At the old Cunningham Place

Cunningham really is my maternal great-great grandmother's maiden name. I make up most of the names on this blog, but since it was that long ago, I figure we're safe. Both of the structures in this picture were not in place at any time when my ancestors were around-- I think (though Grandma used to visit as a little girl, so who knows; that hen house could have been built in the forties, right?)

Watercress still grows on the banks of the stream that runs through the old place; they used to have watercress sandwiches for lunch, from time to time.

The story is that my ancestor who fought in the Civil War on the side of the South passed through a beautiful valley on his way to the war, and said to himself, "If I live through the war, I am going to come back and settle here." He did, and he came back and married the daughter of the man who owned the vast majority of the land in the valley.

My mother's third-cousin-twice-removed (if I recall correctly) lives on the same patch of land where that Civil War vet landed, and as we were driving through Alabama on our way to Uncle Charlie's funeral, we stopped at her place (the old family farm) for the night. Early the next morning, I woke up and went out with the camera and caught a few things in that nice early morning light.

And, just in case you were wondering: as far as I know, these particular Cunninghams did not have slaves-- it being after the Civil War and all-- but that surely does not clear them of charges of ever having been racist. And on the other hand, it is also true that this branch of the family, at this point in history, seems to be more anti-racist than most people I've met. My thinking is that when it's in your face like that, you have to make a decision, and they (the ones I've met) made one that makes me pleased to be related to them.

In which I learn that I have much to learn but have firm hope that the end will be better than the beginning

So, it's kind of a long story which I may or may not get around to telling at some future point in time, but I've sort of slipped in to a job as an ESL instructor at an Adult Medical Daycare facility about a twenty minute drive from my home, and I must say that Geriatric ESL is a little bit different.

For instance, the first day I was trying to get a feel for what level people were on. "How is your listening?" I asked. "How is your speaking?"

"My ears, not so good; her eyes, they not so good either. Her, [pointing to a third person] cannot walk so well. We are all old, you know; falling apart," said one student with a gentle laugh.

And what textbook to use? I tried starting at the beginning of the one my students brought me-- the one the old ESL teacher had gone through with them before-- and they said that they would learn plenty by going through it again; but they complained today that going through the alphabet (which was part of lesson one) was baby work, and they can already write, and why don't we have conversation? Fair enough. Looking back, I can see it wasn't the greatest idea to focus on the most basic part of the most basic lesson when they had already proven that they could communicate and write at a beginner level.

So after class, I decided to look a little further for a textbook, and I went down to the local community college's English Intensive Program office and begged to look at some of the books they have on hand, in hopes of finding something that will fit our needs a little better. I was deeply disappointed to find that one of the books never even got to covering the past tense, and the other one got to it on lesson 12 of 15. We seriously need the past tense in our class, and NOW. Doesn't anyone make a textbook focused on the needs of language learners over the age of twenty?

Another problem is that my tried-and-true methods are turning out to be not so tried-and-true any more. It's like having gotten used to how one kid goes to sleep and then trying to put a different kid down and then realizing that nothing that you are doing is working and you have to come up with a totally different system for the second kid.

For instance: I used to have my classes write on the board, as sort of a collaborative project, all the time. We would, for instance, fill out otherwise-boring verb-form charts. I would usually write the empty chart on the board, then have two students writing at a time, with two different pieces of chalk. When they were done, each student would pass the chalk on to another student of their choice, with the rule that everyone got to have a turn. It became very exciting because you weren't sure when your turn would come, and we would check it together afterwards, and mistakes weren't something you felt terrible about-- we just corrected them then and there-- but it was quite exciting to feel like you had done good work together as a class.

So, I've tried this with my elderly ESL students twice now, and I have to say that it has yet to be even mildly successful. For one thing, though they are gung ho as learners, they are (as mentioned) physically not very fast, either as walkers or as writers. If two different people have writing sticks (in this case, white board markers) at the same time, then one will be hasting very slowly to the board while the other will be inching her way through the required letters. It... just... isn't... that... exciting.

Now that I think about this, this problem may well be related to a larger problem. I think that I used to rely to a larger extent than I had recognized on having a physical energy in the class which both created and came from an emotional and intellectual energy, all of which which made things feel fun and exciting, and which helped students stay focused on the task at hand (and, once I got the hang of it, I made sure there always was a task at hand) and interested in what would come next. For young and easily distractable learners, this often work well. For elderly, already focused (albeit sometimes blearily) learners, it just makes me hard to follow as a teacher. Sigh.

