The Things of Summer

Today, while grocery shopping, I realized that I've been coasting along all summer, hardly realizing it was summer based on the things we've been eating. We always get bananas and grapes...but today I found Rainer cherries, a cantaloupe, and some peaches. I was inspired to pick these up by the weekend fare at my mom's. Why do I get stuck in a rut?

There has been one particular thing happen near our home this summer, just recently in fact, that is super fun. We had a sparrow build a nest in a bush just outside our kitchen window. From the walkway up to our front door, you'd never know the nest was there, but from our window we have a clear view. Last Tuesday I saw the momma sitting on some blue speckled eggs. I couldn't count them all, due to the angle of the nest, but I guess there were three. I wanted to show my nieces the nest and eggs on Thursday when they visited, but they'd hatched by that morning. Instead of tiny eggs there were tiny barely-feathered necks with beaks on top--screeching loudly whenever the bush shook at the landing of one of their parents. The babies' eyes weren't open by Thursday, and I left for a long weekend wondering how much they could change in four days. They are HUGE now. The four babies barely fit in the nest now, whereas last week the nest swallowed them up! Their cries for food every three minutes is driving poor Quincy out of his mind. Until they fly away, I've had to give up part of the counter by the window. He's mesmerized by them, as am I, so I can't blame him.

As I was cleaning up my lunch dishes this afternoon, I had a staring contest with the baby on my side of the nest. He is so cute! I wanted to snap a photo, as they are moving around now and I assume they'll be off in a few days, or at least one more week. But I can't get a good shot...from the street-side of the bush, you can't even see the nest, and even traipsing around our landscaping won't get me a good angle. I fear the screen might get in the way of a picture from the kitchen-side, and so I am trying to store all the cuteness up in my mind: a memory, rather than a picture. I'm sure I don't exercise the memory portion of my brain much at all these days. So at least this is an opportunity to try.

Well, this was my study break, so I should return my thoughts to the Vietnam War and PTSD in veterans. I'm in the beginning stages of writing a paper. One and a half pages down, several more to go.

Breaking the Silence

I know it's been a few weeks. I finished up my final paper for the Jane Austen class and began the Vietnam War class. It wasn't an easy transition. And, since I knew so very little about the war in general, I've hit a real learning curve. The only thing is, I don't want to learn this.

We're reading a novel, three memoirs, and two books of poetry, all by people who served the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. We're also watching film clips from documentaries (a Walter Cronkite one first, then tonight in class it was Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam) to Hollywood productions like We Were Soldiers. I also had to read one more book on which to give a "book talk" to the whole class, meaning they won't read it, but will learn about it from my 5-minute presentation. That book was a memoir by an Amerasian boy, born out of this war, trying to survive the Communist regime that took over after the fall of Saigon, and his efforts to escape, hoping to make his way to freedom and America.

Now, I realize that I have a super sensitive empathetic nature. I realize things affect me, my heart, my sensibilities, my mind a lot more than some, perhaps most. But, what I'm learning about this war is horrific. For all sides. I have dreams about what I'm reading in these books; I'm haunted by images described and feelings experienced. Today I learned that the average age of the soldiers in Vietnam was 19. Average?! That those men (and women) who fought for their lives and managed to survive came back changed would be a given as well as an understatement. They were children, barely able to drive, not able to drink, did they even know who they were? I certainly didn't at 19. I thought I owned the world, yet I'd been nowhere and done nothing on my own. Sometimes I imagine what such a harrowing experience would have had on my 19 year old self. It's terrifying.

The psychological trauma of a war with no visible enemy, a war fought in a surreal environment for most of the kids (and I will call them kids because they were): a jungle, a beautiful land that became the enemy as it hid those attacking them and brought disease and sickness.

I've never known much about this war, and I assume this is because those who went never wanted to talk about it. History books give the cold, hard facts. What happened where. How many died, were injured, the end results. They don't give the personal accounts, the pieces that could humanize this totally dehumanizing war.

