Outdoor School/Indoor Mom -- Kerry

Along the lines of Jennie's post, I am cramming two field trips, laundry and a girl scout outing into my already busy week without my husband or oldest child who are attending outdoor school.

While there is a bit more silence around the house, fewer bodies and more general independence on my part (first in line at the computer and the bathroom all to myself), there is also a chasm.
I find myself drifting into it as I do all the dishes after dinner sans aformentioned husband and dilligent eldest child, reading and tucking the kids into bed, and folding laundry; all tasks my husband and I have shared in tandem almost rhythmically for the last ten years.

In the morning, I ponder the idea of feeding the chickens and walking the dog, after I dress the five year-old and cook a hot breakfast for she and the eight year-old. Then I'll go to the barn, price tag about fifty items and push a whole room full of furniture around.

All my choices, but still, I am exhausted even thinking about them.

Alright, I give, I am not the woman from the 1970's Angelie perfume commercial who sang,
"I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never never let you forget you're a man," that has been seared into my psyche along with the theme song from Batman and the names of the Mod Squad.

Honestly, who is that woman anyway?

What's (Not) Going On?

Not much is going on in the blogosphere.

Understandably.

It's a super busy time of year. The days are longer; there are places to go and yardwork to do. If you have kids, they're going on field trips every other day right now. Plus, there are the track meets, music recitals, choir concerts, softball tournaments, birthday parties, barbecues, and graduations.

If you're a student or a teacher, you have finals.

Or maybe the decent weather has prompted you to get out and make some money in this sick economy.

There's some wedding stuff, too. I've wondered how the bridal industry has been hit by the recession, which has led me to thinking about depression weddings: if there were fewer than usual, if the gifts were more less-expensive or even homemade, if the feast was pared-down and the guest list trimmed.

Seriously, though. I don't have time to think.

I have All Of The Above, plus two manuscripts to revise.

It might be crazy spring, but it's time to get crackin'.

Note for Note-For Mom who Couldn't be there--Marcia

James composed his first song at around three and a half. He was in time-out in what we call "Granny's Room". I was moving through the house doing what moms do and overheard him singing the blues, hunched over like Mississippi John Hurt. . . "Mommy took my video/flushed it down the toilet/ I loved that video now I'll never see it again--Ohhhh." I was impressed with the composition and the poetic license.

There have been other instances of musical genius over the years. Daniel and his two mock-sisters Jenna and Sophie (mock-sisters to each other-separated only by a few houses) had a band called "Ruby Red and City Slick." Sophie was Ruby, Jenna was Red, and Daniel was City Slick. They used to perform at every BBQ, Christmas Party, and vague reason to gather and drink good wine.

The girls had a much bigger desire to put on boas and flap around in front of the parents. Daniel was having none of it. The last night of his incarnation as City Slick, Ruby and Red were definately macking on the mic, pushing Slick further into the shadows. Finally, when the Sistas realized they were about to lose what could pan out to be their main draw, they threw Daniel a guitar solo. Daniel knows he doesn't know how to play, he does know he has a voice, and it's possible he might think he's a tad better than they are. He might have looked at his girls and said something like, "You guys suck," and left the room. The girls quickly went running after him, trying to get Daniel to consider a reunion tour.

James, however, didn't waste a minute. He was on that mini red Fender like a hungry hawk on a dachsund. He strapped that thing on like he'd been doing it all his life. He addressed his audience from his stage by the fireplace . . . "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this is the halftime show." He struck the strings with all the vigor of Stevie Ray Vaughn impersonating Elvis. He'd been watching somebody's moves. His head kept time, his shoulders were grooving, his knees flexing, there was flourish, there was passion . . . Sweet James . . . the one who never tried to find a place in the spotlight stole the show.

He did it again Thursday night up at the Manor.

He has been taking piano with Mrs. Brown for about three months. Seeing as my sainted mother-in-law thinks he's delayed, we decided to hone some fine motor skills and harness his kooky mind. Mrs. Brown has been teaching in the little yellow house near the crossroads of Roosevelt and Donut Country for 40-some years. Everyone knows Mrs. Brown . . . If they play piano. That is life in Medford.

Every Monday James rushes straight from school, hops on his scooter, and we race down to Mrs. B's. His clothes are usually covered in dust from the rocks on the Hoover playground (yes, rocks!), his pants are hanging down around his hips a good three inches of whatever kind of underwear showing, and his hands are a little grubby. But he loves Mrs. Brown, and he really wants a "sculpture."

