Monday, September 26, 2016
Beloved
There are days in life where you gather with people you may or may not know because of someone you mutually love. It happens at weddings, it happens sometimes at graduations, it happens when saying goodbye. Today was a goodbye, and while sad, I loved the embrace of Jackie's people. The nice lady behind me who told me that I have lovely sweet daughters. The friend who pointed out Jackie died on international peace day. Jackie's kind Children, Husband and Grandchildren, so graciously comforting us while in the midst of their own grief. Everyone feeling the need to let everyone else know how loved they were through all the stories Jackie loved to tell about her brood.
The girls and I were going to have a tea party at the arboretum afterward. Jackie and I had been trying to work our schedules out forever for a trip there with the kids. Since the weather did not cooperate, we journeyed to Half Price books. The good one on Northwest Highway with the Black Forest bakery. We each selected a decadent sweet and looked amazingly fancy and a bit out of place for a drizzly Monday; packed in amongst the Mahjong groups and college students. Jackie would have greatly approved, seeing as the first time she met John, she stole some of his lemon meringue pie. She loved to act out the scene that followed, the one where John protectively wrapped his arm around his pie and threatened to defend against further attacks with his fork.
Helen wished for Hermione's time turner so we could go back, to before Jackie got sick. Lauren wished Grandaddy's best friend the watchmaker was still alive so he could create one for us. I just sat thinking about Jackie's cousin who talked about the dash. The space between birth and death and making sure you have a good dash, whether it is short or long. Jackie had an amazing dash.
We bought books because nothing goes better with cake than splurging on a My Little Pony Hardback for less than $8. Or Hoot for under $4. Or Beloved for under $6, a book recommended by the person we were eating sweets in honor of about a decade ago. I could not read it then because I was pregnant at the time and about three chapters in, I chickened out. After all, my greatest fear was Seth's reality, the death of the beloved child within me. A decade brings a lot of change, filled often with joy, sometimes with loss and hopefully a bit of wisedom. Perhaps now I can face Beloved and see it with some of your wisdom my dear friend.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
The Great Shopkin War
I actually posted the first part of this on FB but my kids took the play in such a funny direction that I felt the need to add on. Since this is my online journal, it will be easier for me to get back to this spot someday then to pick up the hashtag skill.
It is not my favorite thing to play Shopkins with the kids but they are so happy when I do. Since the monsoons have hit, I have agreed, hoping to keep peace as a tradeoff. My normal character is Crescent D'or. He is married to Madame Cheesecake, who is both beautiful and brave. This is Lauren's character. She shoots thunder with her bow and arrow and destroys it dead in its tracks. I am being summoned, they noticed I snuck off. Bon jour!
Chapter two in the Shopkin story: Once summoned back to my Kingdom by the royal subjects, things had gone bad. A family of Littlest Pet shop characters was trying to move into the strawberry house. My fair queen cheesecake doesn't always like to share and tried her hardest to oust the LPS group out of town. I told her I was king and I believe in diversity. She did not like it, but when I threatened to make her read the rest of the afternoon, she saw reason.
Then there was the terrible toilet problem. With so many families moving to our town, no one had a butt butler but those of us residing in our castle. :) Peasants were showing up left and right just to take a pee. I asked one LPS cat why she didn't just go outside like other cats. She informed me in no uncertain terms that she is just as civilized as I am. Fare enough, but our poor shopkin toilet was becoming overworked. I found myself having to issue a toilet decree. Before I could act on it, my queen and daughter were kidnaped by the evil talking purple jellybean. There was a huge jellybean hunt and 100's of square feet were covered in the search. In the end, the scoundrel was captured in a remote closet on the outskirts of our world. When he was caught, he was quickly executed by our henchman Lauren who chose death by stomach acid for the treacherous candy.
With the wife and kid safe, I went back to the toilet issue. Where the devil was I too find 10 or so toilets on the fly. Lucky for me, there was a landfill on counter island where another culture had left the remains of hundreds of plastic eggs. I had my peasants karate chop the eggs in two and use the smaller halves as decorative toilets in their homes. Ou'la, problem solved. I went to the top of Mt. Couch to meditate on my successful day. While I was there I met a fatherless family. I asked sadly what happened to the father. Apparently the father had been killed in the Great Shopkin War. Helen, the main talker for this family was very helpful in giving me the details. Apparently the War was against the Squinkies. An inferior race we fought to extinction on shopping isles everywhere. I felt a chill. Could Winter be coming? Yes, at the moment we were victorious, but what murderous toy could come along and replace us. Perhaps I needed to spend more time with the LPS guys, they have been around for decades. Good thing I did not let the Queen run them out of town, they could be our ticket to survival!
