the table where rich people sit

What a satisfying Saturday! First, waiting at the post office was a puffy envelope package from a dear friend (I love the cd, Martha!) and then a leisurely drive into Anchorage. We've been so busy lately that we haven't used any of Ash's days off to even leave the house. So we left today with a rough itenerary of hopes.

Our first stop was a used book store that is going out of business-- which is too bad because it was one of the best used book stores I've visited. (For anyone interested the bookstore is across the street from REI and Tidalwave. The shopkeeper said the prices will be cut even further starting May 1st) I was thrilled to find a couple treasures in there. The first was a children's book that my mother-in-love has: "The Table Where Rich People Sit" by Byrd Baylor. In the book, a girl brings her family to the dining table to discuss how poor they are. The girl explains:

If you could see us
sitting here
at our old,
scratched-up,
homemade
kitchen table,
you'd know that we aren't rich.

But my father
is trying to tell us
we are.

Doesn't he notice
my worn-out shoes?
Or that my little brother
has patches
on the pants he wears
to first grade?
And why does he think
that old rattletrap truck
is parked by our door?

She wants her parents to get "better jobs so we could buy a lot of nice new things." She explains that her parents have strange ideas about working:

They think
the only jobs worth having
are jobs
outdoors.
They want cliffs
or canyons
or desert
or mountains
around them
wherever they work.
They even want a good view
of the sky.


The parents beautifully teach their daughter to count the worth of what they have-- each other, ofcourse, but also the sunsets they get to watch and having time to hike around canyons. They can "see the sky all day and feel the wind and smell the rain an hour before its really coming." They count everything around them in nature as part of what they get paid as they pan for gold. I love this story because at the end the family has decided all they have is worth over four million dollars

and we haven't even started
counting
actual cash.

To tell the truth,
the cash part
doesn't seem to matter
anymore.

I suggest
it shouldn't even be
on a list
of our kind of
riches.

So the meeting is over.

Byrd Baylor also has a great book about how to pick the perfect rock for your pocket. That one has been helpful because Charlotte is a rock collector.

Ash found a book by a Jewish man named Josephus who lived in the first century. I won't devote anymore of this blog to that except to say Ash was really glad to find it. I smiled politely when he showed me. I then added "Stepping Heavenward" to the pile.

After the bookstore we found the Anchorage Museum because we were told they have a display for children (thank you for that, Naomi!). We spent only a half hour there, but it was a well spent half hour. John Kirchner is the artist who pulled together the "Out of the Ordinary" exhibit for children. The room was packed full of touchable art-- art children could experience. My personal favorite was the cupboards full of slices of Wonder bread. You can see the cupboards in the picture of my family. In between the slices there were old copies of books-- classics, actually. About this piece of art, I read, "If bread sits on a shelf for a long time, it goes stale. Do you think books end up the same way if we don't read them?"

I wish I could say my kids were into the cool stuff around them, but all they saw were the tables with paper and crayons and the little house and kitchen set. We have that stuff at home. I was muttering about what a couple of ingrates they are when Ash reminded me that they're five and two. A better mom would have remembered that on her own.
The next picture is from Bear's Tooth Theater and Grill-- which is where our itinerary of hope took us next. We had tickets for the Veggie Tales movie "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." We've been hoping for a kids movie to come out because The Bear's Tooth shows movies that have just come out of the big theaters for a reduced fare. The theater also has a full restaurant menu so every seat is at a table. We ordered pizza and sat in a booth and enjoyed being in a movie theater as a whole family! (Before we had kids and were trying to decide whether it was time to start a family, Ash and I thought "What wouldn't be more fun with children?" Well, theaters, for one. Bookstores, too). So this last picture is our table at home... with tulips Ash gave me this past week. This is our own table where rich people sit. We don't pan for gold like the family in the story and our pants don't have patches but what a treasure to have one another! And Saturdays, too!