I like to know the score.  Am I winning?  Losing?  Am I on the right team?  Am I sitting on the bench?

This metaphor could go on and on.

But what I’m trying to say is that I appreciate straightforward people.  When I was young and timid, those kind of brash people scared me.  I never knew what they might say.  I assumed every stink-eye was directed at me.  But now I’ve grown to appreciate people who are exactly what they seem to be, through and through.  I like even the cranky straightforward person, the one who cannot mince words or sugarcoat a thing.

I do not like someone to smile at me and shake my hand while plotting against me.  Or even just pretending to be my friend.

So, when I find myself the victim of a murky situation because a fake person misled me, I get a little annoyed.

I am even more perturbed when said fake person is regarded with much acclamation by a lot of other people.  I feel crazy, pointing and muttering, “The emperor has no clothes!”

That is all.

Have a nice weekend.  I’ll be at the soccer field trying to stay dry.

A year ago, an improvised explosive device exploded in Afghanistan and killed a young soldier we’d recently met.  Only a month or two earlier, we’d had a good-bye barbecue in his honor.  He entered heaven leaving behind his wife of a few months and his unborn baby girl.  His name was Andrew.

That event shaped my perspective more than anything else this year.

When I feel whiny, I can hear my ungratefulness.  I can palpate the bitter knot of discontent in my heart.  I see how short-sighted I am, how my vision blurs when I forget.

I’ve watched the young widow face her shaken world with courage and cheer.  I visited her in the hospital after their baby was born.  I’ve seen her carry on and live her life with grace.  And when I see her fortitude, I am inspired to face my life differently.

I admit that sometimes I hold my breath, waiting for tragedy to collide with my world.  I’ve lost an assortment of people and felt the pain of disappointment and rejection and why wouldn’t I view the world through these scratched, cloudy glasses?  A meteor could crash into the earth at any time and there’s no reason it shouldn’t crash on me.  (I am a glass-half empty kind of girl.  I am a glass shattered on the floor into a million pieces kind of girl.)

It’s a wonder we don’t all crawl under the bed and wait to die, when you look at it that way.

But I can’t look at it that way.

Loss hurts but love heals.

Life is fleeting and uncertain, but we have today.

And that is reason for joy.

I’ve only recently realized that my dark superpower may be my ability to make people invisible.  And not invisible in a good way, either.

Hurt my feelings?  You’re invisible.

Offend me?  I can’t see you.

Betray me?  I’m blind in your general direction.

The worst thing is that this superpower seems entirely reasonable to me.

It’s sort of a no-fuss, no-muss way to live, except for the immaturity and ridiculousness of it.  I believe in the power of forgiveness, in the necessity of forgiveness, but if you bug me?  You’re dead to me.

I can ignore you for the whole rest of my life, if need be.  The Silent Treatment and I go way back.

I’m not saying it’s good.

But I am good at it.

I realized this over the weekend–the one dotted with dank pools of self-doubt and jealousy–when I explained to someone my 8-year old’s issues with another girl at school.  My daughter has no patience for someone who has crossed her.  She does not forgive and forget . . . she remembers and continues the feud.

It’s sort of vaguely amusing when you’re 8-years old, but when you are forty-five and you erase people from your future if they disappoint or disagree with you it’s not at all cute.

Although it’s better than punching people in the nose.

Don’t tell my daughter, but my husband and I went to the Puyallup Fair today.  We went mainly to see the rodeo, but also had fun strolling around in search of food.  I particularly liked watching the people . . . the arms covered in tattoos, the women teetering on spiky heeled boots, the strollers transporting identical twins.

We’re taking the kids in about ten days, so don’t feel too sorry for them.  We have to rob a bank save up some money before we take them.

Yesterday was Grace’s birthday party.  We invited the whole class and thirteen kids ending up attending.  The party took place at a local high school swimming pool and it was fun to watch the kids bobbing around in the water.

The highlight for me occurred while Grace was opening gifts.  After she pulled one gift from a gift bag, the boy who’d given it to her shouted, “My mom says to bring that bag home!”  I laughed and told him that he could have the bag back.

