juliloquy

haunting joy

I sometimes entertain myself by imagining places I would haunt if I were a ghost. I wouldn't want to scare anyone: These would be places I would hang out if I wanted to fill myself up with the human interactions and feelings that I was missing as a ghost. When we lived in Philly, I decided that my haunt of choice would be the Clark Park Farmers' Market, an awesome inner-city, diverse, multi-generational experience of food, entertainment, and play. Also, whoopie pies.

 

August 2008; Shmoo was 3.75 and Roo was 11 months, at peak chubbosity.

Yesterday, at the end of a full DC day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Blossom Kite Festival, and paddle boats on the Tidal Basin, we stopped at the World War II Memorial. The memorial features a large, oval pool/fountain, currently empty. There are discrete signs saying "no wading" but no other guidance on how to interact with the monument. The place was lively with families. People were basking in the sunny weather as if they had just come out of hibernation. Kids were skateboarding, scootering, and running around and within the pool. Shmoo, who is not usually outgoing with new people, quickly joined a game of tag with three other boys his age. Roo jumped around with the exhuberance of a spring lamb. 

Shmoo, 8.5, and Roo, 5.5.

I am married to a park ranger,* so one would think I'd have a sense for what is allowed at the memorials to evoke the appropriate, reflective, somber mood. But I am also a huge proponent of unstructured play and running around in fresh air. So I let the kids play. Eventually, a ranger came around and asked people to leave the area that is normally under water. As we walked by the bas-relief sculpture panels (which show some of the diverse roles veterans played in the war effort) on our way to the Metro stop, it crossed my mind that the people whom the memorial is for (indeed, great-grandparents of my kids and probably many of the other kiddos present) would be in favor of the frolicking children. Their ghosts would approve of the joy in this human experience.

As I sat in Quaker Meeting this Easter morning, mulling over a message about Jesus' crucifixion, the third part of the tryptic came to me. The crucified Jesus, coming back as a ghost, would not want us to feel guilty, but rather to revel in this living joy.

This story was my extemporaneous message at Quaker Meeting this morning. Also, I do not blame the ranger at all for doing his job nor the park service for restricting the fountain area.

*HPR began his work shift at 3:30, so he was not with us at the WWII Memorial.

dog-eared

Quotes from dog-eared pages.

"The question is always—what are we going to do with this obstacle? And, like all other traumas, if we can use it for learning, then we can turn pain into wisdom. But it means doing the homework—reaching, changing, and going to new ground without maps. Sometimes I wonder if this is why so many marriages fail. Where in life do we have any preparation to be shown our worst selves by someone who loves us and understands it as a gift to become better at being who we are?"
—John Calvi, 1997

"We have to forgive each other,
not for what we have done,
but for what we are.
For being so infinitely less
than we ought to be.
We have to learn to give
where we had hoped to get
and to understand where
we had hoped to be understood."
—Harold Loukes, 1958

"These six sayings are basically all the important messages that one person can give to another.
I love you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I need help.
That's not good enough.
No."
—John Calvi, 1988 

During our bedtime snuggle last night, Roo and I discussed the book we had just finished. She commented on its happy ending. I don't know what came over me, but I blurted out: "Do you think real life has a happy ending?"

Without a moment's hesitation, she said "Yes of course! Because after you die, you become an angel."

I don't know where she came up with that idea; it wasn't from her parents. But it's a fine explanation when you're five years old and crave and expect happy endings.

innocence

We didn't tell the kids about the tragedy in Newtown, CT. We decided to see whether classmates would bring it up today, then ask them about it. (Background: Shmoo's class activity today involved bringing in a stuffed animal. Shmoo brought in Charlotte, the blue whale.) Here is our dinnertime conversation:

Me: Did you hear anything from classmates today that you'd like to talk about?

Shmoo: Yes! We weren't supposed to touch each other's stuffed animals, but [classmate] kept touching Charlotte! I told him not to, but he kept doing it. [And then Shmoo went into a lengthy description of the classroom's grievance procedures.]

We are so lucky.

Charlotte.

and a beer

This story keeps rattling around in my brain, and then I remembered I had a blog and could put it here.

One of the places I lived in Minneapolis was a cute one-bedroom apartment on First Ave. South and 40th Street (here). The building had twelve apartments, four on each floor, and I was just getting to know some new neighbors. One hot day, I arrived home at the same time as the two women across the hall, so, well-intentioned extrovert that I am, I invited them in for a beer. (Look at funky urban me—my twentysomething self was saying—befriending the lesbians!) (Yes, I was that asshole who found cred in token friendships.) The less-gregarious of the two hesitated, but the friendlier one said SURE!

When I looked in the fridge, much to my chagrin, I discovered that it contained only one (1) beer. I was mortified. What would Miss Manners do in this situation? Heaven forbid I make my guests feel uncomfortable about drinking my last beer . . . so I poured the beer into two (2) glasses and delivered it to my guests without comment. I must have served myself some water or lemonade. We had a moderately awkward conversation as they drank their [collective] beer. I didn't, of course, offer another.

We didn't have occasion to hang out much after that, and I moved out of the apartment within a year. If the same thing were to happen today, I would make some oops sort of comment, laugh at myself, and propose the split-beer solution, but then I was still new to adulthood, fumbling my way through social situations. I wonder if they still talk about the time their odd neighbor invited them in for one shared beer.