And with that, I retired the kingdom to the kids because lets face it, they can deal with murderous toys and toilet issues. I am the only one who can deliver chicken nuggets and mac and cheese to hungary empire builders.
It is not my favorite thing to play Shopkins with the kids but they are so happy when I do. Since the monsoons have hit, I have agreed, hoping to keep peace as a tradeoff. My normal character is Crescent D'or. He is married to Madame Cheesecake, who is both beautiful and brave. This is Lauren's character. She shoots thunder with her bow and arrow and destroys it dead in its tracks. I am being summoned, they noticed I snuck off. Bon jour!
Chapter two in the Shopkin story: Once summoned back to my Kingdom by the royal subjects, things had gone bad. A family of Littlest Pet shop characters was trying to move into the strawberry house. My fair queen cheesecake doesn't always like to share and tried her hardest to oust the LPS group out of town. I told her I was king and I believe in diversity. She did not like it, but when I threatened to make her read the rest of the afternoon, she saw reason.
Then there was the terrible toilet problem. With so many families moving to our town, no one had a butt butler but those of us residing in our castle. :) Peasants were showing up left and right just to take a pee. I asked one LPS cat why she didn't just go outside like other cats. She informed me in no uncertain terms that she is just as civilized as I am. Fare enough, but our poor shopkin toilet was becoming overworked. I found myself having to issue a toilet decree. Before I could act on it, my queen and daughter were kidnaped by the evil talking purple jellybean. There was a huge jellybean hunt and 100's of square feet were covered in the search. In the end, the scoundrel was captured in a remote closet on the outskirts of our world. When he was caught, he was quickly executed by our henchman Lauren who chose death by stomach acid for the treacherous candy.
With the wife and kid safe, I went back to the toilet issue. Where the devil was I too find 10 or so toilets on the fly. Lucky for me, there was a landfill on counter island where another culture had left the remains of hundreds of plastic eggs. I had my peasants karate chop the eggs in two and use the smaller halves as decorative toilets in their homes. Ou'la, problem solved. I went to the top of Mt. Couch to meditate on my successful day. While I was there I met a fatherless family. I asked sadly what happened to the father. Apparently the father had been killed in the Great Shopkin War. Helen, the main talker for this family was very helpful in giving me the details. Apparently the War was against the Squinkies. An inferior race we fought to extinction on shopping isles everywhere. I felt a chill. Could Winter be coming? Yes, at the moment we were victorious, but what murderous toy could come along and replace us. Perhaps I needed to spend more time with the LPS guys, they have been around for decades. Good thing I did not let the Queen run them out of town, they could be our ticket to survival!
And with that, I retired the kingdom to the kids because lets face it, they can deal with murderous toys and toilet issues. I am the only one who can deliver chicken nuggets and mac and cheese to hungary empire builders.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
The Joy of Laughter
I generally write happy stuff. Mostly because I have a very happy life, surrounded by happy, funny people. Of them all, my Dad's best friend has to be the happiest of the happy. The funniest of the funny. In the 30 some odd years of knowing the man, I have never seen him sour. When he laughs, he crinkles his nose and his entire face gets in on the act. He has the most scraggly beard I have ever seen. Something only an intellectual tinker could get away with. And Satish is certainly that. He tinkers with everything from watches to his own hair. He has much better luck with the watches than the hair.
He is the only person I have ever met who is cheaper than my father. I once saw him with the worst hair cut I have ever seen on anyone ever. He laughed good-heartedly when telling how his wife had forbid him from ever taking scissors to his own hair again. The result appeared to be the mange. Truly, it was terrible.
I use to humor my Dad and get up at the ass crack of dawn and drive from Mansfield to Dallas to the Saturday sale. It was this weird computer sale under a bridge where people sold all kinds of computer parts and hand crafted machines. Satish would stand there bargaining things down to ridiculously low prices. I think they discovered some place with a $2.00 breakfast after they had obtained all the pieces parts two middle age engineers could get for $20.
Several years ago Satish was in charge of pet sitting his neighbor's bird, Goburt. It was one of those weird stories that only happens to Satish, but somehow he ended up with this illegal exotic bird. The neighbor disappeared, the house flooded, there was a difficult process in trying to get the bird out of a flooding house with no electricity, and vanished owners. As it turns out, Goburt is the coolest bird. The kids have grown up going to visit him. They know never to trust him with a finger but they will bounce up and down at each other, making clicking noises back and forth. He does amazing imitations. Particularly of Satish's voice. He has his laugh down pat. Probably because Satish laughs all the time. It is a sound Goburt knows by heart. It is a sound we all know by heart.
