AArgh!

I had the Katie #4 post half done, and Blogger ate it! Grrrrr! Sigh. I guess I need to get into the habit of working in Word and doing copy/paste, although I always have to re-format when I do. But it's coming, it's coming.

AArrgh!!

Ten to One Meme -- The Finale

List THREE pieces of your furniture you'd like to replace.

1. Our sofas. They match, so I’m going to count them as one. They are beyond beat-up and dog-chewed, and even the “new” slipcovers are getting tattered, but I refuse to buy new until know what our post-buyout house will be like.

2. My bedside table. It’s a used-to-be-painted particleboard thing that once belonged to a friend of mine when I was single. I haven’t replaced it because I’ve never seen anything I liked/could afford that would fit in the narrow spot available in our current house.

3. Our porch chairs. They’re fake Adirondack chairs made of molded plastic, and half of them are cracked, so that you can’t sit with your head back.

Name TWO skills and/or personality traits which you are still developing.

1. Seeing from the other person’s point of view.

2. Doing the right thing when it takes effort.

Find (or recite if you're just that good) ONE quotation that expresses something you find profoundly true.

This is more “profoundly beautiful” than profoundly true, but it’s my favorite quote of all time. It's from Chapter 4 ("The Field of Cormallen") of the last "book" of The Lord of the Rings, and if you've never read the whole thing, getting to this quote is a good reason to take a stab at it.

“And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

I take that back. It’s ALSO profoundly true.

THE END! I won't tag anyone, but do the meme yourself if you feel like it, in whole or in part, on your own blog or in the comments section here. I'd love to read your responses.

Ten to One Meme -- Days 6 & 7

Wow, have I messed up! I never got here yesterday -- I was cooking all day for this great weekend with Arwen and Rosie and their families -- and it appears that I titled two posts "Day 4". (I'm going to fix that after I post this. So here are two for the price of one..

List FIVE movies you have seen at least FIVE times and/or would be willing to watch at least FIVE times in the future.
1. Sabrina (the newer one with Harrison Ford) (swoon)
2. You've Got Mail With my daughters, I have most of #’s 1 and 2 memorized.

3. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe We are a Lewis and Tolkien family.

4. Curly Top (or anything else Shirley Temple) These were on TV every Sunday afternoon when I was growing up

5. White Christmas I can’t believe Arwen missed this one. The most awesome time was when a local theater showed it on the big screen.

Name FOUR features of your own body that you like.
1. Blue eyes
2. Long fingers
3. Eyebrows Some of my kids got their dad’s family uni-brow, poor things.
4. Ankles

Ten to One Meme -- Day 5

Name SIX of your own acquired skills or personality traits of which you are proud. (Brag on yourself, dude! Own it!)

1. My prodigious vocabulary. I play Free Rice in the mid-50's.

2. The ability to cook without a recipe and alter and invent recipes for things that taste good.

3. The ability to read quickly, and remember a lot of it. ("Garbage-can memory")

4. Being able to sew things without the precise pattern I need. I’m not as good as those old-fashioned seamstresses who could measure you and cut all your clothes to fit, but I can get whatever sleeves/neckline/skirt I want.

5. My musical memory. I'm not a great musician, but if I've heard it, I probably remember it.

6. My test-taking knack

Ten to One Meme -- Day 4

New grandbaby is due in early July. Last time Daniel came almost five weeks early; this time Rosie'll probably go three weeks over and drive herself and us crazy.

List SEVEN tasks you'd be happy never to have to do again.

1. De-crudding the shower walls. I clean bathrooms regularly, and I don’t mind wiping them down, but they really need to invent shower walls that repel soap scum.

2. Recaulking the bathroom, or cleaning the caulk.. Once they get the soap repellent down, they should figure out how to make bathrooms all in one piece. The cracks are what make the cleaning hard.

3.. Cleaning the oven with that smelly stuff. One of the first things I bought after I got the money I inherited from my parents was a new flat-top stove with a self-cleaning oven. No regrets.

4. Clean up after the dog in the yard. I wasn’t the one who wanted the dog. (To be fair, the kids are supposed to do it, but it’s never all cleaned up, because somehow some of it is always invisible to non-mature eyes.)

