Fancy Schmancy, Know-it-all Nancy.

For someone who only knew how to make grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for the first half of her life, I've developed a surprisingly intimate relationship with cooking magazines in the past decade or two.  Granted, simply subscribing to a magazine does not guarantee that a person becomes a master chef--or even a passable one-- but I have certainly learned a thing or two from these publications over the years.

. . . although I've never quite figured out how to say the word "Savuer."

Which is probably why I let that subscription expire recently.

As though it wasn't bad enough that I once had to look up the words "haricot verts" (what us simple folk would call "green beans"),  I don't even know how to properly reference the magazine that used that hoity toity term.  Yeah, I'm a fickle subscriber who actually expects to understand most of the words tucked between the glossy covers.

Truth is, I have always been suspicious of fifty-cent words stapled to penny-candy items.  And, really, who can blame me? I mean, I'm the daughter of a journalist, as well as a journalism teacher. That means I break out into an asthma attack simply glancing at a paragraph that includes more than 25 or 30 words.

All the more reason to pity me, considering that I swim in the professional sea of education, an ocean whose waters are gleefully stocked with polysyllabic poppycock.

Why say "work friends" when you can say "colleagues?"  And who wants to tell people "what I did today" when you can enlighten them with an impromptu lecture about your "pedagogical philosophies?"  Did I ever tell you how much I hate the word "pedagogy?"  The mere sound of it sends proletarian paroxysms shivering through my body. (Yeah, I know.  Those are big words.  Never said I was a purist)

I have the same reaction when Alex Trebek--who has all of the answers typed out in front of him!--has the gaul to say "Gaugin" like he just walked out of a Parisian pastry shop.

I'd originally set out to blog about the joys of savoring things, the pleasure of taking the time to take our time.  But nooooo,  I had to find some clever "in," a lead that would catch and captivate. Thus, the reference to Savuer Magazine.  And now look at me.   I've gone and blathered about fancy words instead, wasting my time on the top-tiered fancy cats and their two-dollar terms.

Alex Trebek would be proud.  But me?  I'm feeling a bit queasy.  Or "indisposed," if you will.

Meandering Through My Memory's Lane

The term "memory lane" must have been coined by someone who was wandering the streets of her childhood neighborhood.  As corny as it sounds rolling off the lips, the phrase takes on heady significance when your Nissan Altima is rolling by the only home you knew as a child, the windows cracked wide to let in all those sweet, long-ago days.

Such was my experience last night as I eased off A Street and slowly wound my way up Twin Ridge Road towards Jill's house. 

How is it that I can walk into the school office each afternoon, wondering what it is that I was supposed to do there, only to have a savant's gift for recollection three hours later, remembering names and faces, the sound of someone's long-ago cackling laughter?

. . . and when Duke-now-David looks up from his plate and calls Jill "Pill?"  It is as though someone has cracked open my skull and blown off the dust of some ancient file cabinet whose sun-starved contents finally come to light.

I am lucky indeed to have these childhood friends among me.  Like a favorite, thread-bare shirt, they are still so familiar, so comfortable against my skin.  Mike, whose long, sun-bleached hair is now close cropped, his words--still warm--slightly bent from all those years out east.  Duke-now-David, a heart hastily taped to his sleeve, unable to stave the flow of sweet memories played out in now-faded photos and notes scrawled in childish loops.  Jill-once-Pill--hostess extraordinaire--who, despite acrid memories of my sweaty, young feet, opens her home with the graciousness that only a strong woman knows.

Joy, too, forever Jill's younger, more fashionable sister.  Joy is there, too, now softened and warmed by a life that has not always been easy.  And, finally, there is Jeannie--Mrs. Johnson--whose quiet laugh and loving kindness have warmed me for so many of my 52 years.  That she, too, so readily shares the stories of our youth lived out on warm August nights on Sumner Street?  Her stories assure me that I have not made up the whole thing.  That these people, indeed, are real and my childhood was, indeed, that sparkly and that joyful.

