Category Archives: humor

In Which we Are Acosted by Scimitar-Wielding Melon-Salesmen

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This is post #3 about my high school trip to Kairouan, Tunisia. See the previous two posts for the full story!

Our last day in Tunisia was our most exciting. But not necessarily for a good reason.

We headed out to the camel market on our final morning. No, we were not looking to buy a camel, but we were searching for an authentic experience in Tunisian life – for this market, or bazaar, was a place of vast proportions and numerous opportunities.

Picture dusty rugs on the desert ground – aisle after aisle of them – with vegetables, fruits, trinkets, pots, pans, pottery, spices, leather goods, and drinks for sale. There were animals, too: goats and sheep and, I suppose, camels, though I think they were in a different part of the bazaar. I bought a baggie of saffron for my mom. I knew it was supposed to be the most expensive spice in the world, but here it was dirt cheap! I wish I had such a good source of saffron now.

It was hot in the open-air market, and aromatic. Cinnamon and peppers and sweat filled the air. And it was full of noises. Bleats and baas, the sounds of goat milk streaming into metal cans. The call of merchants selling their wares, the din of old and wrinkled women gossiping, of young men jesting, of children laughing and crying and playing in the aisles.

We walked down row after row, being jostled and beckoned to, and then, almost as if we’d planned it, all of us stopped – after being persuaded to by the vendors – to admire something that looked like cantaloupe.

My best friend and I stood at one rug, talking with the vendors. I say “talking with” but really it was more “talking at” – they didn’t understand us and we didn’t understand them. I think the phrase “James Bond” might have arisen. Other than that our communication was by smiles and gestures and thumbs up.

The rest of our group stood not two feet away from us at the neighboring rug.

We watched as the vendors cut into a melon with a scimitar – using that long, curved blade to slice through the melon as smoothly as if it were butter. We laughed and they laughed and we did our bit to promote good will and international peace.

And then, suddenly, one of the laughing and smiling salesmen at our rug jumped up and grabbed my friend around the neck. He held his scimitar to her throat – the tip just millimeters from her skin – and, unbelievably, laughed.

No one in the souk looked up. No one worried or noticed or troubled about the gullible Americans and the scimitar-wielding melon-salesmen.

I stood, immobile, terrified, tongue-tied. The man smiled on and on, his gold-toothed grin so wide that I could see where his molars ought to have been. His friends, too, grinned and guffawed.

It felt like minutes passed but I suppose it was only seconds. Next to us, our traveling companions were unaware that anything was wrong, so mesmerized were they by a slick little melon-cutting exhibition going on at their rug. Bits of sweet, orange flesh flew in all directions.

And then, all of a sudden, the man released my friend. Spewing out words we did not understand, he pulled away his sword, still laughing, still flashing those golden teeth. So much laughter! So many broken melons.

It wasn’t until we headed back to the hotel, sometime later, that my friend’s aunt realized her wallet had been stolen.

It was all a diversion. And we fell into their trap perfectly.

But it makes for a great story.

Tomorrow: Thanksgiving on foreign soil…a pilgrim in a very unfamiliar land.

Belonging is Identification Enough: I Vote in a Small Town

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In light of the voting bonanza going on across the United States today, I couldn’t help but post on this election day about a voting incident in my past. I think of it every time I step into a room to vote. Every time.

Picture this: it’s a chilly autumn day. The birch trees of Northern Wisconsin are rustling in the wind off of Lake Superior. Traffic on Highway 2 mosies past. No one rushes around in this town of 300 people, not even the cars hailing from Duluth. After all, the speed is 30 mph, don’ cha know.

It’s too warm for a winter coat, but too cool for just a windbreaker. You compromise with a University of Oregon sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a cozy hat, just in case. Layers are the answer.

The designated polling place – a building you have never been inside of before – beckons you with its sandwich board out front: Voting Here. It’s succinct, but serves its purpose.

You get out of the back seat of the car. Your parents get out of the front. Your tennis shoes crunch on the gravel as you approach the white door.

Your mother enters first, you second.

Dad brings up the rear, having held the door politely for you both to enter.

The room is overly warm, with that usually-unused-and-suddenly-full-of-people feel to it. It’s musty. And a little too dark.

