Yard work

For a good 30 minutes today, Captain Reed had a rival for my affection.

I was out in the yard preparing to take advantage of Alison going to Godstock -- yeah, don't ask -- by declaring war on the weeds and the specter of a sweet gum tree. I told Karin Ogden, who was taking Ali to church and the aforementioned Godstock event, that I was communing with God outside. I think He'd see it my way.

Anyway, I had most of the tools I would need but I'd forgotten the spade. I heard Alison outside and asked her if she'd come help me. Silence from the smaller redhead. But this from the sweetest boy I know: "Did you need something Mrs. Reed?"

Alex Ogden had stayed over the night before in anticipation of the church event. He came trotting out to me, happy to help. In the past, he's been my No. 1 sympathizer/defender/protector against snakes, threats of snakes and sightings of snakes. And lately, he's just been extra helpful and just plain a joy to have around.

"I don't know where Ali is. I think she's hiding," he said before going off to get my spade for me. I'm pretty sure he'd have done whatever I'd asked -- even if I wanted him to pull weeds with me. I love that Alex Ogden.

A part of me is sad that he has no romantic interest in my daughter. But as she has none in him, it's a good thing. They are, instead, the very best of friends. The sleepover was in jeopardy when Karin discovered he'd not finished his homework, but we promised to do it before bedtime.

Alex was at the dining room table working away, research on the Aleutian Islands on the laptop beside him, the marker basket spilling all over and paper ready to be filled. Homework-free Ali had snagged my iPad and was watching funny cat videos.

When Alex had finished his flag, he moved on to his list of 10 facts and enlisted Alison in the exercise. They synchronized technology so she could help him find interesting sentences. I guess it was too much to think they could share the laptop.

They were using the New World Encyclopedia. At one point, I'd looked over a shoulder and saw a rather long paragraph on agricultural products. I thought that would be a good sentence to use.

"We don't want to use that one. Those people's sentences go on forEVER," Alison said. "But we like to use this site because they use big words and we think the teacher will like that."

Alex was writing about the archipelago and laboring with a stubby pencil and short-term memory loss. "Okay, now tell me how to spell that again," he called out.

"Dude. You were just here looking at it!" Ali said, but relented quickly. "OK. Are you ready?"

It was fun listening to them call factoids and spelling back and forth. The homework probably took about an hour longer than it should have because periodically, Alison would burst out in laughter, call Alex over and they'd double over watching silly cats.

It was hilarious.

So after the kids had gone off with Karin and her mom to church, I turned to face down the weeds. It's been a long, hot and dry summer and I've not been as attentive to it as I should have. Plus, sweet gum sprouts have nearly displaced the moss and crab grass throughout the yard and I've been needing to get at the remaining roots of that tree since we took it down last year.

A couple of hours into the project, I was filthy, my arms were aching and my thighs felt like I'd played catch for 16 softball games in a row. There were roots and weeds and sprouts and clippings piled like death pyres all over the place.

Jeff had emerged, roamed around a bit and then read the sports page. He hates yard work. Hates it. Hates it. Hates it. I like it, so I don't mind doing the majority of it. Usually.

I did enlist him to help me with a big root that wouldn't move for me. A few minutes later, he came out with his fancy ladder and decided he'd try to fix a leaky gutter we have.

I kept digging and bagging. Alison was supposed to be home at 12:30. She'd left at 10. I thought she'd be a good alarm clock, signalling an end to the yard work.

Jeff had finished his work, put away the ladder and his tools and I was nearing the end of weed work, dreading the idea of now having to actually mow the damn yard. I'd made a few passes to the back yard and noted that it was just as overgrown and in need of some love as the front. I'd managed my work stations by moving to a different chore when I couldn't stand the pain of squatting or pulling anymore.

I was back on my knees when I heard the dulcet tones of a lawn mower. Jeff was nowhere to be seen and the house was blocking my view but I could have sworn the noise was coming from my own back yard.

I displaced a few hundred crickets and two enormous, wriggly earthworms, but the mowing continued. I shook my head. Jeff hates yard work. He'd done his handyman duty already. Must be the neighbors, I mused.

I pulled a root, which fought back and sent me slamming down on my butt. I heard more mowing, closer to me. "Nah. Can't be," I said.

But yes indeed, God had rewarded me for my morning worship at the church with the open roof. A miracle had happened and Jeff Reed was captaining the lawn mower. He did the front and back yards both!

This unselfish, unsolicited act bounced Alex right out of the No. 1 spot in my heart.