5. Make phone calls to strangers for any organization. I will cook a full meal from scratch for 125 people before I will make five phone calls asking for donations.

6. Deal with head lice. (Knock on wood!) The time we had our visit from those nasty critters, I was clinically anxious but undiagnosed, which made it 500 times harder, but it’s a lot of work no matter how you slice it.

7. Clean out the basement after a sewer backup. This was 6 weeks before Arwen’s wedding. Ugh!

Ten to One Meme -- Day 3

It looks like it's Little Women in yesterday's list, although I'd certainly like to find one of those combined volumes Jen mentioned. Now on to today . . . . .

Name EIGHT moments in your life that you're proud or happy to remember.

In chronological order, because Arwen's fussy like that:

Please note – there are no academic items on this list, not because I don’t have any good memories, but because there was never any doubt in anybody’s mind, least of all mine, that I would do academic stuff, and do it pretty well. I might as well be proud of breathing.

1. The time in college gym class where we were playing mixed basketball (two guys and three girls on a team) and the other team made a technical foul against my team. The guy who was captain of my team picked me to shoot it! You must understand that I am klutz personified – NOT an athlete in any way. But when I stepped up to the foul line and shot, the ball not only went in, it swished! (For you other non-athletes, that means it went straight through without touching the rim.) Never before or since, not that I’ve tried recently, but oh, what a moment!

2. The day I decided to move from home in Pennsylvania, where almost all my relatives still live, to Ohio. And by extension, when I moved from Ohio to Michigan. It took courage I didn’t know I had, and didn’t fully understand at the time, but that I’m glad I used.

3. My wedding. I can clearly remember looking down the aisle to where Roger was standing at the front of the church, and realizing that I was the reason for all that happiness on his face. Awe is a mild word.

4. Having my kids. This really needs subheads a). through f.). If I listed each child’s birth individually, I’d use up most of my eight moments, and though they’re all distinct and differently precious, they’re all the same KIND of moment.

5. Letting 15-year-old Arwen get into a car and drive away with her 16-year-old new driver friend. (Just to a soccer game.) I haven’t been the perfect mother, but this is one area I think I did mostly right – letting the kids go when it’s time. I’m glad I had practiced this a lot, because it’s the only way I was able to say a calm goodbye to George when he left for boot camp. With each kid it’s something different.

6. The day I got a thank-you note from my mother for the 50^th anniversary celebration my brother and I had for my parents. It was all positive. This was probably the first unmixed praise I ever had from my mother. Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure she was in early Alzheimer’s, and had simply forgotten that “you’re NEVER supposed to tell your child that they did a good job.” My mother learned some real junk from my grandfather, and I now can feel sorry for all of us, instead of thinking that there was some innate problem with her, or with me.

7. When I realized that I had the mental tools and force of will to never have another panic attack . I had always been the anxious type, and had various run-ins with severe anxiety and panic attacks before I knew what they were, but the spring of Arwen’s junior year in high school I reached the point where I really couldn’t function. Fortunately, a friend recognized what was going on, and steered me to a great counselor. She recommended a particular workbook, and for me, knowledge truly is power, at least in this area. I learned that most of my symptoms were caused by bad emotional responses to normal physiological changes, and that I could learn to change my responses. [This is called Behavioral-Cognitive Therapy, and it worked wonders for me.] I still have to be careful to short-cut negative patterns, and I practice conscious relaxation once or twice a day, but I haven’t had even a heavily anxious 10 minutes in several years now.

8. More subheads – the births of grandkids Daniel and Camilla. Can’t wait to add letter c.) to this one this summer!

Ten to One Meme -- Day 2

You may only own NINE books for the rest of your life. What are they?

1. Bible

2. A hymn book of some sort. I’m leaning toward the one I grew up with (called simply The Hymnal and published by a no-longer-existing denomination that merged itself into oblivion.) This is not the best hymnal out there, but it’s the most familiar to me. I’d also hope that I could have all the CD’s I wanted for the more modern stuff!

3. Unabridged dictionary

4. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

5. The Chronicles of Narnia (one volume edition) by C.S. Lewis – I’d really rather have the Space Trilogy, but as far as I know it’s never been published in one volume.