Mrs. Brown keeps a very accurate and elaborate tally system based on homework, memorization and performance. When you get 100 points you earn the bust of a composer. Red aka Jenna, has a whole bunch of sculptures, and James knows it. He told Mrs. Brown. James wants to catch up. So James decided to perform at his first recital after something like 10 total lessons. James picked his own piece, "The Shoe Cobbler." an easy choice due to a favorite fairy tale, The Shoemaker and His Elves.

He was told to dress up and that he would be going on first.

I asked James what he wanted to wear. "I want a blue jacket, a blue and red striped tie, a fancy shirt, and black shoes . . . that tap."

Okey-Dokey.

Put a kindergartner in a tie and a blazer in the middle of a room full of very Senior citizens and you are definately going to be a crowd pleaser. We got to the Manor early to do a dry run, but the room was already packed. While we were standing to the side trying to show James where to get on and off the stage, two sweet little old ladies chatted him up. He made sure they noticed the Westies on his tie and his new top siders. "Mom couldn't find tap shoes."

You know you finally belong somewhere when you have issues with some of the people in the room. I had history--some good, some not so good--with just about everybody in the room. So did my husband, but with him all history is good history. It was fun.

Two seconds before James was to take the stage his nose started gushing like a Brooklyn fire hydrant in July. I couldn't catch it all fast enough. Luckily Mama Katie was right behind me. Having Katie with you is equivalent to having an ER nurse in your hip pocket. She shoveled me advice and Kleenex as fast as she could. My mum-in-law scrubbed at the spots on James'tie while I pinched his nose.

I turned to my sister, "Tell Mrs. Brown to stall a minute." Katie and I tried to get James to leave the room so we could hemmorage in private and not spill on any of the audience. James would not budge. Mrs. Brown adapted. The show must go on. She announced that James would be on a little later and the second youngest took the stage. As my sister said, "The La Fonds are here." We can't help but make a scene. As my sister, mother-in-law, son, and several neighbors shifted around in their seats and went back and forth for fresh supplies, my husband went missing.

I wanted James up on that stage before any of the older more talented kids could intimidate him and I didn't want to send him up without the camera rolling and blood staunched. I hissed at Katie, "Where is my husband?" She gave me a wry look that all married women recognize-- a squint that basically says, "Typical."

"Do you want to stick some Kleenex up his nose?" She asked. We hunkered around my little pianist trying to twist a cone small enough to wedge up one of his nostrils. We couldn't get anything to fit. James didn't cry, panic, freak out, or back out. He kept his eyes on the stage and occasionally checked the state of his fancy shirt.

Once my husband emerged from the shadows and the red sea calmed enough not to surge on the Steinway, it was time to send James upstream. I eased us into the piano- playing lane.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"I'm a little afraid."

"Do you want me to walk you up?"

"No mommy," and he pushed past me, as the boy before him made his exit, stage right.

Mrs. Brown, seeing James headed for the spotlight, stood to announce that the medical emergency was over and she presented James La Fond.

My youngest acts like a complete spaz at home. Now that he had the stage he was a complete piano professional. He even faked it through his flub at the end.

He was so brave. We are so proud.

And now, with so much ado . . . we present James La Fond playing "The Shoe Cobbler".

Majicl Farm Fresh Furniture -- Kerry

For three days I stood in the middle of my in-laws barn and sold vintage indoor and outdoor furniture and collectibles.

For the first time in since I closed my furniture store ten years ago, I felt the rush of excitement in selling even the most minute of items, from $2 plastic hummingbirds to $200 dressers.

There is a flow state here for me, the same plane I fly when I am writing.

Dust flies out of my brain and also out of the barn floor.

Perhaps I am manic like my sister, insanely excited about giving old picnic baskets new light and renovating beat up coffee tables.

Well, whatever.

"If it makes you happy," sings Sheryl Crow.

Indeed.

Three-Legged Race -- Kelly

Again bereft of inspiration, I'm recycling a favorite from June, 2007. The photo of sweet Poogan was taken by her owner, Lori V. of Do You Realize?

So, dogs and people. A lot alike, according to the old saw.

I adore Ashland's dog park. It’s beautiful to watch the animals run, ears flapping, muscles doing what they were meant to do, coats gleaming in the sunshine. Some are perfect specimens. The rest do all right. Even that miraculous phenomenon that never ceases to amaze me: the three-legged dog.

We’ve all seen one – leg lost in some traumatic way – that runs, wags, even leaps for a Frisbee now and then, perfectly compensating for his loss, never looking back. The disability is obvious, but its effects are invisible. Sure, it must have been hard to relearn some things, and maybe he can’t sit up and beg any more, but he’s done what a dog does. He’s just gotten on with the business of joy.

