Just a note . . .

The real life friends in this blogging world are pulling together for Indy this week. She is such a great friend that I should be flooded with eloquence, but I'm not.

She lost her mother Saturday night.

Say a little prayer and leave her a hug here.

Ted

I looked at my calendar today and I thought about Ted. Of all the people with whom I shared my high school experience, I probably think of Ted more often than most. I doubt Ted thinks much about me.

He may not remember my name.

In the past month, I have been very “helpful” within my community. I organized a group to help with Habitat for Humanity. I made a pillow and wrote a poem for a friend fighting cancer. I am co-chairing a giving tree program. I helped to organize and execute a group of 15 or so women to make Christmas tree ornaments for a charity. I hosted a cub scout meeting. I hosted another family for Thanksgiving. My family shopped and cooked a meal for 50 folks we otherwise would have never met (one man even took our picture). I presided over a homeowners’ meeting. I attended a PTA Council meeting and spoke on behalf of my son’s school. I even attended a Board of Education meeting.

That was just November.

For every event or opportunity that I have the pleasure of promoting, I feel there are at least ten that fall to the sidelines. We all say ‘no.’ I try to say ‘no’ with no guilt, no apology, and very little explanation.

I remind myself of Ted.

When Ted and I were 15 years old, we worked together at a church camp. I cannot say we were good friends, but we had known each other since early elementary school. He passed every test he felt like passing. Naturally smart, he ran with a streak of menace about him. I knew him for too long to buy into the ‘tough guy’ routine, but we simply were not in the same circles, really. I saw him in a few ‘gifted’ classes and at church.

His mother was the original “church lady.” If something happened in our church, her name was on it.

Ted liked medieval weapons. You know, throwing stars, brass knuckles, num chucks and the like. He had taken num chucks to his father’s car a few days earlier. I heard his parents had him arrested, although I never confirmed that rumor. He was always frighteningly clever. That day, he was angry.

We were in charge of small children. This was a church day camp. The oldest person present was 21 years old (a week or so later that responsible 21 year old would be purposely dousing me with lighter fluid, but that is another story). Ted stormed off into the parking lot.

I walked after him. It went something like this.

“Ted!”

“What do you want?!”

“Ted, what’s going on?”

“I’m p$%ssed. Go away!”

Silence, save for his fist hitting his car.

“That D*mn B!T**ch!”

“Who?!”

“My @#$ mother.”

“She seems alright. I mean, she does a lot of stuff for the church . . . ”

“OH, YEAH, that’s right. She does a LOT of stuff for the stupid church. Yeah, she doesn’t give a CR#*P. She does a lot for the church to make HERSELF feel good and important, f*%g high and mighty, she doesn’t care about ANYONE else. F&%* B%&*%ch.”

More silence.

“So, fine, Ted. You are SO SMART. You can run circles around anyone in our school and you’re going to throw all that away, just because she’s stupid?!! That makes sense. You are WAY smarter than that, Ted. You can do anything you want if you don’t screw it up.”

He stopped hitting the car.

We walked back in silence, and never said another word about it.





I heard your message, Ted. I wonder if your mother ever knew how much her 'tough guy' missed her.

Happy Birthday, George!

Thanks for being your sweet little you, big man.

Love,

Mommy

The Birthday Contraption

Yes, my friends, it worked. This is the wreckage. I will have to do some forensic work here as the chaos of the moment did not allow pictures. Daddy came home early. Heads spun. String tangled. Children clamored to pull the trigger . . . . Daddy was definitely surprised.

Exhibit A - Wreckage

Exhibit A (above) shows the sequins fabric, D-ring with painters tape and one of the dowel rods. I happened to have the sequins fabric left over from an Elvis party. (A prepared mother should always keeps some on hand).

Exhibit B - Trigger rings

I cut twelve lengths of blue ribbon (12 inches each). I made a loop at one end and attached that end to a ring. Each open end of ribbon was tacked to the floor in front of a opening between the spindles in my loft's railing. (Shh! Don't tell Mom. Oh, I am the mom). The ring end of the ribbon could then dangle down towards the family room.

