Vegan

by Sue Ellen Thompson

My daughter hauls her sacks of beans
and vegetables in from the car and begins to chop.
My father, who has had enough caffeine,
makes himself a manhattan-on-the-rocks.

It's Sunday, his night for sausage and eggs,
hers for stir-fried lentils, rice, and kale.
Watching her cook eases his fatigue
and loneliness. Later, she'll trim his toenails.

He no longer has an appetite
for anything beyond this evening ritual.
But he'll fry himself an egg tonight
and eat dinner with his granddaughter. For a widower,

there is no greater comfort in the world
than his girls and his girls' girls.

Weather

by George Bilgere

My father would lift me
to the ceiling in his big hands
and ask, How's the weather up there?
And it was good, the weather
of being in his hands, his breath
of scotch and cigarettes, his face
smiling from the world below.
O daddy, was the lullaby I sang
back down to him as he stood on earth,
my great, white-shirted father, home
from work, his gold wristwatch
and wedding band gleaming
as he held me above him
for as long as he could,
before his strength failed
down there in the world I find myself
standing in tonight, my little boy
looking down from his flight
below the ceiling, cradled in my hands,
his eyes wide and already staring
into the distance beyond the man
asking him again and again,
How's the weather up there?

The Video

by Fleur Adcock

When Laura was born, Ceri watched.
They all gathered around Mum's bed —
Dad and the midwife and Mum's sister
and Ceri. "Move over a bit," Dad said —
he was trying to focus the camcorder
on Mum's legs and the baby's head.

After she had a little sister,
and Mum had gone back to being thin,
and was twice as busy, Ceri played
the video again and again.
She watched Laura come out, and then,
in reverse, she made her go back in.

Nursery, 11:00 p.m.

by Robyn Sarah

Asleep, the two of you,
daughter and son, in separate cribs,
what does it matter to you
that I stand watching you now,
I, the mother who did not smile all day,
who yelled, Go away, get out, leave me alone
when the soup-pot tipped over on the stove,
the mother who burned the muffins
and hustled bedtime, tight-lipped.
You are far away,
beyond reach of whispered
amends. Yet your calm
breathing seems to forgive,
unwinding
into the air to mesh
like lace, knitting together
the holes in the dark.
It makes of this dark
one whole covering
to shawl around me.
How warm it is, I think,
how much softer
than my deserving.

The Rules of the New Car

by Wesley McNair

After I got married and became
the stepfather of two children, just before
we had two more, I bought it, the bright
blue sorrowful car that slowly turned
to scratches and the flat black spots
of gum in the seats and stains impossible
to remove from the floor mats. "Never again,"
I said as our kids, four of them by now,
climbed into the new car. "This time,
there will be rules." The first to go
was the rule I made for myself about
cleaning it once a week, though why,
I shouted at the kids in the rearview mirror,
should I have to clean it if they would just
remember to fold their hands. Three years
later, it was the same car I had before,
except for the dent my wife put in the grille
when, ignoring the regulation about snacks,
she reached for a bag of chips on her way
home from work and hit a tow truck. Oh,
the ache I felt for the broken rules,
and the beautiful car that had been lost,
and the car that we now had, on soft
shocks in the driveway, still unpaid for.
Then one day, for no particular reason except
that the car was loaded down with wood
for the fireplace at my in-laws' camp
and groceries and sheets and clothes
for the week, my wife in the passenger seat,
the dog lightly panting beside the kids in the back,
all innocent anticipation, waiting for me
to join them, I opened the door to my life.

Practicing

by Linda Pastan

My son is practicing the piano.
He is a man now, not the boy
whose lessons I once sat through,
whose reluctant practicing
I demanded—part of the obligation
I felt to the growth
and composition of a child.

Upstairs my grandchildren are sleeping,
though they complained earlier of the music
which rises like smoke up through the floorboards,
coloring the fabric of their dreams.
On the porch my husband watches the garden fade
into summer twilight, flower by flower;
it must be a little like listening to the fading

diminuendo notes of Mozart.
But here where the dining room table
has been pushed aside to make room
for this second or third-hand upright,
my son is playing the kind of music
it took him all these years,
and sons of his own, to want to make.

Quote of the Day

"I like to smile at people who don't like me . . . because I'm an asshole."

- Bill Murray

Beware of Criticizing Others

by Oswald Chambers

Judge not, that you be not judged —Matthew 7:1

Jesus’ instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.

There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

http://utmost.org/beware-of-criticizing-others/

2012 Ornaments!

The wife and I have had a tradition of giving each other a Christmas ornament every year. Now, 20 years on, our tree is covered with ornaments that remind us of specific years and places. Naturally, we are have extended the tradition to the wee one.

