Scout Moves

But I'm not bitter, really. You're not worth a plug nickel What my mother often said when waking me up if I had slept longer than she thought I should. You're burnin ' day light What my father often said when waking me up if I had slept longer than he thought I should. Why, you're just playin ' ' possom What my father often said when waking me up if I had slept longer than he thought I should, and he was convinced that I was really awake and faking sleep Why do you want to look like that when you could be pretty? What my mother often said when I walked out the front door in my scruffy clothes. I had a favorite pair of jeans with both knees ripped out, and I liked wearing them to school with my velour sweat shirt ( ahh , the 70s).

I picked up #2 from school this afternoon, and when she got in the car, she said that she swore the Tooth Fairy lives in her purse. Every time she goes out for lunch and realizes that she forgot to get money before school, she finds $4 in change in the bottom of her bag. I would like the Tooth Fairy to live in my purse.

I thought I had discovered a new art form when my friend Adair told me about altered books. I thought some scrapbooker had gotten bored with her calico paper and grommets and decided to hack up her old third grade reader. But then I found the International Society for Altered Book Artists ( ISABA ) . My husband pointed out that there is an international society for just about anything--I suppose that's true, but this one surprised me because I had no idea there were so many people out there massacring old dusty books for art. Where have I been? Here is how the ISABA describes their craft: the altered book-- It is any book, old or new that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art. They can be ... rebound, painted, cut, burned, folded, added to, collaged in, gold-leafed, rubber stamped, drilled or otherwise adorned ...and yes! it is legal! Well, of course, it's legal. This isn't currency you're plastering with decoupage, it's a book. It's a book ...

Today, my horoscope reads: Think of yourself as the ringleader in a cosmic circus of goodwill and good times. A ringleader, huh? Then I want to be Ringmaster Ned, and I want three rings in this "circus" of goodwill and good times. RING OF GOOD WILL: Acrobats from Cirque du Soleil stand on horses which ride the perimeter, and they toss Cracker Jacks out to everyone in the audience, and the surprise prize inside is a puppy. RING OF GOOD TIMES: Clowns set up a movie screen and man a film projector that plays Pixar shorts, one after another. SURPRISE RING: It's the grand prize game, and every little red bucket is full of Peanut M&Ms, and everybody wins. My kind of circus.

•Happy birthday to Ed Sullivan. Gosh, was he cranky--a real Type A. Click the TV Guide for a link to more information if you want. •What to NEVER buy, unless you want your bathroom to smell like a nursing home. Maybe it was just the particular scent I chose (the green one), but after installing these things in my four toilets, I had to go back through the house with a trash bag, gather the stinky things, stuff them in the trash bag, tie up the trash bag, throw the trash bag in the can outside, and wait impatiently for garbage day, which, thank God, is today. I'm trying to envision a marketing team sitting around the table sniffing samples of proposed scents and saying, "yep, that one's good." Did you all have sinus infections that day? •Speaking of sinuses, I got my hair cut yesterday, and my hair cutter person is very skilled at scalp massages. While shampooing, she focused on my temples and asked if my sinuses were bothering me. No, they weren't, but how could s...

The book mobile, which I now must own, is not in the old store/new church parking lot but in the adjacent parking lot of a used car dealership, another thing small towns seem to have an abundance of. There are about a dozen listed in the phone book--almost as plentiful as manufactured home dealers. My gripe about too many churches holds!

Like most small towns, my small town has an empty parking lot associated with what used to be a grocery store, which is now a church because you can't have an empty building without filling it up with a church, can you? It's important to squeeze as many churches as physically possible into every square mile, even if each congregation has no more than 15 members, each of these members having decided that they can't possibly belong to one of the existing gazillion churches already within a 10-minute driving radius. Well, I don't want to get too excited about that subject which has irked me for some time. Back to the main point--there is this empty parking lot--and at the back edge of it, next to the railroad tracks, there sits a Book Mobile that is for sale. I'm not sure where this book mobile came from since every town around here has a library of some sort, even if it's in the back of a pizza kitchen. One of the last town's to hold out received one from Thre...