So, the lesson today did not go well, for a variety of reasons. I was all proud of myself for being prepared with an alphabet lesson, which kind of went over like a lead balloon, and then I was all upset for the rest of the time because of that (fretting, in case you hadn't heard, is NOT a great way to deal with a problem, but I didn't let that stop me), and I hadn't prepared much at all for the last part of the lesson, so there you have it. I had started out the morning by giving myself a mere ten minutes to finish my lesson planning instead of an hour, like I'd thought I would on Saturday, and then MS Word was not behaving, and then just as it was about halfway through printing my wrongly-formatted-but-too-late-to-fix-them sheets, my foot hit the power bar on the floor and turned the entire setup off. This was approximately two minutes before my absolutely-must-leave-NOW time to go teach the lesson. And because of the ancientness of my computer, yes, it takes about three minutes to boot up. So I didn't use the printouts after all; I just wrote on the board and had the students to so as well, with the minimal success previously described.


As I drove back from the "senior center" (what my students call it), I was muttering to myself. I just felt terrible. I felt like I had disrespected my students, and that is one of the things I hate most in the world to think I have done. Just not being prepared of itself is disrespectful, even if I couldn't have known that the alphabet lesson wasn't going to be the best choice. But then, literally, right after I muttered, "I'm stupid," I looked up and saw some graffiti on a tower, and (to quote Dave Barry, "I am not making this up") it said "You are NOT" and that is all I saw before the car was past. So I stopped muttering. And I thought about the fact that when you are cooking, you have to accept that a certain amount of failure is just going to go with the territory, and you will learn to cook a lot faster if you don't beat yourself up about messes, but just clean them up and try again. Which was what my very first post on Elijah Kitchen was about, but I am too tired right now to go find it and link to it.

So I will try again. I will pay more careful attention to my students. I will not get mad at them for making mistakes, because that is stupid as a teaching technique and I don't know why I was doing it today but yes I have quit criticizing myself about it, at least for now, as I have to go to bed. I did have a lovely evening: I went over to my friends' house and the dog and the little boys piled up on me on the couch during scripture study, and then I sang the boys to sleep, and then the dog wanted petting as long as I was willing to give it, which was as long as I as there. And my friends (father and mother of said boys) always laugh in all the right places at the ridiculous things I tell them about (which is what made me think I should blog said things, so hooray!), and I think to myself: perhaps I am not such a terrible person for being imperfect, after all. I will try again tomorrow! And the end shall be better than the beginning. Or, if it won't, at least I won't go down in flames from my own flaming arrows. Right? Right.

Miss Forgiveness, part II

A few thoughts:

I would still be extremely interested in an advice column focused on how to forgive. (I would put a link in to Miss Forgiveness part I, but Blogger doesn't seem to want me to do that right now. So sorry.)

I went to a murder trial in August. The jury found the man guilty (first-degree); sentencing is next Tuesday. I had thought I might go, but am feeling now like it would be better to stay home. I have work; I'm not sure how much more closure I would get from going to the sentencing hearing; the benefits don't seem to outweigh the cost. I do wish that I could send someone for me, to report back, but I have no idea whom I could ask. The majority of my closest friends in this area have young children, so attending a sentencing hearing on my behalf just wouldn't be practical for them.

Why is it that I feel a sense of genuine-- as far as I can tell-- forgiveness, or at least of leaving it in God's hands-- for this murderer, but then lie in my bed and cry over the little slights I perceive from the people around me? What is it about little things that makes me think God can't handle them, too?

I've read/skimmed a couple of books-- one a few months ago, the other just last night-- which seem to exude a genuine sense of mercy. (I've put their covers up to illustrate this post, though I'm unskilled enough that they aren't really where I want them to be.) The first was called I Shall Not Hate, by a Palestinian doctor-- the first who served a medical residency in the state of Israel-- who had two daughters who were killed by an Israeli rocket attack on his town. The second, from last night, is Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy. I would be interested if anyone wanted to read them and discuss with me.

It isn't just that I have work. It's that the emotional cost for the trial was pretty hefty: I wanted to lie in my bed and cry, and not about anything in particular-- just a general misery-- and never get up again. I do feel that the trial was worth that cost; I gained a lot of "closure," which is a word I would still have a hard time defining, but which still seems to suit the experience I had. But I believe that the sentencing hearing may be different.


