Bali Ha'i is calling...

I spent the last weekend with family, which was glorious. The perfect visit, other than it was too short, as they all are. But I spent Saturday evening at a play, then eating pizza with my sister and husband, and I never have enough relaxing time with my little sister. Then Sunday spent the afternoon with my parents, and I don't know where the time went, but it was at least two hours later than we'd planned by the time we were back in the car headed south. Time with family should be measured in days, not hours.

Someone* once said "The play's the thing" and this last weekend that was true. it was the reason for our trip. My favorite nephew Branden was in the Bartlesville High School's production of South Pacific and of course he was marvelous (he really was). And Bali Ha'i has been in my head ever since.

You know, when I think of Branden, I don't think of the tall, lanky fellow who will graduate high school in either "13 days or three weeks" (as he told me turns out his days counted were only the school days so three weeks was the answer I was looking for). I think of little Branden, maybe three or four years old, running, climbing curtains, making noise (LOTS of noise)... the kid cleaned up real nice, with a sly wit (that I so appreciate), who teases with the best of 'em in the family. And my family IS a family of teasers. And he'd point out, right quick, that he's also my least favorite nephew. I suppose that's true, since he's the only nephew, but my story is that he's my favorite nephew and I'm sticking to it.

My dad was wound up after the play, started telling WW2 memories, most I'd never heard. Said that to my sister the next morning and she boggled "you'd never heard those?!?" and untactfully pointed out that Dad wasn't wound up, he was baked, as in three sheets to the wind, as in plastered, as in (fill in your favorite expression here). I had asked her if he had gotten that hard to understand or if it was my ears, she wouldn't speak to my ears, but put the fourth or so brandy as the reason for the mumbling. Duh. I didn't know. Live and learn.

Anyway, it was a great trip, other than being sore from the drive up and back. I had told daughter Lisa that I would only have a third of the backseat, that the dog would demand the other two-thirds and she just looked at me skeptical like she does. But 'tis true, Pepper likes to sit in the middle and the middle he will take, plus all the room on the other side of the middle, and will be disgruntled because I'm taking up a portion of HIS territory. And so it was.

The funniest bit was how Pepper would lay down, his rear end towards me, but with this back legs all crunched under his belly and his butt in the air. Then he'd make these great big sighs to show everybody how crunched he was and how I needed to find somewhere else to be. It would have been more effective if his nose was closer to the side door (usually there was a foot or more between nose and end of the seat) but he did make the point he was suffering. At one point he'd wanted to look out my window and I encouraged him to go ahead and look and somehow he got between my back and the seat and then went to sleep. Back legs all stretched out, happy happy dog. He's a pip.

It will probably be me alone going to Branden's graduation, it's Mike's weekend to work and Lisa says she needs every minute she can find in the office because of her FLDS cases. I'll miss them in the car, even Pepper, but I'll enjoy all the room!!

* Okay so I know exactly who said "the play's the thing," it was Hamlet planning to have King Claudius give himself away for the murder of Hamlet's father. I guess, actually, Shakespeare wrote it, but he had Hamlet say it. I said "someone" not because I didn't know but because "someone" just scanned better in the paragraph.

Angel Food Memories

(first published on CrossLeft January 31, 2008)

I made an angel food cake this morning, the diabetic's favorite because there is so little fat in it. Yes, I'm diabetic, one who always remembers and never forgets: SALSA is a free food. Bake a few low-fat tortillas in a low oven for a while, break them into chip-size pieces and eat with salsa, the free food, a snack even my endocrinologist would smile at.

But it's the angel food cake I made this morning, my husband goes in to work late today and he wanted a good snack. He's not diabetic but he won't ever turn down a piece or three of angel food cake. I baked it in one of those new plastic silicone pans, and it looks like the silicone didn't melt into the cake so I reckon it's a success. Mike (the hubster) was moaning because I said it wasn't going to come out of the pan until it was cool, and uh I was a little eager, too, so we devised a plan. We'd eat off the top crust while it was hot, then level off the cake even with the top of the pan, then call it a brand new dessert for supper. We figured the kid would not figure out what all she had missed.

But while we're standing there, picking off the top crust of this cake, and you know the top crusty part is the best part, we both remembered a cold afternoon from years ago. We'd gone up to Idabel (Oklahoma) to clean out Aunt Clara's and Aunt Sarah's gutters for the winter. These two great-aunts lived across the street from each other and our coming to clean out their gutters wasn't as altruistic as it sounds... mostly their gutters were clogged with pecans from their pecan trees.

