In mid-May, I was in North Carolina, attending a Writers’ Conference. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon. That evening, I was playing Words with Friends on my phone, and a message popped up from my sister in San Diego. It said, “WHO lives in a dangerous part of the country?!? It’s a good thing you’re out of town.”
And I said to myself, as I rolled my eyes, “Ollie, Mollie, Gollie. What’s happened now.”
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Our recycling day is Monday, when we put out our blue bin with cardboard, plastics, newspapers, etc. Or, on alternate weeks, the green bin, with yard waste.
Today, I’m recycling a manuscript.
A couple, or so, years ago, our Associate Pastor at church, Mary Alice, asked some church members to submit devotions for a booklet she wanted to put together for our church members, especially those who were on teams going on mission trips. Her plan was that we would all be reading the same words, whether at home in Waco, on vacations, or in China or Lebanon.It would be a bonding experience for us all. She enlisted some of us to write and gave each of us the theme and a Scripture reference. We wrote, sent our words to her, and she edited and compiled them all into a booklet. The response was positive, so she kept on doing it. Now, we do them for Advent and Lent and for the summer mission trips (which, this year, included China, Lebanon, South Texas, and many missions-related trips individuals and families made, all over the place).
There are, as you might imagine, deadlines for the submissions of these things, and I’m always pretty close to getting them in on time. I asked once if anyone was responsible and got them to her early, or did everyone else skid in just under the wire (or a little beyond the wire), like I did. “Oh, I do what most of my seminary professors did,” she said. “I set the deadline a little bit before I really need them, to give me some wiggle room.” Possibly not a good thing to admit, but there you go. And possibly not the sort of thing to tell me, who is now exposing it to all sorts of people. Anyway …
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Mike and Sandy, who were lovely neighbors, put the house next door to us on the market a couple of years ago.
We got this card in the mail from the realtor, the day the new folks arrived.
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Here’s how the story starts: I was at my sister, JoAnne’s, one July 4th. In the afternoon, after a traditional
a traditional strawberry shortcake, Mom Goodwin-style
Fourth lunch of burgers and hotdogs with her family, she said, “I think we should have Strawberry Shortcake for dinner, just like Mom Goodwin used to make.”
“What?!?!?” I didn’t recall any such tradition. Our dad grew up in northwestern Ohio, in Wauseon. We would go, every two or three years, for a summertime visit. We’d stay for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t remember ever being there on Independence Day, and I certainly never heard about having Strawberry Shortcake for dinner. Ever. So, she told me how she learned about it.
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I had a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses when I was a kid, and I remember reading the poem “My Shadow.” It must have made a great impression on me, because I can still recite the first two lines. (Okay, maybe not all that impressive, but I do remember what the poem was about.) It came to mind this week, as Peter’s here. So, I reworked the poem to describe my shadow.
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Okay. I’ll admit it. No reason to pretend. I am totally wrapped around Grandson Peter’s little finger
The sun really hurts his eyes. So he has a cool pair of sunglasses. Of course, a little redundant when he’s asleep.
(well, most of the time). And, having accepted that as pretty much a given, I began to wonder where the phrase came from.
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There was a hang tag on our front door a while back. (Almost a year ago, I also used the term “hang tag” in a post. The post’s content was about how much every day life had changed. My niece wrote and said, that, yes, things had changed. When she read the words “hang tag,” in her head, she said “hash tag,” and wondered where I was going with the information. No, it’s “hang tag.” At least today.)
The hang tag (remember, that’s what we’re focusing on) was a message from Oncor, our electricity provider, letting us know that they were going to be trimming back some tree limbs that were in danger of causing problems with electric lines, in case of wind or ice. Many, many days went by, and I presumed they had decided that our trees didn’t need any pruning. Hah.
Then they showed up. They politely rang the doorbell and told me (as opposed to asking me) what they were there for, and explained, and I said, yes, I remembered getting the information. And they took their big ol’ power tools to the back yard and went to work on the pecan tree.
There have been a few uproars around town over the past few years about the tree trimming, most recently in a neighborhood with many old, old oak trees. Trees that got decimated. People were furious; meetings were held; decisions were made. The electric company agreed to be more upfront with people, give more warning, and be more deliberate about what needed to be cut away and what could safely stay. But the upshot was that, to preserve continuous electricity, to have a safe environment underneath power lines, large tree limbs need to be trimmed.
There was lots of buzzing and whirring in my back yard. At one point, one worker came to explain something to me,
All the nice logs we have for outdoor decor options and little boy hammering
and I saw a large chunk of tree lying on the ground. I pointed and said, “I want to keep that,” thinking that I could make a plant stand or something from it, and/or Peter could hammer nails into it. Not only did they leave it for me, they cut it into manageable pieces for me. A few small limbs needed to be trimmed from the crape myrtle tree and the hedge, too.
The pecan tree looked … not quite its robust self. “It’s okay,” I thought. From the street, it looked much worse. “It’ll look better when it leafs out,” I thought. Not much.
The solution is, of course, for whomever is working on that time machine to get busy and have it be operational, so we can go back in time to the winter of 1960 and tell my dad to NOT plant the tree so close to the back lot line! Move it in, by, maybe, 20 feet at least! Then, we will not have this problem. And I can give you a list of addresses of nearby homes whose 1960 (or so) owners also need a heads up.
