first good habit will be brushing my teeth every morning.

You believed me? What’s the matter with you. I do that already.

My first good habit will actually be going to bed on time. And I’ll start tonight.

Feel free to join me with your own picks if you want.

I need to put Mistress Mary’s exercise logo up there, too.

By the way, one of my other New Year’s Resolutions last year was journaling reguarly. That’s what prompted me to start this blog one month later.

As I watched myself this late afternoon juggle a two year old who is starting to have tantrums, a dinner in the oven and on the stove, a four year old doing yoga while her sister tried to roll up her mat, I thought, “I should just describe these past three hours from start to finish and then people will understand the craziness of my life.” So I put the kids to bed and took my bath and thought about my novel, and the work I have to do for my class (Who assigns group projects for an online class?! Argh!), and I thought about writing about those three hours and thought, “Nah. Maybe tomorrow.”

So for now, here’s a chapter of my little NaNo project. Read it if you’d like. If not, please describe three hours in your life recently. The crazier the better.

Happy Veterans Day to all who have served. I can’t help thinking of my father and grandfather who both served during WWII. They are no longer living. They were both proud to have served. My grandfather helped conduct proper military funerals for his fellow veterans until the year he died. So in honor of them, I say thank you to all veterans.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Chapter Four:

After tucking the girls into bed, I kissed Ben, savoring the warmth and firmness of his face. I quietly walked downstairs and headed towards the car, closing the door behind me. The weather was mild for an early November evening, It was also moist. I detected the sweet smell the Eucalyptus leaves. The rains hadn’t hit yet. We were having a late autumn.

Every Thursday evening I volunteered at the local history museum, training other volunteers in archival work. It was a small archive, but there were some gems in there. Fifty years ago, our town was dairy country, farmed predominantly by Portuguese speaking Dairy farmers from the Azores. The museum held records of farm sales, the minutes of the Knights of Columbus gatherings, and IDES, Irmandade do Divono Espirito Santo a.k.a. Brotherhood of the Divine Holy Spirit, a Portuguese society organized to celebrate the annual Holy Ghost festival that took place in our town every year, a tradition brought over from the Azores.

“Thar she is. Mommy librarian!” Jim Alameda teased, waiting with his buddy Dick Paladini on the front porch of the museum.

“You’re early! Did you skip dessert.”

“No. Don’t worry. I brought yours.”

“Cookies?”

“You bet. You think she’d forget?

Bill’s wife, Ann, used to bring cookies to the museum every Wednesday, the day she volunteered with her friends. Like clockwork, the trio of women would stop what they were doing every Wednesday at noon and pull out their bagged sandwiches and start doing cross-word puzzles at their work table in the back of the museum. Any visitors wandering in at this time would hear loud bickering, intermingled with whoops of laughter. When I came in occasionally to consult with the museum director, I’d always stop to enjoy a few cookies. I would challenge myself to answer at least one crossword clue before excusing myself from the table.

“No, I just never want to fall out of favor with her, you know.’ I said, winking.

“You and me both.” We laughed.

I unlocked the door. “Jeff is coming tonight. He’ll be here soon.”

I turned on the lights and we headed up the stairs. The museum had once been the home of one of the most successful ranchers in town. He grew fruit: apples, pears, plums, until the land dried up. Then as the ranch started to fail, he parceled up the land. The house stood on acre of land after the sales. The family lived there until the early 1960s. When the grandson of the rancher passed away with no remaining relatives, a group of hippies moved in and started a commune. It became dilapidated by the mid 1970s. The house was later donated to the town, and the historical society, a community of “old timers” devoted to keeping their memories of the town alive, started the museum on a purely volunteer basis.

This night, we set up shop upstairs in the archive. Each of us had a task. The volunteers of the museum thrived on routine. Every Thursday night, the same pattern was followed with unspoken regularity. Jim set up the computer. Dick arranged the notebooks. When it came time to take a break, Jim started the hot water, while Dick set out the napkins and the cookies.

Their work at the museum was more than work, it was interwoven into their lives as deeply as a family member might be. Their fellow volunteers were their childhood friends. The monotonous tasks of indexing, cataloguing, and filing were all part of a process of preserving everything that they once were.

I, on the other hand, was there for a different kind of companionship. I wanted to feel their world. I wanted to preserve it, too.

And somewhere in this process, we had become family. When I was pregnant with my first child, I was assured by Patricia, a woman who had assisted a doctor in the 1930s, that she could deliver my baby for me if an emergency came up. “Just give me a few hours, while my medication kicks in,” she said wearily. She was suffering from severe back pain. Her only concern was not having forceps handy.