6. The Complete Sherlock Holmes vol.1, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

7. ditto vol. 2 – I love mysteries, and although there are thousands I’d hope I could borrow, these are the ones that never lose their twist.

8. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte The best example of a romance-with-morals.

9. _________, by Louisa May Alcott. My top three choices (in no particular order) are Little Women, Rose in Bloom, and Jack and Jill. Pick one for me!

Ten to One Meme -- Day 1

Arwen created this as a reaallly long meme, but since it has ten parts, I'm doing one a day for ten days. (And with any luck, getting back in the habit of blogging.)

Someone gives you TEN million dollars, but you have only TEN weeks to spend it or it's lost (and it can't be invested in any sort of accounts - you've got to spend it on services or material things). What TEN things do you do with it?

1. Buy out all the houses in my neighborhood. We have been sitting under the shadow of a major public-works project for six years now, and they just announced another delay. We all want OUT; I’d make that happen. The state could reimburse me or not, when it finally gets its act together.

2. Buy at least a nicer house for us. AWAY from the project zone. And furnish it lavishly.

3. Make big ol' charitable donations. Lots of them. This should really be number one, but I’m too lazy to move it.

4. Plan and fund a family reunion for my husband’s family. They live all over the country, and the cousins never are all in the same place. And add an extra week for my family!
5. Buy some really beautiful shoes and clothes. And some leather handbags that won’t wear out in one season. I’m picky, though, so I’d probably have these custom made. And maybe the shoes and clothes, too.
6. Buy a HUGH freezer, or maybe two, and load it up with top end meats and seafood. And stock my dream pantry.
7. Spend a lot of money on kitchen equipment, linens, drapes, wall hangings, and other domestic appointments.
8. Hire a cleaning service that does contracts, then pay ahead for as much time as they'll let me. (Thanks, Arwen. Who could mess with this one?!)
9. Replace all the aging technology in our household – computers, cars, stereo, third generation iPods. Also all the appliances.

10. Use the remainder of the money to buy some beautiful and very valuable jewelry, which I can sell off as I need more cash. I would use Arwen’s cheat here, but frankly my guess is that I’d be about broke by now.

Coming soon.....

To a blog near you (or one you've almost forgotten about) -- ten days of meme!

Courtesy of Arwen, except that I'm too lazy to do it all at once..... (but you knew that.)

Katie #3 -- The word's "Tenacious!" Really.

I have been seriously deficient in finishing off this NaBloPoMo-inspired series about each of my kids, including going back and giving a Mom's-eye-view of Arwen. I can't promise a post every day until next November, but I am going to work very hard at finishing at least one per week. Call me on it if I don't!

When our children were born, one of the first things Roger did for each of them was pray for them -- hand on tiny head, -- a personal blessing, which then became that child's bedtime blessing. Most of the blessing is the same for all the children, but there's a different special word for each one of them. (".....May God give you strength, and peace, and _______ all the days of your life....") George's word is "courage." Rosie's is "joy." Katie's -- "tenacity."

I have no idea how Roger came up with the specific word for each child (revelation? luck? randomness?) but it is clear that being prayed for in such a way has given each of them the quality named in their blessing. Of course in Katie's case, it's quite possible that she'd have had it anyway. At least we have a nice word for it. "Tenacious" is so much more positive than "pigheaded."

I've already called Katie stubborn, independent, and feisty. To that list you can add, in capital letters, CREATIVE. She's our only left-handed child, which indicates a differently wired brain, and while no less intelligent than her siblings she shows it much more in artistic rather than academic arenas. It took me a while to adjust my mothering style to her. I would walk into the room she shared with Maggie, see the mixture of scissors and paper scraps and ribbon and what-not and begin to yell -- "Katie, clean up this mess!" (Maggie's my tidy one; I knew it wasn't her mess.) Only after years, and a breakthrough in understanding, did I learn to look around first, and say "Oh, Katie, what a lovely mobile! Now don't you think it's time to clean up the stuff you used?"

Katie had some adjusting to do as well. Kindergarten went just fine for her, but when she got into first grade and began to have spelling words -- oh, my! I had gone over spelling words with all the older children, but with Katie... I'd ask her to spell "then", she'd think for a minute, and triumphantly pronounce "T-E-N-H!" A long argument would follow about whether that was right or not. From Katie's point of view, she'd said all the right letters; what was wrong? Getting them in the right order was an unnecessary waste of time.

