Across the Bridge at the Pittsburgh Zoo

I am downloading this video to make a dad happy--namely, the father of my sister-in-law's sweet girls and little boy. (It's out of order chronologically.) The kids walking across the bridge are wonderfully intrepid together, and the zoo itself is the best zoo I have ever experienced. There are no depressing, dreary cages--the zoo is landscaped beautifully, meandering over hills and around bends. The animals are healthy and seem happy in their lush, spacious habitats. Everything is clean and family-friendly and the tone of the place is most definitely one of respect to the world and environmental awarness.

My favorites include watching the elephants take their showers; listening to the proud, Hemingwayesque (ie., very full of himself) lion roar; watching the kids climb under a glass tunnel full of stingrays (the aquarium was too crowded this particular day for that); eating our picnic outside with a strutting peacock, and enjoying the polar bear, the penguins, the sea otters, and the sea lions romping about with their toys in the water (all in separate tanks, of course!) Martin even got to walk under the huge glass tunnel while the polar bear swam over his head, digging at the water with his immense paws. Fantastic!

Tougha Customers, No?

Outside, the perennial hibiscus are the size of plates. Inside, Bea is just down for a nap, exhausted by our morning bakery/shopping expedition. Downstairs, the cousins are assembled with bowls of noodles and sauce, and Grandmama is singing them "Italian songs" to get them to eat--Sole Mio, I hava you here to eata my spaghetti, you are so beeeautiful. . .To which they objected that she was singing in English and not Italian. Well. Tougha customers, no?

Here's a bit from Martin's e-mail to his dad:
Yesterday, Merry and Josiah caught minnows all day in the creek and insisted they be allowed to make "fish stew." So, grudgingly, I dumped the little guys in boiling water, chopped their heads and tails off, and put what was left into a broth the kids helped me make. We all ate some, but after, Merry said she didn't like feeling the bones between her teeth, and felt sick about seeing the fish swimming and now eating them.

Immm. Fresh fish stew. We convinced Merry and her cousin Josiah to make a habitat for the minnows and crawdads today instead of serving us all (I sloshed some of my minnow stew in the wiegelia bushes, Aunty Heather shoved some of hers through the deck boards, Mom lay awake last night with a slightly roiling stomach and thought in detail about the minuscule bit of minnow she ate pre-hotdog for supper and Josiah pronounced it was very delicious.)

Good times.

Good Things

Playhouse two days ago--now we've put up all the walls!



It's almost ten and Martin is still out, wrapping things up--literally--due to the 10to 20 percent chance of rain. Two coats of paint on the french doors, shed floor painted, two out of three floors of the house cleaned: that catalogs my accomplishments for the day.

My sister, her three kids, and my mother arrive tomorrow night; some days later my father and brother-in-law join us. We are going to be ready to party! Now if only we can get the gazillion things done that are left before they arrive at suppertime!

pics

Camel & lavander

Elspea picking peas


NO time to write except to say: toothpaste takes off sticky, ill-mixed paint! That, an an industrial strength brush on your skin WILL take even the most foul paint of your skin!

Roofing in the Darkness: the Girls Playhouse Continues

What light Martin is going on is beyond me. His inner light, perhaps, or the fireflies, or his supersonic night vision goggles. Now that it's more or less pitch outside, I am glad to hear the screen door slam. I think that means that the roof is up. After I read to the girls tonight, they reported that "Daddy was on the other side" before they scooted off to bed. I do not think they were speaking figuratively, or at least I hope not.

My contribution to the fence and playhouse is holding a few rafters in place, buying gatorade and klondikes, and spending TWENTY-SEVEN days straight with the children. Yes, you heard me correctly. This week I've been putting them to bed every night. Tonight we suffered the second flour-eating incident of the week (that's when Bea waits until I've cleaned the kitchen to clamber onto the counter and eat handfuls of flour from the gallon jar I keep there for baking), an assault with a building block (middle child), and much moaning from one eight-year old, who is also a very active informant. Three days in the nineties has made us all a little fractious, though overall--and now that I am more clear-headed due to five minutes without any children--the three weeks of construction have been enjoyable and relatively facile. I am ready for a bit of a break though, and I'm sure Martin will be, too.

