If I'd Had a Blog 6 Years Ago, What I Might Have Written

Today I saw something on TV to equal or surpass Pearl Harbor or any other aggressive declaration of war. I had just gotten home from Tesco when the phone rang. "Do you have the TV on?" my husband asked. "Turn it on now." I saw a beautiful autumn day in New York and the World Trade Center on fire. The news presenter said it was a plane. No one was sure if it was an accident. As the news presenters were speaking, another plane appeared and flew into the second tower. Then a news flash: another plane had flown into the Pentagon. I called my husband back. "They're trying to destroy America," I cried. He couldn't or wouldn't stay on the phone. I went back to the TV, watching in disbelief, tears streaming down my face. It was almost time to pick the kids up from school. What do I do? What do I say?

I wore my sunglasses to cover my red and puffy eyes. When I got the kids in the car, I explained that something terrible had happened to those tall buildings we'd seen just two weeks earlier. When we got home, I turned the TV back on. The towers were collapsing. I cried when I saw a black woman turned completely white by the dust. My 5-year-old son laughed. "Why are you laughing?" I asked. "I've never seen a woman cry before," he said.

I turned the TV off. I didn't want the kids to get upset by all the coverage or by seeing me all upset. Several friends called to see if I knew anyone. When my husband got home, I asked him to hang my American flag outside. I'm not a flag waver, but it seemed appropriate. How many survivors will there be? My husband doesn't appear to know anyone directly who was in the building but he knows someone who knows someone who was on the phone to one of the Cazenove guys when the plane flew into the building. He also knows someone who worked in a building right next to the Twin Towers.


AND WHAT I WRITE TODAY:

That American flag was stolen from in front of my house two days later. I have never put another one up since. I went to church on the following Sunday. The vicar's sermon was about how the West deserved this. I walked out and never returned to that church. There have been a lot of TV programs about 9/11 over the past week. I've allowed my children to watch them, disturbing and upsetting as they are, because real life in the wake of 9/11 is disturbing and upsetting. I wish all the madness had ended on that day. It has not. This war on Western civilization is wrong, wrong, wrong -- sinfully, hell-making, furiously wrong. I don't understand Muslims not standing up and telling their murderous brethren that they are all going to hell for their actions. But I also don't understand George W. Bush waging war with the wrong country for the wrong reasons. He will go to hell for his actions as well. It is America's great misfortune that it had one of the stupidest, most inept presidents in its history during the worst attack on its soil ever.

My son does not laugh now when he sees the images from that day. He understands now what it was all about. He understands why we have to stand in lines at airports and take off our shoes and belts and coats. At least they no longer make me lift my shirt to show my underwired bra.

I still cry when I see the images of that day, read the stories of the widows, the survivors, and the dead. I will always cry.

My Secret Garden Fixation

Yesterday, I tackled some weeding chores in the garden. My son, who shows more promise as a gardener than his sister, asked me recently which are weeds and which are plants (perhaps hoping to avoid his earlier mistake of pulling up the broccoli). My answer: anything I don't want where it is is a weed in my book. So the weeds in my garden are these: campanula (a little bit has gone a very long way), a type of geranium (happily thrives everywhere), the herbs sweet melissa (which does NOT smell sweet) and sorrel, periwinkle, heartsease, California poppy, red hot poker, and mind your own business (a small-leaved carpet-like plant that loves damp conditions, my lawn, the house, and anywhere it can sink its tiny roots into). I wonder how mind your own business gots its name because in the plant world I would say it minds everybody else's business. I also have dandelions, couch grass, toadflax, spurge, thistles, brambles, groundsel, goose grass, shepherd's purse, chickweed, buttercups, and ivy. I have just about tamed the ground elder into submission after several years of digging up and assiduously disposing of the roots. I throw nettles onto the compost bin because they supposedly help the composting process.

