Unschooling all the time

It occurred to me that choosing to write about my kids' learning on a day when they were sick was illustrative of another reason unschooling works: learning happens all day, every day. There are no school hours, no weekends off, no holidays, no spring breaks, no teacher work days, and no sick days. You might say our kids have to go to school every day. We prefer a slogan of the unschooling community: "Everything counts."

Below, I've chosen a few "rot your brains" examples to show how learning comes from surprising sources:

Watching movies and television

1. Chloe and one of her cousins were flipping channels the other day and landed on the "The Phantom of the Opera." They got hooked and watched through to the end, whereupon they came sobbing out into my mom's livingroom to say what a good movie it was. They had missed the beginning, so Chloe put it into her Netflix queue. She's been watching that this weekend, singing the songs, discussing the movie, etc. Coming up next in her queue is the Lon Chaney original. Doing my part, I pointed out that it started out as a legend and then a book, so we're headed to the library tomorrow to check it out. It's a literature unit a teacher would approve, and it's been entirely self directed.
2. I mentioned in another post that my friend Stephanie had gotten me hooked on "Firefly." Well, now I've gotten the family hooked on it. It's led to so many interesting discussions. For example, the political environment of the show is similar to that of our post-Civil War era, with the Alliance in charge and the "browncoats" (including our hero, Captain Mal) struggling with resentment and bitter defeat. We picked up the official published guide to the series, and it has information about, for example, the design of Mal's gun, a high-tech one-off of a Civil War revolver. We've also discussed the look of the show and how they use lighting, somewhat old-fashioned film techniques (often faked in CGI shots!), and costumes to create atmosphere. And then, of course, there is all the shared enjoyment of what is simply a fun, expertly crafted bit of entertainment!

Video games

Quite a few unschoolers have learned to read by playing video games. There's a lot of text on screen, for one thing, and reading is required to go out on the Internet and look up cheat codes and such.

For most kids, game playing is an indisputable physical workout. I've never seen so much wiggling and laughing. And amazing social interactions take place when kids gather around or even just discuss a game.

Video games are now being credited with kids' developing "higher skills" (e.g., problem solving and analytical thinking), to the point that educators are starting to catch on. This article outlines how they are starting to use games as learning tools (although they think they have to write special games for it -- talk about making yourself feel needed!).

But it's more than that. Just ask any unschooling parent who has watched a video game inspire a kid. They play, and then they start making connections. Rather than reinvent the wheel and describe this process, I'll simply direct you to an excellent article by unschooling parent Mary Gold, If You Give a Kid a Nintendo.

Reading the funny papers

I talked some in my last post about all the learning that's been triggered by my kids' interest in manga and anime. But our first experience with funny-papers learning happened way back at the beginning of our unschooling. The girls discovered my old Far Side, Bloom County, and Calvin & Hobbes collections. Wow! All of a sudden, we were discussing biology, liberals vs. conservatives, freedom of the press, the Reverend Moon, transmogrification, drawing styles, and innumerable social events of the 80's (e.g., rock-and-roller cola wars). It was lightning-paced, it was vibrant, it was FUN!

Going on vacation

We've done more than our fair share of traveling. Our number one goal while traveling is always having fun. We never -- NEVER -- structure our days around learning, and we never sit down to teach our kids anything (unless they ask us to). So, all in the name of fun, the girls (and Frank and I) have learned about geology, history, evolution, biology, social and cultural issues, natural disasters, meteorology, politics, physics, writing, economics, mathematics, various interesting careers out in the real world, various really nasty jobs out in the real world, foreign languages, etymology, entomology, enology, conservation, pollution, government funding, and, of course, map reading.

Oh, yes, and vocabulary. :-)


The point is, learning is natural and unavoidable. It's not constrained to a classroom, a schedule, a curriculum, or a season. And it's inspired by everything.

What unschooling looked like today

This is the first in a series of peeks into our unschooling routine (or lack thereof). I'll shoot for posting one mid-month each month.

But first, a quote from Chloe: "The purpose of unschooling is to make sure everyone in your family is happy with their life."

I couldn't have said it better. And now, the report on today.

