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Saints and poets, maybe.
Tonight Mom talked me into watching Our Town on PBS instead of sticking in an x-files dvd. I suppose I'm glad I did, since, as she put it, I'm a "student of all that literary stuff," but my *word,* it's a boring play, isn't it? I can see how it would be fun to put on, though. And mind you, Main Street annoyed me for exactly the opposite reasons, so I suppose the ideal is somewhere in between. I need to go re-read the Spoon River Anthology. Or possibly Johnny and the Dead. Too bad they're both at school. But really, my life has been about as boring typical lower-middle-class American as possible, and it was nothing like that. So here:
It's March 21, the first full day of spring. The year is 2004, and it's a Sunday. It's looking to be a typical day in March in Maryland; it's 8 o'clock, around fifty degrees, and the wind is gusty and damp. Mom's already up for the day, probably; I hear her moving in the hall and turning the radio on, so I roll over, blow out the candle I accidentally left on all night, and pull my covers more firmly over my head. She starts trying to get me up soon after; around nine she gives me a half-hour warning *and* announces that a can of sticky buns "which have been in the fridge a week too long" will be ready, which is enough to get me moving. Sort of. I stagger out to the kitchen, dressed, a few minutes later, to Mom's exaggerated surprise, pour myself a glass of milk, and start work on my half of the sticky buns.
It's an unworthy thought that now that there are only two of us still at the house, that's a whole half-a-can of sticky buns each; but today will be a day for unworthy thoughts, and besides, it's hard to be anything but appreciative when you're sharing warm sticky buns with Mom over your great-great grandmother's kitchen table, glancing over the papers, wondering what would happen if Kerry named McCain his running mate, and trying to solve Will Shortz's word challenge on Weekend Edition.
(A seven-letter word, the plural of a common vegetable. The first three letters spell a word; the last four spell its synonym, backwards. ('Turnips' works if it's the first *four* letters, but Mom swears he said three.))
Eventually I dump my dishes in the sink, Mom sighs and puts them in the dishwasher, then disappears to the bathroom. I swing on my cloak and grab another Zelazny paperback from the shelf; Mom puts on her purple coat and red hat and makes sure she has everything for the Sunday school lesson. I get out of driving by carrying the heavier of the two bags of cans which will go to the local food bank and the special cardboard cake box from Lauer's that holds almost a hundred cupcakes which Mom had to return to Ms. Gerry. The car ride passes in something of a blur; but time spent in a car, rather like time fishing, doesn't quite *count* like real time, does it? I'm several chapters into my book by the time we get to church, anyway; drop off the donations and sit down on the radiator in the fellowship hall to warm my feet without ever quite making it back to the twentieth century and Earth. Mom has two students today-- she's teaching just down the room from me; the organist's son who's making trouble, as usual, and Justine, who gets brought to church by her grandmother. They're learningsome story wherein they have to get her to explain what a 'widow' was. The older class gets out ten minutes early as their teacher goes in to warm up for choir; the pastor's sons and the pastor's son's girlfriend wander through while Mom is trying to convince her class to sit still and play a bible game.
Gerda and her husband have come in early to set up for coffee hour. They're varying the punch mix today by adding a bit of Sunny Delight, they tell Mom wickedly. Most of the rest is leftovers from last night. I catch my name and look up from my book as they start laughing about how I'm never listening, but I was, enough to smile and tell them that no, I wouldn't be the best choice to stay in and make sure nobody eats the food. Besides, I *like* going to service. I'm not sure they believe me, but I do, and that's what's important.
I do like the service. I know pride's a sin, too, but I like showing off by knowing all the parts, even in Lent, without reading my hymnal. Besides, wasn't it Twain who made the point that carrying the hymnal when you don't need it is also pride, of a different sort? I like singing when I don't have to worry about how awful I am, I like saying the order of confession and forgiveness and knowing that my secret sins are not all that secret nor particularly mine, if everybody confesses to them every week. I like saying "The Lord be with you!" and thinking of Star Wars, I like chanting the liturgy and the psalms (although today's was read responsively instead), I like listening to the readings and thinking about them, I like mostly ignoring the sermon while thumbing through the hymnal looking for science-fictiony lyrics.