(This has been in my drafts folder for too long. .. To be continued....)

Quick hello!

I am working on my third post about Katie. I would like to get through all the kids' biographies before anything major changes! But I am dealing with a Katie-induced flurry of costume production and modification (stay tuned for details) and I simply can't do as much as I'd like to.

However, several people have gently inquired as to how I can read in the shower. There are two facets to this: 1) non-valuable lightweight books and 2) long arms. I hold the book in my left hand and wash with my right. I don't usually read while I'm washing my hair, but since it's almost to my waist and is rather a production to wash, I only do it three times a week.

I honestly didn't know this was strange until I was out of college and mentioned it to my roommate. I had always read in the bathtub at home -- we didn't have a shower -- and kept it up in the showers in college, because it was always smart to take a book along anyway since you might have to wait for the few showers per floor. And I couldn't carry a big, heavy textbook down there, so light reading was permissible!

Actually, I guess I should just admit that I'm a book junkie. I have even read while kneading bread dough. (Not such a good idea. Do not try this at home!) If you have any further questions, just ask! And I hope to be back shortly with Katie #3.

Book Meme

Rosemary tagged me for the book meme that's been going around.

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people.

The nearest book to me is almost always whatever novel I'm working on. I read everywhere -- while cooking, in the bathroom, even in the shower! Since I have a free minute and I'm sitting here at the computer, my book is right by me..... The Grilling Season by Diane Mott Davidson. This is the seventh book in a series of mysteries-with-recipes; the main character and detective of sorts is a caterer.

Alas, page 123 is the end of a chapter, and only contains four sentences. So I'm moving to page 124.

"The interior consisted of a large space, fancifully called "the Ballroom," and a more intimate adjoining space known as "the Octagon." Both rooms provided unequaled views of the lake. There was a kitchen, too."


All the books are set in "Aspen Meadow", a theoretical suburb of Denver. This is a very typical place description. It goes on to mention that of course the kitchen doesn't have a view!

I tag Jen, Lindsay, Arwen, Tracy, and Kim.

I seem to remember that some of you have done this before, but not in the last six weeks -- I checked! Surely you must have a new book around by now. ;-D

Eleven and a Half!

Roger and I have a tradition that goes back at least five years and maybe longer. Whenever one of us has had too much same-old-same-old, or when things are crazy busy, or when we suddenly get a burst of the "I'm so glad I married you feeling", we will say to the other one "Nine!!", or some other number. This is a reference to how many months it is until our next scheduled Stratford visit.

As I said in my last post, we have been going there every January for ten years now, and I don't think I can possibly convey how many good feelings come with every repetition of "Six" or "Four". It doesn't even have to be a small number; just knowing that our Stratford week is coming is a guaranteed day-brightener. In fact, when I was seeing a counselor for my anxiety-panic disorder, one of my best relaxation scenarios was going mentally step-by-step through settling into room 201. (Yes, we are such creatures of habit that we ask for the same room every year. We've only had a different one twice, and one of those is exactly the same layout, just one flight up.) The window to 201 is the one right above the sign on the picture of Bentley's Annex above. The pictures in the link are actually of room 201 :-D !

And what do we do after we've settled into room 201? (The candles go here, my underwear goes in this drawer, put the DVD's on that side of the desk.) NOTHING!!! Or at least, as little as possible. We go out for breakfast and dinner, and sometimes for coffee if they haven't done the room while we were out. (Actually, as a person who likes coffee best as a flavoring, I always have a caffe mocha -- theirs are the BEST.) Sometimes we do some shopping -- we have a bookstore we're partial to (Callan Books on York Street; they don't seem to have a website.) -- and sometimes we take a walk through the snow. (There is almost always snow, but that's OK. It wouldn't be OUR Stratford week without snow.) But usually we spend our time in the double Jacuzzi reading books and drinking ginger beer. When our skin starts to pucker, we get out and read some more, or play Trivial Pursuit, or watch a movie. (This is usually a "chick flick" -- I have the best husband in the world, who humors me. He watches "guy movies" with our sons.) If we get hungry, we eat some cheese and crackers, (or kippers for Roger!) or have a piece of shortbread. Three full meals a day would be too much when we're not doing anything. And this year we did even more nothing than usual, because we were still getting over the flu. Some nights we went to bed at 8 PM!

