My Corny Obsessions...

I'm sometimes accused of being on the obsessive-compulsive side of things around here. It's funny, because I'm sure my actions can be interpreted that way, and I definitely go overboard sometimes when I get involved in a project.

I think it is because I am able to really focus and carry out a project--I'm disciplined and will stick with it. So I guess there are two sides to it, like anything else: On the up-side I get things done. On the down-side, people, including my wife and kids, think I go a little crazy over odd, insignificant things.

One funny thing that has been going on is that I got it in my mind to grow corn. I bought some seeds at Home Depot a year or so ago with the intention of making a small vegetable garden along the side of our house. There's a very convenient spot around the corner, but when I mentioned it I was reminded that the sunlight is just all wrong, the water drains funny over there and sometimes pools, and we have small holes in the bottom of our fence which is the reason that we get rabbits coming through the yard (which is fine with me--we love watching them munching the grass and flowers (Fran: not so much the flowers).

So I missed the good planting time last year, and decided to hold onto the seeds til this year. It was then that I realized that, for some still-unknown reason, Fran has a huge objection to growing corn. She kept rolling her eyes whenever I mentioned it, and stalling me from planting it so I would miss the window again. When I told her on the phone sometime last month that I planned to plant the seeds that evening, she told me that she had thrown them away since they were "five years old" and wouldn't grow. This made me more anxious than ever to get them in the ground.

When I got home, I decided on a trick that would end some of the objection: I asked Kaitlyn to help me plant the seeds.

Instead of making a new bed, I grabbed some large pots that had been abandoned, loosened the dirt and mixed in some soil, and had Kaitlyn help me plant the seeds. We were delighted when the plants came up, and they've been growing at a very fast rate.

I still tease Fran about it, though--she rolls her eyes jokingly and says,"You're going to do all that work, end up with these huge plants, and not one ear of corn." Which is fine with me, anyway.

Heading out to the patio which contains my five or six corn plants, I tell her, "Hey, if you need me, I'm going to be out in the cornfield!" which seems to raise her blood pressure for some reason.

Kaitlyn has now long-since lost interest in them-at first they were our baby plants and needed water, but our deluge this spring has made that less necessary. The plants are now well over two feet high, and could really use replanting in a flower bed somewhere...when I get the time.

But I know why exactly I want to grow corn in the first place, and it's a reason that's hard to talk about. I think that people who live on farms are living a real life. Coaxing food from the earth is not a trivial thing--it's just short of a miracle in my mind. Even though I'm from Texas where we have a lot of farms, I'm still a little in awe of them. Huge stretches of land, large, creaky farm houses, and animals everywhere. I just think that would be a great way to live. I'm not alone: A popular housing project these days in this area are large homes built on 2-5 acre lots, surrounded by fencing--kind of a Mc-Ranchhouse.

I could see myself retiring to the country someday. I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I had go work a farm to live--I would like to have the benefits without the downside. Imagine the peace and quiet and security.

Perhaps the act of dropping a few seeds in the ground is a declaration of intent...Daring to consider the future as something different.

Joy!

Kaitlyn in Bluebonnets

Bluebonnets are the Texas state flower--each year in the spring, they bloom a deep, stacatto blue which dots landscape for a few weeks. In fact, years ago, Lady Bird Johnson, as part of her highway beautification project, had wildflowers planted along the roadways--I love the fields which include Black-eyed Susans and beautiful, crimson Indian paintbrushes. We traveled down to Central Texas during bluebonnet season this year and I was surprised that the blooms have very different colors in different regions--down south near Austin they seemed to be much more blue-colored, and up north they are nearly electric purple. All over the state, though, it is common during the spring to see cars pulled over and parents photographing kids in huge fields of bluebonnets. It's sort of a tradition.

Not our family though--Fran had a nasty run-in with fire ants which has so far kept her from getting too sentimental regarding bluebonnets. Last year was a bad year for bluebonnets because of the drought, so this year they've come out in full force. Fran and her sister (Fran is the youngest of 9) were spending the day together, and her sister insisted on taking Kaitlyn's picture in the flowers beside a building--One of the most common images is to stop down the aperture, get the person in good focus, and blur the field behind them as a practically infinite background of bluebonnets--sometimes the angle is tough to get. This particular picture was one of the only useable one out of about twenty...

Dinner Conversation

We were sitting around the dinner table Thursday night, and it had already been a long week. Long hours of work, school is winding down, and we've got a lot of projects going around the house.

We were enjoying some light conversation, and I wanted to include our 3-year-old girl, Kaitlyn.

"Kaitlyn, your teacher told me that you are the smartest one in your class! I'm so proud of you."

She responded, "My teacher at church?"

"Yes"

A moment's pause.

"The Fat One?"

Fran was looking right at me and she involuntarily laughed out loud. She turned to Kaitlyn and said, "Kaitlyn, we don't talk about other people that way. It would hurt their feelings." (But, yes, that was the one).

Another moment's pause.

"But I can call it a big, fat, bunny?"

Laughing and laughing from all of us except Kaitlyn, who is taking this very seriously.

Another moment goes by.

"I think I'll just call them Circle People."

We looked at each other, amazed, and burst out into laughter again.

What are the odds?

I meant to write about this before now.

Fran got a a part-time job working during market shows at the World Trade Center. She works in a very elegant showroom, and her job is to write up orders for boutique owners who want to stock their stores--she shows them stuff like candles, quilts, furniture, etc. In the meantime, she gets to drink tea and eat finger sandwiches.

She hadn't worked for about eight years before this, and the owner of the showroom noticed her and gave her a very kind compliment.

She even spotted him and smiled a week or so later and said "hello".

Two days later, he checked into a hotel next door to the showroom building, went to the top floor, and jumped to his death, leaving his wife and 12-year-old son as survivors.

I'm not sure what else there is to say--I liked him without having met him because I was glad that he appreciated Fran's effort at work. I was proud of her for getting back into the workforce enthusiastically. Without having met him, I feel a sense of loss.

'Tis a night not fit for man nor beast

Huge storm blew through tonight--90 mph winds (hurricane force). Local storm sirens went off indicating dangerous local conditions. Then the power went out and the kids got scared. We got the flashlights out and I went to close shutters.

The sky turned green.

As I was looking out the front window, a huge gust of wind came through in a circular pattern--I don't know how to describe it except to say I could just sense the force of the wind, and I winced. Just then, the wind grabbed one of my trees in the front and twisted one of the main branches around the trunk, snapping it and hurling it to the ground with a loud "crack!".

We had to take the kids into an interior room of the house with no windows and try to get them to hang out and sit still for a little while as the worst of the storm blew through. This was one of the worst ones in recent memory, but thankfully we made it through okay.