Living the life

I’ve been living the life style of the rich and famous the past few days. Tagged along to Dallas with my husband to watch him receive an engineering award at an engineering conference while my mom watched the kids. We stayed at a hotel where the rooms start at $495 a night. And you know what? Even though the place was Texas-sized enormous, and the lobby and atrium were glitzy, and the pool and workout room were glamorous, the beds were uncomfortable and the only coffee to be found started at $3.50 a cup for a tepid watery brew served out of a big push top carafe. Disappointing. Good thing we were on government rate.


We had a room with a balcony overlooking the atrium, like everyone else. I woke up a little before my husband one morning and sat out there to take in the view. The atrium’s glass ceiling was a magnificent feat of engineering that topped a faux Texan landscape, a faux Alamo façade, a faux oil derrick, and a faux saloon. I felt a little like I was at a Texas Disneyland. Although the water feature’s falls added a soothing lull to the scene, from some elevated speakers, country music played in the background. So at 7:30 am I was listening to waterfalls and “if you’re going through Hell, keep on going,” wishing I had a cup of coffee.

Now that song is stuck in my head, which isn’t a bad theme song for the last weeks of school, especially when you find out one kid got detention while you were gone, and another one bombed a final.

Although the only part of the conference I attended was the awards luncheon, which, aside from the decadent three layer chocolate mousse dessert, was only a step or two up from school lunch, I did do a fair share of people watching. One lady caught my eye – and probably everyone else’s. She was wearing a tight black mini skirt, an off the shoulder white blouse and three-inch red heels. Betraying an inbred stereotype, I whispered to my husband, “She doesn’t look like an engineer.” He replied, “She’s probably in marketing.” Marketing something, for sure.

Not only did we stay in a deluxe hotel, but we won the rental car upgrade, also. The first night we were there, a big hailstorm hit Dallas. We happened to be at dinner at my brother’s house, where we spent an hour huddled in the hallway, playing Lego games with my nephews while baseball sized hail pelted the house. When the storm finally blew over and it was time for us to go, we found that the Toyota Corolla we rented had a shattered windshield. We drove it back to the hotel cautiously. I had visions of a tiny piece of gravel adding the final bit of pressure to the glass, causing complete disintegration. A call to the rental agency led us to believe we’d have to drive back to the airport to exchange the car for a safer one, but lo and behold, the next morning we found that there happened to be a rental car station at the hotel. But of all things, all they had left was a Mercedes. So we had to drive one of those the next couple days. I’m not one to care much about cars, but this vehicle really had some oomph. Helpful when we were running late to the airport because the GPS and the road signs didn’t match up and we couldn’t decide which to follow.

A few days spent in a fancy hotel and driving a fancy car could only be followed by a fancy plane ride. My dear husband booked my ticket with frequent flyer miles, and the only seat left on the way home was in first class. I did enjoy getting to line jump at security, and getting to check my bags for free (they were carry-on size, but I had picked up a few things at the exhibitors’ booths at the conference: pens, post-its, thumb drives, grocery bags, water bottles, little stuffed eagles and dancing robots, all emblazoned with logos from firms that do business with engineers), but I can’t say that riding in first class really felt that much different from the back of the plane. Yeah, I got a free cocktail and a bag of peanuts, but I don’t think I could ever justify the expense if I were actually paying money.

While on the plane, I finally finished Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra. I’m afraid I didn’t give it the attention it deserved. It was an entertaining biography with lots and lots of background about the conspiracies of Octavian and Mark Antony, but the whole time I was reading it, I kept wondering where the author was getting this stuff. So many details about the emotions of the main characters seem to be fabricated, but they make for an interesting read. I want to go back and check out the fifty pages of footnotes, but I’ve got to give the book back to its owner. And I’m about a hundred pages into Atonement, which a friend gave me two years ago right after I saw the movie and fell in love with James McEvoy all over again. I’ve been waiting to read the book until I forgot the movie, which has stuck with me. But the book has details galore that didn’t make the movie. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, but the ending I remember from the movie wasn’t satisfying, so now I am interested to see how the book ends. Next on the list: The Moviegoer. What I really should be doing is going through my books to get rid of some before our move. (Lucky for me, I just found out I am now able to claim some of my lit books as “professional gear,” since I actually got paid for teaching this year. That gives me a little less anxiety about needing to downsize, but I’ve told myself I’m going to fill at least one box with books to give away. Still have about 2/3 of the box to fill.)

