The Big Coffee

Claire coined this spin on the Big Apple, and I liked it (sorry, Claire)and therefore stole it. Remember the time when I went to Seattle? Well, here I am, back to tell the tale! Quite an amazing place, really... I agree, Linds -- I kind of want to live there. It suddenly dawned on me at some point on the trip how incredibly rich I am in travel experiences. Here I was in a brand new corner of the country, taking in new sights while at the same time being reminded of Jerusalem, Northern Galilee, London, and Boston. Wow. What a variety of places God has put me, without my even realizing it.

Okay, so instead of launching into a full blow-by-blow account of our (my immediate family, that is-- sorry I forgot to mention that detail before) adventures, I'll try to just hit the highlights.

1) MOUNTAINS. REAL ones. I could harly believe it from the plane -- all these massive, craggy ranges, complete with honest-to-goodness snow on top. We're not in [my small, flat hometown] anymore, Toto. Mt. Ranier was the most impressive, of course. It kept popping up and surprising me around every turn (enough so that T and A got sick of me saying "Look! A mountain!" every 5 seconds). It was really weird to travel by typical stores and strip malls and suddenly see this majestic panorama towering above a Michael's like a fake backdrop meant to garner business. On one day we went to Olympic National Park and wound around impossibly steep cliffs with no guard rails (a little like the ascent of Akrabim only with trees). What a vista. On top we found some leftover snow and some feisty park rangers who were very diligent about protecting the dead pine needles on either side of the path. I thought of Brandon's Adventures in Yellowstone and of course appreciated their keeping us all safe. We didn't see one single buffalo...



The white stuff is snow. They must have had some crazy drifts this winter, because it was HOT and there were still piles lying around.



Here's A. leaping into the great beyond. This was before we saw the "please stay behind the wall" sign. Oh well. It wouldn't have been the first time we ignored such warnings on our trip. I think we killed a rainforest by the side of the road earlier in the day.... It brought back fond memories of Kingdom History trip.



2) "Only in Seattle" moments. There are always some signs of foreignness on trips like this. Just the fact that we were on the West coast was kind of weird. At one point A. said something about what we do "out East" -- do they say that in Washington? Or do they say "back East," since everything began here in the first place? hmm... Anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that people here really are majorly obsessed with coffee. At least that's what I gathered from the fact that we kept seeing espresso huts in every other parking lot. They were around the size of the old snackbar on the ballfield -- some even smaller-- with the one word "espresso" emblazoned on the front to assure weary passersby that they would survive until the next Starbucks. I didn't see very many people actually stopped at them, though, which made me wonder.... Personally, I missed Dunkin' Donuts (although that one green tea raspberry frappucino I had from Starbucks was pretty stinkin good).

Here's another oddity that I found highly amusing. I guess this fully-illustrated warning makes it very clear to potential lawbreaking truckers exactly what terrors they have to face if they DARE go over 30. I think I found my calling as an artist.








We also went to the famous Pike Place Market, which reminded me a lot of the souq. Part of it is an open-air type affair, with little booths of fruit, nuts, flowers, hot, melt-in-your-mouth donuts, and fish. The fish stands are particularly famous, I guess, because they throw the things around and tend to make a giant show of it all.


3) Friends. There are so many cool people in Seattle! We went to the A's house the afternoon we arrived (relations of Penny, Brad, and yes, Craig -- somehow that connection slipped my mind. so many family trees to remember...). We were treated to some FABULOUS raspberry pie made by Kristi, and enjoyed a tour of their beautiful home and backyard garden (I think we should hire out Mrs. A to come landscape for us). I'm afraid we weren't very thrilling company since our bodies were telling us it was around midnight... but it was a nice visit nonetheless and we got some good advice about what to do with ourselves in Seattle.
We also saw Luke and his fiancee (who was super nice and we all liked a lot). We met them at Safeco Field (more on that later) and watched the game with them, then went out to dinner later on. I had a great time chatting with Luke, getting caught up on our goings on, filling him in on the who's who of the 2006 Red Sox (kind of hard to stay on top of things way out there) and even launching into a very interesting discussion of politics. We covered a lot of ground during batting practice. :)
Finally, I got a chance to meet up with 4 friends from high school. I wasn't totally sure how it would go, but I ended up having a fabulous time and wish that they lived closer. It's kind of cool to relate with friends from long ago who are still the people you remember, only more grown up. If that makes any sense...