Both girls are a little under the weather, so it was a pretty sedate day today. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of activities to report. In addition to the activities in the list below, both girls reviewed my last blog post for accuracy. They're my subject-matter experts. :-)

Chloe
Read some fanfiction
IM'd with MJ (yes, MJ was in the next room)
Chatted over AIM with the Mini Skirt Army
Set up a new blog (she's not sharing it yet)
Discussed Fruits Basket (a manga series)
Plugged different dates into a zodiac calendar online
Watched the last disk of Full Metal Alchemist
Talked philosophy with Mom
Played with the rats
Had a pillow tug-of-war with MJ

MJ
Reread select passages in Eragon
Worked on her 2nd sci-fi novel, including a swordfight that is "completely badass"
IM'd with Chloe and a friend from NBTSC
Made plans with her cousin for Saturday night
Checked in on MySpace
Discussed Fruits Basket (a manga series)
Watched some South Park and the last disk of FMA
Talked philosophy with Mom
Updated our Netflix queue
.....(Alert: MJ's movie, "Zoo," is coming soon!)
Played with the rats
Had a pillow tug-o-war with Chloe
Listened to her iPod

I've been asked to clarify that the IM conversation between the two girls was actually an icon war. Just don't ask me to explain that. :-)

Academic translations for a few of those activities
Several:
Socialization!
Language arts (creative writing, editing, critical thinking, book reports)

Zodiac web site: Math - Chloe was calculating years of birth for Fruits Basket characters

FMA: alchemy vs. science and mechanics, history (WWI, zeppelins and the blitz, and the build-up to WWII), seven deadly sins

Fruits Basket: Japanese culture, names, language, Chinese zodiac, biology, and Choir (they sang the FMA and Fruits Basket theme songs together - in Japanese!)

iPod: Music Appreciation and Music of the World (it's a very eclectic collection)

Pillow fight: PE, of course!

----------------
P.S. After I posted this, the girls and I went back to our individual activities, MJ still listening to her iPod and Chloe fiddling with my deck of cards. I got on YouTube because I wanted to hear "Spirit in the Sky" (don't ask me why). I found one clip of the 45 going 'round and 'round, with a comment attached that the center dealie on the record looked like a swastika. Someone then pointed out that the swastika was originally a Hindu symbol, which I didn't know, so I got on Wikipedia to learn more. My expressions of surprise and interest drew attention from the girls, so we finished up the day with another impromptu history lesson. These weird little chains of connections are one of the reasons unschooling works so well. That's another big subject and one I'd love to expound on more, but I'm going to call it a day.

The girls don't seem anywhere ready for sleep, though. Guess they'll have to continue their learning without me.

Accepted

Did any of you have a chance to see "Accepted," a little movie that came out last summer? It's about Bartleby, an enterprising young man who, faced with a series of college rejection letters and a pair of severely disappointed parents, comes up with his own college, the South Harmon Institute of Technology (you supply the acronym). He and his friends create a letterhead, set up a web site, and hang a sign on a former mental institution, then recruit a cranky, shoe-selling former professor to do the welcome interview with Bartleby's parents. The fun starts when a web-site snafu leads to hundreds of kids showing up for the first day of school.

The movie was marketed as this generation's "Animal House," and it certainly contains enough collegiate antics to qualify. But as much as I loved "Animal House," and despite its none-too-subtle jabs at college administration, the Greek system, and politics (remember, Bluto becomes a senator), "Animal House" doesn't come close to containing the important messages that "Accepted" contains. It explores the idea that kids who lack the 4.0 GPAs, test scores, athletic abilities, and other credentials traditionally valued by colleges still have a lot to offer, and that we are all worthy of acceptance.

It probably goes without saying that I loved this movie. It spoke to my unschooler heart. The scene where Bartleby welcomes the new students and tells them that, here, they will be accepted for who they are, brought me to tears.

With traditional parenting and traditional schooling, kids are dictated to, criticized, corrected, pressured, shamed, and pigeonholed. There are hundreds of rules to follow -- the shoulds, I call them -- and a very small set of traditional goals that are deemed worthy of pursuit. Don't get me wrong: there may be a wealth of love and encouragement in these kids' lives. But I believe the presence of those positives can only balance the negatives; it can't make up for them.

Our approach with unschooling is different, and it's demonstrated pretty nicely in the movie. Instead of leading with "This is who you should be," we ask (or simply wait watchfully to be shown) who our kids want to be.

