Heather Anne

There is a forthcoming story that involves Venice, Switzerland, Paris, and London--where my backpack was stolen, along with my passport. It is an outrageous story. In the meantime, here are some pictures.

Posted by Heather Anne at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I spent the evening and last night in Munich, which was the most interesting place. The entire city was destroyed during World War II, so unlike other major cities in Europe, there are no real castles or buildings that are thousands of years old. In fact, except for the Beer House, it kind of felt like Minneapolis. The people were lovely, and I had one liter of beer and six sausages for dinner.

Today I rode a bus through northern Italy, and the things people say about the beauty of that part of the world? Absolutely no exaggeration. Verona took up most of my afternoon what with the pink Coliseum and Juliet's house. It is, of course, the city of Romeo and Juliet. Just as the children were getting out of school, I asked two young boys (in the Italian phrases I'd been practicing all day) "Please show to me the best pizza and the best gelato." They were so happy to take me to a place just outside of the main square where I had The Best Pizza and Ice Cream of my entire life. I bought them each a slice and a gelato, and they kept me company talking about Japanese cartoons.

I have to find a place to wash some jeans tonight, on account of they are covered in German river mud. Tomorrow: Venice.

Posted by Heather Anne at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

St. Goar Germany is the kind of town Disney princesses settle down in when they want to have kids. It's a small town in the Rhine Valley, with just a few shops and a lot of tulips. After several days in London and Amsterdam, it was so lovely when the sound of a river and chirping birds replaced traffic and the thump! thump! thump! of club music. I spent just the night there. I woke up to take pictures of the sunrise, and it was gorgeous. Right at the edge of the river, I thought I could get a perfect shot if I could just get a little... bit...closer. And that's when I fell in into the Rhine River.

Here are two things books do not tell you about the Rhine River:

1) It is frigid.

2) It moves rather quickly.

Munich tomorrow.

Posted by Heather Anne at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

So, Amsterdam. Whoo boy. Nothing has been stolen from me, but I think I have lost about 60% of my virtue by being in this city. The red light distrcit is juxtaposed to the Anne Frank House. No where else in the world can you get such sobering history and also such boobs in close proximity. Also, the tram system? I will never complain about the London Underground ever again.

Posted by Heather Anne at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

My second trip to London feels so different than the first, mostly because navigating The Tube doesn't make me want to fall down in the middle of the train station and cry like a little baby this time around, and everything is just a bit more... familiar. Part of it is that I am staying in the same chain of hostels Jenn and I stayed at in Edinburgh and one night in London on our last trip. The bar is blue, the floors are blue, the ceilings are blue, the walls are blue. All of the bunk beds are red alumninum, and the whole place is staffed by Aussies. (Who I adore above all other nationalities, on account of their friendliness.)

Last time, London spit me out bleeding and broken at the end of four days with nothing to show for it but a dozen crumpled Underground maps and a hundred pictures of Big Ben. This time, I picked up a map for posterity, but I haven't really needed it yet. (I will get lost in the bowels of The Underground today, now I've said that.) The price of an all-day pass on The Tube has nearly doubled in three years, and with the weakness of the Dollar against the Pound I am paying about 12 bucks a day to get around. (Which, by the way, is still less than I'd be paying to commute to my old job.)

The flight here was kind of madness; in the middle of boarding, US Airways assigned our pilot to another flight. They brought in a 'Quick Call Crew' which took about four hours, and as it was the middle of the night, I pulled out my sleepsack, propped by head on my backpack, and fell aslseep in the middle of the airport. I awoke to the sound of a disgruntled man saying, 'Backpackers will sleep anywhere, the lot of them.' Sure enough, I was surrounded by about six other folks in sleeping bags, and one of them was playing his guitar. I grinned stupidly at the guitar guy and fell back asleep, mentally crossing 'hobo' off my To Do list.

Someone stole my shoes while I was sleeping in the airport, so I arrived in London in my sock-feet. But I guess the point is: I arrived.

Posted by Heather Anne at 04:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Right before I left for London, I got some bad news about Scout the Beagle: she has some very bad heart problems. I was playing "Pack It" with Scout when I got the call from the vet. ("Pack It" involves me sticking something in my backpack, Scout pulling it out and offering it to one of the other pets, and, when met with their apathy, leaping off the bed and running through the house chewing my socks/shirts/shoes/whatever as I chase behind her trying not to use those negative conditioning words like "asshole.") The problems Scout has are treatable with a 90% effective rate. The drawbacks are: a) The medicine she'll need is a derivative of arsenic, which is always dangerous when injected into, you know, someone's veins. One in ten dogs do not survive treatment. And b) The process is very expensive.

