birthday – My Truant Pen

This is Camp Gramp 2016

There comes a point where you just shut down your computer on a Friday, and don’t open it up for a week. I hit that point. Man, did I need a vacation. I’m so grateful I’ve gotten it! Meanwhile, Camp Gramp is in full swing. Instead of the typical email updates, my mom has been posting Facebook updates. I can’t blame her for it, but in the interests of stealing her writing and using it as my own (hey, it’s not a vacation if I have to work, right?) I’m reposting here for your delectation!

Camp Gramp Day 1 – Saturday
We are here! The tents are up! The sleeping bags are out! The children are happily playing. They are old enough now for some self-determination, so they have decided our destination in Canada will be Vancouver. The criteria is — a good science museum! Parents are raising these kids right!

Two kids have outgrown their tents, and a third tent is on its last legs. We have two new tents and will need to replace a third.

Camp Gramp – Day 3
Today started with a bang. A flat tire. The van has a spare, but it is under the front seat and really hard to get to. We played old people and used our AAA. The nice young man had bad things to say about getting the spare out.

I needed to go to town to get the tire fixed and visit the Group Health lab, so we gave the children a choice. Go to town and chase Pokeman Go or stay home. They chose stay home! They have been upstairs playing together much of the day. When they weren’t doing that, they were playing outside. This sounds like the MOST BORING Camp Gramp. But they are enjoying themselves. I think it is a sign of maturity. First, they can make choices themselves. Second, they can entertain themselves!

It is like a Lan party for Matthew. Feed them and stay out of the way!

Camp Gramp Day 4 — Tuesday
Today is Gramama’s birthday. We spent a while at the lake with the boats. The children did a great job, no one got wet by accident. We did have an incident of a nest of bugs in the canoe, but otherwise, it was great fun. Swimming too. The cake was the work of the W. children!

I love this picture - time for Thane to learn how to paddle his own canoe — I love this picture – time for Thane to learn how to paddle his own canoe

Good think I sent this kid to three weeks of camp that included kayaking!

Camp Gramp – Wednesday
Today was organic farm day. A colleague of mine has a new farm in Ashford and the kids spent a couple hours there. They met Otis the dog, and the chickens. They came home with some eggs they collected. The met the llamas and the alpacas. There was also hay climbing and chicken chasing.

Then the evening was spent on Mt. Rainier at a Star Party. Sebastian was a helper, keeping the moon in the telescope. It was great, but very late when we got home. Fortunately, they all woke up enough to get out of the car and go to bed.

Strong candidate for official camp gramp picture

All Saints Day

Time for another bullet points update!

1) The dining room is finished!!!

Dining room before

It looks much the same, but feels spacious and warmer

After three months of working nights and weekends (and taking a bunch of Fridays off) the dining room has now been completed. The difference is hard to see on camera, but the extra six inches in the ceiling are remarkable. The room already feels more comfortable (with, you know, actual insulation in the walls…). And it is such an incredible feeling to get both the room and the husband back! Adam did a phenomenal job on the work.

I have put together an (unedited) album of all the stages of the work. You can see it here.

2) We trick-or-treated like bosses

There’s a chance this year will be the high water mark for trick-or-treating. We started around 5:30 or 6. The oldest kids and grownups didn’t roll back in until well after nine. The candy bags were HEAVY. We fell in love with the house that handed out water bottles. I love these nights when the streets are alive with friends and neighbors. My mother-in-law did an amazing job feeding everyone, manning the door and welcoming the little ones when they returned. It was a great night in which to get an extra hour, so we didn’t pay as high a price for the hijinks as we might!

3) We gave Thane a great 7th birthday party!