It is that sound and that crinkled nose and scraggly beard I will miss most. Satish died yesterday. He died in the most brilliant way possible. His whole family with him saying their good byes, surrounded by love. Today the news has been rippling out to all of us who loved him. It is not really a surprise. He had been ill for a long time but I think selfishly we kept wanting him to hold on a little longer, a little longer. I am glad Satish ended up with Goburt. Satish has a brand new baby Granddaughter and young Grandson. With any luck they will grow up listening to Goburt, perfectly imitating their Grandfather's amazing laugh.
Friday, February 19, 2016
The Great Quest to Find William B. Travis
This morning was one of those mornings when things should have gone smoothly but they did not. I actually woke up at 5:30am. Good start. BUT did not actually get up until a little after 6am. I hopped in the tub meaning to only stay in about 5 minutes, but I love sitting in the dark, in a warm tub so I decided to go for 7minutes instead. Even with the cat poking my shoulder every ten seconds, requesting I dribble water on his head, it was mostly relaxing. That is right up until Lauren Francis came streaking into the room and invaded my bath. This wasn't necessarily bad, but I had to adjust to Plan B. I was going to be in the tub now for at least 15 to 17 minutes. We got out and got side-tracked on our get ready for school mission. John was sitting on the bed doing email so we decided to take a snuggle detour. Plan C. We finally get upstairs at 10 til 7.
Now in my house, if children are not dressed and to the table by 7am, we are most certainly not going to make our "leave the house by 7:30am" goal. I assume that anyone who has to get anywhere in the morning has the strange minute barometer set in their head. "Good God! I woke you up at 6:30am. It took you 12.5 minutes from the time I woke you up for you to lift your head off the pillow! Hustle, hustle!" My children hear the word hustle no less than 30 times a morning. They also constantly hear their statistics on the minute barometer so they know exactly where they can improve their times. "14 minutes wasted this morning locating the one shoe under the bed and the other in the bathroom. 3 minutes wasted trying to sneak a My Little Pony in your backpack. Okay, when you have to poo, you have to poo. But if you could try to time it before we are backing out of the garage. We were 4 minutes ahead of schedule."
With that said, no one made it to the table until 7:10am this morning. Lauren who had started off strong by waking up early, became side tracked trying to get a table cleared off in her room so she could move the Princess Celestia castle on top of it. This was of course the top priority of her entire day. Little things like clothing, eating and getting to school on time came much lower on her list. Helen, was earlier to the table, but had her nose in a new book so she kept forgetting to eat and ended up leaving the table 10 minutes later than Lauren.
At this point we are 7:38am, I pull out Helen's binder to do my parently duty of signing and acknowledging the school day before existed when out fall two small drawings of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. "Helen, these drawings are great," I remark. Helen looks a little panicked,"Where is William B. Travis? Oh dear. Oh dear. This is bad. I have this thing, I have to turn these in and I don't see William B Travis. Where did he go?" We start pulling out an unbelievable amount of loose paper from Helen's messenger bag. It is like the little cars that 50 clowns pour out of. There is a fox Helen sketched, a page that says redo that Helen has not redone. It is a memory lane of assignments that Helen cannot help reflecting on even as she is panicking about Travis. I realize we are not likely to find the tiny hero. "Helen, here is a notecard. Get to drawing and I will go look and see if he fell out in the car." Lauren chimes in, "What did Helen loose?" "She lost William B. Travis. We cannot find him anywhere." Lauren helps in the hunt as well.
I am sad to say we never found Mr. Travis. I am quite certain he made his escape yesterday when Helen pulled a piece of paper out to sketch on during Girl's club. She drew another but he was done in a rush and apparently inferior to the original. We left the house with 7 minutes until tardy bell. We had a tardy last week. A tardy two weeks in a row is very frowned upon in Allen. This is bad for us because we tend to be late in clusters. We pulled into a drop off spot with kids coming from everywhere at a full run. The tardy bell had rung but a watch dog dad was holding the door. "Hustle girls! Hustle!" I have my coffee in hand, the assistant principal has his coffee in his, we make eye contact. He smiles and looks the other way while about 15 kids slip into school avoiding the tardy slips that come once the door closes and locks. I can't help it, I know somewhere on the floor of the school is a tiny William B. Travis, happy to be in a Texas still wild enough to stretch the rules just a bit.
Now in my house, if children are not dressed and to the table by 7am, we are most certainly not going to make our "leave the house by 7:30am" goal. I assume that anyone who has to get anywhere in the morning has the strange minute barometer set in their head. "Good God! I woke you up at 6:30am. It took you 12.5 minutes from the time I woke you up for you to lift your head off the pillow! Hustle, hustle!" My children hear the word hustle no less than 30 times a morning. They also constantly hear their statistics on the minute barometer so they know exactly where they can improve their times. "14 minutes wasted this morning locating the one shoe under the bed and the other in the bathroom. 3 minutes wasted trying to sneak a My Little Pony in your backpack. Okay, when you have to poo, you have to poo. But if you could try to time it before we are backing out of the garage. We were 4 minutes ahead of schedule."
