Okay, okay.

Queen Shenaynay

Due to much cheerful coercion, I shall acquiesce and reveal my shameless, unorthodox response to Great Scot's marriage proposal, exactly nineteen years and twenty-two minutes ago.

(If you have not already read that entry, I'm just happier being confused, please do so now... we'll wait for you.)

So where did I leave off? Oh, yes... Great Scot had just managed to completely flummox and bumfuzzle me with his dazzling display of... well, words fail me. I was, you'll recall, in a state of extreme confusion. Please do remember that.

To say that a marriage proposal was the last thing I expected at that moment would be the blue-ribbon gross understatement of all time.

He could have said, "I won't be seeing you for a while because I'm off for a six-week sub-Saharan safari," and I wouldn't have been nearly so surprised. After all, I'd already heard that one, from the boyfriend just prior to Great Scot -- a millionaire hotel heir, who discovered upon his return that I had not missed him nearly so much as he had imagined while out there chasing elephants and zebras across Africa. But I digress.

He could have said, "Oh, hey, sorry I'm so hyper, didn't mean to scare you, but I just-this-afternoon bought myself that new BMW -- and it's right outside!!!" Had heard that one, too. It was, after all, the 80's.

But no. What I was fairly certain I had heard him say was: "Will you marry me?"

Surely I had heard him wrong. I mean, was this really The Big Proposal? THE Big Proposal? Didn't these things normally happen on a weekend? In some lush, fantastic spot? Maybe with a nice sunset hovering over something picturesque? A little hint of a warning so you could at least get dressed for it? Candles? Something?

Why here? Why now?


I was Just So Confused. And there he sat, staring at me, waiting. His eyebrows slowly drifted upward like two question marks. I suddenly realized that he was about to cut off the blood supply to my hands. And then I noticed he wasn't breathing. This was not a healthy moment. I opened my mouth, and the first thing that came out was...



But, Dan... it's Tuesday.

::pause::

And this is...
my apartment.

But, hey, it worked.

I'm just happier being confused...

... beside the fire, as long as it's with you.*

Queen Shenaynay


On this very day in 1986, in the vicinity of 6 PM, a handsome man in a suit and tie appeared quite unexpectedly at my door, mere moments after I had arrived home from work -- had not even had time to kick off my pumps nor remove my pearls -- and, once allowed inside, immediately proceeded to ramble with alarming energy about things I could not decipher as being connected to anything pertinent to the moment nor relevant to my well-being.

A rising wave of nervousness came over me as I began to wonder, judging from his strange and uncharacteristically agitated demeanor, if he had come to relate some tragic news. I tried to listen more carefully, but his words seemed out of kilter, like a tangling discourse from a tea party in Wonderland.

For pete's sake, he's a litigator -- he knows perfectly well how to speak sensibly, even to big bad federal judges, and under intense pressure! So why is he babbling like this, at ME, here in my living room?

I felt wobbly. I loathe feeling wobbly. I felt put out with myself for feeling wobbly. I felt faintly put out with him for making me feel wobbly. With growing concern I tried, but failed, to reckon the incongruousness of the moment. I had thought, after seven months of close acquaintance, that I knew this man quite well... but here he was, popping into my apartment, pacing around my coffee table and talking like a man deranged... and what was to be made of that intermittent flash of maniacal grin ? This was surely a side of him that I had not seen heretofore, and it was... unsettling. Confusing.

Why is he quoting that thing I said about climbing rocks in Greece? And what could that possibly have to do with my apple pie being incomparable? And why did he come here straight from work? And without calling first? It's just Tuesday; we did NOT have a date tonight, did we? Oh, heavens... surely he's not... drunk? Not him... no... so... what?

After several minutes of this, the level of confusion mounting in my poor addled brain became utterly intolerable, whereupon I burst out with:

"WHAT on EARTH are you talking about?"

And he fell silent for a moment,
suddenly got very still and composed,
and replied:
"Well, all that to say... will you marry me?"


::speechless::


My exact reply, once I managed to move my jaw, was... well, the reply of an understandably confused young lady, and perhaps another story for another day (it was a tad unorthodox, I suppose), but for today I will just say that it amounted to yes -- or rather YES!

About this, at least, I was not confused... the foregoing spectacle notwithstanding.

