The Lunatic Next Door

An electrically charged doorbell would probably have done the trick, just a mild electrification, no more.  A gentle shock just might have helped the neighbourhood kids remember that my kids, who attend public school, went to school a week longer than they (the neighbor kids) had at the Catholic school, and that, yes, today is part of the extra week, just as yesterday was, and that (still) my kids wouldn't be home until later than three thirty, so there is no need to come before then and ring the doorbell, waking Micah Jade, AGAIN!  It's not that the neighbourhood kids are bad kids, just a little forgetful, and  I don't dislike them particularly, any more than I would dislike anyone who had woken crusty Micah Jade up for five days in a row from five much-needed naps that hold the power to prevent her from transforming from Dr. Jeckyl to Mr. Hyde for the remaining five hours of family life each day.

Though it may be inconsistent with my plans to electrify my door bell, I consider myself a good neighbour.  That said, this good neighbour has had a few difficulties with  unsupervised neighbourhood kids in the past, but before I tell you that story, you must hear the backstory that sets the stage.

When Greg and I bought our first house, it was in a decent neighbourhood, one with big live oak trees, older brick houses, and happy kids that played outside in the streets.  It wasn't an expensive neighbourhood, or a fancy house, but it was home.  I bought wrapping paper and chocolates and other things to support the kids in band at the local school, because I like a neighbourhood where kids can go door to door to bother people for cash.   I liked the kids that played outside too, at least in theory.

My first and last run-in with the neighbourhood kids at our house in Texas occurred at night, when I was twenty-six and alone with my two tiny kids while my husband was out-of-town.   Late in the evening, there came a knock at the door.  I wondered if it might be a neighborhood friend in trouble, but when I went to answer the door,  there was no one there.  My immense imagination could tolerate one such occurrence, but after three knocks, my fear began to further paralyse my reason as I imagined what I would do when the perpetrators forced their way into the house and attempted to kill us all (which does sometimes happen in Texas).   So, in order to get help before this impending calamity materialised, I did what any responsible, young, terrified mother would do.  I called the police.

Not far from my part of town, the police had really dangerous people to deal with--drug lords, thieves, and general thugs--and so the neighbourhood kids were small fish.  The next knock at my door was a policeman.  "Well, ma'am, there are some kids walking around outside in the streets, but it is not past curfew, so there is nothing I can do.  It is probably them, but I wouldn't worry," he said, in a calm, but patronising tone.  

Well of course he wouldn't worry! He was 6'2" and he probably had ninja training and he definitely had a gun, and, judging from his judgemental expression, he was clearly not in possession of an imagination as vivid as mine is.   When threatened, he also probably had the advantage of both "fight" and "flight" instincts, whereas I only possess "fight."  With his reassuring message delivered to the cowardly young mother, he drove off into the night, and left my imagination,  myself, and the neighbourhood kids to my own devices.

And then it occurred to me.  A note!  I will write a note to warn them of the consequences of tormenting a paranoid young mother late at night.  In a former life, I was a reasonable artist, so I put my skills to work do draw what would occur if the perpetrator cared to come back, and I taped it to the window beside the door.  Then I checked the doors again, and went to sleep because I knew with veritable certainty that it would work.

The next morning, when Greg came back from a business trip, he paused at the door in disbelief, wondering if he should call first before coming through the front door.  With tremendous courage, he unlocked the door with his key and came to find me, unsure of what had transpired while he was away.

"Babe?" he called, "Are you alright?"

I casually strolled into the living room, smiling, with an infant on my hip, and a toddler in tow.  "Yes, honey, why?"

"Well, I saw this picture of a gun in the window, and read that if I knocked on the door, that you would 'blow my head off through the window' like this picture on the sign you made."

"Oh, that was not meant for you," I said with a pleasant smile.   "The neighbour kids scared me last night when you were away, but they didn't knock after the note."

"Well, I guess not!"