Most friendships are tagged by the locations in which they were formed--we have our "school friends," our "college friends," our "work friends."  Many of these friendships ebb and flow, anchored by a timeline determined by that location.  My "childhood friends," though, should simply be called "my friends," for theirs is a love forged young yet strong, and set for life.  They have endured too much to succumb to the whims of time and place.

Shopping the Apocalypse

We narrowly averted a personal-products crisis in the Holt household earlier this week, when I mistook paper towels for toilet paper.  I have no idea what compelled Mark to buy an 8-pack of paper towels in the first place.  That he stored them where the toilet paper usually goes?  Well, now you're just talking crazy!

I don't believe I have bought 8 rolls of paper towels in my entire life of buying things.  I don't use them.  In fact, I'm always caught a bit off guard when I'm in a friend's kitchen and spy one of those wooden paper-towel holders on the counter  It's as though I've spotted some exotic butterfly I'd only seen in books. My God!   I think to myself, These people use paper towels!

So, given their bulk and odd location, a girl can be forgiven for assuming they were something else, right? 

I sent Mark back to the store yesterday to rectify his earlier mistake.  He came back with a 12-pack of Scott Single-Ply industrial toilet paper.  (I can practically hear some of your lips sneering in derision, you persnickety, two-ply snobs, you). Twelve double rolls of toilet paper for a two-person household.  The audacity!  As though Mark is just tempting the future to quit coming.

I'm nuts about Mark, but his apocalyptic-buying tendencies befuddle me.  It's as though he's finally hitched up the horses and is leaving the soddie for his quarterly trip into town for supplies.  I wave from the porch, hoping neither blizzard nor rattler will take him down before he makes it back home again with his 12-packs of soap, his industrial-sized detergent, his 8 rolls of paper towels.

He says seeing such bulk brings him some measure of comfort. I guess I can sort of see what he's saying. It's the same tenuous argument I occasionally make in defense of purchasing insurance.  It's just good to know we have it, in case we ever need it.  

For now, the Holt household is back in order, all things in their proper place.  And we face our future with the confidence that can only come from an abundance of single-ply prosperity, knowing we have what it takes to survive, until pa once again loads up the cart and heads into town.

Grateful for Owl Play

Local Screech Owls. Photo by Tim Brox

For the past few mornings, I have been regaled by the rhythmic mutterings of a great horned owl that has taken up residence in my neighbor's pine.  Now, I know that his song has not been limited to recent mornings any more than it has been directed towards me specifically, but I still feel fine about taking these serenades as signs for me.

And what exactly do these monotoned musical signs signal? Certainly, the answer is more complicated than the three-note calls I've been enjoying.  On the one hand, these pre-dawn songs act like a fishing lure,--an avian Daredevle Spinnie topped by a three-pronged trouble hook--snagging my mind and not letting go. Viewed through this lens, it seems obvious to me that the owl is pulling me outdoors, calling me to an afternoon spent in tall-grass prairie or tick-infested cottonwood stands.

On the other hand, those three notes leave me filled with longing, knowing my now-absent children are navigating the sometimes rough waters of life "out there"  while I lay atop cool sheets and listen. This interpretation is more difficult for me, since it is much harder to holler instructions from the sidelines than to just hop in the game and grab the ball myself.

But I do not want to live my children's lives for them.  I know this.  And so,  I repeat that thought when I need to, during those times when I hear the distress or isolation in their voices.

Fortunately, sometimes, the avian signs of an early-morning owl song intersect and I find both refreshment and resolution.  Take this afternoon, for instance, when Allison and I have a date with Pioneers Park, where, I suspect, we will alternate between calm silence and quiet anchoring.  It is a salve I am excited to apply.

Tonight, if I remember to pray before I fall asleep, I will give a nod to the neighborhood owls, whose songs both comfort and awaken me.