tollipop

taking a cure

Dear reader, I've been under the weather lately.  I won't bore you with the details except to say it's nothing that would warrant a note from my mum requesting me to be excused from PE, carpool, or making dinner...although if anyone wants to forge that note it would be worth ten times its weight in gummi bears, if you know what I'm saying.

Just...sick.  

When I'm sick, I don't have many great ideas about getting better.  I sort of ignore the whole thing, if possible.  Yes, I drink more fluids.  Yes, I wash my hands.  Yes, I tell everyone I'm feeling fine.

But I do have one trick up my sleeve.  I do have one secret cure:

I still run.

Do you know what happens to a body that is feverish and racked with spasmodic coughs when you take it out for a run??

It shocks the living daylights out of it.  

As you take the first few steps, it looks at you and says, "Really? Is this your idea of a joke?"

But if you refuse to dignify passive aggression with a response, the body's insistence upon affliction will falter.  It gets befuddled.  It becomes confused.  A moment ago, it thought itself entitled to a morning of self pity and hot tea, yet now it finds itself in the great outdoors, engaging in activity that fairly reeks of good health.

So what does the body do? 

Why, it capitulates, of course.

The bold choice of running trumps the body's sick note, the audacity of exercise steamrolls its pathetic sniffles, its delerium and cough, and with every step it grows stronger, clearer, better.  

It really is the most amazing cure you could ever imagine.

But does it last?  

Is it rooted in sound medical knowledge or is it on par with the professionals of yore who believed a good bleeding was in order when a patient had the misfortune of remaining sick for too long?

Because why is it, as the day wears on, the fever and cough return with a vengeance? Why is it my body seems to take a perverse delight in making me feel ten times worse than I did before?

Is this its way of saying:

Take that, you crazy throwback to the Middle Ages!  

Take that, you deserver of maggots, leeches, and plagues!

Who thought she was too immortal to stay in bed today?

Who's gathering ye rosebuds now??

summer weekend

There was a girl and her cello,

A girl and her violin,

And a girl who plays volleyball, completely done in.

 

There was a tadpole rescue, not a minute too soon.

Hairstyles and storytime upstairs in the bedroom.

A pretty table,

Good things to eat,

And dancing as the sun went down on light hearted feet.

going abroad

 
Dear reader, last week Izzy travelled to Kansas City to participate in a national competition of middle school orchestras.  She began a countdown to the trip several weeks ago.  She began packing two days in advance, configuring and reconfiguring the items in her suitcase.  And every time she mentioned the adventure, her face wreathed in smiles and she levitated off the ground in bursts like a fledgling bumblebee. 

Indeed, her enthusiasm was so contagious it didn't even cross my mind to prepare her for the possibility of homesickness.

So on the second night, when I received a flurry of texts from my little traveller saying how much she loved and missed me, how much she wished she could be at home, and how she was locked in the hotel bathroom crying, I felt adrift with helplessness.  I called her and we talked about ways to deal with the situation, but she still had several days of adventure ahead of her and I knew she would struggle with these feelings again before it was all over.

And then I had a brilliant idea!  I emailed her an audio file of a poem I recite to the girls each night before they go to sleep.  It is the very poem my mum used to tell me at bedtime when I was a little girl--a happy, drowsy memory I cherish to this day.   

The rock-a-bye lady

I don't know if my dramatic delivery was quite the cure I was hoping for, but it seemed to help.  We still exchanged a rash of phone calls and an ambush of texts.  She missed us all sooooo much. 

 
And did we ever miss her!  What a bright presence she brings to our lives, our lovely, quirky girl.

 
We were thrilled to have her back.

 
And of all things, her orchestra took second place!  Winning a trophy that was taller than Izzy herself!  But even sweeter to my ears--she said her homemade luggage tags were the coolest thing ever and each time she looked at them, she thought of how much I loved her.   

caroline on the swing

 
Hold tight to the rope, my child,
But with your free hand
Reach.

   
Collect the sunbeams, the birdsongs, the honey breeze~
They will bring to your dreams
A meadow of flowers opening to the sun,
All things humming, sweet, and warm
Where a story-teller keeps a place beside her
Just for you.
 
Only let the laughter
Slip through your fingers
And echo in the memory of this world.
How your song of joy will make an old man
Sitting far away by an open window
Close his eyes and smile.

one fine day

Yesterday Roger and I did something so insanely spontaneous I'm surprised it wasn't covered by the 6:00 news.  Living in Las Vegas as we do, your mind is no doubt racing with the possibilities of what that might be.  Well hold onto your seat, dear reader, because this is sure not to disappoint!  We took a road trip.  A road trip!  To a place where you don't have to dust for fingerprints to see if autumn has been sneaking around, a place where the beauty of the season fairly revels in its glory.  See??  Crazy hijinks, like I said!  In my book this is the equivalent of swinging from chandeliers. 

At any rate, I cannot tell you how happy I felt to be in these mountains, to breathe this air, to see these colors, to feel the slanting light, to experience a moment of stillness.  It reminded me of a poem I read in a college lit class (probably freshman) and adore to this day.  It's by this guy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and although woefully lacking in highwaymen who wear bunches of lace at their throats, you can't deny it's otherwise a pretty decent jingle. 

  Pied Beauty

    Glory be to God for dappled things—
        For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
            For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
    Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
        Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
            And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

    All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
        Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
            With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
    He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:

                                                Práise hím.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a lovely thought, pied beauty.

finding myself in the middle of the week...