Amy and I talked about it long and hard, and decided to go ahead with the treatment. The veterinary assistant called me about a dozen times to verify that yes, we were willing not to buy groceries for six months so that our dog could be treated. And yes, we knew that even with the monetary sacrifice, Scout might not live. And yes, we knew there was a chance the treatment could cause liver/kidney/heart failure. And that yes, Scout might have a very pronounced case of this disease; there is no way to tell because we'd only owned her for four days. One final point she wanted to clarify was: who, exactly, is Scout's owner?

See, Margaret is Margaret Baker, listed under Amy Baker, because she came to Amy's parents' house all those years ago, so Amy paid the first vet bill. Nala is Nala Hogan, listed under Heather Hogan, because she came to my office all those years ago, and I paid the first vet bill. Scout is listed under both our names, because she came to our house, and it's going to take both of our savings accounts to pay for these vet bills. I explained this to the veterinary assistant. Well okay, she said, but what would be Scout's last name?

In the first season of The L Word, when Bette and Tina are having a baby, Bette wants to combine her last name of "Porter" with Tina's last name of "Kennard" to give the baby a last name that represents them both. She comes up with "Portard." Tina, with a little foresight, says, "Bette, seriously? Hey, Portard, how's your two moms, you big gaymo?"

I've been calling the Beagle "Portard" for half the time she's lived with us, mostly because she looks like Portard should be her name when she's leaping through the house, limbs akimbo, ears in flight, my Victoria's Secret passport panties flapping in the wind like a kite from her mouth.

Amy and I invented the most awesome game in college that involved a net, four squares, and a tennis ball. We combined our last names "Hogan" and "Baker," calling it Bagan Ball, so we'd both get credit when the sport made it to the Summer Olympics. So that's the last name I gave our dog: Bagan.

Scout starts treatment on Monday, so send all your warmest wishes and energy her way.

I'll ask you to shower her with good thoughts again when she starts school. Margaret's middle name is Jo. (For Jo March.) Nala's middle name is Jane. (For Jane Austen.) Scout's middle name? Portard. Scout Portard Bagan. Heart problems will be nothing compared to the teasing this dog is going to get on the playground.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

In the weeks leading up to any of my solo adventures, Amy always starts blurting out little pieces of travel wisdom. She says it is because I am not what one would call "discerning." Last night, she told me not to follow any strange men out into any abandoned wheat fields. Because London and Paris are super famous for their... pastures. She also engages me in all kinds of dialogue to help me come up with my own safe travel practices.

"What is your biggest weakness?" she asked me over the weekend.

"I step out into traffic," I told her.

"And you're biggest strength?"

"I'm very sweet--definitely not the kind of person you would want to hit with a car."

I don't know why she worries so.

Posted by Heather Anne at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

If you want a postcard from Europe, email me your address, k?

Today on the Collective, I share my unrefined taste in music.

Posted by Heather Anne at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

All we were lacking was a little, red wagon and a sign that read "Free Puppy!" as Amy and I dragged our interloping Beagle all over the county looking for its home yesterday. We put signs on mailboxes and in nearby gas stations. After dinner, we went door-to-door. Outside of Pet Smart, Amy turned into a full-on Beagle Evangelist, first asking if anyone was missing a dog, then asking if anyone wanted a dog, and finally threatening one customer with the eternal flames of hell if he didn't accept The Beagle into his heart and home.

This morning—with quiet reluctance—we loaded up the Beagle to take her to the Humane Society. I am leaving in a few short days for Europe. Amy teaches Kindergarten all day and is working on her Specialist Degree in the evenings. Margaret doesn't like sharing our attention with other people, and she sure as Snoopy doesn't like splitting it with another dog. And even Nala, who is usually hilariously detached from all stressors (including tornadoes), had had enough of that unyielding puppy energy by this morning. I carried the Beagle into the Humane Society door labeled "Drop Offs" and explained to the woman inside that despite our best efforts we could not find this lost puppy's home, and that I would like them to place her with a loving family. I told her that I would happily pay the $75 up front if they promised to call me if the Beagle could not be placed. I would come back for her, I told the woman. "I will come back for you," I told the Beagle.

The receptionist never looked up from her computer. "We can call you after 72 hours if his owners don't come in, but there's nothing we can do after that."

I sat down with the little Beagle in my lap while Amy started to fill out the paperwork. Her eyes said, "Let's bolt and take the puppy with us." But her posture said, "This is the best decision for everyone in our home." I, too, was resolute—until the puppy started shaking. The new place and the incessant barking and the smell, it caused even her ears to violently shiver. It started with her head, and before it reached her tail, tears were streaming down my face. "Amy," I squeaked. "I can't..."

