I've learned a lot about myself this summer that I didn't really know before, or maybe just didn't realize. I've learned that
+ I like the color pink.
+ I have a favorite author. (Three, actually: E.M. Forster's dialog leaves me wanting an entire novel of nothing but, Jerry Spinelli creates prose and characters like God created butterflies (effortlessly, colorfully, and so real), and Louisa May Alcott taps into every emotion my little heart beats.)
+ I don't like bugs. (I've always considered myself a fairly reasonable female, not flighty or fidgety around crawly things, but one night I lay in bed looking at my bookshelves before turning off the light (I often do this), when a spot on the wall caught my eye. "Mommyyyyy," I called in a whiny voice to my mother, who was on the computer down the hall, "there's a spider on my ceiling." She replied, "Your father is going to have to get it." Dad had gone to bed already and his door was closed. I considered this a moment, then called whiningly, "Dadddyyyyy." He didn't stir, so my mom eventually came and got it. I thought my reluctance to get rid of the spider might disclose a hidden dislike for insects, but if that didn't, the invasion last night certainly did. My room was the Hurtgen Forest, with speedy black beetles crawling all over instead of Germans. They kept crawling over my blankets as I lay in bed reading, and I kept calling Mom into my room to dispose of them. Once I leaped out of bed as one raced towards my pillow, and as I stood in the doorway waiting for Mom, one flew - flew! - onto my bedspread. Needless to say, I slept in the guest room feeling like a Polish refugee escaping Hitler's troops. I dreamed I opened my eyes and there were beetles crawling all over the ceiling. I woke up standing in the middle of the room with my heart thumping. Today as I relayed the story to Dad (who should have been my Russian liberators, but instead was slumbering safely in his own room), he asked, "How many were there? Two?" "Uh, two??" I said. "Try six." "Oh," he said, ever wittily, "because there are four right there on the wall." Ha, ha, Dad. John, Paul, George, and Ringo aren't squashable, Beatle though they be.)
+ I love, love, love Chicago. (On State Street, that great street, I just wanna say: They do things that they don't do on Broadway.)
+ I like baseball. It seems to epitomize summer.
+ I miss Ohio.
I've discovered a few things and people this summer, too. My discoveries include
+ A young, swoon-inducing Frank Sinatra.
+ Malted milk powder.
+ Helen Forrest's big band era.
+ 1950s & 60s Jack Lemmon. (He sends me into fits of giggles and sighs.)
+ Jerry Spinelli's other books.
+ John Keats's pathetic fallacy! (The sun kissed away the morning's tears. You don't get much more pathetically fallicilic than that.)
+ A Humphrey Bogart movie I actually like. (I want to join the mob.)
Meanwhile
+ I still love Turner Classic Movies more than...almost anything.
+ I am recognized at the Plymouth Public Library.
+ It's football season again.
+ Summer's over, and to quote Siggy from What About Bob?, "Summer, fall, time to go...."
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
farewell to you Indian Summer
Yesterday I stepped into the shower with dirty feet from running through the grass barefooted, and I remembered drawing brown designs on the bathtub floor with my toe as a kid when my feet were dirty. The water stung the tiny cuts on my elbows from the grass when I did a somersault to retrieve a Frisbee. My fingers were swollen from the heat and my ball glove, making my hands sweat and smell like leather. It was humid and hot and the sun made my face red and my legs sticky. This was summer.
I'm sorry to see it go. I seem to be having attacks of Christmas anticipation - accidentally hearing the first few bars of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," smelling cinnamon pumpkin spiced candles, observing the clerk in Hobby Lobby string white lights on their faux pine trees - and I find myself wishing the last few weeks of this summer away. How have I spent it? Sick, at a funeral, dodging mosquitoes, avoiding the heat, working over 40 hours a week in a windowless basement. It's easy to wish for football and pumpkin pie season when the windows are closed and the air conditioning is blasting, but I realized I've missed all the beauties of summer. Is this what being an adult means? I'm not willing to give up dirtied feet so I can be grown up. Is adulthood one long winter?
