Scout Moves

Everyone has one, don't they? The Catcher in the Rye story? During my early twenties, I spent just a little over three semesters at a very conservative Bible college. There were a lot of rules there that governed the behavior of the students and faculty, and to be a part of the institution, everyone had to sign a form listing the things they wouldn't do. I remember signing the form as part of the application process, and I didn't agonize over it. I think that was because I was so used to my mother's strict rules that I was simply exchanging one set for the other. Once I was inside the walls of the school, though, I discovered what so many rules can do to a person. Some people abide by the rules because they agree with them, and following them is easy. Breaking them would be difficult. But for others, they're going to do what they're going to do, and strict rules, especially in an atmosphere where people are encouraged to turn in the rule breakers, don't pre...

These pots might not look like much now, but I'm growing paperwhites (some of you might call them narcissus) because their scent is heavenly. When the flowers are blooming, and I walk by while I pass through the dining room, their scent will make me happy. It's a little intoxicating and a little nostalgic and a little captivating all at the same time. The scent of paperwhites stops me in my tracks for just a moment, and whatever I'm contemplating during that moment is put in its place with proper perspective. Am I exaggerating? Maybe. So what. I like paperwhites. The tiny lamp behind the pots of dirt is new to my collection of things. Last week, I went with a friend to a stained glass shop with gifts in the front. The employees gave us a tour of the back rooms where you can take lessons in stained glass and where they restore 19th-century church windows. They also make a few lamps there, and this is one of them. The gift shop was dotted with the things in and around all of ...

I had an appointment to get my hair cut yesterday at 11:30, but I got sidetracked and didn't realize what time it was—exactly 11:30, and I was sitting around chatting with a friend. I jumped in my car as quick as I could, called the salon and promised to be there in 10 minutes flat. Vroom. But then I turned on the car radio, and this is what I heard—Chopin's piano concerto no. 1. Aahhh, what can I say about this piece of music and the effect it has on me, the effect it has had on me since my teenage years? Let me try to explain. When I was 15 or 16, my sister Melanie gave me a Chopin album for Christmas, and I nearly wore the thing out from playing it so much on my mother's big console stereo, a formidable piece of furniture. I would set the needle on the edge of the album, lay down on the floor in the living room and wait to drift off with the notes. I remember closing my eyes and imagining myself as the pianist on stage with the orchestra, and it became such a wonderfull...

I've been knitting, just a little. In the evenings, Husband and I watch a marathon of West Wing beginning with season one, and I add the sound effects—clickety clickety clickety. For Christmas, my sister Melanie gave me a fluffy hank of hand-dyed wool, so I took it to my friend Julie. Julie, a woman with a lovely voice and the ability to play a sax solo that would make you cry, has a spinning wheel. She uses it to spin yarn from the stuff she clips off of her giant angora rabbit, and she used it to spin my wool into a skein of rustic looking yarn. It was only one skein, so I decided to turn it into a small handbag, given I have a closet full of scarves already. I love how the colors meld without too much planning, and there is a touch of whimsy with some silver strands peaking out here and there. I also made a cable scarf, even though I have this closet full. I really just wanted to play with the cable pattern. This is a 14-row pattern, impossible to memorize but not so difficult y...

Why is it that the odd things happen to me when I'm quietly minding my own business? Like yesterday, I was sitting in sight of my back-yard patio and talking on the phone with my friend Jane, and I saw a little black and white cat climbing up the retaining wall. That kind of scene puts me on alert because Mike and Tiger have claimed not just this house as their territory but anything they can see from the windows, too. When another cat crosses their sight path, their tails puff up to three times their normal sizes, and they growl and hiss and roar a terrible roar. They're like cranky, old cat men yelling, "Get off my lawn." Neither of them saw the intruder cat, so as soon as I hung up the phone, I set out to keep the peace. I went outside and found this cat, not a little cat but a tiny kitten, confused as to how to get out of the fencing around the pool. I coaxed him out through the gate, and he immediately attached himself to me. For such a tiny creature, he's go...

