Here's what I wrote, hunkered down at the kitchen table on the day of the big sale--the grand shave of all our worldly possessions--on a shopping list pad, in between totalling purchases.  I was feeling under the weather (think of the book The Red Tent; that's where I should have been hunkered with a cup of herbal and a good book) and Martin was stationed outside, so it was just me, mighty I, in charge inside.  The main floor of the house (except the kitchen where the 'check-out' was), the porch, and the sizable driveway overflowed with everything from furniture to books to our Ford truck.  And it got busy, busy, busy.  We'd advertised in the paper and posted signs all over town.  In hopes of bringing in more earnest buyers, I'd posted adverts for an ESTATE SALE, GOOD PRICES. . .but Martin informed me that you can't have an estate sale unless someone has died.  Our particular endeavor, he said, was a MOVING SALE.  But it was too late.  So outside I'd thumbtacked a huge sign reading, MOVING/ESTATE SALE (NOBODY DIED).  Before we'd drunk our first cup of tea early in the morning, the first buyers had pushed by our barrier and were asking about prices.

Here's my constantly interrupted write-up, spanning about eight hours:
*     *      *     *
There's a big sale going on and I am in the kitchen wishing I were elsewhere.  How strange to have your house filled with people buying your things!  I have--count them--six signs in the kitchen telling people nothing in here is for sale and yet a few people keep wandering in, asking--yes!--if anything is for sale.  SIGNS, people, SIGNS.  Martin, bless him, is outside working the crowd.  A lady just told me it's supposed to rain this afternoon, so she, and I, hope that our stuff is sold by then.  Otherwise there will be a lot of soggy books.  I wish Martin and I could communicate by mental telepathy.  He just came through on a mission with a phone to his ear.  Martin says MADNESS OUTSIDE so I am very glad that I am inside--albeit alone--after all.

9:42.  Much of the less expensive furniture has been hauled off at a bit of a discount.  It's better not to think of how much one paid, originally, for items.  It's certainly best to get thing gone as fast as possible. . . .I just had this absolutely absurd urge to keep a black cat candle holder for Halloween.  Maybe I'll nab it and--I DID nab it--and take it out this October and WONDER why I saved it from being sold!  It was hand-made in India, after all.  I will pay myself a dollar for it. 

Someone just bought the giraffe book-end and the jade good luck charm that our foreign-exchange student from Hong Kong gave us.  All the mattresses [our guestroom beds which we gave away] are gone now.  The queen got taken by two fellows, one very tall one in a sleeveless T-shirt with luxurious, long, curly hair--"Y'uns leaving Greene County?"  he said, and addressed me as "Miss" which I thought was quite nice and archaic, really. 

Quarter after ten and I am very warm but the house is just a big lighter.  I just gave away three books to a rather nervous young Elementary Education major who had a lovely smile after she began talking.  IKEA bookshelf is gone!  Someone sat on the twin leather chairs and seemed to like them but decided not to buy.  The camping mats are gone to a hunter-looking fellow who seemed a little doubtful about the rock-bottom price (how could I go any cheaper?)  For a minute, all is quiet. 

10:32.  An older lady with a cane just picked up the mop [almost new with a big new bottle of cleaner--I wasn't selling anything nasty, promise] and put it down again.  10:42.  A woman loved the big white mirror from Texas but decided against it.  I had high hopes because she looked like a hippie.  Microwave cart and bookshelf, gone!  Drying rack is gone.

Martin says to stay firm on prices but I just want to get rid of everything and see it all go to good homes.  Otherwise, we'll just end up giving it away anyhow.  A man with a prosthetic leg walked in--"Just lookin'!"  Wonder if he'll find anything that interests him?  How about some doilies? Four wine glasses?  An antique shabby chic mirror?  He found the poker chip set--still almost new--I bought Martin some years back.  Turns out that we don't play poker all that much and you don't need to ante up for Scrabble.

I have been smiling and being pleasant to beat the band.  Martin, by his account, is a total stickler and does not back down on prices.  I cannot say the same for myself.  The old woman who bought the mop--her husband held it at arm's length and said, "Don't we have these all over the place?"  Mops?  How many mops does she have?

I think we should slash down everything by half and move it out of here.  A lovely woman just poked her head in and told me her daughter used to live in Seattle but now she's in New Orleans.  It's so hot today, I can just imagine what it's like in New Orleans.  Just let the drop-leaf desk go for ten dollars under.  Sold the small antique table, some lamps, a couple of pretty plates.

The amoire--the beast--must go!!!  An older woman just walked in with a wad of chewing tobacco in her cheek.  Martin is "trolling" as he calls it.  How much is the bike trailer?  What is the Pack 'n Play?  Lots of stuff still for sale, Martin is telling a man, but no corner stands, which is what the guy's looking for.  Somebody wants to trade our truck for his motorcycle.  "I don't do motorcycles," Martin told them.  I'm getting reading to just pack this stuff up and take it to Goodwill.  Two more folks coming up the front stairs.  11:55.  Boredom sets in.  At some point I'll have to eat.

People are comforted by chatting about the weather.  "It's a hot one," a woman just said, no exclamation mark, just flat.  That last stair to the front porch is a real doozy.  An older woman just struggled up it and into our living room where she collapsed on our front porch.  Sold the mirror to a young couple for half the price.  He said he's going to hang it over the couch and I warned him repeatedly to anchor it--it's huge--so it won't brain anyone.  He's a former boxer and looks rather tough so hopefully he really knows how to anchor.

4:07.  Not much left.  The amoire is still there.  It will never leave apparently and we will have it in our driveway forever.  Lots of looking from a family of ten from Arizona who has bought the notoriously huge but beautiful historical home on Sherman Avenue and High Street with the stained glass window.  Wow, Martin is so great at chatting with strangers.  I am tapped out at the moment.  Just sitting here, having my period and watching the house empty out. . .too bad the family from Arizona is squeezed into a tiny apartment in West Virginia--is that legal?--while they wait for the house.  Oh, man, I could really use a cool shower.  At some point we will have to shut down but for now, here I sit, hiding. . .again, and counting the money.  We made over a thousand dollars!

*    *   *   *
We ended up finally selling the amoire for a song to a single mom with two kids who offered to take anything else we wanted to give them.  The daughter followed me around, asking "Can I have that?  What about that?"  as I unstrung the curtains and piled things for them in the corner of the driveway.  The family settled down on the furniture there and the mom smoked and waited for a brother and his pick-up but I couldn't make any more small talk.