You hear the cozy sound of conversation as the door closes behind you and you move forward into the room, looking around expectantly, albeit a little shyly. All of a sudden – and when I say “all of a sudden” I mean INSTANTLY – all conversation ceases, every head turns to stare, and all of your insecurities come to the fore as every person in the room stares at the three of you as if you are aliens who just invaded this small Wisconsin town from the planet YOUDON’TBELONG.

It takes a moment for the voting judges to swallow their shock and stammer, “May we help you?”

You want to say, “Well, duh!” But you refrain.

All of the voting public (all one of them) have, by this time, pulled their heads out of their voting cubicles to stare as well. It’s like a staring fest.

You are, at this point, certain that horns must be growing out of your head. Your mother stammers (at least she stammered in your memory, though, honestly, you can’t ever remember your mother stammering in her life), “We’re here to vote?” With a question mark at the end, as if conceding that, possibly, she entered the wrong room through, really, she knows perfectly well that she’s at the right place and everyone else is freakish.

“Oh, well then,” the judges say nervously, “you’ve come to the right place.”

There is a small pause, as if everyone is waiting for everyone else to acknowledge that everything is okay and you aren’t the weirdos they thought you were.

Instead they say, “Do you have some ID?”

Mom, Dad and I (excuse me, “you”) grasp on to this question like it’s a lifeline to drowning victims.

“Yes, yes!” We all shouted like maniacs, rustling in our purses and pockets like the people in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Harrison Ford asks his fellow blimp passengers if they have their tickets just after he threw someone out of the window and claimed it was because he didn’t have his ticket.

We pulled out our identification and brandished those little blue folders like flags of surrender.

The people in the room – if it was possible – looked at us with even more consternation than they had before. As if no one in the history of that town had ever come to vote with US Passports as their forms of identification. Okay…possibly no one had.

My mother held out her passport, picture page open, as if showing it to East German border guards. It worked for them: why isn’t it working now?

“It’s a passport,” she said carefully, and I half expected her to spell it out: P-A-double ‘S’-P-O-R-T”.

Still the blank looks. Still the suspicion.

Now, to give us credit, we had good reasons for using our passports as identification. It hadn’t been that long since we’d lived in West Berlin, where identification cards and passports were god. One time Dad had to drive me back across the entire city – no small feat – because I’d forgotten to bring my ID to lunch at Templehof Airbase. ID means you exist. You are allowed. You have permission. ID gets you through doors. But not in Wisconsin, apparently.

Now back to the story…

Time seemed to stand still for a moment as everyone in the room contemplated what to do. I half wanted to turn away, murmur “forget it” and be a bad citizen. But then came Mom’s – or was it Dad’s? – magic words, “We’re living at the Anderson’s farm place.”

It was as if heaven itself had opened the floodgates of blessing.

“OH!” Comprehension dawned. “We heard about you.”

“So you’re the people at Anderson’s place.”

“I heard there were strangers there,” someone said, nodding to her neighbor sagely.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Oh, well, then,” the judges said. “Come on over and vote already.”

I don’t think they even looked at our passports. Belonging was identification enough.

The Great Hair Dilemma

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My hair is falling out, my chin is breaking out, and my mind is freaking out, all over one ginormous decision: to color or not to color?

That’s right: I’m going gray. At 42 years old my temples are threatening to turn me into the Bride of Frankenstein. 

And I am not a Science Fiction fan.  (Well…Star Wars doesn’t count in my book. It’s like Sci Fi for lightweights.)

See, the problem is three-fold.

One: to dye my hair would be to go against everything I’ve always said. I always swore I wouldn’t color my hair. “Just go with it. Don’t hide who you are. Be real.”

Enough of that hippy mumbo-jumbo. I look older than my husband.

Okay, I am older than my husband.

But I look really older than my husband. And that’s just not right.

Two: I don’t like drawing attention to the way I look. Don’t get me wrong: I like attention. It’s one of my fatal flaws. But what I like is attention for the things I do. Not for the way I look. Why? Because I’m insecure about the way I look.

But enough about that. Let’s not draw attention to THAT anymore.

But my fear, see, is that to color my hair will draw attention to me – and that when people see and comment on my hair, they’ll see and think about the fact that I’m not a slim as I ought to be. They’ll see and think about the fact that I don’t like to wear makeup and that the underside of my upper arms jiggle when I wave goodbye.

