Oxford, a year ago last June...

The first update: last year's summer trip to England and Norway.

Oxford

I’m sitting at the Rose Hill Oval, having stupidly bought a day pass for myself and the kids, forgetting that there are two bus companies in Oxford and a pass is only good on one. Just missed the number 3 bus so have to wait 20 minutes (it's Sunday) for the next one. It's all coming back so slowly.

Kadin turns out to be a very excited traveler and had a great time with the moving sidewalks at the airport. He was determined to figure out everything himself.

We arrived Friday and felt pretty good. At least I am speaking for myself. It was HOT! Okay, only in the 70s with clear, clear blue sky, but the humidity made clothes feel warmer. And I just couldn't believe that people were choosing to sit in the sun. Just as I couldn't believe when we first moved to Colorado that people would actually close their curtains to the sun. We walked around the city centre and ended up at the new Castle development. It was nice and spacious and they had outdoor seating at the child-friendly Pizza Express. When I had just about finished with my salad, Kadin remembered that he had left his bag (a small thing he was given on the airplane) at Boswell's toy store. I volunteered to go back to get it. Traipsed across town to find they had closed shortly after we left and would open the next day at 9:05am. 9:05? Thought I would try again then.

Went back to the flat and with some encouragement and cajoling, all fell asleep shortly after the 9 o'clock chimes of Tom Tower. I slept intermittently until about 8:30 the next morning. There was a party next door. At one point, it was getting light out and I heard lots of people talking and moving about. I assumed it was morning and people were off to work. Then I remembered it was Saturday and when I checked the clock, it was only 3:30am. So, it would seem this was not the morning commotion, but the continuing commotion from the night before. By "real" morning, Boulder's night, we were all sound asleep. I did wake about 8:30 and walked up to Boswells, easily found the bag, and then noticed that the bank would be open in about half-an-hour so thought I'd walk around a bit until then. It was novel moving about Oxford by myself. I didn't have any small bodies to keep track of or specific errands to attend to. It felt so freeing. Nice and early in the morning, too, less crowded. When the bank opened, the guy at the bank was even nice and chatty and gave me lots of good, unhurried information. I then bought two lattés and headed back to the apartment.

By 11am everyone else was up and about and we got to the Trefethen's for lunch, though pretty late in the end---bought flowers, got a Taxi, etc.

It was so great to visit with them. Unfortunately we missed Jacob, but they have very full lives! We walked down to the park by Rainbow bridge and had a picnic by the Cherwell river. Luckily, Nick was also interested in watching the World Cup soccer game, so we saw the first half of the England game at their house before Ann drove us to our next appointment at Hinksey park to meet Rees' old friend Daniel. We went to the outdoor swimming pool in our old neighborhood, the nearby playground, and the little store next to our house. Despite wearing wet suits and the weather being about as warm and clear as it ever gets, the kids got very cold at the pool! Wow, they are now weather wimps! Rees, Daniel, and Kadin even got to ride the little yellow paddle boats that they were too young to go in when we lived here. England won the game "one nil" as expected and everyone was in a festive mood. The pool probably would have been more crowded had there not been a game.

We explored some more on the way home and, as we were all very tired, opted to eat in rather than risk a temper tantrum by one of the kids at the Head of the River. I went out and got some provisions, and we collapsed into bed again after a full day of exercise and sun. Veggie samosas very popular.

Greg said he remembered the feeling of almost constant embarrassment he had while we lived in England, the feeling that you are almost always doing something wrong. I remembered overwhelming feelings of being tied down. When I was out walking around by myself it just was so novel and something I almost never did when we lived here. And I don't remember ever thinking that people in Oxford dressed particularly interestingly or flatteringly, and maybe it was the unusually warm weather, but I was really struck by how appallingly people dressed. I don't know if people in Oxford are just more comfortable with their bodies and so less self-conscious or if they just don't realize how bad they look! Fit bodies that were well taken care of were few and far between. Tortured and tacky seemed the rule.

Sunday, Rees went to see William in the morning. I chatted with Mark in the garden. It was very nice and I started remembering some of the gentle pleasures of the English garden. One of Kadin's big memories, besides the shark in the house, is going to the Sainsbury's with Grandpa. So Kadin and I headed out and got on the number 3 bus to the Rose Hill Oval. I felt foreign and empowered to ask the driver directions to the walking bridge over the ring road. He knew all the back paths and we found it with no problem. We bought water, marmite (two large jars, at a cost of 4 pounds each), apricots, apples, and toilet paper. I even asked a thug on the way back if the bus stopped on Speedwell street. I liked being able to be foreign and anonymous.

We got back on the bus to Temple Cowley after lunch in the flat. Met up with Ceri, Rebecca, Alex, and Theo (new!) at the pool. Rees went in the men's changing room. When I got out of the women's changing room to the pool, Rebecca said Rees couldn't go in. Hmmm. Yes he could. Then I found out the story was that Rees and Kadin were not allowed to swim in their wet suits as it "restricted movement" and was "against policy." I argued with the guy for a while: it's a shallow pool, I'll be with them, wet suits are designed for swimming, we swam at Hinksey all the previous day, etc. Finally asked to speak to the manager. He appeared and basically said, "I have no problem with it." And we were able to swim after all. Sigh.

Visited with Ceri et al. at her house. House is the same and she is as orderly as ever, cutting up fruit for the kids, pouring them all juice, and they all wash hands, sit down to eat politely, and get up when they are finished. With a fourth kid on the way this is a good thing.

I called Annie and she was suffering a migrane. Wasn't sure she wanted me to come, but she did, so called Greg and said we'd meet him there. Then, since I had bought a day pass for Stagecoach, I thought I couldn't take a bus to Annie's so we decided to walk. Also to kill time to give Annie some more peace. Turns out the number 16 bus did in fact run and was now changed to Stagecoach, but runs only once an hour. Annie told me a bit of the story: It is the only bus to cross the Donnington Bridge and there are older people who have lived in the area all their lives who rely on the bus. And, since the bus ran only once every half-an-hour, they would get to know each other standing at the bus stop. Anyway, the 16 bus was abolished and, Annie said, despite these people who relied on it and though they could have organized, they weren't able to. She said she should make a movie about it. In the end, the 16 bus was reinstated under the Stagecoach line but only runs once an hour.

Anyway, we found a stop, but found we had just missed the bus by about 3 minutes. Oh well, walking was nice, and just at the end, when some new fences looked like they would block our way, we found a hole and got through. Hard to keep back the tide of human pedestrians.

Annie's house was nice as always and she was alone for the moment, the kids having gone out to the Thames with George and neighbors. Things perhaps a bit more cluttered and crowded than before. A bit chaotic when the kids arrive. Elsa was glowing a told a great story about swimming in the Thames and how Oliver (neighbor) had swum out to get an old bottle for her. Muddy, happy, and active. Ned (new!) took a bath in ketchup, the kids indulged in fish fingers and Asian pasta. Kadin had two bowls of pasta. As George later said, "Lots of veggies went down their little gullets." It was crowded and cluttered and happy.

Walking home along the Thames path on a beautiful evening should have been relaxing, but we forgot about the bicycles and staying to the left. So slightly nerve wracking, but only slightly. I was so pleased that Kadin was walking. What freedom!

Ceri had told me there was an LLL toddler meeting on Wednesday morning. Jayne is still a leader, Ceri is a leader in the evenings, and Kathryn is too, four kids and all! And Cathé Heron, the former leader from Ox, whose had another baby is now leading again. The best thing I got the whole time I was in Oxford was the LLL brochure that Jayne had made. It was so gratifying to see. I was especially touched that they still have a summer picnic gathering as well. I had so many nightmares with those picnics, the timing for me always seemed wrong (bad weather, kid sick, me sick, etc.). So it was nice to see that people enjoyed and appreciated them in the end! The group is thriving with meetings almost every week. Wow! It was so gratifying to have a piece of paper that showed something concrete from my years in Oxford. I realize how little I feel I accomplish at any time.

Rees wanted to visit Grandpont Nursery. So on Monday morning we did. I got all teary eyed when we walked in. It was such a nice place! I was so sorry Kadin didn't get to go there. Kadin still says he hated his preschool. Such a different environment! At Grandpont they never raise their voices and rarely correct the children. The children just seem to know how to behave. Very skilled teachers. The boys sat and played for a long time with mobilo and I reminisced about people who were there.

Monday I was to have lunch with Kerry. We planned to meet at Edamamé, the Japanese restaurant on Holywell. Could not ditch the kids as Mikael was down from Scotland to work with Greg. So Greg went to his meeting at Starbucks, and the kids and I set out across Christ Church meadow, through to Magpie Lane, into Radcliffe square and through the narrow passage to the Turf tavern and the Bath House Hotel that emerged on Holywell.

Edamamé was closed on Mondays, but there was a new restaurant in the bottom of St. Mary's that looked good: seasonal and organic. That was the first place I went when I first met Annie through Clare, when Rees was two. It had a nice atmosphere and kids could kind of blend into the background. We ate well, Kadin ate all of his organic chicken, rice, and salad. And though Kadin was sleepy and said he couldn't walk, I thought he'd be fine climbing, so we did one of the things I never did when we were in Oxford before: climbed St. Mary's tower. The kids loved it. Then climbed and climbed up all the stairs and then we walked around the top, getting a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. Kerry was dizzy from the heights, but soldiered on for us. I was so glad I never did that when I had babies! So glad I did it now that the kids were old enough to enjoy the adventur and be safe as well.

We walked back the same way through Christ Church meadows with Kerry. Got to show her around Oxford! We arranged to meet her later in Abingdon. We had a few moments to rest at the flat and meet up with Greg before getting the bus to Abingdon to meet in front of the Police Station.