I hope you don't think I'm ranting. I'm processing as aloud as you'll ever hear me process. I'm trying to wrap my mind around (I hate that phrase, but what else to tell you how much I'm grappling with this?) the chaos, fear, and courage that was the U.S. involvement in SE Asia.

This is why I don't like the class. Because every time I finish a book, or even as I'm reading it, and after every class, I just want to weep. For the innocence lost in the soldiers who stared death and destruction in the face; for the soldiers who had no one to write letters home to, and thus no one to express their fear and uncertainty to; for the kids on the other side, with the VC, who were fighting just a desperately (I don't even know their stories); for the civilians of Vietnam who suffered terribly, who were scared and abused. I want to weep for those who suffered after all the "war" part was over, the tens of thousands of children who were by-products of the American soldiers being in Vietnam, for their suffering at the hands of the Communist Party thereafter.

How do you learn about this stuff, historical events that I could not have changed even if I had lived then; how do you hear this, see it through documentaries and the eyes of those who walked and fought it, how do you take this information and process it...into what? What can I do with it? Wars will always occur, and I will never like them. People die every day from abuse and disease--war related or not, and I can't ever stop that from happening. This course may be opening my eyes, but to what? My own helplessness in a world of hurt and destruction?

Now you know the source of my quietness and my depression. These are the thoughts I fight against every day.

Sometimes it blows up even bigger:

Who am I, in this big, broken world?

But that is a discussion for another day.

True Story

Today was my last day of Jane Austen class. We had to present our final papers, thus read a shortened version of it to the class. It went really well, and I'm all of the sudden extremely grateful for my innumerable public speaking opportunities in my job. It was SO much less scary than my first in-front-of-the-classroom experience 3 1/2 years ago.

Well, on days when I go to class, I typically eat a bagel in the car on the drive down. Today, though, I was distracted by my paper presenting thoughts and wasn't hungry. I left the bagel in the car during the 3-hour class, knowing it would be nice and warm upon my return. What I found, to my great amusement, was that not only was it warmed, but it was slightly toasted, as if I'd put the toaster on level 1. It was delicious, and I cannot believe the combo of the sun and my car actually toasted a bagel over a 3-hour time frame.

Oh, the little things.

Oh, just a few pictures

We think Quincy is great. We really do, and he's lucky he's so precious, too, after this last week of his inadvertent misbehaving (or at least it appears that way to us). I'm sure pet owners deal with these things all the time, but it's just...wow.

We have fun with him, though. He encourages us to do sprints around the house with him during his crazy evening phase, and he will most definitely chase us around, attacking us from behind door jambs, etc. Yesterday, he actually flew at me, from 3 feet in the air, when I walked around the corner. Slammed into my hip, slid down my leg, bit my ankle and ran off. That's how much fun he is. It's awesome.

He got to meet a baby this week. Liz was in town and brought Ada over for a few hours. Quincy wasn't sure about the smells and the noises--boy was she talking up a storm (she's about 5 days older than Jackson, so still very small). She is very precious, though. And, eventually, Quincy got used to her, watching her with a wary eye from across the room.

Just to show you how much personality he has, even when sleeping or relaxing, here are a few of his poses. Soon, I hope to snap a shot of his favorite reclining pose, but every time I see it, I just laugh and forget about photographing it.

He loves to sleep in random spots. A few examples:

Oddly enough, he uses pillows like a person.

Video game kitty.

Look at his bleary eyes from watching too much TV!

(Obviously, I did not train him in this way.)

Burrito kitty. He really is asleep.

Look closely. Yes, that's Quincy holding Kyle's wedding ring,

on a Bible, while sleeping.
Multi-talented kitty.

Very protective of the things that matter.

But you might also call him:

Bible-Thumping Kitty.

Below you can see him using my laptop as an armrest.

He truly does these kind of things on his own.

And this is why we love him.

Currently, his favorite thing in the house is an airplane pillow that I got several years ago. He fights with it -- biting and wrestling it, but also loves sleeping on it, or next to it. It's like a little friend to him, I think.

A true picture of contentment...on his favorite pillow.

Isn't he just beautiful?

