One
Looks like it’s going to be a glorious day. No rain forecasted, just heat. Lots and lots of heat. Too bad I’m going to make the kids stay in and clean up the very house, this one, that they wrecked diligently and catastrophically while I completely ignored them. Every day this week, while I sat with my nose in my screen, they took out every imaginable toy and piece of paper and book and flung it down, as a gesture against God and man, as far as I can divine. At the end of the day I would emerge, tired and fuzzy minded, and begin to trip on all the things, my volume rising moment by moment. Last night, at nine thirty, I discovered Elphine’s gorgeous pan of baked chicken sitting on the stove, as if it was no big deal. I called delicately to the boys to ask, sweetly and tenderly, what the blankety blank they were thinking, and what part of “clean the whole kitchen” included leaving the food out on the counter for six hours in the heat of summer? They looked at me dumb founded, like I was speaking, as per the Babylonians, in a language they could not understand.
“Why,” I shouted plaintively, “does my house look like I have seven two and three year olds? Rather than the six fairly older children that I actually do have? Why has actual garbage been cast to the floor? On what planet do we together dwell? Is it that I must stand next to you, every moment of every day, reminding you to throw the actual garbage you hold in your actual hand, into the receptacle provided for that purpose? The thought that maybe just throwing your gum onto my beautiful rug isn’t the appropriate action did not even cross your mind?” I carried on from there, naturally, and berated them into their beds. Because I’m awesome and everything is awesome.
Two
I won’t be joining them in their cleaning. I’m going to l’Aveggio for coffee with a friend. Yes, I have an actual friend. More than one even. I think it’s good for me to get out for an hour and stop my infernal screaming. Also, I pushed send on my first draft, and I think some kind of celebration is in order.
Alouicious walked in as I was madly scrolling through my immense document yesterday, adding and taking away spaces and said, “Is that your book? Are those like chapters?”
“Sort of,” I said, “there’s just one page per day.”
“How are you going to get it published?” he asked, in such a way that I wanted to clip him one.
“I have a publisher,” I said, “I’m sending it now, if you will leave me alone.”
“Really?” he said, in complete ruddy shock. “An actual publisher? Like for real? Like they’re going to make it into a book?” Glared at him and told him to go clean the house.
Three
That great sadness, the moment when Leave it to Beaver would finally be taken away from Netflix, has finally arrived. I believe every single episode was watched, some more than once, and much happiness and joy was experienced. Elphine and Romulus, in particular, laughed up a storm. Such great TV, such good writing, such well timed acting.
On the last evening Marigold mushed herself in next to me and whispered, “I really hate this day. At what minute are we gonna not have to watch Leave it to Beaver any more?”
Turns out the poor child loathes this wonderful program and has seen Too Much of it. Well, her wish is granted, the minute has come, she doesn’t have to watch any more tv of any kind. She can, after she’s helped clean the house, play. Poor child.
Four
Whereas I, this weekend, will finally get to watch the Binghamton movie with Marissa Tomei and Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant. What is it called? Maybe I’ll be able to hang on to the title after I’ve actually seen it. “Looks like the Dead Poet’s Society set in Binghamton with Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant,” postulated Matt after we’d watched the trailer. He’s just being pessimistic. It’s probably going to be wonderful. And we haven’t watched a movie of any kind together in months and months. Actually, now that I think about it, the first movie we ever saw together was About a Boy in the theater. Hugh Grant was brilliant as Hugh Grant in that. I’m sure we’re going to have a lovely evening.
Five
I’m nearing the end of Job, in my daily bible listening. I need to go back to those sections of my book and make sure I didn’t commit heresy. Pretty sure I didn’t, but, well, Job is really long, and all the people talking are apt to run together, and they’re all a little bit right, and a huge lot wrong. Even Job. But I always forget that he’s going to end up being wrong because in the beginning he is described as almost completely right, pure, almost, as the wind driven snow. Which isn’t that far off of my own experience of myself. I start out, sometimes, in the right, doing or believing something true, but as I go along I corrupt and wreck whatever it is–the belief or action. So that by the time I’m done with whatever it is, it doesn’t bear a very great resemblance to the original. In this way I guess I am like all the rest of humanity, starting out with reasonable intentions, but then inserting the great evil of my broken thinking into the process, so that the result cannot be considered good. Of course, on other occasions I start out being wrong and carry on from there being more and more wrong, like Bildad et. al.
Six
It is, of course, interesting to get through Job as another insane week of news invades every corner of mental peace and hope I may have had. I haven’t been able to watch any of the Planned Parenthood videos. Even reading a very small amount about them has been my undoing, in terms of being able to sleep at night and otherwise cope with reality. The only thing I can keep muttering is, “Oh please, Lord, have mercy. Please have a little bit of mercy.”
I guess I wish that the mercy God would have would include a reasonable portion of fear. I am afraid. I am terrified. It doesn’t take a very careful reading of Holy Scripture to discover that God really hates murder, and especially the murder of innocent life. That, coupled with idolatry, have brought ruination and destruction to the earth, to human culture and nation states, by the hand of God himself. He himself brings the destruction. The hardness of heart, the cavalier attitude of ordinary people, and elected people, scares me. Would that some fear could fall over us as a culture before the fear of actual destruction. Although I guess we are already there. We have already been destroyed. When we slaughter the innocent, we have already been destroyed.
All I can say is, “O Lord, have mercy.”
Seven
Here’s the picture Gladys drew during Tuesday Bible Study, of Jacob and Laban trying to outwit each other in the matter of speckled and spotted sheep. Always do love the arrangement of her figures. And these sheep are seriously fine.
Have a lovely weekend! Homeschool posting to come, I promise, for those whom I continue to fail. Go check out better and more interesting takes!
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