Today's sermon wasn't half bad, actually; the Gospel lesson was the Prodigal Son, one of my favorite stories, and reassuring at a time when I feel rather dissipated myself. Somehow the sermon included the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep, too, and ended up being about the shamefully intolerant way we treat the Korean Presbyterian church which rents our building, and our own lack of diversity; well, lack of congregation, really-- I did a rough headcount during the offertory and came up with about two dozen, not counting the choir and the early service. But there were a surprising number of new faces.
Perhaps that's why the coffee hour clears out so early. Me, I'm even more asocial than usual, curling up on the radiator again to read, although I do manage a few conversations. And I'm beginning to suspect the pastor's younger kid has a bit of a crush on me, although I'm notoriously bad at judging these things. Mom buys some trail mix from him and sells some raffle tickets for the quilt. Good ol' socialism at work. On the way out I start to plot out a mystery novel where a cheating scandal on a church afgan raffle escalates to the point of murder, but I can't quite work out a motive good enough to fix an afgan raffle. Mom mentions an unworthy thought of her own: The shepherd in the parable searched for and found the missing sheep and held a great celebration . . . what do you think they probably ate at it?
By the time we get home I've finished my book. We're waiting for a phone call from Uncle Ken and Aunt Nancy telling us whether Cousin Aaron and Mary Kate and little Gracie have dropped by on their way home from a friend's christening. Meanwhile Mom puts on Car Talk (NPR will always sound like home to me) and I retire to my bedroom with all good intentions of reading mineralogy, but end up mostly drifting between another Zelazny paperback and dreams. By the time Car Talk is over, the phone call's come, and I get maneuvered into driving down the road to their place.
I've actually been managing to see Gracie more weekends than not this semester-- I got to see her eat her first solid food a few weeks ago-- but usually Sunday nights I'm too tired to write it up when I get home. I can only imagine how tired *her* parents are, even if Gracie is, of course, wonderful. Today she eats a whole Tupperware container of mush! And then messes her diaper! And she looves books, the same way ALF looved cats, to borrow a 'witticism' of Mom's. Of course she's too spoiled to be crawling much yet, but she manages to scoot backward with alacrity when she wants to. And I can't blame her, since she is lolling and wallowing in her blankets the exactly same way I have been most of the day.
Us big folk start on another of Mom's white potato pies, very good. Better chilled, too. I pet their less-skittish cat and their inertia-raddled half-beagle while Aaron and I gang up on Mom again to try to convince her to get another cat. Aaron and Uncle Ken discuss books and sports and conservative politics. Aunt Nancy shars the news that Cousin Kara and Wayne will be coming down from Tennessee in in April to see about getting another frozen embryo implanted--maybe a sister for Grace's cousin Sammy. Mary Kate and Mom and I play with the baby. Eventually it's decided that she needs to head home to PA; as her parents are gathering stuff together, the space heater suddenly violently explodes, spraying sparks all over me, the baby, and her grandfather. The only casualty is a few burnt spots on the linoleum-- and Aunt Nancy wants to get a carpet for crawling grandkids anyway-- but it's rather a shock. Exuent, eventually, a still-crying baby who will be traumatized about fireworks for life; exeunt, eventually, Mom and I while Uncle Ken is still marvelling over the hole burnt right through the metal casing of the heater.
