A Dirty Rug, Our Lady of Fatima, and Direct Exposure to Human Tragedy

 

1.) Dirty Rug

So I mopped the bathroom floor this week. I took the bathroom mat (an older object that we inherited when we moved into a past rental house) out to the front porch to shake it out. I caught sight of the kiddie pool, filled with soapy water (we let the kids take "bubble baths" outside) and thought "Eh...why not. It might be a good idea to give it a quick wash", so I tossed it in and started stomping on it. 

Well. On one hand, it did need to be washed, but on the other hand, the sheer amount of dirt and other nastiness that came out of the thing was ridiculous. 

This was clear before I put the rug in. 

There were tons of little bits of the rubber backing in the bottom of the pool too, which makes me think I probably just need to suck it up and buy a new one. Maybe. 

I'm pretty cheap. 

2.) Fatima

We have a tradition of celebrating feast days that have special meaning to our family. Each of our kids gets a "name day", based on a saint that shares either their first or middle names. We celebrate by talking about that saint, maybe doing a craft (depends on what we have going on...this doesn't always happen), having something for dinner that everybody likes, and by having a dessert of the name day kid's choosing. 

The feast of Our Lady of Fatima is one of those days for our family. 

We celebrated first by watching the CCC cartoon video on the apparition on Formed. I'm not going to lie, that video freaked me out as a kid. I had a phobia of being alone because I was afraid the Virgin Mary would pop out of nowhere, and I did NOT want some weirdo mayor threatening to boil me alive in oil, thank you very much. 

My kids seem to do ok with it though, and the other movies on it aren't age appropriate for where my kids are at (I'll just say it, they're all live action and even scarier. The events around that apparition are seriously trippy and messed up (seriously, a mayor threatening to boil kids alive?! In what universe did that guy live?!)). 

We also attempted a craft that involved trying to make a button spinner type "spinning sun" toy out of circles cut from a paper plate and craft string. The craft was ultimately a disaster.  It didn't work right at all- you really need to make the circle out of something heavier than thin paper plate. 

We had homemade pizza for dinner, and the name day kid picked out watermelon sorbet as dessert. All in all, I think it was a success. 

3.) Human Tragedy 

Ok, so I usually steer clear of anything politically controversial in quick takes, but that sort of becomes impossible to do when something happens literally in your front yard. 

The other day, I was looking out the front door when I saw a Border Patrol van parked in our driveway. We live right across the street from the train tracks (and a two hour's drive from the border), and it's not super uncommon to see their cars patrolling our road. This time seemed different though. 

The van stayed in the driveway for a second, then pulled out and parked by the tracks. The agent waited for the train to finish going by, and then got out of the van and took off across the tracks to the field behind, talking excitedly into a walkie-talkie as she did so. 

We found out via a message from a local farmer, and later from a local news story, that a train car full of people here illegally were apprehended and one of them got away and hid in the field. There were agents surrounding that field, and trucks patrolling the roads surrounding it, for hours. I don't know if they found the guy-- I hope that they did. Dying of heat exhaustion and dehydration is a real danger out here (luckily it was a relatively mild day). 

Look, when you hear about people crossing the border, it's real people. They, and the communities they're coming into, are really and actually affected. We've heard of people being found dead from dehydration, being hit by trains (there's a common superstition that it's safer to sleep on train tracks if you have to sleep outside because snakes won't cross them), or being murdered by the cartels out here (the cartels are the ones who control the human trafficking operations that bring people in. Often, they force them to carry drugs as part of their 'payment'). We know a farmer that's found bodies in his fields with bullet holes. 

There's also people we know, locals, who have been robbed and physically threatened at knife point by people passing through (people, even normally good people, do desperate things when put in a desperate situation), and I've personally witnessed something I'm pretty sure was a drug drop on the road in front of our house. Crime follows desperation, and these people have truly been backed into a corner. We're actually thankful that the Border Patrol regularly patrols our road-- it makes us feel a lot safer. 

I don't really care what your politics are or who you voted for. The plain and simple truth is that until there's a way for people to easily come in legally to work and live, they are going to continue to be vulnerable to situations like this. I haven't even touched on the stories we've heard- and seen!- on their living conditions or employment situations. Landlords and bosses don't treat you like people when they can get away with treating you like less- which they can when you're not in a position where you can appeal to the authorities. It's significantly cheaper to overcrowd and underpay.