After a simple and rustic but nice dinner of pasta with asparagus with cream and pistachios, we're having an incredibly rich and decadent dessert, a real indulgence. It's so rich, in fact, that #2 occasionally says, "when are we going to have that dessert that makes us want to throw up?" It's not for those concerned with nutritional details. This is my second most requested recipe, first being the chocolate chip cookies that I've already shared. Courtesy of Commander's Kitchen by Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon (from Commander's Palace in New Orleans) Chocolate Molten Souffles 12 T. unsalted butter, softened 1 lb. semisweet chocolate 8 eggs 1 1/2 c sugar 1 1/2 c flour Sauce 8 oz white chocolate 1/2 c heavy cream -Preheat over to 350 -Use 2 T butter to grease 8 ramekins, each with a 6 oz capacity. -Melt the remaining butter with chocolate on the top of a double boiler or in a microwave -Break eggs in the workbowl of a food processor. Add the s...

This is such a great little movie from youtube (almost 7 minutes long, so hang on).

I don't understand the cycle of road kill. In the spring, when all the little animals are having babies, I would expect to see dead things all over the road. But it seems there are more dead things in the fall when the babies are mostly grown. Maybe it's because they're leaving the "nest" with not enough training about avoiding big rubber tires, or maybe it's because they're all scrambling to get their burrows ready for winter, and they're so focused on the nut gathering they don't look before they cross the road. I'm not sure, but in September, there are certainly a lot of dead raccoons. And each time I see one, I say out loud, "Aww, Charlie." One of the outbuildings--I don't know which one. When I was 14, the summer before my freshman year, my father got the carpenter's dream job. His union sent him out in the woods with a team to rebuild the first European settlement in northwest Indiana--Bailey Homestead. These guys who sp...

Two weeks to the Brahms concert, and then I can stop listening to the recording every stinking day, and I can take the "currently listening to" picture off the side bar. I'm getting a little tired of seeing that every time I sign on, but it serves as a reminder to not be lax with the practicing. Not that I need much of a reminder. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail we all received from the conductor yesterday: (If he was aware of my obsessive/compulsive nature, he'd know it's unnecessary to tell me this): Become really familiar with the whole piece by listening to a recording until you reach a saturation level! In the car, in the livingroom, the kitchen, the shower, wherever - live with this music for the next few weeks. Pretty please? Thanks! I went to Sunday school yesterday--we have a great teacher at our church, one of the few things about my church that I really, truly appreciate. This teacher is humble and smart and funny all at the same time--rare qualiti...

Every human being who has ever walked on the planet has had unanswered questions, even the praying ones. Sometimes I think especially the praying ones because I suspect they/we ask more to begin with, more questions that are never answered. You sit in your chair and pray, and when you're finished the room is just as quiet as when you opened with "Dear Father." It seems that way sometimes, doesn't it? Doesn't it sometimes feel like we're all clueless now, we were clueless yesterday, and we'll be clueless tomorrow? So we come up with ways to fill in the gaps. Thanks to a story on All Things Considered (NPR) the other day, I learned of a new source for answers--Radio 8 Ball. This is a show on a radio station in Olympia, Washington--you call in with a question, the DJ shuffles a massive collection of CDs until you say "stop," then he plays the song that you landed on, like musical roulette. Somewhere in the lyrics is your answer, and it's your...

Who left the gate open? Said when someone has left the pasture gate open, and all the cows are streaming out. My father used to say this at intersections in heavy traffic. I find myself saying that while waiting to turn left at a certain stop sign not far from my house. He wasn't raised, he was jerked up by the hair of the head. Follows the phrase "who raised him, anyway?" which is said when someone is misbehaving. My mother added the "jerked up" tag years ago. It comes to mind when I wait outside the high school to pick up my daughter. They're in tall cotton. Said to describe someone with money. I suppose that in central Ohio, using the metaphor of corn would be more appropriate. "They're in tall corn." No, I think I prefer cotton. Let's put some lipstick on this pig. What is done to make something that is otherwise unappealing appear to be desirable, like sticking a sprig of parsley on a big bowl of tuna noodle casserole covered with smas...

