Normal? What is this thing normal of which you speak?

Well, my friends, I now have three laundry lines hung above the stage in the basement.

I'm sure something about that sentence sounds odd to everybody who isn't a member of the immediate family, so explanations are in order.

First: the drier broke Saturday. Perhaps broke is too nebulous an explanation; gave up the ghost may be more appropriate, but until we can call out a diagnostician whom we trust and who will appraise for cheap (usually, that would be my dad, and he's unavailable currently--something about the desire for a vacation, although I can't imagine why someone would want a vacation when he has a daughter with extremely needy appliances, can you?) we'll just have to call the thing comatose and find a temporary work solution. Thus, the four laundry lines on the back porch were inadequate to the unimaginable washing load this family produces. (Three boys, one girl, one dog. You do the laundry math. If Tide ever wants to sponsor a family for promotional purposes, I'll be pushing to get at the front of the audition line.) Additionally, I must mention that as I was setting laundry out to dry--counting (overly-optimistically, as it turns out) on our wondrous desert aridity for it normal effect--it started to rain. Timing is everything, friends! So, seeking a largish, openish, dryish space--which would eliminate all bathrooms in this house (designed in the 1980s by a male whose ablutions consisted solely of wet wipes and travel-size toiletry supplies to judge by the square-footage and workability of the bathrooms in this house--40 square feet, 40! And you have to sit on the toilet to close the door. You can't tell my a woman drew up the blueprints. No way.), as well as rooms currently taken up by sleeping arrangements, schoolwork, cooking, and normal in-house movements, we (I) came to the brilliant solution that the only truly available space was the basement. And the best spot in the basement was over the stage.

Second: the explanatory bit about the stage. Yes, there is a stage in the basement. It isn't terribly large--slightly larger than a bathroom, though--nor is it professionally equipped. You might call it a stage in embryo. It exists--raised by eighteen full inches above floor level, but no productions have been staged as yet. But they will be. They will be. Mainly because I am who I am, and because we have the darn thing and are going to use it if it kills some of us. Also, because I have a daughter with a very feminine penchant for dressing up and dramatics. (Her bedtime soliloquies are wondrous to behold and be-hear.) The stage in the basement is tradition. It was there when I was a child growing up--the pride of my heart, and the setting for many brilliant productions. One of which, if I remember correctly, was called "How Sun and Rain Got Together." I believe I still have the original script somewhere. It was a triumph of juvenile theater. Naturally, I wrote, directed, costumed, and starred in said production. There are some advantages to being the oldest child. Not many, but some.

So, recap: laundry lines above basement stage. All in all this is whatever passes for normal around here.

And that brings me to the real point of this post (it isn't really about laundry or dramatic production spaces--too bad!). The real point is that there is no such thing as normal around here. Really.

I realized this yesterday as I was walking home from dropping off the boys at their enrichment school. There I was, halfway home on what is usually a three-mile walk, but which yesterday stretched to four miles because of errands which had to be run, crossing a freeway overpass, when the thought struck: "No wonder we have a hard time with our planning--we have no normal to plan around!"

Chalk one up for freeway overpasses as places of inspiration!

Honestly, though, what day would you consider our average day: the one where I wake up at two to write on whatever project is currently at hand, then supervise school until ten, then attempt to motivate the kids to do chores until it's time to hop on a bus, and then the light rail to get to Swedish school and eventually return home at 7 p.m. for dinner? Or the one where I wake up exhausted from a night attempting to teach the most stubborn child in the world to sleep for more than four hours at a time without my physical presence (sixteen months of failure, and still counting!), then rush one child off to his school, then supervise the chaos of the remaining three while attempting to maintain home and sanity until child and spouse return from their respective activities? Or is it the day at the end of the week when I'm frazzled and pooped, but have to teach lessons, and then catch two buses to take a daughter--and her unwilling brothers--to dance class, after which the weekly grocery shopping must be done if there is to be both peace and food in the house the next day? Is there an average in there somewhere? Is it so carefully hidden as to escape my careful scrutiny?

The thing is, I always seem to be making plans (trying to fit in exercise, personal study, reading more than one paragraph at a time, etc.) based on the elusive "normal"--supposing, I guess, that one day all these weird aberrations such as sleepless nights and teething and wildly differing workloads will cease. As if next Tuesday everything will magically fall into place and our life will become predictable and calm on a daily basis.

