If You Need a Laugh...Play "Dress-A-Kid"

Tell you what: you give my Big Family and me 15 minutes at the close of Value Village in Oregon's capitol city, and we'll give you the fashion show of a lifetime.

It's called "Dress-A-Kid," we just decided: We grab one of my kids and have 10 minutes to outfit them before they walk the runway (the shoe aisle). Dave, Steven, Marie, and Dominic were the judges.

I snatched up Rees (9), lied to him that the clothes are definitely washed before being hung on racks, and stuffed him into a wool plaid suit, a shiny vest, and a tie. Then I added accessories: round, mirrored glasses; a fedora; and at the last second, a sparkly hot pink-and-gold belt (which Steven said got us First Place).

Brigit picked Daney, and slipped her inside a huge men's shirt. She attached suspenders and a briefcase, and stuck all her hair inside a cap. Oh, and there were last-minute enormous pants (which Steven awarded First Place--again).

We whistled and hooted while Rees swaggered through rows of rainboots and wing-tips, while Daney snapped at her suspenders. An older couple came to watch, clapping.

We put back everything, except the plaid suit Rees wore, which everyone said was a must-have, and the winners got Dairy Queen (we were all winners).

Over her Butterscotch Dilly Bar, Brigit said, "Wait! Jennie cheated! You saw the suit for Rees first, then made it into a game!"

Smart, that Brigit.

The Bones of our Family

For the fifth year in a row, my kids put up a Day of the Dead display in our library.




We've been collecting these skeltons since before Dominic was two. We were living in Arizona, and told him he could pick any book at the bookstore. He chose this $28 photo gallery from Pomegranate Press:which we thought was pretty random. Until we took him to Mexico a couple months later, and our little toddler chose a clay basketballing eskeleto.

This was our 2008 display:You can see that our display began a little skimpy.






Here's 2009:







In the past 11 years, we've added so many pieces from Cabo, Tijuana, San Francisco, San Diego, even Portland. People send them to us, too.

And we've made some--some from felt, some clay ones with Steven.

It's kind of a funny family hobby, I guess. But aren't these skeletons great?

Portland: Some of This, This, This, and of course, These

Sacramento, So Far

It's Saturday, Mac's graduation from Colfax High School. There are a couple of remarkable things about this. First is that Mackie is the baby of the eight of us "kids." When I pulled out the lunch my dad had made for him yesterday morning and set it on the counter, I cried. That was the last school lunch my dad will make, the last lunch in a line of 34 years of lunches. It looked little and lonely on the counter. I slipped a note inside of it.

The second thing that's crazy about Mac's graduation is that it wraps up a 21 year legacy of Englunds at CHS. We were student body presidents, site councilors, peer counselors, cheerleaders, soccer/football players, snowboarders. We took Spanish, drafting, photography, journalism.

At Mac's Honors Awards, his presenter delivered a tribute to our mom, and dad, and us.

It's a good, good family. We love each other so much. We love each other so much that in this 2,600 sq. ft. home, these five folks are all crammed into about four inches of space:








We love each other so much no one wants to go to bed here, in my dad's house, where we're all staying--eight siblings and husbands and girlfriends and daughters. The party goes on well into the morning hours. Then we get up at seven and someone plugs in Mr. Coffee. Halfway into our first cup, Steven's wise cracks are flying and the rest of us are rolling on the blue carpet in hysterics.

Which means it's time to go to the river:










And swim in some very cold water:



(Steven)









(Mac)







Then we get us some frozen yogurt and head back to Poppa Ken's, where we whip up a big art project in honor of our favorite holiday:








Can you guess which one is mine?

"Part" Time

It's over, my fifth year of teaching at Rogue Community College.

At the end there, it got a little crazy. But I made it, and not only through 7 writing classes at 3 different levels, with around 200 students, and maybe 2,000 pages of grading.

I made it, despite our house's having swine flu, chicken pox, fifth disease, and two broken noses.

Around my teaching, life happened. Dominic did basketball and track. Daney had fewer seizures than last year; she played piano and read through the whole kids' section of the library. Rees strummed "I Feel Good" to a packed audience.

Dave fought a few huge fires, and several smaller ones (some right here at home).

In eight months, I went to Seattle, Sacramento (four times), San Diego, Mexico.

I revised a book.

And now, we're leaving for Auburn again. My brother, Mac, graduates from high school. There's a pirate party, of course, and a surprise slide show that Steven and I have been working on.

So more from there, later.

But for now, I'll say this: my year, it was nothing.

I sketched out a little prose of what went on in my classroom in this last term. Sure, I'll post it, and it's all true. But you'll never, ever believe it.