I have had four "gardeners" since I moved into this house nine years ago. The first, Rob, turned out to be a psychopath, but he was the best gardener. Very rough, and as I said, totally psycho, but he knew his plants. And he kept the weeds under control. The second, whose name escapes me, had graduated from horticulture college so I figured he was worth the extra money he charged. WRONG! For he did not deign to weed my borders, trim my shrubs, and mow my lawn. That he left for his hired hand, the moronic alcoholic, to do. And my bulbs and annuals were savagely dug up. The third gardener, Colin, was in the process of attending horticulture college. He was an amiable bloke just out of the army who got me into composting. But he hadn't learned how to tell a weed from a plant yet, and he ripped out some ferns I had planted. The fourth gardener was hired for the purpose of keeping the garden looking lovely while the house was on the market. Jerry, who we knew from our pub-crawling days BC, had been our gardener for a time at our last house while I was pregnant. Jerry could make the grass grow green and tall, when he showed up. Which was becoming more and more infrequent. Remember, we met him at the pub. I think that's a very big clue about Jerry. He last came in early December, promising to remove a tree limb later that week. He left his ladder and harness. The January storm destroyed the tree, but we held onto the ladder and harness. Till March, when Jerry remembered where he'd left them and called to collect them one day as I was going out with the children. He offered to take down the tree limb, but I informed him the storm had done the job for him.

In between each of these men (and not one like Mellors out of Lady Chatterley's Lover, but he was a gamekeeper anyway, wasn't he?) I have taken on the gardening chores. I have attended the odd gardening courses to try to learn a bit more. I enjoy gardening and possibly could do it full time except for the weather and my bad back. But maybe I should go to horticulture college. After all, if they could do it, why can't I? But I need to take some painkillers right now. My back and shoulders are killing me.

Priceless Pixie

I visited Kaycie's blog and this is what I brought home.

Yesterday was a landmark day for me. I met my first blogpal in the flesh -- Pixie. What a delight she is. We had such a good time together (I hope you did, Pix). We laughed about what we feared each would look like. Though Pixie has posted pictures of herself on her blog, I still worried that she would turn out to be the elderly woman who seemed to be following me around the Met Quarter in Liverpool. She wasn't.

Pixie lives up to her name, with sparkling eyes that light up with mischief and humour. We exchanged confidences because we aren't really strangers. We have been commenting on each other's blogs for months now. We ate the same thing for lunch -- soup followed by king prawns (and the mess that entailed) and drank two white wine spritzers each. We went window shopping. And we set about rounding out each other's knowledge of ourselves. Pixie did a tarot reading for me. She is wonderfully intuitive, which probably makes her a very good counsellor. I could have spent many more hours in her company, but family obligations for both of us beckoned.

We are of the same generation. We have loved and lost and lived and cried and had lives that brought us together at this point in time. We both marvelled at the invention of blogs that has brought so many strangers across the globe together. Some bloggers become very cliquey, which is human nature, I suppose. Some become very popular, and in that popularity lose touch with some blogpals. Again, human nature. For both of us, though, blogging is an intensely personal experience. We have written of feelings and experiences that are very meaningful to us, and our blogpals have come to mean a lot to us as well.

We plan to see each other again, probably in November. And Pixie is having a Christmas party for her blogpals on Dec. 1 at her home. You're all invited. Just keep visiting her blog for details.

A Holy Experience

This is just too good not to share. We Americans are very good at recreating the rest of the world so we don't have to visit it (witness Las Vegas). I predict this will outsell Disney.

OrlandoSentinel.com
Experiencing an excursion to Holy Land
Dewayne Bevil

Theme Park Ranger

August 31, 2007

Where two or more are gathered, and the topic is Holy Land Experience, there are a few standard responses.

"I've always been curious about that place."

"I want to go, but I don't want to give them money."

"I want to go, but I'm afraid I'll burst into flames."

Then there are the easy-target stand-up comedy routines. Do they have a Holy Roller Coaster? Is Christ on the cross six times daily? Is there a rock show called "Jumpin' Jerusalem"?

For the record: No, no, no.

But Holy Land Experience does have similarities to its bigger theme-park brethren. It sports stage shows, miniature re-creations, perky employees (very "Shalom!"-happy), turkey legs and even statuesque greenery. Holy Land bushes spell out "HE IS RISEN" and are within eyeshot of a 7-Eleven. Insert your own "Thank Heaven" joke here. See? It's hard to stop.

The musicals and live presentations feature hard-working performers in multiple roles. The women in the "Moses" musical -- which ends with a remarkable duet by Moses' birth mother and his bulrushes mother -- appear scant moments later in supporting roles in "The Ministry of Jesus."

That's when things become interesting. I semi-smirked when the line "Look, it's Jesus!" was delivered. But sure enough, an actor arrives in his best Johnny Depp 'do.

