Friday Report

So you're wondering how it went with Betty. I think it went well, though I was sort of weirdly exhausted by the end of it. Certainly the house--or the rooms that Betty and her three daughters cleaned--were beautiful, shiny and fresh. They cleaned the dust off the ceiling fan and made the boys' bathtub a thing of beauty. I couldn't be more pleased.

I was interested that when they were done cleaning Betty left a religious tract on my counter with a note ("Thank you for letting us clean your house, I hope you're happy with the job we did today ..."). The tract is the sort that most of us are familiar with--Did you know that Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you wouldn't burn in Hell? Say the Sinner's Prayer today so that you will be saved. Given that I have a postcard of Mary and baby Jesus on my fridge alongside a poem by Kathleen Norris called "Imperatives" that begins,

Look at the birds
Consider the lilies
Drink ye all of it
Ask
Seek
Knock
Enter by the narrow gate
Do not be anxious
Judge not; do not give dogs what is holy ...


you'd think I might have been given a pass on the whole "we're concerned about the state of your soul" thing, but I guess not. A little disappointing, I have to say.

It's funny having a stranger in your house, especially one that's mucking about in your space for a couple of hours. You start to see what's weird about your stuff, at least if you're me. For instance, for the last three or four years we've had this dangling from our livingroom ceiling,

which is a dried bundle of Salvia clippings from the garden. The Man trimmed back the plants one day and liked how the remnants looked, so naturally he bound them together and hung them from a hook, as one does (the hook was already there--I believe the previous owners of the house hung a lamp from it). I've always loved our Salvia, but looking at it through Betty's eyes, I could understand that she might think us quite insane.

Then there's our fireplace mantle, that runs the length of the wall, upon which we have displayed all sorts of things, including one of the Man's many fine documentary photographs, various children's art projects and some barbecue sauce:

Sometimes I wonder what my children think when they go to other people's houses. Do they think, "Ah, at last, normal decor?" Or do they think the normal stuff is weird? Do they wonder where the display of barbecue sauce is? Where their friends parents display their bundles of sticks?

***

So I believe the house cleaner experience was a success. When I get rich, I'll have Betty and her daughters (everyone in the family is stunningly gorgeous, by the way--it's like have the cast of "Petticoat Junction" clean your house) come weekly. Will they bring me religious materials to read every time they come? Will the tracts become increasingly scarier? Should I start leaving my Bible out in obvious places? I'm curious to find out what happens next. Stay tuned!

On Wednesday, the house cleaner is coming.

I'm sort of nervous about it.

I've wanted to hire a house cleaner for a while now. But they're expensive. And you have to clean up before they come. And they get to judge you for being messy.

I am very, very messy. Organized messy, but messy all the same.

My house cleaner's name is Betty. Betty and her daughters clean for my next door neighbor, Janet. Betty came over three weeks ago at my request and took a look around. I don't think she liked what she saw.

She also seemed incredulous that I only wanted her to clean a few areas--the bathrooms, the kitchen and the living room. Clearly this is a house that could use a good cleaning up in every room.

True enough. But I'm not ready to commit to a whole-house cleaning. There are parts of my house that don't get all that dirty, and I don't mind mess. I just mind sticky kitchen floors and icky boys' bathrooms.

So why don't I clean them myself? Because I am a person who can do very little that the spirit does not move her to do. All my self-discipline goes into keeping a daily writing schedule and cooking. After that, I'm blown about by my whims. Sometimes I'm moved to clean, it's true. Sometimes I'm moved to pull all the junk out of Will's room and paint the walls and put up new curtains. Sometimes I'm moved to watch the entire run of West Wing (again) while I work on a quilt. You just can't tell with me.

After Betty inspected my house and decided that she would deign to clean it, I checked in with Janet. Betty scares me, I told her. She scares me too, Janet said. I don't think she approves of how I keep house, I told Janet. I don't think she approves of anything, said Janet. But she's trustworthy and she does a good job.

Betty is going to come every other Wednesday. Travis and I are going to hide in the Man's study while she's here. I hope she does a good job. I hope she doesn't fire me after the first day.

