Monday, May 29, 2006

OOOOOOOOOWWEEEEEEEEEEE!
Damn, it hs been a rough weekend! The husband is passed out on the sofa, the girlfriend (who has been here 2 nights now) is passed out in the kiddo's bed, and I unfortunately woke up way too early but sans hangover, which I really deserve. The beauty of homebrew is that there is seldom the unpleasant aftereffect associated with drinking cheap beer in a can.
I ache ALL over, but I have gotten two MAJOR tasks done at the house this weekend. On Saturday I replanted my favorite flower bed and unloaded a truck load of mulch on to it. Then on Sunday, the hubby, SJ, and I repainted our bedroom. This is major! The only painting that has happened at the farm in the five years that I have owned it is in the smallest bathroom, which got painted last summer and took me two weeks to put back together. YAY we are getting things done! So, with all the reaching with the paintbrush and scooping with the shovel, I am hurting al over.
Got to talk to Sarge Koch last night! He called for SJ and I talked his head off, and vice versa until he had one minute left on his card so they said their "I love you's" and got cut off. We talked about the crappy workmanship of Saddam's palaces, the unbearable heat (112 F today in Baghdad), the Qi/Chi that works its mojo on some of the guys and freaks them out some days, and my own chi, which he is sure could benefit from some time with Arthur the tai chi teacher/friend of Mark's. It was great to hear his voice and catch up. He'll be back in August for a vacation and there will be much rejoicing (insert Monty Python sound effect here).
So, today will be spent touching up the ceiling paint and cleaning the room up while putting it back together so that we can live in it again. But right now, I think I am gonna go back to bed and try to sleep some more. I am worn out from all this writing. ;-)
posted by Rosie @ 5/29/2006 07:29:00 AM 1 comments
 
Friday, May 19, 2006

My mom LOVES Tom Hanks
Roxarita just called and asked me to the matinee of DaVinci Code. I devoured this pulpy treat on the beach in Cancun before passing off one of my mom's three copies to Shay. I think we both tried to leave as much sand in it as possible. It was great beach reading.
My mom loves movies. She especially loves Tom Hanks movies, and owns them all. Even Bachelor Party and that stupid volcano thing he made. She has little understanding of demographics - she saw 200 Cigarettes and complained that the characters swore too much.

After having read DaVinci Code, I mentioned that I had a conversation with George (the friend, not the truck) about his Catholic school upbringing and being fascinated by his experience. For my birthday a few weeks later I got three books from her about the Popes.

So, I am headed to the movies, which I don't particularly enjoy. I can only do one thing while I am trapped in the theatre, which bugs me. It is too cold, I always have to pee before the damn thing is over. They tempt me with strawberry twizzlers and junior mints. You have to hold still and not knit, or pay bills, or obsess over the bag of chips that you know are in the pantry.

And I am having a hard time picturing Forrest Gump in this role. Stupid is as secret catholic society does. I'll let you know what I think when this is over. Mom talks through every movie too, but it will mean alot to her for me to accompany her, and it won't kill me to see something that isn't animated. I can't even remember the last adult movie I saw in a theatre. Wait, I tried real hard and remembered that I saw that Firefly TV show movie with my hubby in Shawnee one night. It was entertaining, but not as entertaining as the geeked-out conversations that I heard before the lights dimmed. I was the only person in there without multiple electronica strapped to my belt. Just another reason to NOT wear belts.
posted by Rosie @ 5/19/2006 09:58:00 AM 3 comments
 
Thursday, May 18, 2006

Oh the fabulous lazies
Summer has started. At least the season for sitting around on each other's porches/decks/patios/lawns has started in earnest and I am drinking lots of beer and chatting the night away - two of my favorite things.
Last night was spent lolling about on SJ's deck, discussing matters most important (really), analyzing our relationships, and problem-solving. All of which were improved by ice cold Lite Beer from Miller. Tomorrow night will be gathering on Gypsy's freshly decapitated weeds, Saturday is an appearance at the ex-husband's PhD hooding party (first time to see the ex-mother-in-law since the DIVORCE...hmmmmm), and Sunday is a rousing book club followed by Shay's graduation with his Master of Urban Planning regalia. So many parties, so little time.