Kerry's house was wonderful, as always. Kids were older. Turtle was thriving. Mr. Greenleaf (lizard) had recently died. Barrel with tiny frogs recently hatched from spawn. Cat and all the menagerie. The older kids were focused on their homework, Rees and Kadin gravitated towards the zip line. Perhaps too much for Kadin who decided to jump off early. After falling from a pretty good height, he cried and said the top of his foot hurt. Sounded like it could be a small fracture.

We pretty much carried him for the next week and much of the rest of the trip. Oh well, so much for our walking freedom! It really was a bummer. We decided not to return to the JR (hospital emergency room) for old time's sake.

Annie came over on Tuesday morning and since we couldn't get far with Kadin, we just went over to Christ Church and Greg went in to take a photo for his father. We sat out on the lawn and talked and talked. I missed her so much! Then it was time to catch a cab to Vanessa's for lunch. (Where did we catch a cab? I can't remember. Near the Head of the River? No, I think we walked up into town and caught one at the top of Cornmarket. Was Ned in a stroller for this? Kadin on Greg's shoulders?)

Arrived a bit lat at V's and had a lovely lunch out in the garden. It was warm, I think, and even started raining a bit. It was nice to see V in her home environment. We talked about science. It became clear that there is a lot of work to do on the core samples we collected together last April. Hmmm, maybe I need to come back for a week alone to do that work!

I think we stayed and stayed, and only had a brief time to stop in at the flat, pick up the videos, and wait for Chris to call and say that he would pick us up out front. We were off to Rosie's new house in Standlake for dinner.

Her house was small, but larger than before, with lots of amenities. Really pretty and organized and as always and the kids were thriving. Rees and Catriona put on a gymnastics show out back. Jacob (new!) looks just like his sister. R is doing well with the two kids. Angus, the rabbit, was also still in residence.

Really nice to share some time with them. Was glad I could mostly understand Chris. Rosie is full of ideas as always and very good to talk to about her thoughts and philosophies. She always seems to have strong, clear opinions.

Got home late, tired!

Wednesday was our last full day in the UK. I was beginning to feel like I could never leave! Greg went to meet Vanessa at the Geography department and he was to meet Chris McKenna at Brasenose that night. I took the kids to the LLL meeting at Allison Samuels’. I knew most the people there! Jayne, Kathryn, Rachel, et al. It was really neat to see. I wish I had chatted more with Cathé Heron, but was too self-absorbed talking to the people I used to know. Everyone has two kids now, except Katherine who has four (two new!).

One of the women at the meeting talked about her anxiety over her upcoming visit to her dad's in Romania. People really let her talk and offered her all sorts of good suggestions.

Kathryn had invited me home for lunch. It was nice and tidy and not just because it had just been cleaned. Like Ceri, she is very organized and her kids help out a lot.

Annie came over with Ned and Elsa and we walked down to the Adventure playground to meet Kelly et al. Boy was the playground as fun as ever. I saw Kelly and Kathryn and Annie, and Jason and Holly and their moms, and Tyler and his dad. Samuel too. It was great to see everyone and felt almost like we had never left! What a nice, magical playground that is!

Then Kathryn and Annie and I decided to go out to dinner, something they rarely do. We took all eight kids out to Tootsie's, the burger restaurant at the Castle. Katherine drove Kadin and her brood and Annie, Ned, Elsa, Rees, and I walked. Yes, we really went out to dinner in Oxford with eight kids and three adults. We felt such rebels. We promised not to spill any of our drinks. Yea, right. But we dealt okay, and it was early so not crowded and we were outside so not too disruptive. Kathryn's brother worked next door, so he ran a little interference for us as well. Annie had a rough time, though. Ned insisted on digging through the plant containers and throwing the pebbles on the plaza. Annie would reprimand him and he would laugh and run to another planter. Ugh! The evening culminated when he took off his poopy diaper in the middle of the plaza. Poor Annie!

Elsa wanted to come over to see the flat, but it was late and Annie had the option of a ride home with Kathryn, so they agreed to come over in the morning.

All we did in the morning was walk up to Sainsbury's and buy a picnic lunch that we ate in the St. Ebbes churchyard. Elsa took the day off school to see the flat! Annie said it was nice to break up what she called her "monotonous life."

When we got back to the flat, we had very little time to pack and clean before the taxi got there to take us to Glouchester Green for the bus to Terminal 4 where we would meet my parents for the flight to Oslo. The bus was our last and only chance to see the shark in the house from the Headington Road. We prepared Kadin as we approached. But alas, when we pointed, he looked at the end of our fingers and not the place where we were pointing. He missed it! Kadin!

Coming soon: post on airport and trip to Norway.

Strawberries

Have been trying in vain to have a fun "family outing." We typically go nowhere on weekends, and that seems to work fine, but then I wonder how it would be if we ventured out together (instead of apart). Two weekends ago, another disastrous outing to a garden center. Last weekend, we tried the strawberry picking at the CSA farm we subscribe to. We'd get all the organic strawberries we could eat (part of our subscription, already paid for) and the kids could see where our food comes from.

We drove out to the plains and the kids had a little trouble with the long drive, but with the Pirates of the Carribbean soundtrack, it was tolerable. Then we were assigned our "row" to pick, and pick away we did. Box after box was filled. It seemed like such a short row, but when you looked down and started picking, the universe expanded and you'd work and work and pick and pick, then look up and it see you had done only a tiny bit. The kids did great, with pretty good stamina for their age. We were saved at the end by another family that came along to finish off our row. I think we had about 20 pounds of organic strawberries at that point!

Drive back was long, but relatively uneventful. Kids weren't in love with the outing, but we'd done it and now we were drowning in strawberries. We made smoothies, we made jam, we invited friends over for strawberry dacqueries. I went to the store with a list: cream, ice cream, and cream cheese. Next day I made strawberry scones and strawberry cheesecake. Greg thought his excema was exacerbated by them, so he has stopped eating them. Everyday I eat porridge with strawberries and cream. The kids have a few bowls a day. Thank goodness I recently got a freezer. Many, many have been frozen. They are so good, but perhaps too much of a good thing. Strawberries anyone?

Writing

Somehow the computer is not attractive to me these days. I think it was the spring and lure of the garden that first pulled me away, then it was my broken wrist. Now it is the constant interruptions. But I have felt drawn back to post on my blog. I have typed quite a few things, and stuff is always happening that I think would make a good post (like my wrist), but posts are few.

This morning, kid's are at a friend's, so here I am, finally getting things up. Kadin brought home his "writing journal" from kindergarten where he wrote about one sentence a week throughout the year. I realized that in that journal, he had recorded more than I have all year. He documented trips to Ohio, Arizona, Grand Lake, and numerous playdates and computer games. I have lots of these in draft form, have posted none of it, but hope to remedy that over the summer (traditionally my least productive time, but we can dream...). A brief warning that things will be out of order, long, and likely boring, but I want to get them down. One sentence at a time if I have to.

Bear

The kids are pretty low maintenance these days, but I still don’t seem to be able to get anything done. A simple task, such as unloading the dishwasher, has innumerable interruptions: the phone rings, the computer doesn’t work, the cat has peed inappropriately somewhere, a neighbor kid found a baby bird in the backyard, the door is locked/unlocked, it’s windy (Kadin needs constant reassurance when there is the slightest breeze), a cat got out, a balloon needs to be tied, etc. And so it goes.

Case in point, yesterday, at about 9am, as I was trying to go the grocery store (after begging Greg to work at home for an hour so I could get some food in) when I looked out one of the few windows that didn’t have curtains drawn (two reasons: one, it keeps the sun out in the morning, so cooler in the afternoons, and two, Kadin can’t tolerate seeing the leaves blowing…) and noticed a man dressed in khakis with a rifle prowling through the back yard. Hmmm. Because he looked like a ranger and there is indeed a lot of wildlife around here, I did not think he was some violent nut job, but it was definitely something new to notice. I went to call the Department of Wildlife to inquire which kind of wildlife he was tracking, when the phone rang. It was a neighbor saying, “There’s a bear in your backyard, keep the kids inside.” Okay, so it’s a bear. Alas, I did not see it and the ranger had moved on into another neighbor’s backyard and around by the playground and the tennis courts, out of sight.

I needed to keep on task and get to the store, so carried on and as I went out to the car, I saw an older man towing a toddler in a wagon. “Hello,” I said, “Did you hear about the bear?” “Hear about it?” he said, “I just saw it. Does this happen all the time?” Turns out he was a visiting grandfather, just out for a walk with the grandson, and by the playground, he encounters a bear. I assured him that while it didn’t happen all the time, it wasn’t that uncommon (and for dramatic effect added that mountain lions were the more typical excitement in the neighborhood).

I saw the ranger again as I was on my way to the store, and he said he’d just lost the bear around the tennis courts. He was waiting to hear on his radio of another sighting. When I came back from the store 45 minutes later, I saw him down at another intersection, about half-a-mile from the house.

Unfortunately, the bear has discovered that neighborhoods offer all kinds of great opportunities for birdseed, garbage, pet food, and BBQ leftovers. We brought in the hummingbird feeder last night but had just used our new-to-us (via Felicity) barbeque for the first time. Tried to burn off all the extra meat so it was not too attractive. Since it was a hot day, I noticed when I went to bed that all the doors were open. Somehow, the screen between the BBQ and the kitchen seemed just too flimsy, so I shut all the doors and left the windows open. Hot days, screen doors, and barbeque grills seem a pretty common and risky combination when a bear is involved. It would be quite easy for a bear to end up in someone’s house or condo and it doesn’t look good for the bear. Best case scenario is that the bear will be relocated. Worst case scenario is property damage, injury, and/or death, most likely for the bear. Welcome to summer…

April First

Every year I enjoy the April Fools stories on NPR's All Things Considered. I have been fooled badly in the past. So tonight I was listening carefully.

