Reading, writing, and terror

I watch my beautiful daughter enter her school every morning eager to find her friends, eager to learn and perform and play. In a school just miles away in Colorado parents do the same only to find out their children have entered a terror zone. Bailey, Colorado, a small sleepy town in the middle of nowhere finds it's schoolchildren under attack from a crazed shooter who hand-picks several young girls to sexually assault before murdering one. Today in Wisconsin a kid pulls a gun on his principal shooting him three times before being restrained by the custodian and others. These aren't terrorist attacks from the outside--they are random, senseless acts made scarier because they originate from within and they seem to be growing. I don't know which to fear most, the militant Islamic fundamentalists or our own home-grown psychotics. I know the first group wants to kill us on philosophical grounds, the second just wants to harm others in an extension of harming themselves.

My prayers are with all the innocents involved and especially for the students whose innocence and security have been shattered. I wonder what this generation will grow up to think about the world they live in. They are aware that there are bad guys from other countries that want to hurt us, but they may be more worried and confused about the guy or kid next door who for no known reason decides to slaughter other kids. Maybe it is correct to say we live in a time of terror. Our kids probably think so.

Way up high

Across from Allie's school is this impressive eagle's nest perched high on a what I think used to be a electric pole. It must be 6 feet in diameter. I don't know is it's ever occupied, but it would be something to see eagles nesting there.

The snow is fast melting with temperatures over 60 degrees today. I saw people walking around in short sleeves so our winter interlude is over for now.

Surprises and Constants

I can't remember ever waking up to snow on September 21st. The county is blanketed in snow and more is falling; however I think it will melt away as the cold front moves out.

Neither rain or snow stops Brother Nathaniel from his parading for Jesus on the busy intersection of Highway 9. This eccentric "monk" is the former Milton Kapner from Pittsburgh and a former member of a rock group that opened for acts like Alice Cooper and Jethro Tull. He is on his corner every morning waving and high-fiving traffic. We look forward to seeing him on our way to drop Allie off at school. We admire his dedication to showing up every morning-though we're not sure exactly he's dedicated to. It's Jesus, we think, but it looks more like boogy-ing and waving hello that he's addicted to.

Long ago in our town there was Albert, the ancient WWI veteran who walked from dawn to dusk every day around town in his fatigues. Sara tells the story of "Orchestra Man", the odd fellow who strolled Ward Parkway every morning leading an imaginary orchestra with an imaginary wand. Every town needs its crazy guy. I think we envy a little the freedom from constraints that the crazy guy lives by. The rest of us are stuck behind the wheel, good citizens rushing to work. Being crazy looks appealing sometimes, and fun.

The view from here

Summit County got a mix of rain, snow, a little light hail, and intermittent sunshine all in one day. At once the sky would be dark and the mountaintops obscured in misty clouds. Then the snow flurries would begin, but the flakes would melt on contact with the earth. Then the sun would peek through like a second sunrise and the valley would glisten like after a good rain, but you'd see that the mountain-tops had been well dusted with snow. It was a bit confusing.

Robert arrived Friday and is suffering that huffing-puffing condition caused by high altitude. We are over 9,000 feet. Allison and I are already adjusted; I'm trotting up stairs at this point. I have to remember to take it easy on Robert until he catches up, although I'm anxious for a hiking mate. We did get out today for the Parade of Homes. We put on the blue paper booties like all the other droolers and toured through several beautiful homes in the prestigious "Three Peaks" until hunger and thirst and "there's something we'll never have," overtook us and we went for lunch instead. We sat at a table near the window in the Butterhorn Cafe in Frisco and watched as the wind whipped snow off the mountains down the long corridor of Frisco's Main Street. Robert commented that I had a permanent smile on my face. Truth is, we were all in high spirits; an involuntary reaction to being in the midst of such charm. Charming now. Maybe months from now, as the weather grows harsher, so will our attitudes. Hope not.

I'm reading John McCain's memoir, "Faith of our Fathers" and feeling very humbled. There's a man who knows what it means to believe in America. Having survived being a POW in Vietnam, I believe he has unquestionable authority on what it means to be loyal to an ideal. His long, torturous imprisonment brought him more than despair; it brought him to a greater truth--that there is glory in the act of being constant to one's principles, to the belief in something greater than oneself. For him that was America and what it stands for: Freedom. It was living without that freedom in a hell-hole in Hanoi that made him fall in love with his country, he writes. "...I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her."

I'm humbled for obvious reasons, but mostly for never having had my loyalty put to a test. Most of us never will. In many ways he was given a gift--conviction that comes through being put through the fire. To shamelessly believe that America was stronger, better and more virtuous than its enemies is what kept men like John McCain from giving in. I wish more people would remember the greatness of America and what it should stand for. "It was what freedom conferred on America that I loved the most--the distinction of being the last, best hope of humanity; the advocate for all who believed in the Rights of Man."