I think that this is a dogwood tree. Caught it last Spring. Extra credit to anyone who can tell me why I thought this might even tangentially be related to this post.

Assateague

I am trying to catch up with myself. I suppose that this means that I should post more.

Assateague is a barrier island on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, just a few miles south of the ever-crowded-and-commercial Ocean City. We visited just before school let out, and it was very, very lovely (and sparse enough to be fun).

Yes, it's true that it's just a beach; but it is also true that this was my first true view of the Atlantic Ocean, and it was QUITE exciting to me.

All three of my pictures are from rather late in the day. I guess that this could be explained by the fact that we didn't get out the door until ten or so, and didn't get there until after noon, and didn't actually get to the beach until around five. That is, indeed, Papa; neither he nor Mom went swimming that day, but I had a nice dip in the Atlantic, and did a bit of shell collecting to boot. Papa just collected pictures with his camera (there were dolphins! If only one of us had had a telephoto lens and a tripod...) and Mom collected the sun's rays and chapters from the book she was reading.

While we were driving, Mom mentioned that they usually go to a beach in Delaware. I said that it was fine with me if we went to Delaware; I just wanted to go to the ocean. But she kept driving towards Assateague. Finally, she explained that she wanted to see the horses on Assateague. Ah-hah! And we saw some, literally as we were driving away. I got two shots (Mom asked me to); I chose to post the one I thought was more interesting.


One Friday morning a couple of months ago, my mother knocked on my bedroom door and said, "How would you like to go to Assateague today?" I promptly agreed. We had planned-- sort-of planned-- to go to Assateague a month before that but were waylaid by medical problems on Mom's part. I have to say that this experience is the only time in my entire life that I remember my mother spontaneously deciding to take a trip. (No vacation with Mom would be a vacation with Mom without her spontaneously deciding to change plans mid-stream; but actually deciding to go and then leaving the same morning is unheard-of, in my experience with her.)

I don't feel like Writing (or at least, not on this blog)

But luckily I took some pictures a couple of months ago which I feel like sharing.

Cherry tree at sunset

Looking up at a different cherry tree, around the corner from our row of townhouses

I kept trying to get a shot of this from my room-- then you'd have had a chance to see it from the top, which is the angle from which it brought loads of happiness into my life-- but the light would never  quite cooperate. It was worth taking the picture from different perspective, though; doesn't the streetlight remind you, just a little, of the lamp-post you first meet at the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? And I would never have even realized the possibility if I hadn't come around the other side.

And the same tree from closer by. I love the contrast between the creamy-white blossoms and the red and blue of the child's toy. This shot comes closer to showing what bliss awaited me whenever I looked out my window, down on this tree, in those heady few weeks of spring.



:)

(also)

If you haven't read the post just below this one, you might want to, just so this one will make sense.

I also know that the landscape of mathematics is not so much like a Savings and Loan or like Citibank nearly so much as it is like some sort of magnificent nature preserve with mountains and rivers and lakes and so on. And I know that it is my very ability to recognize the beauty of this landscape which allows me to keep exploring it for fun, which in turn is what has allowed me to become actually good at navigating through it.

Our (metaphorical) patch of land

I'm taking a math class.

It's turning out to be-- erm-- ah-- easy. Too easy.

Yes, I DO hear your screams of frustration even through my computer screen.


This is the thing. In this modern day and age, one still needs an inheritance-- but not a patch of land, like the Ancient Israelites got, or even like my more recent ancestors-in-Manti got. These days, rather than land to make a living, one needs a profession. (Not my ideas for this part; they are from/through my brother-in-law, the esteemed Mr. Weathercolour, and his (also) esteemed friend, *Mr. Werner Woodworth, who works at the BYU business school.) So. In a broader societal context, this means that we give young people good chances for vocational/technical and/or academic training, and in particular contexts that means that particular young people are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities.

And what is this patch of land of which I spoke in the title of this post? Well. Mom has a PhD in Math. She works as a professional mathematician by day, but has often supplemented it by tutoring nights and weekends; at the moment she is tutoring the next-door-neighbor for free, because that is just the way she is. Mr. Weathercolour has his PhD in Physics but is teaching math, at the moment, at the university level. Ivy has a bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and got through her degree by tutoring math; and Klari has her bachelor's in Math, has been tutoring for years, and is looking to be a math teacher in the public schools. And the truly silly thing is (I am telling you really, really I am not boasting) that this math class of mine is easy not even because I have so many tutors available to me, but because it makes sense to me shortly after the teacher explains it (or after I read it in the book).