4) The Game.... Sigh. It really was a fabulous game, but such a killer loss. Safeco Field is really nice -- very big, and very new and therefore clean. One thing that struck me as being different from Fenway was the fact that we looked DOWN on the field when we walked in from the street level. Not the same glorious impact.... But there were plenty of reminders of home. The Sox fans were out in droves, and the camaraderie was all the more spectacular being so far from home. There was this instant bond with every 3rd person we saw, it seemed. I even sat next to a guy from Boston on the plane who was going to the same game we were, then heading to Oakland to catch the series there. At batting practice I chatted with a guy from Worcester; he showed me a picture of his daughter w/ Curt Schilling that he was going to try to get signed. What other team can boast such fabulous fans... I love it. During the game itself I was torn between reveling in The Nation's numbers and cringing at how loathed we were by the Mariners fans around us. There were some pretty hearty, stadium wide "Let's Go, Red Sox" cheers. I get the impression that it takes quite a bit to get the few Seattle fans whipped into much of a frenzy (though they got pretty frenzied at the end, which made the walk-off loss all the worse. But then there was that great guy who came walking past holding up his Boston hat and nodding to his comrades in the stand, "it's all right; we've still got it!")


Here's where we got our seats. Those tiny specks are apparently ballplayers. The depth perception was totally off from up here; we couldn't even tell which way the ball was going -- it was weird. An interesting perspective, but of course we fell back on our old ways and moved to some seats T scouted out for us about 30 rows up from the first base side of home. Nice. We didn't even get kicked out once! A new record!

As you can see, we got within pretty good picture range at batting practice. Alex Cora tossed a ball that Luke, being very tall, snagged. Someone near him asked who had thrown it...good thing I had just told him who Cora was :) At one point T was hanging out near where the pitchers were warming up and Manny Delcarmen tossed a ball into the stands. T reached in front of some girl and caught it, then felt bad and said he'd give her the next one. Sure enough, Craig Hansen threw him one, and he handed it over to the girl. Papelbon saw it, and yelled up, "WEAK!" to T. haha. T. tried to explain that he already had a ball, but "Papi Jr." just shook his head and yelled "weak!" again. Ah, the momentous brushes with fame.

There's plenty more I could write, such as the fact that we did in fact see the first ever Starbucks (and the awesome a cappela trio out front), and the Space Needle, and lots of art galleries (yay for me! poor everyone with me!), including one in the Experience Music Project building designed by THE Frank Gehry (oooh, ahhh... who's Frank Gehry? Look up the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. wowzers). However, this post is a veritable beast already, and I'm tired. Thanks to all you well-wishers out there -- we had a really good time. You can see more pictures if you ever run into me someday.

The end.

Reading Like Crazy!

I have approximately two weeks left free for the rest of the summer. Gasp! Where does the time go?! So I've designated it as reading time - as in, reading the books I'll be teaching next year.

Yesterday I read H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine." It was actually quite a fascinating read! I liked it better than "The War of the Worlds," which I'd finished just before. And it reminded me of this hilarious bit of writing.

Today, on a vastly different note, I read "The Pilgrim's Progress." Wow! I was sort of familiar with it, I guess, but hadn't read it in years (if I ever did read the whole thing). There are some really deep things there. I'd recommend it to all! It wasn't exactly a page turner, and I did skim some, but it was well worth the time. (I read just the first half - about Christian - and skipped the second half about his wife...)

I'm taking a break for the Sabbath (doing some P. G. Wodehouse or something), but then I'll be tackling such things as "Silas Marner" (has anyone read it? I haven't yet. Obviously.) and "Paradise Lost." Woooo!

Oh. Before vacation I massively skim-read "Frankenstein." I had no idea what a horrible story it was! Oy vay! Barely a drop of good cheer to be seen anywhere! I decided not to make my kids read it:) But I did learn something valuable: Frankenstein is the name of the guy who made the monster-ish guy, and not the monster-ish guy himself. Who would have thought?

When I wrote my PC English profs to let them know I was an English teacher, one wrote back with the bad news that it's a lot of work, but the good news that the work is usually reading, which is why we got into the field in the first place! Hurrah for books!

Weeohd!

