Turkey, Wine, and Pie--Oh My!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I am grateful for all of you, for my lovely family, for the safety and security we have enjoyed, and for the beauty God has placed around us. I have been making half-jokes about just taking some wine and pie upstairs and consuming them by myself, but I do believe I will make an appearance at the family dinner after all...

Homeward Bound (But Which Home?)

Well, here I am, back in sunny California. And it really is. I love Portland with all of my heart, but this time of year I either want to spend the day in bed alternating between sleeping and reading or I want to release my inner psycho, and shout, argue, and cry. It gets dark so very early up north, and that is on days when the sun rises at all!

Luckily, the holidays (and my birthday) will soon be upon us, so that keeps me cheerful. I adore Christmas decorating, gift-buying, music, and all other things seasonal. (With one exception: those stupid cards that say "Season's Greetings." If people don't celebrate Christmas, then they probably aren't sending cards. Just a pet peeve of mine; sorry. Oh yeah, and I hate that Beatles Christmas song you just can't seem to get away from. But I'm done, I promise.) Really though, this whole Christmas paragraph is just a tangential waste of your time--I'll get back to telling you how I am likely to want to kill you once it becomes fall in Portland.

Anyway, it is nice to be "back home." While Monterey and Salinas no longer feel like my home, they will always be "back home," complete with a few special spots and some of my favorite people. It is always troubling to discover how few of those special spots are still unspoiled, but I won't dwell on that; I can't.

Selah is having a good time, though she is a bit sick, unfortunately. She has also started potty training, so for those of you who won't be grossed out, I have some funny stories to tell. I am a little grossed out by the whole thing, but I have never had a stomach of iron. She loves Gammy and Pa-pa, as she calls them, and loves this giant house full of interesting discoveries and ancient, semi-broken toys. I love all of these things too, and look forward to the rest of the clan with their new semi-broken toys arriving tomorrow: Jack, Garrett, and Dennis; Sarah, Ed, and David; Jeremy and Jerry; Ed's sister, father, brother-in-law, and brother-in-law's mother (?). It will be quite a full house, and the time already feels too short.

Halloween and Hoodlums

While this was neither my first Halloween, nor Selah's, it felt like it was in some ways. Last year she was not mobile, and was content to be stuffed into what was essentially a bag with ears pretending to be a rabbit suit.

This year, she was a beautiful ballerina. With the help of much hairspray, I formed her hair into a cute little bun, tugged two pairs of tights on (for warmth) while she protested, and stuffed her rotund, though certainly swanlike belly into a little pink leotard. She was adorable! I finished the outfit off with a hand-me-down skirt from my neighbor Julia, in pink tulle with rose adornments.

At first Selah was demure, hanging back and coyly accepting candy if the giver pursued her. She said little, and smiled shyly. She hung back while her two companions ran ahead. Okay, okay, she just isn't very fast and they are! She tried shouting, "No! No!" since she couldn't keep up with them. Their enthusiasm was catching, however, and she started racing toward people's doors and pounding with all of her might (which isn't much). 3-year-old Micah was by far the best trick-or-treater of this first group, with 20-month-olds Selah and Carys struggling up and down the stairs, handing candy to people who opened their doors instead of vice versa, and occasionally attempting to storm the houses instead of waiting on the porch. Walking the four blocks or whatever was clearly tiring, and Selah fell and skinned her thumb on the way home.

Later, when Micah and Carys had gone home and the next round of small people had arrived (William, Ethan, Brianna, Sonya, and Willem, ages 1-5), Selah got to go out for her second round of candy-begging. She was already tired, so gradually morphed from the sweet ballerina of several hours earlier into a crazed, yelling one, who tried to stuff still-wrapped candy into her mouth and refused to let anyone help her down stairs. Everyone else, meanwhile, enthusiastically swarmed up and down the porch steps, snatching candy like there was no tomorrow.

We got home to an entirely empty candy bowl--some stupid punk stole all our candy from the porch (sigh--farewell caramels!) but hey, that's halloween in a nutshell:
angry, greedy, wound-up kids circling front doors like wolves while teenage thugs roam the neighborhood.

When Selah had officially stopped being a very good hostess, we
just threw her in the bath and let her unwind a little, then she was
much better! We gave some of her candy away to trick-or-treaters who had the bad luck to show up after the Great Candy Theft of '07.

Fun! I love holidays, even the stupid ones.

Ready or Not, Here He Comes

My friend Rachel is in labor, and once Selah wakes up from her nap, I will be headed over there! I am very excited, and feel like I am the father or something--I can't quite think clearly, and am agitated and happy. Okay, so I probably don't feel as intensely as a real father would, but you get the gist of what I am saying, right?

I feel a little like I didn't get to be present at Selah's birth. I mean sure, I was there, but mentally, I was nowhere. When you are in labor, your body just takes over, and you halfway kind of black out (mercifully, I guess). I was the only person who didn't get to see her crown, to see her come out, etc., and I'm the one who had to do all the work! I know what you are thinking--did you really want to see THAT anyway?

And yes; the answer is yes. Beforehand, I didn't think so, believing I would rather die than have someone videotape my arse. However now I halfway wish I had had a video made, that I would watch one time, all by myself, and then throw away! Because I know it wasn't pretty, but I also don't know what happened.

Don't worry Rachel, I am not bringing my video camera.

Pray for her, for Patrick, and for Baby Wilson!

Shirts for a Cause

A new friend who has recently joined our home community is a cancer survivor (Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) who designs and sells t-shirts to raise money for his medical costs. Here's a good way to look good and help someone out!

http://shourisha.blogspot.com/2007/01/serious-monkey-business.html

Famous Writer!

I have scored my first paid writing gig--I am a columnist / blogger for EcoMetro, makers of the Chinook Book. If you'd like to visit my other blog, it is: http://www.ecometro.com/portland/categories.aspx?tag=Messays

In honor of this, and because I am currently watching Grey's Anatomy, which I am guilty of being addicted to despite its abhorrent overdramatic nature, I have decided to become a screenwriter as well.

Here's my first project: a Grey's Anatomy episode! Siamese twins will be admitted to the hospital, and all the interns will gather around their bed, while Bailey explains the dilemma. One of the twins, Sheila, has an extremely rare but agressive form of cancer. Though they are attached at the brains, Dr. Shepherd will attempt to separate them to save the healthy one, Jamie. In the middle of the surgery, things go downhill, and unfortunately Sheila dies. Jamie is very sad, feeling guilty because her deceased twin had been in love with Alex, and Jamie was sleeping with him while Sheila was sleeping.

Meanwhile, Christina and Meredith, on vacation in San Francisco, are shopping in Gymboree, the only store that carries clothes small enough for them. Suddenly, an earthquake hits, of an unprecedented 14.0 magnitude! Christina and Meredith are forced to perform open-heart surgery on a fellow shopper using only a hanger, a paper clip, a onesie, and a stick of chewing gum. They manage to save the shopper, much to the relief of her three small children.

It all wraps up with Meredith explaining that sometimes our lives are like an earthquake, ravaging us unexpectedly, and that sometimes we have to be separated from ourselves before we can see ourselves clearly.

So what do you think, those of you who have seen Grey's Anatomy? Pretty good, no?