Words I like: Broohaha Traipse Poignant Aspire Cashmere Wafting Wistful Whimsical Mesmerize Cantankerous Curmudgeon Lollygag Words I Can't Abide: Mash--the Southern word meant to denote "push" Fester Puss Collard--as in "collard green" Puke--which is odd because I don't mind hurl, ralph, or vomit

This is what I discovered when I went outside to put a 25 lb. bag of chemical crap in the pool. Somehow, the thing (left) managed to find the vacuum hose to float on so it wouldn't get sucked up by the skimmer. A real shame. I have pictured it next to a barn (right) to give you some perspective of its size.

I haven't been able to post a video from youtube for some reason, so here is a link to what I would post if I could: Nightswimming Thanks, Mr. Anonymous, for the inspiration.

Why I love my pool: •What is it that draws a person to the movement of water? Just watching it flow, even just round and round in a rectangle current, is mesmerizing •The sound of the bubbling filter jet, especially late at night when the world is otherwise dark and still--the bubbling mixed with the sounds of frogs looking for dates makes a calming kind of music •Day or night, floating on the surface with my ears just below the surface so that all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing, looking up at the clouds or stars and overhanging tree branches--a drug •I want to give everything away, so offering my pool to my neighbors at all times brings joy •The opening of the pool in May is a sign of summer and a signal to bring out the floaties a nd noodl es Why I hate my pool: •This big hole in my yard requires daily care--skimming, vacuuming, filter emptying, chemical adjusting, ph testing.. .. ...........blaaaaaaaaaa aah •When Hu sband has a broken leg and can't do the job that h...

I passed a sign today while driving by a monastery: www.nunsbread.org This is evidently a group of nuns having trouble heating their quarters, and they have become industrious in order to raise some cash. Last winter, as the cold chilly winds forced our heating bills beyond imagining, the Nuns here at Sancta Clara Monastery knew it was time to become creative about paying our heating bills. A friend of the monastery suggested selling Wedding Soup and breadsticks. We thought this was a great idea! In the month of March, 2005, we courageously launched our first monastery bread and soup sale. Besides breadsticks, our endeavor grew into loaves of delicious white bread and walnut raisin wheat bread. The heat was on! Even during our sizzling hot summer, lines of hungry folks flocked to bring home soup and bread. We Kneed the Dough Images of Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman wooing the cold-hearted land owner to save the school, or Sidney Poitier building a chapel, or John Wayne scrapping ...

During my senior year, I didn't have a lot of friends. I mainly had one really close one because Don Clark graduated and left for college. This one really close friend had a passel of friends who I basically just tacked myself to. In April, that one really close friend died in a car accident--a very bad thing which I will not write about here. A couple of weeks later, I was in the music theory room at school sitting at the piano with the marimba player (who had moved on) and another boy (whose father was our band director and who had once dated my departed close friend). We were all severely mopey, having to deal with feelings and loss that no kid should ever have to deal with, and the subject of the prom came up. Marimba player was going with his new whatever, which left Sad Boy and Sad Girl discussing if they should go together. Sad Boy's invitation was very sweet, but I just couldn't face having to buy the dress or pick out a restaurant or hide that I couldn't dance...