Oops, one other thing

I forgot to mention that while we were home last weekend, I woke up early in the morning to my husband punching me in the back with his fist.

It hurt.

He claims he was dreaming that he was saving me from someone and the punch was part of a series of blows that landed on the culprit who was attempting to do us harm.

Really?

After this, and the early-in-our-marriage night terror that he had, in which he woke up yelling and fighting, ripping the covers completely off of myself, and out of my tightly clutching hands, and our bed and pounding them into the ground...

it's a wonder I can sleep in the same bed with him at all.

Is someone trying to tell us something?

You decide. Your comments and suggestions of who or what is going on are welcome.

It's been a series of small things that are driving us insane. One full week of this, and we're not really sure what to do.

Started with the fact that we were very tight on time and we found:

• 14 people in line inside the pharmacy, and
• 5 in the outside drive-thru area. We'd already turned in the prescription and just needed to pick it up. Should have taken 5 minutes max; it took 25.

We were supposed to pick up the pizzas for dinner for the whole fam before graduation that evening in Rochester, but we also can't speed because of the number of moving traffic violations that exist between us. We encountered on the road:

• 2 combines driving 15 mph on different highways,
• 1 giant Ford truck hauling a flatbed of 6 smashed cars and going 20 mph,
• 5 people going significantly (5-10 mph) under the speed limit on a highway.

We ended up grabbing the pizzas, only 10 minutes late, and heading over to the party. Graduation itself was in a hot gymnasium on bleachers, so there's nothing fun about that. However, we sat behind:

• 1 very broad-backed and wide (front-to-back) old man with poor posture who took up at least half of the space behind him designed for someone's legs. We had to sit sideways for the entirety of the hour+ long event.

The next day, we planned to spend with the Bartons. It was lovely--a great pancake breakfast at the new fire station, seeing an old friend, Kyle got a tour of the pristine building, etc. We were having a great time. Then, Kyle and Allen tried to install Kyle's new (to him) emergency personnel lights on his rear view mirror. Ended up with:

• Allen's installed perfectly, and Kyle realizing he needs an electrician in order to get his hooked up. 2-3 hours wasted.

We arrived home exhausted that evening. In the middle of that night (1:45am), Kyle gets a call on his walkie that we're having bad storms and tornadoes in the area. He headed off to the fire station and I headed over to the library...all by myself. Terrifying place in the middle of the night. And then:

• the electricity went out on my way back from the bathroom...alone, dark basement, torrential downpour and possible tornado outside, huge building...terrified.

After returning and falling into bed at 4am, we decided to see when the alarm went off if we could drag ourselves to church.

• We woke up at 12:30p. Half of the day gone, and obviously no church. Although this might seem like a brilliant Sunday of rest, it was foreshadowing of the things to come.

But Sunday was cleaning day, and we both enjoy that. As we began the process of cleaning our tiny house, Kyle got out the vacuum and:

• 1 cat peed on the carpet b/c he's scared of the vacuum.

In the process of cleaning that nast up, we tried to move cat to a new place in the house, away from the vacuum, he:

• freaked out while being held, clawed Kyle's chest through his shirt and tore holes in Kyle's shirt: twice.

I think after a close call with a nervous break down, we called it a day. I can't remember the beginning of the week. I don't remember anything else going wrong until yesterday...

Kyle was home sick from work and so slept in. When he finally got up (I'd been up for hours doing school work), we went for a lovely walk in the perfect 70 degree sunny weather. When we return we saw:

• 1 cat rubbing his furry little behind all over the carpet and then on the lower level of the coffee table. When he got up, we saw there was...well...poo hanging in his fur back there.

This was very disturbing. Between myself holding the cat and Kyle armed with some scissors and paper towel, we fixed that situation, and then crawled around the house smelling the carpet. Thankfully, the poo was dried, and the only place is got was the lower part of the coffee table. That was quickly disinfected.

