Our third day in Washington, D.C. was jam-packed with excursions. And what does a busy day walking around a busy city need to make it a memory? Rain. Luckily we had rain jackets and an umbrella so we were undeterred in our quest. Our first destination was the office of Senator Lamar Alexander. Brent had contacted his office before we left Tennessee to set up a tour of the Capitol building. We had a confirmation number for our tour but we were able to get gallery passes from one of the Senator’s assistants. Side Note: While chatting with his assistant, we asked her about her hometown. It turns out that she was from Knoxville and graduated from Brent’s alma mater, Farragut High School. He was a bit deflated when he found out that she graduated in 2008. I have condiment bottles in my refrigerator that expired in 2008. The first part of the Capitol tour included a lobby area called Emancipation Hall. As we waited for our guided tour time to begin, we inspected the dozens of statues from the many decades of American history. Knox turned the waiting time into a Where’s Waldo game by looking for the statues in the room as he found them on his brochure. Our tour guide did a great job pointing out interesting paintings and statues. She was full of names, dates, and numbers that I no longer remember. For example: “You can fill the rotunda room with ____ Statues of Liberty standing on each other’s shoulders.” I wish I had a better memory. I do remember her saying that the only woman to lie in state in the Capitol building was Rosa Parks. After the Capitol building, we went to the Library of Congress. We saw the Gutenberg Bible and the oldest remaining map that contains the name “America.” Our tour guide in the library showed us paintings arranged by theme–the Seasons, the Senses, the branches of learning, etc. He took us to the balcony of one of the reading rooms where you can check out books and do research. It was beautiful—all dark mahogany desks and green glass lampshades. Our kids were excited to go in the Children’s reading area. Knox was convinced that my Linebaugh library card would work there. He had to be satisfied with just reading books and re-shelving them without checking anything out. We ate lunch in the food court at Union Station. They were doing a lot of construction on the interior of the building but you can tell it was a grand place at one time. I can imagine the excitement of boarding a train there as business men with fedoras, overcoats, and briefcases pass us by while looking at their watches and rushing to their trains. We were tired and a bit bedraggled by the weather but we wanted to see the Air and Space Museum. Since all of the Smithsonian museums are free, we felt okay just making a quick walk through it. We saw the section about the Wright Brothers and their European rivals. We saw a section about space travel. There was a very interesting board explaining all of the restrictions for flight attendants when airplane travel was just beginning to become more available to regular people. They had to be a certain height, weight, and age. Needless to say, I wouldn’t qualify. On the way back to our apartment, we stopped by the Eastern Market to buy a few groceries for supper. On Tuesdays they have a larger than normal farmer’s market selection. We got fresh ravioli and marinara sauce, broccoli, and homemade sour dough bread. We whipped it up in our little kitchen and relaxed the rest of the evening. Coming Soon…Day Four! (We went to the Spy Museum. If I tell you more I’ll have to kill you. Just kidding. I’ll tell you all about it in the next blog.)

On our second day in Washington, D.C. we ventured into unknown territory for a mild-mannered family from Murfreesboro, Tennessee—the subway! (Buh-buh-bum) It took us a little bit to figure out the fare cards but once we got the hang of it, it was really convenient. On one occasion, we heard a subway musician playing somewhere in the bowels of the city. We never actually saw him but he was singing “Soon and Very Soon, We are Going to See the King.” During the song, we passed a man going up the escalator as we were coming down. He was singing along really loudly and shouting “Yes, Sweet Jesus.” It was just one example of a moment when something borderline crazy happened in/near a subway but fifty people carried on with their business like it was just another Monday. Rule Number One when Living in a Large Metropolitan Area: It may seem like there are other people in the subway or on the street but they are just holograms. As long as you don’t acknowledge their outbursts, wild ravings, or their very presence then they don’t actually exist. Keep your eyes on the ground and your facial expressions completely passive. Speaking of the subway escalators, it was comical how excited our kids were about riding them. Our hometown mall is only one level so a set of stairs that move by magic or possibly gerbil-power is mind-blowing. One of my kids looked like Buddy from the movie Elf the first time she got on the escalator. In other words, she nearly did the splits with one leg stepping onto the first available moving step and the other, more reluctant leg staying behind on the non-moving platform. It was all fun and games until we started seeing more out-of-order escalators than running ones. Our first post-subway adventure was the Museum of American History. It was our favorite of all of the Smithsonian Museums that we visited. We saw Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Kermit the Frog, a cool interactive section about transportation, and a gigantic American flag from the War of 1812 that inspired the “Star Spangled Banner.” After a quick lunch outside, we checked out the Natural History Museum. Everyone should see an assembled dinosaur skeleton at least once in his life. It’s more amazing than riding an escalator. We also saw well-preserved animal specimen placed in realistic looking poses: Lions tearing apart a bloody antelope; Monkeys hanging from trees while picking bugs off each other; Giraffes stretching their trademark necks to reach the leaves at the top of a tree—purplish tongue and all. I liked it better than the zoo. The high point for my husband was the moment when he showed our kids the family heirloom, the Rosser Reeves ruby (I hate to tell him that the guy’s first name who donated it to the Smithsonian was Rosser but since he’s expecting to pay for their college with it, I’ll let it go for now.). The ruby was located near a lesser known trinket called the Hope Diamond. I was a little disappointed by the size of both of them. That’s what happens when you get your information about priceless gems from movies like The Great Muppet Caper. The kids were nearly at the end of their ropes but we pushed on and walked over to the Archives. We stood in a line to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Then we went to a different part of the building to see collection of letters and photographs. There was a letter from a young boy in Cuba named Fidel Castro asking President Roosevelt for a $10 bill. Tired and hungry, we went to the old post office that has been turned into a food court. Knox and Ella got sweet and sour chicken, Lucy got sushi, and Brent and I got gyros. It was an international feast. For dessert, I bought the kids each an ice cream cone at Ben & Jerry’s. As I paid the cashier my $25 for the three one-scoop cones, I reflected on the events of the day. We had learned a lot about our country and our world, but the real epiphany was that I bet Castro was asking FDR for some cash so he could afford a scoop of Chunky Monkey. That’s all we really want, isn’t it?

