Monday, November 28, 2011

Shake Your Baby Booties?






Years ago, I titled the day after Thanksgiving-"Shake Your Baby Booties Day". In my mind, I imagined being able to have a family reunion-type celebration (Before the grand-ladies were admitted to Trump-Pavillion)Dancing through the years and hopefully shaking some of the pounds off.
Year after year, the elders started to leave us and I lost the dream of ever being able to host such an event in our family. My children accomodate me in recent years, in our home, as we celebrate it, more as a holiday than a dream that never materialized
This year, we started in the 1930's with Guy Lombardo. I told them about Honey and Bunny and Uncle Larry and his humor. None of my children remember uncle at all. We whizzed by the fifties and concentrated on the mambo and the dances that my parents would do. Tito Puente delighted them. They had also never heard of him, either. For the sixties, they were very familiar with my preferences, having heard the Jackson 5 stories entirely too much. So, this year I concentrated on the Saturday Night Fever generation and the things that were different for me, in highschool than at home. We danced the Hustle and that led us into the line dance craze. After every song, eight year old Ezra insisted that we must be up to his generation now. We skipped alot of pertinent dances and cultural events from the family and jumped to the Hoedown Showdown, which is still outside of my range of ability. The "Cupid Shuffle" and the "Electric Slide" were more in my ability range. We had a blast, reminiscing. Finally, we were at Ezra's generation. Sonic! Those fellows moved their baby booties, like I hadn't seen them do. It aged me to see the speed of their Sonic dances. Looks like progress is happening, if you look for speed vs. accuracy. We were more than breaking a sweat, by the time we got to the present day, from 1930.--Tempus fugit:)

Friday, November 25, 2011

"And driving down the road, I get a feeling


That I should have been home yesterday!"


A friend of Elyse's invited us to the mountains for Thanksgiving. The mountains trampled my homesickness, for a moment and I met new friends, ate very well and came home with a new respect for my old John Denver albums that introduced me to the mountains before now. He did much to put the unspeakable privilege of discovery of the mountain beauty, from a crass urban perspective, into words. I don't feel that I can say it any better than he. Just to converse with the reality of the beauty of having sight to see such things.
It seemed Heidi and Grandfather, met me in the mountain, in my imagination and they escorted me through my fears into this unknown territory. It seems that the higher elevations take you above the stories of the plains into the stories of the higher love stories. Heidi and Grandfather's was on the top of the heap, in my mind. I saw the beauty of their story from a new perspective, looking from that elevation and I loved them all the more. I saw more mutuality in the story than I had seen earlier. I saw more in Grandfather than an old curmudgeon. I saw the embrace of the mountain and the love that can keep you up there, as though the stars were your Macy's Day parade and the dances that they do to entertain were more spectacular than the Rockettes.
I met real friends there, not just the fictional characters that I had learned to love in the mountains of my imagination and they were all the more precious, for having invited us to break bread and feast sumptuously of food and enjoyments.
As I inferred before, the mountains' feet stomped my homesickness and I felt that I "should have been there yesterday"?
Oh, I was there yesterday, it wasn't just a dream.


Monday, November 21, 2011

I almost always start Thanksgiving Week thinking of my favorite presents that I got yearly from my parents...



As I often tell it: The stork came yearly or so to our house to bring me a new playmate. I loved them very much and I learned to love the stork for bringing them to me. We didn't have a boy, though. This week marks the week that the boy came to live with us. I remember kissing Mike on his little bald head and bidding him farewell and wishing to Heaven that God would give us a boy in Mommy's tummy. Her tummy was already big, as it usually got, when the stork was coming to our house. This was the week that I remember the Christmas that came in November. The bunch of us girls were gathered in the room, looking out of the window and wishing. It is November 24th, God must be sending us a boy, this time. We got 2 boys from God, before it was all over. An amazing providence and the entire school jumped with cheers when they announced it over the loudspeaker at school...
"Peace on Earth, Good will toward Men and the Boddens had a boy." The most unusual occurrence in a decade. And I got to tell about it, to our principal.
What a Happy Thanksgiving that was!