Jesus is the rock star of Holy Land Experience.

The crowd strains to catch a glimpse and achieve a good camera angle. For the next 15 minutes, it's a mash-up of Jesus' greatest hits of miracles and teachings, including, but not limited to, giving sight to a blind man, preaching about rich men getting into heaven (that camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle thing) and gathering the little children around him.

"Ministry" is well-staged with the other actors, geared with Janet Jackson-style microphones, around the outdoor venue. This allows Jesus to mingle with his peeps. The man has charisma.

Holy Land Experience distributes an excellent schedule, presented chronologically. It is sprinkled with historical presentations about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the temples of Israel and "inspirational insights." These fall somewhere between lecture and sermon. There is not much overlap in the schedule, and some presentations are one-time only.

It's impossible to distinguish the Christians from the merely curious amid the visitors, but you have the feeling that they're preaching to the choir at Holy Land Experience. Many an "amen" and "hallelujah" come up from the spectators. A contemporary Christian music segment of the "Praise Through the Ages" show rocks the house. A woman behind me in her Sunday-best hat stands up and breaks into harmony. Of course, it stands to reason that today's hits score better than the earlier Gregorian chants.

Other highlights include the Scriptorium, a vast, well-designed display of Bibles through the centuries and ancient artifacts; the Temple Plaza (the white building visible from Interstate 4); and KidVenture, a cute, interactive telling of the story of David and Goliath.

The park closes with "Behold the Lamb," a musical drama that graphically portrays the Crucifixion and ensuing Resurrection. It's emotional and intense -- I worried about my inner child, and the actual children nearby. But cameras were out in full force again.

Holy Land has done a decent job resisting tacky souvenirs. There's shopping to be done, but the bulk of it is along the lines of biblical and inspirational goods. It's mostly reverent, although the Oasis Palms Cafe serves a Paul's Platter along with King David's Desserts.

Best of all: no spontaneous human combustion. Shalom!

Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel

A Big Day

Today, my son started Grammar School (and I remembered to get up). He looked so handsome in his blazer and tie, but he was so nervous. He came down at 6:59, complaining of a stomachache and saying he was finding it hard to breathe. I made him do a couple of deep breaths with me. As I was still bunged up, my deep breathing sounded more like snoring. He said he didn't feel better, but I sure did. I made his breakfast (waffles) and went up for my shower as Daughter came down to make her breakfast (scrambled egg and toast). I often complain about my daughter. Not today. Or last night.

Last night I went to my salsa dancing class, which went on longer than I thought it would. As my friend dropped me off, I saw that the lights were off in Daughter's room. I went upstairs to check on her. She'd made sure her brother had had a shower, brushed his teeth and was in bed by 9 p.m. By 9:30 she put herself in bed, cat at her feet to keep her company. I came home about 20 minutes later and we chatted amiably for about half an hour. This morning she said how much she'd enjoyed our chat. That was after she'd sat next to her brother to make sure he ate his breakfast. She talked to him about what he would have for lunch and tried to take his mind off his stomachache and nervousness. It seemed to work.

There is only a 20-month age difference between my children but sometimes it seems much larger. Daughter has taken on a motherly role since we brought Son home from the hospital. I remember her dancing around him that first day as he slept in his car seat and showing him pictures from her favourite book. Yes, they have their spats and sibling jealousies, but for the most part they are good friends and companions. I am so happy for them because my brother and I didn't get along at all when we were younger. My sister, being 10 years older, has always been in a different phase of life to me. I don't feel we have that much in common other than that we're related.

Hubby, hearing about the progress made in the birthday celebrations, is not happy. He thinks I'm spoiling Daughter, but this party will cost less than many others we have had. And I think Daughter deserves it anyway for being so helpful with her brother and being so organised and grown-up when sometimes it's obvious she would prefer not to be. I think Hubby had had a bad day, what with the Tube drivers on strike and all. But he will have to get used to the party idea.

Not-so-good Vibrations

I am a bad mother. I am a bad mother because today is my daughter's first day back at school and I was supposed to wake her at 7. Instead, she woke me at 8. Yes, I'd set the alarm. And, yes, it went off at 6:30. I turned it off and told myself to get up in 10 minutes.