I do REALIZE that this is a prime piece of real estate on which my family has its flag planted. (We would like it to be more crowded, actually. We are, to a woman-- er, so to speak-- all math teachers of one variety or another.) But what I am saying is, I had wanted to try something different: my bachelor's is in Philosophy. I have a degree in English as a Second Language Teaching. I TRIED to find a job as an English teacher. But I am finding myself drawn back to the homeland, almost against my will, because math is something I can move forward in easily and I have become so incredibly discouraged that I have to do something that doesn't take that much effort.

OK, go ahead and be sick about it. I didn't ask for this ability-- not in this life, at least. It isn't exactly that I would trade it to you-- but-- at the moment, I'm feeling a bit George-Bailey-esque. And guilty at the same time, because the little Savings and Loan that I've inherited (from my perspective) looks a lot more like Citibank, to a lot of other people. Meaning, as an institution it is nice to the people who already have lots of their currency, and kind of mean to the ones who don't. I am already committed to sharing the wealth; but won't you come, bring your children, and become rich for yourselves so that I can go travel the world for a while?

*His real name

Snow: check.

I took pictures and meant to post about last December's 18-inch-deep blizzard, but never got around to it. Then, a couple of days ago, we got 33 inches in 24 hours or so. On Thursday night, the library looked like Grand Central Station (or, to use my mother's inimitable expression about the grocery store just before the December storm, like the Post Office on April 15th). Friday afternoon was when the storm was scheduled to begin; I got home around noon-ish, feeling like it was Christmas or something. On Saturday afternoon, I finally got around to taking a few pictures:



The above is our "deck;" it's more like a balcony, and often we keep plants on it. In the summer, for instance. For your information, there are no plants on it in this picture; the snow really is up to the railings like that. Here, you can see it better in this one (those plant silhouettes are from plants on the inside of the building):



I wasn't sure if you could get the idea just from the pictures of the back, so I took a couple of pictures out the front door:





This really doesn't give you a good idea at all of how deep it is on the cars, but a photographer with a nearly-full card can only do so much. Now that I've uploaded these, I can take some more. That snow bank at the back of the parking lot, below the fir tree, is approximately as high as an SUV. No, come to think of it, actually a little higher.

I really do love the snow. Can't tell you why, other than that when I was a little girl in Idaho, I loved walking through the snow that was as deep as my thighs (remember, I was short-- also, it snowed more then) and I still kind of miss it. I especially love how bright it is.

We did have a bit of drama when my sister got sick on Saturday night and couldn't really talk and Mom got super-worried and called an ambulance (because, we were clearly NOT going to be able to just drive her to the doctor's office); she is fine now, but quite tired, and no, we have no idea what was wrong. She was going to go to her regular doctor's office today, to get checked out, but-- surprise!-- they're closed. As is the Federal Government, which means that she doesn't have to take sick leave, being sick. Blessings abound! Also, since the ambulance came with a snow-plough in tow, we have one of the few ploughed streets in the area. Which is nice. And also means that several of the folks who live down the hill from us, whose road hasn't been ploughed, chose to park in our lot rather than risk going down hill again. That's why we had SUVs randomly sitting next to the snowbank, next to the fir tree, handily giving me a basis for comparison so that I can impress you all with how deep the snow REALLY is. (Oh, and to answer the question I'm sure you will ask: Ivy is hoping to go to the doctor's office tomorrow. She has announced that, snow day or not, she isn't going back to work until she's been checked out. Most sensible of her, I say.)

Also, tomorrow we are getting another light storm, originally predicted to be 6 inches-- now they're saying 8. Ivy (my sister) and I are kind of thinking that it's possible we'll get another snow day. No telling for sure.

Now I must needs get down and help Dad again. Because of the ambulance emergency, we do have one car dug out, and (more blessings!) Mom already left for a work trip and Dad is going out to Utah for a family thing tomorrow, which means (this is the blessing part) we don't really need that much in terms of car-age. Still, it would be nice if Ivy and I didn't have to coordinate to try to get us both to and from work and, for me, school, so Dad and I are trying to get Mom's car out. Dad decided to just gamble and try to drive it over the snow which hadn't been removed yet. He lost. We're now trying to dig out under the car. Also, Ivy suggested that I might walk to the grocery store for more peanut butter chips (being good Mormons-- meaning, in this instance, that we keep enough food stored to last several months-- that's the only thing we don't have on hand for a Perfectly Delightful Winter Storm Snow-in). Wish me luck.

