February 13

What color is three?

Three is true. Three is strong. Three doesn't wobble when you sit down. It's muskateers and waltz music in the night. It's the candlelabra on the dining table. Three is blue.

It's been hard to focus these past few days with everything that's going on, but I'm starting to wonder if that's not just an excuse. I have manuscripts that are in their final edit and can be submitted online. I think I'm stalling.

It wouldn't be the first time I've done this to myself. After I landed an article in ByLine magazine, I didn't submit anything--heck, I barely wrote anything--for almost a year.

I got up last night in the middle of the night because I woke and the house was so still and my mind was so busy and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to write. Instead I cleaned out e-mail and played on the computer and didn't get a single word on paper or screen. It's avoidance to be sure.

Then I wonder where the line gets drawn. There is a lot going on. Between the building project (church) and our upcoming trip, I am snowed under. Not to mention Abe's transcript is still looming, as are taxes, and the house is undoing itself as we speak. I can't keep anything in order. Every room is or has a mess and it's starting to get me down. I keep telling myself--go skiing. Enjoy yourself. Catch your breath and come back to it all. After all, I can't really remember the last time our entire family went on a vacation to anywhere farther than Kansas and that was so that the guys could hunt. It didn't really include me until it was time to prepare a meal. This is going to be such fun. Even if I hate skiing I'm going to love this trip. And I might just surprise them all--even me--and take to skiing like I did volleyball. Not that there's any comparison. LOL! It's just that I remember the absolute shock on the girl's coach's face when she took me to a volleyball game in Ripley and let me play. And that's what I did. I played my heart out and surprised everyone. Except myself. I was just doing what needed doing. At any rate, maybe I'll just do what needs doing when it comes to skiing too. Thought I think that's a little more complicated than volleyball. And I'm a lot older. We're stopping there!

Three is blue.

schlock (shlok)
adjective: Cheap, inferior, or shoddy.
noun: Something that is of inferior quality; junk.

Absolutely the first thing that came to my mind when I read this word was television. Closely followed by the entertainment industry in general.

I hate it because I wonder if I'm getting too "smart" for my own good, but anything short of the type of program on Nature (PBS) about diamonds strikes me as silly, trivial and a sheer waste of time. Schlock culture, schlock programming. Sheer schlock. Say that three times fast!

And because I figure it's always easier to complain than it is to do something, my next thought is, how do we make it better? Well, the bottom line would be to stop watching television. If 90% of the US viewing public would refuse to watch the schlock, advertisers would pull their dollars and voila--money speaks loudly enough demand changes.

But it really goes deeper than that. The general public is obviously happy with the programming, or it would already be obsolete. We have to stop thinking in terms of schlock to eradicate it. Then you get into what's one person's trash is another's treasure, and we can't impress our values on other people, and it all comes back to freedom of choice, and guess what?

I don't have to take on the entire entertainment industry, all the entire television conglomerates, or even my local stations. All I have to do is exercise my freedom, and exercise our family values and TURN OFF SCHLOCK! We were rather pleased with ourselves for having the foresight to turn off the Superbowl half-time performance about twenty seconds in. We missed the rest of the schlock--which in the aftermath that followed showed us that our decision was a good one. It only went downhill from the start.

Schlock will be part of this world until this system of things is over and done. But I don't have to be part of the schlock culture and I can continue to point out the examples to my children as to why it is a worthless culture to get into. There are daily examples of why holding to higher moral standards provide a superior way of life.

End of rant--back to your regular, uh...... Schlock?

I don't think I'm ready to be finished writing yet though. What's today's prompt? Here it is:
Write for 10 minutes from this starter phrase: Sicily is not an island.

"Sicily is not an island! It's my name! M-o-o-o-o-o-m!"

I dreaded that bellow. Lordy these kids could find the most obscure ways to torment one another. Bruce had new-found knowledge. What to do with it? Torment his sister.

"It is too! It is an island off of Italy and I know because I'm smarter than you'll ever be. Go ask her. She'll tell you!"

