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I've been working hard on the other blog, www.fwrenaissance.com about Fort Worth, plus the Fort Worth Mom Blog. But one thing I just couldn't squeeze into the focus over there was a picture of our new dog, BT with all the equipment and kit his owner sent with him, Which included three crates and a doghouse. A couple of friends, hearing about it, asked to see the image (predominantly T). I tried for days to upload the thing on Twitpics. But to no avail. Here, therefore, is the image of the new dog along with his "toys."
I know I haven't "been" here lately. Except for the "famous" Leg-You-Break post which was forwarded by the women in the family to all kinds of places. I guess I've had some trouble recovering from the shock of having a 160 lb. "baby" to take care of (he's up and around on crutches now, thank God) but also I've been adopting a dog BT, (will try to post his image in a little bit) plus I'm starting to work as a substitute teacher, which makes me feel both empowered and beaten down. We'll see what direction this takes when I start my first assignment Monday, when I will take over a local first and second grade class at an elementary down by the 20 and Crowley blvd.
D has told me no working inner city schools. I'll consider whether I'm going to obey or not. My readers know my attitude about doing what The Man says are pretty leneint but occassionally even I get uppity.
Anyway, I've been working a lot on my "commercial" blog/ezine project, www.fwrenaissance.com, so if you want check out "Outsider Mom" and "Fort Worth Mom Blog" for posts that, quite honestly, really could have appeared here with no editing.
Anyway, Technorati. As part of learning about SEO (Search Engine Optomization) for the other blog, I've discovered you're supposed to list your blog on various sites to increase traffic. And since now after all these years I actually can find out what are my stats (I still don't know, and may never know, how many read this blog) I'm actually trying to increase traffic on www.fwrenaissance. So, I'm listing this blog and that one on technorati, which is supposed to help. They told me to post this text in a post:
<a href="http://technorati.com/claim/u6i5jbnip" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>
I think that will get you to my Technorati profile. And if you have any bllogs to promote, you might want to list yours as well. Apparently, stuff like this matters.
Well, I was going to write fiction this morning but the chance is getting thin if I don't get off this site.
“Can I go out there?” I asked. There he was, lying up looking up at the sky, breathing hard, stiff with pain. The trainers and coaches and a doctor who’d been in the stands were there, and quickly diagnosed a broken leg,
At the time it was all happening, I couldn’t really think. I stifled my first impulse to try to rope D into going with him to the emergency room when I realized how serious the injury was. We’d both be going. I noticed – or someone else told me – that I was shaking uncontrollably, even after the girls’ basketball coach put a coat on me. It took a while for the ambulance to arrive. The coaches commented how tough he was. They were amazed that he didn’t scream, whine or cry.
I’ve spent the last two days at Cook’s Children’s hospital. V’d broken his femur – that’s the thigh bone. Two hours of surgery. Six to eight weeks in a cast. Four to six months layup. Good-bye basketball season, maybe baseball as well.
I’d noticed before – I think I’ve written before – that football is a high-contact sport and the guys get hurt, though usually in small ways. It’s hard to watch your son be injured. You’ve protected him for so long and now you have to restrict your protective operations. Right now, I’m in the hospital expecting him to be discharged. He doesn’t feel great, he takes Vicodin and then it wears off and he sits there waiting for more. And the coffee in the hospital is horrible.
I take comfort that V has hung tough through his ordeal. We’ve had an outpouring of support and visits from the school, including two groups of beautiful girls bringing encouragement and various games and cards. But the most inspiring of all was V, who told me as he lay on the field, the pain was so great he thought he was dying, and he said a prayer, consigned his soul to God, and waited to see what happened next. In my mind, that’s an excellent way to live, whether you’re injured or not, and I’m proud to be his mom.
I'm doing some blog posts at a Fort Worth arts and culture blog I'm working on with D. This is the first of my Boy Scout campout thread, and since it seems pretty much in the general vein of my usual posts, I thought I'd co-post it here. The rest of the story will be posted sequentially on www.fwrenaissance.com this week.
October 17, 2008
I decided to attend my first-ever boy scout campout this weekend. My son B wanted me to, and they are doing orienteering, which sounds like fun. I don’t know how to do orienteering, but I’m a learn-on-the-fly kind of gal.