I never had another kid try to sell me wrapping paper or a car wash.  Word must have gone around that five dollars for a band fundraiser was not worth facing the crazy lady at 11703.  I suppose that part of me wishes I could say that I am sorry about this incident, but I am not sorry.  My friends and family love to bring it up, and, we have all enjoyed our fair share of laughs because it is exciting when someone that you generally think of as being sane  has terrified deserving neighbourhood children that you don't know in a neighbourhood that is not yours (and subsequently refuses to repent).

So, I guess, compared to my last confrontation with the neighbourhood kids, my fantasies about shocking a new set of neighbourhood children with an electrified doorbell are quite mild.  My recent designs have given me a few chuckles, though at least this time, my plans have been hidden by discretion from real people and only revealed to my 619 friends on Facebook who laughed with me and helped me strategise (and of course, to you, my loyal blog readers, who enjoy my writing because I am foolish enough both to own and to tell any thought in my head.)   The truth is that whether I reside in Texas or in Australia or somewhere else,  I will ever be the lunatic next door.   Don't ring my doorbell at nap time for several days in a row, and, for your own sake and for mine, if you knock after dark,  please don't run off :)  

*Just to be clear, I have not ever owned a gun, and would not really shoot anyone.  Also, I don't really know how to electrify my doorbell, so wouldn't do this either.  

Poo and Jewels

If I had a beautiful jewel, I would have it put into a ring and I would wear it every day, on my hand where I could see it-- even when I clean-- because jewels are beautiful reminders of perfection and eternity in a world that  is broken in so many ways.   If Jordan had one, she would study it to see how the light refracted when it wandered through the facets, and then the kid would probably count the faces on it before researching the way it was forged in the bowels of the earth--because jewels are a product of natural science that must be studied.  If Greg had a jewel, he would put it in a ring and give it to me and I would wear it every day--even to clean (I suppose this has already happened)--because he has no use for jewels (and I do). Meryl would hide hers in a treasure chest at the end of the rainbow, and she would pull a curtain of silver mist across the shiny copper chest to keep it hidden from common eyes--because jewels are mystical and perfect for feeding the imagination. But Micah Jade? Well, I never would have predicted her plan. (Don't read on if you don't like little kid toilet stories.)
    
I don't bathe Micah Jade any more.  By the end of the day, when I am trying to get everyone clean and practicing instruments and doing homework, while cooking dinner and attempting to be thankful and cheerful during the most stressful time of the day,  I am in no condition to get the smallest, squirreliest of my children bathed.  It costs me about five dollars a week, but it is worth every penny to get Jordan or Meryl to bathe her.  She doesn't always cooperate.  Sometimes I have to pay up for Jordan or Meryl's efforts and finish her bath myself because she thinks it is hilarious to be both dirty and difficult.
  
So, I guess it was a day like many days, and Jordan had been chosen as the designated MJ bather--today in the bath, not the shower.  I began to hear the first sounds of distress in the bathroom.  I don't come immediately when I hear slight distress because sometimes it resolves itself, but not this day. I waited the customary minute and then emerged into the bathroom to see micah Jade on her back with her legs in the air, looking sheepish and smirky, and Jordan frantically trying to look into Micah Jade's anus.

Jordan:  (distressed) "Mom, there is a blue sparkly thing in her butt.  I looked in there, and I know it is there! OH NO"
Me:  (curious) "Micah Jade? Did you put something in your butt?"
Micah Jade:  (smug) "Um-Hm.  I had a little jewel and (now starting to get agitated) I put it in there, and now I can't get it OUUUUUUUT!"
Me: "What was it?"
Jordan:  "She had a jewel--like a marble, and now it is not here, and the thing in her butt is blue just like the jewel."
Me:  (in disbelief)  "You put a jewel into your butt?"
MJ:  (with real alarm) "YES! and it is STUUUUUCK!"
Me:  (matter-of-fact-ly) "You might have to poo it out into the toilet."
Jordan:  (worried)  "You shouldn't put things in your butt"
MJ:  (repeated for two minutes  and during Jordan's and my astute analyses) "OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!"

