The New Girl

This gorgeous little creature is my niece Eva. She was born this afternoon to her brave and beautiful mama Cathy and her very proud papa Jon. She weighs 5 lbs 6 oz, is 18 inches tall, and has the pinkest, plumpest little rosebud of a mouth I have ever seen. She's going to have a great smile. She's sweet and snuggly and smells divine, and I can't wait to get to know her.

"And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay."

Welcome to the world, baby girl!

Welcome to the (tomato) Jungle

I am not a gardener. If you saw my yard, you would heartily agree with that statement, trust me. It's got a very, very long way to go, before it's pretty and pleasing. I need more money and more time to make it into my little corner of Eden, but I do like to dig in the dirt and watch stuff miraculously change from tiny little seedlings into ginormous sheets of tomato vines. Kind of like this...







Yep, this is the tomato jungle. The green beans were eaten before they could even get their first set of true leaves, and the strawberries won't be great until next year, but the tomatoes outdid themselves. I always forget how big they get when I'm planting, and I plant too many, too close, and I get this monstrosity. It got so bad that one of the tomato plants tried to escape over the fence into the neighbors yard, see...












but the fantastic thing about tomatoes is that I can mess them up, and I still get really yummy fruit. Really, really yummy fruit.





mmmm...tomatoes.

The cucumbers have been prodigious producers. I can't pickle 'em fast enough. And I have some serious Thai basil. Next year, I will have tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and hopefully green beans, beets, strawberries and maybe a pumpkin or a watermelon, too. With some gorgeous flowers, benches for my outsided table, and no lawn. Oh, the daunting project of getting rid of the rest of the lawn both scares me and invigorates me.



"Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing." Cicero

Floating in oblivion on a resevoir of awesomeness

We just returned from the annual Clark family fishing trip, and all is well. No major meltdowns (well, except for the torrential floods of tears when it was decided that the Saturday night fishing trip would be grown-ups only. More on that later.) Only one major health issue, likely brought on by an abundance of sugar, and made more interesting by striking while we were on the water. More on that later, too. I want to begin by letting you know that I GOT SKUNKED! Not a single keeper! Seriously. Here is photographic evidence of my pathetic fisherwomanness this year.



That fish is not even bigger than my hand! But, I got to eat the keepers that other, more skilled fishermidgets brought back, and it was so, so, so good. I love fish, and I especially love trout that was very recently swimming. Nothing like it. Mmmmmmm...trout. Another reason I would fail at every attempt at vegetarianism. Here are the fishermidgets and their catch.




Okay,so here's what I did catch..... POP GEAR EARRINGS! On Saturday night (the kiddo free fishing event) when I pulled up the anchor I also pulled up a shiny string of metal lures. Now, most people would throw it back, or maybe recycle if they were feeling all adult and responsible. But not me. What do I think of when a shiny little piece of metal covered with muck from the bottom of the resevoir magically appears? Why, jewelry, of course. And maybe a really cool belt. And for those of you that squirm at the idea of wearing accessories that have been swimming with the fishies--get over it. Where do you think your water comes from, folks? Resevoirs. It gets cleaned, and then you drink it. Yep, you do. So the pop gear gets clean, attached to ear wires and I wear it. I love a good resevoir. I know, some of you are also shaking your heads right now, thinking--Clarky, you can go to the outdoor store any time, pick up all kinds of shiny metal fishing things to make jewelry with, sans mud and muck, you silly girl. To which I say--free and found is always cooler.

Another triumph this trip was earning my trailer backing merit badge. Usually one of my brothers pulls the boat while my poppy pulls the ATVs, but this year JP was home with Cathy who was on bedrest while awaiting the arrival of little Eva (yay for nieces! Can't wait to meet my new littlest best girl!) and Joel and Jill would be coming up late. So a couple days before at family dinner, Dad looked over at me and Marden and said "So you'll have to pull the boat." I thought he was talking to Marden, but he wasn't. I was going to be the boat hauler, and honestly, I was a little intimidated. But I swallowed my fear and did it. And get this, I backed the trailer onto the dock to launch, with another boat on the other half, even. It was only a little dicey at the beginning, and I had to pull forward and straighten out a time or two, but I did it. And when we got home, I backed the boat into the back yard, navigating the narrow passage without guidance, and placed it perfectly. I'm very proud of myself, and now am qualified to take the boat or the ATVs without help, thank you very much. Chicken Corners, here I come.

