July Letter from Harrisburg

Today's column is a takeoff on Paul and the children's canoe trip.

Here.

Why Today Was Nice

This was at the bottom of my blog when I checked it today:

Maybe you can't see it, but my hit counter said 222222, which makes me happy with its neat, unusual row of digits, and also because it means all you fine readers have been doing a lot of clicking. Thank you, all of you.

My sister-in-law Lois is only 4 days older than me. My neighbor lady's birthday is the same day as Lois's but she's a few years older than Lois and me. We have a tradition of the three of us getting together to celebrate our birthdays. It's a very special time.

This time we had tea at our house.


The neighbor is on the left. She feels uncomfortable with her name and details being splashed all over the world, so I won't name her but I'll just say that she is a wonderful neighbor and friend who always makes me feel special.

Lois is on the right. She is a friend and sister-in-law both, and she makes me laugh, and she likes books, and she is both practical and empathetic.

Details for those who like details: the wicker came from Kenya some 7 years ago. The table is a piece of plywood from the warehouse laid over the wicker coffee table which is too small on its own, and has an uneven surface. Emily arranged the bouquet on the table, and the neighbor lady brought the roses.

I served tea, scones, cucumber sandwiches, lemonade, and fresh fruit.

I am sitting in a teeny-bopper chair because it came the closest to being the height of the wicker chairs, but I was still looking up at the others.

The big china plates are from Paul's grandma Lena.

Jenny served us, and then she laid down her tray on the floor to take the picture. Down there on the left, lined with a bandana (her idea.)

We had a brief moment of panic right before the guests arrived when Cleo the diligent cat caught a mouse and proceeded to eat it right below the fancy table.

Quotes of the Day:
"PAUL!!!"
--me
"DAAADD!!"
--Jenny
[he bravely removed the mouse and saved the day]

"It used to be, I just had to do two or three things to get ready in the morning, but now that I'm older it takes so long because there's so much to do. I mean, you have to hunt for chin hairs!"
--anonymous friend

People in Cars

Today my Facebook friend Shari wrote about visiting a Mennonite church, I assume near her home in Arkansas. She says

At dismissal, everyone stood up and just started visiting with their neighbors, not even congregating in the aisle as we are used to.

That's definitely what it's like at Brownsville Mennonite. People turn around, talk with people behind them, wander forward or back to talk with a specific person, join a group, leave it and join a different group, hold a new baby, return a borrowed item, hand out food assignments for a special-meeting dinner, talk with a child's friend's mom to see if it's for sure ok if your child comes over for the afternoon.

It seems like everyone does this, all the time. Including me.

But sometimes I go through days or seasons where I can't face the after-church socializing. And I head for the car as soon as the service is over. Well, almost. First I have to get my mail and give Dakota those two books on animals that I promised him and shake the preacher's hand and pick up the Sunday school money. Then I head for the car.

Right now I suddenly find myself in a fragile season where I can't handle the visiting that I normally am an eager part of. And no, I can't share the reason, which doesn't really matter anyhow.

I'm making this discovery: there's a whole subset of Mennonites that I wasn't aware of: Those Who Sit In Cars After Church. I left as soon as I could get away and hopped in the Kia and opened the windows because it was actually hot, a new experience in these parts, and then I glanced over and there was "Ralph" sitting in the car beside me, looking amused.

Then I looked further and behold, there was "Ethel" sitting in her car, looking sad, and "Jason" sneaking furtively out of the double doors and toward his car.

I thought, who are these people, really, and do they always slip out as soon as the service is over and wait for their healthier and more gregarious family members, and I never knew because I was always busy talking, and do they have Deep Unmet Soul Needs The Church Should Address?

Maybe we PICs should form our own little club. We could slip out and meet in someone's van and have iced tea and cookies that I would pack in the morning, and we could talk, or not, as we felt like it, and then when the talkative people started coming out of the building we could slip back to our own cars. We would have plenty of time for this, because the talkers always have to stop on the sidewalk and talk to one more person for a few more minutes.

