"What Would You Do If...?"

One of my children has spent a lifetime in experimenting with her ideas of parental affection, and how and why it's bestowed. "Will you still love me if I do this? Will you still love me if I do that? Will you still love me if I'm different from my siblings?"

I knew from reading extensively that this was very normal, and I didn't take it - don't take it - personally. It didn't resonate with me emotionally, though, because I could never recall feeling that way myself. My parents' feelings were a constant, like the mountains. I don't think I felt particularly capable of affecting their affection, one way or another. I didn't either luxuriate in it or long for it.

One of the problems this child and I have in understanding each other is that she's a figurative speaker and thinker, who chooses her words for the effect she thinks they'll have instead of for their accuracy. I am a literal thinker, who chooses my words for accuracy, and understates when in doubt.

This means that she frequently looks for hidden meanings when there aren't any. She also tends to think that I'm being sarcastic when I'm not. When given any household chore as a child, she was likely to ask, "Why do I have to?" The answer was always, "Because you live here." She was sure that this was me being a smart mouth, even after complaining to other adults in her life and being told, "That's honestly why you have to."

(Sometimes, though, she took me at my word. In her early teens she wanted to know, "What would you do if I dyed my hair blue?" I responded, "Nothing. It's hair. It'll grow back." She never did dye it blue; it wasn't as much fun if her parents wouldn't be scandalized.)

She was also convinced, deep in her heart of hearts, that if other people disagreed with us, especially if they were people she liked, or a number of people that she considered to be significant, we were legally and morally obligated to change our minds and our rules. At 13, she was sincerely convinced that if we didn't send her to summer camp, we'd go to jail. ("Don't all kids think that?" she asked as an adult. Um - no, Child, they don't.)

"So-and-so thinks your rule is stupid!" we heard repeatedly. I'd usually reply with something like, "Well, I make the rules in my house," which she thought was both a cop out and "stupid." At 12, after I'd pulled rank and said, "I'm the parent. I get to decide," she said, "So you get to do things just because you're the mom? I thought we were all equal here!" My reply of, "Then you thought wrong" infuriated her.

If she kept at it, I'd say, "So, if they get to make the rules for my family, I get to make the rules for their family, right?"

"NO!"

"Why not? That seems fair."

"Because your rules are STUPID and theirs aren't!"

"All my friends think you're so mean!" she snapped at me, after I'd said no to something.

"Good. That means I'm doing my job right." Like most parents, I would die for my kids, but that doesn't mean I should cave to their every whim. The kids would think I was a fantastic parent if I threw out every rule and let them do whatever they wanted, but that wouldn't be good for them, or create healthy, functioning adults.

After my daughter huffed away, another mother pulled me aside to assure me that she spent time with my daughter's friends, "and none of them think you're mean. They all really like you." It was sweet of her, but she needn't have bothered. I do what I think is right; I don't try to win the approval of children. (Or adults, for that matter.)

Throughout her childhood, we heard a constant litany of, "What would you do if...?" More than once, she asked, "What would you do if I was sent to prison?" The answer was always, "Visit you on visiting day."

She must not have believed me, because she was still asking into her mid-20s - "What would you do if I was in prison?" One day, after getting the usual answer, "Visit you on visiting day," she said, "What if it was for a really terrible crime?"

"Visit you on visiting day."

"What if it was for a really awful, messy, premeditated murder?"

"Visit you on visiting day."

"Really?"

"Are you planning on murdering someone?"

"No. But would you really?"

"If you've done something stupid or violent, I expect you to face the consequences. I'm not going to lie for you. I'm not going to hide you from the police. I'm not going to whisk you away to a country with no extradition. I'm not going to bake a file into a cake and help you escape. But you're still my child, and I will always love you. I will visit you on visiting days, and I will be there on the day that you get out."

She must have finally believed me, because she hasn't asked since. (She has not planned or committed any murders, either.)

I think this is how we treat God sometimes. "Will you still love me if I do this?" "If you're really a loving parent, you'll love me even if I do that." Or, "You can't possibly love me after what I've done." "If you love me, you'll give me what I want. If I don't get it, you must not love me."