Later, when I gave him the bag to take back to his mom, I noticed that it was not even an actual birthday bag, but a generic bag that was battered from previous uses.  I admired his mom’s frugality and was really very amused.

In every moment of my spare time this week, I read Catching Fire.  I only heard about The Hunger Games within the past week or two . . . suddenly, I heard the book mentioned repeatedly because the last book in the trilogy came out (Mockingjay).  So, I jumped on the bandwagon and have been happily immersed in these books–reading them at the same time as my 12-year old.  (We were racing through book one to see who could start book two first.  He won but I read book two first since he was busy this weekend playing video games and running around outside with friends.)

And so another week begins.

This was originally posted on my blog on September 11, 2006.

* * *

I am participating in the 2,996 Project, for which 2,996 bloggers volunteered to write a memorial for one person who perished in the attacks on 9/11.

Today, on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States, I remember Thomas Kuveikis.

Thomas Kuveikis was known to his family and friends as Tommy.  He grew up in Brooklyn, attending Blessed Sacrament Elementary School.  He later graduated from Wheatley High School in 1971 after his family moved to East Williston.

Tommy studied architecture at both SUNY Farmingdale and the Pratt Institute, but her never completed a degree.  He dabbled in carpentry, a skill learned from his father.  He joined the New York Fire Department (FDNY) in August of 1977 when he was twenty-four years old.

Within a year, Tommy made a name for himself as an aggressive, brave and tough firefighter.  His younger brother, Tim,  once said, “If I could be half the fireman he was, I’ll have a really good career.”  (Newsday.com)   He loved the action of firefighting in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood.  (His father was a legendary firefighter who died in November 2001.)

But Tommy wasn’t just a tough guy.  He came up with an idea to help a poor family at Christmas.  Starting in 1987, members of his squad visited a priest at St. Barbara’s Roman Catholic Church and ask for the name of the poorest family in the parish.  Then they would contact the family, set up a Christmas tree and provide presents.

Tommy was married twice and was about to be engaged to Jennifer Auerhahn, who described him as “sweet, funny, kind gentle and unselfish.”  His brother Jimmy wrote about him on September11victims.com website saying,

“It was really tough to lose Tommy as he became such a kind, considerate guy over time.  He was not always this way, especially in his twenties, but ‘life’s difficulties’ made him become a great human being.  He was a vegetarian, he gave money and time to Putnam County Land Trust to preserve ’special’ land . . . he loved animals, kids and good people.  Tommy was already a tremendous fireman, working in a poor area of Brooklyn, where he could experience many more fires than the average fireman, just like his father did.”

Kathy Gelman said her brother, Tommy, was “honorable, honest, humorous, humble, humane, and hero.”

In his spare time, Tommy worked as a carpenter.  In fact, he built a steam room in Squad 252’s firehouse.  He had a reputation for not charging enough for his carpentry work.  One day a year, he would donate a day of carpentry to the Putnam County Land Trust.

Tommy had one daughter, Kristen.  He had five siblings, sisters Christine, Karen and Kathleen and brothers, James and Timothy.

Tommy had been a firefighter for twenty-four years and a member of Squad 252 (“In Squad We Trust” was their motto) for five years when his squad answered the fifth alarm at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, at 9:00 a.m.  He was forty-eight years old that day.  CNN footage shows his squad pulling up to the east side of the Trade Center around 9:28 a.m.  The six members of the squad entered the north tower, rescued a man from an elevator.

Two of the firefighters’ bodies were found in the C stairwell 18 days later.  The other four men of Squad 252, including Tommy, were never found.

Today, I remember Thomas Kuveikis.  Thomas Kuveikis is one of the 343 FDNY firefighters who died on September 11, 2001.  He is a hero.  We will never forget.

We will never, ever, ever forget.

For three days, an enormous heap of Legos has been scattered on the family room floor.

This is a sure sign that I’m past the toddler/preschooler stage of motherhood.  The Legos can stay there because no one will pop one into his or her mouth.  (And also, I am just too busy to retrieve the Lego box from my daughter’s room where she is probably using it as a doll crib for a very small doll.)

I can’t say that I miss the worries that someone might ingest a penny or eat a stray marble at any moment.  I also don’t miss the early wake-up calls or shampooing an unwilling child’s hair.  I’m glad I don’t have to wipe anyone’s . . .  nose.

