Madagascar & Quotes

Oh wow....


So a bunch of crazy people went to see this movie last night...

Me. Mike. Jessica. Davy. Charity. Burgee. Nate. Wow, all 6 siblings plus a courtee! Not to mention about 7 other people who are in Mike's caregroup, friends of Charity and Dave, or friends of friends.

We laughed continuously throughout. Maybe it was just that we were all tired and in the right mood, or maybe Madagascar really is as hilarious as it seemed. I'll give it this: it never misses a beat.

"Sounds like a Somerville movie." Laura commented, after listening to us quote the thing for ten minutes straight this morning (bear in mind that most of us work at the warehouse together).

"The trouble with us," I observed, "is that when we set out to praise or blame a movie, we can usually give specific examples and quotations. We just seem to soak 'em up."

I'm not kidding. Lying on the carpet talking to Mom yesterday afternoon, she said, "You do sit...? Your knees bend and all..." When I didn't respond after three seconds of thought, she said, "Oh, c'mon Honey!"
"Music Man!" I cried, pulling the quote from memory's recesses. It's been at least three years since I last saw that movie, but in my family, heaven help you if you can't pull the reference to a two-line quote out of the air at any time and in any place, no matter how long it's been.

It's a constant game that we all play with one another in my family. The rules are simple. Someone makes an allusion, sometimes a direct quotation, and you have to either respond with the next line (which is considered appropriate), or give the reference (which is barely adequate). What makes it interesting is that the allusion or quotation can be the merest nothing. The other day, Charity made a sound, not even a proper verbal word, but Burgee and I chimed in with the rest of the quote.

I love the game, but you have to stay on your toes to play it, and your memory for movies, books, etc. has to be simply enormous--not to mention detailed. I have this game to thank for the way I read literature, picking up quotes and important details as I go. Makes quizzes a lot simpler. :)

Here's to quotes, and here's to my wonderful family, and here's to Madagascar, whence comes much laughter. Well-written movies are a delight!

Back To Work...

“Well, I don’t want to spill on my computer.” – Christy
“Christy, do you still need sippy lids?” – David
“Yes.” – Christy
“I thought as much.” – David

“Christy, did I tell you about my professor who made us write papers with no form of the verb ‘to be’ in them?” – Laura
“That’s disgusting.” – Christy
“It was. But it was so good for my writing!” – Laura

On Episode III:
“Wait a sec… Garret, did you say you didn’t like it?” – Christy
“It was the dumbest movie ever.” – Garret
“Thank you! You’re the first guy I’ve heard who says that!” – Christy
“They couldn’t act, and the dialogue stank. But the story…” – David
And they went on…

“Remove commas! Remove commas!” – Nate

“When I go into Year 2 I go crazy, because it’s the least [structurally] standardized [of the four year-plans].” – Laura

Midafternoon and already gettin’ punchy…
“It’s that kind of afternoon. I can feel the punchiness coming on again.” – Laura
“Why should this afternoon be different?” – Christy

A boy after my own heart…
“Dang it, I’m holding a pink $50 bill in my hand!” – Davy
“You have a problem with that, Davy?” – Christy
“Well, I mean, I don’t see why higher denominations of currency should be more feminine! I mean, NOW (National Organization of Women) has gotten to the National Mint!” – Davy
::Pause::
“This causes me concern. Deep concern.” – Davy


“Internet Explorer is the weapon of choice.” – Christy
“Only for those who are behind the times.” – Mike

“In the interests of ethics, I think I should tell y’all that you’re being quoted all over the place.” – Christy
“What did you say?” – Davy
“I said…” – Christy repeats
“Oh. I thought you said we were being courted all over the place. Which is fine! But I’d need to know who.” – Davy

“All is well! Neither fear nor fret.” – David

“Prunella Snodgrass! You have to listen to this…” – Danya
“Um… Snodgrass?” – Christy
“Yeah. She’s an up-and-coming rap artist.” – Danya
“Snodgrass?” – Christy
“Prunella Snodgrass, yeah.” – Danya

The Library

Oohhhhh.... it's lovely! It's absolutely lovely to have a real live library. I don't care if my back and shoulders and wrists and feet ache; and besides, I'm far from being the only or worst sufferer.

We all rose with Aurora to help Auntie move out her whole house. Then Mom and the girls (in this case, Burgee and I) trotted back down the street to sort hundreds of books and move heavy boxes. The result? Tall dark (and handsome) bookshelves flank the bay window, mirroring their twins on the opposite side of the room, and the summer light filters greenly through, softly gleaming on book leather, paperbacks (sad to tell, but at least they are good books), and the green-gold-brown carpet now queening it over our hardwood floor. Auntie's tall grandfather clock sits between the long windows, and the whole is so harmonious, so bookly, so golden and grand that it makes you want four hours to curl up with Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Not a chance, kid. This family is always on the go, and today is no exception. We moved Auntie all morning; we are giving a party all afternoon. Daddy is scheduled to tell the plot of his next novel to a bunch of teenagers, and so they are all happily gathered about his feet (metaphorically speaking) in the other room, slurping soda and eating chips. Daddy is a masterful storyteller, and he really needs an audience in order to get his plots sorted out. Fortunately, everybody and their grandmother wants to be his audience.

In other news, my room has acquired a bookcase (yay!) and a pile of new books, including Spurgeon's sermon notes, his commentary on the Psalms, various philosophical, theological, and fictional works which I can't remember just now, and Leland Ryken's Worldly Saints, an excellent argument in favor of the Puritans. I love that book!

For tonight, Nana is playing fairy godmother and ordering us catered food from a favorite restaurant (Chicken Out). Mike and Jessica called on their way home, with Jessica's family, from the beach.

"Hey, Christy! This is Jessica! We're on our way back from the beach, and we want you to come to Madagascar tonight!"

I sat down on the stairs (for the first time all morning, and it felt sooo good) and laughed. "Jess, I'm sorry. I just can't come halfway round the world tonight."

"No, silly! It's a movie. Mike and I want you to come see it with us!"

Naturally. What else would Madagascar be? And while we're on the subject, where is Madagascar? I mean the place, not the movie. Is it really halfway round the world?

To make a long story short, they persuaded me to come. It didn't take much doing. My brother Mike is a best friend, and Jessica is a best friend, and they're courting each other, and what it all boils down to is that I love hanging out with them. So I invited them to dinner, and checked with Nana to make sure it was all right.

"Why do I always see so many movies over the summer, and never any at school?" I asked myself ruefully, hanging up the phone. Answer: it's because everybody wants to go to movies in the summer, and, though they frequently do movies at school, I'm always able to duck out of them or find someone who wants to talk/read/walk/play air hockey. The bottom line is that, at home, going to see movies with people is a good way to love them. If you pick your movies well, they can spark interesting and important conversations too.

They say that movies are making literature obsolete.

I hope it's not true.

I think I'll go curl up in the Library and ignore that thought.

Wait, I can't. No time. Party. Dinner. Movie. Right.... life.

Oh well.

I like life too. :)

PS: Longaevi fans, brace yourselves. I have had a request to send them off for a short visit, and I could hardly refuse under the circumstances. Besides, they wanted to go. Therefore they dwell not in my midst, for I sent them off on the early coach, and shall not see their faces again until Saturday. Mourn not overly, neither weep, fret, nor bewail. Leave that to me. I shall miss them like the dickens.

Oh dear. Posy, I do hope that I packed a clean handkerchief for you!

New Items On Sidebar

I hit a wall right around the time that I realized...

I'm checking something like 15 blogs and xangas a day.

And when I don't have my own computer set up and can't access everything through one favorites list....

So, you are now on my sidebar. Probably. You might not be. Sarah isn't, because she set up her template in a manner that doesn't allow me to access her blog unless I know the specific address, which I don't have any more. This is me hinting, Sarah. ;-)

I didn't put up everybody--just the people who seem to post frequently enough that I need to check them often. Let that be an encouragement for those of you who haven't posted in a month--post, and you could win a place on my sidebar! Aren't you excited about that?

Or not.

In case you're wondering, I'm writing this way because of a Maryland slang overload. Haven't had a chance to get reading material yet, and honestly wouldn't have time to read it if I had. Still trying to finish The Book of Kells II, ::sigh::. My Lit major friends will be happy to hear that I have devoted an entire section to them, mostly because it was the only thing to do with all their quotes. I have entitled it "Eccentricities."

People are complaining to me that my blog is hard to keep up with, so I didn't post yesterday, and I'll try to cut down. For future reference, you don't have to read everything I post. In fact, don't! You'll find out more about me than my enigmatic temperament would prefer.... that is, if you're reading carefully. However, I'm sorry for all the long ramblings, and promise that I will try to be more academic, less pilgrim-like, and increasingly interesting. I'll take opinion polls on Episode III or something. Something.

Incidentally, please pray. Last night was another nightmare night. I dreamed that a friend had been in a horrible car accident, and that I kept trying to get there and couldn't, couldn't, couldn't...except I always did, just as my friend died.

I hate my nightmares. They're so horribly real, and always about someone I love dying.

My Gazebo

"But I'll be all right, I'm just missin' you..."

Wow, songs. My summers are fraught with music, and now my head is too. That's what you get for being way auditory. I begin the day with a playlist of worship songs, then bop around our internet-subscription-500,000-song-media-library: Rhapsody. Ahhhh...Rhapsody. Danya fixed me up with a couple of new albums today. He's crazy about Caedmon's Call's latest.

Anyway, back to the point. That quote is from a song called "Letters From Home," which is a terrific song, but in this instance I am applying it to my gazebo, which I will be visiting tomorrow. I'm going to P'ville for a business meeting tomorrow, and will probably hit PHC for lunch. My gazebo and my lake call to me across these many miles... and the Longaevi are simply delighted.

Indeed, their joy is so unrestrained that I hardly dare enter my room for fear of being mobbed and forced to listen, for the hundredth time, to Chiasmus detail his travel arrangements and my itinerary ("Musa, you must stop at The Place first and let us play all morning until you come back. Musa, how late may we stay? Musa, you don't suppose that they have disturbed my nest under the western eaves, do you? I had arranged the feathers so nicely, and my special stone is there...").

Paradoxus does nothing to quell them, because we are still at odds. I am hoping that the gazebo will soothe him a little. Perhaps then he will condescend to speak to me again--I mean really speak to me, not at me in that polite and detached way he has.