I calmed her down; and I dressed her while stifling laughter and trying to explain the dangers of storing things in one's anus; and she ate dinner with us--all with a jewel in her butt.  In the end, I caught the jewel before it fell in the toilet so that she could enjoy it again.  Somedays, that is what motherhood is-- jewels buried in poo.

We mothers take the "good" experiences with the "bad", and we get to laugh and do things we never signed up for; and if we are lucky, we get to share the journey together with other mothers on parallel journeys of humour and mess and love.  Real motherhood is raw and untamed, and it is perfect for women that have a little wildness left--sometimes hidden deep inside.   It is not for the faint of heart (or the queasy), and I love it because I love my kids.  Perhaps tomorrow will be a little less nasty, perhaps not.  I'll take the adventure that comes, and, after surviving the poo, I'll treasure these memories in my heart like the priceless jewels they are.

Meryl's Real Question

"I'm not sure I believe all this stuff about Jesus and God like you and Daddy,"  stated Meryl, as she looked through her dark lashes deep into my soul.   "How could Jesus do miracles?  How did he have powers?  I don't have any powers, and I don't know anyone else who does."  I listened carefully and I  answered specifically, but her doubt remained, like a cloud of suspicion between us.

The communication of our beliefs is part of our job as parents.  In both intentional and unintentional ways, we all tell our kids what we see as truth about themselves and about their world.  Whether our belief system comes from an old religion like Christianity, or whether it is something we have fashioned from our own experience and pieces of meaning, what we believe runs so deep within us that we can't help but teach it in every interaction with our children.

Meryl has heard about our faith since she was a very little girl, as have all of our girls.  We are not casual or cultural Christians.  We are Christians by choice, by careful study and evaluation, and by conviction.  For Greg and I, our Christian faith has implications into every aspect of our lives, and we teach our children our faith because we see it as our privilege and our obligation to tell them the Truth.

My answers to her questions about faith were were complete, but Meryl still looked at me with doubt, and as I stood there pondering her stated questions longer, I heard the question she never asked.  My heart heard what was in her heart.  The real question Meryl has is this--"If I don't accept your faith, will I still be your daughter?  Will you still love me?"  It is a question that all children ask in one way or another.  Sometimes the question is asked after massive failures.  Sometimes it is asked with actions that seem to intentionally force distance into the relationship.  Sometimes it is asked by moving across oceans to new lands and new opportunities.  This night, right before bedtime, it was asked by a wisp of a seven year old girl with doubts and questions about faith so deep as to nearly obscure the real issue.

And so I looked back through her thick, black lashes into her deep ebony eyes, and I answered her with all my heart.  "You are precious to me.  You will have to decide for yourself what you believe about God.  It is really between you and Him.  I am here to tell you the Truth, as much as I understand.  No matter what you believe, I will love you.  If you don't share my faith I will love you.  My relationship with you does not depend on whether you are the same as me.  I love you no matter what."

"Really?  You won't love me less if I don't believe in God like you do?"

"Nope," I answered.  And just like that, all the suspicion was gone from her little face, and she kissed me and went to sleep.  She still has big thoughts, deep doubts, and ponderous questions, and I expect that she will be doing her own investigation into Christianity for quite some time.  I don't know if she will arrive at a conclusion that matches mine, but I do know that every time she investigates my love by asking me about my faith, she will hear the same answer,  "Meryl, I love you because you are mine.  I love you no matter what."

Bright Colors and Impossible Gravities of the Imagination

When I was a little girl who saw fairies and monsters, superheroes and the impossible, my very best friend was an alien named Jeremy. (I know what you're thinking--but not that kind of alien--the real kind, from outer space.)  Jeremy was four months older than me, and he was from the planet Crypton, from whence he had traveled to earth via an asteroid. His parents found him and adopted him when he was very little, and (yes, amazing that this story happened on t.v. also) he possessed magic powers. Jeremy looked like a normal boy, but unlike your average little boy, he flew through the air when I wasn't looking, and he could defeat any bad guy--except our friend Daniel Seale, who, we suspected, might have access to Cryptonite, after he gave Jeremy a real shiner. When we were children, Jeremy had a charisma that made me see what he could envision; and, though he possessed super-human strength and flight, I suppose his power to imagine was the one that impressed me the most.

If not for Jeremy, I might never have known Condorman, but before I tell you about Condorman, I must tell a little backstory on my dad.  My dad loves little children. He loves them because they are brutally honest, because they only bite close friends and family members, because they will tell you all their personal business and their family secrets, but more than that, he loves them because they see beyond what is to what could be.  My dad loved Jeremy especially because Jeremy's imagination was always growing to re-interpret what he saw with his eyes.

Jeremy went to our church with jelly beans. I'm not exactly sure why he had so many jelly beans in his pockets, or whether the jellybeans were sanctioned by Ellen, his mother, but for a long time, those jellybeans were his prized possession. Since my dad had a soft spot for both Jeremy and his jelly beans, my dad convinced Jeremy that he possessed two stomachs, one that ate food, and one that stored and multiplied jelly beans. Jeremy wasn't keen to share his treasures with me, but he would give my dad a few jelly beans each week to store in his extra stomach.   Every few weeks, Jeremy would ask my dad to return his jelly beans with interest. Every so often, I would watch with wonder as my dad coughed up a whole bag's worth of jelly beans. Jeremy was, of course, unphased by the fact that these had been stored for weeks in an extra, jellybean-multiplying stomach, and instead was delighted with the amplication of his investment.

My dad loved performing this trick, but as Jeremy grew a little older, Jeremy began to suspect, that perhaps my dad had a weak spot for jelly beans and few extra dollars instead of an extra stomach. My dad had to up his game if he was going to retain his magical powers, so, one Sunday afternoon, in a carefully planned explanation, my dad told  his greatest secret to Jeremy, while I listened on.  In tones, hushed to prevent my mom from knowing the truth, my dad explained his double life as a super hero, while I peered from behind Jeremy into the hall closet.  There, folded like an ordinary lampshade, was a set of manila-colored wings.  Those paper-colored wings enabled my dad to fly between buildings late at night when I was fast asleep, because my dad was CONDORMAN.  I can't remember what planet my dad had come from, but the important part was that my dad, like Jeremy, was from another planet, even farther away from India (where he used to live.)  The story was easy enough to believe, in light of the magical wings tucked in beside the flowered sheets of our linen closet.  Jeremy was completely convinced, in one glance, that both the wings and the story were factual, and we both lived in wonder for years at the superhero who appeared, to the untrained eye, to be a common Indian architect.  

I often wonder what my childhood would have been like without Jeremy.  As a child, he re-worked common, everyday facts and objects into the whimsical world of his imagination, and he took me through the looking glass by his faith in the impossible. Without Jeremy I might prefer the Notebook to Spiderman 2, or You've Got Mail to Indiana Jones.  Without Jeremy, I might never have appreciated Hootie and the Blowfish, or searched the night sky for aliens, or worried about alligators coming out of the toilet, or become (mutually) obsessed with the ark of the covenant.  Most importantly, I might never known my dad as Condorman.

Jeremy is my oldest friend, and after we stopped being Dr. Jones and Marian, he was there to talk me through school switches, high school break-ups, finding my identity apart from my parents, and hard questions about faith.  We visited each other at university, and he smiled on at my wedding, genuinely happy for me to find love with Greg, because life-long friends do that sort of thing.

While I have been chasing the dreams that come with marriage and family, my oldest friend has spent the last ten years sleeping a few hours a night in a tiny apartment in Hollywood and working an ordinary day-job while chasing his dream of writing.  After years of diligent work and intense sacrifice, Jeremy has recently sold his first screenplay.  No one could be more proud than me, his oldest friend.

So, Jeremy, I write our precious  memories in celebration of your amazing creativity, to commemorate the moment that the world begins to recognize what those who love you have long experienced.  I hope that soon everyone can enjoy your mystical visions as much as I have, that soon the people of the world will have the opportunity to have their sight enriched with the bright colors and impossible gravities of your imagination.  Congratulations on this new chapter of your life.  I have always believed in you, and I saw this day coming from afar off.  