Friday Report

This is a neat installation from the NC Museum of Art. From far away, the faces seem indistinct, but the closer you get, the more individualized they become.

Today I went grocery shopping. I bought lots of groceries. At the checkout, the cashier, who was actually a store manager, rang up my groceries and I bagged. For some reason, my neighborhood grocery store doesn't have people who automatically bag your groceries, so you have two choices, wait for the cashier to ring up your groceries and then bag them, or else you can bag them while the cashier is ringing things up.

I always bag, because a) that way the hamburger buns never end up squished on the bottom; and b) it makes the process go much, much faster.

So today the cashier rang and I bagged, and we chatted a bit about the weather (it's raining today after weeks of no rain at all). We'd gotten about two-thirds the way through my groceries when the power went out. It came right back on (there must be store generators), but the computer screen on the cash register didn't. Other cash register screens powered up again, but not ours.

I looked at my bagged groceries and said, "This is probably the best bagging job I've ever done, and now we'll have to start over."

(Another cashier walking past said, "It's sort of like winning at Tetris when you get everything packed in just right.")

The cashier and I chatted and joked as we waited hopefully for the cash register to start working again. I offered her a bagel (I had just bought a baker's dozen at Breuggers and the bag was in my grocery cart). She joked that we should go get a cup of coffee as long as we had to wait. I wondered if I should start unpacking my groceries so we could go to another register and start the process over.

She looked at me and shook her head. "Keep your groceries in your bags. We'll just ring up the rest of them on a register that works and that's what you'll pay today."

We decided to ring up the meat again, because I'd bought two pork loins (they were on sale) and three pounds of organic chicken, and that was a lot of meat to be giving away for free. But otherwise, the orange juice and the pretzels and the lettuce and the Wheat Chex and Life Cereal and milk and half and half and the brown basmati rice and all sorts of nice things were mine for the taking, no charge.

One of my favorite expressions is "Good news, bad news, who knows?" It seemed like bad news when the power went out, but it turned out to be good news indeed. 

The quilt on Friday:

The quilt on Monday:

Doesn't even look like the same quilt, does it?

The last time we spoke, I was tired. Then I rested. Then I started coming down with a cold. The good news is it's not a bad cold. In fact, I'm functioning quite nicely. I wrote this morning and went to Will's soccer game this afternoon. I suspect what I wrote is gibberish, and I accidentally kept cussing every time they scored on us at Will's game, but I count being upright and mobile as a victory when I'm sniffly and my ears itch.

Have I mentioned that Will is playing soccer? It's his first year, and he's playing for Our Fine School's 7th grade team. He's the goalie. Most of his friends play, and for the last two years Will has played a lot of recess soccer. He's never been on an actual team before, and he's having a great time. His teammates voted him co-captain along with his friend Ashaank, and although the team is 0-3, they're not bad and getting better.

I will say I wish Will would go out for more unobtrusive positions, like ball boy or an inconsequential defensive linesman. In baseball, he often pitches, and there's nothing harder on a mother than a kid who pitches. Next hardest, though, has got to be a kid who plays goalie. While Will is a good boy for the most part, I fear he's a touch inconsiderate when it comes to my stress levels and overall mental health.

A bunch of Jack's friends came over last night to play Dungeons and Dragons. The Man grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and Jack made pie. I opened up the bags of potato chips. I had a cold.

Here's the great thing about your teenager having friends over for a gaming party. You get the fun of having a party--getting ready, planning the menu, cleaning up (which isn't fun in and of itself, but it's fun the next day, when you have a clean house), and then welcoming people in and hearing happy chatter all around you--but you don't actually have to make small talk with anyone or worry if people are having a good time. They're a bunch of teenagers with unlimited chips, cokes and brownie pie playing games with their fellow teenager friends. Of course they're having a good time.

I suppose I'll go to bed now. I will leave you with a link to a very funny piece on introverts. All my introvert friends love it. Which are you--introvert, extrovert, or somewhere in between?

 http://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/brb-im-introverting?utm_term=.qoZ5DR8eM#.nm5a1D51o

Friday Report

 

These are blocks from a quilt I'm working on. It's a fairly traditional 

quilt, but I love how at this stage it looks kind of funky and modern.

