Here comes The Sun
Anyone read The Sun? (It’s “an independent, ad-free monthly magazine that for more than thirty years has used words and photographs to invoke the splendor and heartache of being human.”)
My favorite part is the “Readers Write” section. Not to disparage the “emerging and established artists” who write for the magazine, but “Readers Write” often packs a wallop. It sort of reminds me of Post Secrets thing.
Anyway.
The magazine comes up with a list of broad topics requiring non-fiction writing from readers, and the readers … they write.
On “Saying Yes” …
Right from the start I found it all too easy to accommodate my only son. He was well-behaved, got good grades, and smiled easily. I wanted him to be happy, no matter what it took. Even his potential pain was more than I could bear. (They really should come with instruction manuals.)
Over the years I said yes a lot — to speed skates, bmx bikes, the latest shoes, and the smelly hair product that rendered his beautiful curly hair straight so it would match everyone else’s at school. When he asked for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle birthday cake, I got out the green food coloring and used white Chiclets for the turtle’s teeth.
That little boy with the easy smile is all grown up now. Every Wednesday I wait for my phone to ring. The calls come from a state correctional facility surrounded by tall fences topped with razor wire. When the automated operator asks if I will accept the collect call, I press 1 to say yes.
Erika Webb
DeLand, Florida
Posted by Becky @
10:33 pm |
How much is that doggie in the window?
I bought a pillow a while back for the dog’s bed and saved it for Christmas, when she “wouldn’t be chewing everything up.”
What was I thinking.
This is the dog who eats ice, snow, wood and rocks. Who devoured a new toy in 20 seconds flat … literally, poof! gone. Who inhales pig ears and rawhide bones. Who ate the bark off the amazing apple tree … will that kill the tree?
(Don’t worry. She eats plenty of real food. I’ll have to start collecting it in a semi-trailer at the farmer’s co-op soon. That’s how much real food she eats.)
Who chewed through a medium-thick vinyl-coated galvanized-steel tie-out cable.
(And, no, she’s not tied up 24/7. She hasn’t even been tied up since then because she’s always been good about staying in the back yard behind the house. Today? I found her on the edge of the highway.)
When I bought a heavy-duty cable a couple of weeks ago, the checkout guy said, “Wow. You must have a big dog.”
Well, yeah. She’s a big puppy, and she already chewed through one of these.
“One of these metal ones?!?”
Yup.
She’s already started working her way through the new one.
She’ll chew on it for extra measure even when she’s not attached to the end of it.
I give it, oh, three weeks tops before I run out of ways to keep her off the highway.
See that little Santa collar with the bells?
After I put that on her, I completely thought it would be in shreds the next morning, and I’d find her chewing on the metal bells. She apparently likes it, though.
Her new pillow? Not so much.
That’s after all the innards had been stuffed back inside. The reason she doesn’t hang out much in the living room? Because I don’t want my sofa to look like that. And, believe me, it would.
I’m reading this book, written by Paul Owens, The Original Dog Whisperer. (I didn’t realize there was more than one. Now I know.)
I’m really trying, y’all. But this is the reaction I get.
If that’s what she did when I tell her to “sit,” that would be great. But this is what I get when I tell her to “come.”
I watched Cesar Millan on Dog Whisperer recently.
Please tell me it’s not a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Please tell me he doesn’t spend three weeks training some dog and make it look like it takes him three minutes.
If either one of these whispering guys can teach me how to get my dog to do ANYTHING in three minutes (three days or, heck, even three weeks)? I’ll make him a turkey dinner.
Or, I don’t know. Maybe I need an exorcist.
Sigh.
Why didn’t I get a hamster?
Posted by Becky @
9:56 pm |
Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly happy soul
With a John Deere hat and a carrot nose
And two eyes made out of … beer-bottle caps
At least that’s how the story goes around here.
Posted by Becky @
10:40 am |
Best birthday card ever
Posted by Becky @
8:33 am |
Merry Grinchmas
December 23, 2008 | Holidays
I’ve got gifts to wrap and food to prepare, but we’re just not ready for Christmas until we’ve seen How the Grinch Stole Christmas! We just watched it … so, bring it on!
Happy and merry to everyone in Whoville, er, Blogland!