This morning at 4:30 or so, my cat Big Mike stomped up the stairs and pawed at my side of the bed because he was hungry. It's like living with a giant who meows "Fee Fie Foe Fum," only he smells the blood of fish and chicken formed into kibble and instead of the blood of an Englishman. So, with my eyes half closed, I found my way to the kitchen to feed him and then went back to bed. Then, at 6:50, he was back again, pawing at the bed and meowing. There was food in his bowl left from earlier, but he was lonely or something. I've read that cats will do this—wake you up very early in the morning because they want to be amused, and they will not be fooled when you pretend you're still asleep. I am not sitting here so early in the morning to amuse Big Mike, but I did get up to give him his morning dose of insulin, and how apropos, since today's opinion piece in Small Town Newspaper is about Big Mike and what I and millions of people like me will do for our pets. He...

The way this freelance journalist thing works is you sit at home and think of stories to write, and you get an editor's approval for them. Or sometimes you sit at home and wait for an editor to email you with an assignment, some idea the newspaper would like to explore or some event they'd like to put on the front page. I get a fair mix of all sorts of assignments—talking to a child with a disability, spending time with a woman with two uteruses (so odd that spell check doesn't recognize the plural), visiting someone who has opened a new winery, listening to a senator defend the health care bill, and then there was that time a farmer had rotting deer carcasses in his back field. This week, I got an assignment that seemed fairly benign—call up a guy and ask about some building trouble he's having. I can't go into any more detail than that, because I'm about to ruthlessly mock this man, and I'd hate for this post to be connected back to the story. I knew a lit...

My to-read stack of books is not literally stacked to the ceiling, but I have added a few new titles. I'm reading Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. It's a fun overview of philosophy as demonstrated through jokes. For example, to reveal the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, the joke goes like this: A New York boy is being led through the swamps of Louisiana by his cousin. "Is it true that an alligator won't attack you if you carry a flashlight? asks the city boy. His cousin replies, "Depends on how fast you carry the flashlight." Get it? I had a philosophy class at Purdue years and years ago, but the only thing I remember about it is that the professor had an affinity for the South West, and he wore lots of turquoise and silver jewelry. Also, he was unusual for my little hometown, and I liked him for that. I think approaching philosophy with a light-hearted book like this silly one suits me. Once I'm finished w...

Not to sound like a social curmudgeon, but Facebook bores me a little bit. I don't have enough to say in snippet-form, so I don't update my status very often. And it seems like most of what scrolls by on my newsfeed is the Farmville activity of some of my friends—they have earned a harvesting ribbon or found a lost kitten they'd like to share or they need someone to fertilize their crops. Don't get me wrong. I love Farmville. I just don't want to see what other people do with it. So, I was delighted the other day to welcome a new friend, Kitty, who was my first friend ever in real life. We lived next door to each other in our little town in Indiana, and our parents were friendly. Granted, my Baptist father was eaten up by having a Catholic neighbor, and he would grumble every Saturday night when the family would leave for evening mass. He was sure they only went to church on Saturday so they could sleep in on Sunday morning. But the families generally got along. Whe...

I have an easy life. That fact is not lost on me. I would say that if you have a computer and time to check a blog or two throughout the day, and if you have daily food and water and shelter, shoes and friends and family, you might have an easy life, too. At least it's easy relative to the lives lived by millions of other people on the planet. So, in my easy life, I don't know how humans survive living after surviving terror. Last week, Small Town Newspaper conducted an online poll asking people if they would be donating to organizations providing relief in Haiti. Shockingly, 73% said they would not. We've got our own problems right here in America, after all, and they thought we should keep our focus and money within our borders. My opinion piece in today's edition, copied below, is my response and my attempt to place myself in the shoes of someone whose life is anything but easy. Sending Comfort I cannot imagine what it feels like to stand with your feet firmly plante...

