Reinflating my summer hopes

Summer and I, we have a tenuous relationship. I do love it, with all its sunny brightness and freedom. Around August, though, all of those summer possibilities start feeling dimmer and my optimism droops. I end up feeling a bit blue, walking around with all of those grand June plans dragging behind me like sad, forlorn deflated balloons.

So it's time to invite a bit more hope into the remaining month (or so) of summer that we have before school starts. I consider it my sandbucket (ha!) list to prop me up through to the end:

1. see a drive-in movie

2. write postcards from touristy spots

3. celebrate Lauren's sweet 16 & Sam's excellent 11

4. play

5. open each morning with a little devotional to kickstart my day

6. take lots more photos

7. wear my swimsuit without worrying (much) or being self conscious (much)

8. go rowing (kayak/canoe/inflatible raft/or huckleberry finn style)

9. pick wildflowers for an arrangement (thanks, ellen! good idea)

10. have lobster wearing a bib

11. find an open field and star gaze

12. eat fresh and local as much as possible

13. teach Lauren to drive (serenity now!)

14. put my fall schedule together with a peaceful heart and limited anxiety

15. get curtains for our front room/library/music room

16. go on lots of walks: morning, twilight

17. show my affection freely

18. make ice cream

19. read Emma out loud with Maddy

20. keep the t.v. off

21. bike rides in the evening

22. keep an open, forgiving, soft, curious heart

23. write some stories

24. grow my fingernails (always on my goal lists, ever since I was 10)

25. have a neighborhood get-together

26. make music

27. have dance contests in the kitchen

28. pick fruit and make pies

29. spend long delicious hours talking with my mom & sister & G & kids

And you?

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner

Ever since I read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler as a youngster I have had a longing to live in a museum, haven't you? If I had my druthers, I would camp out in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, one of my happy places in Boston. It's just a block or so from the MFA but goes undiscovered by many. If you're in the area, go!

Maddy and I went there yesterday for Maddy Day 2 (and were delighted to find we both qualify to get in free!). We dressed in skirts and pretended we were fancy Boston ladies. Back in the turn of the 20th century Mrs. Gardner built a gorgeous Italian palazzo, with a courtyard at the center, to house her growing art collection.

This courtyard lifts many a Boston wintry heart, let me tell you.

Some of our favorite pieces:

^Mrs. Gardner herself. Bursting with enthusiasm, isn't she?

Here I am!

^Young Lady of Fashion

Maddy's counterpart of Renaissance Italy.

^El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent. Again with the verve and enthusiasm.

She looks like she could give me a lesson in not-caring-what-others-think.

I adore Vermeer.

Unfortunately, this one was stolen in a very famous art heist

(at least around here)

so we didn't see it at the Gardner.

But we did see the blank spot where it used to be.

Very mysterious.

I imagine the museum security is pretty heightened,

making my plans to inhabit the place a little far-fetched.

So I am forced to fall back on my other Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum dream:

wedding reception for a daughter/son/grandchild someday.

A gal can dream...

Le semaine de Madeleine

This week with Sam in the town's recreation department day camp and Lauren away in New Hampshire at EFY (youth camp for church at a local college), it's Maddy's turn to be the honorary only child.

So, Maddy and I are celebrating Le Semaine de Madeleine (thank you, college French classes, for remaining in some recess of my brain so I know the word for "week"). Yesterday we got pedis, went to lunch (mmm...we found out our local cafe serves frozen hot chocolate like Serendipity 3 does!), stocked up on supplies at the drug store, browsed teen magazines looking for a new haircut, and went to the dentist (also, grocery shopping. Well, it couldn't be all good).

I'm loving this chance to have each of my kids with me one-on-one for a few days.

Note to self: try to do this every summer rather than trying to book camps all on the same week. It's worth it.

Notes from an anthropological dig

I changed my mind on this post. Does that ever happen to you?

It happens a lot to wishy-washy people like me.

Sorry.

Like weeds

What is it about summer that acts as MiracleGro for kids? All the extra rest and sunshine and (this year) rain?

It seems like Maddy's grown inches in the last month. She loves her new glasses and being able to see the notes on her music and the leaves on the trees. Is there anything more heartbreaking that hearing your child exclaim over and over again how wonderful it is to see finally? On the other hand, one of her middle school teachers wrote me a letter about what a great girl we have. So that evened out the eyesight neglect feelings I was having.

Lauren gave a talk in church today and did a great job--so grown up and poised. Every once in a while there are moments when I have to re-construct my mental image of my children and this was one of them. She introduced herself and said "I'm almost 16" and, while I was aware of this approaching milestone, I had to do a double take. What? My daughter? {Sunrise, sunset, etc.}

She went on the youth pioneer trek re-enactment last week and had a ball. Here she is with her friend from school who came along and a good friend from the stake (I will neither confirm nor deny that I am plotting with my friend, who is his mother, to plan their eventual nuptials.)

