Sunday Scribblings: In the Last Hour

• In the last hour I have presided over bathtime and books.
• I have avoided the laundry, the dishes, and our bills.
• I have changed into play clothes and cursed the slow-draining tub.
• I have wished for better radio reception.
• I have been happy for Miss Amy getting air time on Kids Corner!
• I have been sad for C, who lost her job.
• I have been outraged that anyone, even someone who mostly works online, could be fired by email.
• I have been pleased to think about Grammy and Grampy being back online again.
• I have put lotion on my hands, which have been handling paper all day.
• I have called my sweetie, to urge her to head on home.
• I have dreamed of buying a few books online before my coupon expires.
• I have wondered if I could write an entry without using the word "I" once.
  
• And I have planned unearthing our Advent Calendar. While simultaneously looking forward to Leslie's.
  

(Thanks to the fun women of Sunday Scribblings
for their continuing inspiration.)

Likely Edward Gorey Death

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

Apparently, my fate is to be sucked dry by a leech. I should stay away from swimming holes, and stick to good old cement. Even if it does hurt like hell when my toe scrapes the bottom. But I LOVE swimming holes!
Take this quiz!

Poetry Thursday: Blue Walls

Blue Walls

The last thing we did
before he was born
was to cut down a huge tree
that was in decline.
Old life making way
for new.
The room burst wide
with sunshine.

When he was born
sleep became a dance.
He led; we followed.
We tried having him sleep
in the room with us,
but I woke with
every hiccup, every movement,
So across the hall he went.

My back still remembers
the leaning in,
the careful laying down
of our small bundle of boy in his crib.
We brushed the blue walls of his room
with a yellow night light
and delighted in the new lullabye
of his deep steady breaths.

--------------~

One day when I was seven
I suddenly noticed
that my bedroom walls
were pink. The next day
we went to the paint store.
Maybe someday soon
he’ll notice that his walls
are blue.

We’ll explain that we chose
blue not for boy
but for wide open sky,
for a view newly freed
of an old growth tree.
But he might ask
to head off to the paint store
anyway.

(Many thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration.)

Today's Reuters Iraq News

I am led to bear witness today. US military engagement in Iraq has now overtaken the length of America's involvement in World War II. The pain of this endless stream of broken hearts and families is difficult to comprehend or describe. We must wage peace. Emphases below are mine.

SAMARRA - Six policemen were killed and four wounded when a car bomb exploded near a police station in a town near Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad. Militants briefly occupied the building. A daylight curfew was imposed.

ANBAR PROVINCE - A U.S. Marine died from wounds sustained in combat while operating in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber targeting a police patrol killed a policeman and wounded seven people, including three policemen, in southwestern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber exploded near a police patrol, killing a policeman and wounding five civilians in al-Nidhal street in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

MOSUL - A suicide car bomber targeting a police station killed one civilian and wounded 23 in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Salahaddin province, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two policemen and wounded seven people, including two policemen, in Baghdad's al-Nahdha area, an Interior Ministry source said.

NEAR BAQUBA - The U.S. military said its forces killed eight insurgents and two women in an early morning ground assault supported by an air strike on a village near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. Iraqi police said a U.S.-Iraqi force killed eight civilians. Police said the dead were a man and his three sons and a neighbouring couple, their son and daughter.

DIWANIYA - Police said they found the body of a teacher with gunshot wounds in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad. Gunmen had kidnapped him on Tuesday.

Thanksgiving - Extended Dance Mix

I am thankful for our little house, with its modest demands on our time and its sturdy promise of warmth and shelter at day's end.

I am thankful for my health. D & T are both sick at the moment, but they'll get better, and I'm thankful for that, too.

I am thankful for new easy recipes that make me feel like a culinary wizard. (This year Chez Alice removed Carrot Ginger Soup from their holiday catering menu, and I was so disappointed that I decided to try to make my own. I don't think I'll ever need to have it catered again.)

I am thankful for shelves of poetry, there when I need it.

I am thankful for the family dealt to me, and for the family I have chosen.

