Granny's Musical Chairs

As the holidays approach and we have planned to have our wonderful guests spend nights in our home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I keep remembering a story we tell in our family... People were coming to stay with Granny and Poppa and my mother and somehow, the way Granny had it arranged in the end, no one got to sleep in his own bed. She came up with some sort of illogical solution and my family has laughed about it for years now.

That story is sort of a life-lesson story for me to just relax about the details and give up some of the control. Maybe step back a bit and see what I'm really doing - how I'm actually arranging things and ask myself, Does this make sense?

I keep thinking about where all these people are going to sleep. What if my nephew Erick and his girlfriend stay the night on Thanksgiving? Where will they sleep? But, you know what Paige? It'll work out and you shouldn't worry about it. And don't make Leigh and Alex sleep in your bedroom so that Erick and Amber can sleep in Wilbur's room, while Wilbur sleeps with you in Emery's room and Doug and Emery sleep in the TV room. Because that's the kind of scenario you've been devising and guess what? No one would be in his own bed!

quick note

Emery just told me he was really reluctant to go downstairs and feed his guinea pigs in the morning b/c the heat isn't on first thing and it's quite chilly. It sounded so funny for him to say, "I'm really reluctant..."

Wilbur loses tooth, and really loses tooth

I drove Emery to tennis on Saturday and as we parked the car Wilbur says, "I lost my tooth." Just very calmly, I lost my tooth. So I said, "Oh! when did you lose it?" and Wilbur replies, "10 minutes ago."

Well, knowing that my 5-year-old has no concept of time or the difference between 10 minutes and 8 hours I start to get a little concerned. It turns out that we don't know where or when he lost his tooth and he hasn't said one word about the tooth fairy.

I've started to wonder if he was so concerned with the tooth fairy coming that he just got rid of that tooth! He wouldn't be that cheeky, would he?

Christmas Hair Bows

http://www.abunchofbows.com/smalchrishai.html

Ok, this is so funny. When I see the two words Hair Bow together, I think of UT Bow Heads. I don't know if everyone had bow heads in the 1980s, but in Austin we had this sect or class of girls. The bow head:
1. in a sorority. And not some lame one like KD. Tri-Delt, Theta, Chi Omega
2. wore those nylon soccer/jogging shorts. When I think of the things we wore that gave us no shape at all and yet that's what was in. And they wore them really low on their hips.
3. always had on big oversized t-shirts with the short-sleeved arms rolled up so they looked sleeveless. You had to have really skinny arms to roll your sleeves up like that and not have your shoulders and upper arms look manly. I know because I didn't.
4. Hair always pulled into a tight ponytail almost on the top of your head - tied with, you guessed, a big bow.

Now the bows got BIG. And these girls may not all have been stupid, but they sure looked like they were and they certainly sounded like they were. Every sentence began with "Ummmm..." Except it was more like Ehmmmm....

I shudder to think of it.

Prop 8

I've been so elated about the election that it has been difficult to think about what happened in California. I haven't wanted to lose steam... But, it's impossible to ignore the fact that we still face these disagreements with each other over basic civil rights.

As I sat at my Living the Questions seminar on Wednesday, I thought about how often I, as a left-leaning open-minded Christian, have sublimated my true beliefs in the face of more conservative views. I thought about how the entire time I was growing up there was this intuition in me that said, 'that doesn't sound like a loving God' when confronted with narrow interpretations of the divine. I feel evangelistic now - about my expansive view of God and my radical views of Jesus. I don't want to keep silent.

I got into an argument with Norm our contractor over this issue of marriage for all. He made what I'm sure he felt were innocuous statements about the timing of pushing this gay marriage stuff and said things that sound evil to me like: what about civil unions?

I lit into him. I gave my now well worn argument comparing civil unions to Brown vs. the Board of Ed and the ignominy of the concept of separate but equal... I hollered that, as a WASP man he had no idea what it meant to be asked to wait and be patient for rights that others enjoy. If it were 1922, I said, and I weren't allowed to vote, how long should I wait for you to wake up and acknowledge my right? When is it a good time for you? When might you get around to it, since you aren't the one suffering?

My pastor and her partner were married in California. I can't imagine waking up one morning to find that I am no longer married. Or that the marriage license I purchased from the state of Texas was invalid. Would they give me my money back? Or is it insult and injury for same sex couples who paid the state for the right to marry?

Doug has to go back to Iowa today with Dwight to do some things for my mother-in-law. In this picture he's wearing his favorite T-shirt which says, "No one listens to me until I fart." I loathe this t-shirt even though I bought it for him. I loathe it but it makes me laugh because it's so silly and stupid and true. It's such a DAD shirt. We talk about all the inappropriate places he could wear it.

