Well, hopefully I will be able to piece together a week or two here without having to miss any time. I'm swamped with make up work. Though I have to say that for once I had a sub who was actually willing to correct and help out. Wonderful.
Theola's funeral was grand. Theola had 7 sons and 2 daughters. It was amazing to be part of the procession as the children, grand children, great grandchildren and various spouses walked into the church.
I don't know how Theola raised that family. I've never met a cast of characters like that in my life. It was incredible to listen to their stories. Kristie's aunt, Gale, is a chocolate addict. After Christmas she found out that Hugos (and I believe there are about five Hugos stores in GF and EGF) was having a big sale on those large Hershey chocolate bars. So she went to EVERY Hugos and bought EVERY large bar she could find! And that story is just the tip of the iceberg with her. I want to write a book about her.
She has a great story about a goose attack that I'll have to write about later in another blog. But it's wonderful to listen to her tell it.
After being part of such a large extended family, Kristie said that she wants to have four more kids! I'd settle for one. We'll see.
*****
For the past few weeks in the shower and on the way to work, I've been composing a poem for Kristie. I hope to have it finished by Valentine's Day though I haven't committed one single line to paper yet.
But I do have one line finished. It hit me in the bathroom of the hotel where we were staying during our textbook expo. I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.
So each morning I call that line up and let it turn over in my mind. As I do this, I feel my mind testing it for meter and grace. Each morning after, I call the line up and see what my mind has done with it. So far that hasn't been much.
But this morning I caught my mind testing different metaphors against it. This is good news. When I peeped in on the process this morning, my mind hit upon one specific metaphor and before I my eyes, it happened upon a whole verse built around the metaphor and my one finished line.
Maybe tonight I'll peep in again on the poem and see what it's up to. Maybe I'll even commit a line or two to paper.
*****
I recently saw a bumper sticker that (had they had such ridiculous things in her day) would have enraged my grandmother - so much so that she probably would have ripped it off the mini van. More likely, though, she would have verbally accosted the gentle men who owned the van.
The bumper sticker read "Well behaved women rarely make history."
I can just hear her squawking, "Why should a woman have to misbehave to make history? What about men? How many of them are ever, ever well behaved? And why can't a well behaved woman make history!" She would have worked herself up into a grand tizzy until she would have been clutching for her atomizer inside her purse.
I know for a fact there would have been a homicide at Whitey's on Tuesday night had Granny heard what Kristie's uncle said. Ed, Kristie's father, brought up how he heard Rudy Giuliani has thrown his hat into the presidential race. I said that I like him but he was a bloody republican. Kristie's uncle said that if he could run New York City than he certainly could run the US. Now I don't know about that, so I replied, "Well, he's going to have to beat Hilary." Was that a mistake. Her uncle, who happens to be the husband of the aforementioned Gale, replied, "She couldn't run this country. The only thing a woman can run is a vacuum cleaner. And they can't even do that right."
Yep, Granny would have ended him there. I just stood in awe of a present day neanderthal, which really surprised me because up until then he seemed quite gracious. Even after the funeral when we gathered at his house, I still felt everything tainted by that comment.
He was lucky too that Kristie didn't hear him. There wouldn't have been a homicide. But that old stoic Norwegian would have been in for a thorough lashing.
No comments:
Post a Comment