But it's not here! It's over at the new site for this blog. So hurry over there and read it. And while you're at it, if you have been following me here, take a second to click the "follow" button over there. Or even if you haven't been following me. Now's a great time to start. But not here. Because this is the last new post I'll ever write here.
Oh, that sounds so ominous and final.
Here's the new blog. Go there now. Click it. Go on, click. 1-2-3, click! See? That was easy!
http://juliasinnermonologue.wordpress.com/
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Moving Day
Just wanted you all to know that I've moved this blog to WordPress. My other blog is there, so it's just easier to have them both at the same place.
Here's the link: My New Blog
I'd like to say there's a shiny new posting awaiting there for your reading pleasure, but nothing has struck me funny in the last couple of days, so I'm afraid it's just the same old stuff that's on this blog.
But hope springs eternal...
I did put up a nifty banner photo that my very own husband took. So there is that to look at.
Hope to see you there!
Here's the link: My New Blog
I'd like to say there's a shiny new posting awaiting there for your reading pleasure, but nothing has struck me funny in the last couple of days, so I'm afraid it's just the same old stuff that's on this blog.
But hope springs eternal...
I did put up a nifty banner photo that my very own husband took. So there is that to look at.
Hope to see you there!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Top Ten Reasons I Love Being A Piano Teacher at home
10) I never have to study up ahead of time -- been teaching the same songs for 20 years now.
9) Even though the songs are the same, no lesson is ever the same as any other lesson
8) Apart from teaching a child to read, there's nothing like watching a young brain start to understand written music
7) It's very easy to curry favor with my clients (bribe them with candy at the end of the lesson)
6) I can tell the same jokes over and over and still get a laugh.
5) I get gifts from students on Valentine's Day and Christmas
4) I get to shop for stickers and fun pencils and write them off as a business expense.
3) Things my students say provide me with a never-ending source of Facebook statuses.
2) Can't beat the commute.
And the Number One Reason I Love Teaching Piano:
1) The day I heard a student had said to her mother, "I like the new teacher. She doesn't yell at me."
10) I never have to study up ahead of time -- been teaching the same songs for 20 years now.
9) Even though the songs are the same, no lesson is ever the same as any other lesson
8) Apart from teaching a child to read, there's nothing like watching a young brain start to understand written music
7) It's very easy to curry favor with my clients (bribe them with candy at the end of the lesson)
6) I can tell the same jokes over and over and still get a laugh.
5) I get gifts from students on Valentine's Day and Christmas
4) I get to shop for stickers and fun pencils and write them off as a business expense.
3) Things my students say provide me with a never-ending source of Facebook statuses.
2) Can't beat the commute.
And the Number One Reason I Love Teaching Piano:
1) The day I heard a student had said to her mother, "I like the new teacher. She doesn't yell at me."
Monday, February 7, 2011
Of Uncle Frank, Turtles and Cow Catchers
True Confessions: There are times that I find myself thinking, at every traffic light, "Why do people take so LONG to move forward when the light turns green?" I mean, seriously, are people not clear on the concept that green means go? Perhaps other people don't sit with hands at 10 and 2, fingers twitching, gazing fixedly at the traffic light for that blessed moment when it changes so they can jam their foot down on the accelerator, like some strange cross between Speed Racer and Uncle Frank in "One Crazy Summer."
But it still seems there has to be a happy medium between driving like Uncle Frank and driving like the turtles in "Hoodwinked."
Now, I understand that we all get caught unawares changing a CD or reading a text message or daydreaming once in a while. We're all human, after all. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people with reflexes slower than molasses in January. And not just one of these people, here or there. I'm talking about the inevitable LINE of slow people one gets stuck behind during the one commute in which one is in a hurry, having been unavoidably detained from an important appointment.
I have a friend who would call this rant "The Excitement Plan." He says quite wisely that you live a lot longer if you refuse to get excited over things like this. It's better to sit back, raise your hands and smile. People are people, and no one has yet come up with a plan to fix that. He's probably right.
Then again, he doesn't live in L.A.
Tonight I found myself musing that just once in my life, I would like to drive a monster truck, perhaps with a cow-catcher mounted on the front, so that when I get stuck behind a long line of people who aren't clear on the concept that green means go, I can just give them all a little nudge. I'm sure it's just some encouragement they need. Just a little nudge forward... all nine of them. Just a little friendly tap on the bumper to say, "Hey guys, the light's green. How about we all go now?" Really, just once would do it. I think I could be patient for the rest of my life after that.
But it still seems there has to be a happy medium between driving like Uncle Frank and driving like the turtles in "Hoodwinked."
Now, I understand that we all get caught unawares changing a CD or reading a text message or daydreaming once in a while. We're all human, after all. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people with reflexes slower than molasses in January. And not just one of these people, here or there. I'm talking about the inevitable LINE of slow people one gets stuck behind during the one commute in which one is in a hurry, having been unavoidably detained from an important appointment.
I have a friend who would call this rant "The Excitement Plan." He says quite wisely that you live a lot longer if you refuse to get excited over things like this. It's better to sit back, raise your hands and smile. People are people, and no one has yet come up with a plan to fix that. He's probably right.
Then again, he doesn't live in L.A.
Tonight I found myself musing that just once in my life, I would like to drive a monster truck, perhaps with a cow-catcher mounted on the front, so that when I get stuck behind a long line of people who aren't clear on the concept that green means go, I can just give them all a little nudge. I'm sure it's just some encouragement they need. Just a little nudge forward... all nine of them. Just a little friendly tap on the bumper to say, "Hey guys, the light's green. How about we all go now?" Really, just once would do it. I think I could be patient for the rest of my life after that.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Lunch With Emily
Emily is a charming young woman, if I do say so myself, since I raised her. She is amazingly talented in art and music, a loving sister who pinch-hits as Mom when I'm sick, loves to read British literature and has a knack for communicating with those who, due to various circumstances, disabilities or conditions, have a hard time communicating with anyone else. At 15 years old, she possesses poise and a propensity for comedy far beyond her years.
Well, okay, she possesses a propensity for comedy. The poise comes and goes.
Take, for example, yesterday's lunchtime conversation. Her part of it was delivered entirely in a fairly accurate British accent.
"I'm going to talk like this all afternoon. I'll tell people my name is Rose. Rose Capps. From England. I'll say I lived in...um.... Yale!"
At this point her friend, Amanda and I are doing our best not to spit out our sodas, turning red in the face and shaking uncontrollably with suppressed laughter.
Emily is still excited about her role. "That's good, right? Oh, wait, is Yale a town in England? Or is it a college? Or a kind of cheese? It sounds like a kind of cheese, actually."
That sets us off all over again, but I finally manage to swallow my soda and gasp, "Emily, Yale is a university... (I pause for dramatic effect)... in AMERICA!"
Now it's her turn to go red in the face and struggle with keeping her soda in her mouth.
Eventually she calms down and says, "All right then, what town were you born in?" She figures it will be safe if she just sticks to her mothers' roots.
It's important that she get an accurate backstory prepared ahead of time, you see, because of the Halloween Debacle of 2009. She pulled the accent thing that night, speaking loudly to Amanda with it while walking around our neighborhood dressed as a girl from the 70s. It would have been okay, but she got cocky and kept it going even when she knocked on doors, and sure enough, at one house the lady squealed, "Oh! You're English? So is my husband! Nigel, come here and meet the English girl." She then had to keep the accent going through an entire conversation with Nigel, and of course he asked her where she was from. She grabbed the first location name she could think of in a split-second and told him "Cotswood." It wasn't until she got home and related the story that I explained that the "Cotswolds" is a REGION of England, not a town. Which probably explains why Nigel was looking at her funny.
So this time, being a year and a half older and that much wiser, she knows an accurate backstory is mandatory. So she borrows mine.
"I was born in Stanwell," I reply. I can't say the name of that town without pronouncing it the British way. It's one of the few pieces of my original accent that are hardwired into my brain.
"Stanwell," she practices, rolling it around on her tongue. "Stanwell." Amanda and I take another bite of food, exchanging a patient yet meaningful glance (we do this a lot around Emily, especially when she gets fanciful like this).
"Right, I've got it. My name is Rose Capps, and I'm from Stanford."
I almost choked on my broccoli beef.
"What?" she asks impatiently.
"Stanford is a university," I sigh, and then Amanda and I say in chorus, "IN AMERICA!"
She decides to stay American for the rest of the afternoon.
Well, okay, she possesses a propensity for comedy. The poise comes and goes.Take, for example, yesterday's lunchtime conversation. Her part of it was delivered entirely in a fairly accurate British accent.
"I'm going to talk like this all afternoon. I'll tell people my name is Rose. Rose Capps. From England. I'll say I lived in...um.... Yale!"
At this point her friend, Amanda and I are doing our best not to spit out our sodas, turning red in the face and shaking uncontrollably with suppressed laughter.
Emily is still excited about her role. "That's good, right? Oh, wait, is Yale a town in England? Or is it a college? Or a kind of cheese? It sounds like a kind of cheese, actually."
That sets us off all over again, but I finally manage to swallow my soda and gasp, "Emily, Yale is a university... (I pause for dramatic effect)... in AMERICA!"
Now it's her turn to go red in the face and struggle with keeping her soda in her mouth.
Eventually she calms down and says, "All right then, what town were you born in?" She figures it will be safe if she just sticks to her mothers' roots.
It's important that she get an accurate backstory prepared ahead of time, you see, because of the Halloween Debacle of 2009. She pulled the accent thing that night, speaking loudly to Amanda with it while walking around our neighborhood dressed as a girl from the 70s. It would have been okay, but she got cocky and kept it going even when she knocked on doors, and sure enough, at one house the lady squealed, "Oh! You're English? So is my husband! Nigel, come here and meet the English girl." She then had to keep the accent going through an entire conversation with Nigel, and of course he asked her where she was from. She grabbed the first location name she could think of in a split-second and told him "Cotswood." It wasn't until she got home and related the story that I explained that the "Cotswolds" is a REGION of England, not a town. Which probably explains why Nigel was looking at her funny.
So this time, being a year and a half older and that much wiser, she knows an accurate backstory is mandatory. So she borrows mine.
"I was born in Stanwell," I reply. I can't say the name of that town without pronouncing it the British way. It's one of the few pieces of my original accent that are hardwired into my brain.
