Since this was Friday, the end of my onion week, I kindly agreed.

Lately I've been hearing, seeing, and catching up on a great many old things. There was a hymn at Sunday morning worship I hadn't heard in decades (oh, five churches ago when I was a kid at Beulah Baptist Church in Georgetown, Florida) and I went in with a little more gusto singing it, even substituting the “thou”s for “you”s and getting out of gender-neutral mode as the hymns were written when I was a kid. I didn't know what it meant to be “offended” then.

Saturday mornings I have Sarah and Jeffrey with me because Martha works in the morning, and since I was taking my son to get a haircut first thing in the morning, I wheedled going to Breakfast with the Boys out of them, and I daresay of the nineteen people there for eggs, fried onions, cornbread, grits, fruit, juice, and coffee we were quite well behaved. Afterward we had Jeffrey's hair cut (not his head shaved) by Larae at Ultimate Cuts, we went to Dakota Square Mall so the kids could play …

Only to find the play area was no longer there. The word I've heard this weekend from various people is that Radio Shack now at the far end of the mall by JCPenney's is going to be moved there, and the play area's supposed to be going there across from Old Navy, sandwiched between a clothing store and a shoe store (which when I told Martha this story I called a “foot store” – I believe there's FIVE shoe stores in Dakota Square) … crying shame.

And the oldest store in the mall, a video game arcade called Magic Castle that's been there since 1970, is closing Friday. To be replaced by a Verizon store and one of the mall kiosks is going in where the Verizon store is now. I could go on for a while with what I learned about the mall and its many changes in just one conversation with an associate who's been working there since high school, but I digress. Seriously, how many clothing and footwear stores and departments do you NEED under one roof?

Today's title comes from a favorite book of mine I haven't read in decades. E.L. Konigsburg's 1967 children's book Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth (ISBN 0440441625) I was introduced to in a fifth grade reader, specifically the chapter about an “apprentice witch” Elizabeth during the preparation for the school Christmas play having to eat onions for one week. Doesn't smell nice to anyone else; I later read the book, essentially a paean for being an outsider when you're eleven.
Give Heed!

While at the [birthday, Elizabeth's invited to in a later chapter] party
Be on awares.
Do not eat cake
Or play musical chairs.

That and all the taboos (things she can't do as a “journeyman witch”) are all set up for her by her new friend Jennifer, evidently a full-blown yet very unassuming witch herself. In the sense of using nature to accomplish things seeming but really aren't outside possibility, not “true” magic. I remember fifth grade and how hard it can be and still is to make friends, especially when you've just moved into town. (For me the big year was FIRST grade.)

Sunday morning was church, of course, and Sunday school where Krista and my niece Breanna and I taught six fifth graders about Jesus And The Ten Leopards. It amazes me how, assuming that the kids are present in the other Sunday school classes – at least one of them per rotation; attendance is really spotty I admit for our entire program – yet they either haven't heard some of the most basic stories or we're just so crowded out. (Yes, it's Jesus and the Ten Lepers; were you not paying attention either?)

Class went well, but especially with a short Bible passage – the story's in Luke 17:11-19 – it's not easy to fill forty to forty-five minutes. But Breanna who was visiting this weekend helped a lot with that; she will likely be Krista's successor (remember, she graduates high school in a few weeks) to help me with Parable Playhouse next year. And with David and Goliath, Friendly Beasts, [Jesus] Calming The Storm, Jesus' Trial and Crucifixion, and Daniel in the Lions' Den as our classes, we ought to work with a lot!

Took the kids out with me (oh, and also had our other niece Josceline with us as Breanna was being taken back to Bismarck by Grandma and Grandpa) and brought Josceline to a birthday party where she stayed while with Sarah and Jeffrey came to the mall to get a balloon blown by Shriners Clowns (the Shriners Circus will be in Minot next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) and take a stroll to give Martha time to clean some of our house; their balloon sword and flower did not last the trip home!

Momma also cracked her back, David