[Turns out, Great Scot awoke that morning with no more anticipation of proposing to me on that day than I had of being proposed to. Hadn't bought a ring. But, as he tells it, it hit him like a tidal wave somewhere in the afternoon traffic of the northbound tollway that he wanted to marry me, wanted to propose NOW, simply didn't want to wait any longer. So he grabbed a penny from his console and tossed it... heads, I propose today... tails, at Christmas. Heads -- yesss! So he turned right at the exit ramp light instead of the usual left, and sped straight to my apartment. A man of action, no?]

I walked down the aisle five months later with that penny in my shoe. Still have it in my jewelry box.

And I've been happily confused with him ever since.

[Was going to embellish this post with our engagement photo, but the scanner is pouting today. Will do so later, when the scanner is over its little snit.]

-----------------------------
*from the wonderful song Why Should the Fire Die? by Nickel Creek.

Something told the wild geese

Queen Shenaynay

Sixty. That's the temperature here. SIXTY! It's a miracle.

The heat has hovered around one hundred here for almost five months. We were at the verge of succumbing to that strange heat malaise that southwesterners know so well -- a drippy, drowsy churlishness that comes and goes without warning.

And then! --we awoke this morning to a glorious zing of chill. We cranked open the windows and put our biggest teapot over the warming candle.

Spuddy Buddy, while wrestling a long sleeve shirt from the back of the closet, asked with much enthusiasm, "Is it going to SNOW?" Amazing how cold 60 degrees can feel to a barbequed Texan.

I predict there will be pumpkins perched on the porch within 36 hours. And that Great Scot will whisper the word chili! in my ear shortly thereafter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Something Told the Wild Geese

Something told the wild geese

It was time to go.

Though the fields lay golden

Something whispered, -- "Snow."

Leaves were green and stirring,

Berries, luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers

Something cautioned, -- "Frost."

All the sagging orchards

Steamed with amber spice,

But each wild breast stiffened

At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly, --

Summer sun was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.

-- Rachel Field

...and be merry

"In a world without humour, the only thing to do is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the lyre, and says, 'Life is real, life is earnest,' and then goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in his head."


from Napoleon of Notting Hill
by G. K. Chesterton

A Fondness for Dead Leaves

"Keep some chickens.."

"We perished, each alone."

Can you not feel his despair?

"Esteem him! Like him!"

My father's favorite

"Clink!" (private joke, sorry...)

Fondant!

Sad eyes

Mr. Impudence! (sorry, couldn't resist!)

So beautiful

My favorite

Yeah, I know, I'm posting *another* Annie Dillard quote...

But this one really is wonderful. It's from The Writing Life, which is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful books I have ever read. Wow. But anyway...

"He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know."

Short, but oh-so-true.

I remember when I was little, and we would be in grocery store checkout lines. There, arranged temptingly at my 8-year-old eye level (a soapbox for another day) were all the various celebrity gossip, fashion, and teen magazines, with attractive shiny covers showing beautiful people. Unfortunately, they also advertised blatantly and shamelessly the sinful stuff inside. Queen Shenaynay always told us not to look at the magazine rack, because our minds were temples of the Lord and the things on those magazines were too horrible to be plastered on the walls of that temple. Reading this quote the other day brought that to my mind, and also made me think how very grateful I am to her for teaching us this idea.

Thank you, Queenie.

Worrisome

Seen on a menu yesterday in Little Rock:

Savory Pot Roast -- Cooked slowly with its own vegetables.
--------

Pot roast's own vegetables?? The last veggies the cow ate?

All Grown Up

Fa-So-La-La

As Spuddy Buddy matures, the ethical, moral, and practical dilemmas here at the Beehive are becoming increasingly complex.

The latest instance:

Spuddy Buddy, to me this morning, upon my discovery that he had worn the same pair of, ahem, unmentionables for more days in a row than I care to think about:

"Well, Sister, you see, Mamadah and Daddy say that since I'm such a big boy now, I can wear underwear three days in a row!"

Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm sure.

I'm not ready for Mr. Demille... or Rita... OR Channel 11

Queen Shenaynay

If the forecasters are to be believed, The Beehive finds itself in the path of hurricane Rita -- well up the path, but still, there it is, flickering at us from every TV screen in the county. This comes as something of a surprise. As urban inlanders, we have reckoned a great many things as potential dangers to our well-being, but a hurricane never crossed our minds.