HA! I know something about what next Tuesday brings--and I'm sure involves at least one child complaining about what is served at dinner. Because even if there is no such thing as "normal" around here, at least a few things come standard.

Melia's Month of Memories--Post Second (because I just can't seem to get in the habit of writing every day. You would weep if you saw my journal.)

Some months have personalities. July and August are bullies here in the beautiful Desert Southwest--beating us mercilessly about the utility bill and forcing us to cough up protection money, "Or face a day in the sun, if you know what we mean. Heh, Heh, Heh." February is a flirt--teasing us with the lure of romance and eternal affection, but then speeding away just when she was getting interesting. December is the sprinter, always rushing by to claim yet another, "Gee, that was a quick month" record. And he just whacked me on the be-hind with his baton. (Of course, in the case of December the baton is made out of peppermint. Even so, there's little welt right where I was smacked.)

So, yeah, I let a few days get away from me. But how is a middle-aged mom supposed to keep up with the flash that is December?

Excuses aside, on to the memories!

Today's topic:

ornaments and the trees that go with them

I suppose that there are probably people that don't really care what the Christmas tree looks like--or even if it makes it into the house in time for the holiday. I may even have known them and not fully understood the gaping holes that were their souls. How can you not care what the tree looks like? It's going to dominate the whole darn house for a month or so, and everyone will see it! So do a good job on it, darn it!

I, naturally, come from the other end of the spectrum. I blame it on my mother. (My father is one of those for whom the tree is a nice concept, but not so much of an obsession; it's more like something to dodge when vacuuming. If he vacuumed. Which he does. But only when my mom is out of town. He's come a long way, baby.) Mom grew up in a family who liked the tree just so--and habits like that are hard to break. And luckily for Mom, she always had a Christmas tree that gave her scope for just so-ey-ness.

I grew up in a house with a twenty-foot tall vaulted ceiling. That was nice in the summer when paper airplane contests were popular. (That was a quiet enough activity for us to do when we were cooped up by six solid months of temperatures hot enough to melt your spleen.) But it was a real asset when it came time for the Christmas tree. Mom and Dad--who clearly knew the power of BIG in creating wonderment in the juvenile brain, always went for the tallest tree they could find. (And now that I think about it, how? Because even in the 70s, when such things were not twenty dollars a foot like they are now, my parents were not exactly rolling in the dough. Did they have a Tree budget which they contributed to all year long? Did they fast on Fridays and save the money? Did my dad moonlight as a gold miner to accumulate the cash? These are question I really ought to ask and include in my personal history if I ever get around to that. Which seems unlikely, given my propensity for procrastination of the typed type.) One year we kids were very proud when we were able to score the sixteen-footer that had been set aside for one of the banks in town. (Really. We were apparently budding anti-capitalists.)

When we got those monstrous--in the very best sense--things home, Dad would wedge the trunk of the tree of the year in Mom's largest pot (see--too poor even for a tree stand!) and Mom would set to work. All the ornaments from the past thirty-odd years would come out, and be exclaimed over. We children would claim all the ones we had made or had been given over the years. There were the felt angels Mom had made when I was four or so, and the little china Dutch shoes, the doves from Mom and Dad's wedding reception, and the angels from Mom's childhood. And they had to be placed correctly. Even spaced; no two similar ornaments next to each other; breakable glass ones at the top. It took forever. And when we were done, we girls always wanted to sleep underneath the tree. We even got to once or twice.

Every year the trees became more elaborately decorated. Mainly because we each received a new ornament each year--something that commemorated an event from the year past. That was part of the fun--to see what we had done on display in felt and lace and glass.

When I grew up, the tradition continued. On my mission I received a glass globe. The year I got my driver's license (AFTER the mission and the college graduation, pathetically enough) I was given a red car ornament. Christmas ornaments were/are a BIG DEAL.

So is it any wonder that when Roberto and I were engaged I gave him an ornament for Christmas?

He didn't get the concept.

There I was, warmly welcoming him into the wonderful welter of my family's traditions, and he was disappointed it wasn't a watch or a tie or whatever a twenty-something-year-old guy really wants for Christmas. (Something illicit and highly inappropriate, I fear) It took him nearly a decade to understand the significance of that gift.

