booandbunny

Anyone who checks in here, consider yourself tagged if you like and please share five things we should know about you. If not, don’t worry about me passing this chain on. I think we all get enough junky e-mail that we know we can take or leave things out here. PB-Rock (knowing I had no idea what I might write today) tagged me and I took it as an opportunity to challenge myself, so here it is.

1. I recently was reminded I was born in the year of the dog. It’s funny to me now often these things are actually true about a person. I share my canine tendencies first because they offer background for items 2-5. (“Dogs are loyal, faithful and honest … except for the occasional ‘little white lies’ the Dog tells in order to make things go more smoothly. The Dog's mantra seems to be, Live right, look out for the little people and fight injustice whenever possible. Dogs can also be very temperamental; mood swings characterize its emotional life and often the Dog needs to run off to be alone in order to recuperate. Part of the problem is the result of the Dog’s load of irrational fears that turn into niggling anxieties that turn into hurt feelings and occasional grouchiness.”) As far as my being an Aquarius, I am never so at peace as I am when I am near water … not necessarily in water, but near it. The smell, the sounds, the colors soothe my soul. And no, the Mississippi River doesn’t count, but Lake Michigan does. All this goes along with the Life Path Number I found thanks to kat, which also has several true things in it and, ironically is the same number I got when I punched in hubby’s birthday.

Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" style='color:black; font-size: 14pt;'> Your Life Path Number is 9

Your purpose in life is to make the world better You are very socially conscious and a total idealist. You think there are many things wrong with the world, and you want to fix them. You have a big idea of how the world could be, and you'll sacrifice almost anything to work toward this dream. In love, you can easily see the beauty in someone else. And you never cling too tightly. You are capable of great love, but it's hard for you to focus your love on one person or relationship. You have a lot of outward focus, and you tend to blame the world for your failures. You are often disappointed by the realities of life - it's hard for you to accept the shortcomings of the world.

2. This year belongs to this dog. (I’ve also read that we dogs can be a bit selfish. J) I’ve been at home with my kids since 1999. I still wear clothes from 1999. I went to the salon the other day for the first time since 2004. I looked at my stylist and explained that this whole rebirth started when my sister-in-law took me shopping. “We have got to get you out of those mom shorts,” she said. And so we did. Life outside the mom shorts gets a little pricey, but it’s sparked a regular workout routine, rejuvenated my confidence, invigorated my marriage (which, I confess for awhile was coming in a distant second to my momming) and rekindled my creativity (thanks to my taking time to find blog buddies). This August the youngest of the three kids starts Kindergarten, which doesn’t mean less work as a mom, only less time in which to do it (after school and on weekends as he will not be home during the week). So the hours he’s away will continue to be invested in freelance writing and editing as well as in a concentrated effort on my Boo and Bunny children’s books and a more adult story I’m trying to get out of my head and into people’s hearts. I’ll need the whole year!

3. I am married to my best friend. We have been married for almost 14 years. We have been friends for almost 18 years. Who else would have tried so hard to understand all that concentrated momming? Who else would have worked so hard to help me realize who I am is not genetically (or environmentally) predestined? I do not have to be my mother. I do not have to define myself by my children. All these things are part of me, but they are not all of me. Thank you, thank you for being my best friend, the smartest person I know and the sexiest man I’ll ever see.

4. If I could convince people of something I would like to convince them that food isn’t just about refueling your body. I would like to convince them of the statistics: That kids (especially girls) who eat regular family meals are less likely to suffer from body image issues and eating disorders; less likely to fall prey to substance abuse and less likely to suffer from emotional illnesses such as depression. Fewer than one third of American families eat meals together regularly. Yes, food is about powering the body. But meals can be about empowering your spirit. I would like to convince people that sharing a meal is sharing yourself, and taking in what others share with you while you take in the food your body needs.

5. Maybe it’s because I love history. Maybe it’s because I love food. Maybe it’s because I love the hubby and it was the first time in 10 years we’d truly been alone together on a trip. But I love New Orleans and my heart was broken last summer. Some say it is a home to debauchery and indulgence. Maybe it is … alongside a mountain of gifts to American culture. I choose to say it is a place of free expression. Somewhere south of Baton Rouge you cross a line where it’s OK to let your inner artist paint, feed your inner chef unknown wonders, buy yourself a Hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s and dance in the streets. I know it will come back, even if it takes a very long time, and I’m going to continue to do what I can to help, even if it is just buying coffee and spices.

So, I guess I am a pretty good dog. I’ve been honest here and suffered a mood swing while writing this. I’ve stayed on my path. (You can see from No. 4 how disappointed I can get!) And I wound my way back to water, even it was down the Mississippi River.

Woof.

It’s been one of those Missouri weather patterns where the front moves in and you can actually see the line. If you live in the Midwest or have spent time here you know what I mean. I have seen storms other places, but they’re different. Here, we can get lines as clear as the ones on the TV map.

This morning, driving East on I-70 we were right under one.

“I love mornings like this,” I said to my husband. “You can see the decisions right in front of you.” The sun was breaking through the clouds to our south while the clouds to our north were a solid, gray, discouraging mass. “You can choose the right thing,” I said pointing south, “Or not. Just like there are always two fronts coming together somewhere, there’s somebody making a big choice … somewhere.”

“Ya, but sometimes you can choose that,” he said pointing south, “but you get this.” He pointed north and I was surprised. I told him what an uncharacteristically negative remark that seemed to be for him. I married a glass-is-half-fuller.

“I don’t mean it negative,” he said … such a half-fuller. “I mean that, sometimes you can choose the right thing, but it doesn’t feel right for awhile. You have to do a lot of work before you get to that. It’s not all sunshine.”

He’s also well-grounded, well-rounded and realistic, too.