First of all, a warm hello and welcome to all those who read and adore Bloesem Kids!  Irene, thank you for such a lovely feature--it is an honor and I pretty much fell off my chair in delight.

Last night I went for a nice long run.  The skies were trying to muster a thunderstorm, which is cute for Las Vegas, and all I could think of as I watched the moon peeking through the clouds was this line from a poem my mother used to tell me:  The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The poem is about this dreamboat of a highwayman who has a yen for Bess, the landlord's daughter.  And who wouldn't?  She's got ebony eyes, red lips, and she keeps plaiting love knots in her long black hair!   Anyway, the pair gets dimed out by some moldy-haired stablehand who has a school-boy's crush on Bess.  He's one of those creeps who skulks around in the shadows and probably dug through her trash on a regular basis.  

So a bunch of red-coat soldiers come by the inn to set up a sting for the highwayman.  As midnight approaches, lovely Bess, who has been bound and gagged, manages to get her finger on the trigger of a gun and shoots herself to warn her lover!  What the?!  Bess, honey--did you think this one through?!  After all, this guy wears a bunch of lace at his throat! 

As you may imagine, once the highwayman realizes what has happened, he goes beserk.  I'm not sure what he was hoping to accomplish, but he wheels his horse around and comes charging back toward the inn, waving his sword in the air (note to highwayman: you do remember it was a shot that warned you, right?).  Long story short--he ends up getting blown out of the saddle. 

This was one of the poems my mother would recite before tucking me in at night...pretty much guaranteeing me not to get any sleep for the next 48 hours. 

Funny thing, because my parents banned television from the house.  They raised us on a strict diet of classical music.  We were not allowed to see Grease.  Yet my mom apparently had no qualms over filling my head with images of an illicit and ill-fated relationship between an innocent young woman and her dashing criminal mastermind.

Ah, but it's late and I have no pretty drawings to show you.  This house has been like Grand Central Station ever since school began and I feel as if I'm barely keeping up.  Perhaps I will leave you with a few photos of something I recently added to our dining experience, even though I basically discourage the use of salt and rarely let the girls use it.  It's more the idea that has me enchanted!

 

Doesn't it seem more delightful to use salt this way?  To pinch it between your fingertips and artfully let it sprinkle upon your food?  This is how I add savor when cooking and it always gives me a certain thrill, as if I'm a witch hovering over my cauldron.  I like handling spices, crunching herbs, dusting them between my palms into whatever it is I'm cooking.  Or should I say brewing?

Plus, this salt comes from France.  So that right there is instant glamor. 

 

And freshly ground pepper!  What could be more satisfying?  This blend comes from India.  India!  I feel as if I've brought the world to my table.

  

Wishing you a little spice for your day!

thank you, english 101

While eating these for breakfast, I thought of the following excellent poem by William Carlos Williams:

This is Just to Say

 

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast.

 

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold.

 

All I can say is if Roger ever left me a poem like that, he would be so forgiven! 

 

It's a funny thing, the difference between my husband and I when it comes to food...and by "funny" I don't mean "funny"...I'm not really sure what I mean.  I guess you could say my tastes are simpler than his.  This thanks to a childhood of fending off wolves for a meal, while his unfolded against the backdrop of every buffet from here to the end of the Strip.  When I was hungry, I'd take my Fisher Price bow and arrow and bring down a caribou, for crying out loud.  Then, and this is where it gets iffy, I'd make an incision along its belly and climb inside for the winter.  It was close quarters, mind you, but there was always something to eat. 

 

As upbringings go, there's no denying mine was utterly precious and surprisingly well suited to survival in this town.

 

At any rate, what I'm trying to say is, especially in this sweltering heat, I don't really care what I eat.  Sugarplums could pretty much hold me all the live long day.  Roger, on the other hand, has such a penchant for the entire food pyramid!  Which is why on a night like tonight, with him being out of town, I set just two dishes on the table--one laden with steamed broccoli, the other, roasted sweet potatoes. 

 

"Is that everything?," asked Sophie brightly, a bit too brightly.

"Will there be any meat?," ventured Isabella, eyes like Oliver Twist. 

"I don't think so!  Who needs boring old meat anyway?," was my hearty reply.

"Chicken's good!" piped Caroline, who was about ten seconds behind the conversation and hadn't yet processed the dim reality of it all.

 

There was a long pause as the children each mentally composed a journal entry detailing their arduous existence as my daughters.  Finally I could take it no longer and broke the doom and gloom by promising an after-dinner trip to the yogurt shop for all good little vegetarians, which seemed to do the trick quite nicely, indeed.

what we will tell our children

Sometime just past seven,
The sun spills diamonds across a snow-down field,
Separating our lonely house
From the road.

It's time to go. 

 

Suited up like astronauts

We three step out into the stillness,

Feeling our nose hairs stiffen,

And sink thigh-deep

Into this freshly white surface.

There is no talking as each one retreats, turtle-style,

Behind the breath-sweaty wool of old scarves.   

 

Halfway forged across the field,

We hear the dreaded distant

Growling, grinding, grumbling:

Bus!...BUS!

We lunge forward like salmon against the current,

Waving in the air to herald our existence,

Lunch bags--

Filled with homemade bread sandwiches that will mash and crumble,

Making them ineligible for trade.  

 

As we stagger up the bank

And the yellow door hisses open,

The sun suddenly flashes shards of rainbow

Across our wildly winding tracks.

 

But we miss it

Climbing into the bus,

Pulling off reluctant, snapping toques,

Lurching forward,

Looking for the farthest back seat,

Willing our hearts to be still.

 

This is the way we go to school.