The other night I needed a book (I hadn't really brought vacation books on our vacation - a serious blunder), so I rummaged in Aunt Laura's attic and found one I'd never read. I forget what the name and author are (it's waaaaay upstairs, and heaven forbid I leave the couch for investigative research), so sorry about that. But anyway, I picked it up and started to read and it was the weirdest thing. The book kept reminding me of myself!

It wasn't a particular character - it was more the author. She put in things that sounded so much like me. For instance, she had a character who got really mad when he walked outside and felt the cold air. That's ME! When I walked out on the way to school early early in the morning, and was hit by 20 below winds, I just wanted to punch something. Angrily.

And there was also the dislike of talking on the telephone - an inability to really communicate without being able to see the other person. Yup. That's me! Hate phones.

And then there was the guy who was feeling annoyed because he'd figured out the world's most beautiful word the night before and he'd forgotten it. I love beautiful sounding words! I've never figured out the world's most beautiful before, but if I did I'd surely forget it (if I didn't write it down immediately).

It's kind of uncanny, really. So many peculiar little things that made me think of me. That doesn't happen very often. I think there was another thing, too. And ALL of that was just in chapter one. Phew! At this rate, the depths of my soul will be in chapter 12!

"A man said Why, why does traveling
in cars and in trains make him feel sad,
a beautiful sadness.
I’ve felt this before.
It’s the people in the cities you’ll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering will you ever return.
The colors of rowboats, the greens and the blues.
Orange grove side streets you only see halfway.
And beaches in winter
and when kites are flown.
It’s the people in the cities you’ll never know,
it is everything you pass by,
wondering will you ever return."

-Innocence Mission, "Song about Traveling"

Happy Golden Birthday, man. Find some good spots today.

Girls Week Flashback

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Girls' Week!


These two are at the ocean in Newport...



We had a lovely, sunny, chummy, and creative day!




Then there was ice cream in Newport...
And here is a sample of the AMAZING drama that came about because of the long van rides. Hurrah!

(Thanks Steph and Diane for the pics you left on my computer:)!)

Coffee, Rain, and Some Big Needle...

...is pretty much all I know about Seattle. But that is about to change! This is Melissa, by the way, back from the netherworld of summer school. Biology is over FOREVER! Huzzah. I still don't really have time to be posting anything, of course, since I haven't packed one speck and we're leaving the house at some horrible hour tomorrow morning(like 4:45 or something... is it even POSSIBLE to wake up that early?). But yes... I now declare to the blogging world that we are going to Seattle. My dad had Sky Miles that needed to be used up, so we randomly picked that unexplored corner of our fair land. Some of my friends from high school live out there, as well as cousin Luke and the um... people who are relations of Penny and Brad (there's my occasional burst of Internet Anonymity Consideration coming through), so it will be nice to see people who we haven't seen in forever. AND, what is more, we're going to our first Red Sox game on the road! Everyone be sure to watch every second of the game until you see us. I'm curious to see how many Sox fans there will be that far afield. No doubt a whole host... I love The Nation.

Maybe I'll figure out how to actually post some pictures one of these days so I can share the natural wonders (such as the aforementioned attractions) with the world. Okay. The end.

p.s. We're going to Sunday's game... kind of forgot that little detail.

24 - AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Okay, this post isn't really about 24. But MAN is that show intense. We have only two episodes left of season one... AAHHHHH!!!

What this post is really about is this: try to remember waaaay back to 7th grade. What was your favorite book of those you had to read in school? Or 8th grade? Or 9th? In the next few days I'm hoping to finalize the list of books we'll be reading in the lower grades, and I'd love some suggestions. I can only remember a couple of the books I read then, but I figure that if all of you remember one or two, I'll have quite a list to work from...

So how about it? What books did you enjoy as a junior high school student?

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my father's birthday!

He is my all-time #1 hero. If I was allowed to have an idol, he would be it.

I was a little limited in my selection of photos (not being a digital camera person, myself), but I liked this one that was on my computer from Girls' Week. He is looking inspiring, and I am looking adoring:)

I love you, Daddy!

Literature Prep

I've been working on getting ready for teaching my BRITISH LITERATURE class next year (woooooooohoooooooooooooo!!!). My preliminary preparation has been reading up on the history of England. What a tale! I never took a British History class (shame on me), and things are beginning to click left and right!

