"It never rains but it pours!"

Now Playing: "Wings of Song", by James Galway.

A couple of housekeeping notes: In case you didn't notice, I just put up two more new posts under this one. One of them says it was written on Saturday, but it wasn't--that is, I started it on Saturday and posted it tonight. Also, thank you all for your copious comments on that last post! It's been a delight to read them.

And now, on to some "News", as Bilbo would say.

Last week was rather miserable, to be quite honest, and this week hasn't started out much better. Instead of giving you a summary of the whole drab week, I'll tell you about last Thursday, which was probably the best day.

This is practically my long, rambly, and pieced-together journal entry. Some of the day is retold in present tense.


I spilled apple juice all over my breakfast this morning. During breakfast, I tried to memorize definitions for an archaeology quiz, but the berries they served this morning made me think of home, and after breakfast, I "wasted" half an hour writing a poem about it. I practiced my flute until my lesson, which went fairly well. We actually reached the top of the third page of the Poulenc--I've been practicing all of it for nearly a year now, but my teacher hasn't had a chance to hear all of it, and ever since I've been studying with him, we've been stuck on the first page.

After Romantic British Literature, Tara and I picked up Alisha for lunch. Alisha wanted to see my scrapbook, so I showed it to her. During lunch, we talked about housing and SYR, the annual girls' dorm dance. I ate tacos while Alisha tried to eat fried chicken with spinach cheese sauce (under the elegant name "chicken florentine" on the cafeteria menu board). After picking at it, she gave up in disgust. "It's just not natural," she complained. SYR this year is a masquerade, and tonight my dorm is hosting a pizza supper with a mask-making party to follow. Since Tara had to go to a lecture tonight, I offered to make a mask for her.

I spent the afternoon studying. A.C. stopped by and tried to be cheerful by juggling a pair of oranges. She's quite sick. Various people were at the supper this evening in the lobby of my dorm. After most of the people had finished eating, a short, tight-knit girl with spiky blond hair organized people to make masks. She gave everyone plain, white, plastic masks to decorate. After eating pizza, I made a mask for Tara. There were plain, white, plastic masks to decorate. I slowly chose faux feathers to glue at the brow of the mask—light blue, aqua, and black, in a fuzzy plume. I glued blue sequins on over the eyes, and black sequins over the cheeks (the mask was a half-mask), and a silver rhinestone between the eyes. Hopefully, Tara will like it.

At 6:45, I left to meet Syneva, Alisha, Jenny H., and Asher. Syneva and Alisha play in the local semi-professional orchestra. They had a concert tonight, and the three of us went to hear them.

The concert hall is a lovely building, in the Art Noveau style. Jenny and I took seats in front of Asher on the right side, fairly close to the orchestra. Jenny told me to poke her if she fell asleep. She'd confessed in the car to Alisha and me that she's been staying up far too late, chatting with her friends in the dorm.

The concert introduced itself with a silly little tribute to Mozart's 250th birthday, a combination of "Happy Birthday" and the opening of one of his symphonies.

The orchestra began with Beethoven's "Leonore" Overture. Then came Schumann's cello concerto, played by a young Russian man with a smooth face, dark hair. He swayed to and fro as though dancing the tango with his instrument. His cello had a very sweet sound, shy, like his smile when he stood up to acknowledge the audience's applause.

During intermission, Jenny bought a package of rainbow Skittles. She sucked the pink ones, the citrus smell lingering on the air around her. Three rambunctious, scruffy young boys joked bawdily about their pranks and dashed up and down the aisle, while their father, a big man in a grey suit, with a Tigger tie and a long ponytail, ignored them.

After intermission, the orchestra performed "Fountains of Rome" and "Pines of Rome", both by Respighi. They're both lovely pieces. "Fountains" is full of trickling harps, reminding me of water flicking onto warm marble. At one point, the orchestra plays a fountain that is sculpted with Poseidon and various sea-horses. Trampling cellos, like stallions, leaped above the violins and the organ. "Pines of Rome" began with children's games, then moved to a row of pine trees near a cemetery. A trumpet solo played a reequiem to break your heart, while violas swelled like thin wind. A huge gong growled as though the grave had opened, and a dead Caesar had stepped out, with black gashes for eyes, like the holes in Agamemnon's gold burial mask. The piece finished with the Appian Way, the old legionary road into Rome. A second trumpet section played from the balcony behind us. The noise was overpowering: like pounding feet, and sun blazing on bronze armor, and the taut, tense faces under red-crested helmets. The weight of the music was immense. The conductor's baton wavered furiously, like a pennant in a hot wind.

Before the last triumphant chord, like the clash of spears on shields, had died away, the audience was cheering and clapping. Asher remarked, cynically, later that “If you play loud enough, they’ll applaud.” This last movement was supposedly called, by Leonard Bernstein, the loudest orchestral piece ever written.

The three girls were in a “warm” mood after the concert, though as we walked through the parking lot to the car, I bounced a few jig steps to keep myself warm. The parking lot was crowded, the narrow capillary roads around it congested with cars. As we pulled out, another car beside us, a “Park Avenue”, began to back up when we were still behind it. I glanced at it nervously, and Syneva honked her horn insistently until the car stopped backing up. “Old people,” she sighed. Jenny shared the last of her Skittles with Alisha and Syneva, pouring glinting, sticky beads into their palms. “Do you have anymore?” Syneva asked when her own tangy-sweet mouthful was finished. “No… oh, wait!” Jenny prodded around in her purse and came up with two more Skittles, which Syneva sucked.

On the drive back to campus, Jenny fell asleep with her head on Alisha’s shoulder, while Syneva and Asher discussed their cello quartet—trying to find two other players, and coming up with parts. Bright lights glided past in the luminous darkness—red hotel signs, blue Budweiser advertisements, white-toothed models posing for clothing stores or hospitals or car agencies. Syneva dropped us off in the parking lot. Alisha and I scurried inside our dorm, while Asher and Jenny strolled off to their dorm.

debate

Now Playing: "Wings of Song", by James Galway. Track 8, "Casta Diva", by Bellini. As far as I'm concerned, this CD isn't much good, except for the first track and the last track. Galway seems to like to play fluffy flute music instead of the real stuff, which is rather sad, since we could use a "real" flutist. He does have a pretty tone, though.

Last Monday, Rachel, Russ, Nicole, and I had a discussion about the Christian's capacity to sin. The four of us are in Honors class together, and we've been reading Augustine's Confessions (to give you some background). I took notes on the "argument"--here they are, as best as I can reconstruct them. Basically, in summary, Russ says that it is possible for a Christian never to sin, while Nicole says that it's not possible for a Christian never to sin at all.

Russ: Romans 6, especially verse 7. Romans 7:5-6. Galatians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17. Non-Christians sin constantly, willingly. All good acts are for bad motives for the non-Christian. However, after our conversion it isn't our nature to sin. Your Christian identity is completely changed. We still sin because of old habits and our human bodies. Christ could sin but chose not to. We have the power within us not to sin, but we never tap into it.

Nicole: 1 John 1:5-10, 2:1-2. 1 Timothy 1:15. Paul is the "chief of sinners". Romans 7:13-25. After a person becomes a Christian, he can still sin.

Russ: Romans 7 speaks of non-Christian experience, not Christian experience.

Nicole: These verses are in the present tense. Christians don't yet fulfill the Law. They've been justified, not completely sanctified. Christ dwells in the Christian, and so does sin, the "already but not yet". [Yes, she used that phrase! :)] Romans 7:14, the Christian is carnal, still able to sin.

Russ: If the material world was stripped away, Christians would be sinless. Thought-sins are sins of habit. Temptation latches onto our memory.

Rachel: Even if we escaped our bodies, we'd still sin. If you think of sin, you commit that sin. Even mind alone, cleansed of "habit", will sin.

Russ had to leave at this point, but Nicole looked up the word for "sin" in her Strong's Concordance. It turns out that there are two words for "sin" in Greek: "Homartia", which is used to name original sin. It's the fatal flaw, hubris, man's pride. "Hamartano" means literally, "To miss the mark and thus not share in the prize." Nicole took it to mean the act of sin. "Hamartano" is used in 1 John 3:4.

I'm not sure where I'd fall in this debate. It seems to me that Russ is arguing for a simultaneous justification/sanctification, while Nicole (who, incidentally, is a five-point Calvinist but goes to an Anglican church) is arguing for one-time justification and gradual sanctification. If that's the case, then I'd support Nicole. However, I'm not sure that's exactly what they're saying. If anyone has input on this, I'd appreciate it. Is it possible for a person, after he's become a Christian, never to sin?

Random question: What is a "six-point" Calvinist?

explanatory pictures

Now Playing: The end of the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, one of the most impressive recordings ever made: Emil Gilels on piano, with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic--a live performance, quite stirring.

And now on to Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, with David Oistrakh and Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. As a note, this particular CD is "out of print", and once when I checked on Amazon, the only copy was thirty dollars, a CD from someone's "private collection". It was such a delightful surprise to check back later and discover that some obscure used-CD seller had a couple of cheaper copies for us "plebeians" to buy.

Marigold requested that I give her some explanations of the RUF formal photos from back in December. I thought I'd give you all four of them with some of the "main characters" in them, as references. Rachel's picture isn't in here since you all (or most of you at least) already know her.

You'll have to pardon the weird lay-out. For some reason, the picture-download-er doesn't like me. *grins*


Jenny and Tara (a rather bad picture--most of these pictures aren't too good because of the flash and weird angles)












Esther and Amanda













Syneva and Amanda














"Big" Jenny and "little" Jenny (Jenny H.), with two random boys (Austin and Jason), who leaped into the picture to be goofy the way Brother1 and Sam do occasionally.

"Gone paper-writing"

Now Playing: "The Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Track One, "Prologue".

I have a paper due next Wednesday for Honors class, and I haven't had much chance to work on it. There are enough things going on that I often can't get any work done either in the evenings or the afternoons, which is rather discouraging. So I probably will be using just about every spare moment to work on it--and that means I most likely won't post on here either until the weekend or until it's been turned in. Though I can say that when I do post on here (or the other blog), I have some interesting questions and debates to record for ya'lls' reading pleasure. *grins*

SOMEONE, HELP!!!!

Ok, so I'm sitting quietly at my desk, minding my own business and listening to the "Master and Commander" soundtrack. Yo-Yo Ma is playing his Bach cello variations. It's all fine and dandy.