I absolutely hated it when they put me in the middle. I wanted the wisdom of Solomon! Something that would allow me to speak the truth and still put her brother in his place. Now if I could think about it for two or three days I know I could come up with the perfect reply, but I heard footsteps down the hardwood of the hall. I had about two or three seconds instead.

"M-o-o-o-o-m!" I heard Sicily cry again. I fought the urge to hide in the closet.

"In my room, sweetie." I heard Bruce's footsteps follow--careless, nonshalant, confident. I could hear it in his footsteps for heavens sake.

"Mom, tell Bruce that you didn't name me after an island in Italy!"

"Bruce, I did not name your sister after an island in Italy."

"That wasn't the question. You said Sicily wasn't an island. But it is. It is an island off the coast of Italy, isn't it Ma?"

"Sicily is an island off the coast of Italy."

"So I was right," Sicily said. I grinned--but not visibly--when Bruce's jaw hit the ground.

"You were not! Sicily is an island. You said it wasn't."

"Well this Sicily is not an island. This Sicily is her daughter, and your sister, and maybe someday, since I have the same name as the island, I'll own it."

"Own it? You're nuts! You can't own Italy's island!"

"Who says? You? Who are you? You can't tell me what I can own and what I can't. In fact, you'll never guess what Melly Thompson and I got today."

"What? Tell me?"

"Nope. Can't." She took off down the hall, with her ponytails bouncing in defiance.

"I'll find out you know. I'm so much smarter than you are." Bruce trailed after her.

That was so much easier than I expected! Sometimes I just worry way too much.

cadogan (kuh-DUG-uhn) noun

A lidless teapot, inspired by Chinese wine pots, that is filled from the bottom.

[After William Cadogan, 1st Earl of Cadogan (1675-1726), who was said to be the first Englishman to own such a pot.]

Okay, with some of these you really need a picture--was my first thought. And voila--there are two links in the AWAD newsletter. So now I get the idea. The teapot does in fact have a lid, but the lid is not removable.

But I still need a picture. I know the teapot is filled from the bottom, but how is the bottom closed? With a cork? or a piece that screws in? How is it kept from leaking? Hmmm--research material here! But later--it would be so easy to get distracted right here.

Isn't it fun though to run across something you know nothing about and start wondering how it works or how it was invented, or where it first originated--anything like that! Giving the mind room to expand and play is delightful.

Teapots--I remember my grandmother's whistling teapot and my mother's. As loud and as shrill as the sound was, it never annoyed me. My favorite Peanuts cartoon when I was small was one in which Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "You have the patience of a boiling teakettle!" Why I remembered that one, I don't know. I even remember when it struck my funnybone. My sisters and I were all sitting in the middle bedroom on Greystone Road, so I had to be 9 or younger and we were reading Charlie Brown comics together. And we were busting a gut. I remember Mom and Dad coming to the doorway and just standing there grinning at us, and now as a mom I understand the satisfied look that was on their faces. I felt the same way watching my boys read books together one summer out under the tree. It was one of those rare moments when there wasn't some type of battle going on, and we were functioning as the family that parents always dream about.

I loved the electric teakettles that were to the British families I stayed with while on vacation such a mundane part of their world. It was like having electric lights. Who didn't have them? It never crossed their minds that Americans wouldn't have these gadgets, and I'm sure some Americans do, but I had never seen one in my life. It paints a picture in my mind like a novel now--coming in off the moors that were really quite chilly in March and plugging in the kettle and having omelets. Oh, and being taught that the sugar and milk go in the mug first. ALWAYS! :)

Want to see a picture of a cadogan?

As always, thanks for reading! :)

P.S. Okay--I did some exploring after I finished writing! Anteques-a-Day says: "The type of teapot known as a Cadogan is all one piece; it has no lid and is filled through a hole in the bottom. A tube runs up from the bottom nearly to the top. When it is filled and then inverted, the tea can only come out through the spout. The lidless teapot sometimes poses a puzzle for the uninitiated."

Knowing my grace and dexterity, it sounds like I better stick with a teapot with a removable lid.