So we are going to be missing daddy for the next few days. The boys are already pouty-lipped since he's the fun one and I'm the dictator.

Scary Fairy

Clothespin Doll Tooth Fairy Box
Originally uploaded by sweetimaginations

Wilbur is just about to lose both his bottom front teeth - they are practically horizontal. This has prompted a lot of discussion about the tooth fairy. We all tell him about the Tooth Fairy like we discussed it before and he knows all about it, but it has become clear to me as the teeth get looser, that he is a bit concerned about some creature flying into his room as he sleeps...

Upon reflection, why wouldn't he be? I started wondering if I should really talk about this made up fairy. I was watching Wilbur's face this morning as Emery told him the things that would happen, what Wilbur would do with the tooth or teeth, where he'd put them, and what would happen next. Wilbur had a look of real terror on his face.

When I picked him up from school today, the first thing he said was, "Mom, what IS the tooth fairy?" Like - what is it - a person coming into my room, what?

Maybe this isn't such a good idea - telling him these fibs and scaring him about freaky fairies who like teeth. As we explained it the other day he said, "Why does she want the teeth?" And we all just stared at him, Emery, Doug and me... What do you say in the face of such logic? Why would she want the teeth? What shall she do with them?

I have no answers, only questions...

'Cause Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

It's odd to outgrow a friendship.

I have never been any good at letting things slide with people. I have made my husband and other friends very uncomfortable by confronting a casual statement. And I have never been one of those southern women who is too nice to tell you how she feels. Often to a fault I tell and I should really just shut up. It would be a lot easier to let it go.

I guess I'm afraid that if I did that - let some stupidity or hate or false statement slide, where would I stop? Some examples --

someone recently said to me that all of this trouble with greed is bound to happen when people don't feel accountable to their creator... Couldn't let that go. So, if you're agnostic or atheist you can't be a good citizen? Is that the implication?

someone recently said to me that they wouldn't mind civil unions (not marriage though) but why now? Did they gay community really need to push this now? -- I certainly couldn't let this go. How long should someone wait for a basic human right? What if it were 1922 and I weren't allowed to vote? Should I forgo that fight because there's too much going on? Ridiculous.

And then there's that prayer. That prayer I received... AAAAHHH. That Prayer. It can't even be called a prayer it's so hateful. Calling reproductive choice sinful. Calling welfare recipients lazy. And the sender has no idea why this made me so angry. Of course not. The author of this foul prayer, Joe Wright, can't imagine it either. People who are so imbued with that hateful rhetoric seem to be incapable of understanding its impact. Their self-righteousness prevents it.

I know how flawed I am. I come before the divine again and again seeking forgiveness, admitting my failures. But I can't abide that KNOWING that some people have about who is right and who is evil. The more I learn the more I know that the less I know. The more open to the questions I am. And if my faith were so tenuous that a single circumstance could undo it, I guess I might hold fast to fantasy too. But my faith is not that way - the physical properties of this world, the social and economic realities of biblical times, the flawed human authorship of the Bible, the non-existence of hell -- I didn't grow up being taught all these things, but acknowledging them now doesn't shake my faith. My perceptions might alter, but my understanding of the divine merely grows.

Joe the Preacher

Someone sent me an awful prayer - the subject of the email was, "A Prayer for Our Nation." If it had come by post I'd have burnt it. It was so hateful and awful that I have cut ties with the sender. The email attributed this prayer to Billy Graham, but that was wrong. It was by Joe Wright. The email said, "He is such a wise man, he really knows what's going on in the country right now!" But the prayer was delivered in 1996. I found it on snopes.

I am so tired of pablum Christianity with its black and white everything and swallow-it-whole mentality. So sick of just receiving junk like that via email - toxic, harmful and wasteful trash - and doing nothing about it. I'm so tired of hateful language casting me as a sinner for what I believe. I'm not going to take it anymore. Those right-wingers are on notice. No more facebook friendliness.

I won't write it. But I'll pray its opposite.
The religiosity that some cling to inspires this prayer.

We confess that we have ridiculed those who question and sat in judgment of them.

We have worshipped a hostile and unwelcoming god of our own design instead of learning about your nature and the lenses - Jesus, Mohammed and others - through whom we might know you.

We have endorsed exclusivity and called it Christ-like.

We have held tight to our money and called it faith.

We have neglected the needy because they haven't earned our love and called it prudent.

We have made the first first instead of the last first and denied a helping hand to those who need it.

