Trip Plans

This week looks like a big mountain to climb. The plans are: Thursday I fly to Minnesota, rent a car, and drive to my Mom and Dad’s two hours out in corn country. The next day I bundle Mom and Dad (age 85 and 88) into the car and drive to the airport. We then fly to Pennsylvania.

In PA we go to my sister’s house and the next day we go to my niece’s wedding. Annette is the oldest grandchild and the first to get married, hence all the trouble to get Mom and Dad there.

The following Tuesday we reverse the process—the three of us fly to MSP, rent a car, and drive the folks home. I spend the night and fly home to Oregon the next day.

So, I am trying to get everything ready here so the family can survive in my absence, (Amy is already at my sister’s so I don’t have Miss Responsible to look after things here) and also trying to plan the logistics of transporting two elderly people who are of mostly sound mind but are hard of hearing and tire easily.

I have visions of Dad getting all confused in the airport men’s room or of having too much luggage and not enough arms. However, I have found that the things I fear almost never come to pass and the things that never occur to me are what I should have worried about.

Quote of the Day:
"Stephanie gets grounded for what she does and I get grounded for what I don’t do."
--Emily

Rosie's Observations

Paul's sister Rosie over at Joyful Noise tells what it was like to take care of Jenny the weekend we were gone to Kevin and Brenda's wedding. It's interesting hearing about my child from someone else's perspective.

Quote of the Day:
Emily: EEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Me: What's wrong?
Emily: THERE'S MAGGOTS ON THE POTATOES!!!!!!
Me: Hmmm. Rinse them off.
Matt: Boy, after you're a mom for a while, certain things don't carry much significance.

Seedsackers

Sacking and stacking 50-pound sacks of grass seed for 8 hours a day in a dusty, rumbling, cavernous warehouse is a unique experience producing a rare breed of men: the Seedsackers.

Here, in their own words gleaned from the dry-erase board posted behind the bagger, are a few ways you can recognize a Seedsacker—as opposed to a mere mortal.

1. Can recognize any song on KLOVE just from the first three notes
2. Uses his fingers to clean out his ears
3. Considers his job to be very manly
4. Eats a burrito in 2 gulps and a corn dog in 3
5. Eats the entire pack of burritos (8—that his mom was planning to feed the whole family with) in one sitting
6. Can sympathize with the builders of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
7. Shudders at the words “rice bran”
8. Breaks into the Hallelujah Chorus at first mention of getting off fescue and onto ryegrass
9. Comes over and gloats to the next worker after his own shift is over
10. Drinks water straight from a 1-gallon milk jug
11. Doesn’t care if food lands on the floor
12. Uses the back of his arm for a kleenex
13. Sings like a coyote in a trash compactor
14. Dances like a hippo with a broken hip
15. Won’t in a million years let someone see him singing or dancing
16. Has long conversations with himself
17. Does about 10 stupid things in a day’s time, but doesn’t tell anyone save fellow seed sackers or really close friends
18. Can fix any object in the world with duct tape
19. Tries to make his day sound worse than it was
20. Thinks that the forklift has an ornery personality
21. [Censored item involving phlegm color]

And then there is the really special type of Seedsacker, an elite corps of men. How to recognize The Night Guy:

1. Squints at the moon
2. Always looks like he just saw a ghost
3. Shudders at the word “blackout”
4. Thinks a warehouse at night is scarier than a haunted house
5. Favorite song is “Hold on my child, joy comes in the morning”

Special thanks to Matt, Justin, and Brandon

Quote of the Day:
“It’s kind of annoying when you have to say ‘okay’ all the time.”
--Steven, who is still learning what to do and not do with a mom and dad

Rewards

Yesterday Amy flew to Pennsylvania to help my sister, who just had a baby, for two weeks.

The day before that, Mrs. Coffey from next door asked if Emily could take care of her cat and chickens all week while the Coffeys go to Denver.

This is payoff time: when after long years of parenting your children can go out and have the skills to serve someone else.

Quote of the Day:
"I went in the bathroom and she asked me five questions, caught her breath, and asked me one more before I ever said anything."
--Emily, after she washed Jenny’s hair on Saturday

Similar Photo

Here's a photo I found on the Star-Tribune's website. It must have been taken shortly after the one in our newspaper.

News Photo

Today on the front page of the paper was this photo that I keep going back to because there’s something so intriguing about it. A young man in waders is standing in water and holding the hand of an elderly, very wrinkled woman who seems to be in a boat and is wiping a tear from her eye.