This kind of acceptance represents a huge subject, the core of unschooling, and it has many parts. Education and learning styles, socialization and manners, whether kids should be "toughened up" or protected, whether parents should discipline their kids, nutrition, hygiene, chores, and even financial issues. I might go into more depth on some of those in later posts, but for now, here are some principles we live by:

• Our kids are okay just the way they are.

I should highlight that one or something. It's huge. If you really want to "get" unschooling, meditate on that concept for a while.

• If our kids are not okay (unhappy times, challenges to face, something missing from life, etc.), it's our job to help them find the resources or tools they need to get back to being okay.
• Our kids are, at all times, learning and changing, and it's our job to be attentive to and supportive of that.
• If our kids are having fun, they're learning at top speed. It's our job to facilitate fun.
• We trust that our kids will learn what they need to know, when they need to know it. There is no lesson, academic or social, that has to be learned by a certain age, and parental embarrassment is not a good reason for shaming a child.
• There is no good reason for shaming a child.
• We trust that our kids will, on their own, fill their time with the activities that are best suited to their moods, needs, interests, and natural learning processes.
• It's our job to provide a resource-rich environment for our kids, no matter how messy it makes the house.
• We have no idea what our kids might accomplish if encouraged, and it's not our job to make them "face reality." When offered the Great Gift of a glimpse into their dreams and wishes, we don't have to be their voice of reason or the rain on their parade. We just have to say, "Oh, cool! How can I help?"
• It is much better to say "yes" than "no," even if it is a qualified "yes." For example, I might say, "Yes, we can go to the mall just as soon as I finish this blog post" instead of "No, not right now." It's a little thing, but all those yeses add up to a much more positive atmosphere.
• The lifestyle we are living was our choice (meaning mine and Frank's); supporting the lifestyle is our responsibility and not something to be foisted off on the kids. This includes caring for the house we live in.
• A kid who is acting out, angry, frustrated, or crying is a kid who needs help and understanding. And maybe some food. It's the adult's job to stay calm, step back, try to see through the kid's eyes, and listen.
• Kids need space to feel their emotions instead of pressure to stifle them. (Small kids might also need help identifying their emotions; sometimes hearing a description of what they're feeling is all they need in order to calm down.)
• Punishment has no place in our home.

Well, that turned into a long list, but it really comes down to trust and acceptance. We trust our kids to learn and grow and thrive in the loving home we provide, and we accept them, as-is.

The unavoidable opposite of acceptance is rejection. I think adults inadvertently aim a lot of little rejection darts at the kids in their lives, thinking they're doing the kids a favor by attempting to "fix" trait x, y, or z. Knock it off! Just love them and trust that they'll get it all figured out in their own good time. They will!

New furniture

Frank and I have a new bedroom set. After many years of "maybe someday" and then a couple of months of fruitless searching for something light and airy enough (but still attractive) to suit our "undersea" bedroom decor, we finally decided to just buy something we like. The pieces are big, dark, heavy, and (we think) gorgeous. You can see the pieces here (except we got a tall chest of drawers instead of the dresser shown, and we don't have an armoire) and a detail shot of the marble top on the nightstands here.

Oh, and btw - we didn't pay anything close to these prices! There's a pretty cool furniture warehouse/store near us that offers wholesale or container prices. We have several friends and family members who've found good deals there.

More work coming to fruition

Chloe and I returned home from some errands a little bit ago to find a package from Microsoft on the front porch. My boss, David, sent me my very own copy of Point of Sale, the cash register and inventory management software that has been the focus of my professional life for these past few years. It might sound lame when I say so, but I am very excited to have it. I'm really proud of this product; it's slick and powerful. Having been in on the ground floor, I've gotten to contribute a lot to its design, usability, and continuing improvement, and the documentation set is the best I've ever worked on (if I do say so).

If anybody has a store that needs computerizing, I can help!

Point of Sale Web site

A peek at what I do

The project I finished up before I left Microsoft has been published to the Web. If you want to take a peek, it's here. Enjoy! :-)

Sale of the Zombie Princess

Well, it's official: the good ship Zombie Princess has a new owner.

