pretty scary

I realized tonight that I am no longer disgusted when I see Christmas decorations up in the stores before Halloween. I just accept it as how things are. It really used to tick me off when tinsel and little blinking lights graced store aisles before Thanksgiving. When the holiday promotions started inching back through the month of November, I was indignant! Alas, they have subdued my fury by their persistance, those rotten, scheming marketers. Now I point out the huge blow-up snowman at Costco to my kids in September without blinking an eye. What have I become?

back to real life

For the past three months my 18 year-old sister, Natalie, has been staying with us. She had a regular babysitting gig here and picked up side jobs to earn money for school (she starts BYU-Idaho in January). Although it's not quite like I had a personal maid and nanny, Nat has made the past three months easier. She put the girls to bed when I couldn't. I could run to the store and grab something without having to haul all three children with me. She would do the dishes and mop the floor for me when I asked. She could get the baby when he was crying so I could finish with whatever I was doing (probably finishing some post). As Ben takes her to the airport so that she can go home and sleep in a real bed in her own bedroom and not on a blowup mattress, here I am, feeling a little sad. And not just because I do have some dishes that could use some washing. So here is a small tribute, which will probably cause her to roll her eyes.

Some things about Natalie: smart, beautiful, funny, witty, wonderful with my kids, just a good all-around person. Sorry we never got those corndogs. Next time? And just for you, go Mets! (Also, you owe me some vanilla.)

the gospel according to...

If you ever feel like you need to participate in some vicarious sorrow and heartbreak, something to make you tear-up and sigh (I know, I know, not really on your top 10 things to do) come over to my house. I'll pop in a video cassette tape and we can watch the opening of Requiem. It will help if you know that Requiem is an episode from the last season of The West Wing. It will also help if you were semi-attached to the characters. But if not, I could probably fill you in enough to make you care a little bit about the situation.

I really don't watch T.V. Hardly ever. But until this past May, there was a weekly exception. Sometime on Monday I'd hit play on my VCR to watch the WW episode I'd recorded from the night before. If you're not familiar with the show, Requiem deals with the funeral of Leo McGarry, and the opening is really beautiful. Every once in awhile, I pull out the tape and watch the first 5 minutes, like I did this morning. As I watched, my daughter started asking me questions, the answers to which, I realized, probably seemed a little odd.

"Why are they sad?" she asked.
"Because one of their friends died."
"What are they doing?"
They're going to a funeral."
"What's a funeral?"
"When someone dies you go to a funeral."
"Who died?"
"Leo."
"Where is he?"
"He's in that box there. It's called a casket."
"Why?"
"Because that's where you put someone when they die."
"Where are they taking him?"
"Somewhere else."
"But where?"
"To the cemetary. They're going to bury him."
"Where?"
"In the ground. His spirit goes to heaven but his body is in the ground until he gets resurrected."
"Why did he die?"
"Because his heart stopped working."
"And then he couldn't love anymore?"

I love my sweet literalist. No, dear, it wasn't about him not being able to love anymore, just that his body needed his heart to work so that he could live. She wasn't daunted by any of it, she just wanted her answers. The fact that we put people in boxes and then bury them underground was just filed away for her information. Death doesn't bother her, probably because she hasn't really had any close experience with it, but also because she knows it's temporary. She accepts it like a child, with a child-like faith, that we die, and then, we live again.