I know what takes me to the car right after church, but I wonder about the others--how long have they done this, would it help to talk about it, what does it take to be integrated back into the Talkers After Church? Or is it ok if they remain PICs?

Quote of the Day:
"Mom! Didn't you hear what I said?? Didn't you think it was funny?? You didn't laugh or quote of the day it or anything!!"
--Jenny

Family Pictures--Then and Now

In case you didn't click on the link to see our recent family pictures, I'll post one here:

Amazing, isn't it? Eight people all behaving themselves, holding still, looking at the camera, cooperating, fond of one another, even looking real with their smiles.

I mentioned in my last post that things didn't always go so swimmingly with family portraits at the Smuckers. So I dug in the attic and found proof.

(Sorry they're a bit crooked. I managed to scan and crop them but couldn't straighten them.)Here we have Matt feeling like he has to carry heavy burdens in life, like that little sister, maybe as punishment for taking that gouge out of his nice straight bangs. Emily is oblivious to having her picture taken, a trait that was to change a lot in the next 20 years. And Amy is about to punch the lights out of the next person who tries to get her to smile.
This was taken in Weagamow Lake a year and a half later. We had missed out on the annual NYP portrait session for the Gleanings newsletter [the one a young friend once called the "shopping catalog," with all those shots of single girls]. Anyway, the day we were supposed to get our picture taken, Paul and Amy hopped in the van to pick up something half a mile away, and Amy didn't buckle in or close her door right, and when Paul went around a corner the door flew open and she sailed out face-first into the gravel. So a month later when she was all healed I set up my camera on a tripod in the living room and took pictures.

This was one of many attempts. We note the fine view of Emily's tonsils, and we won't talk about The Poof That Lost Its Way.

And this was a few years later. We note The Poof That Still Won't Behave, Matt at the front barely suppressing some terrible mischief, Emily being inquisitive on the right, Ben the baby not appreciating family pictures, and Amy on the left trying very hard to be Good. I hope I praised her but I probably didn't. [Amy: thank you for being Good. I appreciate it now.]

[And a note to my snickering daughters: Those big glasses were cool back then, really they were.]

So that's why I say, Take Heart, all you young moms out there. It gets better.

Quote of the Day:
"Our proximity to the Pacific makes that unlikely."
--Matt, when we were discussing global warming and Jenny asked if he thinks the Willamette Valley will ever be a desert. I wrote down the quote because it was so astonishingly like something his grandpa Wilton would have said, only three times as fast.

Family photos 2011

A few weeks ago Ruth from Swartzendruber Photography came over on a Sunday afternoon when we were all home and took our family pictures.

You can take a look at them here.

Ruth is wonderful to work with, and I think she did a great job. As I recall, the warehouse setting was her idea.

The color scheme was Amy's idea and she told us all what to wear.

To all you young moms who hate having family pictures taken--in a few years it will be all different. Your daughter will outfit everyone, and they will all do what they're told, and it'll be a fun afternoon for everyone, and no one will cry or pick their noses.

I love this stage of life.

Robin's Blog

In Sunday's column I mentioned my athletic friend Robin. She did a very nice review of the column on her blog, Everymom to Ironmom.

Letter from Harrisburg

Today's column is about climbing Cape Perpetua and other impossible mountains.

Baptists and Food

I have been informed by many ex-Mennonites that no one cooks like Mennonites. One cost of leaving the church/community is that for the rest of your life, when you go to potlucks, you think, "Dear me, why doesn't someone bring some decent FOOD to these things?"

A while back some of us attended a children's event at a Baptist church. [Details will be kept vague.] Meals were included in the price and in my opinion were on the spendy side. However, I saw four busy, aproned, matronly ladies rattling around the kitchen looking very serious about their job, so I figured the meals would be worth the cost.

They also had four teenaged helpers.

Meal A consisted of tacos. Hard shells from a box, clammy unseasoned fried hamburger, cold refried beans from a can, and a few toppings such as lettuce. Dessert was cupcake papers with a few little cookies, and cups of jello. A stern aproned cook guarded the desserts and informed even adults that it was cookies OR jello, not both.