Sometimes, I think we sound like small children. Any of us who are parents have faced furious or despondent offspring, just sure that if we love them, we'll let them have candy for breakfast, buy them a pony, abolish bedtimes. They can't believe that we ignore their tears or their feelings or their protests. We're sometimes like that. We're seriously, deeply hurt when things don't go our way. Doesn't God love us? Shouldn't that mean that life is easy and we are always happy, and we get what we want? We recognize that our children don't have our perspective and experience, but we can't imagine that God knows something that we don't.

Or, we go the opposite direction. We decide that God loves other people, but not us. We screwed up. We did stupid, willful, harmful stuff. No one could ever love us after that.

The older I get, the more I see theology as a parent/child relationship. God is the parent. He loves us, more than we will ever know. He always will, no matter what we've done. That does not mean that he should always give us what we want - even if not getting it pains us and makes us sad or angry, and even if other people agree with us and think things should be done our way. He not only knows best, it's his job to do things as HE sees fit, not as we see fit.

Like every parent, he will be disappointed, exasperated, angry. Yet he will be beside us whenever he can, and he will be waiting to help us start over and get it right after we've screwed things up. He will do this even if we hate him or think that he's mean.

Because that's what good parents do.

And if we humans can figure that out, trust me, God knew it long ago, and he's better at it than we could be.

Wasted on the Way

I've seen Crosby, Stills and Nash (never with Neil Young) live in concert twice.

The first time was in the mid 1980s. David Crosby was still using; he hadn't been to prison yet. The concert here started late; finally, after about 30 minutes, a man in a camo shirt and bandana came out and apologized. I thought he was a roadie; he was Stephen Stills. "We're running late. David's left the hotel and is stuck in traffic. We'll begin as soon as he arrives." It took two more "any time now, we hope" announcements before they finally took the stage.

They sounded great, all of them. Crosby, though, never looked up, never chatted, never engaged. He was on autopilot (and high as a kite).

Toward the end of the show, Stills started talking about the time they spent apart, not recording together, or even really talking to each other. "We're artists; we have egos, we get hurt," he said. "But then, one day, I got a phone call. Someone had written this amazing song." Nash looked down and fiddled with his guitar, but for the first time that night, Crosby's head snapped up. He looked straight out at the audience, and waved to get their attention. Then he took a small step back, out of Nash's line of sight. As Stills said, "... this amazing song, that just melted away all of the bitterness, that made us come together again, that made us both regret the time lost and come together like we'd never been apart," Crosby pointed, with both arms, at Nash's back. He kept looking at the audience, pointing, making huge gestures, making sure we got it. THIS MAN - this man wrote the song and brought us together. Nash kept busy tuning his guitar.

Years later, when Crosby was in prison, Graham Nash spontaneously phoned our local radio station, and probably more across the nation, just to talk, to say, "I've heard some of what David's been writing in prison. It's brilliant. I think it's some of the best work he's ever done. I can't wait to record it when he's able." He had no album to sell, no tour to promote, just the news that his friend was well and writing.

Sure, they have egos. But to watch them continually make sure that you notice the other guy's contribution, to see them truly value the other guy's input over their own, that's brotherhood.

I bought that first record they put out after David left prison. (It featured all four, including Neil Young.) It is indeed brilliant.

Watch them sing, years later, that song that brought them together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg-Qdrr3XSk

Feeding Yourself

It's always hard to know what balance to strike between doing things for your children, and having them do them for themselves. Sometimes, I think I get it right. Sometimes, I'm not so sure.

When my kids were little, I made breakfast for them every day. We only had the whole family at breakfast - at family meals, really, meals including all of us - when their dad had days off. He was working a rotating schedule of day shift, swing shift, graveyard shift, then back to day shift again. Weekends could be a day and a half, two days or four days (the rotation from graveyard back to days). When they were older, he worked steady hours, 3 am to 3 pm, which meant family dinner at about 5, but there was no way we were getting up at 2 am to have breakfast together.

I don't make elaborate meals. One of their favorite breakfasts was microwaved scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast. Another was sliced fruit, usually bananas and apples, in yogurt, topped with granola. We went through our fair share of cold cereal, oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, as well.

