What Is a Mum?

One of the good things about moving many times is getting to know lots of places a little more "from the inside." You can get past the official, Chamber of Commerce tourist presentation of a town and get to know the people and what they do every day, their little traditions and unspoken values and stylings.

Without further ado:

Have you ever seen a corsage so big, the petite little high school girl has to hang it on straps around her neck while she wears it to school all day? Maybe this corsage has a back piece to help hold it on/balance the weight? In fact, maybe her homecoming date has to carry it for part of the school day to help take the load off? And perhaps her date's mom or sister made it for her after consulting about her interests and activities?

I wanted to attach a few articles about a Texas tradition which was totally new to me when we moved here first -- the tradition of the Homecoming Mum. It's a purely Texas Thing that has spilled over into some parts of border states Oklahoma and Louisiana.

When you first encounter Homecoming Mums in Kroger or Michaels, you can't imagine what you are looking at. What on earth is that gaudy wall of fake flowers, teddy bears, and metallic streamers for? Then someone explains...but you still feel a little incredulous. Would high school girls really wear that? (And Texas natives, likewise, are incredulous that you don't know about Homecoming Mums.)

However, before you read the below articles and say, "My hometown doesn't do anything crazy like that" -- a word of caution. This coming summer will be my 25th move in 44 years (30th move, if you count the 3-6 month stints), and I promise you that your hometown DOES do at least one crazy thing -- or have at least one crazy point of view -- or at least one very odd but understood-among-the-locals tradition. You just don't see it because you grew up there.

And because your hometown isn't in Texas, it isn't both BIG and crazy.

12 Things Non-Texans Need to Know about Homecoming Mums

This article includes a picture of an original midcentury mum:
Homecoming Mums: A Texas Tradition

Finally: some pics of really over-the-top ones: Massive Mums

"The Georgia O'Keefe of Photography"

I'm an adult transplant to the West and have become endeared to its people and its wide open spaces. Looking forward to this exhibit in Fort Worth and hoping I can attend.

Laura Wilson and the American West

Tex Mex Recs

David loves Tex Mex so we have been getting to know a few in our town.

Cafe del Rio in Allen, off  95 at Main/McDermott street -- new in town since July. David and I waited only 10 minutes for seat on the patio at about 6 pm on a Saturday night, delicious food came out hot and speedily, yummy salsas, and a delicious "3-Gs Margarita."

Live music was a band playing Eagles and America-type covers -- guy had a good voice and sound, especially given the fact that he had been through the desert on a horse with no name. Family or date friendly, but music may be loud on patio if you are there to try and catch up with old friends or have an intimate conversation. Inside restaurant was clean and cute 50's-diner, Mexican kitsch look, sort of a less-cluttered Chuy's feel. There was even a little store to buy somberos and tchochkes. (Remember this if you find yourself in need of a neon red sombero. You can thank me later.) Free ice cream.

Downsides: you can hear 75 on the patio and the hostesses that night were helpful but lacked a bit of the old  joie de v. as Bertie Wooster might remark. That's it.

Jalapenos in Allen, on East McDermott on the northwest corner of Greenville and McDermott. A family run, non chain Tex Mex -- we thought everything we ordered was yummy.

The server was smiling and attentive with my Meg-Ryan-From-Harry-Met-Sally complicated orderers -- kids wanting to hold the tomatoes, beans on the side, extra sour cream, multiple soda refills. (I want to warn "First World Problem Alert" when we enter a restaurant!)

Food was good! Remodeling, so expected a bit of the topsy-turvy visually when were were there this summer. This place has a lot of loyal, longstanding customers, and has that comfy, local-yokel feel. We liked it.

An Organic Family Farm Near You, North Texans

A family at Will's school, Coram Deo Academy in Collin County, recently opened an organic farm. They supply locals with organic produce and honey -- including the "Harvest" farm-to-table restaurant in McKinney. This is truly a sweet family who has found a way to work hard doing what they love together.

Check out the link and have a visit some time! It's right in Celina -- so not far away from north Dallas towns. You can also see their facebook page -- with some really gorgeous photos.

Cartermere Farms

Local Giving Opportunity

Dear friends,

I think most of the readers of this blog are out of state family and friends, but for those of you who may be reading and are local to North Texas:

My son's Christian school (affordable classical education, link below) is raising money to help fund their baseball program. Will has enjoyed being on this team, and we are impressed by the coach's determination not only to build athletic skills but to build character and leadership in these young men. (And Will has also learned a lot about baseball.)

If you are interested in contributing $20 to help this team's program, I can send you a coupon book that has some useful coupons for places like Dickeys at 121/Custer, Sport Clips at 121/Custer, Denny's in McKinney, Gatti Town in Frisco, The Purple Cow (all locations), and more.

A little bit goes a long way with a small program like ours.

If you are interested, e-mail me at annechamb@yahoo.com.

Link to Coram DeoAcademy

Thank you! Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Anne

"Shook Foil:" Texas in July

It is another summer in Texas. The world is now pounded out and skinnied to inches and feet and thin miles of brown grass and dirt and streaks of green. The corn is green-turning-brown. Wide roads, under construction, flat and empty, lay a straight course north and south through fields and brick strip malls through places named Grapevine, Frisco, Allen. The white crosses of churches mark east and west, the corners of counties and blocks of tan houses, farm roads and fields, God's claim upon this wide land. First Baptist, Community, Custer Methodist, Crossroads, Redeemer.

The hard brightness shimmers flatly, the sun owns us, laying down heavy upon our neck and back. The virtual clouds drift and hint of a reprieve but don't deliver -- astral mirages -- and the creek struggles past harboring a few hardy trees and animals, who lay very still. They are alive in the stillest of ways. In Texas the plants and animals and people hibernate in summer

But the cows somehow multiply in this rugged terrain in the fields, and their calves suck and rest in the shade of trees and by shallow pools rimmed in dry dirt. These are fields where tall, ageless men with lined faces still drive big American trucks and still wear cowboy boots and hats and still wear denim even on hot days. Human Sherman tanks, moving across yellow fields armored against the sun's bright artillery.

Only the donkeys are irrepressible -- they horse around like it is spring.

The chilled mall is full of strollers and toddlers and moms in shorts and sandals, suddenly cold and needing sweaters. The restaurants specialize in sweet tea and limeade. They know what we want.

The sun seems intent on doing a good hard, bright cleaning, purging humans and terrain of the seeds of luxury and moisture -- but in a slow, patient, unhurried way. There is time, he'll be here for months.

It is a good, hot, clean place to be in July

Kid Lit: Lunch Table Poem, Spring in Texas Poem

An Experiment Degustatory

Ogden Nash

A gourmet challenged me to eat

A tiny bit of rattlesnake meat,

Remarking, "Don't look so horror stricken.

You'll find it tastes a lot like chicken."

It did.

Now chicken I cannot eat,

Because it tastes like rattlesnake meat.

***

The wind is so strong and relentless in North Texas in the Spring. We shout when we are out on the soccer field even if we are close by one another. We wear sweatshirts with hoods and get sunburn and windburn at baseball practice. Our skirts whoosh up in the parking lot after church. Our patio umbrella gets knocked down and our bird feeder does, too. Our wind is the second stanza kind of wind.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

the wind is passing by.

Coming To America...from China

"The sun is riz,
The sun is set,
And AGAIN we iz
In Texas yet."

The "Big D" VS The "Pearl of the Orient"
David was active consulting, interviewing, and networking in the few months in between China and his new PerotSystems job. (Hard to imagine David as inactive, eh?) He did enjoy having lots of "special times" with the kids and reading Proverbs to them in the evenings...a new tradition that he has kept up this practice now that he is back at work. After 2 months on the East Coast, we headed down to Texas via Ohio and Missouri (beautiful state). Now here we are in Dallas.

Both Shanghai and Dallas are big cities, with lots of people and religious influences. But Texas seems to juxtapose itself in almost every way to China, or at least the two cities do: geographically, architecturally, culturally, religiously. We've gone from CCTV (Communist Party Television) in Chinese (Ni hao ma?) to the Telemundo! Channel (Hola! So fun to say "TELEMUNDO" with gusto! Maybe David is tired of hearing me do that.)

Dallas is a big, prosperous, sprawling, long-legged stretch-on-a-porch under a generous clear blue sky. There are lots of American-made trucks, well-kept ladies with good hair and painted toenails, and churches on every corner in this big city where everyone says the word "blessed" and the kid with 8 piercings says, "Yes, ma'am." Wide sidewalks and roads and office buildings stick out of the flat plain; manicured, grassy patches sit on the laps of big brick houses in perfect grids of neighborhoods filled with stay-at-home moms and kids on scooters. The houses are big, the hair is good, the heels are high, the diamonds are sparkling. Malls abound and include play areas...it's all sort of like a (benevolent) Truman Show or a hip 1950's. The furnished homes we visit as we house hunt are landscaped, cared-for, and full of portraits of family. It all may sound annoying to some cynics but you know, it is not annoying. Stereotypes aside, it is just seems easy, friendly, cheerful, and markedly UNcynical here.

While it was sad to leave that colorful, teeming, silk-and-dirt, concrete-and-porcelain city of Shanghai, every time we move to a new place, I find out again that the human heart in general is big enough to love a variety of places...Up to and including a crowded, noodle-eating, pressing, colorful, idol-filled Asian city and a big, wide, suburban, taco-eating, Bible Belt city.

In an amusing cultural note, in a store the other day and the clerk looked at my drivers license (still VA) and chuckled and said, "I knew you weren't from around here! Your jewelry is so discreet."

