"Lot lot lot tack"

forget your dolls and other such sweet toys. we're dealing with boys here, and that, my friends, means things with triggers or handles or wheels and engines: things like trains. we inherited a very large collection of tracks & trains from my nephew dominic. i  mean, we have everything, even the roundhouse.

finn lost his stories for the day due to a morning tantrum (5 in the morning, no less), so we had to resort to alternative entertainment this morning. so, naturally, we turned to trains. momma decided to build a great big track, lots and lots of track--thus the title, which is Finn's rendition of said phrase. here is my supposed masterpiece:



soon, though, i realized a critical flaw:

those of you with track building experience will recognize it: the train is stuck on that one little circle. all that glorious track, and it got stuck on one little circle. i groaned inwardly as i recalled that building wooden thomas tracks takes an engineering degree. so i made one little switch and thought proudly, and falsely, that i had solved the problem. this was overly optimistic: the train was now stuck on a slightly larger circle. so i started rummaging for just the right piece, which means that all of the connecters have to be in the right spots and all the curves in just the right direction. this is no small task. here you see but a small portion of all the track at our disposal:

i confess i began to get a bit frantic as the proper combinatino of curves and connecters avoided me. i could only find pieces like this:



oh no. i so am not up for that right now. i don't know if even we have enough track to introduce that piece, and certainly neither Finn nor i has the patience. with a little bit of rearranging and finagling, though, i finally did it! here is. room for multiple trains, complete with trestle bridges, hills, points, lots of loops, even a tunnel.



Finn really isn't quite old enough to understand the tracks, though, let alone appreciate such a work of english-major-turned-railroad-constructor's art. sure enough, far less than five minutes after i finished, the destruction had begun.



ah, c'est la vie. so we went outside on the front porch to watch the "lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot wreen." someday soon, i've no doubt, momma's days will be spent building all kinds of tracks that will get used for more than hammers.

cuppa the finest

(or: in case anyone was wondering about my addictive personality)
coffee has always been somewhat a major part of my life. from my tenderest years, our after Mass routine on Sunday included a pot of the blackest (decaf) coffee, liberally supplemented with cream and sugar. later, in high school, coffee came to supplement my increasing daily ration of cigarettes, especially my junior year, when i spent more time at big boy's imbibing obscene quantities of obscene quality coffee and chain smoking for hours than i did at school. this routine continued with only minor variation at college. by my senior year i was drinking six cups a day or more--it was the only thing available between meals. there was no improvement in the quality, either. my friend alex said it tasted "like the color brown." i don't know if i've ever heard a better description of anything.

my daily cup of what the Irish call "white coffee".
mmmmmm, cream.

in grad school, even when the smoking quit, the coffee certainly did not. it became a comforting routine as my roommate and i bonded over our daily cups and developed a true friendship, which continued even after my marriage. during my first pregnancy, my daily cup kept my blood pressure at levels somewhat necessary to sustain life.
while the mothers were here over baby time, i had a big ol' cup of coffee every morning, served up to me with first-class thoughtfulness. i hadn't been drinking more than the occasional cup of coffee while pregnant, because it just didn't agree (another difference from Finn), and i thought, especially since it was lent, there would be no need to continue pampering myself. not only that, despite the fact that i've been drinking coffee since i was about six, it doesn't taste quite the same.
but i can't stop.

the ol' memory lane ramble

I recently acquired a load of boxes from my parents' attic. Upon opening them, I discovered that they date from when we moved into that house my junior year of high school, almost 15 years ago now. They haven't been opened since, and sorting through them was painful and hilarious. A brief catalogue of their contents as follows:

Of this dress, I have absolutely no  memory. I certainly  never wore it.

so hot, 20 years ago

 It looks like something straight from gofugyourself.

These beauties. Anyone else remember these? They could be found under the description of "Fashion Star Fillies." As you can see by the shorn one in front (haircut courtesy of my younger sister), they sport a star on their cheekbones. They cost the mighty sum of $10, each. I loved them.

front to back: Dara, Nikki, Calli

The very bedraggled basket of silk flowers I carried at my aunt's wedding when I was eight (seven?).

so proud of these, for so long

My fairy-tale princess dress that my aunt made for me, also around the age of eight. It came complete with hat and flowing veil. I suppose, in the event I don't have any daughters, it shall pass to my niece, if she wants it, although right now she's only three months old.

this once clothed Snow White in an elementary school play.

Who isn't jealous of these, though? Here is a total of three, maybe even four, Sylvanian Families. I was pretty stoked to unearth these:

Wee woodland creatures! With clothes!

 especially this guy!

because all bear cubs sleep in cradles

Other items included my research paper from 10th grade (on suicide), myriad cards from all ages and occasions, dried up yet still sticky paint-by-number paints, half finished paint-by-number pictures, a couple of random Christmas ornaments, and God knows what else. Some of it was fun to discover: the score sheets from my piano guild competitions (I could have been decent if I'd stuck with it), my art folders from high school (not too bad!), a birthday card from my cousin Carl, who passed away last August. I try to draw the line between pack-rat and worthy keepsakes, and hope I haven't gotten rid of anything I will regret. I'm pretty sure not, but who knows? More time will tell . . .

Missing Pieces

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way
And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost or thrown away 

Sometimes this song gets stuck in my head, and lately i've been thinking of this a lot. I am rereading Hannah Coulter for the first time since i read it . . . six years (?!) ago now, and I keep thinking that I lost something somewhere, somehow. I got spoiled in Dallas, living so close to people (even though I still hardly saw anyone, it seems: or, to rephrase, I didn't even come close to taking full advantage of what I had), and I let it spark a fear in me--that fear of becoming isolated, because i *don't* make friends easily, and of being alone. I yearn to regain something i never had, something I think I've wanted my whole life--communion with the land without sacrificing community. 

but there is a love of the land i had, a love of nature and outside and sunshine and cold and rain that used to be unquenchable in me, and it somehow atrophied--maybe being in the city, maybe seeing sunrise sunset always in context of skyscrapers and smog and city traffic, maybe through despairing loss followed by ethereal europe and then a shaky transition where 14 18 21 and 25 were all the same thing, and then came love and healing and sons and so much city, and shopping and coffee and some vague sort of cosmopolitan (mmmm)-urbanite something-or-other. what happened? to:
simplicity hardwork weeding earth quietness slow solitude contentment open spaces night sky (i love f-burg, but my soul aches for stars) animals!
the sacrifice of working with and for the rest of creation, to elevating it and living in it and finding sanctification in it. i miss these things. most of all, i miss that self.