We heard the jingle of bells as Jeff arrived and rattled the front door. I went downstairs to let him in. Jeff was a retired police officer.

‘It took me longer than usual to find parking. My spot was taken. They are meeting next door. Planning some kind of trouble, I suppose.”

Next to the museum lived a Quaker couple. Their weekly peace-nik meeting had been changed to Thursday this week. Jeff was a hard-line conservative.

“This country needs to be united right now. Tell those liberals to love it or leave it.”

“I’m sure they love their country, too.” I said, and then quickly changed the subject. “We’ve got a really interesting collection of papers to go through tonight. I think we’re going to have fun.

We were going start going through h a recent acquisition, four boxes of letters from the Azeveda family. The Azevedas had farmed in the western part of the country for almost a century. I had briefly scanned the letters. Most of the letters were written in the sixties and seventies. Tonight we were going to go through and determine which letters should be brought into the collection.

Each volunteer had a pile that he was to work his way trough and report about. I walked back and forth, looking over shoulders.

Then I looked through the oral history collection to see if any Azevedas had been interviewed.

Margarida Azeveda, 1972.

“Did you know Margarida Azeveda,?” I asked over my shoulder.

“She died a few years ago. We all knew her.”

“Well, they interviewed her back in the 70s. There’s a transcript here.”

I silently scanned the transcript.

“It was natural for my family to want to farm. Our ancestors farmed out of necessity. We were on an island and we had to grow our own food. We couldn’t just go and buy it at the local market. Our clothing came from the wool we sheared from our sheep. The women worked hard to weave this wool into cloth. It is in us to love the land. When we pick up the soil and feel it in our hands, we are connected with our ancestors.”

I wanted to hold that soil in my hand and feel connected to my ancestors, who were also farmers. The Azoreans in our community did not necessarily live on farms, but even those that live in tract houses had beautiful terraced gardens, which produced fruits in volume. Their churches and IDES societies had secured a connection to the land for gnenerations. Every year, IDES societies all over California elected IDES queens and princesses as they clebrated The Festa do Espírito Santo, a festival held every year in honor of the Holy Ghost. When our county was all farmland, this annual festival was a way to bring the community together from their disperate farms. It also brought county and county together as Festa royalty marched in every county within a reasonable distance.

Jim and Dick had grown up going on dairy farms, attending the annual Holy Ghost festivals. They had an ease and comfort in the community that was satiable, though I could sense a dismay developing at the changing character of the town. It was becoming a bedroom community. Families were moving from the city, buying homes from builders that had no sense of what the town had once been. Homes with 4200 square feet, granite counters with granite backsplashes, coolers for wine collections, designer SUVs. The houses were stunning and perfect in every way, once families moved into them they became involved in disputes with the builders about the quality of the foundation, or a faulty drainage system. The builders were in and out. The same houses were built across the country, with little thought to the difference in soil, or rock, or history.

Jeff was not an “old timer” in the sense that he was a transplant from Connecticut. He was not in good health. His hands shook, partly from an anxiety disorder. We had many conversations on our Thursday nights that has bonded us. Jeff grieved for the Connecticut of his childhood and blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for destroying it. I listened, always with interest, but a sadness usually washed over me, too. Sometimes I felt we were all heartbroken in this country, mourning for values and a country disappearing. We all blamed each other for our sense of loss.

The phone rang. It was Ann.

“Did you get the cookies, or did Jim eat them before you got to them?”

“He says he has them. I haven’t seen them, yet.”

“Bring some home to your babies. Will you be coming by on a Wednesday any time soon. We miss you.”

“It’s hard, you know with my girls and their naptimes. How are your grandkids?”

Ann’s son was a doctor with a young family. He was a reservist, and was now serving in Iraq. It was unclear when he would be back. His wife and children were staying with Ann and Jim until he was done serving.

“They’re keeping us young, that’s for sure.”

“Have you heard from your son?”

“Yes. It’s not easy there.” I struggled for something appropriate to say. She spoke first. “I have a mind to march in Washington on Sunday.”

“Would Jim join you?”

“I don’t know, ask him. Dick marched, you know. Years ago, to oppose the Vietnam war.”

“Really!?”

“He had a son that was draft age. It was 1968, and by then he had had enough. He just got up and marched without saying much about it. At least that’s how his family tells the story.”

After we hung up, I walked back to the archival room. Quiet, reserved, predictable Dick. I tried imagining him marching against the war. It was so very unpredictable.

++++++

That night driving home, a downpour started. I struggled to see through the windshield. My headlights reflected the streams of water rushing down, not the street signs or shape of the roads. As I turned right, I saw a pair of headlights coming towards me. We both stopped. I had turned too far, into the opposing lane. I straightened the car and turned around. As the other car moved on, I parked my car on the side of the road to get my bearings.

