Tonight, at 10:15 p.m., I telephoned my neighbor down the street to ask her to send my boys home.

A bit later, the doorbell rang.  Her son was at my door asking if I found the boys yet.  “They didn’t come out with me,” he said.

That’s when I realized they must be upstairs, quietly playing the Nintendo Wii with their younger brother.

Way to keep track of the kids.

Tomorrow is the last day of Vacation Bible School at church.  The kids have all gone every day–the teenagers have helped and the younger two have participated and everyone seems to have had a great time.  I know I’ve had a great time having the house to myself for almost three hours each morning.

That’s something I could get used to.  (And next fall my baby girl goes off to kindergarten . . . I know I should feel nostalgic, but at the moment, all I feel is happy anticipation.  I will cry later.)

My daughter has been lobbying for a pet of her own ever since my husband took her window-shopping at a pet store last Sunday while we waited for a table at Red Robin. She declared that she’d really like a mouse. “Mom, I know it’s a big responsibility,” she said, “But I am five-and-a-half! I know how to take care of a pet!”

The truth is, I have always had a fondness for animals. However, I am not willing to take care of a small pet, especially a small pet that might be mauled to death by our three mutant cats in an unguarded moment.

So, we’re trying to convince her that a fish would be Fun with a capital F.

Anybody have advice? I am thinking that a Beta fish might be easy to keep alive? Easier than a goldfish?

That’s just what I need: something more to tend.

The kids are going to Vacation Bible School this week–and I am not in charge for the first time in six years.  Believe me, it’s odd being one of those mothers who signs in her kids and then walks out footloose and fancy-free.  I squandered my free time cleaning my house and packing a picnic lunch.

I picked up the kids at 12:03 p.m. (my son was on the phone, calling me because I was “late”).  We picnicked at the grassy park overlooking the Puget Sound.  The weather could not have been more lovely.  The children were even sweet, raving over the sandwiches (sliced leftover chicken breast, bacon and cheese).  My 10-year old wanted to see the local town museum, but it was closed.  Instead, I took the teenagers (aka Party Poopers) home.  The littler kids changed into swimsuits and we went to our town beach.

Grace sampled all the activities: climbed the playground equipment, swang on the swing, and then settled on throwing rocks into the Puget Sound and collecting crabs into a purple Easter bucket.  Zach spent all his time turning over rocks in his quest to find crabs.  He waded into the cold water a bit, too.  Grace got her Converse high tops wet, then wanted them off (against my judgment), then wanted them back on her sandy feet.  The beach is rocky, full of barnacles and hard on the feet.  She learned that the hard way.

After two hours at the beach, we headed directly to the pool where they swam for another two and a half hours.

When we returned home, the house appeared to be in the very same condition it was in the morning–before I spent two hours cleaning up.  Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but the boys had snacked and left a mess in the kitchen and devoured more than their share of the packs of M&Ms that I bought to put into the pool bag.  And then they discarded the wrappers on the floor.  I was not happy.

Also, I was very tired after the day full of fun.

(As an aside: I am currently reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  I’ve never read it before.)

I ironed a bunch of pairs of pants for my husband, then worked for four hours.  If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep by 1:00 a.m.

And sadly, tomorrow I begin work at 8 a.m. and will put in 12 hours on the computer before my day is done at midnight tomorrow night.  (Three separate shifts.)

But, boy, did we have fun today!   Why is having fun so exhausting when you’re the one in charge of packing the picnic, driving the car and keeping watch?

I inherited a metal case containing a random assortment of slides. Years ago, I glanced at these slides, picking through them. At the time, I found a shocking image, but I simply replaced it in its slot (#98). Then I placed the metal case with its 150 slots into the back of a four-drawer file cabinet and sort of forgot about it.

More than a week ago, I came across this gray case again. Fifty-six slides still remain inside. This time, I opened the notebook inside the case and found these descriptions (capitalization and spelling intact):
Mount Rush More

Grand Canyon

ARIZ MOUNTAIN FLOWERS

SUPERSTITION MTS ARIZ

PHONIX ARIZ.