"Stanwell," she practices, rolling it around on her tongue. "Stanwell." Amanda and I take another bite of food, exchanging a patient yet meaningful glance (we do this a lot around Emily, especially when she gets fanciful like this).
"Right, I've got it. My name is Rose Capps, and I'm from Stanford."
I almost choked on my broccoli beef.
"What?" she asks impatiently.
"Stanford is a university," I sigh, and then Amanda and I say in chorus, "IN AMERICA!"
She decides to stay American for the rest of the afternoon.
Monday, January 31, 2011
10 Ways You Know It’s Monday
1. You get tired of waiting in bed for your husband to bring you your coffee, and then realize he’s not going to because he’s at work.
2. You realize after your 8 year old eats his cereal that he got the bowl out of the dishwasher… which wasn’t actually run the night before.
3. Having off-loaded 3 out of 4 kids at a friend’s house, you look forward to a quiet afternoon free from squabbling and fistfights… until your remaining child somehow manages to punch herself in the face.
4. Figuring you have a good 45 minutes before your first music student arrives, you sit down and relax for a few minutes before tackling the dog-hair-ridden floor and disgusting guest bathroom, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door, at which point you remember you changed the time of the first lesson.
5. Your parental control software blocks your access to your own website.
6. You go to make a cup of tea to calm your nerves, but discover the tea-kettle is empty. You go to refill the kettle from the pitcher of Arrowhead water, only to discover the pitcher is empty. You go to fill the pitcher from the giant, slippery, 5-gallon bottle of Arrowhead water, congratulating yourself on not dropping it, only to realize after it starts pouring that you hadn’t quite lined it up with the pitcher and that you are, in actuality, simply making a rapidly growing puddle of water on the kitchen floor.
7. You realize that the keys you misplaced a week ago aren’t under the dresser, where you had assumed they fell but never got around to picking up, and that you now have no idea where they are or when the last time was that you had them.
8. You finally get your tea made, go to put sugar in it, and discover that the sugar bowl is empty. You go to refill the sugar bowl and discover that the sugar canister is also empty. You pull out potatoes, onions and other bottom-shelf pantry necessities and contort yourself in order to get sugar out of the giant, "emergency" container of sugar which is stored at the back, only to stand up and notice a new bag of sugar sitting in a prominent place on the eye-level pantry shelf.
9. You try to write a list of ten items but can only come up with 9.
10. You go to post your lame 9-item “10 Reasons” list on your blog, only to discover that you have lost all connection to the Internet.
2. You realize after your 8 year old eats his cereal that he got the bowl out of the dishwasher… which wasn’t actually run the night before.
3. Having off-loaded 3 out of 4 kids at a friend’s house, you look forward to a quiet afternoon free from squabbling and fistfights… until your remaining child somehow manages to punch herself in the face.
4. Figuring you have a good 45 minutes before your first music student arrives, you sit down and relax for a few minutes before tackling the dog-hair-ridden floor and disgusting guest bathroom, only to be interrupted by a knock at the door, at which point you remember you changed the time of the first lesson.
5. Your parental control software blocks your access to your own website.
6. You go to make a cup of tea to calm your nerves, but discover the tea-kettle is empty. You go to refill the kettle from the pitcher of Arrowhead water, only to discover the pitcher is empty. You go to fill the pitcher from the giant, slippery, 5-gallon bottle of Arrowhead water, congratulating yourself on not dropping it, only to realize after it starts pouring that you hadn’t quite lined it up with the pitcher and that you are, in actuality, simply making a rapidly growing puddle of water on the kitchen floor.
7. You realize that the keys you misplaced a week ago aren’t under the dresser, where you had assumed they fell but never got around to picking up, and that you now have no idea where they are or when the last time was that you had them.
8. You finally get your tea made, go to put sugar in it, and discover that the sugar bowl is empty. You go to refill the sugar bowl and discover that the sugar canister is also empty. You pull out potatoes, onions and other bottom-shelf pantry necessities and contort yourself in order to get sugar out of the giant, "emergency" container of sugar which is stored at the back, only to stand up and notice a new bag of sugar sitting in a prominent place on the eye-level pantry shelf.
9. You try to write a list of ten items but can only come up with 9.
10. You go to post your lame 9-item “10 Reasons” list on your blog, only to discover that you have lost all connection to the Internet.
Friday, July 30, 2010
10 Ways You Know You Have Reached Middle-Age
1. It’s your birthday and you have to do the math to remind yourself how old you’re turning.
2. You are having dinner out for your birthday at a restaurant chosen for two reasons: they have a kid-friendly menu and you have a coupon.
3. You take a little trip to the beach on the way to dinner and get all excited when the star of one of your favorite TV shows jogs by... and then realize it went off the air 21 years ago.
4. You already know what you are going to order before you get to the restaurant and it has the word “Yankee” in the name and involves red meat.
5. You realize halfway to the restaurant that you left the coupon at home.
6. The waiter looks very, very young. You want to order wine but feel you would have to check his I.D. first.
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7. Your daughter gives you a birthday card with a heartfelt paragraph detailing her love and admiration for you, but rather than feeling warm and fuzzy, you’re miffed because she wrote so small you have to don your reading glasses.
8. During dinner you find yourself reminiscing about how stylin’ you all used to be wearing your neon-colored crazy-patterned baggy pants.
9. When you count up your birthday cash you have to first resist the temptation to pay a bill with it and then look up your wishlist on Amazon.com so that you can remember what it was you wanted to buy with it.
10. You finish off the evening with a nice warm cup of non-caffeinated beverage and consider personally answering every single birthday wish on your Facebook wall, but then realize that would mean you’d have to stay up past 10 p.m.
2. You are having dinner out for your birthday at a restaurant chosen for two reasons: they have a kid-friendly menu and you have a coupon.
3. You take a little trip to the beach on the way to dinner and get all excited when the star of one of your favorite TV shows jogs by... and then realize it went off the air 21 years ago.
4. You already know what you are going to order before you get to the restaurant and it has the word “Yankee” in the name and involves red meat.
5. You realize halfway to the restaurant that you left the coupon at home.
6. The waiter looks very, very young. You want to order wine but feel you would have to check his I.D. first.
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7. Your daughter gives you a birthday card with a heartfelt paragraph detailing her love and admiration for you, but rather than feeling warm and fuzzy, you’re miffed because she wrote so small you have to don your reading glasses.8. During dinner you find yourself reminiscing about how stylin’ you all used to be wearing your neon-colored crazy-patterned baggy pants.
9. When you count up your birthday cash you have to first resist the temptation to pay a bill with it and then look up your wishlist on Amazon.com so that you can remember what it was you wanted to buy with it.
10. You finish off the evening with a nice warm cup of non-caffeinated beverage and consider personally answering every single birthday wish on your Facebook wall, but then realize that would mean you’d have to stay up past 10 p.m.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Dingy Middle-Aged Women, Unite!
I have come to the conclusion that today is Dingy Middle-Aged Women’s Day. (That's Ding-y, as in air-headed, not Dingey, as in drab. Although drab Middle-Aged Women could be a topic for another blog entry, if I really get stuck). Come to think of it, based on my personal experience, it may actually be Dingy Middle-Aged Women’s WEEK. I started in on my own dinginess on Wednesday, when I tried to make tea by putting not a teabag, but a spoonful of sugar into the teapot. Then later I attempted to warm a plate of food by putting it in the fridge. I did at least discover my error with the plate of food unaided – the absence of the keypad on the fridge door was a dead giveaway.
Now, I was blaming my dinginess this week on the fact that my right ear is still clogged from the cold I had last year. It’s already a proven fact that I can’t see well when I can’t hear. After today’s events, however, I am beginning to wonder if this is not some kind of national honor week for dinginess, and that perhaps I lost the memo.
Case in point: driving down Sepulveda Blvd. in Manhattan Beach today, I saw four middle-aged women in dresses and heels, trying to cross the street. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were jaywalking, and had apparently forgotten everything they had learned about that skill in their teens. So instead of running across half the street and standing on the concrete median while traffic cleared on the other side, they tottered across half the street in their heels, laughing and chatting with each other, then stood, I kid you not, in the LEFT LANE of traffic, watching the traffic on the other side of the median. In an attempt to hurry things up (one supposes), they took turns bending at the waist now and then to peer up the street at the traffic, looking for a gap. However, not once did any of them look at the oncoming traffic on the side they were standing.
Eventually three of them did remember the “stand on the median” concept, but one of them saw no need to even move closer to it, and stood happily in the middle of the left lane, laughing and fixing her gaze on the traffic on the other side, while traffic on her side came barreling toward her and eventually stopped a few feet away from her. When the women did finally cross the other half of the street, they crossed not as a group, but as a line of stragglers, hesitant and wobbling on their high heels and giggling in embarrassment the entire way. This resulted in traffic having to slam to a halt on that side of the road as well.
Half a block up the road, I sat waiting for the light to change, shaking my head, tempted to judge but being honest enough with myself to realize that the only thing stopping me from finding myself in a similar predicament, in my current state of mind, was the fact that I don’t wear heels much any more. Just then another middle-aged woman crossed in front of my car. She was in the crosswalk, wearing sensible clothing, so I was about to heave a sigh of relief that it wasn’t an epidemic of dinginess. Then I noticed that she was talking on her cell phone. She had an earpiece in her ear, the kind that has a microphone built into the wire that connects it to the phone, so that the mic automatically sits in the middle of your chest, close enough to pick up your voice. The mouthpiece on the phone shuts off when you plug one of these earpieces in. Apparently no one had ever explained the mic to her, though, because she was holding her phone up to her mouth and shouting into it.
So there it is. Undeniable proof that this is Dingy Middle-Aged Woman’s Week. It may have something to do with the arrival of Mother’s Day. Perhaps if we all act pathetic enough this week, our families will take pity and realize that they need to plan something special for Mother’s Day without our help.
And maybe the earth will spin in the opposite direction for a day, too. Just as likely.
Now, I was blaming my dinginess this week on the fact that my right ear is still clogged from the cold I had last year. It’s already a proven fact that I can’t see well when I can’t hear. After today’s events, however, I am beginning to wonder if this is not some kind of national honor week for dinginess, and that perhaps I lost the memo.