With that said, no one made it to the table until 7:10am this morning. Lauren who had started off strong by waking up early, became side tracked trying to get a table cleared off in her room so she could move the Princess Celestia castle on top of it. This was of course the top priority of her entire day. Little things like clothing, eating and getting to school on time came much lower on her list. Helen, was earlier to the table, but had her nose in a new book so she kept forgetting to eat and ended up leaving the table 10 minutes later than Lauren.
At this point we are 7:38am, I pull out Helen's binder to do my parently duty of signing and acknowledging the school day before existed when out fall two small drawings of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin. "Helen, these drawings are great," I remark. Helen looks a little panicked,"Where is William B. Travis? Oh dear. Oh dear. This is bad. I have this thing, I have to turn these in and I don't see William B Travis. Where did he go?" We start pulling out an unbelievable amount of loose paper from Helen's messenger bag. It is like the little cars that 50 clowns pour out of. There is a fox Helen sketched, a page that says redo that Helen has not redone. It is a memory lane of assignments that Helen cannot help reflecting on even as she is panicking about Travis. I realize we are not likely to find the tiny hero. "Helen, here is a notecard. Get to drawing and I will go look and see if he fell out in the car." Lauren chimes in, "What did Helen loose?" "She lost William B. Travis. We cannot find him anywhere." Lauren helps in the hunt as well.
I am sad to say we never found Mr. Travis. I am quite certain he made his escape yesterday when Helen pulled a piece of paper out to sketch on during Girl's club. She drew another but he was done in a rush and apparently inferior to the original. We left the house with 7 minutes until tardy bell. We had a tardy last week. A tardy two weeks in a row is very frowned upon in Allen. This is bad for us because we tend to be late in clusters. We pulled into a drop off spot with kids coming from everywhere at a full run. The tardy bell had rung but a watch dog dad was holding the door. "Hustle girls! Hustle!" I have my coffee in hand, the assistant principal has his coffee in his, we make eye contact. He smiles and looks the other way while about 15 kids slip into school avoiding the tardy slips that come once the door closes and locks. I can't help it, I know somewhere on the floor of the school is a tiny William B. Travis, happy to be in a Texas still wild enough to stretch the rules just a bit.
Monday, December 28, 2015
A Damn Big Wound
I have been puny since Christmas Eve and it has done nothing to damper what a fantastic Christmas we have had. What it did do is give me time to lay in bed reading a book Helen brought home. It is one of those Newbury award winning books that I never read but always meant too. I am almost done, Helen is on page 82. It is going to break her heart. It is fiction, but it really isn't. It is the story of Mildred D. Taylor's family and what it was like to be a little girl in Mississippi, in 1933, during the Depression and be black.
It has been a long time since I have read anything like this. Yes, I read the Help but it was different. It had more hope. This is a book that crushes your soul. Maybe you have to read it in the 4th grade because you have more hope and optimism to retaliate against the awful truths in life. In today's 4th grade you can have a crush on a very smart, funny brown boy in your class. You can hear about the black woman who died in police custody on the radio and say to your Mom, "Oh come on, why are we still dealing with this issue? You have been stopped a million times for speeding and the police man never makes you get out of the car. Even when you are being grumpy with him. If we were black would we have to get out of the car? We are all the same. Just some of us can get tan and some of us can't."
In 4th grade you can see color. You don't ignore it. Color is beautiful. My kids describe to me kids whiter than they are "Poor such and such is even whiter than me, bet she never goes out without sunscreen", "You know she is the color of your cafe mocha, Mom", " Oh, he is that dark brown that looks velvety". But today's fourth graders are smart enough to know that a mean kid is a mean kid, a sweet kid is a sweet kid. Skin color has nothing to do with it.
Still, knowing all of that does not make it any easier for a 9 year old to learn that America is not just the home of the free and the brave. It is home to a society that allowed people to be tarred and feathered, set on fire, shot, hung, bred for labor and treated like animals for a long, long time. The Civil Rights Movement took years because it faced such fierce opposition, oppostition that resulted in at least 41 recorded deaths. Racial tensions still exist. In fact they are rampant. When I read this book I can see why. That kind of wound stays open. It starts to get better then someone pulls the scab off. Maybe that is what I will tell Helen, this subject is a big open wound for our country. My Great Grandmother came across Texas in a covered wagon, married a preacher, had four boys and though poor, was well respected in Bowie Texas, the town she lived most her life in. Had she been black, this never would have been her life. For one thing she never would have lived in Bowie, until the 1970's there was a billboard on the side of the road driving into town that said "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in Bowie."
Like I said, it is a pretty damn big wound.