I do look forward to winter. In fact, I prefer December to August. I think it's more of a realization of passing time that bothers me, that unsatisfied feeling I have at the end of the summer that no relationships were strengthened and only a handful of books were read, none of them while lying out in the sun with a sprinkler squirting a droplet or two in my direction. I ate a piece of banana cake today and found it flavorless, so I ate a little more as if quantity would somehow make up for quality. That's how I feel about this summer. It has lacked, and I want to drag it out as if with just a little more of it I'll find what was missing and feel completed.
Summer, you old Indian summer,
You're the tear that comes after June-time laughter
You see so many dreams that don't come true
Dreams we fashioned when summertime was new
I'm sorry to see it go. I seem to be having attacks of Christmas anticipation - accidentally hearing the first few bars of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," smelling cinnamon pumpkin spiced candles, observing the clerk in Hobby Lobby string white lights on their faux pine trees - and I find myself wishing the last few weeks of this summer away. How have I spent it? Sick, at a funeral, dodging mosquitoes, avoiding the heat, working over 40 hours a week in a windowless basement. It's easy to wish for football and pumpkin pie season when the windows are closed and the air conditioning is blasting, but I realized I've missed all the beauties of summer. Is this what being an adult means? I'm not willing to give up dirtied feet so I can be grown up. Is adulthood one long winter?
I do look forward to winter. In fact, I prefer December to August. I think it's more of a realization of passing time that bothers me, that unsatisfied feeling I have at the end of the summer that no relationships were strengthened and only a handful of books were read, none of them while lying out in the sun with a sprinkler squirting a droplet or two in my direction. I ate a piece of banana cake today and found it flavorless, so I ate a little more as if quantity would somehow make up for quality. That's how I feel about this summer. It has lacked, and I want to drag it out as if with just a little more of it I'll find what was missing and feel completed.
Summer, you old Indian summer,
You're the tear that comes after June-time laughter
You see so many dreams that don't come true
Dreams we fashioned when summertime was new
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Pour in the blue of a June night
Dad asked last night if I wanted to make him French toast this morning. I told him I've never made French toast before, but that didn't phase him. "Better you experiment with me than your first husband," he said. That's true. My father will eat anything. Many times my brother and I have pulled things out of the refrigerator, asking Mom, "Is this still good?" Dad replies, "I'd eat it," which gives us no indication of its edibility, and we proceed to throw it away. However, I wasn't lying when I told him I'd never made French toast before. I awoke at 5:54 this morning after dreaming I'd made a delectable dish of French toast with spices and seasonings that left Dad in awe of my culinary talents. He'd told me last night that he was leaving for work at 6:45 this morning, so I left myself plenty of time to add dashes of nutmeg and cinnamon and vanilla. He didn't get up until 6:45, and when I put the bread on the skillet it formed a thick, barrier-like coat of egg around the bread. I gave it to my dad with a warning (he probably wasn't expecting to have to march around the toast 7 times and blow a trumpet before eating it), cooking up the next piece of toast. He drowned it in syrup. I could hear its warbled cries. Then, what made it worse was his thinking it would be fun to pretend he was critiquing my dish on a Food Network show.
"This side is a little burnt," he said judgmentally. "It has a bit of a burnt flavor."
I didn't laugh. He tried to figure out what I'd done wrong. "Well, let's see. You added milk..."
"Oh," I said. "Was I supposed to add milk?"
He looked at me as if trying to read any joke lines in my smile, but all that was there was an ironic, slightly embarrassed grin that promised next time I would remember the milk.
"Did you butter the pan?" He asked. No, I hadn't buttered the pan. "Well, it's better you make me eat this than your first husband," he said again.
"First?" Will my French toast be so bad that no husband will remain married to me long? Next time I'm going to add honey and not tell him. Dubious.