Case in point: driving down Sepulveda Blvd. in Manhattan Beach today, I saw four middle-aged women in dresses and heels, trying to cross the street. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were jaywalking, and had apparently forgotten everything they had learned about that skill in their teens. So instead of running across half the street and standing on the concrete median while traffic cleared on the other side, they tottered across half the street in their heels, laughing and chatting with each other, then stood, I kid you not, in the LEFT LANE of traffic, watching the traffic on the other side of the median. In an attempt to hurry things up (one supposes), they took turns bending at the waist now and then to peer up the street at the traffic, looking for a gap. However, not once did any of them look at the oncoming traffic on the side they were standing.
Eventually three of them did remember the “stand on the median” concept, but one of them saw no need to even move closer to it, and stood happily in the middle of the left lane, laughing and fixing her gaze on the traffic on the other side, while traffic on her side came barreling toward her and eventually stopped a few feet away from her. When the women did finally cross the other half of the street, they crossed not as a group, but as a line of stragglers, hesitant and wobbling on their high heels and giggling in embarrassment the entire way. This resulted in traffic having to slam to a halt on that side of the road as well.
Half a block up the road, I sat waiting for the light to change, shaking my head, tempted to judge but being honest enough with myself to realize that the only thing stopping me from finding myself in a similar predicament, in my current state of mind, was the fact that I don’t wear heels much any more. Just then another middle-aged woman crossed in front of my car. She was in the crosswalk, wearing sensible clothing, so I was about to heave a sigh of relief that it wasn’t an epidemic of dinginess. Then I noticed that she was talking on her cell phone. She had an earpiece in her ear, the kind that has a microphone built into the wire that connects it to the phone, so that the mic automatically sits in the middle of your chest, close enough to pick up your voice. The mouthpiece on the phone shuts off when you plug one of these earpieces in. Apparently no one had ever explained the mic to her, though, because she was holding her phone up to her mouth and shouting into it.
So there it is. Undeniable proof that this is Dingy Middle-Aged Woman’s Week. It may have something to do with the arrival of Mother’s Day. Perhaps if we all act pathetic enough this week, our families will take pity and realize that they need to plan something special for Mother’s Day without our help.
And maybe the earth will spin in the opposite direction for a day, too. Just as likely.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Absolutely, Positively, You-Think-YOU-Had-A-Bad-Day, Worst Day Of Motherhood Yet
I shared this last week when I spoke to our local Mothers of Preschoolers group, and figured it was high time I recorded it for posterity on my blog. This day, in all its glory, occurred back in 1996, when I was trying to run a word processing business from my home while raising two small children. It was a large part of the reason I gave up the business and decided to focus on the kids instead, trusting God to provide the income we would lose. And of course He did, and still does, but that's another story.
January 30, 1996
The day started at 6 a.m., when 2-year-old Ian decided to crawl into bed with me. I tried to hiss "Get back into bed," quietly but firmly, but only managed to wake up 8-month-old Emily, who then also wanted to get into the big bed. The two of them had been working together all night anyway, making sure that we didn’t get more than two hours sleep at a time, so I don’t know why I expected to be allowed to sleep to a decent hour.
After a good strong c
up of tea, I felt a bit better and was ready to face the day. At breakfast, Ian only drank his milk, but I figured I could interest him in more food later on. His lip was swollen with a couple of cold sores, so he didn’t feel like eating. I made a mental note to call the doctor AGAIN as soon as they opened at 9 a.m. This cold-sore problem had been going on for a month, ever since Ian had had his Chicken Pox vaccine, although each time I called, the doctor’s receptionist was adamant that it could have nothing to do with the vaccine and told me that "cold sores were not a big deal."
At any rate, the kids were playing happily after breakfast, so I started making beds and tidying up. Emily discovered the space heater in the bedroom and was banging happily on it with both hands, which resulted in a lovely metallic rattling sound. It was unplugged, so I wasn’t too concerned about it, but decided to take it away from her just so she didn’t get used to playing with it. Before I could, however, I heard Ian trying to brush his teeth, I dashed into the bathroom to do damage control. While I was extricating the toothpaste tube from Ian’s chubby fist, Emily crawled, chuckling with glee, into the room to see if she could join the fun. I picked her up so she could look in the mirror, and as I did, I noticed blood on the floor.
"Who’s bleeding?" I shrieked, quickly checking my feet and Ian’s while trying to hold onto a happily squirming Emily, but I couldn’t find any wounds on either of us. I then noticed blood on my hand, so I checked both my hands and all ten fingers, but still found no cut. It finally dawned on me that this must be my precious baby girl’s blood; since she’d never been wounded before, it hadn’t occurred to me that she could be. Okay, you try surviving on the amount of sleep I’d had over the past eight months and see if you can remember silly little details like "Even Babies Bleed."
She was completely unimpressed by the whole affair, despite the blood that was now DRIPPING from BOTH hands all over the bathroom floor. She wasn’t too keen on me washing the blood off her hands, though, and the world as we know it simply ENDED when I put bandaids on her fingers. Eventually, though, I had her cleaned up, sucking on a pacifier and snuggling down in my arms, softly sobbing now and then and completely exhausted from her Bandaid Ordeal. I traced the blood trail back to the bedroom, where I discovered that there were some vents on the back of the space heater with unfinished edges, which were apparently just sharp enough to slice into a baby's soft skin.
It was at this point that I realized I hadn’t seen Ian in a while. I put Emily in the crib and went Ian-hunting, only to find him still in the bathroom. He had now dragged a chair in there and was happily throwing Tums, two-by-two, into the sink, having already divested the entire box of Bandaids of their individual wrappers, strewing them on the floor. There were also two bottles of cough syrup lying suspiciously on the counter, but praise God, THEY had child-proof lids.
I struggled to keep a straight face and scolded him for playing with Mommy’s medicine, while rescuing about half the Tums and putting them back in the bottle. I chased him out of the bathroom so I could wash the blood off the floor, but before I got to it the phone rang. It was a client calling to say she was on her way over to update her resume. I abandoned the bathroom, hoping she wouldn’t need to use it, and rushed about clearing a path from the front door to the office.
In the middle of that, another client called. This one, an entrepreneur who had founded several successful companies, wanted to talk over a financial plan I had written up and asked him to look over as a favor. I sat down so I could pay attention to what he was saying, but just as he was making his third and most important point, Ian came trotting in from the kitchen, balancing a lemon meringue pie on one hand and gleefully shouting, "Cake!"
Between simultaneously trying to keep from bursting out laughing, look displeased with Ian and rescue the pie, I completely missed the third point. I sheepishly asked my client to repeat it as Ian trotted happily back to the kitchen. Carefully sliding the pie on top of the closest high, flat surface, I determined to pay closer attention. However, just as my client was expounding upon Point Number Three for the second time, Ian came back out, his little face quite earnest, carrying a medicine cup and medicine spoon. Which led me to believe he had been taking entirely too much medicine over the past few weeks, which then took me back to needing to call the doctor. Except I was using the phone right that second so I couldn’t.
Ian brought me out of my musings by somehow letting me know that he wanted me to fill the cup with pie so he could eat it with the spoon. Once again, I barely averted an explosion of laughter and bluffed my way through the rest of the conversation. To this day I haven’t found out what Point Number Three was. It became increasingly obvious that if I didn’t serve Ian a slice of pie immediately, he would begin screaming at the top of his lungs, so I gave him some, pushing aside the niggling thought that he hadn’t really had any breakfast yet.
While Ian ate his pie (which he was now calling "ice-cream"), I finished up the phone call and started tidying up the front room and office. Just as I was wiping the sticky evidence of Ian’s nutritionally bankrupt meal, my resume client arrived. I led her back to the office and Ian played shy for a good minute or two before he realized that I was preoccupied and that he had the run of the house.
Before long my client helpfully pointed out that Ian was disemboweling the toaster, so I told him to find his firetruck and play with it. He went off and actually played quietly for a few minutes. In the middle of consulting with the client, the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law, calling to tell me a long, involved story about how my sister-in-law’s purse had just been stolen. Before she got too far into the story, however, the call waiting beep went off, so I switched lines and found that it was an old friend offering me a job that was JUST PERFECT for me, just in case I was looking for one. In my free time, I suppose.
I finally told both callers I’d call them back and mentally added them to my list of calls, which reminded me I needed to call the doctor. But I didn’t think my client would appreciate another interruption, so I put it off again. Which was just as well, because Emily then woke up. On my way to get her out of the crib I discovered that Ian hadn’t been quietly playing with his firetruck after all - he had been quietly decorating the hallway with a pencil.
I somehow managed to finish up my client’s resume, despite the fact that Ian suddenly became fussy and whimpered his way to my lap, where he fell asleep. The client got up to leave, asking how much she owed me, and when I told her $10, she acted astonished that I would charge her so much. By this time I apparently had a "Don’t mess with me" look on my face, because she forked it over and left, muttering to herself all the way to the car. As much as I needed clients, I really didn’t care at that point that I would probably never see her again.
I put Ian down on his bed, fielded two or three more phone calls and finally sat down to feed Emily, removing the socks I had put on her hands to keep her from chewing on the Bandaids. She promptly picked up a Cheerio, popped it in her mouth and started to cough and gag. I then noticed one of the Bandaids was missing from her finger and frantically pulled her out of the highchair, flipping her upside-down and sticking my finger down her throat to dislodge whatever was in there. By that time she had stopped gagging and was looking at me as if to say, "Whatever are you DOING to me, Mother?"
I called the doctor, but by the time I actually got through to someone with medical training, Emily was happily eating strained carrots. The nurse said it sounded like she was fine and that I had been very lucky, and told me to watch Emily’s diapers to make sure the Bandaid came out the other end. I thanked her and hung up, and then realized I had forgotten to talk to her about Ian’s cold sores. It had taken so long to get through to the nurse on this call, however, I decided I would wait until things had calmed down a bit before I called back.
It was now noon.
I somehow ate half of my lunch between a few more phone calls, Emily falling asleep and Ian waking up. He helpfully finished my lunch for me. The afternoon started off quietly enough, the only casualty in the first couple of hours being a porcelain dish my mother had brought me from England. At 2 p.m. I even managed to call the doctor’s office about Ian’s cold sores. They told me AGAIN that cold sores were nothing to worry about. I felt like carting Ian down there, food in hand, and demanding that THEY try to get him to eat with cold sores all over his mouth, but I wasn’t up to any more "Look at the crazy lady" stares. When I got off the phone with the doctor, I discovered Ian in the bathroom again, flushing a handful of tampons down the toilet.
The phone stayed miraculously quiet for a few hours and I managed to get some housework done and feed Emily her dinner, but just as I was about to start cooking dinner for the rest of us, Ian let out a shriek and pulled off his diaper, pointing to himself and wailing. As I was quite fluent in toddler-speak, I ascertained that he was announcing that he couldn’t stand another minute of his diaper rash and needed a bath RIGHT NOW. So I pitched the dinner plans and gave both kids a lovely bubble bath, which they quite generously shared with me. It did, at least, give me an opportunity to wipe the blood off the bathroom floor. Ian enjoyed his bath so much that he did a happy-dance when it was draining, which caused him to slip and hit his head on the side of the tub.
At this point Alan came home. By the time I finished describing my day, he said he was exhausted just hearing about it and very wisely didn’t bat an eye when I served up sandwiches for dinner.
Epilogue: The Bandaid never did appear in Emily’s diaper, but a piece of tampon wrapper did.
January 30, 1996
The day started at 6 a.m., when 2-year-old Ian decided to crawl into bed with me. I tried to hiss "Get back into bed," quietly but firmly, but only managed to wake up 8-month-old Emily, who then also wanted to get into the big bed. The two of them had been working together all night anyway, making sure that we didn’t get more than two hours sleep at a time, so I don’t know why I expected to be allowed to sleep to a decent hour.
After a good strong c
up of tea, I felt a bit better and was ready to face the day. At breakfast, Ian only drank his milk, but I figured I could interest him in more food later on. His lip was swollen with a couple of cold sores, so he didn’t feel like eating. I made a mental note to call the doctor AGAIN as soon as they opened at 9 a.m. This cold-sore problem had been going on for a month, ever since Ian had had his Chicken Pox vaccine, although each time I called, the doctor’s receptionist was adamant that it could have nothing to do with the vaccine and told me that "cold sores were not a big deal."At any rate, the kids were playing happily after breakfast, so I started making beds and tidying up. Emily discovered the space heater in the bedroom and was banging happily on it with both hands, which resulted in a lovely metallic rattling sound. It was unplugged, so I wasn’t too concerned about it, but decided to take it away from her just so she didn’t get used to playing with it. Before I could, however, I heard Ian trying to brush his teeth, I dashed into the bathroom to do damage control. While I was extricating the toothpaste tube from Ian’s chubby fist, Emily crawled, chuckling with glee, into the room to see if she could join the fun. I picked her up so she could look in the mirror, and as I did, I noticed blood on the floor.
"Who’s bleeding?" I shrieked, quickly checking my feet and Ian’s while trying to hold onto a happily squirming Emily, but I couldn’t find any wounds on either of us. I then noticed blood on my hand, so I checked both my hands and all ten fingers, but still found no cut. It finally dawned on me that this must be my precious baby girl’s blood; since she’d never been wounded before, it hadn’t occurred to me that she could be. Okay, you try surviving on the amount of sleep I’d had over the past eight months and see if you can remember silly little details like "Even Babies Bleed."
She was completely unimpressed by the whole affair, despite the blood that was now DRIPPING from BOTH hands all over the bathroom floor. She wasn’t too keen on me washing the blood off her hands, though, and the world as we know it simply ENDED when I put bandaids on her fingers. Eventually, though, I had her cleaned up, sucking on a pacifier and snuggling down in my arms, softly sobbing now and then and completely exhausted from her Bandaid Ordeal. I traced the blood trail back to the bedroom, where I discovered that there were some vents on the back of the space heater with unfinished edges, which were apparently just sharp enough to slice into a baby's soft skin.
It was at this point that I realized I hadn’t seen Ian in a while. I put Emily in the crib and went Ian-hunting, only to find him still in the bathroom. He had now dragged a chair in there and was happily throwing Tums, two-by-two, into the sink, having already divested the entire box of Bandaids of their individual wrappers, strewing them on the floor. There were also two bottles of cough syrup lying suspiciously on the counter, but praise God, THEY had child-proof lids.
I struggled to keep a straight face and scolded him for playing with Mommy’s medicine, while rescuing about half the Tums and putting them back in the bottle. I chased him out of the bathroom so I could wash the blood off the floor, but before I got to it the phone rang. It was a client calling to say she was on her way over to update her resume. I abandoned the bathroom, hoping she wouldn’t need to use it, and rushed about clearing a path from the front door to the office.
In the middle of that, another client called. This one, an entrepreneur who had founded several successful companies, wanted to talk over a financial plan I had written up and asked him to look over as a favor. I sat down so I could pay attention to what he was saying, but just as he was making his third and most important point, Ian came trotting in from the kitchen, balancing a lemon meringue pie on one hand and gleefully shouting, "Cake!"
Between simultaneously trying to keep from bursting out laughing, look displeased with Ian and rescue the pie, I completely missed the third point. I sheepishly asked my client to repeat it as Ian trotted happily back to the kitchen. Carefully sliding the pie on top of the closest high, flat surface, I determined to pay closer attention. However, just as my client was expounding upon Point Number Three for the second time, Ian came back out, his little face quite earnest, carrying a medicine cup and medicine spoon. Which led me to believe he had been taking entirely too much medicine over the past few weeks, which then took me back to needing to call the doctor. Except I was using the phone right that second so I couldn’t.
Ian brought me out of my musings by somehow letting me know that he wanted me to fill the cup with pie so he could eat it with the spoon. Once again, I barely averted an explosion of laughter and bluffed my way through the rest of the conversation. To this day I haven’t found out what Point Number Three was. It became increasingly obvious that if I didn’t serve Ian a slice of pie immediately, he would begin screaming at the top of his lungs, so I gave him some, pushing aside the niggling thought that he hadn’t really had any breakfast yet.
While Ian ate his pie (which he was now calling "ice-cream"), I finished up the phone call and started tidying up the front room and office. Just as I was wiping the sticky evidence of Ian’s nutritionally bankrupt meal, my resume client arrived. I led her back to the office and Ian played shy for a good minute or two before he realized that I was preoccupied and that he had the run of the house.
Before long my client helpfully pointed out that Ian was disemboweling the toaster, so I told him to find his firetruck and play with it. He went off and actually played quietly for a few minutes. In the middle of consulting with the client, the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law, calling to tell me a long, involved story about how my sister-in-law’s purse had just been stolen. Before she got too far into the story, however, the call waiting beep went off, so I switched lines and found that it was an old friend offering me a job that was JUST PERFECT for me, just in case I was looking for one. In my free time, I suppose.
I finally told both callers I’d call them back and mentally added them to my list of calls, which reminded me I needed to call the doctor. But I didn’t think my client would appreciate another interruption, so I put it off again. Which was just as well, because Emily then woke up. On my way to get her out of the crib I discovered that Ian hadn’t been quietly playing with his firetruck after all - he had been quietly decorating the hallway with a pencil.
I somehow managed to finish up my client’s resume, despite the fact that Ian suddenly became fussy and whimpered his way to my lap, where he fell asleep. The client got up to leave, asking how much she owed me, and when I told her $10, she acted astonished that I would charge her so much. By this time I apparently had a "Don’t mess with me" look on my face, because she forked it over and left, muttering to herself all the way to the car. As much as I needed clients, I really didn’t care at that point that I would probably never see her again.
I put Ian down on his bed, fielded two or three more phone calls and finally sat down to feed Emily, removing the socks I had put on her hands to keep her from chewing on the Bandaids. She promptly picked up a Cheerio, popped it in her mouth and started to cough and gag. I then noticed one of the Bandaids was missing from her finger and frantically pulled her out of the highchair, flipping her upside-down and sticking my finger down her throat to dislodge whatever was in there. By that time she had stopped gagging and was looking at me as if to say, "Whatever are you DOING to me, Mother?"
I called the doctor, but by the time I actually got through to someone with medical training, Emily was happily eating strained carrots. The nurse said it sounded like she was fine and that I had been very lucky, and told me to watch Emily’s diapers to make sure the Bandaid came out the other end. I thanked her and hung up, and then realized I had forgotten to talk to her about Ian’s cold sores. It had taken so long to get through to the nurse on this call, however, I decided I would wait until things had calmed down a bit before I called back.
It was now noon.
I somehow ate half of my lunch between a few more phone calls, Emily falling asleep and Ian waking up. He helpfully finished my lunch for me. The afternoon started off quietly enough, the only casualty in the first couple of hours being a porcelain dish my mother had brought me from England. At 2 p.m. I even managed to call the doctor’s office about Ian’s cold sores. They told me AGAIN that cold sores were nothing to worry about. I felt like carting Ian down there, food in hand, and demanding that THEY try to get him to eat with cold sores all over his mouth, but I wasn’t up to any more "Look at the crazy lady" stares. When I got off the phone with the doctor, I discovered Ian in the bathroom again, flushing a handful of tampons down the toilet.
The phone stayed miraculously quiet for a few hours and I managed to get some housework done and feed Emily her dinner, but just as I was about to start cooking dinner for the rest of us, Ian let out a shriek and pulled off his diaper, pointing to himself and wailing. As I was quite fluent in toddler-speak, I ascertained that he was announcing that he couldn’t stand another minute of his diaper rash and needed a bath RIGHT NOW. So I pitched the dinner plans and gave both kids a lovely bubble bath, which they quite generously shared with me. It did, at least, give me an opportunity to wipe the blood off the bathroom floor. Ian enjoyed his bath so much that he did a happy-dance when it was draining, which caused him to slip and hit his head on the side of the tub.
At this point Alan came home. By the time I finished describing my day, he said he was exhausted just hearing about it and very wisely didn’t bat an eye when I served up sandwiches for dinner.
Epilogue: The Bandaid never did appear in Emily’s diaper, but a piece of tampon wrapper did.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Of Mustangs, Winter and Shooting Stars
Why does this type of thing always happen to me???
It started out tamely enough. Alan and I have been switching off, taking one child out per week for some Mom or Dad time. This week it was my turn, and I was taking out 14 year old Emily. A nice, sedate evening, I thought, compared to my previous “kid-date,” with 9 year old Erin, which included feeding ducks in the park on a freezing cold night when all sane parents probably had their 9 year olds tucked into bed already.