It has been a long time since I have read anything like this. Yes, I read the Help but it was different. It had more hope. This is a book that crushes your soul. Maybe you have to read it in the 4th grade because you have more hope and optimism to retaliate against the awful truths in life. In today's 4th grade you can have a crush on a very smart, funny brown boy in your class. You can hear about the black woman who died in police custody on the radio and say to your Mom, "Oh come on, why are we still dealing with this issue? You have been stopped a million times for speeding and the police man never makes you get out of the car. Even when you are being grumpy with him. If we were black would we have to get out of the car? We are all the same. Just some of us can get tan and some of us can't."
In 4th grade you can see color. You don't ignore it. Color is beautiful. My kids describe to me kids whiter than they are "Poor such and such is even whiter than me, bet she never goes out without sunscreen", "You know she is the color of your cafe mocha, Mom", " Oh, he is that dark brown that looks velvety". But today's fourth graders are smart enough to know that a mean kid is a mean kid, a sweet kid is a sweet kid. Skin color has nothing to do with it.
Still, knowing all of that does not make it any easier for a 9 year old to learn that America is not just the home of the free and the brave. It is home to a society that allowed people to be tarred and feathered, set on fire, shot, hung, bred for labor and treated like animals for a long, long time. The Civil Rights Movement took years because it faced such fierce opposition, oppostition that resulted in at least 41 recorded deaths. Racial tensions still exist. In fact they are rampant. When I read this book I can see why. That kind of wound stays open. It starts to get better then someone pulls the scab off. Maybe that is what I will tell Helen, this subject is a big open wound for our country. My Great Grandmother came across Texas in a covered wagon, married a preacher, had four boys and though poor, was well respected in Bowie Texas, the town she lived most her life in. Had she been black, this never would have been her life. For one thing she never would have lived in Bowie, until the 1970's there was a billboard on the side of the road driving into town that said "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in Bowie."
Like I said, it is a pretty damn big wound.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
All the Who's down in Whoville
Last night we went to the Allen tree lighting festival. Not because I am a good festive parent who looks for engaging activities for the family, no, Helen sings in a choir at school and her choir teacher is one of those people. Lauren and I dropped Helen off by the stage with her group and quickly capitalized upon the free hot chocolate and churros that the On the Border table was handing out. It didn't take long before some of the parents from the school wandered up with younger siblings. It is amazing how young kids connect like magnets. The jumpers jump together, the runners chase each other, the climbers climb together and we parents stand together monitoring their squiggles. I have met several of these parents before, one I don't know well but I like a lot. She posted a picture the first day of school of her four kids looking gloomy about school starting while she jumped in the air with glee. Yeah, that is a Mom with a sense of humor I can relate too. Soon the squigglers including Lauren discovered the world's safest trampoline that needed to be jumped on. Nothing hits the spot after jumping on a trampoline like a lollipop chased with fresh cotton candy. The siblings were properly wired with enough sugar to launch a rocket into space by the time our choir came out and sang their two songs. It was brilliant. I love choirs. All these different voices coming together, blending, making a music that could never be made alone.
Then this sickening thought washed over me. We are all sitting ducks. All of us here videoing our children, focused completely on the moment, enjoying the magic of leaving our couches, stupid celebrity news, the pain of the world, we are all standing here feet frozen, hearts warm. Someone could take all this joy away. I pushed out the thought. Mad at myself for even going there.
Helen finished and the beautiful ballerinas from the Allen Civic ballet took the stage. Helen, Lauren and Madison sat glued to the performance. Madison is the cool Mom's daughter. She had cool reindeer antlers on her head, the apple does not fall far from the tree. I was glad to see she and Helen had made a connection through choir and sharing homeroom this year. We watched more performances before Helen realized all the important sugar and jumping she had missed.
By this point, my feet are numb. It is after 7pm, none of us has had anything that could be classified as real food in hours but, the girls are so stinking happy, and full of holiday cheer I decide to just go with it. Helen starts jumping up and down, they bring a giant switch onto the stage. I am focused on the long line I have been standing in so the kids can jump for two minutes on a trampoline. It is one of the great mysteries of life, why kids want to wait in line for something they can do anytime at the neighbor's house. But back to the switch, I am not getting why Helen is so excited about this switch. I look at it more closely and realize it is a three or four foot light switch. Helen saw this when she was backstage waiting to perform. She has this ability to put two and two together and announced to her friends, "Hey, we are here for a tree lighting. That is a big switch. I bet they flip that and it turns on the tree." No one, not one person thought this was plausible. Helen was jumping up and down because she could feel it in her bones, her theory was about to be proven correct. And it was, all the important councilmen of Allen stepped on the stage, spoke briefly and then counted down with the crowd to the grand moment when.......the light switch flipped and the tree came on. I thought Helen might hop right out of her shoes she was so pleased with herself. Then came the fireworks. We were totally not expecting fireworks. I thought for sure this was the highpoint of the evening and that we could now get into the car where I could start to thaw out my feet.