One of my favorite parts of the trip, though, is just hanging out with the fam and enjoying the company of my delightful nieces. These five little goobers are the joy of my life.

I adore these little faces, and having them in my life these last nine years has taught me a lot about love and how to love people. Kids are hard. They are unreasonable and often selfish. They see no reason to adjust their moods to suit other's needs. They are impulsive. They get sick, and when they do it likely will involve boogery secretions or explosions of poop. They are cranky if you let them get too tired or too hungry, but they usually don't want to stop whatever they're doing to sleep or eat. Kind of like me, minus the boogery secretions and poop volcanoes. I've mostly learned to control that. They've taught me about being patient, both with others and with myself. They've taught me to take responsibility for my own choices and show compassion for the choices that others make. We are, all of us, doing the best we can with what we know. They constantly remind me that life is cold and hard unless you greet the world with unrestrained exhuberance and an inexhaustible supply of laughter. Look at the smile on Mary's face. I don't think she has ever smothered a smile in her life. Of course, she doesn't really attempt to smother a tantrum yet, either, but that will come. The price of their affection is simply time and gentleness, and they forgive. They are always eager to learn something new (Susie is now a budding pool shark, and she kept trying, even though she's barely big enough to get her cue on the table). They have glorious lives ahead of them, and for all the anxieties Mom and Dad and grandparents and aunties and uncles might have about their futures, they will live tremendous lives. I'm grateful and honored to be a little part of their lives, and I can't wait to see what they become. If you want to know God, learn to really love a child.

Now, if you want to feel God, get thee to the hills, and drink in a view, maybe one a little bit like this...

Stupid Grasshopper

So, I love to grow stuff. I hesitate to call myself a gardener, because if you saw my yard you would laugh. It's not so much a garden as, well, a tomato patch. But more on that later.


The fun thing this year has been the various pests that have decided to move in with me. I can deal with just about anything creepy crawly as long as it's reasonably small and stays outside, but a couple of little creatures have not followed my rules this year, and it has resulted in some screeching on my part.


I'll start with the most mortifying (and, let's face it, humiliating) part. I had a little compost pile out in the far corner of my yard. I feel good about composting. It's good for the garden, and creates an opportunity for all that yard waste and kitchen scraps to do some good in the world. Philosophically, I'm inclined to compost. But in the real world, I'm not inclined to effectively compost. You have to have the right mix of stuff, and it has to be the right temperature, and be wet, but not too wet. And I'm kind of a lazy bum with all that kind of stuff. So I just piled up my sod and tossed all the vegetable peels and apple cores and eggshells on, and only occasionally took the pitchfork out to stir it all up. That was where I ran into problems. Around the 2nd week of June, I decided I better get out there and give it a good stir since I hadn't really attended to the compost all spring. I started turning it over, and then, as I got into the deeper recesses of the pile, suddenly about five or six mice came scrambling out. EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK! I screamed and ran into the house and locked the door, because apparently, I am lame like that.


Then I called Gina because a. she's the only person I know who would not judge me by the mice in my compost, and b. surely she would know what to do. Her first response was, "Hey, at least if you have mice you can be reasonably sure you don't have rats." Gee, that's comforting. Then she did a little internet search, found out that mice in the compost pile was not exactly an uncommon problem, and gave me several options for what to do next while I stayed locked inside my house, looking at the window for signs of movement in the compost pile. *shudder*


I decided to take my usual approach to problem solving--Ignore it and hope it goes away. Ha ha. Not really. I decided pretty quickly to get rid of the compost pile, but the thought of stirring it up again as I shoveled it into lawn bags, which may require closer contact with the rodents than I am comfortable with, made me want to vomit. So it took a couple of weeks to get my courage up. Meanwhile, I just avoided the compost pile. But the problem with talking to Gina about my many issues is the ten little ears that inevitably overhear everything from the latest ridiculous development in my personal life to the mice in the compost pile, and cute Leslie was fascinated by the mice. (They're fascinated by my personal life, too. Recently, they've started asking me if I love someone, and when I tell them "of course, I do, I love you!" they respond with exasperation, "no, Aunt Mar, are you in love with a boy? Do you want to kiss him?" And they don't believe me when I tell them the truth. I tell them no, I'm not in love with a boy I want to kiss, and they ask "does he have curly hair?" Seriously?)