NOTE TO SELF: Never wave in front of people who don’t love me.

Me…the summer I met my husband. Back when my hair was long and brown and my arms didn’t jiggle.

And, finally, three: I’m lazy and cheap when it comes to my hair. This means that I don’t want to spend a lot of money on dying my hair because I know I’ll have to keep it up which means I’ll have to make appointments (and I don’t like the telephone) and I’ll have to fuss with it and I’ll have to miss writing time to go to said appointments and I’ll have to sit in the hair salon and listen to people gossiping and smell that perm-scented air and…

Okay…admittedly, my fear of hair salons sounds a little outdated. I mean, do people still perm their hair? But still…I don’t like salons. Again, they make people focus on how I look and that stresses me out.

Okay. I guess I’ve carried on long enough so I’ll shut up now. I just wanted to share my anxiety with you all, my support group.

Wait…I just thought of one other thing to be afraid of concerning my hair. I’m afraid, when it comes right down to it, that if I color my hair I’ll hate it and be stuck with it until it grows out and everyone who sees it will say, “Oh, you did something to your hair” they way they say, “Oh, you got a haircut” but they don’t say that they like said haircut…or they say this: “Oh, you cut your hair. It’s SO much better.”

UGH. I thought that insecurities would leave me when I passed puberty.

I thought zits would, too.

Boy, was I wrong.

Deep Thoughts of a Grecian Urn

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When I was small I would stand in front of the mirror along about Academy Award season, and practice giving my acceptance speech with a hairbrush as my microphone. I would thank everyone – my parents, my stuffed animals, my best friend, God – in a speech that went far beyond the thirty-second allotment.

I loved acting back then. In fourth grade I was the wicked fairy “Malificent” in Sleeping Beauty – which was a hoot, even though I had to get someone else to do my death scream. I could cackle evilly…but for some reason I could not scream. I performed in The Nutcracker a couple of years – once as the Mouseking himself (not sure why I got that part…perhaps because none of the boys wanted to wear tights?), and in 8th grade I took a turn in a video my youth group made after which someone said, “I didn’t know you were such a ham!” I basked in that praise for many a long day.

My mom tells me that, “You were the sweetest Malificent I ever saw.” Not exactly the review I was looking for.

It is to my great sorrow that I have no permanent record of those shows. Just think of the laughs it would bring my children!

My acting opportunities fell away after that, though I did join – and somehow lettered in –Speech and Drama Club my senior year, which was fun.

Then came the acting desert that was my twenties and thirties.

By the time I was forty, acting had become a distant memory – one that I gave zero thought to ever resurrecting. And then along came Beauty and the Beast, here in Worthington, last summer. Our daughter desperately wanted to be a part of the musical and they needed more adults so that the village wouldn’t be populated entirely by orphans, and my acting career was renewed.

And so was my realization that, though I may have practiced my Oscar acceptance speech all those years ago, I am never going to win any awards.

Which is fine.

Now, a year later, I’m looking at opening night of The Music Man, in which I play – as hammed-up as possible – a “Grecian Urn” lady and I hope fervently that our director isn’t disappointed that he cast me in this role.

It’s stressful! Not only do I have to remember stuff – lines, movement, the right shoes with the right costume – but I had to watch my husband shave off his beard for his role, I have to remove my wedding ring, and I have to put up with my husband “kissing” my friend Julie.

I tease about this kissing thing a lot because that’s how I deal with stress. I laugh it off. Truly – though I’m not sure our director believes me – the kissing scene is fine with me. It’s acting. I just can’t not tease about this because I’m incapable of sitting aside with my mouth closed. I like attention so I voice my opinion.

This, according to our director, makes me “high maintenance” as an actress.

The repercussions of this revelation are still resounding through my brain.

Am I “high maintenance” as a wife? As a mother? As a friend? Hmmmm…. I think, like Scarlet O’Hara, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

All I really know is that, with my entire family in the play, it’s a great family bonding thing. It’s also a great way to exercise my acting chops. Or perhaps exorcise, as the case may be, because, after this summer I think I’m ready to retire.

The trouble is, I still have that Oscar speech rolling around in my brain and I’d hate to die without ever giving it.

The truth is, it’s all exceedingly fun (albeit exhausting), but I think that I am finally able to admit to myself that I do better behind a keyboard than behind the footlights.

