The Education of Edward Camus

Well, marriage is an education. I have learned things I didn’t know anything about…or even thought about. Some things I’m still learning (like there’s someone else to consider in decisions…being single for 34 years gives a lot of practice in just making up your own mind and going at something!). But I’m also teaching.

First, I took Ed blueberry picking this summer. A couple of weekends ago, I took him apple picking for the first time. We found a smaller orchard north of us and off we went one Saturday to explore. It wasn’t the type of orchard I was use to. The couple who own it have trees growing throughout their fields in no particular lines. They operate out of a small barn, weighing the apples in a brown paper bag. And they deal in cash only. We had a good time picking the three different types that were in that day. We got enough apples to fill a crisper in the fridge. In a couple of weeks, we’ll need to pick again – just because I intend to freeze some.

But along with apple picking comes the Sturm family tradition: apple dumplings! You must, Must, MUST make apple dumplings from the first apples you pick for the season. Admittedly, it took me several days to get around to it. (These days I’m just not always up to doing anything in the kitchen that involves food…or being near it.) Now we have a few left in the pan in the fridge, but they’ll be eaten soon! It was Ed’s first time to have apple dumplings. He approves.

The seasons for introducing him to the picking of fruit are coming to an end, but we have lots of experiences yet to go. I mean, exactly how many kinds of Christmas cookies MUST the Sturm family make over the holidays? And there’s the tree that must be put up when Navy plays Army. Besides all that, we’re both about to be educated together in Baby 101. Crib, stroller, onesies…we’ll see what we find this weekend at one of the many baby consignment “shows” that go on around Pittsburgh this time of year!

Across Town

Last night, Ed’s mom had us over for dinner. We left the house a little after 5:30…we arrived at her place about 6:30.

I know that Pittsburgh can’t be the only city in the world that it takes a full hour to get from north to south. But between winding roads and Ed attempting to avoid as much traffic as possible by taking roads I will never find again…it took us a full hour to get from one side of the city to the other side.

I can see it now when the baby gets a little bit older and we say we’re going to visit Grandma:

“Do you have to? It takes FOREVER to get to Grandma’s!”

And that’s the Grandma that lives not only in the same state as we do, but the same city!

Memories of…Katey!

They say a person’s earliest memory is often the birth of their first sibling. In my case, this is true. I have a memory of visiting Katey in the hospital, looking at her through the glass that separated the infants from us curious toddlers. But not to worry, Mom and Dad soon brought her home and no glass could keep me from touching her. Or carrying her around. But I was only trying to help Mom who was running Katey’s bath and needed someone to carry the infant to her. Right?

Katey’s arrival certainly made an impact on my life. My two dolls were named Kate and Katy. (Please don’t ask what happened to Kate…one day I shall have to see a psychologist about that.) I slept on the floor of her room – who wants a room of their own when they can share? I had a built-in playmate. And someone to blame things on. To think I could have gotten away with little Katey taking the blame for the coloring of the wall if my conscious hadn’t set in.

Katey and I spent hours in our swimsuits playing the rain. Or flipping around the swing set. Or taking care of our dolls and cooking meals in our little kitchen. (And, yes, mixing together concoctions from stuff in the bathroom we shouldn’t have.) But even as kids, we were very different. Katey didn’t want to be Mary Lou Retton or play library all the time. And I didn’t find throwing imaginary coconut bombs down upon oncoming pirates a game to play every single day. We had regular fights on Fridays when we had to clean our room (some much worse than others – I could be ruthless), and she found organizing everything before it could be played with just a little annoying. (What?!?!?) But, all in all, we were best friends.

It would be easy to say my quirks rubbed off on her more than hers did on me. After all, wasn’t it thanks to all my pre-playing sorting that she kept her chalk art box in such neat order? On the other hand, I never could look at a blank slate and make it into a lovely piece of art. But she did lead me to the joy of writing. When I just didn’t have the patience to wait for her to write the next page of her story (because two-thirds of the page had to be an illustration and she wouldn’t write the next page until she had completed the drawing), I just finished writing the story. And I haven’t stopped writing since.

Growing up and chasing after what interested us moved us apart. Ever artistic, Katey followed music and art. A born organizer, I can’t seem to find a way out of an office. I moved around. She married and stayed in New Hampshire. And now has a little boy, who when I sit on the floor to play with, is like looking back 30 years to another red head I sat on the floor and played with. He reminds me of the little sister who has changed my life in so many ways. And, mostly, I’m glad.

Happy 32^nd birthday, Katey!