And yes, I am fully aware that I'm channeling Rosie O'Donnell -- you know that scene in that awful Exit to Eden movie? She's undercover looking for criminals on an island getaway when a manservant in a speedo tells her he's there for her pleasure. That he'll realize any fantasy she could possibly think of. "Go paint my house," she says.

Anyway, there's more than labor that factors into my love of the captain. He's a great dad. He's a great cook. He mixes a mean cocktail. He does laundry. He grocery shops. And he'll rub my feet sometimes without asking.

I am poking a little fun today, though it's true I do love Alex Ogden. But I got super lucky when I met Jeff Reed. I still tear up a little bit when I think about our date last Saturday. I do some of my best thinking in the yard.

While I was sweating in yard today, I realized a few things. We weren't in real danger Saturday at the Sugarland concert, but we were on the cusp and we were witness to true horror.

And while I was in a daze trying to figure out how to respond and if we could help, Jeff took charge and got us to safety.

That, my friends, is what my father would say a real man does. I know it's a bit of a throwback. I've not lived my life waiting to be rescued, and I'm not raising my daughter to be a shrinking violet, either.

But sitting there in the dirt, with my sweat-soaked shirt and grubby face, hands and knees, I realized that I was totally "the girl" last weekend.

Good thing for me, my date was on it.

I guess Alex didn't really have a chance afterall.

Pierced!

The second attempt at getting her ears pierced proved the charm for Alison. Stephanie is her new best friend, and I'm sure they'll be seeing each other in exactly six weeks from now when Ali can take out her new starter earrings out and shop for new jewels.

My offer to photographically document the experience was firmly declined or I'd show you Stephanie -- the certified piercer at the Castleton Square Mall Claire's location. I highly recommend her should you need a hole in your body, or that of a loved one.

She remembered Ali from her first try at the chair. Sure it was less than 24 hours since our first visit, but still. She greeted Ali like a long lost friend, asked if she still wanted the blue daisies, and was really great with her throughout the process.

God knows if I had the same job there would be countless ungrateful brats with uneven holes in their ears and maybe a few other scars. And I'd be in prison. But thankfully I don't have to deal with other children.

Ali is thrilled. As we pulled into the driveway, two neighbhorhood girls were in the drive across the street waving wildy. Ali leaned out the window, yelling, "Maddie, guess what I just did!" She was shouting the answer out the window as Maddie and Melanie came running up the drive. I thought she was going to leap out the window. I'd barely gotten the Subaru stopped before she out the door and showing off her sparkling ears.

"It didn't hurt hardly at all!"

It's truly a sea change for her. After we left Claire's, we ran around the shops looking for princess dresses for Angie and me. It's the annual Angie's List derby and we're on team Mario Kart and we have to dress up. Angie is Princess Peach. I'm Daisy. I'm on finding the dresses duty.

We ended up at TJ Maxx looking for clearance prom-like dresses. While I flipped through the merchandise, Alison bounced a 25-cent ball from the gumball rack, losing track of it every other bounce. She spent a good portion of her time crawling under the racks looking for it -- that's the Ali I know.

She hates to shop. Unless its for video games or ice cream. She'll spend a good amount of time in a book store, but she's never had much interest in clothes, or makeup or jewelry or girly things.

After battling her way from beneath a rack of maxi summer dresses, she asked if she could go to the girls' section. Not five minutes later, she came running back at me with six hangers of clothes she thought she might need and before we left, she was simpering down the aisle trying on a pair of stiletto heels.

I bought her a few tee-shirts with glammed up cats on them. The heels went back on the shelf. She didn't spare a glance for dresses or mini skirts. Yet. Eeek.

WWJD?

Out of the blue while we were snuggling in my bed reading a book, Alison looked up at me and said she wasn't going to give anything up for Lent next year.

Ever ready to play her straight man, I said, "Why not?"

"Because I'm not a Christian," she said.

I frowned at her. It's true that we don't go to church. I send her to Catholic school for a reason: I'm not qualified for these life lessons and I know it.

I have routine wrestling matches with my Pentecostal demons and tend to see more corruption in organized religion than salvation. I don't inflict any of that on her. I want her to get religious instruction from true believers. When she's an adult, she can determine what to accept and reject, but it'll be informed consent. (That's my rationale, anyway.)

So when she -- two weeks shy of 9-years-old -- told me she's not a Christian, I gulped. What the hell have they been teaching her at Christ the King? I mean the name of the school is Christ the King. Jesus!

I hid my dismay rather well, if I do say so myself.

"You ARE a Christian, honey. You mean you're not Catholic, don't you?" I said gently.

"Nope," she said confidentially. "I'm not a Christian and I'm not a Catholic. I'm going with Paleontologist."

I gulped. "Huh?"

