So today is the Feast of the Assumption — one of those “big Mary days.” Since my brain is still fried from our neighborhood block party (which was super fun — and one shot of my neighbor’s delicious homemade limoncello covered my alcohol consumption for the entire week ), I will exercise the blogger’s privilege of linking back to something I wrote about the Assumption two years ago. It still says exactly what I feel.
And if you are not entirely sure you know what the Assumption is all about, you are in good company. BustedHalo’s Father Jack took to the streets of New York to find out what people know (or don’t know!) about this feast day. Check it out:
1. Yes, it’s still chilly here. I have worn flannel pajamas every night since returning from New Hampshire, and from the way the wind is howling outside, I will not be breaking the trend tonight. The cold summer is a major topic of conversation around here these days. I don’t think anyone settles in crowded overpriced earthquake country for weather like THIS .
2. I think Matthew is starting to understand the concept of states, and countries, and distance. This morning we were talking about New Hampshire. ”It’s really far away,” he said.
“That’s right,” I told him.
“If you walked there,” he observed seriously, ”it would take a really really long time.”
Thank God for air travel.
3. I’m currently gloating over the fact that I bought a dress at J C Penney’s today for the paltry sum of $29.99. It’s really cute, and fits amazingly well, and has enough coverage that I can wear it teaching. Plus it is washable (huzzah!) and dark enough not to show sweat stains, which, I have learned over the years, is a prerequisite for most teaching attire. No matter how chilly it has been all summer, it is guaranteed to become sweltering hot the minute that school starts again. That is how it works.
4. If you want a little dose of Mary today, you can check out my latest answer on BustedHalo.com. It’s all about being a good son, and about having a great mom.
Just last night, my little family returned home from a week’s vacation in New Hampshire. We were staying at a family camp at Squam Lake, otherwise known as the lake where “On Golden Pond” was filmed. In my humble opinion, it’s also one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth.
If you don’t believe me, take a look at this, the view from right outside our cabin:
And this:
Man, this place is gorgeous. If there are any NH residents reading this, let me just tell you that you live an an absolutely beautiful state. I might even be tempted to move there were I not sure that the winters would totally destroy this wimpy CA girl. As it is, I hope I can go back for a visit sometime. Next week might be good.
And the loons! What fascinating birds! We saw quite a few over the course of the week and I adore their eerie and distinctive call. I am seriously going to find a loon ringtone for my phone (that should turn a few heads at the mall, don’t you think?).
Speaking of loons, I was bemused, then amused, by this sign in our cabin:
I guess this means that if you think a loon has a nice figure, you need to keep that opinion to yourself.
Best of all, we were there with very special people, for a very special reason. Scott’s parents will celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary in November, and it was their dream to get all three of their kids and families together for a week. We toasted them with champagne one memorable evening, sitting out on the deck of the cabin while bats flew by in the semi-darkness and loons called to each other on the water. It is not often that all the assorted Moyers, hailing from California and Colorado and New Hampshire and New York, are together in one place. The fact that it was such a beautiful place was just icing on the cake.
Happy early anniversary, Bob and Joan. Thank you for a memorable, magical week.
“Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.”
- Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck is very much a name from my childhood. My mom used to read her books (I can still picture the cover of If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?). Her humorous newspaper columns about family life were loved by most of the women in my family. She even wrote the foreword to the Family Circus Treasury , a book that my sister and I pored over until the spine fell out.
This summer, I’ve been reading her columns (compiled in the book Forever, Erma), and all I can say is that there is a reason she was so darn popular. Her newspaper columns — about taking kids to the hospital in the middle of the night, about husbands who don’t ask for directions, about never being able to find a pencil when you need one, about the charm of hanging clothes out on a clothesline — are hysterically funny, and often deliciously sarcastic, but they are never mean. Back in the sixties (through to the nineties), she wrote about the drudgery of being a housewife and a mother in a way that was hilarious and real. But she wrote about the joy, too. Reading her work, you can tell that she loves her kids and her husband and her life; the complaining, such as it is, never overpowers the warmth.
When it comes to “domestic humor,” she really is the pioneer. I think every mommy-blogger today owes her a certain debt. She showed that there is a huge audience for stories about motherhood, especially if it is done with pithy humor and with real heart. What I’ve learned from her columns is that there is a real power when a writer’s voice has both, in equal amounts.
