In transition

I must confess, I forgot about your peas. Le Suer peas are OK, but they are also not the sneaky ones who slip into my shopping basket. It is the Green Giant and off brand peas that camouflage themselves as green beans.

Speaking of green beans, I do prefer canned over frozen but fresh is best.

Now, on a completely different note, it seems the store manager read my blog. (right) While he didn’t quit carrying canned peas, he did finally stock Better Than Bouillon. I resisted the urge to buy a bunch and only purchased two. I think I will purchase one per shopping trip for a while and hope it looks like other people are buying them.

I keep a well stocked pantry and would normally wait for it to be on sale, but I want him to keep carrying the product.

I took my sons to the grocery store, just the other day. Typically, I try to wait until my husband is home, but somehow Friday had arrived and I was not going to face the evening payday crowd. We went straight from the gym and I shamelessly bribed my two year old with a promise of a cookie. In the ‘aisle of junk’ I came across an innocent package of butter cookies, a kind I hadn’t had in years. We eventually made it home. I sorted, repackaged, and put away the groceries while Sir Thousand Hands had a snack. When I was through I asked him to point and ceremoniously placed two butter cookies on his small finger. They no longer fit on my own.

It only took that first small bite and I was back in the dirt lot of Tall Pines Baptist Church. Seven years old, grubby, and clutching a paper cup of kool-aid. The volunteers all herded the children out to the fenced play yard with the lure of “snack time.” Even though I grew up Catholic, Vacation Bible School was the official start to summer. Even at nine in the morning, the heat would be shimmering over the pavement. Eagerly, I’d stand with my sisters and friends on the corner, waiting for Preacher Pye to come around in the deathtrap bus. It had once been painted a bright green and white, but even that was tired by now. It was an old school bus that had been rescued from the junkyard and had seen better days. It was designed to hold sixty, but I’ll never know just how many kids were packed on. Most vividly, I remember the struggle to claim the bench seat in the way back. I may not have been one of the cool kids, but I wasn’t enough of an outcast to ruin the seat by staking a claim. In my mind it’s all a jumble of sandals, knees, and elbows. Kids sitting on laps chattering and singing; we’d often circle the neighborhood several times.

We would unload from the bus and seperate into our classes, set by the grade we had just completed. I still remember the scratchy upholstery and the way the sunlight hit the stained glass of the sanctuary, blessedly air conditioned. I remember singing unfamiliar hymns and being jealous of the kids who were selected to hold the flags for the pledges of allegiance. Even though the service was completely foreign to my Catholic upbringing, the short sermons didn’t fail to stir my blood and made me want to be a good missionary serving in a foreign land. The years of cynicism were still dim and distant.

The daily classes often befuddled me, I had never heard of Jesus referred to as the Prince of peas and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why that was a special name for Him. I memorized the books of the Bible and verses, too. It was so different from my Catechism classes that never seemed to actually require a Bible to be opened. To be honest, memorizing the books and verses were only another task to excel at. Each year we made our pine cone bird feeders with peanutbutter and bird seed. I imagine we left quite a mess on that poor old bus.

I have now returned to my roots and live within twenty miles of that small church. When I visit my sister, I smile as I pass. I heard somewhere that Preacher Pye passed away a few years ago. To me, he will never be gone. I will forever remember him driving that old bus. I now understand why the pastor kept circling and picking up stragglers. The pandemonium of kids excited about Bible school was a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Do you ever have a time where you make connections you never thought of? I’m not sure what’s going on, but all of a sudden things have been clicking. Granted, it is nothing profound in the great scheme of things, but all of a sudden things seem a little clearer.

1. I was messing around on the computer, when I realized the music folder we keep our Beatles’ tunes in was misspelled, like the actual bug. The light went on: Beat-les.
Ugh. I was actually disgusted with myself for overlooking that one for so long.

2. My husband and I were talking during dinner. Yes, I know, that’s positively archaic. We were both raised Catholic/Lutheran and the subject of Lent* came up. I had another epiphany**. I made the assumption that the calendar as we know it today was decided after the papacy was moved to Rome. It makes far more sense to ask believers to fast when food is most scarce, late winter and early spring. I have the feeling, if the forty days of Lent fell during the autumn when food is most plentiful, it would have been much harder to sell the general populace the idea.