She looked over at me and said, "Oh, thank God." Then to the disinterested receptionist: "Yeah, no. We're keeping it."

150 bucks and one trip to Pet Smart later, we returned home to start Scout's training. When Margaret came to us, Amy taught her to walk on a leash, sit, stay, roll over, and fetch in about two hours. Margaret is a mix of a lot of dogs, but all of them are the devout people-pleasing variety. Margaret's ancestors saved people from avalanches, sought out illegal drugs at shipping ports, and led blind people across busy streets. Beagles, they say, are a bit more stubborn and... dumb than that. Scout's ancestors followed their noses to dead animal carcases, and rolled around in garbage for fun. We figured it would take Amy—probably—four hours with this one.

The method Amy uses is a combination of positive reinforcement and classical conditioning. It's praise, praise, praise! And a clicker. With Margaret it worked like this:

First half hour: CLICK! Food. CLICK! Food. CLICK! Food.

Second half hour: CLICK! Your name is Margaret. CLICK! Your name is Margaret. CLICK! Your name is Margaret.

Third half hour: CLICK! Sit. CLICK! Down. CLICK! Roll Over.

Fourth half hour: CLICK! Conjugate these Spanish verbs. CLICK! Do this long division. CLICK! Negotiate peace between Pakistan and India.

This afternoon, with Scout the Beagle, it went like this:

First two minutes: CLICK! Food. CLICK! Food. CLICK! OMG! DANDELIONS!

Second two minutes: CLICK! Food. CLICK! Food. CLICK! WHY IS THAT BLADE OF GRASS TALLER THAN THE OTHERS! WHY! WHY! WHY!

Third two minutes: CLICK! Food. CLI— HEY, IT'S THE WIIIIIIIND!

Fourth two minutes: Sleep.

When we showed up with Scout after we promised to return without her, Margaret was all, "You have GOT to be kidding me." And Nala was all, "Eff."

Tonight it seems everyone is adjusting, tiredly.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Sometimes you don't realize how good you've got it in terms of pet obedience until an interloper comes to town. There was some kind of scuffle/disturbance in the neighborhood pet equilibrium near midnight last night, and when Amy and I went outside to check it out, what to our wondering eye should appear, but a Beagle puppy with tiny, trusting feelings. It was scared out of its wits, and starving to boot. So we fed it and watered it. At first we determined to leave it outside and look for its owners in the morning, but it chased cars. Our next plan was to put it in the garage until morning, but it started howling like a banshee when left alone. Somewhere between the garage and my bathtub "it" became "she." The puppy is clean now. There are fliers out all over our neighborhood. And she is under my desk this very minute, licking my toes.

Posted by Heather Anne at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I tried not to get too offended that most of the people who have emailed lately have been more concerned about Margaret than about the seriously insane plague that has been conquering me. The dog and I had a little battle this week because when I got sick, Margaret sensed my weakness, and tried to dethrone me as pack leader in our house. Tuesday morning as I was walking from the kitchen to the living room with a piece of cheese toast, Margaret pranced right over to me and TOOK IT OUT OF MY HAND. This kind of behavior does not fly with me and Amy, who has two advanced degrees in Early Childhood Education and is no stranger to the way cuteness and manipulation coalesce. So I turned to Amy and stamped my foot. "But she took my toast!" I said.

Margaret is usually the most submissive one in our household, but I was more hurt then outraged when--even after Amy confronted her--Margaret would not drop the toast. "She thinks I'm dying!" I told Amy. "And she doesn't even care. She just wants control of that lousy piece of bread!"

Amy pried her mouth open and made her spit out every single crumb.

Later that night, Margaret showed out by repeatedly scratching the front door at 3:00 a.m. I was standing in the kitchen, looking for any sort of bronchial relief in the refrigerator when Amy came downstairs to deal with the dog. "Back up on that rug!" Amy said sternly when she entered the kitchen. Margaret and I both stepped back onto the rug in front of the sink. "Now lay down!" she said, at which point I realized she was talking to Margaret and not me, so I walked back to the refrigerator. Amy went about the business of putting out the baby gates to seal off the kitchen--the ultimate punishment for Margs, a whole night of Time Out.

"I'm getting a glass of juice," I told Margaret. "Which I--unlike you--am allowed to do."

"Do not move off of that rug," Amy warned.

"Your mama likes me better," I said to Margaret. I poured a glass of orange juice and gave her one last look. "And guess what else," I said. "Even when I'm sick, I STILL HAVE THUMBS."