I do understand that it’s all part of living in community. If I live in a house, isolated out in the country, my trees will be all right, pretty much wherever they are. If I live in a city, in a neighborhood, we have a responsibility to work together to make safe, appropriate choices for each other. Meanwhile, it makes for some pretty odd looking trees.
For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Isaiah 55:12 (NRSV)
If broken human beings can come to Jesus, then I’m assuming that even deeply pruned trees can still clap their hands in joy. Hallelujah! Amen!
I’ve been teaching preschoolers in Sunday School for many, many years. I enjoy it. It’s just more fun than going to Sunday School with adults. We laugh more. We move more. And the snacks are often better.
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This is a short post.
“You can read this book to me, Mimi. ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ by Dr. Seuss.” Yes, I can. I can read it in a chair. I can read it in the air. I can read it in my lap. I can read it while I nap. I can read it in the car. I can read it from afar. What, oh, what will make me better? I can feed it to the shredder!
We’ve had a guest this week who’s taken up lots of my time.
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Sunday before last, I went to Fort Worth to keep Peter while April was spending time with her mom, who was having a couple of medical procedures done on Monday and Wednesday. Hah!
Monday, all of Fort Worth woke up to sleet and snow and freeeeezing temperatures and no work or school or traveling, and certainly no medical procedures. So, the only thing that happened was that Peter got bundled up and went outside with his parents to enjoy the unusual weather (while I stayed on the porch).
Things were still undecided on Tuesday (and thawing out), so I said I could go on home and come back when they needed me, and would it help if I took Peter back to Waco with me.
Aside: Ever since April got pregnant, Kevin has been asking me when I thought we’d be able to keep Peter for a night or so, so they could have a break/vacation/getaway. I said, not until he’s walking well and doesn’t have to be carried around all the time. Last fall, they came for a few days, to help a friend’s mom do some work at her home out in the country. One of those days, Peter was asleep when they got back to our house, and still asleep when they left in the morning. So, technically, we did a one-night sleepover with us and without them. I thought we could make it work this time.
Tuesday, over lunch, we decided that yes, it would help to have Peter away from the house for a couple of days, and April and I scurried around, me getting myself packed up (I only left my house shoes and a hanger behind), and April getting Peter packed up, trying to get us on the road before he fell asleep so he could nap in the car.
Tuesday night-FINALLY asleep!
Things went fine until Tuesday night bedtime. Ollie, Mollie, Gollie! He wept and sobbed and grieved-Mommy/Daddy/Mommy/Daddy, and for an hour or so, I rocked him and sang to him, until I was hoarse. I finally put him into the crib and said, “It’s time to go to sleep. I will rub your back; close your eyes.” He closed his eyes and put his darling little hands over his eyes to keep them closed, and he was so sweet, I got all mooshy schmooshy inside. But, I did think that, if this happened Wednesday night, too, he’d have to go right back home.
Watching the Waco snowfall on Wednesday morning.
But it didn’t; he was absolutely fine, for days. I talked to Kevin on Thursday and said things were going great, and Kevin said everything was on hold, medically, but April was getting lots of other important things done, and could Peter stay longer and I said, sure, we’ll bring him back Sunday after church.
We went to three libraries, one grocery store, one museum, twice to West Avenue Elementary School for Reading Club, and a trip to Target. But, no walks, no parks, no playing in the yard and not even any playing in the sand box in the garage. Tooooooo colllllld! But we did buy a set of construction trucks like he has at home. There, he plays with them in a sand box on the back porch or on a tray of dried beans inside. We got some rice instead and used Tupperware containers, not wanting to spend any time playing in the sand box in our frosty garage.
Granddad is an excellent playmate, and the instant he arrived home each evening, he was the preferred partner for dining, playing, bathtimes and bedtimes. Which made for restful evenings for me.
One of the funnier incidents: Early Saturday morning (before David had to go to a meeting), I made a quick trip to Target for more diapers. I spent several minutes looking at my numerous choices and got a small package of Huggies or Luvs or something, that had monkeys and purple designs on them, which I didn’t realize until I’d gotten them home and opened the plastic packaging. Too bad, I’d already torn open the package. But, they did what disposable diapers are supposed to do. Later, after the third trip to a library, we came home, David was home, and we had some lunch, and David put Peter down for a nap. About half an hour later, Peter came roaring out of the room, shouting, “I waked up, Granddad! I waked up!” He was waving the plastic packaging from the diapers. “I need throw this away,” he said soberly. So, what had happened was, he stayed in the crib for 5 minutes or so, then climbed out, got on the big bed, removed all the diapers from the package, strewing them all over the bed, looked at the package and developed a strategy that he hoped would fly. It did not. He did throw away the plastic, but then we kissed him good night once more, and put him back in the crib, with stern(ish) directives to stay in it and go to sleep. Which he did.
When we got home from Fort Worth Sunday evening, we came in, 
walked past the high chair, crunched over grains of rice on the floor, and walked by the room where the crib is. The little night-light was still on.
“It’s pretty quiet in here,” David said. And it was. In a good way, but in a lonesome way, too.
Two weeks from today, if you’re reading this on Friday, they’ll be here for a Waco ComicCon. I hope it’s warmer and we can move those trucks outside, because it will take me that long to get rid of all the rice on the floor.
Then, I think they’ll be here two weeks after that, for Easter. I’m grateful they live so close.