Black Humor

Yesterday Doug and I took Katelyn to a local college production of Moliere's play, "Tartuffe." I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Most of the acting was impressive, and the play was pretty comical and entertaining, even though it was hard to catch some of the dialogue.

Looking around us in our theater seats, Doug commented that the college crowd keeps getting younger looking. I informed him that those students are closer to Katelyn's age than ours!

But my own college days don't seem so long ago. In fact, throughout this play, I couldn't help but remember a class I took as a college student: History of Civilization: World Lit. We read various pieces of literature, and then we had to do a one- or two-page write-up about what we read. There were no other guidelines, than just to write something about what we read.

I enjoyed that class, and most of the things we read. I did well in that class. I got As on almost every assessment... Until we read "Tartuffe." When my professor (who was white-haired and portly and loved to wear European hats and rode a bicycle to and from campus, and also made us memorize and recite part of the Canterbury Tales in the original Old English, therefore requiring us to purchase a professional cassette recording [narrated by himself!] for practice and learning purposes) handed back our papers at the end of one class period, I let out an audible gasp when I received mine. At the end of my paper, written in bold, red letters, was this critique:

IF THIS IS NOT A JOKE, IT IS SIMPLY A

D.

I could not believe it!

On my way out, I stopped the professor, held my paper out to him, and asked him if he had read it. (The grade had been assigned by his aide, a skinny blonde Russian graduate student, by the name of Caesar.) My teacher replied that he had not read my paper, but he had seen the red-inked remark and the grade. I asked my professor if he would read my paper and determine the validity of the grade. His reply was no, but that I had the option to redo the assignment.

Can you believe that?!

I'm still really disturbed by that incident. For years now (14 or so) I have wanted to write that professor a letter and tell him what a lousy policy that was, to give his T.A. so much authority over grading those papers that he wouldn't even check it, and to not give me the respect of even confirming or contradicting the T.A.'s rude criticism.

My final grade in that class was an A, but I still feel slighted. It's not about the grade, it's a matter of justice! Right?

I'm getting all worked up just typing about it.

But, despite the unpleasant memories it conjured, the play was really great. I would like to go to things like that more often.

P.S. One other funny thing about this play. Doug bought the tickets online, and he said that he was given a choice of buying special Alumni Tickets, at the price of $8 per person; or General Admission, at the regular price of....can you guess....$8 per person! :)

Oh What do you do in the Winter time?

Pictures we had taken last June, which I finally framed before Christmas, are now waiting patiently to be hung on the wall....Maybe in the Spring?

I've been getting the impression that many homemakers feel inspired in January to complicate their routine with extra work: clean and organize the closets, tackle new home improvement projects.

Me? No. I just get the urge to hibernate. I really would like to just sleep this winter off. Wake me when it's warm. Once I can open my windows and enjoy a breeze, then I will get the urge to scour and reorganize.

Exhibit A: We haven't even taken down our outdoor Christmas lights! (We don't illuminate them, we just leave them hanging, iced over.)

However, if I can keep going with the laundry and dishes, I'm feeling like that's good enough.

How do you feel these days?

Dear Santa...

Please don't bring me any smallish gifts anymore. They get lost, and I get sad.

Remember back a few years when the girls got a pink DS, and I got that brainy game to play on it? And then while they were playing and I was doing the Christmas morning clean-up, I realized that that little game (which had been removed from its case somehow) had disappeared. I was kind of sad, and very irritated. Even though it was only a matter of twenty bucks, I never replaced that game cartridge. And I still hold a little grudge about that.

This year for Christmas, you gave me an iPod. I still have the earbuds that came with it, in my dresser drawer, untouched, because I don't like to put those things in my tender little ears. But I sure did enjoy dancing around the kitchen (where I kept my iPod docked) with Olivia, while I was doing the dishes.

Well, Santa, you can guess what I'm writing about. My iPod is missing. Vanished. The last anyone remembers ("anyone"=my children), Lauren was playing with it in her room. She says I gave her permission to show it to her friend that day, but I don't recall anything about that. All I know is that a couple of days later when I was itching to dance in my kitchen, my iPod was gone, and it's no longer on Lauren's window sill where she claims to have left it. Nor is it in any other obvious place that I've searched during the past week.

So, Santa, I'm giving you notice right now that, in order to avoid this type of frustration in the future, I would like to receive big, heavy gifts that cannot be easily lost. Let this notice remain in effect until my children are old enough...whenever that is.

Dusty Memories

When my mom sent me this picture this morning, I looked at it and thought about all the stories it could tell.

My mother is a timeless beauty. And I love her smile. I have a striped shirt in my dresser which is the same cut as my mom's striped shirt in this photo.

I was her second baby, and had more baby hair than any of my siblings, even though in this picture I look pretty bald. My five babies got their heads full of hair from their father.

