Crazy Stable

Sometime before 7 a.m., the Traffic Cone Fairy visited our street, clearing the way for the Law & Order crew tomorrow morning. They'll be rehearsing their interior scene at about our usual breakfast hour, in our slightly transformed kitchen. Last Friday, the  set dressers came out and removed our window decor, refrigerator magnets, cookbooks, and assorted tchotchkes, and replaced them with a convincingly random tumble of food and clutter for "Carl," the character whose "exurban house" the CrazyStable is standing in for. They also replaced our huge farmhouse table with a dinky one, so we've been eating off a network television prop for two days now. Everything's topsy-turvy, but we are being very decently remunerated, so we will shut up and follow orders tomorrow when the trailers pull up and disgorge their light-meter-toting hordes.

Only disappointment: This time around, no Jesse L. Martin. He's leaving the show, so my handsome detective, who stalked around our garage with gun drawn last September 2006, will not be part of tomorrow's festivities. Good luck in your future endeavors, Jesse; we'll miss you! 

Aw, poor Charlie and Cocobop; they have no idea what's in store...all hell will be breaking loose in a matter of days. Law & Order is coming back to the CrazyStable! Yes, our old friends from NBC, who blew things up here back in 2005, are returning to shoot a scene for a new episode next week!

This blog made its debut, in fact, with the transformation of the house into a mad bomber's workshop for this episode of the show.  The location scouts chose us because the script called for  "a dilapidated house." This time, they're looking for something more prosaic--just an "exurban house" in Plattsburg, upstate. Apparently our countrified kitchen will do nicely, although they said they'd "thin out" our tchotchkes a little.

The crew is as nice as ever and the three-day shoot will be remunerative enough to permit a trip over the summer to visit Beloved Cousins in the Rockies. Plus, we get to hear real directors say "Action" and "Cut!" right inside our house...again! Yesterday, Child emerged from the bathroom to find a dozen crew members swarming over our living quarters with measuring tapes and digital cameras, saying things like, "Yeah, I'd do it all with the SteadiCam." She has learned to take that sort of thing in stride.

More delicious details to come. 

Around the base of the Ent, the vinca is putting on a gratifying show.

 
And these babies have been fresh and lovely for more than a week. They also refrain from complaining about the unraked autumn leaves. 

How does this stuff know how to spill out from among rocks artfully? Taken together, I hope they draw the eyes of some weekend visitors away from the peeling facade of the CrazyStable.  I was going to go out and attack the property with rake and broom in the warmth of this afternoon, but a creepy bronchitis-like thing has started to spread through my chest. After spending almost all of January sick, I am appalled by this development. There are seeds to be planted, there is cement to be smashed up and removed...and there is a bicycle ride to train for.  Today even brought the brochure for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plant sale, my yearly wild indulgence in "optimism over experience." The immune system is hereby commanded to produce radiant good health for the 21st Annual Vernal Assault on the Garden! [cough]

I swear, this is about the house, and not about religion. Because two religious posts in a row would mean I was turning into a "Catholic blogger," a fate I have fought bravely, because Catholic bloggers tend to be loopy (even ones I really like).

But faith has been on my mind lately, given that Easter and the Child's Confirmation just occurred one week apart. Yesterday's gospel reading was the story of Doubting Thomas, an excellent if inadvertent choice for skeptical and sometimes surly seventh-graders facing a smackdown with the Spirit. (Well, no smack any more, alas; instead of the light blow upon the cheek once given as a foretaste of persecution for one's faith, the bishop now shakes your hand. Unless you are planning a future in mergers and acquisitions, it just doesn't deliver the same thrill.)

I love the story of Thomas, whom I suspect has gotten a bum rap. I don't see him as "doubting," but rather crushed in grief and rage and abandonment, and not about to fall for any cruel pranks, stupid hallucinations, or other possible explanations for the impossible. Then Christ comes back, and he recognizes him by his scars. Not by his glory, or perfection--no Nip/Tuck or Extreme Make0ver here--but by the physical evidence of his torture and execution. Fulton J. Sheen once said, "Never let anyone tell you that all world religions are 'basically the same.' Only we worship a God with scars."

It seems, with passing years, that we recognize one another, in love, more and more by our scars. The evidence of what we've suffered bears the most authentic testimony to who we really are. My cat scratch from my aunt's farm cat, hugged too hard when I was 8 or 9...my C-section squiggle...my worry lines...the latest burn from baking--all would enable those who know me to say, "Yep, that's her." (And those are only the ones on the outside.) A perfect me, back from the dead or even the supermarket, would be unrecognizable and unimaginable, and would scare the hell out of my kid.

Which brings us to the house. When we passed the 20th anniversary here in the CrazyStable and still hadn't wrought any miracles worthy of Ty Pennington, ambition began to ebb inside me (and, I suspect, inside of Spouse as well, although he will admit only to frustration and peevishness). If our fortunes change, we'll still do plenty around here (that is, if our fortunes can stretch beyond a new roof). We only ever got this place about half-renovated to start with, and most of that work needs anything from a touch-up to a total re-do.

  But I've come to terms with the fact that I love this house for its scars. Some more than others, of course. I'll be very happy, someday, to have a good finish carpenter replace the gouged doorframes on the third floor, the ones that suffered the wounds of multiple mortises for countless locks during the Stable's incarnation as a Chinese boarding house.

Other scars, however, will be tenderly conserved, like the taped-on name tag of "M. Ste. Marie" on my office closet door, a relic of the house's 1950s as a hostelry for teachers at a nearby private school.

Nor would the Child countenance the removal or painting-over of this scratchitti, inside a scuffed built-in closet on the second-floor landing: "Alicia's Closet." What long-gone little girl laid claim to it? my daughter loves to wonder. "A brand-new house," she has said, "must be boring. Promise you'll never sell this house!"

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:24-28

Painting: Li Wei San, Chinese Christian Artist, b. 1928

Artist’s statement: “It is the time of great culture revolution, an old pastor was transferred to do manual labor in the countryside. At middle night he read Bible alone. A stranger visited and talking with him but he did not recognize who he is. Suddenly he looked at the nail mark on this hand, he discovered: He is my Lord.”

"Easter is not only a story to be told; it is a signpost on life's way. It is not an account of a miracle that happened a very long time ago:  it is the breakthrough that has determined the meaning of all history. If we grasp this, we too, today, can utter the Easter greeting with undiminished joy: Christ is risen; yes, He is risen indeed!"

-- Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Image: Fra Angelico