Mrs. Smucker Sets the Trend

I take a perverse pride in not following the current decorating fashions. If I tried, I would find it endlessly frustrating, so I might as well take pride in being behind the times. I never had geese with blue bows around their necks; I wanted blue in my living room long after everyone else had moved on to taupe and black, and I still love my mauve and hunter green quilt.

And I don't have any vinyl cut-out words on my walls.

However, I recently discovered that in one small area I am way ahead of the curve. It all began several years ago when I found out that Paul's brother John and his wife Laura, who live in Poland, like to collect old hardcover books, so I pulled some off our shelves and gave them to John and Laura.

They were very grateful and wanted to pay me. I said no. However, they had told me about an area of Poland where the people make interesting pottery, so I told them they can get me an equivalent-value piece of pottery sometime, something to hold my wooden spoons and such in.

So the next time a nephew went to visit, they sent me this:

I have loved that pitcher ever since.

Now, fast forward a few years, and I was at Costco before Christmas and something caught my eye: a large display of Polish pottery! A young man stood there explaining how it comes from this one area of Poland, it's such high quality, it's hand painted, it's the Next Big Thing in kitchenware, etc etc.

Then I was at the Dayton Farmers Market in Virginia and again a display of Polish pottery caught my eye, this time in a little shop full of all manner of the kinds of cute and funky things that I buy ten years later at garage sales.

And of course on both occasions I smiled smugly at the thought of my lovely Polish pitcher at home and how, for once, I had been at the very cutting edge of home fashions.

Next thing you know, silver egg salt and pepper shakers from Yemen will be all the rage.

Quote of the Day:
"I don't know if they're engaged in the broad sense of the word or the narrow sense of the word."
--a friend of mine, about some modern young people

To Amy and Emily

Your little sister Eowyn misses you.

Sergers

As I mentioned not long ago, Emily is moving, she likes to sew, and she needs a serger, an obvious sign from God that I should give her my old serger and upgrade.

So I went shopping on Craigslist and today I bought a White Speedylock 1600 from a woman who had bought it, used it once, and put it away because she was afraid of it, it was so complicated. Oh how I love people like this, and Craigslist.

I set up the serger on the kitchen table. It purrs like a kitten and has lots of lovely features, such as a differential feed and free-arm option. It's easy to thread, and the tension is easy to adjust.

Then after supper I went to my sewing room to pack up my old serger for Emily. And suddenly I was awash in nostalgia and guilt, like I was sending a faithful old horse off to the dog-food factory.

I got that serger, a Toyota, in Minneapolis at a JoAnn Fabrics, back when I was pregnant with Emily. I had saved up my pennies for a long time, and then one slushy March Paul and I left Matt and Amy with my folks at Grove City and drove to the big city and bought this lovely new machine.

It went to Weagamow Lake with us that fall, then back to Dryden three years later, then to Oregon. In the last 18 years it has sewed bazillions of little dresses and t-shirts and pants and pajamas and jackets and aprons and bags and blankets. I've had my moments with it, especially with threading that bottom looper, but overall it has been a faithful and true servant.

And now I'm upgrading to something much better, so I shouldn't really be this sad, should I? But I am. Take good care of it, Emily. Give it an extra scoop of oats for me now and then.

On Facebook

I enjoyed this literary look at Facebook.

" Facebook is now officially open to oldsters."

and

"The poet (and Friend) Troy Jollimore compares the Status Update to an epitaph, and notes that “we might think of one’s epitaph as the very last status update.”"

Meanwhile, my young friend qwertle says:

"my xanga is getting abandoned in favor of facebook."

I think this is happening a lot, and that makes me sad.

A Recipe

Double J on the trail

Ingredients:
1. Cinnamon Shredded Wheat cearel
2. M and M's
3. Petzels
4. Peanuts
5. Rasins

Mix in large bowl
Eat and Enjoy

--Jenny and Janane

I Kid You Not

Today I read this caption under a photo illustrating a USA Today article:

Beverly Mills, right, and her husband Michael are shown at their home in Sherrills Ford, N.C., on Thursday. Michael Mills greeted his wife at the airport in Charlotte, N.C. the day after she survived US Airways Flight 1549's crash into the icy Hudson River with red roses.

All right, class, can anyone find the misplaced prepositional phrase in this example?
Yes, thank you, it would be those red roses, wouldn't it?
But don't worry, because even if you fail 8th grade English, you can still write for USA Today when you grow up.

If you think I made this up, check it out here.

A Sad Story

Subdued and quiet, we glance at each other—“Is he. . .? “ A quick shake of the head, “I don’t think so. It won’t be long.” I gently ask the red-eyed child the necessary questions. “If it dies, do you want to have a funeral or shall we just take it outside and take care of it?” “Just take care of it,” she says bravely. The child goes upstairs and cries, then comes down. “Can you go see. . .?” she squeaks. Yes, it's time. I pull on plastic gloves and go to the back hallway. I palpitate the black bundle. It is stiff and unyielding. “He’s gone,” I tell the child. She runs out for a last brave glance and then dashes upstairs, blinking tears, needing to be alone. Later she says, with a deep breath, “Knowing it might die was the worst. Not knowing if it would or wouldn’t. That was the worst.”

*****************************************

First of all, Homer is fine, he of the boisterous baaing and hungry bottle-sucking and happy galloping out into the chickens’ yard.