The reason, my dear friends, who are scratching your feminist heads at this division of labor--the reason is that if I had built either fence, playhouse (or last year, shed, and the year before, our front fence), they would have all been laughable disasters. I say this because I know myself and my mathematical and spacial limitations. I don't know how good I am at being with my own children--I'm grateful that they are all alive! But this is about division of labor and who's naturally inclined and talented, not about who's swinging a manly arm with a hammer attached and who's suckling the brood. Martin shows a remarkable aptitude for building, which is foreign to me, coming from a family who only raised a hammer to hang pictures.

Note that the fence ends abruptly on the side yard? It LOOKS weird, but it's planned--our forsythia hedge, which is somewhat smallish at the present moment, will someday meet the fence and carry on down the side yard in style. And the big blue shade tent is just in the Children's Garden temporarily, to give Martin some respite--usually it's over the adirondacks (until our fruit trees grow bigger and stronger.)Also, that funny little bit of deer fence is only temporary.

He just came in; he says that if he gets up at five in the morning, we may just be able to leave after breakfast to go on our overnight trip to Deep Creek, Maryland. Five a.m. is a wonderful idea, don't you think? I'll pat his back as he rolls out of bed: Good job, darling! Keep the old cylinders firing!--and all that.

a few more

What can I say? Not much, because it's still HOT. Martin's still putting up the roof, smeared with sunscreen and on his upteenth bottle of gatorade.

But Bea is so cute, even in hot weather. The one of her with her tongue out like a happy puppy dog is from my friend T. M. and all the others are thanks to Martin's dad.



I'm so hot & lazy I don't even take pictures anymore! I just strained my back bringing up the window unit air conditioner so I think I'll go sit in the cool blast and drink tea. Over and out.

Little Sparkler

Thanks to a friend, here's Bea's first sparkler, on her second fouth of July.

People, I can't write anymore. It's too hot. Martin's out putting the roof on the kid's new play house, which he designed and has been building himself. Nothing like roofing in almost 100 degrees!

What Martin and His Father Did

At last!

All photos, courtesy of Ken Cockroft. . .all fence, courtesy Ken Cockroft and son.

All (or at least a great deal of) dizzy joy at finally having some privacy, MINE!

It's so hard to sit down at the computer these days with all the excitement--but I wanted to show you how wonderful this fence really is. It passed the naked test! Beatrix, in her favorite state, running around in her own flowery sanctuary, buck nude. As the sweet older lady who dropped by the other day and found Bea sitting on the couch, watching TV, in her birthday suit, observed, "It's much too hot for clothes!"


The summer is so sweet. Today the girls and I lay under the maple and watched the cardinals, listened to the wind, and squabbled with each other.

Buoyed and Sunk

Oh, Alaska Quarterly. How you've done me wrong.

What did Emily D. write? Hope is the thing with wings that pecks you in the eyeballs?

See, the thing is, journals can't do you wrong because they have no idea who you are. They don't know your name or your favorite vegetable or whether you yelled at your kids this morning or practiced deep breathing and acted mature. They don't care at all, and that's the nature of their journalness--like snakes or birds, you can't catch a glint of interest in their eyeballs; they may just slither or fly away, like they never saw you at all, or they might charge at you and bite you. You never know what they'll do.

The thing about hope--the words I say over seeds as I tamp soil over them, or the small secret thrill I feel as I print my name on an SASE and slip it into an envelope addressed to this or that journal--the thing about hope is that it can make you a fool. It can make you feel silly for wishing when you get just one more slip back printed with the dreaded words: Thank you for sending us. . .While we were. . .Good luck placing your. . .You know it as soon as you see your name, in your own handwriting, on a slim, weightless envelope. You know you're done for, man. You've raised your hand to wave happily at somebody in a crowd and it turns out they were waving to the guy with the handlebar mustache behind you.

You know you're just going to have to gird up your loins and send the manuscript off again, again, again, ceaselessly until somebody shocks you with recognition.

Since September, I've had a poem, a short story, an essay, and a children's story accepted in four different publications. I wish I drank beer in celebration every night, but instead I scan the pieces I have out, hoping, hoping. . .for what? Another nod from a journal? A sign that my career will not fizzle in total obscurity? And would that be so bad, as long as I've done my best and, most importantly, shaped and loved the people who have crossed my doorstep? Of course it wouldn't--I know that. I've got my values straight.

And it's only for the first ensuing moments or even hours after yet another rejection that I stick out my lower lip and pout. Then I shift gears, whip myself into shape, climb on another boat. And try not to wish too much.

Fathers, Daddies, etc.