Although this trip was full of luxuries and perks, I can’t say it was the best vacation ever. The timing was bad, we had a lot going on at home, and I just felt out of place. I am not a first class passenger. I'd much rather go camping with the family than run off on a hotel getaway where I'm afraid I'm wearing the wrong thing because outside it is nearly 90, but the temp of the indoor artificial air felt close to 60.  Even the fancy car caused me worry because I couldn't help but think of how much more gas it used than the Corolla.  I was happy to come home to the chaoticly enmeshed family we left behind.  Sometimes the best part of a getting away is seeing more clearly how good you  have it back at home.

On being known

On Thursdays, I answer the phones at the St. Vincent de Paul center at our church. Three caseworkers handle the clients’ needs. One is a retired schoolteacher, another a retired lawyer, and the third is a still spry 80 year old Mercy sister who doesn’t look a day over 67. Yesterday the office wasn’t very busy, so I got an earful of the local gossip. One stereotype about the South that seems to hold true at least a good portion of the time is that everyone either knows your mother or is related to her. These ladies didn’t know each other before coming together at SVDP, but they knew each other’s cousins and the school teacher had worked with the lawyer’s mother and the sister’s cousin was the lawyer’s hairdresser or something like that. The sister comes from a little Irish community a little further north, and she has been stationed around the coast as a nurse most of her adult life, so she either knew everyone in the conversation or one of their cousins.



On Saturday at the festival, I chatted a bit with the school principal and found out she was similarly related to half the city. She had to leave the school’s fun run early to get to the family’s Saturday breakfast, which was attended by at least 15 and sometimes close to 50. They have a standing reservation at one of the casino buffets.


So even though we have felt welcomed and made friends, we’re not a part of the inner sanctum here, because we don’t have any blood ties. And that’s fine – my own family is a rather tightly knit bunch. For example, I once got a call from my cousin asking if I were pregnant, when I hadn’t even taken a pregnancy test. Word spreads quickly on the family grapevine. People are always watching out for others, especially the black sheep. 

Although we don’t have to worry about being on the family radar down here, neither do we have anyone who knows our family history, our own stories of growing up, our successes and trials. Our identity and personality quirks are a fairly blank slate. For instance, the retired schoolteacher at SVDP, who doesn’t attend the same Mass we do, didn’t know we had six kids until this weekend. It never came up in our conversations on Thursdays. But it is sort of a defining identity issue. With the kids in school, I feel a little incognito, and almost wish I could wear a button that says “I am a mother of six. That is why it looks like I didn’t brush my hair this morning.”

It took most of the first year we lived here to make friends. And most of the second year to feel like those friends are good friends. Now just when we're starting to feel accepted and recognized, it's time to start over again in a new place.
There’s something appealing about being known and not having to explain yourself. My husband has called me out on always adding a “me too” story to everyone else’s narrative. I think I’m just trying to make conversation, but maybe it does sound like I’m trying to one-up the storyteller. That’s the nice thing about being around family and people who have known you a long time: you don’t have to try to fit in. That Cheers theme song is starting to play in my mind.

On the other hand, the desire to share my story and to be known is rooted in vanity. Thinking back to the sister at SVDP, she also has had to move around a lot, as sisters do. She doesn’t wear a habit anymore, but dresses in a unnoticeable fashion. Are unanimity and anonymity virtues to cultivate? I feel a little self-conscious about worrying about who I am going to be in Guam. Rather than trying to make myself known to others, I should think more about being pleasing to the One who matters.  And who already knows who I am.

"God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us." (Acts 15:8)

Discernment issues

A tsunami of things to do is threatening to overwhelm me.


Instead of running like mad to get them out of the way, I’m sitting down to blog.


Part of the problem is that a number of these things require that I make a decision before I act. I’ve never had the talent of being a quick decision-maker, and being under pressure cripples my decisive factor even more.


So I’m going to blab on to try to reach a resolution. If you want to read something entertaining, go read my sister’s blog or Facebook or something else on the web, or read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, the source for all the interesting conversations we have around here lately.