When the girls came over for the long awaited "Sleepover at Auntie Mar's" last week, the first thing Les wanted to do was see the mice. She begged and begged until I relented and grabbed the pitchfork to see if I could awaken the nesting little beasties. Ew. So I plunged the pitchfork into the center of the pile, and was sure I heard I high-pitched squeal. Susie swore she heard it, too.


Yep, I think I gored a mouse with a pitchfork.


That was just far more than I could take, and I refused to further disturb the compost pile. But in the week that followed, I had an epiphany. Part of the reason nothing else has done well in my garden is that the tomatoes are in the only really consistently sunny bed. The trees shade everywhere else, except the compost pile! So, why not turn the compost pile into a new bed for planting next spring? Brilliant! With sufficient motivation, I found the courage to face the compost. I swallowed my fear and started shoveling.


But strangely, even as I got into the lower layers of the pile, no rodents emerged. The mice had vacated! Woo-hoo! Maybe they were afraid of the pitchfork of mortal doom, I thought. I was so deep into my "where have the mice gone?" reverie that I failed to notice the wasps until one stung me.


I don't think it was the pitchfork of death that drove away the critters. It was the wasps. As I spread out the rest of the compost yesterday to make the new bed, more and more wasps began buzzing around. (For the record-I didn't cuss. Okay, maybe one "damn wasps", but damn doesn't count) That's when I discovered their nest. Aaaargh. They got the poison spray can of death, and I got stung. But I also got a new vegetable bed, so I'll put that in the win column for me.


Anyway, you're probably wondering what this has to do with grasshoppers. Honestly, it's a stretch, but grasshoppers are another of those little things that creep me out, but only when they find their way in. They don't belong inside. And they're creepy. So this grasshopper was sitting on my bathroom sink, staring at me as I was putting on my makeup the other day. There was a little cup next to the sink, so I trapped the grasshopper with it. I didn't want to have to catch it and release it in case it escaped and jumped at me, so I just left it. But the next day I started feeling guilty about the slow, torturously painful death I must be putting it through, so my choices were down to smoosh it to kill it or catch and release. I decided to go with the humane answer. But the feisty little creep somehow escaped. When I got the cup outside and opened the lid, the dang thing was gone! Aaaaargh again. The next morning I found it on my shower curtain, and the little beast hopped off and onto my chest. EEEEEEEEEEKKKK again. And you know how sometimes they land on something and sort of won't let go? Yes, this was one pesky sucker. I hate grasshoppers.


Anyway, I also think I have a cricket living in my closet. I commend you for actually reading to the end of this post. Maybe someday I'll have something inherently interesting to write about, like universal health care or the nature of the soul, but not today obviously. Coming soon-photographic evidence of my sad, sad garden, but super fly tomatoes. I'm proud of them maters.

Dream about flying

But every now and then
when I am sleeping,
I still have a dream about flying.
And I wake up crying.
-Alexi Murdoch, "Dream About Flying"


So, I've heard these are good. Dreams about flying, I mean. People talk about how they soar. I wish I could have this kind of flying dream.


But no. My flying dreams are more like this--Instead of soaring, I do this kind of modified breaststroke/doggie paddle thing, and there is no horizontal movement. It's all vertical. I paddle and I go higher; I stop and I go crashing to the ground. And usually, the dream starts where I'm already high enough that it would be really, really painful to crash, so I have no choice but to keep paddling until, I don't know, I guess until I hit the stratosphere.


Maybe I need therapy.


Anyway, the real reason I brought this up is simply this. Patty Griffin is awesome, and if you've never listened to her, you really should. Try 1000 Kisses. And you should listen to Alexi Murdoch as well. He wrote a song called "Dream about flying" that I love, and his cd Time without Consequence is a fave of mine. Give him a listen.


One of these days, when I get it all together in my waking hours, I'm going to soar in my dreams, and I bet you Patty Griffin will be singing the soundtrack when I do.

I wish you could see me when I'm flyin' in my dreams.

The way I laugh way up high,
the way I look when I fly.
The way I live.
The way I fly.
-Patty Griffin, "Chief"

This is why I could never really be a vegetarian.

Have you seen that soyjoy commercial where they sort of trace the history of soy? Buddhist monks eat it, and farmers rejuvenated the soil of the dustbowl with soy and blah blah. At the end it says something like "we take that historic bean, mix it with fruit and bake it into soyjoy" but every time I've seen that commercial, I hear "we take that historic bean, mix it with fruit and bacon into soyjoy." Which, really, the thought of bacon in a soyjoy bar should probably make me a little barfy, but I hear bacon, and my mouth waters. Bacon. Pork fat and salt, kids. What's not to like?