I have nothing to add to this. It was brought to my attention by a friend who spins yarn.

It must be geese hunting season or something. My house is built on a hill, and I can see a big field down below from my living room windows. The field is surrounded by a stand of trees, and hunters hide out in there to shoot at things without being seen. This morning, I keep hearing a series of gun shots like someone is firing off an automatic weapon—bang bang bang bang bang. Now that I have looked out one of the windows that looks down on the field, I have discovered that every time a flock of geese flies over the field, the shooters let loose. There are lots of geese out there, so there is lots of shooting. In past years, I have watched this spectacle from a distance and have been disappointed when one of the geese breaks away from the formation and plummets to the ground. So far today, though, I have been a champion for the geese who seem to be targets of bad shots. Not one has been hit yet. I know quite a few people who hunt, and they are not Neanderthals. They just like to go out ...

Can you imagine being whole one minute and being broken the next with no warning, and everyone around you is just as broken or in even worse shape? I can't, and when I watch the news footage coming from Port-au-Prince, I can only stand in awe. Awe, as in awful. Breathtaking, as in the oxygen has been sucked from the room. Heart-pounding, as in what these people must be feeling in their chests as they scramble to find their missing friends and family. I talked to a local pastor yesterday who is mobilizing a group of people to go to Haiti at the end of next week to help an orphanage with 146 children. It's in a very poor area several miles away from Port-au-Prince, with people living threadbare under the best of circumstances. The dormitories of the orphanage have been declared unsafe, and the kids are now sleeping on the ground. Their security wall has been destroyed, and their food supply is running out. The director and the other staff members are now trying to figure out how ...

I finished all of my newspaper assignments for this week, and my next scheduled interview isn't until next Tuesday. So, today is going to be about tackling small tasks. A lot of them. • Clean the litter box • Clean the bathroom • Ship a box of this and that to Eustacia • Taste-test a soup sample I plan to serve at a thing on Saturday (if it's acceptable, the batch will be served to the English class tomorrow). • Do some research for next Monday's opinion piece • Drop off some yarn batting for spinning • Do a business card for somebody • Possibly work on a book cover for the same somebody • Play the piano • Play my horn • Vacuum • Knit That's the list so far, and with all that's on this list, it's the knitting that grips my interest. When No. 1 was home, she showed me a yarn website that offers free patterns to encourage people to buy their yarn. On it, I found this: My local cheap-crap craft store sells this brand of yarn, and even in this particular weight, so ...

I was forced to eat cereal in a bowl of slightly outdated milk this morning because we're out of eggs. I'll have to go to the store this afternoon to stock up, and I can do that without concern because I can afford to just drive to the place and fill my cart without wondering if there will be enough money in my account to pay the bill. I won't break a sweat when I swipe my debit card, and I won't have to give up something else essential in order to have food in the fridge. Before I can buy groceries, though, I've got some work to do at the English class for Hispanic immigrants. I've been given a new assignment—working through a book on American history with the more advanced students. No, we won't be reading about the atrocities the CIA has initiated in order to keep a giant thumb on South America, in case you were wondering. We won't be learning about how we shoved native tribes farther and farther west into extinction. And we won't be talking much ...

Today's opinion piece isn't online, so I can't link to it as I usually do on Mondays. I'll just copy it here. I think that on some levels, I do put in my "one little stone," a phrase that will make sense after you read the column, but would I pitch in with an English class for Hispanic immigrants or give money here and there if those activities put me at risk? Alice Paul's government attacked her for the good she did—I wonder, if faced with spending months in a rat-infested workhouse or being beaten or being force-fed for weeks, if I would opt out of working for causes that are important to me. Hmmm Alice Paul and the Spirit of Joan of Arc When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row.” That’s an old adage Alice Paul, born this day in 1885, learned from her mother, and she used its true meaning to guide her throughout her life. William and Tacie Paul raised their daughter Alice with Quaker principles, ma...

