The Median Sib

I got an email from my older sister awhile ago.  Here’s what she wrote:

I rarely dream (or if I do, I don’t remember the dreams the next day). The ones I do remember afterwards are usually just jumbled stuff.

Last night, I had a short, very realistic, incredible dream about daddy. I don’t believe that I have ever dreamed about daddy before.  I want to put the details down on paper so that I won’t forget them!

I have no idea where I was, but I was sitting on a sofa; I looked up and daddy was walking around the back of the sofa to come around to where I was.  It was just incredibly real — he had on a white round neck undershirt with short white sleeves and plain pants, hair sort of messed up like he had just come inside — and smiling such a warm, understanding smile.  He held out his arms and sat beside me; I put my head on his shoulder and sobbed my heart out.  Then, he reluctantly said he had to go (but it was like he had done what he had come to do, but now had to leave). He patted my forehead with his wonderful hands that we all remember soothing our hurts, stood up and walked away.

Our father died almost twenty years ago - in December of 1986.  I remember dreaming of him not long after his death.  The dream was vivid and real.  I still remember it clearly.  My mother, whose father died when she was a child of 9, told me that when she was a child she would pray that she would dream of her father because she knew that was the only way she could see him again.

Reading about my sister’s dream brought tears to my eyes. It made me think about my own dream of our father.  Dreams are puzzling things. 

Three days a week I work with a small group of fourth graders in their writing workshop.  This past week I was conferencing with one child who read his current writing project aloud to me.  The story was about his family reunion.  I was on automated listening as he read his story about grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, food and games.  Then . . .

“I was taking a bath and my mama told me to stay in the bathroom because my granny had died in the other room.  She told me, ‘She wouldn’t want you to see her like that.’”

What?  ”Oh, I’m so sorry!” I replied. ”Your granny died and you had to wait in the bathroom.  What happened?”

He looked up from his reading and said, “There was a man who was going to kill Pappy unless someone sacrificed themself.”

My automated listening mode screeched completely to a halt. Granny died? Someone had to be sacrificed?   ”A man was going to kill your Pappy unless someone sacrificed themself?  What do you mean?”

He looked at me and repeated slowly as if to a not-so-bright child: “Somebody in the family had to jump off the tallest building or the man would kill pappy.  So my cousin did it.”

“Your cousin sacrificed himself?”

“Yes. He jumped off the tallest building.”

“What happened? Did it kill him?”

“No, he used a bungee so we could fool the man into thinking he had sacrificed himself.”

What on earth?  Granny died? A man threatened to kill Pappy?  Someone had to be sacrificed?  A bungee fooled the man?  This was certainly more action packed than any family reunion I’ve ever attended.  This was a personal narrative run amuck!  Was this story the unlikely truth or the product of an active imagination coupled with too much crime television? 

I was certain of the answer, but the story was too big to ignore, and it was also a classic CYA case.  After the children returned to their classrooms, I walked down the hall to the guidance counselor’s office.  She looked up from her desk.  “Sit back and relax,” I said.  “Have I got a story to tell you!”   

The guidance counselor talked with the student later that day.  The story was the result of a vivid imagination and too much tv.  In other words - it was NOT true.  The part about the granny dying might be true.  However, no sacrifices - fake or real - were made to keep the man from killing pappy.  The child has a future in writing crime drama, though.

It seems that some people are determined to criticize Wal-Mart for anything they do.  Apparently, it is a crime to be a successful business.  Apparently, it is a crime for a company to make a profit and to come up with ways of selling more products. Here’s the story of a new reason for some to bash Wal-Mart. 

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has turned children’s yearly holiday wish list efforts into an online game, but not everyone is amused. The Wal-Mart “wish list” program lets kids compile gift wish lists on the Internet and then email that list to parents for holiday safekeeping. Think of it as an action item list of sorts. Sounds innocent and fair enough. Of course, Wal-Mart’s goal here — as it should be — is drive more holiday sales. No surprise there.

So, why the fuss? Some days it seems Wal-Mart can’t make a single move without being decried in some fashion

Well, one minor detail that I picked up on pretty easily was that some of the specific messaging Wal-Mart has used in the program — much of which won’t be picked up by kids — could be offensive to adults who are trying to teach their kids that the holiday season is about more than amassing toys. For example, in the Wal-Mart wish list program, cartoon elves guide kids through the website, applauding when a toy is added to a list and complaining that they’ll be out of a job when a toy is rejected. Ouch — who storyboarded this?