So, Margaret is fine, thank you for asking. She's really enjoying this Spring weather.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

It is a testament to the longevity of our friendship that Amy didn't question me when I started to drink Tylenol Severe Cold straight from the bottle yesterday because I needed to "get ready for the big game." The big game, of course, was the NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship and it wasn't like I had to play in it, but I needed my energy because someone has to shout at the referees, and correct the ESPN analysts, and if I couldn't stop coughing how was I going to share all of my own personal anecdotes about Tennessee women's basketball? So drink it—nay, chug it—I did, and the Lady Vols won their 8th title.

Oh, have I ever been ill. Usually I would be a mule about the whole thing, refusing to see the doctor or take drugs or do anything, really, that didn't involve lying in bed and whimpering for someone to bring me soup and popsicles. But I am due to leave for Europe next week, and viral pathogens are my arch nemesis at this point. No one can lug a backpack through London at twenty percent lung capacity. Plus, I don't think they let you stay in hostels with other backpackers if you're hacking like a tuberculosis patient. So I have taken every suggestion Amy has thrown at me this week: doubling up on my Flintstone vitamins, sleeping, going to the doctor, drinking lots of liquid, eating freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I think I am going to live.

I am trying to finish my next few weeks' Collective posts before my trip. One of the topics required me to read The Baby-Sitters Club #33: Claudia and the Great Search. I didn't have a copy, so I borrowed it from Amy, who had, apparently, "borrowed" it from her childhood best friend, Natalie. Nat, if you're reading, email me your address and I'll send your book back. However, I did make some notes in the margin. For example, at this one part Claudia says, "There's nothing like the feel of a baby in your arms." And I wrote: "It's that you-break-it-you-buy-it feel you get when you knock something off the shelf at Pottery Barn. Like, it was cute in the catalog, and now I'm going to spend the rest of my life paying for it."

If anyone wants a postcard from my trip, email me your address and I am happy to send you one. I'm heatherannehogan [at] gmail.com. Just put "postcard!" or something equally obvious in the subject line. If you put "viagra!", the Gmail ninjas will kick you to the spam folder, then kidnap and torture your children in the night. If only Tylenol Cold was as effective (and ruthless) as Google.

Posted by Heather Anne at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

All I ever wanted was for UConn to lose, Tennessee to win, and me to visit Hogwarts. Looks like today's my lucky day!


Via Yahoo! News

Via Yahoo! News

Via The Collective

Posted by Heather Anne at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Hey, you lot: 6:30 on ESPN.

Posted by Heather Anne at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just when I thought I was about to sneak an entire week of hedonistic bliss into my life, I woke up this morning with a nasty cold. My day has consisted of juice, the World Figure Skating Championships, and whiny text messages to Amy.

9:00 a.m., my bed to the kitchen.

Me: :(
Amy: I am leaving to get you some meds in one minute.

9:45 a.m., CVS to my bed.

Amy: What are your symptoms?
Me: Death.
Amy: More specifically?
Me: Sore throat, body aches, nasal congestion.
Me: Can you please get something with Cool Burst?
Me: Liquid Cool Burst.
Me: Orange Liquid Cool Burst.
Amy: Gatorade?
Me: Fruit Punch only. No yellow!

10:50 a.m., my bed to the living room.

Me: Why is that t.v. so loud?

11:30 a.m., my bed to the kitchen.

Me: When is the circus leaving?
Amy: What?
Me: All those elephants and clowns banging around in the kitchen, when are they leaving?
Amy: I'm unloading the dishwasher.
Me: With the circus?

12:50 p.m., my bed to the living room.

Me: Do I smell cinnamon rolls cooking?
Amy: Nope.
Me: Can I smell cinnamon rolls cooking?
Amy: Yep.
Me: And yellow rice?
Amy: Yep, and ice cream?
Me: Bleh. No.

2:45 p.m., the living room to my bedroom.

Amy: You okay?
Me: Well, I was sleeping.

4:00 p.m., my bedroom to the kitchen.

Me: Where are Margaret and Nala?
Amy: They're with me. You're grumpy.

5:20 p.m., my bedroom to the living room.

Me: I want to watch Beauty and the Beast.
Amy: We have it on VHS.
Me: I want to watch Aladdin, too.
Amy: I will set them up for you.
Me: No, I changed my mind. I want to watch the World Figure Skating Championships.
Amy: Okay. Come down here and you can have the remote.
Me: Can you just bring it to me?

7:30 p.m., the living room to the office.

