Google me

If you google Emily and my last name you will find this page.

This is a problem when you are teaching 8th grade English.

So, on August 15, I will probably have to delete this blog.

Does anyone have another solution?

I am investigating ways to keep it going with my most dedicated readers.

You can't imagine going back to work when...

Ramona called me from her school and says into my voicemail, "Mama, my owie is hurting right now. I love you. Please call me back." I don't want to kiss owies over the phone.

You can't imagine going back to work when...you look around at the camp counselors that you son is spending two weeks with and you want to do a little professional development with them to get them up to snuff to be with your child.

You can't imagine going back to work when...you won't have enough time to do all of the creative projects (like making a unicorn popcicle or Harry Potter potions) your children suggest to you.


You can't imagine going back to work when...you realize that someone else will be owning your time.

You know it is time to go back to work when...

upon finding a small tear in her new tie-die dress Ramona said to me, "You must not have hand washed it right, Mom."

Then Sumner said, "Mom, you really need to sweep the floors. Little things are sticking to my feet."

And finally, perched on her breakfast stool Ramona pushed her breakfast aside and put her face real close to the counter and said, "Mom, you really need to wipe this counter down before I eat."

I want to be more than a housekeeper.

Phil actually said to me tonight...

"I think my look lends itself to classic things."

The Undones

When I finally get into bed at night, the undones start whispering in my ears. I hate them. They are things "to do" that won't take much time (most of them) but they somehow sink to the bottom of my priorities each day. Write change of address email. Get new Social Security card. Blog. I know I am not doing these "to dos", I understand that there are more important things to do, and I am glad to be doing the important things. But at night this reasoning vanishes and I can't understand how the undones are still undone and why I didn't gag them by doing them so that I can rest in peace and quiet.

But doing undones just makes other undones rise to the top of your worry list.

Undones are pests.

A dollar

I have been shopping alot. But we just bought a house and our finances are still settling and we need new gutters--you know the drill. So I try, I mean really, really try to buy the things we need, really need. Unless it costs a dollar. If it costs a dollar (or two), I can afford it.

The New Natural

Phil farts.

I say, "You are so disgusting."

He says, "I'm just natural."

Mourning Our Mornings

My kids are going places these days. Ramona's in her new school and Sumner's at a camp. I am glad to have the time to myself and I am getting alot of good stuff done, but I miss our mornings. I miss Ramona and I sleeping in until 8:30. I miss having the luxury of time so that I don't have to tell Sumner to stop playing and come to breakfast. I miss not having to rush out the door.

The thing is that the mornings were turning into afternoons of cabin fever. Sumner, Ramona, and I needed out and it was too hot to go out and we all ended each day frustrated or angry. There's been lots of bickering.

The first and second days of "going places" the kids were gung-ho. The bickering ended. But the newness wore off well before familiarity materialized. They plainly tell me that they want to go home to Boston, they don't have friends yet, and that they want to stay home everyday.

And I want them to stay home and I want our mornings back, but just because something is hard I don't think you should give up. So, we talk and we cry a little. And we make plans about how to make friends. And we talk with the counselors and the teachers and we learn the names of some new kids.

We're in mourning. We've got to work through it to get to the other side.

Red Mat, Blue Towel

Amy and I go to the same yoga studio. We showed up for the same class last week. It is so bizzare to see Amy, my middle school and high school pal, in my everyday life in New Orelans. We have never been adults who just hang out. There's been trips and visits and good talks and weddings and baby showers, but no yoga. As we hang out more, little things come back to us, which we had forgotten about.

As the class was about to begin, I saw Amy, who was several spots away from me start to smile suppress a giggle. I mouthed, "What? What is it?" She just shook her head.

Later she admited that she was laughing at my primary red mat and primary blue towel, "That's just so Sumner, not your Sumner, but Jim and Annabelle Sumner, it made me laugh."

I want to help.

Sumner told me I could share this and I just couldn't help myself.

We are driving through our neighborhood where small piles of debris have yet to be hauled away and we were about to get to the part of our morning drive where we pass by blocks of NO projects that have been boarded up since the storm.

Sumner: Mom, some kids on Nickelodeon said that they are going to help build New Orleans and I want to do that too.

Me: (Choking back tears.) What do you want to do?

Sumner: I think I could hand people the pieces of things that need to go back together. I'm good at putting things together.

I thought, poeticly, Can we please have more Sumners to put things together? Maybe T.V. isn't all bad.

Later that night I was retelling this story to Phil as Sumner listened. Sumner then added, "Yeah, [helping out] could even lead to a television appearance."

I am permanently unplugging the T.V.

Dream Car

My parents and my brother like to drive cars that say something. They like to have cars with some personality. In my memory parents have never owned an American car and they see Japanese cars as a little boring.

So when I got a minivan they just couldn't believe it. They would have opted for the Passat wagon.