This year our shopping was curtailed a little bit by the strong Canadian dollar. Some years when we exchanged our money at the border, we got half-again as much Canadian. This year, it was a tiny bit less than our US amount. But we made sure we had enough for Callan's, and two of our other favorite places, Rheo Thompson Candy
and Distinctly Tea.

Rheo Thompson is a Stratford institution, and while all their candy is wonderful, we tend to over-indulge in mint smoothies and dark chocolate ginger. And Distinctly Tea ...... well, I think I've already mentioned that I've raised a family of tea snobs. Cold water brought to a rolling boil (but not for too long), brewed exactly so long in a warmed pot, and has to be good tea. Currently Katie and I are on an "single-estate tea" kick. It's a really good thing that American tourists who stay more than 48 hours in Canada can bring back a lot duty free!

So that was our week in Stratford -- sleep, eat, rinse (in the Jacuzzi!), repeat. And all I can say is -- "Eleven and a half!"

Off to Stratford

Anybody who lives in this (eastern Great Lakes) neck of the woods has probably heard of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It's hard to miss the aggressive advertising (Canada wants your tourist dollars!), and the hokeyness of the fact that the town really is named Stratford, and really is on the Avon river. (Lots of places in Canada are like that, actually; named for the old country by homesick immigrants.) Although the quality of the theatre productions is excellent -- or so I've been told; I've never seen one -- Stratford in summer is a tourist trap of the highest order. Where else could a simple diner-class restaurant call itself "The Elizabethan" and serve spaghetti with meat sauce and salad (on the same plate!) as the lunch special and be loved by budget-minded theatre-goers?

Stratford in summer is definitely avoidable. The theater season lasts from late April to late October. The streets are crowded, hotel rooms cost big bucks, parking is hard to come by. And then there's January! In January, Stratford is a pretty, snow covered small town. Hotel rooms are half price, even the premium ones like in Bentley's Annex. Not every interesting little shop is open, but the ones that are are nearly deserted. You can hold a conversation with the proprietor, if you like. The posh, expensive restaurants shut down for the winter, but there are wonderful options like Bentley's proper, or Fellini's, or York Street Kitchen. Roger and I have been going there for at least a long weekend every January since the winter of 1999. And we leave tomorrow!!

FLU!

I hate it! I thought I was exhausted before, but then flu hit our household, and I haven't been able to do ANYTHING for 48 hours. Just typing this is exhausting. I'll be back when we're better.

Christmas makes you feel emotional ....

...and it also makes you really tired! I've been working on this post for a week; the original opening paragraph is below...

..It may bring parties or thoughts devotional.
Whatever happens or what may be
Here is what Christmastime means to me...

This is the practically unknown opening verse to a rather well-known song. Big round of applause to anybody who figures out which one before I tell you at the end! (And please let me know in the comments if you did.) I learned it in the eighth grade in glorious SSA harmony, and sang with a hand-picked small group at the school Christmas concert. I'm very grateful that forty years later my children's school still has Christmas concerts, not "holiday" or "winter" concerts. (Well, the "winter" concert is in February.) The choir director actually uses a great deal of religious music year-round; it's just that half or more of it is in languages other than English, and therefore has an "educational" purpose. The band director, who has an easier time because there are no words, does things like use the Mannheim Steamroller arrangement of Patapan, (what could be more secular than Mannheim Steamroller?), and only a few of us hear "Thus the men of olden days came the King of Kings to praise..."

I am always affected by music, and my first realization that this year Christmas was making me feel emotional was a tendency to tears every time I heard I'll Be Home for Christmas because all my kids were really going to be home.