Me: The circus is in the office now?
Amy: I am rearranging the closet.
Me: I want the circus to go away from me.
Amy: I want you to take some NyQuil and go to bed.

Posted by Heather Anne at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

In my last month with a job, I had to start asking tough budget questions, like: What is an absolute spending necessity in my life? (Plane ticket to London and Eurorail pass, obviously.) And what is a total waste of money? (The $40 a month I pay to a gym I never visit, double obviously.) Some decisions were harder than others: Do I really need to spend $20 a month to have an unlimited number of DVDs delivered right to my doorstep? (Answer: yes.) Do I really need to pay Verizon for 900 minutes and unlimited text and unlimited data transfer/Internet access? (Answer: probably not.) Then there was the most important question of all: What is it that I can I get for free?

So I entered a 3-step program to find out

Step 1: I emptied out my wallet, which yielded:

$300 in Visa/American Express Gift Cards (Thank you, old bosses!)
$284 in REI Dividends
$50 in Borders Bucks (Thank you, Beth! Thank you, John!)
$50 in Regal Movie Dollars (Thank you, Betty! Thank you, Dad!)
$25 in O'Charley's eats (Thank you, Melinda!)
$18 in CVS Extra Bucks
$25 in Starbucks beverages (Thank you, old Battleship game, where I found this card.)
$150 in Pottery Barn accessories (Thank you, someone whose name escapes me, because I've had these cards for 3 years.)
$20 in Sonic fast food dollars (Thank you, little league basketball team!)

Basically, with one shake of my blue, velcro wallet, I ended up a rich, rich lady. So rich that Amy and I have painted and decorated and accessoriezed nearly our entire new office (for free!) at IKEA and Restoration Hardware and Pottery barn on gift cards. So rich that I got nearly everything I needed at REI for my trip with one swipe of a (free!) card. So rich that Amy and I saw a movie (for free!) last night with (free!) snacks I'd loaded up with at CVS earlier in the day. And to top it off, on the way home, we had ourselves a (free!) cherry limeade from Sonic.

Step 2: I asked Manmaw to mend all of my things that are broken. She, of course, said yes. In the next few weeks I expect to have many good-as-new things with tags sewn in them that say "Manmaw's Little Angel." (That's what she does when she sews my stuff back together, you see. To remind me that she loves me no matter where I am in the world. One summer she fixed the elastic in my favorite basketball shorts and sewed one of those tags in back, and I wore them nearly every day for the three months I was away doing charity work in Jamaica.)

Step 3: I got some hugs. Because whenever I start to feel gloomy about the state of affairs in the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow International Airoprt. And I get a hug. (Thank you, family!)

What in the wide world of capitalism can you get for free? (Answer: apparently a lot.)

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I have never, ever burst into tears the way I burst into tears during this movie tonight. I loved it.

Posted by Heather Anne at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yesterday—when I went to sleep at 10:00 p.m. for the fifth night in a row—Amy decided it was time for an intervention. She said I hadn't stopped moving since I left my job on Friday afternoon. Which: correct, actually. We emptied out an entire bedroom to make room for our new home office, hauled off loads of stuff to Goodwill, spent a whole day at IKEA. On Monday and Tuesday I caught up on all the housework and errand-running I've been behind on since, oh, 2005. (Who knew we had so many cereal bowls? When they're all clean, there is no room in the cabinets.) Amy instructed me that today I was to rest, to indulge in my guilty pleasures, to utilize the remote control, to familiarize myself with channels besides Cartoon Network and ESPN, to eat peanut butter out of the jar, and, under no circumstances, was I to take a call from my former office. I told her I needed to write on account of I have a May 1 deadline and she said, "Not tomorrow. Tomorrow you do nothing."

When I woke up (late!) this morning, I had a nice breakfast of Cheerios and then stared at the wall for half an hour, trying to decide how best to do nothing. I took a bubble bath, read a book, strapped on my Kelty pack and hiked Margaret around the neighborhood at a nice European pace, folded some clothes, unloaded the dishwasher. But then I realized those weren't nothing. All those things were at least a little something. What I needed to do was something entirely pleasurable with no redemptive value whatsoever. Empty calories of entertainment, that's what. Then I had an idea, an awful idea. Heather Anne had a wonderful, awful idea.

I drove to the grocery store and bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's Double Fudge Brownie ice cream. I came home, opened up my laptop, and called up YouTube. Pam and Jim. Bette and Tina. Lois and Clark. Josh and Donna. I spent two entire hours eating ice cream and watching YouTube fan videos. Oh, marvelous television couples, falling in love again and again to REO Speedwagon and Journey and Joan Armatrading and Celine Dion. It's like all of the fun of an old mixed tape without any of your own personal angst!