Once the kids were in school, I insisted that they be dressed before they came to breakfast. If we were running late, they could eat in the car on the way to school, but they couldn't get dressed or brush teeth in the car. This plan went pretty smoothly until they got a bit older. Then, obsessions with the "right" outfit, requests for fancy hairstyles and general dawdling meant that there was less and less time for breakfast. I resorted to toast, muffins or Pop Tarts in the car, until it became clear that I'd spend my days fishing untouched food out from under my seats. When I insisted that food be eaten at the table, even if it meant no fancy hair, there was much howling. I found myself thinking, "Are you kidding? You're upset because you're being fed? How is that even possible?" I even caved to them - and their dad - and bought cereals that were little more than spun sugar. They still griped.

By the time they hit middle school, in seventh grade, griping about "having to eat" was a pretty firmly established routine. It still astonished me. (Years later, I'm still astonished.) When they were asked to skip a meal for fasting with the church, or when meals were late on weekends or while traveling, they wailed about being "starving," yet they howled about being "not hungry" on school mornings. It had nothing to do with hunger, and everything to do with a power play. I even let them drench their oatmeal in syrup, or otherwise make sugar the main course, and they griped. Griping was a reflex action.

When the oldest kids were 12 and 11, and the third child was almost 4, we had Baby #4. One Saturday morning, when we were still measuring her age in days, the big kids were just waking up and coming down the stairs while the baby had just finished eating, and I was hoping to head back to bed. I resigned myself to more exhaustion when I suddenly realized, hey, I can put the big kids in charge! I mean, they can handle breakfast and Saturday morning cartoons, right?

My oldest was deeply scandalized by this request. "You want me to feed everyone so that you can go sleep?" It should be noted here that my Firstborn has always considered sleep to be a weakness. Even as an infant, she slept less than the other children. Sometimes, her dad would come home from work and go straight to bed, and this also scandalized her. She'd demand, "Why is Dad asleep?" and she did not understand why the answer was, "Because he's tired." This made no sense to her.

"Yes. I'm tired. This is the fourth time I've been up to feed the baby since I went to bed. I'd appreciate it if you could feed the rest of you." Surely, this request made sense.

"Can't you make breakfast first?"

"I could, but I'm exhausted. By the time you're done with breakfast, the baby might be awake and hungry again." (The baby was breastfed; Mommy was the only possible feeder.)

"I can't believe that you want me to make breakfast!" Really, Kid? In actuality, I shouldn't have been surprised. Asking the kids to do anything resembling work elicited wailing, and complaints that all household jobs belonged to me, and I was just farming out the work because I was lazy and mean. Still, I was taken by surprise at the level of outrage she was showing over a simple task.

After a few more moments of back-and-forth, I snapped at her.

"It's cereal! If the three year old could reach the cupboards, he could do it himself!"

This stopped the complaining for just a moment, while it occurred to her that this was not a sentence of hard labor. Still, in her mind, it was clearly the mother's job.

Eventually, the 11 year old started looking through the cereal cupboard. The baby and I went upstairs to sleep.

The oldest still recounted the story to her friends in horror - "Mom slept, and I had to make breakfast," as though this demonstrated clear hardship.

It occurred to me that I wasn't asking them to help out nearly often enough if a simple pouring of cereal brought on such a ruckus.

As an adult, my Secondborn insisted that part of her getting ready for school routine was spoonfeeding the babies. "No," I corrected, "you and your sister sometimes fed them on weekends, but never on school mornings." School mornings were short enough on time without trying to get the big kids to do anything besides get dressed and feed themselves. But yes, I did ask them to help feed the siblings once the babies could eat in high chairs. Being part of a family means pitching in. Kids learn to be responsible by being given responsibility. Taking care of siblings also brings the siblings themselves closer.

She still isn't sure that I'm right about this. In her mind, it was so burdensome a task that it had to be every day.

"But sometimes, I was late to school."

"I know! That's because you dragged, and I had to cattle prod you through the mornings. That's exactly why you only fed the babies on weekends." (It's also why we had a "no TV in the mornings" rule; turn on the TV, and everybody ground to a halt.) She doesn't remember it that way.

At least, by the time she was in high school, she got ready in 15 minutes. Foodless minutes, but progress is progress.

