Day 2 Day radishes

October 30, 2007/Halloween2Continued from below

And another thing.  There was a lot of pressure to get costumes together, pressure I put on myself.  I had to be the fanciest mother.  There was precious little of going to the store and buying a good costume.  But I loved the year that Margaret went out as a box. She was first in her crowd to be that creative.  I think it was a refrigerator.  Unfortunately, it rained.  Would you care to chime in here Margaret, as likely my facts are wrong.

October 30, 2007/Halloween

There are two holidays that I am not very keen on. One is New Years and the other is Halloween. I can make a great deal out of other holidays, St. Patrick’s day, Fourth of July, Epiphany. I am very fond of George Washington’s birthday. New Years I could not stay up late, and expectations were too high. Halloween, aside from young children, is much ado about nothing. So you put on a few clothes. When my children trick or treated, it invariably was freezing or raining. I was torn about being out with the kids, or passing out the treats at home. It never did match up with my expectations. So it is bah humbug for the day.

October 29 / Birth Order

TIME Magazine just had a cover story last week on birth order. Birth order has fascinated me for years, and more so my eldest daughter. I had a birth order book, read it, and it sat on my shelf. I sent it to the rummage sale, and I actually bought the book again a decade later. Birth orders are more interesting to first children as they, by all accounts, get more of the good, goods: money, smarts, tits, teeth, shoes. Just kidding.

But first children, do get lots of attention, and direction. They also have lots of responsibilities, i.e. I did not have a high school evening life as I was always baby sitting my siblings. My family was a quintessential birth order family. One time I was the sibling watcher and my brother slit his chin wide open falling over his handle bars on a tricycle. I had to walk him to a doctor to get him sewn up. The second child in the family had the toughest life. Aside from being the oldest boy, he did not have a place. He was always number two. I had the seat of important, my sister had the seat of beauty, and the younger brother had the seat of charm. We all fawned over the youngest to the detriment of the middle two.

I tried very hard to erase the birth order in my own children. But it is nearly impossible to erase. The article raises some interesting points. While they point out that there is really no way to have a scientific study from family to family, there seems to be certain identifiable characteristic within one family. First children usually got better nutrition in the old days. Who knows if that made them smarter. With more kids there was less to go around. And every one knows, that it a larger family, you have to be aggressive at the table. And if you had more than one child, a mother got more tired, the more children she had. No wonder the youngest were quite carefree. No one was strapping the them down. If you are interested in birth order, read this .

October 25/ The barren season

After my long entry several days ago, my thoughts and imagination are zilch. I am standing in the kitchen this morning thinking for the third day of nothing.  I said to myself, ”It is like my mind went underground”. Immediately I remembered Persephone, the beautiful Greek goddess who spent half of her time underground.  The daughter of  Zeus and Demeter, she was robbed from her mother’s arms by Hades for himself, and taken to the earth below to be queen of the underworld.  Demeter was so distressed at her loss that she let the earth go barren.  Finally people persuaded Zeus that he needed to get Persephone back. So he made some “deal” with Hades. But wouldn’t you know it,  she ate a few pomegranate seeds, of which were forbidden.  So she could only return above earth for half of the year. The myth is to explain the seasons. 

As the days are getting darker earlier and earlier, the days of summer and zucchini are gone, we have not reached the hectic holiday season, perhaps we can go underground and rest. 

October 22/ Read the previous post

This last week I cleaned my house and cooked, and thought I would never get it together into what I call “hotel tidy”. At our house we use every surface and most surfaces have crap. I was having over the MARY /MARTHA group from church. This is the kind of group to belong to, if you are burned out from working in other groups. You just show up to support each other, have some soup, and go home. There are no chores. Once I found out that few people were coming, I relaxed. I am the one worked up over all this tidiness, not my constituents. Still this is a lot of work for eight. Ever thinking I can change the world, eight is too small a start. Yet is it?

I like small groups. There are different dynamics. Everyone gets a chance to speak, and in this case no one monopolized the conversation, unless it was me, and I did not notice. One woman came with a wonderful proposal of having a accomplished actress come and give a presentation of women from the Bible, and would we like to offer it up to the community.

Ordinarily, not wanting to take on work, we enthusiastically supported it. Well, the meeting was over, and there was all this soup, and a few orange frosted apple cupcakes. I would gag if I ate that many beans and vegetables. Someone brought up that our friend George was in great pain and was not coming to church, which meant that the spouse also did not come. The soup could go to those people. One woman spoke up and said that she would really like to take it. This same woman who offered to take the meal had recently made an effort to take George communion, but the offers had been declined. The following day my friend, the soup angel, came up to me and told me that she had asked our invalid friend why the Eucharist had been turned down. George replied that he was soo angry with God. However, we think the soup eased his painor anger, and my angel friend left with the request that she come back with the Eucharist.

This church is the Episcopal church in Darrington, Washington.

October 21/ St. Ignatius

I have not done much in spiritual renewal for some time. I go through phases and for many reasons, when I do it on my own, I stop. I do not lose faith; I just fail to take time to have a conference with God and listen to what he may say to me, although we do speak during the day. It is more speaking to him rather than his speaking to me. But if I am honest with myself, things are more hunky dory with me and God at the times I pay more attention to him.