Happy 7th rotation around the sun, sweet child

Thane said he wanted “a neighbor party”. Usually this means “as long as there are Doritos I’ll be happy”. My incredible mother-in-law made this happen with her usual sang-froid. I ordered a really cool cake from The Mad Cake Genius (I’m still surprised at how affordable her cakes are for the works of art they also are). The kids were insane, like always. The grownups were happy to see each other. They just played, and we just watched (and blew balloons – the true test of friendship). It was so lovely to see the kids being with each other and enjoying each other’s company. Thane thought it was an awesome party, and is so grateful to his friends. In fact, the biggest challenge was that Grey was super jealous of his brother’s awesome party.

4) I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year
Because I’m crazy. I sure am not bored, and November is never a good month for this. But honestly, I love writing. And I have a friend whose writing I really want to read, so I’m dragging her into NaNoWriMo with me, which means I have to actually do it! So, um, please feel free to ask me how I’m doing.

5) It’s been an amazingly busy and rich fall

A cloaked apparition amongst the graves.

You can always tell when we did something on Sunday because my jewelry and clothes don't align. — You can always tell when we did something on Sunday because my jewelry and clothes don’t align.

Just looking at my pictures, I am amazed at how much we’ve done this fall. Hikes in the Fells. Family visiting. Birthday parties, hosting and attending. Construction projects. Apple picking. Soccer. Church. There are about two weeks left in the “high season” before things quiet down again.

You can see all the pictures from the second half of October here. The first half of the month can be found here.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Richard’s Faire

Many of you know that I spent four delightful years at Connecticut College, a stone-built NESCAC school that is almost (but not quite) an ivy league school. I got a double major (cum laude, with honors and distinction in my major fields). I started off thinking I’d be a music history major having particularly loved that aspect of my high school symphonic experience. Then I had to take music theory at 8:30 in the morning, and I quickly became an English major along with everyone else at the elite institution who liked to read and didn’t know what they wanted to do.

My senior year, I proposed an honor’s thesis that my English advisor had trouble seeing as an English Honor’s Thesis. (It was about “The Power of Music in Medieval Literature” which I’m astonished someone took the time to steal before I took my website down. The real thesis was “Brenda reads fun books about medieval music yay!”) So I fixed the problem by going through my list of classes and realizing with a few minor additions to my class load I could double major in Medieval Studies and write the thesis I wanted to write.

In retrospect, I’m amazed how sanguine my parents were about my employability. I’ve had to answer the question of how a degree in medieval studies led to a successful career in software in Every. Single. Interview I’ve ever had. (The answer is there’s a direct relationship between my degree and my employment, thankyouverymuch. You’d be amazed how often Chaucer comes in handy!)

Anyway, I hated it when people, upon hearing my degree, would say “So you must go to a lot of Renaissance fairs, eh?” Pfft. Those a-historical mishmash of era and location! You say Renaissance, you mean medieval and you dress up sexy fairie! I was, sad to report, a bit of a self-righteous git as a young person. This is surprising, I realize, but true.

Brenda Flynn - ahistorical wench — Brenda Flynn – ahistorical wench

Well, last year we went to King Richard’s Faire in Carver. It was a mismash of Halloween costumes, period-perfect Elizabethan recreations, corsets, fairies and Games of Throne characters. The minstrel’s music bled into the colonial era. There were Vikings with every hand-hewn rivet perfect and a wide variety of add-on ears for the perfect elvish look.

And we had an absolute blast.

It turns out you have more fun when you're not a self-righteous git — It turns out you have more fun when you’re not a self-righteous git

We went back again this year, near my birthday so I could claim extra loot. (I didn’t actually get extra loot but I swear this is the year I get a dress made from my tartan.) We watched the magician and the acrobat and the silk dancers. We ate faux medieval food. We sang songs and watched the joust. (The horsemanship is really quite exciting! Also, it’s really hard to fall from a moving horse in armor and not hurt yourself. They make me nervous every time!) We had a blast. (And it turns out Grey knows the words to far more of our favorite songs than I realized.)