Daughter #2 is going to homecoming with her friend, a girl. Girls do that now. They go to homecoming without boys because, well, who needs 'em. They can all go together and have fun without the pressure of "the date." I never once went to homecoming because I was never asked. And since I was raised a strict Baptist destined for Hades if I danced, especially with a boy, it was just as well. I dated boys--a guitar player, a trombone player, a snare drum player, a marimba player--but through all of those awkward and unproductive entanglements (except maybe the marimba player), I maintained an undying crush on one boy, a tuba player named Don Clark. I would have jumped off a bridge with Don Clark if that's what he wanted to do--tall, skinny, shaggy, diabetic boy that he was. I would have risked eternal damnation for mixed swimming if Don Clark had taken me to the beach. But despite my devotion and what I thought was requited affection, Don Clark chose someone else, a clar...

Here she is--roasted duck with an orange sauce, risotto, and asparagus. Nice presentation, nice flavors, nice lighting. #2 didn't make her tennis match today because she's spent the day on the couch sleeping off some kind of bad bug, so we've enjoyed our meal together. Best wishes for a pleasant evening to all.

I learned just yesterday that horn player #2 is retiring from the orchestra. I knew it would happen eventually, not because he's a crusty old guy who shouldn't be playing anymore but because he is considerably older than the rest of us, and I got the impression he was backing off a little last season. So, it has been announced, and I will alternate with another player on 2 nd and 4 th . Cool. Segue -- I started playing horn when I was just 38, and later the next year I began taking lessons from a very good horn player who just happened to live in my town. We'll call him SS, when we aren't calling him Mr. Non-Observant. After a few months of lessons, which I approached with great apprehension and nervousness, almost to the point of contracting irritable bowel syndrome, SS suggested that I play in the local philharmonic. Ha. I was such a novice, such a beginner I couldn't always remember the fingerings, depending on how wrecked I was at the time by nerves. But he tho...

• Happy birthday to Sophia Loren. I have nothing to say in her honor, but Turner Classic Movies is giving her the morning. Did she ever have a doll? Can you imagine the suitcase of clothes and shoes for it if she did? And the boyfriend doll? Hmm • Also, happy birthday to Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle . His doll would provide some very unsatisfactory playtime. And he would be indignant to know that someone was reducing him to a toy. • This is Fair Week in Small Town. Dozens of 4H kids are working with their farm animals and the gazillion other projects those kids compete with. I was never in 4H, so I can only go by what I've seen in the horse barn and in the project galleries. If this is all that made up The Fair, I'd welcome it, but no--we've got tractor pulls, low-grade country performers, carnies, elephant ears, and the people who come down from the hills--the people you wouldn't even know lived in Ohio except for the appearance they make during fair week--the ...

Added to the song list: Songs that make you indignant (I've only got one, but it's so potent that I think it deserves its own category--feel free to add your own): Cry Me A River --especially sung by Diana Krall

Song list lifted from Ms Mac and then drastically modified to suit my purposes. Songs that remind you of being a small child Jesus Loves Me Onward Christian Soldiers--hated that song!!! but was forced to sing it I'll Fly Away--I was pretty young when I was assigned the alto part Songs guaranteed to make you cry I Get Along Without You Very Well (Hoagy Carmichael) Especially when sung by Diana Krall The Way You Look Tonight (Jerome Kern) Somewhere Over the Rainbow--favorite of my good friend who died when we were 17 Songs guaranteed to make you smile If I Only Had A Brain--nicely sung by Harry Connick, Jr. Second That Emotion (Smoky Robinson) Secret O' Life (James Taylor) Tico Tico--from the London Horn Sound CD I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow--as sung by The Soggy Bottom Boys Current Most Played "Songs" Brahms' 4th Symphony--because we're performing it in a few weeks Other Voices, Other Rooms--the entire album by Nanci Griffith The Chiefta...

