The fact that my sister called me this morning and I talked to her for a half hour from my office should tell you several things about my week. a) that I haven’t spoken with my sister nearly as much as usual (read that: not every day) b) that my current job is still slow c) that my evenings are currently crazy, which is remarkably unusal in my life.

Monday evening, LM and I talked through preparations for his departure. With five days until he leaves, we didn’t panic, only talked about what he still needed and what he planned on taking with him. I asked him to take his duffle to his dad’s on Tuesday and RETURN HOME with all the clothes that have made their way to that house and never made their way back. (Note: Dad says all he has at his house are “sweatshirts”)

Tuesday, LM was at his dad packing said duffle (which I later discover has all kinds of clothes, including a lifetime supply of underwear and socks that we have been slowing missing from our house.) I was running errands, as I always do on Tuesdays, including a stop at the bank and a stop to get a ‘end of the year’ sort of gift for the girls.

Wednesday, rush home from work, change my clothes, water the plants on the deck (we’ve had rain and cool temps every day and STILL my plants are dry) – get plant stuff all over my shirt, change clothes again, go to Pastor’s house for dinner and deep conversation. All went very well, but emotionally wrung me out. Get home at 10:30, throw LM into bed and fall into my own. Don’t get to sleep until much later due to said thinking, but nevertheless, feel good about all that our pastor shared with us and the status of LM’s own thoughts at the moment.

Tonight: my last night with LM before he leaves. Which means we must:
1. stop by the eye doc to get his glasses re-fitted so they don’t slide down his nose any longer.
2. mail a package to George in care of my dad, since George is headed to TN for a few days all by himself!
3. buzz his head, which then requires a follow-up shower.
4. do laundry. I did it all on Monday, but now have to do what he wore this week (all his favorites) and make sure that the stuff that came from Dad’s is actually clean.
5. pack. clothes, books, games, toys, animals, bike, swim gear, the kitchen sink….
6. get the boy to bed with lots of hugs and kisses to last him through the next five weeks.
7. go wrap and pack all the secret items I’ve been purchasing and stashing away (books, games, trumpet music, etc.) for him to discover once he’s at Nana’s.
8. collapse.

oh, and eat dinner somewhere in there, too.

I will see LM briefly after school on Friday, for the last hurrah before his dad picks him up but then he’s off.

And by mid-afternoon on Saturday, I’ll be missing my boy something terrible.

The cover reads, “In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter…”

Into The Wild retraces what is known of McCandless’ journey, of his thoughts as we might suppose through journal entries and contacts with various people along the way. Krakauer interjects into McCandless’ story some of his own insights, from having been a boy in his 20’s, pushing against everything by running away to the wild.

I found this novel to be hauntingly moving. It caught me and drew me in. I am too social a creature to truly relate to the desires of McCandless to abandon all relationships and remain alone, although I am skeptical that his desire to was to be alone for very long. Following in the footsteps and leadership of Tolstoy, Thoreau, Muir, and more (at least their writing, if not their lifestyles) McCandless sought to shed weath, possessions and the desire to be owned or to own. He sought to re-establish himself, even changing his name, to recreate who he was in his own eyes.

The book was captivating, the motivations, while only suppositions, were compelling. The outcome, the pain invoked on family and friends, tragic.

The quote that got me the most, perhaps because I am a parent of an adventurous boy, was one from Donald Barthelme’s The Dead Father, “…Have you noticed the slight curl at the end of Same II’s mouth when he looks at you? …The father is taken aback. …it instantly reminds Same II of what he is mad about. He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that’s not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didn’t notice.”

How painful it must be to be this boy’s family, to know that he sought meaning and truth and for him, the only place to find it was away from everyone who loved him, away from everything this world counts as significant. And, left alone, before he might have found grace, before redemption could be fulfilled (for there is evidence he was on his way back, having realized the significance of personal relationships) he tragically died.

What is it we all search for? Where do we go to find it? Who do we turn to for answers? Do we turn within ourselves, or outside of our being? For those who know only to depend on self, who know only what they themselves can tangibly experience, they seem to me to be the loneliest of all, but in their personal, unintentional self-sacrifice, they leave behind a mourning crowd who loved on despite apparent apathy.