But doing things on the fly is inimical to the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.” What will happen to a woman who signs up to go with her son’s scout troop without due consideration? Will I-can-do-it bravado actually get me anywhere?
Here we are on Friday night, 6:07 p.m. at the Scout storage shed at the church, packing the gear. Boys are running around loading up trailers. Parents are talking quietly among themselves. Scoutmasters are directing scouts. Apparently there are five cars going up tonight and it’s an almost two hour drive. So: we’ll be pitching our tents in the dark.
And that’s when I realize that I’ve forgotten my flashlight. How could I have done this? I’m pretty sure B doesn’t have his flashlight either, he’s the kind of kid who has to be reminded about everything, and I didn’t remind him to bring the flashlight around the same time I wasn’t reminding myself. I want to run and hide! If only my older scout son, V, were here. He remembers things. But V isn’t coming this time.
Having no flashlight wouldn’t be an emergency, actually, except for the problem of pitching the tent in the dark. I probably will be able to get help from someone. But overall, I’m not sure if things are going very well. And I really don’t want any of the scoutmasters and parents to know that I’m the kind of person who forgets their flashlight.
Now it’s 6:30. I observe scouts standing in their patrols, knocking each other’s hats off, making dismissive remarks about one guy who’s wearing the new uniform which has cargo-style pockets on the chest. Okay, I admit, it doesn’t look great, but there’s no reason to be so smug – it’s the new standard issue. My son’s patrol is making plans to each cook their own breakfast, so they can get the cooking requirement signed off.
A group of older scouts sits nearby. They are talking about killing someone by puncturing their heart with a staple gun. It’s amazing how long they can stay on this one fairly simple topic. The light is falling and I am getting hungry. I feel reassured since I found in the camp kit not a flashlight but a lantern with propane. Now we’re pulling out, they say. I get in the line of cars and drive. With my son’s patrol, the Spartans, in the back of the Suburban, it will not be a dull trip.
Tomorrow: Driving to “Sid”
Last night, as I was driving home from dropping one of the kids off for one of their multitudinous activities, I came to the intersection of Bel Aire and Overton Park and the stoplight was flashing. Rain was pouring down, visibility was low. Wipers were going, and above us a blurry flashing red light. This was where the street crosses Tanglewood Bike Trail. I waited for the line of cars to go through, then entered the intersection and just as I was leaving I was shocked to hear something hit my car, hard. I was terrified. What was wrong? I must have hit something, and from the sound of it, not something small. I stopped instantly and saw a white flash rush across the front of the car. Had I hit a jogger? I backed up and followed the guy. He seemed to be running well, wasn't limping or anything. I called out, "are you okay?" but he ignored me.
Disoriented and then becoming angry, because I realized he'd hit my hood with his fist as some kind of agressive tactic, I followed him and finally confronted him on the other side of the park. "Did you just hit my car?"
"Yes I did, because you ran the stop sign."
"I did not."
"Yes you did, you rolled through right after the car in front of you."
I protested that he had hit my car for no reason, and frightened me, and he told me I was a bad driver and ran off. I parked the car and called my husband, who was moderately sympathetic. After coming home, I told V about it. "I wished you were in the car with me," I announced. "Maybe he wouldn't have berated me if I had another person in the car."
I told the jogger that I couldn't drive safely when joggers run up and hit my car for a lark in the middle of a rain storm. Perhaps this information will have some eventual effect. I wondered if his claim, which was that he had a right to hit the car because I had (as he saw it) rolled through the stop sign, was legit.
Vince put the defniitive word on this. "Is he the police? Why doesn't he write you a ticket then?"
I still don't think I rolled through the stop sign, but I don't have a video to prove it. Even if I did, it doesn't give a jerky jogger the right to run up and hit my car, a premeditated act of agreession which was only possible because of the quite non-dangerous trolling speed I was driving, moving only about 3 miles per hour. This is clear from the fact I was able to stop so quickly. The jerky jogger actually had time to run across the street in front of me.
Exegesis: I, the motorist will careful to continue to completely stop at stop signs, but also will be on lookout for jerky jogger and if I see him again, I will honk, loud, before he has time to get too close.