Once they hit high school, I stopped making their breakfasts, in another attempt to teach responsibility and time management before they moved out of my house. I didn't want to send them away to college without them having done the basics for themselves. I still fought the "eat something!" battle. Many days, a glass of milk was all I'd get a child to consume before leaving, but it was something. I bought granola bars, string cheese, applesauce cups - all kinds of convenience food, but they rarely ate it. I said, out loud, that Oreos and milk would be acceptable, but nobody took me up on it. They were determined to skip breakfast, which makes me crazy. I'm hypoglycemic, so skipped meals are BAD. Plus, I'm a mom; I need to feed. Study after study shows weight gain, lower productivity, reduced concentration and lower job performance for breakfast skippers. It was maddening. In a nation brimming with both food and actual deprivation, and in a house full of food, should it be this hard to get people to eat?

Secondborn is in her late 20s, and after seeing something recently on TV about moms making breakfast, said, "You never made us breakfast."

"Not in high school," I said, sure that she was ignoring the actual meaning of the word "never."

"I don't remember you ever making breakfast."

"I did it for the first 14 years of your life, and I often had to fight to get you to eat it."

"Yeah, I hate breakfast. But I don't remember that." Wow. So glad that I spent all that time slicing, sprinkling, and buying stuff like Dinosaur Egg Instant Oatmeal.

When the Firstborn graduated from high school, she went to Hawaii with her two best friends. After we'd gotten the call saying that they'd landed safely, the Secondborn started to worry. "How will they eat?"

"You remember Honolulu. There's tons of places to eat."

"But how will they eat? What will they do when it's dinnertime?"

"They'll go to a restaurant, order food, pay for it and eat it." That seemed pretty obvious to me. I wondered if she was concerned that restaurants might not serve them, so I added, "They are legal adults, you know."

"But how will they know where to eat or what to eat?"

"They'll say, 'Hey, what do you want to eat?' and choose."

This conversation was sounding more and more bizarre to me. I'm sure that she was actually anxious because her sister, who'd been right next to her for her entire life, was now thousands of miles away, and after she came home,  she would be preparing to move hundreds of miles away, so the anxiety wasn't actually about food, but food still seemed an odd thing for the anxiety to attach itself to. She wasn't worried that they'd be mugged, or get lost, or lose their luggage, or be assaulted, or miss their flight, or be on a plane that crashed, or miss their connecting flight home and be stuck in an airport in California, or anything else that was a much higher probability than starvation. No; she worried that three eighteen year olds with honors diplomas couldn't figure out how to feed themselves.

"They might get some stuff, especially for breakfasts, at a grocery store, too. That's cheaper than breakfast out." We've traveled a lot; I thought that how one fed one's self away from home would be familiar.

"What if they don't have enough money?"

Wow. "They'll have to figure out how much they can spend every day. But if something goes wrong, they have the credit card for emergencies."

"How will they know how much they can spend? How will they know if they can afford something?"

More wow. "If they can handle honors calculus, honors trigonometry and honors statistics, I think they can figure out how to make their cash last for a week. They can divide by seven."

"What if they can't?"

"Then they use the credit card."

"What if they lose the credit card?"

OK, this conversation would have made sense to me if I was having it with the seven year old, but this was the seventeen year old. "If they have reached the age of 18, and graduated from high school, without being able to feed themselves, we as parents have done a terrible job, and they'd better start catching up so they can be functional adults."

"I can't believe you're not even worried."

"Not about them feeding themselves!"

Then it occurred to me; this child usually worries based on things that she thinks might happen to her. "Do you think that you could feed yourself if we weren't there?"

"Me, yeah. I just don't know if she can."

Sisterly love.

As it turned out, by day seven, one girl had run out of cash, and the rice cakes she'd packed. The other two pooled their money and covered the third for those last meals. For instance, they bought 99 cent fruit and yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and ate them on Waikiki Beach. Go, girls!

The next year, when Secondborn went to Florida with her best friend on their graduation trip, everyone was fed, without much angst.

I still find myself having to cattle prod people to EAT at home. (Not literally - don't bother the authorities.) My household seems determined to skip meals. The Thirdborn averages two meals a day - he's an adult now - and the teenaged Fourthborn will go until midafternoon without eating, and then graze for the rest of the day, if I let her. My husband will be up for hours before he thinks about breakfast.

Is it me?

Is it them?

Should I have had the kids making breakfast, and dinner, for the whole family regularly, from an early age? Probably.

Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother

From my Facebook page:

Someone asked people to post good parental advice on their page. Here's stuff I learned from my Mom. What's your good advice?