I was out for dinner with LM this past weekend and wanted to take a photo (I’ll post about this later) but didn’t have my digital camera on me. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a shot and realized there were 57 photos on my camera but I had no idea what they were of.

I took a few minutes today to sort through them, 45 of them were just blank shots taken by my pocketbook as I walked to and from the car or whatnot (it does this quite often, I hear the beeping). But there were a few I was unprepared to see.

One very tearful boy, one remarkably sad mastiff.

Sleeping with his head as far in between our two car seats as he could muster, his body wrapped around the backseat (as he always did, trying to fit comfortably), his front paws straddling the console in the back, having no idea what was in store for him that day, just knowing that something didn’t feel right (he wouldn’t get out of the car when we stopped for gas or a dog walk.)

Our last goodbye.

They are cell phone pics, so they are miserable and grainy, but truth be told, they reflect our miserable and grainy emotions of that day. I miss him so.

If you have not read Kite Runner yet, I implore you to make it summer reading. While you’re at amazon.com, go ahead and buy A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Hosseini’s debut novel, Kite Runner, took the world by storm. An historical novel that grabbed the hearts of all of us, allowing us more than just a glimpse, an experience within a culture so unfamiliar and yet events that we can all relate to.

A Thousand Splendid Suns equally grabs a hold and does not let go. Again, set in war torn years of political unrest in Afghanistan, the novel follows the lives of two women, caged by marriage and the cultural dictates on women, redeemed by love and grace. For all the ways my life is remarkably dissimilar to this story, I still found my heart aching for the characters, my frustration growing with every obstacle they faced and my tears streaming with the price of freedom and safety. The plot was unpredictable to me, I was caught off guard at each turn, at each new challenge the characters faced. It was unimaginable to me that we live in the same world where such atrocities exist, and yet, Hosseini presents a clear truth, a simple and straight forward rendering of a fictional tale within an historically accurate environment.

This book is a tremendous novel in and of itself and is a phenomenal second novel for Hosseini. I highly recommend both with unconditional praise.

Simple. True. Honest. Healing. Carry Me Home tells the story of two brothers, the one who went off to fight a war and came home a different man and the other left behind, learning all about life from the experience of it all.

The characters are simple, honest and true. The story is not unfamiliar, the ravishes of war on the heart and the home are not undisclosed topics any longer. But the way she reveals the truths about war, about life through the heart of a simple brother feel as honest and true as can be. We are not left with the sense of damage, but a faith in healing. Images of homes destroyed by the war are replaced by those who survived it, by those who overcame. The battle of returning to normalcy when nothing is normal is confronted and we’re left with the sense of hope for the future. Love and life both last. Despite it all.

It’s a good book, uncomplicated in its context, but one that touches the heart nontheless.

In all, I have to say that what struck me the most was the father’s relationship with his mentally challenged son. Earl (Earwig) isn’t severely disabled, but he’s slower than most and in moments when his parents, especially a father in the 1940’s might take a heavy hand or a harsh word with him, his dad just leads him gently and graciously through life. Allowing him to be exactly who he is and this, in turn, allows them all to allow their older son be exactly who and what he needs to be to sort out his war experience. It’s a story about brothers, to be certain, but somewhere deeper yet is a great story about fathers, too.

It makes me laugh that so many of you have seemed to politely notice the incongruency with me working at a health club!! It’s a community center and health club, I’m sure you have one not far from where you live. I will be managing the front desk (hiring, firing, training all 25 or so desk staff), providing reports and analysis on membership, etc. The management position is social, analytical, creative, multi-faceted and best of all, BUSY!! Yes, I get a membership with the position which basically means I’m going to have to get off my duff and get on the treadmill!! LM is pretty excited that if I need to go in on the weekends, he could go swimming while I’m there!

It feels like a good fit. The interview process was really awesome and relaxed. More conversational that interrogational. They have a policy to call family members as part of your references and my dad gave such a glowing reference that my employer said he “closed the deal’. Thanks, Dad!! (It’s not bribery if you send him a thank-you plant afterwards, is it?)

Thanks for all the well wishes. I’m looking forward to the change. I’m not sure how the dog will adapt since LM is gone for a month or so and won’t be home early to let him out. We’ll just have to work through it.

