It’s been two weeks here at the House of Goo. Pink eye has infected the toddler, the baby, and the husband. The toddler (who needs a blog nickname. I’ve settled on JellyBean) is now healthy and drip-free. She didn’t eat much while she was sick, and has moved on the weight spectrum from skinny to bony. We have found ourselves uttering statements like, “No, honey, you can’t get down till you finish your donut.” Now that makes a parent feel accomplished.

The baby (henceforward known as Sweetpea) is also getting better, which means the husband, who is still infectious, is now a leper in his own home. To prevent him from reinfecting the girls, he is sleeping in the basement and ceding most of his usual childcare responsibilities to me. What fun. He comes upstairs periodically to ooze and minutely describe his symptoms, then grumbles his way back down into his cave.

To get a break, yesterday during the girls’ nap, with the oozing husband at home as backup, I went to my favorite garden center and bought a few new flowers. After the kids went to bed for the night, I planted my new finds (dianthus, bloodstone thrift and asters). I also bought a spray-on, “all natural” deterrent for dogs and cats.

The previous owners of our house adopted or fed or in some way attracted and kept three feral cats. When they moved away, they left the cats. The cats live under my neighbors’ deck and do all sorts of lovely things like dig up plants I just planted, lie on plants till they kill them and otherwise wreak havoc in my garden. I have called around to see what can be done for them, but there is no cheap way in the city to get them neutered or get them their shots, so it’s a choice of letting them live wild or finding someone to put them to sleep. So far I’ve let them live wild. I thought I would try the organic cat deterrent to see if it at least protected my flower beds.

It was almost dark when I picked up the bottle. I had enough light to read where to spray the stuff, but that was it. I started spraying and Wow! the unholy stink of it. It smells like the primary ingredient is garlic, but not your everyday garlic. I like everday garlic. This is the garlic that ate Manhattan, the bulb from hell, garlic pressed from the dung of a predatory cat who preferred curry. I don’t know if it will work on the feral residents but the neighbors might have something to say.

I finished my spraying, rinsed off my gloves, and went inside. The smell followed. I washed my hands and changed my clothes. The stink stayed. I took a shower. I still smelled it. I began to worry. Our dog, a sweet and gentle animal who sleeps in our room at night, came to her bed, started making honking, snorting sounds, and tried to hide her nose in a bookshelf.

And I wondered, could I still go to church on Easter Sunday if I stank to high heaven? We hear a lot about “inclusiveness” in church nowadays, but so far as I know, there’s no lobby working for the inclusion of stinky people. Could I sit in the sanctuary during the most crowded church day of the year when I smelled like a garlic rub on dirty sweat socks? I think some folks might object to that. Not exactly a way to make new friends. Would I have to stay home from church because I stank?

I needn’t have worried. I stayed home from church because I got pink eye.

Today the sun shone, I finally got a workout, I bought five new garden plants AND the guys at TomCruiseIsNuts.com are posting again.

I am reborn!

After reading Phantom Scribbler’s post, I have been thinking about the books that have shaped my soul. There are so many that have taught me wisdom, nourished my spirit or comforted me during dark times. Lucy Montgomery’s Avonlea books showed me the value of kindred spirits (and that it was okay to be a smart, book-loving girl). Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry taught me hope when I had none. C.S Lewis Till We Have Faces and Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell showed me that real, vibrant life is only possible if I am deep-down, painfully truthful about myself and my failings. And after reading Wuthering Heights, dark, tormented men ceased to hold any attraction for me, for which I will be forever grateful to Charlotte Bronte.

But I thought I would take just a moment to tell you about a life-changing book that doesn’t make any list I’ve ever seen. Because it’s too embarrassing to admit that it actually impacted me. Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey. You got it. A hair care book.

I have thick, curly hair. Despite the opinion of the occasional beautician who curls her lips in disgust, curly hair is not a disease. It is not a problem that needs correction. I do not need two pounds of sticky goo slopped on my head to appease the fashion gods. Why should my hair be easily controlled? I’m not.