Sam is growing faster, even, than his sisters. His new spurt (recorded with a line and date on the door frame of course) required new shirt and pants for church. And suddenly I get a fast-forward view of the man he'll be, sooner than I would like to admit:

I can't stand it! Somebody push the pause button! No one ever told me how wonderful ten year old boys are. He's easy going, funny, and great to have around. The girls are leaving for camp this week and for a few days (I join the girls on Thursday after I teach my class in Boston) Sam will be an only child, subject to the full glare of his parents' attention.

Poor boy.

p.s. Sam always reminds me of a nice combination of my dad and G. Speaking of my dad, today's his birthday. Sure do love you, Dad.

Ministry of This and That

Sam gave me a firm summer assignment. Mom, please read Harry Potter 6 before we see the movie. He carefully gathered a stack of the series and lovingly left them beside my bed over a year ago but now he's serious and so, finally, am I. I've been devouring the series for the past month or so, in between some grown-up reads here and there.

I know I'm about 9 years late to the party but I've been having a blast, especially since I have such an enthusastic 10-year-old cheering section, his face examining mine with an expression very close to the one I wore when I took the girls to their first Boston Ballet performance (isn't this great? do you love it as much as I do? how about now? and now?).

All of the fantastic titles make me smile: Ministry of Magic. Improper Use of Magic Office. Department of Magical Transport. Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. They remind me of AA Milne and his Winnie the Pooh books with their Very Important Capitalized Terminology. And then I started thinking. What would my ministry be? Where would I be assigned?

Department of Excessive Procrastination?

Dust bunny patrol? (actually, I'd probably be arrested by them...)

Office of Realistic Optimists?

Committee of Joy and Enthusiasm Seekers?

Maybe simply this: Ministry of Happy Childhoods {for all}. Pretty much encapsulates every thing I'm doing right now, from mom to working with the teenage girls at church to school work and research. I think all of us parents would be there, toiling away as Childhood Engineers or some such.

What about you? Any ministries or departments you would envision for yourself?

And you're all invited to join Monty Python's Ministry of Funny Walks with me:

Now that would be a great job:

"I have a silly walk and I'd like a government grant to help me develop it"

A Post post

postboxes from Flickr group, via Ministry of Type

1.

I'm reading Roald Dahl's biography Boy aloud to the kids and found it endearing that he wrote to his mother every week for 32 years, from the first week (at age 9!) when he was sent to boarding school until her death. She kept all of those letters (more than 600 altogether) in piles bound with green tape in the original envelopes. It makes me long for old fashioned mail. What will we do without lovely piles of letters to read through? Will our emails survive?

Resolved: I'm going to send more real mail.

2.

If you have younger kids, you might like this pretty wonderful card table post office. Also check out the felt mail and mail bags. I wish my kids still wanted to make believe. Or, for the grown-up version, how about this fantastic 1880 post office wall?

As a compromise, I'm acting on an idea I saw ages ago: putting mailboxes inside the house (maybe one per person near their bedroom?) for leaving notes and papers. Or maybe one or two of these great Swedish mailboxes would do the trick. Let the secret admirer/complaint department/compliments/wish making begin!

3.

Finally, I cannot look at the sight of those glorious red postboxes without a surge of affection for G. When I was in London for six months and he was here in the US of A he was a devoted pen pal. He called, wrote or recorded something for me on tape Every Single Day. I wasn't quite as good about the frequency of return post but those red boxes temporarily held many of my dearest thoughts and fragilest hopes, on their way to him.

I wonder if they're selling one of those on eBay? {Hmm. Just found this.}

The better to see you with, my dear

Breaking news: Miss Maddy needs glasses.

She's had trouble reading the board at school and some difficulty reading music when she's playing the violin. I've been putting her off, thinking it was not a big deal. Apparently, no, she wasn't faking. (Oh yeah, I forgot. That was me when I was her age. Man, I desperately wanted glasses back then for some reason.) The eye doctor said her near-sightedness will get progressively worse until she's about 19. At least that's what I heard and noted.

Here's what Maddy heard:
Your eyes will get worse and worse until you're blind at age 19.

We straightened that out in the car, where she was remarkably calm when she commented "that's so weird that I'll be blind by the time I'm 19." I would have been weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth. "Why?! Why?! How will I live without reading or seeing movies or seeing my future babies' faces? I have only six years to see! I need to take up the piano and learn to sing! Can I call my friends and tell them the dramatic news and get lots of sympathy?"

Not Maddy. She took it in stride, filed it away, and off-handedly commented about it 20 minutes later.

Does it seem unfair to anyone else that age 13 is typically accompanied by a whole slew of corrective implements, just when your self esteem and awareness are at their most fragile? Headgear, check. Retainer, check. Braces, on deck. Glasses, coming right up. Luckily she wears them well and takes it all in stride.

Hands down

...the best Michael Jackson tribute yet. (Thanks to my brother Matt for sharing.)



(and then he added "doesn't this make you want to be Episcopalian?" since he is.)