I knew he was right, and I told him so. For the rest of the ride we alternated between putting on our sunglasses and taking them off, depending on how we were carried back and forth under the sky. But in that car this morning, for me anyway, it was all sunshine.

We had some time after lunch and decided to stop by Mr. Queen’s room. He was the drama teacher back then at Tulsa Memorial High School and I was an extra for the play … I think we were doing Our Town, of all things. Any way, his classroom was where I was when I heard the Challenger had exploded. The rest of the day has faded from the memory banks, except for watching CNN with my brothers after school while stuffing our faces. (As teenagers my brothers could split a pizza at 3 p.m. and eat dinner at 7. And they never, never watched CNN.) About an hour of it and I couldn’t take any more. They weren’t telling me anything new.

Maybe that’s when the journalist in me truly started breaking free. I wanted better information. By the time the next “flashbulb memory” hit I was in a newsroom … the Berlin wall was coming down, O.J. was on the run, the Murrah victims were scrambling toward safety, Columbine’s kids were sacrificed. Finally I moved to sports so I could remember things such as the Bulls winning 70 games in one season and the Packers going back to the Super Bowl. Harding and Kerrigan and minutiae that passes the time without marking the soul.

I was at home with my very young children the day the Towers fell. I clearly remember the then-3-year-old noticing when planes returned to the sky. She doesn’t remember that now. I’m thankful they don’t have any “flashbulb memories” yet.

So, as a teller of stories both fictional and real, I found the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s approach to the Challenger anniversary interesting. They actually were telling me something in a new way. And I wondered how much of my memory was real, and how big a trick my memory might be playing on me. They came back today with another interesting way of marking the anniversary.

Where were you that day in ’86?

What is it about first entering a room of strangers that is so, well, enticing and unbearable? There’s always a sense of relief when you find someone with whom to hold a conversation. There’s always that excitement of meeting someone new or learning more about someone you’ve worked with for years. Every once in awhile a mask or two comes off at a cocktail party and something truly amazing is revealed. And sometimes you leave feeling a bit giddy, not because of the alcohol but because, in learning new things about others, you’ve learned something about yourself or been inspired to take a leap from which you’ve been pulling back or found something new to explore.

So I’ve been a bit hung over lately after spending more time in this world. Already I’ve felt a reconnection with my creative self … someone I haven’t seen or learned anything about in a very long time. Already I’ve felt a change in how I come to others simply because I’ve reconnected with my creativity. And I’ve reconnected after being inspired by so many others making that same journey. I feel as though I’m looking out my window at a whole new front yard, and I can’t wait to see what changes I find on the rest of my street. Cheers!

Oh so many times I’ve watched a kids’ TV show or finished reading one of them a book and thought “Well, I could write a better story than that!”

The time when I experienced this sensation the most was during the board book years. I mean, you pay at least $7 for a book, your kid loves it to pieces (I mean actually to pieces … my oldest son teethed on Goodnight Moon!) and they want to hear the story all the time. But, beyond the adaptations of longer stories (We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Rainbow Fish ) some of these books are frustrating in what they offer kids. I mean, can’t we at least teach our 2-year-old beginning, middle and end instead of giving them some cartoony drawings and sight words?

That’s why I love the adaptations. Plus, as the kids grew out of board books and into longer stories of more delicate construction, they were surprised to see what they had been missing. (Marcus Pfister’s Rainbow Fish series was a special treasure for my youngest early on.)

And yet, I held on to most of those board books until just a few weeks ago in a post-holiday purge. Why? Because from the very first day of kindergarten they would practice reading them themselves. Oh, the satisfaction on their little faces! “I can do it!” each of the older two exclaimed upon reading one themselves. A handful remain for the youngest. He starts kindergarten in August.

So, with that, I turn to one of his favorite authors: Rosemary Wells.

“Read to your bunny often, its twenty minutes of fun.
Its twenty minutes of moonlight. Its twenty minutes of sun.
Twenty old-favorite minutes. Twenty minutes brand-new.
Read to your bunny often, And … your bunny will read to you.”

And, as I travel the path to “a better story than that” I love combing the library stacks with them. It helps me discover styles I like. It helps me see trends I don’t. But most of all, reading with them (whether it’s Rosemary Wells, E.B. White or Valerie Tripp) reminds me of the simple truths of life and that they never change.

Today's the day I start trying harder at this blog thing. My new goals are to share Boo and Bunny and learn more about writing for children. Besides picture books, I'd also like to learn more about creating characters that are interesting for boys and books that are appropriate for accelerated readers. Just because a 7-year-old can read at a fifth-grade level doesn't make them ready for tween themes.

But, first, some unfinished business. My only trip to New Orleans was in 2003 and I fell in love. Loving to cook (and eat) had a huge role in this. Loving history and architecture also played a part. Since the storms I've wanted to do what I could from my Midwest Outpost. Supporting their businesses by buying my favorite products online is the best thing I could come up with. So here are some of my favorites (that are back up and running). More as they re-appear. Laissez les bonnes temps rouler!

www.cafedumonde.com
The home of beignet and coffee across from Jackson square. Order merchandise, beignet mix and coffee online now.

www.auntsallys.com
The home of the best-known pralines in New Orleans. Order online now.

www.nosoc.com
The New Orleans School of Cooking and Louisiana General store will re-open on St. Louis Street in the French Quarter on March 8. Order spices, etc. online now.

www.patobriens.com
The home of the Hurricane, they were only inspired by the events of last August, creating the new Category 5, which I can only imagine is even more potent than the original drink. Order merchandise (and drink mixes) online.

www.abita.com
Beer from the bayou. (Learn here if you can buy it near you.) And a link to help raise restoration funds.