New Moon Fever

If you haven't heard, the second Twilight movie -- New Moon -- premiers on Friday. And I have been assigned my roles which mainly involve driver and financier. Last year I was actually invited to attend the premier of the first Twilight but ended up getting stuck in the Detroit airport. The main bummer was that I really wanted to hear all the tween screams in live time. Don't worry, when I saw it later with Amanda, she recounted to me each scene where the audience squealed with delight during the premier, the first one being when the brooding Edward enters the school cafeteria. Admittedly, it's incredible even in slow motion.

Don't worry, we've had the tickets for a long time. We do know enough to get advance tickets for this one.

I could go into the crazy marketing of it all, but won't except to say that I am totally jealous of Stephanie Meyers and her book series which has my daughter and a gazillion others mesmerized. Why? That is for all of us to figure out. Or not. It's the romance, stupid.

Thanks for coming to the Charmer blog and I hope you all have a fanciful day.

With love, T

P.S. Amanda would like to clarify that she is mostly over the Twilight hoopla. Just a normal Edward fan these days as opposed to a totally obsessed one.

Eliminated and Terminated? Write that.

So last year I read some books by John Steinbeck and fell in love. Mr. Steinbeck is dead 40 years but when you write you live forever. Hence, the potential for mutual affection goes as far as do words and ideas.

Going to California, Mr. Steinbeck's homeland, seemed like the right thing to do. Then I saw an ad for a school out there. Filled out all the forms. Wrote my entrance essay. Paid the application fee. Sought advise and references. By the grace of God I got all that paperwork in, twice. Then my husband started asking reasonable questions. (Gotta love reason.)

Bob: What's the program like?

Me: It's in California.

Bob: How much does it cost?

Me: Five miles from the beach.

Bob: Do they give out scholarships?

Me: Yes, they have Beverly Hills, sunshine, and moving stars.

You get an idea for what Bob puts up with and I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking how can that lady learn in California when she lives in Iowa? When she has two children and a husband and a middle class, suburban, do-gooder lifestyle to live. Not to mention an income to earn. Two words: low residency.

Telecommution, baby! A thousand miles in the other direction. A 180 degree turn around. In Biblical terms, that's reconciliation, restoration, rehabilitation, transformation. CHANGE.

Now in plain English.

I'm pleased to announce that I have been accepted into the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Antioch University in Los Angeles, actually in Culver City. It is a low residency program which means I do my writing projects from home. Real classrooms are so last century. I go there twice a year. And yes, I did finally carefully look at the program and it looks AWESOME!

I am already planning my Iowa-based writing projects, as there is a lot to explore here, with the many amazing people that I keep meeting. And I am already dreaming about my outside-Iowa writing projects. My themes will be artists, farmers, theologians, parolees, musicians, plumbers, mothers, brothers, and others, dead or alive, including the terminated and eliminated. And as always, my dear family.

Thanks much for coming over to the Charmer Blog.

With love, T

photo: steeple shadow and tree, St. John's Lutheran Church, Des Moines

THE DRAMA KING IS ALIVE

Dear Charmer Friends,

If you are still here, you get the medal of honor. A gold star. A big batch of homemade mac-n-cheese. What the hey, I'll even throw in some Velveeta.

Why?

Because last Sunday at church a friend asked me what I was reading. I mentioned the John Steinbeck book that I happily reviewed last dispatch. That's grim, he said. Evidently he knew the book, The Moon is Down. Still awesome, I think. I'm trying to talk Amanda into writing it into a screenplay, but she's not going for it.

Anyway, the thing is, he's right. It is grim. I was on the verge of Grapes of Wrath or The Iliad. Depression, despair, war. Why am I reading this kind of stuff??

Thank goodness for Kathy Lee Gifford (photo). You see, Aidan now impersonates her.

Shhhhhhhhhh. Tonight I was reading bedtime stories to Aidan and my ten-year-old secretly molded himself into his childhood position of cuddling inside me as I read to him in bed. But I realized that I could not see his face and these days that's a big deal. These days when I read to him, he listens with his Kathy Lee Gifford facial position. No, he doesn't know Kathy Lee Gifford, but he does know the Saturday Night Live comedienne who impersonates her and SNL is his new favorite show. (Gotta go to NYC soon and get tickets.) Anyway, it's all very funny.

Kathy Lee Gifford actually has a place in our family. Back in the good 'ol days when Bob was a full time stay at home father I would come home from work and he would tell me about the attempts to replace Kathy Lee on the morning talk show "Live with Regis and Kathy Lee." They were doing this contest thing and trying out a whole bunch of potential replacements for Kathy Lee when she resigned from the show. Every night I came home from work and my husband, Bob, would give me a review. Today's audition was pretty good, but not quite right, he would say. When I realized he was not kidding, I knew we were in trouble. This stay-at-home father thing was not working. In a big way.

That's when we decided once and for all, Bob would become a full time seminary student. The rest is history.

Don't get me wrong, Bob was a great stay at home father. It's just that full-time parenting of young children is really hard work. Best pastoral preparation anyone could ever have.

