For the last week or so, I get nervous every day around 4 pm. Not nervous, exactly. Just…tightly wound. Or tense. Like all my cells are standing on their tippytoes. My stomach aches, then relaxes, then aches again. I can’t concentrate on much. It’s not bad, really. Just mildly inconvenient.

Tuesday night we worked the scene changes. There are no musical interludes so we have mere seconds to change and get back on stage. It’s crazy fast. And dark. After I ran face first into another actor’s shoulder, we ordered/numbered our exits. And I put glow tape on the back of my black shoes to protect my poor ankles from getting run over by the other wheelchairs. We practiced the transitions over and over and over again. According to the director, we’re never fast enough. (Pant-pant-pant.)

My older daughter has joined the backstage crew. Of all my children, she is the least theatrically-inclined. She’d rather observe and listen than draw attention to herself. But then it occurred to me that those very traits are perfect for behind-the-scenes stuff! It took a little persuading to get her on board. I explained all the reasons she might enjoy stage handing and finished off my wheedling speech with, “I won’t make you, but I think you should try it. If you don’t like it, you’ll never have to do it again. And you’ll learn so much from the experience! Why not try something new?”

She’s loving it. We might argue all day, but come evening, she’s a silent Angel of Organization. Between taking phone calls from the stage manager/sound tech operator, ordering actors into places, opening the curtain, pulling the scrim, making beds, and setting out the pill bottles and hats, she finds time to check up on me and rub my shoulders.

Starting tonight—deep breath—the show runs for two weekends: March 12-14 and March 19-21 at 8 pm, and Sundays March 15 and 22 at 3 pm. You can call the box office to purchase tickets, or just show up and buy them at the door.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (3.12.12), for all we know, and breakfast pizza.

On Monday, Luna disappeared. When she was still gone the next morning, I got a bad feeling. The cats are always underfoot.

“Go look along the road in the ditches,” I told my younger daughter. Periodically, she’d walk outside to call Luna. She asked the neighbors to be on the lookout. The kids checked the basement and searched the barn.

Right before supper, the younger children set off on yet another road search. Just as I was setting the bowl of pasta on the table, I heard loud crying and ran outside. There was Luna, very dead, in my (also very dead) flower garden.

“She’s frozen,” my son sobbed. ‘She was in the neighbor’s driveway and she’s frozen!”

How traumatic to find your pet dead by the side of the road and then to carry her home in your bare hands. The poor boy. (Mercifully, there were no bloody injuries, and no one witnessed the accident.)

Supper grew cold on the table while I went from room to room cuddling with each tearful child and my husband put Luna in a box. The children didn’t want supper and only picked at their food. My younger son popped up from his chair to make a sign for Luna. Sobbing punctuated everything.

After the meal, I whispered to my husband, “I am so glad I don’t have to be here tonight. Good luck.” And then I added, “You better not watch any Dr. Pol episodes tonight. Animals are always dying in that show. It will set them off.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think we’ll start off the evening by reading Old Yeller, followed up by Sounder, and then we’ll finish off with Where The Red Fern Grows.”

When I returned home, my husband reported that they had buried Luna and then watched a mindless, funny little video. It hadn’t been too bad.

But then at four o’clock this morning, both of the younger children relocated to our bedroom floor—with “I miss Luna” sniffles—where they tossed about and whispered to each other for a couple of hours, at which point I lost my compassion and ordered them back to their room.

This same time, years previous: what will I wish I had done differently?, all by himself, dunging out, and let’s talk.

Since my brother and his wife had their second baby back in January, they have come to visit twice.
My younger brother is the only one in my family who doesn’t live on our Virginia “commune,” so when his family shows up, the weekend turns into an extended family reunion of sorts. For example, People are going over to Mom and Dad’s for soup and sweet rolls? Sure, we’ll come! Or, Does anybody want to come over for Sunday waffles? Yes? EVERYONE?? Alrighty then—it’s a party!

 For this latest weekend visit, my sister-in-law’s mother (who is here from Japan for five weeks of new baby duty) was along for the ride. Saturday night we all got together at my parents’ house for supper (and bacon-wrapped, curried shrimp!) and an evening of singing and holding babies.

The next morning we went to church (my sister-in-law’s mother’s first-ever Mennonite church service). When our family returned home afterward, she and my sister-in-law and brother were already busy in the kitchen frying up three pounds of sausage and chopping up the peppers for the sausage gravy. They had also brought a bunch of fresh strawberries, a whole rotisserie chicken, and juice. I made a quadruple batch of waffles, a berry sauce, and whipped cream. Aside from one measly cup of rotisserie chicken, there were no leftovers. My family knows how to eat. 

And then crash-n-nap. At one point when everyone was spread out over the house sleeping, my mom said, “They say it’s the highest compliment when people come to your house and fall asleep.”

I’m not sure who “they” is, and I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I’ll take it.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (3.10.14), adventuring, now, blondies, and we’re back from seeing the wizard.