Elvis is in the house. . .
Well, as usual when I don’t blog for a while, so many things happen that I can’t possibly fit it all into one post and do each thing justice. I’ll have to settle for posting about one thing now and more to come. (hint: I need to make my husband a Superman cape!)
The Big News: We have added a new member to our family. He’s nine months old, short, blonde, brown-eyed and has a rather large nose. He eats practically anything and has a little BO problem. His name, I’m sorry to say, is Elvis. Yes, we’ve adopted a Muppet:
We’ve been kicking around the idea of getting a dog for a while. Well, actually, I’ve been campaigning for a dog and Val’s been saying no, no! no way, absolutely not, we just can’t do it right now, etc. Then one day he emailed me a blurry picture of a fuzzy, beige thing. A neighbor of a grad student had this dog and couldn’t keep it and would we like to take a look at it? For Val, it was love at first sight. Who am I to stand in the way of true love? Besides, he was really, really cute. Plus, have I mentioned? I wanted a dog. We told the kids we were maybe getting a dog. Maybe. Because if this dog didn’t seem like a good fit for our family, then we weren’t going to get this dog. But! We think we’re ready and, if this dog doesn’t work out, we will actively look for a dog that’s right for us. Just don’t get your hopes up, okay? The kids heard, “We’re getting a dog!” Much excitement and anticipation. Did I mention this all happened on April 1st? On our way to look at the dog, Val, in a not-so-great parenting moment said, “Hey guys? April Fool! We’re not getting a dog! Ha ha!” No one thought it was funny. No laughter from the back seat. There was actual crying, causing me call my husband an idiot and slug him in the bicep.
We arrived at the house and. before ringing the doorbell, cautioned the kids again not to get their hopes up–remember: this dog might not be the dog. He might not even like kids! The door opened and we were attacked by an orangey Tazmanian Devil, all tongue and wagging tail. So, okay! He likes kids! He likes everyone. He was definitely friendly and so stinkin’ cute! He was the right size: not too big, not small enough to equal one of those nasty, yappy dogs that conveniently fit into a microwave. According to his owner, he was well-behaved, was used to cats, and walked well on a leash. We all loved him instantly. This is the dog! Our dog! I asked what “kind” of dog he was. Turns out, he’s not the terrier/corgi mix he looked to be in the grainy cell-phone pic. He’s a purebred wheaten Scottish Terrier. My heart sank, because hello! Purebred? She’s not gonna just give him away. She’s gonna want some return on her investment, right? I tried not to look at my kids, rolling around on the floor with a licking, wagging mass of fur and asked casually, “So, how much are you asking for him?” The woman said, “Well, I would just give him to the right family, and he seems to like you guys. Do you think you’d want him?” Uh, yeah. Definitely yes.
We took him home that night and, because we were just looking and not prepared to bring home a dog right away, we headed straight to WalMart. The kids and Elvis stayed in the car while Val and I did some emergency dog shopping. (Btw? Dogs are expensive!)
And now, three weeks later, he has settled into our family. I expected him to be kind of freaked out the first couple of days–timid, nervous, whining for his old home. Nope. He walked in the door and it was like, “Ahhh. I’m home!” The cats aren’t quite so sure that he belongs here, especially Sophie, who seems permanently pissed off and reacts to his presence with dramatic hissy-fits, but I do think things are a tiny bit better. Indy seems okay with having a dog, until Elvis starts chasing him which, after all, he is a Scottie–he’s been bred to hunt small mammals, so, you know. I don’t think he actually wants to hurt the cats but he would dearly love a good chase. It can get pretty ugly. And he gets in trouble a lot because HE EATS EVERYTHING. Weekdays are rather hellish because, when the babies are here, it’s complete pandemonium. Elvis tries to eat baby toys, which Marie readily hands to him and then Marie tries to eat dog toys, which is disgusting. Ah, but Elvis does not stop at toys. He is absolutely undiscriminating in his choice of things to chew on. Travis’s chicken wing, Riley’s cereal, poopy diapers, shoes, socks, Star Wars action figures, it makes no difference. He mangled one stem of my prescription sunglasses and would have completely eaten them if I hadn’t caught him. Also? Yesterday? He ate yarn. A brand new ball of beautiful, Mini Mochi that I had just bought. It quickly went from a gorgeous, neat little cake to a soggy, sad tangled mass of yarn-barf. I heard him wetly chewing on something and nearly cried when I saw what it was. Really. I had had it less than twenty four hours. I got it away before he managed to ingest it. Just after it happened Steph came by to pick up Tyler and hang out for a bit and she spent quite a while working on untangling the mess. After she left, I spent the rest of the evening sorting it out and finally got it balled up about 8:00. There was really only one place where the yarn was wet and broken so I don’t think he ate too much of it. He apparently has a thing for wool because he keeps getting into my basket of wool felt and drags a piece into the middle of the floor to casually munch on. Bad dog! Overall, though, he seems to be learning pretty quickly and has (mostly) good manners. He isn’t jumping on people as much and follows most commands, unless he doesn’t want to, of course. I don’t know if we’re ever going to break the chewing/eating habit. The kids quickly learned to keep toys and shoes off of the floor, which is a major bonus. All these years of me asking, pleading, threatening and screaming did nothing, but the threat of a dog eating your stuff? That works. So, you know, it’s not ALL bad. Sigh.