One day I was driving Ramona and Jude to the pool. Jude was trying to tell Ramona about a little electric car my dad got for them to drive. Ramona had not laid eyes on it yet. He was having a little bit of a hard time getting it out and said, "I-I-I'm going to drive the red sports car."

Ramona looked at him and said, "When I can drive and I have my own car, I'm going to drive a silver minivan."

Dream big, baby.

Pilates

My mom is always telling me things to watch out for. Don't shop at Walmart; they support Bush. Don't let your kids play with bungee cords; they (these strong elastic cords with hooks) will maim their virgin skin or poke their eyes out. Don’t eat beef; it causes colon cancer.

It gets to be ridiculous. If there is a thing that she heard once had one negative side affect or involvement with someone or something slightly negative (in her view), then I need to do away with that thing. It is very silly.

The other day she asked me, "Did you hear about the lady who got really injured by doing pilates? She was crippled and laid up for years and I think she had to have surgery."

I replied, "Did you hear about the millions of people who have gotten in shape and healed bad backs and aches and pains with pilates?" I should have continued, "Did you hear about the cheap things you can get at Walmart? and that beef has iron in it, which you need."

"100% behind this move"

That's what my dad said. He was sitting next to my mom on one couch and Jake and I were sitting on another that was perpendicular to their couch.

Jake and I started laughing. My mom smiled. Did he think he was for real?

My parents are very supportive parents. They always back me up and usually they mean it. But my mom’s visit to New Orleans was emotional for her and when she flew out she hadn’t made sense of how she was feeling. So she was feeling all over us, while trying to be upbeat and encouraging and nurturing. It was confusing.

For my parents, going through this change with our family through phone calls and a blog has not been easy. I’ve kept them updated each step of the way, but the fact of the matter is that we are all sad because we won’t be living in closer proximity to one another as we move into a more settled time in out lives and my parents retire.

The thing is that my parents weren’t planning to feel this way. They lived in Salem with both of their parents at arm’s length and they have specifically told Jake and me (a million times) to fly away. They have said again and again that they don’t expect to live by us. They know that we will be close wherever we are. They want us to do what we want to do; what God wants for us and our families. They want us to feel free.

And we have flown and we do feel free.

But there are these pesky things called insecurities and feelings that get in the way of the party line. In one conversation (months ago) my mom said, “Why do you guys keep talking about this move like it’s long-term? You’ve never lived anywhere long-term. Why does this have to be it?” In another my dad puzzled, as many others had, about why we would leave the Harvard hospitals for the training. Then there were questions about the respiratory health of our kids, the public schools, the torn up roads, the poverty, and on and on. I tried to reassure them about every detail. The kids meds are down when they are in NOLA, Sumner’s school is a step up for him, etc. I reminded them again and again that I feel called to New Orleans. We want to help rebuild a city that has been teetering on the edge and is dying.

My mom’s cousin Judy told her, “You can’t argue with God.” And you can’t, but you can still feel really sad. You can be sad that your daughter is settling far from where you’ll be instead of a 1 to 4 hour drive that you hoped she’d be. You can be sad that your grandkids are going through transitioning and they are sad. You can just been sad.

So we were able to laugh at my dad. This ithing is that he is 100% behind this move, but he’d been going on for weeks as if he wasn’t. He had feelings. Thank God that we can talk and laugh about it. I guess that is what supportive comes down to: talking and laughing and feeling. It is certainly more than just saying, “Go for it.”

If your house is in order...

you'll just feel better.

At least that's what my mom and her cousin Judy profess. And we believe them. I'll get back to that.

Strode Rode by Sonny Rollins is playing.

I have a lot of cousins and cousins are special. They show you more about who you are. They are mirrors into yourself.

My mom's got these double cousins. My mom's dad's sister and my mom's mom's brother married and had five kids. Did you get that? No incest...you may want to read that sentence again to make sense of it: My mom's dad's sister and my mom's mom's brother married and had five kids. My mom had 5 siblings herself so you can imagine that the whole gaggle of them are quite a bit alike. If you've been with my mom and her sister in the same room and been stunned by how alike they are in mannerisms and physical appearance, then imagine being with the two of them and with their cousins Judy or Jerene or Jane of Jo. It is downright eerie.

Judy and my mom are the best of friends, they are closest in age. Her daughters, Jolie and Amy, are something like 10 and 12 years older than me, which when you are kids is a lifetime. They actually lived in the same street that we lived on about two blocks away, but they moved outside of Portland about the same time I started having memories. I remember visiting them at their house in Canby and being very interested in Amy's minatures. I also remember that when I was in high school Jolie married a guy from Salem and she moved into the neighborhood. My mom hosted wedding showers and baby showers for her. I also remember when Amy came home from LA (it seemed so far away and cool) to get married in her mom's backyard. So, I knew them, a little.

When I got married Amy and Jolie and Judy basically saved the day. They put almost everything together. I mean everything. I made a few choices on invitations, location, a cake and a dress and fled to California to start a job. A month later I showed up and had a wedding. For that, I am forever indebted to them.