So we gathered the easy pecans to gather (the ones in the gutters) and picked up a few, then Aunt Clara came out with a grocery bag full of pecans, saying she remembered we liked them (who doesn't??) and had just picked up a few for us. A few being the full brown grocery bag full. And she said Aunt Johnnie said for us to carry her over to Johnnie's because Sarah was already over there.

Now, out of all my grandmother's sisters, and she had a LOT of sisters, Aunt Johnnie was my favorite cook. Nothing diabetic-friendly about her cooking, which was surely why it was so awfully good. Her 'nanner pudding was the best in the world, I swear it was. So no problem, running over there. We trundled Aunt Clara into the (pecan filled) car right quick, and drove the few blocks to Aunt Johnnie's house. And when we got there, we could smell something sweet and good as we walked up the drive.

And yes! Aunt Johnnie had made an angel food cake... and her and Aunt Sarah were standing, pulling pieces off the hot cake, buttering them, and eating. So nothing else to do but help them devour this cake, and I had NEVER buttered angel food cake, and probably never would again, but there, that cold afternoon, with muscles just starting to ache from the unaccustomed labor, nothing would ever taste so good.

The memories are especially sweet, all my many great-aunts are with my grandmother in sister-sister heaven now, but to be there with those three, in my favorite kitchen of them all, pinching big chunks of angel food cake right out of the tube pan and then slathering butter on the cake, it is a memory picture to hold close to my heart. And the three of them talking, all at the same time, telling us and each other of family members not there. When that sweet cake was down to maybe an inch from the bottom of the pan (or top of the cake, depending on how you look at it), Aunt Johnnie declared it cool enough to take out of the pan, and then cut that very short ring of cake into five equal pieces, And we each ate our final wedge with our fingers and put the pan into the kitchen sink.

I wish I could somehow make a parable out of this, but that is beyond my skill, it's barely even a story. It's a slice of memory, no, not a slice, it's a big pinched off piece of sweet memory. One that on this cool winter day I share with you. What's your sweetest memory of people, places and times gone by? It's likely to be a picture, like this one of mine, that you have to make a word picture to share it. Do make your word picture and share it, if not here then with your family. Nobody else has it, it's yours alone until you share. And they are worth sharing, I do believe this.

So sit and think, remember back, let a favorite memory warm you today.

Tales from the Front: Part Duex (the hearsay edition)

(also posted on CrossLeft )

It hasn't been me out of town, disconnected, out of pocket this time... but the end result has been almost the same. I've been half here the last few weeks, but oh! the stories I can tell!!

A few weeks ago, the Texas Bar Association put out a plea for anyone who could pick up a pro bono case or three to please consider representing either children (as guardian ad litem) removed from the Fundamental Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) ranch in west Texas, or to represent one of the mothers trying to get back their children from the state protective custody. My own personal live-in lawyer (daughter Lisa) ended up going out there to represent a few of the mothers.

By going "out there" I do mean Out There. You can look it up on the map, but trust me, while it's not out in the middle of nowhere, you CAN see it from there. Let's just say I didn't worry about her enjoying the night life too much on this trip. And she ended up with two clients, both women close to thirty (one on either side of it) and both women worried sick about their children who had never been away from home before.

The women were still quite shaken by the raid, and this was several days later. They said the Child Protective Services (CPS) raid happened in the middle of the night, and came with an armed tank and complete armed SWAT team. And even though they did everything asked of them, the SWAT team kept their guns pointed at the mothers and children the entire time. An experience which would shake up the most jaded of people, I'd think, but for these so sheltered women and children, it was that much more terrifying. "They spoke so loudly" one woman explained, that scared her children as much as anything, these children who had never had a voice so much as raised towards them.

Now the flip side is that CPS and law enforcement surely remembered the situation at Waco, and if I was making such decisions on what to bring with me, I wouldn't have left that tank at home. And certainly I understand why the SWAT team people never let their guard down or showed any trust in the people they were dealing with this time. Sure, it was a way different group of people, but those awful memories of the Branch Davidian tragedy kept all the SWAT guns trained on the people, just in case.

The day after Lisa met with her clients, the hearing started. Now with at least 320 children/parents needing a legal decision on where the children would live in the short-term, I can see why a half-day bench hearing for each of them wasn't practical. However, what happened in the hearing lumping all of them into one, that wasn't justice.