Exibit B - Coiled sequins fabric.

I measured the fabric strips very carefully on the floor by running my scissors up them in three inch increments, plus or minus a few inches. Meanwhile, Gladys helped by jumping up and down on the fabric cheerfully screaming "Mommy, why are you cutting my dance floor? Why are you cutting my dance floor?!"

I then very carefully rolled each strip into a coil (toilet paper style). The end of the strip was attached to the floor with a tack on top of each blue ribbon.

Then the ribbon was pulled back around the coiled fabric, suspending the fabric above the family room below. I slid each of the rings onto the dowel rod.

I taped string to the end of each dowel rod. The strings were then laced to the opposite walls of the loft (attached a D-ring to the wall). The extra string was left to hang downstairs as the triggers for the children to pull.

While Andrew and Gladys created "Happy Birthday" posters for their father downstairs, I attached two additional D-rings to the ceiling above the loft.

Exhibit C - Banner Attachments (D-rings near ceiling)

The posters were taped one on top of the other as a verticle banner. Then the corners of the top poster were attached to strings laced through the D-ring as show above. The other end of those same strings were attached to a larger ring, which was then laced through the dowel rods. The left side was attached to the left rod and the right to the right rod so the banner would fall down in the center. Since the rod was on the floor of the loft, the distance from the larger ring on the end of the string to the D-ring on the ceiling was the perfect length needed for the banner to drop down into the family room. The large rings would get caught at the D-rings and stop the banner from falling any further. (It worked perfectly).

Exhibit D: Sequins strips

Exhibit E - More Sequins strips

So, the banner fell first in the center. Then, one by one, the strips of sequins were released as the kids pulled the dowel rod. It gave the presentation a nice delay-action that brought Vegas right here to the midwest.

Truly, it should be on Youtube. Maybe next time.

Not everyone gets that kind of action on a Monday evening. Yeah, that's right, you're jealous I can tell . . . do try to control your excitement.

Contraption

What can you make with . . .

poster board
pens/crayons
two dowel rods
a good handful of 1” rings
crochet thread
three ‘D’ rings
painters tape
several yards of sequins fabric cut into 3” strips
one nut case mom

Well, if I’m lucky, a pull-action contraption that will automatically make streamers and a “Happy Birthday” poster magically fall from the loft into our family room obstructing my husband’s view of Monday night football. All of this, with a simple pull of a string.

That is Andrew’s dream. He has been talking about it for a week.

If you will excuse me, I have work to do. I have less than an hour.

Wish me luck.

The Wave

Snow fell today. To be accurate, we should say “slush,” but I am not sure how that falls. The snow banks on the sides of our street cradled the onslaught on freezing rain, creating a river without flow (almost measureable as a slump factor, for you true engineers).

Imagine frozen orange juice left on your counter.

Having woken up in a deliciously good mood, I decided to wear a skirt that my son had helped me pick out. (An exaggeration perhaps, but he was a great sport at the store). I awarded him full credit, as I was a little concerned about the combination of teal, gray, and burgundy printed on corduroy. But, for $7 he thought it was “pretty crazy” so I bought it.

I should also mention that, considering the typical weather here in my suburb, I often shovel my way four doors down to the bus stop in the morning. (Call it your middle-class, suburban, full body workout.) Since Mother Nature prefers a healthy suburban mom, she often allows me the opportunity to do it all over again before the bus returns in the afternoon.

I threw on my snow boots with my “crazy” corduroy skirt and opened my garage door.

Gladys grabbed her shovel and followed behind, pushing now, then dragging the shovel behind. I was a few yards ahead of her, alternatively shoveling and checking on her over my shoulder.

Then, over my shoulder, I saw the Fedex guy. I saw the young man through his truck window, chuckling at me, smiling.

I looked down at my boots.

I looked back at Gladys.