My mother once told me that I couldn't have new potatoes with butter and parsley because they were out of season, and I believed her, not knowing that new potatoes didn't go out of season. Well, I have now learned that Twiggy DID come with accessories. These small items could have meant a different destiny for my doll. If I had only known the options:

Today is Leslie Lawson's birthday, better known to me as Twiggy. For some time, my good friend JW and I followed the deaths of celebrities because, as is a known fact, they die in threes. When one of us would hear of the death of someone famous or infamous, we'd call the other and speculate on the two who were sure to follow within the week. Morbid, I know, and frightening to others when they discovered our game, so we switched to birthdays. More upbeat. More suitable for women of moderate intelligence. Just as shallow. So, today's honor goes to Twiggy. When I was a little girl growing up on 17th Street in Blue Collar Town, I was not given a Barbie. The neighbor girls had Barbies and Barbie houses and Barbie cars and little suitcases full of Barbie clothes. But I had a set of jacks, a box of crayons, and a pile of dirt instead. I'm exaggerating about the dirt--it wasn't a gift but the result of some road construction or something, and it provided hours of imaginativ...

#1 moved into her dorm this weekend, and Husband and I returned home to a quieter house. It's a little sad here at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that we'll all ease into our new non-summer way of living. What's more important than our slightly quiet house is that #1 be eager to dive into her new life. It's a big world out there, baby--go get it. Does that sound like something someone would put on a graduation cake or worse yet--a bumper sticker? Yikes. I didn't mean to be trite, or meaningless. OSU (the O standing for Ohio) is a big place, and its tentacles reach all across the country, mainly because of football. While relaxing in the hotel lounge bar yesterday afternoon, I was admiring the bottle of Grey Goose shimmering in front of the mirror behind the bar, and I couldn't help noticing the shrine to OSU football right above it. Propped up in the corner was a big hardbound copy of The Official Ohio State Football Encyclopedia. zzzzz --I couldn't t...

Notes: use REAL BUTTER, and don't skimp on the chips--the darker the better 1 c. softened butter 1 1/3 c. sugar 2/3 c. brown sugar 1 1/2 t. vanilla 2 eggs 3 c. flour 1 t. baking soda 1 t. salt 25 oz. chocolate chips (or whatever various flavors you prefer) • Preheat oven to 325. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper • Cream butter and sugars • Add vanilla and eggs and beat until combined • Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Gradually beat into dough • Add chips • Bake for 12 to 14 minutes (a little longer if you decide to make bigger cookies). This should make 6 to 7 dozen

I set out to bake Darn Good Chocolate Chip Cookies for the tennis team this morning--pulled out all the ingredients to find there was no baking soda. What kind of a kitchen doesn't have baking soda, at least a five-year-old box in the back of the fridge? I cleaned out the fridge, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, wiped off the counters, and still--no baking soda. Resigned, I got in the Pacifica and headed to The Market. I chose The Market because it's closer than The Store by about 4 minutes. The Market doesn't have much more than the basics, and evidently, baking soda is not considered a basic. So I went over a couple of blocks to The Convenience Store--like a 7/11 but it keeps changing names, and now I have no idea what it's called. No baking soda. Fine. Great. The Store, then. 30 minutes later, I've got baking soda. I should have gone to Neighbor Jane's or Neighbor Carolyn's--we all like to use each other's houses as our personal pantries--but it...

Words I like: •Extravaganza •Hullabaloo •Freak--great when preceded by a multi-syllable word that also ends with a hard consonant--such as "anorexic" or "narcissistic" •Delightful •Abide •Peculiar •Saucy •Restful •Eloquent •Agita Words I can't abide (I get itchy just typing them): •Precious •Special •Ladies--unfairly qualifying •Nipple •Tarry--as in "if the Lord tarries" •Bugger •Policy •Fart •Zit •Pimple •Slab--as in "a slab of ribs." Slab should never be used in connection with food. Nor should chunk. •Congeal

Something I learned today: it's difficult to be irritated with people for driving too slow or not using their turn signals or just being in the way when they're all driving Flintstone cars. I think I'll live in toon town more often.

Man with the wandering eye at the office supply store--aka Sylvester Sneaky.