We start slowly making our way through throngs of people stopping, by the tree for pictures. I take a look at the cotton candy line which now extends into Plano. We happen into a Alexa, a 5th grade girl from Cheatham who we happen into every time we get off the couch and venture into Allen. Alexa tells us her Dad is in charge of the cotton candy table. Helen is already super impressed with this girl because she is a 5th grader. This has just launched her into the stratosphere. "Have you seen the line?" says Alexa. "Yes," says Helen gloomily. As I mentioned, Helen can put two and two together. She knew there was no hope of cotton candy or Santa at this point in the evening and we were headed toward the car.
I was imagining the way the heater was going to feel on my feet when Helen said, "Mom, Santa is going to be on stage, we can at least see him on stage. Pleeeease!!" What kind of a grinch would I be if we went to a tree lighting thing and I denied my kids Santa. "Yeah, okay, lets go see Santa." We head to the stage and it is not Santa. It is Betty Lou Who with two brightly dressed Who teens with amazing Who voices. My first thought is that it is a knock off of the grinch. Here is the story. These three are trying to have a Merry Christmas but "the grump" has arrived. I chuckle, the irony of my own grumpiness at this moment has not escaped me. I really do not want to be here. But the kids, the kids are completely engaged. Not just my kids, all the kids. This little troop of 3 has mesmerized the under 11 set and at a pretty late point in the evening. The kids in the audience are being given bells and bubbles to try to get rid of the grump. They don't work. We all try flashlights and phone lights. They doesn't work. Finally, everyone sings together. First Rudolf then Santa Claus is coming to town. This, this finally gets rid of the grump. Then the Who music from the end of the Grinch who stole Christmas comes on. You know, the song they sing when they all hold hands and gather around the spot where the tree should be but it is not there because the Grinch took it. The Grinch tried to steal their joy but he could not. The giant switch goes on in my head. I think back to my thought earlier about being a sitting duck and it is replaced with the image of the Grinch looking puzzled. Why? Why do people still come together when everything is taken away? Perhaps it is not enough to survive, we want to live and to live we must stay connected to each other. To have joy, we must experience joy. The Asian man in front of me turned and shook my hand and wished me happy Holidays. The Indian woman beside me warmly gathered my hand in hers and gave me well wishes. The pregnant lady with her busy toddler gave me a weary but happy smile. The small troupe of Who's had asked us to wish cheer to each other to keep the grump away and it worked.
We headed back down toward the cotton candy table. The line was much shorter now. It wouldn't have mattered if it had gone to Richardson, I was feeling more connected now...less connected to my toes but more connected to my fellow man. There was Alexa's Dad who was pleased to see a little girl who so obviously admired his daughter. "Make this young lady a cotton candy the size of her head!" He said. Lauren, for the first time ever, was sugared out. That in and of itself is worthy of a blog entry. Not to mention her willingness to stand in long lines so Helen didn't miss out on any necessary fun. "Mom," said Helen, "I don't ever want this night to end." "Me either," said Lauren. "Me either," I said.
Luckily some nights do stick around the heart forever, cemented in place with cotton candy, Who Magic, and children singing in santa hats and reindeer antlers.
Then this sickening thought washed over me. We are all sitting ducks. All of us here videoing our children, focused completely on the moment, enjoying the magic of leaving our couches, stupid celebrity news, the pain of the world, we are all standing here feet frozen, hearts warm. Someone could take all this joy away. I pushed out the thought. Mad at myself for even going there.
Helen finished and the beautiful ballerinas from the Allen Civic ballet took the stage. Helen, Lauren and Madison sat glued to the performance. Madison is the cool Mom's daughter. She had cool reindeer antlers on her head, the apple does not fall far from the tree. I was glad to see she and Helen had made a connection through choir and sharing homeroom this year. We watched more performances before Helen realized all the important sugar and jumping she had missed.
By this point, my feet are numb. It is after 7pm, none of us has had anything that could be classified as real food in hours but, the girls are so stinking happy, and full of holiday cheer I decide to just go with it. Helen starts jumping up and down, they bring a giant switch onto the stage. I am focused on the long line I have been standing in so the kids can jump for two minutes on a trampoline. It is one of the great mysteries of life, why kids want to wait in line for something they can do anytime at the neighbor's house. But back to the switch, I am not getting why Helen is so excited about this switch. I look at it more closely and realize it is a three or four foot light switch. Helen saw this when she was backstage waiting to perform. She has this ability to put two and two together and announced to her friends, "Hey, we are here for a tree lighting. That is a big switch. I bet they flip that and it turns on the tree." No one, not one person thought this was plausible. Helen was jumping up and down because she could feel it in her bones, her theory was about to be proven correct. And it was, all the important councilmen of Allen stepped on the stage, spoke briefly and then counted down with the crowd to the grand moment when.......the light switch flipped and the tree came on. I thought Helen might hop right out of her shoes she was so pleased with herself. Then came the fireworks. We were totally not expecting fireworks. I thought for sure this was the highpoint of the evening and that we could now get into the car where I could start to thaw out my feet.