I asked to Simile about it, but she only lifted slender hands in a gesture of helplessness, and her eyes went silvery-blank. "It is the way in our country, Musa. Paradoxus follows the law."
"But things are different here!" I said, impatiently. "Here it is no crime for a ferret to play with a Longaevi. Why must he be so inflexible?"
Simile is strange, for she feels what I feel and yet adores her brother past all reckoning. I wonder that the conflicting emotions don't tear her apart. I could see them struggling together in her face, but, at last, she stuck by the latter and older of them. "Paradoxus is right, Musa. I am sorry."

And that was that. And now I must decide whether or not to yield to Paradoxus. A human yield to a Longaevi? Well, we shall see. I will employ every tool at my disposal first. He is, after all, a Rhetoricus of the family of Orator. Perhaps the combined effect of ethical, pathetic, and logical appeals will make an impression on him. At any rate, I mean to do my best. Why should Posy be deprived of her enjoyment just because, in some other country far away, there is a law that sets ferrets above the indignity of being ridden?

At any rate, I shall see my gazebo tomorrow.

The Daily Quote

This edition brought to you by Happy Soaps, the only soap that makes you smile!

Yyyyeah. Or something like that.

Joining us on this show will be Mom and Dave (Davy, Danya), my little brother, who is graphically redesigning the curriculum for us this summer. Also Casey, who is no relation, but is Mom's executive assistant. Also Garret, who is Courtney's brother and Davy's friend and Nate's trusted henchmen for all things involving the copier, and was a classmate of mine back in high school. We believe in nepotism around here.

“I need to acquire a brain.” – Christy
“When you manage that, let me know where you found it. I’d like to get one too.” - Laura

“You know I would do it, Garret. You know I would.” - Casey
“Oh, I know you would shoot me, Casey. Would you shoot me in the face with a dart gun, Christy?” - Garret
“Hmmm…” – Christy
“You plead the fifth? Good.” – Garret
“I don’t know you well enough to shoot you. I like you well enough to shoot you, but I don’t know you well enough to shoot you. There’s a difference.” – Christy
“Right.” – Garret
“But at least I like you well enough. Nobody shoots people they don’t like.” – Christy
“Um….that last statement may bear examination.” – Laura

“Oops! I just stuck my sucking straw in the soapy water. And of course, once you’ve stuck your sucking straw in soapy water, you can’t suck it any more.” – Christy

“You know, our breaks consist of stopping writing to argue a procedure. We’re that desperate.” – Christy
“Yes!” - Laura

“I still say that it would be much less painful to write thematic quizzes. Then at least there’d be something worth saying!” – Laura
“Aren’t quizzes factual by habit?” - Christy
“No, it’s by unfortunate coincidence! And lack of imagination!” - Laura

“I’m just saying that you may want to know what a study guide is before you try to crossbreed it with a quiz. From what you’ve told me, you’ve never worked with study guides.” – Christy
“I don’t care about the parentage of my beast. It has sprung fully clothed from my mind!” – Laura, smiling.
“Well, if you want to go give birth to Athenas all over the place…” – Christy, smiling back.
::much laughter::

“I have made fire!” – David, flicking on a cigarette lighter.

“That’s exactly where I want to go! Hast hit it, friend Wiggle!” – Mom to David, providing a lovely example of our family’s quotatious speech patterns.

“I was singing beautifully. That was a gift to the world, the way I just sang!” – Davy

“Yeah.” – Davy
“Yeah.” – Christy
“Yeah… I’m a nut.” – Davy
“Yup.” – Christy

On licking the peanut butter knife:
“Well, no one else wanted it!” – Nate
“I must admit that I myself, even I, have done it.” – Mom
“Gasp! Unsanitary!” – Davy
“I kiss all of you! I birthed all of you! It is not unsanitary!” – Mom

“How to sport with the intelligence of high school students: give them Bible quizzes.” – Christy
“Yes!” – Davy

“Hi Squishy.” – Christy, getting a hug from Charity
“Mmm… I’m sleepy.” – Charity
“Hi Sleepy.” – Christy
“Are you sleepy?” – Charity
“No, I slept.” – Christy
“Oh. I’m sleepy.” – Charity

“Aha! I knew I liked Charity.” – Davy, stealing his sister’s mechanical pencil.

Croquet

I knew it was coming. I mean, I can't run as fast and hard and continuously as I have been over the past two weeks without eventually losing it.

So, I lost it. I burst into tears while out with Mom late yesterday afternoon.

She took me home and smoothed me down as only mothers can, and mandated that I would be playing croquet with the family tonight. It was a beautiful evening, one of those rare early-summer evenings wherein coolness and sunshine are married to produce a perfection of temperature.

"But I promised to help Auntie with moving stuff," I objected. "I promised!"

"I'll call Auntie." Mom replied. "You are going to play croquet."

As it turned out, Daddy went over to Auntie's with me and we got the jobs she wanted us to do done in about ten minutes, and invited her to stroll down the street for croquet.

Then the fun began. My whole family has been insanely busy these past few weeks, without even time to hang out with ourselves. Davy and Burgee and I did trio singing into the heads of our mallets ("You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile" and others) between turns, and Mom cleaned up the rest of us (don't ever play my mother; she's way too good) and Grandpa finished up his lawn mowing and Grandma sat on the deck to watch. Mom and Dad flirted with each other outrageously (what else is new?) and Davy was his hilarious self. I've missed that guy so much!

Nate and Mike and Charity weren't there, but it was the biggest quorum I've seen outside of the dinner table and family meetings since I got home. More importantly, we were actually relaxing. People always tell us what a fun family we are, but what's awful is when we don't even have time to enjoy each other. Last night we had time, and man, we cut loose! I don't think I've laughed all week, but I laughed last night, and oh, it was good to laugh again!

I don't want you to think that I've been joyless. Thanks to good and consistent QT's, plus sheer unmerited divine mercy, my head has been above water (and that, my dear, is what they call grace). But it's been hard. It's been dragging.

So thank you, my Lord, for croquet. Thank you for a beautiful summer evening, for a chance to eat popsicles in a lawn chair and talk to Danya about art mediums while Mom and Auntie and Dad and Grandpa duke out a second round on the croquet lawn. Thank you for rest, and a chance to enjoy my dear ones.

There really isn't anyone like you, is there? Thank you for loving me.

Quotes from the Office

Just for fun. :)

Dramatis Personae

Christy (Hopefully you know who I am)
Laura (she and I are working on the same project)
Courtney (Productions worker, who usually sits in the back cubicle)
Charity (my sister, who is our conferences coordinator)
Nate (my brother, who is also the office manager)

“If you cross-breed a frog and a goldfish, you might get a really cool fantasy creature, but it won’t function like either of them!” – Christy, trying to express her point metaphorically while having a business meeting with Laura about quizzes and study guides.

“Oh, you mean, ‘make a chart’?” – Christy, teasing Laura.
“No, I do not mean ‘make a chart!’ I mean ‘tell me in ordinary narrative English, which people speak every day!’ You can’t speak a chart. We went through this the other day; a chart throws a block of information at you.” – Laura, who isn’t overfond of charts.

“There. Now I feel…calmer.” Christy, setting up The School of Athens as her desktop background.
“Ah, yes. It’s much better than that pink monstrosity.” – Laura, referring to Christy’s former desktop background, which was a pink lily floating in black water.
“Hey!” - Christy
“Um… that ‘pink flamboyance’?” - Laura

“It’s funny. Most of the death dates are certain, but a lot of the birth dates aren’t. When they were born, nobody knew that they were going to be important.” – Laura, doing people glossaries
“There’s a lesson for life in there somewhere.” ::pause:: “I don’t want to know where.” - Christy

“I love my truck! All you other people with your little binky cars… I feel for you.” – Nate

“I have the weirdest work environment on earth.” – Christy, watching Nate shoot the dart gun revolver at the front window. This is his favorite stress-reliever.
“Oh, the sadness.” – Nate, over his shoulder
“What sadness?” - Christy
“One of the darts isn’t sticking very well.” – Nate, plucking at a rubber dart on the window.

“Okay, I’m just gonna move the folder. This is what being a history major is all about!” – Nate, the Hillsdale graduate

“I think I’ll turn on some nice loud country music.” – Christy, grinning at Courtney
“How ‘bout we not.” – Courtney, grinning back
“What’s going on?” – Charity
“Nothing. Christy is just torturing the production workers.” – Laura

“Huh?” - Christy
“I’ve been depressed recently because my shoes were dirty on the toes. So I just cleaned them. That’s why I said, ‘Yes! Clean shoes!’” – Charity
“Oh.” – Christy

“Um, Christy, I think you’re being threatened.” – Laura to Christy, noticing that Nate is standing behind the latter with his dart gun about three inches from her head.
“I’m a Somerville. I won’t cower in front of a dart gun!” – Christy, straightening up.
::Nate fires a dart, which blows past Christy’s ear. Christy flinches::
“No, you’ll just flinch.” – Nate
“Flinching is okay.” – Christy

“How cool is that! My senior pastor’s wife from Virginia just called up to order Tapestry!” – Christy, putting down the phone.

“Do you care what kind of music?” – Christy to Courtney, fulfilling her duties as DJ
“Um… something upbeat. But if I hear harmonicas and banjoes, I’m coming out there.” – Courtney

“I can’t believe that I voluntarily turned on Superchicks.” – Christy
“Why, are you a Supersnob?” – Nate

“Yes! My favorite joke song!” – Christy, playing “My Heart Will Go On,” as sung by the Vienna Boys Choir. There’s just something hilarious about a boy tenor belting out the theme love song from Titanic…

Posy's Pony (to be continued)

Burgee darling, this one is for you. I'm so glad that you're feeling all better. :)

When I brought the Longaevi home, I was a little concerned about how they would get on with Emma (not actual pictures, but the one hanging from the teddy bear looks just like her). I shouldn't have worried, at least about most of them. The older ones were friendly to her, and Paradoxus was downright courtly, because he is old enough to know that ferrets are to Longaevi rather as unicorns are to Narnian kings.

Posy didn't know this.

"Meus equus!" She cried at once, and ran to bury her tiny hands in Emma's fur and stroke her ears, which Posy can just reach. I was sure that Emma, at first nonplussed, would decide to attack this strange pink-winged creature who was making such a noise over her.