…when I am no longer allowed to buy clothes for LM without his approval, but it has not happened just yet.

I recognize myself as fortunate in this area. I don’t usually schlep my child around for an entire day of running errands (I can do that when he is at his dad’s) so while out and about I shopped some sales racks and picked up some much needed shorts and shirts for summer for the growing boy.

Amongst the ordinary sweat shorts and summer shirts were two shirts and a pair of shorts that I thought was perfect for LM. I was delighted when they were met with a resounded approval from the boy. A pair of beige camo shorts and two shirts, one army green, one black that are button up but have military sorts of patches on them (sortof) were a HUGE hit with my son.

While I had his attention regarding clothes, I reminded him that over the summer, in an effort to not reduce Nana’s life to little more than laundry 24/7, he could feasibly wear his shorts TWICE before they were washed if he wasn’t too filthy. He asked about shirts. I said no, shirts should really be washed each time.

He asked if he could wear the new shorts and shirt on Monday, before I even had a chance to wash them. Sensing his rare fashion enthusiasm, I reluctantly agreed, wishing to at least have them de-germed, but it’s not the worst thing my child could do, so I let him go out the door to school in the camo shorts and green shirt.

Tuesday he wore the black shirt and a pair of sweat shorts (no, they didn’t really go together in “style” but there was black in the shorts, so I let that battle go.)

Tuesday is a Dad Night, so I didn’t see him until I got home from work yesterday. There he stood in his camo shorts and green shirt. I said, “didn’t you just wear that?” He said, “yes, but you washed it in between.”

I couldn’t really argue with that, even if the kids at school were going to think the child had no other clothing options.

It wasn’t until later, while we were playing Yahtzee that it all hit me.

“LM? How did you wear that outfit today? How did it get to Dad’s last night for you to even have it to put on this morning?”

LM looked at me sheepishly. He thought he had gotten away with it.

“I took it in a grocery bag in my backpack.”

LM protested that he didn’t wear it two days IN A ROW!

I guess I definitely still have the ability to pick out clothes he likes, huh? Question is, how do I get them off him?

…I should just chuck this calla and start over. But LM gave it to me for Christmas (he ordered it from Smith and Hawken, the delivery was a nightmare (I had to meet the FedEx guy in the next town up late one night because it had to be signed for and couldn’t be left at the door…) and it was in BAD shape when we finally got it home (although I wasn’t allowed to actually SEE it, I had to wait until Christmas morning). I have done my best to keep it alive (put it in special soil, ensured it had good drainage, gave it lots of sunlight) but all the leaves except one recently died off. I moved it out to the deck to get all the sunshine it can and still be protected from the wind and rain.

The one last leaf looked to be alive so I tried to be optimistic.

I wouldn’t want to proclaim it resurrected just yet, but suffice it to say, LM is much happier with me now than he was before.

Perhaps this is why my sister has absolutely NO plants in her house and I have, well, I have a lot.

Grow Calla Grow!!

Last night was the last night for Kid In Charge of the Kitchen Night (KICK’N). Jacob is supposed to cook dinner once a week, but it probably only happens once or twice a month (often times I just let him off the hook so he can go play, sometimes homework just runs too late). I’ll give him the summer off since he’ll be off to grandparent’s homes and summer camp and whatnot.

Last night’s menu:

Hamburger Casserole
Corn on the Cob
Fruit Salad

Recipe for Hamburger Casserole:

1-2 pounds cooked lean ground beef
2/3 can stewed Italian style tomatoes, drained
mushrooms
green pepper
2 cups 2% mozzerella cheese
sprinkle parmesean cheese

Layer ground beef, tomatoes and vegetables in bottom of glass baking dish (a pie plate also works well). Cover with cheeses. Bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is slightly golden. Serves 4 (or two with leftovers for lunches!)

Yes, we ate at the coffee table. We were in the middle of a heated Yahtzee! tournament and wanted to eat and play.

Suffice it to say, the meal was DELISH!, the cook was praised, the tourny was a success and another fun Monday night was had at the EJ household! Boy, am I going to miss this kid this summer!

This is really for Newly: