Memorial Day Memories

We did our annual pilgrimage to Philadelphia this weekend, both for sightseeing and Bud's kung fu tournament.  But it wasn't our usual trip--we didn't go to Ben Franklin's print shop or even the Visitor's Center.  And we never go to the Liberty Bell because the lines are too long.

Upon arrival, we did go to our favorite NPS Independence gift shop, which has moved but still has the soap I pick up every year.  Then we headed to our all-time favorite Philly eatery, and one of our favorites anywhere:  City Tavern, the real colonial American restaurant in the historic building run by Taste of History host Chef Walter Staib.  As usual, we loved it--raspberry shrub, sweet potato biscuits, anadama bread, Sally Lunn bread, pepperpot soup, salmagundi platter, chicken pot pie, lobster pot pie, mushroom toast.  YUM!!  And this year, our waitress was an historian and shared extra information about how the lobster pot pie was the most authentic period dish and was even served after the defeat of the Hessians at Trenton!

Better yet, we shared the meal and much of our afternoon with some longtime friends of ours from Philadelphia, whom we don't get to see often.  They met us at City Tavern and then strolled around downtown with us for awhile.  We visited two new-to-us locations--Shane Confectionery and Franklin Fountain, which I'd read about in the recent American Spirit magazine (thanks, Gommie!)  One is an old-fashioned candy store, with shelves of glistening, colored confections and jars of tasty offerings.  We chose chocolates, caramels, cherry sourballs, lychee candies, lavender lollipops, violet "mints," and teaberry gum.  Next door, and owned by the same people, is the old-fashioned soda fountain.  No ordinary historical remake of plain old milkshakes and sundaes, this place has homemade sodas syrups plus real phosphates and citric acids dispensed from droppers--you see the pharmacy connection right away.  We had black raspberry ice cream and then four fancy sodas:  a Ladies' Choice, with peach ice cream in raspberry soda, with cream; a War Admiral, with ginger, milk, and rose-flavorings (my favorite); the Japanese thirst killer, with Orgeat Almond syrup, grape soda, and angostura bitters (Bud and Mama's favorite); and finally, a fizzy Roman Punch, with lemon, orange, grapefruit, and bergamot.  Delicious!!  I know these will become permanent fixtures on our Philly tour.

After saying goodbye to our friends, we headed for a self-guided tour of the US Mint, at Sis's request.  She has been increasingly interested in coins but only seemed mildly interested in how they were made; it didn't help that the factory wasn't in production, it being a holiday and weekend.  Still, she got some official sleeves for her coins and was happy about that.

Then we went to play putt-putt.  Yep, it's becoming a family thing.  This one was the course at Franklin Square, complete with mini-symbols of Philadelphia, including the Liberty Bell, Elfret's Alley, Independence Hall, the Ben Franklin Bridge, various sports teams, the art museum, the LOVE sculpture, and the Chinatown gate.  So cute.  The course itself was pretty predictable, with no moving parts, and VERY crowded.  Still, a nice time.  And we liked riding the carousel, too.

That evening we had Philly cheesesteaks from Tony Luke's, which several people recommended.  I'm not a huge cheesesteak fan, unsurprisingly, but it was a good bite of local color.  We finished the evening with a swim in the hotel pool.

The next day was kung fu competition, Bud' fourth, I believe.  He competed in three forms--staff, broadsword, and tong bei, a kind of hand form (we previously called it "slappy form" because he slaps his legs repeatedly.)  And he won gold in all three!  We were very proud of him, but it was a long day.  He waited almost five hours for his first event, which was supposed to be in the morning, and then it was at the exact same time as his afternoon event.  Literally, as he stepped on to the mat for his hand form, they called him up for his staff form.  He did two forms in five minutes, running in between!  I don't know how he did it, pure adrenaline.  A very exciting five minutes, after a very long wait.  He's broadsword was an hour or so later, icing on the cake at that point.