Remember when you were in elementary school and upon returning from vacation you had to write an essay about how you spent your time away from school? In that spirit I give you: “Stop! My Brain Will Explode if You Tell Me One More Fact About Abraham Lincoln” or “My Trip to Washington, D.C.” Last Saturday, my family and I traveled via Honda Odyssey to our nation’s capital. It was a long journey similar but opposite in direction from those Tennessee pioneers who left New England to settle and establish our slanted rectangle of a state (The early pioneers had those snack packs with the plastic knife to spread goopy cheese on club crackers and their kids drank juice boxes while they watched old episodes of The Brady Bunch in their covered wagons, right? Oh, yeah. The Brady Bunch probably wasn’t in reruns yet. Silly me.). We split the trip to D.C. in two by staying one night at a Comfort Inn in Harrisonburg, Virginia. We woke up early on Sunday so that we could be standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before lunchtime. After a brisk walk through the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial and the Korean War Memorial we headed to the house we rented for the week. We changed our clothes and freshened up before meeting our good friend who is a Secret Service Agent. He took us on a private tour of the West Wing. Brent and I recently re-watched all of the episodes of the TV show The West Wing so everything we saw had to be changed into the TV version for me to fully understand it. For instance, our friend told us that he is assigned to Jacob Lew. Not impressive until he reminds me that he is the Chief of Staff…he’s Leo McGarry. Oh! Cool! We went in the Press Room. “That’s the door where Jay Carney walks out for press conferences.” Who? “C.J. Cregg.” Really? Amazing! The oval office looks much less majestic up-close and there weren’t a whole lot of roses in the Rose Garden. I mention this not to complain but to comment on the fact that this is a place meant for work. As the granddaughter of a woman who was raised in a Quaker family, I can appreciate the plain-looking black telephone by the simple, tan sofa in the office of the world’s most powerful man. I came away with the feeling that these offices were filled with people who—whether you agree with their bills and vetoes or not—understand that they won’t be in these roles forever and they want to get as much done during this time as possible. At the end of our first day in D.C. (For supper we ate at our friend’s house with his sweet wife and two adorable daughters!), I went to bed with the reality of the role of the president looming in my thoughts. I thought about the FDR Memorial with the statues of downtrodden men in bread lines during the Depression, the barefooted farmer listening to his radio during a “Fireside Chat,” and President Roosevelt in his wheelchair. With all the obnoxious noise about the upcoming election, I’m reminded that one man can make a difference in the course of a nation but the nation itself is made up of many. Being responsible for the welfare of so many must be the source of daily headaches and heartaches but I can make a difference in the lives of those around me without a caucus or a supporting delegate. I can care about the person standing in line in front of me or sitting in the car next to me. I am the President of the United States of Abby-erica! So, let’s take a step back on some of the negativity. History can be a deadweight that holds us down with feelings of guilt and helplessness or it can be a set of directions in reverse. If our Tennessee pioneers could only see us now! (Stay tuned for Day Two!)

I like TV. There, I admit it. I know I’m supposed to be above it all and say something kind of smug like, “I don’t really watch much TV…” but I cannot tell a lie (I’d no sooner drown my food or misuse a conjunction—both of which I learned about from Saturday morning cartoons.). I can almost chart the growth of my brand of humor and sense of timing to the shows I watched growing up. Who would I be without “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch” or “The Cosby Show” and “The Dukes of Hazzard”? The thing to keep in mind when watching television is that it’s not real. I realize that was one of the most obvious statements ever recorded in blogosphere history but it never hurts to review some basic facts. In honor of those days of old when we watched Saturday morning cartoons and they slipped in lessons about how to use crackers and cheese to make a wagon wheel and Superman taught us about bike safety in between commercial breaks, I will give my own PSA with a list of “Top Seven Ways TV is Different from Real Life.” 7. In real life you can’t always come up with ten things in a list. 6. On TV, a character will say something witty or profound and then he’ll walk away leaving his words hanging in the air like a floating bubble of wisdom—no retort necessary. In real life, if you say something witty with the authority of someone who knows he won’t be challenged (actors on TV can rely on the fact that the other actors have to stick to the script), you will most likely be disappointed. You’ll have to hustle out of the room before someone says something like “Uh-uh!” or “What?” or “Get back here! That’s not true.” 5. Some of the hair-do’s for TV characters are ridiculous. A female surgeon scrubs her hands in the OR. Though she’s on the tail end of her 36-hour shift, her hair is perfectly twisted and pinned into a neat chignon—not a hair out of place. Where’s the messy ponytail with unkempt wisps all over her forehead? 4. Romantic relationships on TV are almost always unrealistic but nothing tops the “teen boy pines away for the shy, pretty girl” scenario. How often do we really see the guy with the boom box in the girl’s front yard? 3. It cracks me up when a woman wears a lot of makeup to bed. Ok, I realize you’ve got the studio lighting to battle but does she really need charcoal eyelids and ruby lips with her flannel pajamas? 2. TV drivers look at the passenger too frequently. Keep your eyes on the road, people! 1. Anytime someone comes home after going to the grocery store on TV, that person must always carry a paper grocery bag with celery or the green part of carrots sticking out of the bag. It’s a law. Ok, that’s a start. Send me more ideas! Be proud that you love TV! Just don’t watch crap like the Kardashians or Jersey Shore.