We have decided we know better and characterized private choices as sinful acts.

We have taught our children to hate what they don't understand and called it Homeland Security.

We have abused power and called it a necessary means to an end.

We have ridiculed our neighbor's ideas and called it righteousness.

We have polluted the air and thought nothing of our responsibility to your creation and called it economics.

We have invented the values of our forefathers and pretended that they endorsed the idea of a Christian nation and called it our mission.

Segregation and Patsy Lynn Blackburn

My mother wrote this article for the community blog where she lives. I was very moved by it and it's the kind of thing I want to hold on to in my journal here for posterity. I no longer take my family history for granted, having lost my dad and his memories. I have been trying to devise ways to hold on to our stories, we Thompsons and Blackburns and Moons... This is a start.

The election is over, and I have been reflecting on its meaning. All of the pundits have been referring to this election as "historic." This is certainly true in two main ways--an African-American presidential nominee and the Republican nomination of a woman for vice-president. I would like to look at this election in a more personal way.

I was born in 1938 and grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas, a completely segregated city. Everything was divided into black and white: the schools, the swimming pools, the parks, the bus and train stations, the cemeteries, the movie theaters, the hospitals, the churches, the doctor's offices, the funeral homes, the neighborhoods, and the restaurants, diners, and coffee shops.

When my mother and I went downtown to shop (there were no malls back then), there were two water fountains by the elevators. One was labeled "Colored" and one "White."
I always wondered what would happen if I drank out of the wrong one. Being a child, I imagined that an alarm would sound and I would be arrested or something. So, of course, I never tried it or even asked. In public places, there had to be four restrooms divided by race and gender. (You can figure it out.) In smaller businesses, there were usually no restrooms for blacks at all. There was a very popular barbecue restaurant in what was called "Colored Town" called The Big Apple. Many whites ate there, but blacks were not allowed inside. They could go to a window in the back of the restaurant and order food to go. It may have been the original "Take Out" in Ft. Worth. I was never in a classroom with an African-American student until I started teaching in San Antonio in 1962. (San Antonio was integrated early and never had the racial conflicts that other southern cities had.)

This was the norm, and I accepted it. When I was in the 8th grade my parents and I moved, and I rode a city bus across town to and from school each day. The white people sat in the seats from the back door to the front. The black people had to sit from the back door to the rear. Of course, there are fewer seats back there. There was no sign or marker indicating this fact. Everyone just knew. Sometimes the seats at the back of the bus would all be taken, and black people had to stand crammed in the aisle in their section. The front of the bus might have plenty of empty seats, but no black people sat there, ever.

In 1968, I was teaching American History to 10th graders, and we were studying the Civil Rights Movement. I was telling the class about all these things I have written about here. The students seemed very involved in my lecture. When I got to the part about the buses, one young man raised his hand and said, "Mrs. Thompson, what did you do about it?"
There was a long silence on my part. I finally said, "Nothing." I went on to explain how I was just 13 years old and didn't think I could do anything about it even though it seemed unfair. That seemed like a lame excuse at the time and still does today.

Patsy

This is my mother in 1962:

And just a little later - 1969

Celebration

We went back and forth between the television and the laptop - checking results, drinking wine, fretting... and finally starting to feel very hopeful, even optimistic.

We got the children downstairs to watch McCain concede and the Barack Obama acceptance. We explained how important this was, and in some fashion why it was important. Not that we can even grasp it totally right now.

We were moved by John McCain. We were grateful for his grace. We were moved by the emotion on Jesse Jackson's face as the culmination of a lifetime of work brought tears. I don't pretend to speak for him. I couldn't possibly understand that kind of struggle. It moved us though.

Now we pray.

I pray for a safe, sobered and serious society as we anticipate January 20th.

Cry Babies

Gonna be some unhappy people in the world over the next few days.



I know how they feel.



They should remember- those people who are certain that Obama is the wrong choice, not experienced enough, too liberal - they should remember that in THEIR judgement, George W. Bush was the right choice for America.



Sue me if I don't trust their instincts on Barack Obama.



Hello Heartbreak. I give a shout out to my contractor's carpenters who listen to hate-filled talk radio in my home and put stickers on their trucks that say NOBama. They are going to be some sad dudes. They are also Seahawks fans. They have so much to be sad about.



I've put up with their radio and their quiet anger and their stickers for months now because this realization has been building and building that something big was coming. No need to rub their noses in it. No need even to discuss it. It was coming and there was no stopping it.