I owe a debt of gratitude to all the better men and women than me, the ones who aren't around to sit in a cafe eating a croissant watching snow fall from the mountains.

Nice job

It's 12:00 noon and I've taken 7,553 steps already. I know this because I bought my first pedometer (for a mere $3.99--what took me so long?) I've always wanted to measure how much walking I do since walking has always been my only discipline. At home I walked almost nightly the golf course behind our house (3 miles), and before that around the lake (3 miles) where we lived for 9 years.

After dropping Allie off at school I hiked Lily Pad Trail which takes about an hour at a good clip. It's a moderately easy trail--little children can accomplish the hike, sometimes with bit of piggybacking on parent's backs. Along the way there are log bridges to cross and boulder fields to step through before reaching the lily pad-covered pond and beaver-dammed lake. When you reach the lake you find a rock to sit on and stare at the still water and tell yourself how lucky you are. Soon you feel the urge to offer a prayer to the Creator. Mine was, I'm sorry, God, for being continually pissed at you for your flawed system that allows for sorrow and pain and death, and evil, (like 9/11) but, gosh, this particular spot, this sliver of serenity at this moment in time--Nice Job. I'm really not that dull, I figured out long ago that in this world everything has to have its opposite to give it value. Life if precious because it is so fragile. That's the system, that's just the way it is.

A few ducks pass by, a chipmunk, or maybe a noisy Stellar Jay. Other than that it is almost silent except for the sound of the rushing stream behind the pines. Today I sat only a couple of minutes for fear of getting beaned by a continuous shower of small pinecones dropping from the trees. I thought about phoning a friend with my cell phone just try to share the feeling, but somehow a cellphone seemed so wrong.

Currently, I am sitting in the history section of Border's Books using their high-speed internet access. I was mad at Border's earlier this year over some of their policies, but since they are the only game in town, I have relented. In fact, I want to get hired so I can say I'm working. I filled out the 37 page on-line employment questionnaire, a sort of tedious personality assessment. Questions no serious job seeker would answer truthfully, like: "Do annoying people bother you?" Nothing like, "Do you like books?" I figure I deserve the job for simply enduring and completing the insane questionnaire.

Mountain majesty

I haven't written lately mostly due to the agonizingly slow speed of the dial-up internet connection we have here. I think at one time that was all that was available, but surely there's better now. I've been busy getting Allison adjusted to second grade (so far, so good) and getting us moved in--oh and hiking every morning with Sara. After five mornings on Lily Pad Trail we tackled Mohawk Lakes which is 12,000 feet high and takes about three hours. Taylor left for home Wednesday. Sara left yesterday, so Allison and I are on our own until Robert arrives this Friday.

The contrast of the Rocky Mountains to Baja California is so great. Yesterday was overcast and rainy; this morning there was snow on the very tops of the tallest mountains. The view from our townhouse is incredible. I could sit and stare for hours. Robert wants to live on the ocean. I prefer the mountains for their majesty.

Oh, the sun just started peeking out highlighting the changing golden aspens. I need to grab Allison to hike Lily Pad with me. She's my only buddy left. Oh. No, she says. Hiking's not her thing. Can we go paint pottery? No, I say. Let's save the indoor stuff for when it gets too cold. Right now there is too much outdoor beauty to take in. I'd post a photo but the slowness of the internet won't allow the upload.

Colorado again

Now it's Colorado for a lengthy stay: till Christmas. Allison and I left Kansas City Friday and drove through without any trouble. I've made this 500 mile drive so many times it seems like no big thing. I brought along a dear young friend, Taylor, since it's Labor Day weekend and she thought she could grab few extra vacation days from school. She just turned 16, so this is kind of a birthday treat. She is like family and like a big sister to Allison who has only brothers. Sara flies out tomorrow for a week so we will soon be four girls on the loose. Robert isn't coming for another week. He felt he had too much to wrap up at home.
I visited the Summit Cove Elementary principal this morning and learned Allison could not be considered for enrollment there due to our Silverthorne condo's address. That was a different answer than I got earlier when I spoke on the phone to someone at the district office. I guess I was misinformed. The principal said she had a duty to the people who live within the school boundries to limit enrollment from the outside. Only a few students who have a "compulsory educational reason" were given exception.

I only wanted to see this "better" school for myself before accepting the one in our boundry, the one that is over 50% hispanic. I understand the thinking behind boundries, I understand that people make home-buying decisions on the strengths of the local school and they want to protect that advantage. We did the same when we bought our home in a KC suburb years ago. It's just now that I'm on the other side of the tracks that I see clearly the exclusion at work.

