Organized Disorder

I woke up Thursday morning thinking that something good had happened.

Oh, right.

The Cards had just tied Pittsburgh for the Second Wild Card.

Meanwhile, Puck was crazy-busy scrawling Swedish phrases at the kitchen table over oatmeal and milk. At least, that’s what it sounded like when I read it back to him.

Yesterday I took Puck on a walk. If it wasn’t odd enough that the kid decided to yank Francis’ jumbo moped helmet over his head above skinny legs and flip-flops, suggesting a cartoon character, he also felt the need to stretch one of Linnea’s throw-away tees over the helmet, “to keep me in the shade”. It was like following an unnamed blue mascot dog coasting down the street on his Strider bike, ear-sleeves wagging out on both sides of his head. As we returned down the home street, he showed me the latest rocks for his collection.

“I found history!” he declared.

Inside, he shared his finds with Carrie, relabeling them – “I found nature!”

“You smell like it!” Carrie replied.

He then found Snuggles… “Hello, Snuggzy-pops!”

Later at church he walked barefoot through two dried sticker bushes. The Bear took the blame for that one.

Today I sliced up a red pepper for Puck’s lunch. From Holland.

The Netherlands.

I didn’t even know they grew peppers. Guess that drought here was worse than I thought…

We got a downpour at two while Puck and I watched Francis Chan clips. Puck was quickly dancing around in the rain while I imagined the rhythm of water falling from the roof as notes on sheet music. A little growl of thunder here and there in the northwest.

Just about right.

I love St. Louis.

Thought of the Day

So sometimes I get the idea of my house being like this shrine.

Painted up, stacked tall, jumbled over with piles of shrine-things: far-East blossoms crushed into the tiers, little doll-like objects and furnishings, sandalwood candles smushed in the corners, and other tripe — everything sort of representing life and what I did with what I was given, with the whole point of this artistic “masterpiece” being the hope to supply some glory to the Creator.

I have to explain so much being a Presbyterian…

It’s better that way though, really I promise.

Then other times I look around this cracker box of a late 1960’s slap-together shack and feel like I was splintered into the clutter of a Malcolm in the Middle disaster infused with faux-museum pieces and Caribbean elements — that sounds fancier, right? — some grand shake-down of rubber dinosaurs, mountains of discharged library volumes, and heirloom objects I’m pretty sure never should have been offered to a house where the boys outweigh the girls.

I look around at what is actually in my house, and I think to myself, “I really don’t need any of this.” Yes, I like my Chinese gong — not the concert-grand size, my “Scholar in Meditation” print, the small replica Viking ship, my son’s Lance Berkman autographed baseball, and a few other “I really like those”.

But, really, the only true irreplaceable bits would be my 13 years half-ton stack of hand-written journals and stories, and my 1892 violin.
So if something happened by wind, fire, or water… I wouldn’t be thrilled.

But I don’t think I’d exactly be tearing sackcloth and ashes, either.

And it’s not that I don’t clean. I do that some. Dust here and there. Sweep up. Dishes cleaned. Beds made. Sinks washed. Laundry. Things put away. All that unjazzy jazz. But I don’t have everything stored perfectly in a squeaky melee of tupperware, armed with label gun. That’s… not happening.

In example, I’ve got a stack of the Bear’s packaged ramen and another of canned tuna wedged between a volume of Spurgeon’s sermons and this year’s bills-box, under a framed painted Egyptian papyrus from my great uncle and great aunt on the kitchen counter. I pin notepapers and index cards to my wall. [My red wall, favorite color — by principle; not exclusively by preference — this particular room which I once heard a family friend label “tomato soup”.] So, yes, I use pushpins in the walls when necessary. And in my defense, the house is overpopulated with books. Decent relics and valuable objects gave up years ago and immigrated south. That is the bulk of our existence, the principle element of our dwelling. We live in a modest library, wedged between life, meals, and studies.

Yes, I do know where everything is, thank you, and I have a fine hand on where all of the important and essential documents of our lives are stored and/or filed. Life is just too important to clean everything and conventionally organize all objects to follow the status quo, I am afraid.

So I may hear some complaints that I keep my thousand and one pens in empty peanut butter jars, or that the living room shade hasn’t been lifted in months because the cord snapped and I can’t fix it. Ok, I hear you about the mailbox lid being anchored to its box with a twig. [I was feeling creative that particular day after a wind storm lost the anchoring pin.] And, yes, I’m working on that one.

Eventually…