And then there is right now. I’m perched outside Thane’s door, watching the last sliver of the moon through the already bare tree branches as it is eaten by the dragon. I am here so that Thane is not too fearful to sleep, but from the back yard come lifting voices of my husband, brother and son. They are singing and reciting. So far tonight we have had Shel Silverstein and Virgil, The Moon Song and songs of the moon. It was one of those precious moments in parenting when you realize that some small part of your loves has been passed on to your children, when Grey bounded up the stairs to go fetch the small poetry book that had been his grandmother’s and his father’s – to read aloud to us all. “Zoon zoon, cuddle and croon…”

My days are sometimes weary, filled with the busyness of life. There is much of laundry and groceries and soccer and home improvements and church committees. But yet, there are rare moments when voices I love are lifted in song in the fading light of an eclipsing moon. (My husband is reciting Byron now.) That those moments exist is a grace and blessing beyond counting.

Did you see the eclipse? How did you spend your time, while the dragon ate the moon?

Thirty-four (34)

September is one of my favorite months. I love the crispness of the air, the brightness of the sun, the blueness of the sky and the sense of change and possibility that rides on the adventurous breezes. It is back-to-school, new-pencil time. I often return to Tolkien, the progenitor of so many of my childhood daydreams, in September – fondly remembering that Bilbo, Frodo and I are separated in birthday by a scant day. (There was a time in my life where I attempted to figure out whether if, what with time zones and all, I could in any way be considered to be born on September 22nd. There is not, for the record.)

And here we are, on the first welcome day of autumn after a delicious and delightful summer, looking at my birthday. My thirty-fourth birthday.

My mother in law painted my dining room for my 34th birthday

Is there any birthday less consequential than your 34th? I’m no longer young, but not quite middle aged yet. I feel no biological clock ticking down because I’ve had my children. I still can’t be president. It’s not divisible by any exciting numbers. There are no (known) science fiction or fantasy references that make it significant (like 42). It’s just another birthday.

But this year, I find myself wildly and unreasonably excited by it. Look at that! I’m having a birthday! Isn’t that marvellous?! Maybe we should have cake! Although I still find myself melancholy on reflection of my lost little kitty, and although I have been somewhat tired and worn of late, my birthday is still (unexpectedly) exciting to me.

I reflect on why this might be. I come to the conclusion it’s because, for the first time in many years, there’s something I actually want for my birthday that I do not have and have been waiting to obtain for months. A new guitar. A grownup-size guitar. A guitar that says, “Yes, Brenda is really actually playing the guitar now.” A pretty guitar with a graceful body and mother-of-pearl inlay. (I hesitate to confess how much my heart was set on mother-of-pearl inlay.) A guitar with a darkly beautiful sound and an easy way of laying in my arms. I have sought, daydreamed and wanted, and for my birthday I have obtained my heart’s desire.

There are other things too, of course, that make my birthday delightful. There is the delight of a guilt-free chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and rather fewer than 34 candles. There is the delight of watching my sons learn the joy of giving. The New England Patriots are even obliging by playing an 8 pm game on my birthday (although one ardently hopes that this week’s performance is better than last’s – UGH! Eds note: QUADRUPLE UGH!).

Finally, this day initiates the fall for me – coming as it does so close to the equinox. Bring on the orange and brown palette. Let there be pumpkin stickers. May the fridge hold apple cider and the kitchen be fragrant with boiling apple butter. Let us open the windows during the day and close them during the night. Let me wake to the sound of the furnace turning on to heat the room for morning ablutions. Let there be birthdays and Halloweens and Cthulu games and apple picking and Mocksgiving and Thanksgiving and Advent and Christmas. I am ready.

For lo: I am 34. I am not young. I am not old. I am not even – quite yet – middle aged. I have learned how much there is to love of fall, and stand ready to lay down another layer of memory to build the beautiful patina of age.

Procurement of apples in celebration of explorers

So I have learned through many long years that you should never, ever go apple picking on Columbus Day weekend. However, timing (and knees) being what they are… once again we found the only good weekend day for apple picking to be today – one day after Grey’s birthday party on an 85 degree October day.