The boat sale saga:

Interested party #1 -- The spider-bitten jailbird

Back in November, we had a cash buyer all lined up. We'd agreed on a price and were set to do paperwork. Then he vanished. Eventually, our broker learned that he had been arrested for being Drunk and Disorderly. He served his 30 days or whatever and then resurfaced, still interested in the ZP, before dropping away again, claiming to have been bitten by 18 brown recluse spiders who were living on his boat. Don't ask me why 18 reclusive spiders would all be living on one boat, or why they would all decide at the same time to be sociable enough to come out and bite him. If the jail sentence hadn't been enough to convince us he was a gen-u-ine Key West character, the spider story pretty much confirmed it! But he hung around the periphery right up until last week when we gave him one last chance to ante up. No deal.

Interested party #2 -- The reverse boatlift Cubano

As some of you may recall, back in 1980, more than 100,000 people left Cuba, with Fidel Castro's blessing, and arrived in the U.S., primarily in the Miami area. (Many of these turned out to be inmates of Cuba's prisons and mental hospitals -- sending them to America was Castro's solution to their overcrowding problems.) This became known as the Mariel Boatlift.

Well, evidently rumors have been flying for months among the Cuban population in Florida that Castro is dead. Some Cubans with means have been buying up boats on the cheap in preparation for a mass return to Cuba. I'm not sure what their goal is, reclaiming the whole country or just their own abandoned property, but whatever it is, they're planning to go.

One of these hopefuls became interested in the ZP in early December. He submitted a lowball offer, so our broker very kindly backed out of the deal, giving us her $2500 commission for extra negotiating room. Frank called the buyer directly to see what could be arranged. In short, NOTHING. The guy was exceptionally abrasive and pushy, wildly exaggerated the boat's faults, etc., and managed to completely alienate Frank. We decided not to sell to him unless we could do it with Vanessa running interference for us, negotations broke off, and the deal fell through.

Our only regret is that if we'd sold to the guy, we evidently would have been contacted by some U.S. government agency or another about bugging the ZP before the guy took possession. We don't have any strong feelings about the government in Cuba; it just would have been fun to imagine some poor agent listening to this guy spouting obnoxious things all the way from Key West to Havana.

Interested party #3 -- The baffled Brit

Just after Christmas, we struck a deal with a man from England who was shopping for a little boat on which to go cruising in the Caribbean. It looked very promising until he had the survey done. The surveyor pointed out that the compression post wasn't original, and the buyer got fidgety, even though replacing the compression post on a Hunter is a Very Good Thing. He ultimately decided against buying her, stating that it wasn't the survey that swayed him but a reconsideration of the to-do list for getting her ready to cruise. We were disappointed and frustrated -- he knew the to-do list before he put down his deposit! -- but what could we do?

Interested party #4 -- The bicycle repairman

With power at the boatyard about to be cut due to major construction, we were feeling pretty panicky about the boat still sitting there. Without power, an unattended boat in the water is in great danger of sinking, because the batteries go dead and the bilge pump doesn't run. Dreading the thought of having to go down and find her a new home, we began to reconsider the offer of a KW local who had been checking out the ZP for months and months. He was clearly a serious buyer, but he "had to have" seller financing.

I did a bunch of research about seller financing a boat. The consensus: Don't do it!

But we're doing it anyway.

It's a gamble, but Greg seems like a nice guy. He's very earnest when he talks about repaying us, and he doesn't have bad credit so much as no credit at all -- not even a department store card. We've tried to dot the i's and cross the t's on the loan paperwork, and I followed a bunch of advice about making it as easy as possible for the buyer to repay, but for us the bottom line is that (1) the boat is being tended to now, (2) somebody else is paying for her mooring and insurance now, and (3) there's a chance that we'll end up receiving a decent price for her.

We received the downpayment today, so the boat has actually shifted from the "expense" column to the "income" column. It's a major milestone.

The Bill of Sale goes out Monday, so we have reached the end of the tale of the s/v Zombie Princess.

The End?

Not really. This should conclude the Blog of the Zombie Princess, but then I'd have to start a whole new blog for family news, unschooling essays, and my occasional political opinion pieces, AND you all would have to update your Favorites. So, I've decided to continue blogging here even though the ZP is no more.

Does that make me the new Zombie Princess???

I guess I can live with that.