Naturally, I tease him mercilessly about it every year. It's on the agenda for this one, too.

These days we actually have two trees. Our first is the artificial one we (I, mostly) set up as soon as possible after Thanksgiving. It's covered in fruit ornaments, and is actually rather restrained, when you consider how I was raised. We have a family tradition--started almost five years ago, and thus of comparatively ancient vintage--of adding one additional ornament a day. All these ornaments are on gospel themes: the temple, families, missionary work, the Savior and His birth. We call it our "Fruits of the Gospel" tree and it's our one point of sanity in an over-commercialized celebration.

The other tree is the big one. The one for which all the living room furniture must be arranged. The one that tales up more space than should be legally allowed. And Santa brings it and decorates it on Christmas Eve while the children sleep. (Last year Santa scored by going on Christmas Eve to Home Depot, where they just GAVE him the tree for free. It was one less they had to chip up for mulch. Santa is a frugal shopper.) When everyone (except Mom, who still hasn't mastered the trick of sleeping on Christmas Eve--too excited, if you can believe it) wakes up, there it is, bright and shining and covered with all the well-loved ornaments that Santa had apparently quietly retrieved from the basement without the insane guard dog licking him to death in the process. (Guard Dog likes Santa, it would seem. Or maybe Santa keeps his pockets full of peppermint-flavored mace for just such a situation.) There are the felt angel from my pre-school days, my globe, my Dutch shoes. The boys have their ornaments for trips to Disneyland and to the aquariums. There is the cloth angel I stitched for our first son the year he was born and I couldn't afford two dollars to buy him one. The icicles I bought when I worked in the trim-a-tree department at the mall are scattered--and still quite effective. And my husband's first ornament, his knight-in-shining-armor hand-blown glass ornament, that he really didn't think much of at first, is near the top.

It's a pretty darn fabulous sight.

Good heavens! When did December sneak up on me? No knock, no warning whistle, no flash of the twinkly lights. Just WHAM! And suddenly everyone is spouting Holiday Cheer like it's some sort of chocolate-induced acne and I only have three weeks--no, make that 19 days!!!!!!!!!--to get everything done. Because it just ain't Christmas if Mom isn't frazzled and slugging back hot cocoa to steady her nerves.

In an effort to remember and reinforce to my poor shriveled soul what Christmas is all about (and no, Virginia, it isn't about your six-year-old son's fifteenth re-write of his letter to Santa--this time with major emphasis on highly specific and probably unlawful-in-the-hands-of-an-unlicensed-minor type toys.) Christmas only comes once a year--one chance in 365 to make a memory to last through the joys of spring, the blisters of summer and the muddy paw prints of autumn. One day to GET IT RIGHT, dagnabbit!

And so, only six (and one half) days late, I begin my

Month of Memories

A month--if I can keep it up; feel free to bet--of the memories that I hold near, dear, and occasionally cringe-worthy.

Tonight's topic: Christmas food (mainly because I'm in the middle of cooking dinner, and it just feels right somehow.)

I know there are people who eat ham or turkey on Christmas Eve. I've been friends with a few of them in my time. And on my mission I met others who celebrated with tamales, enchiladas, and even lasagna--a particularly festive bunch. But the fact is, nothing in the whole wide world says Christmas so well as Swedish Meatballs or Clam Chowder.

You see, I have a large family. Not that my parents were so very prolific or anything--there are only four of us siblings, although that prior to our births many more were planned. (Sorry about that, Mom!) When I say family I mean FAMILY. With a big red letter in front. With lots and lots and lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, great-aunts and -uncles, grandparents, and people we just figured were family until we started doing genealogy and found out those trees did not intertwine. When my mom married my dad she thought she was getting a bargain. She was--but it was the marry one, get 59 free type. My mom grew up in a nice, picturesque Northern California town. Just she and her brother and their parents. Meals were decorous affairs. Conversations were hushed. And manners were always observed. When she married Dad, she was thrown right into the maelstrom of emotion, humor, and extreme decibel-levels that is my father's family. How was a girl to cope? By making a bargain: one Christmas with dad's family, one with her family. Evenly balanced. The best of both worlds. Sanity and lunacy in alternating waves.