So Great Scot and I had a staff meeting to create a preparedness plan, and very early this morning I set out posthaste to procure the goods. Purchased the last of the bottled water at our neighborhood grocery store, and headed over to Home Depot for... well, you'll see. Keep reading.

I had loaded up the big orange cart and was headed to the cash register when I was abruptly accosted by a microphone attached to an arm, beyond which flashed a pageant-ready set of pearly white teeth belonging to a very beautiful black woman in a luscious suit. Behind her was a man I would have mistaken for a Cowboy linebacker were it not for the massive camera perched on his shoulder, which he was swinging round to barrel down on my face.

Microphone Beauty cooed that she was with Channel 11 and wanted to interview me about storm preparation. Well, fine, huh, okay. Like I know a lot about prepping for a hurricane, but...

"Roll," she barked to the linebacker, then turned back to me and waxed all coo-ey again.

"So, you're preparing for the storm. Why did you decide to do that?"

She must be kidding, right? Instead of saying "because you people told us it was coming, hello?" I chose rather to coo something back about taking care of my children. A nice touch, I thought.

"And what are you doing to prepare?" she crooned while smiling from ear to ear and peering into my cart... "Plastic sheeting, I see -- what do you plan to use that for?"

Here's where it gets interesting.

Me: "Bookcases."

At this, she looked uncharacteristically tongue-tied for a reporter type.

Her: "Ahhh... bookcases."

Me: "Well... yes. We have a large family library, about 3000-4000 books, to which we're rather attached, and we don't want to take chances on the skylight getting smashed."

Made perfect sense to me. But she was clearly thrown off her game. I didn't think it was possible to shut up a reporter without a remote control, but hey, it can be done! She was visibly bumfuzzled. I believe I even saw a flicker of a furrow flash across her botoxed brow. She paused to regain her composure, mustered up her plastic smile once again, and said...

"Yes, yes. But what about... lawn furniture?"

Lawn furniture. She's worried about my lawn furniture. Which probably took about one hour to purchase -- no wait, even better, it was given to us. Free. Easily replaced. And she apparently thinks I'm a space alien because I'm taping a few tarps over a family library that has taken over 20 years (and many postal shipments from Great Britain and elsewhere) to assemble and could never be exactly duplicated.

Well, we've all got our priorities. But okay, sometimes we just play along.

So I proceeded to try to be normal and speak to the normal needs of the normal masses. I spoke responsibly about things like bottled water, peanut butter and flashlights. The pearly teeth flashed. She was so happy.

So. Channel 11. Get a load of that.

Then I got a good look at my reflection in my car windows. Ambleside Online t-shirt, no makeup... and bedsheet marks across my left cheek. All on Channel 11. And they asked me for my name.

"real rowdy egalitarianism"

...what a great phrase.

Queen Shenaynay





I am reading a bit of Chesterton here and there, when nobody is looking. Here's a quote that keeps popping up in my thoughts, many days after the first reading:


"If anyone wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which is necessary (to males at least) he can find it as well as anywhere in the great old tavern disputes which come down to us in such books as Boswell's Johnson. The demeanour of Johnson, it is said, was 'harsh and despotic.' It was occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was not in the least a despot. Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was based on the idea of an equal scrimmage like that of football. It is strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his company. He was polite to everybody, but superior to everybody; therefore he has been handed down for ever in the immortal insult of Pope:

Like Cato give his little Senate laws
And sit attention to his own applause.

"Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort of Irish Member of Parliament in his own Parliament. Addison was a courteous superior and was hated. Johnson was an insolent equal, and therefore was loved by all who knew him and handed down in a marvellous book which is one of the mere miracles of love."

from What's Wrong With the World by G.K. Chesterton

Sean Watkins agrees with me.

An interesting quote from Sean of Nickel Creek--

"On that subject... I'm so sick of sugar-coated songs from the Christian perspective. One of the most comforting and inspiring lines to me is from the last chorus of Come Thou Fount where it says "prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love." Not many unwatered down songs make it through the filter of the Christian music industry mafia these days."

Amen!

On Writing

Fa-So-La-La

Here are two wonderful quotes that I have run across in school lately.