Interestingly, the school at Silverthorne is a beautiful facility. I felt good about enrolling Allie there. It has the same quality of goodies like computer labs and spacious cafeterias, well-equiped gymnasiums, libraries and playgrounds. The reading specialist tested her and agreed she should be in second grade even though she is young. Remember, we skipped kindergarten altogether and went straight to first in Mexico. We peeked into her classroom and met her very welcoming teacher. Allison should feel right at home with the spanish-speaking kids. She left the school exuberant and fully ready to get started. I realize how important it is for her to be in school.
It will be interesting to see how our perceptions of the area change once we become "residents." Summit County is a vacation destination. And although we are technically on a long, long vacation being here day after day with a kid in school will require some structure. I'm thinking I'd like to take a simple job to feel a little more connected. But who will want me, this transient? I feel too old to work the ski lifts, and too spoiled to wait tables or on women in dressing rooms. Robert won't be working and will want me free to play with him. But I remember how bored I was at times in Loreto all those months. You lose so much focus when you have nothing required of you. I don't know how retirees stay happy. Especially since having fun every day usually requires plenty of spending money. I'm probably thinking too much which is normal for me. Mostly, I'm happy for Allison to have something to dig into, and for Taylor, who deserves some happy carefree times.

Rain man

What do you do when a tornado siren goes off? You run outside with an umbrella to see the show. Actually, we did head to the basement first until things seemed safe. We had just said goodbyes the friends and family who had come for Sunday supper. (23 of us altogether.) We had no clue that the weather was turning serious until Robert's sister, Sandy, returned moments later, followed by another sister, Susan. Sandy, hearing the news on her car radio, decided not to take a chance driving home; Susan had just forgotten her purse. So we had a little crowd in the basement, though no one would sit tight. Susan took a cigarette break. Beau wanted to watch the skies. My mom went upstairs to get her dog. While you're up would you bring me a cup of coffee, please?

I suspect we all doubted a tornado would touch down in our neighborhood since nothing that exciting ever happens here. I had the craziest fleeting wish for one to selectively rip away the sagging railroad-tie retaining wall around our swimming pool: It's an eyesore screaming out to be repaired. Instead we got a leak over the family room from the torrential rainstorm that followed.


Susan's son, Joe turned 18 today, so we celebrated with chocolate cake. Then the girls cleared the table to begin working on addressing invitations to his upcoming Eagle Scout Court of Honor ceremony. That's right, Eagle Scout. We all think that's quite an achievement and are proud of him, especially with the hardships he has endured. Susan relayed a recent scene where another Scout mother offended her with the catty comment that 18 is a little late to be receiving that rank. "Well, I guess he was a little occupied with his dad's recent death and my recovering from a brain aneurysm," she shot back. Yikes. Susan-- always good with a quick come-back.

Homeland Security

Robert and I have been looking at trading our suburban house for a condo in mid-town. Like a lot of modern folks we're re-thinking our lifestyle and wanting mobility, low maintenance, and no yard work. Every other high rise is being converted to condos lately. But if we're to live in a big tall box at least let's have a great view, says Robert. And that means a higher floor. I prefer nothing higher than three floors so in emergency it's possible to jump for it. We've found a unit (occupied for years by an elderly woman) we can maybe afford since it has not been remodeled and still has blue carpet (in her bedroom). It's on the 18th floor. Robert goes window to window examining the views, while I follow checking the stability of the aging window latches. "A person could fall out if this was open," I mutter uneasily. I'm imagining escape routes and ropes, calculating how many bed sheets it would take to descend 18 stories. This particular unit has two entrances and I praise this not for convenience, but for something else entirely--in case some bad guy comes in the one door I can run out the other since there's no jumping out the window and scampering away.

With friends we toured another building which had incredible views from the 19th floor, but it was the unit on the second floor that had the favor of the women that day. Lindsey and I echoed each other's observation that the entrance overlooked the lobby--good in case you need to yell for help in case a bad guy gets in. We amused the guys with our silly attention to homeland security. Guys don't pre-think escape-and-run strategies. A baseball bat by the bed is the extent of Robert's personal security plan.

But like many of my observations about male behavior, I am wrong. Men do have strategy other than "take-it-on-when-it-happens." I got a little glimpse of it today from Robert while pricing cabinetry for Beau's sales office. At Home Depot he tells the salesperson he wants the service counter to be extra high. "Why?" I ask. And I learn it is better to have a high counter to make it harder for some bad guy to jump over and fight you. I smile a crooked smile and feel vindicated.

Gotta get moving

I realize I am probably disappointing my readers who want to hear about life in Loreto Bay, but life in Kansas City is where we are right now though not for long. Soon we will leave the midwestern flatlands for Colorado. Our revised plan is to live in the Rocky Mountains for the autumn months leading to Christmas holiday when we plan to return to Loreto Bay for the winter. We share a condo with friends in Summit County and we've managed to snag it for the next several months (except for Thanksgiving break when we will fly home for the week.) Allison will attend public school; Robert and I will once again look for things to explore, which should be easy.

