Boy Scouts and Girlfriends

I found my boys at that giant Boy Scout jamboextravaxecellentcy.

I also found some very fabulous butterflies in the gardens at Mount Vernon.

And I found some super fabulous girlfriends, right under my nose. Just like butterflies, if you slow down long enough and shut the yammering skull cave for a minute or two, the gals appear from the nicest places.

I can't explain what happened here. Peter either got very large or the rest of us got very small. My eyeballs are at his bottom lip. Seriously, this is NOT OK.

On the upside, Andrew is on the left so that part of the universe is still completely under my control.

It's hard to see but the t-shirt is a Breast Cancer Awareness shirt created by super fantastic cousin Missy and is worn in honor of my very fabulous gal Cathy S- super fierce, always beautiful and walking last weekend to raise money for research. She is awesome. You probably know someone exactly like her and you should donate your time or energy and maybe both to fighting this disease with Cathy.

Back to the butterflies, I am the luckiest person ever.

I am sending you some giggling, a good deal or two, and in honor of a now deceased blogger I stole this from,

Love, love, love.

Just because

That Tornado and My Home Ec Teacher can kiss my big fat...

Curtain. They can kiss my big ol' curtain.



First the Tornado. I don't have any pictures of that- would you really want them?



Around 11pm last Saturday night we were somehow spared- not even a twig out of place- but 5 miles east of us is in bad shape. The high school is destroyed. The police station is flattened. They have no school buses and no police cars. Five people are dead. A mom and her little boy were sucked right out of their beds, their house flattened. The neighbors found them in the yard. The dad and a daughter somehow survived.



A&P were at camp about 60 miles west of here. They evacuated to the showers and were well taken care of, but we couldn't help remembering the Scouts killed in Iowa 3 or 4 years ago. We are so lucky, so blessed.



Onto to something less horrendous, aren't you loving that curtain? I made that. With some help from my fabulous friend of course. I haven't sewed since 7th grade and then one day a month back a light went on in my ever misfiring skull "you should buy a sewing machine." What the heck, it's better than starting a crack habit or beating my kids.


Then I got brave and I made this one for Andrew's room. All by myself. My home ec teacher thought I was a disaster. I may be a disaster, but I can plug in a machine. This one for Andrew is made out of fabric that has the Pledge of Allegiance printed on it. The blue is stars. Andrew said "Is this just for the 4th of July and you're making another one?" Don't push it buster.



I have to tell you though, I am a big mess. My dining room is not suitable for eating. I spilled the same box of 500 pins- twice. Several dozen got stuck in my feet. I got another set of teeny tiny pins and I promptly dropped those all over the floor twice. The cat keeps running off with my bobbin thread thing-a-ma-bobbers.



Do you know how hard it is to drink and sew at the same time? Take it from me, you have to be really, really careful not to spill.




Lastly, because I am starting to ramble and the blogger gods nearly made this entire post disappear which would have been tragic, we went to the Indy 500. We surprised A&P and went to the race with family that knows how to manage a giant track with whizzing cars. Fun had by all.

Here's hoping that the 50 or so families that lost their houses pretty darned close to here can draw upon the good times to pull through. All I had to do was pick up about 4000 straight pins and pick the other 100 out of my toes. I know where my birth certificate is and I have a roof. If you think of it, donate to The Red Cross or something- they help people just like them.

The Last Seventeen Cents

We've been working with a local organization called The Village for a while. We rented some space in a not-so-nice neighborhood about nine months ago with some lofty ideals about changing the world or some such thing. This is really rather daunting, but I suppose you have to start somewhere. So you put a stake in the ground and say "here, is where we start."

There's a lot more back story to this endeavor, but I want to share one little bit with you.

Today, we had a free parking lot party. Tim did a lot of the planning so we rolled in about an hour before the official start time to set up grills and do whatever needs to be done to have a cook out in a parking lot. Miraculously, it stopped raining long enough for this to happen. (It's rained enough that I saw a mushroom the size of a hubcap today. I may grow gills.)

Our South Korean friend arrived just before we did. He saw a man near the intersection for the highway ramp and the main road. He picked up the man and brought him along. Everything he owned, presumably, was in a rolled up pack about the size of a small pillow. He wasn't unkempt, but he was homeless and ragged, so a certain amount of unkempt goes with the territory. He helped unload grills and carry things. He stayed with us nearly all afternoon eating hamburgers, drinking orange Kool Aid and listening to music. Someone said he was trying to get to Pontiac, Michigan.

As I stood behind the food tables to refill bowls of chips or whatever, I saw him slowly approach the table. We had some flyer's down at the end that we were holding down with a small change bank (like the ones you use for spare change during Lent.) The party was free but a few folks had jammed some bills in the coin slot on the top of the can. They didn't need to, but it was nice anyway. The man refilled his water bottle from the orange Kool Aid container and then reached into the little pocket on his jeans. You know the pocket- the little one in the front that makes them five pocket jeans. He pulled out a few coins. From the looks of him, I have to imagine this is about all he had.

He took a silver coin and some pennies and another coin, maybe a dime, and he put them in the can. He walked away slowly. I saw him a few minutes later on the other side of the building lighting a cigarette and then he was gone. Off to Pontiac I guess.

He didn't need to give us his money. For that matter, our friend didn't need to have picked him up. But he got picked up and he fished in his pockets for coins for the can. Do I ever give that much? Do I ever reach into my pockets and rummage through the last few coins that I have and willingly and cheerfully give them away? Am I that generous with my time? Am I that generous with my talents and spirit that even when I'm pretty sure I have nearly nothing left, I give just a little bit more away?