At last, I shut our front door and locked it.  The house echoed.  It's amazing how you can lighten yourself in one day, let go of a thousand things that you held onto for almost a decade.  And nobody misses any of it, bar Bea who noticed her little telephone has mysteriously disappeared.  I promise myself never to accumulate like that again.  Freedom is a more wonderful thing and the getting-rid-of process is such hard work.

The day after the sale, a couple of people dropped by to check out a few remaining pieces on the porch.  As I spoke with them about my antique banker's table where I'd done years of writing, I realized I was seeing only half of each their faces.  I couldn't really tell what they looked like, because I could view either their noses and eyes or their mouths and chins.  Then my vision completely dissolved into waves--a classic migraine, which I used to suffer through frequently in high school but now only get during periods of extreme stress, like the time I fell down the stairs when I was pregnant.  I lay down with my eyes tightly shut, turned on the air conditioning, and tried to forget where I was.  Four days later, we would truck out our remaining belongings and head west--and we would still be surprised by how much we had kept.

The money from the sale went to new bikes when we reached Washington.  And the truck?  Our beloved old Ford stayed "in the family," so to speak--Tonya and John bump around the ridge with it, and their girls have found "Ole Bessie's" wide bed a perfect perch from which to swing from the barn rafters.

I'm sitting in our sunroom, which is warm as an oven, listening to my mother reading Curious George to Bea and her friend, Ethan. That is a true act of love--this particular Curious George book goes on and on, a series of incidents loosely connected by careless disasters. . .hmm. Sounds familiar.

It's been an exhausting few days here. I have been forcing myself to eat regularly, even when my stomach feels as though it's been shaken. I don't even know what to write here. Details have unfolded which are bewildering, shocking, and deeply troubling. Those of you whom we know well here, please don't hide your anger or sadness when you are with us. It helps us to live vicariously through you as we continue to try to live through this with grace.

In the middle of all of it, I feel protected, as if each of you who love us have built thick walls of love around us. Like Ethan or Bea inside of their tent this morning that I built for them out of chairs and blankets, I sit inside of this shady, precious place, and I am so grateful.

I wish I could write more, I wish I could explain more. Maybe someday, hopefully soon.

In the meanwhile, we've had some good belly laughs. Some things are humorous, especially when we can step back and look at things objectively. Some things are too sad to laugh at, but we're trying to find a way. On Saturday night, we attended a magic show at the University. During the amazing finale, the magician asked for a volunteer. Martin sprung up on the stage with a jaunty step.

The magician shouted, "For my next trip, sir, I will need to borrow your career."

Martin obliged.

The magician held it up--a heavy thing with carefully sanded sides--for the audience. "Look carefully at it from every angle," the magician said. "From the top! The sides! The bottom!" We gazed at it. It was a beautiful thing.

Then the magician whisked his cape over it. "Presto!" he shouted, and there was a puff of smoke. The audience gave an audible gasp. It was gone--disappeared into thin air. Slight of hand, the magician bowed and Martin descended the stage. Nobody knew why it had disappeared. Nobody knew how or when.

Surprisingly, Martin seemed intact, even though he'd lost this wonderful thing--he sighed deeply as he came back to his seat. "Well, I guess this isn't the place for me any more," he said. The audience was done, too. They stood up and left with us, and we all went out for a drink and to wonder about how the trick had been executed.

And over the next few days, we learned about the trick that made the thing disappear into thin air, and it wasn't such a great mysterious magic after all. And Martin walked back to the stage and found it where it had dropped to the floor, and it was better, smoother, and more beautiful for its fumbled fall--and he put it under his arm and we left again, to walk on to a good place.

It was supposed to be funny but now it just seems tragic, especially after I talked to Martin this afternoon, and heard his voice--exhausted, wearied, drained. I keep thinking things will get easier, and they will. When I think of how fast our lives have changed, I feel dizzy and nauseous. I'll keep returning to the tent to sit for a while, to center myself before walking back out into the fray.

Ritual

Yesterday on the phone my mother described her and my father's new Wednesday routine. She calls it "Bastard Sabbath." Now those of you who know my mother will know that she never uses slang (unless she's attempting an idiom--attempting and failing) and that she always utilizes words in their original, simple meaning. I say this to let you all know that "Bastard Sabbath," though it sounds like the name of a rock band from the 1970's, means that she and my father are approximating, or interpreting, their own sort of sabbath day. They've been reading a book by a Jewish rabbi about the concept of taking Sabbath days and decided to create their own sacred day in the middle of the week when they can discard their routines in the evening and replace them with simplicity, contemplation, and a book discussion.

"We'll fast during the day--not just from food, but from the media, and then at night we'll eat good soup and hearty bread and drink wine."

"You're going to be absolutely loopy," I said. "Nothing in your stomach all day and then wine."

"We're going to drink it slowly," she said, and began to laugh. "Like Shabbat--four glasses, but slowly."

"What?" I started to laugh, too. "Four glasses? It's going to be some kind of contemplative night all right!"

"Well, maybe we'll have to rethink that part," she said.

All drinking aside, my parent's attention to Ritual is something that Martin and I have tried to adopt over the years. Ritual is different than routine. Routines are ways of doing things you fall into without thinking too much about them; they become rote, and often even tyrannical things that eventually disgust you. But to nurture Ritual requires careful forethought, an attention to space and time, and a tender attitude of love.

Our days are full of small rituals that make each day extraordinary in some way (though they don't always happen as peacefully as we hope). Martin and I love tea time together, once in the morning and once in the evening, and that has become one of our most important rituals together: putting the kettle on, heating the teapot with a splash of boiling water, steeping the tea under the cozy, and sitting down together, taking a long, precious fifteen minutes (more if we're lucky) to discuss our day, our writing, our ideas and frustrations.

At night, we get the children to bed, put the house to bed, make lunches for the next day, set the table for breakfast, and finish the writing/grading work that we have inevitably still waiting for us. Then we always meet together, to play a game or watch a program on TV. Our ritual is always the same: one of us gets Sleepytime tea for the other, someone gets a snack. As we watch TV I scratch Martin's back, and he always gets up to get me another cup of tea. It's a simple ritual that I look forward to every day.

In Andre Dubus' short story, "A Father's Story," the narrator, whose marriage has dissolved, wonders about how that relationship might have been saved:

“I believe ritual would have healed us more quickly than the repetitious talks we had, perhaps even kept us healed. Marriages have lost that, and I wish I had known then what I know now, and we had performed certain acts together every day, no matter how we felt, and perhaps then we could have subordinated feeling to action, for surely that is the essence of love.”