I can probably illustrate this best with a few quotations. I love her for writing this:
“One thing they never tell you about child-raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is. “
But I also love her for writing this:
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”
I once heard that if you really want to know how much you’ve spent on an article of clothing, divide the price by the number of times you wear it. It’s an intriguing formula, and it shows you how much value you get for, say, a pair of jeans — and how little value for a wedding dress (other than the sentimental factor, of course).
I dig Dean. He’s got a mellow effortless voice, he sings with obvious relish, and every now and then he launches into a little Italian … sigh. It’s great background music to normal life — and totally toddler-appropriate stuff, so I don’t have to worry about the boys picking up any bad words. (That said, a few of the tracks have a little bit of 1950s-era sauce. The song “Standing on the Corner Watching All the Girls Go By,” which is a song about doing exactly that, actually contains the line, “Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking.” Well, we’ll just leave that one alone, shall we?)
Anyhow, these songs always put me in a great mood. They make me feel like I should have a big pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove: you know, homey and comfortable. And the CD (Track #3) contains what is perhaps the best song ever about marriage: “Memories are Made of This.” We used it as the background song for the Powerpoint video we made for my parents’ 40th anniversary a few years back.
One man, one wife,
One love through life
Memories are made of this.
About six days ago, a fly flew into the house when we had the door open. It has not left. It buzzes around, looking for a way out, slamming into windows and hovering around light fixtures. Matthew was initially afraid of it — it’s a huge son of a gun — and wanted to have his door closed at night so the fly wouldn’t come into his room.
I did come very close to liberating the poor thing on Thursday, when it flew into the remains of my Trader Joe’s BBQ Chicken Salad container. I hastily slapped on the lid and headed, triumphantly, to the front door. About two feet away, the lid slipped off. The fly escaped from the container and a very choice expletive escaped from my mouth.
But at this point, the fly hardly bothers us anymore. Matthew keeps his door open at night and at naptime and has been known to say, “Look! The fly!” in nearly delighted tones. I have to stop myself from setting out a placemat for it at dinner. It’s like one of the family now. One day, we might actually miss it.
I have just finished the last of the Fairacre books.
(sniff)
Are you familiar with this series? The author is Miss Read, but that’s actually a pen name. The real author is Dora Saint, who has been writing about Fairacre since the first book in the series, Village School, was published in 1955. (The last book, A Peaceful Retirement, was written in 1996.) The books are told from the point of view of Miss Read, the schoolteacher, who observes the comings and goings of her neighbors in Fairacre, a rural English town.
It is hard to describe the appeal of these books, because — in the words of one reviewer — nothing much ever really happens in them. A new family moves into the village, the church roof is damaged in a storm, the assistant teacher falls in love with the local ne’er-do-well, the entire school goes to the seaside on a fieldtrip. It’s not as if dinosaurs suddenly come back to life, or anything. But the books are proof that gentle adventures with well-written characters can be profoundly satisfying. The books are charming without being precious; the kind but steely voice of Miss Read keeps them from becoming too saccharine, even when she is describing her adorable ragamuffin student from the wrong side of town. If you are an Anglophile (like me), the descriptions of the English countryside throughout the seasons — sparrows and hedgerows and daffodils and holly — will have you positively salivating. Plus the books are illustrated with charming line sketches. I guess I’ve never really grown up, because I still love books that have drawings in them.
And I don’t know about you, but sometimes — more and more, these days — I just want to sit down with a book that I know will not contain distressingly graphic material. Life is complicated enough; I don’t want to read anything angsty right before bed. The Fairacre books fit the bill. I know that I’ll drift off to sleep with with visions of tea cosies, robins, and thatched roofs in my head. That, I believe, is a very nice way to end the day.
Do you love the Miss Read books, too? Or do you have any other “comfort books” that you read in times of stress? I’m always looking for suggestions. (And the good news, by the way, is that Dora Saint also wrote an entire set of novels about another village, Thrush Green. I think our local library system will come through with those titles, too — and just in time.)
I'm a formerly lapsed Catholic who likes to write about faith, real life, and how the two intersect. Oh, and I love Mary -- check out my book Mary and Me below!
