A few pebbles of which I am fond...

A swiftly tilting planet...

9-7-07

A great soul, Madeleine L'Engle, has died today, the MSN Today news pop-up tells me.  She was 88.

I first "met" Madeleine L'Engle in Mrs. Snider's 4th, 5th, & 6th grade class.  We good Montessori children would gather on the floor around the perimeter of the big area rug before lunch each day to hear chapters of novels read aloud.  Somewhere in the midst of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Dear Mr. Henshaw, and a tearful Where the Red Fern Grows, a wrinkle folded its way into our time and a wind was in the door.  A Swiftly Tilting Planet showed up later, required reading for the older kids, and somewhere in my closet pile of old assignments is a drawing of what I thought farandolae looked like (I remember being quite pleased with how the colors and abstractions shaped up).  I remember imagining Madeleine L'Engle (with a name like that!) to be a fantastic...some combination of my childhood science teacher who lived by the river and had an outhouse, and an old hippie Montessori parent with an ethnic print jumper, flat ballet slippers, and a long grey braid roping down her back.

When I later actually met Madeleine L'Engle, the first thing that struck me was a severe lack of braid.  A fellow Smithie, she had returned to the college one fall week of my junior year as part of a program that brought alumnas back to campus to stay in their old houses and have tea with current students.  She was giving a talk in the reading room of Neilson Library when I ducked in with my backpack and found a seat somewhere on the red oriental rug.  Suddenly I was in 5th grade again, and Meg and Charles Wallace were children living just a bit further down the road, and in front of me was a goddess out of childhood mythology in a red tunic with close-cropped hair and dangling earrings that spun and swung with her stories.

I vaguely remember asking a question or two, and lingering afterward to say hello before trudging back in the dark to the Quad, but mostly I remember her talking about her characters.  Someone asked her how she planned out the lives of the Murry children as they aged across books, deciding Meg would be pregnant in one, what career Calvin would have.  With a look that pronounced the question absurd, she said point-blankly, "well, I asked them; they're real, you know."  She went on to describe her characters as close intimate friends...people you drop in on when you have a chance to share a cup of coffee and conversation to find out what they've been up to since they moved further away and everyone just got so busy.

To have such a relationship with one's characters and their worlds was, for me, a revelation in writing; a round world beyond the flat one.  I am grateful.

Thanks for opening the door, Smithie.

The go-between time

8-4-07

It's been awhile...since I graduated, since I wrote, since the boys from Oz rolled through (and then back through...and then back through), since life had a discernable rhythm.

In the meantime:  I turned 28 on the 28th of June (certainly a noteworthy and magical year is in store!).  I finished Harry Potter VII.  I chaperoned the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta delegation to the 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium in West Lafayette, Indiana.  I spent a week or so in Delaware with Dad, visiting assorted relatives and Dad's childhood friends.  I partook in the Middle School Camp messy game night at Burnamwood and found myself covered head to foot in paint, flour, mud, shaving cream, syrup, etc.  I spent time in Chattanooga with Fallon and as usual, too brief time in Kentucky with Mom and Dad.  I canned my first pickles.  I became the proud owner of a handmade mandolin.

Most recently, I went contra dancing with Woody for 3.5 hours of leg-numbing revelry.  Oh, and a tree fell on our house.  Well, not quite a tree, but a sizeable pecan limb that shook the entire building and is still hanging over the back door awaiting the promised removal.  It was crazy.

On the job front, I have had a few and have a few more interviews, a few of which are promising.  I suspect my luxuriously long holiday may be drawing to a close.  Ah, well.

Life transitions

5-27-07

As if the whirlwind weeks before weren't enough chaos, this past week has been just as full with life changes and travels.

The boys from Oz headed out and up the East Coast last Friday, while I trekked up to Evansville, Indiana for Chris and Becca's wedding in Robards, KY.  The wedding on the farm was gorgeous, and featured reunions with folks from high school and early college that I hadn't seen in ages.  From there I drove home to Georgetown to finish the weekend out with Mom and Dad and the critters.

I have never had to put a pet to sleep before.  My other animals (rabbits, dogs, goldfish, box turtles) have always died peacefully in their sleep or escaped in to the wild yonder (that would be the box turtle).  We made the painful decision, however, to put Prancer to sleep on this visit home.  At age 13, he was nearly deaf, blind, extremely fragile, and had recently stopped eating his usual voracious amounts.