It was packed. The traffic jam to get up the road to the orchard was the first of many lines. However, we eventually worked our way to a point where we could hand over our money and wander to the remoter parts of the orchard. It was a lovely (if tiring) time. And yesterday was Grey’s birthday party! There was a large number of young folks wandering around, playing with legos and hitting each other with cardboard tubes. Then I fed them large amounts of sugar. It was fun.

This is all a lead in to say… I actually have pictures. I mean, this is only like 6 weeks worth of pictures on one of my two cameras. It includes: Hurricane Irene, walking in the Fells with Laureen, first day of Kindergarten, my “Last Ambulatory Weekend” party, Grey baking my birthday cake, Grey’s birthday party & apple picking.

Fall2011

The tail end of birthday season

I’d like to know who’s brilliant idea it was for my entire family to have their birthdays in a 5 week period right before Mocksgiving and Christmas. Sheesh.

But hey! This weekend, we held a joint birthday party for Adam and Thane! We had the iconic baby-encounters-frosting-for-the-first-time moments.

Let's see what this squishy stuff tastes like...

Adam and I had a philosophical discussion on whether a one year old would even notice that they were having a birthday. I discovered that I have deep-seated equality anxiety. I’m a middle child. My baby brother is six years younger than me, my big sister two years older. I remember that my parents were very careful to make sure that especially my sister and I were treated the same. I recall that they asked HER forbearance when they let ME drive to high school, since she had never been allowed to. I imagined this scene where an impressionable 9 year old Thane is looking through his baby book, perhaps while 11 year old Grey reviews his. There, at Grey’s party, is the Elmo cake, the balloons, the rejoicing. A sad, blank page in Thane’s baby book, testament to second-child syndrome. Thane becomes emotionally devastated due to this evidence of my lax attention to his young self, and eventually leaves home to become a stylite monk in the Nevada desert. All because I couldn’t whip up a few streamers for his birthday.

Funny how your own issues show up, eh? I never once remember feeling like I was any less loved for being the second born. But I’m terrified that Thane might, for the slightest moment, feel that way.

Anyway, happily this fate has been avoided by this party! Now if he wants monastic life, he can at least join one of the normal orders, you know, Benedectines or Carmelites or somethin’.

While I didn’t stoop so low as to have a Halloween/Birthday party (yet… I can’t imagine that with a birthday on the 28th that won’t happen eventually), we also celebrated my husband’s natal day in the way he likes best: board games. From about 6:30 until about 12:30, they played. Since I was on boy-duty for a good portion and then somehow ended up being schooled in Mario Kart Wii, I can’t report on the games. But I can tell you there was one that sounded terrifying: it actually has a docket. And a senate. And you negotiate legislation. They apparently thought it was awesome.

Happy birthday all!

Now to get ready for Mocksgiving! AAAAAAAAA!

When bowel movements become a reason for posting

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

(I miss the obnoxious old Netscape scroll tag.)

GREY POOPED IN THE POTTY!!!

I REPEAT: GREY POOPED IN THE POTTY!

It was even a for real poop. I knew he was about to poop. (There are tells.) So I wouldn’t stop talking to him until he got on the potty. (When he poops he wants privacy and quiet. Don’t we all?) I provided him with reading materials and left him alone. And lo! There was poop! And pee! In the potty!

Of course he got ice cream and candy and several phone calls to relatives.

I think that in a few weeks diapers will just go away for any time he’s not sleeping and we will all have to learn to adjust or deal with the consequences.

Yes, I have become THAT person.

In other news, Patrick (the birthday cake version) did not turn out as well as I was hoping. One can only pray that a three year old will not notice. In reality, a three year old is at just the right stage of honesty and verbality to tell me it sucks if it does.

Also, we had pancakes for dinner.

Further bulletins as exciting events warrant.