Today I am thankful for errands. For an excuse to be outside in the colors and the sunshine. For the chance to be out of the house and juggling numbers in my head. For trade-in credit at the used book store and Naked Fruit smoothies on sale. Even for the postal worker who thinks I’m a moron and aching feet. For my day today and next week and the week after that I give thanks.

Not having any official responsibilities at the Reformation Day Faire, I got to skip the early exit, and leisurely left the house around nine to head to Go Play with just myself, two boys, an entire costume change for the Reformation Day Faire including different shoes and a blanket to use for a shawl in case it was cold, and just in case, a craft project and my medical terminology textbook.

Go Play was its usual fun with a discussion of the ins and outs of playing Battlestar Galactica, a game of Sabetour (in which I tied for first), and two games of Dominion (in both of which, I think, I came in second). Things were just really starting to gear up when it came time for me to head over to Ref Faire. Theresa was there to take over ‘watching boys at Go Play’ shift, and I’d decided that I wanted to get to Ref Faire in time for the outside events starting in the afternoon.

A brief excursus here into the subject of my new haircut: I just got my hair cut very short, for me. It’s a few inches past my shoulders, with swept to the side bangs. I spent the first twenty to thirty minutes at the Reformation Day Faire fielding “I LOVE your new haircut!” comments. Part of me honestly enjoyed the attention I don’t usually get, and part of me started to find it just a bit ridiculous. For those who are wondering, yes, I like my new haircut, no, I didn’t freak out about getting that much cut off, and no, I probably won’t keep it. I got my five minutes of fame for a having a ‘cool’ hair cut, and I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but (I think) I’ll be ready to head back toward being a person with long hair by time I’d need to get it trimmed.

I spent most of my time chatting with people I haven’t seen in a long time, or with people I mostly know through the internet, punctuated by hanging out with old friends on the security team (or chatting at the registration desk) and getting the inside scoop on what was going on.

I re-discovered something about myself, which is that I really prefer to be working behind the scenes over getting the apparently seamless presentation. I ‘got’ to help out in the kitchen a bit, and serve the salad for the spaghetti dinner the church put on. This involved keeping salad served up in bowls as fast as people could come take it, helping two people with food allergies, and telling multiple people that the salad in the bowls already had dressing on it. At one point I was falling behind and running out of salad, so I needed some help to keep up with the salad consumption, (obviously, involving time pressure and dealing with people, both of which usually just stress me out) and at the end my feet and back hurt, even if that makes me a wimp compared to people who were on there feet for 17 hours straight that day. And I have to say, I loved it. I’m filing this away under ‘trying to figure out what I’m good at it’ and will try to make sense out of it later.

Pretty soon it was time for the dance. The rational part of my brain had decided long before dancing in a long flowing dress in a crowded room wouldn’t even be fun and I really just shouldn’t bother. As the dance got closer it started to get shouted down by the part of of my brain that was jumping up and down saying, “Dancing is fun!”. There was even a contemplative part of my brain positing that I just didn’t want to dance because I was pretty sure I would never find anyone willing to dance with me anyway, so it was safer to just decide not to. I ignored that theory, but still somehow found myself in the corner full of other girls, (opposite the wall lined with guys, as the room had somehow magically segragated itself…) watching the Virginia Reel, and clapping along.

The next two dances, however, found me discovering that having old friends on the security team is not just useful for finding out what’s going on, but excellent for finding dance partners when they’re taking turns actually being security and dancing. Good thing too, because I have a sneaking suspicion I would have gotten (very politely) yelled at if I’d very rationally managed to avoid dancing altogether…

And so the crazy, fun, busy day closed with me turning over a Lee Ann Womack song in my head:

“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance….I hope you dance.”

Life has been rough for me lately, not so much because life has been rough, but because I’ve been emotional and confused and hurting. Well, I can still point to the same reasons that I’m having a difficult time with life, but over the last couple days I got a minor but much needed attitude adjustment. I experienced a few small but striking moments of providence in my life, and I got one beautiful, crazy day.

And at the end I got the choice to dance, and I did.