The larger concern is by direct marketing model to children, Wal-Mart is adding to holiday stress by increasing the kid nag factor. Although online wish lists have been available online at retailers for what seems like forever, this is the first time a retailer with the scope of Wal-Mart has presented an online wish list program which is designed for use only by kids and not adults

It’s the virtual equivalent of taking your kids into a Wal-Mart and letting them inspect every toy in every aisle — with obligatory coat pulls every few seconds (the nag)

Is this just innovative marketing by Wal-Mart or a pain in every parent’s head? What’s your take as a parent and/or WMT shareholder

My take is that Wal-Mart has come up with a marketing plan that has been used by companies catering to brides and expectant mothers for years.  Kids would do no more nagging for items on their Wal-Mart wish list than they do for cereals and candies advertized during Saturday morning cartoons on TV.  They’d do no more nagging than they do for the candy, gum and gimmicky toys that are at kids’ eye level in the check out lanes of virtually every grocery store and 7-11 store in the USA.

It’s not Wal-Mart’s responsibility to teach kids the “real” meaning of Christmas.  Their job is to sell merchandise and make a profit. 

Parents, if your kids are nagging you to death about buying things from their Wal-Mart wish list, you have more serious problems than Wal-Mart’s marketing plan.  Do your job as parents, and the marketing efforts of stores won’t be an issue for you.

Does anyone have a WONDERFUL Coconut cake recipe?  I have a couple, but I’m looking for one that is super moist - but easy to make.  Tomorrow is  my daughter-in-law’s birthday, and she wants a coconut cake for the family get-together.  I actually posted a coconut cake recipe once, but I wanted to try something new.  So, if you have a great coconut cake recipe, please send it to me!   THANKS!

Somehow I feel like I should be in a 12-step program for flowers after getting the results for this quiz.  I found the link to this “what flower are you?” quiz over at Cozy Reader.  I answered the questions as truthfully as possible (considering that sometimes NONE of the answer choices were entirely correct).  I don’t know where the “prankster” business came from.  And I don’t believe that mischief is my middle name.  But, I’ll take it anyway.  Snapdragons are pretty!

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

“Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh.”

Remember the days of playing “red rover,” “tag,” and “kick the can” at school during recess? Maybe there was an occasional scraped knee/elbow from falling down while running or sore hands after a particularly energetic game of red rover - but I never knew of anyone getting injured any more seriously than that.

I noticed this article in my daily news reading. Lawsuits and the fear of injury are causing some changes in elementary schools.

Not It! Elementary School Bans Tag

AP, ATTLEBORO, Mass. (Oct. 18) - Tag, you’re out!

Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they’ll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is “a time when accidents can happen,” said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

“I think that it’s unfortunate that kids’ lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they’ll never develop on their own,” said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. “Playing tag is just part of being a kid.”

Another Willett parent, Celeste D’Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. “I’ve witnessed enough near collisions,” she said.

No matter HOW many games are banned or how many people we have supervising recess, there will always be accidents. The meaning of the word “accident” is that it’s something that was not intended or planned. Accidents happen. Children can be hurt walking on even, grass-covered ground wearing athletic shoes (sandals and slip-on shoes are already banned at many schools). You could put kids in a padded room with absolutely nothing that could harm them, and an accident could happen. I’m sure somewhere sometime there has been a child who was injured while praying in church or lying innocently in bed. In other words, you can’t protect children 100%. So, let’s not forbid children from playing games just because there is a possibility that someone MIGHT get hurt.

Instead, how about teaching children to play safely. Teach them to watch out for each other. Teach them that if they fall and scrape their knees, it’s not necessary to place blame on someone or something. Teach them that accidents happen.

Ruth at Ruthlace has written a great post about women’s role in the church.  The few times I’ve written about the topic I’ve been bombarded with folks telling me about how wrong I am.  It always amazes me how many women are so eager to let an inaccurate interpretation of scripture limit what God can do in their lives.  Not so amazing  is the number of men who are eager to believe that they’re the only ones God wants to serve Him as a minister and in church services. 

Whenever I read something as well written and theologically sound as Ruth’s post on the topic, I want to mention it.

Just click over to Ruthlace and read it for yourself.

CAROL’S THIRTEEN FAVORITE CANDIES

1.  Snickers - THE all-time best candy bar in the world.  My mother once worked with an overeater’s anonymous group, and a couple people mentioned an addiction to Snickers. I completely relate.