What don’t you miss?

Back in January, the ground began to shift beneath our feet.  I was shocked.  I thought our world was unshakable.

My husband loved his job, the kids were doing great and I had no real complaints.

But our lives began to shake, imperceptibly at first, then undeniably.

My husband applied for a new job.

A new job?  A new job.

At first, it was almost a lark.  We weren’t sure he’d make it past the first round.  When he did, we took another step forward.  And we repeated that process month after month.  Each time we were half-shocked, half-unsurprised that he was one step closer to getting the job.

We talked endlessly about the pros and cons and about the reasons we should go and the reasons we should stay.

Meanwhile, he answered questions.  He sent in audio recordings of himself.  He send in DVDs of himself preaching.  He had a video-conference.  He flew to meet the search committee one weekend, then flew another weekend to meet another group of people.  He provided more information about himself than we even knew we had.  The committee checked his background and called fourteen references.

I fully expected them to slide him into an MRI machine to check out his insides.

Months passed.

I admit that I worried a lot.  My biggest concern was how my children would adjust to a potential move to another state.  We’ve lived in this house for twelve years.  My daughter was born in the master bedroom.  My 12-year old son came here as a seven-month old baby.  My twins were kindergartners when we moved in.

We love it here.

We know many people who come and go since we live near a military base, but we never, ever, ever expected to be the ones who would be packing up and moving away.  We never wanted to be those people.

When I lamented about how my children would handle a move, my friend, Lisa, pointed out that if God had a plan for my husband in another state, God also had a plan for my children.  They wouldn’t just be dragged along into a hostile environment, but rather, they’d be walking through a door opened by their Creator.

Another weird thing happened.  My friend, Cindie, and her husband decided that they’d really like to relocate from this area to another state.  So, in January, they picked up their empty nest and moved.  They moved to the exact same area we were considering.

Maybe, I thought, God really was opening this door.

I flew to California with my daughter a week and a half ago to meet some of the people and to see the area.  (We loved it.)

Then, before we flew home, the church in California voted to call my husband as its next Senior Pastor.

We are excited about this new adventure.  And by excited I mean half-freaked-out, half-giddy with anticipation and half-way-too-tired to do all the work necessary to pack up this life and move it fifteen hundred miles down I-5.  Wait, that’s too many halves.

Well.  It is too many halves.

It’s too much of everything, really.

And I mean that in a good way.  Mostly.  (Have you seen my storage room?)

* * *

Because you will ask, I will tell you that my husband will be starting his new job in California in October.  The children and I will stay here until school is out in June.  Also?  Want to buy a house?

I always want to write a post for Monday mornings.  The problem is that I work until 1 a.m. on Sunday nights and I’m always ready to fall into bed after work.

It’s already 2:10 a.m.  And I want to collapse into bed.  So that’s what I’m going to do . . . but I promise (myself,  mostly) to write a post tomorrow.  We have big news, you know.

Happy Labor Day!

Tomorrow is the last day before school starts.  As always, I am shocked at how fast summer slid past us.  Did we swim enough?  Did we soak up enough sun to last us through a gloomy winter?  Did we sleep in enough?  (My teenagers most definitely did.)

I took my 7-year old to the school for Open House.  We met her teacher.  She chose her desk (middle-center).  We stopped by the Book Fair and bought some books.  (Every book she picks out features a dog on the cover.)  And then we came home.

She’s not excited about school.  My seventh grader dreads school.  The teenagers have already started their online school with great reluctance.

But I’m excited about school because this means I can go to the grocery store by myself.

The wind blew away any traces of summer today.  Rain fell.  The scent of fall–or maybe it was just the scent of rain on our dry lawn–filled the air.

Good-bye, summer!  We hardly knew you!

What a weekend it was.

This morning I could see the Pacific Ocean and palm trees and by tonight I was descending beneath the Seattle clouds and then later, cleaning out kitty litter boxes.

There’s nothing like air travel to discombobulate a person.

Except, of course, the idea of picking up an entire household and transplanting it.

If I weren’t so exhausted, I’d explain.