In some of the early entries in my personal blog, I mentioned the epidemic of change in the lives of my friends (and, of course, my own as well). While some of these changes are positive, many of them – even the good ones - involve loss. The loss is sometimes sudden, an amputation if you will. A parent dies, a job disappears, a child gets in trouble in a spectacular way. Such loss is brutal, ruthless, but is easily defined. Something Has Happened.

But what of more insidious loss? What if the limb isn’t severed but is slowly withering? What if the leg is there, even normal in its outward appearance, but is without function? When these losses happen in the confines of a family or an individual’s essential self, the analogy to limb loss becomes a little less stable.

When an actual limb begins to fail, a person has options: physical therapy, medication, adaptive technologies or supports. In extreme cases, amputation is the answer to creating a new whole. But people and their systems aren’t that simple, are they? Think of the physical and emotional erosion of chronic illness. The slow train wreck of substance abuse. The withdrawal of intimacy in a strained marriage. These traumas – and that is what they are, even if they are not sudden – happen piecemeal, painfully.

Sometimes the loss is a realization, an “I will never…” statement. Not the whining kind that calls up a response like, “Don’t be silly! You have plenty of time/energy/money to do a, b, or c.” but the peaceful, mature knowledge that the time for a certain action is truly past, that the skills required are beyond a person’s reach, or that some dreams will simply never come true.

None of these scenarios are uncommon, and none are beyond our imagination. They number as many as the grains of sand on the floor of the ocean. The challenge comes, as always, in how we react. Is a full recovery possible? Sometimes the loss is too great, the energy required long gone. People do hit bottom, and they don’t always come back up. I’m not a character-Nazi, the kind of person who believes that a stiff upper lip and a strong work ethic can bring you back from anything. And not everyone is capable of adaptation.

But what of those who don’t want to stop walking, who dream of leaping once again for a well-tossed Frisbee? Even if you do persevere through loss, even if no one around you has any idea that recovery is in process, you still must face the absence. The leg is never going to function again. You leave an untenable situation. You strengthen the remaining limbs. Perhaps you find substitutes.

The challenge lies – at least for me – in the choice of a metaphor to understand your life from the loss forward. Do you choose the four-legged-but-one-is-impaired dog image, or do you radically remake yourself as the three-legged dog?

The answer means the difference between staying in the crate or chasing the tennis ball with your ears flapping and your coat gleaming. You may no longer be the fastest dog, you may no longer have AKC conformation, and you may even elicit pity from those who stare at what is no longer there.

But you will have found your balance.

And you will continue to run on your three strong legs, and the sun will feel good on your back when you take a big slurping drink of cool water and collapse, happy, in the soft, green grass.

The Claws That Haunt

I am not always a good mother. Revision: I am often not a good mother. But, if you want to grow something in water, I’m the mom to have. Triops, fish, crustaceans, frogs, snails, seamonkeys, algae—you want it; I’ll help you grow it. 

So this week we built a pollywog nursery in the yard and went out pollywog hunting. We made three stops before we finally tracked some down at an old reservoir, and we now have 14 beautiful babies scurrying around under a layer of lacy duckweed. 

My children’s first experience with tadpoles ended with me possibly breaking some environmental bio-hazrd laws. It started innocently enought through a grow-a-frog by-mail thing. You get this tiny aqua version of a hamster habitrail called Tube Town, put the ’wogs in, and watch them grow. It was great (for me, the kids got bored after about 42 seconds) to watch them sprout their tiny little legs and arms and turn into itty-bitty frogs. After a week or two I noticed one of the frogs was getting much bigger than the others, then one morning one of the smaller frogs a had vanished and the larger frog had a bit of a pot-belly. A few days later the other small frog was gone, and the lone frog remaining was licking his smug little frog lips. I kept my distance and had the kids feed him after that. He was the kind of frog that had long toenails that you could hear click against the plastic of his aquarium. My daughter enjoyed picking him up and feeling the little claws, but that’s something I really can’t abide. 

One day we realized he could touch all four walls with this arms and legs and the clicking of nails was getting louder as he grew, so we transferred him to the lovely new aquarium chock-full of a variety of interesting fish that my in-laws had given the kids. I think you can see where this is going. The next morning the aquarium was empty, save for the frog, who looked like he could use a cigar and a couple of Tums. 

By that time we learned not to put anything in with him. But after that massive fish buffet, he grew really big, really fast. I started to dream about him and those sickening claws tapping against the glass. I won’t say exactly what we did with him because after looking this species up on the web and reading things like, “when released into the wild they have the capacity to wreck entire ecosystems by eating native wildlife such as fish and turtles that have no natural defense against these creatures,” I’m pleading the fifth. 

Lesson learned: no frogs by mail. Now we just get native species and let them do their thing outside the house. Who doesn’t love the sound of frogs at dusk? 

Insomnia--Marcia

An hour ago it was 3:00 in the morning. Obviously, I am still awake. My husband, back from his foray to le toilette, is snoring comfortably. As for me, the thoughts come rushing in.

At first it's the little things: pack a gym bag, pack a lunch, pack for the trip this Friday, need a haircut and clothes for James for his first piano recital tomorrow,things my trainer told me to help me to stay positive on my long, long road toward fitness, images of Daniel out on the field last night, looking like a twenty-something rather than a ten year old as he swaggered in his catcher's gear toward his spot behind home plate. And then my thoughts settle down and fix on the unavoidable. My mother is in the hospital.

My mother reads my blog when she's well, and so, given that she is one of my two readers, I don't want to bore her with stories about herself or alarm her that the whole cyber world might be reading about her personal life. So, no stories about mom's health.

Still, I know she is lying in French Hospital in San Luis Obispo tonight. Most people would write the word alone after that, but my mother has been living by herself for over thirty years. So tonight whe will have more noise, action, and assistance than usual. Tonight she does not have to be afraid that she will stop breathing. Nurses, doctors, machines, will make sure that she is getting oxygen to her uncooperative lungs. So even though none of us is at her bedside, she is not alone.

My moether doesn't want to be a patient, she doesn't want to lie on a couch, she doesn't want to stop working at the thrift shop she runs for her church, or arranging the flowers for Sunday service, or tell the brown baggers she can't make it, or book club, or her salon (read with a french accent). My mother does not sit still. After feeding everyone, writing up a little marketing piece for the church bazaar, hemming up a pair of pants for her grandson, and designing a new studio for her daughter, she'll finish wiping down the kitchen--even though the movie she insisted she wanted to watch has been spinning around in the DVD player for at least a half an hour. When she does finally finish up every last little thing in the world that needs to be accomplished, she will mosey out to the couch for our "girl time." Nine times out of ten, I am already half asleep trying to rally. Twenty minutes later her eyes are half-lidded and she's slurring. Time for bed.

I love my mother. There is nothing I can do for her tonight. She doesn't want us there. She doesn't want to be pitied or babied. She doesn't want flowers-her arrangements are prettier. She doesn't want fine wine, it's a waste of money. My mother loves to talk . . . that's hard on the days she doesn't have breath. Books on tape, CDs. Those are things I can do for her.

At one point she talked about moving here. She even put money down on Horton Plaza. My sister and I, my boys, all fantasized about having "granny" around the corner. That's the way I wish it was. But she has her wonderful garden, incredible friends, good sons and spectacular daughter-in-laws, and the light of her life, Bella--my three year old, highly unexpected, niece. I smile thinking about mom and Bella. They are a mutual adoration society of two. Maybe that's what mom needs more than anything. I just hope she knows I want to be part of that club too.

"Show a little faith, there's magic in the night..." -- Kely

When I was a college senior, I took a course titled “Fielding and Byron.” I remember telling my professor something along the lines of, “I just can’t get into Tom Jones.” She looked down at me and replied, “You’re not old enough, not ready. Read it when you’re thirty and we’ll talk.”

I was insulted. How condescending! A sophisticated 21-year-old English major like me – well versed in the ways of the world…I could write my own damn picaresque based on the last two years alone...if she only knew – was “old enough” for anything she could throw at me. I even wrote my major essay on “Tom’s Naiveté.” That'll show her…

…that I was the queen of Unintentional Irony. She was, as usual, right, even though I “got into it” quite well just three years later. That professor has been a colleague and is now a friend, and we had a big laugh about that exchange a few years ago when I reminded her of it. Sometimes you’re not ready for a book; it’s just that simple. And sometimes you’re ready again, and again, and again and it’s new every time.

While we may well be able to do dispassionate analyses of our favorite flavor of art (and – burn me as a heretic – sometimes I doubt that we can ever put ourselves outside our analyses), and while we may be ashamed to admit it, we do see ourselves in books, paintings, songs. As a writer, I struggle with taking myself out of the work so a reader can put himself into it. But this entry is getting away from me.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably old enough to remember records. The kind you played on a turntable. The kind you stacked on a spindle and let drop while you lay on your bed and thought about your life in all its miseries and triumphs. Maybe this is something only girls do, but I doubt it. I know enough audiophile men to suspect otherwise. Perhaps you’re back there in your head right now, thinking of a particular song.

