Leaf Thief

Maybe you saw me, slipping into your front yard, my eyes wide with wonder, cast longingly upward or scanning the ground.  Maybe you noticed when I plucked a treasure of exquisite color and shape from the guarding tendrils of green grass, or from the gracefully extended fingers of a sentinel oak.  I know what I do is wrong: if everyone followed suit, what would be left to marvel at as green turns gold, sky turns bold, air turns cold? But I am a leaf thief. I cannot help myself. 

I cling with desperation to the glory of autumn, wanting to hold it, to own it, to be the exuberance of magnificent hues splashed brilliantly across the hillside, of trees glowing from within like smoldering embers.  How can I contain myself when yellow comes in a hundred shades, sometimes half a dozen on a single leaf, when red creeps like lace from spiderweb veins to the serrated edges of emerald foliage, when luxuriant piles of orange fire spill across lawns beneath maples.

I collect and amass, and apply every idea to stop the decay: clear contact paper, paste, mod podge, wax paper and enormous books to press flat, to preserve.  Despite desire and determination I fail, again and again, to maintain the vibrancy, vivacity, vividness. Edges curl, red darkens to black, orange to brown, yellow to beige.  Contact paper obscures, mod podge glares, nothing, nothing can arrest the march from autumn bright to winter blight.  Even photographs seem not to be able to capture what the human eye experiences and I am left, as each new wind or rainy day strips branches bare, with the grim acceptance of defeat.

Yet I stopped, this year, time and again, to creep into yards, to revel in my senses, to experience autumn in a way I have not allowed myself to do for a long, long time.  While my collages, poor after-images of nature’s perfection, cannot hold these experiences, they will remind me of the time spent, the joys felt, the intense gratitude for the gifts bestowed in these heady weeks.  And you will likely see me next year, the impetuous leaf thief, stealing moments of sensory bliss.

OCPT

My brother, Pete, once told me that he and his wife count every Chrysler PT Cruiser they see. The immediate result was that he passed this strange compulsion onto me. It started out innocently enough. I wasn’t doing a whole lot of driving at the time and so whenever I was out and about and would pass one here or there, I would just think, “One,” and smile, thinking of Pete, and move on with my day.

But a couple years ago, my kids started going to occupational therapy and I started driving from Eden Prairie to Plymouth and back twice a week and from Eden Prairie to Downtown Minneapolis to Plymouth and back to Eden Prairie twice a week. That’s a lot of miles. And, as it turned out, a lot of PT Cruisers.

Now the sad fact is that I can’t not notice these cars! They’re different and fun. First there’s the shape. When they were introduced in 2000, I didn’t like them—they looked like hearses to me. But their retro-style, rounded bodies now remind me more of candy: gummi bears or something like that.

Then there are the colors! While most cars come in your standard neutrals (black, white, beige), and maybe a blue or cherry red, PT Cruisers leap out of the crowd in at least three different shades of red, two or three blues, several purples, forest green, orange and yellow along with the usual slate of colors. They’re often covered with advertising or company logos. I’ve also seen them in two-tone, convertible, with flames painted on the hood, and, best of all, with 1970s-style wood paneling!

The compulsion to count quickly became an obsession, a bona fide mental disorder worthy of the DSM-IV. On a Girl Scout outing last spring, I silently kept track even while chatting with my co-leader (five). One of the women at my church drives one and every Sunday as I pull into the parking lot I think, “One.” I started noticing where the concentrations of Cruisers are largest, at least among places I frequent (the per capita PT ownership in Eden Prairie and Southeast Minneapolis is quite high). It got to the point where I found myself looking for Cruisers more than watching the road I was driving! (Don’t worry, Dad—I don’t do this anymore!)

I was having so much fun with this bizarre compulsion to count PT Cruisers that I decided to pass it on to the next generation and invited my kids to start counting with me. It has become a great road game for all of us. We routinely see at least nine of them on any given day that we’re out and about (our record is 20), and it’s not even the same ones along the same route every time—we know because of all the crazy colors. Last summer on our trip home from Michigan, we counted a total of 31, although I know we passed more than that: We got back into the Twin Cities right at rush hour and I wasn’t about to be looking around for more. (See Dad? Stop worrying!)

The kids aren’t in OT anymore and my weekly driving has dropped back to almost nothing, but I still find myself counting however many I see, like it or not. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever recover from. Thanks, Pete. Sadly (happily?) Chrysler stopped producing these candy-like contraptions in 2010. So I suppose it’s just a matter of time before they become scarcer and scarcer, and I’ll count fewer and fewer until, at last, I can just forget about them altogether.