I didn’t reckon on the fact that Emily was a child that I had raised. We did have a rather sedate dinner at Marie Callendars, despite the fact that I borrowed Alan’s Mustang and was sorely tempted to speed all the way there. On the way home, however, I mused aloud that I had read that the waves were supposed to be 18’ today. “MOM!” Emily shrieked. “You have to turn this car around! We have to go look!”
Never mind that temperatures were in the low 50s. Besides, I reasoned, we could stay in the Stang with the heater on. Down to Manhattan Pier we drove, but upon parking, I was informed in no uncertain terms that sitting in the car was not the way to experience 18’ waves. Okay, well, the waves were not anywhere near 18’, but still. So we got out of the car. I’m British, I reasoned, I can take a little cold. It was then that I was sadly reminded of how long it has been since I actually lived in Britain.
Emily found a scarf in the back seat, which I graciously allowed her to wear, hiding my envy rather well, I thought. Then I remembered Alan’s propensity for disaster preparedness. “Let’s look in the trunk!” I exclaimed. We popped it open and looted to our hearts’ content, finding a sweater, a jacket, another scarf and a baseball cap that said “World’s Greatest Dad.” I got the scarf and the jacket, she got the sweater and the ball cap. By the time we finished stashing our finds under and over the coats we were already wearing, we looked like a couple of snowmen. But we were warm, boy howdy, and ready to brave the Manhattan Pier.
Down to the end of the wind-swept pier we trudged, not really caring about the strange looks of passers-by, partly because we knew we were warmer than they were, and partly because our funny bones had kicked in and we were enjoying the situation with increasing hilarity.
The end of the pier was strangely calm, smelled like fish guts and something else quite nasty, but we enjoyed it just the same. However, you have to understand that I suffer from a strange sort of Pier-induced OCD. Every time I am at the end of a pier, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to throw something valuable, like my keys, into the water. This night I had to work double time, because I had my cell phone in the other hand. So this, coupled with the awful smell, the bracing wind and the fact that Emily and I, given any period of time alone together, will generally reach great heights of hilarity, contributed to the fact that by the time we left the end of the pier, we were quite giddy with success and marched back toward shore, chatting and giggling loudly, oblivious to our unshapely profiles. A man was walking up the pier towards us, but I thought he looked a little strange, so I avoided eye contact. Emily, however, looked right at him and caught him rolling his eyes at us. A few seconds after we passed him, something clicked in her brain and she burst out, “MOM! That was Kevin Costner!”
When we got home, she looked up a picture of him on the web and confirmed that yes, that man really had been Kevin Costner. And there I was, looking like Frosty the Snowman, accompanied by my equally well-padded daughter sporting a “World’s Greatest Dad” hat.
Why can’t I run into famous people on good hair days, or on those days when I fit into my skinny jeans? Or perhaps when I’m doing something amazingly talented and impressive? No, I run into them, inevitably, when I am behaving badly or just plain looking weird.
Still, the evening wasn’t a total loss. After our run-in with the Famous Person, we went down to the sand to lie on our backs and look at the stars (I think our bodies were numb enough not to feel the cold at that point). Just before we left, we saw a shooting star and exclaimed at length and quite poetically at its beauty. Well, okay, we said, “Oh my GOSH!” in unison and then asked each other repeatedly, “Did you SEE that???”
And when our parking meter had finally run out and we were forced to go home, we turned on the radio just in time to catch the beginning of the song “Lowriders,” which I hated when it first came out in the 70s, but which seemed at this point to be the perfect song to blast all the way up Manhattan Beach Blvd., windows rolled down, heater blasting, lamenting over our less-than-fortuitous brush with fame and consoling each other with the thought that we really didn’t put much of a premium on movie stars anyway.
But you know that the next three or four times I go to the Manhattan Beach pier, I’ll make sure my outfit is stunning.
It started out tamely enough. Alan and I have been switching off, taking one child out per week for some Mom or Dad time. This week it was my turn, and I was taking out 14 year old Emily. A nice, sedate evening, I thought, compared to my previous “kid-date,” with 9 year old Erin, which included feeding ducks in the park on a freezing cold night when all sane parents probably had their 9 year olds tucked into bed already.
I didn’t reckon on the fact that Emily was a child that I had raised. We did have a rather sedate dinner at Marie Callendars, despite the fact that I borrowed Alan’s Mustang and was sorely tempted to speed all the way there. On the way home, however, I mused aloud that I had read that the waves were supposed to be 18’ today. “MOM!” Emily shrieked. “You have to turn this car around! We have to go look!”
Never mind that temperatures were in the low 50s. Besides, I reasoned, we could stay in the Stang with the heater on. Down to Manhattan Pier we drove, but upon parking, I was informed in no uncertain terms that sitting in the car was not the way to experience 18’ waves. Okay, well, the waves were not anywhere near 18’, but still. So we got out of the car. I’m British, I reasoned, I can take a little cold. It was then that I was sadly reminded of how long it has been since I actually lived in Britain.
Emily found a scarf in the back seat, which I graciously allowed her to wear, hiding my envy rather well, I thought. Then I remembered Alan’s propensity for disaster preparedness. “Let’s look in the trunk!” I exclaimed. We popped it open and looted to our hearts’ content, finding a sweater, a jacket, another scarf and a baseball cap that said “World’s Greatest Dad.” I got the scarf and the jacket, she got the sweater and the ball cap. By the time we finished stashing our finds under and over the coats we were already wearing, we looked like a couple of snowmen. But we were warm, boy howdy, and ready to brave the Manhattan Pier.
Down to the end of the wind-swept pier we trudged, not really caring about the strange looks of passers-by, partly because we knew we were warmer than they were, and partly because our funny bones had kicked in and we were enjoying the situation with increasing hilarity.
The end of the pier was strangely calm, smelled like fish guts and something else quite nasty, but we enjoyed it just the same. However, you have to understand that I suffer from a strange sort of Pier-induced OCD. Every time I am at the end of a pier, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to throw something valuable, like my keys, into the water. This night I had to work double time, because I had my cell phone in the other hand. So this, coupled with the awful smell, the bracing wind and the fact that Emily and I, given any period of time alone together, will generally reach great heights of hilarity, contributed to the fact that by the time we left the end of the pier, we were quite giddy with success and marched back toward shore, chatting and giggling loudly, oblivious to our unshapely profiles. A man was walking up the pier towards us, but I thought he looked a little strange, so I avoided eye contact. Emily, however, looked right at him and caught him rolling his eyes at us. A few seconds after we passed him, something clicked in her brain and she burst out, “MOM! That was Kevin Costner!”
When we got home, she looked up a picture of him on the web and confirmed that yes, that man really had been Kevin Costner. And there I was, looking like Frosty the Snowman, accompanied by my equally well-padded daughter sporting a “World’s Greatest Dad” hat.
Why can’t I run into famous people on good hair days, or on those days when I fit into my skinny jeans? Or perhaps when I’m doing something amazingly talented and impressive? No, I run into them, inevitably, when I am behaving badly or just plain looking weird.
Still, the evening wasn’t a total loss. After our run-in with the Famous Person, we went down to the sand to lie on our backs and look at the stars (I think our bodies were numb enough not to feel the cold at that point). Just before we left, we saw a shooting star and exclaimed at length and quite poetically at its beauty. Well, okay, we said, “Oh my GOSH!” in unison and then asked each other repeatedly, “Did you SEE that???”
And when our parking meter had finally run out and we were forced to go home, we turned on the radio just in time to catch the beginning of the song “Lowriders,” which I hated when it first came out in the 70s, but which seemed at this point to be the perfect song to blast all the way up Manhattan Beach Blvd., windows rolled down, heater blasting, lamenting over our less-than-fortuitous brush with fame and consoling each other with the thought that we really didn’t put much of a premium on movie stars anyway.
But you know that the next three or four times I go to the Manhattan Beach pier, I’ll make sure my outfit is stunning.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Best Camping Trip Ever
We blew a tire and had to change it just a few feet away from traffic. Emily got sick, then sicker, and the neighboring campsite refused to turn off their music even an hour after curfew, so she couldn’t sleep, which made her even sicker. We finally had to break camp at midnight and drive home, which made her even sicker (mountain roads and nausea – not a good combination). Ryan followed suit about 5 miles from home. And when Alan unhitched the trailer at 3:30 a.m., the small wheel on the hitch popped off, causing the hitch to slam to the ground, punching a hole in the asphalt.
On Sunday, as we stumbled through a sleep-deprived version of unpacking, I began calling the weekend the Worst Camping Trip Ever, but Alan pointed out that we should call it the Best Camping Trip Ever. Why? As my father used to say, (craning his neck to the right), “You can look at it this way,” (and then craning his neck to the left) “or you can look at it that way.”
The thing is, it could have been SO much worse. Not that we sit around thinking of worst-possible scenarios; it’s just that it easily could have been worse in many ways.
Alan and I make it a practice trust God with every detail of our lives, and when we find ourselves in crisis, we turn first to Him. And while some may say that we were just lucky the circumstances played themselves out the way they did, or that maybe we just encountered a few coincidences, I believe that God is actively involved in our lives, especially when we ask Him. It would be hypocritical to ask for His help and then dismiss it as serendipity.
For instance, when we blew the tire, we pulled over as far as we could on the shoulder, but it was the tire on the driver’s side, which meant Alan had to get down on his hands and knees just 2-3 feet from the right lane. Miracle Number One was that he had bought a collapsible traffic cone just the day before and stowed it in the trunk.
After I prayed, and right about the time Alan started jacking up the car, a traffic jam started just ahead of us. Traffic slowed to a crawl and stayed that way until he finished changing the tire. As soon as he was out of the way, it picked back up again.
Roger and Cathy Dreger were caravaning with us, and since they were ahead, they had to turn around and come back. As a result, they saw the reason for the traffic jam. A 4x4 truck had pulled over to the side of the road with some problem or another, and the girls riding inside it took the opportunity to work on their tans from the bed of the truck. In bikinis. Everyone was slowing down to take a look.
Miracle Number Three happened while Alan was changing the tire. The driver of a sedan wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice the brake lights ahead of him until the last minute, so he slammed his brakes on and swerved into the shoulder. The miracle is that traffic was stopped just PAST where we were at the time. If it had been ten feet back, the car would have swerved directly into Alan.