Most of my decisions have to do with the impending move, but more immediate on my radar is teacher gifts. I have 6 classroom teachers, including the aides, to buy for. The older two kids switch classes and have been instructed to write thank you notes to which we’ll append a piece of chocolate. There are seven school days left. Then there are six special class teachers that all the kids have, and I feel like I ought to drop something off in the office for the principal and secretary since I have been around the school a lot as a Latin teacher and a sub and the boxtops lady. (Mailed the last five thousand off this morning! Something done!) I like these ladies, and I’d like to give them some kind of goodbye/thanks for being nice to my kids gift, but I can’t decide what. We gave little plants last year. I guess I need to look at a crafty blog, but I haven’t had time to browse, let alone make anything in between being gone two weekends in a row and then working the parish festival all last weekend (coffee and funnel cake anyone?). Taking suggestions for cheap, quick, thoughtful gifts. . . .


Another decision to be made soon: what to do for a party for a bunch of people on Sunday. The wardroom is coming over for a hail and farewell. I need to clean fast. Should be scrubbing bathroom sinks as I type.  More company coming the following week. I've got a lot of dust to get rid of before then.  And we're going out of town next week again.  I may just wait and clean after the packers come in July.  Here's hoping the glorious weather will hold so we can spend most of the visit at the beach.


Then I have some gnawing issues to discern about stuff: what clothes to get rid of, what clothes do we need, what books to get rid of, what books do we need, what stuff should we send express ship, what should we sell, what should we just donate, who can we find who will take our rat, guinea pig, parakeet and fish, and maybe the dog? The books give me the greatest heartache. Every time I pass a shelf, I think “I need to get rid of more books.” Then I sit down to pull some off the shelf, and start reading. I was able to cull about 10 for the parish book sale, but when I went over to drop them off, I left with another bag full, including the giant sized book about the Spanish Civil War, The Cypresses Believe in God, and a visually appealing set of petite hard-cover E. M. Forster novels.


I’m about ready to euthanize the rat because he nibbled tiny irreparable holes all over my very favorite shirt that I had just ironed and left hanging too close to his cage. He nabbed it from the hanger and converted it to nesting material while we were at the festival. My husband told me that my shrieks of rage when I discovered the theft were overreacting and frightening the children, but he doesn’t understand how difficult it is to find a favorite shirt, in your favorite color, favorite fabric, and favorite cut, all for the great price of $1.99 at Goodwill. Irreplaceable.

On buying and selling: A couple of people have expressed interest in buying our station wagon and our almost new frontload washer and dryer set, which are being left behind, but I have concerns about selling either to someone we like. I love them, but they are quirky. And I don’t want to just give them away, because we’ll need to replace them when we move back from Guam. Selling to an anonymous buyer who won’t call me and complain when the washer door starts to stink or when the station wagon engine repair light won’t go off is essential. I’d like to give a good deal to a friend, but I’m afraid of making enemies.


The big decisions are really discernment items. One decision, which we have decided to postpone until the summer when we can visit the spot, is whether or not to buy a piece of property next to my parent’s farm in the Midwest. We love the area, we’d love to be next door neighbors to my parents, we’d love to own farmland. But we are tied up for at least five years and maybe 10 with the military. And at that point we’ll have at least two kids of college age and four more moving up the ranks, so my husband will have to continue to work at a job that produces instead of consumes income. Retiring to a farm is not an option for several years. But land prices are good, and I’ve been brainwashed by reading Wendell Berry books and watching “Gone With the Wind”: “Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts.”  

Maybe we could wear homespun and do correspondence school for college… But the property isn’t dreamily idyllic. It’s mostly cornfield. Which is both desirable and undesirable. Our list of pros and cons remains stultifyingly equalized.


The other issue for discernment is really about identity. Who do I want to be in Guam? Am I going to homeschool the youngers and be Homeschool Mom? Should I put them in school and apply for a teaching job at the Guam Community College and be Working Mom? Should I put them in school and start training for triathlons and going out to lunch and on boonie stomps with the other Navy wives and be Sporty Social Mom? Should I homeschool them all, even though my olders want to play sports because I am concerned they won’t be challenged at the DOD school and be either Hardcore Academic Drill Master Mom or take advantage of the time and freedom to be Unschooly Travel Around the Pacific With Lots of Kids Mom? Should we try to afford the Catholic high school and become Scrimping Eager Volunteer Mom?