2. Almond Joy (milk chocolate, coconut, almonds.  Heaven.)

3. Hershey Kisses (plain milk chocolate or milk chocolate/almond.  I also tried one of the new cherry cordials, and they’re great, too.)

4.  Hershey Chocolate Bar (Same as Hershey Kisses - just a different shape)

5.  My homemade fudge (Every now and then I get a hankering for homemade fudge - and I make the best!  No recipe either!)

6. Wint-o-Green Lifesavers.  Refreshing!

7.  Wild Cherry Lifesavers.  Reminds me of being a kid.

8. Lemon Drops - I LOVE the ones that come in these little tins.  Just love ‘em!

9.  PDD - Pretty darn delicious!

10.  M&M’s.  Everybody loves M&M’s, don’t they?

11.  Peppermint sticks are great, but they MUST be the King Leo brand.  They’re a little on the soft side - extremely sweet - but so smooth and good.  More than one or two and you get a definite sugar overload, though.

12.   I think the caramel part is what makes this so good.  Chocolate, caramel . . . .

13.   These are best eaten at the movie theater.  I don’t often let myself buy these, but when I do - it’s ALWAYS at the movies.

The 89th Carnival of Education is hosted this week by Margaret at Poor, Starving College Student.  Be sure to click over and read some of the best writing about the world of education.

I was talking to my daughter on the phone a few minutes ago.  In the background Sunshine (3 years old) was yelling about something. 

My daughter calmly said, “Sunshine, when you want something, do you ask nicely or scream?”

With a devilish smile, Sunshine replied, “Scream.”

When I told my daughter about how good Jake had been this past weekend, she said that her husband always says the first three days with a new puppy are like a “honeymoon” and the dog shows his/her true colors after that.  Of course I didn’t believe that!

Remember how I wrote that Jake barked/cried for about ten minutes the first night.  After that ten minutes of fussing, he went to sleep and slept straight through the night.  The second night he didn’t bark at all.  The third night he was exhausted from his “accident in the crate” experience (see previous post).  And once we had him, the crate and the carpet cleaned from that, he slept well all night.  So last night was his fourth night with us.  Note the number.  Four is the number AFTER three.  He got through the 3-day honeymoon.  Then came last night.

Last night, he barked/cried straight through until 4:00 this morning.  Around 11:00 p.m. I moved to the sofa in the family room - wrapped up in my down comforter.  I could still hear the noise but it was muffled in the distance.  I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and decided to go to the bed in the guest room.  Guess who was already there?  RT.  So RT and I slept in the guest room - with the door closed.  Jake slept  -no - I take that back - he “spent the night”- in his crate in our bedroom - with the door closed.  The two closed doors did little to quiet the noise he made.

Three days ago RT told me that he planned to never raise his voice with Jake.  He was going to train him with quiet authority and gentleness.  Ahem!  That idea went out the window last night around midnight.

  This morning, after a night of virtually no sleep, RT has a different take on how to train Jake.  One victory is that we didn’t give in and take him out of the crate.  He has to learn that’s where he sleeps - at least until the house-training aspect is completely in place.

I told RT that we had things backwards last night.  Jake was in our bedroom, and we had fled to other parts of the house.  Tonight, RT and I will be back in our own bed, and Jake will be in his crate in the other end of the house.

I should have knocked on wood yesterday afternoon when I declared to my son and daughter-in-law that Jake (our new puppy) had been PERFECT.  We hadn’t lost a second of sleep because of new puppy whimpering.  We hadn’t had a single mess to clean up.  He’s six months old, and I foresaw housetraining as a breeze.

Soon after uttering those words, RT and I went out to eat with Joey and Meleah - leaving Jake in his crate in our bedroom.  We got home a couple hours later.  I walked into the house and knew instantly that our streak of puppy luck had run out.  The house REEKED of doggy poop.  I had walked into the house via the side door, and Jake was in his crate in the back of the house - a LONG way away, and yet even from that distance, there was no mistaking what had occurred.  The odor was so strong I was afraid that perhaps he had gotten out of the crate and managed to spread “mayhem” throughout the house.  Fortunately, he had remained in the crate.  So at least the damage was semi-contained.