And so the camping trip continued, largely uneventful until late Saturday afternoon, when Emily began feeling ill. We waffled about whether it was wiser to pack up and go or whether it would be better for her to sleep through the night first. We chose to stay, not counting on our new camping neighbors, who started their family dinner and karaoke night at 9:30 p.m. At 10:30 p.m., we asked them politely to turn the music down, explaining the situation, but they didn't. By 11 p.m. Emily was getting sicker and we came to the conclusion that we really did need to leave, so Alan packed up the campground in the dark while I sat in the van and tended to the kids. At around 11:45 p.m., the neighbors finally turned down their radio, only to be overshadowed by the campers down the road who turned theirs up. At that point I almost lost it. And then, as I sat there rubbing Emily's feet and listening to the wind blowing through the trees, I suddenly thought of Paul and Silas singing praises to God after being thrown in jail. I thought, if they can do it, I can do it too. So I did. It was an amazing oasis of peace in the middle of a storm of chaos. And for a few minutes, while I was singing softly, the music was turned down. We found out from the Dregers that it was turned back up louder after we left.
Miracle Number Four happened on the drive home, when Ryan got sick – he had been asleep and therefore showed no symptoms of being ill, but the thought suddenly popped into my head that he was going to throw up, so I got the bowl ready. A few minutes later he coughed, so I flipped around in my seat and got the bowl in place just in time. TMI, I know, but if I hadn’t been ready, well... you know.
And the final miracle was when the wheel fell off the trailer. Alan had been pushing on the wheel with his foot to line it up in the right direction just seconds before it fell off. If it had fallen off then, the hitch would have punched a hole in his foot instead of the road. And at 3:30 a.m., who would have been around to help me pull the trailer off his foot?
So, all things considered, it was the best camping trip we ever had. Just like life, it wasn’t entirely comfortable, and it wasn’t what we’d expected, but it was a clear reminder to all of us that God protects us and provides for us in every situation. To quote Laura Story’s song, “Perfect Peace”:
And besides, during the time between the Blowing Out Of The Tire and the Throwing Up Of The Offspring, we had a really nice time camping with friends, paddling around a lake and enjoying some beautiful scenery.
On Sunday, as we stumbled through a sleep-deprived version of unpacking, I began calling the weekend the Worst Camping Trip Ever, but Alan pointed out that we should call it the Best Camping Trip Ever. Why? As my father used to say, (craning his neck to the right), “You can look at it this way,” (and then craning his neck to the left) “or you can look at it that way.”
The thing is, it could have been SO much worse. Not that we sit around thinking of worst-possible scenarios; it’s just that it easily could have been worse in many ways.
Alan and I make it a practice trust God with every detail of our lives, and when we find ourselves in crisis, we turn first to Him. And while some may say that we were just lucky the circumstances played themselves out the way they did, or that maybe we just encountered a few coincidences, I believe that God is actively involved in our lives, especially when we ask Him. It would be hypocritical to ask for His help and then dismiss it as serendipity.
For instance, when we blew the tire, we pulled over as far as we could on the shoulder, but it was the tire on the driver’s side, which meant Alan had to get down on his hands and knees just 2-3 feet from the right lane. Miracle Number One was that he had bought a collapsible traffic cone just the day before and stowed it in the trunk.Miracle Number Two occurred right after I started praying that God would protect him from the traffic – all it would take was a second of inattention on the part of a driver... we’ve all heard the horror stories.
After I prayed, and right about the time Alan started jacking up the car, a traffic jam started just ahead of us. Traffic slowed to a crawl and stayed that way until he finished changing the tire. As soon as he was out of the way, it picked back up again.
Roger and Cathy Dreger were caravaning with us, and since they were ahead, they had to turn around and come back. As a result, they saw the reason for the traffic jam. A 4x4 truck had pulled over to the side of the road with some problem or another, and the girls riding inside it took the opportunity to work on their tans from the bed of the truck. In bikinis. Everyone was slowing down to take a look.Miracle Number Three happened while Alan was changing the tire. The driver of a sedan wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice the brake lights ahead of him until the last minute, so he slammed his brakes on and swerved into the shoulder. The miracle is that traffic was stopped just PAST where we were at the time. If it had been ten feet back, the car would have swerved directly into Alan.
And so the camping trip continued, largely uneventful until late Saturday afternoon, when Emily began feeling ill. We waffled about whether it was wiser to pack up and go or whether it would be better for her to sleep through the night first. We chose to stay, not counting on our new camping neighbors, who started their family dinner and karaoke night at 9:30 p.m. At 10:30 p.m., we asked them politely to turn the music down, explaining the situation, but they didn't. By 11 p.m. Emily was getting sicker and we came to the conclusion that we really did need to leave, so Alan packed up the campground in the dark while I sat in the van and tended to the kids. At around 11:45 p.m., the neighbors finally turned down their radio, only to be overshadowed by the campers down the road who turned theirs up. At that point I almost lost it. And then, as I sat there rubbing Emily's feet and listening to the wind blowing through the trees, I suddenly thought of Paul and Silas singing praises to God after being thrown in jail. I thought, if they can do it, I can do it too. So I did. It was an amazing oasis of peace in the middle of a storm of chaos. And for a few minutes, while I was singing softly, the music was turned down. We found out from the Dregers that it was turned back up louder after we left.
Miracle Number Four happened on the drive home, when Ryan got sick – he had been asleep and therefore showed no symptoms of being ill, but the thought suddenly popped into my head that he was going to throw up, so I got the bowl ready. A few minutes later he coughed, so I flipped around in my seat and got the bowl in place just in time. TMI, I know, but if I hadn’t been ready, well... you know.
And the final miracle was when the wheel fell off the trailer. Alan had been pushing on the wheel with his foot to line it up in the right direction just seconds before it fell off. If it had fallen off then, the hitch would have punched a hole in his foot instead of the road. And at 3:30 a.m., who would have been around to help me pull the trailer off his foot?So, all things considered, it was the best camping trip we ever had. Just like life, it wasn’t entirely comfortable, and it wasn’t what we’d expected, but it was a clear reminder to all of us that God protects us and provides for us in every situation. To quote Laura Story’s song, “Perfect Peace”:
Stay close by My side, and you'll never be alone
Keep your eyes on Me, and you’ll never be in need.
Though I may not calm the storm around you
You can hide in Me.
And besides, during the time between the Blowing Out Of The Tire and the Throwing Up Of The Offspring, we had a really nice time camping with friends, paddling around a lake and enjoying some beautiful scenery.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Just Like Heaven...
Some people say they can't imagine what heaven will be like, but I can. I have a vivid imagination, and therefore a very clear picture of heaven. In heaven, when I want to go to the park, I will make the decision and then just GO. I won't have to tidy the entire house to find the dog's collar. I won't have to clean out the front closet to find her leash, either. I won't have to do three loads of laundry to insure that my children have clean playclothes to wear. I won't have to weed the back yard to find missing shoes, and I won't have to employ the skills I learned in Psychology 101 to calm the angst of the children who are missing the clothes and the shoes. I won't have to run to the store to buy a new hairbrush. I won't have to pack lunch, snacks, drinks, sunscreen or first aid kits. I will just look out the window, appreciate the weather, grab a blanket and go to the park.
I don't know, though, maybe that's retirement I'm seeing. Maybe heaven's even better than that.
I don't know, though, maybe that's retirement I'm seeing. Maybe heaven's even better than that.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
More Neighborhood Watching... NOTHING escapes our notice!
So, I've stopped calling the police on people eating McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, but I haven't forgotten my duty as a member of the Neighborhood Watch. Neither has my neighbor, Cathy.
She arrived the other day for our English co-op and asked for the number of the police. She had seen two muscular, shaved-headed young men on bicycles about an hour before, and as she was leaving her house, saw them AGAIN. They were obviously cruising the neighborhood looking for something and not just out for a quiet Thursday morning bike ride.
I proudly showed her the number displayed prominently on my fridge (once you moved a couple of hand-drawn pictures of Spiderman and Obi Wan Kenobi) and handed her the phone. After she did her civic duty, we agreed that I would keep an eye out for bicyclists while I was teaching my part of the English class, since I was in the front room with a good view of the street.
I didn't actually see them, although we had a brief moment of excitement when I did spot a bicycle. It turned out to be an overweight 11-year-old boy who was having trouble steering, but he had a helmet on, so I let it go. For the remainder of the class, my students dissolved into laughter every time he wobbled past, but I took the opportunity to instruct them on the importance of a Neighborhood Watch program and explained that this was just a good reminder that we should all keep an eye out. I'm sure they appreciated the tip.
After everyone had gone home, my almost-15 year old son asked me what exactly I had been looking for. I described to him the suspicious cyclists as he looked at me with increasing surprise.
"Do you know who those men were?" he asked incredulously.
"No!" I exclaimed breathlessly. "Do you know something about them?"
"Uh, yeah," he sighed. "Those are the two undercover cops the City just assigned to our neighborhood. Dad heard about it at that Neighborhood Watch meeting, remember?"
Okay, so we called the police on themselves. They must be happy that we're doing such a good job watching.
She arrived the other day for our English co-op and asked for the number of the police. She had seen two muscular, shaved-headed young men on bicycles about an hour before, and as she was leaving her house, saw them AGAIN. They were obviously cruising the neighborhood looking for something and not just out for a quiet Thursday morning bike ride.
I proudly showed her the number displayed prominently on my fridge (once you moved a couple of hand-drawn pictures of Spiderman and Obi Wan Kenobi) and handed her the phone. After she did her civic duty, we agreed that I would keep an eye out for bicyclists while I was teaching my part of the English class, since I was in the front room with a good view of the street.
I didn't actually see them, although we had a brief moment of excitement when I did spot a bicycle. It turned out to be an overweight 11-year-old boy who was having trouble steering, but he had a helmet on, so I let it go. For the remainder of the class, my students dissolved into laughter every time he wobbled past, but I took the opportunity to instruct them on the importance of a Neighborhood Watch program and explained that this was just a good reminder that we should all keep an eye out. I'm sure they appreciated the tip.
After everyone had gone home, my almost-15 year old son asked me what exactly I had been looking for. I described to him the suspicious cyclists as he looked at me with increasing surprise.
"Do you know who those men were?" he asked incredulously.
"No!" I exclaimed breathlessly. "Do you know something about them?"
"Uh, yeah," he sighed. "Those are the two undercover cops the City just assigned to our neighborhood. Dad heard about it at that Neighborhood Watch meeting, remember?"