Perhaps it is because Posy is enchanting. Perhaps Emma decided that Posy is her cub, since Posy is really just a tumble of brown eyes and soft brown fur (or, in her case, hair). Maybe Emma has a good deal more sense and graciousness than I ever gave her credit for. Whatever the reason, I wasn't halfway across the room to rescue my littlest charge when, to my astonishment, I saw her actually scramble up on Emma's curved back and cry, "Veni, Equus!" And Emma, without turning a hair, began to waddle off with the bouncing Longaevi.

It was such a lovely, funny sight that I stopped to enjoy it. Of course, Posy ought to have said "go" rather than "come," but when little ones are excited they seldom think of these things. Posy's dark curls tumbled down her back between those rose-colored wings, and blended with Emma's sleek fur. Emma seemed to be enjoying her new playmate. I could make Posy a bridle out of a pink ribbon...

Paradoxus' head came out of his book--his green eyes sparked angrily. What on earth...?

"Noli audere, Onomatopoeia!"

Paradoxus never speaks harshly to Posy. I was shocked. "Paradoxus!"
"She ought not to ride the Ferret, Musa. It is not permitted."
"Why not?"
"Non suabilis est."
"But why isn't it suitable? They are both pleased; look at them!"

He gave the two a hard stare. "Ferrets are noble creatures among the Longaevi, and should be treated with respect. Posy is breaking the law, and The Emma is only allowing it out of kindness. She ought not. Perhaps she is too young, or has been away from Fairyland too long to remember her due."

Sometimes I could shake Paradoxus and be glad of it.

"Oh, carus, why must you say so? When have you ever seen a prettier picture? Leave them alone, do."
He turned his set expression on me, and gave me a cold bow. "As you wish, Musa."

So I won, but I didn't want to win, and I knew that I had failed to understand. I went to find Simile. Perhaps she could explain this strange Longaevi custom to me, and then I would be able to make my peace with Paradoxus. For I cannot be at odds with him; he is leader and eldest and king of his little band, and I need him to help me keep order. Besides, I do not want him to be angry with me. I don't like it at all; it makes me feel odd and cold.

Longaevi aren't just cuddly versions of the Lost Boys, you know. We don't make up fairies who conform to our whims. They aren't people, and they can't love, but neither are they playthings, and they can still be hurt. Their laws can still be violated.

"Oh, Paradoxus..." I sighed. "What am I to do?"

Oh, Well Done!

Splendid, Lisa! Bellissima! You surprise me every day with the depth and scope of your writing gifts. I'm so glad that you use them to glorify God, who is the worthiest subject of such lovely work.

Phones, Kings, and Chris Rice

By the standards of my life at home, it was not particularly unusual to be roused from my QT (before I was dressed or in my right mind) and asked to rush off to Starbucks because Danya hadn't known that he was going on an ECHO retreat and needed his overnight stuff ASAP.

Nor was it particularly unusual to arrive at the office and be handed a phone, and told that, among my other duties, I would be playing receptionist all day. This entails answering a wide variety of questions which are mostly out of my league. Many people wanted to place orders over the phone too, because apparently the web server for online orders is down. So I had to learn or relearn the filling out of order forms, and took people's names and numbers for Nate to call with the rest of it. "I'm sorry, I'm just the receptionist," I joked with moms all over the country. "But I'll have our accountant (or our conference person, or whoever had the expertise to answer the question) get back to you!"

It was so awful that it was funny, and after a call or two I finally just decided to enjoy the experience of being out of control. The main thing in these instances is to be professional, take good notes, apologize profusely that the person they want isn't there, and make sure that they are called back when the right person arrives. I can do that much, but I still felt horribly incompetent. Fortunately, as Charity (the "conference person") observed when she came in around 2 PM, "These people are sweet." It's true, too. Our customers are amazingly gracious. Still, I was grateful to hand the phone over. I enjoy talking to moms about Tapestry itself, but I'm jiggered if I know what the shipping rates to Alaska are, or how to work the codes for media packets, or what the procedure is for voiding an order.

That concludes the "phones" part of this post, and gives you a thumbnail sketch of my day. What I want to talk about now is--in my opinion--more interesting. It is a train of thought begun by Danya, as I was handing him his bag of things in the Starbucks parking lot. He kissed me goodbye and said, "I love you, baby girl!"

Baby girl?

Let's get this straight. I'm almost two years older than he is, and was at least being a big sister (more like a mother) by bringing him his overnight things. Where do we get this "baby girl" stuff? He usually calls me Krasiva (Russian nickname), or SpaceBabe, or some such. And, oddest of all, why was I pleased by his choice of words?

This is the theoretical part. Warning: I am now going to speculate concerning things that I don't (and probably can't) know anything about for sure.

I think that Davy called me that because he's growing up. I think that, in a sense, men will always be "older" than women. They are the lords of the earth, not we; it is for us to be their helpers and playmates, not the other way round. On them rest the ultimate responsibilities, and on their shoulders is the leadership of each family, each marriage, each church, each (more controversially) government. And, as I have heard from the lips of so many, many women both young and old, including my own heart, we women want to be in that hierarchically subordinate position. It doesn't mean that we aren't equal. It means "complementary roles."

Women, in my experience, want men to lead. We want to be under someone else's protection and guidance. It's built-in. I theorize that this is why it pleased me to be called "baby girl" by Danya. It indicated to me that, though he may technically be my junior, he is become more and more my senior in leadership and responsibility. His cares are weightier; he is growing wise; he is beginning to be what men were created to be: lords of creation. He can, more and more, take care of me. More and more I can trust his leadership, and I don't have to be his big sister in the sense of knowing more and showing the way. He can show me the way. There's something profoundly right about that.

So yes, maybe it sounds condescending, maybe even disrespectful. I don't think it is, though. Davy is grown up (he's 19 now, and will be 20 in the fall) to the point where it is for me to say, "what do you want me to do? Speak--I hear and obey." It doesn't make me a robot or a slave. It simply means that I look to him for guidance rather than assuming the leadership of a given situation. It means that he's growing up into so wise and careful and responsible a person that I can turn to him. This delightes me greatly, both because I rejoice in his new maturity and because, hang it all, I want to be well led! :)

From Danya I moved on in my thoughts to a pet theory which I am currently developing, and which is related to my theory of men. It is this; that pastors are the last kings of the earth.

Think about it. I'll elaborate more on the subject some other time, but compare in your mind the Bible's definition of a pastor and the Bible's definition of a good king. And don't read about Saul; read about David. Maybe it's just me; maybe it is only that my pastors seem so kingly in my eyes, that I think they ought to wear gold circlets and have sceptres. Yet these are only outward insignia of the wisdom in their faces, and the kindness there, and the sense you get that they always have one ear on you and one pricked up to God. They carry so much, and with so much joy. I find it astonishing and humbling, convicting and exhorting, but above all, wonderful. There really are still kings!

Now, finally, Chris Rice. I don't know if you are familiar with his music, but he is a thoughtful poet and a passionate worshiper, whose works I find exquisite in every Latinate sense of the word (exquirire). I listen to a lot of music during the workday because, being so intensely auditory, it is my only way to block the background noise of a busy office which would otherwise drive me crazy. My first thought about Chris Rice this morning was, "what is it with poets and the concept of corners in the sky?" Rice has a line "across the cornerless sky" which echoed similiar phrases that I have read in Milton and Augustine and even modern contemporary poets.

Is there just some sort of a need to define the sky? Is that it? But why do they always use this word "corners"? The world is a globe: they know that: why do they say "corners"? And why always in the sky?

My second thought about Rice was that he has a rare focus on Heaven, one that reminds me of Danya or John Piper. There were two lines (spaced apart) which went something like, "I know there's someone behind the stars who loves me... but I'm still missin' you." He has a song called "Questions for Heaven" and several which I love especially: Life Means So Much, My Cathedral, and Untitled Hymn. There's a wistfulness and a longing about his work that appeal to me, probably because I find them so often in my own heart. I have personal favorite daydreams about Heaven, and I catch myself getting homesick for my real home, and most of all--oh, most of all!--for the face of Christ. Perhaps that is what makes me such a solitary creature. I have always felt like an exile on earth.

Enough musing. I can feel myself growing distinctly wistful, and that won't do for a busy day. Don't you know, O my soul, that evening and early morning are the times for longing after the Sun?"

My Baby Is Sick

I came home from work early today. Mom picked me up.

"How are you, Mama?"
"Exhausted, Honey. Daddy and I have been moving furniture all day. Can you come home and look after Marjorie a little for me?"
"What's wrong with her? Is she bored?"
"No. She has a temperature of 102."

Neither the request nor the information really surprised me. Marjorie gets sick easily, and I have been her nurse since I was eight years old. I wanted to be a nurse when I was little, and I read biographies of Florence Nightengale, and because Burgee got sick so often I became her Florence. The moment she becomes ill, everything else goes out the window for me.

You see, when she was a baby, it was I who sang her to sleep every afternoon for her nap. Mama likes to tell the story about the time that I had gone to a friend's house, and one-year-old Marjorie opened her green eyes very wide in consternation at nap time, asking, "but who will sing me?" "Sing me" was her term for the half-hour that I spent every afternoon trying to get those long, black, curly eyelashes of hers to sweep down closed over baby cheeks.

When she was two and I was ten, the bed situation in a busy household of eight was such that we wound up sharing a twin mattress in "the girls' bedroom." Burgee was a cuddly toddler, never happy unless she could snuggle up, even in her sleep. I remember hours between midnight and six in the morning when I would try to lift a large infant off of my stomach without waking her... a process which took eternities.

As we both grew older, it was I who helped Burgee choose her clothes in the morning. She had a terrible time picking outfits, and at last I devised a method by which I spun round very fast with two different sets of clothes in my outstretched hands, and she closed her eyes, and then I stopped and she pointed and we dressed her in whatever outfit was most directly in line with her chubby little finger. It is the same principle as tossing a coin, only more dizzying.

I began to babysit for other families when I was twelve, and made almost an occupation out of it until the age of sixteen, but Burgee was always my baby. Reading aloud to her, fetching juice or soda, holding the throw-up bowl, playing nanny, making her take baths, dispensing medicine, and putting my cool hands against her hot cheeks: all these are as ingrained in me as eating and sleeping. God has blessed me with a body that is almost never ill, not even with a cold, and so I am able to nurse Burgee without having to be careful about getting sick myself.

