rachel’s blog

Two and a half weeks ago I was surprised to see a deer as I was out for an early morning walk. The next morning I saw two. Last week I saw six deer shamelessly nibbling on a lovely flowerbed. Yesterday morning I saw eight. No, not one deer eight times — eight deer standing in someone’s yard, looking at me suspiciously as I walked by.

Oh, deer. A few weeks ago I was excited to see just one, and now I’m only surprised by the number, not by their presence.

Eight deer in a neatly manicured yard? I don’t know anyone who lives in that neighborhood, so I haven’t heard anyone complain about it, but it would be easy for me to say that that neighborhood has a deer problem. Or do they? Can we really blame the animals? Is it the deer’s fault that someone built houses on the land they occupied? The deer were probably there first. How all-American to kick creatures out of their natural habitat!

I’m certainly not a treehugger, and I’m not pretending to be an expert on the topic of land use and development, but maybe instead of thinking about it as a “deer problem,” we should start seeing it as a “building problem.” Then again, with a national forest to the west and a national park to the east, what kind of deer would want to hang out in a residential area? Oh, deer.

The girl and her backpack were sitting at the corner along the curb. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet.

“Good morning!” I greeted her as I approached.

The blonde girl looked up from the book she was reading. “Good morning!”

“Your school bus must come early…”

She giggled. “I’m just excited.”

“I bet you are! Have fun!” What a delightful girl.

As I rounded the corner a couple blocks later, I passed a gaggle of five kids and four parents exchanging a few hugs as a big yellow bus pulled into view. Happy first day of school, Harrisonburg City.

A 50th wedding anniversary. Buying a house. Childhood birthdays. Driving to a family reunion in Alaska. A daughter’s wedding. Earning a degree. A two-week honeymoon in England.

After a delicious meal of haystacks and ice cream, we sat around the table this afternoon telling stories and sharing photos from these memorable celebrations in our lives. The common thread in our broader life stories is that we are all members of the Living Stones small group at our church. We meet every other week for a meal and other varied activities, and today we all told stories about celebrations.

My age caught up with my house number today, so since it was already a day of celebration for me, it wasn’t hard for me to decide what to share. I provided ice cream with peaches for dessert, passed around a few pictures of childhood birthday celebrations, and described some of the birthday traditions I enjoyed 20 years ago. Birthdays were such happy times.

Birthdays are still happy times for me — they’re a perfect excuse to invite friends over for ice cream! My party was last night, so today was a bit more low-key, but I was very glad for the chance to just relax a bit between two very busy weeks.

Some birthday highlights:

* seeing two young white-tailed deer while out for an early morning walk
* the beautiful yellow and white bouquet from Krystal & Jason
* hearing Clark’s bass voice on the last note of “Happy Birthday”
* ice cream with fresh peaches
* a super-cute card from my parents
* taking a nap, watching a movie, and playing piano
* phone conversations with both of my sisters
* the plethora of Happy Birthday posts on my Facebook wall

Tuesday, 8:46 p.m.

The phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Brian home?”

“Brian no longer lives here.”

“Oh. OK, thank you.”

-click-

Brian and Kelly rented my house from me for three years and kept my phone number while they lived here. The caller sounded like she might be a personal friend of his who somehow hadn’t gotten the memo that they moved to Pennsylvania last summer.

Tuesday, 8:47 p.m.

The phone rings. I answer.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Kelly home?”

“Kelly no longer lives here.”

“Oh. OK, thank you.”

“Are you the same person who just called a minute ago?”

[pause]

“I am… I’m sorry. I’m calling on behalf of the Barack Obama campaign, and I’m using two different lists, so I didn’t realize I had dialed the same number twice. Sorry about that.”

“No problem. I was just curious. Have a good night!”

“Bye!”

-click-

Wait! What kind of campaign strategy is that? Does she not want ME to vote for Obama?

Did you wake up early enough yesterday to enjoy the fog? The mornings have been unusually cool recently, and the fog made Saturday morning especially beautiful. As I was walking my typical four-mile loop, I was surprised to see a deer emerge from between two houses and walk out into the middle of the road ahead of me. Moments later, a pair of headlights became visible through the fog. I imagine that the driver was more surprised than the deer was.

On this morning’s walk, I enjoyed seeing both the silvery-white moon and the blazing orange sun, but I paid even more attention to something much more mundane: front doors. If you’ve been to my house during the past year, you know that my front door looks pretty ghetto. Yesterday I finally ordered a beautiful new storm door, and this morning I couldn’t help but notice everyone else’s storm doors as I walked past. Four miles of doors… and not one of them looked exactly like mine.

“Do you have a sister?” he asked, as I pulled my credit card from my wallet.

“Nope!”

I swiped my Visa through the card reader. Wait — what had I just said?! In my distraction, I had inadvertently lied to the guy! “Well, I do… but they don’t live around here.”