3. This one only pertains to me and my younger son. When you are nursing and take up an exercise regime, you must increase the amount of food in your diet. I never gave it any thought and the poor boy was constantly nursing, fussy, and just generally irritable. He’d gone from sleeping through the night, to up every 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. Yesterday, it dawned on me what might be happening. I increased my caloric intake and drank an obscene amount of water. He slept from 7:30pm until 2:00am! Today, I am positively floating on air. I feel like a brand new person.

Are there any recent revelations you’d like to share?

* I might have been raised Catholic, but I’m still pretty ignorant. I also recently learned that Lent used to mean Spring.

**Oh, how I loathe thee, James Joyce^.
^My English I professor was in love with the man. She insisted he was the
greatest writer, of all time. Between the two of them, they nearly
extinguished my great love of reading.

I love to read. It’s my escape from humdrum reality. Sometimes I encourage myself to read the classics and I’ve recently developed an appreciation for Jane Austen. However, I do not ever see my downright loathing of James Joyce changing.

I have a tendency to find an author and devour their books. Sometimes, if they are a true favorite I savour them and hide their books until I’m desperate for something I know I’ll love. Recently, I seemed to have developed the worst literary luck. I was at the used book store and since I enjoy horror and fantasy the owner suggsted Elizabeth Hand’s Glimmering. It was an apopolyptic novel of garbage. It’s truly rare that I don’t finish a book, it’s even more rare that I throw one away.

Discouraged by Glimmering, I turned to an author I have recently enjoyed Philippa Gregory. I picked up Wideacre. As an aside, if anyone knows whether it is pronoucned wide-acre or widicker, I would really appreciate this information. For some reason the depravity of the main character bothered me, terribly. I felt dirty reading it and was torn. Should I put the book away or finish it as quickly as possible? I finally decided I would skim the remainder of the book so there were no unanswered questions to fester in my brain.

Well, the two year old is awake, back to mommy duty.

Tell me, is there anyone out there who actually likes canned peas? Seriously, I am not talking about those who can tolerate the little mushy pellets. I am wondering if there is anyone who actually plans dinner thinking, “Oh boy! We’re having canned peas tonight!”

I think every can that has snuck itself in to my house (I think they disguise themselves as green beans)has ended up on the shelves of some food pantry. Yes, I feel guilty about passing along the nasty things, but it’s that or throw them out. In my defense, I mostly have canned vegetables on hand because I live in hurricane country. Typically we use fresh or frozen, but we need some in our storm stockpile, so we don’t come down with rickets and scurvy in the week we might be without power. (Yes, that was sarcasm, folks.)

Fresh, frozen, or dried peas are all staples, here. Bright green, slightly sweet, what isn’t there to love about frozen peas? A chilly winter’s day is made for dried peas, soaking up all kinds of hammy goodness to become split pea soup. I just can’t wrap my mind around the concept of the canned ones. Why would someone even do that to a defenseless pea? I honestly think my mother only used them to make her Tuna Noodle Casserole even less palatable. Perhaps the manufacturers ought to skip the stores and send them on to the starving kids in Ethiopia I was lectured about. Then, my local grocery store would finally have the real estate to carry the Better Than Boullion I’ve been begging for. (I really, really hate having to go to Goose Creek for one stinking item, Mr. Store Manager.)

Yesterday a friend and I took the boys to www.scaquarium.org. We had a great time and were headed home. I missed my usual exit thanks to some guy who insisted on playing the speed up slow down game when I attempted to merge. Yes, I fully realize I knew my exit was coming and I could have gotten into the proper lane four miles previous to this weirdo.

As I was taking the alternate route home, we noticed the new Dunkin’ Donuts was open. As the kids were all zonked in the back, we decided to give them a try. While waiting for the drive through guy we entertained ourselves by watching an employee in the parking lot. This lanky, scruffy kid was eating, smoking, and wiping his face with his apron. We thought he was off, but we were highly amused by him. We were going to try to tactfully mention his unhygenic behavior to the manager if we got the chance. That’s when the giggles started.