On the way to school this morning, as I had to brake to let the guy-with-the comb-stuck-in-his-hair-although-this-morning-he-was-wearing-a- ball-cap -so-I-couldn't-tell cross the street, #2 looked at the two dogs following him and asked, "If his house was a cartoon, I wonder what the dogs would be like. Would they be cute little happy puppies, or would they be like some of the dogs in All Dogs Go to Heaven?" Hmm . I remember some of those dogs. They were straight from the junk yard--survivor dogs that you just knew had fleas and warts and matted fur--nothing you'd ever want to pet. #2 knows all about those dogs from the junk yard. When she was in 2 nd grade, we all traveled to Brazil with Husband's parents--my father-in-law was from Brazil, and he served as interpreter as we went from city to city to visit his brothers and sisters. While at the house of one sister, an unusual woman who had turned her entire house into a stray animal shelter, we were placed face t...

I do love my new All Star Converse plaid shoes. They make me happy, as all shoes should. But I discovered today that they make the most unpleasant sound, exaggerated by the little socks I'm wearing with them. It's a little like walking on bubble wrap, like "stepping on a frog" as they say, like walking on whoopee cushions. While running a quick errand today with #1, I discovered that I could make the sound even louder if I use a little more force with each step--she wasn't nearly as amused as I was. This feature wasn't in the description on the Converse site. They should offer a discount--or raise the price, depending on your objectives while walking in public.

"Hey, Rob. Gitcha some a that fruit cake up there. It's gooood." My parents made a fruit cake every year for the holidays, and for the weeks leading up to Christmas my father would soak it in so much shine it took a Hoyer lift to haul it down from its storage spot on top of the refrigerator. I never cared for the fruit cake, but I loved that there was a drunken baked good in my mother's otherwise strict Baptist home. Our family Christmas celebrations were not remarkable until 1974. Sister #1 was expecting her first child, Sister #2 was married, Sister #3 left for college, my maternal grandmother died near Thanksgiving, my mother was scheduled for surgery in January. So by Christmas, people were a little shattered. The house didn't feel all that celebratory, even with the fruit cake with fumes rising to the ceiling. On Christmas Eve, while my mother was napping, my sisters and I got together and hatched a plan. We called it The Program. It would be a holiday extrav...

"minor" because the world is falling apart at the seams, so my gripes are relatively insignificant. Still, they're gripes just the same: A. I designed three snappy covers for the Nigerian marriage book, all focusing on a set of simple gold wedding bands. Very nice. Very benign, I thought. But just now, I learned that the average Nigerian, and others from different African countries, see wedding bands as a white man's symbol, and they have no use for them. Isn't that just great. Hearts instead, then. I hate using hearts on book covers. B. I stopped at a local office supply store this afternoon because I like to spend money with local businesses--support the little guy. Well, this "little guy" office supply man has a wandering eye. Having face-to-face conversations can be unsettling if you're not used to him, but I adjusted and bought a ream of card stock. While he was talking to me about the weight of the paper, though, I noticed that his loose eye wa...

Pretending that it's Christmas in September and that I live in pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg is as ludicrous* as a white girl in central Ohio feeling African. Yet here I am, snuggled in my office and listening to the Chieftains' Bells of Dublin on ITunes. I have switched project gears and am moving from a marriage book for Nigerians to a collection of romance books for Christmas. It's important to work ahead. And it's important to immerse myself in things to stimulate the senses--sensory stimuli--a phrase I picked up from Keeping Your Brain Alive, a book I read after my father's brain died but forgot to tell his heart and lungs. I suppose every brain has its triggers--what makes one person react may not mean a thing to the next. When summer starts to blend into fall, I look for leaves in my yard, I dig out my favorite sweaters, and I suggest that #1 make a pumpkin pie. But I also think of parades, a specific parade--I have a vivid memory I have held onto since hig...