Because I am a full-time aunt my insanity usually manifests by taking a large amount of children to do something fun all by myself. The last crazy thing I’d done was something like taking nine children to the playground by myself, but that was a while ago. I was due for something more extreme.

It was Arianna who provided me my opportunity. She had a flier from the library advertising Fall Free Movies. I like all three of those words. There was a movie playing Saturday that she had really wanted to see and so she was walking around the house with the flier randomly pouncing at her mother who kept saying Arianna needed to talk to her father. Arianna did only to find that Seth was needed in Morton Saturday morning and so we wouldn’t have transportation. “Hmmm…” I thought to myself. “I like pizza.” And then my brain caught up with the movie dilemma and started plotting.

“So,” I said to Seth, “If I could find a ride would it be okay?”

He said that if I could find a ride it would be totally cool. My brain, which was now excited about macaroni and cheese, started putting together different facts. Fact #1- I wanted to see this movie, too. Fact # B- Free movies are lots of fun for children and grownups alike. Fact # III- There was a Lansberry van just down the street and a lone Raquel all alone with the Lansberry children for two and half days. My brain and I agreed that she probably wouldn’t have any plans to go out on Saturday.

So I hatched my plan. I talked to Raquel about using the Lansberry van to take five Ben-Ezra children and five Lansberry children to the free movie. She thought I was insane (which I really appreciated) and then we ran the plan past the children. I made the mistake, though, of running the plan past Margary because the current plan had her staying home with Raquel. She looked at me over the banister and said, “I has car seat!” Really, how can you argue with that? And then Samuel started pleading her case by very reasonably suggesting a division of labor that would have him and Moriah looking out for Margary thus leaving me free to run crowd control on everybody else. Resisting at this point was a lost cause especially with Margary being so sweet. So after Samuel and I convince Moriah that no, Raquel would not feel left out by being left blissfully alone for a morning, we synchronized watches and agreed to leave the Lansberry house at 9:15 the next morning.

We almost made it, too. It was 9:20 when the Ben-Ezra kids and I went walking down the street. Seth had left a lot later than he’d meant to so he wasn’t that far away when I called him to say I’d forgotten to get the car seats out of the van. While we waited for him to get back I divided the kids up into buddy pairs. I might be insane, but the plan did not include losing a child at the movies. Seth showed up, we loaded up the car seats and the children, and we were off.

It was a fun movie. We were watching Monsters vs. Aliens which was made by Dreamworks with all those fun Dreamworks issues so I won’t say it was great, but it was certainly fun. There were some great lines, too, though I can only remember one. The children were all very well behaved, Justice only got scared at one really loud part and Margary was only very two once. It was at a most inconvenient time, but we didn’t lose her in the crowd and she stopped crying really quickly. I then steered my charges across a parking lot to the big white van and we were on our way home.

Well, almost on our way. I’d discovered at some point during the night that the plan might include stopping for ice cream. This part wasn’t nailed down until I got in the van and realized that yes, the plan did indeed include ice cream. Well, what are you gonna do? Plans are made to be followed, right? We stopped at Wendy’s and I had the joy of ordering twelve small Frosties. I then gave ice cream to eleven children for whom breakfast was long past. I threatened the Lansberry children with dismemberment if they were bad for Raquel due to sugar highs and then delivered them home.

The Ben-Ezra kids and I said farewell and then walked down to our house. I felt a happy glow. I’d just take eleven children to the movies then out for ice cream all by myself. I felt good. I felt crazy. I felt truly insane.

So, today I’m reading the book and it’s as good as I’d thought. The cartoons are biting and witty and there are glimpses of where the look and feel of his future books came from. The commentary on the cartoons is very informative both in what Dr. Seuss was thinking and the historical events and trends he was reacting to. The only issue is that I’m finding I disagree with his politics.

It is so weird. I didn’t even really know I had any opinions about the US policies around World War II. But I’m reading the cartoons and I’m reading the commentary and I think Dr. Seuss was wrong. This has me spun because I’m the butterflies and flowers person; I don’t have opinions about politics, right?