You don't need validation from others to be sure that you're doing the right thing.

You can be the smartest person in the room without being a gloating arrogant a** about it, or even pointing it out.

Always give a kid a ride.

Love your kids' friends.

Trust your kids if they've earned it; watch them like a hawk if they haven't.

Be good at what you do because it's the right thing to do and will make you feel good, but don't expect others to notice or appreciate it.

Go outside as much as you can.

Read.

Eat it or wear it. (The family joke ;D)

(I'm the little bald one.)

For Mother's Day, I shared wisdom from my mom. For Father's Day, here's some of what I learned from my dad.

1. Line up the sights before you pull the trigger: This was very literal advice, as my dad was a shooting coach, and I was competent with a gun while my age was still in single digits. It's great metaphorical advice, too. I sometimes want to jump into things without lining things up, and I know that it won't work as well.

2. Fishing wisdom: I can look at a stream or lake and tell you where the fish will be. I can catch them in a tiny trickle of a stream or a deep mountain lake. I know how to rest the line on a sensitive fingertip in order to feel nibbles. I can set the hook. I have homemade bait recipes, I can clean and cook fish, I can cast, I can keep a reel from tangling. I can feed myself, as long as there's water nearby.

Fishing was what my dad and I did together, without the rest of the family. One of his favorite stories from my childhood was "the time Ainsley put you out of the boat." He'd tell it and roar with laughter, no matter how many times he'd already told it. Ainsley was one of Dad's - our - fishing buddies. One day on Frenchmen's, I announced that I had a bite before either man had one. "No, you don't. They're not biting today. You're feeling the bait bump the bottom," Ainsley said. Moments later, I pulled in a nice sized trout.

This continued - "I have a bite!" "No, you don't!" followed by reeling in a fish - until I had caught my limit. Neither man in the boat had gotten a single bite yet. Competitive Ainsley was so miffed that he found a tiny island to leave me on until HE'D caught his limit. I watched the boat go back and forth, back and forth - it was Ainsley's boat, and he wasn't letting me back in until we were even.

Dad loved that story.

3. You don't have to be a parent to parent a child: he helped raise his niece while he was a single man. She called him Unc instead of the more cumbersome Uncle Everett. "He needed a three letter nickname, just like Dad," she explained. He held the same place in her life as her own father - which also taught me that kids can have more than two "real" parents.

4. Do your job to the best of your ability, even if others stop short: The thing my dad did that made me proudest happened before I was born. He worked for the Sparks Fire Department. A fire broke out at the jail - an old style jail, with caged cells and a big iron loop of big, iron keys to open the locks. The fire was so fierce that most responders refused to enter the building, saying that the prisoners had to have already succumbed to smoke, and to risk any men would be foolhardy. Only two people, my dad and one police officer, were willing to venture into the burning jail to let the prisoners out. Those two saved every one of the prisoners.

There were articles in the paper, commendations, awards from service clubs. Dad shrugged them all off. "I was just doing my job. I wasn't going to let men burn to death in cages."

I now own his uniform cap and the awards that hung above the desk during my childhood. None of my kids remember my dad - two never met him, the others were infants when he died - but they know this story.

Food Bank Donations

Today my family volunteered at the Food Bank. We do this every three months or so, with my Rotary Club.

Today we sorted food from a recent food drive. I've seen this same thing happen before, and I feel the need to address it.

IF YOU DONATE FOOD: Thank you! You rock.

Please keep in mind, though - watch the expiration dates. I am far from a nut about these things. I happily eat food that is literally years past its date - how "bad" can dried pasta get? It makes my kids crazy, but I'm much older than they are, and have never had a problem. You're probably thinking that any food is better than no food, and you're right. Here's the problem, though: the Food Bank is not allowed to pass out food that's any more than 6 months past its "sell by" date. Let me repeat that in case someone missed it. The rules do not allow the Food Bank to distribute food that is years past its "sell by" date. There's a 6 month window, and that's it.

They can't put it out with a sign saying "expired; use at your own risk." They can't let volunteers take it home. They are not allowed.

Is this ridiculous? I think so. As I said, I regularly eat canned and boxed stuff that is far past its date. I worry about the date only on perishables, and even then, I'll buy the "bargain bin" meat that's past its date, and throw it in my freezer. (Again, I'm still alive. I've had food poisoning ONCE in my almost 50 years, and it came from bad handling, not from age.)