"Ohhhh, THAT'S what the 100 year war was! Ohhhhh, THAT'S why Bonnie Prince Charlie should have been king! Ohhhhhh, THAT'S where the word spinster comes from! Ohhhh, THAT'S what "Tudor" and "Stuart" and all that is referring to!"

I love learning things!

But as I'm going through history like that, I have to brace myself for my strange alter-ego tendencies to emerge. I am such a conservative, and such a fan of tradition, that I just side with the Kings and Queens as a matter of course. So I'm reading along about such and such a king that was living in horrible excess, and I get annoyed when Parliament tries to check him! Weird. I really had to stop and get hold of myself when I was siding with the King against the MPs who wanted freedom of religion! Good grief. This conservative thing can go a bit too far. I mean, I'm an American, after all! I DO believe in freedom! So I decided that the Kings were pretty cool, but sometimes they did have some, er, issues.

By the way, I'm doing this study out of "A Children's History of Britain and Wales" or something like that. It's perfect! It's written for older children, who are really supposed to be learning, so there is actually serious content there. But it's not filled with humongous words, dry passages about currencies and such, or political nuances (or blatant agendas). Very nice! More history books should be written that way.

The Homerun Derby!

Oh my WORD!

Okay, remember (those of you who have any kind of maturity of years) the '94 baseball strike? Everyone wondered if baseball had just lost all of its support, if it would ever recover, and all that stuff.

Well, we're talking big-time recovery tonight, boy howdy!!! MLB.com (that would be the Major League Baseball) is streaming the home run derby on the Internet. I'm sitting here typing this blog while I watch it! What could be better?! Who needs cable?! David Ortiz is definitely going to win, that's my prediction.

Baseball. Ahhhhh. What a beautiful thing.

The NE Curse

For those of you who may not read my blog all that much - and even for those of you have picked up on the fact that I kind of like teaching, but haven't yet picked up on other nuances of the Dreweyfern Blog, allow me to enlighten you to the fact that I love New England. I think it is one of the best (if not THE best) places on Earth. It is beautiful - historical - characterful - idiosyncratic in a most endearing way - and pretty much perfect in every possible way.

However (as we learn in the Little Elba song), there has to be something to remind us that this world is not our home, and that we're bound for a more perfect place. New England's particular reminder is mosquitoes.

Daddy set up the hammock: the place of joy and peace and relaxation. Hurrah! However, I kind of forgot (during all those winter months) that evening is not the best time for hammock lounging. I happily read for a little while before noticing my back was kind of itchy. As was my arm. And there were some mosquitoes and mayflies buzzing around. I decided it was time to go inside.

And THERE I discovered that I had not been victim to a bug here or there. I had been absolutely GNAWED upon! I had been out there with a blanket, but the weasely bugs had figured out that they could access my back and arm from the backside of the hammock. I HAD 15 BITES!!! Grrrrr. And some of them were huge! My prize winner is about the size of a quarter.

Being the socialite that I am, I went from family member to family member showing them the monstrosity on my arm, garnering all the sympathy I could. They did a good job being sympathetic. But I needed MORE sympathy. So up to Shawn and Gretchen's I went. Ian let out a particularly gratifying exclamation of awe when he saw the bite. Little boys know all about bad bug bites.

In the famed words from years gone by: poor, poor, pitiful me!

“All that Mattered”

I was glancing through a Guidepost article about Bonhoeffer recently, because it happened to be lying open on the counter at the Brown’s.

[Side note: Isn’t it amazing how God can work through “chance” occurrences like that? So often He will bring just the right thing along at just the right time. It’s like He knows us or something!]

Anyway, as I was reading the article it had a little sentence that ran something like this: “God was all that mattered to him.” I have thought of that SO often since then. That’s what I want to be true of me!

After reading that phrase, the importance of a real, vital relationship was emphasized to me by something I chanced upon on the Internet: some guy’s disillusionment with fake Christianity. I realized that I need to be absolutely real in my Christianity – connected with the source of Life. I can’t rely on past inspiration. I need to be up to date – constantly seeking – constantly getting closer.

[Side note 2: Isn’t it amazing how God brings along something to reinforce the lesson He’s taught, so it’s really cemented? It’s like He knows us or something!]