I didn't realize Father's Day was upon us until yesterday! So I zapped off some silly Jibjab cards featuring my talented, kind father-in-law as a karate master and pasted my own dad's head onto a business suit next to Truman. . .or something like that. Love that Jibjab. Here's Martin's card:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

We spent Saturday night with generous, lovely friends up on their windy ridge. Martin cooked Thai food and we ate chocolate and watched movies while the girls slept. And then the next morning we feasted on a huge platter of dove-colored pancakes and crispy bacon. We must let our friends congratulate Martin on his exceptional fatherhood more often. I'm not sure I would have managed much more than a bowl of Frosted Miniwheats. Tonight, though, sitting next to Martin (who was sweaty and flecked with grass bits from weedwhacking), I informed him that he could choose whatever he wanted for dinner and we would make it happen (I trusted that he would not actually want me to COOK)--so we drove down to the empty parking lot of the local Chinese diner and loaded up on saucy, fried, salty, delicious food, which we all ate in front of the TV. We split an exceptional beer.

In two days, Martin's father joins us for the Big Summer Project: this year, it's a fence across the front of our side garden with six foot pickets. This may sound like the awful privacy fence and it is for privacy, but there will be spaces in between the pickets to afford walkers-by a look into our garden but will give us a much-wanted barrier from the motor cars. How quaint! Motor cars! Try the loud, horrible vehicles that roar by with no muffler or the young guys who stop speeding just long enough to lay on their horns or yell that Martin is a hippie. These people I do not care to hear from.

Dad C., Chester, and little Elspeth, who looks as if she might be about to help herself to a mouthful of fur, in Texas among the spreading pecan trees

Martin's dad is just a wonderful father-in-law and I can hardly wait to see him. When I first knew Martin's family as a pending in-law, Dad C. said, "Hey, Kim, you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway." Well, I'm not originally part of the Cockroft crew but they wanted me anyway, and the pleasure, (going on twelve years now), is all mine.

Daddy, with baby Bea, in Seattle

Well, for my own father, I thought I'd cheat and cut a piece I wrote for a writing group--Daddy, I know you've already read it but it's still true months later.

* * *
The gifts my father gave me are many-faceted but simple. As a doctor of public health he and my mother gave me the gift of a childhood overseas, in Bangladesh and then in Kenya. He gave me his damp and warm smell as he motored my sister and I over dusty roads that ended in the green swirls of rice paddies. He gave me the smell of the rain that rolled in a wall to wet our feet at our front doorstep. My father gave me the cacophony of crowded trains at midnight, the quiet of his voice, the gentleness of his hands. He gave me the faces of the poor, the hungry and downtrodden, and they are ever with me.

My father gave me the deep rivers of his voice as he wove adventures about we children and the Red-eyed Crocodile. He gifted me with the voices of Aslan the lion and Gollum and Piglet. He gave me a love for the trees that met over my head as we hiked. From him I learned a quiet determination to do right and be reconciled. From him I learned to be patient with answers that have no questions, to choose to risk love instead of choosing small certainties. When I turn my head to the words of Jesus, when I hear 'the least of these,' I imagine my father on his journeys far away from us, I see my father at our breakfast table, I feel him sitting next to my bed. These things and more my father gave to me.

9:10

The sweet and prolific Evening Primrose, blooming round the Pool Garden
Ten after nine. Evidently Paul said my last entry was strong in sentence--meaning, I can write a tight sentence but my composition was totally addled. Well, Paul, I don't know you, man, but you hit the nail square on the head. A day of children will do this to your composition. A week of children, rain and humidity minus a spouse or partner will do this to your brain. I can still talk but I don't make a whole lot of sense. Mom and I have been laughing at ourselves lately.

But tonight we are serious. We have seven more hours of Gilmore Girls until we close the door on season five. Please do not scoff, now. Or scoff. I don't care. We have been doing the Gilmore Girls like some people do a marathon. Seamlessly, at a break between episodes, Mom and I get up and sprint into the kitchen--she slips dishes in the dishwasher, I refill the tea cups--or she runs down to the laundry room and I rustle up more chocolate--it doesn't take us long, in any case, to park our deserving derrieres back in front of the TV. If we are feeling very ambitious we will fold laundry while we watch. But it is a relief to just sit back and let ourselves go--I don't even scratch any backs, since Martin is away. Martin makes few requests of our relationship but nightly back scratches is one of them. He refills my tea cup and gets me cereal, and I give him a good back scratch in return. I wonder who has been scratching his back in Kentucky? Not you, Paul? Or, Martin, did you find a tree somewhere in the parking lot, shimmy up and down so the bark did the job?