And, while I may be willing to retire my acting career, I’ll never retire as a writer.

PS – here’s a link to a “sneak peak” video about the performance! http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/58930/

Too Much Information

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When I’m feeling under the weather I want to find comfort. I want to be reminded that better times are out there. I want to remember those times and be at peace.

That’s when I turn to my favorite books. To my favorite movies. To my favorite mug.

And so, if you happen to have seen me this week or spoken to me on the phone, I apologize if I’ve spewed out too much information to you about exactly how I’m feeling. I’m sorry if I’ve told you that I have this nasty cyst on my leg that got abscessed and started oozing things that ought not to be outside of my body.

You see, as I say these things, I’m searching for comfort. I’m not even caring if I’m grossing anyone out because, frankly, I feel terrible and misery loves company.

That’s why, right now, I’ve put Lord of the Rings on the DVD player. I’ve made myself a cup of tea in my grandmother’s old mug. I’ve made a bowl of popcorn because popcorn is my youth – every Sunday night we’d eat it for supper – and that brings comfort right now, years later, miles away, on this Tuesday evening.

And frankly, right now, with my leg twinging and the redness continuing to creep across the back of my knee, and the blood showing beneath my gauze padding…I need comfort.

Thanks for your patience with me. I promise not to post photos.

PS – It’s now Friday and I do feel better, though definitely not 100%…thanks for asking.

You Can Take a Girl to the Midwest…But You Can’t Make Her Talk Right

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When I moved to the mid-west there were several things I had to get used to. 1) The weather 2) The absence of the ocean 3) The language. There were probably more, but I can’t think of them right now. Either that or I’ve repressed them because they were too traumatic. Either that or I have gotten so used to them that they don’t feel weird any more.

So…1) The weather.

Growing up in Washington and Oregon for the first 16 years of my life, and then spending my four years of college in Eugene, OR, rain was just a given. Rain came often, drizzling its way through the day and into our ears, insinuating itself into our daily lives so that umbrellas were third appendages that sprouted periodically from our hands and wet socks were par for the course.

Every car in the PNW contains at least one umbrella.

Here, on the other hand, I’m not sure I’ve used an umbrella, ever. I have one or two – that haven’t been destroyed by my children, that is – but I just never use them. If it’s raining, I run for it. Here it rains in BATCHES. Two inches here, half an inch there, maybe even five inches other there. Very different from the day-long drizzles I’m used to.

In the Pacific Northwest, by the way, no one has rain gauges. Well, not nearly as many people as do out here, anyway. Rain is just part of life out there…why would I want to gauge my life in a tube? It’s far too depressing.

The view from my home, growing up.


2) The absence of the ocean.

I miss oceany things in the grocery store. I miss briny scents as I drive into town. I miss views of headlands and sprawling acres of gray, undulating seas. I miss the tides giving rhythm to my day.

When I first moved to the Duluth area, well-meaning people said to me, “Lake Superior must make you feel right at home.” Now, I know I’ve whined about this before so I’ll spare you my soap-box. Let me just say this: Lake Superior is awesome. BUT IT IS NOT THE OCEAN. For many reasons.

‘Nuf said.

3) The language.

There is much which could be said about this topic. I’ll restrain myself for today and say only this: to me, “lunch” means a noon-time meal of sandwiches or macaroni and cheese, for example, combined with a glass of milk, a banana, and possibly a cookie if I’m feeling reckless. “Lunch” does not come at any other hour of the day, nor is it accompanied by the words, “a little”, nor does it consist of sweet treats such as tea ring, coffee cake, or ginger snap cookies.

In addition, “dinner” comes at approximately 6:00 p.m. and NOT at noon. (Except on Sundays, of course. Then it comes at noon and is the big meal of the day with an evening meal of popcorn or something else easy on Mom.) So if you want me to get to your house for a noontime meal, do not be calling it dinner. Or, conversely, don’t be surprised if I miss lunch at your house if you insist on calling it dinner. Unless, of course, you want me to miss it, then call it dinner to your hearts content.

“Supper” is a weird word that is rarely used in the Pacific Northwest. It’s known…but it’s suspect.