I can call Repentance with a song

In a household where I regularly visit lives a cat named Repentance (acquired, so I am told, at a time when the owner had a dog whose name was Faith). I am, miraculously, not allergic to this cat, which is pretty nice-- I even tried petting him the other day, which went fairly non-sneezingly.

I decided to try something that used to work on my mom's cat, and also (though I wasn't doing it intentionally) worked on the cows that live near my grandma's house: I sang to it to call it. Sure enough, it came. The first song we tried (myself and the small child who was with me) worked pretty well-- "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"-- but the second one, one of my favorites from my childhood, worked even better. The version I learned as a child was adapted for the Primary Children's songbook from a longer piece (which I learned during voice lessons I took a couple of summers ago) by Felix Mendelssohn, from his oratorio Elijah. The words go like this: "If with all your hearts, ye truly seek me, Ye shall ever surely find me, Thus saith our God. Ye shall ever surely find me; Thus saith our God.

Pumpkin Soup

First, the backstory for why this pumpkin--er, I mean, recipe-- had to be done today. I mean, why I had to blog about it today.

A few years ago, I moved in to a house that my Dad had just moved out of, and to my continually increasing gratitude, I inherited the garden he had planted. Besides discovering that I LOVED Juliet tomatoes (the kind he had planted), I also discovered the joys of fresh-baked home-grown pumpkin. That fall was when I came up with this recipe, which is darn quick and easy, and eminently edible.

Which is just the kind of recipe one needs when one's mother gets a 60-lb supposed-to-be-decorative (and it was, in its past life) pumpkin from freecycle with the intent of processing and, over the course of time, consuming said pumpkin.


"I'm going to get a very big pumpkin from freecycle," she says. "I'm bringing your dad along to help carry it."

I deeply regret to tell you that I didn't get a shot of this thing when it was whole. In fact, I was thinking of calling this posting "The Slaughter of the Great Pumpkin: A Photo Essay," but that seemed to be over-promising without the "before" pictures; I hope that the ones I have here will give at least some sense of the scale of the thing.

When I came downstairs this morning, these four pieces were all that was left of the once-great pumpkin; three similarly sized pieces had already been chopped even smaller and then distributed in such a way as to take advantage of every large cooking apparatus available in our teensy kitchen: two baking trays in the oven, both two-quart cooking pots simmering on the stove, and the one-and-a-half quart crockpot on "hi" on the counter. Needless to say, the house was suffused with the smell of baking-and-boiling hard winter squash. Which, I am very thankful to report, is a very happy smell for me.


You aren't getting tired of this yet, are you?

We had discussed whether or not Dad might have to use a chainsaw or, since he doesn't personally own one (a chain saw), perhaps he might use an axe (which he does own). In the end, a trusty kitchen knife worked out just fine. The pumpkin was surprisingly soft, which isn't necessarily a good sign-- Mom ended up cutting out bits which she felt were too dodgy for non-starving humans to eat.

This last shot is for the sheer pleasure of showing off my mother's beautiful, strong, capable hand(s-- not much of the second one showing). When I was growing up, she was always the one who opened stuck jars. She had been a pianist and a clarinetist before she married, and hadn't given either of them up yet when I was small; even now, the fact that she types so much in her job means that she hasn't lost much strength. I also love the fact that her palms are slightly plump, like Yo-Yo Ma's. Being a cellist-- specifically, going to many concerts and paying close attention to where the action was-- has made me a bit of a hand conniseur. Aren't hers beautiful?

And now for the recipe section:

Pumpkin Soup (makes approximately 1/2 gallon?)

Ingredients and instructions:

1 T or so fresh slivered ginger (if you hate the recipe because you used powdered, don't blame me)
1 T or so fresh chopped OR bottled garlic
1 T or so olive oil or other preferred cooking oil

Get the oil spitting hot in a skillet, then fry the garlic and ginger until the garlic is getting brown. Remove these from the skillet and put them in the big pot you're planning to cook the soup in.

1 c (more or less, depending on taste) sliced onion
2 T or so oil

Fry the onion until it is both soft and brown; when these have been achieved, put it in the soup pot, too.