The noble person is one devoted to service and integrity. This person reaches excellence by a full flowering of their gifts, made possible by a forgetfulness of self and a vision of themselves instead in relation to the community, the world, the universe. They see themselves as useful. If their role seems to be a small one, they may be a small glass, metaphorically speaking, but they can be completely full with virtue and productivity within the role given them. These noble souls realize that even small tasks are important, remembering that “for want of a nail a shoe was lost,” and understanding that “we can’t all be captains, sometimes we have to be crew.” A noble person sets their hand to the plow and doesn’t look back. Any good they can do, they smile, and any harm they find they have done, they apologize to the universe, promise themselves not to do it again and go forward. Nobility, then, is not an accident of birth, but a construct of character. It is partially bequeathed by parents and society, partly actively chosen by the individual.
I’m in search of the human side of Fort Worth, so I stop at The Coffeee Urn (TCU). This local coffee counter is just a few doors down from Starbucks, but their approach and clientele are completely different.
The Coffee Urn used to be on Bluebonnet Circle; then they lost their lease. This is one place that seeks to fill the void of locally owned and operated places you can get something to eat or drink in Southwest Fort Worth. As I come in to the sounds of an overhead blower, hear the slamming door on the dishwasher, and then the sound of water washing around and plates being scraped, I feel an instant relaxation of tension. The people inside are in no hurry.
A mural on the back of the restaurant shows a scene of Fort Worth before the roads were paved. It’s impressionistic, simple, but effective, seeming to make the assertion that “we are in the West here,” instead of the usual coffee bar claim which is more like “walk through these doors, and you are in Europe.” The coffee is more or less comparable to Starbucks, and it’s cheaper, too a Grande is $2 there, here, you get the equivalent for $1.62. Three flavors today: Cowboy Blend, Cinnamon Hazelnut, and French Roast.
Two guys are playing chess. Two other guys are reading the newspaper. It’s very quiet. Someone sneezes. “I’m not worried about your knight,” says a bald guy at the chess table, who’s got one of those super size earings like the cannibals wear in movies. The guy he’s playing has a tattoo on his arm. They sound like rough characters, but they’re not. I can’t explain how I know this.
A new guy comes in. “How are you doing,” he says to the counter man. “Can you do something for me?” He sits at the bar. I can’t hear all of the request, but it has something to do with scrambling eggs with jalapenos.
Talk at the newspaper reading table turns to a guy who says he found a full grown box turtle in a parking lot. The animal had a number 6 painted on it. The guy took it home, but it got out and wandered away in a week or two. He assumes it knew what it was doing.
“Check,” says a chess player.
Talk lingers over an ’89 something or other one of them has parked outside. This is not the car I noticed. That would be the 60’s Impala. Now the chess game is over. The chess players share a high five. The winner laughs, the loser says “you always way pull that … Geez!”
The entrance bell jingles and a guy comes in, stops at a table, says hello. The effect of all this local color can only be felt, not seen, and is probably lowering my blood pressure and respiration. I feel like these guys, if someone fell over in convulsions, they wouldn’t just help them, they would be concerned. In Starbucks, you feel like there would be at least one person who would say, “Can you take of this? I’ve got a meeting.”
Summary: If you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to check this place out. This is not something you come across every day.
The Coffee Urn, 5018 Trail Lake Drive, Fort Worth 76133, (817) 926-7660. Coffee, Burritos, Omlettes and Combos, 7 to 2 Monday Through Saturday.
This morning my friend Steve M. sent me a message complaining that our restoration of the DFWWW short fiction and poetry contest did not garner the support he hoped for. I was surprised by the silence as well, but assumed that tthe reason they weren't posting was because they didn't see a problem. This action was more a long-term than short term deal. But, to defend my support of the contest, and to air some disagreements I have with a faction on the board which seems to think that anyone who isn't a published novelists or trying to be one is someone we don't need, I wrote the following rant. Then I sent an email to my friends in QuikFik, telling them to send support.
"Dear Workhsop members,
I feel like the contest is a fun incentive for short writers and I agitated on the board to get this done. I also supported the DFWWW making a $400 contribution to the poetry chapbook that Del and Ginnie are creating. I feel we need to support a diverse group of writing endeavors, not just do critiques of people's novels and have a conference.