[note: we didn’t choose the name Elvis–he was already named that. We talked about changing his name but decided it was sort of cool, in a nerdy kind of way. My request was that we pretend he is named after Elvis Costello, rather that the other one, ’cause, you know. Not a big fan. . . Due to his rather pungent odor, which wreaks havoc on my overly-sensitive sniffer, I have nicknamed him “Smellvis”. We also occasionally call him Elmo and Melvin.]
Tomato Seedlings
They’re coming up!
Last weekend, Riley and I planted tomato seeds in a seedling tray. We planted “Best of Show” mix, an beefsteak variety and the rest of my pineapple tomato seeds. The pineapples were about 3 years old and I wasn’t sure any of them would even come up so we planted two to a cell. They all came up so now I have to cull one from each cell, which makes me sad. I hope to save seeds this year so that I can get some more of them. In addition to these, a friend of Val’s is giving us some sauce tomato plants. If everything goes well this summer in this not-so-good-for-growing-tomatoes climate, we will be swimming in tomatoes!
Last year’s crop was doing so well, despite my late start, until the surprise frost we had in September that killed everything. This year will be different I swear it will! I am getting a head start and have promised myself not to forget to bring the seedlings in at night until they’re ready to harden off. Really. I promise, okay?
Anyone who knows me well and might be reading this is probably wondering why the hell I am growing tomatoes in the first place. I hate tomatoes. I loathe the taste of them and my children also refuse to eat them. Val likes them, though, and enjoyed the few we managed to harvest last year before the frost. While I don’t enjoy raw tomatoes, I like some of the things made from them and I want to grow enough of them to can salsa and spaghetti sauce. Mostly spaghetti sauce. I have recently gone on this “no processed food” binge lately (uh, Girl Scout cookies aren’t considered processed food, right? Right?), and I want to have a healthy option to the jarred stuff my lazy ass always buys. I’m choosing to believe that I will harvest pounds and pounds of fruit at the end of the summer. Of course, I’m a realist at heart and I know that northern Idaho doesn’t have the best reputation for being a good place to grow tomatoes but I’m determined to try. If all else fails, there’s always the Farmer’s Market and I can buy the damn things but I really love a challenge so wish me well on this gardening adventure!
Small things
I visit antique stores pretty frequently and, 80% of the time, find nothing at all that I want to take home. My standards are pretty strict, I guess. I have no interest in rusty old farm implements or kitchen items from the 1970’s. Nor do I want musty old suitcases or Depression Glass. I usually go away feeling a little bit unfulfilled. Once in a while, though, I find things like this. This little ceramic planter was just crying out to come home with me and live on my kitchen windowsill. It’s only about 4 1/2″ high and so adorable! I wish I was able to take a better picture of it, but my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. You can’t tell, for instance, that this little planter is painted a very light green or that the colors of the little flowers contrast perfectly. I saw it and said, “There! That’s what I want. It’s something I need.” Four dollars for a little soul-satisfaction. Not bad!
I have a penchant for all things small. I have since I was a child. I started collecting tiny things and that’s what I look for when I go into antique stores. A lot of people collect tiny things, so there’s not usually much for me to find. Occasionally though I find a treasure and it goes into my printer’s box hanging on my bathroom wall. See that tiny teddy bear on the top left there? I got that in Silverton, Colorado when Val and I were coming back from Aspen in 1996. We went into a cute little Victorian gift shop and there it was. It’s all of two inches high and it’s entirely handmade. I paid $25 for it and it’s one of my favorite things. A couple of years ago, when I found out about my dad’s family, I discovered that my great grandmother lived in Silverton for a short time in the 1880’s. She married a man who owned a boarding house and she ran it until he started hitting her. She left him and went back to Boulder. I love that I went to this tiny little mountain town, totally by accident (we were traveling and needed a place to stop for lunch) and it turns out I actually have ancestral ties there. I would never have remembered going there if I hadn’t bought the little bear.