I'm going to go eat some edamame and ride a bike or something. See if I can excise these evil nutritional thoughts. Have a lovely fourth, y'all. Blow stuff up, eat some salty grill-marked flesh of beasts (mmmmm, flesh of beasts), and enjoy the people you love!

Random Observations-June edition

Here we go again with the weird things that jangle about in my head most times...

-Multi-tasking is a bad idea. Sure, the whole concept is meant to make us more productive and efficient, to maximize every moment of our short lives where our value is determined only by what we accomplish or amass (and if you don't hear the dripping sarcasm there, you obviously don't know me very well), but it so, so rarely works out that way. Most tasks worth doing, folks, are worth focusing our attention on as solely and single-mindedly as we can. That's not always possible, of course, as you mothers of young children especially know, but that's no reason not to try when you can. So, from my experience, let me share with you a couple of things that should not be attempted together.

A. Do not attempt to gurgle mouthwash and dry your hair at the same time. I did this the other day, thinking I would save a minute or two in the morning. Took a swig of Listerine, grabbed the blow dryer, flipped my head upside down (a familiar hair drying technique to all my fellow curly girls out there) and AAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!! Suddenly, Listerine was filling my nasal cavity and burning the gentle respiratory tissue there. So not wise. Do not try this at home, folks. Or anywhere else for that matter. I think I'm still recovering.

B. Truly, most bathroom activities probably call for single-minded focus, either because they are intricate (i.e. mascara application--it's tough enough get it right, especially if you are sleep-deprived) or because it's just kind of nasty (i.e. brushing your teeth while you pee...ew). But here is my number one multi-tasking offense. You should never, never talk on the phone while taking care of business in the lavoratory (please use Brit pronunciation, okay?). Tell the truth, now, you know you have done this, and it's just wrong. Unless you are a small child or are physically unable to take care of your own toileting, there should be no communication during this task. Even in a public restroom, there's nothing wrong with postponing the convo until everyone's out of the stalls. And there is something devious about talking on the phone while you're on the toilet, because the person on the other end of the line is an unknowing, and probably unwilling victim. If we're talking on the phone, and you really need to pee that bad, excuse yourself and call me back. If I call when you are midstream, hon--let it go to voicemail! If we were sitting at your dinner table having a lovely conversation, and you needed to visit the watercloset, you certainly wouldn't invite me to continue the conversation in the bathroom, so don't think it's any better just because I'm not physically present. Focus on the pee, then focus on the socializing. Don't mix it up, kiddo.

There are more multi-tasking mistakes, I'm certain, and I'd like to hear your best ones, so if you are reading this, please leave your favorite multi-tasking mistake in the comments. Like trimming your bangs while driving on the freeway, or anything involving a hot glue gun....

-Speaking of delicate nasal tissue, there are some bad, bad babysitters in the world, and my parents hired several of them before they gave up on teenagers and just left my 9 year old sister to watch us when they went out. I know, I know, nowadays DCFS would be on their tails for leaving a child that young in charge, but honestly, Gina was so much better than any of the teenage girls they hired that I remember. For example, there was the neighbor girl who slapped me repeatedly because I wouldn't eat my dinner. Neither of my parents ever laid a finger on me or any of my siblings as a punishment, but this chick had the gall to hit me because I wasn't hungry? Her sister was nicer, but a little flighty. She took us outside late one winter night for some reason, and promptly shut the locked door. Smart. So we had to walk through the snow in our pajamas to her mom and dad's house. Kind of an adventure, but kind of a duh moment, too. A cold duh moment. The worst however, was the budding sociopath who made my sister and I play dead to scare the devil out of our little brothers. She was mad at them because they wouldn't go to sleep. She had sent them to bed early because they, as they alway did, boisterously joined in the "Yee-Haw" at the end of the opening credits to "Dukes of Hazzard". (Sidenote: I had a mad crush on Bo Duke. He can still come sit next to me.) Of course, it was too early for them to sleep, and they were dismayed by the unfairness of it all, so they spent the next two hours hootin' and hollerin' and playing nerf basketball and jumping on the bed. Finally this babysitter got Gina and I out of bed, told us to lay down in the corner of the living room, put a blanket over us and warned us not to move a muscle. Then she got my dad's letter opener out of the desk (it looked like a dagger) and yelled at my brothers to come out. When the boys appeared, she wielded the letter opener and told them that she had killed us because they wouldn't shut up, and if they didn't go to sleep now, they were next. Jon and Joel were probably no older than three and six at the time. Wow. She was the last straw, babysitter-wise.