ARIZ SCENERY

YELLOW STONE OLD FAITHFUL

YELLOW STONE FORMATION

YELLOWSTONE MORNING GLORY POOL

MORNING GLORY POOL

PRESCOTT SIGN

OUT WEST PICTURES

CHICAG BOY SCOUTS

CHICAGO VFW ON PARADE

MUSEUM OF THE CROSS

W.VA INDIAN SKELTON

CHICAGO BOY SCOUTS

CHICAGO CHURCH’S

CHICAGO LINCOLN PARKCHICAGO PARK FLOWERS

TENN. PICTURES

OLD FAITHFUL

OUT WEST PICTURES

MUSEUM OF THE CROSS

SARSOTA FLORIDA PICTURES

GREAT MASTERPIECE FLORIDA

BLACK HILLS PASSION PLAY FLORIDA

CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

CHICAGO MUSEUM SCIENCE-INDUSTRY

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

STEPHEN C. FOSTER MUSEUM

CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

CHICAGO CHILDREN ZOO

SQUIRREL LINCOLN PARK

PHONIX ARIZ ZOO

MARY GRACE

PICTURES OF JESUS

CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL

PACIFIC GARDEN MISSION

CHICAGO TAVERN MAN IN DOORWAY

ROLLING MARURRNIA

SNIFFING GLUE

SHOOTING DOPE

Shooting Dope

MAN IN ALLEY

MEN SLEEPING IN PARKS . . . .

Uh, what? Go back. Go back. Rolling what? Sniffing glue? I picked up slide #95. December 1963, printed right on the slide. The headless portrait of a man squeezing a yellow tube of glue into a paper bag. Slide #96 shows his face. Who is that?

Slide #97 shows a woman. March 1964 stamped into the slide. She’s wearing a white shirt and poking a needle into a reddened elbow. I can’t see her face, just a hair-obscured profile. Three pictures of her “shooting dope” and no clues. Oh, and I just picked up slide #101 and it’s the same woman, different shirt, dated September 1963. I found another slide of her in the slot for “ARIZ SCRENSERY” posing with another young woman on a rock on the edge of an ocean.
Who are these people? I believe the handwriting is my paternal grandfather’s. He died back in 1986. My own dad has been dead since 1989.

And so, I have no idea who is pictured in these slides from the 1960s. They look unfamiliar to me, but obviously my grandfather knew them. But why would he put these slides mixed in with other benign images, vacations and cityscapes and portraits of known relatives?

I have no idea. My grandfather was nearly a stranger himself–he lived in Ohio and I grew up in Washington state. We visited a handful of times, driving across the country in three days and nights. My parents never had enough money for motels, so they’d switch off driving. Once my grandpa and my stepgrandma flew out here for a vacation and we trekked all over Seattle to show them the sites.

When I knew him, my grandpa was an old man, a powerless, harmless gray-haired man who lived in a creaky old house that smelled like old people. He had adventures in his day, judging from this evidence.

I wish I knew more and I’m sorry I know this much.

I love having a daughter.  She is sassy and she follows me into the bathroom despite my pleas for privacy, but, oh, she delights me.  Shopping alongside her at Target was so fun tonight.  She likes to browse, going up and down the aisles, crying out, “Oh, isn’t this cute?” and examining various toys.  She is so unlike the boys that I cannot believe the difference.

When drag the boys into a store, they bicker and put each other in headlocks and cause me great misery.  To this day, I avoid taking them shopping with me.  But I can tell that shopping with my daughter will be fun.  She understands the rhythm and pace of browsing.  All I need to do is teach her about “Clearance” stickers and we’ll be all set.

Tomorrow I have to work:  eight hours broken into three shifts.  I will fit into my day parade-watching (two kids will be in the parade with my husband) and fireworks viewing (at 10:00 p.m. because it stays light so late at our latitude).  I suspect my husband will take the younger kids to the pool after the parade.  We’ll see.  I hate that I will be working, but love that I will be earning time and a half.

And I know!  I need to tell the story of the slides, but not tonight.  (I am such a tease.)

I cannot do justice to the story I want to tell.  (So, maybe tomorrow.)  But I decided to post every day in July, so I am posting this at 12:07 a.m.  At 8:00 a.m., I will be back at this desk working.  At least this long day is over, though.  On Wednesdays, I work 12 hours.

I did manage to take the younger two to the pool between shifts–and my husband joined us there, so I was able to come home and nap for half an hour.  The kids got to swim almost two hours and we each sat poolside only an hour each.  (I don’t mind sitting at the pool, actually, now that my kids can all swim.  Grace now dives head-first from the diving board.  All this without a single swimming lesson.)

