Don't let's be the kind of family that fights about who gets to kill themselves next.

"My parents had their first date at church. It consisted of walking side by side for three whole beautiful blocks to the gravel parking lot where my father said to my mother: Well. And my mother said: That's deep. ...

Should we go inside? That was my dad wondering. He often wondered. Of course, said my mom. We've come all this way. Three blocks only, said my dad. ...

They went inside. They split up to go to their respective sides of the church and listened as the elders, one by one, cast their votes. At the end of the evening, there were three fewer members of the church.

That's all I know about that, my mom told me when I was a little kid. I don't know what they'd done.

Jesus H., Tash said, your first date was a shunning? What did they do, I'd asked my mom. Oh, brother, I don't know, she said. I never really paid any attention. But I pressed her. I was six or seven. What did they do, I asked. Just guess. Well, she said, they may have been fooling around, I don't know. Fooling around how, I'd asked. Oh, she said, misbehaving. Kissing. Just fooling around. And then what happened, I'd asked. They couldn't be a part of the church, she'd say. That's right, Mom. And then? Their families weren't allowed to speak to them, she said. And? I'd ask.

This was a bedtime ritual. I dug the shunning story. I couldn't wait to hear it. What a gem. It completely reinforced my belief system of right and wrong. And everyone had to stand up in church and publicly denounce them. Yeah! I'd say. Denounce them! I'd always loved the sound of that.

And everybody was sad, I'd say. Right? Yes, everybody was sad. It was a very difficult position to be in not only for the person who was shunned but for the people who loved them. God especially, I'd say. Right? Yes, God especially. I loved that hook. Even though he was the ultimate punisher, he got no satisfaction from it. It hurt him, but it had to be done. I thought that was damn heroic.

But Nomi, she'd say, there was always the possibility of forgiveness. Remember that. I didn't like that part. It muddied my crystal-clear waters. But probably not, I'd say. Probably not.

One night my mom said she'd had enough of that story. She didn't like it any more and wanted to tell another one. And they lived like ghosts in their own town, right, I'd ask. No friends, no family. Floating around. Bound for hell, right? Crying all the time? Hey, Mom! For fooling around? Right? She'd make up excuses to leave my room. Oh, Dad needs help choosing his shirts for next week, she'd say. And gently close the door."





A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews

Thrilling News For Everyone!

Yes....yes, it's true.

Everyone rejoice!

We have HAD the thank you notes in our hot little hands, half-done, as one of those projects that you keep meaning to get back to, that occasionally haunt your dreams and make you question your own competence and decency as a human being.


We got them out and worked on them on our first anniversary trip, to make them special; here I am writing one:




Ian and I worked on them together; I loved the idea of him writing thank-you notes to MY side of the family, and vice versa, as a gesture of family unity, but we settled on assigning him the people who wouldn't form--or completely revise--their opinion of his intelligence once they saw his hopelessly bad spelling. After that, sometimes we decided by who had the more meaningful thing to say, or by who had the funnier idea.

And they were almost done, I'd say, oh, six months to a year ago. Then I got distracted by other projects and completely daunted by the idea of recollecting the addresses that were obsolete. It's amazing how many of one's acquaintances MOVE in a year! Or MIGHT have moved....

Now, originally, I was all determined to be competent at this. At first, my idea was to open a gift and immediately write the thank-you note, and not open any present we didn't have time to write the note for.

Ha! We moved in and realized all the things we didn't have: dish drainer. Mop, broom, dustpan, buckets. Plunger. Enough pots and pans. Dish soap. Shower curtain. About 50 other things that we needed urgently. And we realized that we'd better open the presents so that we didn't buy duplicates, and providentially we had been given some cash and Target cards, and dashed out and bought those things. Totally wrecked the great system I had read about in the etiquette book.

Then, when we were about 80% finished, I kept postponing because I never seemed to have the money for all that postage. I finally realized that I was doing this and went out and bought a roll of 100 stamps.

Then I realized that the careful list I'd kept of who gave us what was incomplete. I experienced agonies of shame at the idea of approaching people eight months later to ask them what we should be thanking them for, and made Ian and my dad do it.

That was when I began to realize how many addresses we would have to recollect. And we wanted to distribute announcements at Oaks Park, where we met, and mail everything at the same time, and as long as we got them out within the year we weren't TERRIBLE people, right?

I forget why we didn't finish last summer, actually. It would have made sense, wouldn't it?

Anyway, this spring I have been on a tear of efficiency and finishing the thank-yous was DEFINITELY on my list. And then yesterday I went to the post office to mail some postcards and learned from my favorite postal clerk that STAMPS WERE GOING UP TWO CENTS ON MAY 14!

Now, you can't exchange stamps and pay the difference to get the correct 'wattage'. Maybe the post office is afraid that someone will make a killing exchanging forgeries, I don't know. But I was about to have one hundred 24 cent stamps on my hands that would be worthless without one hundred 2 cent stamps that wouldn't fit on the little cards!