Today, there were entire bags of food with dates three, four, and five years out of date. One package expired in 1998. The "winner" was one that expired in 1993. We had to throw ALL of it out. There was probably a dumpster full by the time all was sorted. It took time, gas, money and effort for your donation to end in the trash. This is not a chance to clean your cupboards and unload what you don't want to eat.

Also, they have to throw out any individual packages - say, applesauce cups - that do not have a date stamped. If it was part of a larger pack, you can't donate it. Well, OK, you can, but it'll get thrown away. Complete packages only, thanks.

IF YOU RECEIVE HELP: Thank you for allowing others to serve you, especially if you are feeding children, the elderly or the sick. There is no shame in receiving needed help! Do not feel bad about yourself.

BUT: please keep in mind that you should be gracious about the generosity of others. I have, in the past, heard others complain about their donated food. "There's nothing good or high quality in here. It's all store brand. It's mostly canned, with all that sodium and processed sugar. They think that, just because we're down on our luck, we don't deserve anything good."

NO. That is NOT what it means. I donate store brand food because I EAT store brand food. I'll pick up one for me and one for you. You get EXACTLY what I feed my family, as far as canned, boxed or jarred foods go.

Also, many people donate because they know what it's like to be in need. I remember Christmas the first year I lived on my own. I was working for minimum wage, and my idea of "a varied diet" meant chicken ramen for lunch, and beef ramen for dinner. I donated two (store brand) cans of green beans and corn. I thought that, if someone managed to buy some chicken, maybe a package of drumsticks, that my veggies would make a complete dinner. I was really proud that I could help.

For many years now, I've been able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted; I could eat out daily if I felt like it. I still donate because I know what it's like to worry about not having enough food. Plus, I'm a mother; we feed.

Would it be nice if you could get donated fresh, organic food, or food that met your restrictions due to, say, allergies? Sure. But, it's very, very hard to gather and distribute fresh food, because it spoils so quickly. When you're dealing with large numbers, or a wide geographic area (and our Food Bank covers one of the nation's largest geographic areas, including rural areas), you need cans, jars and boxes, because they store and travel well.

That's also why, if your boxes of macaroni look crushed, or your canned peas have a ding in the rim, you need to relax. I've heard people have fits about that, too. "They don't even care! These are all crushed!" If there's large amounts of food involved - and there is - or lots of handling and travel involved - and there is - some things will look worse for wear. If someone donated Cheerios and they were in the bottom of a bin, and someone donated canned chili, and the chili went in on top, the box might get crushed. Maybe some Cheerios themselves might break. They're still safe to eat. It is NOT a sign of disrespect or of the food being unsafe.

Sometimes, a jar of jelly or pasta sauce might break. In that case, the food it was near might get leakage all over. The choice might be made to wash off those cans and jars, again because the food in them is still good. If your labels look as if they've been wet, stained or torn, leakage is likely why. It would be a shame to throw away your peanut butter instead of washing off the leaked jelly. I washed off a jar today. The label looks awful, but the food inside is fine.

Keep in mind - we're asked, while we're making those sorting decisions, "Would you feed it to your family?" I would.

We're all in this together!

Recycled Landscaping

My friend Rick has the skeleton of a horse in his front yard.

This is absolutely true; he has it there by choice. It's part of the landscaping.

I went to a BBQ at his house, and complimented the skeleton. "I love your horse out there." I was being sincere; it delights me. He looked mildly embarrassed.

"Oh, you do? My parents hate it." Rick has adult children himself, but I guess you always feel like a kid when your parent says, "What exactly were you thinking?"

Rick lives in a much pricier neighborhood than I do. It's not An Exclusive, Gated Community, but it's not home to many fast food workers or maids, either. There are lovely homes on spacious, well cared for lots. Rick's front yard has a pronounced slope. There's sloping lawn, a walkway to the front door and around the house to the back yard, where there is more really lovely landscaping, including a custom wrought iron, glass accented gate that's just breathtaking.