With just 15 minutes to go, an interview came on. It was a review of a biography of dancer/choreographer Jerome Robbins. It was odd. The story of his life is odd: very eccentric, very diverse. One of a kind. Strange drug experiences, strange politics, etc. Especially odd was that the author of the biography was Amanda Veil (not sure of spelling, this being radio). They kept repeating the name of the author. Yes, this has to be the joke, I thought: "A Man Ta Veil," how could a biographer have that name? But strange as the story was, it wasn't strange enough.

Last year's April Fools story was a profile of a billionaire who endowed a new "Positive Opera Company" that was commissioning famous composers to rewrite classic operas and make them less tragic and more uplifting, a la Norman Vincent Peal. Now that is the kind of story that could really raise some hackles, opera fans being so fanatical and all. The story of an odd choreographer just didn't have that same punch. No, Amanda Veil it may be, but it was not the story of the day.

The next story though, about the Indigenous Sculpture Society sounded promising. And indeed, it was about a group of sculptors, whose very British spokeswoman, Olira Pofl (or something close to that), explained how they find strangely named towns, like Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky, and sculpt that name (in this case giant Monkey's Eyebrows arching over the highway) out of indigenous materials.

It was a little too wacky, not quite believable this year. Still, I fell for it in a different way. Bring a critical ear to every story and you can't help but be fooled.

Haiku’s from last night

by Greg and Rees

Haikus are easy
They are very fun to do
Except the last line

My brain is frozen
Like a hammer to the head
With frozen cherries

Even if angry
Put homework on the table
Nicer in morning

Two stories

I was listening to the news last night while at the table with Kadin. A story came on about Putin’s recently reinstated military parades in Red Square.

Kadin’s ears perked up and he said, “Red Square, I know Red Square.” Such outbursts are not unusual for him, he really does pay attention.

“Oh, so you know Red Square from Civilization or Age of Empires?” I ask, because he has regular conversations about Admiral Yi Soon-shin, his Turtle Ships, and such.

“Actually,” he says, “I know it from school.”

“You talked about Red Square in school?”

“It’s one of the centers.”

One of the centers, I think. Oh yes, the four tables where the kindergarteners divide into small groups and do activities: Blue Circle, Orange Triangle, Green Rectangle, and Red Square. There it is, right in the middle of the kindergarten classroom, a famous communist center. Has anyone ever made that connection?

****************

Rees has been forgetting to bring home his homework of late. So we have been working on ways to remember.

After school I say, “Do you know what I am going to ask you?”

“Yes, I remembered it,” he says, “I have my homework.”

“Homework: don’t leave school without it, that’s your motto,” I say.

“No,” Rees says, “My motto is: Why walk if you can run?”

Too true.

Kadin's Valentine to you

Grease

I have been helping with the costumes for Grease, the musical that the 4th and 5th graders at the kids’ school are doing this year. When the musical was first announced, Rees was very excited until he found out that it was not about ancient Greece. He was even less excited when he found out it was all about romance between boys and girls. Now he doesn’t want anything to do with it and won’t even go near one of the circle skirts I am sewing when I need to see if it is approximately the right size. I always felt a little deprived because I had never seen Grease and it was very popular when I was in junior high. It certainly has stuck around.

Apparently the version Rees’ school is doing has been charmingly adapted and sanitized so that it is appropriate for young children. I am dubious. I finally borrowed the DVD and did my annual ironing while watching it. My assessment? It is terrible. I could find very little of value in it. Between the tacky costumes, cheesy dream sequences, and almost unbearable musical production, the story stinks. It’s basically about a sweet girl who is too sweet for her own good. The idea seems to be that you have to join a gang, drink, smoke, and sleep around to be cool, and if the “one you want” goes for the hot dancer from another school, you need become a biker chick. Or something like that. These young couples in relationships that already seem old and tired, getting pregnant or married right out of high school was just depressing to me, not amusing. Having high school graduation be the highlight of their lives made it very clear that it was all going to be down hill from there. I guess I am just jaded. I will be interested to see how this is rehashed for ten-year-olds, something that seems a Herculean task (from a very different sort of Greece).

However, the girls at the school all seem really into it, to be sure. Beauty-school dropout and all. Is that sad or fun? Anyway, I asked Rees, who is in the chorus (as are all the 4th graders), what he needed in the way of a costume. There was a long pause before he replied,

“Um, mom, I think I am going to be a hoplite.”

“A hoplite?” I wrack my brain as the word sounds vaguely familiar. A hoplite is…oh yes, an ancient Greek spearman. You go Rees.

Chores

In college I remember hearing a quote attributed to Toni Morrison that went: "Women love their sons and raise their daughters." I thought that was so true! Why is it that girls/women always seem so functional and responsible and boys/men are cut so much slack? Yes, blame it on those soppy, soft-hearted mothers. They loved their sons and raised their daughters.

Then I heard a radio piece recently about how, on average, girls do two hours more housework each week than boys do. The reporter of the story attributed this to leftover sexist stereotypes where women’s domain is the home. They interviewed moms, their daughters, and their sons. Everyone agreed that it wasn't fair, but they all just said that was the way it turned out.

In college I would have agreed that this was due to sexism. Now that I am the mother of sons, I have to defend mothers and say that we are not to blame. Now I know the sad truth: it is not sexism, it is just that boys have zero interest in doing things that you ask them to do. Zero. Ask them to do something practical and watch as their eyes glaze over and their body goes slack. Ask a girl, and they will be interested and give it a try. They may not be thrilled, but they want to be helpful. I see this all the time when I work in my son's classrooms. The girls enjoy the idea of doing the work, doing it neatly, and getting it done. The boys could care less.

In the end, it is just a whole lot easier to ask a girl to do something. With boys it is like pulling teeth. There is so much resistance that it often ends up taking more time than it is worth. It's not that it can't be done, but it truly is tempting not to bother. The basic fact is: you are going to have to work harder to get boys to do the same number of hours of housework. That seems to me to be a much more sensible explanation for why girls tend to do more housework. The idea that it all stems from ingrained sexist attitudes seems more remote. Now that I have sons, I truly believe there are innate differences between the sexes. Our job is not to make things the same, but to make them equal. I’m all for fairness and equal shares, but boy is it an uphill battle.

More Boulder moments

You know you live in Boulder when…

You go to pick up your child from a playdate at his classmate's house. You follow the directions, find the address, and discover it’s your local yoga ashram. Cool.

You go to your friend's house to sew Halloween costumes after school. She is a practicing Buddhist and has a lama from Bhutan staying with her. You sit and sew and explain the characters of the Lord of the Rings to him. You ask him what he thinks about kids playing with toy weapons. In broken English he replies: "You can't go against nature." Good answer.

You are working at a garage sale at someone else's house when a woman shopping at the sale introduces herself as a neighbor. You explain that this is not your house or even your neighborhood, but she does look familiar. She agrees. You stare at each other, compare notes on schools, etc., but nothing matches. "I feel like I know you, like we have had deep conversations," you say. "Yes," she nods, "I feel that too. Well, I am a professional clairvoyant and an intuitive." Oh great, you think, we probably met in a former life. Finally it hits you, that you know her from your magazine writing class. Yes, yes, that's it! She gives you her card. Another typical acquaintance.

Read more Boulder moments here and here.

What a difference temperament makes

First Kadin and then Rees have come down with a nasty virus. It starts with a sore throat and fever and moves on to laryngitis, trouble breathing, and a bad cough. I am pretty sure Kadin got it from his friend at school. I was briefed on the progression by this friend's mom. Luckily, or I might have taken Kadin in for a throat culture. He missed three days of school, hung out at home, napped, played on the computer, and generally was amenable and amused himself. He had this terrible wheeze, but didn't seem overly bothered by it and just soldiered on. "Don't you want to cough?" I would ask, and he would shake his head, "It hurts to cough," he would croak. He recovered.

Almost a week to the day later, Rees came down with a bad sore throat then a fever. He too stayed home from school. But he is a different guy with a different temperament. He doesn't really nap. He doesn't really self-entertain, and he is not prone to relaxing. If he has trouble breathing, he works harder at it, feels trapped, starts to panic, tightens up some more and it starts this whole negative feedback cycle. Poor Rees. His eyes wide, sweat on his brow, his chest heaving, he is desperate to breathe, getting worse and worse! If Kadin hadn't had it first I would have rushed Rees off to the emergency room thinking he was going to die. Hoping to avoid such a scenario, and knowing that his tendency is to tense and work harder, I talked him through relaxed breathing: being patient and letting it happen, pausing at the end of the inhalation and the exhalation, long, gentle, slow breaths. Luckily, he listened (for a change), and it worked. Soon, he was breathing normally again.

As he lay on the couch I gave him a little bell since he couldn't call out (he had lost his voice) and he was too tired to walk. Sometimes he would ring the bell if he was having trouble breathing and ask me to talk him through calming down again. Sometimes he would just ring the bell to ask me to be with him. It seems that he could sense as soon as I was in the middle of the really critical part of something and then ring the bell. That's Rees. He needs someone to be involved with everything about him. Alas, he is a difficult patient to have at home. He is resistant to things that might make him feel better like trying a cup of tea or taking a bath. By dinnertime on Friday it was really bad. I'm sure it didn't help that the “high” temperature was in the single digits so the air especially dry. He didn't want to stay home when I went to pick up Kadin from school (a 5 min walk) so went with me for a little bit before deciding to turn back. When we returned from school, he ran out to meet us, panic in his eyes. Running in the frigid air was the wrong approach. His lungs just could not recover. Finally, we made a warm vapor chamber with the shower in the bathroom and that stopped the cycle of panic and calmed his lungs down. I was worried we'd be up all night, but he slept well. In the morning, it took a while of him laying on the floor in the steamy bathroom and asking me to talk him through breathing a few times before he could get up and function. I hope that was the worst of it. And I hope Greg and I don't succumb. It has brought into stark relief what a difference temperament makes. In a survival situation where strength, fast action, and effort is required, Rees would win out every time. In a situation that requires, calm, finesse, and patience, Kadin is the one who will shine.