Yesterday I mowed the lawn - or the pathetic attempt grass has made at growing amidst straw and stones - in the syrupy warmth of the late afternoon sun. The palms of my hands are internally bruised from pushing the mower through the stubborn stalks of wiry weeds with leaves like elephant ears. Wisconsin is a foreign country, I'm telling you. when I went to bed last night, the air was completely still. My curtains hung limp in front of my open window, and I turned on my ceiling fan to circulate the stale air. This morning the thin, cold wind won't stop blowing, and my curtains remained at a 90-degree angle from the wall until I closed my window with chills. Now it howls through the cracks of the house.
I fell asleep last night to the occasional "moo" of cows at the farm across the street, a pleasant, summery sound that added bass to a tenor and baritone choir of crickets and frogs, respectively. This morning, however, the moos are overlapping themselves in their frequency, and I'm curious to know whether something is happening over at that farm that perhaps I don't want to know about.
This song has me dreaming....
The view from the end of my street on a June evening:
Be this sunset one for keeping
This June bug street sings low and lovely ~ Iron and Wine
"This side is a little burnt," he said judgmentally. "It has a bit of a burnt flavor."
I didn't laugh. He tried to figure out what I'd done wrong. "Well, let's see. You added milk..."
"Oh," I said. "Was I supposed to add milk?"
He looked at me as if trying to read any joke lines in my smile, but all that was there was an ironic, slightly embarrassed grin that promised next time I would remember the milk.
"Did you butter the pan?" He asked. No, I hadn't buttered the pan. "Well, it's better you make me eat this than your first husband," he said again.
"First?" Will my French toast be so bad that no husband will remain married to me long? Next time I'm going to add honey and not tell him. Dubious.
Yesterday I mowed the lawn - or the pathetic attempt grass has made at growing amidst straw and stones - in the syrupy warmth of the late afternoon sun. The palms of my hands are internally bruised from pushing the mower through the stubborn stalks of wiry weeds with leaves like elephant ears. Wisconsin is a foreign country, I'm telling you. when I went to bed last night, the air was completely still. My curtains hung limp in front of my open window, and I turned on my ceiling fan to circulate the stale air. This morning the thin, cold wind won't stop blowing, and my curtains remained at a 90-degree angle from the wall until I closed my window with chills. Now it howls through the cracks of the house.
I fell asleep last night to the occasional "moo" of cows at the farm across the street, a pleasant, summery sound that added bass to a tenor and baritone choir of crickets and frogs, respectively. This morning, however, the moos are overlapping themselves in their frequency, and I'm curious to know whether something is happening over at that farm that perhaps I don't want to know about.
This song has me dreaming....
The view from the end of my street on a June evening:
Be this sunset one for keeping
This June bug street sings low and lovely ~ Iron and Wine
Thursday, May 22, 2008
in the summertime, when the weather is fine
My forearms are speckled with yellow paint. I told Mom I wanted Lemon Curd, but she said it was too bright, so I settled for Chickery Chick. If I had gone with Lemon Curd, I think it would have been like staring into the sun, because as it is, I feel as though I have captured a Pedestrian Crossing street sign and smeared it all over my walls. Mom tells me that it won't be so bad when I put up all my posters, and so I give thanks for Mom, who saved me from Lemon Curd, and for Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Aragorn, and Scarlett and Rhett, who will be shielding my sensitive eyes from the brightness of my walls.
My side muscles (I'm sure there is a much more accurate medical term for those, but I think "side muscles" is sufficiently descriptive) are sore. Yesterday Dad and I took a 2-mile hike on the Ice Age Trails, a hilly, rocky, woodland formed from glaciers many moons ago. The sky was contentedly blue and the air was tinted green with leaf-filtered sunlight. Dad made me use a pair of his hiking poles, and at first I hoped against hope that we wouldn't pass anyone on the trails, but after about a half a mile I hoped the guy we saw noticed with what ease I used the helpful sticks, leaping down hills and climbing rocky terrain with speed and efficiency. It was lovely with white flowers off the path bobbing their heads to a 65-degree breeze. I think my poles deserve to be named, after we bonded so mightily in our adventures yesterday. I'll give that some thought.