Then I saw my son’s bus slow down a few homes ahead to allow bus 64 to pass it. This happens every single day: bus 64 always passes my son’s bus at that exact spot. Every day, the buses follow this same dance.

The clockwork of this occurrence underscores the change in weather for me. A month ago I witnessed this dance in a light jacket, kicking leaves. Two months ago, I pulled the wagon in a cotton skirt.

Then I saw THE WAVE.

A tremendous, evil wave of slush grew larger as the bus accelerated towards the curb in front of me. I dropped my shovel and instinctively ran up the driveway.

Gladys (protected by angels) continued to focus on her shovel, standing behind a tree completely dry.

My son’s bus, now stopped two drives ahead, forced the Fedex truck to stop right in front of me.

“Hey! He almost got you!” his laugh was contagious.

“He’ll have to try a little harder next time!”

Andrew jumped off the bus, and the three of us ran home together into the warmth.

Juggling Rocks

A thick tension enshrouds the suburbs. The other night, an otherwise congenial friend of mine attacked my character. Another friend expressed her concern for a mutual friend, who she accidentally caught in tears. I hung up the phone a moment ago, wondering if somehow I had done it again. Somehow, completely by accident, someone felt slighted. Surely, it was nothing, but as I stand in this great cathedral, I see my friendships before me as a stained glass window.

I juggle rocks.

As you can imagine, this feeling led me into a state of introspection. I have been walking through life fairly pleasantly for more than thirty years. I am a reasonably sensitive person. I have been accused of excellent social diplomacy skills. Friends have truly humbled me in the past by their willingness to open up to me, and I can promise you that the smallest shreds of those private conversations will never appear here. Never. Even if you guess right, I promise I cannot tell you. (Anyway, I have a horrible memory.)

What happened?

Although I am well known in my circles as a pop culture idiot, I do my best to stay abreast of the more serious events of our time. I heard the other day that Citibank is laying of 50,000 employees on top of other layoffs. Yes, I heard about the credit crunch, the death spiral of retail sales, the automotive bailout debates, and “Hank and the banks.”

I received the e-mail from President Hockfield of MIT, explaining just how MIT will weather the financial storms. She sent me (and thousands of other alumni) an e-mail telling me things will get worse before they get better. I sigh, and I’m so glad that those employment figures are just figures. Those metrics sit sadly on the desks of economists, in some office, somewhere in a big city.

I am glad that I don’t know anyone losing their job.

Oh, except for Mr. Smith, of course, who was laid off recently. And then there is Mr. Jones, whose company will likely go under. Mr. Davis is in real estate, which I’m sure is doing just fine, right? Then there is the Wallaces who own a small business selling things that people can put off until later. And, since the manufacturing and banking sectors are unlikely to be laying off, those friends are pretty secure too, right? Right?

Right.

And I wonder why people are just a little edgy when the only thing everyone can agree on is the fact that things are going to get worse.

But, Mr. Smith, you may not know this, but Mr. Davis is pretty edgy too. And, his wife is upset because she isn’t able to figure out how Johnny is going to get that train set if she has to pay the copays this month and then your insurance is gone in January. She just heard that Santa’s elves are walking out if the pay cuts go through. Mrs. Wallace, please be patient with Mrs. Jones, she didn’t mean to offend you, but she just got off the phone with her husband who had some more bad news. She used up all her reserves telling him that she’d figure it all out and everything would be fine, even though she doesn’t really believe it herself.

And me? I probably look just a little bit comfortable carrying that fancy coffee into preschool with a big smile. I’m smiling because I found a coffee shop gift card in my winter coat from last year. I should have told you. Its that bad memory thing I guess. I have enough for one more. Do you want to split it?

I am not juggling rocks. I am another windowpane refracting the sunshine, even if its merely the reflection off the new fallen snow.

Looking out my window, I see snow glistening, as if to spite those gray winter skies. Pull up a cup of your cheapest joe, my friends, it may be a long winter, but it will be warmer in the company of friends.


And, my dear friends, I promise my next post will be cheerful, maybe even funny in its own Emama sort of way.