Things I Love about Being Back:
* Driving myself around (no taxis!) up high in my Honda Pilot with no cigarette smoke. Honda-mundo!
* Clean air! Breathe deeply! Ahhh! (You know it is bad in China when our expat friend calls from NYC and exclaims over the "lovely fresh air "after Beijing)
* Seeing all of our dear family, and touching base with some very special friends
* Yards and green spaces and playgrounds, oh my!
* Not having to "defend" my place in line
* Drive-thru Starbucks. Alrighty then!

Family update follows:

Local Color:
As we are eating our Easter cake, David says wryly, "Will, I am wondering why you eat your cake so much faster than you eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

Will: "I get caught up with the talkin'. But cake is my favorite food, and, when I eat IT, I don't want to miss a single minute!"

Ben: "Did you notice how fast I am cleanin' up?" [Ben is the one who has struggled the most with cheerful and quick obedience in clean up time.]
Anne: "Oh yes, Ben, I did, and I am so pleased."
Ben: "I guess Jesus really changed my heart!"

Ben went on a special "guys time" with David and Will one Saturday. They returned and Ben came rushing in: "Guess what, mommy? Daddy showed us the hospital where I came out of the belly!" Sounds kind of like Jonah. (And goodness knows I felt like a whale with the 9-plus pound Ben inside me.)

Sarah is stroking my hair as we sit on the couch. A gentle, sweet mother-daughter moment. Then Sarah says softly, "Mind if I pull out these white hairs?"

Leading Cultural Indicators: Bedside Treasures
From time to time it is interested to examine one aspect of the minutiae of our lives to learn something about the big picture of "who we are." So I decided I would look at the bedside table next to each kid's bed to learn what I could about them. We have been quite transient the last few months, and are now in a temporary apartment, and so the little treasures, found and brought, that make it from place to place are usually quite special to the owner.

WILL: Lots of great stuff! ("Alright!" as Will would say. Will talks like Steve Irwin with an American accent. "How was your day, Will?" "It was GREAT, mom!" I keep expecting him to say "Crikey!") Six acorn caps, 2 silver pop gun pistols, Adventure Bible, Leap Pad with headphones, "Visual History" of space and astronauts, slip of paper with dad and mom's cell phone numbers, a Choose Your Own Adventure book, Treasure Island novel, chapstick. I surmise that this abundance reflects Will's interests -- everything! Will is a reader, a learner, a saver, a collector. He is the kind of kid who likes to fill his pockets with cool rocks he finds (and I find later in the laundry) and to save his pencils until they are nubbins. He is also a communicator, and he regales me with facts, interesting tidbits, and statistics. He likes "stuff and clutter," whether collections of things or collections of information.

BEN: Ben's bedside table is empty. His bed, though, is full of animals and old, special blankets, scattered in abandon. The bed gets "made" by pulling the blankets up in the morning right over the top of all the lumps and bumps (so the animals "stay warm" all day). He has Giant Thumper, Small Thumper, Christmas Darth Vader Dog, Benjamin Bear, Elephant Blanke [blanket], and Choo-Choo Blanke. These friends and associates corporately have gone with him all the way around the world and from house to house and really limit the amount of clothes I can fit it his suitcase! But with all the transitions it has been worth it. (Once Darth Vader Dog got left in Hong Kong, and It Was A Dark Time for Ben. The hotel found it in the laundry, and had it shipped back to us in Shanghai.) This all reflects Ben's personality and his focus on attachments and intimacy. He falls in easily and effortlessly with his peers in group settings; he treasures friendship and loyalty...and still loves to cuddle.

SARAH: Sarah's bedside table is clean and spartan. Her Children's Story Bible is laid neatly by her bed and perfectly squared off with the edge of the table! In her bed is one animal, Hannah the Pink Elephant. Sarah has asked me to keep her other stuffed animals packed, especially the small ones like Wombat, so that they are not left behind "on accident" when we move into our house. Eight cents also have been laid neatly on the bedside table. Sarah is a cautious, careful girl. She likes to have a plan and manage her things, and she is an excellent cleaner. She doesn't like surprises. She loves her animals and she cherishes her picture Bible.

So...What's on your bedside tables? What does it tell you about yourself, or your spouse and kids?

CURRENT: ...modes of employ for the Chamberlin boys, 7 and 6, include basketball at the local playground, digging up fire ant nests, and bombarding local 13-year-old girls with the "Incredibles" Super Soaker water gun from our second story apartment patio...an excellent ambush site. This latter activity is particularly rewarding: apparently teenage girls are the perfect targets as they "scream a lot even when we don't get them with the water" says Ben, in a mystified but satisfied way. Sarah, 4, is busy coloring with sidewalk chalk and working with her new bead kit. She has discovered the fully-American and springtime joy of the 7-11 Slurpee (nod to Nonna), and she is vigorously practicing her basketball dribbling and is quite good.