Riley and I put this terrarium together a couple of weeks ago. I have always wanted one but for some reason never set one up. I used to be obsessed with houseplants, especially ferns and begonias. When I got pregnant with Travis I was so nauseated and sick all the time that everything that didn’t have to do with growing a baby went by the wayside. All of my houseplants died or were given away because I couldn’t muster the strength to take care of them. I have two that simply refuse to die no matter how much I abuse them and I admired their tenacity and let them stay. A few weeks ago, Val built a top for our aquarium and mentioned how much he liked it when we had a forest of plants surrounding our aquariums. It occurred to me that, hello– I now have time to water plants! I’ve been buying and potting and am starting it up again. It makes it feel a bit more like spring around here, and we could all use that.
I need a vacation from Spring Break
Yep. If I don’t post at least once every, say, oh. . . two months or so. What? The average is every seven months you say? Okay. Well, at least the gaps are getting smaller.
The past week has been hell around here. Worst spring break EVER! Last Thursday, Val had a little procedure done. No, not that procedure: we took care of that after Riley was born. This was, well, no delicate way to put this, Rectal Surgery (cue dramatic music). Specifically, a hemorrhoidectomy. (No that’s really what it’s called! I thought it would have a different, more scientific-y name, but no. Just what you would call it if you didn’t know what the procedure was called and were making up a name. All that’s missing is the word “thingy” after it.) It was a long time coming. After 4 years of misery, with the last year and a half being almost unbearable, he decided it was time to do this. It is not a pleasant surgery and the recovery time is, well, slow and uncomfortable, as you can probably imagine. On top of the usual recovery issues (oh use your imagination, fer cryin’ out loud!), he seems to have come down with some kind of virus and is feeling like he has the flu. Now I don’t mind any of this. Really. After all, I do have a nurturing personality and therefore have a constant need to make people feel better. I don’t mind getting him food, drinks, pain meds, any of that. Actually, he’s been a pretty easy patient as far as that stuff goes. After the first couple of days he was getting around without my help and doing most of that stuff for himself. Except, you know, getting food. He has never done that so nothing different there (sigh). He has to have four sitz baths a day and he’s getting kind of tired of that. Anyway, the point is, I don’t mind helping out. I am, however, getting extremely tired of seeing my husband so miserable. After a week, he is still sore, sick and pretty darn grumpy. I’ll be glad when things are back to normal and he feels good again. Because, we love him, but the grumpiness? Yeah. That’s gotta go.
On top of this, I’ve been babysitting all week which is kind of difficult because my whole routine is off, what with the whole family here and underfoot. To be fair, the kids have helped out a ton and the babies love them so it’s actually been easier as far as that goes, but it’s so crowded here and Val has been sleeping a lot in our room which is where I put Tyler down for a nap so, like I said, the routine has suffered. Then, THEN, on Wednesday, Travis kept complaining that he wasn’t feeling well. Mostly his stomach wasn’t feeling good. We have had issues with Travis’s stomach before, so I was like, okay, we know what is isn’t, let’s wait and see what happens. He felt worse towards evening and went to bed late. I also went to bed late and then Riley woke me up at about 12:30, after I’d been asleep about an hour and a half, saying her throat hurt and could she go downstairs on the couch. The couch was currently being occupied by her father, who came up to bed so that she could have the sofa. He was restless and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Then, at around 2 a.m., Travis came in our room and said he “thought” he had diarrhea. Uh, yeah. To say the least. I sent him into the bathroom to get cleaned up and then got him back into bed with a barf bucket, which he ultimately ignored because, guess what. Half an hour later I heard, “Mom!” and he had thrown up in his bed. He had also had another bout of the big D so I put him into the shower while I changed his bedding and started a load of laundry. The rest of the night is a blur of puke, poop, Lysol, Clorox wipes and laundry which ultimately ended up with Travis on the couch, me in the chair and everyone else in their respective beds. Val had come back down to the living room at around three and found Riley eating a bowl of cereal and watching “Leprechaun” on tv. Yes, that movie. (Why yes, I do have excellent parenting skills. Why do you ask?) Val sent her back up to bed and took over the couch until I booted him back upstairs so that I could put Trav there to make it easier for me to keep an eye on him. I think Travis went through five pairs of underwear that night. Truthfully? I threw them away because I’d rather buy new undies than wash that stuff out. (You’d do the same, I promise.) Anyway, I felt so sorry for him. He was so exhausted and would fall asleep only to be woken up a few minutes later by either his bowels or me making him go to the bathroom. And he was so good-natured about the whole thing. He’d come out of the bathroom with a smile on his face, saying, “Mom? I think I’m done now. I really think it’s all over!” Towards the end there, he really got punchy and, once, when I tried to go in the bathroom to help him, he pushed me out the door and said, “Be gone, Woman!” Then, by 7 a.m, he was magically better and feeling just fine. I, on the other hand, was a bag of crap. An hour and a half of sleep doesn’t go very far. I only had Marie for half a day yesterday (Tyler’s dad decided to keep him home because of all the carnage here) and when she went home, I officially checked out for the day. I will say though, that I think all of my obsessive applications of Lysol and Clorox paid off: no one else has come down with the stomach bug. I’m still exhausted, though and plan to catch up on sleep this weekend. Or, you know, that’s the plan anyway. We’ll see.