5-6 cups cooked pumpkin
1 can coconut milk
1 1/2 t nutmeg, if desired (adjust according to taste)
2 t salt (yes, you can definitely add more-- I tend to cook low sodium)
2 T sugar, according to taste
garnish of cashews or peanut butter, if desired

Dump these in the pot; heat everything through. If you have an immersion blender, you can use it, but if I were you I definitely wouldn't put it, in batches, through a regular blender. Maybe use a potato masher if you have one handy. I just used a spatula tonight. The goal of blending/mashing/sorta-chopping-with-a-spatula is to get the pumpkin in to small enough chunks that the other ingredients/flavorings have a chance to do their jobs.

A sign I have been thinking about putting up in the bathroom

IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED IF, WHEN KILLING ANTS WHILE SHOWERING, YOU WOULD FLUSH THEM DOWN THE DRAIN. ANT CORPSES DO NOT MAKE HAPPY BATHING COMPANIONS.

I had thought about putting in something about "your fellow bathers would appreciate," but that would seem to imply that my family employs a Roman-style bathing arrangement, which we most certainly do not. Come to think of it, our distaste for such an arrangement would be one of the main reasons for why we kill our unwelcome six-legged visitors in the first place. The other reason being that some day (? I hope?) the ants will figure out that all of their friends die when they come in here, and thus decide that coming here is a bad idea. The problem with this, of course, is that they don't all die, since our bathroom is not continuously inhabited with ant-killing humans.

Diatomaceous earth, my friend, diatomaceous earth. We will be spreading it soon over the surmised inbound path of our exoskeleton-possessing visitors, and very shortly thereafter my killing-ants-in-the-bathtub days will be over.

On the bright side, these are not biting ants. It could be way worse.

Birthday Celebration

I was born the day my mom graduated from college with her Bachelor's degree. Not the week or the month, but the day. (Luckily-- for her, I guess, since I evidently didn't care so much about inconveniencing people-- not the hour.)

I once asked her about how she decided, at nine months and three days pregnant, to drive the then-at-least-six hour drive from Blackfoot, Idaho, to Provo, Utah so that she could participate in her graduation ceremony. Her reply was typical Mom: "I worked hard for that degree; I wasn't going to miss it!"

So she drove down, and she went through the first day of graduation, and then on the second day of the graduation, there was a big snowstorm and I started to come. Mom claims that there are home movies of her in labor and walking across the Madsen Recital Hall stage to receive her diploma, though I've never seen them. 56 babies were born in the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, including me. She said that a couple of women didn't even make it out of their caps and gowns, though she did. She also said once that I was her easiest labor, because she was distracted during it. I am unreasonably proud of that.

I found it particularly appropriate that this last birthday, I was back in Provo for my own graduation. I spent much of the morning of my birthday and some of the afternoon standing in line for my cap and gown, with two nephews and a niece in tow. After the second hour in line, I let them each go get a second cookie from the spread which The Powers That Be had laid out, but even without the cookies to sustain them, they were being as good as gold. After that, we walked to the park and met their mother and had a picnic. It seemed like a peculiarly fitting way to mark my coming in to the world.

Peter Piper has Paid a visit to our fridge

When I was cleaning it out yesterday, I found four jars of pickled peppers.

Pictures at Grandma's House

The gate to the driveway



My hand and a wildflower, slightly out of focus

My friend Brandy, going over a rise in the road (near the gate)

The Eiffel Tower at 7:00 in the morning, with snow

At Grandmother's House

Not much time for this one. I just spent way too long composing an email to Edward and Elinor (the pseudonyms I gave to the family I stayed with in Germany), and then translating it because I wanted to be fair to both of them, not making Edward translate and not making Elinor wait until he was up to it. (I think that he will still have plenty to do with straightening out the bits I messed up, though.)

I am staying with my Grandmother, who has been sick and in and out of the hospital for the past couple of months. I believe that they think it is a herniated disk, but there have been complications. I'm somewhat unclear on all of the details. Her body is doing minutely better each day--I think-- but her mind is still sharp as anything, which is a great comfort to me. She needs her walker to get anywhere on foot, and has to be driven to doctor's appointments and shopping and so on, but she seems to have more energy now than even three days ago, which again is a very good sign.

I had not been to her house for about fourteen years. She has come to blessings, graduations, baptisms, and Christmas, so I have seen HER a fair bit; I just haven't seen her house, and

I LOVE being at the house.

