Published May 31, 2003 | 
Califamily News
It’s been a thrilling week here in Silicon Valley.
Sonja is being inducted tomorrow into the national honor society for college students. That’s because she’s maintaining a 4.0 average. And you should see the mask she carved for her Art and the Spirit course. She earned an A-plus for the mask and the paper she wrote explaining the process of creating it.
Michele, AKA Lady Marmalade, is on a preserving kick and has made several dozen jars of jams and jellies.
I have challah sticky buns in the oven and a beautiful challah braid fiilled with cream cheese. I started working at home as of Wednesday, and I’m very pleased. Sonja pointed out today that I’m no longer coming home so exhausted that I can’t think, speak, or do anything in the evenings. I’m not sleeping through the weekend, either. Plus I am getting more actual work done during the days. I don’t see a downside to this.
Paul watches us, bemused, while plotting his next evil D&D campaign. A few weeks ago, the monsters killed everyone in their party, so he has to make up a new story line.
Last night we all watched Brigadoon — first time I’d seen it since I was a kid. I have some thoughts about its appeal, which I’ll save for another post.
Tonight some of us are off to a party, and tomorrow we go en famille to Sonja’s induction ceremony.
Published May 31, 2003 | Published May 31, 2003 | Laugh Until the Tears Come
Hemorrhoid, hemorrhoid, hemorrhoid…
This is to the woman who passed by while my niece was chanting “Hemorrhoid, hemorrhoid, hemorrhoid…” over and over. You looked as embarrassed as I felt. I wanted to explain but I needed to get my niece back to the restaurant to finish her dinner.
See, my sister, her daughter and I were camping up in the Sierras when we decided to have dinner at that restaurant. My niece, being only 9 years old, has to go to the bathroom, like, every 20 minutes. As you know the bathrooms at that restaurant are about 100 feet away and the path is dark at night. After my sister’s third trip to the bathrooms with her daughter I offered to take my niece on her forth trip.
I used to men’s room and then waited outside the ladies room. It was taking my niece so long that I thought maybe she had already gone back to the restaurant without me.
“Allie? You still in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
“Uh-huh. I’m going number two.”
“Oh. Okay.” More information than I needed but she’s a little girl.
I waited a little longer.
“Allie? Everything okay?”
“Ye-es!” She shouts, sounding a bit miffed.
“You’re taking a long time. We need to get back to our dinner.”
“I can’t go. It won’t come out.” I scan around to see if anybody is listening to this.
“Well. Try pushing or something.” I don’t have children so I don’t really know how to talk to kids.
“I don’t want to get a hormone.”
“Uh. Oh. Wha…uh.” Like I said, I don’t have children so I don’t know what kids are saying half the time. “Well. We should get back. Your mother is going to worry and our dinner is getting cold.” Finally she comes out.
On the walk back she says to me “I was afraid I would get a hormone.” I didn’t say anything back because I have no idea what she is talking about. But then she adds “Granny Rogers told me that if I push too hard I’ll get a hormone.”
Click. Now I get it.
“Oh, hon. You don’t mean hormone. You mean hemorrhoid.” She looks up at me and says “Hermer… hermer…” And I enunciate for her “HEM-ER-ROID” and thinking to myself that I could never handle kids fulltime.
She stops in her tracks and repeats the word correctly “Hem-er-roid.”
“Yes, that’s it. Hemorrhoid.” She smiles proudly and we continue down the path back to the restaurant. That’s when you passed by. My niece was only practicing the new word she had just learned.
“Hemorrhoid…hemorrhoid…hemorrhoid…”
PS And to all the good folks at the Foster’s Freeze the next day: I’m sorry Allie vomited 3 steps in the door instead of outside. She was carsick.
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
this is in or around Mono Hot Springs
Published May 30, 2003 | Published May 30, 2003 | The Friday Five
What do you most want to be remembered for?
Being a writer who, in life and work, saw clearly and spoke honestly.
What quotation best fits your outlook on life?
One I recently quoted here, so I’ll give a few extra to make up for the repetition. (The extras come first.)
Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint. — Jane Austen
The only way out is the way through. — Howard Nemerov
In dreams begin responsibilities. — Delmore Schwartz
Almost everything conspicuously great is great in defiance, has come into being in defiance of affliction and pain, poverty, destitution, bodily weakness, vice, passion, and a thousand other obstructions. Forbearance in the fact of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.
– Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?
The NaNoNovel — 50,000 words, many incoherent, in thirty days. I’m planning to rewrite and finish it this summer.
What about the past ten years?
Surviving and growing.
It’s been an eventful decade. Wrote three books (published), two book-length mss. (not yet published), various articles, a couple of chapbooks, and got a solid start on the current novel and the current book of essays; started and ran a successful small press, then let it die of neglect when my life collapsed; dealt with the deaths of my father-in-law, both grandfathers, father, and niece (not to mention the death of my marriage); did serious gut-level work in therapy; left my husband and started up my professional full-time career again; sold off my furniture and moved to California; built a solid family relationship out here. Pretty good.
If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?
I would sing them “I Hope You Dance.” I don’t care if it’s corny. It’s good advice.
Published May 30, 2003 | Published May 30, 2003 | Published May 30, 2003 | Published May 30, 2003 | And Now, A Word from the Troops
From a former co-worker who was called up right before my company was bought. (Do I sense a pattern here? “Damn, won’t have Kevin for a year. May as well sell the place.”)
People are always asking me what they can do to help the troops, and usually I say we’re ok here – since we’re pretty far back and have pretty good ameneties.
But, the other day we had a fire in camp and 3 tents burned to the ground. 12 Marines and 29 soldiers lost all their stuff.
If you want more info, you can read about it here
and see pictures of the carnage here
Good news is noone was hurt. Bad news is they pretty much lost everything they weren’t wearing.
If you feel like helping out with a cash donation, I’ve put a paypal button on the site.
Kevin’s got what might *really* be called a warblog: he’s blogging it from the POV of a soldier stationed in “Undisclosed Middle Eastern Country (TM).”
Published May 30, 2003 |