Falling in Love

I absolutely love falling in love. A well known fact about me is that I fall in love several times a day. In fact, I fell in love in the hallway of Gamble Hall today. Dr. Winterhalter and I were talking outside of her office and a young man, who had to be a member of the tennis team, walked by and both of us fell in love.
He was beautiful, and not just my standard of beautiful, anyone would have fallen for him.
As much as I try to believe that I do not need a man in my life, I am terrified by the thought of never feeling truly, rapturously in love again. One of my favorite books is The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. It is tragic in some ways, but I want the kind of declaration love that Ralph gives Isabel on his death bed:

"And remember this . . . That if you've been hated you've also been loved. Ah but, Isabel - adored!"

It sounds so true, so real of Ralph; to balance the good with the bad. We are, in life, both loved and hated; adored and disdained. I have spent so much of my time reading great love stories that I worry my expectations may be too high. I hope not. What do you think of the love of the romantic movie or novel? Can anyone live up to that? Or even come close?

What I Am Doing . . .

Right now, I am sitting for 5 hours a day and listening to a grumpy old man routine with a little bit of classroom management mixed in. He is keeping us very busy, so my posts may be few and far between. Just to let you know what was going on!

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My Cubby

Since so many of you like stories about my weird school, I thought I would share a picture that I came across to day while looking for something at my mom's. This was a picture I took from the seat of my desk at school. The large "A" stands for A honor role, and the flags are the flags we have to raise when we needed help. The Christian flag for minor emergencies and the American flag when we needed the help of a man (seriously, I am not kidding). If you see anything that strikes you as curios, besides the entire set-up, ask me and I will explain how we did things at Emmanuel.

Coffee

I love coffee, and because I am exiled to a non-Starbuck town, I have gotten used to drinking McDonald's coffee. Not much of a downgrade as you would think. At 1.33 for a large coffee, it is more economical and it has a drive-thru. Quite a plus for a girl that like to drink her coffee still clad in their pajama pants and wife-beater. I go to the same McDonald's every morning and I have became well acquainted with the ladies that work at the window. One, however is an enigma. Some mornings, she smiles broadly and says, "Hey, I got your Splenda and cream. Here. Good morning." Other mornings she looks through me as if this is the first time she has ever laid eyes on me. I gauge my response by hers. I am always friendly, but never too familiar. I fear coming off as condescending - a feeling I hate - but I want to know what brings about those mornings of seeming despair, or maybe she's just sleepy. It is such a thankless, low-paying job; where people work with assholes and serve assholes. Although they infuriate me sometimes, I know that if I were them, I would be grumpy too.

Who Do you Love?

Kirsten is reading Pride and Prejudice in her Novel class this summer, and she sent me an email this morning asking me if I was in love with Mr. Darcy. She knows I have a tendency to fall head over heels for fictional characters. Ralph Touchett from Portrait of a Lady, Ethan Frome from Ethan Frome, Lawrence Selden from The House of Mirth, Florentino Ariza from Love in the Time of Cholera . . . I could go on and on. But, if I had to say who I truly and fictionally loved the most, it would have to be Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities. I watched the movie (1935) when I was a little girl, and could not wait to get my hands on the book. I still remember tears streaming down my face as I read Sydney's last lines,"It is a far,far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." He did it all for the love of a woman who loved another man. Just heartbreaking. Who do you love . . . fictionally? Tell me why.

Trips

Me and my brother Robbie

When I was younger, every year my family went to Lake Weir, Florida on vacation. We used to all have matching t-shirts that said "Weir Crazy" that we would wear on our way down there. I was always the first one dressed in my t-shirt and I always bugged my brothers to put their shirts on hours ahead of time. They hated me because I was the only girl and the baby, and so, if I insisted, Daddy made them put their shirt on way before they wanted to get dressed. All because of me. I could not help it; I loved going to Lake Weir. We rented a cabin on top of a hill and to get to the lake, I had to walk through orange trees and down a long gravel road. I can distinctly remember learning how to blow my first bubble walking down that road to the lake. It was Super Bubble that I bought from the little country store that was located on the beach of the lake. The store was more like a recreation room than a store. It had a jukebox and a few pool tables and a place to rent tubes if you wanted to go tubing. I also bought an occasional Stewart sandwich from there also, but Mama always went to the grocery store and stocked up so we did not have to buy too much from the store.


My cousin Dusty
There was something about Lake Weir that made my family do things we did not do at home. We ate Hoagie sandwiches for dinner, but at home, we never had a cold dinner. My mom always cooked, so it was a real vacation for her. We went to the movies at Lake Weir - shows like The Apple Dumpling Gang and Jaws - and it was such a treat because we never did that at home. However, Jaws was not such a good choice when we were spending 90% of our vacation in the water. Along with blowing bubbles, I also learned to swim at Lake Weir. My dad would throw me off the dock and then walk away from me as I struggled and gasped my way towards him. At times, I could not believe he could be so cruel, but I did learn to swim. I could not wait for the day when I could follow my brothers to the big, high dock where the cool girls sunbathed while the guys smoked cigarettes and flirted with the girls in the string bikinis. You can see it in the background of the pics. It was the place to be. Obviously, I never made it in my bikini. The pics on here (yes, that is me doing a fabulous back flip) are the last known photographs of me in a two-piece. At least, I hope they are. If you look closely at this pic, you can see my father's hand just at the edge of the picture; waiting to grab me if I should hit my head or have trouble finding my way up from the bottom.