The Princess is dead. Long live the Princess.

Weirdnesses tag

I've been tagged. I'm always happy to respond to chain questionnaires, so here are my six weirdnesses (or six of my weirdnesses, I should say), in no particular order.

1) I get a little freaky over the amount of tape that gets used when wrapping a present. "Not so much! Not so much!" The only thing that kept me sane when the girls were tape-happy toddlers was buying each of them her own roll. Then I could be as anal as I wanted with *my* roll.

2) No matter how tired I am, I turn bright-eyed and chatty when I go to bed. Frank has long since learned to wait it out: I chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, then pretty much fall asleep mid-sentence, just like that.

3) I eat marshmallow creme by the spoonful.

4) I *really* have a one-track mind. I have trouble carrying on a conversation if the radio is playing, and people generally have to grab my face to get my attention if I'm reading.

5) I save my tax returns for decades. I probably still have the first one I ever filed back in 1984.

6) I pace. Frank says I'm a shark: If I stop moving, I'll die.

I won't tag other people in turn. If you're reading this and you've got a blog, feel free to join the game with a weirdness post of your own. Or chime in with a comment here.

I'm back!

Here I am, returned both home and to blogging. Last week, I finished up my latest contract at the Velvet Sweatshop and immediately flew off to Georgia for a few days visiting my best pal, Stephanie. (She and her husband, Rick, moved to Athens last summer, having had enough of Northwest weather. Seems like they got out in the nick of time.) We did some sightseeing and shopping, but the highlights were a bunch of time spent having complete conversations, a fab multicourse dinner at a restaurant near their house, and their introducing me to Firefly, an excellent TV series that should never have been canceled -- check it out on DVD!

Now, I am settling into life at home. I have to be away from Microsoft for 100 days (required after every 365 days worked there as a temp, ever since a certain lawsuit filed against the company). My Big Plan is to enjoy some time with my kids. Frank's work continues, so I get to revel in my time off, knowing we still have income. Pretty cool.

I am very tardy in announcing the birth of Molly Eileen Lewis to proud parents Jerry and Cori. She arrived January 19th, a few weeks ahead of schedule. She weighed in at just under 6 pounds and had to spend a few extra days at the hospital to finish "cooking," but mother and baby are both doing well. J-man gets out of the Marines late February (not late March as I previously told you, Jorene, yay!), then the family is moving home. They'll stay at Grandma Judy's while they get settled. Grand-aunt-ma Ronnie is very excited to get her hands on that baby, but we're not sure when that will happen.

Our other item of news is a sad one: We said good-bye today to Snowball the rat. She died in her cage this morning after living several months with a large tumor and showing distinct signs of old age. MJ and Chloe are pretty sad -- Snowy has been with us through a lot of adventures -- but they find distraction in a couple of comedians called Rodney and Lestat.

Anyway, we're all doing well. I'll try to fill in more details of the past few months in subsequent posts.

Happy New Year!

Yes, we're still here

I am a terrible blogger, I know. I'll resume operations after the holidays, if not before, but for now I wanted to let everybody know that we're fine after Hurricane Northwest. Our neighborhood never lost power, so we have heat and light and working freezers and cool things like that. It cost me a work day, though, because Microsoft is dead as a doornail -- which I unfortunately didn't discover until I had driven down there and inched my way through about a dozen dead traffic lights. And we had a houseguest briefly, my coworker who drove into work not realizing she wouldn't be able to fill her gas tank to get home in the horrible traffic.

I could rant about the traffic -- where exactly did all those people think they were going? -- but it would be a bit of pot calling the kettle, since I was out there with all the idiots.

Anyway, we are safe and warm, with a fallen fence the worst of our complaints.

In case you don't hear from me before then, I wish you the happiest of holidays. Merry Everything!

Memories from February 2005

Chloe's amazing talent

Nick and Chloe on the Space Needle observation deck

Chiara and Ronnie at Priest Point

Marty on the move

Marty's physical and occupational therapy is coming along really well. He can walk a little bit now, using his walker (which he was using even before the stroke), and is able to get his shirt off and do other tasks like that. This morning, he confounded Frank (and probably himself) by maneuvering himself to the side of the bed, lowering the rail, and climbing on out of bed. He ended up on his knees and needed help, but it was some impressive feats of strength and dexterity up til then.