I’ll leave my tirade at this for now, but know this: I have much to say about “borrowing” me your pencil. My eyebrows are furrowed as we speak…

Beauty and the Wicked Witch of the West

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We spent two hours this morning doing something I wasn’t sure I’d ever do again. We auditioned for a local Community Theater production this August here in Worthington, Minnesota.

I didn’t think I’d do this again for several reasons…many of which I wrote about below last summer (and posted on my other blog) and you can read about them as I’m reposting the the first post for you today. Another reason I didn’t think I’d do it again is that it’s a LOT of work…and time…to be in a production like this.

HOWEVER…it’s worth it. It’s fun, it’s a great time to make new friends and deepen old friendships, and it’s something we can do all together as a family. Even five year-old Boo might be in on the action this year.

To top of our reasons for doing this again, it’s The Music Man…a favorite of our entire family. And so we’re diving in again. Stay tuned!!! And enjoy the post!

AUDITIONS CONTINUE NEXT SATURDAY, FROM 10-12, AT MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM. Come and join the fun!!!

Ok, so there are some things in life which sound better than they, in reality, are. Turkish Delight is one of these things. (I was brutally devastated when I first tasted real Turkish Delight, which I found in The Netherlands and bought with exceeding great joy. “WHAT?” I almost exclaimed outloud, trying hard to conceal my near-tears state of mind. “Edmund turned traitor for THIS?”) Lavender Ice Cream (from a cute little shop on Bainbridge Island, WA) is another. (“Ummm…WAY overrated!”) Asking Gretchen O’Donnell to dance and sing in a local theater version of Beauty and the Beast is another. And it’s a big one.

Now, I must admit, it’s possible that the powers that be who allowed me into this production never thought that seeing me dance was a good idea to begin with. I haven’t had the courage to ask them and I probably never will. But to me, the idea of a little dancing, a little singing, a little acting…that wasn’t so bad. I can do that! I was Malificent in our 4th grade production of Sleeping Beauty! How different can this be from that? Sure, I’m 31 years older than I was then…but hey, it’s still me…right?

Oy, vey, am I an optimist.

So, to begin with: the singing. I used to sing. I was in a girls singing group from 5th grade through 9th grade when I moved to a different state. I sang in high school choir and Women’s Chorus in college. I sang solos in church, as well as in the choir…back when churches actually had choirs. I can sing!

Well, I COULD sing. But it turns out, like any other muscle, the voice needs exercise. And, like the rest of my body, my singing muscles are scrawny and undeveloped. My voice box, lungs, and diaphragm are flabby. Probably pale and unattractive, too.

I knew this about my voice – I mean, I knew that I didn’t have the range I used to…or the breath control. But I thought that a little exercising of the muscles involved, and I’d be good to go. As it turns out, yes, I can still hit a “C” two octaves above middle “C”…but only when I’m not trying. Without thinking, without realizing, I hit it in our first practice. And everyone in the room turned to look. Yes. Everyone. I, being a person who vastly adores attention, was immensely proud as what I had accomplished dawned on me. Like I said, I wasn’t aiming for it…it just happened. I surprised even myself. I basked, for two seconds, in the glory. Then, with every eye in the room still trained on me, (and a few comments from the high schoolers and “oohs” from the little girls, and, I thought, impressed chuckles from the adults) it suddenly hit me: DID I HIT IT? OR DID I FLATTEN IT OUT LIKE A PANCAKE and THAT is why everyone is staring at me? My smile faltered a little. My inner ear strove to regain what it had just heard. “I didn’t know I could do that,” I said, turning red. (A common occurrence for me.) And, it turns out, I could. I did. Though I’m not sure my tone was overly pleasing. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I checked with the music director afterwards just to make sure that I wasn’t off-key!)

The crux of the matter is, I haven’t been able to hit the note since.

“If you’re not ‘in voice’ tonight, please don’t sing the high part,” the director said at the next rehearsal, and I, coughing to prove my point, mumbled that perhaps I wouldn’t attempt such a feat. I sang the middle part. Even though I couldn’t hear it. I wimped out. In other words, I now live in fear that, what I accomplished without even meaning to, I will never accomplish again. Ever. My reignited high school dreams of being an opera star poofed out like a candle. Now I watch Mrs. Potts from afar (with undisguised envy) and am content to be one of the “needful but unnamed” village people. (Yes, every rehearsal begins with YMCA jokes and arm motions.)