When we get home Mom calls Pop-pop to arrange to visit him Wednesday, since tomorrow is quilting at church and Tuesday we're going to New Windsor to drop off quilts, and I'm not going to get to sleep in at *all*, am I? He doesn't stay on very long but Mom is surprised when he agrees it might be fun to go daown the aocean and see if anything's open at Ocean City. So yay! Maybe I will make it to the beach over spring break. Speaking of that, then we troop down to the computer to read my sister![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stellar_dust's long spring break report, which makes me intensely jealous indeed. I stick around online just long enough to catch up on my flist, then head back upstairs, where Mom's already put on Voyager and has started crocheting something red and thneed-like.
Voyager generally gets on my nerves, but I'm afraid any complaint will lead to a suggestion that we start my income taxes instead, so I swan about for a bit, then, catching sight of a bag of fabric scraps that Mom brought home from quilting, suddenly announce that I need to cut a new template for my quilt squares, as I'm out, and the old cardboard one has the consistency of felt. Mom rather unexpectedly asks if I want to try making one out of something more substantial using the tools and scraps in Dad's workshop.
I do. I have, actually, since I started that darn quilt years ago, but always felt too awkward to ask, even when Dad was around to bring it up to. I think it's the first time anyone had been through Dad's shop since that changed, but we manage. Mom finds me a nice piece of white plastic and I remember where the carpenter's square and the handsaws and sandpaper are kept. I even remember the proper way to use a coping saw, although I still saw a straight cut about as well as I sew a straight seam. I always choose hand tools over power tools, I'm not sure why. Maybe I figure if I'm going to the trouble to make it myself, I might as well earn a little elbow grease meanwhile. Maybe it's just that Dad taught me them first, watching the Woodwright together and helping me make miniature red wagons in Pop-pop's furniture shop and little awkward puppets and dollhouse furniture.
I bring it upstairs to finish the sanding and get to watch the Voyager crew teaching pacifism to A Weapon Of Mass Destruction, then we have leftover corned beef and vegetarian chicken stew (she forgot to add the chicken) from the church dinner, and switch the TV to Nature on channel 26. I've traced and cut 60 quilt squares and sewed another foot or so of seam and eaten half of yesterday's key lime pie by the time Our Town is over at, of course, 11. By that time I am absolutely antsy to get downstairs and pop online again for a little while before bed and write.
Well, the little while doesn't happen. And I have to get up early to drive Mom to sewing if I want a crack at 10-for-$1 book day at goodwill after quilting.
Okay, still incredibly boring. But real, too. And *I* like it.
It's March 21, the first full day of spring. The year is 2004, and it's a Sunday. It's looking to be a typical day in March in Maryland; it's 8 o'clock, around fifty degrees, and the wind is gusty and damp. Mom's already up for the day, probably; I hear her moving in the hall and turning the radio on, so I roll over, blow out the candle I accidentally left on all night, and pull my covers more firmly over my head. She starts trying to get me up soon after; around nine she gives me a half-hour warning *and* announces that a can of sticky buns "which have been in the fridge a week too long" will be ready, which is enough to get me moving. Sort of. I stagger out to the kitchen, dressed, a few minutes later, to Mom's exaggerated surprise, pour myself a glass of milk, and start work on my half of the sticky buns.
It's an unworthy thought that now that there are only two of us still at the house, that's a whole half-a-can of sticky buns each; but today will be a day for unworthy thoughts, and besides, it's hard to be anything but appreciative when you're sharing warm sticky buns with Mom over your great-great grandmother's kitchen table, glancing over the papers, wondering what would happen if Kerry named McCain his running mate, and trying to solve Will Shortz's word challenge on Weekend Edition.
(A seven-letter word, the plural of a common vegetable. The first three letters spell a word; the last four spell its synonym, backwards. ('Turnips' works if it's the first *four* letters, but Mom swears he said three.))