Natural history of dust

In the low winter light you become aware of dust. It's a seasonal thing. Dust doesn't seem such a big deal in the summer. I am sure it is still there, but with the sun high in the sky, it is nearly invisible. The winter, with it's low-angled rays brings dust to your attention. You can see it's shadow on surfaces and it is alarming: big, hulking elongated shadows creeping up behind you like giant mutant dust creatures from a horror movie. High up by the ceiling, cobwebs are suddenly backlit. Swirls of dust never seen before are illuminated as they twist though the air.

I am not a big fan of dust, but still, it fascinates me. It's kind of like the weeds in the garden in that, though unwanted, can still teach you things about what grows well where. Weeds can map the water available and the microclimate of different areas. Dust is a map of energy flow. Particles are picked up from high-flow areas and deposited in low-flow areas. You can use this knowledge of energy currents to help you arrange things and prioritize cleaning. Maybe you could even make a clever dust trap behind the door or under that dresser where it always gathers.

And what about what is in the dust? In my kitchen, it is usually filled with goldfish cracker crumbs and the like. In the entry, the grime is more sandy, in the bedroom, more feathery. After we got the cats, it became more furry. Maybe I should set up dust traps in different parts of the house, collect little vials, and compare...

Anyway, I am not alone in this odd idea. Just today I read in the paper that the National Institute of Standards and Technology sells 10 gram samples of "standard house dust" [Standard Reference Material 2585] for $450 a bottle. (Yes! I have a gold mine! Except that the NIST samples are irradiated and somehow expensively processed to prepare them for study. Sigh.) This "standard" house dust is used to give environmental scientists a baseline of chemicals that would normally be found in a house. Just so you know, higher concentrations of toxics were found in American household dust than European household dust. Interesting. I wonder how our house dust compares. And I've noticed that the dust is different in the different places we've lived. In more urban areas it is darker, blacker. Out here in Colorado it is a sandy tan color.

So before you throw open your windows on the first warm day of spring and whisk it away, think about what you can learn from the dust in your home.

And then there’s dryer lint…

Pearl

I have not written about the cats since they were kittens. I must tell you how Pearl is getting on now that she is almost two. Pearl is still perfect. She is petite and beautiful with delicate features and little tufts of hair at the tips of her large ears that make her look like a pixie. Her coat is slightly curly—wavy really—like an elegant 1920s hairdo. Some would say (actually have said) that she is standoffish and not very friendly, but to me she is perfectly independent. Not like Rex, who most categorize as outgoing and friendly and I categorize as pathologically needy. Pearl does have her odd habits, though. She licks paper. Obsessively licks paper. Rex licks me, which I find annoying, but Pearl prefers paper. I don't know why. And then while Rex will play and retrieve a ball, Pearl carries things. She methodically brings things up from my studio or the laundry closet and deposits them by the front door or on the stairs. It is a real drag to come home and find socks, underwear, and balls of yarn on the doormat. But I guess it beats finding dead and maimed vermin. I have filled many a basket with her nightly haul. At first I thought she was bringing "prey" to show me, but then it occurred to me that maybe it is kittens. Maybe she needs kittens. Maybe she needs something to lick and to carry. She is not fixed and she is very vocal about the fact that something is missing in her life.

And that brings me to her one flaw: her voice. Her attempts at attracting a mate, are, to my ears, repellent. She is like the silent movie actress in Singing in the Rain who is beautiful and elegant, but when the talkies come along, it turns out she has a terrible voice. Pearl, it seems, can only do whiny and loud. There is no persuasion, no finesse, only obnoxious demanding. Rex, the goofy one, has a modulated voice that can sound very charming and almost like he is talking. Pearl has just one horrible sound. Oh well.

A couple of weeks ago I was home working when she just would not let up. She would get right in my face and repeatedly let out her screechy meow. I was getting ready to go out and she redoubled her efforts. What was up? I thought I had just better check downstairs to see if there was some reason for her behavior. I looked, and sure enough, I had left the door to their litter box closed. Ooops. Okay, so I opened that and looked around some more to find that Rex had been shut in my studio the whole time too. So she may be loud and obnoxious, but she was right. I still think she is perfect.

More outdoor tips from last weekend’s paper

No Swimming: much of what you know about surviving an avalanche is wrong

Okay, and then there was this skiing piece—

Hucking yourself off your first cliff: jumping off cliffs takes a little practice but isn’t as hard as it may seem

Right, so we’ve got 72-hour marathons, running trails at night, surviving avalanches, and jumping off cliffs. Do any of these sound like good ideas to you? I didn't even write about the 53 year old man who free solos (that's rock climbing without ropes) 1,500 vertical feet every morning. He said the experience was "embiggening" which is right up there with "Danielesque" in my book. Such is life in Boulder. Can't wait to see what's suggested in next weekend's paper.

Nocturnal adventure

Yes, we have had quite a bit of snow. For the most part, it has been nice. Colorado snow is usually what snow should be: fluffy, white, and beautiful. Combine that with the warm temperatures that usually follow and lots of solar radiation, and for us, that means snow can be experienced in shirt sleeves and quickly melts off all the roads and pathways. We have not been too inconvenienced by the snow, but, because we’ve had so much, we did have a few days there of icky gray icy stuff. A few more inches of powder over the weekend took care of that. It’s above freezing and sunny again today.

So snow in Colorado I don’t mind so much. But the wind can be brutal. We regularly have 90mph winds in our neighborhood and those days are tough. Or maybe I should say nights, because the winds mostly happen at night, but can go on for days.

It was a week ago and we were in a bit of climactic shock after returning from our tropical vacation with Greg’s family. We were pleased that we were able to drive our car out of the park-and-ride (an uncovered lot with lots of new snow during the interval we were away)—just barely—without getting stuck in the snow for too long. The long day of travel, the snow, tired children, a frozen hatchback door, all conspired to somehow keep us from putting on socks. The snow and the close call getting stuck at the park-and-ride kept us from parking in our driveway, so we walked the last block to the house in flip flops with suitcases and sleeping children. That was a sight I am sure.

The next day we unpacked, moved back in, took down the holiday decorations to prepare for Kadin’s birthday, and hunkered down for the predicted windstorm, safe and cozy in the house. The storms are LOUD. When people say hurricanes sound like a freight train, they are right. Everyone has trouble sleeping on such nights. I am always a bit worried about what might blow away outside or what might blow into the house. Just after Greg and I got into bed and read for a bit, the power went out. So we went to sleep.

At about 2:30 in the morning, Kadin came up to say his leg hurt. I put him back to bed and remembered the visions I’d been having all night of the Christmas tree that I’d put out in front of the house blowing into the window like a javelin or breaking off some of the small new trees I’d planted out front. The snow was gusting up against the windows, the wind was roaring, and outside did not look fit for man or beast. I could see the Christmas tree lashing up against the new sumacs I’d planted. I’ll just do it, I thought, run out and move it to the back. It will only take a second and then I’ll sleep better.

So I put on a coat and shoes, unlocked the deadbolt and dashed out. Luckily it was not too cold and I quickly found a better spot to deposit the tree. Dashed back to the front door to find it…locked. I had forgotten about the lock on the knob. We usually don’t use that and it was dark so I didn’t see that it was locked. No big deal, I’ll go in through the garage. But the garage is electric and the electricity was still out. No dice. So that’s why the kids were sleeping without their night lights…. Okay, so another door. I mentally go through the other doors and know they are all locked as I had just checked them that evening and, since we’d been away, everything was double checked and tight. Fine, I’ll have to wake Greg up with the doorbell. Only—uh oh—no doorbell, that requires power too. It was LOUD with the wind/freight train. I tried knocking, to no avail. I pictured Greg sleeping soundly with five pillows stacked on his head to keep out the sound of the wind. I called and I knocked and the sound got sucked away as soon as it was made. At first I worried that I might wake the kids, then I hoped I would! I had plenty of time to think through options and I couldn’t think of any. Wake a neighbor and call? How could I wake a neighbor if I couldn’t wake Greg? Who would be up if the power was out? Finally I decided to trek around to the back of the house. There was a nice, bright moon. If it weren’t for the wind it would have been peaceful with the white snow and no electric lights. But then I felt very visible, like mountain lion bait. The trek was daunting in 2ft of snow, but luckily the snow had mostly blown away by then into big drifts in the field behind. When I called and knocked on the back, by Greg’s head, he heard me and came to the front door.

“What in the world are you doing out here????” he asked, incredulous, “Do you often walk around in the middle of the night?”

I explained the conspiracy of circumstances. So I survived the windstorm in the end and got back to sleep eventually. The next morning on the walk to school I noticed a strange square in the snow next to our neighbor’s house. Inside were toy dinosaurs and a plastic play fence. How odd that this little set up survived the snow and the wind. Something was missing, though. What used to be there? And then, about 50ft down the path, I saw their wooden sandbox smashed against some boulders. Another 20ft down the path was the awning for the sandbox that had turned into a sail. Whoa.

Civilization

Kadin is still very enamored of the computer game Civilization where you set up civilizations and they evolve. A year ago he was telling me about how he had invented the alphabet (even though he couldn't read) and pottery and the wheel and so forth. The game is quite sophisticated and word intensive, so I don't know how he gets so much out of it. It has, in fact, taught him to read and much of his worldview comes from this game. When we traveled to England last summer our little preschooler would come up with statements that surprised us such as: "Elizabeth is queen of England. England has a monarchy." We realized he knew this from the game, and in the game it was Elizabeth I, not Elizabeth II, but we weren't about to burst his bubble.