The thing about cousins is that when you stumble into one another at some one time or another in life you find that you have a lot in common. Alot in common. Several of my cousins who have tuned into my blog here and there have commented that my favorites, as listed on my profile, are their favorites. Weird. Who knew that other people watch CSI and Zoom?

As I have had kids, Amy and I have had a chance to catch up a couple of times, never for very long. My most recent visit with her was virtually uninterrupted. The kids are big enough to fend for themselves most of the time and my husband wasn't there and her's was smoking ribs (yum!).

We covered alot: mean kids, petty annoyances of our husbands, family history, why we work, current family news, the secret ingredient in her cookies (white pepper), and what we wear to sleep in. But the thing I found myself thinking about as I feel asleep and then thought about for a week or so is our obsession with super-clean.

Amy and I are pretty neat and tidy people, if you compare us to the rest of the population. But in our families we have the reputation of being slobs. Dirty slobs. When I arrived at Amy's her house was immaculate--it took her two days of heavy labor to get it that way and it was lovely. It felt like home. You see, our grandmothers were crazy clean. My grandma used to scrub the walls of her house three times a year. I just learned that she used to collect rainwater because it cleaned better. She was clean and then some.

And my mom feels like a slouch compared to her mom.

Before arriving at Amy's, I came from a new home that I am furiously trying to get set up just so...so neat, so clean, so perfect. Because on some level I believe what our moms have been telling us "if your house is in order, you'll feel better." And that's true because a mess clutters your mind. And also, when you are constantly cleaning and tidying you don't have to stop and think about how you are really feeling and when you are done you are too tired to think beyond the satisfying feeling of having a clean, tidy house for a few moments before you collapse.

So I've been turning this one over in my head and I wonder what the off-spring of the other double cousins think. Do they, too, feel like if they are clean and neat they are okay? Do they feel like if you can't get it to mother or grandmother clean, what's the point? Do they sometimes feel unworthy because their kitchen table is full of papers and there are dust bunnies in the corners?

Lady Old Lane and Double Second Cousins Once Removed

itunes is working again. I can listen to music while I write. Yahoo! I'm shamlessly backdating the month of July.

Ashes to ashes by David Bowie is playing.

When I went to Chicago to visit my brother's family and my parents, I stopped by my cousin Amy's house for a night. I love seeing cousins and I love seeing my kids connect with their cousins.

We use the term cousin rather loosely. Cousins are people related you. Some of them are in their nineties and some of them are babies. Since our kids have just two first cousins, we don't spend a lot of time differentiating between the types of cousins. Cousins are people who feel familiar in some way or another. First cousins feel more so.

Sumner and Ramona loved visiting their cousins Olivia and Joseph. Sumner was ready to move in for a few weeks with them. At one point he said, "Can we just move to Illinois [instead of New Orleans]?" He felt safe and comfy with Joe and Olivia.

Ramona loved the cookies in abundant supply, which I let her eat before noon, and the fireworks, which made her dance and run in wide circles around the driveway. She also felt comfortable. She was herself after about an hour warm up.

I remember my chance encounters with cousins, some older, some younger, throughout the years. They always make an impression, even when they are few and far between

About a week after we were there I noticed that Ramona's Neighborhood of Make Believe paper puppets had been labeled on the back side. There was "X the Olwe", Denieal Striped Tiger", "Meow Pussycat", "Queen Sarah", "Tim Son", and "Lady Old Lane". I asked Ramona who wrote this, because I could tell that it wasn't Sumner's work. She looked and said, "My cousin," with a like-obviously-mom tone.

These little labels may be the impression this visit with Olivia leaves with her, like Amy's tiny minatures on a tiny shelf made an impression on me when I was a little girl. And one day Ramona will be traveling thru someplace, somewhere and decide to bunk with her cousin and it will all come back. That familiarity.

Jude

is one of my nephews. And he is one of the funniest little people you've ever met. With my brother's very blond, shoulder length hair and Miranda's smile, the squat body of a future goalie and the ever quiet voice of a librarian, he wins you over in a second.

He loves pink and yellow and is just about to turn two. He takes long naps in the late afternoon and when he wakes up my brother takes him to one of the restaurants my brother's company owns and gets him some rice and beans for dinner. He isn't a fast or perky riser from these naps. The first night we saw him, he was a little wary of us until he had his rice and beans.

Two days later we met up with him in the late afternoon at a resort for a family vacation. Ramona said, "If he is just waking up and not used to us when we get there, we should give him some rice and beans."

Reasons

I went to Chicago-Galina-Grinnell to see my family. It is reasonable to go see your brother's family and your parents during summer vacation.

I also went to rest up from all this moving.

I also went to get a chance to make peace with (or maybe make sense of) my parents' feelings about our move to New Orleans.

I am was nervous setting out to see them.

First a day with my brother's family, then one with my cousin, then some with my parents and my brother, then more with my parents.