Yesterday I baked a banana cake for Dad's 59th birthday. Grandma Krauss made the best banana cakes, and its her recipe. I have a picture of us frosting a banana cake, me wearing a pink skirt and matching pink shirt that used to be white until Mom washed it with the reds. I've made banana cakes at least three times before, but this time we didn't have buttermilk. I knew, somehow I just knew deep down, as though the Holy Spirit was whispering to my heart, how important that buttermilk was. But Mom said to try regular milk. Oh, why did I listen? Why didn't I forgo the project or run next door to ask a neighbor? Who couldn't spare 2/3 cup buttermilk? And we all know how friendly Peggy and Phil are, after I "locked" myself out of the house over Thanksgiving break. But I didn't listen to the Holy Spirit, if it really was Him caring about my buttermilk. I used 1% milk. And it's probably the most pitiful cake I've ever made. It broke apart like I imagine those glaciers did that formed the Ice Age Trail. It all sort of sunk in in the middle, slumped like a tired soldier's shoulders at the end of the day. So pitiful! The frosting didn't even make it all the way around the cake. Dad says it still tastes good, but I feel as though my child graduated college with a bachelor's degree in biology and hopes of medical school, but then lives in my basement eating chocolate covered peanuts and watching MythBusters. It was capable of so much more.
I have three major books on my "To-Read" list, and I am counting on you to keep me accountable. This summer, I want to complete Robinson Crusoe, The Count of Monte Cristo, and at least one Jules Verne novel (I have about four to choose from). After those, I have some books I want to re-read, like To Kill a Mockingbird (only for the 4th time) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I wonder how much of this I will accomplish this summer. I wonder when my parents are going to realize I haven't applied for any jobs yet. I wonder if my retinas will slowly sizzle every time I open my eyes in my newly painted room.
The past two nights have proved an interesting - and I hope not a habitual - experience. Around seven or eight in the evening, a wind blows in from somewhere and blows harder and longer than I have ever felt or seen wind blow. The temperature drops and suddenly the smell of cow manure fills the air. I understand Wisconsin is America's Dairyland (or so say our license plates), but this haunting wind of invisible death makes me want to shove towels in the cracks of the doors and light cinnamon candles until winter comes. I'll be sure to mark "day 3" in my journal of fertilizing habits if it happens again tonight, and if you don't hear from me again, the cold fingers of odorous farm winds have choked me to death. Think of me when next you enjoy a bowl of ice cream or a glass of milk. Your dairy products were the cause of my demise.
My side muscles (I'm sure there is a much more accurate medical term for those, but I think "side muscles" is sufficiently descriptive) are sore. Yesterday Dad and I took a 2-mile hike on the Ice Age Trails, a hilly, rocky, woodland formed from glaciers many moons ago. The sky was contentedly blue and the air was tinted green with leaf-filtered sunlight. Dad made me use a pair of his hiking poles, and at first I hoped against hope that we wouldn't pass anyone on the trails, but after about a half a mile I hoped the guy we saw noticed with what ease I used the helpful sticks, leaping down hills and climbing rocky terrain with speed and efficiency. It was lovely with white flowers off the path bobbing their heads to a 65-degree breeze. I think my poles deserve to be named, after we bonded so mightily in our adventures yesterday. I'll give that some thought.