Then there was the time he was playing at a friend's house and his friend's mother was telling them the Hanukkah story about the Macabees and the oil lamp that miraculously burned for eight days. "Now wait a minute," she told me Kadin had said, "Was this in the Middle Ages or the industrial ages? Because they didn't have oil until the industrial ages." She said it stopped her right in her tracks, and she didn't know. Okay, so they didn't have geological oil for energy in the middle ages, but they did have plant and animal oils for lighting. But when were the Macabees?

And then there was the other day when Kadin's civilization was really getting quite advanced. He was in the modern times and was building a space ship. "Dad," said our serious kindergartner as he came out of the office, "I have lots of research labs. They are very useful you know."

Do women’s hands do heavy duty?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? Probably not, but you should.

I was out cutting juniper bushes for a garland and after all the landscaping I did this fall, I needed a new pair of gloves. So I went to the hardware store and looked and looked, but I could not find any gloves labeled “heavy duty” in women's sizes. There were these great, inexpensive, heavy-duty gardening gloves in men's medium or large (there is no men's small, apparently) but nothing comparable in women’s. I was sure I just wasn't seeing correctly, so when a female employee passed and asked if I needed any help, I asked her where the heavy-duty women's gloves were. She sighed and said she had worked as a landscaper for ten years and the glove issue was a constant frustration. You could get either reasonably priced men's gloves that fell off all the time, or expensive women's gloves that didn’t last. She said they just didn't make heavy-duty women's gloves in anything but the $20 version. Even then, she said, the quality was not good and they did not last as long as the same men's gloves. You can get heavy-duty men's gloves for about $5, so could wear out four pair of those for every one of the women's. All the women's gloves were labeled "medium duty” or “light duty.” What is up with that?

I decided on the cheaper pair of men's mediums, picked up a couple other items and went to check out. The guy at the register asked me if I had found everything I needed. "Yes," I said, "Everything except heavy-duty women's gloves."

"I know," he said, "Isn't it crazy how sexist the glove industry is? The manager at the store I used to work in was a woman and she looked everywhere for some heavy-duty women's gloves and wrote to all the manufacturers. They just don't make them."

I had no idea. I guess men don’t do “small” and women don’t do “heavy duty.” Maybe there would be a market if we changed the words. It's time to start a campaign. If anybody out there finds reasonably priced women’s gloves labeled “high intensity,” or some such, that would be great. Small men’s gloves labeled “firm fit” would be fine too.

Quote of the night

Rees just came in and put his head on my shoulder. I said he looked tired and should go to bed. He protested that he was too tired. "Too tired for bed?" I ask, then say, "Rees, do you know what the best way to stop being tired is?" I'm thinking a five letter word. He thinks for a minute then his eyes light up and he triumphantly calls out, "Tea!"

Oh boy, we're in trouble. I have never seen anybody fight sleep like that boy!

Danielesque

Recent articles in the local paper have really clarified for me the extent of athleticism in this town. The first article that really stuck with me was about an annual race in honor of an athlete named Daniel. The race is called the Danielesque. The idea is to celebrate a Danielesque way of life: When you have lost the path, "choose the trail that is the furthest, steepest, and most challenging…Charging up some monstrous hill in the midst of a blizzard, that's Danielesque. Putting your head down and pedaling harder against a raging head wind, that's Danielesque…Danielesque also means handling adversity with equanimity, and always paying attention to the needs of others."

What most people would consider "extreme" sports are actually mainstream here. Normal people make physical activity a way of life. Athletic ones do 72-hour marathons. Running a regular marathon—only 26 miles—is normal. Not running is pretty lax.

Then there was the gift-giving guide that highlighted a certain backpack as a nice gift. The selling points of this backpack included, according the paper, special dedicated pockets for your avalanche shovel and probe. That was an eye opener for me. I don’t know about you, but I, for one, take care to avoid avalanche prone areas and think that if you are the kind of person that finds it necessary to carry an avalanche shovel and probe on a regular basis, you are not long on this earth. But these matter-of-fact gift ideas—yes! that's exactly what I've been looking for!—make you question if not spending every weekend high on avalanche prone slopes means you are missing out.

Then there was another article about trail running at night. A seasonal kind of activity it seems. Yes, in Boulder, people don't just run on tracks or roads or treadmills, they run on hiking trails and they run up mountains. And, as if this wasn't enough, they do this at night. My humble opinion? That is a true addict. But as addictions go, at least it has a healthy aspect to it. It's better than being surrounded by alcoholics or compulsive gamblers.

And then there was the hike I did last week up to Bear Peak for the second part of my birthday, when Greg came back in town. Hiking Bear Peak is something I have wanted to do since we moved here. I can see the summit right outside my window and the trail practically starts at our front door. It’s not super high, but above 8,000 ft, and a good 2,000 ft above where we live. We went a long, gradual back route. After hiking for over 3 miles and gaining quite a bit of elevation, we came to a sign that said, “Private Property, NO TRESPASSING.” The next two lines on the sign were pure Boulder: “No hiking, no jogging.” We are half-way up a mountain and they have to specify “no jogging.” Most places it would be “no hunting,” but I guess that is a given around here as the large buck with antlers who stopped and stared at us near the sign attested.

Now I don't know how healthy it is to run 100 miles, but I do think this normalizing of physical activity is healthy. It certainly has rubbed off on me, if in only a small Bear Peakish way. Even when I have to remind myself: running trails at night IS NOT NORMAL! Packing an avalanche shovel and probe IS NOT NORMAL! It’s still fun to imagine: what if it was??

Supersize theory

With the holidays approaching I have been thinking about traditions and childhood and in the process have come up with a new theory about supersizing. It goes something like this: when we are younger, we remember things as bigger and more plentiful than they seem to us as adults. Ask a person about their childhood home and it will be plenty big and functional even if in retrospect it seems small and pokey. I've noticed that pots and pans and cookie cutters look smaller to me now than they did when I was a kid. I remember the Narnia stories as huge, long epics when they are really quite short and have relatively simple plots.

So, maybe, as adults, as we are providing for our children, we want them to have what we had as children and in our mind this is bigger and more plentiful than it really was. So every generation, then, things will get proportionally bigger and bigger. More presents, more toys, bigger trees, larger sandwiches. Will it ever end?

New decade

A friend took me out to lunch for my brithday. We explored LoDo, the lower part of downtown Denver. As we browsed in a trendy wine shop, I noticed that I was less interested in the fine beverages and artsy ways to store and serve fine foods than I was in discussing with the owner (a self-proclaimed "wineaux") how to get anchors into a brick wall for hanging things. And I was more interested in the cut-off wine bottle that she used for a pencil holder and all the ways you could cut up and reuse old bottles than I was in her $50-a-set coasters. A friend of hers stopped in and said his wife had just gone into labor with their first child. I said it was a good day to be born. In another store, I liked the rocks that were hand etched and colored with shoe polish more than the intricate bronze sculptures, and at the cowgirl shop, I liked the Jesus bandaids and the Last Supper after dinner mints more than the fancy cowboy boots (but I can't say I'd mind a pair of them either).

A delicious Cuban lunch---where we ate something that translated literally as "old clothes"--- was complimented by easy flowing, interesting conversation. Which continued through the coffee until it was time to pick up the kids.

It was good and refreshing and I feel ready for the next decade of my life.

No carryon

The latest terror alert has helped me to question what I carry on an airplane. With so many restrictions, it is easier to just not carry anything. And I find this very freeing. Instead of worrying if I have everything, I worry about why I have nothing, and then I feel great relief when I remember that I'm supposed to have nothing! For a short flight, at least, you can be quite comfortable and unencumbered with nothing. You can amuse yourself with maybe a paperback in your back pocket or the in-flight magazine. You can doze, rest your eyes. You can eavesdrop or look out the window; meditate. You don't have to spend any time organizing your stuff or putting things away or double checking that you have everything. It's kind of like an elimination diet. Instead of thinking what you might need, you start with nothing and see what you miss. And for me, that's not much. Whee!

Grandpa

My grandpa died yesterday and I wanted to share a few memories. I have just started putting things back up on the walls (post-construction) so today got out and dusted off the clock he made from an old violin. It has a swinging pendulum that adds life to any room and is now ticking away in the office. It goes well with the cello lamp he made that is in the living room and the saw-blade clock that has graced every home we have lived in. I think that next I will go and tune the 1923 Gibson he sold to Greg (for an extremely reasonable price), the banjo guitar, and the mandola. The mandola he made for me from a tenor guitar so I could play with the same fingering as my viola. In this way, his vibrations and love of music live on.

Unlike most of my family, my Grandpa liked garage sales and old stuff. He liked to take something free and junky and fix it up like new. He liked to recycle, re-purpose, and reuse, way before it was trendy. I love these things too and see the same interest in Rees, the other collector and bargain hunter in my immediate family. I think Rees’s fascination for odds and ends is innate; I did not teach him to enjoy garage sales and garbage picking. And now I see that grandpa was the likely source of these interests.

I will think of grandpa every time I go down to my new basement studio. I loved his basement workroom and the feeling of creativity it harbored. It was his retreat. It was organized, but cluttered, and filled with innumerable fascinating things. I realized yesterday that, deep down, I’ve always wanted to have a room just like his. Now I do! He is the inspiration for that.

There were lots of other sides to him as well (he remembered everyone’s names and loved to tell stories, for example), but it was on this practical level that we connected most. He had a great sense of function and design and understood how things worked. He was careful and thorough and his patient work ethic will always be with me. It is something you don't see so much anymore and I am grateful I had a chance to experience it through his example.

He was not the sentimental type, so I will keep this short. But it is always nice to reflect how people have influenced you and how they will live on even after their old, tired bodies are gone.

Yes, I guess he did…

It was a cold morning and Kadin was getting ready for school. He is pretty conscientious about this and usually does a reasonably good job. When he said he was ready, I pointed out that he still needed a fleece and some long pants. He protested that he WAS wearing a fleece. Okay, he was wearing a thin, fleecy shirt and though it was technically “fleece,” it wasn’t “A fleece,” so I explained that it was important to wear layers. One thin layer of any material wasn’t going to be enough.