So thank the post office for your cards, in more ways then one! They are the straw that finally broke my back. I was NOT going to be buying a whole extra set of two cent stamps and cramming them onto my cute little postcards. It was time for this to be DONE. I sat down at 6:30 last night and worked on them straight through till midnight, worked on them at my desk when it was slow at the office, and then over lunch. I went to the post office today for more stamps and they are going to be done tonight! I slept 5 1/2 hours last night and my shoulder is sore now, but they are going to be done!

DONE!!! HAHAHA!

Oh, sweet rapturous release!

Hopefully some of those very thank you notes [and announcments--better late than never, right?] brought you to our blog. Write us a message and let us know you were here! We'll be ecstatic, trust me.

So, some recent highlights:

Two weeks ago I volunteered at Outdoor School for the first time in 5 years. It was wonderful.

This week I will be going to spend a week with Lindsay Person [of TWU fame] and help out with her new baby, Zeke! Everybody's having all these babies all the time [among my friends, six to date, all BOYS!] and it's clearly time for me to be useful.



And next week, on Saturday May 19th, 7 pm, Steffie and I will be having a joint birthday party at my house! Ian has taken on clearing space in the basement so people can dance. There will be cake and probably games and rootbeer and regular beer and EVERYTHING! YEAH!!

Oh, I'll be 27. Stef will be like, 25. Congratulate her on achieving oldness, by the way. It will make her feel good!

Here's us when we were not old:



Oh, Ian wants everyone to know that Saturday Morning Football is now twice a week; 11 am Saturday, and now Thursdays at 4 pm at 12th and Stark. For more info:

http://www.myspace.com/saturdaymorningfootball

For more info about Ian, harass him to write an entry on the blog!

My New Addiction: The Marvels and Joys of LibraryThing

Hello~

You want to see what I read, don't you? Of course you do!

And you want to know basically every book in my personal library, and see them categorized and alphabetized by title and by author?

And you want to know what books are on my Wish List, so you can plan ahead for birthdays and Christmas?

And you want to know what books I don't have via the Search option, so you can surprise me with a book you think I'd like?

And you want to share the same with me?

Wait no longer, but go straight to LibraryThing! Or, to my account directly.

I have waited for YEARS for something like Librarything. I don't know about you, but sometimes I buy books that I don't intend to read again anytime soon, just for reference. If the book isn't on my shelf, I will have completely MADDENING times where I try to recall exactly where I came across X piece of vital or fascinating information. If I want to completely remember a book, I need to buy it.

And how do I remember which books I own, when I come across a nice second-hand copy of a book I want? Perhaps other people can remember easily if the copy they read last was theirs or from the public library--but not me.

Also, I have always been afraid of losing my books in a fire or through some other catastrophe and not being able to remember titles or authors so I can find them again. When I left for college I had exhaustively typed up and printed a list of all my books, which of course took hours of typing and walking back and forth between the bookshelf and the computer, only to find that not only was the list quickly out of date, but the technology was as well--who uses floppy disks anymore? Who can find their old ones? Are they still readable? Can you find a computer that can read the program you used? Also, where was I going to store this disk so it wasn't damaged in said catastrophe, a safe deposit box? And reorganizing it, whether by author or title or category, was a total pain.

Now, too, I can easily add a note to a book I own whenever I lend it out--if I wonder where it is, I can go check the tags I have assigned to it, such as "Lent To Marisa".

So I have a lifetime Librarything account. The first 200 books are free, and a lifetime membership is only $25. Or you can try it out yearly for $10.

Books are incredibly easy to add--it's like a Google search: you just put in a few keywords and titles pop right up. If you like it simple and direct, it's that easy. If you enjoy tinkering around, or pottering, or whatever, you can make the book cover they show match the cover of the copy you own, or add complicated overlapping categories, or look at other people's book reviews or collections.

If you read, and you know me, you should start a Librarything account, too. I want to be inspired by what you are reading. I want to know what books I can get you for Christmas. I want you to be able to replace your library after a flood or monsoon.

Or go look at MY library. Look at my book categories, or the authors in my collection, or my overall collection. Laugh at my nostalgic kick, the biggest category in my library. Based on my favorite books, see which books I'd be least likely to own--or most likely, if you are not of a contrarian state of mind. Or look at the collections of other people who share a lot of books in common with me.

You know, this probably sounds incredibly pretentious, or nauseatingly whimsical--but one of my favorite things about Librarything is that I can add in books that I plan to read [I always mark them as 'Not Read' until I get to them], or that I love and don't yet own: I think of it as my 'spiritual library', though I suppose 'virtual library' might be more accurate--certainly more pragmatic.

So take a look, and tell me what you think.

Our Christmas, 2006

Hello, all~

For Christmas this year, Ian and I gave each other a terrible, terrible cold. A knock-you-flat insomniac cold.