We all celebrated with dinner at Iron Hill brewery, our traditional post-competition dinner.  (Can you tell we are creatures of habit?)  French fries with garlic-rosemary mayonnaise, mushroom soup, Caesar salad, fish and chips, more French fries, mussels, seafood stew, hamburgers, chicken pot pie with mashed potatoes,  apple crisp, maple pecan bourbon ice cream, and oatmeal cake.  WHEW!  We left well-fortified for the long drive home, choosing to wake up in our own beds the next morning.  We made good time, saw a beautiful sunset over the rest area near the Meadowlands, and were greeted noisily by some happy cats.

Sign of Three

I probably read it in Hands-Free Mama, the idea of a family sign and someone used three taps, one each for "I love you."  (I've read elsewhere of secret phrases--my own family used "love you like a rock!")  And so I suggested it, knowing that pretty soon the hand-holding and cuddles and "I love yous" might wane a bit as we head into the tween/teen years.  And it's catching on, especially with Sis who had given up the hand-holding awhile back.  She likes the 1-2-3 and will do taps or squeezes or pokes.  Tonight, she even came back down the stairs to tap Mama three times.  It's subtle yet significant--a symbol of the bond between the four of us.

Pondering Halloween

The rain held off so that it was a dark but not stormy night.  In fact, it was quite temperate for a New England Halloween and the kids didn't even need jackets or long sleeves as they wandered out into the night.  They trick or treated alone this year, in that they didn't join any neighbor groups but went door to door together as we stood at the curb.  They did all the neighborhood houses--including the three near us that have been dark and candyless for the decade we've lived in Connecticut but are now inhabited by young families and Halloween participants--after first driving to a special chosen few.  Interestingly, few people tonight, or last night at Mama's office Halloween party for kids, recognized Sis's Quidditch robes or Bud's Camp Half-Blood shirt as belonging to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson respectively.  The few who did know, however, were appropriately excited.  Sis and Bud in turn were excited to see a colleague of Mama's in a T.A.R.D.I.S. shirt and Sis proudly told him that she was going to be the Doctor next year, the Tenth Doctor.  He approved.

Of course, their favorite part, both last night and tonight, isn't so much the gathering of candy, which is merely a means to an end, namely the eating of candy.  First, they sort their haul by type, then they engage in the all-important swap whereby one gives all of his Hershey bars in exchange for all of her Skittles and the other gives up all of  her mini-Crunch bars for all of his Whoppers.  It is a family ritual.  So is giving all of the nutty candies--Snickers, Almond Joys, peanut M&Ms, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--to Mama and me.  We let them eat til they'd had their fill tonight and will be generous with the eating of candy for the next few days, until Mama does a candy buy-back program this weekend, another ritual.

I asked the kids about family rituals and traditions, as I was cutting out rounds of Soul Cakes this evening.  The spiced cookies were pretty good, actually, thicker and more tender than shortbread with a lot more spice (plus we used balsamic vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, which we didn't have.)  Anyway, I realized that oftentimes I don't repeat activities like Soul Cakes.  This year it's Soul Cakes (we played the song all afternoon); a few years ago it was roasted pumpkin seeds.  Next year, who knows?  Sis said she liked that we did new things each year as long as we kept some of the same traditions, like the great candy swap and drawing their costume for the year on their trick or treat bags and hanging up "Ghostie" in our tree.  For Thanksgiving, she said, we had to have turkey and gravy but she didn't feel like we had to do the same gratitude activity every year.  Christmas, among many other things, means the sock Advent calendar.  I'm glad we're all on the same page about holidays, with something old and something new.

Today during my (awful) school tour (I wasn't awful; the kids were crazed, as I expected them to be--my own Sis was, in her own words, "hysterically happy" about Halloween and Bud was dancing everywhere), I realized (again) how even a relatively widely celebrated holiday like Halloween can be controversial.  We were talking about fall and its holidays when a girl raised her hand and said, "Halloween is the Devil's birthday.  Christmas is God's birthday."  Gulp.  Of course, both personally and intellectually, I believe this is completely unfounded (see our research on Samhain here) and untrue.  But school tours are no place for theological discussions, especially with eight-year-olds, so I merely said that I understood that some people believe that but that the people who lived in the house in the colonial times wouldn't have believed that and nor would they have celebrated either one.  (No wonder our kids can't wear Halloween costumes to school!)  And then, true to form, I asked Sis and Bud what they thought of that later.  Sis said outright that she didn't believe in the Devil.  So I asked her how she would talk to a friend who said such things (and there are a few who would, as they are not allowed to celebrate Halloween because it's not in the Bible.)  "I have a different religion," she decided.  I told her that sometimes it was hard to disagree with friends, but she raised her hand for a high-five and said, "I'm a strong girl."  We also talked about how you can agree to disagree, how different people can believe different things.  And that belief and truth are not always the same thing, not by a long shot, regardless of how firmly someone (including us) believes something to be true.