Anywho, it's late and I'm blogging on Kathy Lee Gifford. Actually, I found her strangely comforting when I happened across her back on morning TV recently. I think it's because I always contrasted her commute to Manhattan with mine. She in a chauffeured car from Connecticut. Me in a stinky humanoid subway from Brooklyn. Whatever. She was smarter than me. I saw her on TV in July while at the golf clubhouse place where Aidan was taking summer classes and I was waiting like a good mother.

If you ever wondered if the King of Drama is alive -- he is and he lives in my house. I read to him and tuck him into bed every night.

Thanks for coming over. More war-themed book reviews coming soon.

With love, T

The Moon is Down

Just when you think this little coastal village would be a nice place to live, the woman you try to date or rape or whatever you want to call it ends up killing you with her knitting scissors.

This short book is a real page turner. A political thriller. Author John Steinbeck is a master at keeping you interested. He says so much with so little words, in less than 150 pages.

On one quiet morning a small town is easily occupied by a foreign miliatary force, whose soldiers were told that they would be welcomed as liberators to a better life. Indeed, at first the soldiers like their mission. Some even fantasize about settling here after the war. The people are pleasant, they offer no resistance. The landscape is beautiful. And really, it's an engineering operation, not military, as they are just seeking to make more efficient means of extracting the local natural resource: coal.

Published in 1942, the unnamed town is presumably in Norway. The unnamed occupier is presumably the Nazi's. The truths are universal. The characters are rich, as individuals on both sides are portrayed as humans with foibles, strengths and weaknesses. The town mayor. The occupying general. The townspeople. The soldiers. The servants. The officers.

It's absolutely classic. We all know this story. At first there seems to be no resistence. But it changes. What do you want to call it? Resistence. Passive resistence. Guerilla warfare. Terrorism. You decide. Steinbeck uses the word resistence.

What can the townspeople do? They must do anything and everything they are told to do. Slave in the coal mine. Give sex to soldiers. Say nothing extraordinary. Be publically executed otherwise.

What they do is work slowly in the mines. They badly cook meals. They don't talk or make eye contact. They blow up bridges and roads. They pretend to date and then kill their companions. And the mayor is in on all of it; although the occupying general believes he's cooperating.

An occupying force follows one leader. The townspeople are all full of leadership. If their leader gets killed, ten more pop up. If a hundred get killed, a thousand more emerge. You can kill a lot of people, but you can never fully eliminate their human capacity.

LOVE John Steinbeck!

Thanks so much for coming over to the Charmer Blog.

In peace, joy, prosperity, and truth, T

Sisterhood of the Fresh Meat

Time travel is possible because the kids and I went to Africa last night.

A late night e-mail about Robert's heart inspired us into an impromptu trip to St. Paul. Apparently, Robert, 19, was at his Friday night soccer game and his heart stopped for no good reason. CPR. Ambulance. Induced coma. Scary.

Robert's mother is our dear sister friend, Margaret, who saved us when Bob's liver failed. We lived down the hall from each other at seminary. The 11 pm idea of going to St. Paul made the kids giddy. Aidan's been google-earthing the seminary for 2 years now. Begging to go, just to play on the playground with whoever might be there. And that's exactly what he did. Aidan's glory.

Not knowing if we would even see Margaret and Robert (who's father is now studying in Germany), we just got in the car and drove 4 hours due north to the hospital. The information desk guy didn't have to look up Robert's room when we asked for it because he knew it by heart. So many visitors. The East African stereotype of rich community is true in the Twin Cities. They are tight. When something happens, they all come. No one is ever left alone. And so Robert had "droves" of visitors as the nurse put it.

We didn't plan it this way, but the kids and I ended up crashing at Margaret's place. In a way we took our turn in the vigil of accompaniment. Again, total heaven as the apartment is very familiar. Happy. Playground. Lots-o-kids. I'm doing the dishes. There's a big blob of red meat in the refrigerator and Margaret is worried about it going bad. It's her share of the annual goat kill and with the heart-stopping thing, she just couldn't get to it.

Faith and Eve are there, also Kenyan PhD students. (Faith is Tanzanian, but from the border so it counts.) Margaret needs to eat and sleep badly. But she won't eat alone. And she won't eat leftovers. She instructs us on how to prepare fresh tilapia masala stir fry, which tastes out of this world. I sit silent as the African women coax my white-food eating kids to eat the fish. I can't believe it that Aidan actually likes it. Clean up the cooking. Get out the huge bag-o-red meat which covers a large garbage bag spread upon the table. We are trimming the fat and cutting into small pieces so it can be frozen in zip lock bags. Meat for the winter. Grissel under my fingernails; sinew entwined in my rings.

I am useless, mostly, as I cannot seem to cut through the fat. Eve and Faith have ten bags-o-meat and I am still hacking away at my second small piece.

"Give it to me," Eve says very kindly. I am in Africa, but I am definitely not African.