And no politician, Republican or Democrat, has done (or plans to do, so far as I know) a single thing to make real, concrete immigration reform, reform that will actually give these people legal protections and a path forward, a reality. 

That includes the current administration. Rhetoric means absolutely nothing when it's not backed up by action. If anything, it makes the situation worse. 

4.) Temporary Home school 

Little Boy's school dismissed his class for three days so that they could use his classroom for standardized testing. Thanks to the wonderful world of Covid in a bureaucratic system, the testing had to be done in person but also social distanced. So they had to use all the classrooms in the building to have enough space for that. 

We were given a packet of schoolwork for each of the three days he was out that he had to complete, and then he was just home-- no Zoom calls or virtual anything. All we had to do were the worksheets sent home

And it was actually really nice. We had time to visit the kids' cousins, go to the park, and visit the library. The kids actually got to play together too-- I found that it was MUCH easier to keep the TV off with both kids home. 

I'm thankful, sincerely thankful, that we were able to put Little Boy in school this year. I was so morning sick for the first half of the year that there was no way that I would have been able to give him any sort of structure or instruction, both things that he's shown pretty clearly he needs now. And he's flourished in a classroom environment and loves his teacher.

But there's also no denying that we've made some sacrifices by making that choice. It was nice to get some of that back for a little while. 

5.) Pre-Natal Woes 

I am officially in the stage of pregnancy where I'm having weekly pre-natal appointments and several contractions a day. The contractions are getting strong and frequent enough, though they obviously haven't stayed that way for any length of time, that I now have hospital/grandma's house "go-bags" for me and the kids packed and in the car so we can get up and go if at any point things get serious. 

But, to be realistic, I know it's pretty much just going to be the next couple weeks living in moderate suspense, and then maybe a week or two of HEAVY suspense, before anything happens. I'm just hoping the nesting instinct kicks in soon and I can get off the couch and get some work done. 

6.) Journal Bible

My birthday happened recently (only two years away from thirty!), and I got one of those note taking Bibles from Ave Maria Press with some of my birthday money. 

I had this sort of idea in my head that I might get into Bible journaling. I'm a fairly artsy person, and the type who highlighted text and wrote notes in the margins of her textbooks in college, so I figured a Bible I could do that in would be a good fit. 

What I didn't realize was that now that I'm out of college and no longer dropping $200 on books regularly, making a conscious decision to write and draw in a $60 book is surprisingly hard to do. I finally decided to do a modest little doodle and add some washi tape to the edge of a page, but only after staring at the thing for a good half hour, wondering if I dared. 

So...it remains to be seen if this is actually going to become a regular thing. I've been trying to get into Lectio Divina (I still sporadically do a 10 min meditation with a daily Bible verse on the Hallow app), and I know I concentrate better when I can write or draw. I just hope that I can get over my fear of messing the book up. 

7.) Possible Hiatus 

As I'm sure you've noticed, I've been late and inconsistent lately. 

Part of this is due to the fact that we've got a huge, impending life change bearing down on us in the form of a new baby (no matter how many kids you have, a new baby is a big deal), and part of it is due to the fact that I've got one or two "serious" posts that I've been trying to figure out how to start, but am intimidated as heck by. It's sad, but that generally means I become a chicken and struggle to make myself actually write much of anything. If I actually manage to finish a post like that, I'm generally pretty stinkin' proud of myself. 

But anyway, due to the first reason I've been inconsistent, I will probably need to stop writing all together for a bit in the near-ish future. I'll try and do a short post just post the birth, but if I go AWOL for a long while on quick takes, but publish one or two "serious" posts before stopping for a couple months all together, hopefully you have some idea why. 

I also have some ideas about adding a YouTube or podcast component of some sort. That seems to be the new version of blogging. I've always preferred something I can skim to see if it's worth my time rather than something I have to listen to for a quarter hour before I know if it's worth my time, but I'm realizing that most people seem to prefer listening. So when I do come back, there might be some changes (and related-- if anyone here does a podcast or video component to their work I NEED ALL THE TIPS. It's not what I'm naturally drawn to, and I could use some help).  

See the rest of this week's takes here.