From On Writing, by William Zinsser--

"But you will be impatient to find a 'style'-- to embellish the plain words so that readers will recognize you as someone special. You will reach for gaudy similes and tinseled adjectives, as if 'style' were something you could buy at the style store and drape onto your words in bright decorator colors. (Decorator colors are the colors that decorators come in.) There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or if he is bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee. At first glance the formerly bald man looks young and even handsome. But at second glance-- and with a toupee there's always a second glance-- he doesn't look quite right. The problem is not that he doesn't look well groomed; he does, and we can only admire the wigmaker's skill. The point is that he doesn't look like himself."


From The Writing Life by Annie Dillard--

"Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.
The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time's scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellencies as you can muster with all your life's strength: that page will teach you to write."

WHEN YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL PIRATE .....

Great Scot

I have learned that today (September 19) is the official "Talk Like a Pirate Day." In an effort to be of assistance to those who frequent The Beehive, I offer the following useful phrases and their definitions:

"Thar she blows!" - The pirate equivalent of "Whoop, there it is!"

"ARRRGHHHH" - This phrase shows general discontent. Or it can also mean that someone is about to get wild- a.k.a. a battle cry.

"Wake me at the zenith of the moon" - Only full blown pirates know this phrase. An educated pirate is rare but also the most deadly kind. They are smarter than you and crazier.

"Ahoy, me hearties!" - Equivalent of "Hello, my friends!"

"Avast ye scum ridden weevil shaggers. Captain Black Beard is gonna keel haul you and grow barnacles on ye starboard knacker." - The Captain isn't happy...

"I'm gonna make a kill" - This pirate is going to kill something... and he is serious about it.

"Dogs ahoy!" - Equivalent of "Things to kill, straight ahead."

"Shiver me timbers!" - Like saying "Oh, my!" like "my legs are shaking."

"Skuttle me Skippers" - Making a mistake and being judged for/by it.

"Avast ye varmint" - Stop right there young man because you're in big trouble.

"Weigh anchor!" - Let's go!

"Yarr." - I agree.

"Yarr!" - I see your point, and agree wholeheartedly.

"Yarr-ha-harr!" - You're right!

"Yarr?" - Excuse me, what did you say?

"Yarrgh" - I respectfully acknowledge that you are right and I am wrong.

"Blow me down!" - You don't say? How surprising.

"Ye Scalawag!" - You dirty dog!

"Savvy?" - Is that okay with you? Do you understand?

"Ahoy" - Call to attract attention, something akin to 'Hello, there!'

"Fo'c's'le" - Slang for Forecastle. Small candlelit room where a pirate used the sopping bucket. (Bathroom)

"Jack" - A flag or a sailor; showing how sailors would refer to their ship's colors as one of the crew. Hence Jack Tar for sailor and the Union Jack flag.

"Messdeck lawyer" - A know-it-all.

"Landlubber" - A "Non-pirate" or a curse for someone who is a coward.

"Weigh anchor! Hoist the mizzen!!!" - Basically adds on to 'Let's go!'

"Davey Jones' Locker" - death after walking the plank. Your coffin in the sea.

"A merry yarn" - A good story.


ARRGHHH! Avast ye Landlubbers. Now ye know how to talk. Savvy? Weigh anchor, and watch Muppet's Treasure Island if ye need more.

Today's Copywork

Fa-So-La-La

From Revelation by Flannery O'Connor

"Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin remained there with her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge. At last she lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of crimson and leading, like an extention of the highway, into the descending dusk. She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their lives. . . and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. She lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she was, immobile.

At length she got down and turned off the faucet and made her slow way on the darkening path to the house. In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah."

'Male and female created He them...'

This one tickles my funnybone because it is just like something Spuddy Buddy would say.

Have Fab Vocab

Queen Shenaynay

We exhort the Beehive faithful to venture over to Merriam-Webster Online and subscribe to the Word of the Day, because we did, see... and it's possible that we may morph into etymological panjandrums right before your very eyes. We would not wish our gentle readers to apprehend us as verbally malapert should we begin weaving these Words of the Day into our daily entries here on the Beehive.

Here is a sample that I find particularly appealing:

riposte • \rih-POAST\ • noun
1 : a fencer's quick return thrust following a parry
*2 : a retaliatory verbal sally : retort
3 : a retaliatory maneuver or measure

Example sentence:
Lynn is a master of verbal riposte, able to dash off the kind of replies that most people only think of in the car on the way home.

[No, my friends, I did not make that up.]

Regarding eggs, basketball, garlic, sausage, pickle juice, baseball, chocolate, and hot dates...