Yesterday I baked a banana cake for Dad's 59th birthday. Grandma Krauss made the best banana cakes, and its her recipe. I have a picture of us frosting a banana cake, me wearing a pink skirt and matching pink shirt that used to be white until Mom washed it with the reds. I've made banana cakes at least three times before, but this time we didn't have buttermilk. I knew, somehow I just knew deep down, as though the Holy Spirit was whispering to my heart, how important that buttermilk was. But Mom said to try regular milk. Oh, why did I listen? Why didn't I forgo the project or run next door to ask a neighbor? Who couldn't spare 2/3 cup buttermilk? And we all know how friendly Peggy and Phil are, after I "locked" myself out of the house over Thanksgiving break. But I didn't listen to the Holy Spirit, if it really was Him caring about my buttermilk. I used 1% milk. And it's probably the most pitiful cake I've ever made. It broke apart like I imagine those glaciers did that formed the Ice Age Trail. It all sort of sunk in in the middle, slumped like a tired soldier's shoulders at the end of the day. So pitiful! The frosting didn't even make it all the way around the cake. Dad says it still tastes good, but I feel as though my child graduated college with a bachelor's degree in biology and hopes of medical school, but then lives in my basement eating chocolate covered peanuts and watching MythBusters. It was capable of so much more.
I have three major books on my "To-Read" list, and I am counting on you to keep me accountable. This summer, I want to complete Robinson Crusoe, The Count of Monte Cristo, and at least one Jules Verne novel (I have about four to choose from). After those, I have some books I want to re-read, like To Kill a Mockingbird (only for the 4th time) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I wonder how much of this I will accomplish this summer. I wonder when my parents are going to realize I haven't applied for any jobs yet. I wonder if my retinas will slowly sizzle every time I open my eyes in my newly painted room.
The past two nights have proved an interesting - and I hope not a habitual - experience. Around seven or eight in the evening, a wind blows in from somewhere and blows harder and longer than I have ever felt or seen wind blow. The temperature drops and suddenly the smell of cow manure fills the air. I understand Wisconsin is America's Dairyland (or so say our license plates), but this haunting wind of invisible death makes me want to shove towels in the cracks of the doors and light cinnamon candles until winter comes. I'll be sure to mark "day 3" in my journal of fertilizing habits if it happens again tonight, and if you don't hear from me again, the cold fingers of odorous farm winds have choked me to death. Think of me when next you enjoy a bowl of ice cream or a glass of milk. Your dairy products were the cause of my demise.
Monday, May 19, 2008
so say goodbye
"You leave town for a couple of decades and they change everything." Or so says Phoebus from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And I must say I agree with him. I don't know about you, but I have no idea how I lived in Marietta for 11 years without a Bar-b-Cutie. And what with the new Wendy's, I'm tempted to return to high school simply for the easy access. Except I think I'd rather eat fish out of the Ohio River than return to high school for anything. Who's up for an evening service at the new Nazarene church on Front Street? Afterwards we can eat Putnam chocolates and stare into the vacant windows of Brownies.
Isn't it silly the way time passes? Audrey's married and Gretchen's getting married and Erin's getting engaged and Annie's living on her own and Tanya's moving to Florida and Sarah's moving to Utah and I...I just sit back and watch all my friends disperse, write them letters in my head, wish they were sitting back with me around a campfire smelling summer like so many youth groups so many years ago. Playing football in the mud and sledding in the snow and chicken fights in the pool, sticking leaves in our hair while hiding from flashlights and illegally spraying our tents with bug spray, volleyball and frisbee golf and eating Tootsie Pops and playing Mac computer games....
And now what? How do so many years of being teenagers fade into adulthood? How do so many careless, barefooted romps through the grass turn into responsibly accepting your diploma into life?
I heave a huge sigh and sit back and watch. I'm always up for a campfire.
Isn't it silly the way time passes? Audrey's married and Gretchen's getting married and Erin's getting engaged and Annie's living on her own and Tanya's moving to Florida and Sarah's moving to Utah and I...I just sit back and watch all my friends disperse, write them letters in my head, wish they were sitting back with me around a campfire smelling summer like so many youth groups so many years ago. Playing football in the mud and sledding in the snow and chicken fights in the pool, sticking leaves in our hair while hiding from flashlights and illegally spraying our tents with bug spray, volleyball and frisbee golf and eating Tootsie Pops and playing Mac computer games....
And now what? How do so many years of being teenagers fade into adulthood? How do so many careless, barefooted romps through the grass turn into responsibly accepting your diploma into life?