"Oh, my God. You are SO drunk."

"You have enormous value to me. You have absolutely no value to Eastern Europe."

"Here. Quick. Slip under my cloak of boringness. No one will even notice we're gone."

"Who's asking: Clark or Superman?"

What I am trying to say—I guess—is that today I spent the day eating ice cream and swooning, which isn't really nothing, but you can't exactly make a career out of it either.

Posted by Heather Anne at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[This is a repost for some of you. For others of you, it's brand new.]

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
- Matthew 19:24

I was twelve years old when the sign-up sheet for church camp came my way, and without pause—like a game of holy hot potato—I passed it left to Jennifer Jones. I couldn't understand for the life of me why God was trying to ruin my life with church. Outside of church was Creation: climbing trees and wading creeks and lightning bugs for catching. Inside of church was talk of plagues, and lakes of fire, and even a guy who tied up his own kid for sacrificing. And, sure, that was unfortunate, but my favorite comic book was Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and readers had just voted to kill off Robin. So an outbreak of toads on some long gone Egyptians wasn't exactly what you'd call traumatizing. The worst part of church was repentance, which is a lot like saying sorry, but that's just half the battle. Genuine repentance is apologizing and vowing to turn from your evil ways. I was sorry for nearly everything I did wrong, especially when I got caught. But promising to never pinch my sister in her armpit again? It's like those people who really believed Catwoman could stop being a villain just because Batman loved her.

I was about ready to give up on God completely when my Sunday School teacher said something ridiculous. It started out regular: "God wants you to talk to him." And ended with a bang: "You can ask God for anything." I clarified this point twice. Anything? Yes. Anything? Yes. "And he wants you to be specific. Pray early," she said. "Pray often!"

I was still a child, but I was no one's fool. When Softly and Tenderly started up on our rickety piano during that very morning's Invitation, I got to praying.

Dear God, I prayed in my own head (because that's how Hebrews said you should go about it), Please get me a new bike. I would like a green Huffy with handlebar brakes, not sissy back pedal brakes. I would like knobby tires like the ones on my friends' bikes. It's hard enough being the only girl in the neighborhood without having white tires. Plus my dad says it is too expensive to replace those tires because you have to buy them at a special store. So black tires, please. Or, here's another idea: make K-Mart stock white knobby tires. I'll leave that up to you. I would like streamers for the handlebars, because being some girly is okay. Any other extras is fine, except a basket. Amen.

I was so happy to ask God for something real like a bike instead of food for orphans, and so overjoyed to have escaped another round of pretending to repent, and so excited that God wanted me to have my dream bike that I went ahead and signed up for church camp.

Because I was twelve years old, I had to go to church camp with the Youth Group. (Youth is Christian code for teenager.) We left for camp in the early morning, because in summer in Georgia, everything is a race against the sun. The design of our church van suggested that it had once been part of a great Smurf massacre, and that no one had ever paused to clean up the carnage. The outside of the van was Smurf-skin blue, with just the word "Baptist" painted on the side in a darker, more Smurf-guts blue. (I assumed there were other denominations of vans out there too, and that some weekends there were great demolition derbys, with "Baptists" and "Methodists" pitted against the "Catholics" and "Episcopalians.") The consoles of our church van were blue, the steering wheel was blue, the interior carpet was blue, the ceiling was blue. Even the seats were blue, and made of vinyl, and if you wore shorts your best bet was to just Stay Still, because sun fuses skin and vinyl together and if you move around, something is going to peel off. It may be your skin or it may be the vinyl. There's really no way of knowing.

Jennifer Jones was the only other girl my age, but she preferred to hang out with the older girls in the back of the van, talking about makeup and kissing boys and who knows what all kinds of debauchery. I was fine by myself. I had already learned that God liked suffering—Paul, his favorite servant, got walloped on a regular basis—so I planned to endure the week alone and spend every free moment praying for my new bike. There wasn't much else to do, I reckoned. All forms of secular entertainment including magazines and cassette tapes were expresly forbidden—a rule I never quite understood. The person who thought cable television was too intense for us had obviously never read the Old Testament.

On the ride to camp I tried not to think about the heat or about how my skin might be permanently attached to the seat or how someone else's skin might have been permanently attached to the seat and I might be sitting on top of it. Instead I imagined the post-camp awards ceremony, where I would surely be compensated for my piety. "This young lady has been praying for a bike for three entire weeks with no results," a camp counselor would say. "Let's give Heather a round of applause for keeping her faith in the face of such torment!" Then he would give me either a plaque that said "Way to Endure!" or a ribbon that said "God's #1 Sufferer." Everyone would cheer, and some people would probably even cry the way my mom did when missionaries came to my church from the Congo to talk about how they left perfectly good America to live in a hut in the rainforest.