Emotion fluctuates from hour to hour; our rituals are like pillars in our days, pulling us back together to focus on what's real and good.

from Marial Thon in the Southern Sudan airport

Dear All,

I'm waiting in a jumble of people in the Juba Intl Airport, sweating from every pore as people crowd into one another, many human scents wafting from our places of origin. The airport is not air-conditioned. There is one big room for all of the flights, domestic and international.

While I am writing the desk staff comes and check-in is done efficiently. I step around people to the immigration counter where they stamp my passport and then I fill in their register to give them a record of my visit. I go to security. I am given a quick pat down ignoring the lumps in my pocket and then through a metal detector that does not work.

My computer bag goes through the X-ray and the man tells me to take out the computer battery, which I do though he never looks at it except briefly when I hold it up.

I then pass into the one room departure lounge with very worn but fairly comfortable overstuffed leather chairs and sofas with crammed in everywhere suplemented by a few plastic chairs.

But before I sit down I have to pee. The door to the men's room lies directly in line with those coming into the room from security but there is not a door that will close. So those coming in get to see me standing at the urinal doing my thing. No washing hands here.

There is a sink but the entire top of the faucet-the part with the handle to twist, lies at the bottom of the basin, broken free from its threaded bounds.

But I'm on my way back to Nairobi and home-just waiting for the plane to land.

It's the five month birthday of Southern Sudan today-a new airport is being built built just down the way and I rejoice in their growing time.

Love,

Mere/Dad

Today, from Nairobi:

Enjoyed your blog on time. I built my workshop completely around proverbs and stories. So to begin to help folk understand that proverbs reveal something about the culture from which the people who created it came, I gave them two proverbs to consider. One was “A log can be in a river for a long time and never become a crocodile.” And the other was “Time is money.” I asked what they thought it meant, where they thought it was created and what it might show about the people who created it. The discussion of the last one brought out the huge differences that you referred to in the blog. It is not only chronos and kairos but time as repeated cycles vs a line. There is not sense of time as a commodity but, in facing modernity——[both have to be understood].

My correct Dinka name is Marial Thon (Thon pronounced with a silent “H” but aspirating the “T” sound but not the “O” sound as in “ton” but rather in “tone”). It means a “bull with black and white color & strong bull at the same time.”

Look forward to seeing you soon.

Love,
Dad

Tuck Away Your Watches

One of my biggest problems when I returned to live in the US was time. In my memory, my childhood in Kenya is filled with expanses: expanses of savanna, only stopping at low mountains, dizzying expanses of sky scattered like a road with the brightest stars I have ever seen, moments stretched out like empty rooms full of slanting sunlight.

In Kenya, nothing ever began on time. Time was relational, not rigid. I remember my mother waiting at an intersection as two women chatted leisurely out their windows. You didn't go into any place, whether it was a home or a place of business, without first taking the time to exchange greetings. A handshake, inquiries as to health and family. Chai. Gifts. Meals. A place marked by an appreciation for relationship.

When I returned to college in Chicago, my heart constricted with clocks. I ran to classes and arrived breathless. I began to nurture what would be a life-long bitterness against time and its restraints, against the idea of being late--late to class, late to appointments, late to work. College was marked by intense heartburn, stress that resulted partly from over scheduled days. When I showed up a bit late for a meeting with a professor, she was curt and dismissive.

As an adult, I dream of those empty, unscheduled rooms of my childhood. As a writer, I thrive in spaces that are free from clocks.

My friend Carrie, who is also copastor of our Mennonite/Brethren Peace and Justice church nearby, recently spoke these reflections on time. Ironically, we'd jostled and pushed each other out the door to get to church on time not long before I sat and listened to her words. But sometimes you have to rush a bit to get to a place where you can be quiet and open yourself to being. I am not an advocate for sloth, just a passionate believer in time being surpassed by imagination, relationship, and a longing for open, quiet spaces. Madeline L'Engle discusses Cronos and Kairos. Kairos time, she writes, is the time of creation. We dwell in Kairos when we "lose time" as we create. Here's Carrie's take, just in time for the Advent season:

In Greek there are at least two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners. Chronos is where the word chonology comes from which gives the illusion of an ordered progression of time. Chronos is ticking of the clock, counting of shopping days until Christmas. . . Chronos makes us angry at our bodies when they don’t heal as fast as we think they should. Chronos makes us anxious about our self worth when our hopes and dreams haven’t been accomplished by the age we thought they would.

And then there is the other word for time: kairos. Kairos is the time when you are lost in the beauty of a piece of music or the reverie of poetry. Kairos is the moment you hold someone in their pain and when you’ve laughed so hard for so long your side hurts. Kairos comes in moments of meditation of watching sleeping children, of falling in love. Kairos means “opportune moment” and is used when referring to a different type of time, a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. …a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. A time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. . .

Kairos gives the soul a space to deepen when the body slowly heals. When our minds were set on certain lists of accomplishments that we thought we could control,Kairos presents us space to explore new possibilities . Kairos replaces counting down till Christmas with the patient waiting of Advent. And we can’t control it. No alarm clock will alert us to it. . .

You can find more of Carrie and her husband, Torin's, reflections by visiting their website HERE.

Dear Barnes and Noble,

Tonight, on our date to your M______ store, we expected what we always expect on what has become our favorite date: a tall hot drink, peaceful music, and a few hours to shop and concentrate on some work. We are parents of three and do not go out much since it is expensive to hire a babysitter. Tonight, however, we were plagued by some of the worst holiday music I have ever heard. Mannheim Steamroller, of course, operatic renditions of "O Holy Night," and saccharine cooing of the most banal songs imaginable--all at high volume. I must say that we felt assaulted in a place that we usually love--it almost forced us out the door early. PLEASE tell your stores to choose their music more carefully, especially in the evening when one hopes for a more peaceful, contemplative experience--especially since we evening lingerers are looking for an escape from the tiresome soundtrack of most stores that dogs us through the season.

Thank you.

M______ C______

This morning my friend Sal drove up to the curb and I loaded four huge IKEA bags of recycling into her car. Someone who shall remain nameless had forgotten to rinse the black bean cans and there was a stench of rot hanging in the minivan air as we drove the two blocks to the recycling trailer.