On my right was the local Catholic church, Our Lady of Salvation. Every year for 80 years a week after the feast of the Holy Ghost, Pentecost, the Portuguese in the town had paraded from IDES hall to this church. I got out of the car, grabbing my jacket. Throwing my jacket over my head, I stood outside the car peering at the church, which was lit on the outside. This church spoke to generations. It spoke to my parents. It did not speak to me. While the church that my parents came of age in was looking forward, the church of my age seemed to be looking backwards. I wanted its warmth, but I was not sure that it wanted me at all. Had I failed or had it? Either way, it was a loss. As well as I functioned, somewhere my heart was broken.

I drop Rachel off at school and usher Hannah back to the car. As usual, she is not happy about the prospect of getting into her car seat and arches her back. Realizing I’m stronger than her, she asks for a cuddle. I finish buckling her in and offer her a little cuddle in that position. This offer is not accepted, she wants a full-fledged cuddle.

Fed up, I shut her door and get into my seat. I change the ipod playllist from Puff the Magic Dragon, to Mary Black. Hannah is crying. I’m gearing up for a harried ride home. The entire car road home she is crying, ‘I want cuddle.” Every time I try rubbing her foot with my hand she kicks her foot in fury, a sign that she is in tantrum mode and I have to just let her work it out herself. I turn Mary Black up high. When we are a block from home I say, “We’re almost home. Are you ready to get out and cuddle?” She immediately stops crying and says, “Da,” (yes) her breath still catching from all the crying.

I park in the garage, get out, open her door. She’s got a big grin on her face with her tears still on her face. She says, “Hannah crying cuddle.”

+++++++++++++++

I thought I threw all the candy out, but I found half a bag of lollipops in the cupboard. This was cause for our last Halloween fling. We each had a lollipop after dinner. (Yes, you did the math right. That leaves several lollipops left over. What are you going to about it? I need rewards for reaching my NaNo counts.)

This brings up a conversation about our dentist, who buys candy from kids every year, and who told Rachel at her dentist appointment last week, that she shouldn’t be eating any Halloween candy. Rachel was concerned the dentist would be mad. I told her that I threw out most of our candy a few days ago.

She looked at me and gave me a big thumbs up.

Then Hannah, who was on my lap, put her thumb up and said “da best” with a big lollipop grin on her face.

We tend to say, “You’re the best.” a lot in my family. Hannah’s version is “da best.”

+++++++++++++++

Do you have the general idea? My kids were cute today, darnit.

And now they’re asleep.

Whoo-hoo.

++++++++++++++

Did I tell you I went to a Mary Black concert last week? Anyone else a fan?

++++++++++++++

Dont’ even get me started on blogger.

The old dog being me.

You see that’s the happy secret of middle age, my folks.You get here and you suddenly realize you CAN do new tricks, because you really don’t care how you look when you’re doing them.

1. As a child, you start out thinkng you can do anything you want and be the BEST at it and become famous. Like perhaps playing Annie on broadway. Or being the youngest published author EVER. Not that I would know.

2. You get a little older and you realize that there are things that you will not be the best at, and other things that you may never be even very good at. You get frustrated and a little depressed. You REALLY wanted to be Annie and you are 16 years old. Your time has run out. And yeah, Andrea McCartle is a better singer than you. There, you said it. Not that I would know.

3. Somewhere along the way you give these things up and just enjoy watchng, or listening to, or reading those who ARE the truly great at the things that you love. Or perhaps, you play Frances Perkins and one of the Boylin sister in a local community theater production of Annie.

4. Then middle age hits and you realize that it doesn’t matter if you’re never going to be good at that THING you want to be good at, the joy is in doing this THING even if you never excel at it. Your kids get totally embarrased watching as you finally learn to belly dance, but you don’t care.

Or maybe you really ARE great at something. What would that something be? You can tell me.

What new tricks are you learning, or are hoping to learn?

Not that I’m accusing you of being middle aged or anything.

And no, I don’t bellydance.

++++++++++++++

Gentle.

In her parent conferences, Rachel’s teacher chose one word that represented the spirit of the child she was discussing.

Rachel is gentle.

That is not the word I would have predicted. It surprised me.

I just love it, though.

+++++++++++++

The problem with writing a lot of crap really fast for NaNoWriMo is that I really don’t like writing crap.

But I forge on, feeling a little like the youngest kid in the gang calling up to the older kids 1/2 a mile ahead of me to slow down and “wait up.”

The problem is they are NOT writing crap. So, it’s really just my problem.