New Year
I’m just going to say it: 2009 was shitty. Not all of it: we elected Barack Obama into office, and that was a stellar event. There were a few other little goodies in there too, but overall, for me at least, it sucked. I’m glad it’s over and I’m looking forward to a new year and good things.
One good thing already: I am knitting more. It’s getting a little bit easier every time. I am s-l-o-w-l-y mastering (well, maybe not mastering) the Continental method. I have the knit stitch down but purling? Not so much. It’s work, baby. It’s like my left hand leaves my body and has a mind of its own. I have to concentrate so hard to make my fingers do what they’re supposed to. It took me forever to even get as far as I am. I really wasn’t getting the written instructions. I’m a visual learner. When I decided to try Continental I just kept watching videos of the knit stitch on YouTube over and over again without trying it. I watched until I got it and could visualize myself doing it. Then when I picked up the needles and tried it, it was like my fingers just knew what to do. Amazing! I felt like Luke Skywalker or Caine. (Way to go, Grasshoppah.) Knowing how to knit Continental style literally changed my knitting life. It’s so much faster! I whipped out a couple of hats on some circulars and reveled in my new knowledge. After I got over myself a little bit, I decided it was time to learn to purl. I have been doing the same thing as before: watching videos, visualizing, etc. And it has gotten a little easier. It has. I had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. I tried it out and it actually worked, sort of. It’s just much harder and it’s like training my fingers to do something they really, really don’t want to do. My left hand keeps cramping up. I made a scarf in the mistake rib pattern and, in order to keep my sanity, I did almost the whole thing in my weird, half-assed English throwing style. It actually went pretty fast, but I did try a few rows in my still weak and awkward Continental method and it went much more slowly. And you can totally tell the rows I did because they’re really uneven and wonky. It will come, I guess. I just need to sit down and really work at it.
Meanwhile. . . I did this! I started this scarf last spring and finished it in late summer, before I learned the Continental method. It went very slowly and it was a little tedious and I could only do twelve rows or so at a sitting before I got a little crazy. But I was really proud of myself when I finished. It’s from Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I saw it in the Knitpicks catalog and ordered the book and the yarn (in the exact colors shown because I have no imagination or confidence in my own yarn-choosing abilities, apparently). It was actually a pretty easy pattern, which surprised me. It looks difficult and impressive, though, right?
Before Christmas, I used one of my gift certificates to buy some new yarn. I had been fondling the Baby Alpaca Grande at the quilt shop for several months but wasn’t sure I liked the colors they had in stock. At the last Sanity Seekers meeting I scoped out the yarn and noticed they had gotten some more colors in.
Yummy! This yarn is unbelievably soft and squooshy. Like, incredibly soft and squooshy. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can afford to buy the fifteen or so skeins it would require to make a decent-sized afghan and then curl up in it and not leave until April or May. At $14.99/skein, that would be a pretty expensive afghan. But oh. my. god.
Anyway, I could afford two skeins. I chose this beautiful heathered purple and hoped two skeins would be enough to make something I loved. I did some pattern searching on Ravelry and found a very simple pattern for a scarf. It worked up very quickly and I love it. I wish I could post a picture of it but sadly, Travis took the memory card out of our camera to put in his video camera and I don’t know where it is. I will post, though, because it’s awesome. It’s incredibly cuddly and squishy and I love it. I wear it at every opportunity and force people to feel it. “Isn’t it soft? Feel how soft it is!”