As I mentioned to my kids several times during the week, no Christmas is perfect, but this one rated 99 and 44/100! (For you young'ns, that was the reputed purity of Ivory soap.) I had everything well enough under control to go out for a relaxed lunch with my daughters and SIL on Christmas Eve. This was a present I had specifically asked for, and since Rosie and Anthony had to head home on the 26th, the 24th was the best time. It was wonderful! We went to a funky local coffeehouse/cafe with a full menu and eclectic decor, which was as empty as I've ever seen it at lunchtime. I guess not everybody had it as together as we did :-)

That evening we had our traditional "pig leg" dinner. We buy a country ham from Burger's, and the first time Rosie saw one -- she was about five -- she said "That looks like a pig leg!" So grocery store ham is just ham, but the special holiday hams are "pig leg." I buy it cooked, and heat it on top of frozen green beans, and they are the most-eaten vegetable I ever serve. This year I did five pounds (of beans!; more like 15 of ham), and had a few leftovers. But the consensus was to go back to four pounds, so that the flavor would be stronger. As long as they don't fight over them!

After dinner we had a fire in the fireplace, evening prayers, and readings (all the way from the Grinch to the Gospel of Luke), and then we hung our stockings. The mantel barely can hold 14, if you put one on each end. We need a bigger fireplace (and house!). Katie and I went of to sing in the choir for 10 PM mass, the babies were put to bed, and everybody else went to work on putting the presents under the tree. It took close to two hours, and some nifty stacking by Arwen, to get them all fitted in. Then everybody turned in to get as much sleep as possible.

Christmas morning was stockings and prayers starting at 7:30, breakfast at 8 (grapefruit, sausage links, scrambled eggs, and Roger's amazing home-made sticky buns -- he got up at 6!), 9:30 mass for all, and then the presents. As Arwen mentioned on her blog, we open one present at a time. The presents are picked out in age rotation, youngest to oldest, and the only rule is that you can't pick something that's for you. (We relaxed that rule once, years ago when Katie was a toddler, because she kept picking out presents for herself. It took us a couple of rounds to realize that although she couldn't read, she could recognize her first initial! :-D )

Although one present at a time is slow -- almost three hours this year -- it gives everybody the most time to enjoy seeing others enjoy. My favorite mental picture from this year is really-cool-almost-fifteen Tommy bouncing up off the couch to hug his aunt and uncle when he realized that they'd bought him access to a much-desired online computer game. I suppose when we get up to 20 grandchildren, as Rosie's in-laws will do this year, we might have to change the system, but I'll miss it!

After Arwen and Bryan had departed to do Christmas again with Camilla's other grandparents, the rest of us lazed around, cleaned up the living room (which was a mess despite the three black trash bags of paper, tags, etc. we had filled while unwrapping), and eventually ate the tamales I made earlier in the month. In the evening we discovered that my sister-in-law, who is a bit of a movie buff, had never seen the original National Treasure, so we watched that. And then we dragged our weary selves to bed.

Most Christmas posts would end here, but since we are old-fashioned sticklers who observe the twelve days I'll give skating highlights. Day 2 -- Rosie, Anthony, and Daniel returned home. I got crabby (sorry, family) because routine chores like laundry were piling up, and nobody wanted to pitch in. Day 3 -- the female contingent went to see Enchanted. I've now been to it three times, and all I can say is GO!

Day 4 my brother and SIL departed for home in Pennsylvania. They had originally planned to stay another day, but my brother, who is a hunter, hadn't gotten his deer yet, so he wanted to be able to hunt on Saturday. On the same day Tommy's friend "Evan" arrived. Evan is also from Pennsylvania, and he and Tommy actually became friends on an online forum, but over the past year we've met up at places like state parks and confirmed that neither he nor we are whackos, so he flew out for a couple of days over break.

Evan is great, but his presence meant that for the next few days Tommy did most of his sleeping in the daytime .. they were on the computer all night. And since computer-geek George was hanging out with them AND with his local pals... much daytime snoozing!

Days 5 and 6, in addition to snoozing boys, included housecleaning, mass on Sunday, and a lot of granddaughter time. Somewhere in there most everybody but me went to see National Treasure 2. I would have enjoyed it, but stayed with Camilla so Arwen and Bryan could go together. I'll see it on video, most likely.

Day 7 was a lot of cooking. Ever since most of our kids can remember we've hosted a kid-and-teen-friendly New Year's Eve party, consisting of some games, singing the doxology on the front porch at midnight, and MOUNTAINS of food. This year I took the radical step of changing the menu, and it was a good idea. There were still lots of leftovers, but they were different leftovers. And nobody minded too much, since I left in the stick pepperoni and lots of olives! We had 29 people, only 5 of whom were over 21!

