Vanishing act

 [And now, a political message from our sponsor]

             I need Jimmy Stewart.  I need him bad.   You remember him in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?  Just a regular guy, a Boy Scout leader, who finds government thrust upon him and rises to a very ethical and obligatory service to his fellow citizens.  He came from the life of the common man: no big money to stand between him and sickness or inconvenience or economic downturn.  He owned no businesses with accountants and lawyers on the payroll.  He knew pretty much nothing about Big Business, Big Education, Big Deals.  When he got to Washington, his heart was broken – but he learned the rules and did his best to do right by those of us who are so easily forgotten in that place—the normal folk who work and worry about money and try to be good neighbors.

            How is it that the guys who run now, with all their endless money and influence and connection, with their buddies in special interest and their taste for lobbyists’ lunches and nice suits – how can they hope to represent lives that are as far from their “normal” and familiar as The Avenue of the Americas is from Main Street in American Fork, Utah?  Is the reasoning that those “above” are qualified to speak for those whose lives are “lesser?”

            People were saying that they were uncomfortable with Mitt Romney—I think he was too much the Haaavard looking guy, clean cut, obviously a wealthy, classy guy who was a little too country club.  Out of touch, they thought, with real people.  Makes me wonder what people would be saying about Mr. Obama if, all other things being the same, his skin just happened to be white?  Skin color never has registered big with me.  But peoples’ choices do.

            [This message brought to you by somebody who is more than tired of this campaign and its wearying rhetoric.]

—- o —-

            The month of weirdness proceeds . . .

            Sometimes it gets little weird when everybody’s home at once.  Once upon a time, when we sat down to dinner or got into the car or walked through the front door together after a family out-ing, we knew exactly how many of us we were.  Oh, once in a while – maybe just before we started Murphy – times like that –  we’d get to feeling like somebody was missing.  Then came the stretch – oh, between, say, 1998 and the rest of our lives – when people actually did go missing, sometimes just for an evening, sometimes with all their clothes and books and for days, weeks, months, years at a time.  And often, when they did come home, they were dragging satellites. When you live in your kid’s college town, life stages become more montage than mosaic.

            So with Kris and Sultan here, then Kris gone, then Frazz and Sultan here, then Gin and Kris and Max and Sultan here – but only half the time, because we have to share them with Kris’ folks (who we love and would not cheat out of their time with them for hardly anything) – and then Kris and Gin and Frazz gone to St. George, but Cam and Scooter here.  Then gone.  Then L and Cam and Scooter, then not for several days. Then to Gin and fam to Flagstaff, then back again.  And with Murph packing everything he will need for two years of his life into three pieces of luggage, it was hard to keep score (program, anyone?).

            Add the fact that Gin is very allergic to horses, and that I have to feed my five twice a day and you get this quick change thing going: I had to dress and undress (including shoes and socks and coats and jackets) without involving any generally occupied areas of the house (including the washroom) before I went, then when I got home, then before I went again, then when I got home.   But if this is the price of having my baby in my house for more that three minutes at a time, show me where the ticket booth is and I’ll buy the place out.

            We took the Christmas picture during one all-kids-all-the-time window, which was good because my annual perm is beginning to droop, and besides, it’s always nice to show off our collection of leaves.

Not the real Christmas picture, but close.

            Do you remember when bedtime was the very best time of the day?  Now, it’s because when there are kids asleep in your house, they hold still and you can count them.

            And then there was discovering the mysteries of the world with Frazz.

         We had Murph’s birthday dinner at Red Lobster and said goodbye to John (who is off for seven months of boot camp, somewhere in one of the Carolinas). 

 

 

       Cam, an old hand at missionarying, helped Murphy pack everything – which was good, one major thing down.

 

Cam, taking a break from luggage advising to explain Murphy’s journey to a more than amazed Scoot

 And Chaz and I took Murphy birthday tie shopping.  It’s not like you can get a kid much stuff when the airlines are charging you $50-$150 dollars a bag if you go over your weight allowance.

 

 

Chaz shared her Wii with Frazz, and found out later that he loves to redesign your Miis.

            Cousins were in and out. 

            And the young mothers congregated.  And do they ask me for advice on things like babies (had four of them – natural child birth, thank you very much), nursing (let’s see – that’d be an aggregate eight years or so).  Fevers?  Baths? Pediatricians?  Sleeping through the night?

            No.  They ask each other. They are the mothers now.  They are the ones smack in the middle of real life.  (And how is this any different?)  Ha!  Blind leading the blind.  But that’s okay. .  I can opt out of changing diapers or burping people and certainly, of getting up in the middle of the night.  Now, I can just sit across the room and listen, taking pictures that almost break my heart. 

—-o—-

            I signed up for a Parelli horse training clinic.  I knew at the time that the thing would be happening two weekends before M was to leave.  But I thought Gin and Kris would be on a side-trip to California.  I was (still am, even in retrospect) so jealous of every moment of this wildly unlikely alignment of family stars, that I hated to give up any of it, even for horses.

            But I wanted to go this horse class thing and I was committed to it (nothing like making a deposit to keep you honest), and Guy drove me an hour south, hauling my stalwart Zi along behind.  It was going to be just me and my Zi, working together—far from telephones and chores. 

As for Zi?  Not only did he hate the trip there and back – standing up in a trailer for almost an hour cannot be great fun – it was work, far from green grass and blissful silence.  Still, he was very polite, and I can’t help but feel that it was a bonding experience for us – in spite of the fact that all he really wanted was to go home. (Does that ring any bells?)

“You get back up there and get that room clean!!!”

            I did feel like an idiot, trying to do all those cool things effectively, but this is a training experience I recommend for anybody with a horse or a dog or a child.  The class isn’t for the horse; it is to teach the person: how to communicate clearly, how to set rules, how to set up realistic and reasonable expectations and then realize them through your own discipline, and clear and sensitive responses. And it’s pretty much exactly what you read in the Good Books. This program has had a gigantic impact on the world of horse ownership—and could have the same in any interpersonal situation.

            Doreen was a fine, elegant, patient instructor.  And she didn’t even throw me out on my backside when I messed up and talked too much.

 

            We just watched a thing about Alex, the talking Amazon parrot.  This scientist, Irene Pepperberg, set out to create an actual relationship with an animal who could actually answer her questions.  Look this up on YouTube.  It’s amazing.  She established a common vocabulary first.  And after a while, she could ask him personal questions – about how he was feeling or thinking or wanting.

These shots are not mine.  They belong to the site below, where you can see vid of Alex.  It’s amazing.

http://randsco.com/_img/ video/023/alex_parrot2.jpg

www.123compute.net/ images/alex.jpg

        You hear this bird talking about this stuff, and you have to wonder: who would have thought that a parrot could have a self?  A self with desires, with states of mind, with an expectation of what life should be? 

         Makes you feel a little chagrinned, actually.  About the way we treat our animals. Like they don’t understand anything.  Like they don’t have real lives and opinions about things.  How rude have I actually been to my dogs, I wonder?

            And maybe – to my children?

           

—- o —-

            Chaz isn’t going anywhere just yet—back to the gene pool in January.  She isn’t toting husband and child.  I think she’d resent it if I told her she feels like a nice, well-blown up life preserver to me. But that’s what she’s been, slender little thing that she is.

            Ginna and Kris and Frazz left here the night before M went into the MTC.

            In one day—in less than that—the house went from burgeoning to empty.

            Who woulda thought???  Who could ever have guessed it could be so?

 

 

to be continued . . . but not for much longer -=