I finished reading Anne Tyler’s Saint Maybe a few days ago.  Anne Tyler rocks.  Now I’m in that sad place between excellent novels.  I’ve been reading magazines at the pool, unable to choose what to read next.

My 10-year old is spending the night with a friend and will be gone over 24 hours.  Whenever one kid is missing from the equation, it’s so quiet around here.  At least that’s what I hope and dream will happen tomorrow:  peace and tranquility.

Okay, if I’m asleep in fifteen minutes, I’ll get seven and a half hours before working again.

(Hey, I didn’t say every post this month would be fascinating, just that it would be written.)

Today my husband started his new job.  He resigned as the pastor of our church and now works for a large non-profit organization as the Chief Operations Officer.  We loved our church and did not leave because of anything negative.  The opportunity to work for the non-profit was just irresistible to my husband.  So, we close the door on ten years of ministry at our church and nearly twenty years of working as a pastor.

So we begin a new chapter of life.

* * *

I am determined to make this summer memorable and fun even though I am working forty hours a week.  I have arranged my schedule so I have Tuesdays off (until 8 p.m.).  Today, I took the kids to a movie (Wall-E) which everyone seemed to enjoy.  (My trick at the movie theater:  buy a large popcorn that comes with free refills.  Put a couple of paper lunchbags in your purse, immediately divvy the popcorn into separate bags and get a refill before the movie starts.)  On the way to the movie, we stopped at a video game store to one of the kids could rent a video game and one could buy a racing game.

After the movie, we stopped by the hardware store to buy a doorknob and brackets for hanging a curtain rod.  Then we stopped by the library.

When I was a teenager, I used to ride my bike to the library and spend the afternoon looking for books.  My four kids acted as if they’d never been in a library before, although they did keep shushing each other.  One of my 15-year old sons is an avid reader and we were there mostly for his benefit, but he couldn’t think of any authors that he likes to read.  So I led all four kids to the science-fiction/fantasy section and picked out a couple of books (C.S. Lewis, Doris Lessing and one other).  It’s tricky to supply him with books because I am concerned about protecting him from images I deem inappropriate.  I read stuff at his age that was wildly age-inappropriate and I don’t want him to do the same.

He loves to read so much though.  For fun this summer, he is almost finished re-reading Don Quixote.  He easily reads a normal-sized novel in a day or two.  It’s remarkable, really.

Anyway, then back home where I spent the next few hours preparing for a handyman to come over to install two curtain rods, a doorknob and a deadbolt.  Remember, I’d purchased brackets for a curtain rod because I couldn’t locate the ones I ordered months and months ago.  And wouldn’t you know it, as I was scooping up Legos off my son’s floor, I discovered the missing packet containing the brackets and screws.  (Did it drop from the ceiling?  How did it just appear?)

I found it rather annoying that my husband, the ex-pastor, scheduled this handyman to come on a Tuesday when we could have been at the pool in the precious few hours I wasn’t working.  I was so annoyed with him but really, it was my hormones speaking because I am irrational with premenstrual syndrome.  It’s bad.

My husband has finally noticed that I suffer from PMS and has stopped taking me quite so seriously.  I am a lucky woman.

My house is in disarray since the garage sale.  I want to right things, to put them in order, but I just can’t quite find the time.  In fact, tomorrow–seven and a half hours from now–I begin a twelve hour day.  It’s the price I pay for having easier days on Mondays and Tuesdays.  (At least I am not directing Vacation Bible School this year–I led it for six consecutive years!)
Oh, I just remembered what I wanted to say here.  It will have to wait until tomorrow.  I rediscovered some slides with the most shocking accompanying captions.  I do not know what to think about it.

But now, I must sleep.

I woke up with an aching back. Took three Advil and went back to bed long enough for it to take effect.

Sometime after I’d started working, my teenagers’ friends woke up and went home. (Two brothers slept over last night.) And when one of my teenagers woke up, I became aware of the following facts:

1) The boys bathroom door was locked.

2) The hide-a-bed couch would no longer hide.

Now, add those facts (which seem to minor now that the house is quiet and I’m no longer working) to the constant, never-ending bickering and whining that my four children produce and I turned into a screaming shrew. One of my 15-year olds said, “Mom, what’s wrong with you?”