Thus, when I got home, I ran upstairs to her pink-carpeted bedroom with its blue walls and ring of painted clouds around the ceiling. I put my hands against her cheeks. Her face was burning.

"How are you, Darling?"
She sighed. "Mmm... that feels nice."
"Finish your orange juice, and I'll get you some grape. Mama wants you to have fluids."
"Will you read Crime and Punishment to me?"

It was indeed a change to be reading of nasty Svidrigailov out of a Russian novel, rather than the fairy tales with which I soothed her when she was little. Marjorie enjoyed my representation of the drunken Swiss, though, and that was what mattered. She was too listless for conversation, and after awhile I thought that it would be best to let her sleep. I opened a window in the stuffy room, to let in sweet rain-washed air.

"Sleep, Darling."
"Mmmm..." Came the drowsy reply.

I closed the door and went away to help Mama, but not before two emotions flashed across my heart. First I thought, "My baby is sick." There was sadness in that, but the second was, "And I'm here."

I'm so very glad that I am here, right where I should be, to take care of my baby.

Best Quote of the Day

Don't think for a second that funny quotations are grown only at PHC. My family and work environment furnish me with constant chuckles. This was far and away the best of today's gleanings...

"My computer won't give me Artaxerxes! I'm miffed." - Laura, coworker and friend since we were both in Tapestry Y2 together back in high school.

Laura will be a Sophomore at Hillsdale this fall--small world, ain't it?--and is my polar opposite. I'm blonde; she's brunette. I have blue eyes; hers are dark hazel. I'm auditory all the way, but Laura is overwhelmingly visual. Laura is detail-oriented and can memorize anything and retain it forever. She thinks in matrixes. I prefer to think in connections, or relations, and if I remember a detail it's only because I thought it was cool when I first learned it (for example, the fact that Lewis stole his Dufflepuds from Augustine's City of God).

We share a common love for history, literature, and writing. We also experienced 3 years in the high school Tapestry trenches together, which is (I know you won't believe me, but it's true) more work and harder than PHC. Her Classical Comparison paper--Senior year Tapestry project--was 70 pages long, which should give you an idea of what she can do with the written word. Laura, if I had a cap, it would be off to you. Thanks for being a loyal and loving friend for the past seven years. I'm so glad to be working together again! Long live the Victoria Project. ;-)

Oh, minor note. Do any of my PHC friends who may be reading know how to send an ASE while at home? My remote address book doesn't have the option, and I am reduced to making Book of Kells II announcements on the student website, which you should probably read if you're curious about that project.

Mothers Are Just Plain Cute

We had another busy day at the office. You will be amused, no doubt, to hear that my summer job for the foreseeable future consists of writing study guides. I do not tease. There is no twinkle in my eye. That's really what I'm doing, and there is a lengthy explanation behind it which makes plenty of sense from the perspective of a curriculum developer, and I argued strongly for the study guide model, and that's all fine and good. But in the back of my mind somewhere there's a college student screaming "NOOOOO! I just finished writing study guides!!!"

This voice will be quashed, and I will enjoy my study guide writing.

I got home early (3 pm) because of a computer hitch and because I had office work to do that was just reading (interesting stuff, by the way. It's all about different people-personalities and how students learn and how teachers teach), and made myself mint cocoa and sat in the quiet beauty of my home... and then Mother appeared.

Awwwwwww!

You must understand that she was in one of her most adorable states. She had been napping because she was up all night last night thinking (this happens to Mama sometimes when she has a lot of work to do) and her hair was fluffy on top and she sat down with me at the kitchen table and Burgee swathed her in the blue tapestry blanket and she talked baby talk to us.

SO CUTE!

I can't really reproduce the conversation--it was all Mama being sort of wide-eyed and little-girl-ish, the way she often is when sleepy and happy. She was telling us that Nathan was the sort of baby who melted into people when they held him, and informed Burgee that her hugs are the same way, and we were talking about how Daddy is apparently allergic to his car.

Oh, this is frustrating! There's nothing more frustrating for a writer than having a scene clear in the mind's eye, and being utterly unable to express it vividly! I can tell you that Mama was little-girl-ish, but that doesn't really describe it. You see, she's small, and has tiny slender hands and feet, and green-brown-gold eyes that just glow, and can look as innocent as an infant born yesterday, even though you know she's chuckling at you on the inside. She can deliver a witty zinger at forty paces that'll knock your ears off, but has this most amazing trick of being bubbly and happy and laughing and teasing just when you yourself are most miserable, so that you can't help coming out of your funk no matter how hard you try.

This afternoon she was just sort of soft and cuddly and chucklesome, which is normal for her, but when she's sleepy it becomes exaggerated until she's like the Velveteen Rabbit and a chickadee and a fairy godmother and a court jester all at once.

She's one of these people who surprises you every time you turn around. Capable as anybody, with more business sense than any other woman I've ever met, and a rare gift for teaching to boot, she still will sit there and literally talk babytalk. She's enchanting when she reads Winnie the Pooh to us, and loves children's poems and listening to Daddy read aloud. She's marvelous witty, with one of those splendid senses of humor that is always crackling and sparking, but never burns or scorches.

Perhaps I could attribute some of this to her upbringing. She was a ski instructor and a radio DJ and a Drama major and then a History major and an excellent equestrian and a ping-pong champion and a stage manager and a muckety-muck in Usborne Books.... in fact, she was most of those things before she married Daddy--and she was my age when she married Daddy!

But even this rich and varied background doesn't account for Mom. I guess I'd better leave it at "God made her this way, and I'm very, very glad he did."

Take note, all. I have a cute mother. ::happy sigh::

In Defense of Sayers

Dorothy Sayers didn't just write the classic essay on classical education. She didn't just write that marvelous quote that my roommate put up beside my bureau, the one about how women should be allowed to wear pants. She also wrote mystery novels.

I know, I know... you're going to say that mystery novels are fluff. After that, you will probably make tsking noises in my general direction, wiggle your eyebrows, and indicate that you really thought better of me. You're going to ask why I waste my time on such things instead of doing nice wholesome reading--for example, German philosophers or English poets. Your argumentative speech will wind up to a fever pitch of drama and pathetic appeal, and right about the moment that you are getting into the rhetorical questions, such as "Did God make man with reason so that man might abuse it? Is this what a classically-educated young mind comes to after only a week out of school? Shall the halls of academia be thus polluted!?!"

It is at this point that we will begin to have a quibble.

Sayers novels are a tradition in my family. Or rather I should say, good literature is a tradition in my family, and Sayers is good literature. The number, quality, and kind of classical quotes or allusions with which she manages to stuff her dialogue are simply astonishing. During Finals, the High Queen sent me a youthful effort of Keats (perfectly foul, by the way) of which the last two lines read,

My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.

Now these very same (admittedly horrendous) lines of verse struck my open ear and hurt it, but with a familiar pain. I had heard them before. "Where?" I inquired of myself, and back came the answer "Sayer's Gaudy Night." "Ah." I said to myself. "Of course." In that remarkable book, which is, among other things, a profound analysis of women in academia, Sayers' hero Lord Peter quotes the same lines, and the heroine, Harriet, asks where on earth he got them, for they are (and will be eternally) awful. I know about the juvenalia of a famous Romantic poet--which is just the sort of obscure detail that teachers delight to find in their students' brains--because of this selfsame "fluff mystery novel." I know an hundred other allusions because of Sayers. I have been educated by this "trash" above and beyond the ordinary scope of undergrads. Sayers, to misuse Lucretius' line in praise of Venus, is an alma mater, a nourishing mother.

Ye heavens above and snails below!--who are you, O turned-up and pinched nose, to scorn such magnificence as a Sayers book? What, will you even sneer on Strong Poison and Busman's Honeymoon? Know you not that it was Sayers alone who put into her novel--splendid woman!--a marriage proposal in Latin? Do you not understand that Sayers is capable of making quotation-laden and banterful dialogue, a thing which I have never seen so well executed by anybody else? Give me another author who so loved the English language, who had such joy of it, and bid that author, "Desist from writing novels." See if they will!

Examine your conscience, and so I leave you... Have His Carcase is calling me.

PS: This tirade brought to you by (or brought on by, at any rate) all the wonderful, usually wise, and well-meaning persons who have scorned Sayers in my presence over the last few months.

Minutia of a Happy Girl

I have removed the pins from an elaborate hairdo that I did for church this morning, and my hair is now, even damp and curly, growing past my shoulders. By the time I get back to PHC, I expect it will be half-way down my back. This makes me happy.

I heard a really deep sermon this morning, the sort that will take me all summer to apply, and I can't wait to start. This makes me happy.

I worshipped beside Danya in church this morning, adoring God in the same row with my grandparents, parents, a cousin, and my five siblings. All around me there were people who love their Savior. This makes me happy.

I am experiencing all kinds of conviction. It seems that one never knows how selfish, self-centered, proud, arrogant, impatient, control-loving, and ungracious one is until one has come home for the summer. I am grieved, but hopeful, and eager to grow. This great salvation which promises me that I shall someday be like Him makes me happy.

I have a sweet, wise, and godly mother, whose life is a constant example of selfless service and loving grace. I have two blonde, green-eyed, gorgeous and darling little sisters. I have dear girlfriends here at home who challenge and provoke me, who pray for me and show me my sin. I have my princely brothers and kingly father and the very emperor of grandfathers (really, who needs guy friends when at home?). All this makes me happy.

Auntie has promised me about 30 more leatherbound books from her Florida collection, and, since she is moving, she has given me several beautiful pieces of furniture and some splendid books, among them Spurgeon's sermon notes, and a set of four colored goblets. I have always been a fool for glassware, ever since I found a crystal goblet in an old attic as a seven-year-old... but that's another story. My medieval sensibilities have been sent into a joyous overload by this same generous and wonderful aunt, and it is so very much the grace of God, for among all this she is giving me things which I would otherwise have had to buy for the dorm room in the fall. This makes me happy, insofar as "stuff" or "mere material matter" can make anybody truly happy. Her love certainly makes me happy.