Recently at church I have started in a group, going through the exercises of St. Ignatius. There is series of meetings for 36 weeks and daily meditation. As a young man Ignatius was somewhat of a dandy, addicted to gambling, and he also was not opposed to sword fights. One day he was fighting the French at Pamplona, and the odds were enormous, but he kept his troops fighting to victory. It was during this time that his leg was wounded and he had to be hospitalized. Covelescing he wanted romance novels, but all to be had was a book on the Life of Christ and saints. Meanwhile he became infatuated with a noble lady and had fantasies of his victory over her and the his military success. But the more he read, the more he became open to Christ, the more peaceful he became, and the more he thought about the woman, the more agitated he became. He had a motivating, memorable vision with Christ, which he never discussed with anyone, and he went back to school for his Latin and to study in the priesthood.

He started the Jesuit order. He intended to teach only priests, but it became clear to him that the way to make a difference in the world, was to educate the masses in catechism, and regular studies. His spiritual exercises are series of mediations leading you through what you are, and who you are, through to deciding what your relatonship with God is, what your role with Jesus is, and what you are going to do about it. This process is called discernment. One of the main St. Ignatius principles is to see God in everything.

This is very simplistic. What you are to take away, is that he started the Jesuit Order which spread over the world, and he created a meditation program to help people come closer to God. Seeing God in everything has merit too.

This is the catholic church in Darrington.

October 18/ Real Simple

The trouble with subscribing to magazines for more than one year is that they get very redundant. I am a big foodie magazine addict, but I am trying to switch, nothing like American Spectator or the New Yorker, mind you, more like cheesy photo magazines, and decorating. But I do have the benefit of reading my daughter NoName’s magazines before forwarding them. She gets a really cheesy movie star mag. Perfect. And she subscribes to Real Simple. This month the REAL SIMPLE , which I had previously written off, came and it was actually good.

Clever hostess Gifts to have on hand (NoName reminded me that this is a way to buy friends)

The do’s and don’t of extending an invitation

How to avoid putting your foot in your mouth

Decoding beauty ingredients.

How to scope out your fragrant scent

A buying list for gem stones

What to do about dark circles under your eyes

A review of cashmere sweaters

Cold remedies

Take your mind off things of substance, read this magazine. But I warn you, you will want to go to your local Rite Aide and save your skin.

October 17/ It is about time for carrots

While there is no National Carrot Day, February 3 is National Carrot Cake Day.  It is unfortunate that there is no Carrot day, because I think they are sweet now.  For me Carrots are an afterthought.  I always have some, but usually for soup or something mixed into something else like soup or stew.  Last night I had to actually look in the vegetable bin to see what there was for dinner.  All there was, aside from lettuce, was carrots. I cut them up into match sticks, boiled them, drained them, and added butter.  They were delicious.  Had I had the time, I could have added sugar and caramelized them a bit. 

Cooked coin cut carrots have rather repelled me. I think my mother also sometimes resorted to frozen, which were better than frozen brussel sprouts (gag balls), but only slightly.  Grated carrot salad is good, especially with vinegar and oil. No raisins please. 

October 16/ Haircuts

The event of one day was Thing 1 getting her hair cut. She’s been growing her tresses for four years for Locks Of Love. We went to a nice salon and today was to be the day it was cut. However, her hair was measured, and it was determined that she would be left with very, very short hair. So the hair cutting was scratched for a trim. . . until next year. But like most 13 year olds, she was unsatisfied with her haircut. She said, “ I like my hair now, but tomorrow when I do it, it will return to being bad.” Who hasn’t felt that?

Following that, NoName gave me my birthday present, which was that I was allowed to tell the hairdresser how to cut her hair. We have been reading Deborah Tanner’s book You're Wearing That?,about mothers and their concerns for their girls, and daughters who perceive how it said. And visa versa. For example, several months ago I told NoName that she should not wear her hair in a ponytail. (This is something I never should have said, because you should have said.  Hair is a very touchy subject with daughters. It implies that you have no confidence in how she is running her life.) She asked how I would like her to wear her hair? I said like when she was eight in a short bob. So for my birthday present, I was allowed to tell the hairdresser how to cut her hair, exactly like when she was eight. I did not totally unleash myself, but I did tell the stylist to cut it shorter. What a great birthday present! Be still my beating heart.

For a moment, I almost said “operator” instead of stylist. That is really dating myself, almost back to my mother’s time.

I went to Baltimore to visit with my daughter, NoName and Thing 1, my granddaughter. I use those names because they live in an area of the world where anonymity is best. Thing 1 has what is called Marfan Syndrome, and it is monitored once a year at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. NoName was born on my birthday. This year it worked out that my husband and I could go to Baltimore, and meet them for the medical appointments, and share our birthdays.

Marfan Syndrome is a soft tissue condition meaning that the skeleton, eyes, heart, usually are effected. The people are generally very tall, double jointed, and have long fingers. President Lincoln is thought to have had Marfan, and there is a possibility that Osama Ben Lauden also has the condition. We saw the Orthopedic surgeon, the Ophthalmologist, and the favorite, and head of the Marfan study, Dr. Dietz. The ophthalmologist, said that my granddaughter was seeing quite well, given the state of her eyes. He mentioned many times to us how difficult it was to grind her lenses. Her lenses are thick at the edges and thin in the center. And they have to somewhat adjust for what might happen through the year. He meant that the lens grinder had to be especially gifted.

Finally we went to see Dr. Dietz. He works in the clinic one day a week, and the rest of the week he does research. The day before we saw him, three doctors had been awarded the Nobel medical prize. We had always counted on Dr. Dietz winning a Nobel prize. We thought he was robbed. In addition to figuring the cause and the cure, for which many years they were headed down the wrong trail, he has to raise Marfan mice for trials. This is slow going. In people the rate of Marfan is 1 in 5000. We are hoping that the there is still time for him to get his prize.