As we cut up the freshly butchered goat, we talk about women's rights and lack-thereof. My kids are totally content as they read their books nearby. Faith and Eve are both pastors and recount incidents how their position as religious leader have been discounted in their own countries. They imagined it would be so much more progressive in the U.S. of A., but no. What's happening to the women's movement here in the U.S., they ask? No one is speaking up for women here, and this is America, they say.

I think women here are just too tired, I offer as explanation.

I am curious about how they would restart the women's movement in the U.S.A. What would they recommend? I want to ask this question, but I am too tired. It is almost midnight and we are still cleaning up blood that dripped inside the refrigerator. We are all pleased that Margaret is sleeping. The East African community takes turns staying with her and it looks like me and the kids are taking this shift. Faith and Eve go back to their apartments, kids, and husbands.

Me and the kids could have easily time warped back to the seminary life. We could want to go to Africa. But no, we need to return to Iowa because our life it there, it is full, and we've got things to do here. I wish I could live in a way so that I am just present where I am, instead of thinking about what could be. Seminary was not *that* great when we were there -- and yet by now it has reached rockstar status.

We walk into the hospital family room and the circle of African's are so happy to see us. Hugs, kisses, and hand shakes for the ones we've never met before. How are you?! How's Bob?! How's Iowa?! How's your church?! We will come to visit. We hear stories of growing up with one father and 11 mothers who all speak different languages. Whenever someone new enters the room, they walk around the entire circle to greet each person individually. Even Aidan and Amanda have learned this; in this crowd anyway. I'll tell you about the bowl of grasshoppers later. No, it's not popcorn; and it's not funny.

One day, when we have moved away from Des Moines we will say how fabulous it was when we lived in Des Moines. And we'll wish we were there. We'll list all the sights that we want to revisit. We'll think of all the people we want to see again. We'll drive all over the city to find food at our favorite eateries.

Looks like Robert will be OK. Thank God. Somebody else will sleep with Margaret tonight. We're back in Iowa and I've got a ton-o-things to do tomorrow.

Thanks so much for coming over to the Charmer Blog. So nice to have you here, now, in the real.

With love, T

Blood. Rival. Sister. Brother

Aidan's nickname for Amanda is "Adie." Only he can call her that. Last night I asked him how to spell it. ED, he said. But I am not allowed to use it which is fine because I can't pronounce it anyway.

In a flurry of brother sissy love, they decided to switch bedrooms last night. Good idea to me because as you can see in these official "before" pictures, the spaces needed a bit bit of renovation. Bob tried to micromanage the process. I tried to tell him this process could not be micromanaged, just let it be. Mother nature's motivation.

The love fest continued into the evening as it became apparent that there would be no beds fit enough for sleep. We're camping out in the family room, they announced. All cozied up on pull out sofa and recliner. Awwww.

Amanda gets gold stars in this process. She is moving mattresses, disassembling old beds, organizing shelves and closets, lugging stuff to and from the garage, and cleaning up things that I must never describe in this blog. Aidan is, well, let's just say he's not exactly multi-tasking. He's doing laundry. Which means there's about a 40 minute break in between work cycles. In other words, while Amanda is toiling away, Aidan is lounging in front of the TV and when asked why he's not helping his rationale is, I'm doing the laundry.

Having a son and daughter could easily make you want to generalize about the nature of men and women, but I shall not.

And so I am pleased to present to you these two "before" pictures with sincere hopes that one day I will be able to provide "after" pictures. These are brought to you in gratitude for Amanda's work ethic and ingenuity. Along with Aidan's consent. (But you should see him hit a golf ball - over 150 yards. Golf camp this week. For another dispatch.)

Aidan: ED, can you help me with my room?

Amanda: Sure, we'll get this all into shape.

Thanks for coming over friends. Come back soon.

With love, T

Maim, Destroy, Do Popcorn Balls

With a laid up mother, Aidan was set free to smash cities and maim skate boarders today. We are surely the epicenter of all the horrible statistics on big time screen time and dead brain cells. Lord help us. With a zingy back, I pretty much let video games rule Aidan's entire day.

ATACHEWA! I don't know if that's really Japanese but that's what Aidan says to the cats. It's the Manga game.

Listen, I may be flat down but I will not allow my son to destroy for 12 hours straight. I have standards. My solution: create popcorn balls.

I, mother of the year, enticed him to take 15 minutes out from his free video spree to make a batch of popcorn balls.

He did great! A natural candy man. Ate almost all of them as soon as he made them. Hint: substitute honey for corn syrup. It's tasty and

healthy.

Thanks for your expressions of empathy on the occasion of my out-of-whack back. Chiropractor appointment tomorrow.

Thanks to my husband for taking over my volunteer gig today; sorry to our youth director that I did not come through for today. [Presently, I am listening to nursing home

stories from Amanda who went there today to play bingo, which evidently was rather competitive. Nursing home service project seemed to make a positive impression.]

Take care and thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog.

With love, T

P.S. Aidan would be proud to inform you that he is on day four of his present clothing selection which doubles as his pajamas. Not that we're endorsing this, instead just too distracted to monitor daily dressing. But don't worry, I did make him wash his hands before making the balls. As I said before, I do have standards.