I’m building a time machine. It’s almost ready. It’s made from an office chair, one of those hair dryers you sit under at the beauty parlor, a bent TV antenna, a couple of black lights, a Mr. Spell, and lots of aluminum foil. I’ve got my first time destination all figured out: I’m going back to when I was ten years old. I’ve got some things to tell ten-year old Abby that I think she’ll find useful. Here’s what I’ll say: At every opportunity I want you to play. I know you’re getting older and you can’t wait to become an adult but you may never have this much time to play again. So get out there and swing on the swing set until you think the posts will pull right out of the ground. And when you get really high…jump. You may not always land on your feet but when else can you fly in your own backyard? Speaking of jumping, untangle those jump ropes and get hopping. I don’t care if you’re singing “Cinderella Dressed in Yellow” or “Apples on a Stick”—just jump. Listen, I’m really serious. Someday, you will suffer from motion sickness just from swinging. Your stomach will drop right to your toes with every lift of the swing. You’ll also be so concerned about your bladder control that jumping rope will only be possible if you’re wearing an adult diaper. Enjoy carefree playtime while you can. Next I want to speak to you about your sisters. I know they can drive you crazy. Being in the middle of two girls who are alike in as many ways as they are different is challenging. It stinks that you’ve had to share a room with one or both of them all your life but you’ll get your own room soon. I promise. Not too long after that, you’ll be in college with a roommate in a dorm full of girls. You’ll be entirely equipped to deal with all of those double-X chromosomes. Until then, there may be some days when you will wish you were born an only child. You will rub the bruises your sister covertly inflicts on you in the backseat of the van and cover your ears as doors are slammed in fits of rage but you’ll eventually come to see these sisters as the greatest gift from your childhood. Boys: Right now you’re wondering why God—in all His abundant wisdom and mercy—created them. They’ve gone from buddies who play tag with you on the playground to mini-men whose rank smell and bodily functions disgust and perturb you. And still, in spite of these aversions, you will have a secret crush or two whose identity will neverbe revealed to anyone. You will watch these boys from afar, doubting that they even know your name. Wanting their attention will encourage you to change parts of yourself—your clothes, your likes and dislikes, your personality—but you won’t make those changes. You will stand firm in the essence of you-ness and your reward will be waiting for you your freshman year of college. He’ll be six feet tall with brown hair and dark hazel eyes. You’ll know him when you see him. Well, Ten-Year Old Abby, I guess that’s about it. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes in the next few decades but it’s going to be okay. There will be triumphant moments of new birth and despairing moments of inexplicable loss. And in between you’ll have days where you just load the dishwasher and fold laundry. The main thing you need to remember is that there’s a fair and loving God who’s watching your life unfold on a heavenly, big screen with anticipation and pride. He’ll use His Word to rebuke you and send His Holy Spirit to set you back in the right path from time to time but He wants you to get to know Him more intimately with each passing year. He already knows everything about you—even the secret crush.

On Sunday, my sisters and I took a cooking class in Franklin. All three of us are relatively good cooks but we decided on a basic knife skills class to improve our cutting proficiency (My older sister’s ten-year old son was disappointed that “knife skills” didn’t mean that we’d enrolled in a self-defense class. He was hoping we’d return as ninja killing machines.). There were just six students in the class. The other three were middle-aged—a couple and another woman. My sisters and I were surprised to see that these certified, AARP card-carrying adults had almost no idea how to cut peppers and onions. We’re assuming that they recently had to let their personal chefs go forcing them to finally learn to cook. To protect their identities, I will call them Betty and Bob (the couple) and Sylvia. Before we officially started the class, we sat down at a table and ate a little Danish for a snack. Bob took one bite and pronounced it “too sweet.” I finished mine in three bites. Later in the class, we were told to salt the salsa we were making. All three of our classmates declared their aversion to salt in unison. “You’ve got to watch that high blood pressure,” they all said. No sweets and low salt? I can’t wait to turn sixty! Our instructor (Let’s call her Theresa—not so much to protect her identity but because I can’t remember her name. She was the only one not wearing a nametag) was full of not-so-helpful sayings: “A clean apron equals a good cook” and “Sharing means caring.” Her favorite thing to say was “Follow through, Betty.” Poor Betty was the least capable student in our class. She seemed woefully unsure of herself in the kitchen. She kept her purse on her shoulder during most of the lesson. I think it was so that she could get to her tissues during the teary, onion-chopping part. Theresa was by her side most of the class critiquing her techniques and reminding her how to place the vegetable on the board correctly. Theresa didn’t make it over to our side of the counter very often. When she did and I felt her watchful gaze over my shoulder, I found myself chopping more precisely. Nevertheless, she would pass by me and my older sister Becky and then on to our younger sister—the left-handed artist. Theresa couldn’t spout out enough praise for Carrie. “Perfect,” she would say with barely contained admiration. Sure, Carrie can do some great chopping but where was my “perfect”? My one consolation was that Becky didn’t get much love either. It was amazing that a class of six adults wasn’t much different than an elementary class of twenty-five. You have your lower-achievers who require the majority of the teacher’s attention, higher- achievers who are inwardly motivated to perfection, and average students who do what’s needed to get by but who wouldn’t mind a little praise or at least a Skittle from the candy jar. I’ve been substitute teaching at my kids’ school a couple of times a week lately (You could dig ditches for eight hours and not work as hard to earn $75.). They attend an ethnically diverse public school with a wide variety of social demographics. We love it. On paper, going to your zoned public school doesn’t always make sense. You look at TCAP scores and percentages of students who receive free lunch and you wonder what you’re exposing your precious children to but looking at these kids in person is a more accurate approach (By the way, I am in no way against leaving your school zone. I am a product of private education. I just want all schools to be successful.). When I walk into a classroom to explain to a class that their teacher is absent and I am Mrs. Rosser, I brace myself for the reaction. Will they throw their morning work up in the air and proclaim that today is a holiday? Will they feel lost and despondent like the time they couldn’t find their mom in the grocery store? Will they cling to me all day asking to hold my hand while we walk down the hall and offer to carry my chair out to recess? The answer is yes. All of those things happen because every child in that class is different and different levels of ability and adaptability is perfectly normal. It is more difficult for a child living in poverty to do well in school but not because he doesn’t have the potential. It’s easier for a child living in a high-income bracket to do well in school but not because money makes us smarter. There is so much more involved in student success. At the end of the day, I will often have bus duty in the gym. Our school has over 1,000 kids enrolled this year and hundreds of them ride the bus home in the afternoon. I pace up and down the long aisles of kids sitting with their fellow bus-mates reminding them to be quiet and to listen for their bus numbers to be called. It almost brings me to tears every time. I’m amazed that so many kids aged 5-12 can be corralled in such an organized way. Older siblings sit with younger siblings. Some older kids read. The kindergarteners rub their eyes—they’ve had a long day. The authority of the teachers and staff in the gym isn’t questioned by the kids. For the most part, they just sit and wait to go home. They’re good kids. Some of them are natural students who won’t struggle with school and some will hit roadblock after roadblock both now and as adults. Instead of resigning these kids to a life of failure, we should look at elementary school as a time of promise and possibility. All of us can use some improvement in some part of our lives. Just look at Betty. With the personalized help she received on Sunday she’s probably been chopping like a pro all week.

When Brent was in middle school, he played in a soccer league against other middle school boys from all over Knoxville. There was one boy who stood out amongst the rest for his level of trash talk and general obnoxious behavior. Brent couldn’t stand the guy. This guy eventually moved away for a year for his dad to teach at a university in a different state and Brent was relieved to be rid of him…or so he thought. The next year, Captain Trash Talk came back to Knoxville and enrolled in Brent’s high school. Fast-forward almost ten years later and that guy was one of the groomsmen in our wedding. We make so many quick judgments every day about people and situations. We get stopped at a red light and pull up behind a slick SUV with a bumper sticker that advertises a private school in town and another one that says “Seaside” in a confident, understated font. Without even looking at the driver, we know that she’s wearing stylish sunglasses, has very white, straight teeth, and—depending on the time of day—either expensive work-out clothes because she’s meeting with her trainer or expensive jeans because she’s meeting her best girlfriends for lunch. At the next light, we are behind an older model Subaru wagon. This one has more stickers than bumper. They include one that advertises a local tattoo parlor, one that says COEXIST with each letter representing a different religious faith, and another one recommending that you should shoot your TV. This driver is on her way to a rally for animal rights or to get her eyebrow pierced. This is what we (meaning me) do. We think we know people based on the face value of our first impression of them. It’s like racial profiling without the specific parameters of race alone—although that does often play a part in our initial assumptions about them. It’s unfair to the socialite or the hippie or whomever it is I see and it’s also unfair to me because I may prevent myself from meeting a new BFF. Considering this topic has got me thinking about how people view me. I think I know how I put myself out there to the world but my intended persona may not translate to others in those first five seconds that we’re introduced the way I’d like. It reminds me of an old movie I saw years ago. It’s called The Enchanted Cottage. Robert Young plays a war veteran returning from battle with extensive scars on his face. He avoids his family and fiancée because he thinks his looks are too gruesome for him to marry or have any kind of normal life. He sequesters himself in an isolated cottage—the location for his now-canceled honeymoon. Dorothy McGuire plays the homely maid at the cottage. (The makeup people really went to work on this actress to make her plain but not repulsive. Apparently, the easiest way to do this is to give her bushy eyebrows. They are out of control.) She’s shy and beaten down by a world that values looks over just about anything. Over time, she quells his anger and he builds up her self-image. As they fall in love, they begin to see each other as beautiful. By the time they’re married at the cottage, they’re both perfect-looking in that 1940’s movie, soft-lighting kind of way. When they invite friends to come and see them after their marriage, they’re horrified to learn that these changes in their looks can’t be seen by anyone else. They have a very good friend who is blind. He comes to visit them both before and after this startling realization. He explains to them that our eyes can deceive us. When we look with a heart full of love, the features on the outside can change. Oh, how I wish I could see people in this way! How I wish that I would care more about projecting an image that reflects love than worrying over my own blemishes or frizzy hair or frumpy minivan. When I meet someone new—maybe a mom at my children’s school—I’m meeting an adult with a history. She’s suffered heartbreak and disappointment in some form. She’s also had lots of really good days full of sunshine and smiling faces and people who hug her and tell her she’s great. (Hopefully more of the latter than the former one.) She’s got a talent that I don’t have even if she doesn’t know what it is yet. She’s got a story to tell and it’s fascinating. Everyone does. She’s been “writing” it for years. She may come across as confident but there is some hidden fear—a worry that lurks in the shadowy corners of her daily thoughts—that would knock her down to her knees in an instant. She may seem meek and ordinary but there’s at least one thing in her life that she’s really proud of and if you can figure out what it is and get her talking she’ll light up the room with the sheer excitement in her voice. Every person that God places in my path today is a gift. He’s saying, “Look! Here’s another one that I love! Please take a second to get to know this one because she is different from every other person you’ll meet today. I know she’s got some prickly quills you have to get pass to really start to understand her. (In fact, Gabriel and I call her Miss Porcupine. Oh, the inside jokes I have up here in heaven with the angels…A-hem, anyway.) But if you can get her talking about her kids…Man! Her face just transforms. She’s beautiful!”

Last Saturday, Knox and I went to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Brent and the girls were having some bonding time at a Girl Scout outing so I decided to play the card that never gets played by mom—the fun card. (It might as well be the Joker card for all the playtime it gets. If anything it’s just there to frustrate as with its insignificance as we shove it back into the tiny paper box next to the instruction card.) I learned later that while we were gazing up at missiles and sitting in the mars landing simulator, Neil Armstrong—more famous moonwalker even than Michael Jackson—passed away at age 82. Getting to the space center was almost as monumental of a journey as that famed Apollo 11 flight some forty-three years ago. Armed with my Garmin GPS device, I set off. There’s just not a good way to get from Murfreesboro to Huntsville, apparently. My GPS pretty much said, “Pull out of your driveway. Turn a couple of times. Drive 30 miles. Turn again. Drive 30 miles. Turn again. Drive 30 more miles.” I really started wondering if I was going to end up back at my house only to find out that the Space Center was in my backyard all along. Since I was using mainly two-lane highways most of the way, I spent the majority of the two hour trip regretting my route. I’d get behind a flatbed truck that was transporting a house or a farmer driving a tractor while talking on his cell phone. It was painfully slow and Knox—normally an engaging conversationalist—was fully engrossed in his movie. (Side Note: I think I’ve listened to more of their movies than I’ve actually watched. It’s usually entertaining enough—like an old timey radio show but he chose to watch a Tom and Jerry DVD which is made up of sound effects like: Zwing! Ay-ya-ya-ya! Ah-oo-gah! Not exactly a riveting listening experience.) I was getting bored so I tried to look for interesting sights that would keep me alert. Road kill (why so many armadillos?), diners, auto part shops (One was called Classy Chassis—if you have to say “classy” in the name it probably isn’t), and biker gangs can only keep you interested for so long. We would go through small towns where the speed limit would drop to 35 MPH and there would be one flashing yellow light at an intersection. At one point, even my GPS got bored. She had just said to drive for twenty miles then she started to panic. “Turn right at Independence Avenue.” What? There’s no such road. The only thing on the right is a cotton field. “Turn left at Monument Road.” Left?! I can’t turn left. I’d have to drive across a median. “Make a U-turn.” Why? “Make a U-turn.” No. “Make a U-turn.” She sounded calm and confident but there was an edge to her voice that made me nervous. The map on her display kept changing like she was flipping through her memory for something that she just couldn’t find. Oh how I wished I had a good old fashioned Rand-McNally map right then. I would’ve pulled over and spread it across my steering wheel until I located where in the world I was. Then I would’ve folded it wrong and stuffed it in the glove compartment. Those were the days… As we got closer to Hunstville, my GPS stopped freaking out and became helpful again. I’m very thankful for this because I think the Hunstville city planners were smoking crack when they planned their city. There are arrows on some of the signs hanging above the interstate that curve in ways my Honda Odyssey was not designed to do. Apparently they all drove Formula One racecars to work everyday. I figured out why they have the giant rocket looming over the space center. It gives drivers a lighthouse to aim for as they meander through the city. When I told Knox that we finally made it to the parking lot, his first words were, “Wow! That was fast.” How I love that boy! Inside the museum we learned about military spy planes and Blackhawk helicopters. We watched an IMAX movie about Space Junk (All those satellite parts and landing gear are crashing into each other making even smaller debris that will eventually create rings around our planet like the ones around Saturn. Just when you thought there couldn’t be anything else to worry about…) and walked through an exhibit about wooly mammoths. (One of these things is not like the other…) I took pictures of Knox as he pretended to lift giant replicas of missiles and rockets. I bought him astronaut ice cream—a complete mystery to him. “So I eat it? Why isn’t it cold? Do I need a spoon? Why is it chewy?” We rode the Mars simulator multiple times to see if there was a noticeable difference in where you sit. He asked me questions about space and science that I didn’t know but I was quick to use my Wikipedia app before admitting defeat. He held my hand as we walked passed Boy Scout groups and large families. It was completely worth the trip. Today, I went to a memorial service for a college friend who passed away earlier this week. She was an amazing person—probably the most sincere and humble person I’ve ever known. In these last twenty months of her battle with cancer, she continued to tell us to savor every day, every second that God gives us. I have to wonder how much of my journey with God is like that trip to Hunstville. How much of my thoughts and energy are consumed with worrying that I’m going the wrong way or wishing that every thing, person, and event would just hurry up? I try to guess at God’s plans ahead of time like I’m solving the big ending to a predictable movie only to realize I’m wrong. Consequently, I have to make signs with squiggly arrows to explain how to navigate out of my poor choices when I could’ve eliminated all of the confusion by waiting on God’s guidance in the first place. Another way I attempted to entertain myself on the trip down was to imagine the day that Knox—the first astronaut to land on Mars—would make a speech while accepting his Presidential Medal of Honor. “And it all started,” he would say, “When my mom took me to the Space Center when I was seven.” When we were leaving I asked him, after seeing that cool stuff, if he wanted to be an astronaut when he grows up. “No. I’m not going up there to clean up all that junk.” It didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined but in the end it was even better. I’m going to try to slow down and appreciate all the little moments that make this life the gift that it is. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that day with Knox for the world–floating junk and all.