They had a family gathering yesterday with the whole gang out at Judy's. I'm sure the company and food were just fine. Sorry I missed it!

Photos

I had to steal this photo of MJ's birthday party from Erin's blog:
Ella, MJ, Chelsea

And here is a blast from the past -- Chloe at approximately age 2, feeding ducks at Lafreniere Park in New Orleans
(photo credit: nephew-son Jerry):

Derek's triumph

Check out this entertaining and impressive video of Frank's cousin Mary's son, Derek, achieving a personal best.

http://www.strangepuzzle.com/videos/3x3x3 DerekTilton 52.75.wmv

Grammar makes a comeback

From the Washington Post:

Grammar for Teachers
"The Loudoun County school system offers an annual summer staff development session called Grammar for English Teachers, tailored to teach the basics to teachers who didn't learn them in college. 'It usually fills up pretty quickly,' said Carrie Perry, supervisor of English language arts in Loudoun... The newest English teachers are products of a grammarless era, unprepared to distinguish an appositive from an infinitive.

"'What you have is a generation of teachers from the early to mid-'70s who don't know grammar, who never learned it,' said Benjamin, an author of the national council's publication. 'We have armies of teachers, elementary teachers and English teachers, who don't have the language to talk about language. It's kind of their dirty little secret.'"

Grammar for Students
"In surveys, not quite two-thirds of students said they had studied grammar by the time they took the 2005 SAT.

"Those concerns, and a growing consensus among scholars that many high school graduates 'can't write well enough to get a passing grade from a professor on a paper,' drove the addition of a third section to the SAT, upending decades of balance between reading and math, said Ed Hardin, a content specialist at the College Board.

"The new section introduced a long-form essay and -- less publicized -- a series of multiple-choice responses that test how well students can assemble and disassemble sentences."

The full article is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201135.html

Brief e-mail from Chiara

Chiara wrote to say that she loves her new college life in Milan. She didn't share any details, unfortunately (e-mail being her least favorite conversational medium). I'll track her down and provide more info as I get it.

Nonconformists?

I'm an emo kid, nonconforming as can be

You'd be nonconforming too if you looked just like me

"The Emo Song"

Traffic was really bad when I drove home from work yesterday, so I cut over to a side street once I reached Everett. There was a pack of teenagers strolling down the middle of the road. There were five or six of them, girls and boys, all dressed in black, with black hair, piercings, tattoos, studs on their clothing, etc. Real badasses. They stayed in the middle of the road even as I came up close to them, then grudgingly moved aside (gray vans winning out over black Vans any day of the week).

They all looked over at me, no doubt expecting to see irritation or even an angry gesture or two. Instead, I was grinning like a fool. They were so cute!!!

On their way

MJ and her friend Kyla are on their way to San Diego for some fun in the sun with Papa Bill and Renée, Aunt Lynn, Artie and Colin, and, of course, Brody-the-Airedale. It's MJ's first time flying without a parent. She's pretty excited.

They don't have firm plans yet for what they'll do. Evidently the weather is fabulous down there, so just about anything will be a treat. There's been talk of the zoo, the beach, and maybe Dizzyland (as Papa Bill calls it).

Star of saddle and screen...

MJ had a long work day at Hope for Horses today. The organization is being featured in an upcoming documentary about a much publicized bestiality case that occurred here in Seattle in the summer of 2005 (a man died after having sex with a horse). The horse ended up with HFH and was eventually placed with a family up in Bellingham who have a 14yo daughter. Bellingham isn't real convenient, so the film crew used one of the local HFH horses as a stand-in for the horse/victim. For the 14yo girl, they used (you guessed it) MJ!

They started setting up about 1 and filmed until nearly dark. Chloe and I went to watch the tail end of it (no pun intended). It was very cool. The crew would set up the shot, then the director would say, "Sound on. Camera on. Aaaand... MJ, action!"

I think MJ had a really good time (aside from getting a little saddle-sore), but Pete, the stand-in horse, was pretty fed up with all the rigmarole. Saddle on, saddle off, move him here, move him there. It was nice, though: You'd see him getting irritated, but then MJ would talk to him and his eyes would go all soft again. Those critters really adore her.