I am thankful for the excitement of imagining presents carefully chosen and joyfully received.

I am thankful for cold evenings and covers to burrow into.

I am thankful for you, reader who shares a little warmth with me here in this new world we create with our words and imagination.

I am thankful for a good night's rest.

Haiku - Legacy

Towel on shoulder,
sink steam rising as you work:
third generation.

My favorite kinds of legacies are the ones you don't realize you're leaving. When my mom is working in the kitchen, she almost always has a dish towel hanging over her shoulder. To me, it signals readiness to create. At some point in my adult life, I realized that I, too, drape a towel over my shoulder while cooking. Whether I make use of it or not, I feel incomplete without it. This past week, in the run-up to Thanksgiving, D requested a towel for his shoulder as he stood on a chair by the sink helping with the dishes.

None of us planned this. It just happened. And we couldn't be happier.

(Thanks as always to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.)

Sunday Scribblings: Arch-Enemy

The line pictured above is the work of my nemesis.

It's a line of people waiting to buy the new XBox game system. Last year, I think, or whenever the latest version was.

My nemesis is the mindlessly consumerist culture we live in here in the US.

I fight it every day. And the battle intensifies for the month leading up to Christmas.

Gotta get my game on. And I don't mean XBox.

(For more arch-enemy action,
head on over to Sunday Scribblings.)

Insider's Guide to Our Thanksgiving

All 40 RSVP's actually showed up. And a few brought a friend. We had one non-Princetonian, one US resident, and a whole bunch of grateful and hungry undergrads.

We didn't go out. (Except to snag some last minute provisions this morning.)

Instead, we spent our whole day inside, opening our home to as many international Princeton undergrads as we could possibly squeeze in.

Early on, it seemed as if Princeton maybe hadn't gone co-ed after all...

But soon enough, there were boys. And more girls. And standing room only.

In any given year, about ten percent of Princeton's freshman class comes from someplace other than the continental US. Because Princeton's financial aid policies are so incredibly generous, it is sometimes the case that these students come from families of very modest means. A ticket home for a holiday that is a non-event in their home country may well be an unaffordable indulgence. And what IS Thanksgiving, anyway? Not having grown up celebrating this particular holiday, the students who are left on campus are left pressing their noses up against the metaphorical windows of American abundance and excess.

In what has become our Thanksgiving tradition, we tuck them under our wing and try to offer them a "traditional" American Thanksgiving, while at the same time explaining to them how we've tweaked it to include them and a whole bunch of side dishes neither of us ever had growing up in upstate New York.

And the pressure is totally off. They're so happy and grateful, if I mess something up, we just laugh it off and make a note for next year. Ran out of ice cream. Could have skipped the crudites.

D has never known any other Thanksgiving. And his list of helper duties gets longer every year. Last year, washing the potatoes. This year, washing and MASHING!

There's not much left. But if the doorbell rang right now, I'd be the first one to invite whoever was standing on the stoop inside. There's still a little pie.

(Thanks to the women of Mama Says Om
for their continuing inspiration.)

Helping Hands

(Pie making, 20 lb. turkey, shoulder towel, recycling)

As of this writing, the RSVP's are clocking in at 40 people from about 20 countries.

Every year for the past six or so years, we have invited international Princeton students, who are often too far from home to get back there, over here for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. It started out with a small gesture towards a few students T found headed for the Wawa on the day after Thanksgiving. It has become something quite a bit larger.

Our house is on the small side. (Unless you live in Manhattan, in which case we live in relatively palatial decadence.)

Some folks who have been here and who have just now read that RSVP number are, I can reliably report, thinking, "Are they insane?"

We think every year about not doing it. For a few minutes. And then we get an email from a senior who's been here every year and hopes to make it "four for four." Or from a tentative freshman wondering if there might be the possibility of pumpkin pie for dessert.

Like many people, our Thanksgiving tradition has become an "all hands on deck" kind of event. And it gives us great joy to be able to include D in the work, something which he, too, is excited about.

He remembers scrubbing the potatoes last year and this morning eagerly asked if he could have that job again. You betcha, kiddo.