Authentic, I don't know, but dinner just the same. Roasted Vegetable Stew with Moroccan Couscous

Should I feel African today? Probably not, since I'm about as white bread as they come, with a little cornbread thrown in. I'm hardly African. I've never been to Africa, and I don't know what Africa feels like. I do like to quote Matthew Broderick when he gets off the bus in Buloxi Blues, and says, "This is Africa hot." But really, I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's just that I'm sitting at my desk with a necklace I made from trader beads Husband brought back from a trip to Nigeria this past winter. They're fetching. And I have a thank-you note that I treasure from a minister in Nigeria because I designed the cover of a book he wrote about religion in Africa. And I just finished knitting a hat for babies in a hospital for women and children in Mali. It's not the time for knitting, but I'm stuck on designing a cover for a book about marriage that will be sold in Nigeria and Liberia, and I have no idea what imagery to focus on. I...

Say to anyone in town, "you know that guy who walks around with the comb in his hair?" And they'll say back, "you mean the guy with all the dogs?" Exactly, the guy with all the dogs. This guy, with the comb stuck in his hair and also who pushes a lawn mower, walks around town with two or three dogs on ropes. He walks to the south side and sits in the shade of what used to be a home improvement store but now holds a church youth group. He sits on the steps of the Salvation Army church. He cuts grass here and there, and he has a comb. Small towns don't have homeless people wandering on the street in the same way that cities do (not to say that small towns don't have homeless people--they just don't wander around the street so that you can say, "look, he must be homeless"). But the guy with the comb in his hair reminds me of the men who stood outside the Lawson Y in Chicago when I was in college, the ones who made me want to cross the street t...

A link to a pixellated but delightful clip from "Holiday Inn."

I have designed a cover that someone likes! Sigh. For those of you outside the evangelical Christian lingo world (God bless you, I'm envious), there is a bumper-sticker kind of phrase--Let Go and Let God. Talk about being a gaggy sap. In general, I think any phrase that fits on a bumper sticker should be stricken from the record. Anyway, Husband, who is also Boss, has been micro-directing this certain pain-in-the-ass project (hmm, that phrase probably wouldn't fly in the evangelical lingo world) just a wee little bit, and he decided to back off this morning and let me choose the type and imagery of my choice. Just a few moments ago during a phone conversation that I regret not recording, he said that I had finally broken through on this project, and that he had told himself to "let go and let Robyn." Eck, but a good policy, I say. Maybe even on a bumper sticker.

Yesterday, at the beginning of the US Open, while Boys to Men sang America the Beautiful, a giant American flag was unrolled to cover the tennis court. It got to me a little bit, because I'm a true patriot, and because I knew that the next day would be September 11 th . #1 thought I was being a gaggy sap--while I think it's important to avoid being a gaggy sap about most things, and I have purged words like "precious" and "special" from my vocabulary, I do believe it's important to maintain a sense of awe at our national symbols. And I think it's important to remember today with a level of respect and honor that might cause others to think I'm a gaggy sap. On September 11, 2001, I was still working in the office at Husband's company. I was standing by the coffee maker, which is quite often where I could be found, and Mary the Marketing Woman asked if I had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I thought it was a little Cessna ...

Finally, it's horn lesson day. I have a horn lesson scheduled every Monday, but I have to cancel it so often that when I actually have one, it seems like a surprise. Oh wow, look what I get to do today? Well, I could do this every Monday if I didn't have anything else in life but being a horn student. I take lessons at a college about 50 minutes from home--factor in traffic and a stop for some iced tea at Burger King, and it's an hour drive, even with the heavy foot on the pedal. So, an hour there, an hour for the lesson, and an hour back home. Then there's the hour before leaving the house when I run through everything on my music stand, just to make sure it's all fresh in my head, and just so I can say, "Yes, I did practice that piece with the metronome." Before I leave, I have to make sure that #2 has a ride home from school, and that #2 has a ride to tennis. #2 may also need a ride to steel drum practice, depending on the schedule. There is no food in ...