I spent a last afternoon with him and Kaya, mostly dozing in the shade of the rosebush.  The next morning, George came out and we said our goodbyes and laid Prancer to rest beside our childhood Beagle, Blue, along with cards, flowers, dog cookies, and walnuts.

While a dog is arguably not a person, losing such an integral member of my family is still painful.  He takes with him memories of my high school days, college cookouts, tomato juice baths to wash out the skunk spray, life in my ill-fated Lexington apartment, treed raccoons, a tempestuous relationship with Kaya, and his connections to people in my life who have passed on as well...Kenton, Grandmocker, Fred.

From there it was back to Atlanta for a last week of work at my internship.  In celebration, I somehow managed to acquire a nasty case of poison ivy that is all over my face.  Ugh.

So now I am done...waiting and seeking to discover what happens next.

Do the Whirlwind...

5-15-07

What a whirlwind the past two weeks have been! Within the last 14 days or so I have:

1. Finished my option paper.
2. Played hostess/tour-guide for four of my Australian friends from Melbourne.
3. Graduated from Georgia Tech with my Master’s Degree.
4. Thrown a graduation/Australian visitors/pre-pre-Derby party in Atlanta.
5. Skipped graduation to actually GO to the Kentucky Derby for the first time.
6. Attended the 11^th Annual Patterson Clan Der-bay Par-tay.
7. Driven across Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentuckyas part of the tour-guiding.
8. Been to Woodford Reserve Distillery, Natural Bridge State Park, a Lexington Legends baseball game, a Barrows concert, Blackburn Farm, the Louisville Slugger museum, the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, and the top of the Westin with the Aussies.
9. Hosted LauraLee for an evening as she was en route to Canada.
10. Thrown the javelin with Dad, Dave, & Pup.
11. Have tasted the culinary treasures of Quirk in Midway, Common Grounds, Ramsey’s, Lynn’s Paradise Café, Surin, Miguel’s at the Red, 5^th Street BBQ, the Lock & Key, the Silver Skillet, Lupi’s, Cheapside, and the original KFC in Corbin, KY.
12. Have played about 78 vicious rounds of an Australian card game with an unbecoming title, including a few cutthroat matches on the lawn of Midway College.

The Aussies are heading out at the end of this week, in the new “A-Team” style van they purchased for their ramblings (I’m very tempted to discard the whole get-a-job idea and jump in the van with them). 

Safe travels, mates..er…y’all.

Trading Places

5-14-07

It's my turn to host, and Balshaw, Dale, Monkey, and Pup's turn to be the visitors!  In an about face from this time last year, four of my friends from Melbourne are now in the States and crashing at my house.  Balshaw and I are still sitting in the same seats in the car, driving around, telling stories and pointing out sites/sights, only now the steering wheel is on my side.

The first three Australians arrived nearly two weeks ago, rocking up on my doorstep at 4a.m., having trekked up from Miami in one day.  We celebrated their arrival and end of the semester with a festive shindig at the house.  The next evening, the boys from Oz and I headed up to Kentucky, via Nashville where we picked up Pup in the pouring rain, and arrived on Mom and Dad's doorstep around 4a.m. as well.

I skipped my graduate school graduation in favor of actually attending the Kentucky Derby for the first time since I was in utero (the 1979 Spectacular Bid win).  Dave, Dale, Monkey, Pup and I went to the infield where they made friends with a gang of crazy kids from WKU.  After seeing the Queen of England from (very) afar, and Dale winning some cash on Street Sense, we headed on to the 11th annual Patterson Hall Clan Derby Party.  Eleven years after we first hauled a grill onto the porch of UK's Patterson Residence Hall and celebrated the first Saturday in May, dozens of us returned once again from all parts of the world to reunion and revel.

Between the chess pie, the crazy dance party in the dining room, the crafts and t-shirts, and the continued dancing...a festive time was had by all.

Ugh.

4-10-07

There is less than a month standing between me and graduation, yet it feels like an eternity (and one wrought with onerous tasks and vicious beasts (i.e. option papers and group projects)). 

The sad thing is I truly enjoy my option paper topic, but am so swamped with other things for other classes and for work, I get to spend little time truly focused on it.  Hence I am up at 1a.m. currently trying to give the giant paper a little love and attention.

I'm headed to Philadelphia on Friday for the American Planning Association conference.  I have business cards and new pants for the outing, along with a stack of resumes.  Job hunting is at once stressful and frustrating, but also exciting.  I actually like interviews and invariably end up gabbing with the interviewers for ages at the end.