Another update on Sarah Parks
Just read in the paper that the judge set Silas Parks’ bail at $200,000 and the trial is supposed to start March 22nd. Since the prosecutor is not going to seek the death penalty in this case, Silas is entitled to bail. What happens if this creep actually manages to post bail? From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Friday, 12/25:
Defense attorney Ray Barker asked at a bond hearing last Friday to have bail set at $100,000, noting the limited financial assets of the Parks family and of Silas himself. Thompson asked for bail to be set at $500,000, noting the serious nature of the charges against Parks.
So the prosecutor asked for $500,000 to make it harder for the family to post bail and the judge set bail at $200,000 to, what, make it easier for them? Because we want this guy out on the streets? I really do not understand this logic at all and it distresses me that he could get out of prison and walk around free until the trial. I think he would probably disappear. I’m angry at the judge and I’m angry at the prosecutor for not seeking the death penalty. Yep. There, I said it.
ETA: Silas Parks was released on bail on Thursday, Dec 31. His father and uncle posted property bonds to meet the $200,000 needed.
Ursula
I’ve been away a while. I have been putting this post off but can no longer stall. I can’t go on with this blog without posting about this and I need to continue, so here it is. I have to report another death. On September 12, my very dear friend, Ursula Hitch, was killed in an ATV accident. Three and a half months have gone by and I’ve thought about her every single day of it. After this much time I think it’s finally starting to seem real to me. For the longest time every time I thought about her (and I think about her a lot, she just pops in there at odd times when I’m not expecting it) it was with this total sense of unreality. Like a bad dream. And it seemed so impossible that she wasn’t going to just walk in my back door, pour a cup of coffee and sit at my table and start chatting. How can she just be gone? She of all people. But you probably didn’t know my friend Ursula. She was amazing. So much energy and so kind and funny. She was probably the most giving person I ever knew. I can sit in any room of my house, look around, and see half a dozen things she gave me. Knick-knacks, fabric, quilted wall hangings she made herself, wind chimes, a bird feeder, two bird feeders in fact. And tons and tons of sewing things, some of them homemade. Things for my kitchen. She was always showing up with something for me. “I saw this and it made me think of you,” and it was always something I loved. She knew me so well. And now with it being Christmas, well. Going through the ornaments this year, so many of them came from her–mostly the ones with cardinals on them. She knew I loved cardinals because they remind me of my mother and I collect snowflake ornaments because I just love them. There must be a dozen or more things for my tree that she gave me. As I said, I can sit in any room of my house or in my back yard and look around and be reminded of her and how much she loved me and that’s a huge comfort.
Here’s how I found out she died: Sunday, September 13 was Sanity Seeker Sunday. Ursula was supposed to pick me up because Val and Travis took the Jeep to Lewiston to go fishing. Riley was going to come to the quilt shop with us so we were all packed up and ready to go. I wanted to go a little early because I needed to pick something up at JoAnn’s or something. I tried calling her cell phone at about 9 am or so. I called her land line too and left a message on both phones. It was so unusual that she wouldn’t call me back that I started worrying a little bit, but mostly just thought, “Oh, she must be doing something and forgot her phone,”. But that little part of me-the one that always thinks the worst-was going, Uh-oh, uh-oh, something’s not right. SS starts at noon and when she wasn’t here by a quarter after I thought she must have somehow forgotten. I called Suzie on her cell and I asked her if Ursula was there yet and said she was supposed to pick me up. The connection was bad, cutting in and out like it does sometimes when I make a call from my kitchen, but I thought she sounded funny. She said, “Wendy is on her way to get you.” Okay, so Wendy will pick us up and I can give Ursula a lot of crap for forgetting me when she finally shows up. Five minutes later I saw Wendy coming up my walk and Riley and I headed out the door with our stuff. Wendy said, “Wait, can we go back inside for a minute?” and you know how you feel when you know something bad is coming? That sense of dread that stretches time out and distorts things like a cartoon? I turned around and went back inside and Wendy followed. She told me to sit down. Nope, no way. That’s what they tell you to do when they give you bad news. “What’s wrong?” I asked, “Is it Ursula?” She said there had been an accident, Ursula and Jim were riding four-wheelers and there was an accident. “Is she okay?” I asked, “Is she hurt?” Wendy was crying and shaking, “No. She died.” I started screaming and Wendy was hugging me. The rest is foggy. I know I sat on the couch and cried, Riley was on my lap, poor kid. I know she was scared–who wouldn’t be at six years old, seeing her mother hysterical? Finally, I calmed down and Wendy asked me what I wanted to do. Val wasn’t here and I knew I couldn’t stay home. I said I wanted to go to the quilt shop. Wendy, Suzie and Sarah were the only ones there. Someone who knew Ursula and knew about the accident had called the quilt shop only about five minutes before I called Suzie. Teri took the call and called Suzie to the phone so they had just found out what had happened when I called. We got there and just sat, stunned. I don’t know how many times one of us said, “This is so unreal. This is not happening.” One by one, the rest of the group trickled in and Suzie or Wendy would give them the news. It was awful to watch. Shock and disbelief. Nancy dissolved into immediate tears. Mary laughed at first in disbelief, like we were joking, and then started crying. I stepped outside to see if I could call Val. I wanted him home as soon as possible. I called and he was actually on his way. I told him what had happened and when he got into town, he and Travis came to the quilt shop and got Riley. When the rest of the group had gotten there and everyone knew, we just sat for the longest time, all eight of us, a giant box of tissues on the table, and cried and stared at each other. Finally, Nancy stood up and said she was going to get some wine. Someone suggested we all go to La Casa Lopez and drink margaritas. That’s definitely what Ursula would have done. So we did. We took our ginormous box of Kleenex and drove downtown to our favorite Mexican restaurant and drank heavily for the next two hours. I can’t even imagine how that particular day would have gone if I hadn’t been with that amazing group of women. We cried and talked and laughed. I was worried about Mary and Wendy and Nancy said later they were worried about me. I was so in denial. I kept waiting for Ursula to walk in and announce the best practical joke ever. Or for someone to call and say there had been a mistake, she was hurt but going to be okay. It was very surreal. The alcohol took the edge off of everything but we were all hurting. There was this indescribable closeness in that group. We’ve always been a tight clan but there’s nothing like a death to bring people together. We finally broke up at around three and Wendy took me home. I knew Ursula’s family best so I had volunteered to be the liaison and keep everyone posted. The next week was a nightmare. The Sanity Seekers got together several times to talk and cry. That’s how we got through it. I’m so glad we had that. I know I couldn’t have coped without them. Val was very supportive, of course. He was grieving too-Ursula had been a huge part of our lives since before Travis was born-and he was there for me but in this particular case, it was all about Girlfriends, you know? The funeral was surreal. So many people. Ursula had worked for years as a birthing coach (which is how I met her) so there were people who knew her from those days. Her daughter had been active in gymnastics for years and Ursula worked part time in the gym so there were gymnastics people. She had also worked for hospice and many, many people knew her from that venue. Her husband Jim is a firefighter so there was the Firefighter community. And then there were the quilters. She touched so many lives in so many ways. The Sanity Seekers stood in a tight little group. Val and my mother in law were beside me and Stephanie and Tyler came so I had my own little support group as well as the SS. I met Ursula’s three sisters for the first time. That was weird. I had heard about them for years of course. I felt like I knew them already and it was so weird actually meeting them without her there.
Jim asked me to go through Ursula’s quilt room. That was hard, but also kind of therapeutic. The first two times I went there, Jim wasn’t home and I was alone. I wasn’t freaked out at all. In fact, it felt kind of peaceful. They had just moved into a new house twenty miles away from town two months before the accident and I had never actually been there so the house didn’t feel like Ursula. All of her things were there, though. All the little touches that were her. I was able to sit in her sewing chair and cry and talk to her and cry some more. I told her that I loved her and that I would miss her. Since then, I have been back several times. Ursula had a lot of UFOs (for the non-crafty: UnFinished Objects, in this case, quilts). I took those and Mary had the brilliant idea that we (Sanity Seekers) should finish these for her family. There were enough quilt tops for us to finish as wedding quilts and baby quilts for all three kids. Ursula’s kids are 23, 21 and 18. She was so looking forward to being a grandmother someday. She talked about it all the time. I am so sad for her family. Her kids are so amazing, all three of them. She was such a good mom and would have been a really wonderful grandmother.
Ugh. I can’t write about this anymore. I will write more later, but for now, I am wrung out. This craft blog has turned into a Death Blog and I don’t want to report any more of this kind of news.
I wish I had something sweet and profound to say to tie all of this up, but I don’t. I think of my sweet friend every day and I had a dream the other night where I was hugging her really, really hard and crying and telling her over and over again that I loved her and I was going to miss her. Maybe that’s what took this whole thing from denial and disbelief to, finally, acceptance? I’m ready to move on, I guess. I’ll never stop missing her. I will never have another friend quite like her. She was the one person that I could tell anything to, that I could be completely myself with. The one friend who could come to my house in whatever state of chaos it happened to be in and I knew I didn’t have to apologize or make excuses and that she would never, ever judge me. God help me, I’m too old to break in another best friend and it makes me feel very alone and sad. I know I wasn’t half the friend to her that she was to me and it makes me feel ashamed but I also knew that she didn’t hold it against me and she loved me anyway. She was like that, my friend Ursula.
Sarah
I just don’t know where to start. It has been a sad week for so many people. I know the whole town is in shock but it’s hitting our little school especially hard. Sarah Parks, third grade teacher at the Moscow Charter School, died on Wednesday morning. Her body was found burned inside her apartment. Her husband, Silas, was at the gym working out. There was an autopsy and it was determined that Sarah was dead before the fire so the death is being investigated as a homicide. As if this isn’t sad enough, Sarah was 20 weeks pregnant with her first baby. Now here’s the kicker: she was abused by her husband. We don’t know all of the details yet, but there has been at least one citation for domestic abuse in the past and there are records on file at the hospital concerning injuries to Sarah stemming from a domestic incident. According to some of the other teachers, her husband beat her up pretty badly a couple of years ago and the abuse has been ongoing ever since. This all came out after her death but, apparently it was common knowledge amongst her coworkers and a few people weren’t surprised to hear that the death was suspicious. As of this moment, Silas has been questioned and released and there are no suspects in the case.
Sarah was a very quiet, sweet person. She was Travis’s teacher the year before last and, though she wasn’t his favorite teacher, she was kind and always had a smile. She was always smiling. She was from Texas, collected pigs and was so excited to be having a baby. The last time I saw her was at one of the baseball games about a month ago. Several of the kids on both teams were Charter School kids and a few of the teachers made it out to cheer them on. I had just heard that Sarah was pregnant and I stopped and said hi to her and asked when she was due. She told me October and she was just glowing. I felt that particular kind of happiness you feel for someone about to embark on the Motherhood journey and wished her well. It tears me up to think about it now, how happy she looked.
Telling my kids was so difficult. I haven’t had to do this sort of thing before and I wasn’t prepared. I had just gotten off the phone after hearing the news and was in shock myself. and very upset. Travis came in at that moment and saw me crying. He asked what was wrong and I put my arms around him and said, “I have some sad, sad news to tell you. Mrs. Parks died.” I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. He hugged me hard but didn’t say anything. I told him there was a fire and we didn’t know the details yet. I asked if he was okay and he nodded and asked if I was okay. That was all. I could sense the wheels turning and so I just let him go. Later that evening Val was at a softball game and the kids and I were watching a movie. There was nothing on so I went to On Demand and found an old movie with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball called “Yours, Mine and Ours”. I figured it was safe-comedy, 1968, PG. No problem. Well, there was a scene where Henry and Lucille are in their room on their wedding night. They toast each other with champagne and then embrace. Travis, out of the blue, says, “Oh man, now they’re gonna have sex!” Of course he knows what this means (in ten-year-old terms, anyway) so I just let the comment pass. Riley looked up at me and said, “Mom? What’s sex?” Are you kidding me? Now? We have to do this now? I have been prepared for the junior version of the sex talk for some time now. I have books and everything. But at 9:00 at night, after a long, emotional day, I was nowhere in the mood to have this particular conversation. So I crapped out. I said, “Ri, we will talk about this tomorrow. I have a book we can look at. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, okay?” She agreed but ten minutes later she got up and went to the book shelf and pulled out the book and brought it over to me, saying, “Mom? Is this the book you were talking about?” So we had The Talk. I let the book do most of the work and it actually went really well. She didn’t seem uncomfortable or anything and asked some really good questions. We got to the part about babies being born and Travis. all of a sudden, said,”Riley? Did you know that Mrs. Parks died?” Riley looked at me, eyes huge. “Mrs. Parks? Did she mom?” I said yes, she did. She wanted to know how and I told her that there was a fire in her house and she died. I hadn’t even been sure that she knew who Sarah was. But she immediately started crying and I realized, of ourse she knew her. It’s a tiny school and there are only 8 teachers and all of them share playground and lunchroom duty. Then Travis dropped the bomb. “Mrs. Parks was going to have a baby.” Riley cried even harder. She grieved as hard as a little six year old girl could be expected to. I held her and answered her questions. “Were there any animals in the house? Did they die too?” I said I didn’t know. Travis, helpfully this time, said, “I bet she had a doggie door so they could have gotten out!” That seemed to help. After a bit, she stopped crying and was distracted by a funny picture in the book. The next morning, she asked for paper and markers to draw a picture for Mrs. Parks. “BIG paper, because I have a lot to put in there!” Her picture is of a tall house being attacked by a giant, spiky fireball. There are stars in the night sky and, in one window, there is a figure lying prone. She explained that this is Mrs. Parks in bed and her husband is in another window. After the picture, she seemed okay. It really helped her to get it all down on paper. She keeps asking me what to do with it and wants to give it to Mrs. Parks husband so he can give it to her at the hospital. “I know she can’t see it, Mom, ’cause she can’t open her eyes.” God.
Travis, in the meantime, hasn’t said much at all. He did ask me once why he wasn’t crying. I think he felt that he should be and was disturbed by the fact that he wansn’t. I told him that people grieve in different ways and that kids, in particular, don’t really know how to process news like this. The day after we got the news, the police announced that it was now a homicide investigation. We took Travis aside and told him that it looked as though someone hurt Mrs. Parks before she died. He seemed a little more upset by this news. Of course, every time I talk about it I start crying and he wants to hug me or pat me or comfort me in some way. I know this is a lot for him, but we feel that he is old enough to hear it. In any case, it is a small town and an even smaller school. He will hear the news eventually and we would rather he heard it from us than on the street.
There was a meeting last night for parents at the Charter School to meet with counselors and to discuss how to talk to our kids about this. I felt really validated afterwards. I had already done all the things they said to do. Maybe I’m a better parent than I think? There will be a memorial service on Thursday. One of the parents, who is the school board chair, spoke and said that he has been in constant contact with both sides of the family and that both plan on being at the memorial service, including Silas. He reminded everyone that, as of now, Silas has not been charged with anything and is not considered to be a suspect in the case. It will be strange to see him there. I know everyone is thinking he did it, including me. I have a feeling, though, that there will be more developments between now and then. I hope so. I think we need to get a little closure. I can’t imagine what Sarah’s family are going through and how hard it will be to see him and his family. God, no one should ever have to go through this.
Let’s Hear it for the Girls!
Yay for Girl Time! This is one of the things I love about having a daughter: getting to revisit my own childhood and do the things I loved doing or never got to do. Don’t get me wrong, I love my boy. He is my first born and will always have a special piece of my heart that no one else can have. And I have a feeling that, at thirteen or fourteen, he won’t be standing at the top of the stairs screaming “I HATE YOU!” until his throat bleeds. Nope. That’s a teenage girl thing. Maybe that’s why I’m trying to squeeze in these “special moments” while I can.
Let me e’splain: On Sunday, Val and Trav drove to the Confluence to go fishing. Since we were spending the day together, Riley declared “Girl Time” and produced a formidable list of things to accomplish. First on the list was a tea party. We have these once in a while, though mostly of the ersatz “pretend” sort. Riley has a lot of tea sets (I have a problem, okay?) and most of them are small and cute. We drink invisible tea and sample invisible treats. This tea party, however, called for something really special. I brought down the good tea set–a demitasse set I bought in an antique store when Riley was a baby for just this sort of occasion*–washed it and set the table. I had bought cookies to eat but Riley insisted on making cupcakes and so we spent the better part of the morning baking and frosting. I made pink lemonade “tea” and we had our tea party. Looking back, I wish I had let her invite a friend, but I wasn’t up for cleaning the house or dealing with another kid on the weekend so it was just us. It was a great way to spend a part of the afternoon.
Here are the cupcakes that Riley frosted and decorated. I was impressed by how careful she was. Notice how precisely each individual sprinkle was arranged. OCD or just a byproduct of the fact that, by the time she got the cupcake frosted the icing was too dry to catch any of the sprinkles? Hmmmm. . .
And notice, please, the cute frog plate that the cupcakes are on. I got two of these at a local antique store for two bucks each. One is a little cracked but they were so darn cute. And, hello! Frogs! If there had been owl plates I would have probably peed my pants.
*I only had a tiny china tea set when I was little, doll sized, not even big enough for my tiny fingers. I always wanted a “real” tea set that I could have actual tea in. Maybe that’s why I collect tea pots and teacups and why my daughter has seven tea sets herself. I can’t resist them.
Wild Potatoes 