Also, I am disagreeing with Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss! The man who brought us those Sneetches nobody thought could learn, but who end their story with Star-Bellied and non hand in hand on the beaches. The man who took us all the way to Solla Sollew (On the banks of the river Wahoo where they never have troubles at least very few), back again and then out beyond Zebra where the Sneedles and the Yekkos live. Who stood with the Lorax and who asked questions about the Butter Battle. The man who gave us that faithful elephant Horton who was so stalwart and so brave. Whether he’s standing by a promise (”I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.”) or safeguarding lives only he knows or cares about (”A person’s a person no matter how small.”) Horton is high up on my list of favorite characters. I can’t disagree with Dr. Seuss!

Well, I guess that’s just part of growing up. Finding out where you differ from your heroes and still admiring them and appreciating their genius. Theodor Seuss Geisel, I still like you. Your books still rock and I still plan on enjoying them fully.

It wasn’t raining right at first. The wind carried to us the smell of rain as it swept from unknown and mysterious places, past the house and off to where the wind goes when it’s outrun a storm. It blew through my hair, brushed against my skin and made me long for wings. But then the rain came.

It was like a wall of water, some ancient siege tower being marched down 10th Street. It moved with a stately and inexorable grace. On our side of the wall all was dry though much harried by the wind. On the far side of the wall torrential downpour held court. I only had a very few moments to appreciate this though because stately though the rain’s progress it was also incredibly fast. The wall of rain rushed at us and would have swept over us, adding us to its list of conquests if not for the porch we stood under. Even then the rain and the wind conspired together to get us pretty wet.

Elizabeth, Olympia and I stood on the porch watching the rain dance on the street, the wind rush along and the lightening play in the sky. Tom came home, expressed much concern about the refrigerator not having any power and had to go check on the popsicles and beer to make sure they wouldn’t spoil. It was decided that they were probably in grave danger and so we did our best to dispose of as many as possible.

It was a pleasant evening. We sat on the porch long after the rain had moved on to watch the lightening flash in the sunset, to smell the rain-soaked ground and to feel the last straggler of wind, now cool and carrying the rain like ocean spray, brush against my face.

Part of this trip was to visit them and part of it was to poke around nifty parts of Pittsburgh. Josh and Adiel they visit Josh’s family in Pittsburgh all the time, but have never gotten a chance to experience any of the cool bits and I’ve never had a chance to view Pittsburgh as anything more than where Aunt Laurie lives so this was a cool plan. We didn’t have as much time as we’d have liked, but we did get to bop around the Strip District and see some really cool stores. I’d love to go back with an empty stomach and a large budget because there were quite a few restaurants and specialty foods stores that looked fascinating. Bizarrely, I think my favorite store was Wholey’s (inexplicably pronounce Woh-lees), a little grocery store with a huge fish section complete with tanks of live fish. It was really nifty for some reason I can’t satisfyingly explain.

The one store I’d really wanted to check out was a yarn and knitting shop Barb had told me about, Knit One. She’d even emailed me their latest newsletter and their address. I, however, completely forgot to find out where the store was in relation to anything else in the world. She said it was close to my grandma’s new apartment, but since I didn’t know where that was I was still totally lost. Only problem was I didn’t realize this until we were well on our way. Oh well, I thought, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

The live fish pushed it out of my mind and Fudgie Wudgie’s made me happy so I wasn’t too bummed. We left the Strip District to go have lunch with Aunt Laurie and Grandma at Grandma’s new home which involved me in the navigator seat, but we got there fine anyway. We just couldn’t seem to find the front door. We drove past an apartment building a block long that had all kinds of little shops on the ground floor, but nothing presented itself as the way into the apartments above. But I just happened to be staring so closely at all the little shops that I saw a yarn and knitting shop! Apparently “close to your grandmother’s new apartment” meant directly underneath it though Barb hadn’t known it at the time. So after lunch while Josh put a computer desk together Adiel and I took the kids down to the yarn shop.