In short, I am blessed beyond... beyond... well, I'll misquote Dante. I am blessed beyond "what sense and memory have the vocabulary to express." All the stuff and relationships and deep conversations in the world would not make me happy, had I not the Lord. Having the Lord, all the rest is only gladness upon gladness known before. My restless heart is truly at rest in him, and if you were to strip away all else, even to fulfilling my nightmares and causing the death of each family member or friend, my best beloved would still be more than enough for me. Enough is too small a word to speak the vastness of God. Does it not strike you as strange and loveliest of lovely that the very one from whom we needed to be saved is the one who has saved us? I'm saved. My home is Aslan's country. I've come out of the cave, and I stand dazzled in sunlight.

Enough? Oh, Domine, it were to demean the riches of your love to call them "enough" for my wandering heart. Thou prone to wander and leave the God I love, that love which I so easily lay aside to chase some new toy is infinite in scope and tenderness. Make me evermore sensitive to this truth, my Lord, and make me joyful, as I am now happy in your grace. I want to believe; help my unbelief. I want to love; help my selfish self. Suffuse me in your radiance, and I want nothing more.

True Confessions

Every morning I wake up in my room, which is a place rather like an eternal forest twilight. The dark furniture springs like trees from a soft green carpet, and the walls are that peculiar hazy shade of blue-lavender which is so thoughtful and soothing. It is also a relatively sunny room, and so there is always a sunset light filtering in through the windows. Since we built this house, I got to design my room, and painted and decorated it myself, and therefore perhaps you will excuse my pride in it.

Every morning, as I was saying, I wake up in my forest twilight.... and there is always a Longaevi staring at me. I know that they keep a guard over me, for I once caught Paradoxus giving the others their orders on the subject. However, I still haven't gotten used to finding Chiasmus or Litotes (most often Simile or Paradoxus) sitting on my bedpost staring at me whenever my eyes open. Every morning they ask the same question.

"Musa, I am homesick for my gazebo. Aren't you?"

And I always reply with a stout, brisk, and cheery "No, cara stulta, of course not. Why, we'll be back there in three months! Let's see what there is to do today, shall we? Hand me my Bible, there's a dear, and we'll ask the Domine for our daily bread and marching orders."

"Musa, you don't miss the lake?"

"Certainly not," I reply, a little too brightly. "There are lakes in Maryland."

"But Musa, you know every mood of the water there, and love them all. Musa, don't you remember the late afternoon sun warm on your face as you are reading in the gazebo, and the lovely little aurae that come to play with your feet and hair and the pages of your books?"

"Satis, Simile. Enough. There's no point in dwelling on all that."

"You don't ever think of sitting on the front steps, tossing bright words back and forth with friends while the sun goes down and the bricks slowly cool under your bare feet, and the lamps come alive one by one? You don't miss the old friendly competition around the air hockey table, and the lively banter, and the heavier talks about things that matter?"

"Don't you like it here?" I counter, pricked. "Don't you like the indoor garden in the sunroom, and the little fountain with its goldfish, and the Prussian Blue room, and the soft lovely grass and weeding the garden with me in the early mornings, and our long walks in the woods?"

"It's not the gazebo. It's not our lake." Paradoxus always replies, with a wistful look.

Confession: I'm desperately homesick for PHC. I used to agonize over such feelings, worrying endlessly that they were disloyalty to my family and my home church, but I think I have learned differently by this, my third summer caught between two worlds.

It doesn't mean that I don't love my family. It doesn't mean that I don't love my home church. It just means that I love both worlds (home and PHC), and that, though happy and busy in either place, part of me will always be homesick for the other, for my family when I am there, or for my dear friends while I am here. That's okay. It's a wonky time of life, and I should get comfortable with constant change. It does a number on my emotions, but I do have a constant, a North Star. I have my Lord, who never goes anywhere. Oh, I'm SO GLAD that God will never graduate and move away, will never be 75 minutes from campus, and will never, ever, ever drift out of the close companionship which I so love and prize with friends and family!

So yes, I'm homesick. Horribly. But as I keep reminding the Longaevi, it's only for three months.

And now, the saga continues. We had our bridal shower for the family friend, which went all afternoon, and now Mom has decided to repaint the Living Room this evening (mind you, this is the woman who has drived 20 hours in the last two days, and is just back from New England, and just threw a lavish bridal shower for 40 people). We will bring down the bookshelves from the Parents' Bedroom and turn the Living Room into a Library after painting, with the silver-plated tea set that Nana gave her, and the tall, dark--and handsome--grandfather clock from Auntie's, and books, books, books! I am deleriously happy! I am also astonished at the stamina, ingenuity, and sheer go-gettum-ness of my mother. Mirabile visu! When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

Jim the Snail

I had forgotten all about this story. Nate, thanks for the reminder! Okay folks, I offer this for your amusement. Nate Matias, a citizen of PA and a good buddy, IMed me on a frosty night in very late January, and we wound up "alternately writing paragraphs of a fake children's story" because he had been all day studying parliamentary procedures (icky) and I was in one of my blue funk moods... and so of course we had to be creative, because there wasn't a chance of being rational.

I cannot remember, for the life of me, who wrote which sentences. Therefore I give it to you entire, with our comments in brackets just to prove that we really wrote it in a live session.

Once upon a time, there was a snail named Jim. Jim was afraid of crickets. He didn't like dew.
And he positively dreaded frost.

(there. Your turn)

Now, Jim lived in a beautiful forest, full of silvery aspens, thick, leafy underbrush, and lots of other friendly woodland insects. At night, when the other snails would crawl to
bed underneath a stone, Jim would sneak out and watch the stars twinkle through the leaves.
He would listen to the owls sing and play, and he would also hear the squeals of the mice the birds of prey ate for their nighttime snack.

(your turn)

This always frightened Jim, for he was smaller than a mouse, and he did not know whether or not owls liked to eat snails. Nevertheless, when he saw the stars shining or heard the stream murmer far off, he would long to be off exploring. But ever so slowly, his eyes would get heavy, and before he could think too much about travel, he would crawl under the cover of a
fallen leaf, and fall asleep. Every morning, Jim slithered to the forest mushroom patch, his bright spiral shell bobbing merrily on his back. For Jim, the patch was like a forest itself.
The mushrooms towered high above him, puffing spores into the gentle breeze, spreading out their umbrella heads like the patio of an Italian restaurant. Which fit the mood nicely, since he was on his way for breakfast.

(your turn)
(what do snails eat?)
(young plant shoots, bark, and decaying stuff. The same thing
mushrooms eat)
(They have a tongue-like thing called a radula to chew)
(it's made out of chitin. They also eat diatoms and bacteria off rocks)

Jim enjoyed the early morning hours of quiet browsing among tender greens and microscopic bacteriae. If the morning was frosty, his radula often became unbearably cold, but in the summer it was quite pleasant, and only the sensation of wet dew disturbed his munching. For such a very slimy creature, Jim was inordinately displeased by dampness.

(done)

But Jim wasn't the only one out for breakfast on days like this. Beetles were on the prowl. Snakes, and even occasional turtles came to the mushroom patch to eat -- not mushrooms, but snails! But even these weren't the only animals looking for a meal. Mostly, Jim liked the birds. And the birds liked Jim. When snakes and other small animals came prowling for a tasty snack of snail, Whaaam!, a bird would swoop out of the sky and snatch it up. And so it was, that in this particular day in June, when the sun was smiling, Jim found himself talking with a falcon who was resting on his rock.

(your turn)

"My, what a curvy beak you have." Jim began, politely. This is the only proper way to begin a conversation with a falcon.

(lol)

He continued with the formulaic addresses. "O you guardian of the skies, keeper of the lives of snails, benefactor and patron without peer... I trust that you are in health?"

(done)

The falcon raised his chest a little more and tucked his coattails out. Falcons like to look dignified, you see. "Why, erm, ahh, yes, my good fellow," replied the falcon, mumbling a
bit. "What a capital day, arrumph, I say. Capital. In fact, it quite reminds me of, what was it? Ahh yes, '49. Now that was a year of good omen, if I do say so myself. Right good, I say." Jim coughed politely.
"Ahh yes, quite so, quite so, my gastropodic friend."
Jim coughed again, a little more loudly.
"What I meant to tell you, James. It is James, is it not? Yes, well, James, what I thought you might want to know is...."

(your turn)

Jim ventured to interrupt the falcon, though his voice was high and squeaky with nervousness, not at all important, as he wanted it to sound. "It's 'Jim', Sir... just Jim, O destroyer of snakes and predators..."

(done)

"Jim, James, Hieronymous, what does it matter, man? These snails, always coming up with some new confounded way of addressing themselves. But Jim thou call'st thyself, and Jim thou
shalt be," said the Falcon, and began his story. Now Jim, who never really payed much attention in school, who would rather stare out of the opening than slither his sums, quickly lost
track of the falcon's story. Which was fine, because the falcon lost track too. And when the falcon finally finished with a, "And that was how they won the cup in the summer of '74." and flew away, the only thing Jim remembered was a vision of a dry, dew-free bed of stones and bright shells by the creek on "the other side of the mushroom patch," which the Falcon had been talking about somewhere in the muddle of the summer of '74.

(your turn)

Jim was dazzled by this vision; it positively took his breath away. He lay there gasping on the grass for several minutes.

(lol)
(asthmatic?)

So great was his delight and astonishment that he did not notice the diamond-bright drop of dew trembling on the edge of a leaf just above his head... But when it fell--smack!--onto his forehead, the unpleasant shock brought him back down to earth. "I hate this!" He cried, passionately. "I hate living in a place where dew falls on your head and owls prowl around at night, and where you can't see the stars properly!" Jim huddled himself up and sniffled. "I wish I could get to the
stream," he said, having no idea of how very wet a thing is a stream... he thought only of the lovely streambanks with lichen growing all over them, and of the break in the trees through which he would be able, surely, to see the stars...

To be continued, as soon as Nate finished with his graduation and I get a handle on my summer schedule.

Mea Vita Est Insana

"Insane" is actually a good descriptive adjective for my life, though, as Jonathan likes to remind me, "crazy" is normal at PHC. Let's just do a quick review of the bidding since I left school last Wednesday night....

Wednesday Night: Arrive home in a state of mental, emotional, and physical (yes, all that packing and cleaning does take it out of you) exhaustion. I curled up on the deck with a bottle of sparkling grape juice (don't worry, it's not alcoholic) and a good book, since everybody had more or less gone their separate ways for the evening.

Thursday: Rise early, unpack just enough to repack for New England. I don't have a bedroom yet.