When we leave the house he is wearing a fleece over his fleece, but still has on shorts. “Shorts?” I ask. It was pretty cold. “Yes,” he said, “See? I put on layers.” Sure enough, he was dressed in two pairs of shorts. He was also wearing long socks, so it just didn’t seem a battle worth fighting.

Then, on the walk to school, as he and Rees were running around, the inevitable happened. He tripped, fell, and skinned both his knees. Not the time to rub it in (“I told you not to wear shorts…”) I instead picked him up and carried him the rest of the way to school.

We headed directly for the nurse’s office and some band-aids. The lights were off in the nurse’s room, but the principal was in the hall just outside. When I mentioned we were in need of a couple of band-aids, he came into the nurse’s room and showed us where they were. I was a little self-conscious that my kindergartner was wearing shorts, as his bloody knees so vibrantly illustrated, so I pointed out that I had suggested he wear layers, hence the two pairs of shorts. “Well,” the principal responded, an all too familiar tone in his voice, “He really did follow your instructions.” Yes, of all people, the principal should know about kids pushing the envelope. I’m sure it happens to him all the time.

Craft of the month: clementine lanterns

Here is a nice autumnal idea that I found in my Cosmo Doogood’s Urban Almanac (see plug at A few plugs).

Take a clementine orange and cut off the bottom. Carefully remove the fruit and leave the white stringy, pithy stuff that comes from the stem in the middle, attached. This will be the wick. You should now have a clean clementine skin in the shape of a cup with a wick in the middle. Pour in a few spoonfuls of oil, then light the wick. You will have a nice, glowing latern.

Note of caution: I was enjoying my clementine lantern, but accidentally left it burning. NEVER DO THIS! When I came back home, we still, thankfully, had a home, but the cup had fallen off its candle holder and made a dark, burnt spot on the table. My theory is that when the oil ran out, it started making enticing crackling sounds, and the cats came over and knocked it off. So use this neat idea with caution!

My next project? Refinishing the table.

It figures

We were a bit late to piano yesterday and there was a fender-bender in the school parking lot so it was a little tight getting out. Then at the next major intersection it took us about five light changes to get through. That was highly unusual. But we still had time to make it. Then we got stuck in traffic on campus. Maybe there was some event? To kill time, I turned on the radio and it was playing the Alanis Morrisette song Ironic, where the chorus goes: "It rains on your wedding day/ It’s a free ride, when you've already paid/ It's the good advice, that you just didn't take/ Who would of thought? It figures." And one of verses says, "It's a traffic jam when you're already late." By the end we were really late and I had lots of time to reminisce about the last time Alanis Morrisette hit the nail on the head.

It was 1997, Rees was just over 24-hours old, and we were home from the hospital for the first night. Things were not going well. Rees was upset, he wouldn't nurse, he wouldn’t sleep, and I was a wreck: in pain, exhausted, emotionally volatile. A nurse called to check to see if we needed a home visit or if we could wait until tomorrow. When I broke down in tears on the phone, she concluded that we did indeed need a home visit and said she'd be over in an hour.

Things were in chaos. There was laundry, milk, and dirty diapers strewn across the floor. There were two sleepless parents and a screaming, hungry baby that I wanted to just put back where he'd come from. How could anything ever be okay again? Then, miraculously, it all changed. I remember when the nurse arrived, the sun was coming in the window and shining on the bed where a sleeping baby lay in a nightgown that made him look like an angel. Greg had thoughtfully put on some soothing Mozart that drifted in from the other room. All was superficially well as we chatted with the nurse.

Rees woke up and she declared him healthy. She looked me over and declared me a wreck but gave me amazing reassurance. To this day I feel she saved my life. And then, as she and Greg and I were summing up, the Mozart CD ended and the next CD, one left in the changer pre-baby, came on. There was a pause and then the most horrible, caustic voice I had ever heard in my life screeched, "Do I stress you out?" It was Alanis Morrisette, someone whose edgy voice and music we had enjoyed a mere 48-hours before. The nurse looked up, startled, "What was that?" Greg, eyes wide, jumped up to turn it off. Adrenaline surged through the room. Alanis, the answer is, "Yes!" Haven’t been able to listen to that CD since.

Internet gaming

Rees came home one day last spring all excited about a game a friend at school had mentioned called Club Penguin. It was on a site Rees frequents where he can sample short, free computer games. Club Penguin was different from the other games because it was an interactive game. You can make your own character (a penguin) and interact with other penguin characters that other people have invented.

The boys were really interested in signing up, but they needed an email address. I didn't want them to use mine, so I made accounts for both of them on hotmail. As our first foray into the internet, I found myself teaching them not to use their real names or real information. On the one hand this felt weird, like teaching them to not tell the truth, but then I thought it could help them understand that other people may not be who they say they are online either. They could be anybody. I told them to use a name and age and zip that was close, but not quite right.

Kadin, in typical stubborn fashion, balked when I said, "Okay, now it wants your password. You need to use something you can remember." "I don't want to." Just because I said "need to" he refused? We went back and forth on this for awhile, me explaining why, him refusing, until we finally came up with a password he could remember. I mean really, it was not like I was doing this for my benefit!

So they signed up to Club Penguin and were off. I have never played the game, but here is the deal from my limited understanding: You create your penguin character and go around your penguin world playing games like tic-tack-toe and connect four with other penguins. When you win, you get "tokens." You can then spend your tokens at the store and buy things like clothes and toys and pets. It all seemed rather commercial to me. Then there is the hitch. You can only buy one kind of pet and only buy most things, like an igloo or decorations for your igloo, if you join and become a member. Membership is a subscription that costs approximately $6/month. Real dollars.

The neighbor boy came over during this and he was really interested in the game too. So he ran home to "play" with Rees. It was then that I knew that we had really entered a new world. In my day, we never went home to play with someone else, we stayed together in the same place. How passé that all seems now.

This penguin game looked very superficial to me, but it was novel for the kids. Rees bought a pet and that hooked him for awhile. Kadin loved it and would happily create new personas every time he logged on. Here was my five-year-old playing internet games with other people—supposedly other under-eights—in other places. It all seemed harmless, but the thought of lots of other pretty young kids around the world playing was odd. Kadin, for example, would start a game and then just walk away. That's something you probably wouldn't do in the real world, but he seemed unperturbed by such behavior in the virtual world. Lots of the penguins in the game seemed to just be standing around, clueless. Kind of like if you had a room full of under-eights and a couple of board games in the real world, if you think about it. These are truly strange times.

Rees and Kadin really wanted to join/subscribe, of course. We talked about this and about how much money it was and where they could get the money. We also talked about other ways they could use their money instead of buying toys for a character on the internet. And we talked about how the game was designed to get them to want to give it their money. The neighbor boy did join and bought more pets.

And then, the betrayal happened. The boy next door came over crying. Apparently one of his pets had run away. "I didn't play with him enough, so he left," he said.

Wow, so that is how they keep you coming back. If you don’t log on often enough, your pet runs away! I guess that you could argue that it is better to have a virtual pet run away than to ignore a real pet. Or that it is fine to have a virtual pet that requires no real TLC, but this virtual pet did demand screen time. And it is another way they get you to spend your time and money with the internet game. Games are designed to be addictive, but this is a whole new level of commitment.

The upshot is that so far, neither of my kids has joined, but they still, Kadin especially, enjoy playing from time to time. This all happened last spring, and now it seems that these interactive games are everywhere. The novelty has worn off and now this is a normal way for the kids to play.

It truly is a strange new world. I just heard a whole radio program today about one of these virtual worlds called "Second Life" that is for adults. People make their own virtual characters called Avatars and the can own virtual property and start virtual businesses where people buy virtual services or virtual products. People design virtual cars and make virtual inventions. There is a lot of real money going into this virtual world as well. Real commerce is happening via the virtual commerce. Real companies are getting involved. Reuters and Wired have created reporting desks and have real journalists assigned to report on news from this virtual world. Radio programs have sprung up in the virtual world to report on issues from Second Life.

It is a little bit hard for me to get my head around this or understand how someone would want to put that much time or money into something like this. But I don't think that will be a problem for my kids at all.

More stuff

I just returned from a fun weekend in California where I saw my parents and went up to Davis to visit with my cousins, their two boys, and my aunt and uncle. It was great seeing everyone and just having myself to be concerned with for a change. Davis is a great town and they really do live in Pleasantville, with all its POSITIVE qualities.

Also made the compulsory stops at IKEA, Trader Joe’s, and the Japanese dollar store. So my previous post now becomes ironic after, yet again, I stuff a huge suitcase full of my purchases, max out my baggage limit, and make my father wait in the car outside the airport until I am sure they will let me on with all my stuff. I had a 30-lb carry on and checked a huge suitcase and a folding stool both at the size limits. I am not a low maintenance person to drop off or pick up at the airport!

All made it home safe and sound and now it is back to the fray around here. The only word I can think of is discombobulate. Maybe what I need to do is recombobulate, or just combobulate?

Everyone at home is happy. There is a dragon hanging from our kitchen ceiling, a cut out of a castle on the table, and what looks like many books-in-progress with words and illustrations strewn around the dining room.

Halloween is my next deadline. After knitting a beard for Kadin last week, I will make cloaks and chain mail this week.

It was warm and atumnal yesterday, but now it is snowing.

Overfull

I have made a new discovery. It is obvious, as most discoveries are, but just to let you know. Instead of filling a cupboard, I purposefully leave some extra space for maneuvering. Duh. But it makes me wonder why I felt compelled to fill the space in the first place.