Anxiety

Cat Fight!
Originally uploaded by privatenobby

When you asked my brother-in-law David how he was doing sometimes he'd say, "Aw, I'm as anxious as a three-legged cat in the middle of the interstate."

That's how I felt all weekend, and it's clearly not only my premonition about the UT/Tech game... It's this election.

In 1992 I was in grad school at Ohio U and we were so excited about Bill Clinton. That Wednesday morning after the election was glorious and full of promise. I could never have predicted the turn of events after that time, but on that morning everything was perfect.

I feel that same sense of excitement this time but everything feels less pure. Is it my age? Am I cynical? Or are we less innocent now? I think it's me. And I also think it's the circumstance.

When I worked at Amy's we had a grease trap. That thing had to be cleaned every month or 2, I can't remember how often. But when Roto-rooter came with their truck and hooked up that hose, the smell was, as Emery once said about a terrible smell, The Devil. It was the worst thing I've ever smelled or seen. Sometimes you'd see a bit of whatever was being pumped out.

That's what President Obama or John McCain is going to be doing for the first year. Cleaning the grease trap. When whoever gets in gets in and opens up that trap to see what's inside, I think it's going to be smelly and foul.

Great Pumpkin & WWI Flying Ace

"It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (1966)
Originally uploaded by Eddy Roy

I recorded It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and we watched it the other night. When it got to the part of the show where Snoopy is the ace pilot sitting atop his dog house, trying to shoot down the Red Baron, Wilbur laughed harder than either Doug or I have EVER heard him laugh. EVER. ever.

He laughed so hard he started choking. Then he laughed so hard that he started making this gutteral noise in the back of his throat. Then he laughed so hard he began to do this sort of high-pitched sighing. He laughed so hard that Emery, Doug and me almost wet our pants. It must've gone on for 10 minutes.

There is nothing like hearing a child lose control with laughter. When he watched it again, the same thing happened. And when Snoopy is downed in the French countryside and starts traveling on foot through France (no one would ever write that into a children's show anymore, sadly) he just guffawed. Oh, it was hilarious.

Hunny Bird

Wilbur has this little stuffed hummingbird that is teacher gave him last year. He calls it his hunny bird (sometimes it sounds like he's saying hunningbird or huntingbird). He took it with him this morning to school. He is so tender.

Fractals

Fractal Leaf
Originally uploaded by gripspix

I saw this fascinating program on Nova about Fractals and the research being done based on their properties. I want to learn more about this. I told Leigh yesterday that when you are lousy at math, as I always was, you never get to the gorgeous stuff of math; you wallow in ugly, boring math. And that's where I lived. So, seeing something like this and understanding it, conceptually at least, is exciting.

a Bee in my Bonnet

Yesterday I actually got a bee in my bonnet; it flew into my hair. I didn't realize it was a bee until I reached into my hair to pull out the leaf or the bug or whatever had just hit me on the head with the force of a rain drop fallin' on my head. As I tried to find this thing in my hair I felt a stinging sensation on my right ring finger and a moment after that the same sensation on my head.

Panic!

I saw two guys on the walking trail with leaf blowers on their backs and I ran up to them and yelled, "I've got a bee in my hair and I can't find it!" The leaf-blower-guy pulled his glove off and started digging through my hair. He located the bee and threw it with force toward the ground and stomped on it.

I felt bad about that since the bees have had so much trouble lately, but I was so grateful to the man that I put my hand on his shoulder and said thank you about a million times. He smiled and nodded to me. I realized that neither he nor his partner seemed to speak any English and I wondered what they had seen coming toward them, what had they understood about what was happening as I hollered and waved my hands and gestured toward my hair?

I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

No Offense But...

Emery often begins a sentence with this phrase, "No offense Mom, but..." Each time I tell him that whenever he begins a sentence this way, he causes me offense.

A parent gave me some very, very good advice, which I find almost impossible to heed: Don't Take It Personally.

She said 'don't take it all so personally, all this stuff they do and the things they say and their boorish behavior.' She told me that by kid 3 of 4 she started to realize this in her own life - that when they complained or tried to act cool or said insulting things or said, "no offense but..." she just wouldn't take it personally.

When I am able to apply this principle, I am amazed at the result. But, even though I am a mother, I am clearly just a regular person as well. And when I work hard all day and then come home and really try to make a delicious and nutritious dinner using organic ingredients after purchasing these items with my re-usable bags and someone crinkles up his nose and makes a face like he is being asked to smell shit and says, "No offense Mom but this stuff STIIIIINNNNKKKKSSSS!" - call me psycho, but I take it as a personal affront.