Meal B consisted of buns from a bag, cooked hot dogs, potato chips, baby carrots, and a food that actually required processing by human hands: apple slices.

If you've ever been Mennonite you can imagine the conversation among us ladies on the way home. Jenny said, "Mom, you could have cooked and served a meal like that all by yourself!"

"Are all Baptists terrible cooks?" I asked. Trish thought that was unfair stereotyping. "Maybe nobody wanted to cook for this event, and they finally found a few people who were willing, but they didn't know what they were doing."

Today I once again got to taste Baptist food when the First Baptist Church in Junction City invited me to speak at their annual tea. The main room had twenty round tables all lavishly decorated, and through the doorway into the kitchen I glimpsed a number of earnest men(!) busily preparing food. One of them wore a white chef jacket.

The menu was printed on the program:

Herb Roasted Turkey Croissant
with watercress, roma tomato, dill havarti, and tarragon & Dijon aioli

Spinach Salad
with pear, cranberry, candied hazelnuts, chevre cheese, and creamy balsamic dressing

Creamy artichoke, roasted garlic and potato soup

Strawberry shortcake

It turned out that the menu was chosen by a Jeremy Lowman, the guy in the chef outfit, who is a member of the church and also a caterer of some renown.

The food was just that good, too. Oh my yes.

I could jump to further conclusions here about Baptist men vs. Baptist women and food, but I think it's time to quit making such assumptions. It's really not fair.

Since I don't like it when all Mennonites get dumped into the same box. Unless, of course, people stereotype us all as being good cooks.

Quote of the Day:
[the day after Amy left for Jamaica and Emily and Ben went to the east coast to drive Em's car back]
I thought Jenny said: It's so sad when those three are gone.
Me: I know, but we'll have fun while they're away.
Jenny: Mom!! I was actually talking about the kittens! I said, I'LL BE so sad when those three are gone!

Coast Pictures

Amy posted a bunch of photos of our time at the coast.

Click here.

Quote of the Day:
Me: Jenny, it's time to get up.
Jenny: What do you mean, 'time to get up'?? It's only 10:00.

(Yes, it's summer now)

Trees

Maybe it was the oak tree falling that inspired us to replace some other trees around here, such as the runt maple by the west driveway, and the spindly tree by the lilacs. So far we've only been planning and haven't cut either of these.

And we should do something about the pine trees. Maybe. Paul's parents got them very inexpensively from somewhere and the seller forgot to tell them that they shed their long, spiny, poky, nasty needles by the millions every fall. And that you can't pick them up with the lawn mower. And they clog the gutters along the roof. And you end up raking them up about five times each fall.

But now they're big trees, and they look nice.

I finally gave my consent and Paul had our friend Chip come over and take out one pine tree while we were at the coast. I said I'd see how that looked before I gave the ok for more.

We decided we need to do some serious research on what trees we want.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, a nursery near Coburg had a batch of trees out back that hadn't sold, and they kept blowing over, so they told their employees that the trees are theirs for the taking and what doesn't go will get destroyed.

One of the employees was Susan. Susan had a pig. She happened to sell this pig to Paul's cousin Darrell and told him about the free trees. So he got some.

Paul called Darrell about borrowing his chain saw. Darrell thought, "Hmmm. Chain saw. To cut down trees. That he might need to replace."

So Darrell told Paul about the free trees.

Paul called me. I said yes, what can we lose?

So Paul and Darrell went and got four trees for us, two maples that are about 20 feet high already and two pines that shed their needles but the needles are tiny and soft.

We see here that I am being a true Yoder, justifying all the faults because it's a find and it's free.

Paul went back with the van and trailer and got ten more trees, because his wife is a Yoder and feels sorry for objects no one else wants, especially if they're free, and is sure she can use them, one way or another, because after all, they're free for the taking.

So you may soon see a different look to our place when you drive by.

Quote of the Day:
Son A: Let my people go!!
Son B: No! Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!
--overheard at the coast