On a lighter note, another girl on the tour asked if I would wear my colonial costume that night to trick or treat.  No, I said, these were my work clothes.  And she looked at me incredulously and asked, "This is your job?"  She was so shocked, so earnest, even though I'd already answered the question of how I'd learned all this stuff (years and years in school and then more studying afterwards!)  I do feel lucky to dress up in costumes for my day "job."  And in truth, my colonial outfit does make a great costume, but I leave the trick or treating to the kids.

Tomorrow is All Saints' Day and then All Souls' Day for some, Samhain for others.  And we'll be eating Soul Cakes and candy, singing a song used for both All Souls' and Christmas, planning our rituals and traditions (to express our beliefs, to overburden this wrap-up!) as we get ready for the trio of big winter holidays.  I love this time of year.

Happy Halloween!

Reviving an Old Tradition

On almost every evening that we know I was pregnant, Mama read a story to the kiddos in utero.  Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram.  It was a tender, touching moment in an otherwise very uncomfortable pregnancy.

Then, on the day the kids were born, Mama went upstairs to the NICU to visit Bud, who stayed there most of his first five days on a CPAP, the biggest baby there (we were so grateful).  And the first time Mama visited him, she began to recite the text of the story and he grasped her finger, recognizing her voice.

For two years, Guess How Much I Love You, about the love of a father nutbrown hare for his little nutbrown hare, was the last story we read to them, almost always with Mama doing the reading.  Mama often changed the gender of both the parent and the child back and forth to accommodate our family.  But they slowly started to pay less attention to the story and, hurt, Mama quit reading it.

Tonight, we were looking at baby pictures and talking about their babyhood and I mentioned the book ritual of long ago.  The kids were excited, especially Sis because of the bunnies (do you think that's how the bunny thing got started??), and so we dug up a copy of the story in an anthology and Mama read.

She read it twice.

And it was as tender and touching as seven years ago.

A Peony for Remembrance

"Flower Communion"

What a gathering-the purple
tongues of iris licking out
at spikes of lupine, the orange
crepe skirts of poppies lifting
over buttercup and daisy.

Who can be grim
in the face of such abundance?
There is nothing to compare,
no need for beauty to compete.

The voluptuous rhododendron
and the plain grass
are equally filled with themselves,
equally declare the miracles
of color and form.

This is what community looks like-
this vibrant jostle, stem by stem
declaring the marvelous joining.
This is the face of communion,
the incarnation once more
gracefully resurrected from winter.

Hold these things together
in your sight-purple, crimson,
magenta, blue. You will
be feasting on this long after
the flowers are gone.

--from Blessing the Bread by Rev. Lynn Ungar, DRE, Starr King, CA

Today our UU congregation celebrated the annual Flower Communion started by Norbert Capek, mid-20th century Unitarian minister in Prague who spoke out against fascism and died in a concentration camp.  Our congregation celebrates by each member bringing a flower from home to deposit in communal vases which the children carry in; at the end of service, each person takes home a different flower.  It's a lovely summertime ritual, filling the sanctuary with color and scent.  We brought two roses--a large pink one and a cluster of miniature pink ones.  We came home with what look like mini-cheddar pinks and also a giant, lovely peony.  


But today, we also said goodbye to our minister, Rev. Kathleen McTigue, who has been called to national office in the UUA.  While we were only members of this congregation for half a year, we were touched by her example of spiritual reflection and growth, eloquent and erudite sermons with liberal doses of poetry, strong moral code and sense of social justice, and lighthearted and welcoming manner with those around her.  We will miss her but will keep her words, spirit, and example with us . . . 

Go in peace.  Believe in peace.  Create peace.