RT took Jake, the crate and the new bed and puppy toys (which had been in the crate) outside.  It took over an hour to undo the worst of the damage.  Apparently the “accident” occurred soon after we left because Jake had had time to thoroughly stomp it everywhere - knocking bits and pieces on the carpet outside the crate and working it well into his new bed and over his toys.  RT scrubbed the crate.  The new bed is still sitting outside.  I don’t want to waste the $20+ we spent on the bed, but then again, the idea of putting it into the washing machine is more than I can stomach.  The toys will be thrown away.  RT put Jake in the jacuzzi and gave him a good bath.  My mother will say, “Carol, the jacuzzi can be cleaned!”  And that’s true.  Still, I will never use that jacuzzi again.  When we build the new house, we’ll have a tub in the barn for animal needs.

While RT cleaned up Jake and the crate, I cleaned up the carpet in the bedroom.  I picked up the pieces of poop that Jake had knocked out of the crate and onto the carpet, scrubbed the carpet with cleanser and then sprinkled baking soda over it to TRY to get rid of some of the odor, and then turned the AC to below 65 degrees in order to get the air circulating more.  Despite all that, I still smelled dog poop all night long.  Even now, I get a whiff of dog poop every now and then.  I wonder if it’s real or simply phantom poop smells?

RT insists that it’s HIS fault - that he should have given Jake more time after eating to take care of business before we left.  Live and learn, I guess.  In our almost 3 days of owning Jake, RT says that he has figured out Jake’s schedule of elimination.  According to RT, Jake does #1, then #2A, #2B, and #2C. Don’t even ask me what he means by that! He tells me we were lucky last night because Jake only did #2A in the crate.  He did #2B & #2C when RT walked him later.

Today Jake’s having a great day, though.  RT took him to work with him, and Jake sat at his feet during a two-hour meeting.  Then RT took him to the vet to get a check-up and all the needed shots.  The vet said that Jake would probably be around 50 pounds when he is fully grown.  He is 34 pounds right now.  RT and Jake came home for lunch - which I fixed since I’m on fall break.  RT insists that Jake will go with him to work each day.  I guess that’s the advantage of owning his own business.  There’s no one to tell him he can’t bring his dog to work.  I wonder how long that will last?  RT loves Jake so much, it could very well be a permanent thing.  And that’s not a bad thing.  

I still have high hopes for Jake.  However, there will be a pad under the crate from now on.  Here’s a photo of Jake and Ron on the airplane yesterday.

Yesterday, RT and I flew to Georgia to visit my mother for awhile.  Out of our seven siblings (of which I’m the median one) - five were there.  My sister-in-law, Vicki, made a HUGE pot of chicken and dumplings.  I love chicken and dumplings.  It’s the ultimate comfort food, and it’s really good for  you.   Here’s an easy recipe for homemade chicken and dumplings.

You’ll need:

1 can refrigerated biscuit dough  (If you really like dumplings, you can use 2 cans.  It just depends on how much  you’re making.  There’s no hard and fast rule here.  Vicki made such a huge pot of chicken and dumplings, she probably used five or more cans!)

chicken (a package or two of boneless chicken or a whole chicken)

chicken stock (one or two cans of chicken broth)

salt, pepper, poultry seasoning

1 onion

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

1 cup plain flour

Place the chicken in a large pot and cover with water.  Add the chopped onion, grated carrot and finely chopped celery to the water.  Season to taste with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning.  Simmer until the chicken is well cooked.  Remove the chicken from the pot and let the chicken cool.  Leave the vegetables in the pot with the liquid.  Once the chicken is cool, remove the meat from the bone and cut or tear into bite size pieces.  Set the chicken aside.

Place the flour in a small bowl.  Open the can of biscuits and cut/break each biscuit into about 8 pieces.   Put the pieces into the flour and coat well.  The flour is what thickens the liquid.  So use it generously.

Bring the reserved liquid to a boil.  Add additional chicken stock, if desired.  It depends on how much chicken and dumplings you are making.  Sometimes I add a drop or two of yellow food coloring to make it “prettier.”

Once it is at a rolling boil, drop the biscuit pieces into the liquid one at a time.  Stir gently to keep them from sticking to the bottom.  Make sure each biscuit piece is well coated with flour before dropping it into the liquid.  After it has simmered for awhile, add the chicken back to the liquid, and it’s ready to serve.  Prepare a salad or vegetable, and you’ve got a perfect meal. 