A quick run into a packed post office to mail some late packages and we were on our way. . .but where? Let me give you a hint: I never go to this place, well, almost never. When we parked and walked in, Beatrix yelled, "Seattle!" because we only go to this place when we are on vacation.

Did you guess. . .the mall? If you did, pat yourself on the back. It was pretty empty today and the kids took off down the wide, gleaming aisles. Sal hitched up an ancient LL Bean backpack on her back and we felt just a bit out of place with all the Mall Moms. For us, the mall is a cross-cultural experience. I bought little gift for my mother (which shall remain unspecified in case she's reading), and I felt as though the woman across the counter with the thickly painted eyelashes who handed me my bag should have been speaking a different language. She asked for my phone number, which really baffles me, and I said, "Could I not give you that?" And then she asked for a contribution to St. Jude's, and I'm all for charity, but it feels a bit weird in the context of flashing cheap-but-expensive jewelry and headless manikins. So I said no.

Malls do something a bit funny to me, and it's not just sensory overload. I begin thinking maybe I'd like to buy things, a bunch of things. This consumerist urge is balanced by the absolute repulsion I feel when I walk by a store with banners of half-naked teenagers, reeking of cologne with a sign that says "Holiday Hookup." I mean, really. Martin and I did a mall crawl last year at Christmas. We went into a shop that I thought might have some nice clothes but the music was so loud that it actually bounced us back out of the door. "I don't think we're the intended demographic!" I yelled as Martin grasped the door jamb before we were blown away back to the food court and the immorally large pretzels.

Anyway, we had a good time nonetheless. There were some guys from a prison with dogs being trained for veterans who have suffered from PTSD, and we pet them for a while (the retrievers, that is). The kids played on some soft replicas of a stethoscope and a tongue depressor (the playground was financed by the hospital) and we bathed them in hand sanitizer before we fed them a picnic at the food court. Good time all around. I'm beat. Oh, and they went and stood mute in front of Santa Claus, who was so warm there was a fan trained on his bearded face.

By the way, click HERE to see the best thing that ever happened in a mall. One can only hope that the Christmas spirit surprises us like this.

What Tecumseh Can Teach Us

Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee (died 1813), composed this exquisite poem that I introduced the other evening at a potluck. We took the third stanza and danced to it with the kids it a "Rite of Thanksgiving" (something we all need more of, I think). Tecumseh was no stranger to injustice or to the threat that outsiders brought to his people. He valiantly defended his peoples' rights even as they were stripped away. Stanza two charges us today to welcome strangers, just as a courageous group of Native Americans welcomed a bunch of cold, starving foreigners that first Thanksgiving.

There are some excellent challenges in his poem for us as we begin to ponder what it means to be thankful and live bravely.

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Questions I'd Like to Ask M

Subject line just in from Mr. Patrick David, in my spam box: "OPEN THE ATTACHMENT AND GET BACK TO ME." No problemo, Patty. I'll just click on your bonny attachment and wait for your call.

I'm feeling pretty good at the moment because I just finished a feature article on the Town and Garden Country Club (it's their 60th anniversary); the sheer weight of information and expectation was hanging over my head like an anvil. So I began to chip away, evah so slowly, remembering all the while that tomorra is anutha day. . .and now it's done! Hallelujah! The first draft was so boring that Martin fainted into a deep sleep while reading it, but the second and final draft moves along at a crisp pace and even I am still interested when I read it.

Two people in particular fascinated me. The first was a woman in her mid 90's who has spent her life saving and then giving money (along with her husband) to colleges and other worthy institutions. Sitting in this woman's modest home, you would never guess the astounding amount of funds this woman and her husband have given away. I didn't see many ornaments in her home besides a vase her mother had painted, a painting she had done of bearded irises, and a pretty table runner she sewed. Her husband built the house and they have lived there for sixty years. She sat in the sunporch, laughing and chatting with me, light catching the plant next to her elbow. She described the sacrifices her father (who worked at a coal mine) and her family made to send him, and then herself and her brothers, to college. She was handing over all her extra pocket change to the bank teller when she was a kid, depositing it in her education account that would grow sufficiently over the years to send her to college and to graduate school at Duke. She was married during World War II, and seventeen days after the wedding, her husband, who had already returned to the service, was sent to Africa. For two and a half years.

Before I left she told me how she had taken a small handful of hollyhock seeds, planted and watered them in a box. All winter she watched the tiny stems unfold: two, three, four leaves. They bloom in a bright, majestic row in her garden this summer.

Though she is almost 101 and can't talk or hear much anymore (so I didn't get to meet her), M, another woman, intrigued me. She earned a degree in home economics, never married, and worked 19-hour days operating a ferry boat (it was part of an inheritance), a rough task that involved unsticking the ferry when needed and transporting miners across the river and back. In the photo, her face is exquisite: creamy skin and movie-star eyes, a hat turned back so she could see where the boat was headed. Amazing. The woman who visited and told me about M mentioned that M's eyes are still as beautiful and as captivating as they were when she was a young woman with an inherited ferry boat and endlessly long days in front of her. And I want to ask her a whole book of questions, want to hear her voice rising and falling as she explains what her life was like, why she persevered, if she enjoyed her job, whom she met, if she would do it all over again if she had the chance.

Before I change into my jammas, something I am anticipating with glee, I will give you a quick update on Merwin. Seen, once, at 7:00 as I sauteed onions, skipping with umbrella in paw from the kitchen cart under the piano. He was wearing a fake glasses/nose combo, but I recognized him, all right. Tomorrow, the trap comes.

Concerned Citizen, Age 9

Merry, our oldest, became distraught when she heard about the governor's budget cuts to education. They are distressing--the budget was cut by 50% and the money was reallocated to prisons and to huge incentives for corporations--many of which, by the way, are bleeding our counties dry of their natural resources and not paying any taxes. There's talk of laying off teachers, closing schools, cutting kindergarten, increasing class sizes, slashing benefits like free lunches for kids. Pennsylvania's future, especially for the large percentage of children from less privileged backgrounds, looks bleaker.

We hadn't talked to Merry about the budget cuts, but she found out about them at school and during the week that followed, she became more and more convicted that she should do something. So she wrote this letter, without any help from us. I helped her correct spelling and punctuation errors, and she wrote a final draft, sealed and addressed the envelope, and sent it to our governor. (To read the letter, click on the photo to make it a bit easier on the eyes).

"Do you think he'll read it?" she asked.

"I hope so."

"Well, he should," she said staunchly. Merry, I think he should, too.

