old enough for "big school"

a Toy Store story . . .

I am really intrigued by what Windows Moviemaker chose to leave out from the original videoclip. You'll need to use your imagination here to picture Percy's magical transition from Cassie's hand to Michael's and her predictable two-year-old response :-)

There's another story in the picture in the background. When my son was about 9 or 10, he decided he was ready to attempt counted cross-stitch. Having an older sister who excelled at the craft was both his inspiration and his project's eventual salvation. I purchased complimentary designs: Antique Store (in the background) for me and Toy Store for Jamie. Both were tucked away, unfinished, for years, until Kimberly decided to surprise Jamie one Christmas by completing his picture. (A snapshot of the project, as Jamie had left it, is taped to the back of the frame.) A few Christmases later, a completed Antique Store (probably the last time I attempted anything in the way of embroidery . . .) joined Toy Store in the nursery being prepared (yes, that wallpaper had to go!) for Michael's arrival.

Galveston . . .

A couple of years ago, maybe three (was Katrina the catalyst?), I began collecting everything I could find about the 1900 hurricane. There's no family tie other than my genealogist daughter's laments about immigration records lost . . . But it's amazing how a well-crafted piece of nonfiction can tie us to those who lived long before we drew breath. Isaac's Storm and The Sisters of Charity Orphanage story on the Galveston News website did just that for me . . .

As I watched the waves crash over the Galveston seawall this afternoon, courtesy of 21st century streaming video, the Cline families and the Sisters protecting their parentless charges lived once more in my mind's eye . . .

I so wanted to give the young man who was out to see the waves this afternoon, staying because Ike, after all, is only cat two, a copy of Erik Larson's book . . .

108 years, almost to the day . . . Time is indeed a circle . . .

simple gifts . . . a song

SIMPLE GIFTS

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

I've always associated the melody with Copland's Appalachian Spring and, in doing so, with concert band, my children, what seems a lifetime ago . . . Never truly heard the words of this traditional ballad until today . . . courtesy of Yo-Yo Ma. The lyrics are, of course, copyright free. The message they convey is . . . simply beyond price.

not that I have anything to write . . .

I finally broke down and added two of my secret obsessions--music and local histories--to my profile :-) tonight. Can't figure out what to do with this year's technology and literacy focus, though. Is this also a simple pleasure or does it really just belong on my other (techie) blog, which I've been seriously avoiding . . .? It's a little like my blog about why I am not a writer (NOT!). I wrote the perfect intro piece for that blog two summers ago, emailed it to the individual who was the catalyst for that state of (non)being/blog, shared it with a group of close friends (some of whom had had similar experiences)--and I was over not being a writer! But the empty blog is symbolic, somehow . . .

This week's simple pleasure? Last Saturday with the "babies," teaching them the swing song I grew up with . . . Watching them explore the new family car their parents surprised them with . . . Michael's first reaction--What on earth were they thinking about???--morphing into This is the best thing you ever bought for us!

I've never owned a black car, in or out, and doubt I ever will. But their new car brought back this one, one of my first ever memories . . .

On the back of the photo are these words, a message my mother wrote from me to my grandfather across the sea, the grandfather whose hat I threw out of an upstairs window somewhere across the gray Atlantic a few months before this photo was taken, the grandfather I would not again, in this world, see . . .

Fevrier 1950

Bon baisers a Grand daddy

Memories are everything . . . the best of life's simple pleasures . . .

childhood dreams are made of this . . .

happy ending . . .

I so love a story with a happy ending!

When I picked up my now-leather-seated new car from the dealership this afternoon, my salesperson made my day!

Do you want to know what happened to your car?

Bonny 3, of course. For two weeks now I've been moving on, trying hard not to think about what being relegated to a wholesale fate might say about her prospects for a life after me . . .

My salesperson has found a family member of his own willing to adopt her!

He's picking her up later today!

And I'm smiling . . . Bet Bonny is too . . .

I so love a story with a happy ending!

beach week memories--kites flying high

music . . .

OK, I'll admit . . . this label was already long overdue when I added it last December.

Maybe it's because music is the one simple pleasure in life that renders me powerless, eludes me, takes me to places and times I can't always come home from, at least not unchanged . . .

Soon after my last cell phone upgrade--maybe the day I downloaded Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Gabriel's Oboe and made it my ringtone--I added own an mp3 player to my too-long to-do list. I did the research, to the point of deciding that the one I wanted would be a someday purchase--as in when the Christmas debts were paid, after the price came down, etc., etc.

A year and a half later, I've just been (late-birthday) gifted with the very one I wanted--both upgraded and downpriced. I've spent most of today revisiting a modest collection of CD's I rarely make time to enjoy . . .

A gig of downloads and four playlists later, I'm so enjoying this now-simple pleasure.

And going in my mind to other times, other places, other . . . selves . . .

. . . where there is time, there is a circle . . .

Bonneville blues . . .

It's the end of an era - 21 years of entrusting my life, the lives of those I love, to me behind the wheel of a Bonneville.

I've owned three. Each with its own set of memories, with its own set of tin-woman personality quirks.