He looked at me sideways, so I continued.

“Unless you’ve gone to Georgia or Ohio recently, you haven’t run into them.” He smiled and said he hadn’t. I was on my way home from a picnic that got rained out and had stopped at the grocery store for a few items. The kid bagging my groceries was a friendly teenager, and we had talked and joked a bit when he bagged my groceries last week. The store wasn’t busy tonight, so another equally likeable teenage male employee was hanging around and listening to our conversation.

“Why? Do I look like someone you know?” I asked the boy bagging my groceries.

“Yeah, you look like the sister of one of my teachers.”

With an expression of “aha!” on my face, I suddenly turned and pointed at the other boy who was standing nearby. His facial expression matched mine. We had just had a similar conversation a few weeks ago! The boys compared notes and concluded that they weren’t thinking of the same person. The bagger thought I looked like the sister of one of his high school teachers (he has actually seen this sister), and the other boy had thought I was a teacher at the local middle school. Who knows? Maybe the teachers are sisters… but they’re not MY sisters.

This happens to me all the time. All The Time. Well, not every day, but probably every few months… which seems like a lot to me! Either someone tells me I resemble someone else they know, or a total stranger thinks they actually know me.

A couple years ago I was talking about this with some college students, and I jokingly concluded that I guess I just have a generic face. J’aime, a beautiful girl from Australia, offered a more flattering description, suggesting that I have “universal features.” Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? It would sound even more lovely if it were remotely true. Then again, maybe I’m the only one who’s oblivious to the fact that the earth is swarming with beautiful women who look just like me. Ha!

According to The Valley Observer, a small black bear was captured this evening just a few blocks from my house.

A bear?! I live DOWNTOWN, folks…

We’ve probably all read those cute children’s prayers that go something like this:

Dear God, my brother told me about being born but it doesn’t sound right. They’re just kidding, aren’t they? -Marsha

Dear God, did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? -Norma

Dear God, we read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said You did it. So I bet he stoled your idea. Sincerely, Donna

And of course there’s always one about a pony:

Dear God, please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before, You can look it up. -Bruce

I’ve never understood this, but ponies seem to be one of the classic things that children supposedly ask for. Apparently, neither God nor Santa came through on one child’s request, so the kid’s mom headed to Freecycle. Actually, the woman didn’t say it was for her kids. Maybe she’s just a grown-up kid who has never lost hope.

Freecycle is a web-based network of people who exchange items that might otherwise be thrown away or dropped off at a thrift store. Last week someone posted a message to our local group with the subject “Wanted: Large Pony.” No dinky ponies, please.

The message began: “I know it is a long shot, but there are tons of unused ponies that are hanging out in fields eating up money.” Unused ponies? What exactly do most people “use” ponies for? Since there are “tons” of these creatures hanging around, I hope this woman has an opportunity to figure that out. Meanwhile, I’m having fun picturing massive herds of enormous ponies standing in a field, munching on Ben Franklins…

Exactly one week ago, I was rolling across Utah on Amtrak’s California Zephyr, having boarded in Denver that morning. That night was the only night on my week-long vacation that I didn’t set my alarm clock before falling asleep. We hadn’t paid for the luxury of a sleeper car, so I reclined my “spacious coach seat” as far as it would go and tried to find the most comfortable sleeping position. There was nothing scheduled for the morning, of course… but not surprisingly, I woke up quite a few times before it was time to eat breakfast. Good night Utah, good morning Nevada.

On Thursday night we decided that we would sleep in a little the next morning. At 7:30, just as I was about to roll out of bed, we heard an explosion. If you’ve ever heard a transformer blow, you know the sound I’m talking about. Lovely. That was the second morning in one week that Rachel didn’t get to take a shower. (Hotel showers seem to be as far away from windows as possible.) Good night plush pillow, good morning greasy hair.

I returned home to Virginia late that night — well, early Saturday morning, really. My flight out of San Francisco was delayed, and I didn’t pull into my driveway until 4:52 local time. I was in bed by 5:07. Adrenaline (not coffee!) had kept me awake on the two-hour drive from the airport, so then it was hard to suddenly fall asleep… especially since the birds were already chirping. I needed to leave for a wedding at 10:00, so I set two alarm clocks just in case. Good night pre-dawn glow, good morning three-and-a-half hours of sleep.

I expected to feel exhausted on Saturday, but I stayed alert and energetic all day. Still, it felt good to climb into bed that night for a full night of rest. When my alarm went off eight hours later, my subconscious was apparently still on vacation. Beeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep! I picked up the alarm clock as if it were my little folding travel alarm clock. It was not. I jerked awake as my lamp crashed onto the hardwood floor, swept off the nightstand by my alarm clock’s cord. Good night white cotton sheets, good morning chaos.