Affirmation

Gavin has had a rough couple of weeks. All the fifth graders went on a 3-day, 2-night trip to Long Lake Conservation Camp last week and Gavin didn’t. When he thought he was going, he started to have behavioral issues out of stress. Then we all agreed he didn’t have to go. But when all the kids left, he had behavioral issues out of (probably) the shame of being different and left out. Then when all the kids got back, he had behavioral issues again. I think the bottom line of it was that the whole Long Lake trip threw a gigantic monkey wrench of transition into his Aspergian need for predictability. Things have settled down now. I haven’t had a phone call from the school in three days.

But I did get a phone call about Gavin from a total stranger today: a woman named Patty. Patty’s daughter, Mary Rose, is in Kindergarten at Gavin’s school. Mary Rose is blind and walks with a cane, either trailing the wall or being sight-guided by another student or adult.

Last Monday, Patty was dropping Mary Rose off at school late and, since the hallways were deserted, she decided to try the method of having her daughter follow her voice to navigate. As they proceeded slowly along, Gavin popped out of the boys’ bathroom and, while washing his hands at the sink in the hallway, he noticed the little girl’s hesitant momentum.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he said to Patty.

Mary Rose’s mom explained, “We’re trying a new way for Mary Rose, so she can learn other ways to get around on her own.”

But Gavin was insistent. “No,” he said. “You’re doing it wrong. She always holds someone’s hand. Here. I can take her to class.”

Patty asked Gavin’s name. She could see that he was truly concerned about her little girl, and was impressed that he spoke up for her. He had no idea Patty was Mary Rose’s mom, and he had the courage to address a total stranger on Mary Rose’s behalf.

She decided at that point that it would be appropriate to let Gavin help. “Mary Rose,” she asked, “is it okay if Gavin sight-guides you to class?”

“Yes,” Mary Rose replied.

“Will that be okay with your teacher?” she asked Gavin.

“I’m sure Mr. Busch won’t mind,” he replied. (At this point in Patty's retelling of the story, I cringed. Who knew where Gavin was actually supposed to be at that moment.)

“Okay.”

So Gavin took Mary Rose’s hand and led her to her Kindergarten classroom. Patty was so touched by Gavin’s big heart that she decided to make him a certificate of appreciation for Mary Rose to present to him today. She had called me to ask for permission to take his picture/video with her daughter, which I gladly gave.

This—THIS—is the kind of thing we moms need to hear about!!! Especially when it feels like everything is going wrong with our kids. I am so grateful to Patty for her graciousness! And to little Mary Rose, who probably did more for Gavin in that moment than he did for her.

Christmas Past

This is our 13th year of wacky Christmas photos. Many thanks to my mom, who has taken most of the pictures (and to my dad for all his moral support), to my brother, Pete, who took the picture in 2000, and to my brother, Dan, who took the photo and ROCKED the Photoshop in 2006. We hope you enjoy this little retrospective. It's so fun to watch the kids grow!!!

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1999: "Dan and Bek receive a special delivery"

The idea to do spoof photo cards was Dan's. Seemed like a good idea to me, and since we'd just had our first child, it was a good time to start. Not everyone appreciates the tradition. Some people who got this card (or saw it displayed in the homes of recipients) wondered, "Why are they putting that child into a mailbox?"

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2000: "It's My Parole Officer"

We were kind of thin on ideas. But Ledon was all about the phone at this age so we took some phone pictures. Dan was concerned about some recipients being offended by the caption so we issued an alternate version with a caption about talking to Santa (I can't even remember what it was, it was so bland.)

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2001: "Mama, what does C.O.D. mean?"

Well, we'd gotten Eiledon via US Mail, so we went for consistency :) The caption refers to the ridiculous expense of having a child. You probably can't see it in this scan, but the receipt Eiledon is holding is actually a Best Buy receipt, which is pretty appropriate for our family :)

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2002: "Housework never used to take this long."

This was before we went digital, so the photo was captured by my mom shooting a whole roll of film as we tossed laundry around. 24+ exposures and only one--ONE--was usable. Luckily, it was also a fantastic picture!

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2003: "Krispy Kreme: Catnip for People"

This was our first card that was topical in nature. Krispy Kreme had just come to Minneapolis amid reports of people waiting in line for HOURS to purchase the airy confection. We had noticed that these donuts had a pronounced effect on our children's behavior, much like catnip to our furry friends, so we went that route for the caption. It was certainly "of its time" as Krispy Kreme has vanished from the Twin Cities market. A fad, indeed.