So little time. Summer starts Monday and I will be starting a new job - taking care of my my nearly-5-year-old neice while I juggle DRE and YaYA tasks, which will wax and wane over the summer. One a half weeks later, Wonder Boy will be home for almost 3 months, and I will fill my schedule with swimming lessons, baseball games and practices, and what I think is going to be an incredibly organized rotation of tasks such as horse grooming and riding, gardening, and field trips. Riiiiight. I haven't had to set an alarm all week, and I am not looking forward to having to do so next week. Just three more days of blissful, lackadaisical, pondering.
posted by Rosie @ 5/18/2006 10:33:00 AM 2 comments
 
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The Boonies
I had a pretty overwhelming weekend, followed by much drinking and making myself sicker. Alas....I'll never learn.
I spent the weekend at Camp Hantesa (pronounced Han ta shaw) south of Boone, Iowa. Yeah, I know. I go to Iowa alot. When I worked in KC we called it I Owe the World an Apology, but I am growing to love Iowa. It beats driving to Minnesota all the time.
I started by driving up to Ames on Thursday afternoon with a senior boy (freshly showered - YES!) and getting seasick from being shoved mercilessly around on I-35. Felt sicker snd sicker as I drove and he slept. Dropped him off, bowed out of the slumber party at another youth's home, and got a room at the Holiday Inn. Drove over to the Arby's next door to get something to put in my stomach to top off the 8 serving bag of Chex Mix I gluttonously snarfed in the car.
I thought the guy who took my order sounded a bit different, and a little too perky. I pull around to the window and saw my knight in shining polyester who galliently was pouring my diet pepsi. He had a ceasar haircut, accentuated by his handsome visor, a silver hoop in his left earlobe, and a sweet smile, albeit crooked. He reached out the window to take my $7.89 for dindin, and I placed a ten in his slightly crumpled hand. Change came back, he turned and walked to retrieve my sandwich. His hips swiveled unnaturally in their sockets, as he gallumphed across the restaurant. My lip quivered. He wanted so badly to be cool. I felt my throat constricting. He proudly wore his uniform as he told me to have a great evening in his permanently slurred speech, and to come back soon. I wiped a tear away from my eye. Dammit, he WAS cool. Life is very unfair, and seeing this young man, doing what all young people do - trying to fit in - got me. I sniffled my car back over to the Holiday Inn and tearfully wandered to my room. Coolness is like success, and should be measured in our own terms. I spent the next three days with nearly 100 youth who were all trying to figure out what uniforms they are going to wear throughout their lives. Whatever they choose, I hope they can wear them as well as that young man at Arby's and smile as sweetly while doing so.
posted by Rosie @ 5/17/2006 01:37:00 PM 2 comments
 
Thursday, May 04, 2006

The Iowa Sisterhood moves southwest
I just returned from a five day meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, home of the University of Iowa (proudly a Big 10 School) and also the former capital of Iowa. It's not unlike Lawrence in atmospheric feel. It had a Quinton's, It's Brothers, LYS (local yarn store) that looked a lot like the Yarnbarn but not quite as cool, but the owner DID call me "honey". Our conversation went like this:
Me: I'm visiting and forgot all my knitting in a rush to get out the door this morning, then the kids at the front desk of my hotel sent me thru the hood to get over here.
LYS Owner: Did you drive down Iowa Street?
Me: Yes. It looked pretty rough, but I can see that a regentrification program is at work to improve things.
LYS Owner: Oh HONEY! That's where the tornado came down.
Me: Bye! (Duh!)