For years I kept my hair super short. It was simpler. But my husband asked me to grow it out. Since his request coincided with the painful experience of strangers sometimes calling me “sir,” I decided to try it. For two years during the frizzy brown nimbus stage, he told me every day that my hair was beautiful. He still does. He loves my curls, and glories in them.

I still might have cut it short again to avoid the frizz if a friend hadn’t put me on to this book. Pure gold. It took about two months of Massey’s hair regimen for my hair to look really good, but I’ve never looked back. Unlike most women I know, I love my hair. That doesn’t mean it always looks great (the one-shower-a-week life of a woman with babies isn’t good for anyone), but I know it can.

So there you have it. I have a couple of degrees, walls covered in books, and the last time I checked our bathroom reading, it was Beowulf and Lyell’s Principles of Geology, but a book that changed my life? Is about my hair.

Clearly I didn’t read Manley Hopkins enough.

Okay, this meme is way out-of-date, but I just read it at the bookworm, and was quite taken with it.

Words that always look misspelled to me:
possessiveness
fallacy

Words that look nicer in italics:
mea culpa
systolic
pfeffernuesse

Words I enjoy saying:
fester
sacrosanct
pachysandra

Words I enjoy hearing:
mutable
rip-roaring
cussed

Abbreviations I dislike:
u for you
nite for night
cal for calorie

Proper nouns I enjoy:
Griselda
Plantagenet
Kirkcudbright

Words I associate with happiness:
mulch
sunshine
quilt
incandescence

Words I always misspell:
Kirkcudbright
vacuum
rutabaga

Words I enjoy spelling correctly, every time:
patchouli
curmudgeon
secretary
aplomb

Words that, though I love their meaning, I’m too embarrassed to say out loud:
lithe
nonplussed

I have spent the week nursing sick people. The toddler and husband got a “flu-like virus” (the doctor doesn’t call it the flu unless you’ve puked up your intestines) and the toddler and the baby have pink eye. But they are all recovering now, and, after washing my hands till they were cracked and bleeding, I seem to have missed this round of sickness. The husband was even well enough for me to leave the kids with him yesterday, so I could have four hours R&R. I spent a peaceful afternoon browsing books at the library (brought home three new ones), eating lunch at my favorite, thoroughly un-child-friendly restaurant, and picking out plants at a nursery.

I was surprised at how I felt about my four hour respite. It was restoring, but I didn’t have that just-sprung-from-prison feeling that I used to get the first few months after our first baby was born. Because I like my job. I really and truly like my job. When the girls are sick, I realize how glad I am that I get to be a stay-at-home mom. I want to be the one who wipes their sniffles and strokes their hair during a fever. I want to be the one who holds that squirming little bundle of defiance as I squeeze healing ointment into her eyes. And I love that I get to do it without the constant pressure of wondering what’s going on at work, how much will I have to do when I get back, will my boss understand, or any of the other things my mom-friends with paying jobs have to worry about. I need a little time away from home to keep my sanity, but then I’m ready for the trenches again.

We have a long narrow flower bed on the south side of the house. It is in the only sunny location we have, and it is a ridiculous size. Ten inches deep and thirty-four feet long. It is completely surrounded by pavement. I have puzzled over what to do with this strip of dirt, and decided this spring to make it a spice bed. Most herbs love sun. Most don’t mind a little dry soil. And most of the herbs we use are related to mint, which means they can spread like crazy and become invasive. A long, thin, sunny bed surrounded by concrete is perfect for them. So yesterday at the garden center I bought seven different herbs and planted them while the children napped. Rosemary, oregano, lovage, thyme, two kinds of lavender and hyssop. Plants with a noble past and literary history. I expect they will thrive.

Plato said that justice was each man doing what he was best suited to. That sounds lovely, but then who gets to decide what we are best suited to? I hope not Linda Hirschman. Do we decide for ourselves? Because I’ve met a lot of losers who think they should be king of the world. I’m not sure who decides, but I know that for right now I am doing what I am best suited to. I want to be here, with these kids, even when there are so many things I miss. I can’t be a SAHM forever. No one can. Kids grow up. Finances or other considerations may demand I get a paying job. But for now, I have been planted in a bed that suits me, and, like lavender and hyssop, I expect to thrive.