Okay, so we called the police on themselves. They must be happy that we're doing such a good job watching.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Community Crime Watch
Alan attended our neighborhood watch meeting a couple of weeks ago and came home with all kinds of accounts of good neighbors reporting suspicious activity, resulting in the capture of a number of assorted burglars, robbers and other ne'er-do-wells. The officer in charge of our district encouraged everyone to report any activity that seemed suspicious and reassured them not to think anything was too small.
Armed with this knowledge and confident that as a homeschooling Mom, I stand a good chance of noticing suspicious persons, seeing as how I stare out the window a lot while dictating spelling words, I began my own personal neighborhood watch. The very next morning I noticed a suspicious young man parked across the street, sitting in his car. After about five minutes, I was sure he was up to no good. He was just sitting there eating something, and I had never seen him before. I waited another five minutes while he steadily munched away, took a deep breath and called the appropriate number, feeling like a cross between a journalist finding a hot scoop and Supermom, who was saving the day and making the neighborhood Safe For Children Everywhere.
The lady who answered the phone seemed a little less taken with the information than I was, and asked me if it was possible that the man was simply eating his breakfast. Oh, but I was sure, I said, because I'd never seen him here, and I know there was a gang of men burglarizing homes in our neighborhood that did exactly that - one sat in the car while the others knocked on doors. Was there anyone knocking on my door? Well, no, but maybe they just hadn't gotten to me yet. She sighed and said she would send someone out.
A few minutes later the man reclined his seat and apparently took a nap. I almost called her back, because, well, people don't just Take Naps for no reason, now, do they?
After another 20 minutes, I watched breathlessly as the man emerged, opened the back door of his car..... and took out a backpack. He adjusted his glasses, slung the backpack on his back and walked down the street... in the direction of El Camino College. A quick check at the clock confirmed that he would probably arrive there just in time for a 10 a.m. class.
Oh, but if he HAD been up to something, boy howdy, I woulda caught him!
Armed with this knowledge and confident that as a homeschooling Mom, I stand a good chance of noticing suspicious persons, seeing as how I stare out the window a lot while dictating spelling words, I began my own personal neighborhood watch. The very next morning I noticed a suspicious young man parked across the street, sitting in his car. After about five minutes, I was sure he was up to no good. He was just sitting there eating something, and I had never seen him before. I waited another five minutes while he steadily munched away, took a deep breath and called the appropriate number, feeling like a cross between a journalist finding a hot scoop and Supermom, who was saving the day and making the neighborhood Safe For Children Everywhere.
The lady who answered the phone seemed a little less taken with the information than I was, and asked me if it was possible that the man was simply eating his breakfast. Oh, but I was sure, I said, because I'd never seen him here, and I know there was a gang of men burglarizing homes in our neighborhood that did exactly that - one sat in the car while the others knocked on doors. Was there anyone knocking on my door? Well, no, but maybe they just hadn't gotten to me yet. She sighed and said she would send someone out.
A few minutes later the man reclined his seat and apparently took a nap. I almost called her back, because, well, people don't just Take Naps for no reason, now, do they?
After another 20 minutes, I watched breathlessly as the man emerged, opened the back door of his car..... and took out a backpack. He adjusted his glasses, slung the backpack on his back and walked down the street... in the direction of El Camino College. A quick check at the clock confirmed that he would probably arrive there just in time for a 10 a.m. class.
Oh, but if he HAD been up to something, boy howdy, I woulda caught him!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Making Brownies
Here is my own recipe, based upon how we make brownies here at "Smitches."
Ingredients:
One box of brownie mix
1/2 cup of oil
1 dozen eggs plus 2 more
lowfat granola
1/2 cup skim milk
grapefruit juice
Have 2nd oldest child take the brownie mix out of the cupboard at 8 p.m. one evening and parade it around the house, causing everyone to whine when you inform them that you are not going to bake them because it would be too late to feed small children brownies by the time they would be done.
Repeat the process the next night, having a small child rip the box open. Leave it on the counter for two days for maximum whine-effect.
Pick an afternoon when everyone is BOOOOORRRRREEEEEDDDDDD (translation: Mom won't let us watch Star Wars or play Guitar Hero), open the inner wrapper of the brownie mix and dump contents into mixer bowl. Tell smallest child they are not brownies, they are just a special kind of bread. Insist that you simply stored the bread mix in the handy brownie box you found open on the counter and inform him that you have no idea what happened to the real brownie mix. Praise him for using deductive reasoning, including sense of sight, smell and taste, to figure out that you are pulling his leg.
Have smallest child take the dozen eggs out of the fridge, set them on the edge of the counter so that they are hanging half off and open the lid. Eggs will crash spectacularly to the floor, cracking simultaneously and splattering yolk over a good 2-3 square ft. of tile. Pick out shells and call dog.
Have 3rd oldest child take two more eggs out of the fridge and crack them into the mixing bowl. Help child painstakingly remove pieces of shell from brownie mix. Try not to look at the state of said child's hands and suggest belatedly that she should wash them.
Pour oil into bowl and turn on mixer, grabbing child's hair at the last second so it doesn't get caught in the mixer blade. Turn off mixer and scrape sides (having learned from the last batch of brownies not to attempt scraping while the mixer is running). Restart mixer. Turn off mixer, remove bowl and stir the dang thing yourself with a wooden spoon since the mixer doesn't seem to be getting the dry stuff at the bottom of the bowl.
Pour mix into a prepared pan and bake in oven at 350 for 26 minutes. Ask yourself repeatedly during the 26 minutes why you thought today was a good day to have the oven on for half an hour, considering the temperature is in the 80s and humidity is at 92%.
When timer goes off, pull brownies out of oven and set them on top of stove to cool. Use one hand per small child to stop them from bouncing up and down and explain that A) the brownies are too hot to eat and B) you want to save them for consumption during tonight's showing of Star Wars. Prevent 3rd oldest child from poking holes in the brownies with a fork to "help them cool down." Keep a straight face while explaining to youngest child that using a blowdryer on the brownies really won't help much with the cooling process. Repeat reason B) six or seven times until said children have complete understanding of the fact that the brownies will not be eaten until after dinner. Praise 3rd oldest child for figuring out that it is mathematically possible to cut five pieces now and still have six left for later and reassure her that despite her stroke of genius, it just isn't going to happen.
After dinner, cut brownies and then remember that you have a meeting to go to and have to leave that instant. Leave serving of brownies to 2nd oldest child. Inform ENTIRE family that the lid must be replaced tightly on the pan so that when you return from your meeting, you can have a non-stale brownie. Explain to oldest child on the way out the door that despite his stature, he will be permitted to eat only the same number of brownies as each other person in the family. Use Mother Glare to communicate the consequences that will ensue if he fails to follow these instructions.
Return home from meeting to find lid on brownie pan partially unsealed. Decide in best sour grapes fashion that you don't need the calories anyway and retire to bed, feeling self-righteous.
Upon awakening in the morning, eat two brownies with coffee before anyone else awakens, carefully wiping up all crumbs and brushing teeth to remove evidence. When rest of family awakens, sanctimoniously eat lowfat granola with skim milk and a side of grapefruit juice.
Ingredients:
One box of brownie mix
1/2 cup of oil
1 dozen eggs plus 2 more
lowfat granola
1/2 cup skim milk
grapefruit juice
Have 2nd oldest child take the brownie mix out of the cupboard at 8 p.m. one evening and parade it around the house, causing everyone to whine when you inform them that you are not going to bake them because it would be too late to feed small children brownies by the time they would be done.
Repeat the process the next night, having a small child rip the box open. Leave it on the counter for two days for maximum whine-effect.
Pick an afternoon when everyone is BOOOOORRRRREEEEEDDDDDD (translation: Mom won't let us watch Star Wars or play Guitar Hero), open the inner wrapper of the brownie mix and dump contents into mixer bowl. Tell smallest child they are not brownies, they are just a special kind of bread. Insist that you simply stored the bread mix in the handy brownie box you found open on the counter and inform him that you have no idea what happened to the real brownie mix. Praise him for using deductive reasoning, including sense of sight, smell and taste, to figure out that you are pulling his leg.
Have smallest child take the dozen eggs out of the fridge, set them on the edge of the counter so that they are hanging half off and open the lid. Eggs will crash spectacularly to the floor, cracking simultaneously and splattering yolk over a good 2-3 square ft. of tile. Pick out shells and call dog.
Have 3rd oldest child take two more eggs out of the fridge and crack them into the mixing bowl. Help child painstakingly remove pieces of shell from brownie mix. Try not to look at the state of said child's hands and suggest belatedly that she should wash them.
Pour oil into bowl and turn on mixer, grabbing child's hair at the last second so it doesn't get caught in the mixer blade. Turn off mixer and scrape sides (having learned from the last batch of brownies not to attempt scraping while the mixer is running). Restart mixer. Turn off mixer, remove bowl and stir the dang thing yourself with a wooden spoon since the mixer doesn't seem to be getting the dry stuff at the bottom of the bowl.
Pour mix into a prepared pan and bake in oven at 350 for 26 minutes. Ask yourself repeatedly during the 26 minutes why you thought today was a good day to have the oven on for half an hour, considering the temperature is in the 80s and humidity is at 92%.
When timer goes off, pull brownies out of oven and set them on top of stove to cool. Use one hand per small child to stop them from bouncing up and down and explain that A) the brownies are too hot to eat and B) you want to save them for consumption during tonight's showing of Star Wars. Prevent 3rd oldest child from poking holes in the brownies with a fork to "help them cool down." Keep a straight face while explaining to youngest child that using a blowdryer on the brownies really won't help much with the cooling process. Repeat reason B) six or seven times until said children have complete understanding of the fact that the brownies will not be eaten until after dinner. Praise 3rd oldest child for figuring out that it is mathematically possible to cut five pieces now and still have six left for later and reassure her that despite her stroke of genius, it just isn't going to happen.
After dinner, cut brownies and then remember that you have a meeting to go to and have to leave that instant. Leave serving of brownies to 2nd oldest child. Inform ENTIRE family that the lid must be replaced tightly on the pan so that when you return from your meeting, you can have a non-stale brownie. Explain to oldest child on the way out the door that despite his stature, he will be permitted to eat only the same number of brownies as each other person in the family. Use Mother Glare to communicate the consequences that will ensue if he fails to follow these instructions.