When I was little, my sisters and I loved to listen to records on our record player. We weren’t allowed to listen to music that could be categorized as a) current andb) secular and c) Michael Jackson (a.k.a. the trinity of unholiness) so our “playlist” consisted of a very eclectic mix for small children. There were John Philip Sousa marches that gave us that extra energy we needed to clean up our room. We listened to the Andrews Sisters as they sang their rendition of some hilarious polkas. (“We Have No Bananas Today” was one of our favorites.) My mom was crazy about The Carpenters. I can still sing every word of “We’ve Only Just Begun.” Although those albums were secular, they weren’t current so our sensitive ears were safe. We could also choose from a collection of Christian artists. There was the Bill Gaither Trio singing to us about how we’re all “kids under construction.” There was one really creepy looking album cover of a puppet named Little Marcy. Her puppeteer was sitting next to her at the piano. There was something unnerving about the exaggerated smile on her plastic face—like she was about to slowly turn her head to look at me, Chucky-style. It didn’t help that one of her songs was called “When Mr. Satan Knocks at My Heart’s Door” and she sang it in this tinny, superficial voice. We didn’t listen to Little Marcy very often but we did like to listen to “The Music Machine” album. It had a running storyline about some kids and a guy in a band uniform learning about the Fruits of the Spirit. The most memorable song was sung by a snail named Herbert. Being a snail, Herbert sang slow and low, an effect we knew how to create with any album just by switching the speed selector next to the needle arm. (If things had worked out differently, I probably could’ve been a DJ. It’s possible.) The chorus would drone on like this (imagine me singing the following like a depressed gastropod who is sliming slowly forward to his ultimate death): “Have patience. Have patience. Don’t be in such a hurry. When you get impatient, you only start to worry. Remember, remember that God is patient too. And think of all the times when others have to wait for you.” (I bet you never thought I was going to get to the title of the post, did you? Well, you have to have patience sometimes. See what I did there? Golden. This is deep stuff.) According to my own unscientific observations, patience is harder to come by than ever. With cell phones that can make lists, shop, email, text, and download entire books all while you’re waiting in the car line, we’ve taught ourselves and our kids that we don’t have to wait for anything. “Oh, you’re bored while we’re grocery shopping? Poor baby! How cruel to make you suffer through this errand that will eventually feed you. Here’s my phone. Watch Toy Story 3.” Do you know what my sisters and I did when we went shopping with our mom? We took turns pretending to be blind as the other sisters led us around, bumping into shelves and displays. We entertained ourselves. I rarely wait in any lines any more. If there is more than one person in the line ahead of me at Kroger’s I start looking up at the screen hanging above the door to see if they’re going to open another register. “This is ten minutes of my life and it’s wasted! I could be playing Scramble on my phone! Oh, wait, I can do it here in line. Never mind. We’re good. Take your time.” So here are some intentional ways to teach yourself to be patient. Grow a garden. This is a definite exercise in patience. Waiting for tomatoes to ripen can be painful, especially if you miss a day at your ripening vigil and the birds get them first. Walk—not drive—to as many places as you can. We walk to school most mornings and home again in the afternoon. It takes us fifteen minutes if we’re going at an easy pace. If I drive, I can be there in about ninety seconds. It takes some planning but the conversations I’ve had with my kids about the day they’re about to have and the one they just finished are priceless. Cook from scratch more often. For the most part, I enjoy cooking. There are some nights when things have to be quick but if I can spend an hour and a half or more listening to “All Things Considered” on the radio with an apron tied around my waist, I’m usually pretty satisfied. Recently, my most trying exercise in patience has been waiting to go and get our son in Africa. We were matched at the beginning of the summer and he’s been a constant in my thoughts ever since. He’ll be two years old in January. For some reason, I’ve got it in my head that I must have him home by his birthday. There’s always the chance that everything will get slowed down and we won’t be able to go by then but I’ve needed a date so that I can process the waiting—even if the date is wrong. There are times when I can understand why God gives me something to wait for so that other things can fall into place first or just so I can see that my personal schedule isn’t in God’s iPhone calendar. He may have a completely different timeframe. My job is to be patient and I hate it but He never said it would be simple or fast. He called Brent and me to bring a child home. It turns out that the paperwork and fingerprinting and writing multiple checks were the easy part. As Tom Petty once sang (Yes, I did eventually listen to more than polkas and The Carpenters), “The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you get one more card. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.”

I’m a pretty easy-going kind of gal but like just about everyone else who has ever been in the same room with another human being for more than five minutes, I have pet peeves. Sometimes I let the little, insignificant habits of other people gnaw at my nerves until I want to plug up my ears and scream obscenities. (Ironically, screaming obscenities is one of my pet peeves. What a hypocrite!) I’ve tried to look at these annoyances with empathy and understanding but it can be really difficult. For instance, when I pull up behind a pick-up truck with “R.I.P. Tommy/ 1965-2007” written in Gothic letters on the back window I try to think about how nice it is that this driver has dedicated his Dodge Ram to Tommy but all I can think of is: why?! And why was the tribute placed so precariously near Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs) peeing on the Chevy logo? I also have to whisper words of restraint to myself when I get around an effusively proud mom who is just waiting for you to say something that will let her segue into a treatise of her kid’s many glorious attributes. She operates like a search engine. If you say the right word, she’ll connect it with a brag: “Have I read any good books lately? Well, no…but Little Johnny is reading War and Peace. It’s true and he’s only 4!” Of course, every accomplishment of our kids reflects on us as parents. (The flaws are someone else’s fault. I blame pesticides in produce and the Liberal Media.) So it only makes sense for moms to recount their child’s heroics in the 1st person plural. “We are counting to 100 now” (It’s about time—you’re 30 years old.) “We just made a 100 on our spelling test!” (Okay, spelling can be hard for some grown-ups…) “Wepee-peed and poo-pooed in the potty today!” (Whaaa?!) Another one of my pet peeves is when people use the word “literally” incorrectly. Here are three examples that I have heard lately made by a reputable historian, an NPR newscaster, and an alpaca farmer: He was literally straddling two continents. (It was Africa and Europe. That dude had long legs.) Greece has literally killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. (I hope they made a Greek omelet with it.) When I saw my first alpaca, I literally stopped dead in my tracks. (Who knew alpaca were so dangerous?) I could go on and on with my list: there’s the dinner music of slurpy, crunchy eating noises made by dining companions; people saying “duh” when they hear something earnest yet obvious; drivers flipping the bird at fellow drivers; and so on. But the thing that really peeves me is when people always have to be right. We’ve all met Mr. Know-it-All. He’s the world’s foremost living expert and he wants to make sure that everyone knows that he knows everything. As a service to the community, he’ll correct you if he thinks you’re wrong. While I was listening to the radio the other day, I heard a news anchor report that a tractor-trailer crashed in upstate New York spilling several tons of yogurt on the highway. The man-on-the-scene corrected her saying that it was actually Greek yogurt and it was actually 18 tons. Thanks for the vital information, Poindexter. He just couldn’t let it go without having the last word. I asked my husband if he has any pet peeves and he said he couldn’t really think of any. “Sure you do,” I told him. “There’s got to be something that people do that really gets on your nerves.” He said there wasn’t anything. How is that possible? Half-joking, he said, “I just get along with everybody.” And I suppose that’s his key to contentment. He doesn’t let those little things ruin his day or make him mad. He’ll go a long way with that kind of attitude but I have to admit that kind of gets on my nerves.