Queen Shenaynay

Things I learned during our first days back to school:

1. Watched pots may never boil, but unwatched pots, if filled with eggs and left to do their thing whilst one reads great literature aloud to one's progeny, most definitely will boil. For an hour perhaps. Or until the water is all gone. At which point, if you're a really talented veteran of this homeschooling gig, you can fake a science lesson on the characteristics of rubber and claim it was on purpose.

2. It is pointless to do one's nails before shooting hoops with one's offspring. Utterly pointless.

3. The offspring who finished off the super-garlicky atom-smashing pasta sauce left over from night before last, which has become even more atomically garlicious while lurking in the frig, is NOT the child one should call on to read Robert Burns aloud over tea. No, no.

4. If a jar of dill pickles falls over in the frig and leaks pickle juice on the shelf where one has placed tomorrow's package of breakfast sausage, such that said package could pass for a water balloon with Jimmy Dean ads printed upon it, one should just go directly to IHOP.

5. If spouse agrees to take the young son to a major league baseball game in part so the Mamadah can accomplish many important and pressing things in their absence, they will wind up sitting on the second row directly behind home plate, and will call to inform that they're on Channel 7, whereupon the Mamadah will wind up watching the whole game and otherwise accomplishing nothing because they look so adorable on TV and because she will want to see them catch the inevitable errant ball which they will inevitably bring home and inevitably ask the Mamadah if she saw them catch it. (Which they did, and I did, and they did. It was inevitable.)

6. If an otherwise accomplished and intelligent grown man is found standing in the middle of one's kitchen looking glazed and forlorn and utterly without purpose in life, he probably needs dessert. Particularly if his wife has just been through the first week of homeschooling for the year and has petrified all the eggs and picklefied all the sausage.

7. If one's adoring husband professes an ardent desire to take one out on a Friday night date, despite all of the above, it makes it much easier to get up and try to face it all again next week.

A poem

To a Louse
On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church

by Robert Burns


Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gawze and lace;
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
On sic a place.

Ye ugly creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn'd, by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.

Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi'ither kindred, jumping cattle
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle,
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight,
Na faith ye yet! Ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it,
The vera tapmost towrin height
O' Miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpriz'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblens some bit duddie boy,
On 's wylecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi, fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jenny, dinna toss ye're head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin,
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!

O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!

A Sonnet of Sonnets

Fa-So-La-La

Christina Rosseti, one of my very favoritest of poets, wrote two sonnet sequences in her life. I have only read one of them, the Monno Innominata, but it is a truly marvelous work of poetry. It is comprised of 14 sonnets, each one outstanding, and together the effect is amazing. She wrote it almost as a counterpart to the Portugese Sonnets of her contemporary Elizabeth Browning, but about unhappy instead of happy love-- she suggest in the preface that they are about a love with an insurmountable barrier. This may well be biographical-- Christina was in love with a man whom she did not marry because of their religious differences.

I wish I could just post the whole sequence... in time, perhaps... but until then one or two will have to suffice.

2

I wish I could remember that first day,

First hour, first moment of your meeting me,

If bright or dim the season, it might be

Summer or winter for aught I can say;

So unrecorded did it slip away,

So blind was I to see and to foresee,

So dull to mark the budding of my tree

That would not blossom yet for many a May.

If only I could recollect it, such

A day of days! I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

It seem'd to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand--

Did one but know!

6

Trust me, I have not earn'd your dear rebuke,

I love, as you would have me, God the most;

Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,

Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look

Unready to forego what I forsook;

This say I, having counted up the cost,

This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,

The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.

Yet while I love my God the most, I deem

That I can never love you overmuch;

I love Him more, so let me love you too;

Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such

I cannot love you if I love not Him,

I cannot love Him if I love not you.

My Parents

Queen Shenaynay

Incredibly, these photos were taken on the very day my parents met one another, at a singing school held at a church in Memphis. Aren't they stunning? It's no wonder they fell for each other on first glance! Dreamy. Mother had just graduated from high school and was on her way to college to major in voice.

Daddy's picture is shaped funny because my mother, a teenager crazy in love, cut everyone else out of it!

Those of you who know how my Daddy preaches with his handkerchief will note that he loved his hanky blanky even way back in 1956! He was 17 here, going into his senior year in high school that fall, and was already preaching. I would love to hear those sermons now.