I will be driving to Cleveland later today where I expect to see at least a foot of snow. We don't have that much in our yard, but we've got plenty. Here, look: This is one of the holly bushes with a snow cap: And here is an iced-over landscape light. It looks much better at night when it's lit: This just a bit of the deer tracks that are criss-crossed all over this neighborhood. Now we can see where they run at night when we aren't looking: And this is an interesting snow pattern stacked on top of a piece of iron lawn furniture: We aren't at the lake house this weekend, but we were there for New Year's Eve. There was a little snow on the ground then and plenty of ice—you can watch it creep across the surface of the lake as the temperature drops. This is a little video I shot from the dock to show how quiet and still the place is in winter. In some ways, I actually prefer the place in winter than in summer. It's more of a hideout.

My small town takes a lot of guff for being backwoods or closed-minded or a little redneckish. I’ve even heard people say that, after moving away and returning for a visit, it feels claustrophobic. Maybe that’s because it’s in a valley, or maybe that’s because the landscape rarely seems to change. We’re getting an exit ramp onto the interstate on the north end of town, so there is construction going on, and an occasional gas station will close and leave its empty shell to make the place look like it's slowly dying, but that’s about it. Or so one might think if one were not to dig a little deeper. Our local branch of Kent State University is building a performing arts center, one the entire community can use, not just the students. Earlier this week I got to sit down with the general manager for a newspaper story, and he walked me through the floor plans. The man was as excited as he could be. He went on and on about how huge the rehearsal room was and how it was designed to mirro...

I used to be a freak for knitting, but that was when my good friend and neighbor, Carolyn, owned a yarn shop in town. It was a haven—it had a little couch where my friend Joan and I would sit early on Saturday mornings before the shop opened. We would bring coffee for three, and we would all sit there among the yarn and needles and the fluffy white dog named Mr. Bennett, and we would yap and sip and giggle. Who wouldn't want to take up knitting under those conditions? After the shop closed and Carolyn moved to Georgia, I lost my interest in the craft aside from making little baby hats for charity—they suit my short attention span, and once I have memorized the hat pattern, I don't have to think about what I'm doing beyond keeping track of which row I'm on. Well, during our Christmas visit with my family, one of my sisters showed me a project she was about to launch into. A knitting project. A curly scarf that wraps and wraps around your neck and looks funky and whimsica...

And God help anyone who gets in my way. Last week, when the girls were home, we planned a nice evening at the lake house to bring in the new year. We would play games, watch a few episodes of Dexter and maybe a movie, have dinner... So, I planned the dinner, made the grocery list based on the recipes, and hit the grocery stores. Butternut squash ravioli was going to be a key side dish to accompany the roasted duck with a wine reduction. Not a problem, I figured, since I had seen that kind of ravioli in stores before, but that was before I needed it. I am convinced there is a grocery store law—if I don't need an item, it will be the featured special. If I need it, it will no longer be available. Such was the case with the butternut squash ravioli. I checked four local stores, and then we drove to Canton and checked there as well. Nothing. Then, I decided I would make it on my own but would need a ravioli form to help. We went to five stores for that simple kitchen tool, and again—no...

I like chickens. Not live chickens so much but kitchen chickens. I have a small collection of them roosting above the cabinets, and I have a wire rooster hanging on the wall beside the calendar. Last year's calendar featured folk illustrations of chickens to go with the theme, but this year I've decided to branch out a little bit and be whimsical and non-chickeny with the replacement calendar. Here's the 2010 time-keeper: After I hung the thing on the wall, I sat down and wrote today's column for Small Town Newspaper, which you can read here , and then thought about how to go about being effective with this year's round of efforts for my betterment. In 2010, I would like to learn Spanish. I am not foolish enough to think I could be fluent in the language in one year, but being able to form reasonable sentences is doable, right? This week, I have to contact the continuing education director at the local branch of Kent State for a newspaper story. The woman's got ...