Sandra Tayler

For years I’ve answered kids begging for pets with the response that they have to save up $60 to buy pet and cage and supplies. This ensured that they REALLY wanted a pet and were willing to be responsible for it. For years that was an effective dead-stop on the pet issue because the kids inevitably find things to spend their money on long before they save up $60

Then came today. The kids have been saving money for spending on our California trip since last year. I paid out allowances right before we left for the California trip. Kiki scored another $8 while on the trip. Then we never spent the money in California. Kiki came home and counted up. She had $55 and announced that she was going to buy a hamster. Link volunteered to pitch in $5 if it was needed and off the the pet store we went.

Going to the pet store and coming home with a little animal in a box is an experience every kid should have at some point. It has been 10 years in coming for Kiki. Now she gets to learn about caretaking and matinence. I would have preferred a parakeet for a pet, but I’m just partial to things with feathers. Hopefully this little brown and white fuzzy hamster will get a good name rather than one lifted from a cartoon character.

Today was a wonderful day. We visited Greg and Liz Dean of Real Life comics. They have a beautiful apartment in downtown Sacramento. They claim that the furnishings were “all old stuff from our old place” but everything matched and Liz’s talent for design showed everywhere. They also claimed to be “not moved in yet” but I couldn’t tell that either. Best of all was the fact that despite the fact that they have three cats and I’m seriously allergic to cats, I simply didn’t wheeze up at all. The only explanation I can figure for that is that they kept the house so spotlessly clean that I simply wasn’t exposed to enough cat dander. I wish my house looked as nice as their apartment did.

Greg and Liz were fun to hang out with too. We had a marvelous dinner at a Sushi place. I’m not really fond of sushi, but the restaurant also had the best tempura that I’ve ever eaten so I was really happy. Most of the time was spent just visiting and there was no lack of subjects for discussion. I wish we lived closer to them so that we could get together more often.

Another really good thing about today was having 3 hours of drive time during which Howard and I had nothing to do but talk to each other. I like talking with Howard. The trip home was especially important because I was able to talk through several things that I have been sitting in the back of my brain and causing me to feel stressed lately. I should probably write them down and the resolutions Howard pointed me toward, but I’m just too tired to sort them properly in my brain. It can wait a couple of days until I get back home.

We drive home tomorrow. I didn’t get all the things that I wanted out of this vacation, but I got enough to be content and staying longer wouldn’t gain me anything but buffer stress from Howard. The suitcases are all packed, everything is ready to be loaded, so as long as no one else comes down with stomach flu between now and tomorrow at 10, I’m headed home. I’ll be glad to get there.

First day of soccer training camp was today. I had pre-event anxiety last night. 47 degrees. Windy. Threatening clouds which eventually poured out rain. Hundreds of kids kicking balls through obstacle courses. Link loved it. But the cold made him willing to go home early. So far so good.

Patches rode along for the Soccer Adventure and proved that the straps on his car seats are not going to put his poor sunburned shoulders into agony. This is important because tomorrow we get to drive for 12 hours to California.

Agh! I’ve got to Pack!

Patches has developed blisters across his shoulders and some “I’m in pain” crankiness. Poor little guy. Tender 2-year-old skin just isn’t equipped to handle a heavy sunburn. I cringe in sympathetic pain whenever I look at him. I also cringe in guilt. Bad mommy.

I’m going to try this again. Last time my train of thought went some interesting places, but it wasn’t the track I intended to take. So once again here is the quote from Middlemarch by George Elliot:

“now more than ever she was active in sketching her landscapes and market-cares
and portraits of friends, in practising her music, and in being from morning
till night her own standard of a perfect lady, having always an audience in her
own consciousness, with sometimes the not unwelcome addition of a more variable
external audience in the numerous visitors of the house.”