I've been doing a lot of organizing, post construction, and have noticed these interesting tendencies. I have already written about my compulsion to do things efficiently and this is sort of along the same lines. I first noticed my compulsion to fill things up when I was in the bulk aisle at the grocery store. I was filling a medium-sized container with almond butter and, as always, had trouble because after I filled it, putting on the lid would make it spill. And then I realized, why am I filling it? I could take a larger container and fill it half way. Or fill two smaller containers three-quarters full. Why did I feel that whatever container I had it had to be full? And then I noticed the same thing, but in reverse when I put liquid detergent in the washing machine. I felt I had to get every last drip out of the lid. Why? Using slightly less detergent would do no harm, and would actually save detergent in the long run. The caps are nicely designed so it can all flow back in anyway.

So that is my new revelation: stop short, leave space. Do not even get close to stuffing. Cupboards ARE full when there is still enough room to maneuver. Laundry detergent is empty when most of it has come out. The bulk peanut butter is full well before it reaches the top. Houses are full when they are closer to empty. And so and and so on.

My friend noted that whatever sized purse she had, it was always overfull. Same deal.

I remember someone saying that a similar philosophy is prevalent in France regarding just enough. They do not stuff themselves, but value stopping just short of enough. Quality over quantity and all that.

And time too, don't you think? My favorite inspirational quote of the day is: Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

It’s a new outlook for me, and I’m going to give it a try. Full leaves some room for more.

World Cup withdrawal leads to baseball

We have been fortunate enough to be in Europe for the past three World Cups. The first was a trip we took to Italy when Rees was a baby. We really enjoyed the whole communal nature of the games: how everyone would gather in the piazzas to watch, and the excitement the play generated. It was great fun to witness such elegant athletes play "the beautiful game."

Four years later we found ourselves living in England and then we got to experience World Cup mania again, from a different perspective. England being more of a country of low expectations than Italy, with less self-love but just as much spirit. Also, as a much smaller country than the US, England tends to gripped much more strongly by certain media events. There is more of a group psychology about pop music or celebrities or certain national news stories. The England soccer team is very much part of this media groupthink. Needless to say, the World Cup is a big deal. When the England team beat old rival Germany 5-1, the country was ecstatic, in disbelief, and the headlines read: Don't Mention the Score.

We were happy when our trip to England and Norway this summer coincided, once again, with the World Cup. We were in England for the first England game where they beat Paraguay. We had our charts of the schedule and the teams and we enjoyed watching and hearing the post-game commentary.

The second England game against Trinidad coincided exactly with the time of our flight to Norway. As we were "deplaning" a flight attendant came on to announce the score of "nil, nil." The game should have been over. How could it be? A tie? Moments later the flight attendant came back on to say England had won 2 nil. Happy shouts went up from the passengers at this exciting last-minute victory!

A couple of days later, in Oslo, we watched the England Sweden game in our hotel room. The commentary was all in Norwegian so we didn't really get the subtleties, but we heard the cheers outside the windows when Sweden scored and the huge, happy reaction when they tied.

We followed the games as best we could, spending our breakfasts decoding the Norwegian paper. Sports writing is just about the most difficult thing to understand in a foreign language, I think. Hard enough to understand in English if you are not versed in the game!

Still, we enjoyed cable in the hotels, the brief things we did understand—“ikke rot kort”—and, finally, got to watch in English at Greg's Father's in New Jersey. The semifinal was at the same time as our Jet Blue flight home from NJ, and hooray! Jet Blue offers live TV on its flights. The game ended just as we landed.

Then we had to beg friends who had cable to let us watch the remaining games. I let myself into the house of neighbor one morning to watch with Kadin. Amazingly he let me watch the whole game. Well, actually, I bribed him by scratching his back while watching and he fell asleep. It was divine.

At the end of it all I went into withdrawal. No more suspense, no more building of excitement. I missed the world cup.

So I decided to get into baseball again. Baseball is almost the polar opposite of soccer, but it has its attractions. First, there is a game nearly every day. No endless waiting. Second, baseball is almost as good on the radio as on TV. Soccer is useless on the radio. You can't see the athletic grace the fouls, the acting. You know the score, but that is about it. Reading about it in the paper is almost better.

The pace of baseball (one of its main detractions to some), however, lends itself to the radio. To me this is an asset. The games are long, but you can listen and do other things at the same time. Every pitch has a statistic and a strategy behind it. You can picture it in your head. The suspense builds as the count goes full. Base runners get on base, outs are accumulated, inning pass, runs build.

So, this summer for the first time in decades, I started following baseball again. It was midseason and the suspense still lingered. I got to know the players of the Colorado Rockies and the announcers. It worked to fill the World Cup deficit.

The only problem was, the team did not do so well. Today, the 2nd of October, they are in last place, 12 games out of first in their division, with less than a 500 record. I hope you understand that. I have enjoyed getting back in to the jargon. But alas, the suspense is now over for me. The season done, more loses than wins.

Maybe next year.

First days

The start of the school year brought much anticipation and hope. All was dashed when, on the second day of kindergarten, Kadin marched out with his arms folded tight and a huge frown on his face. Thinking he was upset because he didn't get to be first in line or some such minor disappointment, I tried to ignore his mood as we stepped aside and waited for Rees.

"I need to talk to you," the teacher said as she looked my way. "He is very stubborn and defiant. I don't know what to do. What do you do at home? We need to nip this in the bud."

I was flabbergasted and didn't know what to say, so basically said as much: "Wow, that comes as a huge surprise to me." I mean, Kadin is stubborn, sure, but he is basically sweet and pliable. (Now that she mentions it, though, if I look back at posts about him, his stubborn streak does stand out…)

"I'll call you later." She said.

Okay, well, there goes the plan of getting into her good graces! I walked home with a very sad and upset child. It was like he was ill, a completely different kid. I felt like I had been kicked in the chest.

Luckily, one of Rees' friends was there. He saw how upset Kadin was and said, "Kadin, are you in Mrs. X's class?" Kadin nodded. "I used to be in her class and it was so bad, I hated it, and I used to get in trouble all the time." Kadin was listening.

So I asked Rees' friend what happened and what he did about it. "I just finally decided to try doing what she said." "What happened then?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "Things got SO much better." "So you were happy with your decision to do what she said?" "Oh yeah,” he said confidently, “It was the right decision."

I was tempted to tell Kadin to shape up and just do what she said, but he seemed so sad and hurt that I decided he just needed to be comforted and then we could talk about what to do later.

At the same time, I was thrown into doubt as I tried to notice whether he was truly stubborn and defiant or if something else was going on. All evening, if I asked him to do something, he would either refuse or say "Okay!" or "Sure!" He didn't want to put his shoes away, so the next time he wanted my help with something I just said, "I'm happy to help you as soon as you put your shoes away." Eventually he put his shoes away.

I racked my brains about what could be going on. He hated kindergarten and he hated his teacher. He was angry and hurt. He was exhausted. Finally we lay down on the bed and had a long discussion about it. He said he didn't want to do what she said. We talked about options including not doing full-day kindergarten, changing to the morning class, changing teachers. (Visions of home schooling bounced in my head, but I remained mute on that subject.) I told him that he was a really good guy and that we would find a way to make kindergarten work for him. Finally, I suggested, "Or you could try what [Rees’ friend] suggested." He agreed this was a something he could try.

The phone never rang. I felt very protective of Kadin and wondered what this witch had done to bring out the worst in him. I also realized that taking that approach with her would get me nowhere. Instead, I rehearsed saying how difficult I knew her job was and how motivated I was to make this work. I remembered how Kadin had told me he liked to watch first before he joined in. Maybe that was it? Maybe he just wanted to watch first? And it brought up all kinds of insecurities. Had I not set enough limits? Would he have any friends if he was labeled the “bad kid”? I had thought he could easily end up being the teacher’s pet. But it looked like he could just as easily be her nemesis as well.

I decided to focus on the positive: his good qualities, my good qualities, and the teacher’s good qualities.

Finally, the next morning at 7:30, I went over to the school. I just had to talk with her. I was tired of second guessing what was going on. Our talk was good. She said she was also distressed. I encouraged her to let him watch first and assured her I didn’t think he would be disruptive. She told me more about what he had (or hadn’t) been doing. She said at the end of the day, she wouldn’t try to talk with me but would give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down to let me know how things had gone. Meanwhile Greg brought Kadin to school and said Kadin had decided to try [Rees' friends'] idea.

I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, it worked. Maybe they both gave just a little bit so that neither of them had to dig in their heels. At the end of the day, we got the thumbs up. Things have been fine ever since. In fact, more than fine. We just had a glowing parent/teacher conference. They are best buddies. He wants to invite her to his birthday party.

Elitch

We were invited to Elitch gardens, the local 6-Flags amusement park, as a night out with BILs law firm. Amusement parks are not our thing so it was a new and novel experience for us all.

Kadin was hesitant and thoughtful with comments such as: "No, I don't want to go on that one." "Why would anyone want to do that?" "Mom, this one makes a funny feeling in my tummy." "Yes, I do want to go on that one." "Don't spin." "Spin more." "That was fun." And the dreaded, "I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Rees was bursting with anticipation and excitement. He wanted to do it all. And yet, not. You didn't want to stand too close to him in line because you might inadvertently get a head or an elbow excitedly thrown into some part of your body. There was just no way he could hold still and wait. Not even close. And we had to find the rides with the right amount of thrill: not too slow, but not too much terror. Still, he was persistant.

At one point, Rees was on a mini roller coaster. After each round the ride operator would stop the cars and ask, "Anyone want to get off? Anyone want to go again?" Rees would say, "Again! again!" Just across from him was Kadin, the lone rider on a very slow, very flat little train ride. He chose to sit in the middle car, not the front, not the caboose. He was sitting properly, very straight and very still as it gently made its way around the track. He might as well have been wearing a flowered hat.

Then, at the end of the night, Rees wanted to do "one more" and "one more." While Kadin was saying, "It's late, I'm tired. I want to go home. Look, Dad, look at the sky. It is dark. It’s time for bed. Why would anyone want to be awake?"