New Year's Day -- Christmas Day 8 -- is also the feast of Mary, Mother of God. So we stirred out the whole crew (some of whom had had only two or three hours of sleep) and attended 9:30 AM mass. Then almost everybody went back to bed! And in the afternoon Arwen, Bryan and Camilla headed home.

Day 9 was a hard and crazy one. Roger and Tommy headed out early in the morning to drop George and Evan at two different airports, with a stop to see Rosie and Daniel in the middle. While they were gone, we got 6 to 8 inches of snow in about 3 hours. This is one of the "benefits" of living "near a Great Lake" (within walking distance, actually) -- you sometimes get "lake effect" snow. I had to go out during the snow, and it looked and drove like a blizzard all the way, but by the time Roger returned it was sunny and clear. Ah, Michigan!

Days 10. 11, and 12 were more-or-less normal household routine, except that Maggie, Katie, and Tommy were all home instead of at school or college. I spent as much time as possible sitting and reading near the Christmas tree, since I knew it would soon be gone. And Camilla and her parents returned on Saturday, because there was a surprise 85th birthday party for Bryan's grandfather.

Sunday was the feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord. The choir sang at 11:30 mass. One of the things I love about Epiphany is that you usually get to sing ALL the verses of carols like We Three Kings, instead of just the familiar verses of many Christmas carols. (I have a garbage-can memory, and know all the verses to everything, almost, or at least my kids think so.) And so our Christmas season came to an end.

Actually, Monday should have been called the 13th day, with all the negative connotations of that number. I spent twelve hours taking down the tree and other decorations. No wonder I'm exhausted!

(The song is Silver Bells. I also know all kinds of rarely-heard little echo bits, which I will spare you!!)

Emmanuel!

"O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God."

So this is the last of the O Antiphons. Everybody, probably, has heard the Advent carol O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And this antiphon is its origin. It pretty much sums up what the antiphons have been leading us to pray for days -- You, who have all these characteristics, and merit all these titles, come! Because we are eagerly awaiting that awe-inspiring mystery God-with-us!

(This is probably my last post until Thursday or so, so to all of you --and you know who you are!-- have a blessed and happy Christmas day, full of love and joy!)

King and Keystone

" O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart: O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust."

The O antiphons are coming to an end! Every year when they start, and it's clear that Christmas is soon, seven of them still sounds like a large number, that will take a while to get through. But this is number six. And I am "not ready". This means that the wrapping is not all done, and a few more things should be bought, to fill in holes in my list that I didn't realize I had.

But that's my Martha side coming out. The antiphon doesn't refer to "the day everything has to be done by." George came home last night, a day earlier than I expected him! (Apparently the whole rest of the family was in on it.) And even though he was early, and everything wasn't ready (like making Tommy clear his stuff off George's bed) I was overjoyed to see him. How much more should I welcome "the only joy of every human heart"!

Radiant Dawn

" O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death."

The references to "darkness and the shadow of death" in yesterday and today's antiphons are quotes, from the prayer of Zechariah after the birth of John the Baptist. (It's found in Luke 1:68-79.) In the translation I know best, the end of it goes:

In the tender compassion of our God
The dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
And to guide our feet into the way of peace.

In the last few days I've learned about a number of people who are literally living "in the shadow of death" -- the son of a friend who has melanoma on his liver (discovered through an X-ray for pneumonia!), an elderly friend who's been on oxygen for years but now can't keep his blood levels up, a woman whose elderly father (who lived with her) just died who has such an intense job that she has no time to grieve. All of these people know and love God, but that doesn't stop them from bearing the weight of the darkness. But God has tender compassion for all of them, and us, and the "dawn from on high" will break. No wonder we await His coming!

Key of David

"O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of heaven: come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom."

I had never noticed before I started this posting on the O Antiphons just how much they refer to freedom. I think we all tend to forget, because our lives are so comfortable (especially compared to most people through most of history), how bound we are. I'm bound by customs that have become law in my head, and by my own pre-judgements of things and situations, and by choices I've made in the past, and many other things I'm rarely aware of. Just because there are no chains on my ankles doesn't mean I don't need the Lord to come and set me free!