This summer I have more time than I have during the school year (though I’ll be quite busy preparing next year’s classes!), and I want to make it a summer spent in the pursuit of God. That’s what matters!

The Sanguine and the Melancholic

Last night at about bedtime I decided I wasn’t sleepy. So, anticipating Kimberly’s taking my car to work in the morning, I thought I’d empty all of the junk out of it for cleaning the next day. I had moved all of my stuff up from RI for the summer, but hadn’t unloaded it yet. So I began tackling the job. And it was quite the job! What a mountain of disorganized rubble met my eyes.

My car has a strange leak in it, which means that after there’s a hard rainfall there’s standing water in my car for days. This time the water was beginning to smell stronger than usual. Grim.

I began cleaning up a storm, picking things up and dumping them onto the driveway for transport. But alas, the more things I picked up, the worse the smell became. Uh oh. A bad sign, indeed. This must mean that it was NOT the standing water stinking up the place.

I delved deeper, through a smelly book, some smelly CDs, my smelly jacket (the shoulder was damp – gulp), some smelly potatoes (which were left over from the Girls Week), some smelly flour bags (ditto), and discovered, to my dismay, a Lipton Tea bottle, somewhat damp. Ahhhhhh! One of the girls bought it during Girls’ Week, and it must have leaked out. And WHAT a stench!

So back into the house I went to retrieve dry rags, wet rags, and club soda. After several soakings of various kinds I decided that I’d done all I could do. I began carrying things back into the house. A few loads later, and after I’d hung my smelly coat on the line to air out, I grabbed the potatoes to take into the house.

PEW!

It was then I realized that the potatoes, not the Lipton Tea, had created the problem. Oy VAY! Those things stank. For some strange reason the potatoes had not withstood 5 days in a roasting hot car. Odd. In any case, they were rotting and fermenting to beat the band. Gross potato juice had accumulated in the bottom of the bag, and that what is had leaked into my car. Alas!

I left them, as well as the tainted flour bags, outside, and put the book and CDs on the porch. I left the car windows open to try to air out the car, and decided that I was, finally, ready for bed.

The next morning I came downstairs to find a note on the counter that Kimberly had left before she went to work. It read like this:

Some early morning observations:
1. Found a book and 2 CDs on chair outside on porch
2. Noticed side door was unlocked
3. Fern’s coat on clothes line may get rust on it that way
4. Andrea’s car windows are open
5. Saw bag of potatoes and 2 bags of flour outside downstairs door way.
6. I LOVE MY FAMILY!

I read it, and was somewhat amused, but then, as I thought more about it, I just laughed and laughed. On one hand were my frantic endeavors in the middle of the night, combating decay and ruin in the midst of chaos, and on the other Kimberly’s pristine, unhurried chronicling of the results of my frenzied activity.

What a great juxtaposition! The only thing that might come close to that kind of black and white comparison is the fact that she had time to make such a list on a work morning, where I would be dashing out the door with my hands full of things I couldn’t take time to pack up in my bag.

We certainly are a strange pair. But fortunately, despite our dissimilarities, we have a great time together!

Girls' Week Report

For those who prayed, THANK YOU! It was a stunningly wonderful time. I had a group that was fun, interesting, enthusiastic, cooperative, thoughtful, friendly, and spiritually alive. They all got along with each other, and seemed to enjoy everything I threw at them. They even worked happily! My goodness.

We took trips to Newport, Boston, Wrentham, and Concord, MA. We saw amazing sights! We had an amazing amount of fun!

The girls learned the Virginia Reel, made up skits and radio dramas, sang, laughed, played games they'd never played before, and generally kept themselves beautifully and wholesomely entertained.

We also had some rich times in morning devotions and in the meetings. Our theme was "Intimacy with God," and I think we did more that just talk about it - we deepened our intimacy with Jesus. We had some marked times of hearing the call of God to our hearts. Praise the Lord!

And the most startling part of all, for me, was the fact that I was feeling sad about the week coming to a close. Generally, I have a great time, but I'm exhausted by week's end. This time I was feeling blothpicky about it ending. That was quite new!

Hurrah for Girls' Week 2006!

ps. Well, I valiantly struggled to upload pictures to accompany this post. But I am at Fairwood, and thus am trying to maneuver with dial-up. Sigh. Sorry. Maybe another time...