Lisa told us about the first piece of evidence introduced. By law, all the lawyers (both those representing mothers and all the guardian ad litems) needed to see and agree to each piece of evidence introduced. And yet, count them, remember, there are more than 500 legal advocates there trying to do their best for their clients. So the judge called a 10 minute recess and told all the lawyers to come up to see this first piece of evidence right quick. And what was that like? Lisa said one word. Zoo.

After that, the rule for evidence changed. Lawyers were to come up to see the evidence offered at the end of the day and write out their objections if they indeed objected to that piece of evidence. Realistically this made even less sense than the recess to crowd up and try to see, for the written objections wouldn't be seen or ruled on by the judge until, at earliest, the next morning, with at least six hours of hearing having happened in the meantime.

I don't know how this should have been done. It's easy for me to say "well, that didn't work" now, but how DO you hold a quick 300+ hearings, with kids in the yard waiting to know where they were to sleep the next night? I'm sure appeals will be lodged and won because of the way this hearing was held, but I can't think of any way to expidite these hearings without having somebody's rights trampled. I just wish it weren't these children's rights being tossed away like this time.

Meanwhile my daughter's clients are calling her daily, after all this is about their children and their fears for their children, and I know if it were me I'd be calling more than once a day. I would be the one they'd nickname "crazymom."

At any rate, she's glad she got the chance to help out and represent these mothers, she (and I) have serious questions about the legality of the raid to begin with, and I don't think these children have been treated right, and these mothers are getting not even close to as much consideration as the dogs at the SPCA. Uhhh... most of that opinion there is just mine. Lisa might agree but she won't say right now, not as long as she has clients living in this situation. But she IS really glad for the opportunity, no matter how much it all frustrates her. You know the law, you know how things should be, and what should be your legal recourse when things aren't as they should be, and this situation is so far out of normal experience, it's a real education for everybody involved.

Even for mothers of those involved. Even just hearing the bits and pieces she feels like she can tell me. Even being the one who waits for her call after she meets with her client, because if I don't hear from her by midnight I told her I'd be calling the Texas Rangers to go find her. It's amazing how that girl can roll her eyes long distance. But hey, what are mothers for?

Who am I and what do I want?

(first posted on CrossLeft on Sun, 01/20/2008 - 23:43)

Honestly? I don't really know who I am and I discover day by day yet another thing I really really want. Here's a written semi-bio for a start:

Janet Detter Margul is a retired journalist living in north central Texas with pharmacist husband, attorney daughter, three unemployed cats and one dog who thinks he is a cat. She is always being surprised at what she remembers that those around her don't, usually because they weren't born when that happened. She is not old, she insists, explaining that she's young and foolish with a half century of experience at it.

She's always had a very high interest in political matters, and has clocked many hours doing the most mundane (but important!) tasks of campaign work. She started her political activism as a Republican (they supported the ERA) and isn't real sure when things changed, but found herself unable, ethically, to go where the party was leading.

She found a lot of support for her political views within her Episcopal parish family, and quickly decided the liberal/progressive label fit best. Her religious beliefs have always influenced her political actions, enough so that knowing what was the right thing to do and explaining it was often answered with a "just take it on faith, it's one of those unseen things."

She's recently found herself among the "unchurched," as her parish was one of those that chose to break away from the Episcopal Church of the USA. As of today, there is not an Episcopalian church in her wee village of almost 300,000 people, which irritates and grieves her at least once a week, usually on Sunday. She's sure there's a blog in there somewhere, as soon as she gets a better handle on the mourning for the parish that meant so much.

Thus ends the reading of the already written.

I named this blog "Faith of our Grandmothers" because when I put "faith of our fathers" it just didn't feel accurate. In my family, and I think in most families, at least in the south, the culture is passed through our mothers and our grandmothers. I am one of the extremely blessed to have had both my grandmothers living well through my college years, my daughter had years to get to know them both. I miss both of them now, in widely different ways.

I was closest to my mother's mother (matriarchal society, told ya) I miss her daily and talk to her daily, on my lucky days I can hear her answer back. And usually that answer is "Now Janet, you're better than that." And usually I am not better than whatever I was whining to her about, she always saw me as better than I was, but, just like always, I resolve to try to BE better, because my grandmother always believes me to be so.

There will be more grandmother stories, more family stories, because I have a rich heritage of funny stories. For now I'll call me introduced enough and promise more insights in the days to come. It's an honor to be a featured blogger for CrossLeft, because CrossLeft is like a group tailor-made just for me.