We start slowly making our way through throngs of people stopping, by the tree for pictures. I take a look at the cotton candy line which now extends into Plano. We happen into a Alexa, a 5th grade girl from Cheatham who we happen into every time we get off the couch and venture into Allen. Alexa tells us her Dad is in charge of the cotton candy table. Helen is already super impressed with this girl because she is a 5th grader. This has just launched her into the stratosphere. "Have you seen the line?" says Alexa. "Yes," says Helen gloomily. As I mentioned, Helen can put two and two together. She knew there was no hope of cotton candy or Santa at this point in the evening and we were headed toward the car.
I was imagining the way the heater was going to feel on my feet when Helen said, "Mom, Santa is going to be on stage, we can at least see him on stage. Pleeeease!!" What kind of a grinch would I be if we went to a tree lighting thing and I denied my kids Santa. "Yeah, okay, lets go see Santa." We head to the stage and it is not Santa. It is Betty Lou Who with two brightly dressed Who teens with amazing Who voices. My first thought is that it is a knock off of the grinch. Here is the story. These three are trying to have a Merry Christmas but "the grump" has arrived. I chuckle, the irony of my own grumpiness at this moment has not escaped me. I really do not want to be here. But the kids, the kids are completely engaged. Not just my kids, all the kids. This little troop of 3 has mesmerized the under 11 set and at a pretty late point in the evening. The kids in the audience are being given bells and bubbles to try to get rid of the grump. They don't work. We all try flashlights and phone lights. They doesn't work. Finally, everyone sings together. First Rudolf then Santa Claus is coming to town. This, this finally gets rid of the grump. Then the Who music from the end of the Grinch who stole Christmas comes on. You know, the song they sing when they all hold hands and gather around the spot where the tree should be but it is not there because the Grinch took it. The Grinch tried to steal their joy but he could not. The giant switch goes on in my head. I think back to my thought earlier about being a sitting duck and it is replaced with the image of the Grinch looking puzzled. Why? Why do people still come together when everything is taken away? Perhaps it is not enough to survive, we want to live and to live we must stay connected to each other. To have joy, we must experience joy. The Asian man in front of me turned and shook my hand and wished me happy Holidays. The Indian woman beside me warmly gathered my hand in hers and gave me well wishes. The pregnant lady with her busy toddler gave me a weary but happy smile. The small troupe of Who's had asked us to wish cheer to each other to keep the grump away and it worked.
We headed back down toward the cotton candy table. The line was much shorter now. It wouldn't have mattered if it had gone to Richardson, I was feeling more connected now...less connected to my toes but more connected to my fellow man. There was Alexa's Dad who was pleased to see a little girl who so obviously admired his daughter. "Make this young lady a cotton candy the size of her head!" He said. Lauren, for the first time ever, was sugared out. That in and of itself is worthy of a blog entry. Not to mention her willingness to stand in long lines so Helen didn't miss out on any necessary fun. "Mom," said Helen, "I don't ever want this night to end." "Me either," said Lauren. "Me either," I said.
Luckily some nights do stick around the heart forever, cemented in place with cotton candy, Who Magic, and children singing in santa hats and reindeer antlers.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Charity
Charity has been on my mind a lot lately. It is getting to be towards the holidays and the school has been doing canned food drives, shoe drives, change drives, all sorts of things to help. The conversation in the media has been focused on whether or not we should help others when we have people here who need our charity first. Someone brought up a very interesting point, not until we were faced with being charitable towards outsiders, did our own homeless suddenly become a priority. This really struck me. I have been MEANING to work a soup kitchen for years. I have been MEANING to volunteer time but I don't. I am the queen of good intentions that tend to never ever ever amount to anything.
This is where Facebook comes into the picture doing that weird thing it does, allowing you into the thoughts and lives of people you barely know, or slightly know, or would like to know better but they are at football games on the weekends and you are camping with the Girl Scouts. It is such a strange way to form friendships, but not really. I like to think of it as modern day telegraph pen pals. The messages (unless it is me), are usually short, direct and easy to digest.