The bunch of us, a little after the boy was born--fourth playmate Amy is on the right corner
Third playmate, Jo
me and my first playmate, Ju!{I was mothering her, even then}
Second playmate, Jackie

Friday, November 11, 2011

Amazing Grace on Veteran's Day-11/11/11

Mahalia! There is nothing else to say!




Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Speaking of Bedtime Stories---...400 weeks ago today,

After a short, nine month pregnancy, I met a little girl who changed my whole life. She was pink and grey with a few black spots in various places. My dalmatian baby grew into her color rather quickly and became a dear, dear daughter. We grew in knowledge of the Lord's comfort together and nightly for a long while we sang this hymn before bed. She would snuggle and daddy and mommy and Elyse sat under the comforting care of the Lord, in the most special way. We hid in the Lord and now, 25 years later we are still comforted and aware of the presence of God in our life, in difficulty and in blessings. I am ever grateful for a ministering daughter who is, now a dear, dear friend.


Hiding in Thee

O safe to the Rock that is higher than I,
My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly;
So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be;
Thou blest "Rock of Ages," I'm hiding in Thee.

Refrain:
Hiding in Thee, Hiding in Thee,
Thou blest "Rock of Ages,"
I'm hiding in Thee.

In the calm of the noontide, in sorrow's lone hour,
In times when temptation casts o'er me its pow'r;
In the tempests of life, on its wide, heaving sea,
Thou blest "Rock of Ages," I'm hiding in Thee.

How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe,
I have fled to my Refuge and breathed out my woe;
How often, when trials like seabillows roll,
Have I hidden in Thee, O Thou Rock of my soul.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Crazed Mother goes to bring lunch and sundries to disheveled preteen


I have been in a weakened physical state. I have had to limit my social exposure and my physical exertion, for pain's sake. My precious daughter volunteered to take me to rescue the son of my womb, in his dilemma in Math and Spanish and Lunch. I love his middle-school attitude. He is truly, more my son, than any of the other. He has no maternal help. His mother and father have more to do than to be able to help him in his work. He doesn't want that help, these days, even when it is offered. But, on the day of delivery, he needs a bailout package. We printed the final documents, with the help of our dearest neighbors and barrelled down the road to deliver them.
The wrinkled and motley genius met me in the office. That boy looks just like me, I giggled. More inside the brain than outside the brain. Color coordinated? Not! Concerned about his work and inventions? Always. No question about his lunch. Here is your lunch and your papers and your contribution to the party. No thanks, really. I kissed his disheveled forehead. I saw my mind delivered there into middle school. I saw my mind walking around in that little fellow's body. We are a strange and motley family. We are curious and learners, not masters, but intellects, just the same. God loves us, in spite of ourselves. Usually, the joke between the Ethy boy and me is-- we look into eachother's eyes and shake our heads and say "Only a mother could love". We do love eachother.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

He Brought Me Out!

RC Sproul was preaching it today. He illucidated the components of the faith that we accept and that is the full working of God in our souls. Sometimes the devil uses reasoning to lasso your soul to call truths into question for the justifying of some sin of unbelief. The real truth is not afraid of being broken down into components. We are not saved in a vacuum. We are the fruit of generations of believers, who have set down studies that can be profitable for the growth of our souls. We often are held accountable in our unbelief for not making use of the studies of the generations before us. I believe that the more technology enables us, we will see this coming to bear upon us. If we neglect the histories that are ours, through grace and faith, we often live to repeat the same pitfalls of the former generations. We have these lessons to grow us and to shape us into conformity to Christ as His Bride the Church. I was rejoicing that it seemed a little thing for RC Sproul to break down some of the very heady elements of doctrine into bitesized pieces.

Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.