What have I to report of Wazoo today? An advanced tomato plant is fighting to live. I have not helped it at all, and for this I feel a shred of regret. I'm hoping a mellow, cool night will perk it up. The burpless cukes are still in their tiny plastic dividers and not in the ground; neither is the extra green and purple basil I bought over a week ago. Laziness!

We found a dead bird on our deck--I felt more than a shred of remorse for that tiny sparrow, but the girls stepped over it heartlessly and Bea said, "Dead bird! Yup!" And then she went on her merry way. Mom saved me from dealing with the carcass by carrying it down the hill, where she threw it into the creek. I do not have a brave or sane past with dead birds. Once, when Martin and I were dating, a dead bird on my parent's patio sent me into hysterics. As I held the plastic bag for Martin to drop in the body, I began alternately laughing and crying and shaking the bag like an idiot.

I am so sad when a tree or a bird dies--I don't cry or fall into a small depression, but I feel that something is deeply wrong and it is distressing. Birds and trees give me such courage and joy and never demand anything in return, and I am deeply grateful to them.

I just heard the stair creaking under my mother's footsteps; then there was a clunk of a laundry basket against the banister and quiet conversation in the girl's room, which probably means I am needed to correct a daughter.

Paul, Martin, all you good AP readers, big pat on the back for the--what was it? One million, one-hundred thousand essays graded? And Martin, I will give you a big Scratch on the back very soon, if your plane doesn't go down or you are raptured before 12:30 tomorrow. I trust neither of these will happen.

9:26. Over and out.

Is the Yellow Wallpaper moving for anyone else?

I'm wiling away the minutes, waiting for Elspeth to fall to sleep so I can finally become a REAL ADULT again. But wait--which is REAL? If children love you very, very much, do you then become REAL? If they wear wrinkles into your forehead and give you heartburn and drive you to deep breathing exercises, will you finally achieve immortality as a REAL PARENT?

It's been another warm day but now darkness finally obscures the garden beds--orange and pink lilies, blue and white bachelor buttons, the star-puckers of cosmos seedlings. Our window fan blows the heady scent of honeysuckle across my arms as I type. During the long, grey winters, I forget the humidity of summer, the way it drags my limbs down into the stairs as I climb, climb, climb, into the ever-warming heights of our old house, bearing laundry, a child, a cup of water.

Today my mother and a friend sat on the adirondack chairs having some scintillating discussion; the wind was blowing; the children were running around in various states of nudity, covered in sand; and I was climbing over garden beds, trying to capture the miracles of flowers and young vegetables and swollen sugarsnap peas with my camera and failing miserably in the bright afternoon light. On the way up the stairs to shake some supper out of the weary, hot kitchen, the wind blew hard and all the trees bent to the left, ruffling a whole sea of varying greens: young black walnut leaves, the tiny cottonwood, the old grand tree at the bottom of rose-covered Thistle Hill, and it was so beautiful that I shouted out loud.

I need to remember that moment of transcendence now as I wait, wait, wait, impatient with Elspeth's legs, which move restlessly over the covers. Ah! A yawn! Hope springs eternal!

All I want, people, is some time at the end of the day: a few hours filled with nothing more than TV, my mother, Sleepytime Tea, and something sweet. Has it truly come to this? Yes, yes, I'm afraid it has. Martin has been gone now for seven days and the children are all off school, every day! My desires are simple at this moment--

Ah! Another yawn! I see a firefly--soon the entire hill will be pricked with their tiny lights--every night before I go to sleep, the darkness outside my window moves with a hundred white sparks. . .

I am tingling all over, at this moment, with frustration. I have become a REAL PARENT, ragged, well-kissed, thrown under beds where I collect dust bunnies until someone yanks me out to hold me in their hot, fevered hands. If only the skin horse were here to give me some wisdom and tell me that though becoming REAL hurts, it is worth it to feel the night breeze on my ears, to jump and run with other REAL parents, to stay up long enough in the hollow to watch the fireflies come out.

If you are still with me, thank you for allowing me these minutes of lunacy. I believe sleep is imminent. You have been faithful, though silent, companions.

Virtuoso

Allow me one more. Bea, our talented virtuoso, early this spring. She has improved since then; she can now play her first sonata without any music.

bea gets down

In this video Bea is wearing three pairs of stockings--per her request; the song is the lovely "Come on, fatso, bust a move."