Hostage to Fate

Now that a week has passed, I'm calm enough to blog about this experience. Thursday last, we had some coworkers in from the US, and we took them to dinner. We parked in Brackley (our closest town) and needed to cross High Street to get to our favourite restaurant. Livia ran ahead about 40 feet in front of us to the crosswalk, pushed the button, and waited for the light to change. As soon as the light changed and the Green Man appeared, Livia began to cross. And from our distance we watched as an on-coming car continued full-speed towards the crossing despite the red light. We yelled to Livia and had only the ability to watch as she froze in the headlights; and at the last minute this car slammed on the brakes, the sound of squealing tires drowning out the crossing bleeping.

The car stopped within mere feet of my baby.

We all ran up, swooped her along (by this time the Green Man was flashing that our time to cross was almost over), and hurried away. I didn't feel anger towards the driver, only sheer terror. The agony is that Livia did everything she was supposed to do. We can teach our children everything that they need to be safe, and then there will be things that we and they can't control.

We tried to make excuses: "Livia this is why you can't run ahead," and "These are the things we've warned you about for when we go to Mexico." But at dinner, I had to lean over and whisper this horrible truth, "You were right and the driver was wrong, but that isn't enough."

I have the privilege of teaching Sunday School this Sunday, and one of the points of the lesson is the concept that even after all that we can do, it is still only by grace that we are saved. From an eternal perspective, this is comforting and awesome.

But in this temporal sphere, the phrase goes more like, "Even after all that we can do, it is only by luck, fate, chance that we are spared excruciating sorrow." And that scares the hell out me.

"The person you love is a hostage ~ a hostage to fate." --Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Hot and Cold

It's amazing how quickly time passes.

The girls' break was outstandingly fun. The weather was sunny and gorgeous. Just what I needed. The fence between us and our neighbors had blown down, freeing the chickens to grow fat and delicious on their perfectly kept garden and then be eaten by the fox. So it was good that the weather was so fair as that gave the girls no excuse to not go out and play with the chooks who were otherwise kept locked up.

We were carless. Actually, Ariel was carless, but that meant that he stole my car since we didn't have anywhere to be. After two days with only one car, when the mechanic called with an (astronomically high) estimate to fix our old car that we're only going to need for another 5 months, I said, fix it. I was already miserable being in a one-car family. I know that I'm spoiled. Tough. Ariel took a sunny day off and we went to Stowe Gardens, a lovely expanse of parkland filled with follies and monuments. However, the weather was so nice that it never occured to us that it is still winter and therefore the park was closed. Wolfe's Obelisk and some summer house are not in the enclosed part of the park, so we walked to them and harrassed the National Trust sheep that reside in the surrounding fields.

The following week, winter returned, and one morning we were faced with the magical freezing fog. I've mentioned this before, but it works like this: the air temperature is below freezing, and there is a fog. When the fog passes through something (like trees), the moisture condenses, leaving the thing all frosty and encapsulated with ice. It's nice because everything looks all wintery except for the roads which remain clear.

With nice clear roads, I had no reason not to go work out at the gym. I always shower at the gym because A) I run errands there on base when I'm finished, and B) the shower stall is at least 3 times bigger than the one at home. The water pressure is mediocre and the water temperature is lukewarm, but there's something luxurious about being able to pick up a bottle of shampoo without having to shimmy down with your bum squeaking along the shower wall. I use the back locker room where no one goes, and after my workout, I found the room very cold as all seven high, unreachable windows were open. I didn't care too much because I was hot and sweaty. Then the lukwarm water seemed very chilly with the artic breeze coming in and I hurried to get out and get dry again. When I applied my face, my liquid foundation was sluggish coming out and then crunchy going on. It had ice crystals in it. After I finished, I returned to the shower to collect my toiletries, and when I moved the shower curtain, the shower spray flaked off of the curtain onto my feet, leaving them covered in an indoor snow. It had frozen in a matter of minutes.

After this, I went shopping at the commisary, parking next to a big SUV. I happened to notice that in the passenger seat were stacked many crates of Girl Scout cookies. I haven't had GS cookies in years (not counting the ones I had gorged myself on the week before at Liz's house), and I wondered if this person parked next to me would return to find her passenger side window smashed in. When I went in, there she was, selling GS cookies. I rarely have American dollars on me, but I dug through my purse and was able to come up with $25. I thrust it at her and like a maniac told her I'd take as many boxes of Samoas as $25 gets you. That would be 7. With .50 change. Best purchase in a long time. Then I hid them. It was another week before I admitted where they were hidden and allowed Ariel to open a box.

To close, here's Ginger the Ice-Skating Chicken.

Break Time

After a busy week, Half-Term break has begun! The sun is shining, we're not scheduled to have any snow, and we have a week of mostly rest, relaxation, and a change of the normal routine. The girls are finally old enough that I actually find them enjoyable to talk to, and I've been really looking forward to this week.


The final days of school were spent being busy, and I came to the door one afternoon to find an ominous shadow lurking outside.This turned out to be my new compost bin. The second image is of a Dalek -- Doctor Who's equivalent of the Borg (from Star Trek). The scariest thing in this picture is the little Spaniel holding the "Welcome" sign in his mouth. Yes, that's really my front door. I collect concrete animals. Especially cute ones. Even more especially cute ones holding little signs (especially cute signs) in their adorable little mouths. Trust me -- you only try disgutedly kicking this thing once before you remember it's made of concrete.

LittleMan has grown fat and has now been put on a diet. This causes him to sit at the breakfast table each morning (in a chair) and expect that someone will put a bowl of cereal in front of him. He loves cereal-milk, and his favourite is Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch milk. Notice that he'll even let Livia pet him for the chance of cereal-milk.

Almost finally, the beauty of having children is making them allowing them to do the jobs that I might find menial and tedious. Here I have them gessoing 25 artboards for me to paint on later. They should just be glad that I don't need any ditches dug. L&L did a great job with Livia splattering only one chair and somehow managing to poke herself in the eye with the brush handle.
Here's a last little bit of fun to enjoy. Livia likes to dance, with or without music. She volunteered to be recorded after I caught her dancing to the sound of her father reading about pigeon-guilded missiles (not making this stuff up). Though I've added music later so you won't hear me laughing, the only music she hears is in her head. (The air guitar is my favourite part).