I love the mountains. Robert loves the ocean. This is the year we both get to indulge ourselves. I want to hike and fish and take lots of photographs. I will edit a video project for a good friend who has put together a genealogy study of her Irish-immigrant family. Later, when it snows I want to cross-country ski and take Allison ice-skating and sledding. The local school she'll attend has nearly 50% Hispanic students whose parents are most probably workers in the service industry that supports the ski resorts. We could send her to a more prosperous school, one with higher test scores and a lesser free-lunch tally, but some interesting research persuades me to withhold a blanket judgement that this school is inferior. Half the kids there are learning English as a second language. They may have parents who (hopefully are legal immigrants) are not proficient in English. Therefore, reading and writing may be a challenge to many of these students. Doesn't mean they are bad or dumb, simply means they have a challenge.

I researched the district schools as much as I was able to online and interestingly I came across the minutes from a year's worth of district meetings that altered my misgivings about this "lesser" school. The discussion was about high-risk behavior among district students. It was the consensus that the problem behavior was occurring in the middle class white student population, none in the Hispanic. The reasoning? "...the Hispanic students are generally involved after-school with babysitting or other means of providing for the family." That touched me and reminded me of the fondness I felt toward the Mexican children we met at Colegio Calafia. Good kids. Unspoiled kids. Kids I wouldn't be reluctant to let my daughter hang around with. Of course, I have to check it out first. I will be leaving with Allison in the next few days. Robert will come soon after he finishes some work here.

I need to get going because every day that I'm here I fall deeper into old patterns and desires. I'm watching a lot of television and my lust for consumer goods is reawakening. I'm looking at real estate and dreaming of condo remodels on the Plaza. Time to go.

Bring out the big toys

Forget my idea to hire a tree trimming service; Beau had a cheaper solution--plow the trees over with the bulldozer. "Now, you're thinking," says his dad.


Not the neatest results, but the scrubby trees are no longer obscuring the view to the warehouse.

IMHO

The consultations continue. Robert and Beau discuss plans for the outside of the warehouse. Robert suggests Beau take a chain saw to the scrubby trees in the field adjacent to the highway to open a better view to his business.

But there's an enormous amount of poison ivy lurking out there. Beau's been battling against it all summer with repeated trips to the doctor for shots, medicine, and ointments.Maybe we should call a tree cutting service, I say.
That's a good idea, they both say.

It happens sometimes, I say.

Sharing the Vision

Robert examines Beau's progress on the warehouse exterior and offers his ideas--which of course are expansive.

Excuse me, Allah.

It's two a.m. in the morning and I can not sleep after marathon news watching. British intelligence foils a terrorist plot to blow up planes flying from the U.K. to the U.S. Now innocent travelers live in fear and mothers are requested by airport security to sip their baby's formula before boarding to prove it contains no explosive agents.

I am so angry at the situation in the Middle East; so alarmed by the idea that people there want us dead. How do you deal with people who believe Allah is on their side to annihilate "the infidels?" How do you negotiate for peace? My response is to want to wipe them away, destroy them before they destroy us. Maybe it's my American sense of entitlement that demands I should live in hard-earned peace and prosperity. Who are these terrorists who want to kill us?

It's surreal to me to be juggling these thoughts in my head while simultaneously living days filled with light-hearted behavior. I take my nieces ice-skating, order pizza, walk the dog, visit with friends, buy hats. Who wants to take that happiness from me? Something in me defiantly says, Just try to mess with me. Bring it."

Girl stuff

Lunch with Kim and Diane. They both look great. We had a lot of catching up to do. As usual, we met at the boutique Kim works at and walked across the street to a favorite cafe. And, as usual, after lunch, Kim lured me back into the boutique to try things on. This time, she had some serious help from Allison who has quite the opinion on what suits me best. "This will look good with your skin tone," she says, and I'm speechless.

I bought her a hat and colored "one size fits all" tights. "They'll fit me, Mom--I'm one size!" I came out empty-handed I think because I have lost my desire to dress pretty. I'm letting myself go, I tell my friends. Living near the ocean in a warm climate will do that to you. Who's to impress? I believe that's the point of escaping to Mexico--you want to hang all that up. But, I am home now, and should probably get with the program and get my sorry self in for maintenance: pedicure, manicure, facial, haircut, highlights, teeth whitener, waxing, new shoes, clothes, earrings, eyeglasses, sole supports, botox, collagen, dermabrasion, a facelift, or whatever else is necessary and recommended at my age.

Or I could what men do when they need a boost--buy a new car. Probably no more expensive.