Oh that Rocky Mountain High -- yeah, so he had a drug problem. Didn't everyone back in the 70's? And I think of Annie's Song -- and their failed romance -- the times took their love afair and it went like a house afire and then was gone, and I still think he committed suicide.
""The kisses that I live for, the love that lights my day, the happiness that living with you brings me ... " he sings. It's the voice of a generation. Last night Steve M. has some book complaining about the baby boomers and I thought that while everyone younger complains about them, is it really fair? Maybe we should try to understand? Denver's music is so full of feeling and, dare I say it, selfishness. My father called it "sacharine." But Denver and his friends, like every generation, desired to make their mark and be remembered.
And I have to say thier music is a contribution for the ages. Now Denver launches into Annie's Song and I almost cry.
Somewhere among the everyday things that pass away from my childhood, the gas stations and drug stores, new construction on the edge of town, the paper packages from McDonald's in a gutter, John Denver sings to Annie, "Let me give my life to you."
I don't know. I just don't know, I guess all I can take away from it is maybe she shouldn't have left him. I suppose she would be outraged to hear someone say that, would tell me that I have no idea what he was actually like. But sometimes you can't see the truth from close up, either. Probably, being so close, she coudln't hear in his mustc what everyone will else always know about the state of his heart.
So, suit up and show up as they say. I reported at 10 a.m. to Alexis, who's in charge of volunteers. Alexis showed me a wall shelf full of DVD's returned over the wekeend. The supply gets depleted as people come in to borrow them for Saturday and Sunday, and now, on Monday morning, the shelves out in the main stacks of the library were over half empty, while the ones of returned DVD's in the back room were full. My mission would be to put the DVD's back in theft-proof cases, snap the cases shut, so they couldn't be stolen, and bring the DVDs out to the shelves, where I would organize them by first letter of title. So ... there is an A section, a B section, etc. No need to worry beyond the first letter.
This would be easy. I was working in the adult feature movies. I have learned that there are alsothese other groups: kid movies, foreign movies, Spanish movies, and TV shows. You can tell by the dot on the upper spine, plus they say the category below the title on the call letters at the bottom.
I got through one cart in about an hour. "She's fast," said Alexis. I took a small bow and started working on a second cart, this time I had both DVD's and VHS, which require no theft protection device, since you can now get them for 25 cents many places. .
People sure watch a lot of movies, I thought. And the variety was endles, though there are some trends. For example, I put back no less than 4 copies of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, three Star Treks, and three Star Wars. There was a smattering of old movies with Katherine Hepburn and some war movies. Also several copies of something called "the 40 year Old Virgin."
Anything I wanted to watch? Sure, a "Passage to India," and also "Notting Hill," which T always talks about as her all-time favorite chick flik.
By the end of my shift I had gone through a lot of movies. But one theft-protection case didn't work right. I gave it to one of the workers. What do you do when they won't snap open? I asked. I had put it through the "clacker" which is what they call the wood and metal device they use for opening the cases, several times. It was frozen. "Hm. " She studied it. "It's broken," she confirmed. She though about it. Threw it on the ground. Picked it up. Checked it again.
"Now it works," she said. She gave it back to me.
So now I know how to fix DVD theft-safe cases. .
1. J -- put on dress and shoes. Went out to car.
2. D -- grumbled about oppression of church holding First Communion class every Sunday at 8:45, which I agreed with. Drank coffee I brought. Seems to have left Starbucks Bodun travel mug at UNT. I gave him the new travel mug I bought for myself yesterday. He went out the door.
3. B -- got up the first time I asked him, but then did nothing but play with Legos. I told him to stop that and get dressed. He put on his shirt and pants and hurried out the door, pants not buttoned, shirttails and belt flapping, socks and shoes in his arms.
4. V. Didn't move the first time I told the boys to get up. Went back in later, looked at him, decided it was probably hopeless but still said "V you're going to miss mass." He didn't move. I checked to make sure he was alive, shrugged and left. I'm too sick for a V-get-out-of-bed rodeo this morning.
So, conclusion, three our of four ain't bad.
V has now been in football game. His team, comprised entirely of 8th graders, has played two other schools, and their record is 1 and 1. V played on special teams and last game on defensive line.