If so, track it down soon and play it. Listen to it the way you did back then. Notice the differences in the places it touches you, in the messages it holds. Let go of the part of your intellect that says, “Well, this line doesn’t exactly capture my existential ennui” or “You think your heart is broken now, singer, wait until you express those feelings to the person in question and see how you feel then.” Close your eyes. Be patient. It’s going to be a very different song, but the experience of listening while open to reverie is liberating.

Baboon Metaphysics - Christy

Books titles are tricky. Titling is a marketing function performed by the publisher and while the author does have input, it’s the publisher’s call. That’s okay with me—I like to rely on experts so I’ll go with whatever they give me. I’ve never been wed to any of my titles anyway, and there have been a few already. The book that Flux is publishing started as a manuscript called The Fáistine, which became The Last Daykeeper when I was agent hunting. Then when my agent submitted to editors she renamed it Prophecy of Days, and the working title my editor has given it is Prophecy of Days, Book One: The Daykeeper’s Grimoire. In a couple of months it will go through the marketing/titling process and come out with an ISBN and a final title. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get me the Odd Title Prize.

Yesterday the Oddest Book Title of the Year was announced. The winner? The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-miligram Containers of Fromage Frais. That title edged out other front runners, including Baboon Metaphysics, Curbside Consultation of the Colon, Strip and Knit with Style, Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring, and—my personal favorite—The Large Sieve and its Applications.

I’d love to see some other working titles. Care to share your titles and/or title evolution?

Writing Prompts-Forward Thinking--Marcia

Ahh, sweet relief, the bowling season is finished, the choir just had their end of year celebration, and there are just a scant few weeks left of school. Tuesday nights should be getting a lot easier. We'll still have piano Monday, batting practice and t-ball games, Tuesday, drop-in and Draw, Hockey, and Writers group on Wednesday, more baseball Thursday, Singles practice for me Friday night, Saturday baseball and hockey games, and Sunday Mixed Doubles practice for Dan. Wow. We do love sports.

I need to be unemployed just so I can keep our gym bags appropriately packed.

Here is a list of a few of the subjects I have been backlogging and hope I can get to soon: My fabulous fiasco of a Spring Break; my wounded chicken, discovered mutilated and broken-legged one morning when I came home from school: an estate sale at a deceased neighbor's (it's unbelievable what lurks behind bad stucco walls); Andrew my ADD kid from the choir who spent most of the year turning his eyelids inside out and falling out of his chair; the realization that my Hub IS a good father; finally winning a tennis match, and of course foreclosures.

I should get better at Wednesday morning posting now that the only thing left to do on Tuesdays is baseball. I'll start writing a few of these up now. I know by next week I'll have thirteen more things that urgently need my writerly attention. We'll see what comes up.

Chickies, Kitties, Doggies, Jillies--Kerry

We are new parents this month. One scrappy terrier and two chicks later, we roost cozily together with our two cats and three children most nights.

Most nights, that is, until someone turns the heat lamp off in the chicks boudoir and they cheep furiously, chirping for the orange metal mother ship that has disconnected, not unlike Jilly, our five year old, yelling for me when she can't find her purse/blanket/cheese stick/whatever.

The cats hiss at the dog when it walks by and jump onto the highest point they can find. Only occasionally does the dog seem surprised. She came from the pound, where we found her 12 pound body in a cage next to a cage with a 100 pound titan named Hercules who barked interminably during our stay. She is unfazed by the chicks, the cats and even Jilly, who picks her up and squeezes her like a pillow uttering words of endearment loudly in her ear such as "Peppa I wuv you".

I tucked Claire and the dog into bed last night. The dog put it's head on the pillow, under the covers, and looked up at me. I didn't even think of the doggy smell on the sheets because she was just so obnoxiously cute.

Animals, like humans, don't really need much more than food, water, shelter and attention. Life really doesn't have to be so complicated. Maybe I should just stick to the basics more often, seek more heat lamps and warm beds, and let life be sweet and fuzzy like a soft chick next to my son's cheek.

Finding the Umm in Summer - Kelly

Sure feels like summer here: the first mosquito bites of the season, the first grass burr under(bare)foot, the car's AC breaking on the first 90 degree afternoon.

You need to know that summer is my least favorite time of year. I despise heat.

For five of the last seven years, I’ve escaped to my favorite home away from home, Ashland, Oregon. There I revel in cool mornings and evenings. I also get to hang with my friends in the Lithia Writers Collective.