The remains of the horse are on the highest point of the front yard, an island of decomposed gravel, rocks, steel sunflowers and a mining cart. Given our area's mining history (and present), along with the surrounding desert, it's very place appropriate. It looks like a more artfully arranged version of a vignette that you might come across in the surrounding area, or as far afield as Death Valley (about 5 hours away). It almost has that, "abandon hope" look about it. I didn't ask where he got the skeleton - he may, indeed, have found it in the desert. It's still articulated, still in one piece. There's still scraps of skin and fur hanging on, but by and large, the soft tissue is all gone.

As I said, it delights me. It's imaginative, evocative, indigenous and well executed. It's unusual.

I was reminded, though, in a recent letter from the city (long story), that a legal "nuisance" is "any material, regardless of its market value, which, by reason of its location and/or character is unsightly or interferes with the reasonable use and enjoyment of adjacent properties." What that means is that if Rick's neighbors complain, his skeleton has to go - and I think that's a shame.

I think that I might be in the minority here. I know that most people view nuisance laws as away to protect their neighborhood, to keep it clean, keep it attractive, and that old standby, keep the property values up. I think that in order to be an actual nuisance, you should have to demonstrate incontrovertible evidence of clear and present danger.

You shouldn't be able to complain that something's a nuisance just because you don't like it. That's where that, "regardless of material value" thing comes in. You could buy a priceless antique, but be unable to display it in your yard because your neighbors hate it. Maybe you have one of those many armed, many breasted Hindu goddess statues. One neighbor could hate it because it's pagan, another because it scares their small child, another because the bare breasts offend them. I think that, barring an actual danger - sharp blades, snares - you should be able to have it out there if you like it.

Maybe one of Rick's neighbors is an animal rights activist, and the skeleton makes them angry. Maybe one's a vegan, and it makes them sad. They're totally entitled to their feelings, by the way, but so are those of us who love the unusual. I have never really understood how lawn came to be accepted as the perfect landscaping material, especially here in the desert. ( See "Of Lawns and Men.")

I say, embrace the eclectic! Recycle! Plant meadows, not lawns! The very fact that most new subdivisions in our area mandate a certain amount of lawn, outlaw front yard vegetable gardens and outlaw rainbarrels or gray water systems is ridiculous.

And yes, I have old, ratty, recycled things in my yard. Maybe the neighbors hate it.

I like it. Plus, it keeps things out of landfills. Win/win, yes?

I have to admit, if I find any kind of animal skeleton in the desert, I'm likely to want to take it home.

To each his own.

Bridesmaids

The first time I was a bridesmaid, I was a scared 10 year old in a long yellow and white dress. The second time, I was 15, and wore a long dress in an abstract, watercolor design of blue, purple and green. At 18, I was a maid of honor in long, sky blue lace.

At 20, I was the bride. I wanted my bridesmaids to have dresses that they'd wear again; nobody has that much use for floor length gowns. I loved the dresses I'd worn, and the women I'd worn them for, but I'm also fairly practical.

There seemed to be two prevailing ideas about bridesmaid dresses. One held that they should be at least marginally unattractive, so no one would outshine the bride. This seemed silly (and insecure) to me. I expected even the guests to "outshine" me. I have never felt beautiful or even eyecatching. The second notion was that you had to micromanage what your wedding party wore so that you could control the day, or at least the photos. Since this was supposed to be The Day You Have Always Dreamed Of, it was your absolute right to make sure that you approved of what others were wearing, especially those who would stand next to you and have their photos in your wedding album. This also seemed over the top to me. I couldn't imagine how it would "ruin my day" if someone wore something I didn't like. There wasn't actually a dress code and a bouncer.

I figured that having the wedding party in fancy, matching clothes was our way of saying, "These people are important to us!" Not that everyone else wasn't, but I couldn't afford to buy all of my friends and relatives new wedding outfits. Tradition dictated a wedding party of close friends, so I had one.

My husband actually had far more firm opinions on things like clothes and decorations than I did. He and I saw our bridesmaid dresses at the same time, as we were stepping off the escalator in a department store, and both of us simultaneously said, "THOSE!" They were pink with white pearlized buttons, faux wrap style, just below the knee length. We both loved them.

I mean, how cute are these dresses? And these ladies?

I gave no instruction on what to wear with them. A couple of them asked about hair or shoes or jewelry, and I told them, "Whatever you do is fine." Our colors were pink, white and ivory. The men wore black tuxedoes with pink boutonnieres. I did my own hair (my ordinary style, with a bit of curl and a fancy shell clip), and I expected everyone else to do the same. We didn't get ready together, or go to a salon, or anything of the kind; that's just not appealing to me.