Knit One is a classy little shop. I’m not sure if living over it would be a huge temptation to me because it specializes in specialty yarns with prices that make my lungs stop functioning and my eyeballs pop out of my head, but stopping in on my vacation was great. The store had that charming feel of being run by people who are delighted by what they do. One woman in particular stopped me to rave about the yarn I had picked out. It was variegated orange Peruvian Alpaca. It was so soft and smooth, handcrafted and would I believe only $15.90 a skein? I tried to not to let on that I was still trying to put my eyeballs back in their sockets from looking at the price. Far from being annoying, her rhapsodies had the ring of a knowledgeable craftswoman who made sales simply by being so sincerely excited about what she does. I mean, I bought the yarn. And another skein of very fine purple and green yarn, some extra poky knitting needles for fine work, and a set of bamboo double-pointed needles which, for the uninitiated, are used to make socks.

It really was a charming little store. And maybe I haven’t seen a lot of Pittsburgh niftiness, but I can no longer say I haven’t seen any.

I remember a moment when I walked out my back door, looked into the neighbor’s yard and was surprised by what I saw. Not that there was anything shocking about their backyard; it just wasn’t the yard I was expecting. I had become so comfortable walking out that particular back door that it felt like walking out the only other back door I’d ever had. Being on that back porch felt as comfortable and normal as standing on the little back stoop I’ve known all my life so for a moment, just a moment, I forgot where I was. I looked left and expected to see a large, sunny backyard with a pool and maybe a couple of friendly dogs. When I saw a small, shaded back yard with a gazebo and one large, scary looking black dog I felt a feeling akin to vertigo. In that moment the two yards that normally exist 650 miles apart were trying to exist in the same spot. It was that moment of disorientation and vertigo that assured me that Peoria had become home.

I feel that moment sometimes when I’m in Erie. I’ll try to remember how to get to a store and I’ll get myself all lost because I’m imaging a place far away. I looked in the dairy case and saw Meadow Brook instead of Prairie Farms. The press of trees that line the highways. The glimpse of the lake over every hill. Little things that remind me that Erie is not my home anymore. Which frees me up to enjoy it as an outsider, to keep my heart here and to be whole and not split between two homes. It frees me up to enjoy a visit and not long for it to be home.

Okay, so that was rather longer than a true vignette is supposed to be. Oh well, I bet I’ll get better at brevity if I keep trying.

After Borders we went to WalMart in search of Back to School sales. It was almost embarrassing. I didn’t have much money to spend there, but I kept geeking out over school supplies and adding stuff to the pile in my arms. After a minute I would put it back and find something else to drool over. Like staplers. Or Sharpies. Or mechanical pencils. For some reason I kept coming back to the mechanical pencils. I had to say out loud several times “I have mechanical pencils. I don’t need mechanical pencils”, but I wouldn’t listen to myself. I had to put several packages of mechanical pencils back while we were there. When we went to check out the cashier asked if we were students. Raquel said, quite truthfully, “No, we just like school supplies.” He didn’t believe us. He said, “Yeah, I can be sarcastic, too.” We tried to explain that really, we were just geeky about these things, but he wouldn’t listen.

We knew we needed to get milk sometime that evening so after WalMart we headed out to get milk, but first we stopped by Kade’s. I was going to get a decaf mocha Kadecino which is like a coffee drink with ice cream. I was so excited. I was childishly excited. Even the hassle of navigating construction traffic to get to Kade’s couldn’t put a damper on my excitement. So we pull into the drive through and I’m bouncing in my seat excited. The guy comes to the window. Ooh, so happy! I’m gonna get a Kadecino! He opens the window and says, “I’m sorry, ladies, but we were just closing.”

Despair.

I was pleasant to him cause it’s not his fault the people who run the place close at 9 like they say on the sign. And it’s not his fault that we got there at 9:03. But as soon as he’d closed the window and we pulled out I gave vent to the deep agony tearing at my soul. I think I said something like “But I wanted a Kadecino!” in a really whiny voice.

No matter, no matter, we would simply have to soldier on without a decaf mocha Kadecino. I was all prepared to do without when I remembered there was a Steak and Shake close by. A shake was like a Kadecino, right? The only problem was I was now in the wrong lane turning in the opposite direction on a road full of construction road blocks. Still, I was optimistic- I gave up on the whole idea. But then I saw the golden arches off in the distance. Off in the distance in the direction we were currently traveling, I should say.