I have noted that football is apparently somewhat violent. Last practice before the game, V reported that he hit someone so hard that he got a tingling motion running up and down his arm.
"The coach said I had a "stinger," he announced.
"Did he send you to the trainer to get taped up? Tell you to not throw yourself so hard against another person?"
"No, just said it showed I was playing right, and he was really proud of me."
Okay. This is the point where I want to say "I don't know about this sport." And then tell myself that lots of other boys are doing it ... well, my brother survived. But you know, it's just really macho, primeval cave man stuff, if you catch my drift.
After practice yesterday, he said he jammed a finger and it still hurt the next morning. "You need a splint for that? I've got one," I offer.
"Naw, it's nothing," he says. "If it's still bothering me in a couple of days, I'll ask the trainer about it."
This is the field for yesterday's game while it was still light.
This is V in a photo taken after the game.
"'Can't we go to the Train Bookstore instead?" he asked me one day last week.
"No, I'm sorry," I said, a sharp pain entering my heart. Had I sent him to school too soon? But he was so bored at home, and I was just too tired or unfocused or ... I don't know what. Truth to tell, I never had a single truly successful year teaching my boys. It was the girls, S and T, who thrived in the home school.
Boys are different, and as A complained about the uniform I felt bad. I let him go nake like Huck Finn for a few minutes before getting dressed. But ... beyond that, honestly, what could I say at this point? I felt as if we were on some vast river rushing toward the sea, with no oars or paddles -- we could either enjoy it or cry, but there was no getting off.
T was here for Labor day, a surprise visit orchestrated by her grandmother. She just left a few minutes ago. She came in full of news of classes and other students in the dorms and books she was reading. Overall, I was proud of her. She seems to be adjusting well.
We all attended a pleasant dinner at my mother's house where her new husband made his well-known hamburgers. Some (my husband included) have begun to clamor for these even when they're not around.
A cooler feel is in the air, and the chickens have started laying again. B and I have been talking about raising day old chicks again, to sell on CraigsList. It seems like it could be a good plan. We'll need to make sure we have all the equipment was need.
This year fall seems like it could be a time to build, to hope, to go forward. As the air cools off, people get energiezed. I guess it's time for me to get up, get going, pack my bookbag and after dropping the kids off at school, head for the library to work on new projects.
This wasn't actually what I was wondering about, but I decide to follow along. "What position do you play?"
"Linebacker."
Of course I have no idea what a linebacker does. But B chimes in, "Isn't that the position Bobby Boucher plays in Waterboy? Too cool!"
"Yeah," V says proudly. "We stand behind the defensive line, follow the receivers, and if they get the ball, we tackle them."
Wow. "What about your classes? Do you have any homework?"
"Yeah, I got some. But today, at football practice ... "
Did I send him to private school so he could play sports? I shrug. I did, partly. A couple weeks ago, when he wasn't sure about it, I said "you have to go out for football."
"Why? What if I'm not very good?"
"Doesn't matter. Suit up and show up. Someday, when you're in business, it will help. A lot of the businessmen were once football players." I know this to be true, from my business magazine writing work. Guys learn about teamwork and dreams on the football field when they're teenagers, and then when they're adults they can put what they learned to use in fields like law, medicine, and real estate.
That's his mother's thinking. He's much more in today, telling me they have a choice of water or Gatoraid at practice.
"What else about school, V?
"Well ... there's a dance coming up."
Suddenly I remember a 14 year old girl who all she wanted to do was meet guys and ride horses. Well, he came by it honestly, at least. And instead of lecturing him, later in the evening, I sit with him and make sure he does his homework, like his mother should have done.
So, here it is, the first day of school for A. His uniform is laid out, his button-up oxford shirt I got from the private school's uniform resale, shorts from the same, J's old socks and his shoes are new, got them from Famous Footwear.
J will be wearing the new uniform skirt (tan, a sought-after color, more rare and therefore more desireable than the also-acceptabile navy blue), a peter-pan color white blouse we got at uniform resale, old socks and new shoes from Famous.
I'll try to get them some new socks after D gets his first paycheck of the new school year which will be October 1. This is the lean time of the year for us. You've got to be a street fighter about money when you're me. I'm grateful, when I look at this the right way; it's like I don't have a new Suburban but I do have a 1999 one and a good mechanic.