We pulled through to window and “gross boy” was there. I think both of our jaws dropped and we lost it. He certainly had not had time to wash his hands. He asked us what we had ordered, since apparently they flubbed it. I composed myself and restated our order. He turns to ring it up and my friend starts whispering, “Please don’t touch our donuts.” That’s when I lost all semblence of self-control. I haven’t laughed liked that in years. I was laughing so hard I had tears. “Gross boy” turns around and asks if we wanted whipped cream on our coffee and for some reason it just got worse. He shakes his head and turns to his co-workers, “I don’t know what they are laughing at.” He became flustered, I certainly couldn’t assure him that it “wasn’t him,” because it was.

I think it was a release. Aidan has finally begun to act like himself, no more mystery fevers and the bloodwork came back fine.

Aidan has all of a sudden seemed to have tuned us out. “Selective Hearing” would be a trait requiring more maturity, right? (For those that don’t know, he’s almost 2 1/2 and has been battling a bad ear infection. We tried no antibiotics, a course of amoxicillin, and a shot of rocephin (sp?). I don’t think he’s recovered.)

All morning I’ve been offering his favorite things, but without getting his attention first. Not once has he responded to “ice cream, candy, or popcorn.” Hell, he knows how to spell popcorn and will normally go into a frenzy at the mere mention. This morning, we haven’t even had a twitch.

If Tim asks him what Mama just said he answers, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.”

I’m just sick to my stomach right now. :-\

If we get his attention and have him look right at us, he will respond to a normal speaking tone, but if something is said near him he doesn’t react at all. This is unlike our little myna bird.

I hope I’m just being paranoid, but it seems I’ve had to raise my voice a lot more, lately. Now, it’s dawning on me that maybe he didn’t hear me the first time. :-
Thoughts?

You are still in your twenties and get invited to a Red Hat Society meeting.  o.O

Actually, I was in the locker room when the water aerobics class finished.  (I usually hide in the sauna, when they enter, en masse.)   This one lady called them to order and I went about my business of applying make-up without my two year old insisting on trying my mascara.  I tried to stay invisible and scoot out the door without disrupting their discussion, but the ringleader cornered me.  She asked if I had ever heard of the group.  I told her I had waited on them, in my restaurant days. 

She invited me to their “meeting” (I can’t remember the term).  It’s tomorrow night.  I was told to wear a pink hat.  I’m sure it would clash smashingly with my red hair.

I can’t believe I’m considering it.  Everyday life will probably interfere, but they seem like nice women, even when I have to jockey for sink space.

Yet another year has flown past. I still don’t have a flying car or Rosie the Robot to clean my house. Even though we are now in the latter half of the first decade 200_ still feels like an imaginary year to me. I wonder how octogenerians feel.
Can you even imagine the changes that have taken place in their lives? Sometimes I feel as though I’m already no longer playing a part and am just an ego-centric observer. Who knows.

I am excited about this year. There are many small changes that should bring a lot of good to our little family. Tim and I are helping my sister dig out from under the mess that is her house. It’s a hard situation to explain and I’ll do it in another post. My husband is switching to permanent days. He is switching positions laterally, but it sets him up for possible promotion in the future. The best part is, he will now be working days. No more night shifts and very few twelve hour days. He will not have the long 4 day weekends, but he will be home on Sundays and we can finally have a dependable schedule. I’m hoping to join a ‘small group’ through church. Some of the groups do a lot of volunteer (Habitat for Humanity, for example) and I want to feel as though I’m a productive member of our community.

In May I will be taking the boys to Illinois to visit my father. If Ivy is up for company, I would love to stop in Nashville.

My neighbors now think I’m a complete whack job. One of them caught me kneeling in a frosty flowerbed taking pictures of a garden ornament. I am hoping to get a tripod for Christmas, which may or may not help me look less insane.

On an aww cute baby note, Sir Thousand Hands is being adorable. He keeps asking me to fold his blanket so it looks like a swaddled baby. He carries it around, puts it in the baby’s swing, changes its diapers, and ‘feeds it.’ My little man is going to be such a good dad when he grows up. I am very thankful my husband finds it sweet and isn’t playing the typical homophobe card. He was even supportive of my buying him a real babydoll for Christmas.

I chose a good one.