I realize though that it's not personal. Sometimes they just say crap to say crap. Sometimes they just want to hear themselves talk. When did I decide that a 9-year-old was the arbiter of taste or a good judge of what's delicious? And it's no big deal. I know how nutritious and delicious it is, and I know he's going to eat it too. I enjoy that power. So, let it go Paige. Don't take it so personally. Remember who has got the upper hand here. And let him be.

I Heart New Yorker

This is scathingly brilliant.


My Gal
by George Saunders September 22, 2008

Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”

Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.
That is just how I am.

Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?
A dog collar.

Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?
Not a damn thing.

We are essentially wired identical.

So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

A lose-lose for the pig.

There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Who does that pig represent, and that collar, and that Hockey Mom, and that pit bull?
You figure it out. Then give me a call.

Seriously, give me a call.

Now, let us discuss the Élites. There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. That is also why they love me. She did not go to some Élite Ivy League college, which I also did not. Her and me, actually, did not go to the very same Ivy League school. Although she is younger than me, so therefore she didn’t go there slightly earlier than I didn’t go there. But, had I been younger, we possibly could have not graduated in the exact same class. That would have been fun. Sarah Palin is hot. Hot for a politician. Or someone you just see in a store. But, happily, I did not go to college at all, having not finished high school, due to I killed a man. But had I gone to college, trust me, it would not have been some Ivy League Élite-breeding factory but, rather, a community college in danger of losing its accreditation, built right on a fault zone, riddled with asbestos, and also, the crack-addicted professors are all dyslexic.

Sarah Palin was also the mayor of a very small town. To tell the truth, this is where my qualifications begin to outstrip even hers. I have never been the mayor of anything. I can’t even spell right. I had help with the above, but now— Murray, note to Murray: do not correct what follows. Lets shoe the people how I rilly spel Mooray and punshuate so thay can c how reglar I am, and ther 4 fit to leed the nashun, do to: not sum mistir fansy pans.

OK Mooray. Get corecting agin!

Thanks, Murray, you’re fabulous. Very good at what you do. Actually, Murray, come to think of it, you are so good, I suspect you are some kind of Élite. You are fired, Murray, as soon as this article is done. I’m going to hire someone Regular, who is not so excellent, and lives off the salt of the land and the fat of his brow and the sweat of his earth. Although I hope he’s not a screw-up.
I’m finding it hard to concentrate, as my eyes are killing me, due to I have not blinked since I started writing this. And, me being Regular, it takes a long time for me to write something this long.

Where was I? Ah, yes: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.

Now, let’s talk about slogans. Ours is: Country First. Think about it. When you think of what should come first, what does? Us ourselves? No. That would be selfish. Our personal families? Selfish. God? God is good, I love Him, but, as our slogan suggests, no, sorry, God, You are not First. No, you don’t, Lord! How about: the common good of all mankind! Is that First? Don’t make me laugh with your weak blinking! No! Mercy is not First and wisdom is not First and love is super but way near the back, and ditto with patience and discernment and compassion and all that happy crap, they are all back behind Country, in the back of my S.U.V., which— Here is an example! Say I am about to run over a nun or orphan, or an orphan who grew up to become a nun—which I admire that, that is cool, good bootstrapping there, Sister—but then God or whomever goes, “It is My will that you hit that orphaned nun, do not ask Me why, don’t you dare, and I say unto thee, if you do not hit that nun, via a skillful swerve, your Country is going to suffer, and don’t ask Me how, specifically, as I have not decided that yet!” Well, I am going to do my best to get that nun in one felt swope, because, at the Convention, at which my Vice-Presidential candidate kicked mucho butt, what did the signs there say? Did they say “Orphaned Nuns First” and then there is a picture of a sad little nun with a hobo pack?

How Deep is Your Love

bee-gees-beegees
Originally uploaded by DHTML ♦

I was listening to How Deep is Your Love today and I had a memory of my first dance. The boy was Van Wisdom, it was 6th grade (Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in San Antonio) and the song was How Deep Is Your Love...

I remember a bunch of girls running up to me and saying, "Van's looking for you! Van's looking for you! He's going to ask you to dance!"

Now, in those days Van Wisdom was hot stuff and a little out of my league. I didn't even know he knew who I was.

It turns out there was a reason he was drawn to me... It turns out, I found out years later, that he was gay. In fact, even more years later, he died of AIDS. His daddy is a baptist preacher and he, Charles Wisdom, wrote a book about his son. It's a book espoused by Exodus International, a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization that promotes "the message of Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."

But, I had totally forgotten about my first dance, and to this song. The song held a special place in my memory but I wasn't really sure why.