What’s not to love?

Will I go this year? I don’t know yet, but I’m steeling myself for another Texas summer, just in case.

To psych myself up for that dreadful possibility and to make up for the first paragraph’s glum trinity, I’m determined to conjure some positive things about summer in my native state.

• Friday mornings around my friend V’s pool. She’s gracious enough to extend a standing invitation to the women of First Amendment Friday (i.e. our wine and conversation group), kids and all.

• Consumption of the year’s summer beverage with friends and family (in moderation, of course). Our standard Pinot Grigio (from Target! In a box! Go get some!) will likely, this summer be supplanted by a vodka concoction. The current contenders are sweet tea vodka, mixed with either water or lemonade; fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and plain vodka, with or without a salted rim; and blood orange Italian soda with vodka. My sister-in-law plans something that involves soaking pineapple chunks in vodka, too. Vote now for your favorite.

• Enjoying (in the morning, early afternoon, or at night) the patio furniture I finally talked The Man into purchasing at the end of last summer thanks to a ridiculous combination of discounts. Our patio is on the west side of our house, and if you sit there from 3-7 p.m., without shade, you will not be enjoying anything.

That’s three….do you have any to add?

Mad Scientist, Secret Lab, Clones! Creepy Creeperson, M.D. is Back.

Did you guys read the latest from Dr. Zavos, the mad scientist hell bent on making cloned children? Yesterday he claimed he’s already cloned 14 human embryos and put 11 of them into the wombs of four women who wanted to give birth to cloned babies! The cells? Yeah, culled from dead children. Apparently grieving parents are desperate enough to do almost anything. This is total movie material, including the fact that he’s operating out of a secret lab, suspected to be in the Middle East where there’s no ban on cloning.

Why would a parent want a developmentally challenged version of a previous child to the tune of more than $45,000? Why not just have another child naturally? It seems the easiest way for Dr. Zavos to get test-cases is to prey upon parents who cannot get beyond their grief. Is this ethical?

One of my favorite freelance clients is the Women’s Bioethics Project, a think tank in Seattle that focuses on making sure women don’t get hosed in the policy making process. Let’s face it; almost all biotechnology issues have to do with women yet the majority of the people making laws about biotechnology are olde white guys but. Having hair sprouting from your ears does not necessarily make you wise, sometimes it just make you crotchety, shortsighted, and misogynistic. (Color me jaded.) Anyway, if you are interested in women’s rights with regard to medicine and biotechnology, check out the Women’s Bioethics Project. Interesting stuff.

Plaster girls in bonnets--Marcia

Today, the kindergarten literacy aids were sent into the streets of Medford with door hangers, announcing the upcoming Kindergarten Round-up.

We need to boost enrollment. Next year is going to be a hard sell. We will be moving out of our shared housing at Hoover and back into our brand new school in the middle of the year. (YEAH!!!)

The three other aids and I showed up in our mobile-trailer library with our prerequisite coffee cups and water bottles. I dressed Kindergarten-y--floral skirt, white blouse, and black Mary Janes. The other aids dressed for battle: sneakers, running pants, and sleeveless shirts. I was impressed.

We decided to hit the financially challenged neighborhoods first, as a group. This is always a good eye-opener. The HUD apartments are immaculate. Everything is swept and tidy. No beat up Barbie cars or sun-dyed Big Wheels strewn about. There is nothing to tell you about the people that live within. Order and quiet force us to keep our voices down. Where moments ago we'd been joking about ditching our propaganda in a nearby dumpster and heading to Donut Country we're serious now. We fan out. I am the leader and direct my comrades left, right, and center.

We move swiftly trying not to jostle doorknobs or rustle our fliers, we don't really want to have anyone come out. There is a sense of people behind doors. But nothing moves.

We pack up and head back out for the circa 1970s Woodlawn Apartments. I used to think there were maybe 24 apartments at the Woodlawn. But the lot is really deep and wide, and there turns out to be over 100. At first I am not sure they are all part of Woodlawn, I check to see if all the street lamps have that big white ball and that all the window trim is forest green. We divise a plan and attack. Here the doorknobs are a little grottier, the stairwells a tad more like the projects. I pass a bicycle with a sticker on it that says Suck My Dick. Seriously. Are there people that say "OK!"

I start to worry about blond, blue-eyed April. She looks like she's 23, and her knickers are the tightest. What if some meth freak drags her into his apartment. How would I find her?

I climb a cement staircase. There is a jug of bleach by one door and a can full of cigarette butts by the other. I wonder about the bleach. Do people bleach their feet before entering? Is he/she bleaching the stoop? Is it for recycling hypodermics?