AO/CM Conference on Audio!

The AO/CM Conference recordings are now available! Please see the Sound Word Associates online catalog for more details. (Click on "Charlotte Mason" in the column on the left side of the page.)

Fall Dawn

by Fa-So-La-La

I have seen this light before--
An old friend, unfamiliar and returning.
Startled, half-embarrassed as he makes the introduction--
"I am Fall."

Yes, I think, it is him-- there,
The very way he used to slip around my senses;
That must be him, none other could learn the trick.
He hasn't changed much.

No, he has not-- and seeing him,
Unchanged, returning, I remember many things;
Half-memories gleefully pelting my head with rocks
Like giggling children on a balcony.

Not memories, really-- more,
The feeling that I am in the presence of the ages.
Looking through the eyes, breathing the air, echoing the footsteps
Of the multitudes who have stood here

In Fall.

Said Spuddy to spaghetti...

"Hello, spaghetti. I'd be happy to show you your destiny!"

Younger Men

The Shieldmaiden

Fine. Perhaps my outburst about older men (see QS's post, immediately below) has deep psychological meaning. Perhaps it's because in recent years, though I have received three proposals, they were all from four year old boys.

And it strikes me that by the ripe age of four, each of these fellows had already developed his own romantic style... and, though I say so myself, really good taste.

Dalton did it up right. He dropped to one knee on the porch. He had everything... good looks, a good education, good breeding, and he even offered me flowers... ah yes, the perfect man. The only problem was that he hadn't graduated from kindergarten, and he happened to be shoving his flowers up my nose.

Elliott was more direct. "Hey, Claire, I'm gonna marry you." Aha.

Oh, but Davis...
With Davis, it was all implied, all blushy and conspiratorial. Be still, my heart! He had just set off a massive explosion with his army men (ahhh, the rugged type!). I bent down to remove the soldier that had alighted on my foot, and he looked up at me, all starry-eyed and swoony, and whispered, "Claire... Clairrrre, I really, reallllllly like you." Big grin, even bigger blush. Then he proceeded to whisper to me his deepest, darkest secrets. "So now, I'm gonna tell you how to blow up a good guy, and how to blow up a bad guy. You don't want to hurt the good guy, so you just blast 'em to outer space to defend the moon. But the BAD guy, well, with him, you have to get the bomb inside him, so he'll blow up into a million pieces all over the room."

"Aha, I see. How do you know this, Davis?" I sighed, my cheeks feeling all flushed and tingly.

"Oh, I have my big brothers."

Yes... he has big brothers. But... I'm waiting for Davis.





Spuddy Buddy, left, with Davis, my dream man.

Introductions, proper... and otherwise

Queen Shenaynay

September being the time to tackle large bodies of information with fresh zeal and vigor, Great Scot and I have decided to pull up a chair at our dining room table for Emily Post. We've parked my old college copy of her classic, hefty tome on etiquette there, and have commenced eating the etiquette elephant in small bites, so to speak, with the family after dinner.

We began with how one properly introduces people of different ages, genders and rank. I asked Spuddy Buddy to gather a handful of action figures and dollhouse inhabitants for illustration and practice, and he dutifully dumped a motley crew of bedraggled plastic beings next to my plate. We worked out dicey situations such as introducing an elderly woman to a senator, introducing our pastor to the mayor, and so on.

Which brings us to what has to be the Beehive quote of the week.

The Shieldmaiden, wishing to explore a specific social situation and not finding in the pile the correct plastic specimen to suit her immediate need, turned to her small brother, and with great urgency ordered:

"Hurry! Bring me an older man!!!"

Let's just say that essentially ended our etiquette session for that evening.

(As Fa-So-La-La so often reminds us, "Context is everything.")

Math Evolution

Great Scot

Last week a man purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took his $2 and was digging for his change when the customer pulled 8 cents from his pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. Sensing her discomfort the customer tried to tell her to just give him two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While the manager tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried. Why do I tell you this? Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:

Teaching Math In 1950

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005

Un huachero vende una carretada de madera por $100. El costo de la producción es $80 ...

First Days of School

Our very first day of homeschooling, September 1994. Fa-So-La-La was starting kindergarten.



September 1997. Shieldmaiden was actually starting kindergarten, but she didn't want a big ugly K on her sign when Fa-So-La-La got to have a number. Since she was already reading fluently I decided to let her have the big pretty 1 she really wanted.