A Little Rant

You know that advertisement when people do stupid things while talking on their cell phone and their neighbor turns to them and says, "REALLY?" Well, that's how Martin felt last night when he went to a memorial service for a student who was recently killed in a traffic accident and sat next to a guy who texted and browsed the internet on his cell phone. REALLY? You'd think at least death would have coaxed that fellow to put away his technology.

Since Martin and I turned in our cell phones more than seven years ago, we've "outside" the cell phone culture, and the cell phone now astonishes us. Increasingly it takes people away from each other's very real presence--I've been on a walk with someone in a beautiful place when they picked up a call and chatted to a person hundreds of miles away--for a good part of our stroll. It didn't make any sense to me--I felt increasingly invisible even though I was present in the flesh, and the person on the other end of the call--an important person but not THERE--received all the attention of my walking partner. Same thing while riding in a car, which I see as a great social interaction UNLESS the person in the passenger seat is locked into a conversation with someone in California. OR. . .wait for it. . .you're sitting with people you love in your kitchen or living room and a person you love becomes so wrapped up in her internet browser on her cell phone that, when you finally leave, she barely glances up at you. Cell phones: possibly ending real community everywhere.

Mind you, most people I know well don't engage in bad cell phone behavior, but occasionally my jaw drops, like Martin's seatmate last night. And before I go all Wendell Barryish on all of you and engage in more badly written arguments about nameless people, I'll close with a weather report.

Sunny, sunny, sunny. I feel like hauling the rugs outside and beating out all the winter doldrums.

I can't resist one last comment. In all honesty, I enjoyed my mother's cell phone usage yesterday when I was able to chat with her as she shopped in Washington State. . .I would have much rather been next to her, digging through scarves, but chatting on and on was the next best thing. And am I not depriving my children of my full attention now by typing out this silly blog entry? In all honesty, I don't think they're missing me at the moment, but in interest of full disclosure, there it is.

Goin Back, Goin WAAAAY Back

This afternoon at lunch, I tapped the black, deep-dish pizza pan with my fork and reflected, "I feel as if I'm returning to my childhood--the part in the US, anyway."

Martin took a sip from his tall, cloudy plastic cup of root beer. "These cups haven't changed much since I was a kid," he said. I agreed. Though they've done away with the pitcher of pop on the table, and the colored glass hanging lamps were gone, there were still some reassuring Old-School Pizza Hut details. The scrape of the metal server on the pan, the same stringy cheese and buttery crust, the same solid square-shaped ice cubes. No crushed ice and Coke products for Pizza Hut. It's always been Pepsi. The jar of red pepper flakes with the perforated top that my sister once told me were bacon bits. I spent most of that particular meal with a napkin plastered to my burning tongue.

There were no PacMan games silently running in the front, though, and I think I remember that, though I was never allowed to play, of course--a total waste of money. I'm filling my old-school video game longing by an occasional dabble with our friend's old Atari. It turns out, I stink at PacMan, though I think it's all the fault of the sticky joystick.

And Martin and I have been watching The Cosby Show from the beginning, and unlike most TV shows I thought were funny and now seem embarrassingly awful, The Cosby Show still makes me laugh. It's a pleasure, actually, to watch Bill Cosby now that Martin and I are parents--it's all funny from the other side. And there's always the sweater vests and stretchy pant/baggy shirt combos to marvel at.

All these allusions to my childhood have prompted me to choose a venue for my upcoming birthday party in April: RollerRink. Maybe I'll finally fulfill my fifth grade dream of skating forward in a boy's arms as he skates backward. Unfortunately, the boy won't be Martin--he's like a drunk spider on anything with wheels or blades. Maybe I'll take the backwards role and I can pull him along.

Don't forget, dearies, that the Sunday-Add-A-Caption Game--the highlight of your week!--starts at a few minutes before midnight tonight. . . .

Beautiful and Safe

Those of you who know Elspeth, our middle child (now five), either through this blog or in person, know she's got her own since of style--she swings through life to her own fantastic rhythms. Often, we have no idea what her secret music sounds like until she looks up from seemingly manic scribbling and shows us a complicated picture, embellished with unexpected details. Unless you have a weak heart or become nervous easily, Elspeth will charm you with her quirky creativity.

Lately, I've felt like short-order cook in the mornings, armed with hairbrush instead of spatula. I survey three little girl heads and whip up some order with bows and bands. Elspeth has very strong (but inclusive) opinions about what is beautiful, and I try to accommodate her bordering-on-crazy notions when I can. Yesterday morning, she asked me to braid her hair in four plaits around her head. Later, on the way to a playgroup, she burst out: "I have four braids and I feel like the most beautiful girl in the world!"

My mother left a book behind for me to read, and a few nights ago, I finally cracked it open, a little wary of the serious and potentially depressing content. I was surprised to feel not only burdened but also inspired and completely enfolded by the stories of girls around the world, particularly in developing countries, who are victims of trafficking and forced prostitution. As I read the stories, I couldn't help but feel that those girls were my girls--or me--in a different country, with a different history. I highly recommend the book: Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, winners of the Pulitzer Prize. Last night, I told Martin, You have daughters; you must read this book. But if you know a woman or a little girl, you must read this book.

This Christmas, I noticed my dad tearing up at one point as he looked at our three daughters. He observed how happy and secure they were, and I thought of his work in relief, preventative health and development (through World Concern--look them up--their projects are tremendous) in countries where sex trafficking and the forced slavery of young women and girls is much too common. (So common, in fact, that there are more enslaved women and girls worldwide today than there were slaves in the 1800's in Europe and America). Often, these women suffer not only the abuse of their forced work but also a death sentence from AIDS. It makes me look at my girls with gratitude and humility and then look from them to the thousands and thousands of girls who suffer around the world. How many, like Elspeth, do not feel the security and happiness of feeling as if they are the most beautiful girls in the world, loved by many?

Superbowl and My Dad

My Dad came back from a trip to Haiti just in time for the Superbowl, and I chatted with him today about many things, including the illness he picked up in the Miami airport, the cholera epidemic in Haiti, and family news. And the Superbowl. Even the most globally minded American gets pretty excited about football. As we spoke, my mother returned from Trader Joe's, where she'd been stocking up on Superbowl fare.

One of Martin's favorite parts about being at my parents' house this past Christmas was watching football, Sunday and Monday, with my father. My Dad's the calmest man I know (he reprimanded my sister after she almost broke a plate glass window by folding his newspaper, leisurely getting out of his chair, and telling her, 'Not smart'), but even he gets somewhat excited over a really good run or an excellent pass. And after my parents' stint in Baltimore, he's suddenly a Ravens fan, which colors his opinion of the Steelers.