But I have a reason for my laziness. Ultimately, I blame my daughter. At 2:45 this morning I awoke to a vibrating noise (not THAT kind of vibrating). I lay in bed trying to figure out what it was. Did we have a poltergeist somewhere in the house? Was a cat stuck somewhere? No, the noise was too regular and consistent. Every 2 or 3 minutes a percussion of 6 beats. Was it the pipes? I did have the heating on briefly in the evening. But the heating was no longer on. Was something left on -- PlayStation? TV? Something in the bathroom?

After half an hour, I decided I had to investigate. I turned the light on, ventured out into the hallway, turned another light on, stopped to listen. All I could hear was the churning of my stomach, not happy at being awakened prematurely. I went downstairs. The vibration grew fainter. I went upstairs, past my son's room, his bathroom, the guest room, the playroom. All looked serene and quiet. What the hell. I decided to go back to bed. The vibration started again. I decided to ignore it. I'll get the kids to figure it out tomorrow, I told myself.

I turned out the lights. Bloody hell, that vibration is happening again. It's not my dodgy hearing, is it? I turned over to my "good" ear. No difference. Where would it be that I could hear it clearly in my bedroom, but not anywhere else? In my bedroom, of course. But it wasn't. What had I heard before the vibration? Some sort of music. And what would be the source of the music? Not a poltergeist, but maybe a phone. And what room is directly above mine? The playroom.

I turned on the light, got out of bed, went up to the playroom and investigated the PlayStation (it still being my main suspect). Then I heard a noise, but not like the vibration. I saw a phone. My daughter's mobile. When I'd kissed her goodnight some hours earlier, she'd said, "I must find my phone." Someone had texted her at some point in the night. Since I'd found it for her, I decided to leave it by her bed. That way she could be the one disturbed by the vibrations.

And back to bed I went. But I didn't feel sleepy. So I read. I did sudoku. At 5:15, I decided I'd better try to get some sleep. I thought, as I always do in the middle of the night, about relationships gone sour, books I've had that I must read, recipes, what I'll have for breakfast (my stomach being permanently awake by that time), how my son reminds me of Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes, and I must find that book I've had forever, but, wait, I think I gave it away ages ago.

So, not a good night. See, even when they get older, kids still keep you awake at night. Just in different ways.

P.S. Don't forget to vote in my poll on whether we should get a puppy.

How much is that doggy in the window?

Oh how I hate this time of year. September means back to school. It means the nights are starting to draw in. It means grey, drizzly days are just around the corner (and we've already had a summer of them). It means my daughter is planning her birthday party. Or parties.

Daughter is 13 this year, on the 13th of October. That calls for something special, she decided. A limo for some of her friends. Gulp! And a bouncy castle for the other friends. Gulp! I didn't ride in a limo till my 40th birthday, I reminded her. If you have all this now, what do you have to look forward to, I tried to reason with her. And inside I wondered if I've created a monster. Finally, she came up with a compromise. She and another friend would share the limo party. Six of them will go bowling, then come back in the limo to a party hosted at either our or her friend's house. The other mother is on board, the girls have priced the limo and bowling, and it works out cheaper than a lot of other parties I've shelled out for.

Now, onto the presents -- or present. She is forgoing her request for GHD straighteners in order to get -- A PUPPY!

Hubby doesn't want her to have a puppy. He thinks it will stress the cats too much and they'll run away. Hubby is not a natural animal lover so I don't quite believe he's that bothered about the cats. He also doesn't want the mess or damage a puppy can create. I hear him on that.

I'm sort of in limbo on the idea. I like the idea, but the reality, I fear, will be far different. It will be my responsibility ultimately to look after this puppy, I predict. And what kind of puppy to get? I don't want a big dog because they make big messes. I don't want a little dog because they don't seem like real dogs. We (daughter and I) have been on the internet looking for dogs. Purebred or mixed? Breeder or shelter? Some of these purebred dogs cost an absolute fortune. I don't want to pay more than £200. A puppy would be better, I think, for the cats, who will have their noses seriously put out of joint.

I have had dogs before. I have introduced dogs to all-cat households before, with mixed results. I don't want to get the puppy just yet because the cats are still getting over their three weeks at the cattery they've gone to all their lives.

So, what to do? I decided to let you guys help me decide and created a poll. Please help me by voting.