Until....

A sinister presence manifests itself! I hear something that sounds rather like a lion roaring in the stereo--or maybe only static.

But it's not static!

Playing over and above the cello I hear the "Narnia Lullaby" from "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack. Creepy, creepy--I lent the soundtrack to Marigold; I don't have it with me, and neither is it saved on my computer. The "Narnia Lullaby" plays through over the cello variations, and then starts over again! As the cello comes to a climax, so does the "Lullaby". I hurriedly switch off the CD and close Windows Media Player. But the "Lullaby" (which now has me shaking like a feverish child) plays on.... and on... and on... repeating itself, endlessly.

I finally resort to turning my speakers off, and that puts an end to the queer experience.

There has to be a reasonable explanation for this. The CD isn't even in my possession, though, nor (as I've already said) are any of the tracks saved on my computer. What's happening here?

Explanations... suggestions... comments... ??

Moyse, Wordsworth, bricks, Leo, and Escher

Now Playing: "The Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Disc 2, Track 3, "Journey to the Cemetery". (courtesy of the Gamgees--thanks!) I love this track--it starts out with that desperate, sad, passionate theme for Raoul, then moves to Christine singing purely, simply, and at last opens up to a Gothic climax as you see the creepy, snowy cemetery with Christine's carriage and its spectre of a driver. Enough to give you shivers, dying away with the dismal tolling of distant church bells.

Let's see....

Rachel and I ate breakfast together this morning. We talked about the book by "Catullus" which made me so mad. It had angered her, as well, though we could both agree that later chapters were interesting, with their discussion of creativity in relation to the mind and also in relation to Greek myths about Apollo and Delphi (it was that first chapter that was incredibly offensive).

I practiced my flute after breakfast: chromatic scales, then long tones, working largely on trying to achieve a good pianissimo that doesn't sound pinched. It may appear easy, but it's really quite difficult to convince the flute to produce a soft sound without squeaking as though the flute had been transformed into a mouse. Scales came next, and some phrasing exercises which Dr. Gr assigned for studio class this Saturday, by Marcel Moyse. Moyse was one of the "fathers of the modern flute"--he was one of the first flutists to be a soloist, instead of simply playing in an ensemble. He fled France for America during World War II. After exercises came the Karg-Elert etude Dr. Gr assigned me at the end of last semester. For some reason, he's never had time to hear it, so (I think) I've actually had time to get it to sound decent. Finally, I practiced the first movement of the Poulenc sonata, which is also progressing. There are still a couple of spots where a phrase ends on a high eighth note, a note that should be sweet, like the flick of a cardinal's wing--somehow, though, I always manage to crack those notes. Also, the piece has a repeated theme that runs throughout. The first note of the theme is high E, an unstable note on the flute, and I have difficulty maintaining that note, even for a brief time, so that it rings, without falling flat. And, of course, there are the inevitable trills and double-tonguing spots that are tricky. My double-tonguing has been rightly accused of sounding like a machine gun, when it should be more like a ballerina floating around on pointe--which may give you an idea of how far I've progressed on that. *sigh*

I spent the hour-and-forty-five minutes until RBL reading Wordsworth and Coleridge and sending e-mails to people.

To start class today, Dr. A, the professor of RBL, asked if anyone had any questions from last time. There was a dead silence. "No questions?" she asked, throatily, looking around and blinking cheerfully, as she always does. I couldn't help remembering my nagging question of the entire Romantic philosophy, and, more out of impertinence than anything else, raised my hand. "Yes, Evelyn?" Dr. A said. "Well, I'm not sure I understand this Romantic idea that they could find fulfillment in incompleteness. That doesn't make sense to me. How could they be content with imperfection, with seeing the journey as the goal and not having a real goal?" I asked. Of course, the answer was quite plain to me: they were fallen, and rejected God, and looked in every other place they possibly could to find something to shield themselves from Him. But Dr. A said, "Well, I guess that's one of the paradoxes of the movement. They just did." She motioned to another student, a Philosophy major, as it turned out, and the Philosophy major proceeded to give a homily on the excitement of the search for Truth as better than Truth itself. "There's the search for Truth, and there's Truth. You can't do anything with Truth--it's just there. But the search for Truth--ah, now that's much more interesting," she said. I growled inwardly, but outwardly smiled as placidly as I could (though I couldn't get rid of the little perplexed frown), and just let the professor take over with her lecture.

Next came the First Seminar class, what I've been calling an "orientation" class. It's the class I had to read "Catullus"'s book for. Dr. A kindly let us out fifteen minutes early, so I had time to dash over to the cafeteria and pick up some lunch to eat in the classroom. The cafeteria had thick chicken-and-dumpling soup today, which was so heavy with flour and meat and celery that I could spoon it into my little foam "doggie bag" and carry it off without much trouble.

Rachel and I were the first ones to enter the classroom. Some previous class had obviously done exercises in desk art: many of the desks were covered with bright, color pen illustrations (some of them not very pleasant). The one I liked best was the portrait of a blond-headed boy, done in vivid reds and golds and purples, staring straight out of the desk with a little serious smile on his face. I hurriedly slurped down my soup, but not in time to finish before the professor entered.

Today the professor gave us an in-class project. He had asked one of the boys in the class to bring two bricks to class. The professor, Dr. T, then passed the bricks around to everyone. He invited us to make notes on its weight, size, color, shape, smell, taste ("Only don't gnaw on it!") in our sketchbooks (we're not allowed to use notebooks because we "might write on the lines" *shocks and horrors!* *cough*). Then he told us to make conceptual drawings of how we might support the brick on two pieces of paper. Some people had interesting ideas: folding the paper into accordion folds, or rolling it into cylinders. Once he'd heard our ideas, he gave us a little speech on "not being judgmental" and on "thinking way, way outside the Newtonian box" and on how we should not "take the world at its worth" but "always think of things differently". So he told us to come up with more ideas, ideas without limitation. Some of them were pretty nutty, I'll tell you: throwing the brick into outer space, or having aliens suspend it in their transporter beam (that was mine, with a laugh and a nod to Henry's "Star Trek" episodes), or simply telling it that it didn't exist.

Once we'd been through all this, Dr. T gave us a break, in which Rachel and I finished our lunches. I had a pecan-and-chocolate-chip cookie to finish--it was good. After the break (at two o'clock or so--this class runs from 12:30 to 3:15), he told us to use our ideas and support the brick on two pieces of paper. He divided the fifteen people in the class into two groups. My group sat around, pondering the possibilities, and hefting our brick, while bits of the fashionable "distressing" mortar on it flaked off in our hands (you know how people like to make their houses and clothes look older than they are--well, these bricks had had whitish-green mortar daubed onto them to make them look used). The other team rolled one of its pieces of paper into a lengthwise cylinder and managed to balance their brick on its end on top of the cylinder so that, in the end, the top of the brick was about eighteen inches or so in the air. We glanced over at them in despair, but continued to fiddle with our paper until we figured out that our brick was made lopsided so that, no matter how many balancing acts we attempted, we could never get it to stay positioned without the paper buckling.

Next, Dr. T gave us this assignment. He split us up into groups of four (Rachel and myself were one group of three, with a young man). Two people were supposed to talk, while the other practiced taking "organic" notes (cluster notes, like the highschool writing techniques book my mother used on us taught). Rachel and I talked about our papers while the young man took notes. She told me that Dr. G has been working with her to revise her final paper from last semester. Then the young man and I tried to talk. He was a very taciturn, unwilling personage. I managed to get him to tell me that he's a Psychology major who has lived in New York. He doesn't much like the pace of life "out here" because it's so "slow and conservative". I asked him what drew him to Psychology, and he said that he thought it was important to understand the human mind, which (he said) is the highest thing there is. "Oh, so you think that there isn't anything beyond what the human mind can perceive?" I asked. "No," he said. I was all set to start pressing him, but then recollected and told myself that this was a bad place and time to start arguing with someone. I must admit that I was rather intimidated by the young man, who was about three times my size and about as communicative as a sleepy elephant who's being pestered by a young parakeet.

When class ended, Dr. T assigned us each to watch thirty minutes of TV (or a movie) this week, and to take "organic" notes on it. I was in despair (despite the fact that he kept making sly, jolly comments about how easy it would be), since I have no TV and no desire to watch TV. However, the movie option is much more welcoming. With a glint of mischief, I thought of trying to take "organic" notes on a "Three Stooges" episode, but I think Rachel and I may end up borrowing one of Syneva's DVDs and watching that together, or something.

After class, Rachel and I walked outside and laughed. I flung my arms out in gladness to be outside. The gloomy clouds which had persisted this morning had blown over, giving way to a gloriously luminous sky, living blue behind the trees--like a sheet of rippling blue glass, with golden light glowing behind it.

Rachel and I walked back to the Honors House together. She told me about the paper she's been working on. Dr. G has gotten her to think of it more as a speech than a paper, which has changed some of her stylistic problems. In the Honors House, she showed me the common room (there was no one hanging out in it, as usual, so we were safe). On one wall was a mural depicting jumbled scenes: Athena standing under a tree, a city built of towers shaped like fountain-pen nibs, Greek helmets, a dark sky, and the words, "Leo is here", in reference to the ghost that supposedly haunts the Honors House. Here's the tale: Before the building became the Honors House, it was a fraternity (it is, after all on frat row). One night, some of the fraternity boys were playing around and they put Leo, one of their pals, between a couple of mattresses. They started to jump up and down, horseplaying, and in the midst of their merriment, they accidentally broke Leo's back, thereby killing him. The fraternity lost its commission, and the building was renovated so that it could be the Honors House. But it's said that the ghost of Leo still haunts the Honors House--supposedly, he was killed in the very room where Rachel lives.

As we looked around the common room, I noticed a shining grand piano standing in one corner, with a dusty green drumset scattered underneath it. "That doesn't work," Rachel informed me, "but that one does," gesturing to a battered upright propped against the opposite wall. "Is that a hymn book?" I asked, spotting a worn red hymnal perched on the music shelf of the upright. "Yes, but I've never heard them play hymns. I think it's just useful to hold up other music," Rachel said. "That's right--everyone supports their ideas by Christianity, but they never speak about it," I growled. She glanced at me in surprise.

She invited me upstairs and loaned me a copy of C.S. Lewis's Miracles. We stood talking about Lewis for a little while--how, though we don't always agree with him, he's still useful and thought-provoking. I looked at the Escher sketches on her walls till they made me laugh and cross my eyes, and she told me a story that someone had written about a pair of characters that go into one of Escher's drawings--rather like an Alice in Wonderland adventure. It's a drawing of a bunch of lizards that slither up over a stack of books and down into a piece of paper with geometric designs resembling their two-dimensional outlines, and then they slither back out of the two-dimensional design and into the third dimension.

I spent the afternoon rereading Wordsworth for RBL and e-mailing people. I ran in the gym. There were lots of interesting people to watch, which was rather distracting. One chap loped past me who was white as a peeled switch, even to his shaved head. Another hairy young man sprinted past, huffing and puffing like a jet warming up on the tarmac. A couple of girls flounced past, their ponytails wagging, giggling in whispers and tossing slant-eyed glances at everyone. A very tall, muscular man and a very short, thin young boy walked side-by-side. I showered after. Ate a late supper, though not alone--Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimil were busy talking on the slag heap outside Isengard, discussing their adventures from The Two Towers.

And now it's "Uranus, the Magician" from Holst's "The Planets"--romping, unpredictable, as though all the magician's spells and spirits had escaped from his tomes and coffers and test tubes to go frolicking and romping around his lair.

Off to RUF.

a couple of small things....

Here are two personality quizzes. The first is on Marigold's blog, for "which of the four Pevensies are you?".

I got Peter Pevensie!

The second is at www.narniaweb.com, a test for all the characters in the books. You'll have to look around for it a little, but it's there on the sidebar.

I got Mr. Tumnus (with Lucy and Puddleglum close behind--when I took this quiz last, I got Puddleglum).

home sweet home

Now Playing: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 3, "The Wardrobe".

This past week has been a great deal of reading: I finished Pride and Prejudice in a week and read about a score of Romantic poems, which were all by Wordsworth, except "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". To make matters worse, the professor assigned us to read each poem twice. That makes sense, since it is poetry and sometimes rather obscure, but it also makes the process twice as long. By the end of this week, my brain is all screwed up--I think like Jane Austen, and am tempted to eulogize nature like Wordsworth. Which is frustrating, since I don't much like either author!

During MBW class Friday morning, we started "Bride and Prejudice", the Indian movie version of Pride and Prejudice. It's gaudily colorful, flagrant, happy-go-lucky, full of lush characters and settings. I enjoyed it for the most part, except for a couple of scenes which (in my opinion) should've been skipped. Archaeology, which came after MBW, seemed rather dry and dull--all about smoke-blackened potsherds and chips of worn flint, instead of exotic saris and wind-blown palm trees and sharp spices.

I ate lunch with an Egyptian girl, a Lebanese girl, and a Chinese girl. The Lebanese girl looks to me like the embodiment of the goddess Athena (except that she doesn't have grey eyes). The Chinese girl looks like a pretty little porcelain doll, with a timid voice and a demure smile. When they left, Matt and Jenny sat with me. On Monday at lunch, Jenny made fun of me: "You eat like a rabbit!" she said when she saw my PB&J sandwich. "The only thing that disqualifies you is your chocolate chip cookie!" Friday, though, I teased her back since she just ate two apples for lunch--a green Granny Smith and a red-and-yellow Gala. Matt and I engaged in a hot discussion of a story he's making up, a realistic retelling of the Cinderella fairytale.

Princess came with my mother to pick me up this afternoon and take me home. I went running before they arrived, and returned from the shower the minute after Princess called my room to tell me they were waiting for me. On the drive home, the sun set in a blaze of splendor--a glaring and rather painful blaze, for awhile, as it shone directly in our eyes. Then it darkened, like old taffeta. The far hills were deep blue, reflecting the sky. In the east above the hills, the horizon was dusky mauve, rose and indigo, like the blending of glossy glazes on pottery. The moon swam palely just above the pink--a lucent blue, like frosted glass. It glowed with pale blue light like Marigold's eye when the sun slants into it. In the west, the sky burned translucent: vivid turquoise at its peak, fading to greenish aquamarine, then kindling again to saffron and apricot, like a wall of transparent flame. The butterfly-wing-colors shimmered across the sky, horizon-to-horizon, as though the sky was scintillating wings hovering above the earth's grey body.

At home, we microwaved leftover chicken for supper. We went to Daisy's and Brother1's basketball games, which started at 6:00 p.m. Both teams won easily. For the second half of the boys' game, Princess and I crouched in a corner with Meri and a bunch of the girls from the girls' basketball team (Meri is on the girls' team with Daisy). We teased each other about clothes. Laura and Katie, two of the girls, showed off their stylish, sequined purses. Katie and Meri laughed about mistakes they'd made in the game, while Laura critiqued the referees' calls as the boys sprinted down the floor. Claire stretched out in Meri's lap, and Meri proceeded to kiss and tickle Claire while Claire giggled and wiggled.

This morning Princess and I watched a little bit of "The Village". We wanted to watch it last night, but prudence told us that neither one of us would be able to sleep if we did. I had forgotten how lovely those first thirty minutes or so are: the stylized, flowing violin music matching the patterns of the trees against the sky and the water over the streambed, and the quiet, firm faces of the characters.

Brother1 took Princess and Daisy to robotics club this morning, while my mother and I went shopping. I bought art supplies for the First Seminar (orientation) class, and spent half the afternoon posting pictures, and half the afternoon at Brother2's basketball game. Brother2 plays on a public Parks&Recreation league. His team won handily.

I went for a walk in the evening. The sun set behind a steely grey sky, clouds like waves on a dark lake, drowning out the daylight. As I passed the Ys house, I saw Mr. Y working on his toolbench in the garage. Ray-ray, their little daughter, toddled out of the house with Kitty, their dog, bounding ahead of her. Kitty recognized me and jumped across the street toward me. Mr. Y called her back, without turning his head, but Kitty joyfully disobeyed him. She nosed around a telephone pole across the street from their house, then prepared to leap back into the street--just as a car was coming. I seized her collar and dragged her across the street. Mr. Y left the garage to see what the commotion was about. "Oh, I was just letting her stretch her legs," he said as he saw me come up the driveway. "A car was coming," I explained, fondling Kitty's ears. She grinned up at me, while Ray-ray stared solemnly, sucking one finger. "Drat--I was hoping to get rid of her that way, " Mr. Y laughed.

Since Daisy and (yeah! the start of track 9! GO PETER! save your sisters from the river! woo hoo! *pardon me* :) Brother1 were still slaving away at robotics, it was just my parents, Brother2, and me for supper. We had quite a cheerful meal, discussing classes, plans, basketball games, and the "Horatio Hornblower" books. My parents tossed a pun about moles (the animals/the unit of measurement) back and forth across the table while Brother2 and I listened, grinning.

This evening, my grandparents came over to watch a live TV broadcast of my cousin's basketball game on the internet. They're downstairs with my father and Brother2, watching the computer. I think it's the only time they've ever come over to our house to watch TV: we don't have a TV, so when there's a big sports event on, the boys usually go over to their house to watch it.

second semester, day 2

Now Playing: "The Village" soundtrack by James Newton Howard. Track 8, "The Gravel Road" (at least I think that's the name).

When I crawled out of bed this morning, I peeked outside, and was surprised to see pink snowflakes whirling through the dim, pre-dawn glow past my window. The street was wet, and the grass below my dorm was soggy with snow.

Rachel and I ate breakfast together. She told me about the computer program she's using for her calculus class.

After breakfast, I read the first two Books of Augustine's Confessions. I had forgotten how vivid and intense his writing style is, despite is denseness. Thankfully, there's an introduction to the Confessions at the start of the book that gives a concise outline, which acts as a helpful guide to the actual plot of the book so that I don't get lost in the elegant syntax.

I practiced my flute for an hour and twenty minutes. For awhile, the practice rooms were full of us: two flutes and a menagerie of pianists--Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and I'm sure there was some jazz or Joplin in there, too. Then a bass started to warm up. He's the same fellow, I think, as was practicing "The Music of the Night" from "The Phantom of the Opera" last semester.

After practicing, I dutifully marched down the hall to my flute professor's office for my lesson at 10:30. But when I knocked on the door, Dr. Gr looked at me in bewilderment. "Didn't I schedule you for Thursdays?" he asked kindly. "Since you have more classes on Tuesdays, I thought that would be easier for you." "Oh, yes, yes. I'm so sorry. Thank you!" My heart sank, and with many flimsy apologies, a flurry like the snow outside, I backed out of his office. As I returned to my dorm, I cradled my flute in my arms, pressing it against my damp coat, while snow pelted my face and snagged in my eyelashes.

"The Romantic Period in British Literature" was my next class, at 11:00, in the cramped graduate student seminar room in Zink Hall. That's the same room as my MBW II class is in. Most of the classroom is taken up with a huge table, fringed with chairs, and there are more chairs on the edges of the room. The room is much too small to accomodate two classes as big as MBW II and RPBL, since not everyone can fit around the table. Those who do sit at the table are crowded for elbow space to write in; those who don't sit at the table have to balance their notebooks on their knees and try not to bang the chairs of the people at the table.

Dr. A, the professor of RPBL, is a brisk, plump woman, but different from the professor of MBW. Dr. A has dark, curly hair, ruddy cheeks, and a slight accent--perhaps French or Arabic. She's businesslike but eager to engage the students (and she doesn't see everything as a joke!). She does blink a great deal, though. Thanks to MBW, RPBL, and Honors, I now have a grand total of three ten-page research papers due at the end of the semester. As I complained to Rachel later, it wouldn't have been nearly so bad if these papers had been for classes last semester: ancient literature (Honors) and Anglo-Saxon literature (MBW I) are my two "specialties", but Romantic British literature and modern British literature are definitely not my areas of interest--and those are the subjects for two of the research papers! I suppose I must find something interesting to write about the lurid poetry of Byron or Keats or Coleridge... but I'd much rather do "The Odyssey" or "Beowulf", thank you! *grins*

When class was done, I marched over to the bookstore and picked up my last two textbooks for the semester (hopefully!): a slim little volume on art and beauty in the Middle Ages, and a whopping Norton Anthology that could kill a person if I dropped it on them.

After lunch, Rachel and I walked to our next class, which we have together: a "first seminar". As we entered the classroom building, we glanced to our left and right, pausing to stare at the stiff portraits of the building's donors, a man and his wife, gazing at each other across the entry area. Our class was a motley crew--a jumble of students from a variety of Arts and Sciences majors. The professor is a heavyset older man with a deep, gravelly voice and deliberate mannerisms. His talk to us was sprinkled with "don't be judgmental" and "think outside the box" and "make the straight crooked", etc. The class certainly will be a variety of assignments--drawing, sketching, essays, discussions, lectures. One of the textbooks we're reading is Flatland, a novel about mathematic perspectives. I was a bit afraid it would turn out to be a relativist modern work, but it was written by a priest in the late 1800s and looks engaging.

As soon as we left the building after class, Rachel and I glanced at each other--then burst out laughing. Something about the loose requirements, the lack of guidelines, is completely absurd. He asked us to write an essay entitled, "Rating My Ability to Cause Change, to Cope (create stories, draw, sculpt, paint): I can...." "I have no idea what he wants!" I exclaimed, laughing despite my frustration. We sat up in my room and talked while I hung up my coat to dry--the front and sleeves were soggy, plastered with sleet. We discussed the class, and Dr. Ak from Honors. "She seems apologetic about religion. She kept assuring us that we wouldn't be discussing it too much in class, despite its importance in medieval life," I commented. We talked about Narnia. Rachel told me that one of her friends liked the battle a great deal, but wished that Aslan's resurrection had been his favorite scene, and I heartily agreed. Rachel didn't much like the depiction of the beavers as somewhat vulgar--more as comic relief than the stolid peasant types they are in the book.

I spent the afternoon when Rachel left doing homework. A.C. came over to check a class time on my computer (I guess she doesn't have internet). We chatted for an hour, joking about names ("Augusta Wind", and a woman whom A.C. knows whose name translates from Spanish, "A Rose of the Garden" since her first name is Rose and her husband's name is Garden), resurrecting old ancestors, and discussing literature--she likes Tolstoy; she's reading Anna Karenina right now.

The sun has set quickly, in just an hour. Streaks of cloud waver across the sky like hair snagged in a comb. The snow has melted, and the street is almost dry. People jog around the track, frozen in the glare from the white lights.

Suppertime....

second semester, day 1

Now Playing: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 9, "To Aslan's Camp", one of my favorites on this CD.

I just finished Volume One of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and am now working on archaeology homework, with two Books of Augustine's Confessions still to go (you'll be pleased to know, SwanElf, that I have to read both Einhard and Notker, who stammered, on Charlemagne for my Honors class).

After breakfast this morning, I walked over to the bookstore to pick up my textbooks. On the way, I met Rachel. "Rachel!" "E--! Good to see you!" A brisk hug. "How was your vacation?" "Good." "How was yours?" "Good." And so on. She told me about her brother, who got a haircut while she was there, and about her sister, who's turning ten next week and kept joking about breaking into the "double digits". In the bookstore, we had some confusion over which window to go to. As Rachel observed, there are far too many booths and windows in the bookstore. There were several other confused students standing around, waiting "to be helped", and three or four frazzled elderly women retrieving heavy sacks of books for the students from the stacks in the back of the store.

In the bookstore, Rachel and I ran into Jenny and Tara, who were browsing through the bookstore, looking for textbooks, and then on the way back to our dorms, we met Jenny H., who is almost-but-not-quite recovered from being sick just before Christmas. She was chatty and bubbly, partly thanks to her cold medication.

My first class this morning was at 9:00 in Zink Hall, the English building. The professor for Major British Writers II is a plump blond woman, noisily cheerful, very friendly and outspoken. She kept commenting on how quiet the class was. She plied the class with questions about society, culture, and why people comply with standards. She told us that the first novel was Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. "It's awful!" she exclaimed. "Ridiculously allegorical. Characters named Chastity or Prudence, who stand for the qualities of their names." Everyone nodded wisely, agreeing with her, while I frowned indignantly.

It would appear that our class is one of the most "diverse" I've had yet: a "returning student", as my father calls them (a woman who's probably got a family of her own by now); a young man from Venezuela, wearing a red Nike soccer jersey; a very dark-skinned young Black from a French-speaking country; a young man with a learning disability; and a young man who looks Arabic and has extremely thick, bushy black eyebrows.

At 10:00 came archaeology class in one of the little, weird, triangular rooms in Kendall Hall that look as though they were modeled on one of those unsolvable wooden puzzles--no matter how hard you try, you never can get the cubes and pyramids to fit perfectly into each other. The professor for archaeology is a short, older man with a bushy white beard and glazed blue eyes, wearing the requisite khakis and vest. He seemed quite eager to teach, and left most of the class period open for the students to ask any questions they liked, which was encouraging.

As soon as archaeology was over, I took my flute and music down to the practice rooms in Tyrrell Hall. I had reached the Poulenc sonata when I heard a terrifying howling, screeching sound coming from the practice room next door to me. It sounded like a fire engine--but then I realized that it was only a soprano doing her warm-up exercises.

When I left Tyrrell, I met Alisha walking to lunch, and fell in step with her. She described her break, and I told her about the ball. We compared notes about our first day of classes. The cafeteria was crowded when we entered. Danielle was there, bouncing happily from friend to friend. She put hot pink highlights in her short, brown hair over the break. Alisha and I sat with the two Jennys, near Matt and Andrew and Katie and other RUF people. All day it's been like this: the quick hugs with the girls, the bright exclamations, "It's so good to see you, Alisha! or Tara! or Jenny! or Nicole!"; the brief, shouted, "Hey! Matt or Alex or Andrew or Austin!" to the boys.

At 2:00, I marched to Chapman Hall for Honors class. The professor is a tired older woman dressed in plain, neat business clothes. She plied us with questions about our interests, and Nicole, Rachel, Russ, and I did our best to answer some of her questions. She inquired, "Has anyone read Augustine's Confessions?" Rachel and I both said that we had, and she pressed us to tell her our impressions of the Confessions. "Wow, my highschool education was sadly lacking! You two both read the Confessions in highschool?" Rachel and I admitted that we were homeschooled. When I piped up with an answer to one of Nicole's comments on the Black Plague, the professor seemed immediately to think that I have a specialty in the area of the Plague. "Ok. Now, has anyone read Don Quixote?" Rachel and I were the only ones who raised our hands. "Wow! I'm very impressed. Have you read all of it?" Rachel and I looked confused. "Did Don Quixote die?" the professor asked. We nodded. "Now I'm amazed. Later in this course, we'll be talking about the 'Song of Roland'. Has anyone read that?" Sheepishly, I raised my hand and muttered, "Yes, for fun." "Good grief! You must never have been allowed outside to play!" she cried.

After Honors, Rachel and I laughed about the professor's impression of us.

The wind drove misty clouds across the skyscrapers downtown, and my blowing bangs felt damp as I strolled to my dorm. They've finished the construction in front of the dorms, and now the lawn below the library, which is flanked by dorms and classroom buildings, looks very elegant, with broad sidewalks lined with straight rows of trees, alternating with lights. Strips of sod mask the scars left by dumptrucks and bulldozers, and the expansive sprinkler system keeps the new grass in a state of perpetual muddiness.

I spent the afternoon reading Pride and Prejudice and listening to the "Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack and "Invocation", a Celtic CD by Anuna. A.C. and I ate supper together. She described for me how her parents usually bake ham for Christmas dinner, and about the ornate nativity scenes that her mother sets up for Christmas (her mother is Catholic).

A weeping saint, haloed with gold leaf, sits beneath a tree on the cover of the Confessions, which lies on the desk beside me. Outside, fluffy clouds scurry past, blurring the lights of the skyscrapers with their speed and wetness. Right now (thanks, most likely, to having read too much Jane Austen), I feel as detached and satirical as any social commentator, and it probably comes across in this exceedingly dull post. Congratulations to anyone who managed to finish it. *haha*

a big black dog

This afternoon I went for a walk around San Born Lake. As I strode through the neighborhood toward the SBL trail, a massive black labrador retriever galloped toward me. It had been sniffing in the lawns along the road, but as I passed, it wheeled ahead of me and began to jog before me down the street. I supposed that it belonged in the neighborhood and would turn back when I reached the trail. It was one of the biggest, most powerful dogs I've ever met, with an easy, effortless gait. (When I retold the story at supper, my mother interjected that she thought the dog must've been part horse.)

However, when I set out on the trail itself, the dog loped ahead of me, his paws thumping the grass. If we came to a fork, he would run down one branch until, glancing back, he saw me on the other branch. Then he would bound toward me, paws thudding, tail wagging, and jog on ahead of me. If I ever got out of sight, he would stop and nose around in the brush until I caught up. When we crossed the bridge, he stopped on the other side and waited with head cocked to make sure that I was coming. Across the meadow, I jogged behind him. He lengthened his stride until he was out of sight, and I couldn't hear the jingle of the metal tags on his rough canvas collar. When I breasted the hill, though, there he was at the top, poking idly through a stand of sumac until he spotted me. We raced through the gully, his broad pads and my white running shoes raising puffs of dust.

Back in the neighborhood, he still marched ahead of me, though his breathing was somewhat ragged, and there was froth on his jaws. A little girl was pedaling her pink tricycle on a driveway as the dog and I went by. The dog loped up to her, his breath rasping but his tail wagging. She jumped and squealed, afraid. Her grandmother called her into the garage, and the dog turned away carelessly, glancing at me apologetically. "I'm sorry," I reassured the grandmother, "he's not my dog, but he won't hurt you."

When I reached my house, I sat down on the front porch. The dog had jaunted on down the street, sniffing the kerb. He stopped suddenly, realized that I was sitting, and leaped towards me. He nosed the gate expectantly. I got up and went in, filled a bucket with water, and brought it to him. He lapped, then paddled with his forepaws in the water until it was full of mud and crushed maple leaves. After slurping contentedly, he bounded onto the front porch. I called Daisy and Brother2 outside on the walkie-talkie. As they piled out the door, the dog surged toward them, but I twisted a hand in its collar and held it back. "He won't hurt you!" I cried breathlessly. Daisy scurried indoors to wake my mother, who was napping (she's been ill with a cough, and has spent most of the day in bed with Mandy snoozing beside her). My mother staggered outside. "E--, we are NOT taking care of that dog!" she growled as the beast, straining against my hold on its collar, pushed toward her. "No, no!"I said impatiently. "There's a phone number on its collar. Go call its owner!"