To add to my humility, as previously implied, I stink as a dancer. Our choreographer, bless her heart, is being so kind to us. She totally knows what she’s doing. I, on the other hand, do better in the song where I all I have to do is sweep, smile and wave. Type casting, that is. But dancing?! And this isn’t even, like, intricate dancing. This is Step, Step, Lunge, Walk, Walk, Walk. I tripped over my shoes on the lunge. Boo is quite impressed by my floor burn. She stares surreptitiously at it, while trying to remember what it was she was going to say before being distracted by the larger-than-a-silver-dollar red spot which glows like a neon light on my knee. “Sorry ‘bout your knee, Mom,” she says eventually, admitting that – let’s face it – it can’t be ignored. “Thanks,” I reply, laughing. “It’s not so bad.” She walks away, looking skeptical, and I continue to smile.

Because, really, I accepted long ago that I can’t dance, and I’m accepting now that I cannot sing that well either, but I’m having fun doing this with my husband and our daughter, Katie, and that, in the long run, is worth all my failures on stage. (For the record, my husband is way better at the dancing than I am. AND he is a wonderful sport to be doing this. He deserves a medal.)

So long as I can keep from singing Belle’s parts by mistake (which I’ve been singing for years every time I watch the DVD and it’s a hard habit to break) then I’ll be okay. But if you’re yearning to catch a high note from the stoop-sweeping townsperson, don’t strain yourself. She’ll be the one lurching in the shadows, dreaming of the day she can play The Wicked Witch of the West…who doesn’t sing…or dance…but she does get to wear some serious make up. (“I’ll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too!”)

I'd be far more comfortable playing the Wicked Witch of the West

Bordering on Blasphemy

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I cannot sew. I have mentioned this before, I know, but I’m not sure that I have made it truly clear that to call myself a sewer would be to border on blasphemy.

My woeful sewing skills came to a head this fall when my sisters and I set out to make a quilt for our mother for Christmas.

Allow me to explain a couple of things.

My oldest sister is a fabulous seamstress. She makes marvelous quilts and crafts and clothes. She makes them quickly, and she makes them perfectly. She has a new sewing machine that can make anything except dinner.

Our other sister is a fabulous crafter. She carves, sculpts, glues, cuts, welds, and owns an excavator. What this has to do with sewing I don’t know, I just felt compelled to point it out.

She also sews.

And then there’s me. An optimist who thinks she can sew but really can’t. An optimist who once made a quilt without a pattern (because I’m too lazy to follow directions) and who forgot how to thread her sewing machine because it had been sitting idle for approximately 8 years.

My quilt had zero diagonals, zero tricks. I walked into Hobby Lobby, bought a bunch of fabric I liked, went home and made the quilt. I added two borders because I wanted it larger.

I am rather good with borders. Nice, easy, straight lines – I can handle that.

The quilt I made 8 years ago, sans pattern.

So my sister – the sewer – asks me if I think I can participate in The Great Quilt Project for Mom. I said yes.

(Remember: I’m an optimist.)

She sent a packet of instructions and cut fabric, oh, maybe August. Lots of time before Christmas.

I sat on it for, oh, maybe 4 months. (Remember: I’m lazy. I’m also a procrastinator. I’m also a people-pleaser. None of these things made for a good situation come last Thanksgiving when I finally admitted to myself, “Shoot. I can’t possibly do this.…”)

My sister – the sewer – had said to me when she sent the squares, “Just let me know if you can’t do it, mail the stuff back, and that will be fine.”

She’s very kind and very wise.

And so, along came Thanksgiving, which, as you know, is close to December, which, as you know, is the month wherein lies Christmas…and the due date of this surprise quilt.

I called my sister. “I can’t do it!!!!!!”

“I told you that if you couldn’t do it to just let me know.” She is NOT cross, she is NOT hollering, she is NOT even being quiet and fuming. She was possibly laughing to herself; I’m not sure.

So I mailed back the packet of fabric, the directions, the carefully cut strips of fabric in pristine zip-lock bags, the brand-new roller blade thingy for my rolly-cutter thing….

Too bad I couldn’t mail back the 4 months I’d sat on the project.

When we went out to Washington to be with my family for Christmas, my dear sister – the sewer – sat beside me while I sewed – in nice, easy, straight lines – the border for the quilt, on her fabulous new sewing machine that can make anything except perhaps procrastinators hurry.