I personally believe I got the worst of it [she says in the manner of a wilting, sighing southern belle, with the back of her hand pressed pressed to her forehead]. First, Ian was sick all through the time I was working overtime and then trying to clean the house, and by December 21st I had contracted it.

Miraculously [or, thanks to a combination of the awesome recuperative powers of the Devil's Smoothie and my own propensity for overwork] I was well for one day, the day of our Second Annual Christmas Party, which was loads of fun. [All you who were not able to make it, make a mental note for next year; anyone who might come to town in last December next year should certainly keep us posted, as well.] We had Everything! Ian's masterful arrangements of fruit, cheese, and chocolate....coffee and cocoa....tree decorating....gift exchange....trace amounts of Peppermint Schnapps....a rousing round of The Game Of Real Life...and, to top it all off, a real live baby, provided by the occasion by Kelly-Shane and April. Gavin stole the show with his general unfussiness and willingness to be held by everyone and anyone.

So it was a lovely night and we stayed up together until nearly two AM. This last part was a hideous mistake, in afterthought, because, though I went to work the next morning at 10 am, I was almost delirious by the time I drove home at 3 pm. I'd taken the next day off of work so we could attend the morning Christmas Eve service at Montavilla, and go over to spend the night at Marisa's house, but I was too sick for both of those things [and anyone who knows me and my nomadic habits knows I'd have to be pretty miserable to feel that I'm better off at home]. So Ian drove me to work Christmas morning, and picked me up and brought me back to his mother's house, where stayed awake long enough to eat breakfast and open presents, and spent most of the rest of the day asleep in a chair. That evening we went home for Christmas Evening Together As a Couple, which consisted of me falling asleep on the couch while Ian cooked dinner, and falling asleep again afterward at about 8:30, and calling into work the next day. Like I said, it was a miserable cold!

It was definitely disappointing to miss certain special times. Melissa and Morgan had come to visit the West Coast with Grove, and we were all going to go to Saturday Market [where Melissa and I used to hang out on weekends in high school] for the Festival of The Last Minute, but I missed it. And on OPB Christmas Eve they have a tradition of a burning log, that we like to watch with Marisa, Ian's mother. It's like having a fireplace in your living room, and for some reason it elicits great excitement when a phantom hand appears, Monty Python and the Holy Grail-like, to put more wood on the fire or rearrange it with the poker. It was a bit ironic, too, because last year didn't go the way I had planned at all, and I later realized that my expectations were unrealistic with us both working full time throughout the holiday season. My mother has always either been homemaking or working a school job with holidays off, and the extra time makes a huge difference. So this year I had planned not to take any overtime after December 15th, and to wrap presents, decorate, put up the tree, make cookies, all that fun festive routine, only to have sickness pre-empt that.

However! There was improvement in several ways--for example, Ian got me presents this year! [Last year he didn't quite have Internet ordering figured out, and nothing ever arrived. And he thought the money was already gone from his account and therefore spent it all, so he couldn't re-order.] And we made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers [well, Ian made a Gingerbread Temple of Doom] with the kids--Emerald, Josiah, Lily, and Noah ; and the girls and I made an excursion to The Grotto's Festival of Lights, while Ian was sick. It was originally going

to be the four of us, but we had some fun girl-time bonding out of that.

We are also on the way to making the soundtrack to Amelie part of our Official Christmas Music [anyone else plan for music to hold memories of a certain time? I like to buy a new CD when something new happens in my life], crab is definitely our Official Christmas Dinner, and we hope to be on the path for local renown for our delightful Christmas Shindigs, and Marisa finished our 'wedding outfit scrap Christmas Stockings'--I'll get a picture to post at some point.

And we gave and received some wonderful gifts [doesn't it feel good to hit on the perfect gift for someone and then wait in anticipation?]. Among the fabulous gifts we received: I got another pendant from Deenie and Daniel, an undersea-looking one with a swirling amber background and some pale-green knobbles around the sides; a framed collection of photos of me growing up with our family, from my mother, and, believe it or not, a completely addictive series of graphic novels called Fables, from Jake. They are a modern-day continuation of the major fairy-tale characters we all grew up with, who have escaped their besieged Homelands and are living disguised in a secret enclave in New York. I still have a bit of my nerd heritage [Ian has a great deal more, and even trumpets it proudly, but is so charming that he carries it off] but I have never been interested in graphic novels--it sounds rather off-color, doesn't it? But this series is absolutely riveting. And seeing Melissa and Morgan again--and getting to meet Grove--was a major highlight.

So that was our Christmas. And if the Rocking Horse doesn't run away with the chocolate cake, when it ought to put it to sleep in the cat's cradle for the gold fish, (and if her mother sends me some pictures) I'll tell you next how Lindsay's baby shower went!

In the meantime, this entry needs another picture! Here's me when I was 12. Or 13. Doesn't it give one hope?