A mind like a steel sieve

My son Hammer loves all things geography—he started with flags and maps and quickly moved on to politics and history. I do my best to answer his questions ("Mom, what did lead to the breakup of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?" etc. ad infinitum), but mostly I point him toward his dad, who's equally good at learning and remembering those areas. I wrote a whole, heavily researched novel about the Book of Ruth, but I stutter and stumble over questions about places, people, times, and Biblical teachings I used to know inside and out. It just doesn't stay in my head.

Fortunately, Hammer and I have found a way to talk about geography. He is teaching me all the capitals of the world. I already knew some of the Greater Antilles (Haiti, Puerto Rico, etc.) , so that went OK, but it's slow going in other areas. Here's my haul of new knowledge for today (Pop quiz! Put away your books!)

1. What is the capital of Krgystan?
2. What is the capital of Tajikstan?
3. Of what country is Ouagadougou the capital?


Answers: 1. Bishkek 2. Dushanbe 3. No idea. But I like to say Ouagadougou.

Frederick Weather

Sharply-defined mountains against an achingly blue sky; sunlight filtering through the remaining golden leaves...it's Frederick* weather.

If you missed Frederick by Leo Leonni as a child, quick go buy it used on Amazon (or, strangely, new in Spanish), before the weather changes. While all the other fieldmice gather grain and nuts, Frederick sits peacefully on the wall, doing his own kind of gathering. Then the mice take to the wall for winter. When the food stores dwindle and the stones grow cold, Frederick brings out the memories and feelings he stored on the stone wall in the sunshine.

Days like today make me want to harvest sunshine, before it crinkles up and blows away.



*And, um, if anyone from the FTC is looking for full disclosure, no one gave me a copy of this book. My sister got it for her birthday when she was three, and she let me read it. A lot. I got Swimmy, which is also fabulous, but not necessarily for a fall day. I was four. I accidentally found Frederick in my possession for a while, but gave it back when I was 32. Or possibly 38. The last fifteen years are kind of a blur, and full documentation was not maintained.

Tagged!

Luisa tagged me "to the fifth power." Five is my favorite number, so here goes...

Five North American Cities in Which I'd seriously consider Living:
1. Seattle, Washington
2. San Antonio, Texas (but only in the winter)
3. Providence, Rhode Island
4. Danville, California
5. Reston, Virginia

Five Songs to Which I Know All the Words :
1. "If I Had a Million Dollars," Barenaked Ladies
2. "Young, Dumb, and Ugly," Weird Al
3. "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch," from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"
4. Most of the musical "Cats"--words by T.S. Eliot
5. "Why Can't the English?" from "My Fair Lady" (Audrey Hepburn showed up in a dream last night. I was babysitting her kids.)
(Mostly thanks to kids playing them over, and over, and over...)

Five Foods I'd Hope to Have in Unlimited Quantities on a Desert Island:
1. fresh tomatoes
2. fresh bread
3. chocolate
4. raspberries
5. bell peppers

Five Chores I should Be Doing right Now Instead of Blogging:
1. starting dinner
2. trimming the lavender off the sidewalk
3. moving a large pile of dirt to be a mountain in the train garden
4. cleaning up the front yard for trick-or-treaters
5. pulling up dead tomato plants

Five Childhood Friends I'd Love to See Again :
1. Kristi Steinman
2. Susan Willis
3. Ken Fischer
4. Gina Rhoden
5. Lori Hettinger
(Not counting Diana, Becky, Kathy, other friends I have had the blessing to see once in a while!)

Now, tagging five friends.
This blog doesn't have five readers, (Hi, Mom.) so...
Erin, Alison, Amanda, Jenn, Liz
Feel free to adapt or change the categories to your liking.

Have a glorious morning!

A raspberry is not a metaphor

So, I was in one of those moods, where I'm sick of being in my own head, but good and stuck there.

God: (to whom I wasn't especially talking at the time) You ought to go out back.
Me: Yeah, I guess You're right. Watching the weeds choke the life out of the strawberries won't put me in a worse mood, and I can put a hose on the tomatoes.
God: Whatever. Just go outside.

So I go outside and pull ugly weeds for a while.

Me: Hey, raspberries!

They've got viney weeds creeping up them, and they've developed an infestation of little black bugs I haven't seen before, but still I get a whole grundle—enough to eat AND share.

Me (working my way down a row of defunct broccoli): Whoa. Golden raspberries.

I bet I got a dozen—almost unheard of from this bush, whose raspberries are called "golden" for more than one reason.

God: Heh. Told you so.

Lots of Useful Mental Health Facts , and some Tedious Metaphors could be gleaned here. But a raspberry is not a metaphor. It's a very small gift from heaven. And a golden raspberry is an outright miracle.

Confessions of a closet Cruella

Hammer and Buffy just got done participating in a children’s musical version of 101 Dalmatians (they were a stage hand and a boxer, respectively). Fortunately, they both loved it, so they didn’t notice me living vicariously through them. I did costumes and backstage “kid wrangling”: “Shh! Knock it off! The audience can hear you!” But my soul was sashaying onstage with Cruella, calling everyone nincompoop, boxing evil henchmen’s ears, and throwing fits over my beauuuuutiful Dalmatian-skin coat.

Okay, it was a children’s production, starring a 16-year-old Cruella in a fright wig. But my soul has always yearned for the stage, and ended up sewing costumes and managing props.

The community theatre is holding auditions for Harvey soon. It seems like a no-brainer, from certain points of view: Go for it, girl! You’re not getting any younger! At least you won’t have to sing!

Except for all those other dreams and goals. My soul specializes in yearning. With Henderson the Rain King, it wanders around murmuring, I want, I want... It doesn’t yearn for glory or attention, but it likes to create. And it has no sense of proportion, balance, or timing. It gets a fair bit of what it asks for, but it still wants.

So. Presupposing a theoretical modicum of talent, do I bundle up existing commitments and dreams to throw under the bus if I “make it”? Or do I acknowledge that the current batch are more than enough for any reasonable soul, and save the theatre dream for some future life? When does achieving balance turn into burying your (theoretical) talent?

O woeful, woeful, woeful! (That’s King Lear, just in case...)

1, 10, 100, 1000...

Hammer: Mom, I can’t sleep
Me: Try counting very slowly.
(5 minutes later)
Hammer: I tried counting, but I didn’t know what comes after septillion.
Me: This time, try counting by ones, not by orders of magnitude!