(Disclaimer: I want to be as true to life as I can but my memories of my grandparent’s house may not be totally accurate. Still, they have a fuzzy-edged clarity that is lacking in any other memories from my childhood. From these family trips, I can recall smells, sights, and sounds that I can match up to feelings of fear, wonder, and happiness. It’s a simplicity of emotion reserved mainly for children. For this reason, when my sisters and especially my mom read this they will most likely disagree with certain aspects of my recollections. To this I say: Get your own blog.) When I was growing up, my family would drive to Illinois once or twice a year to visit my grandparents. It was a long trip from Kentucky where we lived until I was seven and an even longer trip from Tennessee. I don’t remember much about the actual car ride but I do know it didn’t involve DVDs or iPods. We were happy just to listen to cassette tapes on our Panasonic tape player. (Ok…we probably weren’t exactly happy. We still drew imaginary boundary lines in the seat to emphasize to each other how unhappy we were to be in the car all day together.) We spread out all over our faux wood side-paneled Station Wagon—lying on the floorboards and sitting backwards in the rear. I could usually tell when we were getting close because the endless cornfields would begin to give way to neighborhoods that looked like my grandparents’ with grassy alleys in between modest wooden houses. And there always seemed to be the smell of burning leaves—a smell I still associate with Danville, Illinois to this day. When we finally arrived, my grandmother would be waiting for us at the back door. She’d reach down to hug and kiss us, then she would usher us into the hallway leading to the kitchen. The kitchen transformed throughout the day following the rhythm of hungry, active kids. In the morning it smelled like fried eggs with lots of pepper and hot coffee. The Today Show played on the small television set. A large mahogany and leather rocker sat near the doorway to the dining room. This was grandpa’s chair. He would sit there as he peeled an apple with his pocketknife and feed the peelings to our scruffy mixed-breed poodle named Rusty. At suppertime, the kitchen held in the warmth and scent of fried chicken and creamed potatoes. At some point during our week there, we would be forced to go through the door that stood innocently at the corner of the kitchen. This door opened to a set of rickety, wooden stairs that led to the (gulp) basement. It took up the entire underside of the house and appeared to have been carved out of a giant stone slab. As I cautiously made my way down the stairs, trailing my hand along the bumpy, dusty stonewall, I could almost hear it whispering to me that it wanted nothing more than to become my tomb. Grandma had her ancient washer and dryer down there along with a stand up shower. The walls were lined with Mason jars and there was one small door along the top near the stairs that led outside. (Note: Anytime you are in a room that seems to whisper to you about your impending doom, be sure to locate all exits. If people in horror movies employed this rule they would be more likely to escape.) We were in the basement because—although it was the mid to late ‘70s and early ‘80s and there was some kind of rule that everyone must have greasy hair—we eventually had to take a shower. Grandma always stocked the shower with shampoo displaying a picture of a green apple on the bottle that smelled like sweetness and sunshine—an ironic touch down in that dank basement. We showered as quickly as we could so that we could run upstairs to safety with wet hair. Other than the kitchen, the main floor held my grandparents’ bedroom, the only other bathroom in the house, the dining room with the large round pedestal table and the living room. I always felt like the living room ceiling was about a mile high. There were beautiful old books on the built-in shelves and Grandma had lamps on every end table. One of the lamps was made to look like a gnarled old tree. It had one of those fake birds you find in the floral section of craft stores perched at the top and a sleek, black panther stretched out in one of the crevices at the bottom of the lamp. It never seemed strange to me that this lamp should present a predator vs. prey story. I just liked to look at it. Grandma also had her old, worn KJV Bible on one of the tables. Once, I put my cup on top of the Bible and I was chastised severely for using God’s Word as a coaster. One of the things that my sisters and I loved to do was to hop along the thick sheets of plastic that covered the carpet and rugs in the living room and dining room. Grandma had created a track of these sheets to protect the high-traffic footpaths. The main goal was to only step on the plastic without accidentally lifting a corner of it revealing the spiky underside that kept the mats in place. If you stepped on the spikes barefooted you were definitely the loser. Off of the living room was the downstairs front porch. It was screened-in and housed a porch swing and metal chairs. We went out there to play a Holly Hobby board game and a game called Tiddlywinks. On the far side of the living room was an impressive staircase. It had a landing with a little window looking outside and a darkly, polished banister. I would start at the top and walk gracefully down, pretending that all eyes were turning to see the beautiful lady make a grand entrance into the room. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and an office with a twin-size cot. Off of the larger bedroom, there was a sleeping porch with a day bed and all of my mom’s old toys and books. We were allowed to play with her Barbies with their heavily lined eyes and fashionable outfits. We would dress them up as nightclub singers, nurses, and society ladies ala Jackie Kennedy. Grandma had also saved my mom’s paper doll set. It included two guys and two girls. They had names like Bob and Pam and we loved dressing them up. My daughters have several sets of paper dolls and I bet none of them are a complete set. It’s amazing how meticulously my mom cared for her things. We spent most of our time during our visit on the upstairs porch listening to 45s on my mom’s little red record player, dressing up dolls and reading or—if the weather was nice—playing outside. The house was built in the corner of the lot, creating large back and side yards. There was a neatly trimmed hedge that ran along two sides of the property. It looked like it fell right out of an episode of “Leave it to Beaver. “I could just imagine Ward Cleaver with his hedge clippers pausing to impart some bit of wisdom to his bungling, young son. There was a substantial garden complete with grape arbors in the back corner diagonal from the house. Next to the garden was grandpa’s workshop. My grandpa was a carpenter. Massive snowball bushes grew near the doors of his shop and they attracted every bee in town. Because of the bees, I rarely went near his shop and never got to see him in action. My grandfather died when I was in the fourth grade and my grandmother came to live with us soon after. I never got to see their house when I was old enough to appreciate the intricacies of grandpa’s workmanship inside or the architecture of the house outside. Now that I have no grandparents left living I have begun to understand what most people know only after it’s too late. My grandparents were real people with a long, rich history that I’ll never know. I’ve learned from my mom that my grandmother had a bleak childhood as a product of a broken home. When her parents divorced, she and her siblings were dispersed amongst relatives and she went to live with her grandparents. Years later she returned to her parents after they found religion and were re-married. My grandfather became the man of the house early on when his father unexpectedly died. His mother opened her home to strangers as a boardinghouse so that she could support my grandfather and his two sisters. When I was little, all of my grandparents were what they did for me or gave to me. My grandmothers were chocolate chip cookies and handmade nightgowns. My grandfathers were Filet-o-Fish sandwiches and wooden blocks. As I grew up and I began to realize that the world didn’t turn because I needed it to, I still didn’t appreciate what my grandparents represented. These elderly family members blended in to the background of my young adult life. Now that they are all gone, I wish so much that I could sit down with them and ask them questions about their lives. What did they wish to become? What were their greatest disappointments and accomplishments? Some day, I hope to be a grandma. I want to have that special recipe that my grandkids ask for every time they come to my house. I want to spoil them and tell them to sit up straight and read them Bobbsey Twins books and comb out their hair after they take a shower in my not-scary basement. I want them to feel safe in my wrinkled, liver spotted hands and know that I see in them something rare and precious that no one else can see. In that way, I will atone for the lack of acknowledgment I gave to these four individuals who were necessary to my existence.

