October 25, 2004
-
What a busy weekend! I’ve done nothing on the clogs, but the DNA scarf has grown a bit. Can you find the error? #2 daughter did, without even being asked to do so, but I feel that other, less visual people will not notice, or hold it against me if they do. I surely am not going to frog this scarf all the way back to that error!
We took Mary Alice to see the working grist mill, the lake, and the odd historic district. While I was glad that the scenery behaved itself and showed off to advantage, talking was the main entertainment. Then #2 daughter and friends arrived, and we spent the evening playing silly games and discussing serious issues. And eating Hallowe’en cookies, of course.
Sunday we went to church and then to one of the local battlefield parks, where we hiked and talked, and the kids threw horse apples (the fellow from Oklahoma calls them “snake apples”). Afterwards, we talked about visiting the fleshpots of our little town or some other energetic activity, but #1 son was enthusiastic about playing more games, so that is what we did. I think our guests needed a weekend of home cooking and family fun before they went back to their more stressful lives.
Mary Alice’s job is to decide who should get the spaces available in psychiatric hospitals in the L.A. area. There are not enough spaces to go around, so she has to determine which of the many candidates are the sickest. I think I would find that very stressful.
The Jewells of Knowledge have midterms coming up, so they are at a stressful point in the semester, regardless of what other stressors they may or may not have. I think Key Lime pie and scuffling through plenty of leaves probably helped.
I was sorry that I wasn’t able to arrange for more music for Mary Alice. We had a house full of musicians, but couldn’t even come up with a decent jam session, although there was one Bob Dylan song that half of us knew. Different folks did a few little performances, but like most people who perform for larger audiences, were disinclined to living room performances. Playing together would have been fun, but with an age range from early teens to mid-50s — and musical habits ranging from garage band to opera– we found that we had very few songs in common. (Although, while playing Cranium, I was surprised at how many of the old “humdingers” songs the Emo King knew. “Girl from Ipanema”?)
Here we are in an area famous for its folk music, and I am so totally not in touch with the local folk scene. All the musicians I know are professional and/or classical musicians, and we just don’t get together for a little spontaneous Barber. Mary Alice, on the other hand, conducts most of her social life within the Folk Scene back in her town. and here she came to the heart of the tradition, and heard nothing but Franck and Dashboard Confessional (I may have that wrong, but I know there was a dashboard in it somewhere). She might have enjoyed coming to rehearsals, I suppose, but we don’t rehearse ont he weekends — the church choir director was out of town, even, so there wasn’t even a little Sunday morning one).
We went to a Baptist church, in hopes of getting to join in with some gospel music, and the hymns for the week turned out to be by Beethoven and Vaughn Williams. They also had an excellent sermon on the importance of the division between church and state. Since both of the visiting guys were Baptists, I was eager to hear their thoughts. As soon as we got out to the car, everyone started talking about how surprising and un-typically-Baptist the service had been. Since Mary Alice generally attends either a Zen Buddhist temple or Friends meetings, it was still a new experience for her, but I had expected that she would get to hear “Jesus is Coming Soon” or “I’ll Fly Away,” and join in on eight or nine choruses of “Just as I Am” for an altar call. Ah, well.
It was a wonderful weekend.
Comments (4)
if I was looking for an error I would say what appears to be the middle right center of that piece…glad you had a good weekend…
It was quite a great weekend. Thank you for being an amazing host.
You have no idea the kind of things that your #2 daughter is teaching me about the world and myself. If I could find the words to explain how much it means to me then I would say them, but it is so far beyond me. We have had several conversations recently about how we were raised, and how my community and family has influenced my views on things. We were raised in complete opposite ways! I find myself speechless sometimes because I feel that she understands me more than my own parents, which I know is not the case, but she sees right through me and helps me to realize things about myself; and gosh, I love that. My own sister and mother do not even cause me to learn these kind of things about myself; Or if they attempt to than I close my mind to their attempts. Josepha has shown me that I am still in the “teenage rebellion” stage, and the fact that I am still in this stage is why I feel that my parents don’t understand me. I think it may possibly be true, because I love my parents dearly but often I often am confused around them because it’s like they don’t know who I am anymore.
In my responsible self class, we are discussing how it is unhealthy to be sheilded from adverse opinions and ways of life in society, and I feel like I have been sheltered from a lot of opinion and adversity. I come from a part of Omaha, Nebraska where the wealthy are the majority, and I have grown up around affluent people. I am pretty much just now noticing that a lot of the views and values of mine are a direct result of growing up around that kind of atmosphere.
Josepha and I have also discussed some things about needs vs. wants, and I have been ending up on the opposite end of the table when it comes to our values. I thought that my parents taught me a lot about sacrifice and and how to live a frugal life and not by selfish, but I am nowhere near as pure as her on this issue. I know you are not my mom, but will you talk to me about this? How am I to act now that I have realized that my way of life isn’t the best way? The change in environments when I moved to college was a big deal, now I am starting to feel a change in beliefs that is huge. Should I express to my parents, and even Josepha, that issue that I am facing (the fact that I have been led to discover flaws in my lifestyle) should be taken very seriously? I have never met you, and all preconceived notions that I have of you are due to what Josepha has told me about you, but the one thing I am sure of is that your response will be of meaning to me.
I thought I was right, and that I knew everything about myself, yet I learn new things from a girl that I has known me for no more than two months! That’s just not easy to deal with! The mere fact that I have been sheltered from discovering these things about myself really bothers me, and I want to act on that in the right way.
It seems as if things are going well with you, and I am glad that you were able to catch up with your daughter this last weekend. I don’t mean to pour out my feelings to you, but I think you may have some things to say about this issue that are very worth me hearing.
I see it, but I won’t tell anyone.
And I don’t think anyone who A) isn’t a knitter and B) hasn’t knit this scarf would notice it without really looking closely, especially when it’s being worn.