So I heard a lot about the Iowa Sisterhood, a group of pioneering female Unitarian (pre-merger with the Universalists) ministers who paved the way across Iowa for liberal religious movements, social justice, and women. I've been thinking a lot about ministering. It's hard not to when you drink beer with ministers all weekend. The dictionary says that "to minister" is to attend to the wants and needs of others. Pretty vague there. Pretty common to what most women have to do every day of their adult lives. I like to think that I am a member of my own sisterhood. The I-70 Sisterhood, or Jayhawk Sisterhood we could call it. We ladies, be we Queens or Goddesses or unaffiliated chick gang members who flock together as a gaggle of blondes (that's for you, SJ), minister to each other and spread the gospel of Feminism. I wore my "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" shirt recently, and when my son asked what a feminist was, I told him it was a person who believed that men were just as good as women. If that's the case, then I am not a feminist. I do not really believe that men are as good as women at most things. It's not mens' faults that they cannot be as good as women at the things that we do all the damn time without thinking, but that they do not value the same things. They do not value the art of putting the clean dishes away where they belong. They do not value the simple pleasure of folding laundry. Maybe they do not value taking chaos and creating order, which is frustrating for me as I am a foot soldier in the war on entropy. Does it matter that my husband does not value sitting around with only members of his gender and doing practically nothing for hours? No, it does not, but he knows it has value for me. And that is what matters - respect for different values. I respect that my husband is obsessed with brewing beer, and is right this moment in the basement lovingly wrapping a blanket around one of his carboys, most likely cooing to it sweetly. He respects that sometimes I need to hang with my chicas and talk about absolutely nothing and everything all at once. R - E - S - P - E - C - T! Sock it to me.
posted by Rosie @ 5/04/2006 10:11:00 AM 2 comments

Rise and Shine and (clap) Give God the Glory!
We had a rousing singalong of our favorite bible songs last night at Rick's Place. I remembered one that I sang every summer at the Monitor Brethren Church, the little country church down the road that holds a special place in my heart. There are not too many places from my past that I want to return to, but next time I pass thru those parts of central Kansas, I'll be looking up the Monitor, only if it is to feel the coolness of propane tank under the sagging, tired cedar trees, and pass thru the ancient cemetery where time stands still and moss grows like a tourniquet choking the sounds of nature that mysteriously vanish while you are within it's wrought iron walls.
Yes, I remembered that God's salvation free from tribulation Under every nation be His Love proclaim! We are brothers let us shout to others of the wonderful power of Jesus' name.

I heard the following poem by Stephen Dunn this last weekend and it took me straight back to the Monitor, and the Friday night program that we always performed for our parents. I wonder what they thought as they sang along with us.

At The Smithville Methodist Church

It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
but when she came home with the "Jesus Saves" button,
we knew what art was up,
what ancient craft.

She liked her little friends.
She liked the songs they sang
when they weren't twisting and folding paper into dolls.
What could be so bad?

Jesus had been a good man,
and putting faith in good men was what we had to do to stay this side of cynicism,
that other sadness.

OK, we said, One week.
But when she came home singing "Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so,"
it was time to talk.

Could we say Jesus doesn't love you?
Could I tell her the Bible is a great book certain people use to make you feel bad?
We sent her back without a word.

It had been so long since we believed,
so long since we needed Jesus as our nemesis and friend,
that we thought he was sufficiently dead,
that our children would think of him like Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.

Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story nearly as good.

On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts all spread out like appetizers.
Then we took our seats in the church and the children sang a song about the Ark,
and Hallelujah and one in which they had to jump up and down for Jesus.

I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain about what's comic, what's serious.
Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child "Evolution loves you."

The story stinks of extinction and nothing exciting happens for centuries.
I didn't have a wonderful story for my child and she was beaming.

All the way home in the car she sang the songs,
occasionally standing up for Jesus.
There was nothing to do but drive,
ride it out,
sing along in silence.
posted by Rosie @ 5/04/2006 09:00:00 AM 2 comments