Elissa's Rules for Taking Home Trash and Treasure

The big, blue, out-of-control noodle wrapped around Micah Jade and her trailer, and her tiny face peered out with a thousand peculiar questions that she couldn't articulate. While she pondered, I cycled myself, MJ, the trailer, and my "new" ab roller home. I use it every week, along with the other "trash" I have acquired from the sides of roads all over Australia--a huge frying pan, a couple of organizational wire basket drawers, a high boy chest of drawers, a 1200 dollar bar-b-Que grill, lumber, pots for plants, shelving, two 250-dollar kids' bikes, wooden chairs, plastic chairs, a coffee table, a children's table and chairs, and that is just the stuff I didn't buy. I'll admit it! I like to sift through other people's junk in the hope of finding useful treasures and saving money. I stop on the side of the road on heavy trash days; I like garage sales; I love op-shops (thrift stores for my "yank" readers). I am thrifty and cheap, and probably more, and over the years, I have developed some rules for "shopping". I am writing them for shopping in an op-shop, but they apply to acquisitions from trash piles too.

1. If you don't have a specific plan for it, don't bring it home. Yep, I learned this one the hard way, and Greg will attest. if you get this one wrong, you will end up with a hoarder's nest full of junk. Fortunately, the move to Oz has cleansed me of the mistaken acquisitions from my younger years that were residing in our study and garage in Austin.

2. Don't buy / bring home stuff that is broken, unless you have the expertise, a time scheduled to fix it, and the materials you need. This goes for housewares and clothing that requires mending or altering. (Don't worry, honey, I will finish MJ's bed this week. . .)

3. For clothing, don't pay more than half of what you would if it were on a super sale. After all, you are buying used clothing, and a good brand of pants from an op shop are still used pants.

4. Think of clothing in a per-use manner. That is, if I buy Max Azria jeans for 8 dollars (and I did), and wear them 25 times this year, they cost 32 cents per use. If I buy a funky dress, and it costs 8 dollars, and I wear it twice this year, it was much more expensive at four dollars per use.

6. Ask yourself, "Would I buy this if it were new?" (and I had the money it would cost). If you are unsure, don't get it. You don't like it enough, and you won't wear it.

5. determine what your magic price is. Mine is 4 dollars in the USA, and 6 in oz. If it is over this price, it is subject to a more stringent thinking process. That is, it has to be more useful, and more close to new, more unique, etc., than something that is cheaper.

6. Only buy clothing in very good condition, unless its "worn-ness" contributes to the uniqueness of the piece.

7. Buy for yourself in your current size. Not everyone will appreciate your thrifty gifty, so save yourself the trouble of having your gift discarded and your money wasted, unless you are 1000% sure that your friend will use your gift and appreciate your thoughtfulness. Also, if you buy clothing for yourself that is too small with the hope of one day fitting into it, not only will you have wasted your money, but you will also feel discouraged about your body every time you look at your beautiful purchase. Yes, this too is from experience.

My friend Amanda introduced me to thrift shopping when I was 16, and I have been hooked ever since. I love the idea that something that has already lived a lifetime with another owner can be renewed and redeemed in my closet. I like wearing vintage clothing from another era when thinking about style and clothing was different. I like quirky, uniqueness decorating my home, because it means that my home is not something out of a catalogue, but something that reflects my style and my family and the way we live and think. I love that recycled clothing is also good for the environment as it keeps treasures out of land fills. I am proud to make my family's money stretch farther because that is just good stewardship of what God has entrusted to us. I hope this post helps give fledgling and floundering cheapies the tools and the courage to shop on the side of the road, to sift through piles, and to have fun doing it.

Thank you so much to my husband Greg, who has saved money and purchased a wonderful (new) computer for me, so that I can get back into my writing, even if it about silly things like bringing home rubbish.