Just the other day

We are at the pool and the boys are being their typical selves.

After months (years?) of trying to get Kadin to put his head under when he swims (yes, he swims, or dog paddles, very slowly and very relaxed, with his head just above water…it’s okay but not the most confidence inspiring…) he informs me that instead of taking swimming lessons, he wants to take sinking lessons. He hated swimming lessons because they wanted him to put his head in the water and he hates being told what to do. So I just say, yeah okay, whatever, and watch and he proceeds to sink under water then come back up. Wow! He’s doing it! That’s the ticket! I should have had him take sinking lessons all along! Duh!

Meanwhile, Rees is diving about wearing a wet suit, snorkel mask, and flippers, looking like the creature from the deep. As he walks in from the pool, the tip of one of his flippers gets wedged under a chair. He bends and starts whimpering, looking to us for sympathy. What? Then I see the crooked smile coming out of the corner of his mouth. Very funny indeed---as if his flipper had nerve endings!

Filling in

I'm back! and will start posting things that didn't get posted this summer. I'll cram them all in and post-date them. I am posting this as August 22nd, but am writing it on October 12th. A lot has happened with summer travel and activities, and I hope some of these posts fill in the cracks. Since school has started, I painted and decorated Rees' room, we hosted a salon, Kadin had a day of reckoning, we went camping (again), Rees had a spy birthday (9), and I have been a landscaping maniac, obsessively trying to get trees and shrubs in the ground before the first frost (success!). Weather is now conducive to more indoor activities, so the house (new!) and computer beckon. Only, I leave tomorrow for a weekend in CA, so not sure how much will get up today...

What he knows

We just got back from a quick camping trip. After Kadin had used the pit toilet he says, "Mom, there was a sign in there that said: Please do not throw any trash down the toilet. It is excellent difficult to remove. Thank you."

"Wow," I said, "did you just read that?" And I'm thinking: excellent/extremely, close enough.

"Yeah," he says, nonplussed.

"Kadin, your kindergarten teacher is going to be so impressed." (He starts kindergarten in four days.)

"Yeah," he says again confidently, "Because I know not to throw trash down the toilet."

Right. That too.

Woosh!

Okay, so it is August. We have been back for a month now. Looks like blog is on summer break. Similar phenomenon happened last summer. Kids are around 24-7 and Kadin continues to monopolize the computer (online gaming happily forgotten for the moment, though). Many posts on that and more coming–they are on my PDA–and will be posted when it is cooler and when I have a moment to breathe. Good news is that an article I wrote for Mothering magazine will be published in their upcoming Nov/Dec 2006 issue. Stay tuned...

Explosion

Kadin's busting out in every way. In the past few months, he's taught himself to swim, read, and do the monkey bars. He's gotten interested in internet gaming. After two years of refusing to touch the piano keys (but in the meantime learning to read music), he finally gave it a try and now he can't be stopped. He sounds out songs and plays them (with one determined finger ONLY, mind you), and plays often. I have to write that, because that is the good part (except for maybe the internet gaming, more on that later...).

And just as some things seem to be coming together, the cooperation front has gone to pot. Any hint that you want him to do something will result in instant refusal, even if it is something he wants. His determination is extreme and often extremely annoying. His most common phrases these days are: "No," "why?" and "I don't want to." I'm hoping it's just end-of-the-school-year-itis, and the trip to England and Norway (tomorrow) is just the distraction he needs.

Be back in July!

Good stone

So I have written about how I do not like stone. It makes me nervous. But stone and I have had a bit of a reconciliation of late, now that the front patio has been laid. I think all the difference was that it was dry laid. That means it was laid without cement or mortar or, god forbid, "liquid nails." That and the fact that the two masons who worked on it were true artisans. They didn't just do their job adequately, they sought to challenge themselves and do it to a high, artistic standard. They would put down maybe only two stones a day, and shape them and fit them perfectly. It was fun to watch. When I had discussed design and budget beforehand wioth them, I had suggested a more casual job, with perhaps growing things in between the stones. "Growing things?" He asked. "You mean with wide joints? Wide joints would be ugly." So we left the wide joint "stepping stones" to the unskilled likes of Greg and me, and he and his partner did the high skilled stuff.

They incorporated the large, natural boulders we already had out front, and it looks great. At first I was concerned that that would harm the large boulders. But because they did it without mortar, it looks natural and removable. The stones have not been altered. And the mason told me that, ironically, laying the stone without concrete or mortar makes it more permanent.

Concerete and mortar can chip and crack over time so need to be repaired. Also, mortar doesn’t move so can't adjust to minor settling or changes in the soil or freeze/thaw cycles. And with concrete and mortar, you can't go back. It's difficult to remove.

This dry laid is perfect, then. It is solid and permanent, but not irrevocable. I like that. I am very happy that it can adjust and change over time, and that, for a change, it is not set in stone. Phew! And as Kadin put it, "Mom, I'm glad we did that at the front of the house, it is better than that pile of mud." Oh yeah.

Before

During

After

Phew!

Sounds

When I was a kid, I used to be disturbed by sounds in the night. I would hear creaking and sharp snaps that sent chills up my spine. On one level I knew they were nothing, but, without my permission, they became huge events that jolted me to my core. I was terrified.

I don't notice these sounds any more. Once in a while, when I am sleeping at a new house, I will notice a creak or two, but in general, it seems what was once a big deal is now gone.

I don't miss them, but I wonder if my children are attuned to similar creaks or if I just lived in an especially creaky house. Lately I've been trying to notice the creaks. Are they still there? To a child's ears are they big and ominous? I can’t hear them, but I think the kids do.

Ironically, just when I can no longer notice creaks, I think I have better ears than ever, having developed that part of the brain that is "mother's ears." The part that constantly monitors background noise for any aberration. Have my "mother's ears" somehow drowned out my "child's ears"? I just don't think my children hear the same things I do at all. What are they talking about?

And then I think, why are they worried? What do they have to worry about? When maybe that is it. We are each worried about totally different things. To them, the world is big and mysterious, full of strange happenings, unexplainable events, proverbial monsters. To them, these are very real, but to me, “it just your imagination.” (I don’t say that, actually, but it’s tempting sometimes.) Sounds are huge, unknown, scary. From my point of view, there is just so much to understand and keep track of and so little sleep to be had that I now habitually screen out mere creaks and groans to leave room for the myriad other details. We will always occupy our minds with something, and it seems the fuller they are, the less we need to sweat the small stuff.

At least that is one theory. And then I heard a story last week on NPR that gave me another idea. I would have thought the story was an April Fool’s joke if it hadn’t been broadcast in May. The story was about an inventor who invented this sound that can be broadcast to repel teenagers. Try it here. It turns out that most people over about 30 can’t hear in the high frequencies anymore, but teenagers can. By playing a high frequency sound and pulsing it, teenagers get irritated and leave, but adults can’t hear it and aren’t bothered at all. It has been used outside stores where teens used to congregate and has successfully driven them away.

Ironically, the teens have since taken back the sound. (The inventor’s 16 year old daughter was also interviewed). They recorded it onto their cell phones. Only, the high frequency was too high to record, so one of them went home and created a slightly lower frequency on their computer and recorded that to the cell phone. Why? They use this sound as their cell phone ring tone because adults, namely teachers at their schools, can’t hear it, and they can then surreptitiously text message to their heart’s content, teacher being non the wiser. Whoa.

So, here is the link to the teen buzz. Try it and see if you can hear it. At normal volume, I can’t hear it at all. If I turn up the volume all the way, I can hear it a bit, and it is annoying. I shudder to think there are things I can’t perceive, but it is true. And just when I get to a time in my life when sounds, usually loud sounds made by the kids, suddenly really are irritating I find I am losing my hearing. How can this be? Maybe my kids really do live in a different aural universe. Maybe they really can hear monsters. And now I blame them, and think that maybe adults adaptively loose their high frequency hearing after the first baby… I mean, how many more irritating things do you really need?

Ode to itching

I do not understand itching.
Of all the things our skin can do,
why itch?
Pain I understand.
I have learned to listen
to pain.
If I don't heed its warning,
there is a consequence.
But itching?
How is that adaptive?
It's a cruel trick our body plays on us.
You itch,
but you're not supposed to scratch.

(Enough with the fancy line breaks). The only thing I can think of is that itching is the pleasant sense of touch gone awry. It is a curse, something nice turned evil. And it is not even a very picturesque curse. Blood, gore, death, mental illness, consumption. They've all be written about, dramatized, and romanticized. Itching and rashes, not so much.

Usually not fatal, itching isn't taken seriously. But let me try to illustrate just how drastic it can be. When the millions and billions of nerves of your skin, a major organ of your body with the greatest surface area, turn on you, you are in trouble. Your whole nervous system goes on high alert and you become highly irritated in every sense of the word. Your interface with the world goes into fight or flight mode, but you can't escape.

You can't even really talk about it or get much sympathy. It is not polite conversation. Mention a rash and watch as people take a few steps away. Yes, I guess lots of kinds of itching are signs of uncleanliness or communicable diseases, hence it's pariah status. It is a lonely, unromantic affliction.

But I can write about it on the computer and can't see your reaction. Hah! So I dedicate this post to all who itch. After six distracting weeks of itching (my body's multi-phase reaction to poison ivy, ever inventive, suprising me anew with each rash du jour) and pretending I don't, I can write about it and someday, envision a world where itching is respected and incorporated into our culture and media. Someday there will be a the great dramatic novel with the charming main character who is afflicted by poetic itching. There will be country songs with clever double entendres about the urge to scratch. There will be TV sitcoms sympathetic to chronic skin diseases. People will find important messages in their rashes. Yes, I can see it now. It is time for this despised affliction to be brought to light, recognized and respected. Ignoring it and shunning it does not help it go away, but only adds insult to injury of all who itch.