I heave a huge sigh and sit back and watch. I'm always up for a campfire.
Monday, May 12, 2008
William Wallace
I am done.
What does that feel like? It feels like driving 2 1/2 hours in the pouring rain and dark (the dark was pouring, too) to Annie's apartment in Dayton, where she fed me chocolate covered soy beans (what the heck?) and let me sleep on her floor. It feels like curling up on the couch with a blanket smelling of clean laundry, the rainy air coming in through the open window and pink apple blossoms quivering in the breeze. It feels like waking up in the morning and just lying there...just lying there...just lying there. It feels like walking to Rita's with Sarah through green suburban neighborhoods with fields of dandelions and eating a mango Italian Ice, and taking a nap on Sarah's couch even after 9 full hours of sleep.
Asbury College can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom.
Isabel says (or, rather, sings) in Scrooge that "happiness is whatever you want it to be." I think summer suits me pretty well right now as my definition of happiness. Though I have yet to be home since classes ended almost a week ago, I am muchly contended with friend-visiting while I have the chance. Chris in the movie Into the Wild said something about joy not only being found in human relationships, but in the creation God has placed around us. That's true, to a great extent...but I think I would prefer my human relationships over my relationships with trees. Somehow having my plant strapped into the passenger side of my car as I journey around the Midwest is not as fulfilling as, say, a friend.
I am rambling, because a.) Annie is gone and I'm lonely (the tree is not talking back), b.) cigarette smoke is filtering in through her walls and I feel like lung cancer, and c.) somehow my body thought it was funny to tease me with the prospect of a nap and then get excited about being awake. To you, body, I say: Poo.
What does that feel like? It feels like driving 2 1/2 hours in the pouring rain and dark (the dark was pouring, too) to Annie's apartment in Dayton, where she fed me chocolate covered soy beans (what the heck?) and let me sleep on her floor. It feels like curling up on the couch with a blanket smelling of clean laundry, the rainy air coming in through the open window and pink apple blossoms quivering in the breeze. It feels like waking up in the morning and just lying there...just lying there...just lying there. It feels like walking to Rita's with Sarah through green suburban neighborhoods with fields of dandelions and eating a mango Italian Ice, and taking a nap on Sarah's couch even after 9 full hours of sleep.
Asbury College can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom.
Isabel says (or, rather, sings) in Scrooge that "happiness is whatever you want it to be." I think summer suits me pretty well right now as my definition of happiness. Though I have yet to be home since classes ended almost a week ago, I am muchly contended with friend-visiting while I have the chance. Chris in the movie Into the Wild said something about joy not only being found in human relationships, but in the creation God has placed around us. That's true, to a great extent...but I think I would prefer my human relationships over my relationships with trees. Somehow having my plant strapped into the passenger side of my car as I journey around the Midwest is not as fulfilling as, say, a friend.
I am rambling, because a.) Annie is gone and I'm lonely (the tree is not talking back), b.) cigarette smoke is filtering in through her walls and I feel like lung cancer, and c.) somehow my body thought it was funny to tease me with the prospect of a nap and then get excited about being awake. To you, body, I say: Poo.
Monday, April 21, 2008
17 more days
Summer has officially arrived in my mind. No matter that I still have papers and projects and classes...I'm done. I've set aside Supercapitalism and In Search of the Indo-Europeans for Last Days of Summer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I spend my evenings watching The Sandlot on YouTube (it's all there, in 10 parts) and feeling guilty for not doing schoolwork. The problem with going home three weeks before classes are over is that your brain tastes freedom and it likes it. "Wow, this is really good," it says. "I think I'll stay here." Meanwhile I'm still sitting in my dorm room with a stack of books about the history of the alphabet and a stack of "to-dos" that will never get "to-done." If I stopped doing anything for the rest of the semester, I wonder how much my grades would be affected? (Insert maniacal twirl of mustache and raise of eyebrow with black stovepipe hat and girl tied up on railroad tracks here.)