If you have special gifts in prophesying the future or for online counseling or in spiritual direction, I appreciate all free advice. God hasn’t given me any clear signs, although I have asked a few times. I know this is a time when I should be turning more to Him in prayer, and remembering the assurance of Brother Lawrence from his little book on The Practice of the Presence of God: “That God always gave us light in our doubts when we had no other design but to please Him.” And, perhaps more apropos, from his “Gathered Thoughts”: “If you would go forward in the spiritual life, you must avoid relying on the subtle conclusions and fine reasonings of the unaided intellect. Unhappy they who seek to satisfy their desire therein! The Creator is the great teacher of Truth. We can reason laboriously for many years, but fuller far and deeper is the knowledge of the hidden things of faith and of Himself, which He flashes as light into the heart of the humble.”


I knew it would be worthwhile to sit and write something because it turned my thoughts back to that little book, lying in the stack of many on my desk, waiting to be reshelved or boxed and shared with someone else.

Complements in marriage

Another thought on marriage: Sometimes I wish my husband were more of a reader. He does find books a comfort: he opens one and falls right to sleep. He appreciates books and doesn’t begrudge me mine, although he has been known to take them away from me at night. But we don’t sit around and talk about our favorite characters or about how so and so is just like Beowulf.

On the other hand, I imagine he wishes I could stay on top of the laundry, not get distracted by the paper and the computer, plan ahead what we’re having for dinner, and appreciate more fully the jobs he does around the house: making frames and doll beds, replacing toilet flappers, upgrading the electrical system…. (ok that’s an exaggeration, but he did wire and plumb and build a bathroom addition at our last house.)

We don’t share all the same interests, nor are we exactly opposites, but we complement each other enough to keep life interesting, and to force ourselves to grow a little in ways we wouldn’t without the motivation of love.

There really isn’t any other way to change the world.

Nothing new for NFP users

From the Wall Street Journal: "The Tricky Chemistry of Attraction."

Last week's article of marital interest provoked a little more conversation at our house. Pretty much comes down to the fact that touch can heal.

Beautiful morning

Our house is not in a pretty neighborhood. Behind our house is a state building that used to be a small hospital. Now it is where the water police park their boats. Around the corner, a couple blocks down is the military hospital, which has a large expansion project under construction. We hear trains at night. And although we have a view of the Back Bay to the north, it is marred by the high rise casino a mile down the street and the highway bridge that cuts across the bay to connect our little peninsula to the mainland. That view wouldn’t matter so much, if the neighborhood weren’t suffering from a decline because insurance rates went crazy after Katrina. People can’t keep up with their bills and their yards and exteriors. Those who can afford to move have, and those who can’t sell their homes rent them to the kind of people who keep pit bulls for pets.

But this morning on my run I saw:

blue jays
green herons
white egrets
tawny killdeer or plover
brown pelicans
black cormorants
gray mourning doves
diving seagulls and terns
chattering mockingbirds
cavorting swallows
and a pair of redheaded woodpeckers making a nest.

There’s also a pair of osprey who nest nearby. Sometimes we see them circling when we’re swimming in the neighbors’ pool.

Then I saw a baby opossum and its mama, playing possum. For the first time I thought they looked cute, their faces frozen in mirror images of each other. Their ruse worked; I didn’t attack.


Finally, in a vacant lot, I saw what I thought at first was a muskrat. It, too, seemed frozen, so I detoured over to get a closer look. As I neared, it slithered into motion – it was actually a mink! A limp indicated it had either an injury or rabies to spread to the pitbulls.


The critters all are feeding on the ripe mulberries and low growing blackberries that are ripe right now in the vacant lot behind the military hospital.

Beauty is where you look for it.

An eventful week

What a week of news. Where to start? Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Spring brings new life amid the storms.

This week the kids were on spring break, so we took a short camping trip.  Thursday morning we drove into Natchez to explore this beautiful town on the coast of the Mississippi River. We parked near the river and walked into a “primitive” antique store with a reproduction Confederate officer uniform displayed by the door. The antique owner immediately accosted us, his only customers. He wasn’t nervous about our half dozen children roaming among his goods, because “primitive” antiques are already beat up. But he had a message for us.

Like a prophet of old, he spouted forth predictions of doom and destruction. Towns were destroyed, the floods are coming, darkness will cover the earth.


At first I was confused by his story. Then I realized he was talking about what he had seen on the news the night before – hundreds of tornadoes across northern Mississippi and Alabama. Suddenly I felt the hand of God on my shoulder. We were supposed to be camping outside of Birmingham, but at the last minute Wednesday morning, we had checked the weather and decided to head west instead. I can’t determine if tornadoes struck the campground where we were going to stay, but we would’ve been in for a sleepless night regardless. We have been known to be heedless of weather reports, but this time we are grateful we changed course.