Eventually I dump my dishes in the sink, Mom sighs and puts them in the dishwasher, then disappears to the bathroom. I swing on my cloak and grab another Zelazny paperback from the shelf; Mom puts on her purple coat and red hat and makes sure she has everything for the Sunday school lesson. I get out of driving by carrying the heavier of the two bags of cans which will go to the local food bank and the special cardboard cake box from Lauer's that holds almost a hundred cupcakes which Mom had to return to Ms. Gerry. The car ride passes in something of a blur; but time spent in a car, rather like time fishing, doesn't quite *count* like real time, does it? I'm several chapters into my book by the time we get to church, anyway; drop off the donations and sit down on the radiator in the fellowship hall to warm my feet without ever quite making it back to the twentieth century and Earth. Mom has two students today-- she's teaching just down the room from me; the organist's son who's making trouble, as usual, and Justine, who gets brought to church by her grandmother. They're learningsome story wherein they have to get her to explain what a 'widow' was. The older class gets out ten minutes early as their teacher goes in to warm up for choir; the pastor's sons and the pastor's son's girlfriend wander through while Mom is trying to convince her class to sit still and play a bible game.
Gerda and her husband have come in early to set up for coffee hour. They're varying the punch mix today by adding a bit of Sunny Delight, they tell Mom wickedly. Most of the rest is leftovers from last night. I catch my name and look up from my book as they start laughing about how I'm never listening, but I was, enough to smile and tell them that no, I wouldn't be the best choice to stay in and make sure nobody eats the food. Besides, I *like* going to service. I'm not sure they believe me, but I do, and that's what's important.
I do like the service. I know pride's a sin, too, but I like showing off by knowing all the parts, even in Lent, without reading my hymnal. Besides, wasn't it Twain who made the point that carrying the hymnal when you don't need it is also pride, of a different sort? I like singing when I don't have to worry about how awful I am, I like saying the order of confession and forgiveness and knowing that my secret sins are not all that secret nor particularly mine, if everybody confesses to them every week. I like saying "The Lord be with you!" and thinking of Star Wars, I like chanting the liturgy and the psalms (although today's was read responsively instead), I like listening to the readings and thinking about them, I like mostly ignoring the sermon while thumbing through the hymnal looking for science-fictiony lyrics.
Today's sermon wasn't half bad, actually; the Gospel lesson was the Prodigal Son, one of my favorite stories, and reassuring at a time when I feel rather dissipated myself. Somehow the sermon included the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep, too, and ended up being about the shamefully intolerant way we treat the Korean Presbyterian church which rents our building, and our own lack of diversity; well, lack of congregation, really-- I did a rough headcount during the offertory and came up with about two dozen, not counting the choir and the early service. But there were a surprising number of new faces.
Perhaps that's why the coffee hour clears out so early. Me, I'm even more asocial than usual, curling up on the radiator again to read, although I do manage a few conversations. And I'm beginning to suspect the pastor's younger kid has a bit of a crush on me, although I'm notoriously bad at judging these things. Mom buys some trail mix from him and sells some raffle tickets for the quilt. Good ol' socialism at work. On the way out I start to plot out a mystery novel where a cheating scandal on a church afgan raffle escalates to the point of murder, but I can't quite work out a motive good enough to fix an afgan raffle. Mom mentions an unworthy thought of her own: The shepherd in the parable searched for and found the missing sheep and held a great celebration . . . what do you think they probably ate at it?
By the time we get home I've finished my book. We're waiting for a phone call from Uncle Ken and Aunt Nancy telling us whether Cousin Aaron and Mary Kate and little Gracie have dropped by on their way home from a friend's christening. Meanwhile Mom puts on Car Talk (NPR will always sound like home to me) and I retire to my bedroom with all good intentions of reading mineralogy, but end up mostly drifting between another Zelazny paperback and dreams. By the time Car Talk is over, the phone call's come, and I get maneuvered into driving down the road to their place.