Thursday at Midnight: After a 12-hour trip, arrive in New Hampshire.

Friday: Conferencing.

Saturday: Conferencing.

Sunday: Rise early, get on the road (church service in transit) and go to my Uncle Steve's house for lunch. Leave there and arrive at Grandpa's by midafternoon. Go to beach. Unpack. Unwind.

Monday-Tuesday: More unwinding, with a lavish dinner at Olive Garden on Tuesday night. Grandma is a WONDERFUL cook, but we decided to give her a break and all went to Olive Garden to eat exquisite Italian food and tie cherry stems with our teeth (long story that has to do with kissing, and parents, and all that stuff. Don't ask).

Wednesday: Rise early to visit graveyard of my ancestors on Grandpa's side, wherein I have quite a slew of brave sea captains from the early 1800's. It was a moving experience.... more on that some other time, perhaps. Sufficive to say here that I love graveyards. They are some of the deepest places left to us on earth. We left Grandpa and went to Nana's house. There we spent the afternoon in repose, but had to dress to the nines for dinner at her golf club, where they had a live piano player (who was nineteen--which surprised Nana--and marvelously good). Food lovely, of course....REAL clam chowder and a swordfish steak to die for and so on. After that we returned to her house and saw Finding Neverland, which was interesting, but more on that later.

Thursday: Rise at crack of dawn and drive 10 hours back to Maryland. I spent the evening after we got home unpacking into my room, which I now have back.

This Morning: I got up at 7:30 and delighted muchly in the joys of having my computer right next to my bed, where I can use my Bible software to do word searches. I was in the midst of this when Mom poked her head in to tell me that the work day would begin at 9 AM over at the warehouse. "Right ho," I said. I got the warehouse in good time, but we hadn't been having our planning meeting more than an hour when a call came through that one of the Tapestry booth kits had not been safely delivered to New Jersey, and that our vendors were stranded at a conference of over 4,000 people without a booth. Yikes!

Mom looked at Laura and I. "Well girls, it's seven hours round trip. Want to have our planning meeting on the way to New Jersey?"

So, we did. It turned out to be ten hours, with traffic, and remember gentle reader that I had only just yesterday driven over this road for ten hours on my way back from New England. We took a laptop and the booth kit and various books, and had literally a ten-hour business meeting, except for the half-hour we spent at the conference setting up the Tapestry booth for our poor vendors. We left them with profuse apologies, and trot-trotted back to Boston, arriving home at 9:30 PM, which means that I have been out of the house a total of 12 hours today.

Oh, by the way... tomorrow 70 people are descending on our house to hold a bridal shower for a family friend. But that's incidental.

Favorite moment of the last few days: Marjorie, who has gotten fully into the spirit of the Longaevi, leaned over towards me at Nana's posh club (where, I kid you not, all the men were in blazers or suits) and, nodding at the urn-and-grape centerpiece, said, "Posy is trying to eat the grapes!"

I adore my baby sister.

It's past eleven now, and I won't wait for the stroke of midnight to turn into a pumpkin. It IS good to be back in Maryland, even if I'm too tired to write properly, and even though I've really been between here and NJ most of the day.

Maybe tomorrow I can finish reading up on that list of woes. In case you're interested, my dear, there are some fascinating beatitudes and woes given by Jesus in Luke 6. I found them particularly curious on account of the upside-down (to the sinful human nature) perspective that they offer on life.

It's a crazy, crazy existence... and I love it. Te gratias ago, Domine!

Loose Ends and Freshmen

Hi, this is me. I interrupt my usual stream of semi-into-the-blue posts for a few specific comments to friends. It's easier than doing a mess of emails, though I shall probably wind up with some of those too. 0:)

1. Carolyn, aka Domina, aka Pinon Coffee, thank you for the comment. I enjoy your blog almost as much as I enjoy you, and I can't wait to get a nice long newsy email (hint hint) from New Mexico. Get lots of sleep, dear, and give Tex a pet for me. Hopefully I will be sending you The Book of Kells II to look over before ASEing it, as is our tradition. What would I do without you as chief quote-collector and fellow editor and sharer of late-night giggles? Better yet... I'll email it to you and we can laugh over it together on the phone. Pax ad te, cara Domina!

2. Stars, I blame you for the extraordinary difficulty I've had with Rhetoric tropes and schemes over the past week. I can't get them out of my head, and they're even cropping up in my writing! I'm so glad we were able to take that ramble through P'ville, and look forward to many more such next semester. Write to me, lest your lustrous literary skills become sadly degenerate over the summer. Oy vey... lustrous literary skills? I have obviously misplaced any that I ever could lay claim to. Pardon me while I go drown myself in somebody who can write. Whose style shall I copy? Whose would please you? Mark Twain? Jane Austen? Say hi to your boy for me, and give my love to your wonderful parents and grandparents.

3. O High Queen, it's been a solid week since I last talked to you, and I just can't stand it any longer. Write! Call! Give me an address and I'll post you a handwritten note on the paper I got in Florence, Italy! I'm that desperate! ;)

4. Nate, I promise that we will finish the story about Jim the Snail and his adventures in the garden patch. Unfortunately, it's been so long since we started it that I'm getting it mixed up with other stories. Do you happen to have a complete copy which you could send me so that I can remember where we left off?

5. Spitfire, what goes on? I drove through Delaware today on my way home from New England, thinking of you. How are the siblings, and how is work, and how is life, and what have you read lately, and I miss you!

6. Lisa, my baby sister and I came up with a new word in Latin. It's a smushing-together of "puella" and "amica," and means, in rough Valley Girl Latin, "girlfriend." Puellamica, please write so that I know you're alive and well, or send me the rest of you-know-what! I am still wondering whether your heroine marries the prince or the cripple.

7. Venus, aka Sarah, aka Latin Teacher par excellence, descend from Olympus and grant poor mortals audience, lest the sun grow dark in their eyes! I want to see your latest stories and hear how The Epic is coming.

8. O Roommate of My Last Semester, if you have a chance to read this, I want to hear about Seattle. I don't believe for a minute that it always rains there, and we haven't finished dissectiong Kingdom of Heaven yet, so I jolly well hope that you have email access. ;)

9. If I missed anybody, I apologize. Oh, by the way... you won't believe this, but we already have questions from next semester's incoming freshmen. Check the forum here for the latest and greatest. We have some splendid folks coming in this fall (if advance scouts don't lie), and I love the fact that we can start serving them early, thanks to postmodern technology, aka the internet. :)

Skadi and God

The whole family went beach-combing this morning. Mama is trying to get Grandpa to name his new sailboat "Seaglass," and thought it was an omen that we found so much of it on the beaches. Seaglass, in case you don't know, is what happens when somebody drops a glass bottle out at sea, and it smashes into tiny pieces, which are mulled over by the water until the edges wear soft and the glass itself becomes opaque. It's some of the most beautiful stuff on earth, and today we found not only numerous pieces of green, but even some clear, a brown, and two (very rare) bits of cobalt blue. They were most of them mine--apparently I have an eye for seaglass.

I found a spiral shell about four inches long, washed gray-blue-cream by Atlantic's endless murmer. There were stones of every conceivable color. I chose pure white, mottled red-grey, green-grey, blue-silver, onyx, and others. Mommy thinks that I'm fascinated by periwinkles (small spiral snail shells from which the snails have ceased to be), and she's right. They are mirabile visu!

Burgee and I went barefoot, and the rest of the family was suitably impressed with our daring, because there are many very rocky places with small, sharp stones on a New England beach. However, it had to be. I can't bear to wear shoes on a shoreline; I must always be able to play with Atlantic and her seafoam. Our games of tag are indispensable.

As we rambled over the rocks, I was thinking of Skadi. Do you know her story? In Norse mythology, Skadi was the blonde, ice-eyed goddess of winter and the north. She wore a blue-white fur cloak with a silver clasp, and carried silver spears and arrows, and had white wolves to attend her. For some reason which I forget at the moment, the other gods told Skadi that she had to marry. They picked a rather silly way for her to choose a husband. All the male unmarried gods swathed themselves from head to ankle, and Skadi was set to pick a pair of feet. She chose the best feet (though what constitutes "best feet" I can't imagine. What do you want, especially straight toes? Nicely turned heels? Smooth soles?), which she thought would belong to Balder the Beautiful, handsomest of the gods.

As it turned out, they belonged to Njord, god of summer and the sea. Big mistake. Njord lived in a palace by the water, and Skadi was goddess of winter and hunting, not summer and seabathing! The beautiful, cold goddess was profoundly unhappy. In the end, the couple agreed that she would spend 9 months of every year in the far north, and stay with her husband in his palace for 3 months. That is their legend of how there came to be winter and summer, and it reminds me of the Persephone & Pluto story.

Now, I was thinking of this because, ever since I first read that story--I must have been about 14 at the time--I have felt like a Skadi, or like the daughter of Skadi and Njord. Born in winter, I am solitary and somewhat icy by nature. I love blue, silver, white, and the cold northern forest slopes. But I have been brought away from my beloved Massachusetts by my family, and live now in the south, in Maryland. Truly it is as though I am the daughter of them both, because my mother was born and raised in New England, but Daddy is from the deep south and the summerlands. The result is that I love both winter and the sea and the forested mountains, and always feel an exile in the south, except that Virginia is dear to me because it is Daddy's ancestral home. Maryland I do not love, and hardly even like, but Virginia's blue hills and beautiful rivers soothe me.

I will always be drawn to the north, to the sea. I stood on the beach this morning with my feet in the green-blue surf and listened to Atlantic singing her songs, and felt that this indeed is, if not the form of Beauty, something very high up on Plato's line.

But I miss Virginia already. We went on a brief hike at sunset, in the last days of the semester, and I stood on a small cliff looking down into the Shenandoah Valley, into a hazy blue and rose sunset, and thought, "My God, how beautiful you must be, if you make all this!" The others were talking, but I wanted silence. I went a little way farther down the trail, and came back to the quieter of the two little bluffs, and sat and looked and wondered and prayed, resting for what seemed the first time in weeks... until my old enemy, the night darkness, came out to taunt. How I hate the night!--and how I love the south in this, because its nights are blue rather than black, and full of fireflies in summer. One who has seen those tiny lamps oaring their way about in air cannot help wondering if there are fairies after all.