There! I said. Or maybe Raquel thought of it. Yes, now that I think of it it was Raquel’s idea. Which was gracious of her because she didn’t want a coffee drink to begin with. She was thinking maybe she would get a smoothie, but that was more to keep me company than anything. And now she was pointing out new and different places she could not be that excited about going to. Really, it was very sweet.

I figured out how to get to the golden arches shining out through the dark. This is no mean trick because these golden arches reside in Peoria, Il, the land of “You can see it, but you can’t get to it.” But get to it we did and we pulled into the drive through. I was excited again. Now I was going to order an iced decaf mocha bliss. It sounded complicated, it sounded girly and I was going to say it with a straight face. Any minute now I was going to say it. Any minute. Eventually we moved to the other lane that didn’t have a minivan in it that was no doubt full of children who kept changing their minds. It was a good choice. The new lane moved quickly, almost as quickly as a fast food drive through. We get up to the funky speaker/microphone thing and Raquel relays her order through me. And now is my moment. I lean in and I say “And may I have a medium decaf iced mocha?”

Very polite, I thought. Clear, concise, polite. Yes, as ordering went I was very pleased with myself. But the person on the other end took issue with my order. “We can’t do that in decaf.” I was incredulous enough that she went and asked her manager (that’s what she said she did anyway. I wouldn’t surprised if she’d just turned off her microphone and hummed for a minute), but he was adamant. She said, “None of the iced coffees can be in decaf.” Okay, weird, but okay. So then I ordered a hot decaf mocha. This’ll do it, I thought. Surely this is me weaseling a decaf mocha out of them right under their noses. But no, of course, I was wrong. But now she was kinda snippy. She said, “No, ma’am, I told you. We can’t do that in decaf! None of the mochas can be in decaf.”

Raquel confirmed later that she’d previously said that none of the iced coffees could be in decaf and so my second order made perfect sense. I toyed with getting a caffeinated iced mocha and just not sleeping last night, but Raquel suggested we just cancel the order and leave. So we did and we headed out once again to get milk.

I was peeved. I was really loudly peeved actually. All of my excited-over-a-Kadecino energy was now floating around my body looking for something to do so I talked loud and long about how I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get a decaf mocha. Raquel said some random things about it being a mix or something ridiculous like that, but I was convinced it was a conspiracy. But then I remembered! Up ahead, in the direction we were traveling, there was a Steak and Shake. Shakes are still an awful lot like Kadecinos.

So we got shakes. They weren’t mocha, but they were Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate and were very tasty. And by the time we got to the Steak and Shake Raquel had had enough time on the hunt to realize she did want a shake so I wasn’t stuck drinking alone.

Someday I will have a decaf mocha Kadecino. On that day I will dance in the parking lot. Perhaps it’s a good thing for Raquel that I didn’t get one last night.

We got rained out.

That’s right, the plans we’d made for being home got rained out. It was just as well, though, because it was a very quiet and pleasant day. I spent most of the afternoon playing Plants vs. Zombies (which deserves its very own post) while various portions of the children watched. Seth even stopped by for a while and talked strategy. Seth and Crystal sat on the porch and talked and Hope spent much of the day in her happy place. We ate dinner on the porch which was only a little wet and then lit some of the worlds most pathetic fireworks. We cleaned up, the kids took baths, I played some more Plants vs. Zombies, and then we went to watch the fireworks.

We discovered last year that you can see the big firework display put on down by the river by Peoria and East Peoria from our corner. The cloud cover made for some fascinating and beautiful effects. Sometimes the fireworks would go so high they’d explode in the clouds and come raining down. I held first Noah and then Justice on my shoulders not so much because they couldn’t see, but because I wanted someone to enjoy the fireworks with. I can’t imagine watching fireworks by myself. In my experience it’s always been a time a group can all enjoy together. One year I was in Disney World the whole week leading up to the Fourth of July. In honor of Independence Day, and because it was Disney World, they had fireworks every night. My aunt, my sister and I were standing in line waiting for a shuttle one night when the fireworks started. An entire crowd of complete strangers started “Oooh”ing and “Ahhhh”ing in unison mostly on purpose. Fireworks are amazing unifier of people.

It was a very pleasant day. Nothing spectacular, but a quiet day of being a family together. Happy Independence Day.