Reasons Why

The reason I don't read suspense novels when I'm home alone at night is that I don't work out and have never taken a self-defense course.. If a bad guy is hiding under the bed waiting to grab me when I'm looking for my slippers, I won't be able to punch him out or outrun him.

The reason I eat big bowls of popcorn several times a week is heredity. I inherited an unstoppable craving from my mother who says she inherited it from her father. You can't pick your gene pool.

The reason I read a lot is that I am pretty sure I have an addiction problem and I've heard terrible stories about what happens during withdrawal. My family does not deserve anything I might be capable of if I quit reading.

The reason I eat the rest of the cookies in the package or the chocolates in the bag is so they can't tempt me. Removing temptation is how you avoid things like eating to many cookies or too much chocolate. No more cookies or chocolate = no more temptation.

The reason I let my daughter be in charge of painting my toenails is that it means I don't have to bend over as much. Also, I can keep reading my book and still have pretty toenails, and sometimes she throws in a foot massage.

The reason I had to come up with an idea to slice tonight is that I actually miss it a little when I don't. And also I'm a little bit afraid that the BONS or my rouge-book-club-turned-slicers will be disappointed or will call me to rub it in that they sliced and I didn't.

Perfect Porch

I love my front porch. It's deeper than most and is as long as our house is wide. There is a little space to the right as you come out the door--just enough room for a  bench big enough to hold 2 or 3 kids waiting for a bus or for company to come down the street. To the right is the big space. The space big enough for 2 rocking chairs and one adirondack chair and 2 small tables with plenty of room left over.

Youngest has enlisted Grandpa's help in attracting hummingbirds, and this year's new feeder hangs near the far end of the porch. There is often a ball next to the bench by the front door, and the bench itself tends to collect leftovers from long, full summer days--picnic blankets, a stray book, someone's skateboard.

When they were smaller, Oldest, Middle and Youngest used to play on the porch. Rainy days were best, because we stayed dry while surrounded by the rain, playing happily with little cars, sidewalk chalk and bubbles. We stayed cool in the shade when the sun was hot, and the rocking chairs were the perfect spot to keep watch as they climbed the front yard tree or rode bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalk. I still watch as they hang out with friends up and down the street, and sometimes catch a handful of kids lounging on the porch or hear quiet chatter from a pair rocking and planning the rest of their day.

My parents like to sit on my porch when they visit. Dad takes his coffee out and sits and rocks and listens and watches. Even though we're in town, there is almost always birdsong. It's a good spot to keep track of the coming and going and in and out at our house, and it's nice to pull into my driveway and see my parents and kids on the porch relaxing and waiting for me and Husband to get home.

I also love to spend time on the porch. My favorite times are when it's warm enough to sit for a long time without getting chilly and before the late-day sun sinks far enough to shine directly into my westward-facing eyes. Like my dad, I love to take my coffee out in the mornings and sit and listen and watch. Like my mom, I almost always take along a book, and sometimes I take along some writing I'm working on. Our porch is just right for lunch outside and popsicles or ice cream cones. The first time we looked at this house, I fell in love with the porch and it hasn't disappointed. I knew when we bought the house that I needed the rocking chairs. I spent a couple of summers waiting until I found the adirondack chair that fit me well and matched the rest.

Now the chairs call me to come sit and rock or sit back and hold still. Now I have places for people and places for coffee cups and glasses of lemonade and long summer hours to enjoy it all.
Now it's simply perfect.

Summer Talk

The things I hear from Oldest, Middle, and Youngest are different in the summer. I like it. A lot.

"Mom, what day is it today? Wait....never mind!"

"This is the way all mornings should be."
"Can we have popsicles?"

"What's for breakfast? Or lunch? What time is it anyway?"

"Have another popsicle."
"We're going on another bike ride. See you later."
"I'm taking my book out to the tree."

"Aw, just jump in with your clothes on."

"Do we need shoes for this?"
"We're just gonna run around outside a while."
"Are there any more water balloons?"

"Hey--it's way past my bedtime. Does that matter?"
"I'm getting a popsicle for J. too. I'll be at her house."
"Can I invite E. to have a picnic?"
"I mowed, so I have enough money...can I bike to get ice cream?"
"I mowed, so I have money...can I call A. or S. or somebody to go to the movies?"
"I'm gonna take my lunch to the porch and read while I eat."
"Are we out of popsicles?"

They come and they go, and between lessons and back and forth with friends and cousins, I'm having trouble remembering the day and keeping track of the time too.

But I do know we need more popsicles.

It's here

I finally had time to plant my little garden and my flowers,
The cushions are on the chairs on my front porch,
I am slowly regaining control over the mess in our house,
Youngest just pointed out that he's still up....after 9 pm,
Today I read 2 books cover to cover,
I lingered over my coffee on weekday,
We'll open the pool this week.
Summer vacation is here.

Book Club Gone Rogue

I belong to a somewhat unconventional book club--we'd like to think of ourselves as a rogue group, but since we're all teachers, women, and somewhat nice people who meet in a coffee shop, it's difficult to get people to buy that. Maybe if we started meeting in a motorcycle bar. Or in an abandoned factory down by the tracks.

