Cell Phones for Soldiers

I have been hanging on to my old cell phones...
Today I know why. I received in a box of books from Amazon.com the little bag on the right.

You can find out more about this project started by two teenage kids at www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com

Regardless of how you feel about the war, this is a chance to add a little joy to someone's life.

If I Could Change My Name

Patricia Anne. I hear my mother’s exasperation. Patricia Anne means trouble; it is demeaning. I become a small child and I feel my shoulders shrink. It is angry red and cowering yellow at the same time, like the flag of the old South Vietnam. My grandmother claimed that Anne was after her. She claimed my name but never me. I always knew it wasn’t after her; her name was Anna and the a at the end was accented and pronounced. She carried the name like an ostrich feather- plumed hat upon her head. The e at the end of my name is silent and unnoticed like a cap the color of my hair.

Patricia comes from the word patrician. It is noble. It is the queen at tea with her pinky unnecessarily pointing outward. Patricia is unnecessary. Two many syllables for a one syllable person. I am a short gong tap and not three.

Patty is the affectionate version of Patricia but also rhymes with fatty—unacceptable as sitting on the table at a formal dinner. There are only two people who can get away with calling me Patty. My husband and my older sister. If someone calls me Patty it is because they have heard my husband refer to me too often.

Pat is a bounce. It is a quick tap in a steel pointed black shoe. Yet it is easy and forming the sounds are the beginnings of blowing a kiss. It is the default name I chose for myself.

While picking up my adorable grandson at the airport, he called me Kiki. "Your name is Kiki!" he said. And so, if my grandson calls me Kiki, I will wear that name comfortably, like a loose and colorful mumu.

My fourteen-year-old calls me Patrish-delish; she bestowed this name upon me in the way that only a last cherished child can talk to a parent. Respect has all but disappeared like helium escaping from a balloon. But playfulness has taken its place and therefore, if I could change my name it would be to Patrish-delish.

On the Way Out of Town...

I was in the last minute packing rush to get out of town with my eighteen-year-old daughter, when I felt the need to call my mom. "Mom," I asked, "What are the most important attributes of a mother?"
Mom is adored by all her daughters and her five granddaughters.
Mom didn't miss a beat, "Compasssion," pause, "you have to have compassion for your children. Then I would say respect. They really come as they are and it is your job as a mother to find out who that person is; to help them find out who they are and to help them make the most of who they are."
Wow. It was about this time that I realized I was in the company of great wisdom and I should be writing this down. I scrambled for a journal.
Mom continued, "And finally you have to have love. Because love is the foundation that holds everything else together." A long pause and mom asks, "Are you there?"
"Yea, yea, I'm just trying to write everything down."
There were a few more words and then her parting admonition to enjoy my weekend away.
After filling up with gas, I realized my daughter was playing the songs that I loved instead of the screaming metal guitars. I vowed to not be a back seat driver (vow kept on the way there but not on the way back). But mostly, the entire weekend I tried to see the person who existed in all her wonderful uniqueness. I looked with intrigue into the person with the perspective of respect. I wanted to respect who she was and who she wanted to be, not whom I thought she should be.
My weekend was wonderful. Thank-you mom.

When You Know Your Gift is a Hit

My husband was especially zippy one Saturday morning a few weeks after Christmas. This zippiness continued into the day as he walked in and out of the kitchen pantry. I finally realized what all the zippiness was about. About 9:00 o'clock that morning he had taken ten frozen croissants out of the freezer for their 9 hour thaw.

These are not ordinary croissants but croissants with a pedigree that rivals the great race horses of the twentieth century. The croissants began their life at Williams and Sonoma and were prepared by a special French chef. Part of the pedigree was my thoughts about what to get my zippy husband for Christmas. After 27 years of marriage to a man who has the means to buy himself just about any simple luxury, it is difficult to come up with a unique, big-hit present.

Hence, the important factor: his love for food. It is so intense that I only thought twice about spending $82 for croissants: 15 plain, buttery rich, and 15 pain au chocolats.

I knew the croissants were a hit when he walked out of the pantry with the measuring tape. Time and hunger wise, they and he were ready to pop them in the oven at 6:00, but the measuring tape suggested they needed another 1/2 inch to perfection.

And were they perfect?" Mais oui! So much, that they didn't last long enough for an after picture. My husband even suggested that we didn't need to go back to Paris ever again-- because, why would anyone go to Paris except for the croissants? Vraiment!

Mysteries

I awoke Christmas morning and looked out the window at the fresh fallen snow. How delightful, I thought, one of the children in our neighborhood received a new bicycle and she has been riding it in the snow.
When I put on my boots, hat, gloves and coat and carried a shovel into the snow, I realized it was a strange kind of bicycle that would leave two parallel tracks.
How strange. Every few feet, there was a tiny deer hoof print. Or is that reindeer?

How Do I Feel About Writing?

In a Teaching Composition class, Dr. Deborah Dean, asked us to write our feelings about writing. Simple enough. Simple, unimaginative, explanation. Then she asked us to make a collage depicting how we felt about writing. I like this, I thought, playtime. In college! As the students began, there was a light hearted buzz.
As I looked through magazines in search of the images that would visually describe my feelings, I noticed the room was quiet except for the subtle snips of scissors. Everyone was engaged.
As I found the right interpretations for my feelings, I translated the images into new metaphors, "The glowing fire in the hearth reminds me that writing is an intimate experience. We cuddle up before our intended work; there is an energy source, and it brings warmth and comfort. Good writing draws you near it; the possibility of good writing draws you to the experience of trying."

Cell-less

It’s been two week s since I became cell-less. It is not intentional, though that seems like an idea of merit: new information that cell phones alter the brain?

I am cell-less because I have lost my phone. It has been disconnected and I await the arrival of my new phone. It has been too nice without it and now I look around the airport and the people connected to their cell phones look like two-year-olds with pacifiers.