We decide to do the apartments across the street and move forward with great vigor. I can't keep up with these ladies. My whole family had the 24-hour flu, only staggered. So I've either been cleaning up barf since Sunday, or adding to the mess for three days. I'm not in top shape for the mission.

The sign says "Something Estates" and in small letters "living opportunity--Equal Housing Something". We wonder if this is a place only for the elderly or for the disabled.

We start hanging our little yellow papers. "Oh goody" I think, there's a rolled up diaper and an empty Huggies carton, "Ages 3 and up" out front of this one. That means Kids!!!!!

At the same time we spot a shoeless little boy up the driveway. "There's one!" We say, confidant that we will find Roosevelt converts here.

Knowing my population I can't help but wonder if the boy has been sent outside while mommy "works" or takes her "medicine". But I'm wrong. He follows us silently up the sidewalks. An older hispanic woman pokes her head out and shouts at him to come back in, to get his shoes on. But he doesn't listen. He smiles and follows us until we are finished.

Our next stop is East Medford's drug den. A lovely old neighborhood with broad sidewallks, old Elm trees, porches and camelias that must have been planted in the early 1900s. But unlike Bend's Westside and Ashland's Railroad District, few are gentrifying down here. Craftsman bungalows are decomposing before our eyes.

What is amazing though, is that even at the lowliest hell hole, people try to make the space their own. Despite a derelict house, a hibachi in a flower pot, curtains that are water stained, someone has planted a few zinnias by the stoop.

Another porch is made cool and welcoming with a handmade broom propped in a corner and a cute iron table with matching vinyl covered chairs. I hang my flier on the stoller handle as I duck under the pine boughs that arc over the pathway.

On one porch I go to hang my doo-hickey, registering, porch, stoller, plush couch, ashtray and then ahhh . . . Where others have put plaster statues of frogs fishing or doing a jig, sun-bonnetted girls, myriad aryan angels, bleach bottles, or cans for butts by their door, this person has propped a romantic painting of a flaxen-haired woman either in the process of buttoning or unbottoning her bloozy white blouse. She just neglected to put one globular rosy-tipped breast away or forgot to air out the other. It is unclear. Different, however, from the cross-legged frog and windchime crew.

What do people think when they come to my door? I think I better run home and put away the scooters, basketballs, shoes, gatorade bottles, and Shark Men, that litter my front door. I think about people's need, no matter the circumstances, for a little beauty or humor, or something to call their own. I see how at the Stevens Street Apartments where people are being given a fresh start, they are following rules, keeping things tidy, being proud of their little patch of a chance. At the others, they are maybe at their last chance, and things are not so pretty. Some don't even have real front doors just sliding glass doors hung with sheets and a worn out rubber mat from Bi-Mart. These are the only places that make me want to wash my hands. The stripped bike and heavy chain, the reek of so many cigarettes is depresssing. No Cat Crossing sign here, just an abandoned Dora the Explorer backpack and a cardboard carton with a stray chile in the bottom.

Then the little houses, however hard the life, however many children, there is the stab at expression.

We finish off in the neighborhoods that have stopped sending their kids to Roosevelt. The families that have opted to send their kids off to private or Christian schools, or transfer into the wealthier districts like Lone Pine or Hoover.

Here the driveways and borders have had their dose of Round-Up, the tulips and jonquils are still in bloom, lawns are mowed, dogwoods are in bloom and only one house has a plaster statue and a hibachi. I know who lives at this one, and she does send her kids to Roosevelt. She's one of the most active parents in the PTA.

All of us noticed how all but the meanest situations flowered with this desire for a spot of beauty, the will to express. It leaves me today, with this great desire to take care of what is mine. Remember how lucky I am, and to show my gratitude on occasion.

Studying Kids Studying Bugs -- Jennie

Hey readers!

While I figure out how to transfer my own blog onto the Lithia site, please sneak a peek here.

Enjoy!

Piece Work - backstitching a freelance job--Marcia

I miss my blog.

I woke up this morning craving a little time with her. She is a place where I can write whatever I want. I can be as good or bad, short or long, irrelevant or irreverent as I want.

I don't think anybody reads this. I certainly don't get paid. And maybe that's the beauty of it all. Maybe that's what I'm hankering for right now.

I've been in the writing trenches for over a month, and left my little bloggie alone to whither and die. I missed her, every Wednesday I'd think about crawling into her clean white space and filling it with fragments from my life.