Speaking of fairies, I could scarcely restrain the Longaevi this morning. Simile I could not even see against Atlantic's flank, for she is green-blue-silver as the deep itself. She will be writing poetry for weeks as a result of this trip. Posy was easier; her black-flecked wings bloomed pink against the white sand, and she squealed her joy over every pinkish shell (there are many) that came in her way. Litotes found a bunch of slimy rocks and remained by them all morning. Apparently algae is his new love--it would be something like that. Deton and Polly were happy to write Latin in the sand and skip stones and exclaim over the number and kind of dismembered crabs scattered along the beach (really, one gets the impression that these crabs tear themselves in pieces and strew themselves through the surf, there are so many of their arms and shells lying about). Chiasmus even began to enjoy himself, for, although Atlantic is profoundly disorganized, he found that he could make little piles of different-colored rocks and tot up their numbers and busy himself with keeping them from being swept away in the waves.

Paradoxus was... well, he was Paradoxus. The sound of Atlantic charmed him most; he rode on my shoulder all morning, head cocked to one side, simply listening. I found enough bits of green seaglass to make a magnificent chain for his neck, which pleased him because, of all the colors to be found on a beach, that particular bright green-gold is the rarest and finest. He is now off somewhere composing a sea-song on his pipes, and will most likely stay up very late working at it. That is his way, and all my pleading to the contrary avails nothing.

I, by contrast, am getting plenty of sleep and sun. My feet are washed clean by the scrubbing sand and seething water. I feel alive, fresh, aired and bleached and tanned and ready for anything. One does not know how heavy the cares of the semester sit on one's shoulders until a vacation, a long laughing firelit, sunlit, lamplit vacation, full of colors. You know by my writing how many colors I am seeing, and they are all new in my eyes. Color and light... color and light. if someone asked me, "what is God like to you?" I would say, "God is a consuming fire, the sun, and every color on earth. God is white radiance."

On a beach I see God's fingerprints everywhere, and I will bring them home with me in the form of a thousand tiny, bright shells and stones, to strew about my room and keep me from forgetting what my Lord hath wrought. Blessed be He. Te amo, Domine!

Gotta Love Conferencing

The just-concluded New Hampshire (CHENH) conference was relaxing, though I seldom apply that adjective to my conference experiences. If I were at Ohio or CHAP or San Diego or NY (all of which I have attended before), I would be on my feet for 2-3 hours at a time, straight-spined and brightfaced, answering an endless stream of questions, fetching forms, explaining procedures, and acquiring progressively sorer feet as the two days wore on.

This was a much different conference. First of all, we didn't leave the house until noon. Since I had only arrived home from college the evening before, this was a much-needed respite--after all, I was trying to unpack my life and repack for a week in New England. We drove from noon to midnight, arriving at a ski resort in the White Mountains of NH sometime around 12:30 AM. At any of the big conferences, we would have fallen into bed knowing that the wakeup call was coming at 7 AM or earlier, since setup still had to take place.

Not this time. Mom and Dad are both speakers--ah, the blessings of being a "Speaker's Kid"!--and so we had a palatial suite of hotel rooms, complete with four king-sized beds. I didn't get up until 9 AM, and setup wasn't until noon. Bliss. Daddy and I took a walk around the resort, admiring their pristine alpine lake, towering peaks, and rushing water (the resort is built around several bends of the Mad River).

"I love New England." I sighed, happy. "I'm home now." It's true, too. I was born in Massachusetts.

We talked about the joys and struggles of serving, about what it means to give your life away for people, and about how to care for the conference attendees. This is a very small conference (under 500 people) and the state organization is struggling. We prayed for them and walked around until 11:45, then returned to pick up Mom and the girls for setup.

Setup was a breeze, inaugurating a day and a half of easy duty for my sisters and I. Everybody petted us, of course ("Oh, you three girls! You're so sweet! You all have the same color hair! etc.). On Saturday I met several interesting people, including a girl my own age named Sarah, and a 17-year-old named Brianna who belonged to the national debate organization that HSLDA started years ago. Brianna has debated (and beaten, I might add) many of my friends from PHC. I gave her all the news, including the fact that Mike Benavidez has bleached his hair... over which we tsk-tsked appropriately. Then she gave me the ten-minute speech which she had memorized to deliver at the conference, and we spent a few minutes refining her gestures during the part where she was describing the deaths of the apostles.

Brianna's speech was about heroes, and about how evangelism is the greatest heroism, because it means saving people's souls and not merely their bodies. I found her speech to be well-delivered and well-written, though somewhat unsophisticated as an argument. Perhaps it is because writing is my medium, but I prefer more dense logic and less pathetic appeal. I'm aware, however, that this inclination is largely due to the fact that written prose needs to be denser than a speech, because it will be read repeatedly.

The girl my own age, Sarah, belonged to a formerly ATI family. She was born in Maryland and moved to NH. How ironic; I was born in the north and moved to Maryland. Her 19-year-old brother, a dark-eyed young man named Stephen, stopped by the HSLDA booth to buy Dr. Farris' book on the Joshua Generation. He was the only person at the whole conference who wore--I kid you not--a cowboy hat. Having heard about the hat and the head under it from his sister, I asked him about it. It didn't hurt that he rides western.

"If you call that riding." I teased.
"It's better than looking like you're sitting on a teacup!"
I rebutted this slur. "English saddles develop leg muscles."
He protested, and I countered. It was then that I inquired about his cowboy hat.
"I like western stuff. It's manly."
"So are knights, but I don't see you in armor."
"That was a different culture!"
"I hate to break it to you, but the Wild West went out with the 19th century."
"They don't think so."
I laughed. "No, they really don't! There's this guy at school named Tex..."

Finally I asked if he wanted to cut the banter and debate the matter seriously. He said he would if I wanted, and I said that I didn't want to. "I lost interest in formal debate right about the time that I began to care about the issues," I said. "It's hard to really listen when you're just trying to make your point." To my surprise, he nodded.
"I know. Me too."
I saw that he did know. At that moment he was called away, and I turned back to face the accusing eyes of my baby sister, whom I have been teaching Latin and Shakespearian sonnet-writing on this trip.

"Quis erat ille puer?" She asked, instantly.
I had to laugh. "Cara, please. Don't tease me. It was a ten-minute conversation!"
Marjorie and I spent two hours working out the customs, characteristics, family trees, and natural habitats of Longaevi. She is an apt Latin pupil, and we were able to wander arm-in-arm through some of the other booths, discussing libri in lingua Latina. For twenty minutes we hovered over a pile of hardback classics, proclaiming this to be bene and that male. In the end, Burgee bought three volumes of Mark Twain, a copy of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, a complete volume of Frost, and a commentary on Shakespeare. On my advice she avoided Tess of the D'Urbevilles. I'm not ready to have my darling exposed to iste liber, even if it is a classic. The bookseller was so amused at our antique language that he later gave us a small Latin dictionary. He and his wife were charming.

At the end of the day we were exhausted, and pleased to return to the room. Mom and I lounged on her bed, listening to Daddy read Northanger Abbey aloud. The speaker banquet at this conference was, mercifully, dress-down. I threw on jeans and a favorite blue oxford. We found a sit-down dinner with cloth napkins, water glasses, and all that. I joined my new friend Sarah at her all-girl table, and proceeded to ask her views on Bush and his foreign policy (about which I know practically nothing, and neither did she). Eventually we found out our mutual ignorance, laughed, and turned to religion as a more suitable topic. I saw Mom and the girls leave, and went to Daddy's table to inquire of him how much longer we were staying.

"A little while. Join us? And did I see chocolate cake over there?"
"What are you talking about?"
"We're discussing Les Miserables and Dostoevsky."
I grinned. "I'll be right with you."

I fetched Daddy a sliver of chocolate cake, got my iced tea from the other table, and invited Sarah to join us if she liked. She did eventually, but not before the fun got rolling at Daddy's table. Stephen was there, and we exchanged verbal blows all through the merriment which prevailed. Daddy, ever the cleverest person present in my eyes, told lawyer jokes. Wit flashed, laughter flowed, and it was all so enjoyable that, when Daddy rose to leave, I asked to stay with Sarah. I knew that Mama intended to watch a movie, and that the girls would probably be too tired or distracted for conversation.

"Sure, honey."

Sarah's family was supposed to meet up with another couple for conversation, but they never came. I wound up walking back to her room with herself, Stephen, and her parents. I had hoped to pick Sarah's brains on several topics, but this is the sort of family that does everything together. As soon as we were comfortably situationed in their hotel suite, the gentlemanly father asked me, jokingly, "How does it feel to live in the shadow of your father?"

I smiled, and responded to the effect that it is more like basking in the sun. They asked me questions about the family, to which I responded enthusiastically and tried to keep my answers brief. Knowing that they were former ATI, I next set myself to learn something new, and asked for a summary of ATI teachings and lifestyle. The father gave it, with support and commentary from his wife, and occasional interjections by Sarah. Then he was called away--it was now about 9 o'clock in the evening--by my father, with whom he had a meeting.

Sarah, Stephen, their mother, and I sat up until 10:30. Our conversation was one of the most stimulating I've had all week, centering mostly on the question of intellectualism and its place in the life of a Christian. I explained about reading Nietzsche and the Western Canon, and how, in my Sophomore year, I came to refer to such texts as "poison" with Scripture as my "antidote."

"Surely there must be some way to avoid the poison and still get what you need to interact with the culture!" Sarah exclaimed.
I looked at her, and saw myself five years ago. "I find it easier to take it from a guy who's been dead 150 years than from one who is standing in front of me saying 'God is dead.' It's in the air we breathe." I explained. "It is hard. It hurts. It breaks my heart. Yet..." I explained to them about the reading that I've been doing recently in 1 John, and about how it seems to me that holiness and loving others are directly related, in fact, symbiotic. "You can't run from the world if you're called to love the people in it. At the same time, we have to be so incredibly careful. Pride and love of knowledge are such dangers."

In the end, we all agreed that it is a matter calling for the most profound Christ-centeredness and balance. This is true. "I never wanted to be an intellectual," I told them. "It is what I was given, through my parents." I smiled wryly. "I guess you could say that I was called to be a Paul, in that sense of having a Greek education. It isn't that you can't share the Gospel without being a Paul. It's just that some of us are called in that way."