So since he has worked out so well, maybe we should get some more bummer lambs, reasoned He Who Likes to Take On Ambitious Projects.

He purused Craigslist. Hey, an ad for bummer lambs! He called. $15 each, or two for 20. “How many shall we get,” he asked, “Seven?”

“We. Are. Not. Getting. Seven. More. Lambs,” announced She Who Dumps Cold Water on His Ambitious Ideas.

How about five? Two total per child? Ok, fine I guess. We’ll get them after school

I brought Jenny, She Who Feels Everything Deeply, home from school today. But first we had to stop at Ketchams, where I had to talk to Elona, a long and delightful conversation filled with mutual empathy, and oh, the torture for the poor impatient child, who had to wait through laborious paragraphs about chronic illness and all the challenges thereof, while she yearned to go home and get those lambs.

Oh, but we were not finished. Then we had to stop at the post office and have a conversation with Hope, whom I never see, again filled with empathy and understanding, about mold allergies and having one’s big daughters out of the house and far away, tsk tsk, it is hard. Oh, the torture of waiting, surely far worse than anything these talkative moms suffer.

Finally, finally, we got home, and gathered the supplies and Paul and Jenny and Steven, He Who Loves All Animals But Gets Lazy About Feeding Them, went off to fetch the lambs.

It turned out that the lamb people were the same ones who have sheep out here by our house, and from whom we got Homer, and who have flocks and herds like Abraham must have had. Well! They offered the lambs for free since they use our water all summer. How generous of them. But only four lambs, because Sarah didn’t think the fifth one would last the night. "The others should be ok," she said. "We have never lost a lamb," said Paul. "You’re very lucky," said Sarah.

So soon I had four lambs in my kitchen in plastic totes. Three white and one black. Four lambs who were the most pathetic-looking specimens I had ever seen in all our years of raising lambs. Limp, sad, quiet; two of them runny with diarrhea. No baaing, no scrambling to get out of the totes, no nosing around for milk.

Jenny, oblivious to their state, decided the black one was hers and fell in love with it as only Jenny can fall instantly in love. [She is not going to EBI until she's 25] She went around in a happy daze, making a list of possible names when she was supposed to be setting the table. “Pierre, Elli, Nibbles, Mistrey, Midnight, Frosty…”

We moved the lambs to the bathroom, turned on a heater, and began to give each other looks like What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into? Jenny decided her lamb was Nibbles.

After supper Jenny went to give her lamb some love and attention, and wept horrified tears when it didn’t respond.

They ate only a few sips of milk at 7:00.

We moved them close to the back door. It all got worse and worse. The stillness, the smells, the hopeless despair, the daughter’s tears, the dark thoughts about the people who gave them to us.

And then I checked Nibbles, and he was gone.

Another one is unlikely to make it till morning.

But the other two ate a little bit and are commencing a weak baaing, just enough to keep us awake half the night.

Poem by Jenny

Caring and loving
Tender and soft
I love my mother
Even though she just coughed

(Actually, my cough is getting much better and I am feeling much improved. Thanks for all the prayers and sympathy and good wishes.)

QOTD About Facebook

"There's a direct correlation between understanding what goes on here on facebook and the amount of time you have to actually spend online, so it's probably better not to admit you know very much about it. If you want to seem like you have a life."
--Hillary, my niece, after I told her I don't understand 75% of what goes on on FB

Shameless Begging for Sympathy

I had hopes of making some serious inroads on my projects after the holidays: designing and shopping for a new kitchen, sewing, and organizing the office.

Well. Ever since Christmas, I have been either gone or sick. I came home from Virginia sick, recovered enough to go to Colorado, and have been dragging around ever since like there's a 50-pound sack of orchardgrass on my shoulders.

Today I finally called the doctor. How high is your fever? Umm, not that high, maybe 99-100. Are you coughing up green phlegm? (Love that medical nonchalance). Well, not usually. Ok, well, keep drinking fluids and keep an eye on your symptoms and call us in a day or two.

Why did I hope she would say I have all the signs of galloping double pneumonia and emphysemic pleurisy and have to get to the hospital immediately? Probably because I want something to happen beyond this being just barely well enough to cook supper and do two loads of laundry but taking all day to do it.

Sigh. One of the worst things about this ordeal is that people keep expecting me to talk. It's terrible. Phone calls, questions, discussions I'm expected to contribute to, on and on. I think, Dear me, do I really talk this much on a normal basis? It hurts to talk and it sends me into spasms of coughing.

This evening I took Jenny to her piano lesson and tried to sleep in the car while I waited on her. Then we started home:

Quote of the Day:
Me: Jenny, can you please please stop asking me so many questions?
Jenny: Ok. . .
What is a plight?
What does the inside of a jail look like?
Did you know I got a dart gun at the dollar store that's still really good?
Did you know the chickens eat shrews?
Oh, sorry Mom, I keep forgetting. . .
Mom? Oh, this is a stupid question so I won't ask. . .
Mom! Do you know what this means--'Your walk talks and your talk talks but your walk talks louder than your talk talks'?
Why does my hair seem to frizz out?
Can we listen to the radio?
Radio: I am convinced there are still systematic efforts to keep African-Americans from voting. .
Jenny: Who's talking?
Me: (changes stations)
Radio: Rid takes it up the middle! It's 22-19 Blazers!
Jenny: Yesss!!!
Jenny: (listens silently)
Me: (silently) Yesss!!!