The trampoline

It's up.

Our neighbors have a yard worthy of Architecture Digest and every summer we stand embarrassed (usually with cans of beer in our hands) to survey our yard's ever increasing trailer park qualities....cast off socks, flip flops, hula hoops, toy guns, balls amidst what can best be described as gonzo landscaping. The neighbors are wonderful people who revel in the diversity of generations represented in our neighborhood and our Beverly Hillbillies style of country living over here doesn't seem to faze them a bit. They even like to sit out on their patio and watch as Allison's head bobs up and down through the tree branches.

As our kids have reached their teens, there are less and less children interested in our yard and that makes me a little wistful. But the trampoline has created some new interest and there is nothing finer on a summer day than looking out the back window and seeing a load of kids fighting and cheating over who's turn it is on the trampoline. I leave them to their fussing for the most part. Negotiations are part of life and it's for them to figure out within my whimsical parameters. My rule is I reserve the right to kick them all out if they annoy me. It will never really happen but they don't know that and never will because ten year old boys don't read blogs. Usually one shout and they settle down. I can be a little scary. It's how I grew up. There was minimal interference from adults in my childhood neighborhood except to tell us to:
shut up
get off someone's property
go home
get out of harm's way idiot


Beyond that, it was kid law. Survival of the fittest. Unfair most of the time. Brutal. Demeaning. Thrilling. Fun as hell. So, I'll leave them to it again this summer except for the occasional shout to be careful you idiots.

The 40th Anniversary of Jazz Fest and I'm feeling it all over my aching body

Jumpin' Johnny Sansone

Another jazz fest in the books. The 40th Anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. With the exception of a few years off here and there to have a baby or move a household, I have always tried to go every year. We have taken babies and toddlers to jazz fest over the years, but I don't recommend it and I don't think I need to explain why. My favorite fest partner often doesn't come because of the small legal troubles associated with leaving minors unattended while partying out of state, but some kindly uncles held down the fort this year so Chip and I could go together. Chip arrived a day later than me, dancing his way into the Blues Tent at 11:55a.m. Thursday to Jumpin' Johnny Sansone...like a bride coming down the aisle, he was almost as beautiful. Our friends from D.C. arrived later that day and we thought we'd be partying like rock stars for three days.

I am willing to not only admit but also put it in writing that I no longer have the stamina to do both daytime and nighttime activities at jazz fest. It's one or the other, my body has now informed me. And it's putting its foot down. I think this has always been the case, but my youth was able to overpower my body's desire for a shower and a pillow until this year. After ten hours in the sun, a bellyful of Louisiana cooking and twelve Miller lites, it is time to call it. The patient has expired. Time of death: 8pm.

We see the same strangers every year and it's comforting to know most of us are all still kickin' it old school during daylight.

The guy that looks just like my dad. Check. Although he looks a little frail this year. Disappointing.
The guy with the hairy back and muscle shirt. Check. With his little kids in tow. Interesting. I see no wife. Also interesting.
The man and woman second liners with their umbrellas in Economy Hall. Check. Older but still looking good.
The lady who danced with baby Olivia. Check. Alone every year. A little awkward. Poor thing.
Peanut Ear. Check. Shirt off already. No girlfriend this year, and no peanut for that matter. Just an earring.
Harry Shearer. No check. Did not see him this year and that is concerning to my mojo.

Wing Hodasz

Everyone at jazz fest lost an old friend last year to cancer. A vigorously focused and driven (seriously, like outside forces were controlling his body), flamboyant dancer named Wing, who spent many years at jazz fest running up and down the aisles of the Gospel Tent doing interpretive dance. His friends reportedly brought Wing in their pockets this year and spread his ashes whenever they felt a Wing moment. You can read more about him at the Times Picayune website. I wish I could write like Chris Rose. It's a near perfect story.
http://www.nola.com/rose/index.ssf/2009/04/post_11.html

Crawfish Monica

Our D.C. friends are thin and attractive so naturally we hid a lot of our eating from them while they thought we were listening to music. They were understandably shocked and horrified by my ability to eat my body weight in butter each day. Crawfish monica, catfish meuniere, fried okra and gator, cochon du lait po-boy, chicken tasso, etouffe, creole stuffed bread.....the list goes on and Chip and I conquered it all. The beer merely acts as a buzzy palate cleanser between courses. By Monday, we were drying out at my dad's house in Slidell, the Betty Ford Clinic of Jazz Fest (That's not my joke, but I stole it anyway) and by Wednesday, everybody was back at home and work with some very wonderful memories and still a little bit of a hangover.

Pass the tissues please....