Part A The American Film Institute has put together a list of the 25 Greatest American Musicals. I'm not sure I agree with the order, especially the placement of West Side Story (I'm not even sure that would be on my list at all). But I would like to point out that my man Fred has made a pretty good showing. "Holiday Inn" didn't make the list, which doesn't surprise me, but you can't say that his Fourth of July "impromptu" bit wasn't one of the best dance scenes on screen. What a guy. Part B While watching just a tiny little bit of the OSU/Texas game last night, I saw a Nike commercial--a football player is shown as being an absolute moron in school, but he is a star on the field. The tag line--football is everything. Did I miss something? Did I miss an adult telling the kid that football may feel like everything on Friday night, but it really isn't? That football is just a frieking game and that education is what will really mold his fu...

Tonight we had a simple dinner on the patio--grilled steak with sauteed corn--not a big deal--I've had a stressful couple of days. After cleaning up, #2 came close to insisting that we go out for ice cream. There are a couple of options nearby, and we settled on the funky little place by the airport. The airport being a little one-runway strip where John Glenn first learned to fly as a young man. The funky little place being a trailer kind of thing that sells the greatest and cheapest ice cream. Because of some odd law, it can't stay in one place, the owners shut the thing down and move it a few feet over on the lot. The next day they move it back to the steps and open up. As we walked over to a table in the grass, we eyed the small planes that were tied down inside the fence and saw a man walking toward the fence. Is that David? I asked, thinking it was a man we knew who was a pilot. Husband and #2 met him at the fence and chatted for a few minutes. #2 is a big fan of flying a...

So, we're down to this...I now have to buy a new pair of gardening gloves each time I want to plant something pretty or dig up something ugly. I buy a pair, I use them a couple of times (because I'm not much of a gardener), and then I toss them randomly into the garage. They land on a box of pool chemicals or on top of the leaf-sucker-blower-thing, and there they sit. Eventually, when the chemical box gets opened or the leaf-suck-blower-thing gets moved over to make room for the old shoe rack, the gloves fall to the floor, nestled in some loose gravel that got dragged in by the car tires and a random leaf or two left over from last fall. It's in this state of abandonment that the gardening gloves become home to a community of spiders--one for each finger and thumb. They creep down into the tips, spin their protective webs, and wait for me to pick up my crusty gloves and slide my unsuspecting hands into them. It would only take one bite from some poisonous leggy monster to m...

I'm waiting for #2 to come home from a party, so in order to stay awake, I'll write one more little post about the game. One of my favorite things to do at things like football games is to people-watch--there's the coach-from-another-life woman with the ear piercing shriek , there's the guy who #1 thinks talks as if he has gauze stuck in his mouth, there's the endless parade of middle-school kids marching back and forth as they have done for generations (why is that?), and there are the people who wave up a spectacle to someone at the top of the stands and try to have actual conversations with them from down near the track. Stop that. Somewhere during the first quarter, I noticed a kid a couple of rows down from my seat. He was eating everything-- hot dog , popcorn, chocolate that must have covered every single finger so that he had to lick his hands for a good five minutes and then wipe them on his pants. He had a Diet Pepsi. But wait? Look at the bright red hair! ...

Football makes me drool. Not in an anticipatory Pavlov kind of way. More like a my-jaw-has-gone-slack-from-disinterest kind of way, and I have forgotten to swallow my spit. But this evening, I went to Small Town's football game against some other team from Ohio. All I know about the other team is that their colors are red and white. Our colors are red and white as well, so the whole field and the two marching bands tended to blend. I did pay attention to the preliminaries, though, and discovered that our band does not form a giant D for the team to run through, as I previously thought. They form the giant D in order to play the almamater, which is sung like a hymn from the stands. Then, they form some kind of gauntlet that leads from the big inflatable smoke-blowing helmet to the 50-yard line--and that's what the team runs through. And I think the cheer leaders. There is a woman with season-ticket seats near mine. I've held my season-ticket seats for about four years but ra...