Don't you think it's a little presumptuous for signs to thank you for doing or feeling things before you've even fully digested what the sign is restricting you to do in the first place? For example, five hours and a bottle of water after I started driving back to Kentucky from Wisconsin two weekends ago, I had to loosen the seatbelt so it wouldn't press too firmly on my overly ripe abdomen. Pulling over at a rest stop, I walked into the building to see a sign on the bathroom door that said, "Temporarily closed for cleaning. Thank you for your patience." Temporarily closed for cleaning?? My de-seeded watermelon of a bladder will burst at any moment and you're thanking me for being patient? It would have been more accurate if it had read, "Temporarily closed for cleaning. Please put your knife away and step away from the janitor."
I want very much to be done with classes for the summer, and the 75-degree blue skies and sunshine is not helping me sit in the library with my nose in my laptop. I'm almost done, and I cannot wait to be home eating Mom's banana bread and baking until my fingers turn to powder that I accidentally sift into the flour. I don't even care that I'll probably be working at a cheese factory from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. and sleeping all day until dinner, then going back to work again, leaving no time to read anything but the nutrition labels I'm watching a machine slap on slabs of cheese. Wisconsin's state motto: "Smell our dairy-air."
"Always go to other peoples' funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." ~ Yogi Berra
Don't you think it's a little presumptuous for signs to thank you for doing or feeling things before you've even fully digested what the sign is restricting you to do in the first place? For example, five hours and a bottle of water after I started driving back to Kentucky from Wisconsin two weekends ago, I had to loosen the seatbelt so it wouldn't press too firmly on my overly ripe abdomen. Pulling over at a rest stop, I walked into the building to see a sign on the bathroom door that said, "Temporarily closed for cleaning. Thank you for your patience." Temporarily closed for cleaning?? My de-seeded watermelon of a bladder will burst at any moment and you're thanking me for being patient? It would have been more accurate if it had read, "Temporarily closed for cleaning. Please put your knife away and step away from the janitor."
I want very much to be done with classes for the summer, and the 75-degree blue skies and sunshine is not helping me sit in the library with my nose in my laptop. I'm almost done, and I cannot wait to be home eating Mom's banana bread and baking until my fingers turn to powder that I accidentally sift into the flour. I don't even care that I'll probably be working at a cheese factory from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. and sleeping all day until dinner, then going back to work again, leaving no time to read anything but the nutrition labels I'm watching a machine slap on slabs of cheese. Wisconsin's state motto: "Smell our dairy-air."
"Always go to other peoples' funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." ~ Yogi Berra
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
29 more days
"Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things...."
When I was eight years old I had a pair of pink jelly shoes with white daisies on the toes. This morning I found out they are back in style. I want a pair; it'd be like walking around in my childhood all summer.
I recognize my priorities, so you can look at my spring break pictures here. They're not as intense as, say, Karissa's pictures, but these give you a taste of the way my mind works. And it's pretty salty.
I have lots of plans for the summer already. I have a list of books to read that grows every day, a list of things to sew that don't seem to hinge on my capabilities (or lack thereof), and a list of moments to cherish, like walks with my dad in the cool cool cool of the evening, or movie nights with my brother, or decorating the house with my mom. I'm going home this weekend and it's supposed to snow. I think God's doing it just for me.
"....How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
When I was eight years old I had a pair of pink jelly shoes with white daisies on the toes. This morning I found out they are back in style. I want a pair; it'd be like walking around in my childhood all summer.
I recognize my priorities, so you can look at my spring break pictures here. They're not as intense as, say, Karissa's pictures, but these give you a taste of the way my mind works. And it's pretty salty.
I have lots of plans for the summer already. I have a list of books to read that grows every day, a list of things to sew that don't seem to hinge on my capabilities (or lack thereof), and a list of moments to cherish, like walks with my dad in the cool cool cool of the evening, or movie nights with my brother, or decorating the house with my mom. I'm going home this weekend and it's supposed to snow. I think God's doing it just for me.
"....How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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