I'm an embarrassment to the family generally but my current state of "quick to cry over everything" never helps. Chip pats my shoulder, resigned to the sniffling beside him. The girls "oh, mom" me. Happy crying, sentimental crying, fearful crying, sympathetic crying....feeling frustrated, unappreciated, wistful.....Kleenex commercials, very special episodes of ER, old songs, baptisms, weddings and orphans of any species. I've always been a crier and reveled in it. When I was very little I would watch a show called "The Littlest Hobo" about a dog on the move. Every week he'd have to press on after some heroic deed that was misinterpreted by the bad men...a homeless Lassie if you will....and I would cry for him each time. My parents would say maybe I shouldn't watch. But I love to happy cry. And Sunday was a treat...a new occasion to add to my collection of events that require tissues. Confirmation of our beloved Leanny.

She's been in our lives for about seven years and is my and Chip's M-F breakfast companion while our daughter gets ready. She has a second breakfast and we fight over the funnies. It's the third daughter we wanted without the college tuition. We don't know what we'd do without her. Her mom says I get all the good stuff. And that's true. No limit setting, no curfew sweating, no screaming, no money or tears shed....she costs me two boxes of granola bars a month and I get all the love I need. A bargain at twice the price. Well done to you, Leanne and to all your friends.

Any fourteen year old who has the ability to focus on two years of confirmation classes amidst daily critical hair and wardrobe decisions is already ahead in the game of life. It was a massive class of 30-35 kids and the pastor's lesson was simple. Foundations built on rock last longer than those built on sand. What I liked to tumble around in my head was his reference to the Leaning Tower of Pisa as an example of poor foundations as relates to faith. Having just visited Pisa and knowing they have done a lot of restoration to shore it up, it does remain standing after seven hundred years-ish. Even with a shallow foundation in marshy land and sitting "off plumb" (my new personal motto), what I got from that little talk was a little spiritual maintenance now and then can stabilize a substantial lean toward decadence. I'm almost positive that was not the message he was trying to convey, but I'm jaded and like to be rebellious. Being a bit of a Leaning Tower gives one freedom to make a choice to topple and rebuild or to restore before falling. A little dodgy philosophy but infinitely more interesting to me than the solid and square lighthouse on the rock. I want to waver and question and wonder and take stock of where my feet are planted and whether they need to move occasionally.

Daffodils

Today, daffodils are my favorite flower. Once they're up and blooming, I feel confident that the snows and persistent cold are gone for another season. I love my yellow friends. It's a breezy day and their scent is so gently carrying on the wind and they smell like spring.

Neither here nor there but I've been doing yoga for about a month now and I'm dramatically fatter than when I started. A kind friend suggested it's muscle. Sadly, I suspect the yin of the donut is at war with the yang of yoga and has yet to achieve harmony in my body. Which will prevail? Can they coexist?



My Aunt Polly has lots of sayings. She's often asked me in my lifetime when I tell her about my week, "Are ya goin' friendin'?" I could have exercised today but chose "friendin" instead. Breakfast with one and an afternoon of glorious deck sunshine and conversation with two others. My beloved magnolia next to the deck has not succumb to the trickery of the March lion this year, as it usually does. It will often bloom with confidence in the one warm spell in March, a false God if ever there was one, only to have its blooms literally shocked by the return of winter for three more weeks. I yell at the tree every year. "Don't bloom, my darling! It's not real spring. Don't be fooled. " The shocked blooms are heavy and juicy and they hit the ground with depressing thuds, never to open to their full glory. It's so depressing. It's not a smart tree. But I love it like I love a stupid dog.



Sorting pictures from Key West was not psychologically painful in the way I thought it would be. The sunshine and flowers were beautiful to look at today as it's an equally glorious day here in WI to those we spent last weekend. The painful reality was more that there are 270 bloody pictures. Nobody needs 270 pictures of anything. Not even a bride needs that many pictures. Digital photography is a dual edged sword.



Dinner's in the crockpot. Pulled chicken sandwiches for dinner with a beer maybe or a margarita even. Hurray for sun...

Key West

My cousin Bill got married this past weekend in Key West to a great gal named Michelle. We are a small but colorful cast of characters on this side of my family who traveled to the southernmost point in the U.S. A most beautiful weekend of sunny, warm and tropical breezy days. We returned to Milwaukee in forty degree rain and the pilot announced from the cockpit at wheels down,
"And you wanted to come here?"

So what if this weekend were a play....

A Wedding in Key West. A Play in Three Acts.

A Wedding in Key West was produced at the Ocean Key Resort, Key West, Florida, Friday April 16th, 2009 by Bill and Michelle and their parents. It opened to a packed house.

