It's No Big Deal to You, but

for us, even a tiny bit of snow is a thrill. And this much, well, this much means no electricity for about 18 hours and no school or work for two days. And for me, a lovely reminder of my Brno, though in Brno, the white silence wasn't devoured by the sounds of gasoline-powered generators.

Sunday

I had to go save these from being further beat down into the ground by the rain and the precipitation expected tonight.

Evolution, Trilobite Writers, and Jell-O

I found this list in Bram's backpack a few weeks ago and came across it again on my desk last week. Yes, my desk hadn't been cleaned off in ages--still hasn't. It's a pretty common thing for American school children to make a list of what they are thankful at Thanksgiving. Here's Bram's list of ten things for which he is most thankful
1. Family
2. Anything related to Jurassic Park (except knock-offs)
3. Friends
4. A brain
5. Jell-O
6. Holidays
7. Good books
8. Prehistoric life books
9. Evolution
10. Universe
(This list is NOT put in order of which I like better)

What's not to love about a kid whose grateful for Jell-o and evolution? At the moment, though, he isn't happy about anything because his English assignment isn't going well. The assignment was to write a children's book, but he has written and is illustrating something somewhere between a comic book and a graphic short story about a writer who's a trilobite. It's going to be good when he's done, but he's upset because his drawings today aren't his best.

How Rich is This?

Or how stupid?
See this machine? It's purpose is to count your change for you---for a fee! I get it that some people like to come home and put their change in a jar and then cash it in or deposit it at the bank to see how much they saved kind of by accident when the jar is full. But how rich or busy do you have to be to not mind paying 8.9 cents on the dollar to have a machine count your change? The thing is, the people I usually see at this machine certainly don't dress or act or talk like they have so much money and so little time that they have to pay to have their money counted.

In the malls here, there is a place where you can literally throw your money away by watching it wind down a large funnel and down a hole and into the collection box below. I wish I had been the brilliant person who anticipated this easy way to make money. I don't have a photo, but you can understand what it looks like if you imagine a large black plastic funnel that is about a meter and half in diameter, set with the narrow end down onto a circular wooden base. There aren't any signs or instructions, but people here seem to know what to do. Walk up to the thing, stand a coin up on its edge on the outer edge of the funnel, and watch it roll in concentric circles before it falls through the hole in the center. I try to imagine such a thing in the middle of some public space in Brno and I just cannot. What Czech would throw money away like this? I have an idea what use just about any beer-drinking male would find for such a thing, and the only thing it might have to do with money is saving the 15kc charge at the public toilets.

The Only Ones

I was a little afraid of dead things when I was child. Once, when I was telling my father how scary it would be to live next to a cemetery, he said in that flat voice he usually reserved for answering stupid questions, "Why? THOSE are the only people on the earth who won't hurt you." Along the route to Bram's school, there are two cemeteries: on the west and east on the way in, and on the east and west on the way home. I notice these cemeteries not because there is a house right up against one of them or because I am feeling miserable or hollow (though I often am), but because what I see first are the flowers that have blown off the graves. For some reason, it really bothers me to see them there, ripped from the resting places of somebody's loved ones and lying like so much trash in the ditch and along the roadside. These days it's mostly red poinsettias or blue things or some kind of fluffy yellow spidery-looking flower I don't recognize. I would like to stop and to put them all back, but of course I can't. And that bothers me more than it should. I am sorry for the living who brought the flowers to the cemetery and how they must have felt about leaving first someone they loved and then the flowers and for the oblivious dead who now thanks to the wind, appear to lie there unmissed and ungrieved. But then, THEY are the only ones on earth who. . . .

Friday Plans

Today Bram and I will take thirty-seven more stuffed animals to the Pacolet Senior Center to add to the first batch of seventeen I took last week. Then we'll party with my new old friends there. There won't be a Santa, and I've heard the widow women will be disappointed. I need to start shopping for a Santa suit now for next year.

From Wednesday

The waterworks from The Whitney Mill, which was powered in part by hydro-electrics.


Bram's playdough ammonite.


The pink elephant: Someone rents it and has it put in your yard the parking lot where you work when you turn 40 or 50 or 60 or...there's just news you want to share. I can't imagine a single Czech finding this kind of advertising appealing.

There's No Place Like Home

Since Tuesday, I have been awash in homesickness for Brno. I am especially feeling the lack of the serenity I felt at Smidkova, in the little dining room where I used to study, write, and say my prayers. I felt close to God there, where the eastern light slashed through the high windows to light the tiny cross I had made one fidgety morning from an olive twig brought from Tunisia. When I lifted my head from my work, I could calculate the weather by the number and colors of the rising chimney smoke against the sky. I knew that if I stood up, and the day were cold enough, I could see that haunting Dormitory where Nazis tortured and executed Jews and other enemies of the Reich, jailed behind the pale gray bars of smoke and time. It isn't a threatening place now, though it will always loom.
In my sanctuary, I could anticipate the upstairs mid-morning coffee routine and track the sounds of wooden chairs scraping lightly across the ceramic floor, the muffle of conversation, and hearing these things, feel safe and comfortable, at peace and unalone.
This is all in contrast to the peace and security I now lack. I am betrayed and heartsick, longing to click my heels like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, of returning to a better time and better place, both literally and figuratively. There' no place like home...there's no place like home...

Hedonistic Saturday (Požitkářský Sobota)

Our son has been dreaming of today all week because today is going according to his plan. I know it's indulgent of Thomas and me, but we like to give Bram the chance to have just the kind of day he wants every now and then. So, today's plan is to spend all day in bed. Who among us hasn't dreamt of such a day when the alarm had gone off? Our shifts as butler have been scheduled so that no one gets taken advantage of; whoever is butler is to be called "Jeeves", and the means of summoning the butler has been determined (Bram taps his lamp; Thomas and I yell "ding ding!") Bram has set the tone for interactions with Jeeves, and it's extremely polite, so for now, we're all laughing our heads off every time Jeeves is summoned. I've had my coffee and a corndog for breakfast, my computer, books, iPod, and telephone beside me, so I'm enjoying it. I know how ridiculously silly and self-indulgent this is of us, but as there's no harm in it, why not just enjoy it? After all, we have permission to lie on the bed rather than in it, and to fetch things for ourselves if we want, to even get dressed. Now if we could just get snow on Christmas... .

Our Thanksgiving

For the first time in a very long time, I cooked the entire Thanksgiving feast myself, and we stayed at home. We had turkey, gravy, dressing (stuffing), cranberry sauce, green beans, corn, collard greens, congealed salad, sweet potato souffle, cherry pie, and oatmeal cookies. I was a little worried I had forgotten what to cook and was out of practice, but it turned out just fine. Thomas helped a lot ahead of time and even said the blessing! Now for the first time ever, we might even go get our Christmas tree this week. Either I am over my culture shock or I have caved to the pressures of American consumerism.