The caption reads: "Spc. Jon Eric Miletello of the Louisiana National Guard consoles his grandmother, Bell Vaughn, whose home was flooded in Erath, La."

The woman, with her sad eyes and her hair combed straight back, resembles my mom. I cringe to think of my mom ever being flooded out of her house like this.

What a story, captured in this picture: a tired, grieving grandma leaving her home and a fine young grandson doing his duty with compassion and gentleness.

I hope the photographer gets some sort of recognition, and I hope my boys would conduct themselves like this if the situation arose. (And may my girls someday marry the type of guy who would go rescue his grandma in a flood.)

Quote of the Day:
"There were 8 Smuckers that fought in the Civil War; 7 on the Union side and 1 on the Confederate."
--Matt

Corn

By 8:30 Saturday morning Paul had fetched 400 ears of corn and the whole family was ready to start husking (except Emily, who is seldom ready for anything on time). Soon the first dishpan was full and I took it inside and started blanching.

Paul and Amy were in charge of cooling the corn in big tubs out by the garden hose, and as soon as the first few batches were ready, Amy and Emily started cutting. Amy cut with the knife and Emily with the creamer, since I like a mixture of textures.

Thus were we all kept busy, each with our individual tasks and the whole effect like a well-tuned machine. By 10:30 the husking was done and by 11:00 Paul was done silking. Matt hosed down the folding chairs and baskets. The girls kept cutting. The younger ones got a break.

Paul took over the blanching and I made lunch—corn on the cob, of course, plus pizza for those who couldn’t face any more corn.

The last bag of corn was in the freezer by 1:00. By two, all the stainless steel bowls were back in the pantry and I was mopping the floor.

This is the right way to do corn.

Quote of the Day:
"I think that if you pray out loud an average of twice a week, you sort of tend to repeat yourself."
--Emily

And the Connection Is..?

This week I spoke to a group of homeschooled teenagers about how I got started writing and how they can do the same. A fun group—one girl writes and illustrates horse stories and another has already written three novels.

The woman in charge had sent out an email ahead of time telling them who I was and what I would be talking about. One of the teens’ mother told me, with great amusement, that one line in the promo email read:

"She doesn’t have a TV, but she has a great sense of humor."

Later this mother and I were talking about the fact that I am able to write about very religious material in the Register-Guard, which is a left-leaning newspaper. I could never have made this happen on my own, I told her, and added, "God has a sense of humor."

And she said, "He must not watch TV either."

Quote of the Day:
"You look like a punk Ringwraith."
--Another Lord of the Rings fan, to Matt, on their hiking trip. He was wearing a big black hooded sweatshirt and black sunglasses with amber reflective lenses

Mice in my Mind

AAAAACCCKKKK! These mice are messing with my mind. Now they’re getting into my sewing room. Today, for the second time this week I set a trap and when I came back to check on it, it was gone. Disappeared.

Me: Where is that thing? I know I set it right here. Really, I did.
Mouse ghost in my head: No, you didn’t. You’re all mixed up. Beginning of Alzheimer’s, you know.
Me: I KNOW GOOD AND WELL I SET THAT TRAP RIGHT HERE. At least…I think…I did.

So with skirt clutched around my knees or down on the floor with a flashlight I went carefully scouting around the room until I found the trap--with a floundering, squeaking mouse still in it--under the ironing board or behind a basket.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH there it is!!! MATT!!! WHERE ARE YOU?????

(Call Paul with shaking hands.) C-c-c-can you p-p-please come home ss-s-oon??

Too much more of this and my family will call for the men in white coats to come get me.

Quote of the Day:
"Something I like about being sick is you get lots of attention."
--Jenny

Jenny in School

Jenny's first day of school was a bit rocky, starting with when she burst into tears over her carseat being in the middle vs. beside the window. The situation was not helped by Emily exclaiming, "She's going to school in her carseat??

(Oregon requires carseats until childen weigh 60 pounds. I informed Emily that Jenny's fellow first-grader's mom says her daughter is so little she'll be going on her first date in a carseat.)

Jenny had one more little meltdown in school and ran to Ben for comfort. By the second day, she was an old hand at this, running down the sidewalk with her backpack bouncing. Now, two weeks later, she's an old pro, chatting about breaks and demerits and goals, just like her siblings.

I am still floundering just a bit with getting focused and actually getting something productive done while she's gone.

Quote of the Day:
"Poor Mom is going to start running out of Quotes of the Day."
--Emily, on Jenny starting school