I saw the first Bonneville on the highway on our way home from taking our first child off to college--first year, out of state, far from home. I remember crying that Sunday in church as another talented teenager played the flute in her place . . . The image of the car left an indelible mark. A few weeks later, I went in search of one much like it and suspect I found exactly the one--a demo--I'd seen that earlier afternoon. It was blue--really just blue--and I loved it. But, like so many first-of-its generation cars, not so very reliable. The fuel pump failed within walking distance of work. Several years later, the (first) transmission failed when I was on my way to work on a statewide testing day (I was the school test coordinator). From that car I learned to diagnose terminal illness of the alternator, a skill that spared me two potential Bonneville strandings. Having also learned to diagnose cancer of the transmission, I reluctantly traded it in for Bonneville #2 (just in time, I was told).

Bonneville #2 - an interesting metallic purple gray with soft gray leather seating - was my love. I'm sure it had its share of mechanical problems. In fact I remember one I diagnosed long before the mechanics would believe I wasn't just some crazy woman who thought she understood cars. And, yes, this car too came at a turning point in my life--moving, sending my last child off to college (first year, out of state, far from home), moving again . . . If it hadn't been for that last child, I don't know that I could have let that car go . . .

On the morning of one of those January days with snow in the air, my last child had what we hope still would be his last wreck - a close call, interstate median, just missing trees that could have stopped time for us all. I had promised him Bonneville #2 when the time came for me to move on to something newer, more reliable. Now, when I wasn't at all ready, was the time. On an icy Saturday, eight years ago, I met Bonneville #3 - midnight blue metallic, taupe leather seats, I was determined not to become attached.

This wasn't just about keeping a promise. It was also about taking a leap of faith. More car than I had funds to purchase, even with a five year loan, at the time . . . Just a few months later, I was offered the career opportunity that has shaped these last eight years--and the extra pay I so needed to support my Bonneville passion.

This Saturday--8.5 years and almost 140K miles later--I found the strength to let go. I could sense that this was the time--not that I wanted to let go (I would have kept Bonny 3 forever too), but that I must let go. Bonny 3 must have sensed my decision. When I turned the key in the ignition yesterday morning, silence . . . The original battery (I could write a book on what I've learned since about batteries located under the back seat, passenger side, AAA can't replace, special mounting kit required) died without warning (as if I hadn't been watching the battery indicator for years now, thinking surely I would know).

For the first time in 21 years, I am not a Bonneville owner. I've joined the ranks of SUV owners, downsized, de-glamorized . . .

I will not become attached to this car . . . It's not a Bonneville, after all . . . But I opted for the blue without and the gray leather within all the same . . .

SUV woman :- /

full circle

I've come full circle, in the last few weeks--immersing myself once again in my post-graduate quest for understanding all things technology (technology and literacy, that is) and in my undergraduate thirst for knowing all there was to know about the story of our world (and, more specifically, about the European history that is my heritage).

The technology stories I'll tell, all this next year, on (one of) my other blogs, thevirtualsandbox. But the world history stories will make their home here, I think.

I spent much of last weekend reading the first half of Volume 3 of Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World--fodder for fashioning texts sets to support the humanities curriculum writing going on at my school. It was fascinating reading--stories new and stories I'd once known, but long ago forgotten.

Coming full circle . . .

One story I did not know. All my life I've heard the phrase "Black Hole of Calcutta." I had no idea what it meant, or even that it meant anything worth knowing. A seed of a story in Bauer's book led me to an out-of-print reprint--Noel Barber's The Black Hole of Calcutta: A Reconstruction--a book newly published at about the time I should have read it first, but am sure I didn't. I made the time for that reading this weekend . . . oddly enough on the anniversary dates of that world-changing event, June 20-21, 1756.

I've gleaned two important truths from the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta. I now understand how and why the British came to rule India. Retribution. The second truth validates my valuing of life's simple pleasures. The author concludes his account with this observation: nature has a habit of outlasting history.

Coming full circle . . .

bABY, lOOK AT yOU nOW ! ! !

Shhhhh,
don't
tELL
. . .

I'm supposed to be too old for this child's play, me and my brittle bones and out-of-practice self. But, hey, that's why this baby has only one gear and pedalinreverse brakes! I can pool all my mental reserves into remembering how to do what, they say, you never do forget!

Yes, like Campbell, I could forget to watch where I'm going, fall down, break something, learn to write left-handed . . . again! He did , at 7. And I did at 12 (only it was roller skates for me). His cast comes off on Thursday . . . and we're going to, one day soon, ride, ride, ride!

Bet this would make an awesome beach bike . . . Maybe this summer???

Couldn't go for that test bikeride today. . . I was wearing dress shoes and dressy pants and who could bike in that attire? Except my 7-year-old former self, all those birthday years ago, who learned to ride her 26" Huffy in dress shoes and a dressy dress!


Happy Easter!

Happy birthday!

Happy spring!

Thank you Mama and Daddy and Michelle and Rick and Mason and Campbell for touching this child's heart--then and now.