A while later, the owner pulled up in his red pickup. The dog had bounded down the street a little ways. A short, older man stepped out of the car (a geezer, if I ever saw one). "Bo! Bo!" he drawled, "Git in the truck." Instantly, the dog returned, and sprang gracefully into the cluttered bed of the truck. "Thanks, girls. He's real friendly. All he wants to do is play ball. As soon as ah opened th' gate, he made a break for it. Good evenin'," the man said, as he tied a rope to the dog's collar. The huge beast waved its plumed tail magnificently from the back of the truck as its master stumped to the front and clambered inside the driver's seat.

The sunset tonight was red and gilt silver, streaks of clouds, like upswept horses' tails.

During supper, when I retold the story of the big black dog and how it had diligently muddied its drinking water, Brother2 giggled. We hosted Bible study at our house tonight after supper. The Ps, except Mrs. P, and Mr. and Mrs. W came. Mr. P led the study on Luke 11.

After the Bible study, the children, as usual, raced outside. I spotted Will sneaking across the back porch, armed with a flashlight. Indoors, Brother1, Sam, Mr. W, Mr. P, and my father were discussing the airforce (Mr. W's specialty) and academics (my father's specialty). While my father described a peer review article he's examining right now, Mary flounced in and began to play with Brother1 and Sam. Brother1 stole the little yellow fuzzy lamb that Mary had been carrying around and stood it on one of the blades of the ceiling fan, seven or eight feet off the floor. Mary played with Sam, yanking his shirt, tugging his shorts. He whipped his shirt over her head, then whipped it off again, and she emerged, laughing, with her hair frizzing around her cheeks.

"Look up there, Mary," Brother1 coaxed. Mary stared up and caught sight of the lamb perched on the fan. She stretched a hand up to reach it. Brother1 picked her up easily, and Mary batted the lamb down. "Oh, look! You made it fall thousands of feet!" Sam reprimanded her. Mary giggled. They repeated this process a couple of times, until Brother1 swiped the lamb. He passed it from hand to hand around his chest while Mary skipped around him in circles, grabbing at the lamb whenever it came within reach. Her laughter nearly drowned the staid conversation of the men, who watched her antics with broad smiles. Mary kept dashing around and around Brother1, until Brother1 suddenly put the lamb back onto the fan. Mary didn't see this move until, overbalancing on the slanted blade, the lamb tumbled onto the floor. "Oh!" she giggled. Brother1 swept the lamb up, and Mary started to chase it again. He tried to pass the lamb off to me, but I refused it, so he laid it on top of the fan, sideways, so that it wouldn't slip off again.

"It's up there, Mary!" Sam said, pointing to it. "Lift me, lift me!" she chirped. Brother1 put his hands around her chest and tried to lift her. "Oooh, you're too heavy!" he moaned. "I can't lift you." She skipped over to Sam, who also pretended to try to lift her. "It must've been those cookies you ate!" Brother1 exclaimed. Mary glowered at him, her forehead creased with worry and puzzlement. "Jump Mary, jump!" Sam urged her. Mary bounced up, and Sam, lifting her as she jumped, hefted her above his head. "Wow, you're strong, Mary!" Brother1 said. Mary giggled in excitement and bounced on Sam's feet. "Owowow!" Sam wailed. Mary laughed louder. Sam picked her up again, but this time, his hands slipped, and she slid down, hitting his feet with a bump. "Owch!" she exclaimed, and picked herself up. "Don't you ever do that again!" she scolded, laughing. "Ok, Mary. Can you be quieter now?" Mr. P asked, shepherding her out of the dining room and into the living room where the women were chatting.

Malory, "The Shadow", and four crazy girls

Now Playing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 6, "The King of the Golden Hall". (At least I think that's the name of the track--I'm not as good with TTT track names as with the other soundtracks.)

Well, I suppose I'd better find something to say on here. From tomorrow to Monday evening, I'll be gone with the rest of the CY to the youth retreat, so there won't be any posting during that time, and probably not any posting after it, either, at least for awhile.

On Monday, my father and I drove up to a city north of us. We took Mrs. P up to meet Mr. P there: she had been too ill to travel up with the rest of her family last weekend, so we were to take her halfway, to this city, and Mr. P would take her from that city the rest of the way. She chatted busily with us, refined, ladylike conversation. She and my father discussed churches, schools, the fates of their children, the antics of their pets.... I saw the sunset as a stained-glass window, shining saffron and scarlet, veined with the laced fingers of silhouetted cottonwood crowns.

We ate supper with Mr. and Mrs. P in a little diner, after having tried a KFC and a pizza joint, which were both closed, and a seafood restaurant, which was far too crowded. After supper, my father and I drove down to a bookstore on the highway. I browsed the fantasy section, more for the fun of seeing the familiar faces on the Lord of the Rings books. I looked at shelves of poetry, too, which was incredibly depressing. If that's what people think of when they think of poetry, I might as well lie down somewhere and die. Any attempt at writing something remotely resembling poetry seems so hopeless: it will either be latched onto by avante-gard, skull-wearing teenagers as great literature (if it contains profanity and pornography), or it will be labeled as doggerel by all and sundry (if it contains rhyme, rhythm, and anything verging on happiness). My father and I examined the C.S. Lewis section--thoughtful, intricate work, like strange mosaics. I eventually bought an elegantly-bound copy of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and a thick tome containing Sagas from Iceland. On the way home, we listened to Holst's "The Planets". I stared out the window at sheets of silver stars, like light sparkling on deep water. The Milky Way shimmered like the curve of a sail. I asked my father about their patterns, their orbits, their brightness. He said that you can see Venus at midday if you know where to look because she is so brilliant. When I glanced back out the window, a shooting star streaked across the western horizon.

On Tuesday, during lunch, we watched "The Shadow", an old superhero movie. The bit of Calvinism at the beginning (the man who becomes the Shadow starts out as a villain and is told that he "will be redeemed whether he wants to be or not") was intriguing. Violin and SwanElf came over Tuesday afternoon. The four of us (Daisy, too) spent an hour sprawled on my bed, laughing about old movies and joking about "Bob". Daisy had basketball practice, but Violin, SwanElf, and I went out for a walk. When we returned, the reek of garlic, onions, and chili powder made my eyes sting: my mother was stewing chili for supper.

All four of us slept in the study. We only stayed up till midnight. Daisy insisted that she and SwanElf switch places since Daisy had been lying by the door, and then got spooked. For awhile, Daisy gave humorous summaries of chick flicks she's watched at people's houses, with Violin and SwanElf adding in ridiculous comments.

Wednesday morning, Violin and I walked the Ps' dog, Lucy, for them. When we returned home, we found Daisy and SwanElf in the middle of making gingerbread cookies and listening to Chopin. We jumped in. SwanElf squealed when Violin spilled flour on her jeans, and Daisy made a face when Violin draped her sticky, floury hands around Daisy's neck, leaving long, white fingerprints on Daisy's mulberry sweater. I hastily gave Violin the job of greasing the cookie pan, while Daisy whipped eggwhites into powdered sugar for icing. Violin rolled out sheets of cinnamon-brown cookie dough, and laid crisp hearts, Jewish stars, and teddy bears on the cookie sheet.

Just before lunch, I drove Violin and SwanElf home. During lunch, we watched "Batman". My grandmother took the four of us kids out for ice cream. We spent a long, quiet evening at home. My father read Lieutenant Hornblower to us in the living room while Daisy cross-stitched a lighthouse, Brother2 played basketball with a little blue foam ball, and Brother1 pieced a puzzle he got for Christmas.

This morning I woke up from a horrible dream about Princess that left me feeling positively ill. After breakfast (and feeding Lucy, who had rocket shoes in her paws this morning, it seemed), my father and I drove to the drugstore, where a crisp clerk took my picture for a passport. Passport pictures always turn out hideously! Then we went to the county courthouse to file the application for a passport. The county courthouse looks imposing and classy on the outside, but inside it's all marble and dirty bronze--looks like a mausoleum to me.

My parents went out together for lunch. Brother1 was helping Mr. S cut brush out on his ranch--there's been an alert for brushfires recently. Daisy chose a "Three Stooges" episode for herself, Brother2, and me to watch during lunch. It was really ridiculous, but it was also a relief to be able to laugh--I've spent these past few days feeling like a metal beam with too much torque exerted on it.

Next door, they're cutting down two of my neighbor's pear trees. She has a stately row of pear trees in front of her house that burst into white bloom, like plumes of swan's feathers, in the spring. Now two of the trees are gone. The racket of the wood shredder was horrendous, as though the workmen were shredding pieces of brittle sky in their machine.

Psalm Sing, Christmas Day

Now Playing: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack, by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 2, "Evacuating London". My father gave this CD to my mother for Christmas. This scene, where the Pevensies' mother tells them good-bye at the train station, is the one scene where my mother felt like crying, at least that's what she said. I like the clicky little song that plays while they're on the train. Princess suspects that the two children who share their compartment are the children of the young woman who played Susan on the BBC production (they have her last name, Cook, and they look a little like her).

Disclaimer: In this post I list all the Psalms we sang along with the families that requested them. In some cases, I have listed a specific person from a family as requesting a Psalm. These specifics are educated guesses, based either on seating order or on handwriting. As a result, they may not be entirely accurate. However, the families will always be accurate since I have my father's sheet on which the requests were made, by family.

Last night, at 7:00, my family hosted a Psalm sing at our house. The Ws came early, for supper. After supper, everyone pitched in to prepare for the Psalm sing. My father rinsed dishes, while I screwed the lids on the jelly jars and the salad dressing and put them away. While my mother finished up the dishes, she chatted with Mrs. W. They shooed me away when I reentered the kitchen: they said that they were talking "girl talk", and immediately began to discuss my sweater, until I turned tail and scuttled off, thinking, "I must not be a girl!", with a sparkle of laughter. My father and Brother1 arranged a conservative ring of chairs in the living room, heeding my mother's dour predictions that no one would come because they would all be too sleepy from their afternoon naps. Brother1 carried the two plastic tubs of toys down from the schoolroom and put them in the dining room, where the tables had been pushed to the sides of the room. Melissa teased Brother1 and asked if the toys were hers. "Have at it!" he replied. My mother set out the tea things beside an enticing collection of desserts in the dining room: fudge from Princess's family, a rainbow of cookies from the F family, and mints from the Ps. We sat around in the living room, waiting for people to arrive.