And today... Spuddy Buddy starts 1st grade!

And finally, me (with my brother David) coming home from my first day of school in September 1967. I had on my favorite Winnie-the-Pooh dress from the Sears catalog, my black Mary Janes, and a tartan plaid book satchel with a Big Chief tablet and a new box of crayons in it. I still remember how it smelled.

Busy Backson

Fa-So-La-La

I have a most interesting line-up of books and subjects for this year, as does The Shieldmaiden, the lucky dog. She gets to read the Father Brown mysteries by G. K. Chesterton for school. School. I'm envious...but anyway, here are my books:

First the mundane, which, in accordance with the Queen's philosophy, I hope to rush through in order to wallow in the sublime.

• Chemistry (blah. You know you are in trouble when your 5-inch science text comes with a 2-inch solutions manual.)
• Geometry and Algebra (even more blah.)
• Latin
• PSAT prep
• Driver's Ed (screeebees!)

And now the sublime--

• Humanities/History lectures on Modernity, by Dr. George Grant. Good stuff.
• CHESTERTON! I get to read Chesterton for SCHOOL! Oh yeah...
• Poetry-- the modern poets and Robert Burns, to go with our...
• Scottish history
• 20th century history
• Home Comforts, a book about home-keeping
• Etiquette
• The Thinking Toolbox, a logic book
• Grammar and Composition
• On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
• Reading Between the Lines, a book about literature from a Christian perspective, written by Gene Edward Veith and therefore sure to be yummy.
• World Magazine, always good!
• Art study
• The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott (this one will be a family read-aloud) along with several other lit titles

It's gonna be an interesting year...

Virtual M&M's on the post title... and my family can't guess! You'll get it immediately!

Last Day of Summer

Fa-So-La-La

Well, this is it... in a little less than 12 hours, school starts. This is the last evening of summer! Well, maybe I am being a little hyper-dramatic, but it is true. Life changes tomorrow in exciting ways.

I admit, I am going to miss summer very much indeed, especially all the time that I have spent with my friends. I am so thankful that the Lord has brought you all into my life and I can't wait to spend eternity with you.

So here we go-- another school year, our 11th! Or is it 12th? I'm honestly not sure... anyway, I am praying that the Lord will give us wisdom, teachable spirits, discipline, and a desire to learn. It's gonna be fun!

Magnetic Matchmaking?

Queen Shenaynay

Fa-So-La-La, Poet Laureate of The Beehive, is, at present, sitting at the game table across the room from me, happily occupied with

She is up to her elbows in words. Words she can actually touch (oh joy!) and manipulate (ecstasy!). She is, therefore, happy.

She muses aloud: "This is like verbal matchmaking. Quite fun."

::pause::

Then she ponders how delightful it would be to have a similar game with all the little word strips being the names of her friends and acquaintances.

Perhaps I should intervene, parentally speaking.
Yes.
I should banish all household copies of Emma to the garage immediately.

* * * * * * * *

For the curious, here's her favorite of the poems she engineered this morning from those delectable little white word strips:

Loathsome sandwich.
Foul mountain, concealing
Crisp, green secrets
And cold plastic slander
of cheese.

Where is the chocolate?

(Whew. I rather like it.)

For the unitiated, or those merely tempted by the vile demon of boredom, many variations of Magnetic Poetry can be played online. Oh frabjous joy!

The Totality of Art

Fa-So-La-La

Francis Schaeffer's four basic standards for art--

1. Technical excellence
2. Validity
3. Intellectual content, the worldview which comes through
4. The integration of content and vehicle

I want to be a paperback writer!

Fa-So-La-La

Oh, what has happened to my musical taste? The girl who 6 years ago rarely listened to anything but classical and the James Taylor that Great Scot listens to while washing dishes, the girl who turned up her nose at anything remotely resembling rock, has gotten broadminded and tolerant in her old age and is now singing along in gleeful harmony to the Beatles and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Oh dear. And what's more, she is thoroughly enjoying it! Oh deary deary dear.

Here is a Beatles song that has caught my attention lately- it's a hoot. Definitely not your average pop song.



Paperback Writer

Dear Sir or Madam, did you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

It's the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand.
His son is working for the Daily Mail,
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

--Paul McCartney

(This is one of Queenie's favorites as well. She is probably going to add her sentiments to this post...)