Shortly thereafter, Kyle began dishes, and I helped intermittently as I was reading more articles for school. When I sat back down in the computer room, I heard a commotion in the kitchen--"What is going on with our lives. Honey...NO!" I kept calling out to ask what was the matter. No answer for two whole minutes. I walked around the corner to find:

• 1 husband squatting on the floor attempting to capture a flood of water pouring out from under the sink. And I hear, in answer to my previously unanswered request for information: "FLOOD, honey, FLOOD!"

I grabbed some towels and we mopped everything up, had to move the fridge, brought out our two fans and just stood there, utterly confused. We called the maintenance guy, who has a day job, and thus could not attend this problem until after 5pm.

I left for class around 3:30, praying Kyle would have a break from these moments of absolutely unnecessary insanity. I found out later (after class around 9pm) that a few minutes after I left, while Kyle started a load of laundry (the towels from the floor mopping), he heard gurgling in the kitchen and entered to find:

• 2 sinks filling up with nasty water. (At this point, we don't even know if those kitchen sink pipes are sound.)

He called the maintenance guy again, and stopped the washer. After some applications of drain-o, the maintenance guy left saying--let me know if it works. Well, it didn't.

And now we have:

• One 1/2-washed load of dirty towels steeping in foul water, unable to drain, and it's a Friday.
• Two kitchen sinks that don't work, or, they do, but they will flood.

And it's the weekend. Cooking? Washing dishes? Washing clothing (I'm desperately in need of at least one load of laundry)? Anything? I don't even KNOW what to do with this.

So tell me what you think is happening to us...

June, and few months back

How is it June already? And yet, it's only June 2nd and I feel like it should be June 23rd. Kyle says my date confusion is due to the heat. These are July or August temperatures, not June. How does that bode for the rest of the summer? Maybe I'll take a new interest in the campus lake (I'm so not a fan of swimming in lakes).

I don't think you're supposed to say stuff like this but I love my class. It's been really challenging to get all of the requirements done over the last three weeks, but class last night made it all worth it. It's as if I'm attending a book club and writing papers, but there aren't any tests, and we sit around discussing books and movie adaptations...wow. It is fantastic.

Ironically enough, the final three weeks or so will show a significant drop in the amount of work we have to do, just as I'm out from under the strain of working full-time (it's summer break, you know, for those of us who operate on school calendars). Oh well. I'll have more time to enjoy the sunshine and maybe come up with a few new summery dishes for eating.

I'm enjoying my first few days off work. My summer will consist of meeting with a personal trainer twice a week, meeting for class twice a week, doing homework, reading books (which is actually part of doing homework), working out on my own three times a week, and then standard household stuff -- cooking (which I've been so negligent about since the beginning of May), cleaning, de-hairing, and, of course, playing with Quincy. He's quite the charmer when he wants to be, but he is also a giant pest when he wants to be (and that's usually when I'm making dinner or trying to type up some sort of paper for class).

I don't know where May went. I was nervously awaiting the start of classes all winter and POW! now it's gone. It went out with a BANG on Monday, celebrating my grandpa's 90th birthday with most of our ginormous family. He had 5 kids, they each had between 3 - 7 children. And now there are children and babies everywhere. It's insane. We meet in a park because the outdoors is the only thing that will hold us all.

At any rate. We have a big summer ahead of us. No plans to migrate south (sadly), but many plans to head home to see our various siblings and parents -- birthdays, holidays, family pictures, visiting relatives, etc. We also have several friends getting married this year, but those weddings don't start until the end of July and go through the final day of October.

Mostly, this summer, we're hoping for a financial reprieve from the multitude of crises that have hit us since January. A majority of the issues have been vehicle related, but it's not just the cars. My eye issues continue to be a financial drain, and that's frustrating, as I had hoped the surgery in February would decrease the amount of money I was spending on my eyes. Apparently, I'm still one surgery away from being glasses-less until my 40s. And that isn't entirely true, is it. I will wear reading glasses for the rest of my life. Oh joy! As long as I can get rid of these that I wear all day, every day, I think I can manage reading glasses for computer / book use.

Hello, Summer! Welcome. I've been looking forward to you for over a year. Thanks for being mostly sunny thus far.