Tourettes Meets Jacques Cousteau

Our "baby," almost nine, is a reincarnation of sorts of my brother, Steven, who's 26. They are so the same brain we call them both "Rees-ven." (This is them in Cabo last fall.)

One summer in Tahoe, the two came to dinner dressed head-to-toe in the same digs. They wore camouflaged bandannas, yellow polo shirts, khakis, huarache sandals, with some crazy rag tied around their wrists.

When I'm going under from Rees' getting into stuff, and breaking things, and being hungry, and asking questions (the height of which is August, I've realized), I call Steven, crying, to ask him how our mom made it.

Both of them are brilliantly inquisitive. Steven asked me recently if memory is proof of intelligence, and when I thought about that for a few months and gave him an answer, he asked me another question about art and religion. And the other day when I begged Rees to let me just drive and listen to the "Glee" soundtrack, he said, "Okay. Just one more thing. Where does wind come from?"

Both these boys have good intentions. They are sensitive, creative, funny, and they like skeletons, Legoes, and singing Sublime songs. They make a wicked pirate team.

At Rees' school conference last week, Steven was Number One on his "All About Me" family page. His teacher relayed that Rees has lots and lots of friends, and that he's a good friend who'll keep those people his whole life. Like Steven has.

But nothing proves Rees' likeness to Steven more than last night. I was griping about my flu into Dave's side at the kitchen table, and Rees walked by. "The female cries into the arm of the male," he narrated, without stopping.

One-Fourth of a Whole (Lot of Crazy)

It's not the best picture of us. But we're all there, almost, except for Amy, who was hiking.

In the background, you can see the hutch where Steven (in the light blue shirt) keeps his clay.

***

I've been revising this short little memoir about my dad. It's my first time in this genre, and my dad is such a fascinating character, I thought I'd try it with him at the center.

Because there are eight of us kids, though, that's way too many secondary characters, especially for a short piece. Out of the eight, then, I picked two.

One of the siblings I'm including is Amy, my sister who comes right after me (I'm the first). She is strong yet vulnerable, and I've always been interested in her explosive interactions with our dad. At seven, Amy went through a phase of dumping her dinner milk on my dad's head every night. And he took it from her! He laughed over it -- all one hundred times!

Amy is absolutely gorgeous, and dresses impeccably. Her interior design skills are topped only by her culinary wonders. In some ways, she is my dad's opposite. And yet, the two share the same fundamentals; both work for the same county in law enforcement, they've both kept their faith, they are both ambitious.

In this memoir is Amy's engagement party on a dock on Lake Tahoe. It was Greek-style, and we were all wearing white. Except for our dad, in his orange and brown Hawaiian shirt.

Through Amy, I could show that my dad likes to keep his kitchen complete. He never lets up about the mixer dough-hook that went missing a decade ago. Like the San Francisco Fire House Cookbook. Like my mom's best recipes.

Through Amy, I could show my dad's frustration and compassion. And his acceptance.

On the other hand, Dad has been trying to straighten out Steven for 26 years.

Steven is like the family cat, or Sea Monkey. We never know what he's going to do, but it's always fun to watch. Steven lives in Portland with his girlfriend two deaf cats, and sells insurance, and crafts papier mache skeletons in skeleton costumes in his spare time. My boys love Steven for his elaborate Lego creations. And over the years, he's filled my dad's kitchen hutch with all kinds of clay people: a businessman, a skeleton, Darth Vader.

When I left for college in San Francisco, Steven was heading to kindergarten. He and I stood on the front porch, crying, and he told me he was worried about his big step. Because he didn't "know how to know things."

When he could barely talk, Steven asked how ants can eat, if they don't have fingers.

On his second grade homework of fill-in-the-blank adages, he wrote "A rolling stone gathers no .... FANS."

If a tool is missing at my dad's house, it's because Steven took it. If the house is loud, it's because his friends are playing "Rock Band" tournaments.

Steven has pushed and continues to push our dad's patience to the limit.

I use him in the memoir, not only because anyone who knows him (and everyone knows him), could see how much color he adds, but because of what he brings out in my dad. Through Steven, I can show my dad's blood boil, but also his tender side that comes from Steven's purity, love, and hilarity.

There are five other characters, and I mean characters, that I wish I could use in this piece. It seems untrue to me without them.

But they are for another chapter: their tattoos and straight As, their obsession with the 49ers, their love of justice, their slovenliness and cleaning compulsions, their husbands and wives and daughters,their time in jail or law school.

We are all really different, but we all love our dad, and we all love each other, and when we're together, it's magic.