* * * * * * *

[Alrighty, I will! So cheeky, those Liverpudlians. You really have to hear McCartney sing this to learn how to sing with your tongue planted in your cheek. He wrote this for an aunt who challenged him to write a song that was not about love. He just liked the way the phrase "paperback writer" sounded (and you have to say it with an English accent to get a sense of that) so he wrote a song around it. The music is a great fit -- sort of frantic with brief interjections of swoony, purposefully cheesy dramatics. If you listen carefully, you can hear the Beatles singing the French nursery tune "Frere Jacques" in the background. Highly recommended for dishwashing episodes. -- QS]

A Lovely Word

Fa-So-La-La

We ran across this word on the way back home from visiting the Mess o' Greens family, thumbing through our car dictionary. Yes, we have a car dictionary. Don't laugh. It's a wonderful thing. You can't imagine how often we use it. But anyway, the word--

Procrustean [Procrustes, villain of Greek mythology who made victims fit his bed by stretching them or cutting off their legs] : marked by arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.

Why, you may ask, is this word with a gory background so lovely? Because it is absolutely perfect. It is distinctive-- it has history, weight, heft. It nails down a concept that no other single word can capture. And it's a lot of fun to use in a sentence. Try it: "The way she treats her friends is positively procrustean!" It is an insult, but a classy one -- the very best kind.

In this world where adjectives are often replaced by 'totally' and 'like, whatever', we need more people to use specific words that actually mean something; words that are at once concise and precise. Do your part to help save the English language and learn to use this word!

[Lest we be forced to call you procrustean! -- The Queen]

I am, I can, I ought, I will

Fox News ran video of the Katrina relief efforts at the Houston Astrodome last night, and spotted among the volunteers was a man wearing one of our Ambleside Online t-shirts purchased at the AO/CM Conference in July. The motto from Charlotte Mason's PNEU schools in England is on the front of the shirt, and we think it makes the shirt particularly appropriate for such an occasion:

"I am, I can, I ought, I will"


Fa-So-La-La, Shieldmaiden and Queen Shenaynay in AO shirts

On the back of the shirt is a CM quote:
"The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum."

Tonight's Dinner Music

Ever since I made that monstrous pan of lasagna last month, Fa-So-La-La has been itching to try her hand at it. Tonight she took over the kitchen, and lo and behold, the gal may well layer up an even better lasagna than I do. (Which is fine with me: I figure it serves my best interests for everyone else in the house to out-cook me, but don't tell them I said so.)

For dinner music, she chose Great Scot's new Crosby, Stills & Nash Greatest Hits cd. Massive nostalgia, that. You forget how stunning their harmonies were.

Great Scot felt he HAD to get some CSN to fill our offsprings' cultural gaps... when we first heard the title track of Nickel Creek's new cd WSTFD, he and I looked up within the first few bars and said, almost simultaneously, "They've obviously been listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash!" Whereupon our daughters revealed that they didn't know who that was. Yikes.

But now they do. And they liked it. I think I even heard someone humming Southern Cross over the kitchen sink a few minutes ago. Great Scot can retire for the evening feeling like he's done his part for Beehive Cultural Awareness today.

AO-HELP

Today the Ambleside Online Advisory* published AO-HELP, an emergency curriculum plan for children who have no school options available as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

AO-HELP

This is a free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for churches and other groups needing to set up temporary schools for children who may not have been homeschooled, and also for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they've lost in a disaster.

All texts and teaching materials needed to implement this plan are free online. The only things needed are access to a computer and printer, paper and pencil. It is designed for a wide range of ages, and to be user-friendly for those who have never taught.

Please print out and share AO-HELP freely with anyone who might need it.

We know that there are more important things than missed schooling during a crisis. But sometimes in the midst of disasters, creating a small oasis of normalcy and continuity is very important. And in the midst of such a disaster, grown ups with many urgent details on their minds often cannot focus on thinking up things for children to do. It is our prayer that this free resource will fill a need.


*The Ambleside Online Advisory is a group of seven women who have developed Ambleside Online, a curriculum plan which we provide for free online as a ministry to families. I am honored to be a part of this group -- they are truly astonishing company to keep. Here are the other Advisory members' blogs:
The Common Room
Liberty & Lily
Bona Vita Rusticanda Est
U Krakovianka
Dewey's Treehouse