The landscape around here, most of the year, is pretty brown-- mostly dried vegetation-- and since I have usually visited on Christmas vacations, that is how I remember it. At the moment, however, it is spring, and that means that the rain has been coming down and the grass is coming up, so there is a lot more green than I have ever seen before. The roads are red, which makes a beautiful contrast to the grass. (Our tap water, from the well my grandfather dug fifty years ago when he was building the house, is plentiful, but it tastes a little funny and dyes the bathtubs rust-colored for the same reason the roads are red: there is lots of iron in it.) I need not tell you that the sky is blue, and it is impossible to tell you how gorgeous the moon and, I believe it was, Jupiter, were last night right after the sun had set. I was outside, gazing at them, and just did not want to come back to the house. I was just soaking in the glory of God, in these things that please the eye and gladden the heart and make the soul sing for joy.

I will take pictures and try, someday, to get them up, but since I keep running in to technical difficulties (such as losing the cable to connect my camera to the computer, only to find I had left it in the box it had come in) I will refrain from making any more rash promises about how soon I will post my own photographs.

The dog and I have made friends. He spent part of yesterday evening's TV-watching with his head in my lap, which I tolerated because I figure that it is good to have friends wherever you are. OK, OK, so I LIKE the dog, but I am allergic to him, and now I have to remember not to sit on my own bed until I wash these pants.

And now I've spent a long time on this, too, but it feels good to be writing again, and it especially feels good to be finicky about my writing. After all, what else is a blog for?

I am home. Sort of.

I miss R--------- already. I miss the Ferrars (should have picked a pseudonym for that family that was easier to pluralize). I miss German light switches, door handles, and windows. I miss the adrenaline rush of trying to pay attention to meaning (the difference between what I want to say and what I know how to say), pronunciation, genders of nouns, and other grammar ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I miss people telling me all the time how good my German is (only partly true-- they are somewhat led on by my excellent pronunciation-- but it still feels good to hear).

I miss the kids at the kindergarten.

As my mother would say: sigh.

However.

I looked on my email today (I got home yesterday) and found a job posting for a city quite close to R--------, for which it appears that I may be qualified. I meet the minimum requirements set out, and speak some German ("good" German for a visitor, and good enough at least to start in a classroom). They said that they didn't need a German speaker, but I'm hoping they look favorably on what I do have.

So, that is what "home, sort of" means. I got used to Germany while I was there. I didn't really want to come back yet, but I feel that I made a good decision. My visit with my parents at Christmas was too short, anyway, and in some ways it will be easier to apply for the job from here (the German embassy is quite close, for instance, so visa issues will presumably be somewhat easy to work out).

Next posting: Paris, with pictures! (I can finally download my camera's pictures, as soon as I download the software and read the manual...) Not too many, though, since my battery froze and therefore died after the first four I took, three of which were of the Eiffel tower. Sorry. I'll just have to take more next time I go. Which, if I make it back to Frankfurt soon, may be within a year.

From driveway to driveway

I visited my aunt and uncle this last weekend. They live in Arizona, a place where-- as various people said over the weekend-- the sun always shines, and it never snows. They said this because my uncle's family lives in a town on a mountaintop, so that when towns even a few miles away have gotten a normal amount (for northern Arizona) of precipitation, they have gotten enough snow in their town so far this year that their schools have already used up all of their "snow days".

Yesterday morning it began to snow. Early. As in, ahead of schedule.

[This next part is later-- I don't know how to edit the posting dates on these things.]

Joyce blogged the whole thing (check out Now We Are 2 and 2, over on the side there). She even put up pictures! It's hard to beat that. Be sure to read my comment.

A quote from last night at dinner

Last night, I was at dinner at a friend's house-- a friend (this is relevant) who is old enough to be my mother, and who had invited to this dinner some people old enough to be my grandparents-- and they were talking about a woman whom they all knew, who is approximately my age. J (the one who did all the inviting) said, by way of introducing this woman's character, "She went in to labor while kickboxing!" and someone asked who she had married, and D, who is (I think) old enough to be my grandfather, said "Someone who could keep up with her." He said that she had dated several young men who hadn't been able to keep up with her, and that he was sure that she had finally found someone who could.

For about thirty seconds, it made me want to be someone like that-- someone whom others have to keep up with, physically-- but after that thirty seconds it wore off, and I realized that I'm pretty content with the gifts I have. But it is fun to think that such people do exist. It somehow seems to make the Universe a place where superheroes-- or maybe just heroes-- are more likely to happen.