The girls are downstairs and the dogs are barking. They are "playing." I just called down there for them to quiet down. Sara goes home Wednesday, and I tolerate her better than just about any other extra girl, but it's been almost a month and I am ready to be left alone. Even when they are out and about, I worry about what they will get into, so I'm not "off."
We went to Altoona today. I do have to say I love Gabriel Brothers. We have a store like that in the South (yes, South is capitalized. South is not just a direction.) It's called NBC which stands for National Brands Clothing. I'm one to find a bargain.
We found shoes for everybody at $2.00 a pair. I got some flats, two pair just alike except one is white with black polka dots and one is black with white polka dots. I think I will mix them up and wear them mismatched and see A.) if anyone notices and B.) if they assume they are supposed to look like that.
At Target, there was a nice comforter set marked down from 89.99 to 22.74. I had to buy it. I liked it and it would just be wrong to leave it there for someone who's going to die at Armageddon. That's what my grandmother used to say. "Buy it for someone of us but don't leave it for a pagan."
I like going to Altoona. When I was a girl, I was into the NFL. My favorite quarterback was probably Kenny Stabler. I loved the way he rolled out and passed left-handed and could pull out in the last quarter like nobody else. I liked Bob Griese, but I hated Roger Staubach and the way the Cowboys used the shotgun formation. I still like Terry Bradshaw. He's bald you know.
My father was into football and I guess I was trying to be daddy's little girl and watch it with him. One time I was watching a game with a bunch from an Arkansas congregation and I said something in reply to something else, and one of the sisters looks at me with wide eyes and says, "Do you mean to tell me you understand football?"
I said, "Do you mean to tell me that you don't?" Which might have been mean. Mean is not reserved for mothers only. Anyhow, I had never been anywhere in my life except Texas and Oklahoma. Technically, New Mexico for one week when I was ten, but that's hard to count. And we got free football cards in Wonder Bread. I had one of Mike Reid, # 74 for Cincinnati, a defensive tackle. I think I liked reading the cards. He was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. At that time, Pennsylvania and Ohio were just places the geography teacher discussed.
Once, reading a National Geographic, I noticed a picture credit for Frederick, Maryland. I grew up in Frederick, Oklahoma. I remember thinking I will never ever visit that other Frederick.
Now, I was thinking the other day that being born in Odessa, Texas, I might actually visit Odessa, Russia, someday.
In the new world, for sure. Tonight, I'm tired just from working all the sales racks in Altoona.
What I was thinking was how cool it was driving here from Arkansas. By that time, I had been to Florida, Colorado, South Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, a few others, oh yeah. Kansas. I never envisioned a me who would come live in Pennsylvania or vacation in Maryland and drive up to Delaware, down to DC and Virginia.
In Indiana, I was scared of the corn. I was used to being able to look across agricultural fields and see the horizon, and so much of it that the curvature of the earth was suggested. In Indiana, the corn grew up on both sides of the road right next to the road, taller than the car, thick and green and dense.
So I wonder, because I think I could go live in tropical Saipan after surviving all this snow up here, what my preference is for landscape. I miss being able to see that much land, those golden wheat fields. I don't like the song, but I love the image: amber waves of grain. When the wind blows just right, it looks like a golden ocean. And a sunset on that flat expanse is glorious and slow.
Am I predisposed to like it because I grew up there? Once we were having dinner with Frank and Patty and Frank said something about loving it here in these East Hills and he didn't mean the name of the congregation only. And I thought seriously, you like this? I never feel like I have my bearing. I do not know my directions here. I did not know them in Arkansas, but when we would drive back to Oklahoma, I still remember the five mile stretch of highway straightaway where the world shifted and I knew where I was again.
Maybe in the new world we'll get over all that. The earth will be our home, not a spot on the earth. Or maybe I'll just be perfect and know my directions. After three years I feel like I have barely scratched the PA surface. It's only worth scratching three months a year. The rest of the time, if you have to excavate that much snow, I don't want to scratch.
The girls got quiet in that they are not all giggling and aggravating the dogs now. Carly has chosen tonight to hang the artwork she brought back from Target in Reading at the DC, so I am listening to hammering. I have one nerve left and she is tapping away at it. They went to Pier 1 while I went to Sam's Club. I don't want to buy anything. I'm trying to pare down. I have to be able to walk away from all this stuff when the Great Tribulation comes. I've never heard of us being comfortable in our homes for the duration.
Tomorrow, we will be at the Holocaust Museum. They have one of the actual train cars there. When I stepped into it the first time we visited, I imagined it filled with our brothers and sisters and where they were headed, and that is not the Great Tribulation as bad as that was.
When we're on that train together some future day, look for me in mismatched shoes.
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