So, in odd years we would head off to the Bay area, and my Aunt Michelle would make her fabulous clam chowder--I got used to the chewy bits at around age 13--and we'd have sourdough bread and veggies, and lovely desserts, and it was all very fancy and festive. I loved it. Somewhere in my young brain, the ideas of chowder and the thrill of holidays in a place far more interesting than my home town fused, and I still can't eat chowder without feeling a little shiver of anticipation down my spine. (These days my spine is usually anticipating a child asking if he/she can finish off my soup, but the vertebrae still get excited.) Unfortunately, I never had a hand in making the chowder, so I can't concoct a big pot full of the heavenly stuff. These day I have to rely on Campbell's to take me back to memory lane.

In even years, we'd stay home in the desert, and my grandma would do her best that no matter what--even if the only snow was on the television, and most of us could only say "tack"--and that with poor accents--we were SWEDES. By all that was or ever could be holy, we were SWEDES! And don't you forget it! So we gorged on Swedish meatballs (kottbullar--and that "k" at the beginning sounds like a "sh", and the "o" that follows should really have two dots over it and sounds a bit like a cross between a short i and a short e, so you can see why we kids liked to call them by their proper name loudly and with slightly-less-than-innocent smiles on our faces) and rice pudding (which is a whole 'nother story and the reason my grandmother has over fifty great-grandchildren), and crispbread, and cheese, and mashed potatoes, and my stomach is cramping up just thinking about it. (And every year my grandmother pulled out the jar of pickled herring that had graced the table since 1946. No one ever had the courage to eat it--would YOU?--and the same jar will probably be set out this year. You'd think the joke or the hope or whatever it is that motivates my grandmother to do so would have evaporated by now, but you'd be wrong. Sadly, painfully, wrong) My memories of Christmases with Dad's side of the family revolve around my fingers freezing stiff from mixing up the meatballs (we could only help if we were old enough to take the pain without excessive whining) and guessing how many of the products of my agony my little brother had eaten. (23 one year.)

This year, we'll be at the church by my Swedish Grandmother's house--we outgrew her family room about ten years ago. There goes that rice pudding again!--and I'll be the one with a plate full of meatballs in front of her and the big smile on her face.

Here's to yummy memories and a big pile of kottbullar!

The Post-Mortem

Who knew there was a floor under all that sparkly stuff?



Don't mind me--I'm just digging out after FINALLY finishing with the roadshow. The costumes are now packed away, props have been dismantled (except for the glittery mop, because you never know when that might come in handy), and my makeup brushes have been washed and are drying on my kitchen counter. Whew.



Alas, I must reveal that we didn't win. Agony! I know, when I really stop and analyze it without the influence of chocolate--which seems to make me belligerent for some reason--that the better roadshow won: they practiced more than we did (twice every Saturday, instead of only once each weekend), had better participation, and when I saw their director at the first meeting I knew my ward was sunk. But my heart is stronger-willed than my brain, and a faint flicker of hope still existed through these past difficult weeks.



I wanted to win. Not because I want to be considered the Grand Pooh-Bah of Roadshows (although that would look nice engraved on a plaque in the ward cabinet), but because I wanted to right a wrong perpetrated many years ago.

You see, I was a member of the Great Roadshow Rebellion of '85. I rose up--along with several other members of the cast, lest you think I was some sort of rabble-rouser. I was actually more of a really stupid follower--and struck (like we were some sort of union: the International Disciples-Indignant of Overworked Teenagers--go ahead and acronym-ize that one) for some meaningless and ultimately forgotten "right", demanding that our director give in to our demands or no roadshow would be performed that year. In retrospect, we were all a bunch of two-bit doofusses, loaded with acne and puffed up with an unbelievable combination of self-importance and self-loathing. Making matters worse, our esteemed (now and for many years previous!) director was my grandmother.

That's right, I rebelled against the gentle stage direction of my adored grandmother. It is not something I like to recall. (But my mom remembers and refers to it whenever I get snippy with her. Mothers are a lot more like elephants than we like to admit.)

So you can see why I was willing to sacrifice everything--EVERYTHING!!!!--to bring home the Grand Prize this year. I wanted to do it in honor of my grandmother, to make up for hormone-induced imbecility, to prove that I had actually learned something in the intervening years. (How to tell stage left from stage right, and the importance of sparkly ribbon come to mind.)

Alas, it was not to be. We were outclassed by a lethal combination of (really fabulous!) poster-board shining armor and 90% participation. In the end we won only for best director (irony, folks!) and best script.