When I was 10, we went to Lake Weir for the last time. Two of my brothers were older and had full-time jobs, so they decided to stay home, but my older brother and his wife and son came with us. My dad was very upset that Robbie and Tim decided not to make the family trip. As we rode down the white gravel road that serpentined through orange groves, I remember my mom reaching over and grabbing my dad's hand and saying, "They are growing up Charles. They will come again next year." It was not the same without "the boys," as we always called them. A week after we got back from Lake Weir, my dad was killed in an accident at work. My brothers say they still have not gotten over the fact that they did not go that year, and we have planned trips back, but these plans have never quite worked out. I think we may all want to remember Lake Weir with our dad; the way it should be remembered.

My Student Teaching

Since most of you are not familiar with Brunswick, I wanted to show you where i was going to be doing my student teaching. So, here it is . . . Tell me what you think.

Beginning Again

When I was younger, I went to a school with a very limited library. When I say limited, I mean limited. We had a total of three or four books, and all of them had a Christian theme. The only one any of you may recognize is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. There was also a book about missionaries to China and a couple of Joy Sparton books. Joy Sparton was a preachers daughter, who, along with her brother Roy, got into humorous predicament with the members of her fathers church. I did enjoy reading of Joy Sparton's mishaps.

Because of the limited school library, me favorite day of the week was Saturday when the Book-Mobile would come to our neighborhood. I still remember the smell of books and the cold air that blasted into my face as soon as the door to that RV opened. I checked out and read book after book, but the Book-Mobile was limited as well. Many of their books were for young readers, so as I grew older I had to turn elsewhere for my reading material. One day, I went into my mothers closet and found some old books. Many of them were the Reader's Digest Condensed books, but in the middle of that old box was a nondescript book with a plain blue cover and yellowed pages. I took it out and opened it up to see the name of the book. "Jane Eyre," it read in a beautiful old-fashioned font. I pushed the box back into the closet and went immediately to my room. I had spent a lot of time in there since the death of my father two years earlier. My mother had gone all out to have it decorated just the way I wanted it, as if having a beautiful room would help ease the pain of being fatherless, and so I would often sink into my fluffy comforter and turn on my swag lamp (in style then) and read for hours. I would feign sickness so I could stay home and read - I finished Gone with the Wind in two days. My brothers, who were all much older than me, were not around to bother me and my mother was at work, so my life was one of solitude with books as my favorite companions. Don't get the wrong idea - I was thrilled with this set of circumstances. I loved to spend hours alone and reading. My isolation was a matter of choice. For the next couple of days, Jane Eyre was my chosen companion. I loved her, and lived and breathed to see her live happily ever after with Rochester. I hated to see the book end. Jane Eyre never left me, and twenty years later, as a college student, I picked it up again. This time armed with an idea of how to read intelligently. It did not change my love for Jane and again I hated to see it end. It made me realize how very little I have changed from that 12 year old girl that found solace in a book; a girl who chooses isolation to let a book take her to another place.

The other day, I had to answer a question on a survey about what book I would read over and over again. I did not even have to think about it - my beloved Jane Eyre. Just typing the name made me pick the same old blue, nondescript book up; beginning it again . . .

Stress

Now that I am out of school, I have much less stress in my life. However, I know that tonight Kirsten will be walking into Gamble 210 for three hours of conversation. She will be listening to Dr. Winterhalter talk passionately about the British Novel, and although I have already taken the class, I could go for another round. I remember the first class I took with Dr. W: Literature by Women, and it was also the first class I ever took with Brandi. Although I did not know it then, both of these women became important influences on my life. I may not miss the stress, but I will miss laughs and giggles with Kirsten, listening to Dr. Winterhalter, and saying to Brandi, "Guess what we are reading? . . ."

Hello Kitty!

Well, my freak show cat just had one little kitten. She probably has five more in her tummy that will not come out. With my luck, she will have to go see the vet for a c-section. She is being a very good mother. Let's just hope there will be NO rectal stimulation! Have a great weekend!

New Baby Kittens!

Hope called me early this morning to tell me that Lady Fribble had had a kitten. I rushed home from work with a box to put the mom and kitten in, because poor Ms. Fribble had her first baby in the middle of the yard. I have been worried that she would have a hard time because she was an abandoned baby whose mother left her at the hotel before she could eat on her own. The kitten was dirty and Lady showed no signs of turning over and letting the kitten feed, but I stood there and petted her and talked to her and said a prayer that instinct would kick in and she would take good care of her little baby. Before I left, she had her baby all cleaned up and was lying with her legs open so Uno could eat. I will keep you updated with pictures as the little darlings come out!