We discussed the pains and blessings of living for others, and the joy of living for Christ. We talked about a gem with many facets, and compared Scriptures on the Gospel, describing our favorite aspects of Christ's incarnation, life, death, and ressurection, and what we have to look forward to in Heaven. We were still talking when Sarah's father returned from his meeting. He and Stephen and Sarah walked me back to my room. On the way, Sarah and I exchanged expressions of gratitude for the evening and our conversation.

I went to bed thinking about the terrible burden of being "a Paul." Oh, my Lord, it does hurt. It does break my heart. Would that I had never had to read the words of Zarathustra the madman. I wept over Nietzsche. I will weep over many more books, by many more madmen. How long, O Lord? When will you return and silence all these lying tongues? No, Sarah, you need not say that being a Paul is "exciting." I think that you would like to be a Paul. I never had a choice. I never wanted it, and I'll never, God willing, underestimate the awful responsibility that comes with it.

Rolling out of bed this morning, I heard laughter from the other room, and went to cuddle with Mom and the girls on their bed. "Where were you last night, Chris?"

"She was out walking with a young man." Daddy said, teasing.
"Mmphf!" I expostulated into the bedsheet. "I was not!" I told them about my conversation with Sarah and her family. Mom and Dad were interested, but I soon lost the girls. Charity flopped off the bed and began to crawl into the other room, effectively breaking the serious mood.

"Whooops! She's gone!"

Marjorie and I removed ourselves from Mom's bed and followed our sister into the other room, where packing and dressing quickly became subordinate to an impromptu singing session. We began with "Sing Alleluia" and progressed through "Kyrie Eleison" to "Ora Dominum," trying different musical effects. Charity, especially, has a fine voice and powerful lungs.

"There's a sick man in Boston, honey!" Mom called from the other room. Translation: "Quieter, please."

"Did you enjoy the worship service?" I teased, trudling through to chat with her while she packed.
Mama's smile always warms me right down to my toes. "I love listening to you girls sing."

We packed the car in a light drizzle, and drove down to my uncle's house for lunch. Daddy read The Last Battle all the way, and I found myself in tears at the part where Jewel says, "we have lived too long, Sire." Strange how Christianity makes one more sensitive to beauty, joy, and pain, not less, as one grows up.

Nana was staying at my uncle and aunt's house for a day or two. After a few lively rounds of Uno with the young girl cousins, we got back into the car for a last two-hour jaunt to Grandpa's house. I ran down to the beach with Marjorie, aching for my Atlantic. I have been missing her so long.

"What do the Longaevi think?" Marjorie asked.
"They are all stunned, but Simile is pale with awe, and I have lost Litotes to rock-hunting already." I replied.

To own the truth, I was too caught up in my own emotions to worry much about the Longaevi. I ran through the surf, down the whole length of the beach, and said to Atlantic over and over, "I'm here. I'm here! I've come back." It being a grey day, I looked out at the green-grey sea, and felt that I would live forever. I listened to her tidal rhythms and thought them my very heartbeat. I felt the spray playing tag with my feet and wanted to laugh aloud for pure joy.

"I belong to this." I said in my heart. "Oh, my Lord, thank you for making the sea!"

For truly, the sea and the mountains together speak more to me of who God is than any other part of creation.

And tomorrow I shall run on that beach again, early, and see the sun rise.

Mei Longaevi

Stars and I went on the P'ville circuit this afternoon, swinging up the bike trail, down main street, through the ice cream shop, and back via the neighborhood, in order to make sure that she had all her Rhetoric prep down for tomorrow's exam. It was a delightful time, especially the part that we spent going over schemes and tropes. You see, Stars is familiar with my Longaevi...

"And Simile is like Metaphor, only she's more explicit. And she has beautiful eyes!"

"Right!" I laughed. "Simile is beautiful, but Posy is darling. Did I tell you, Posy discovered Emma (our ferret) this weekend?"

"Oh?"

"She thinks that Emma is her pony."

"Awww! How darling!"

"Yes. And Emma actually likes it, so it's very cute. I based Posy on a combination of Marjorie and Emma, you know."

"I thought it was Marjorie who gave you the Longaevi...?"

I raised a quizzical eyebrow. "No, it wasn't. Marjorie doesn't even really know about them yet."

"Are they with you now?"

I smiled wryly. "No, I left them in the room. They'll have a royal temper-tantrum when I get back, but..."

"But it's better if they don't hear what we say about them."

I grinned. "It makes them fearfully conceited."

Stars laughed at my quotation, and we proceeded on to tropes that have nothing to do with Longaevi... anaphora, for example, or paralepsis.

It's odd, talking to people about the Longaevi. Sometimes I wonder if I've simply regressed back into my rather regrettable Freshman year, in which I was so homesick that I invented an entire mythology of PHC to try and make it seem more like I belonged. I succeeded only in being labeled: ROMANTIC. That stung. But surely it is ridiculous to be a sane adult, and at the same time to claim that one has a flock of seven fairies who nest in one's room and follow one about?

Well, it's too late now. They exist for me, and I can't pretend it away. Not ten minutes ago I heard Posy singing her nonsense-songs in the jewelry box... songs which are composed mostly of "Zing boom BANG! rattle pop splatter fizz!" Posy lives up to her name, and is as messy as most small children. Every morning I find my earrings tangled up in the rings and laced together with necklaces.

Posy is delighted with the pink-and-silver earrings, which she believes are for her especial use, since they match her wings. She loves to hang herself all over with them and wind the necklace around her middle and parade for me. It is all I can do to keep from laughing, for she is so serious about her dressing up, and if you have ever seen a six-inch fairy wearing a pendant which is to her the size of a dinner-plate... well...

"Posy, cara, mirabile visu! Tu es pulchra puella!" Nor do I lie--she is "marvelous to see" and "a beautiful girl." She also looks quite ridiculous, but I love her for the fact that she doesn't know it, and wouldn't care if she did.

I can hardly wait to explain my Longaevi to Marjorie, and Danya has promised to draw them for me with his magical computer programs. Perhaps soon I will be able to post pictures! They are not as people expect--at least, they are not what I expected. The tiny, slim bodies are there, and the elfin features and large graceful wings, but they are a good deal more... oh, I don't know how to express it... more human than I ever visualized them as being. That is, with one important difference. None of them understand human love.

I noticed it early on, because of Posy. Her older brothers and sisters would lose her in the most careless manner, and I never could make them understand that they ought to look after their smallest sibling. Since then I have seen it in a thousand ways. They have a certain strange detachment. They all like one another, and me, but there is no sense of loyalty. If it were a good joke--and because they haven't sense enough to see the danger--I could easily imagine that Paradoxus would push Posy into a lawnmower and leave her there, not consider what would happen when the lawnmower was started and the blades began to spin.

Thus, even when one of them is bearing towards me wildflowers and their small bits of poetry or snatches of music, I know that the next hour may bring a tantrum and cries of "I hate you!" It is a little heart-aching, and keeps me from wishing too much that I could be one of them. They are like Peter Pan, each of them. They cannot love, and will never grow up. In the end, they make me grateful to be human. Meanwhile, however, they are still very sweet, and are fond of me in their own fashion, like cats, in fact. Yes, they are quite like cats: independent and conceited, but willing to purr, and tending to orbit me as a sort of home base and hobby.

Only two days more, and I shall show them my Atlantic! Oh, what will Simile say? Will Paradoxus be delighted? Will Litotes have no comment to make, for once? Will the twins dance, and Posy turn somersaults in the air for joy, and Chiasmus consent to run about the beach with me?

For, you see, I am human, and I do love them.

Domine, te gratias ago pro meis Longaevis!

Apud Meorum Carorum

"Among my dear ones," as the saying--my saying, which I have just now invented--goes. I am home. I am hourly in the presence of Danya, who is my delight and kindred spirit, Burgee, who is my darling and friend, Mama, my BEST friend, Caridad, my shopping buddy and playmate, Mike, my partner in ministry and crime, Nate, my faithful caregiver, and Daddy, my fearless leader. Once, a long time ago, we did a breakdown of the family according to who would be which character in Winnie the Pooh. It ran as follows:

Daddy - Christopher Robin
Mummy - Kanga
Marjorie (Burgee) - Roo
Nate - Tigger
Mike - Gopher (so appropriate, considering that he is now a successful systems engineer)
Christy - Rabbit (yes, the bossy, whining, self-centered one. Also very appropriate)
Davy - Pooh (of course. How else could it be?)
Charity - Piglet (which just fits, if you know Danya and Caridad's relationship)

Guest starring on this show, as of a week ago, are Grandma and Grandpa, who just moved in with us, and my cousins Ned and Sarah Camille, who are also living with us, and our family Hobbit, Heloise (also called Sara). Grandma, Burgee, Caridad, Mummy, and I spent at least half the morning designing the Master Plan for the Back Yard Garden. My dear, it is a vast and complex arrangement, involving fish ponds and perennial beds and vegetable gardens and a big compost heap and cutting down some trees and planting others and I don't know what all else... and the Longaevi are simply thrilled.

"You will make for me a special nest in your new gazebo, Musa, for my music." Said Paradoxus, in his most Peter-Pan-ish tone... that is to say, a tone bonny, bright, and carelessly arrogant.

"Mater, Mater, will you plant PINK roses? Will you?" This from Posy, who has taken to calling me "mother."

"I really think that part of the garden should be all white flowers, so that I may dance there in the moonlight," says Simile, in her most persuasive tone of blue eyes.

"Your arrangements are imprecise and hardly to scale!" Chiasmus, of course.

"Naturally you will require my assistance in drawing up your plans, Musa. Soil balances are hard to maintain, and the research on various plants alone will consume my time for several months. I shall have to suspend my treatise on caterpillars! However, I am willing to assist you in this... endeavor." This from Litotes, whom I most certainly did NOT ask to help, but who is convinced that I can't accomplish anything without his sage advice.

The twins, mercifully, confined themselves to squeals of glee. I don't know what I would do without the everyday sweetness of Deton and Polly--they make the temper tantrums of the other four (Posy is never a trial, except when lost or pouting) bearable. I love them dearly, but goodness!--Longaevi can be troublesome!

I am very, very happy. I am also keenly aware that this is the blessing of God. I never have and never shall merit such a family, such a home, such a joyful, serving, loving, working, praying and doing and glorifying God environment. Omnis gloria ad te, my Holy Sweetness!