All the lunch food for the week is in the refrigerator, the 4 loaves of bread, 20 yogurts, and 24 desserts, grapes, apple sauce cups, everything. Jo collected up the nylon lunch bags from last year and put them in the cupboard where we keep the ziplock bags and waxed paper.
I've planned to go with Kristen for coffee after drop off. I feel so free. It's been hard, being home with little ones day after day. And it's been beautiful too, you know, I guess I just welcome whatever comes next. My pain and sadness over the end of being a young mother has lasted years but you can only mourn for so long until acceptance creeps in. If I can accept this, I suppose I can accept anything.
I feel now there's time to be the writer I always dreamed of being. And that's what I'm going to try to do. I'm going to pack up my briefcase, take a shower, take them to school and go to coffee and then to the library. The song playing on the computer?
"I'm walking on sunshine."
"When it comes to recognizing truths, the artist has a weaker morality than the thinker; on no account does he want his brilliant, profound interpretations of life to be taken from him, and he defends himself against sober, plain methods and results. Ostensibly, he is fighting for the higher dignity and meaning of man; in truth, he does not want to give up the most effective presuppositions for his art, that is the fantastic, the mythic, uncertain, extreme, feeling for the symbolic, over-estimation of the individual, belief in something miraculous about genius: thus he thinks the continuation of his manner of creating is more important than a scientific dedication to truth in every form, however plain it may appear. " Human All Too Human, #146
First, I'll give the philosopher his due -- it's true that writers and poets will violently defend the use of any material, trope or rhetoric, even that which objectively appears false. But how can we be sure that these are really not of some stature, since the writer of fiction deals with the human soul, and as such, a factual study of the source cannot be completed? I'm going to have to go out on a limb and assert that great writers tell the truth about the individual (and in my view the importance of the individual cannot be overestimated) and by extension about us all, and that's why they are great. The better the writer, the more important and universal the truth.
We're dealing with ontology now, with the question being whether, in reality, the human soul's experience exists and can be explored in fiction. I'm coming down on the "yes" side, afraid that here Nietzsche comes close to the type of thinking that led him to declare that God is dead. If I said he is mistanken about the type of truth fiction writers tell, would he just refer to his own work and declare "writer does not want to let go of most effective presuppositions for getting stories told?"
Almost assuredly that would be his response. But I say it anyway, Nietzsche, you cynical man of flawed genius.
"Don't say any more," I told Dean. I was offended. What could they need so much money for? I mean, this is a backpacking trip? We send kids to Europe to stay in hotels for only a little bit more ... D took a group of college students to Italy for 20 days, it was about $2500 for everything including airfare. So what gives? How can sleeping in a tent compare with going overseas and paying someone to feed you in restaurants and put you up in a hotel?
Camping is the vacation for people with the pioneer spirit and one of the perks is you do the work, you don't have to pay someone else. You pitch a tent, you don't have to pay to rent a room. So ... what are the scouts going to learn at Philmont? Apparently how to assume the world (or in this care their parents) owe them a living and prestige factors, such as the particular beauty of this particular camp, make it worth while to pay more than something really costs.
Since part of my magazine writing has involved searching for places to trail ride your horse and camp, I'm well versed in how little this type of trip actually costs if you really do it yourself. But to visit the Philmont website, it looks like they're overloaded with staff. Or something. How it is this trip costs as much as staying in a beachfront hotel at Cancun is impossible to explain any other way.
Scouting aint no party, it ain't no disco, it ain't no fooling around. So why does it have to cost as much as if it was?
In Texas, scouting, which I always thought of as an activity for the middle class, for every boy, actually, has the reputation of being for rich kids, something I originally didn't quite understand. But I'm beginning to see how some people could get that idea. As the daughter of an Eagle Scout and the granddaughter of one of the first three Eagle Scouts in Mankato, Minnesota, back near the turn of the 20th century, I would ask our leadership to consider where we've been and that we not be sucked into the modern "send your kid on an expensive tour mentatlity" of current parents and schools. Because there's no way for a boy to show he's really independent when a parent has to shell out $100 a day to keep the illusion going.