Probably after the ceremony some kindly rich man would give me my new bike, because God doesn't have to do everything metaphysically. He can use rich people to create a win-win Christian situation. For example, if a rich man gave me my bike, I would win because my prayer would be answered and my faith would be better. And the rich man would win because he used up some of his gold. Rich people have to ride on the back of a camel through the eye of a needle to get into heaven. The more money you give away, the skinnier your camel gets. The principle is outlined in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus also warns against swallowing a camel. (Which is really good advice. I couldn't even count how many gnats I'd choked on in my day.)

Halfway through the ride to camp—just when I'd decided the Sufferer Ribbon was probably better than the Endurance Plaque because it matched my field day awards—the older girls and Jennifer Jones called me to the back of the van, where they were poring over a contraband Seventeen Magazine. None of the girls liked me because I always had dirt under my fingernails and I wore shorts under my dress to church every Sunday. "How do you think Superman gets changed so fast?" I had asked one of the girls a few weeks earlier when she'd mocked me. "Clothes under clothes! All the heroes are doing it!"

I reluctantly peeled my legs off the seat and walked to the back of the van. I was trying to rearrange myself on my new seat, letting my leg skin touch as little vinyl as possible, when the preacher's daughter said, "So, Heather, what are you praying for in a husband?"

I laughed out loud because it was about the funniest joke I'd ever heard.

Only she wasn't joking. I could tell Jennifer Jones was blushing for me because I didn't have the good sense to do it myself. "You're serious?" I asked.

The girls exchanged a look. "Heather," the pastor's daughter explained, placing a hand on my forearm in a comforting gesture her dad used every Sunday on the repenters. "Sometimes it takes God up to ten years to answer prayers. My sister started praying for a husband six years before God sent him. You'd better start praying right away."

Ten years! I did some quick math in my head to calculate how tall I would be in ten years. Did I need to start praying for a bigger bike?

"I don't want a husband," I said.

Several of the girls gasped, and Jennifer Jones blushed again.

"Why not?" the preacher's daughter demanded.

"Because he would look silly wearing the streamers I'm praying for to go along with my new bicycle," I said.

All of the girls, including Jennifer Jones, who, up until that moment had been one of my best friends, collapsed in a collective fit of giggles.

"Don't you want to get married?" former friend Jennifer Jones asked.

I shrugged.

"Heather, of course you want to get married!" she said. "Everyone wants to get married. And you'll want to do it by the time you're 22 or there's no hope for you."

"That's ridiculous!" I said, rolling my eyes. "My great-aunt Opal didn't get married until she was older than that, and do you know what she did instead? She went to California! On vacation!"

They said nothing. I knew if those girls weren't in awe of a place as exotic as California, there was no hope for them. I unstuck my legs once more from the viscous blue seat. "I'll pray for you," I mumbled as I turned toward the front of the van, though we all knew I would do no such thing.

---

Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."
- John 21:15

My Great-Aunt Opal had a Yorkshire Terrier named Prissy, and his eyes couldn't make tears. It was the darndest thing. Every four hours—day and night, holidays or no—Aunt Opal had to squeeze artificial teardrops into Prissy's eyeballs so they didn't get crusty and fall out. I knew early on you could judge character by the way a person treated animals. If you'd pet the mangy cats over at the baseball field or let a dog lick you full on the face, we could be friends. If you'd wake up in the night to wet your dog's eyeballs, we could be friends forever.

After church camp, my dad set up a lunch date for my sister and me with Aunt Opal, which meant one of our all-time favorite things: Shoney's. In addition to being able to order from a menu while sitting down, Shoney's Restaurant afforded a person the opportunity to eat from the salad bar. If you ordered the salad bar, you didn't have to wait for your food to cook, and who was to stop you from eating one entire plate of pepperonis and one entire plate of pre-sliced watermelon? The answer was no one; no one was to stop you. Shoney's was like The White House, or God's own kitchen table.

Aunt Opal came to pick us up in her shiny, red Buick, and I let out a low whistle when that thing pulled into our driveway. You could tell just from looking that it had air-conditioning and automatic windows. Jenn and I piled into the backseat together, cleaner than we ever were for a trip in the stifling "Baptist" van. I knew I should keep my hands to myself; my dad was forever saying the back seat was not a playground. But the automatic window button was glowing angel bright and it was causing my fingers to prickle. I could tell even Jennifer—who was usually years beyond me in sophistication—was aching to touch it.