My dears, I am tired.

I am so tired that what I first wrote was I am tried.

It's sort of the same thing, isn't it?

Last night was Parents' Night at Our Fine Upper School. We went to all of Jack's classes, which made me and the Man both mournful over our substandard high school experiences. Also, it made us even more aware of the fact that Jack is a million times smarter than either of us (but not even half as wise, and wisdom is the important thing, isn't it?).

Sometimes I'm very good socially. I get in a groove and am witty. I find my audience. But last night I wasn't on my game. That happens a lot. I did my best to just shut up. When I was in a classroom full of the Upper School's Mover & Shaker moms who always make me feel insecure, I repeated my favorite mantra, Be not afraid, be not afraid. Because insecurity, like stress, is just fear. I kept my thoughts and questions to myself. Let's just get through this, I thought.

But after Jack's AP Calculus teacher (and yes, I have a child taking AP Calculus, and yes, I don't even know what Calculus is) made the year ahead sound like the Bataan Death March and then asked for questions, I could not stop myself from raising my hand and asking, "Is there any pleasure to be had in Calculus? Because you make it sound sort of depressing."

(Interestingly, Jack's teacher's eyes lit up at this question and he answered it with a resounding "Yes! There is!" so while everyone else sitting there probably thought I was an idiot, Mr. J seemed happy to have an opportunity to explain why Calculus is beautiful.)

So anyway, it's Friday night, and today I wrote and had lunch with the Man and went to the grocery store and cleaned out my freezer and thought, "I need to get ready for the holidays." Cleaning out the freezer reminded me that I always think I'm going to clean out my freezer and lazy susan and pantry before Christmas, but I never do. I have such plans for order and beauty, but they never happen, at least not all at once, and never two weeks before Christmas. Maybe if I'd taken Calculus?

The Social Ramble Ain't Restful and Other Thoughts & Observations

A Note from my visit to the art museum last week:

In the same way I am increasingly drawn to music that is as much noise as music (Tom Waits, Wilco), I find myself more and more drawn to abstract art or art that I don't quite understand but feel.

From Some Rules for Teachers, by Anne Boyer, after John Cage:

demonstrate uncertainty

do not let the terms with which you understand the world get in the way of understanding it

give up any desire to be the smartest person in the room

every student is a genius

conduct yourself in such a way that your students can eventually forget that you exist

 

 How to Keep Young by Satchel Paige:

1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify  it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain't restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.


From Jack Kerouac's 30 Beliefs About Writing:

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

4. Be in love with yr life

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

29. You’re a Genius all the time


My favorite MLK, Jr., quote:

"The end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community."

A Friday Story

Just thought I'd share this picture of me at my fourth birthday party.

 My hair used to be jet black! No more!

Travis and I were on our morning walk when we ran into our neighbor Lib, whose path we don't often cross. Lib lives on Montgomery Street, looks to be in her early 80s, and has one of those beautiful, deeply cultured southern voices that make me think of Episcopal churches and Chanel No. 5. Though we see her infrequently, she is always friendly. I'm not convinced she remembers having met us before, but that's okay.

On this particular meeting, Lib asked me where I was from originally, and I gave my standard answer, which is not geographic in nature but gets the point across, "Army brat."

"You must be from North Carolina," I said, and she nodded yes. "I'm from Wadesboro, not far from Charlotte," she told me. "I grew up in the town's funeral home and didn't leave home until I went to the women's college in Greensboro."

We were standing across the street from one another, Travis sniffing around in the leaves, me hoping he wouldn't find a dead mouse to roll around in.

"I was so homesick when I left home for college," Lib continued, "but the rule at the college was that you couldn't leave for the first six weeks. Oh, I just felt awful! So one day, around the fifth week, I put on my hat and my gloves and I marched downtown to a funeral parlor and knocked on the door. When a man answered, I fell into his arms sobbing. He of course thought that someone had died. 'No!' I wailed. 'I just want to see some caskets!' So he let me in, and then I felt much better."

Whenever you're tempted to skip your daily stroll around the block, remember, there's a good story around every corner. Get walking!