We recently returned from our annual trip to the beach. It’s a weeklong adventure packed with reading piles of novels, slathering kids with SPF 50, and finding sand in the most surprising places. We quickly establish a routine during our vacation. Knox is usually the first one up in the morning. His eyes pop open about 6:30 regardless of when he went to bed the night before. Lucy is also up or soon after and then Ella stumbles into the living room to join the crew an hour or so later. They flip on the Disney Channel (I don’t let them watch it at home so this is a rare treat) and the three of them veg-out until Brent and I decide we should be responsible parents who tend to the needs of our offspring. The kids eat their breakfast (again, in front of the Disney Channel) and Brent and I take our bagels and books to the balcony. (I can’t eat and be in the same room with “The Suite Life” twins. Their upbeat and quirky yet predictable brand of humor makes regular digestion difficult for me.) After a while, we spot my brother-in-law and nieces at the beach. Our kids go into “we’ve-got-to-get-out-there-with-them-or-we’ll-miss-everything” mode and we prepare for the ocean. Bathing suits? Check. Beach towels? Check. Sand toys? Check. Swim goggles? Check. Boogie boards? Check. Snacks and water bottles? Check. With bags hanging from every arm we head for the beach. After about an hour digging giant holes and splashing in the waves, Lucy starts asking: “When can we go to the pool?” Don’t get me wrong—they have a really nice pool, but it’s the beach! We can go to a pool anytime! In spite of my pleadings otherwise, Lucy spreads her discontent with the majestic Gulf of Mexico to her siblings and cousins and we are once again packing our belongings to move to greener pastures. (I suddenly feel an empathy with the Wandering Israelites I’d never felt before. That is, if the Israelites wore tankinis and their wilderness looked like Florida.) We shoulder our bags (sunburn arms + sand + bag straps = ouch!) and mount the long steps that lead to the boardwalk. On the way to the pool, we must all stop to shower off the sand and then apply another layer of sunscreen. It’s at the large pool where I entertain myself with random observations: I play Brent’s least favorite game called “Find Someone With Abby’s Body Type.” He’s too smart to play it right so I usually just play alone. There are always newly breasted teen girls sporting bikinis. It’s like they’re not quite sure what to do with this new gift but they’re pretty sure it’s a gift meant to be shared. I will admit, in my former life as a carefree non-mother, I spent many summers preoccupied with the task of getting a well-dispersed suntan. But that’s nothing compared to the OCD tanners at our resort. They give a new definition to the term “working vacation.” They flip themselves every thirty minutes or so and stretch out their arms to make sure they don’t get that white stripe on their inner arms that lets people know you’ve been lying on a patio recliner doing nothing but breathing for a week. They take periodic dips but for the most part they are wholly focused on the task at hand. It’s grueling but satisfying—if you’re in one of the rings of Dante’s Inferno. We end up spending the week with the same families every day. We make small talk about the weather and our points of origin while sitting in water a foot deep in the baby pool but we never really scratch the surface of who they are. And since I don’t want to appear to be a stalker, I just make up their back-stories. My favorite families to analyze are the ones that are from other countries. The most obvious way to figure out where they’re from is their accent and language but I also love the more subtle distinguishing characteristics of these families. There are the thick-rimmed glasses and leather beach shoes of the German families. Then there are the highly revealing one-piece swimsuits of the South American ladies. The tiny Speedo swim trunks that I can barely glimpse under an older man’s hairy protuberance of a belly reveals something about who he is but I avert my eyes and try to look elsewhere. My sister-in-law and I will eventually compare notes about these families and we frequently come to the same conclusions. So as we creep along the interstate either driving to the beach or going home and we pass the reason for the utterly slow traffic, (A minivan pulled over to the shoulder so a three year-old can pee. Yes, that’s reason enough for hundreds of cars to rubberneck as we go past them.) I wonder if it’s all worth it. But I know these long car rides and inconvenient trips back to the condo to get pool floats and the cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen that has no measuring cups all are a rite of passage for my kids. They won’t realize it for a long time—maybe not until they have kids of their own—but someday they’ll see all that happens behind the scenes for parents. Someday they’ll understand the thing they know—that we love them enough to go to Florida just to play in a pool even though we have one in our backyard.