Only those places don't have coffee and yummy pastries and comfy chairs gathered around a coffee table. The other problem is that other than coloring outside the lines when establishing the rules for our club, the most dangerous thing we do is refuse to wear socks in all but the coldest weather and willingly spend all day with middle schoolers and first graders.

The group is small--just the 4 of us. A. and I started meeting just because we've been friends since her son was in my class and she was a parent helper. We missed the days of chatting over coffee in my classroom and had started recommending book titles to each other. One day we met at the coffee shop to exchange stacks of books and the nontraditional book club was formed.

For a long time it was just the two of us. That was the first slightly out of the ordinary thing about our club--most people don't consider 2 people enough for a real club. However, we like to think that our personalities are big enough to pull it off.

The second unconventional thing we did is refuse to read the same book at the same time and then discuss it. Instead, our meetings are part book talk about books we want each other to read and part spilling our guts about what we'd thought about the books we'd urged upon each other at the last meeting.

Oh, and meetings. They are somewhat less than regular. We meet when we need something to read, want to push books on each other, or when we want a reason to spend time in the coffee shop with other girls.

After a while, A. and I thought that maybe we should expand our club. A. invited her teacher-daughter and I invited a young teacher-friend. B. and L. are great additions to the group, and they like our rules. A. and I sometimes wonder if we are corrupting the young.

Our newest adventure is blogging. I started a while back, and decided it was time to corrupt expand the horizons of the rest of the group. I thought that if I enjoyed it and it was good for me as a writer, it must be good for others, right?

We met recently, but with no books or book talk (see? rogue!). We made sure that everyone had a blog set up, spent a very long time playing with the backgrounds (we like to look good), and made sure each person posted. Tonight, I sent a nagging reminder to the others and the text messages started flying. Imagine my chagrin when L. and A. both had ideas and I had nothing! Then they both posted before me. I toyed with the idea of just typing out the text messages, as we like to think that we are rather clever; however, that involved some risk (what if we find out we're not clever? or funny?).

So instead you get the slightly skewed history of our following-our-own-rules book club. Happy reading girls!

Train Sounds Then and Now

Right now I can hear the long, mellow whistle of a train. It covers for just a bit the low rumble of the train moving along the tracks. I'm too far away to hear the more abrupt clacking of the wheels. From this distance, the sounds are softened and smooth.

When I was a little girl, I remember lying in bed and listening to the trains. The tracks were about a half mile from our house, and the whistle threaded its way through the woods and into the window of the room I shared with one of my sisters. I'm sure that I sometimes heard the trains during the night, but I mostly remember hearing them in the early morning, especially when we had the windows open to the cool night air of late spring and summer. I would lie there in the gray almost-light before dawn, not awake or asleep, and I'd listen to the trains. Maybe I wondered where they had been or where they were going, but mostly I think I just listened to them pass.

I still hear trains in the early morning. The tracks are not so far away from our home, but now the rumble of train on tracks and the long warning whistles pass through neighborhoods and parking lots to reach my ears. There is still just enough distance to mute the sounds so they match the muted light of early morning, and it's just as I remember it. As dark to fade to light, I sometimes find myself listening. Not quite awake, but definitely not asleep, I listen to them pass and remember.

Literary Litterbugs

At our house, books are like litter along a stretch of abandoned inner-city streets. Rooms here are often abandoned by people, but the reading material left behind is ever present.

No matter how often magazines are placed back into baskets, books onto shelves, and newspapers carefully stacked, they reappear almost instantaneously. Some balance precariously on the arms of chairs or sofas, near end tables with coasters still coffee-warm...wonder who left those?

Magazines, with their slippery, glossy covers somehow slide from their designated spots back to a place at the table, joined by sandwich crumbs and a leftover cup. They sneak into bookbags and purses and lie open on sofas next to people-shaped dips in the cushions. Others find their way somehow into the bathrooms, maybe paying tribute to the days when Sears Roebuck played a critical role in this room of the house.

Still more books lie piled in places both imaginable and slightly surprising. They are commonly found sorted into piles of reading-now, just-finished-but-not-ready-to-reshelve, or waiting-to-be-read. Books alone or in piles in the usual places, like the large ottoman in the living room or the bedside tables in the bedrooms. But they are also found in the beds themselves, nestled under pillows or tangled in sheets. They turn up under couch cushions and in the garage and in the car.

Little by little, the text-litter grows. Stories and information fill rooms left empty by the family. Those wandering through are likely to get caught--a tantalizing picture, an attention-grabbing title. None of us is immune to the call. And woe to those who try to control the litter, to create programs and public awareness of the importance of reshelving. Results are gratifying, but short-lived. Even when the rooms remain empty, the reading material seems to appear on its own, perhaps blown in from another family's out-of-control reading habits. The litter is even going high-tech; often the cover of the Kindle can be spotted among the titles gathered near the sofa, and the iPad or laptop have joined ranks with the newspapers and magazines.

Litterbugs...we are a household of literary litterbugs.