Return home from meeting to find lid on brownie pan partially unsealed. Decide in best sour grapes fashion that you don't need the calories anyway and retire to bed, feeling self-righteous.
Upon awakening in the morning, eat two brownies with coffee before anyone else awakens, carefully wiping up all crumbs and brushing teeth to remove evidence. When rest of family awakens, sanctimoniously eat lowfat granola with skim milk and a side of grapefruit juice.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Follow-Up on the Mission
We left for the Mission at 4:30, me praying all the way that the song wouldn't change again! The first time that I really sang it from start to finish, revisions and all, was when I performed it at 7 p.m. It came off even better than I had hoped and I was able to sing it as if I'd been doing it for years. Definitely not the recommended procedure for performing, but the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish the impossible! Cathy Dreger and Cynde Knutson came with us this time, and they said the women really responded to it. Each of them spoke briefly during the service, and I could see the women being visibly moved by what they said also.
So, now all I have to do is figure out what I'm singing at the concert this coming Friday night at Hidden Door Cafe. And find time to rehearse with Alan. Oh yes, and take the children to soccer practice, conveniently scheduled, between the four of them, for every stinking day of the week except Friday, when two of them have a game (which they will be missing due to my concert. After only two weeks, I'm already a failure as a soccer Mom.... sigh).
At least we will be able to make the Saturday soccer game for the other two, which is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. the day after the concert. At least, I believe I will be physically there. I'm not sure that my brain will be functioning, but if worst comes to worst, I'll just cheer for the Blue Team, since that's the color of their uniforms. If I try getting any more specific than that, I may end up cheering on the name of the other team, or even worse, calling one of my kids by the dog's name.
So, now all I have to do is figure out what I'm singing at the concert this coming Friday night at Hidden Door Cafe. And find time to rehearse with Alan. Oh yes, and take the children to soccer practice, conveniently scheduled, between the four of them, for every stinking day of the week except Friday, when two of them have a game (which they will be missing due to my concert. After only two weeks, I'm already a failure as a soccer Mom.... sigh).
At least we will be able to make the Saturday soccer game for the other two, which is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. the day after the concert. At least, I believe I will be physically there. I'm not sure that my brain will be functioning, but if worst comes to worst, I'll just cheer for the Blue Team, since that's the color of their uniforms. If I try getting any more specific than that, I may end up cheering on the name of the other team, or even worse, calling one of my kids by the dog's name.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Song update
It's 3:05 p.m. We're leaving at 4:30 for the Mission.
I just wrote the third verse for the song.
I really hope it's done now.....
I just wrote the third verse for the song.
I really hope it's done now.....
Taking Dictation
So here's my praise report of the week. I'm helping with a service tonight at the Union Rescue Mission in downtown L.A. Our friends the Fousha's go once a quarter and conduct a service, and asked us to fill out their worship band, so I play keyboards and sing, my son Ian plays guitar, my daughter Emily sings and my husband plays guitar and sings. They also asked me to do two special songs.
As of Monday, I still couldn't decide which two of my songs to do. I couldn't even remember whether I had sung "Eyes of Compassion" last time - I knew it was a toss up between that and "No Perfect Road." Fortunately Emily reminded me that a woman wearing combat pants had stalked out of the room when I got to the line "fragile and crying," last time, so at least I knew I had sung Eyes of Compassion and chose No Perfect Road for this time. But the other song was still a mystery. I picked one, changed my mind, picked another, changed my mind, and by Tuesday night I was getting nervous...
So I flipped through my book of songs, asking the Lord to tell me what He wanted me to sing. I stopped at a song I wrote a year ago that I never liked. Recently I looked it over and decided to throw half of it out, keeping the only parts I still liked, so all that was left was two verses. That's the song the Lord told me to play. "Okay, Lord," I said. "You are aware that there are only two verses and it's Tuesday night?" (I'm so helpful that way, pointing out the obvious to the Creator of the Universe).
In faith, I started practicing my two measly verses. All of a sudden I found myself singing a very simple chorus to go with them. "Okay, this might work, " I thought. Then later that night, after everyone was in bed and I couldn't play my keyboard, the rest of the chorus started flooding into my mind. I had to sit at my desk and try to write the melody down in music notation (something that makes me shudder almost as much as crafts and science experiments). The next morning my efforts paid off, though, because I was able to remember it.
Then later that day, I sat down to practice and wrote the bridge.
Songs just don't usually come that easily; I'm even remembering the melody instantly when I make small changes to it, which simply NEVER happens. It's a case of Holy Spirit intervention because, honestly, I'm not THAT good a musician. :-) It's more like God is writing the song and I'm just taking dictation.
So I'm expecting great things tonight. This audience is one of my favorites - these ladies are so precious. It's not like singing for a quiet church crowd where everyone's on their best behavior, so you get instant feedback. If they like you, they let you know right away. If they don't like you... well, they stalk out of the room. Last time I went I left feeling like I gave so little and received so much.
As of Monday, I still couldn't decide which two of my songs to do. I couldn't even remember whether I had sung "Eyes of Compassion" last time - I knew it was a toss up between that and "No Perfect Road." Fortunately Emily reminded me that a woman wearing combat pants had stalked out of the room when I got to the line "fragile and crying," last time, so at least I knew I had sung Eyes of Compassion and chose No Perfect Road for this time. But the other song was still a mystery. I picked one, changed my mind, picked another, changed my mind, and by Tuesday night I was getting nervous...
So I flipped through my book of songs, asking the Lord to tell me what He wanted me to sing. I stopped at a song I wrote a year ago that I never liked. Recently I looked it over and decided to throw half of it out, keeping the only parts I still liked, so all that was left was two verses. That's the song the Lord told me to play. "Okay, Lord," I said. "You are aware that there are only two verses and it's Tuesday night?" (I'm so helpful that way, pointing out the obvious to the Creator of the Universe).
In faith, I started practicing my two measly verses. All of a sudden I found myself singing a very simple chorus to go with them. "Okay, this might work, " I thought. Then later that night, after everyone was in bed and I couldn't play my keyboard, the rest of the chorus started flooding into my mind. I had to sit at my desk and try to write the melody down in music notation (something that makes me shudder almost as much as crafts and science experiments). The next morning my efforts paid off, though, because I was able to remember it.
Then later that day, I sat down to practice and wrote the bridge.
Songs just don't usually come that easily; I'm even remembering the melody instantly when I make small changes to it, which simply NEVER happens. It's a case of Holy Spirit intervention because, honestly, I'm not THAT good a musician. :-) It's more like God is writing the song and I'm just taking dictation.
So I'm expecting great things tonight. This audience is one of my favorites - these ladies are so precious. It's not like singing for a quiet church crowd where everyone's on their best behavior, so you get instant feedback. If they like you, they let you know right away. If they don't like you... well, they stalk out of the room. Last time I went I left feeling like I gave so little and received so much.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Incomprehensible
I just wrote a song that has absolutely no meaning. I mean, I wasn't trying to give it one. I was actually trying to write utter nonsense. The trouble is, it's kinda catchy and everyone I play it for says they got some meaning out of it. My daughter even said the music pulls her emotionally and makes her think the words are deep, even though she knows they aren't.
So this must be what makes a hit song - not careful crafting of lyrics, but enough vagueness that the song becomes everything to everyone. One person said the song was about leaving behind a lost love. Someone else said it was uplifting and encouraging to be strong no matter what life brings you. So, not to say that this actually will become a hit song, but I'm beginning to understand why I sometimes have such a hard time figuring out what hit songs are about. Maybe they're not about anything!
It all started when I was reviewing lyrics of some songs my son wanted to put on his iPod. (He hates the review process. My husband and I are apparently overprotective and stifling and are ruining his social life, which somehow revolves around a device that only one person can listen to at a time. Oh well, that's our job.) There was one song that's really good musically, but when I sat down and read the lyrics... well, three weeks later, I STILL haven't figured out what it's about. It ticked me off, so I thought, "I could write a song that doesn't mean anything."
So I did. I wrote down every catch phrase that came to me without bothering to tie it in to the line before it. The whole thing took me five minutes, because I wouldn't let myself stop and think. I actually did manage to tie some lines together in spite of myself, but it did come out delightfully vague.
I will be really upset if out of all my songs, this one is the one that makes it to the radio. Well, no, I can't say I'll be upset, actually. But still...
Then again, I don't just write songs to write them, and certainly not (fortunately enough) to make money. So this was an interesting experiment, but I don't think I'll be repeating it. I'll continue to wait until I have something worthwhile to sing about before I put it to music. Music is too important a tool to be used to stir up emotions for emotions' sake. The race is too short and the battle too important for me to waste my best gift on entertainment.
Stepping off my soap box now... it so annoying when I come to and find myself up here.
So this must be what makes a hit song - not careful crafting of lyrics, but enough vagueness that the song becomes everything to everyone. One person said the song was about leaving behind a lost love. Someone else said it was uplifting and encouraging to be strong no matter what life brings you. So, not to say that this actually will become a hit song, but I'm beginning to understand why I sometimes have such a hard time figuring out what hit songs are about. Maybe they're not about anything!
It all started when I was reviewing lyrics of some songs my son wanted to put on his iPod. (He hates the review process. My husband and I are apparently overprotective and stifling and are ruining his social life, which somehow revolves around a device that only one person can listen to at a time. Oh well, that's our job.) There was one song that's really good musically, but when I sat down and read the lyrics... well, three weeks later, I STILL haven't figured out what it's about. It ticked me off, so I thought, "I could write a song that doesn't mean anything."
So I did. I wrote down every catch phrase that came to me without bothering to tie it in to the line before it. The whole thing took me five minutes, because I wouldn't let myself stop and think. I actually did manage to tie some lines together in spite of myself, but it did come out delightfully vague.
I will be really upset if out of all my songs, this one is the one that makes it to the radio. Well, no, I can't say I'll be upset, actually. But still...
Then again, I don't just write songs to write them, and certainly not (fortunately enough) to make money. So this was an interesting experiment, but I don't think I'll be repeating it. I'll continue to wait until I have something worthwhile to sing about before I put it to music. Music is too important a tool to be used to stir up emotions for emotions' sake. The race is too short and the battle too important for me to waste my best gift on entertainment.
Stepping off my soap box now... it so annoying when I come to and find myself up here.
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