I've actually been managing to see Gracie more weekends than not this semester-- I got to see her eat her first solid food a few weeks ago-- but usually Sunday nights I'm too tired to write it up when I get home. I can only imagine how tired *her* parents are, even if Gracie is, of course, wonderful. Today she eats a whole Tupperware container of mush! And then messes her diaper! And she looves books, the same way ALF looved cats, to borrow a 'witticism' of Mom's. Of course she's too spoiled to be crawling much yet, but she manages to scoot backward with alacrity when she wants to. And I can't blame her, since she is lolling and wallowing in her blankets the exactly same way I have been most of the day.
Us big folk start on another of Mom's white potato pies, very good. Better chilled, too. I pet their less-skittish cat and their inertia-raddled half-beagle while Aaron and I gang up on Mom again to try to convince her to get another cat. Aaron and Uncle Ken discuss books and sports and conservative politics. Aunt Nancy shars the news that Cousin Kara and Wayne will be coming down from Tennessee in in April to see about getting another frozen embryo implanted--maybe a sister for Grace's cousin Sammy. Mary Kate and Mom and I play with the baby. Eventually it's decided that she needs to head home to PA; as her parents are gathering stuff together, the space heater suddenly violently explodes, spraying sparks all over me, the baby, and her grandfather. The only casualty is a few burnt spots on the linoleum-- and Aunt Nancy wants to get a carpet for crawling grandkids anyway-- but it's rather a shock. Exuent, eventually, a still-crying baby who will be traumatized about fireworks for life; exeunt, eventually, Mom and I while Uncle Ken is still marvelling over the hole burnt right through the metal casing of the heater.
When we get home Mom calls Pop-pop to arrange to visit him Wednesday, since tomorrow is quilting at church and Tuesday we're going to New Windsor to drop off quilts, and I'm not going to get to sleep in at *all*, am I? He doesn't stay on very long but Mom is surprised when he agrees it might be fun to go daown the aocean and see if anything's open at Ocean City. So yay! Maybe I will make it to the beach over spring break. Speaking of that, then we troop down to the computer to read my sister
stellar_dust's long spring break report, which makes me intensely jealous indeed. I stick around online just long enough to catch up on my flist, then head back upstairs, where Mom's already put on Voyager and has started crocheting something red and thneed-like. Voyager generally gets on my nerves, but I'm afraid any complaint will lead to a suggestion that we start my income taxes instead, so I swan about for a bit, then, catching sight of a bag of fabric scraps that Mom brought home from quilting, suddenly announce that I need to cut a new template for my quilt squares, as I'm out, and the old cardboard one has the consistency of felt. Mom rather unexpectedly asks if I want to try making one out of something more substantial using the tools and scraps in Dad's workshop.
I do. I have, actually, since I started that darn quilt years ago, but always felt too awkward to ask, even when Dad was around to bring it up to. I think it's the first time anyone had been through Dad's shop since that changed, but we manage. Mom finds me a nice piece of white plastic and I remember where the carpenter's square and the handsaws and sandpaper are kept. I even remember the proper way to use a coping saw, although I still saw a straight cut about as well as I sew a straight seam. I always choose hand tools over power tools, I'm not sure why. Maybe I figure if I'm going to the trouble to make it myself, I might as well earn a little elbow grease meanwhile. Maybe it's just that Dad taught me them first, watching the Woodwright together and helping me make miniature red wagons in Pop-pop's furniture shop and little awkward puppets and dollhouse furniture.
I bring it upstairs to finish the sanding and get to watch the Voyager crew teaching pacifism to A Weapon Of Mass Destruction, then we have leftover corned beef and vegetarian chicken stew (she forgot to add the chicken) from the church dinner, and switch the TV to Nature on channel 26. I've traced and cut 60 quilt squares and sewed another foot or so of seam and eaten half of yesterday's key lime pie by the time Our Town is over at, of course, 11. By that time I am absolutely antsy to get downstairs and pop online again for a little while before bed and write.
Well, the little while doesn't happen. And I have to get up early to drive Mom to sewing if I want a crack at 10-for-$1 book day at goodwill after quilting.
Okay, still incredibly boring. But real, too. And *I* like it.