I’m looking for a good recipe for whole wheat dumplings so that RT will eat them.  Since he is pre-diabetic, he doesn’t eat hardly anything that has plain flour in it.  When I get a good recipe for whole wheat chicken and dumplings, I’ll let you know.

 I just finished re-reading Touching Spirit Bear, a children’s novel (older elementary and middle school, grades 4-8) by Ben Mikaelsen.  The main character, Cole, has been physically and emotionally abused by his father since he was very little, and he lashes out at others as a result.  The author, Mikaelsen, takes up this serious issue and writes about it sensitively and without resorting to profanity or vulgarity.  As a parent and a teacher, I appreciate that.  

After years of being in trouble with the law and after severely beating a younger child, Cole must face either prison or “Circle Justice”, a Native American way of dealing with anger and violence.  Cole doesn’t submit to Circle Justice easily, and his anger, rebellion and his eventual forgiveness of others and himself are skillfully portrayed in the story. 

This morning while reading The Cotillion email, I saw that Kathleen of Right Wing Sparkle has decided to quit blogging.  As I read her last post, I found myself agreeing with her.  What use is blogging anyway?  I’ve gone through so many stages of blogging: I’ve loved it, hated it, tolerated it, been frustrated with it, felt driven to do it, have been offended by it, laughed at it, and had fun with it.  Some posts take hours of tedious work.  Others write themselves in minutes.  When I think of what I’ve written, I’m proud, ashamed, embarrassed, happy all at the same time. 

One time I got so frustrated at what I perceived was the futility of blogging that I started deleting posts, and I deleted about 30 posts before I realized that I didn’t have to delete anything - I could just stop writing.  And so I stopped - for about a day.  Then I was back at it - minus about 30 posts that are gone forever.

When I think about the blogs I read regularly, 99% of them are blogs that I agree with politically or philosophically.  When I DO read blogs from a liberal perspective (which is not my perspective), I refuse to comment.  My comments won’t change anyone’s thinking, and it would only cause hard feelings. 

Then there are the idiots that make blogging a pain - the people who create commenting spam and email spam.  I wonder if there are truly people left on earth who still fall for all those stupid ads and get-rich-quick schemes.  Does anyone still click on links embedded in comments? Apparently the answer is yes because despite the spam blockers I put on the comments for THE MEDIAN SIB, dozens of spam comments still get through to my “comment moderation” page each day.  I then must spend time classifying them as spam and deleting them.  And idiots are still using my web address to send out spam to others.  So each day I must deal with numerous “returned emails” from spam sent from my web address. 

It’s easy to get caught up in traffic - how many people visit THE MEDIAN SIB each day and how many people comment.  My competitive nature kicks into gear, and I want to write about something controversial in order to get more hits and more comments.  Then I have to remind myself that increasing traffic is not my purpose here.

It comes down to the question of whether or not THE MEDIAN SIB makes a difference or serves a purpose.  And, for me, it does.  I know I won’t make a difference it anyone’s thinking.  Sometimes I might provide new information or a different way of looking at things.  Mostly, though, my blogging is for me.  It makes a difference to me.  It’s a form of journaling and communicating. It helps me work through my ideas and thoughts.  It helps me solidify my thinking. 

We don’t have the opportunity to sit down and discuss all our thoughts and opinions with our loved ones.  When I’m long gone, there will still be THE MEDIAN SIB floating around in cyberspace with my words there for my children and grandchildren to read, if they’re so inclined.  Thus, it is also a way of documenting my life.

Greta, at Hooah Wife and Friends wrote this:

“We are all stumbling through life, just some of us do it on a blog, out loud, for the world to read.” ~Greta~

Amen.

 Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy also talks about how the world needs more Sparkle.

As promised, here are a couple photos of Jake, our new British Labrador puppy.  This first photo shows him retrieving a “dummy” that RT threw for him.  He’s a labrador and so he LOVES retrieving things.

Jake will be quite the traveler because we’re leaving in just a little while to fly to my mother’s in Georgia for a few hours to give my niece (The daughter of Beth of Blue Star Chronicles) a family send-off.  She is moving out of state.  This will make Jake’s second and third flight in his first couple days of living with us.

This next photo shows Jake with RT.  RT took a couple photos of me with Jake, but they didn’t turn out too well.  So we’ll stick with these two photos for now.

This morning, I was sitting in the recliner when RT came in from walking Jake outside.  Jake ran in, took a leap and landed in my lap!  Needless to say, we will have to stop him from such shenanigans!    It was sweet, though.