Caught in the Rain

What I meant to post nearly two weeks ago…

Lately, I haven’t been liking Pittsburgh very much. I think I’m overwhelmed with a lot of different things. For while I’m quite accustomed to hitting a 3-month point of “why-did-we-move-here-blues”, to top off the move with marriage, a new job and a coming baby is more than I have experience with. It’s been especially frustrating to live in a huge city when you look at a list from your insurance provider of nearly 500 OBGYNs within 10 miles of your doorstep. I love cities…as long as I live about 30 miles from them. I’m not real excited about living in one.

So, it had been a hard day when Ed and I decided to go for a walk. Just as we stepped outside the door, it started to sprinkle a little. But neither one of us are very sweet, and nor are we witches from the west, so we figured we wouldn’t melt. And we didn’t. Just about half way through the walk, we got hit by a downpour.

Thankfully, Pittsburgh is not Indiana. There are trees. We stopped under one on the main street of Avalon, but it wasn’t doing a lot for us. Ed suggested we dart across the street and duck under the eaves of an old, stone church (which we learned a few minutes later is an antique place now). But then Ed saw an old man waving to us from his porch. So, we dashed over there.

This was an old man (in his mid-80s at a guess) who was old school. He offered me the empty chair on the porch. He asked Ed what he did for a living (not me) and he shook Ed’s hand (not mine). Either old age or health concerns was robbing the man of his voice, but he was happy to visit with us. He said he had lived in that house for 65 years, he and his new bride moving in not long after they were married. He told us the old church was an antique place. He and Ed exchanged stories and memories of St. Anne’s over in Castle Shannon. That’s where Ed grew up and went to school through the 7^th grade. This man’s wife had grown up over there and they were married in the old St. Anne’s (which was torn down before Ed was born). Since his wife was from the “South Hills” and this man from the “North Hills” (which, to Pittsburghers, is two different worlds), I asked how he had met his wife.

One day he had been downtown walking somewhere and saw this girl through the windows of a store that’s no longer there. So, he went in and walked up to the counter where she was working. He didn’t say much more than “hi” and then left. Two weeks later, he was walking by there again and decided to go see her. But, she was no longer there. Another girl told him that she had quit a week ago because she had just graduated from high school and was moving onto something else.

“But,” the girl added, “she said if you ever stopped back in, I was to give you this.”

It was a folded piece of paper with her phone number inside. So, he called her. And they were married for 58 years before she passed away in 2004.

By then, it had stopped raining. We said good bye to this kind man who had let us sit on his porch for 10 minutes and headed towards home. A rather nice ending to a day of Pittsburgh-blues.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Ed’s 40^th birthday was Sunday, so we had to do something special to celebrate this milestone of having lived half of his allotted fourscore years (should God give him strength to do so!). He wanted to go to a Pirates game. So, we went Saturday night.

First, an explanation to those of you who might not be major league baseball followers. The Pirates are Pittsburgh’s baseball team. Or you can call them the “Buccaneers” or “Bucs” or “Buccos” for short. And, yes, you see a lot of pirate flags flying around Pittsburgh. To be honest, I’m not really sure why they’re called that except Pirates starts with “P” and so does “Pittsburgh”. Because the thought of Blackbeard sailing the “Three Rivers” just doesn’t capture your imagination quite like sailing the “Seven Seas”. But, who knows? Maybe pirates did once haunt the shores of the rivers of Pittsburgh.

Not being a stat person, I can’t tell you a whole lot about the team. And it probably suffices to say they haven’t been to a World Series since 1979, although they did win that one. Then they went through the longest consecutive losing streak in North American professional sports history for 20 seasons before having a winning season last year and earning a wild card for the play-offs. I don’t think they’ll pull that off this year.

Let me also add an interesting piece of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh has three professional sports teams – Pirates, Steelers and Penguins. All three have the same colors – black and gold. So, if you attend any of their games it is quite safe to wear gear pertaining to any of the teams or just to cover yourself with black and gold. But, since I am a Naval brat with two brothers in the Marines, I own absolutely nothing that is black and gold because I could never do enough penance for wearing Army colors. So, I just wore a black sweatshirt, which no one noticed anyway because it was so cold I wore a jacket over it the whole time.

All that being said, it was an enjoyable night. We started out by taking the ferry up one river and across another to the park. The view of the city on the other side of the river from PNC Park is lovely. The park itself is very nice. Sadly, the “Bucs” decided not to play ball until the 8^th inning, which was very thrilling but not enough to beat the Cubs. And I couldn’t eat much because the smells of fried food just didn’t sit well with being pregnant. But Ed ate enough for the both of us (or three of us). And I got a sample of a rock concert because he wanted to see Lynyrd Skynyrd and I managed to survive one song (if that’s what you call that). Then we ended the night very late with a very cold ride on the ferry. All in all, a good way to celebrate Ed’s 40 years.