Wednesday would come and go, I'd make a mental note of things i wanted to talk about: the birth of the Princess and Captain Morgan's baby Dutch, our foiled spring vacation, our neighborhood Easter, Erma Bombeck, teaching kids to read . . . But I knew I could not look up from my research, could not afford whatever time away from the manuscript I was working on, to play with my blog.

So many bitter thoughts went through my head. As time wore on with the museum job, I made less and less money. And yet, I couldn't stop. Facts needed to be checked, hypothesis iron-clad, writing pristine. There were nights it got later and later and later until it was morning and time to make coffee and wake the kids for school. All I wanted to do was cry, or quit.

I missed the day James' training wheels came off. I missed tennis practice, I missed baseball games, I missed hockey matches, I missed family dinners and bedtimes. Spring break was a grind, keeping my children at bay, trying to buy time, trying to work.

My family proved that they could do it. They could give me the time and space I needed to write. They were wonderful. James cried. He missed me. He wanted me to stop. But he didn't interrupt. My husband manned the dinner hour and helped occasionally by putting out clothes for school.

As the writing wore on and on, it started to make sense. Truths that I thought might be hidden in the quilts and needlework turned out to be so, it just took a while to prove it. I finally loved the quilts, loved the women who made them, and was impressed with the time they lived in. They taught me to shut up. Our lives are so easy. Our freedoms vast.

In the late 18th or early 19th Century I would have been a spinster who probably got burned at the stake. There is no way I could have kept my mouth shut, my corset cinched and my mind and body supine.

I am trying to be grateful for the schooling I've just been given--on so many levels. The most obvious: I learned a bucket load about how our country was founded, about women and their role in supporting our country, and about quilts. What do you want to know? I can tell you.

About writing? I learned that I am prone to wedding cakes instead of Hot Pockets. I am a rich detail girl not a pop-it in the micro fake meatball and cheeser. All I needed for this job was a Hot Pocket. I could not deliver. I had to make the four-tiered thing first and then scale it back down. Not good. Not cost effective--especially for my soul.

The money offered was less than an entry level school teacher makes in a week--it took me eight. And now they're holding the check. Do I feel insulted? Yes. Welcome to writing.

I have to look on the bright side. I did finish something. I was proud of it for a short period of time. I learned a ton. I got to work in a world-class museum. And, I have a really good manuscript in my hands. I do something with it, or I don't. It's all on me.

The True 3G Network

Two to Three Weeks.

That's how much longer the oncologist thinks I will have a mother.

I realized yesterday that my daughter hadn't seen her grandmother in weeks, and that each needed time with the other. So, last night, Anna accompanied me when I went over to put Mother to bed.

I've never felt more like a fulcrum.

I held two hands: one gnarled and cool, the other smooth and warm.

I stoked two heads: one bald, the other covered in thick, lustrous curls.

I rested my head on two shoulders: one bony and brittle, the other round and strong.

This is the true 3Generation network.

Pondering the Miracle of Life--Kerry

Spring has sprung.

After the harshest winter in forty years, I stare out the window lost in sensory wonder.

Pink cherry blossoms.
Yellow daffodils.
Children skipping.
The smell of barbecues and lawnmower gas. (That one's for you Christy).
There might be a haiku somewhere there...

"If you find yourself out of the race, so far behind the pack that you can hardly see its dust-if the odds weigh against you, the odds against happiness returning to fill your days with joy, the seemingly overwhelming odds that you will never recover from whatever is beating you down- take a moment and consider life's cosmic odds and how you're already beaten them," writes Forrest Church in Utne Reader about the miracle of our just being born in the first place.

Spring reminds me of miracles.

My Favorite Part of Disneyland -- Jennie

Really good.

Even better.

Best ever.

Project Buenos Aires!

Envy has been dripping from my pores ever since I heard about the gaggle of YA authors who planned a writing retreat in a castle in Ireland. In my head I've been planning my own writer's getaway. We can dream, no? While castles in the British Isles do have a certain allure, I'd also like a place that has really really great food and wine. And nice weather. And an excellent bookstore. So when I saw this site that shows photos of the most interesting bookstores in the world, I knew it would be Argentina. Just look at this photo!

Isn't it the most exquisite site in the world? Acres of book! Acres!

Plus, Buenos Aires, known as the Paris of South America, figures prominently in Book Two of my series, so I figure it's meant to be. We can rent Jardin Escondito, Francis Ford Coppola's villa in Bueno Aires.
We'll write like fiends all day (with breaks for dips in the pool and tapas, natch) and then talk books and writing over scrumptious food and great local wines.

Who's in? Say 2011-ish when we're all wildly successful? Vaminos!