"You know, I'm going with the idea that we evolved. You know, the dinosaurs, that we were apes and stuff?"

I gulped again. And wondered if I needed to review the CKS science book.

"You know you can believe in evolution AND believe in God," I said.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"OK then."

I closed my eyes. I might have prayed. I might have passed out. I'm just not sure. I'm pretty sure something like, "Help me, Jesus" might have crossed my lips.

I Could Have Danced All Night -- and some did

Alison and Jenna were on stage at the Indiana State Fair again this year, and they were knock-outs, as usual.

The show was its usual chaos. Call time at 5 p.m. to endure the end of some lederhose-wearing geezers happily tromping around in a polka/clog/square dance that seemed to go on for 17 days. They seemed happy about it, so you tried to be patient, but man they danced for years.

Finally, our dance troupe goes on. six hours later, Jenna's first tap number comes up. A day-and-half more and both girls perform their ballet to "I Could Have Danced All Night." Then another two decades to one more tap and then an eternity to the finale.

Thank God and Lynda Ruble for deep fried potatoes.

So I might have exaggerate the time it took, but only a little bit. Then it was off to the Midway for some rides and games. Alison won two goldfish after tossing $5 worth of ping pong balls at little fish bowls. She named them Alison and Jenna, of course, and the two girls kept admonishing us about how to properly hold the little swimmers while they dashed about.

Some fried cheese, ice cream and corn-on-the-cob later, Ali and I staggered off to find a fish bowl for the two new family members. Our first store didn't have anything useful.

On the way to Target, I hear from the back seat: "Oh no! Jenna's dead."

Sure enough, she was a goner. The non-gilled Ali was sad, but not despondent, and finding a tank cheered her right up. So far, both Alisons are still doing well.

We got a surprise visit this afternoon from Jenna, Ginny and Amer. I was a little wary of how the original Jenna would take the news about her namesake, but she handled it just fine.

I think she's plotting a way to get her own set of fish twins when she gets back to Fair with Grandma...

Take me out to the ballgame

Jeff Reed isn't the only man who loves baseball, but he's got to be among an elite group of men who truly love it.

We've had season tickets to the Indianapolis Indians since before they moved from ratty old (but wonderful) Bush stadium to the pristine Victory Field. (We share with a group of folks, and it was Clay Miller who first brought me into the group; I brought Jeff. Clay left town once and left us in charge, and we've had it ever since.) His love of the Boston Red Sox is legendary and the hours he puts into his fantasy baseball league can't be counted.

I remember when we were dating how he'd declined an outing I offered one day so he could watch "the game." I tried again the next day and we was watching baseball again.

I said, "I thought the game was yesterday."

"Baby, there's always a game," he'd said.

I didn't know it then, but I was lucky he agreed to see me after that.

So Saturday, when we went to the game, Jeff took a deep breath, smiled wide, looked around th e ball park and said, as he always does, "I love this place."

He's always hoped that Alison would love baseball, too. She does enjoy going to the games, but it's mostly for the ice cream she gets in the 5th inning. But he keeps trying -- at both baseball and other stuff he likes.

I'd told him about her wish to be "extreme" the other day, so he called her in to watch a little TV with him. It was Thursday, day 3 of the 4-day grounding he'd meted out earlier.

"Hey, Ali, come here, I want you watch something with me," he called.

No dummy, she knew something was up. "Um, Dad you said I can't watch TV," she said.

Ignoring the thought that he was violating his own rules and could confuse her psyche, he set the edict aside. "Well I want you watch with me. Look: you know how you want to be extreme, right? These guys are really extreme. Look what they can do on their bikes."

He was telling her about extreme sports and the fundamentals the people who play them get through first. Culminating, of course, in a request for her to go back to learning how to ride her bike without training wheels.

It held her interest for only a few exhibits. And then, in the words of my loving husband, "she went off to play with some f#@@@ng pet shops or something."

Not that he's bitter. Anyway, this afternoon, as we went to get her from a birthday party, he suddenly blurts out, "Alison hates baseball. She's never going to like it."

He was really sad about it, so I shouldn't have laughed, but I did. I mean, really. She's 7. She'd sat through nearly two full innings before she's started squirming.

"Yeah, because she was eating pizza," he said. "The only time she got excited was when the guy broke a bat."

Not true, I said. She also got excited when she caught a ball thrown by a guest mascot. But he'd missed that when he went to get chicken strips.

I tried to convince him that there's time. I considered saying she loves him. Isn't that enough? But he's despondent. I'm not sure what to do about it.

I did stop laughing, though... The shot above is within her first three months when she couldn't get away from him....