When people did come, it was all at once, just after seven: the entire C clan, a troop of Ss, and a zoo of Fs. Brother1 and I scrambled about, scrounging up more chairs. Princess, Marigold, SwanElf, Katie, and Beth ended up sitting on the hearth, while various little girls crowded onto the sofa, and Brother1 roosted on the piano bench. Mr. C and Mrs. C sat near me, and Emily, their new daughter, sat beside me, for a little while--until she spied the toys. Then Mrs. C carried her off to play with Fric, Frac, and Sis in the dining room. Dani and Mrs. C kept a careful eye on them throughout the Psalm Sing.

Everyone was talking and laughing so loudly that my parents, the leaders of the Psalm Sing, had a difficult time making themselves heard. They had seated themselves near me, at the head of the living room, with rather the air of a king and queen on a dais. My father gave us selections from "The Life of Christ" in the Psalms to sing first.

During one of the selections, I noticed Mr. C making strange hand signs to Brother1, who merely stared at him in confusion. My mother noticed it, too, and interpreted the signs to mean that Brother1 should turn on the lamp on the piano. Mr. C chuckled, because this was not what he'd meant. Watching with amusement, I saw that William, Mr. C's oldest son who was sitting in front of Brother1, had a baseball cap dragged down over his eyes. "Do you want Brother1 to take off William's hat?" I whispered to Mr. C. "Yes." So I succeeded in catching P's eyes and made more hand motions at him. He stared at me like a befuddled owl until I glared at him, and then he whipped off William's hat. He grinned at Mr. C.

After singing part of "The Life of Christ in the Psalms", we moved on to selections from the congregation. My father had passed around a sheet of paper with each family's name on it, and each member of a family wrote their selections under their family name. The Carrolls were first with 100A, stanzas as dependable and unchanging as Scottish hills. We sang 119X, courtesy of Ruth. The little children clattered happily behind me. Fric made her plastic men converse, while Emily carefully lined toy cars along the back wall.

We sang 39B, which seemed to jar a bit with the holiday mood. As my father said, though, it shows just how broad a range the Psalms have by reflecting not only holiday joy but also a time of spiritual drought and despair. We sang 80B (courtesy Princess's family), the stirring words a battlecry for God's justice. We sang 99C, courtesy Melissa's family. People constantly jumped up in the middle of a Psalm, or between Psalms, to grab styrofoam cups and moisten harsh throats. SwanElf, who'd gotten up to pour herself a drink, came and took Emily's vacant seat beside me. We sang alto together on 116A, which was requested by Brother2, but we were so loud that it rather drowned the sopranos. My father joked that 98A, which is a perennial favorite, had "dropped off the charts" and was "no longer going to be played on pop radio" because no one had requested it--quite unusual.

We sang 146B, thanks to the Cs. Then came 84A and B, the first courtesy of the F Family, the second from the Ws. SwanElf and I giggled together about how happy we were that we were going to sing these--and then burst out laughing because neither one of us had requested them. 84A dragged so sluggishly that my mother had to start presenting, marking the beats with one hand so that people would move more briskly. My father called everyone to stand up for 84B. SwanElf, Princess, Beth, and I perched on the hearth, joking to Mr. W, who was standing in front of us, about having "heavenly voices" pealing in his ear. "Advancing still from strength to strength!" we sang joyfully.

The Ss requested 125 next, and then, of course, one of the Carrolls chose 105D. Mrs. W teased Mr. C that it fit his personality: the tune is in a dismal minor key, and Mr. C is always half-seriously, half-jokingly complaining about the joyful celebration of birthdays and holidays. The tune kept creeping sharp, despite Mrs. F's and my mother's best efforts.

I was surprised and a bit disappointed when my father announced that 105D was the last Psalm.

After the Psalm Sing, Princess gave me my Christmas present: six sheets of pretty, pastel scrapbook paper and a sheet of vellum friendship stickers (which I've been wanting for some time). I said that I'd finished almost all the paper SwanElf had given me for my birthday, except for the two sheets on which was printed an elegant, dreamy seascape. "I can't find any pictures pretty enough to put on them," I complained. "Well, go find some prettier friends!" someone exclaimed, and we all laughed. SwanElf put her hands on my shoulders and bounced up and down enthusiastically, talking about the youth retreat next weekend. I helped Mr. F search for three missing Psalters--the inevitable difficulty at such gatherings, despite the fact that each family religiously labels their own Psalters.

After the Ws left, Violin, SwanElf, and Brother1 stood together, vigorously discussing Johnny Cash, while Princess and I stood and listened.

After everyone left, I chased Daisy upstairs for her bath. My parents and I cleaned up downstairs: wiping off the tables, sorting out the jungle of chairs, moving the tables back into place. "The Psalm Sing was wonderful! Thank you, A--," my mother said to my father. "It made my heart soar and my throat sore," she quipped.

"Can't close my eyes... they're wide awake..." sings Imogen Heap on the Narnia credits song. And that's how I was after my bath. Exhausted all day, wide awake at night, my mind busy with Psalms and stories and all the bright, strange, lovely things of daylight and half-light and starlight. "It couldn't be... anymore beautiful... I can't take it in...."

walking through a wood alone... wishing Tumnus would come along....

Now Playing: "The Village" soundtrack by James Newton Howard. Track 1, "Noah Visits".

This past week has been fairly quiet in some ways. I spent the days from Monday evening to Wednesday morning at a friends' house. She had invited me to the Christmas ball that her church sponsored. The ball was just contradancing: the Virginia Reel, the Fairfax Fancy, the Waves of Tory, and other such English, Irish, and American line dances.

Wednesday afternoon I spent with Mrs. Y. We talked the afternoon away: it's been a very long time since we've actually sat down and talked to one another, so we had a great deal to discuss. Raychel, her little daughter, surreptitiously spirited away the contents of her mother's purse, and Joseph, Mrs. Y's young son, contentedly grinned at me from his mother's arms. When Daisy asked me what we'd done all afternoon, and I told her, she rolled her eyes and muttered, "Adults!".

On Thursday, my mother, Daisy, and I went shopping for Christmas. We went to a used clothes store first, where my mother found a dress and a jumper, along with several sweaters, for Daisy. I found long-sleeved shirts and a black dress. The streets were busy, thick with cars as autumn fields swarming with starlings. In Wal-Mart, we met Mrs. P, who was shopping for her family. That afternoon, I went for a walk around San Born Lake by myself, to think. There are a great many things to be considered right now--hints that people have dropped, my friends' behavior, stories being worked on, classes next semester. Thin white clouds, like reflections of light on a blue satin dress, rippled across the sky.

Today my mother, Daisy, and I went grocery shopping. Of course, I would get lost looking for a CD for one of my brothers. It took me half-an-hour to reconnect with the other two. This afternoon I walked around the lake again. The colors were rich, though bleak: the lake a polished, unruffled sheet of grey; the junipers dark green; the cottonwoods and willows hovering like silver mist along the banks; ruddy grass staining the meadows between the trees, remnants of sunflowers, asters, goldenrod, coreopsis. A heron flapped low over the water, wings mirroring the darkening clouds above.

Yes, it must be admitted, "The Village" puts me in a sombre mood.

Here are nine ways you know it's Christmas in our household:

1. My mother digs out the decorations from the topmost cabinet in the laundryroom. Since she has vertigo, she makes Brother1 and me put them up for her: the evergreen swag across the doorway from the dining room to the living room, twined with lights and hung with a raucously-colored conglomeration of ornaments collected from various grandmothers, aunts, second cousins, and old friends.

2. In the process of retrieving the ornaments, my mother discovers the cloth gift bags she's used to wrap our presents in for the last ten years. They, along with our purchases from Thursday, mysteriously disappear into her bedroom. Only the bags reappear, curiously full, and piled like a heap of fat, sunning sea lions on the living room table.

3. Brother2 goes around with an angelic smile on his face, asking people sidling questions about their favorite CDs, calendars, etc., and when you ask him what he bought from Amazon, he only grins as broadly as Sandy when she's been well-fed.

4. Daisy develops a sudden, unquenchable interest in baking butter cookies, which she then feels compelled to smother in vanilla icing. Needless to say, they all look so stiffly beautiful that, when it comes to dessert time, everyone is too timid to actually eat one.

5. My father leaves for work late and comes home from work early. Of course, his extra time has to be spent in replacing the batteries in the broken garage door opener and helping me to buy textbooks for next semester--an expensive endeavor.

6. Christmas cards line up like lights along the fishline strung from one side of our chimney to the other. Cards from people I couldn't recognize if you paid me. A card from my old flute teacher with her husband and two children, which makes my mother say, "Oh! The boys are so big! A-- is already missing his two front teeth! He'll be grown up before I know it!"

7. Brother1 has to bike down the street to check on the Ys' house to make sure that everything is "hunky-dory" (as he says) with their crazy dog, Kitty, while they're gone.

8. And I lock myself in my room with "Adventures in Odyssey" to work on mysterious projects. The mysterious projects, of course, only boil down to a dozen scrapbook pages and two trashcans full of paper scraps.

9. The house reverberates to Handel's "Messiah" blasting from the old LP record player in the living room, and smells spicily of cinnamon and cloves boiling slowly on the stove.

having fun upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber

Now Playing: Brother2, who's bouncing a foam ball against his bedroom door while he's supposed to be doing his schoolwork

This post concerns the CY game night held at Mr. and Mrs. Y's house last Saturday, December 17, from 7:00 to 10:00 in the evening. Here goes....

After supper, Ross and Brother1 drove down to the Ys' home, which is only a few houses down from ours. The Ys moved in last week. Ross and Brother1 took along a couple of pans of chocolate-chip-and-butterscotch cookies that I'd baked in a flurry before supper. Peter, Daisy, Andrew, Brother2, and I walked (or ran, as the case may be).