Act I
The rehearsal dinner. The scene begins in the evening in a large house rented for the month by Bill and Michelle where families and friends meet and enjoy spirits and food.


Playful brothers still

Act II
The scenes in this act take place between rehearsal and wedding at Captain Tony's (the original Sloppy Joes where Hemingway drank each afternoon after writing and fishing), poolside in the courtyard of a guesthouse, Duval Street Drag Races (that would be transvestites running races in heels), sunset at Mallory Square, the Hemingway House and morning island bike rides. Flowers bloom everywhere in every scene.


An original descendent of Hemingway's six toed cat
I highly recommend the Pirate Punch. It has lots of gin.
Jessica, Brittany and Ally
Drag Races of Duval Street

Act III
The Wedding. The scene is at sunset on a twinkling pier with dance floor and Caribbean music trio. Sunset sailboaters crisscross back and forth as the sun descends.





The Cast

In my next life, I want to be a Hemingway House cat
Third cousins, Hannah and Olivia

Old friend of the family, Bloody Mary


Nugget, Bride and groom's son out of wedlock


General Setting of all Scenes:
Warm winds gently ebb and flow day in and out, giving relief to the characters just as they become uncomfortably warm. Flowers bloom everywhere. Roosters crow at sunrise all over the island. Sunsets each night are quiet and orangey blue...no fanfare as the sun drops below the horizon except for the gentle clapping of the crowds.

Easter funny

Thank goodness Easter is a joyful holiday because the little kids in our church are hilarious. Our church has children's time during the regular services. The kids are called to the front for a mercifully short lesson usually relating to the sermon. Most weeks, it's five minutes of excellent stand-up for the congregation's enjoyment and today did not disappoint.

A giant backpack was delivered to the front of church for the children to ponder its contents. It was eventually revealed to be a big rock, a symbolic representation of the rock moved aside at Jesus' tomb. And the lesson was a good one about letting your faith help you to move the rocks aside in your own life...yes, yes, good message, point taken. But between the children's time conversation below and the church bulletin notice about the upcoming summer children's musical, We Like Sheep, I was just happy to be alive.

Pastor: The backpack looks pretty full. What do you think is in it?

Kids: Eggs! A rabbit! A GPS!

Pastor: Well, no, it's not any of those things. It's really heavy! What do you think could be in this backpack?

Kids: JESUS!

The resurrection of my mood in late winter Wisconsin

My yoga teacher ended class this morning with a rather joyous mention of Easter. An unexpected and fearless reference to go along with my Saturday morning power flow. She acknowledged that whether Christian or not, we all had the opportunity to find a piece of joy associated with such a spiritual weekend for many and coast on its energy in this season of rebirth and renewal for all people.


I immediately thought about my neighbor's snowdrops, the first blooms of spring. They come up almost overnight, a white blanket easily mistaken for snow at this time of year and sometimes indeed covered by actual snow. I know cognitively that the flowers and plants come back each spring, but in my heart, winter takes its pound of flesh annually and there is some insecurity about whether winter will ever end. These blooms and the Ten Commandments--I live for their reappearance each year as true evidence of spring.

We raked away the recently thawed winter leaf cover today and the soil is already opening for the green shoots of my bleeding hearts. Please let them survive late frosts and hungry bunnies.


I have always loved Easter but only as an adult has it become spiritually meaningful for me. Growing up Quaker, Easter Sunday Meeting for Worship and corresponding outfits were just as quiet and Quaker as any other Sunday. Again, I was envious of Catholics during the whole Lenten season, starting with their ashy foreheads and their very public Lenten deprivations, always variations on cake, cookies, candy or cursing. School lunches literally catered to their meatless Fridays, and it all finally culminated in a giant destination wedding weekend of activities: , travel, Friday night services, visiting cousins, aunts and uncles, Easter hats and dresses and brunches after Easter Sunday mass. And every girl wore white ankle socks or pantyhose on Easter--it was a very special day.

Strangely, my mom always bought us new Easter outfits. I can see now that although my Catholic mother had abandoned the church, she hadn't abandoned the Catholic traditions. My sister and I would get dressed up every Easter and parade around the neighborhood waiting for kids to return home from church or relatives' houses so we all could compare outfits. My favorite outfit of all was a cream colored mini skirt with a pink flowered, Peter Pan collared top. I wore it with a white shawl and tan pantyhose with my platform white clogs. I was one of the original hot messes of fashion.

Today, we enjoyed our family Easter traditions of egg dying while watching five hours of Charlton Heston and cooking a ham.





Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Namaste.