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2004: "Election '36: Is it us? Or is election season getting a bit too long?"

Another topical comment. We (at least Dan and I) were so exhausted with all the campaign rhetoric, attack ads, lawn signs, etc. that we thought it would be good to make fun of it. We officially launched our kids' campaigns for president in the 2036 elections. Gavin's slogan? "Gavin Alexander Fergus Moir: His name is REALLY long!"

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2005: "We were going to do a normal card this year but God said otherwise."

This was the year our house was struck by lightning so we joked that we'd taken that as a sign NOT to do a normal Christmas picture. We didn't quite get the "electrocuted" effect, though. With the exception of Dan, we looked more like we'd escaped a fire. Gavin was FURIOUS about having to have gel in his hair and wasn't too cooperative. This was the first year we had digital, at least, so we were able to go until we had a decent shot and then, gratefully, stop.

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2006: "Peace. With love, US 4"

I hope we didn't peak too early. Dan thought we should do an album cover and we chose The Joshua Tree. Again, Gavin had a serious issue with the hair gel and Eiledon REFUSED to portray a boy until we bribed her. My brother, Dan Fergus, took the photo on our deck and then worked his photoshop genius to get the proportions correct, put in the Joshua Tree National Park background AND put Edge's hat on Dan (it was the one costume piece we couldn't come up with.) This one is still my all-time favorite.

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2007: "We really, really tried. But in the end, we knew we couldn't top last year's card so we just gave up."

True dat. Still, this was fun to do and if you have the actual card (rather than this scan) you can read some of the facetious alternative ideas we nixed including "Land of the Lost" and "Quest for Fire." Who knows if those will re-surface in future years :)

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2008: "Feb 16, 2009, 11:59pm: "Maybe you were right. Let's just get cable.""

Another topical card, we were making fun of the date all television was supposed to be digital, requiring either a converter box or cable TV/satellite. It was a stretch of the truth: we already had cable and had only purchased the converter in case we dropped it some time in the future. AND, of course, the date of the switch was delayed a while beyond February 16th. In any case, we actually had all these crazy wires and cables lying around the house and it was fun to just randomly dump them all over the room. Gavin holding the 'rabbit ears' literally on his head and Eiledon trying to plug a cable into Gavin's nose just cracked me up :)

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2009: "We wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”

Dan has this horrible, ugly, green, V-neck shirt that’s completely falling apart and he STILL insists on wearing it now and then, despite my best efforts to throw it out when he’s not paying attention. One October evening we were chatting at the dinner table while the kids were watching Scooby Doo on TV and Dan suddenly said, “Hey! Shaggy’s wearing my green shirt!” We looked at each other and our jaws dropped: our Christmas card concept had just been determined. Since we had recently gotten our dog, Brubeck, we figured it was a perfect way to introduce him. What amazes me most is how many people told us they didn’t get it at first, even with the caption and the ghost flying out of the window. In most cases, it was one of their kids who said, “Duh, Mom. It’s Scooby Doo!”

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2010: “BRUBECK!!! JACK-JACK!!! If you guys CAN’T get a long, you can just FORGET about that chicken PATE in your Christmas stocking!”

This one was Eiledon’s idea. Brubeck and Jack-Jack STILL don’t get along and any time the poor cat’s feet hit the floor, Brubeck comes running after him until he’s back up on the cabinets. They’ve knocked over a few things in their time together, to be sure! Eiledon imagined they knocked down the Christmas tree and I was yelling at them. What makes this photo is Brubeck breaking the fourth wall with the perfect, “Oh, crap” look on his face. Jack-Jack, in typical cat fashion, looks like he doesn’t give a rip.


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2011: “We wish you a Merry Christmas. The Skywalkers.”

Yes, it's true. We're nerds. All of us. As if you didn't know that already. Anyway, we'd had this one planned for quite some time, but we didn't want to do too many in a row where we were dressing up in costumes. This just seemed the right year for it. We had the Darth Vader voice changer mask and the light sabers and Dan wore his grad school graduation robe as a cape. Everything else was borrowed or made (the Queen Amidala headpiece wasn't easy, but it was pretty fun to try to figure out how to do it with the least possible effort and cost.) Worked out pretty well, I'd say.

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Well, thanks for walking down memory lane with us! Hope you enjoyed our wacky shenanigans. Merry Christmas to all!