So what does it mean to be a lady? During my high school and college years I spent a lot of thought on this subject. Part of the reason for my focus was because the last thing my grandpa told me before he died was “always be a lady.” So as I read and lived I tried to gather a list of accomplishments and qualties that I wanted to have in order to “be a lady”. For a while I was reading Gone With The Wind at least once a year because I loved the way the novel approached the question of what it means to be a lady. Over the years my focus has changed some. Now I’m less concerned with the concept of being a lady and more focused on being a very good person. I want to be someone who:
isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, particularly in the service of others.
is kind and gracious both as a guest and as a hostess.
disciplines her children by raising her eyebrow instead of raising the roof.
keeps a clean house.
grows flowers.
creates beautiful things.
makes the world better by being here.

There are many more things I want to be. But kids need breakfast and my contemplative time has run out. Maybe I’ll add to the list later.

Howard and I share many interests, but there are a few things we feel very differently about. He persists in renting zombie movies which I won’t watch and I continue to read books written in different centuries than my own which baffles him. I enjoy modern books as well. Modern books are like being taken for a ride. All the events and characterizations are compact and flow quickly making the books exciting to read and hard to put down. In contrast books from prior centuries read much more like a scenic stroll through the countryside. They lend themselves to frequent stops for contemplation and lots of wandering thoughts. Right now I’m just getting into Middlemarch by George Elliot. I’ve never read it before and I’m enjoying watching the characters unfold without knowing how it will turn out. This is a nice contrast to re-reading one of Jane Austen’s books. I love Austen, but I already know all the endings three or four times over.

As I was reading Middlemarch I came across a passage which prompted a pause for contemplation. The passage was this:
“now more than ever she was active in sketching her landscapes and market-cares and portraits of friends, in practising her music, and in being from morning till night her own standard of a perfect lady, having always an audience in her own consciousness, with sometimes the not unwelcome addition of a more variable external audience in the numerous visitors of the house.”

It caught my attention because I remember doing exactly that during my teenage years, altering my actions as if I were in a movie or somehow on display even when I was alone. In my head I was the heroine of a musical or some other grand romance. I imagined futures for myself and then got confused when other people departed the script. I think many of my romantic failures occurred because my chosen hero refused the role I had chosen for him. Just prior to meeting Howard I decided that I needed to stop seeking romance and just seek to be myself. Ironically this decision ushered in three months where I had dozens of romantic prospects just when I didn’t want any. Then came Howard. Somehow he came along, grabbed my romantic script, and completely revised it. I ended up with something much more meaningful and lasting than any of the books, movies, or fairytales had prepared me for.

American society is awash in tales where people fall in love. Frequently the romantic pair spend the whole movie or book misunderstanding each other only to discover at the end that they’ve “loved” each other all along. (As an aside, I don’t believe in love at first sight. Lust at first sight, yes. Attraction at first sight, yes. But Love is something that takes time and effort to grow.) In movies and books we always see “falling in love” without ever seeing “being in love” or “building a life together” or “toleration and forgiveness.” Is it any wonder that my youthful romantic scripting was so skewed?

I think that is one reason why I like old literature. The characters have time for complex motivations and gradual growth of feelings. Events aren’t compressed to take place in a mere three days time so a relationship has time to grow over the course of months or years. It much more accurately represents the way that real relationships grow and wane. I sometimes ponder how to counteract this “falling in love” culture. How do I teach my children the value in building and nurturing a relationship even when the adrenaline rush of courtship is over? The best way I can think of is to stay happily married to Howard. If my kids can see their parents being happy together, playing together, laughing together, and sharing a closeness that can only be grown over years of shared experience, then they’ll at least know there is something better available. Whether that will be enough for them to build realistic expectations for relationships I don’t know.

Apparently 4 hours at a reservoir on a temperate cloudy day with no sunscreen is enough to turn me and all four of my kids bright red. Now I feel negligent for allowing the sun to inflict this pain on my children. The fact that I am suffering with them is no comfort at all.

I just signed Link up for our local youth soccer team. I’ve never wanted to be a soccer mom. I’m not interested in the game. I worry about competition and negative experiences. But Link wants to play. He REALLY wants to play. He’s been taking his soccer ball to school every day so that he could play during recess. Now it is summer and he still wants to play. He wants the chance to run around playing soccer. He doesn’t care much about winning. So I signed him up for a team that is supposed to emphasize playing over winning. I hope this will be a better experience than I am expecting.