From me to the wife: A tin poinsettia from Old Town:

From the wife to me: a glass seahorse from Solana Beach:

From Daddy to Annie: a decorated gourd from Old Town:

From Mommy to Annie: a glass butterfly from Solana Beach:

Christmas is Hard

I don't understand, you want me to sit where?

Oh, okay, lay down?

Wait, lay down and look where?

Teenagers

by Pat Mora

One day they disappear
into their rooms.
Doors and lips shut
and we become strangers
in our own home.

I pace the hall, hear whispers,
a code I knew but can't remember,
mouthed by mouths I taught to speak.

Years later the door opens.
I see faces I once held,
open as sunflowers in my hands. I see
familiar skin now stretched on long bodies
that move past me
glowing almost like pearls.

My son calls me while I'm in line at the Stop & Shop

by Kathe L. Palka

and I freeze, transporting tea from the cart
 to the conveyer belt, mind racing to places
 he might need me, as I answer my cell.
 But he's not calling for rescue from the scene
 of an accident, a highway wreck or more
 natural disaster, rather calling, as if I were
 only in the next room. Home early
 from school, he's wondering what's
 for dinner and after being told, asks if I might
 make mashed potatoes instead of rice.
 I sigh a little yes, slightly annoyed at his
 casualness, but glad to be able to heed the call,
 reminded, I'm the one who thinks of this
 accessibility as a way to keep the world
 at bay, able now to respond anywhere,
 yet burdened by availability.
 Born into this expanding, more connected
 universe, he can't imagine why anyone
 would want to be out of reach, my child who
 wears new technology like a second skin
 and for whom the whole world
 is an easy touch away and should be.

Quote of the Day

"Son, this is a big day for you. Today, you become the man of the house, because, when we get home, your mother is going to kill me."

- The Family Guy

The Fam

Thank You!

THANK YOU to everyone who came out to make Holly's birthday a special one.

Holly keeps saying "It was perfect!".

And a BIG THANK YOU to the Kesslers for opening their home! You all rock!

Quote of the Day

"I'm a godmother, that's a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that's cute, I taught her that"

- Ellen DeGeneres

Ornaments 2011

Ornaments are a big deal in our house. Our very first Christmas, the wife gave me a snowman ornament and every year since then we have exchanged one ornament a year. Naturally, we are passing the tradition on to Annie so she has amassed 6 ornaments of her own. After 20 Christmases we are getting very near the point where there isn't a single ornament on our tree that does not evoke a year, a place and a memory.

Here is Annie in the act of scuffing a 23-year-old ornament that has survived since my pre-marital days without a scratch. I'm fine with it. REALLY (grrrrrrrrrr).

This year's ornaments wrapped and under the tree:

Annie checking out past years' ornaments:

First, Annie's turn:

Then Mommy:

Then Daddy:

Daddy's 2011 ornament to Mommy: A bedazzled Starfish:

Mommy's 2011 ornament to Annie: A bird in a bedazzled wire birdcage:

Daddy's 2011 Ornament to Annie: A beach in a globe (sand and shells):

Mommy's 2011 ornament to Daddy: A blown glass seashell:

Possibly one of the greatest traditions ever!

The 20-year-old Science of Putting Up the Tree

This Christmas marks me and the wife's 20th Christmas together. When you are first married, Christmas is a funny time. Her family's traditions collide with your family traditions (not to mention those wierd short-lived traditions you started during your single years).

Well, the wife and I have now spent more Christmases together than we have our birth families and we have gotten the whole tree-thing down to a science (if I do say so myself).

First, we head to the same tree lot every year - 5 minutes from our house. We gaze in mystification at the flocked trees . . .

Then it's once around the lot, pick a tree and we are otta there. We don't rush it but it never seems to take us more than 15 minutes or so. This year we had a scare - we didn't find a tree to our liking and the dreaded specter of going to a second lot threatened to unravel a tradition - but lo, there she was - in the way back corner. We left Annie to watch it while daddy ponied up the cash.

The obligatory family photo in front of our catch:

Then heave-ho and tie-er-down:

Doing what dad's do to trees in their backyard before they are allowed in the house: (and no-that doesn't involve peeing on it):

Stand 'er up, run the power cord up the trunk and dad's job is done:

Mommy does the lights:

And makes it beautiful:

It's a good one this year - just like the 19 years before it . . . Merry Merry

Me and Cousin Blake Watching the Fountain

Reusing Words

by Hal Sirowitz

Don't think you know everything,
Father said, just because you're good
with words. They aren't everything.
I try to say the smallest amount possible.
Instead of using them indiscriminately
I try to conserve them. I'm the only one
in this household who recycles them. I
say the same thing over & over again,
like "Who forgot to turn out the lights?
Who forgot to clean up after themselves
in the bathroom?" Since you don't listen
I never have to think of other things to say.