In a couple of hours and 2 days late, we pull out for for our annual August trip to see my family in Boston. We thought by making the trip much shorter this year (only 10 days) that it wouldn't be such a big deal.

We had no idea that the Apocalypse was coming in the form of endless rain. Tornadoes. Wind. And a mountain of laundry that has applied to the Hague for reclassification as a sentient being.

No my suitcase isn't in the car, why do you ask?

In point of fact, I can't remember if I brushed my teeth this morning. The storms have pushed the days together and at some point I remember it was dark and I was naked and the pillowcase was soft and my husband's hand was warm and then it was gray again and rainy again and Allstate was explaining how to amend our damages claim.

Bear and a friend are decimating his room constructing a Transformer-Magnetix monster that I am assured could devour THE CITY MOMMY. THE WHOLE CITY. EVEN THE TREES AND THE DOGS.

What are the dogs doing in the trees?

Silly rabbit.

I'll be in Buffalo for lunch tomorrow. Come Hell or ... well, not high water.

Any more water and I'm strapping pontoons to my house and buying a really big paddle.

Actually, if it rains every step of the way, I will not mind. My Zen now encompasses all form of airborne water.

It's the wind and the ginormous lightning that freaks me.

The little voice inside my head sometimes remembers to panic about this.

And the 7-foot long to-do list I'm ignoring.

But mostly it does Jello shots and naps.

And the rest of me?

Is going to go finish packing.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 07:24 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Good luck on the move. I've done it a couple of times, cross country... hang in there. Moving is a pain in the ass. Just remember soon it will be over and you'll be settled in a new place. Can I ask.... weren't you gonna move to Canada at one point? Did I miss a decision post?

Posted by: serena at August 24, 2007 10:36 AM (z5KLn)

2 What a PITA the rain and storm damage has been for you! But can you imagine how much worse it would've been if you hadn't been there? Ugh! It would've been horrible to come home to a problem that's 10 times worse than what you had. See? You just have to know how to look at these things. But I think your Zen is serving you well too. Have a great vacation!

Posted by: Sharkey at August 24, 2007 02:02 PM (cmHYN)

3 Oh I get it now, you're not actually moving to Boston. Guess learning to read WAS important all those years ago.

Posted by: serena at August 25, 2007 09:42 AM (z5KLn)

4 Since it is drying here, I'll hope it is soon drying there... (we seem to get it all first).

Posted by: sue at August 27, 2007 05:04 AM (WbfZD)

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Last night, we got home from seeing the matinée of High School Musical and having an early dinner after with Dee in Logan Square.

CD picked up that old cast iron sink from the driveway and brought it back into the house.

And a few hours later, I had running water in the kitchen for the first time in over 3 weeks. And a working dishwasher.

I am now halfway through washing and putting away every kitchen item we own. I have never been so happy in my life to do dishes. I can't even admit how gross it was living without.

Bear has had a slow day of sorting socks and watering tomatoes as I've pushed forward on my to-do list. The pool starts family swim in a few minutes and I've promised him a long stay.

After my raw and bleeding last post, I've had a lot of thoughts. When I pour myself out like that, it is usually a great release of steam and thought.

But afterwards, I remember - hey this my REAL name out here. How crazy am I?

But today, I am firmly wrapped in my flag of productivity. Rocking out as I rotate the laundry. And deciding to let the joy of running water wash away deeper worries until tomorrow.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 09:51 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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"So the Jews killed Jesus?" some kids asked in my white-bread Connecticut Sunday school.

"That's right," the teacher said.

And so my first indoctrination into the inheritance of prejudice was made. With a simple sentence, and no blurry soft innuendo.

It was a bald statement of why Jews.Are.Bad.

And it didn't take graduating the 17th grade with a Theology minor on top of 5 years as a chaplain to realize that my pastor with the rosy cheeks and rumbly sense of humor was teaching us kids to condemn.

I knew it right then.

At 13.

Although I didn't have the courage to speak up, just the cowardice to silently disagree.

And it was sheer luck of the heart and my family that I knew better.

I mean, no one runs around dousing a pan of flaming saganaki shouting "the Greeks killed Socrates!"

And what that pastor was saying seemed just as.... off.

Now of course I know it's much worse.

My parents worked hard to raise me without prejudice, which is an amazing feat in New England. Because that bastion of Abolitionism has the demographics of Wonder Bread, fought integration right up into the 1980's, and features a basketball team that, don't forget, found the one white guy in America who could jump.

I wanted to do more than that for Bear.

My point, and I do have one, is that this is the one great fear CD and I have about moving back to the East Coast (if that's what we end up doing... and it is certainly looking that way.)

We chose the Oak Park area precisely because of its wide mix of population.
It put him with a rainbow of other kids: ones whose Mommies wear veils, ones whose skin is different color from his, ones that have two daddies...

This area is by no means perfect, but it was the best we could find with our priorities.

Yes, kids (and adults) will be mean, and segregate, and clique up. It's a Lord of the Flies world, still.

But at least he SEES the rainbow world around him. Just being on a t-ball team that looks like a United Nations conference is, in and of itself, a powerful teacher.

Yet now, at the tender age of 6, we are packing boxes. We are counting fondue forks and donating some of the zabillion odd spoons we've found. We are looking online at towns and neighborhoods.

"What will it be like?" Bear asks, carefully separating the packing paper in a pile for me.

'White!' I want to scream. "You've been there," I remind him. "On vacation..."

My husband sees my distress and tries to comfort me. "You and I ended up OK," CD reminds me, his lips in my hair. "And we grew up practically in gallon jugs of white milk."

I sigh, and nod. "But we had overcome so much programming. When I think back to all the stupid stuff I used to carry around in my brain. And the assumptions I made..." I blush, even now, in shame. "If I'd married Darnell, the cab driver from Zimbabwe, this would be a whole 'nother issue."

"Didn't he want to take you back with him to meet his other wives?" CD reminds me.

"Details," I scoff, holding him tight. Instead I married this Icelander, and we built this life together....

With this child. Who will of course be exposed to all kinds of intolerance in his life. There never really was any way to avoid it.

But the little voice inside me says it will be harder now. Maybe this my own prejudice, wouldn't that be funny?, but this is what I am afraid of in moving back where I was once told that the Jews killed Jesus.

[CD would like to add that a) Yes, the strange and not-so-lovely 'Bunker for Christ' people also live in this area so let's not pretend it's nirvana, b) That prejudice lurks even in the seemingly most integrated communities, maybe is being taught right this minute at a Sunday School near us, and that it's our job as parents to teach differently, and c) That he strongly doubts his wife meant ANY slur at all (to which I heartily agree but reminded him that it just wasn't OK then or now to teach kids to condemn, wholesale, an entire faith population.)]

Posted by: Elizabeth at 08:43 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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