The radio was never on in Aunt Opal's car. When you talked she looked you in the eye and she said, "Uh huh, uh huh," and sometimes even repeated parts of your story back to you. She laughed in the right places and gasped in the right places. The woman was a hoot. My mom said Aunt Opal had a way about her, and I would have always headed that way if I could've figure out what direction it was in.

She was my Grandpa Tom's sister, and she'd taken a turn raising him after their mama died. Aunt Opal didn't have any kids of her own, but her dog couldn't cry. It's not like she didn't have her hands full.

At Shoney's I ordered both me and Jenn salad bars and Cokes, with two straws each, because even the disciples pushed for more miracles.

I told Aunt Opal what I learned at church camp, how King David had written nearly half the Psalms, and some of them were nothing but whining. "The man had everything," I told Aunt Opal. "But you should read the way he just goes on and on about his problems and how he's scared God's just going to put him down like a mad dog. He's a baby," I said. "No, worse than a baby. He's practically a girl."

"The Lord values honesty," Aunt Opal said. I stuffed a whole quartered watermelon into my mouth. (Another thing about the salad bar: you got a clean plate every time you went back, which was as many times as you wanted.)

When Jenn had had her fill of salad bar and my theological commentary, she asked Aunt Opal to tell us about her trip to California. It was our favorite part of every meal.

Aunt Opal wiped her mouth with her napkin and placed it gently in her lap. "My best friend Alma and I just packed up our bags one day," she said. "And we headed Out West."

I thought I might throw up. Life's second great delight (after homemade ice cream) was packing a bag. You put your favorite Fruit Loops t-shirt—the one you got for sending in 5 Proofs of Purchase plus Shipping and Handling—into your bag and zipped it up. Your shirt stays in your bag thinking it's just a regular old drawer or something, but the secret is you're not sitting still. Maybe hours or a whole day later you unzip your bag and surprise: your shirt is in the mountains or at the beach, and it will never be a regular old play shirt again. Clothes never recover from being packed.

"We saw the Pacific Ocean," Aunt Opal said. "We saw everything. We spent every dollar we had while we were out there and when we came home we were flat broke. And neither of us had a paycheck coming for two weeks."

"What'd you do?" I asked. I was overly-familiar with the concept of being flat broke.

"We ate cabbage for two solid weeks."

I gagged a little.

"We ate it boiled," she said. "We ate it stewed. We baked it, we fried it. We ate it every way you could imagine. I swore I'd never eat cabbage again after those two weeks."

"Did you?" my sister asked.

"It took me a while, but yes." Aunt Opal smiled up into her eyes. "Honey," she said, "It was worth it."

After lunch, in the backseat once more, Jenn motioned toward the windows. "Aunt Opal," she said. "Would you mind if we..."

"Oh, are you hot?" Aunt Opal asked.

"Lord, yes," I said just as Jenn said, "No, ma'am." Jenn shot me a look. "We just wanted to see how these windows worked."

I could see from her rearview mirror reflection she was pleased as punch to have us along for the ride. We lowered and raised the backseat windows all the way home.

*

The Youth Group was meant to stand up in church the Sunday after camp and talk about everything we'd learned. I didn't walk the aisle the do it. Just thinking about walking the aisle made my legs seize up with cramps. I stayed proper in my seat until the sermon was finished and the preacher said, "Let's all turn our hymnals to page 187, Just As I Am."

I bowed my head.

Dear God, I prayed.. I meant to thank him for lunch with my Aunt Opal and a safe ride home in that van, but all I could think of was King David's belly-aching ways, and how, even so, he was a man after God's own heart. I heaved a deep, steadying breath. God, I said, there seems to be some question as to whether or not you actually created the world in seven days. Up until now I've been defending you pretty good, but let me ask you something: if it's true, if you made a whole planet in less than a week, then how long does it take to manufacture a gol' darn bicycle! You said ask, I asked. You said seek, I seeked. You said find, and that's my problem, but it ain't for a lack of looking. And here's another thing, God: it looks like I've gotta start praying for a husband. I don't want one. I can't think of a time when I'm going to want one. But if it's absolutely necessary, go on ahead and get it in line. If you have to choose between the husband and the bike, I'd rather have the bike. If you have to choose between the husband and just the bike streamers, I'll take the streamers. I'm going to California soon, because Aunt Opal says it's worth it. Please try to make cabbage taste better while I'm gone. And God, if they're out of green, a blue bike will be just fine.

I said amen, opened my eyes, and added my voice to the choir of God's lambs.

Posted by Heather Anne at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)