You can't live in my town without being a fan of the Steelers, at least by appearance. I'd probably be beaten to West Virginia if I were stupid enough to slap a Packers sticker on my window. But it does make the game tomorrow more exciting to know that up in Washington State, my Dad, purely from bitterness over the Ravens game, will be rooting for the Packers.

And for the first time in my entire life, I will actually make a cake with the name of a football team written out in black icing. The background will be gold, and maybe I'll even watch more than the advertisements this year.

November's Icy

Outside, the clouds are banking thickly into a wall. The wind that swept across the country days ago stripped the trees on the mountain outside my window bare, and now they're dark against the sky's white pile, like bristles on a scrubbing brush. One of our aspen trees still clings to a dozen dry yellow leaves; a single bird flies low through a brown forest of brittle cosmos and a black cat picks her way through delicately on white paws down the forlorn path littered with tomatoes never picked.

Merry came in the door steaming yesterday: "The neighbors cut down their pear tree!" she said, her eyes large and angry. "They cut down a living thing." I suddenly realized why their front yard looked so vacant and swept--they'd been talking about cutting their rather gangly, heavily-producing tree down for the past year, but I never really believed they would. A lone yellow pear lies in the gutter in front of their house. Merry and Martin gathered the only fruit that was ever enjoyed from their tree--the neighbors grumpily loaded every pear in black trash bags and dumped them behind their house in a tangle of brush. Now the road lies bare and grey to our right; we can see cars coming for a good half-mile, and the last of our pear-sauce freezes in the downstairs ice-chest. All because of a great lack of imagination on our neighbor's part, because their pears did not taste like the soft, plastic-wrapped fruit in the styrofoam containers at the grocery store.

But here in my little make-shift office, one geranium blossom opens toward the muted sunlight, ten petals, like the swirling skirt of a dancer. I saved the geranium from three days of frost; it will bring me much joy throughout the coming sleet and snow, which, by the by, apparently starts tomorrow. A pear tree lost; a geranium saved. And so October passed and here comes November's icy winds.

Too Many Treats, Not Enough Tricks

It is that time of year again. . .the one holiday that gets Americans from every walk of life out and moving as a community, and they're filling huge sacks with candy. There's something strange about that. I have to admit that I turn the lights off and clear the whole family out of the house. We gave treats one year but I find the mix of happy people--some in sweet outfits, grinning as they hold open their bags, alongside the sour-faced, too-old, ghoulish, frowning out of downright disturbing masks--stressful. I do not come back until Trick or Treating is over.

I keep thinking, as I'm out on my porch collecting mail or putting away the stroller, that my neighbors are out on their porch--and then I glance over and realize that it's just the witch and the skeleton. As we sat on the swing in the sun today, Elspeth told me, "They [the witch and the skeleton] don't talk except when you're not watching."

"Maybe they're just sad they don't have any friends," I said. "Maybe they feel sad inside."

"No, Mommy," she said, "They're mean. And they don't have anything inside."

Our neighbors also seem to have buried some relatives in the front yard. Merry skipped over to their small front lawn the other day to collect wind-fall pears from among gravestones and skeletons rising out of the ground.

This is my nod to Halloween: I baked up two huge pans of extra chocolately brownies from scratch, iced them, and sprinkled them in orange and purple and black for two school parties tomorrow. They are so gooey that I'll have to spoon them out. Elspeth brought home a huge pink ghoul head filled with candy that I sorted out while she was busy eating a lollipop: the emergency car bag, the Martin-take-to-college bag (which included a white jelly mouse in a jar of clear corn syrup and three spider rings), and the very paltry left-overs, which I hid in the sauces/oils cabinet above the stove. And I may still steal the snack-size KitKat tonight when the kids are finally all in bed sleeping. I have to say I get immense satisfaction from dumping out the kids' candy and sorting through it--a childhood, post Trick-or-Treat feeling. Ah. Look at this loot. Of course most of it goes to the college students, but I take a charitable donation on our taxes for that.

In case the IRS reads blogs, I'm just kidding.

Ten Things

Martin and I are about to start playing our Ten Things Game. Curiosity peaked? Well, at this point I could go so many ways: we sit down at night when the kids have gone to bed, and name ten things that drive us crazy about the other person OR we sit down and read ten poems to each other OR we eat ten pieces of chocolate or ten jalapenos OR we choose ten things we want to do with the rest of our lives. Ten freckles on the other's face. Ten nose hairs. Ten facial expressions.
Or none of the above.
Actually, the Ten Things Game gets instituted when the house feels as if it is closing in around us. I picked up a magazine this morning and flipped to a quote that was celebrating clutter, though the example of clutter cited in the article was a stack of books next to your bed. Wha? This person must not have children. Clutter in our house includes, but is not limited to, endless masterpieces created by the children at school and at home; stuffed dogs and cats and naked baby dolls; wooden vegetables; apple cores; "lost" toothbrushes; hair clips; endless articles of doll clothing; single socks; crayon stubs; treasures such as rocks, nails, pieces of glass, feathers, etc., etc. I even found a secret cache behind the children's poufe (large round sitting cushion) that consisted of, but was not limited to, a large hunk of stale white bread and an empty (sucked dry by the M.C.) plastic lime. (This is an aside, but I have to mention that the M.C. also painted the inside of our fridge the other day. Blue. She and I scrubbed for a while and then she sat in time out and pondered what a bad choice she had made).

So every night, Martin and I both have to find five things in the house that we will throw or give away. We put them in a pile, step back, and assess. If by chance one person really wants to keep that old picture frame that the other person chose, they may challenge the object only if they are willing to find two more things to give away as forfeit, bringing the total give-away total to eleven.

Martin and I played this game so well last year that we were almost down to essentials by the time we finished. Since then, our house has been eating with a voracious appetite, and is about to burst. It's time.

A couple of our friends are joining us in this game. Last night they freed themselves from the enslavement of ten clutterous items. Do you want to join?

We'll Always Have a Friend Wearing Big Red Shoes

It's a long story. It begins in Walmart. No, wait, it goes back further than that to a tiny skateboard with red wheels, a choking-hazard that Beatrix fell absolutely gaga for. She talked about it all the time. "Where my skateboard?" she'd say, at nap time, car rides, random moments throughout the day. "I think it's in Aunt Sally's car," I replied for two days, to which she said, "Oh, NO!" and burst into tears. Aunt Sally had to bribe her with an extra special treat to tide her over to the next day, when said skateboard was reunited with Beatrix. And then, Friday morning after the conclusion of my interview at a local bakery, it went missing.