The party was already well underway when we arrived. Everyone was eating cookies and popcorn and lounging around in the den at the bottom floor of the Ys' house. Mrs. Y was busy trying to finish setting out all the food, so she gave Joseph, her baby son, to me to hold. I held him awkwardly on my hip while SwanElf teased me about holding him. I finally gave him to her to hold. She settled herself in an overstuffed rocking chair with a placid smile on her face and the baby cuddled against her chest. People were still arriving. I gave Meri her birthday present: she turned seventeen today! She and Princess watched the fun from the stairs until Mr. Y organized us into two games: a game of Taboo, in the den, and a game of balderdash in the living room. Mr. Y handed children's books to everyone to use as writing desks. Marigold, Meri, Daisy, and Betty busily flipped through the Disney retellings of fairy tales, giggling the while. Sadly, the Ys couldn't locate their dictionary, so Daisy had to run back to our house to pick up the second volume of our weighty Webster's set (the second volume because the X, Y, and Z words are all the most interesting ones in the dictionary, of course). Until she returned, Peter used the Ys' little Roget's dictionary/thesaurus. The first word he picked was "fortuitous". Ross, Henry, and I all knew what it meant. Ross and Henry wrote down fake definitions, but I sat and looked sheepish, refusing to write down anything, while everyone made fun of me for knowing the word. "You're an English major! You know everything!" was the oft-repeated refrain. Ross read books to Raychel, the Ys' almost two-year-old daughter.

Eventually, I picked myself up and went down to the den to join Taboo, which was just getting started after a hunt to retrieve the Taboo set from a box. Boromir sat on the stairs and watched, munching peanut butter popcorn. The boys (Mr. Y, Ross, Brother1, Daniel) were on one team, and the girls (Violin, SwanElf, Hannah, and I) were on the other team. We had a delightfully uproarious game. Ross had been rather taciturn the whole time my cousins had been here, but he became quite jovial as the night progressed. Violin and SwanElf made fun of the boys' attempts to win the game. Someone decreed that the "hot seat" for the girls' team was a leather-upholstered rocking chair, while the "hot seat" for the boys' team was a sway-backed, orange sofa. Violin perched on the sofa's arm with the "buzzer" (which Mr. Y pretended to use as a razor, as a joke) to buzz the boys' reader whenever he said a taboo word. The tactics used by the reader to get his or her teammates to guess the word were quite hilarious. Ross used "the thing on the flag that the weirdos carry in the student parade" to try to get people to guess "rainbow" (the emblem of the Diversity Tribe). He also used Beevo, the emblem of the college that rivals his, to get people to guess "steer"--fortuitously for him, Brother1 recognized the name, though no one else in the room except the three of us knew what it meant. I tried to use it myself later on "meatloaf", but none of the girls had caught the reference from earlier. Mrs. Y sat and watched. Shadow crouched next to Raychel on the stairs, observing the fun. Raychel assiduously munched a bag full of potato chips, scattering fragments, Gretel-like, wherever she went.

Meanwhile, Shadow and his siblings arrived. He and his brother set up a Nintendo game set on the Ys’ television across the den from our Taboo game. Daniel and Boromir were soon glued to the TV. After the girls' Taboo team beat the boys' team, Ruth, Marigold, Peter, and Shadow joined us for another round, in which the other team (Violin, SwanElf, Ross, Brother1, etc.) won. I prowled upstairs to see what was going on in the living room. Princess and Marigold had brought out Cranium, and everyone was laughing and sitting around a blue card table. Brioni hovered nearby, holding Joseph, and smiling shyly at the fun.

Back downstairs, I slouched on the orange couch. The noise and laughter was becoming rather too much for me. Though Taboo and Cranium are not noisy games, everyone was so excited that they were all shouting. Mrs. Y rocked placidly in the midst of it all. Raychel clambered up onto the sofa beside me, dragging behind her a little plastic toy eggbeater, with one of Mrs. Y's old blue hats jammed onto her head. When Raychel discovered that if she drilled the eggbeater on my hand, I made a horrific howling sound, she grinned broadly. She drilled my hand for awhile, then my hair, and up and down my arms, chuckling evilly as I howled in mock pain. "Do you just enjoy hurting people?" I whimpered. "Yes," she lisped nonchalantly. She yanked the blue hat down over my eyes and drilled the eggbeater on my head, which made me hoot in pretend agony. Brother2, watching the Nintendo games, bounced up and down on a huge purple exercise ball and read "Fox in Socks" out loud to anyone who would listen. The ridiculous Dr. Seuss rhymes, and the crazy animals that looked as though they'd stepped out of a three-year-old's scribblings, mirrored the carefree, barely-contained joviality of the evening.

The Taboo game evaporated after awhile, as did the game of Cranium. In the living room, Brother1 and Meri organized a game of Mafia. Violin sat beside Mrs. Y in the den and gave her a long, complicated description of children's speech development patterns. Like Fric, she thinks with her hands--she used rapid gestures to supplement her "lecture". Raychel, the blue hat bobbing against her eyebrows, played with Ruth.

It was getting late. Mrs. Y took the little ones upstairs to bed, and Mr. Y sat on the stairs, guarding the bedrooms. Meri and Brother1 put together a game of sardines. Brother2 bounced his fist over outstretched hands as he counted, "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miney, mo; my mother told me to choose the very best one and you are it!" Boromir was the first one chosen to hide. Mr. and Mrs. Y courteously turned off most of the lights in the house. Princess, Marigold, Hannah, Violin, SwanElf, and Ruth had to leave, and for awhile the entry area was a mess as Marigold tried to find her missing shoe from the sea of shoes stacked by the door. I waved them off, my breath hanging mistily in the dank air, shimmering like chain-mail mesh.

When I stepped indoors, I heard a great deal of giggling emanating from the guest room, just off the entry area. I stepped inside and found that everyone was jammed into the closet, including Boromir, who, suiting his small stature, had wedged himself on one of the shelves. Peter was the first to find him (my cousins are experts at hiding on shelves--when we play sardines in their house, shelves and cabinets are always the first places to be checked because that's where they hide--you even have to fumble along the topmost shelves of the closet, because Peter and Andrew can climb like monkeys), so Peter was the next to hide. Everyone gathered in the den and stood around, counting loudly, while Peter hid. Then we all separated to look for him. Estella and I groped into the Ys' garage and poked around inside the car. Henry checked the laundry room. Sam and Boromir looked under the computer desk in the study, while Brioni wandered around, smiling mysteriously and giving us the hint that "Whoever hid wasn't very original." It didn't take me long to figure out where Peter must've gone: back to the closet. I crouched in the corner behind the door. Pretty soon, everyone else except Henry had secreted themselves in some nook or cranny of the guest bedroom. We waited and waited, huffing and giggling in the dark. My legs grew cramped. Brother1, lurking in the wardrobe, finally shouted, "Henry! We're NOT in the guest bedroom! Nope! There's no one in here!". We all laughed loudly, which, of course, produced the desired effect: Henry appeared, blinking at us blankly as we streamed past him to the den. Meri was the next to hide. Estella and I looked everywhere for her. I couldn't figure out why all the boys were hanging around Mr. Y's computer: Ross was even sitting in the chair, messing with the screensaver. At last, they started to laugh at us, and we realized that Meri was hiding under the desk.

"Ok, guys! Load up! Time to go home!" I declared. "Oh, just one more round!" Ross begged, but I insisted. I hated to leave the Ys' new house in such a mess, but considering that all the lights were off and that Mrs. Y seemed to be in bed, there wasn't much use in fishing around for the vacuum cleaner. I sent Peter, Andrew, Daisy, and Brother2 scuttling down the street, while Brother1 and Ross drove. I realized that the knife that had gone with the cookies could be missing, so I ran back to see if I could find it. Meri, Estella, Betty, Sam, and Boromir were having their midnight snack in the dining room--leftover sandwiches and chips. I sprinted home, my shadow wavering on blue mist as a passing car's headlights illuminated the foggy night.

They're after us!

Now playing: cousins, cousins, and more cousins

This morning my father went to the grocery store and bought two big boxes of donuts--one with chocolate frosting, and one with glaze. I ate a chocolate donut, and half of Lillian's chocolate donut, which she didn't want. When I went out to check the cats, Mandy was particularly friendly and began to purr as soon as I picked her up: she hadn't been fed. She decided to lick my ears as bribery.

Brother2 had a basketball game this morning, to which my parents, Brother1, and Uncle Kirk went. The boy cousins were all too interested in playing computer games and blowing up robots upstairs. Aunt Lisa had just gone running, and so needed a shower. She agreed to stay home with the boys and Mary, while Daisy dragged me, Lillian, and Annalee over to San Born Lake. We made quite an expedition: Annalee with her coat hood dragged down over her curls; Daisy and Lillian with their snow hats pulled down to their eyebrows and the pompoms at the tops of the hats wagging ridiculously, and me striding rather grouchily (at first) at the train of the procession.

Daisy led us on a long rabbit trail, down a sandstone path between juniper trees, across a meadow, and through a thicket of mulberry trees, their trunks writhen and spotted with green lichen. We ploughed through a glade, scrambled through some trees, and came out on a gravel road leading toward the lake. I spotted a horseapple tree near the road. We trooped over to inspect it. Horseapples (also known as Osage oranges) were sprinkled in the ditch under the tree. The three girls picked them up, inspected them, sniffed them ("Ew! Smells gross!" exclaimed Daisy; "Smells like a grapefruit," said Lillian), and stuffed them into their pockets, handling them clumsily because of their oversized gloves. "It's squishy!" said Daisy. "Probably bad," I said, and picked one up. "Feels like a brain," I commented. "Ooooh," giggled all the girls. "Feels like a dog brain!" chortled Daisy. "Yep. Dog brain, dog brain," said Lillian cheerfully. "Maybe a bunch of dogs lost their brains here," said Daisy, "maybe that's why they're so dumb." Annalee laughed.

Having filled their pockets with horseapples, they continued on their way, with me following. We jumped a fence and walked across a closely-mown lawn. We poked our heads inside an old shack and found a little path running into the woods. Suddenly, just as we started onto the trail around the lake itself, Daisy realized that she'd lost the walkie-talkie that we'd brought along (one walkie-talkie with the expedition, one with Aunt Lisa at home). We hurried back, searching the ground carefully. I found it where we'd jumped the fence. Annalee insisted on calling Aunt Lisa. When I told Aunt Lisa that we were alright, she said, "That's appreciated," in her dry way.

