by jphilo | Sep 24, 2012 | Daily Life
Our family closet doesn’t include too many cat lady skeletons. Mainly because many of us are allergic to cats. Which goes to show that even the dark cloud of allergies can have a silver lining. On the other hand, our family closet contains what I consider to be a variant of cat lady skeletons.
Hoarders.
Just a few, though. Well, maybe more than a few. Maybe a lot. Okay, to be both accurate and ironic, our closet is crammed full of them. There’s a deceased great aunt who could have been the inspiration for A & E’s Hoarder show. Several quilting aunts and cousins live by the motto, “She who dies with the most fabric wins.” And Grandma Josie, who raised eight kids during the Great Depression, saved yarn and fabric scraps, buttons, bread sacks, flower slips and tin cans for potting them until she gave up housekeeping at age 93.
The scary thing is, I’m becoming a lot like her.
Each fall, when the first frost threatens, my hoarding instinct begins, a mad attempt to repot my geraniums, asparagus ferns, and vinca vines so they can winter in the house. Every year, my collection of winter greenery grows to more closely resemble my grandmother’s ninety-seven geraniums in tin cans on bedroom windowsills and her scores of African violets arrayed on special plant stands in front of the picture windows in her living room and den.
And I enjoy having them around.
During the weekly watering of the plants, artistically arranged in front of east, west, and south bedroom windows upstairs, I take great pleasure in plucking off dead leaves and rearranging pots to take advantage of the sunlight. Inside, I feel just like Grandma’s face looked when, as a child, I watched her tend her plants.
I might as well jump into the closet with all the other family skeletons and get comfortable.
Except I only act this way for half the year. And only about certain plants. Also, I throw away bread sacks, don’t like to quilt or knit, and gave the button box to my daughter.
So maybe the crowd in the closet won’t accept me.
Which would be perfectly fine since the closet’s getting pretty crowded. Mainly because nobody inside it can throw anything away. But I can, and I do. So don’t even think about nominating me for Hoarders. And pay no attention to the year’s supply of toilet paper in the basement.
I have no idea who put it there.
by jphilo | Sep 21, 2012 | Daily Life
I have a terrible cold. I’m all stuffed up and blowing my nose. A lot. If I forget to blow my nose, I start talking like dis. Bery hard to uderstad. So I am very thankful for an advance of modern science often taken for granted.
The humble facial tissue.
If it weren’t for tissues, I’d be laundering handkerchiefs laden with nasal excretions, too gross to describe on this blog, while simultaneously trying to blow my nose. See, I have to constantly blow my nose, or it gets so stuffed up I can’t breath when my mouth is closed. Which happens all to often when I’m concentrating hard on writing.
Which got me to thinking about babies.
Babies are on my mind these days because I’m going to be a grandma any day now. If you weren’t aware of that development, you must be new to this blog since I mention it almost every day. So let me extend a hey-howdy, hearty welcome to you, first time visitor! Thinking about babies made me think about another advance of modern medicine every young mother needs.
The snot sucker.
Also known as a baby nasal syringe. Or nasal aspirator. Whatever moniker you give it, the snot suckers is an invaluable tool for: removing disgusting boogers from noses so stuffed up they can’t breathe when their mouths are closed, babies too young to hold a tissue and blow their own noses, babies too young to obey the command to blow when a tissue is placed over the nose, and babies so young their default mode is to gum tissues to death.
In other words, if you’ve got a baby with boogers, you need a snot sucker.
Be sure to follow the directions on how to use the syringe or you could have boogers and snot going every which way, a prospect almost as disgusting as laundering mucus-laden cloth handkerchiefs. And with that thought, the time has come to end today’s tribute to miracles of modern science. Because, for the most squeamish among us, any more details about nasal excretions may require the use of a third miracle of modern medicine.
Smelling salts.
by jphilo | Sep 14, 2012 | Daily Life
For years, he’s kept us awake at night with his hooting and hollering.
Twice, shrouded in the grey light of early morning, I’ve spied him flying across the road.
Yesterday morning, he was on a fencepost beside the gate, in the mood for a photo shoot.
Today, let’s give a hearty, hi-howdy to to my owly, reclusive, magnificent neighbor.
May your days be many and your mouse harvest mighty, sly friend!
by jphilo | Sep 10, 2012 | Daily Life
A couple weeks ago I admitted that, thanks to Netflix, Hiram and I are addicted to the TV series, Lost. Today in the interest of full disclosure, I am making a clean breast of things by confessing my love of West Wing, the political drama that ran from 1999 to 2006. (For those of you wondering about the 10 year lag in our viewing habits, remember that thanks to the advent of digital television, we were left with one channel even though we installed a converter box. Our location didn’t allow us to get cable, and our daughter was in college, which left no money for satellite TV until last year. So we haven’t watched much TV since the millennium.)