This has caused great consternation at Wazoo Farm. This afternoon, the family finally drove out to Walmart to find a skateboard to make it all better. We found some, in plastic cases with wierd decals and extra wheels. There was even one with a skateboarder included, all in black with hair slanting over one eye. "No!" Bea said. "Little TINY skateboard." These offerings, at two inches long, were far too large.

Then I remembered that McDonalds had been giving out skateboards as the Boy Toy with Happy Meals, so our family turned our car that direction and we all piled out into a sticky parking lot.

"That ChickALay?" Beatrix queried, her whole body tense with excitement.

"Nope. It's McDonalds."

"McDONALDS!" she shouted, in a way that would have made our good friend with the big red shoes so very happy.

Inside, Martin almost shouted, "LOOK! The McRib! It's back!"

Now, we adults were planning to get nothing but water, but Martin said, "You HAVE to get a McRib. It's the right thing to do." I never found out exactly why this was, but he ordered and the girls sat on swinging chairs which they worked with an intensity that was truly impressive. Beatrix almost fell off.

There was a woman sitting on a high table talking at great volume to a man in a McDonalds employee cap. "Look," she was saying, "They got their own life, I got mine. I'm single, right? So I got nobody I come home to and nobody I'm responsible for, and that's my privilege. And then they're driving by my house and saying, 'Your company stayed for three hours,' and they're saying, 'She had company in her house for three hours,' and I'm saying, 'What goes on behind closed doors is none of your business!" The man in the cap kept nodding and listening.

I shouted up to Martin who was at the cash register, "Boy Toy! Boy Toy!" I wasn't calling him my hot and handsome play thing--I was reminding him to request the skateboards instead of the scented, molded plastic Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

The single woman with privileges went out of the restaurant, flipped up her cell-phone, chatted for about two minutes, and came back in to continue her monologue with the same guy, though he'd moved toward the door by then. She seemed incapable of silence. Martin was back by then and he raised his cup of ice water to mine and said dryly, "Cheers."

By this time the children were chowing their pale chicken nuggets. "I just knew this would happen," Martin said, as he gnawed his McRib. "They're giving out these buckets instead of the skateboards." The girls were pulling their food from neon green buckets decorated with Halloween Potato Heads.

"I thought I remembered skateboards," I said.

Merry said, "They only have the same toy for a limited time." Or something knowledgeable like that. She ate a medium fries in a sad way, eyes downcast.

Beatrix was dunking her nuggets in her caramel sauce. Martin passed over his McRib so I could taste it. "This is the strangest menu offering ever," he said. "It's called a rib sandwich but there are no bones. Observe. It is a fillet."

I bit into it. It tasted, in consistency and texture, like scrambled eggs doused with barbecue sauce. I passed it back.

Beatrix requested a straw, stuck the end into her caramel sauce, and began sucking. Then she dunked the straw into her milk. And back into the caramel sauce.

"That's disgusting," Martin commented, and continued eating his McRib sandwich. (Please do not miss the delicious and unitended irony.)

Near the end of our meal, the table piled high with trash, Beatrix poured her entire cup of water on the floor. She was suddenly like a creature possessed; she would not stay in her seat; she ran about and threw her arms around a strange man's legs until she saw his face and realized it was not Martin.

"I think it's the caramel sauce," I said.

"It is pure sugar," Martin agreed. We watched her run. A man in hunting gear with his son stood by and waited for his order. The checker, holding a tray piled with large fries, searched for a party who had moved to the back by the restrooms.

Then Elspeth began to take on the characteristics of a rubber ball. I noted that her caramel sauce package was also empty, licked completely clean.

Suddenly I jumped up, began throwing empty burger wrappers and caramel packets on to the tray. "I think it's time to go!" I announced.

Elspeth began to jig. "I've got to go potty!" she said. It apparently could not wait until home so the girls disappeared into the bathroom. Martin and I stood in an aisle discussing how long they would take. "At the soccer game, they were in there for, like, a half hour," he said. I sipped my decaf coffee. There was a moment of peace.

Soon after Elspeth almost collided in the parking lot with a car, but then we unstuck our feet and rode home through the darkness. Martin listened to baseball and Elspeth yelled from the back. Then Merry yelped as Elspeth pinched her. We waited for lights to turn green. As we neared home, Beatrix said, "Where my skateboard?"

Told you it was a long story.

For more from the Onion News Network on our favorite golden arches, click here.

Martin Loses Locks. . . AND. . . Merry Encounters Tabloids

WHO IS MARTIN AND WHO IS EZRA POUND (from Wikipedia)?



MARTIN GETS ALL CUT UP
This man cuts me up. I mean, I cut this man up, or his hair at least. I had to eat a lot of gummy letters to get through this particular hair cut. Martin began the evening by showing me a ridiculous--but informative--video on YouTube of a gorgeous woman with dark hair cutting the locks of "her man." I think Martin figured I would have received an excellent education because he confidently set up our salon in the kitchen, complete with "Arrested Development" on the lap-top. I shook open the gummy candy and turned on the razor.
BEFORE
Three episodes later. Martin and I have had an argument (consisting of his doubts being vocalized insistently that I was NOT following the video instruction)--I won because I had the clippers and the scissors. The clippers pretty much jumped up the back of his neck and sheared him like a sheep. I put those away in a hurry, my distrust of machines proven yet again. And then I set to, clipping close to the scalp, eating gummy candies, and trying not to say, "Whoops" out loud.
AFTER
Here's "My Man," lookin good, like I knew he would. Like a British folk rock star.
_________________________________________
On the way home from a friend's house this afternoon, Merry said, "Mommy can you turn [the music] down? I have something very important to tell you."

(Background: she and her friend, Cat, had gone to Walmart together earlier this afternoon.)

Merry began to explain: "Cat and I were looking at a magazine at the store, and it had a picture of President Obama on it."

"Really?"

"Yes, and it said Obama wants a baby, but Mitchell does not.

"I think her name is Michelle, honey."

"And then it had a bubble with an arrow on it that pointed to Obama's finger and the bubble said, NO WEDDING RING."

Martin and I were beginning to grin but Merry was grave.