I had border experience, after all.

She allowed me – nay, WANTED me – to do this so that we could say we all three made the quilt for Mom.

Do I have a wonderful sister, or what?

I have, as a matter of fact, two wonderful sisters. Their quilt squares were so fantastic I can’t even tell you.

My borders set them off perfectly.

The quilt in question - along with (from left to right) the excavator-driving sister, the sewing sister, and our mama. Isn

Practice, Practice, Practice

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My daughter is gearing up for her Spring Piano Recital. This means that, though I have never played her two pieces, I have heard them enough that, I’m fairly certain, I could sit down at the piano and play them through with nary an error.

This is a nice way of saying I’ve heard them so much I sing them in my sleep.

Which is a nice way of saying I’ve heard them ad nauseum.

Which is a nice way of saying I’ve heard them so often it about makes me nauseous…which really isn’t true so I didn’t say it.

My daughter, like her mother before her, dislikes practicing greatly. G.R.E.A.T.L.Y.

This is a much nicer way of saying that she hates it.

She does, however, love performing. In other words, she wants the glory but doesn’t want to do the work.

I can relate to this.

Glory is fun. Work is work. I like attention. I like praise. But I get impatient with the process sometimes.

So I find it extremely weird that I’m a writer. Because writing is a lot of process with very little to show for it at the end of the day. Hours and hours and weeks and weeks and yes, years and years of work – with, if you’re lucky – a 400-page novel at the end of it. If I got paid by the hour I’d be a wealthy woman.

But back to piano practice.

I get so frustrated when she fusses about practicing, because I know – I KNOW – that it’s worth it despite the pain. I KNOW that she will regret it later if she quits. I KNOW that virtually every adult who took lessons when they were young and then quit, wishes that they had continued. I also know how she stared at my friend Mandy, as she sang and played piano at the Good Friday service at church; how she admired her; how, in her mind, she was imagining herself there, years from now, singing and playing and moving people’s hearts.

But moving hearts takes practice.

Oh, how I remember loathing piano practice. I loathed the monotony. I loathed the theory. I loathed the drills. I even loathed the recitals.

But I loved it when my dad would make up silly words to my goofy little songs. “The Neat-O Barn Song” remains a family favorite.

And I loved being able to sit down and play a song, to sight-read hymns, to play the theme from “Exodus” that I’d admired my sister playing years before. Or remember Music Box Dancer? (I don’t think I could actually ever play that one.) Or, of course, Fur Elise, that standard of young female piano players…and who knew it had more parts to it than just those first few notes?!

Sticking with it is worth it. Not giving up is worth it. Learning to fight through the pain is worth it. Learning the self-discipline of doing a job despite the bits you don’t enjoy is so very worth it.

But do I want my daughter to harbor loathful memories of practicing when I’m cross with her for not wanting to do it and she’s cross with me for making her and “ain’t nobody happy”?

But am I being a Tiger Mother if I keep on making her play?Heaven forbid. We read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua in book club a year or so ago. I NEVER, EVER want to be that mother. HOWEVER, I agree with her that we “western mothers” tend to be too lax in a lot of things.

Which is a nice way of saying we let our kids get away with too much.

If we let our kids quit just because it’s “not fun” then how are they going to learn self-discipline?

My mom let me quit lessons after I’d taken them for seven years and I was facing my 4th teacher (after 2 moves away and 1 teacher dropping me as her student!) and when the issue of finding a new teacher came up and I looked at her and said, “Mom, please don’t make me do it anymore.”

And she didn’t. Thank goodness.

So, my dear daughter, I promise: in 5 more years…I’ll consider letting you quit. But for now, the Tiger’s claws (albeit short ones) are out and you’re stuck with it.

Love you.

A CATastrophe for Sure!

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Having pets is fun. Having pets is good. Having pets can be stinky…literally.

Welcome to my world.

Because I am too dense to figure out how to “re-blog” a post, (either that or I am unwilling to spend hours on this project when I’ve already spent hours!!!) I am including a link instead, to my other blog where you will read a sad/funny/awful/dire/stinky story about:

my cat vs. a skunk. 

So click on the link below…if you want the full details, pictures, sad story.

Thanks!!  Enjoy!

http://afinedayforanepiphany.wordpress.com/