We even lost out on the award for best costumes. Oh, my aching ego.

So, in the end, I could have saved myself a whole lot of exhaustion and frustration if I had just tossed everyone t-shirts for costumes and forgone the worry over sets. All I really needed to do was yell, "LOUDER!" at every possible rehearsal interval, and the results would have been the same.

Karma, friends, karma. It'll bite you in the end.

(Blogger enters, stage right)

I would like to make a sincere apology for the nation-wide glitter shortage. It seems I got a little carried away with what my mom calls "gussy-ing up" the costumes for the roadshow. But on the up side I now have a glitter-spangled white-powdered wig made from the panty part of a pair of pre-worn black tights and half a yard of polyester batting to add to the costume collection. (Just don't tell the actor who has to wear it what it's made of. Teen-age boys are so sensitive to silly things like that.)

Apparently that college degree in costume design has started to pay for itself. Or it would if I were being payed by the hour at a rate commensurate with my abilities (tights panties and batting--c'mon, does anyone want to try to top that?) and my adaptability. (I made rats' tails out of wire hangers and duct tape; the girl rat's tail has a perky bow. Did I mention that our budget was only $100? The instructions said to use our resources. Done.)

Instead, I'm being paid in celestial savings bonds and promises at another crack at the trophy in three years.

With that in mind, may I offer a few of what I consider reasonable suggestions that would go enormous lengths to improve the current Roadshow system?

• Tag-team directors--so that when the kid who hasn't shown up for seven practices in a row decides he feels like crashing the dress rehearsal, the director currently in charge can take a few minutes to pop a couple Valium.

• Parisian Street Mime Roadshows. Because then at least there would be an excuse for not speaking on cue.

• Hook the actors up to radio controllers. "Dang it all--I said LEFT FOOT!!!!!!" (Optional extra: shock-administering dog-training collars.)

• Strap bull horns on actors at the first practice; arrange for them to be removed at the cast party. Maybe then I won't have to shriek "Speak UP!" every ten seconds.

• Institute new judging system: points for greatest efforts in the face of enormous odds. Bonus points for best sob story. Judged by fellow directors.

• Order mandatory costume weigh-in. Costumes not meeting minimum glitter requirements to be awarded negative points for lack of proper roadshow spirit. Extra ten points for every conspicuously-placed sequin on already too-shy deacons.

• Eliminate song and dance requirements. Instead, ask the audience to hum along as priests and mia maids shuffle awkwardly in what is optimistically called a "Viennese Waltz". (More of a Vienna sausage two-step, but we're hoping for the best.)

• Secret "director's points" (awarded in calm-inducing chocolate bars, delivered in plain brown wrappers) for every time an actor says the "secret word" on stage. Possible suggestions: shoot, dang, walrus, ummmmmmmmm.

That's all, folks. You've been a great audience. (Blogger bows, waves. Exit stage left.)

Now Accepting New Members

I just found out that November is not just for Thanksgiving and torturing my children with pop quizzes on the Pilgrims. (Quick--name the first successful permanent English settlement in the New World and tell me the date of its founding!) It isn't even just a month to really, really wish I had a novel in me somewhere (no fat jokes, I beg of you!) so I could take part in National Novel Writing Month. It's also National Adoption Month.

I found this out only today--apparently, I haven't been keeping as up to date on my quasi-official memorial months as I'd like. But there they were, splashed across the newspaper page: pictures--heart-wrenching ones, no less--of teary-eyed children seeking families. They get me every time. Why do I let myself forget about them in the midst of the lunacy I let creep into our life?

Here's the thing: I've always wanted to adopt. Well, maybe not always--but pretty much since I married el Roberto and figured that with our late start 10 kids would be a physical impossibility. (I've been reading the Old Testament lately, and with all due admiration, there is no WAY I'm pulling a Sarah. I can only imagine the spasms it would give my poor OB, not to mention my tortured kidneys.) Unfortunately, it isn't quite as easy as just saying, "Okay, I'm ready. Hand over those superfluous kiddos!" There are forms to fill out and money to scrape together, and visits and tests and red tape up places where no one (not even my afore-mentioned OB) ought to look--and that's even for the children that supposedly no-one wants! (I do! I do!--I've had enough babies to think starting after potty-training would be a VERY good idea.) It seems like a huge mountain to climb, and every time I steel myself to get us going, I hear a horror story.