I was not necessarily my mom's chubbiest baby. But I was a chubbier baby than any of my babies ever were.

Look at how my hand is holding onto my mother's arm. Don't you love the way babies cling? I do.

This picture was taken on my paternal grandparents' front porch. I spent time at their house every summer, and that front porch was probably my favorite part of their home. Looking at this picture makes me think of swinging with my Grandma after dinner on hot summer evenings, sometimes licking a dripping popsicle. It makes me remember my grandma's laugh. I loved that porch swing. It is what inspired me to buy one for the balcony of our second-floor apartment when Doug and I were poor young married students. I loved porch swings that much.
Our apartment balcony was shaded by big leafy trees, just like the trees you can see in the background of this picture (and reflected in the window--did you notice that?), that shaded my grandparents' driveway.

See that red truck? In my memory, it is attached to my Grandpa. He walked around the yard wearing thin cotton plaid shirts with pearly buttons, a cowboy hat, boots, and big belt buckle. He ate meat and eggs and potatoes, and he was so skinny. My grandpa drove a red truck. But I don't ever remember riding in the truck with him. I don't remember him going many places. I just remember his truck parked there in the driveway. You can't see it, but in front of the truck is a small garage, which was always full of tools and who-knows-what. I think that's where Granda parked his wheelbarrow.

My grandparents died in the 90s, and their house has been bulldozed. A little community of townhomes now sits where their house used to be. It's close to the commercial area of town, but I remember walking up the block to see a pasture of lambs when I visited them as a child.

If I had a time machine, I'd like to spend another day at my grandparents' house. Or at least travel back (or forward) to summer!

Reboot

So far in 2010, this blog has been a bust!

I went back to see how my January mood was one year ago, and I reviewed my resolutions:

My New Year's Resolutions: 9 for '09

1. Never, ever move during the month of December again!
2. Cherish the sunshine.
3. Read more good books.
4. Learn new songs on the piano.
5. Bake more bread.
6. Learn how to use my new camera.
7. Get a screamin' deal on a new house.
8. Appreciate the good (and overlook the bad) parts of each day. (You may need to remind me of this one.)
9. Make new friends, and keep the old.

Here's my self-critique:

1. So far, so good.
2. Check.
3. Done. I particularly enjoyed the Hunger Games series and Half Broke Horses, as well as Uncle Tom's Cabin (an oldie but goodie).
4. This involved buying new music, which I did. Gotta love D.I., and lots of local music stores.
5. I did bake more bread, and I added a couple of new recipes to my "regulars."
6. Well, I still haven't read the instructions, or even watched the introductory DVD that came with the camera I got in '08. But Clark did give me a couple of good pointers.
7. Got a house. It wasn't as "new" as I expected, but we made it newer in several good ways. And the deal wasn't "screamin'", it was just "good", but I'm trying not to think about that.
8. Unfortunately, this is at the top of my list of resolutions for 2010. It will probably be at the top of my list for the rest of my life, as I fight that old demon, "PESSIMISM".
9. I tried. That's all I can say.

Here are my ten for '10:

1. Think positive thoughts.
2. Be sweet.
3. Teach my kids how to clean up after themselves.
4. Spend less time cleaning up after my children, and more time reading aloud.
5. Plan menus in advance.
6. Be encouraging.
7. Weed my garden.
8. Exercise regularly.
9. Resist the temptation of the clearance racks.
10. Go back to keeping a personal journal.

It's All Downhill

Tonight I was putting little ones to bed, and it hit me: It was just one week ago that we were sledding down the snowy hillside on a sunny day.

Only one week!

And already I'm back to drowning in housework (and the kids, drowning in homework; and Doug, working far away) and the skies are back to being mostly gray.

But...

Tomorrow is Friday. We're past Wednesday, and it's all downhill from there.

A Near Miss and a New List

Just a couple of days ago, I was telling people with excitement how lucky we had been to not get sick at all during the holiday season. No one in our house had so much as a sniffle between Halloween and the New Year! That's my kind of grown-up Christmas list. "Please don't let anyone get sick!" Check.

Nearly.

I woke up on the first morning of the new year with a little sniffle. But nothing big. Then yesterday, towards the end of our new 1:00-4:00 church block (which I strongly do not favor! Only about 50 more weeks of that!), it was brought to my attention that Lauren wasn't feeling well. She slept the rest of the afternoon and evening away, and by the middle of the night, she was puking.

On the bright side: I don't have to send her back to school today. I was dreading that, anyhow.

On the dull side: I will be adding a couple more items (like wipe down all door handles and scour every bathroom) to my "To Do List" for today. And I was dreading that list, anyhow.

Post Holiday Blues

I just realized I need to start using my new calendar.

I'm in denial.

I don't want to go back to the routine life tomorrow.

The countdown to summer begins NOW.