We had six bridesmaids - an indicator of my inability to leave anyone out. Truth be told, I wanted a few more, but my husband only asked 4 men to be groomsmen, and only two said yes, so we were already lopsided.

One bridesmaid wore pale gray flats. One wore brown sandals. The rest wore white shoes, most of them heels.

So, yes, we looked lopsided, but otherwise adorable. And my nieces, the flower girls - could you just eat up their sweetness? Literally 15 years later, people were asking, "And how are those darling flower girls?" (Um, adults now, thanks. But they're still darlings.)

Anyway. I digress.

During my reception, a cousin came up to me and asked why one bridesmaid wore brown sandals.

My nerves were a little raw. We'd been engaged for a year; DON'T DO IT! Short engagements are the way to go! We had been bombarded with "You must do this," and, "You can't do that," and opinions out our ears until I wanted to scream. Someone phoned my husband at work, the night before the ceremony, to tell him to "call the whole thing off" because they and I disagreed about how to serve the condiments at the reception - and this someone was NOT our caterer or catering staff. True story. So, I was more caustic than I would otherwise be. I responded, truthfully, "She and her husband and their two year old twins drove for 16 hours, one way, to be here with us today. I don't care if she's barefoot." I mean, focus, people! What's important?

My poor cousin, who has never been anything but sweet and helpful, looked stricken. "Oh! I just - I wasn't sure if you gave them instructions. I didn't want you to be upset." I assured her that I was not upset with the shoes, or with her asking about them. The shoes were a non-issue.

I wish that I had photos of being a bridesmaid for my friend two years later. Back in the days of film, it was harder and more costly to share images.

We had off the shoulder, lavender, floor length gowns - very Southern belle. Luckily, they were also full and high waisted, because I was 6 months pregnant, and the matron of honor was 8 months pregnant.

When I walked down the aisle, there were a few whispers. Mostly, I think, people were trying to figure out if I was pregnant "or just that big." There was no question when the matron of honor walked down the aisle. She looked like she had swallowed a watermelon. There were audible gasps, and a loud buzz of conversation. They only quieted down when the pastor slightly raised his voice to ask everyone to stand for the bride.

Many people at the reception told the bride how "sweet," "brave," and "amazing" it was that she included us in the wedding party. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that we broke both of the cardinal wedding party rules - we pulled the focus away from the bride, and we did not look like a magazine spread. The bride was astonished and forthright: "It never occurred to me NOT to have them just because they were pregnant. These were the women I wanted there with me."

More than two decades later, when my daughter was planning her wedding, matching bridesmaid dresses were out of style. It was referred to as being "matchy matchy," and derided as an outdated and unflattering custom. "There's no way that one style of dress will look good on everyone," the experts said.

My daughter stood firm. Non-matching dresses were a chaotic mess. She would have matching ones. People tried to talk her out of it. They pointed out that her wedding party ranged from short and round to tall and thin. They told her that her photos would look dated. She didn't care. I applaud that; everyone else gets to plan their OWN wedding, not someone else's.

And the handmade dresses were gorgeous.

My niece got married at roughly the same  time of year as my daughter and I had, only five years later - just this past spring. She had a similarly spring-like color palate.

One of her bridesmaids asked her, during the wedding planning, "Can I wear black tights and shoes?" My niece responded, "If you want to. The other girls will be bare legged in white shoes, but do whatever you want." Talking with me about it, over a month later, my niece said, "I really didn't care. If she wanted to wear black tights, she should wear black tights." She paired them with cute black ankle boots and a chunky black necklace. I think that everyone looked amazing.

My niece also had a 16 year old flower girl, instead of a small cherub. She wanted to include her cousin, and to have someone old enough and responsible enough to pair with the 2 year old ring bearer, in case he was uncooperative.

Yes, everyone looked great. But most important, in my opinion, is that my niece put people over image. She wanted everyone to be as happy and comfortable as she was on her special day. You ask people to join you because you love them, not because they're window dressing.

In short, I'm pretty proud of having people in my life who value a little bit of individuality. We may all be in this together, but we are not all the same.