The store owner also was concerned about the course of the Mississippi River. Flooding up north will cause flooding down south. His store may be standing in the river in a few weeks if the rains don’t abate. And he had predictions about the downfall of the economy and the bankruptcy of America. And once he found out my husband was in the military, he had forecasts for him, too, about dangers of becoming embroiled in Muslim politics. But he did not foretell the assassination of Osama bin Laden.


All of these surprises upstaged the long planned festivities surrounding the wedding of Prince William and now Duchess Kate and the beatification of John Paul II. Not to mention the celebration of Easter and the enjoyment of spring break in our own little corner of the world.


So a round-up of the week: First Easter, celebrated without extended family, a rarity for us, even though we live hundreds of miles from cousins and grandparents. But this summer will bring extended travels for us, so we opted to stay home and attend the Triduum masses in our parish here. We did join up Sunday afternoon with some other military families and the Polish priest from the Air Force Base, who reminds me of Blessed JP II, to celebrate a First Communion and the Resurrection with an appropriately rich feast. It was a joyful and sweet day.


I spent the next day prepping for my class on Don Quixote and Othello. All these little dips and dives into the classics for the class are only tantalizing bites of a rich main course, but I’m afraid my students have begun to feel overfull and are no longer indulging. Class ends this week. Hoping they at least are inspired to go back to these works, knowing they are loved by someone, and don’t accept with Mark Twain’s definition: “’Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.” Meaning to collect and record some reading notes into coherent sentences.

A couple days later, we received confirmation of my husband’s orders. The move to Guam will take place this summer after all. More to come on this. If we get base housing, we will still live on a bay, so I won’t have to change the name of my blog. But that’s only if I don’t go crazy before we get there. I can’t even think about what we have to do to get ready. It will get done, but I’m putting off thinking about it for a couple more weeks.


On Wednesday we left for our scaled down camping trip, which was once going to be a weeklong trip to the Smokies, but because of kids qualifying for regional track meets and soccer tournaments, we decided to shorten it, eventually down to a two night trip to western Mississippi. While tornadoes destroyed the area we had picked as a second choice, we enjoyed clear, cool weather, the quick tour of Natchez, and a couple long hikes, the second marred only by a couple stops for the eight yr old to throw up. (She told us her stomach hurt, but we thought it was all the s’mores the night before.) My husband and I had been to Natchez once before for a friend’s wedding nearly 15 years ago, so part of the motivation to go there was to revisit a place of fond memory. Seemed a different place, of course. We had peeked into the antique store because we had always regretted not buying a framed manuscript page from a 17th century missal on our first visit there. And do you know, we found the store, amid the dozens of antique shoppes in Natchez, and a framed manuscript. The same? Authentic? We bought it nonetheless, so to us, the answers to those questions will be yes.



Perfect marshmellow




Alligator mississippiensis




Woodland pinkroot



Fraser Magnolia - huge

Watching for floods and gators.



Stanford Hall - site of a big party some years ago



Along the St. Catherine Creek

Happy hikers. Guess which one threw up?

When we returned home, after starting the first of multiple loads of laundry, I got online to check out the news. Watched videos of killer tornadoes until I was afraid to go to bed, remembering a recurrent dream I used to have as a child of tornadoes out my front door and tornadoes out my back door. So as a tonic, I watched videos of the royal wedding and read descriptions of all the hats and dresses. Did not love Pippa Middleton’s dress, although 84% of viewers did.


Yesterday’s news capped all: First the pope’s beatification. Several months ago, we thought about trying to go to Rome with some cousins with whom we went to Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003. We priced out tickets to Roma. We discussed the option of spending our tax return on air fare. Then we decided that was improvident and spent it instead on recent car repairs. Would much rather have gone to Rome.


Photos like this one – our daughter who threw up on the hike is the baby under the E - might be worth a few thousand dollars.

In St. Peter's Square for Mother Teresa's beatification and JP II's 25th anniversary.

Then the death of Osama bin Laden. I fear retaliations and his elevation to martyr status.  Security is tight at the base. This morning I had to flash my ID about 10 times to go about my business at the gym and the commissary.  Bin Laden's body apparently has been buried at sea, but that is a story that seems to invite conspiracy theories. But I also am glad for all the United States, especially the military members, the SEALS, and the CIA operatives we know (okay, not many of the last, I admit) that they have this moment of triumph. Carry on.