They're out there--the sad tales of adoptions gone horribly wrong, that messed lives up, and that made people more miserable than they'd be willing to admit. Those are the ones that scare me.

And yet, the longing is still there. Heaven knows I'm not getting any younger--sassier, but not younger. And richer keeps getting postponed. This may be the best time for us to take the plunge and put ourselves and our family in the hands of the Lord and say, "Okay, help us find a way." Logistically, it makes sense. We have the room. We still have a modicum of sanity. We've always managed to find a way to make things work. Truthfully, all things considered, I'd rather take a shot at finding real joy than in missing it through worry and apprehension.

So here's my declaration (sorry, Roberto, if this comes as a shock. We can talk about it soon, promise!): I am ready to take the plunge. I am opening my arms and declaring open season on my heart. This momma has space for anyone looking for a permanent situation. These arms are waiting to be filled.

Keep us in your prayers.

Testing. Testing. Is this thing working?

My clothesline has sprouted brightly-colored upside-down mushroom shapes. My living room has been overtaken by blue plastic bins. I bought a mop simply to wrap it in red, purple, and yellow ribbons. I have plundered my lace and sparkly-fabric supplies.

The Roadshow is coming. And I'm directing it. Take a moment or two to let that thought sink in. And a couple more for the laughter-induced spasms to subside.

We have only two weeks to go. (Sorry, make that twelve days; I was wighfully thinking when I wrote that sentence.) I may die of stress before the big performance comes.

You see, they called the wrong person to do this job. (The fact is the right person moved out of the ward a few months ago. ARE YOU LISTENING, ALLISON? HAVE YOU NO GUILT FOR WHAT YOU'RE PUTTING ME THROUGH?) I am, reluctantly, I must admit, more of a Roadshow writer than a director. Heck, I'd be happiest as the designer and seamstress. But here I am, the most delegation-challenged person in the world tackling the most difficult non-Nursery-or-Relief-Society-based calling in the world. And so, most of the lunacy devolves to me to see to.

Thus, the upside-down mushroom on the clothesline are chefs' hats being so stiffly starched they can literally stand on their own merits. (The merit is the part below the pouffy bit at the top--just a little costume-related humor for ya, there.) The blue bins that have precluded any possibility of actually sitting in the living room are the temporary repositories of extra-sparkly costumes and shiny ribbon-bedecked props. (Including, and I am absolutely not kidding about this, 15 large shiny, brown Christmas tree ornaments turned upside down and hot-glued into tin foil baking cups to fool a willing and very tolerant audience into thinking they are absolutely decadent chocolates.) The scenery lies face up on my driveway as I type, awaiting my ministrations with glue gun and red sequins. (For the first time in my life, I'm actually praying that it won't rain. Garden be darned--it's all for the Roadshow!) I still have to buy multiple rolls of colored duct tape, as well as super glue, and a large plastic nose attached to a pair of eyeglasses with a faux mustache as the last costume piece.

I have demonstrated the fine art of Roadshow singing--which differs from every other sort of singing by emphasizing quantity over quality. I have repeatedly implored stage-shy teens to yell their lines--CLEARLY!!!!--to the deaf older sisters who will inevitably be sitting in the back rows. I have choreographed dancing rats, taught chocolatiers how to do a pas-de-bourree, and agonized over the entrance timing for the villainess. I have abandoned dignity at the door twice a week for the past three weeks. And I'm still not done.

Can anyone tell me how to make a white powdered wig out of a yard of quilt batting and the top of a nylon stocking? Does anyone have any good ideas for persuading teens that what they most want to do on a Saturday morning is sing and prance? Will somebody tell me the proper procedure for bribing a Roadshow judge?

I have sacrificed my sleep, my fabric, my hips, and my diet to the success of this thing. I've visited Goodwill and DI so often they're both sending me "Thank You" cards on a bi-weekly basis. My prayers are almost exclusively for the youth and "will heaven please bless whoever sets up the microphones to over-compensate for sound absorption in the Stake Center cultural hall? We could really use a little boost."

Call me obsessed. Call me loony. Call me Sister Kydd. But don't call me early on November 22nd. I'll finally be sleeping of the dead-tired just.