I said, “Do you really want to know?” He said yes, he did.

So, I said, “Okay. It’s like this. Right before a woman’s menstrual cycle begins, her body is flooded with hormones that make her very irritable. I’m at that stage right now and I’m already irritable to start with. I wake up irritable. Add that to a bathroom door that is locked and a broken couch and I am very crabby. So, it’s in your best interest to STOP TALKING TO ME.”

He, my expert arguer, didn’t argue. He just said, “Oh.”

It’s true, you know. I am super irritable at this particular time of the month. It’s like being possessed by the anti-Mel. The sight of popcorn kernels on the new carpet I just purchased and put under the now-defunct couch drove me into a wild screaming frenzy. And trash! Why do my children think it’s all right to discard food wrappers and drink containers on the floor? Who taught them this? Because it wasn’t me!

When I finished working at 5 p.m., I unlocked the door after a solid forty-five minutes of effort. And while I was rampaging around the house, searching in vain for a simple screwdriver (my children steal and destroy all my tools), my son–the cause of this trouble–found something to use in lieu of the screwdriver and the lock sprang open.

The couch, however, is a lost cause. They apparently spent the whole night last night with the weight of four teenage boys lounging on the opened bed which was not sitting firmly on solid ground. (They didn’t scoot the couch back far enough so the bed could unfold completely.) The couch is old and used and stained, but still, taking it to the dump will be a monumental hassle.

I cannot believe how many items the teenagers have destroyed over the years. Shane has broken three bed frames. They have decimated four mattresses. They broke several chairs. You should see what they do to wire hangers. I do not know how all this happens, but apparently when I’m not looking, they set off bombs in the furniture. That’s the only logical explanation.

* * *

1) Decide to have a garage sale.

2) Spend a week answering children: “Yes, you can sell that. Ten cents.” My daughter spent a lot of time pricing her items all by herself, including pretty much every coloring book she’s ever owned. She’s not much for coloring.

3) Spend every spare moment for a whole week sorting through cupboards and drawers. Face the storage room. Move all items to the front living room. Trip over boxes for a week.

4) Borrow tables. Set up items. Place ad on Craigslist. Make signs. Load Mother’s items into van and transport to my house.

5) Wake up early on Saturday morning. Price items. Set out signs. Sit in driveway for whole glorious summer Saturday morning.

6) Wait.

7) Wait.

8) Greet sporadic shoppers.

9) Box up remaining items.

10) Drive to thrift store. Unload back of van.

11) Spent $20 at Dairy Queen.

(The kids each made a few bucks. Zachary earned himself $20 or so. Grace ended up with five bucks–and handfuls of jewelry picked out from Grandma’s stash. My mother made $70. It was actually kind of fun, but that’s the last garage sale EVER.)

I dreamed last night about swimming with the walruses.  They frolicked like chubby, graceful submarines, all whiskery and jolly.  And I felt such joy swimming with them in the blue-black lake water.

Weird, right?

I’ve been swirling in a slow-motion whirlpool of change and endings and too much work.  School ended last week, we are saying good-bye to our church congregation–a good-bye dinner last Sunday which ended with my 10-year old sobbing into my shoulder–and just because I know how to pile it on, a garage sale this Saturday.  Oh, and in exchange for only working 6 hours on Mondays and 4 hours on Tuesdays, I am now working 12 hours on Wednesdays, 10 hours of Thursdays and 9 hours on Fridays.  Two of those nights end at midnight and the mornings begin at 8 a.m., so I am not just burning the candle at both ends.  I am a towering inferno of exhaustion.

(So many metaphors!)

None of our kids wants to leave our church.  As I mentioned, the 10-year old has been demonstrating the most grief, openly crying at the mention of leaving.  One of my teenagers sat down tonight and said, “Mom, can I still go to our church?  I don’t want to go to another church.  I want to go to my church.”   I believe this attachment is good and healthy and reasonable–none of them really know any other church–but alas, it must end.

The stress of everything has catapulted me into a frenzy of overeating.  For instance, a key lime pie someone baked has been a nightly source of comfort and regret to me.  Oh delicious key lime pie, why must you be so soothing and simultaneously fattening?

I hope to be here more regularly.  I need to be here more regularly.  Writing is good medicine for what ails.  If you can’t swim with walruses, that is.