Well Sir, I don't know who you are, but what you did will stay with me forever. I hope you made it to Pontiac, Michigan. Thank you for coming to our picnic.

A Walk in the Woods, Part One

I think I have a loose screw in my skull. Before you go judging me and trying to figure out which screw is the loosest, lest you are one of those folks who believe that I have more than one loose piece of hardware, I know just which one. The problem I have is that I have to live some place flat. Clearly we could have picked someplace else that was not as flat. Really, I can't dwell on that. So here we are.

Do you notice a problem? Yes, I am the shortest. That is a problem. Do you notice the other problem? Peter is on the left. That is about the wrong-est thing that can happen in one of my pictures. Ten years from now I will be totally screwed on who is who. Andrew is always on the left- except in this picture because no one listens to me anymore. I think I'm going to have a short snit about that. OK, I'm done.

Anyway, here we are at the top of Amicalola Falls in the state park of the same name, Georgia. We were ready to start our walk into the woods. (If you have not done so, you must read, MUST, I SAY MUST READ, A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. Indeed, required for this blog.)


Off we went. Normalcy was achieved as above you will find Andrew on the left. Phew. I thought Mercury was in retrograde there for a few minutes. This picture was taken right before the half way point Atkins family meltdown, a.k.a. fight. This time it was about a dented metal water bottle. (Sigh. It's not worth repeating.)

A&P recovered from their mutual hatred and found company on the trail somewhere way ahead of us. They tell us we're old. We tell them they hike too fast. Whatever, I'm right.

We arrived late afternoon at the Len Foote Hike Inn. It's fabulous and I will tell you more about it tomorrow.

Hey Unc

I was thinking about you today.



I didn't see you at Thanksgiving and you won't be at Grandma's for Christmas- not any more. If I close my eyes, I can imagine you're way up in Alaska. You're too far away for that now. Up in the stars, I'd have to go to the backyard and look up high to see you. Above the clouds, floating where I can't perceive you, but nonetheless, imprinted on my thinking and my soul.



You aren't supposed to be gone and maybe that's why I still think of you all the time. You should be here, stopping by for a visit and a beer. The boys remember our last time together at Tony Packo's in Toledo. Do you remember? You came to our house and waited on the porch with a six pack of beer. A&P got quite a charge out of that. I was worried the next day because you left without breakfast, but you told me later you stopped at a truck stop.



Christmas with you was always special. It was so far for you to come to visit. You always bought Indiana lottery tickets and posted the numbers on the board in the back hall by the kitchen- just in case some one won big. The deal included a split of the proceeds, but we never had to worry about that, did we? (Stupid odds).



Here's to a holiday season of joy and wonder as we wait for God's gift to us, but we miss you. I see you in the twinkling lights on the trees and in the snow flakes. My hope is that your adventuresome spirit and joy for living will be with us forever. How did you do it?



Love from Me.

Avert Your Eyes

Do you see Mr. 92? That's Peter.

The season is over, but Peter LOVED his uniform. He didn't play much, but he LOVED the team. I am so proud of him.

Doesn't that line of boys look cute? I don't think I'm supposed to be looking at that.

Marbles, Part 2: A List of Things Worth Living For

Bacon
Fried Chicken Drumsticks
Hugs
Crunchy Fall Leaves
Country ham and cheddar cheese on toast. with mustard.
Chocolate Martinis
Christmas presents- even if it's socks
Saturday morning cartoons with someone cuddly
Taxes- always got to remember the taxes
Letters in smelly envelopes with lips
Everyone who loves you even when you're not loveable
Reality TV
South Park
Tomorrow. Just because

Lucky, Lucky! Everything Comes with Pancakes!

I spent my formative years in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, not too far from Milwaukee and the locale responsible for my weird accent. It took me until 4th grade to figure out how to spell Wauwatosa or any other Indian type word. Anyway, I loved to watch the TV show "Laverne and Shirley."

I especially loved the L's on Laverne's sweaters and Boo Boo Kitty. At the beginning of every show, the opening song scenes featured a shot of a prominent Milwaukee building. Whenever we drove into the city I used to look for Laverne and Shirley's apartment. Of course, I never found it, but I was pretty convinced I lived about 15 miles from Laverne, Shirley, Squiggy, Lenny and Boo Boo Kitty.

One episode of the show featured the girls in a misguided attempt at waitressing. It had something to do with breakfast because Laverne would walk up to every table and announce flatly and in a way only Penny Marshall could... "Lucky Lucky... Everything Comes with Pancakes!"

This funny sentence or phrase or announcement about carbohydrate laden breakfast food means to me- Hey! Good stuff is about to happen to you! Yes, You! Truly, any time someone offers to give you something for nothing...it has to be good. The only thing that would make it better would be an extra side of bacon, but I think Squiggy was Jewish which would have messed up the plot.

Regardless, today was the kind of day that made me want to climb to the roof and shout about pancakes. It was a good day and good stuff happened. You know why? You make your own luck. You make your own luck by walking into Laverne's restaurant on the day with extra pancakes or by making the right choice or by doing the right thing.

Today was one of those days. I am lucky, I have extra pancakes and I'm looking to pay it forward. Watch out when you see me, if you do. You might just end up with some extra breakfast. And I hope you enjoy it and feel lucky too.