Now, the conservatives among you may be gasping with horror to think anyone could like such a liberal leaning show. And the liberals among you may be gasping to think anyone could like a show that sometimes shows liberals in a less than favorable light. But my fascination with the show has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the actors and their acting. Or to be specific, these actors and their acting.
- Alison Janney (C. J. Cregg) – She’s right up there with Meryl Streep.
- Janet Moloney (Donna Moss) – She does amazing things with what started as a bit part. No wonder the writers started giving her more lines.
- Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler) – Has anyone anywhere ever played the sad sack so perfectly?
- Stockard Channing (Abbey Bartlett) – Since her debut in Grease, she’s been worth watching. But back then, whooda thought she’d play the President’s wife.
- Martin Sheen (Josiah Bartlett) – In the same vein, whooda thought the President could look so much like Peter Parker’s (aka Spider Man) uncle?
- Dule Hill (Charlie Young) – Can he possibly be same actor who plays the comic sidekick in Psych? Now that’s amazing acting.
Those are the actors who draw me back to West Wing for episode after episode. How about you? Who are your favorite actors on that show or any other? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Aug 27, 2012 | Daily Life
Hiram and I are hopelessly addicted to the TV series, Lost. Those of you in tune with popular culture realize we are also hopelessly behind the time, as that series ended in 2010. But thanks to the advent of digital television, which left us with one channel even though we installed a converter box, our location which doesn’t allow us to get cable, and a daughter in college, which left no money for satellite TV until last year, we haven’t watched much TV for the past several years.
Until Hiram’s convalescence after surgery this summer.
That momentous event forced the issue and we signed up for Netflix. That’s when we discovered Lost. It’s kind of like Gilligan’s Island meets Lost in Space meets Wild, Wild West meets soap opera. And now, like I said before, we’re hopelessly addicted to the silly show. So addicted we might need a twelve step program. Or at least a notebook to keep track of six years worth of plot lines, flashbacks, crises, cliff hangers, and deaths.
After all, Hiram’s convalescence is pretty much over.
He used to lay on the couch to watch Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Charlie and John and the rest of the gang uncover mysterious hatches, untangle the mystery of the Others, and munch on provisions dropped by helicopter from the mysterious Dharma Initiative powers-that-be. Now Hiram watches while doing a hopping/balance exercise prescribed by the PTs.
It’s pretty cool.
But not as cool as all those sweaty people running around the island, flashing back to their former lives, doing the time travel thing, and finding more new outfits to wear than could possibly be packed in a carry on bag. To think, we wouldn’t even know about them if Hiram hadn’t had back surgery.
But thanks to one ruptured disk, we’re now addicted to the silly show.
The doctor never once mentioned this as a side effect of surgery. Which proves there are some things modern medicine can’t predict or prevent. Even though it does a really good job with ruptured disks.
For which we are extremely grateful.
But we won’t be so grateful if someone spoils things by leaving a comment that spills the beans about how the series end. So if you want to leave a comment about the outcome of the series or some plot twist, please begin your missive with the words “spoiler alert.”
We’re hopelessly addicted to Lost, and we want to stay that way.
by jphilo | Aug 13, 2012 | Daily Life
Ten years ago this week, I began my twenty-fifth year of teaching.
My son with undiagnosed PTSD had just moved to an Orthodox monastery.
My daughter began eighth grade.
My husband worked crazy hours as an ICU nurse and loved it.
My mother lived in her own home and was a ball of fire.
Abby the dog was finally housebroken.
Our church met in the high school auditorium and had downtown offices in the basement of a renovated horse livery.
I thought my teaching career would continue another twelve years.
But I was wrong. Because God answered a prayer uttered during the return flight from a workshop conference a week or two before school started. Please God, I had whispered, if you want me to be a writer, I need a different job. A month later, I knew the 2002 – 2003 school year turned out to be my last as a teacher.
So much has changed in my life since then.
My son, after treatment for PTSD, is a husband and will soon be a father.
My daughter is a college graduate, married, and settling into a new home.
My husband works a regular schedule in a heart cath lab and loves it.
My mother lives with my brother’s family and has Alzheimer’s.
Abby the dog died after a full and pampered life.
Our church meets in a new building constructed on a former cornfield.
Two of my books have been published, and I speak around the country.
I feel ten years younger than during my teaching years, and I’m much healthier.
But many things haven’t changed. Many of my friends are still teaching. They go back to school today, facing a host of challenges and determined to make a positive difference in their students’ lives. Their students will be blessed to spend the next nine months in my friends’ classrooms.
My friends will work incredibly hard, come home tired day after day, correct papers and plan lessons late in the night, and catch every cold and flu bug that goes around. They need our prayers. And since God answers prayer, just as he did ten years ago, I’ll be praying for them. Dear God, give these teachers and dear friends strength and wisdom, enthusiasm and compassion to meet the needs of children.
Will you join me in praying that prayer?