What does that have to do with delicate nasal passages, you ask? Well, nothing, except that believe it or not, that wasn't the worst babysitter experience I ever had. The worst was the babysitter who got Gina and I out of bed late one night when I was probably only four or five. She put a line of black pepper on the table and told me it would be really fun and funny if I snorted the pepper up my nose. It would make me sneeze just like in the cartoons! For the record, black pepper up your nose does not make you sneeze, and it's not fun or funny. It's simply painful. It burns. Bad. I think I'm still recovering.

-So, Mom and Dad finally gave up on babysitters and just left us home with Gina loosely in charge (which the rest of us took to mean she would take the fall if anything went wrong, but we didn't really have to mind her...ha ha). She was eight or nine, so I was seven, J.P. was six, and Joel would have been about three or four. My parents trained us all on what to do in an emergency, who to call if we needed something, what to say if someone called and asked for Mom or Dad. One night, my dad decided to call home and see if Gina remembered the lessons about phone calls. We had been instructed not to say our parents weren't home, but instead to insist that they were there but unable to come to the phone. So my dad calls, Gina picks up, and Dad asks to speak to her mom. Gina, the champ, says the right thing. She can't come to the phone right now...she's in the shower. My dad, unable to resist the urge to push the test a little farther, then asks to speak to her father. Gina gamely replies that he can't come to the phone either because he's in the shower, too. So now, instead of being neglectful parents who leave their four little birdies home under the supervision of their extremely capable eldest daughter so they can have a much needed dinner and a movie together, now she is giving the impression that they are neglectful parents who leave their children unsupervised for a little water-soaked nooky, instead. I believe at this point my poppy burst out laughing and let Gina know it was him. Pretty funny. Kids are a riot.

-The other night at a family dinner, Gina said she would totally go to the public baths in Japan again if she could, which I find so odd. Gina served her mission in Nagoya, Japan, and although I understand that it's a culturally accepted practice there, I just can't imagine myself being comfortable naked in public, even though it's same-gender. I don't know what it is, but I just think there are only about two people who should see all of me in the buff- me and my man. And if I could avoid seeing me in all my unclothed glory, that would be totally okay. Sadly, whoever designed my bathroom thought it was a good idea to put a very large mirror directly opposite the shower, so that's somewhat unavoidable. Even with my doctor and my midwife, I'd rather they only see individual parts unclothed, not the whole shebang. Here's how I see it: with my man, there's a payoff to the uncomfortableness of nudity. At least there's supposed to be when you're doing it right. And the nudity is part of a multi-faceted intimate relationship. (Not that I'd really know-my man is still a stranger to me, dangit, and to borrow a really bad metaphor that was widely used in YW classes and seminary in my day, no one's licked the icing off my cupcake. A really, really awful analogy, that is not only sort of icky, but also misrepresents the power of the Atonement of Christ. But I won't go into that right now. I'll just laugh, and return the original train of thought...). But in a public bath, it's a bunch of strangers with whom you have no relationship at all. Maybe it's my Puritan North American upbringing showing, but that's just weird. Then again, maybe it's the no relationship at all thing that makes it palatable. If I may never see these fellow public bathers again, who cares if they see my cavernous belly button or my dimply bum cheeks? Would you hop into the public baths if you had the chance? Why, or why not in the comments please. But it's a serious question, so don't post in the comments if you've got something nasty to say about it. I don't want to know about your deviance if you have any, so keep it clean, all right?

-Julie Heckert might be the coolest person I know. I never see her without coming away with a good laugh as well as something to think about. She's the only person I know who can use the word "fecundity" in a birthday greeting without being icky, and she introduced me to my new favorite "how the haitch did that get past the marketing department" romance novel title: The Very Virile Viking. I'm not kidding. It really exists, and we have two copies at the library. Find me the next time you drop by the OPL, and I'll show you. I was a doubter at first, too, but I've seen it with my own eyes.

Okay, I think that's enough for one day. Probably way, way beyond enough. Let's see, we've covered bathroom communications, sociopath babysitters, nudity and trashy romance novel titles. I bet you are so glad you don't have to live in my head. Wish I could say the same, but I'm starting to get used to my craziness.

Next post: My friends rock, or how I beat the bad birthday karma for good.