One of the best aspects of this kind of communication is that it serves as a grass roots community motivator. I certainly never would have poured a cold bucket of ice water on my head had my aunt not challenged me to on FB. Nor would I have known enough about ALS to go online and give a small donation. I gave a small contribution to a friend who ran a race to bring awareness and drop the stigma with depression. I have signed petitions. In fact today I received a letter from Senator Cornyn in response to my latest letter to him. Facebook is directly responsible for getting me off my butt to vote in two elections (well that and my Dad, could not have faced Dad had I not voted). Facebook helped me get to the McKinney Art walk this past weekend. I always loose fliers but two friends who were participating had the information posted on FB so I could easily google the address in the car on my phone and get there. You get the point, I am sure even with the pitfalls of Social Media, it has had a positive effect motivating you as well to take some action.
But back to my lack of charity. Over the last few weeks I noticed several of my neighbors posting about ACO. I did not know what it was so I looked it up. It is the Allen Community Outreach. It is a great website and it lays out a ton of ways to help without being overwhelming. My first thought was, "Wow, this is a great resource for the GS Troop. I need to find out what we can do to start partnering with them." Then one of my neighbors posted that it looked like the ACO would not make their goal to provide the Thanksgiving dinners they wanted. She gave specifics of what items were missing. I needed to go to the grocery anyway today, how hard is it to pick up pie filling and fruit cocktail along with milk and chicken? I got home and walked my bags to her house. Yeah, I know, slacker's paradise, I don't even have to go drop it off, there is someone right across the street who is taking everything this afternoon. Anyway, I was thinking how embarrassed I was not to have more. I always do that. I want to be grandiose and as a result end up doing nothing. I got to her porch and there were lots of bags, obviously from different people. None grandiose, just a little here and a little there but it was stacking up to quite a lot. It reminded me of a grocery ad campaign in London. "Every little helps." It is so true. If everyone helps a little, it ends up being a lot.
This November 20th, 6 days before Thanksgiving, I am so grateful for my family, the food in my fridge, the roof over my head, good friends. I am also thankful to have happened into a community with a good heart, full of people who take action and care. It is an amazing time we live in where one person can reach out through the internet telegraph and connect the dots of kindness together in a community. Thank you to every person who sends these beacons out. They are received.
This is where Facebook comes into the picture doing that weird thing it does, allowing you into the thoughts and lives of people you barely know, or slightly know, or would like to know better but they are at football games on the weekends and you are camping with the Girl Scouts. It is such a strange way to form friendships, but not really. I like to think of it as modern day telegraph pen pals. The messages (unless it is me), are usually short, direct and easy to digest.
One of the best aspects of this kind of communication is that it serves as a grass roots community motivator. I certainly never would have poured a cold bucket of ice water on my head had my aunt not challenged me to on FB. Nor would I have known enough about ALS to go online and give a small donation. I gave a small contribution to a friend who ran a race to bring awareness and drop the stigma with depression. I have signed petitions. In fact today I received a letter from Senator Cornyn in response to my latest letter to him. Facebook is directly responsible for getting me off my butt to vote in two elections (well that and my Dad, could not have faced Dad had I not voted). Facebook helped me get to the McKinney Art walk this past weekend. I always loose fliers but two friends who were participating had the information posted on FB so I could easily google the address in the car on my phone and get there. You get the point, I am sure even with the pitfalls of Social Media, it has had a positive effect motivating you as well to take some action.
But back to my lack of charity. Over the last few weeks I noticed several of my neighbors posting about ACO. I did not know what it was so I looked it up. It is the Allen Community Outreach. It is a great website and it lays out a ton of ways to help without being overwhelming. My first thought was, "Wow, this is a great resource for the GS Troop. I need to find out what we can do to start partnering with them." Then one of my neighbors posted that it looked like the ACO would not make their goal to provide the Thanksgiving dinners they wanted. She gave specifics of what items were missing. I needed to go to the grocery anyway today, how hard is it to pick up pie filling and fruit cocktail along with milk and chicken? I got home and walked my bags to her house. Yeah, I know, slacker's paradise, I don't even have to go drop it off, there is someone right across the street who is taking everything this afternoon. Anyway, I was thinking how embarrassed I was not to have more. I always do that. I want to be grandiose and as a result end up doing nothing. I got to her porch and there were lots of bags, obviously from different people. None grandiose, just a little here and a little there but it was stacking up to quite a lot. It reminded me of a grocery ad campaign in London. "Every little helps." It is so true. If everyone helps a little, it ends up being a lot.
This November 20th, 6 days before Thanksgiving, I am so grateful for my family, the food in my fridge, the roof over my head, good friends. I am also thankful to have happened into a community with a good heart, full of people who take action and care. It is an amazing time we live in where one person can reach out through the internet telegraph and connect the dots of kindness together in a community. Thank you to every person who sends these beacons out. They are received.
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