Avocado-Papaya Gazpacho

A favorite summer recipe.

Avocado-Papaya Gazpacho
(good to double)

1 cup canned tomato juice (spicy V8 is nice)
1 cup canned unsweetened pineapple juice
1 ripe papaya, peeled, seeded, and diced (about 2 cups)
1 ripe-but-firm avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced
1 large vine-ripened tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped (but I'm too lazy to peel and seed)
1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut in small dice
½ red onion, cut in small dice
juice of 2 limes
6-10 dashes Tabasco or equivalent
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a large bowl, gently mix all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Serve cold.

bangs—now with pictures!

My experimentation with bangs has endured for about two years now, and I've decided that enough is enough. The idea for how I was hoping to look was something like this:

It hasn't been a complete failure. There were some not-bad moments like spring break at Shenandoah:

But the only thing I do to my hair is wash and brush it; no blow-drying or "product." So the end result was usually more like a less put-together version of  this:

So out they grow. Sorry in advance, though, to unleash more of this on you all:

Wish me luck!

Here are my other two hair retrospectives.

 

shark pants through the ages

Shmoo has always been a solid kiddo. When he was a toddler, I would buy clothes a size or two too large. He would grow out, then up, cyclically.

When he was two, I bought him shark swim trunks. Here he is at age 2.5, summer 2007 (Outer Banks, NC).

June 2008 on the Chesapeake, age 3.5 (think he will float?):

Two photos from July, 2009, in Ely, MN (age 4.5):

At a kindergarten friend's birthday party, December, 2010, age 6:

Spring break, April 2011, Rochester, MN, age 6:

And a few days ago, again on the Chesapeake (age 7.5):

Will we get yet another year out of the shark pants? Shmoo says there's still room. They are size 3T, by the way. And Shmoo is a solid 60-pounder.

What makes a good cover song

I've been on a cover song kick again lately and polled friends about their favorites. (I put some of my favorites on this playlist from Spotify.)

The best cover songs give a nod to the original but take it in a different direction. My favorites are songs where the original is beautifully written but sung by someone whose voice . . . leaves something to be desired (Bob Dylan, Neil Young [sorry fans]), subsequently sung by someone who is just as masterful a musician with an expressive, full-range voice (Shawn Colvin, Cassandra Wilson).

Lots of cover songs are fun as novelties. Tori Amos covering "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Richard Thompson's "Oops, I Did It Again." The danger, however, is that these covers can cross over into, well, not being nice. And with any novelty, they don't always wear so well.

Songs the listener feels nostalgic about can go either way: novelty or classic. Totally subjective. Despite its gimmicky nature, I love Shonen Knife's version of "Top of the World" both because I grew up listening to the Carpenters and I love the joy in Shonen Knife's delivery.

My friend Beek asked "does it count if they are songs that were recorded by another artist first but not commercially successful?" My answer: It counts if I like it. My compilation includes the Mary Lou Lord cover of Freedy Johnston's "The Lucky One" and Feist's cover of Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart," neither of which, to my knowledge, was commercially successful. But both originals are favorites of mine.

Bonuses on my compilation are songs that have been frequent entries on mix tapes. You know who you are, songs.

so you see what we're dealing with here

A multiple-choice quiz to give you a small glimpse of life with da Roo.

1. You ask her to go to her room to put on her pajamas. She returns ten minutes later wearing

    a. her pajamas

    b. nothing

    c. the same thing she was wearing previously, plus a birthday hat

    d. princess dress-up clothes

 

2. With whom do the "gooey pahnov goo" hawks roam?

    a. the littlest pets

    b. the watch-out plants

    c. Lovey, the swimming/flying dinosaur

    d. all of the above

 

3. Who/what is seven?

    a. her brother's age

    b. the name of one of her favorite songs

    c. the name of Lovey's pet cat

    d. all of the above

 

4. At school, she has shown true leadership by

    a. getting many of the other kids to "play bird" and "take dirt baths" during recess.

    b. mastering the art of dry transfer and rolling up and restoring the work rug.

    c. starting her own salon and giving actual haircuts to two classmates.

    d. reproducing aminal sounds.

 

5. Words we hope she never learns to pronounce correctly . . . at least for a few more years

    a. calapitter

    b. so'd (so that)

    c. burrtend

    d. all of the above

 

6. When at the kitchen table, Roo might

    a. use chopsticks to imitate a walrus, narwal, unicorn . . .

    b. make a diving board out of turkey bacon for the waffles to use to jump into their "muddle puddle" of syrup.

    c. be too busy talking/playing until an exasperated parent holds the piece of pizza directly in front of her face.

    d. all of the above

 

ANSWERS

1. c. . . . plus a birthday hat (although the others are likely as well)

2. b. the watch-out plants. I'm not exactly sure what these are, but according to da Roo, I don't want to know.

3. d. all of the above. Apparently, Seven [the cat] also has a younger sibling named Four.

4. a. . . . "take dirt baths" during recess. (sorry, classmates' parents!) You also get points for b—her rug-rolling skilz are top notch.

5. d. all of the above. We especially like "so'd" because she "caught" it from her brother, although he no longer says it.

6. d. all of the above. Her chopstick walrus is the absolute cutest.