"It said, Mitchell and Obama have a TERRIBLE FIGHT! They looked very serious. The picture said, NO WEDDING RING." Later Merry said, "Cat said they're divorced. Or they're about to be."

Merry, welcome to the beautiful, scintillating world of tabloids at check-out lines, where the world is full of endless possibilities and opportunities for gossip.

Sales at GAP or Burlap Sacks?

Pics are all from the historical files, showing some of the tamer fashion statements the Cockrofts have modeled over the years. There is one guy here who is not a Cockroft but is part of my family. Can you suss the dude out? Hint: he's not wearing make-up. The man wearing make-up IS a Cockroft.

Well, folks, we took the man shopping.

As you might remember in "Bad Button Philosophy" (scroll down for the down-low), we last left our hero Martin in desperate need of cargo pants.

So a week ago, we tried Kohl's. I told Martin to go browsing and I'd take the kids so he could look in peace. Am I totally the spouse of the year? Heh, heh. We walked down the gleaming aisles, full of well-dressed, preoccupied people. Kohls, enchanted place: the smell of perfume and new clothes, posters of buff dudes in jeans and perky women in corresponding perky clothes seemingly comfortable with their own perkiness. We the Cockroft girls: a motley assembly. Merry had two shades of green on (I had encouraged her to go with a different color on bottom but Martin said Really? I kind of like it, so I was voted down--so, two shades of non-matching greens and blue and pink striped socks with pink-and-leather shoes. Sometimes socks don't matter, but these socks were the kind of socks that yelled: HEY! WHATZUP, MAN! WE ARE SOME LOUD FOOTWEAR AND WE LOOOVE IT. JOIN THE STRIPED PARTAY! BYOB!

I really try to stick to my values: if you are neat and tidy, clothes shouldn't matter. My internal counsel: If the kids want to dress themselves, honor their self-expression and show of independence. Go with it. Don't make what isn't a big deal into a big deal! There are many times I've been tempted to go back on this philosophy, to MAKE a big deal out of a little deal, to put a paper bag over my head as I walk beside certain outfits on my daughters. I've been through the fashion fire: Merry's bag lady outfits (layers of sweaters, big socks, three or four patterns together, topped by a bonnet and finished off by big, brown shoes; Elspeth's ridiculously fancy party dresses or little tutus. . .you name it, I've swallowed whatever pride I have left and gone out with these children, though I must say, during the course of a day, I usually inject this seemingly off-hand comment into a conversation: "[Insert daughter's name here] dressed herself today!"

I know it's silly. After all, I am the thrift store queen. I am the super-excited kid because I get to explore the "we-keep-this-special-room-for-missionary-kids" with a garbage sack to fill with treasured hand-me-downs. I never bought myself a stitch of clothing until I went back to the US in college where I'd go through piles of clothes the other college girls discarded at the end of the year. I'm proud to say it: I like recycling clothes. It makes economic, spiritual, and personal sense to me. I've always liked clothes and looking nice but I've never been one to spurn a cast-off. I hate shopping for certain things: jeans and bras are the pits. I never even knew my own bra-size (I'm not sure I could tell you now, as a matter of fact) since my dad did all the shopping for my 'brassieres,' as he called them, on his frequent trips back to good old America. When an bridal store employee was helping me try on wedding dresses, she asked me my bra size and I had to admit I had no idea what it was.

But those socks of Merry's--well, they were like our old rusty Honda. A fabulous car in the middle of hippie-town, Montana, but in Houston? Well, it looked a little out of place. I hadn't cared a whit about the car as long as it ran but during a year in Houston I started to become increasingly aware of its shabbiness. An ugly side to myself, I must admit: the side that, contrary to every belief I hold dear, actually cares what perfect strangers think! And shiny department stores and malls and all those places filled with such perfect treats make me want things I never knew I wanted. Ah hah! Ralph Lauren striped bedspreads! This could make my life oh, so much better! Bright bowls painted with Mexican-inspired patterns! Ice-cream would taste so much better out of that festive dish. Sparkling kitchen tools I never knew existed. Scented candles in endless molds and jars, untouched rugs stacked in perfect symmetry and dazzling hues--MINE could be the FIRST FEET on that there rug! I am now trembling with desire to buy those flower/stripe/solid socks. Are you with me? Are you?

Well, if you know what I mean, I have the cure: SHOPPING WITH CHILDREN. They will make you imminently practical and quickly convince you that you never want to be in a store again. Take, for example, the trip to Kohl's and my generous offer to Martin. Everything was fine while we were browsing the smallish toy section: obnoxious plastic things that make loud noises. Princess books. Barbies in clear plastic sheaths. Fine, fine, fine. No, honey, these things live here. Put it on your Christmas list! Save your money! Etc. Etc.

And then I made the fatal error--I headed to women's clothing to look over the clearance rack. Accompanied, remember, by Merry in her loud socks, Elspeth cloaked in energy, and Bea, for whom the novelty of the shopping cart seat and the obnoxious talking book I'd snagged had WORN OFF.

I cannot tell you exactly what happened in those moments as I put my hands on the 60%Off rack. Impressions include: children in and out of clothing, maniac giggling, my own temperature rising, possible and probable arguing and accusations, and to top it all off, a colossal WHACK to my left shoulder from the lethal edge of the clothing racks. Then there was a woman disgracing herself, smashing small female children back into the shopping cart, and plowing down the aisles like a speed-demon, Sock-girl trailing behind.

We left the air-conditioning and emerged from the swinging doors, bruised, baffled, and oh-so-happy to be leaving the bright lights of Kohl's behind. As I strapped the children into our disheveled, scratched, dirty, full-of-miscellaneous-junk, beloved car, I said to myself like a mantra, "the life of the mind!"

Give me books. Give me writing. Give me music. Save me, save me, from shopping malls.

And what did we score from this experience? Two puzzles. One shirt for Martin, on sale, brown stripe. It looks good on him. I gained a sore shoulder and a renewed commitment to scholarship. All in all, a profitable shopping trip.

PS. For those of you who are aware that I took the girls back-to-school shopping this Saturday, let me tell you: it was delightful. Tiring but delightful. Martin took the two little ones while Merry, her friend, C, and I hit the changing rooms at the outlet malls. I was pleased with the outcome. Martin, on the other hand, was so sweaty from charging around after Elspea and Bea at the outdoor mall that he and I could barely stand to smell him that night. Martin gained: one pair of corduroy pants from GAP. On sale. Tell me, is it worth it? Or should we all be wearing standard-issue burlap sacks?