Gas prices - be gone!

I hate the gas prices!!! One day I will have my vegetable oil powered vehicle and I will be the envy of the town because my car will always smell like french fries!!!! And I will live in my adobe/cob home made by own bare feet (and paid for by friends and family who find they value the relaxing and stress relieving qualities of mud stomping) and I will glean my electricity from windmills and solar panels. Yes, then the world will be right. But alas, my reality now is praying my car would make it to the gas station today as I glared at the orange pointer thingy way below "E". It's not that I didn't have the opportunity to get gas....just too stubborn to pay $2.89!!!! It reminds me of the time my grandfather refused to pay the $2 for his snuff. He was appalled at the price since he could remember the time half a century before when it was only a quarter. He refused to pay the $2 and he stole cigarettes from my Aunt and unrolled them and tried to dip them. He found this much less satisfying than his beloved snuff so he made a second trip to the store to cave in to the inflating consumer monster and bought his $2 snuff. So I caved and bought 3 gallons of gas today. I'm holding out for the price reduction due any minute...since that's how I want it to be.

I'm Holding Mine

I heard this on Writer's Almanac today. In the midst of the whirlwind of buying a house, I've been distracted. I finally clued in last week when my otherwise social butterfly toddler cried when I left her at a nursery. Later that afternoon she had a meltdown on her way to her Mimi and Papa's. She is not normally prone to separation anxiety...I had to evaluate what was going on. My only explanation was a distracted mom and dad seem to have taken its toll on her sense of security and well-being. Now I'm in repair and reassure mode. How can I get so distracted and forget how wonderful life is when I look her in her eyes and listen to her story. Or when Tom and I picnic outside in her fort, or swing at the park, or color, or just sit and read stories and sing our favorite songs?



Family Reunion

The divorced mother and her divorcing
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law
and the ex-husband's adopted son.
The divorcing daughter's child, who is

the step-nephew of the ex-husband's
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife
friendly to the first wife, warm

to the divorcing daughter's child's
great-grandmother, who was herself
long ago divorced. Everyone
grown used to the idea of divorce

Almost everyone has separated
from the landscape of childhood.
Collections of people in cities
are divorced from clean air and stars.

Toddlers in day care are parted
from working parents, schoolchildren
from the assumption of unbloodied
daylong safety. Old people die apart

from all they've gathered over time,
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God
evidently divorced from history;

most are cut off from their own
histories, each of which waits
like a child left at day care.
What if you turned back for a moment

and put your arms around yours?
Yes, you might be late for work;
no, your history doesn't smell sweet
like a toddler's head. But look

at those small round wrists,
that short-legged, comical walk.
Caress your history—who else will?
Promise to come back later.

Pay attention when it asks you
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can
I have more now? Who is that?