Posted by Becky @
4:12 pm |
It’s like a heat wave burning in my heart
We had a heat wave today … 20-some degrees on the plus side. Which means it was time to have some fun in the snow. Whee!
Posted by Becky @
4:01 pm |
Books: Hold on to Your Kids
I recently read Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Maté, M.D.
I picked it up because Izzy mentioned it. She said Christina recommended it to her.
Good book.
Posted by Becky @
8:57 pm |
Never the twain shall meet?
I just finished reading Patriotic Grace by Peggy Noonan.
Who knew I’d find similar quotes, opinions and themes to what Studs Terkel wrote in his memoir?
Noonan: Part of what I’m saying has been said, better, by Bruce Cole, the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in a speech at New York University in the summer of 2002. He warned of “American amnesia,” noted a study of students at 55 elite universities that found over a third couldn’t identify the U.S. Constitution as establishing the division of powers in our government; 40 percent couldn’t place the American Civil War in the correct half century; and two-thirds didn’t know what the word “Reconstruction” referred to. “Citizens kept ignorant of their history are robbed of the richness of their heritage. . . . A nation that does not know why it exists, or what it stands for, cannot be expected to long endure. . . . We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision.”
Terkel: Memory. How can we have memory if we don’t have any knowledge? If we have no history, no memory of what happened yesterday, let alone what happened fifty years ago? . . . What happens to all Alzheimer’s sufferers is tragic. What I’m talking about is what I call a national Alzheimer’s — a whole country has lost its memory. When there’s no yesterday, a national memory becomes more and more removed from what it once was, and forgets what it once wanted to be. We’re sinking under our national Alzheimer’s disease. With Alzheimer’s you forget what you did yesterday. With Alzheimer’s finally, you forget not only what you did, but also who you are. In many respects, we have forgotten who we are.
Posted by Becky @
5:35 pm |
Breakfast of champions
Seriously, what else is one supposed to eat for breakfast in December?
I need a Wii Fit to work off the sugar cookies and chocolate stars come the New Year. What do you think, Loser Moms?
How do I get inspired to work out? Here’s the deal.
When I had three babies in diapers and my doctor asked me if I exercised, I gave him a dark look and a sarcastic chuckle. (Maybe it was more of a crazy cackle.) Do I exercise? Well, I live in a two-story house, and I carry two babies (at one time) up and down the stairs umpteen times a day and a toddler umpteen more. I bounce one baby in the bouncy seat with a foot while breastfeeding the other baby and reading a book to the toddler. And the diapers? Yeah. I change at least 20 a day, give or take. Do I exercise.
Hmph.
My babies aren’t babies anymore, and I’m not carrying them everywhere or changing diapers. But work out?
Who says I don’t work out every day?
Know how much of a workout it is to get them dressed like this, out the door, in the car and off to school in 10 minutes flat?
Or how much of a workout it is to trudge through the snowdrifts to gather wood for the fireplace?
Or to chase after a 50-pound puppy whose reaction to, “Come!” is this look?
Or just to keep from freezing in general?
Oh, wait. You want to know what inspires me to work out … just for me?
Blink, blink.
You can do that? … Really?
To quote George Bailey: I want a Wii. [sob] I want a Wii!
[Cue snowflakes and Zuzu's petals.]
Posted by Becky @
2:39 pm |
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
No school today.
No, it’s not a Snow Day. It’s not snowing.
It’s a Zoinks!-It’s-how-cold?!? Day. Or a By-the-time-we-get-the-buses-warmed-up-school-will-be-over Day. Or Your-ears-will-pop-off-your-head-in-two-minutes Day.
How cold is it? Depends who you ask.
That was first thing this morning. The Internet is telling me it’s still minus-17 degrees out there.
Ah well. I guess it’s like the snow. I laugh when they say how many inches of snow we got. How do they know? It could be 2 inches or 24. The way the wind blows it around, it’s hard to tell.
We’ve got 3-foot snowdrifts next to the house and a 6-foot wall of snow in back.
Now if it would just warm up (I’d take, oh, 10 degrees at least), the kids will have tons of fun digging and building forts in all that snow. They also want to build a snowman. Heck, they can build a whole village of snowmen out there.
Posted by Becky @
12:35 pm |