As we returned to the path in the woods, I poked my head out of a thicket. "Look out," I said. "There's spies over there. We have to hide from them." The little girls hastened up beside me and peered over my shoulder. "What?" asked Lillian. "Spies. We have to hide. Let's wait until they're on the other side of that building," I replied, "and then we'll run for it." There were four or five unsuspecting adults strolling about near the lake, close to an old house that people rent and use for parties occasionally. They sauntered towards the house. As soon as they were out of sight, I took of running, with the three girls skeining out behind me. We sprinted down the path, over a little rise, and were soon buried in a maze of trails and walkways running through the woods. Dangling honeysuckle ropes brushed our shoulders as we crossed a creek. We poked around by a pond upstream from the lake, separated from it by a very tall dam.

Further on, we came to a place where there was a stream. Beavers had dammed up the stream years ago, and though last summer the water finally cut a channel through the dam, there were still broad, muddy flats behind the dam where the water had once been. We found deer prints in the mud. We bounced on a fallen elm tree, its limbs creaking like arthritic joints, as though we were playing "horsie" with a grandfather. We followed the creek as it flowed through fairly open ground. At one point, under a clump of junipers, we found a good hideout. The floor was drifted, soft and deep, with silvery bermuda grass, like baby's hair. We curled up there and rested since Annalee's short legs were getting tired. After awhile, we continued on, hopping from sandstone rock to rock. The boulders shifted and slid, clinking like broken glass, under our feet. Annalee sat down on one of the red boulders to rest, watching Lillian and Daisy as they poked about in the mud by the creek. In one place there was a thin skim of ice on the brown water. Black fish, like slimy leaves, flickered in fear as I poked a hole through the ice and pushed it about on the tip of a long stick. Sluggish water sloshed to and fro as the ice rose and fell. We brushed through tall stands of ruddy grass, like Roman candles. Fluffy, cream-pale seed pods drifted down the breeze and caught on Lillian's teal snowhat. Baby's breath tinkled, like little bells, and last autumn's asters shattered like falling stars at the touch of a hand. Daisy held tangled skeins of wild rose bush aside for us as we crossed the creek and returned to the path.

Back on the path, Daisy and Lillian found a branch from a juniper tree that had been lopped off by some careless person. Annalee and I went in front, while they brought up the rear, dragging the branch to erase our footprints so that "they" couldn't follow us. As a helicopter buzzed in the distance, we hid in a thicket of juniper trees, crouching like hunted animals and whispering excitedly. A flock of sparrows, startled, leaped from the cattails by the creek. The roar of their wings made us jump. "You know," whispered Annalee, "they could've attached cameras to those birds." "You're right!" I said. "Let's hurry."

Geese paddled serenely on the lake, like brown lichen on a smooth, dark grey boulder. We hurried down a curving path and scrambled up a steep slope. Our feet slid on rocks that crumbled into red and yellow dust as we crushed them. Racing into a ravine, we climbed into a hollow and huddled near a dead cactus while the helicopter growled in the distance and a jet roared past overhead. Once the two noises had diminished, we raced across a broad meadow. Our feet pummeled the springy grass. Dead sunflowers rattled in a thin east wind. We debated for awhile about which way to go: south, over the dam and through the back properties of our neighborhood, or southeast, through the neighborhood itself. We finally decided (with the help of my conscience, which said that my mother wouldn't appreciate it if we took the back way) to go on the street and try to "blend in". Annalee was decidedly lagging behind by now.

To keep the spies from recognizing us, we pulled our hats and hoods low over our eyes and started off down the street. I balanced my long stick on my shoulder, shortening my steps to stroll beside Annalee, while Lillian and Daisy shuffled their feet through drifts of leaves. We cast suspicious glances at any car that passed, and when a door slammed shut behind us, Daisy jumped. To keep the spies from knowing where we lived, we walked up the easment and entered our yard through the back gate. We tracked leaves and clotted clay from our shoes onto the dining room floor as we trooped inside. Daisy immediately began to fix hot chocolate for anyone and everyone, while Lillian and Annalee prowled around, and Aunt Lisa finished off the hat she'd been knitting. Lillian proudly showed Aunt Lisa her horseapple, which made Aunt Lisa stare rather ruefully. Mary smiled her sunny, squinched-eyes smile at me as I flopped down on the sofa with a magazine. I chatted with Violin on the phone for a little bit. Her squirrely siblings were chattering in the background at her house, and my own squirrely relations were making the dining room quite a zoo on my end of the line.

When Brothers 1 and 2 returned with my parents and Uncle Kirk, my parents set to making lunch. When Uncle Kirk heard about the horseapples, he chuckled loudly, especially when Aunt Lisa told him that Lillian had told her, "They feel like brains!" "Is that any reason for bringing them home?" Aunt Lisa inquired.

I can smell burned cheesemelts from the dining room where my mother and Aunt Lisa are talking. Uncle Kirk stumps down the stairs. Mary babbles, "Jingle bells, jingle bells" in the living room, and the boys growl upstairs at their computer game. Andrew squeals--Ross probably just jumped on him. The little girls thump around in their room over my head, probably trying to rearrange the sleeping quarters. "Food!" shouts Aunt Lisa. It's lunchtime.

What a bunch of funny people!

Now Playing: lots of cousins

Cast of Characters (though most of you won't need this):
Uncle Kirk: my mother's younger brother, a doctor; with greying black hair and a funny smile (and he likes Tolkien! :)
Aunt Lisa: homeschool mother, math teacher, and quilting-and-knitting aficionado; long, straight, blond hair, and precise, deliberate way
Ross: my eldest cousin (17); thickset, muscled; with very short blond hair that used to be curly, until he went into the ROTC and they shaved it all off
Andrew: my next cousin (15); slender, dark-eyed, a carbon copy of my uncle
Peter: 13 or thereabouts; dark-haired, shorter and broader than Andrew; a friendly chap
Lillian: 11 or thereabouts; slender, dark-eyed, and freckled; almost a female version of Andrew
Annalee: 8 or so; short, with a headful of irrepressible blond curls; she bounces everywhere
Mary: 3, short, with a very sunny smile and hazel eyes; like Annalee, she seems to skip or hop everywhere she goes

Yesterday my cousins drove up from the south. They're all pansies, not being used to the cold weather. Last night we took them with us to Brother1's and Daisy's basketball games.

The first thing I heard this morning was the little girls (Daisy, Annalee, and Mary) giggling in the bathroom. They clattered around trying to find ribbons for their hair, and slammed my bedroom door open, and giggled some more, until Lillian, who's sleeping on a cot in my room, got up and joined them. I stayed hidden under the covers until they had cleared out, and then cautiously dressed and made my way downstairs. Of course, everyone (except Ross, who just finished his freshman semester in college) had already eaten. The adults were sitting around and discussing church controversies--sole Psalmody and the federal headship group.

After breakfast, I helped my mother wrap presents for the cousins, which my mother promptly gave to them to open. The three girls received bead packages, and the boys got a puzzle. Andrew immediately dumped the puzzle out onto a table, and he, Brother2, and Peter proceeded to sort through the jumbled pieces. I talked with Ross and my uncle about linguistics and music. The house was chaos: Ross went off to play computer games (chiefly composed of loud, zooming cars), the three younger boys were arguing and sorting out puzzle pieces, and the little girls were putting together necklaces, scribbling silly stories on pieces of paper, and generally spreading plastic baby toys all over the house.

For lunch we drove out to my grandmother's house. She lives in a duplex at an independent living facility where they have lunch for the residents and whatever guests the residents happen to invite. On the way, we passed red gashes in the fields where construction is going on. Blue trees the color of indigo at the heart of a candleflame, and saffron fields the gold of the flame's edge, had been bulldozed to make way for little "ticky-tacky" houses, in which all the beautiful bits are tossed together randomly, producing a peculiar and rather unpleasant architectural concoction.

At my grandmother's place, we all trooped into the communal dining room. There were sixteen of us (my other grandparents came, t00). Quite a sight. The elderly residents ogled us dully as we entered the room. After lunch, some people went home, but my grandmother, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Kirk, and I drove down to a little town southwest of where I live--a little town dropped like a pebble into rippling fields of winter wheat and cattle pasture. We went to a house fitted out as a quilting shop. While Uncle Kirk stroked the shop's cat, a sleek, black-and-white feline named High Dollar who purred uproariously at anyone who came near, Aunt Lisa and my grandmother poured over the racks of cloth and patterns. A couple of elderly women stitched leisurely at brightly-colored flannel quilts. I strolled about, looking at the cloth myself. Cheerful, fuzzy flannels; swirly, water-stained batiks; Asian patterns, gold-edged cranes and lotus flowers. There was Amish cloth with tiny, dark prints; black-and-white polka dots; red maple leaves veined with gold thread; orange patterns like swirling firebird feathers; green palmetto frond prints; blue stars.... Like being in a glowing underwater grotto--the fantastically-tinted, weird shapes of tidepool creatures, and the delicate fans of coral reefs. I helped Aunt Lisa pick out fat quarters for Peter's quilt: more muted colors (no florals!).

At home I showed my grandmother some new blogs, with which she was fascinated. I lounged on the sofa, feeling luxurious, and wasted time by reading "Calvin and Hobbes" comics. I helped my mother with supper: setting the long table for the seventeen of us, putting out fruit, etc. The house smelled salty, of ham, and brown-sugar-sweet, of squash. All my relatives who live in town came to eat supper with us, and a merry meal it was. The adults got to go first, leaving the children sitting and giggling, quarreling, complaining, or yawning at the lower end of the table. Peter put on a special hyena-yawn for the picture I took of him.

After supper we drove to a community band Christmas concert. Despite her protestations to the contrary, Mary fell asleep on the way and had to be tumbled not-too-gently out of her carseat. The community theatre was fairly full. I think whatever architect built that theatre was rather ambitious--I've never seen the place actually packed, nor do I think it could be. The band played fairly well. Fuzzy, jazzy Christmas tunes that are about as interesting to me as Hallmark rhymes. But they did play the overture to Handel's "Messiah", and three Christmas folk songs that I hadn't heard before. Afterwards (joy-of-joys!), I got to talk to my flute teacher, who was playing first flute in the band. She's doing quite well.

We got home around eight thirty, but of course everyone between the ages of sixteen and nineteen stayed up until ten thirty talking. My aunt was good enough to stay up with us (Brother1, Ross, and me). She sat, knitting, at the table, while the three of us lounged around and talked about the weird customs they have in ROTC and meal plans and unpleasant professors and getting out of labs. After awhile, my aunt finally put down her knitting and said, "Well, kids, it's ten thirty..." I took the hint and promptly went up to bed, only to find Lillian fast asleep on her cot in my room.