The Aussies are in this hemisphere.  I got a wee-hours-of-the-morning phone call from Balshaw, Dale, and Monkey a few days ago, wherein I heard them shouting in loud, jet-lagged sentences:  "G'day mate!  We're in your country!  We're in a phone box..outside the Denny's....in Los Angeles!  We're here!"  I'm already afraid.  (Now they are off sailing about the Carribbean for the Cricket World Cup for a few weeks.  They'll eventually trek back up here in time for my last week of finals and together we'll head to Kentucky for the Derby!)

It's off to bed now.

Sweet Kentucky

2-28-07

I went up to Kentucky this weekend, on a spur of the moment impulse Thursday afternoon.  Somedays, you just have to head for home.

'Twas a lovely weekend, resplendent with warm weather, dinners with the parents (Dad recovering from foot surgery), an evening at McCarthy's with high school friends as we listened to the Deehawks play, and Sunday services at Versailles Presbyterian.  I also stopped and visited with Katherine Giles after church...so good to see her!

It was my first time being home since Fred passed away, and the feeling was one of hollowness and lostness.  The lanky old detective with the perennial fishing hat and bassett hounds had been so much more than a neighbor for all of my 27 years:  he was a grandfather, a hero, a friend.  I miss him so much.  His nephew, Bruce, called us and invited me over to the house as they were emptying it this weekend.  I was given Marge's handmade dulcimer (look out, Jeannie Ritchie!), a few of her paintings and the cow skull she'd painted as a still life so many times (how very Georgia O'Keefe), Fred's classical music CDs (he had a Post-it Note with my name on them), and my choice from Fred's collection of 200+ cookbooks.  How many hours have I discussed recipes with Fred!  How many conversations about Asian cooking, and spoonful samples of his latest adventures!  On my kitchen table, there is now a stack of Julia Child and Moosewood and Bluegrass region cookbooks, each with Fred's meticulous note-taking about dishes he'd tried and how to adapt them for diabetics.

The things are just things; they are not Fred and Marge and will not bring them back in to this life.  I cannot help but be pleased, however, that these earthly tokens I have of them are active items:  that the dulcimer when played will invoke my memories of Marge, that the recipes when cooked and eaten with friends will be shared with the memories of Fred, and that even fifty years down the road, the place my dear neighbors held in my life and my heart will be celebrated with each use.

The dulcimer, the paintings, the cookbooks were loaded into the car and then it was back to Atlanta, with a bag of raw apple muffins my mommy made me, and the hills of Appalachia guiding me.

I love my Kentucky.

Hootenanny

2-17-07

Went last night to see Gillian Welch with David Rawlings in concert at The Variety Playhouse.  A sold-out performance for a very good reasons!  Especially David Rawlings' tune "Knuckleball Catcher" and their closer, a rendition of June and Johnny's "Jackson."  I confess great envy for David's guitar skills and Gillian's cowboy boots and voice.

Seventeen stars out of four.

Bringing da Funk

2-11-07

Last night, Heather invited us all to a party at her place entitled "Bring da Funk."

It got brought.

D.J. P.J. from the first-year class set up his turntables in the livingroom and the James Brown didn't stop until well into Sunday morning (is that the sun I see?).  Heather went above and beyond and moved all the furniture out of her livingroom in order to construct a full-on, elevated, light-up dancefloor.  Absolutely spectacular!

With a little help from hairspray and back-combing, I managed to achieve my best afro effort...clocking in at about 7'1" in my heels (post-party, it took about an hour to get it down...I almost ended up wearing a half-fro to church).  There was a healthy turnout of fellow op-shoppers in all their recycled 70s finery and we danced danced danced until we could dance no more.

See for yourself...in photo album "j.  Bringing da Funk"

To the Woods!

1-22-07

Just posted some photos from last weekend.  TK masterminded a plan to kick off the semester with a holiday in the mountains.  About 18 of us second-year students headed to the hills of North Georgia and rented a massive cabin (three stories, fireplaces, a hot tub, etc.!) and spent the weekend doing nothing.

And doing it well:  amid the board games, the ping pong, the hiking, the accidental baby shower crashing (all Jeffo's fault!), the continous eating, the yoga (Chernock?), and the chaos, a glorious weekend was had by all.

Now it's back to the grind.