The movie itself will be, er, interesting. They are evidently giving equal time to the people who think bestiality is okay. Here are a couple of write-ups I found on the Web:

Documentary Filmmakers to Tackle Enumclaw Horse Case

The crew is hoping to get the film ready for Sundance 2007.

Improvements all around

Marty is doing really well. He had a doctor's appointment Monday. Doc says, whatever they're doing, they should keep doing! The difference in Marty between last Tuesday at the nursing home and this Tuesday at Judy's is HUGE. The doctor said he doesn't need to see him again until December. Yay!

Sooo... Frank is coming home. Another yay! We miss him a lot. He'll be back a week from tomorrow. Cheaper fares then, and he'd like some time with his dad knowing it's just a visit and not a good-bye.

I made major handoffs today for the two major (ridiculously scheduled) projects I was working on. I feel light as a feather now! I'm down to one full-time job instead of three! Yet another yay! After nearly 5 months of being buried, this feels really good.

New passions

A while back, I posted a list of things we proselytize about. Here are some new additions:

14. Heroes. Monday nights on NBC, repeats Fridays on Sci-Fi. This comic-book-as-a-TV-series show has us totally captivated, especially the Japanese character, Hiro. If you want to join in the fun, NBC will be re-running episodes 2 through 4 in the Sunday Night Football slot starting Oct. 22. (They can't show football during World Series games.) Things are getting really interesting.

15. Manga, manga, manga. See previous post. Ties in nicely to #14 above.

The original list is archived here: June 2006 (June 10th).

Chloe manga

After years of frustration with her drawing skills, Chloe has found a style that suits her to a T. Here are a couple of her wonderful new manga* characters.

* Manga: Japanese-style comic-book art


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Good news from New Orleans

Marty moved home to Judy's Tuesday (the same day Frank arrived), and he is doing SO much better there. He had pretty significant all-over swelling that is way down now, and he's off the pain medications they had him on. The result is that he feels better and is much more alert.

The alertness is probably the biggest, happiest improvement. He had been sleeping virtually all day and had to be shaken awake at mealtimes and so on. But last night he seemed to shrug off the last effects of the pain meds. Judy was out, so Marty, Frank, and Gary had boys' night and stayed up until midnight eating and shooting the breeze. For the first time in months, Marty asked about his money situation (something he checked in on regularly before the stroke), cracked jokes, and seemed to really tune into life. And today, he took only a couple of small naps and showed signs that his so-called incontinence was more a factor of the inattentiveness of the nursing home staff than a real condition.

Frank is very pleased with the physical/occupational therapy Marty is getting. The therapists actually get him on his feet, despite the weakness/immobility of his right side. This contributes greatly to his feeling of self-reliance and dignity.

The news is not all good, unfortunately. His short-term memory is definitely impaired: he has to be told daily where he is and why, and he didn't remember much of last night's conversation today. Also, we don't know the status of his kidneys; he has a doctor's appointment on Monday that we hope will tell us more.

Keep a good thought!

Frank's report on Marty

Marty's kidneys seem to be failing, so Frank has flown down to New Orleans to have a visit and help out. Here's a snippet from the e-mail he sent to us this morning:

"Got Dad to Judy’s yesterday afternoon. He slept well and had breakfast and is now in the shower. Nurse/assistant seems nice and is taking good care of him. He seems pretty alert to me. In the wheelchair but mobile in that context. Physically he’s shaky and has right-side pain but does have some mobility of his right arm. Mentally he seems just about as 'there' as he used to be. Sleeping frequently. We watched some Law&Order after he got home and he followed it as far as I could tell."

The girls and I are bach'ing it, which is going to take some juggling since I've got 5 due dates in the next couple of weeks. MJ leaves for her San Diego trip with unschooling pal Kyla in a week, so she at least will be well entertained then.

Please welcome Lila!

Emma and Ella have a new sister! Lila Elita Jean was born at 4:16 Saturday morning. She was 9 lbs., 6 ounces, has lovely dark hair and eyebrows, and is sweet and calm. Mom Erin and Dad Erik were both troupers (Mom through labor and delivery and Dad through a nasty bout of food poisoning).

In addition to her immediate family, Lila's arrival was attended by her aunties Megan, Denise, and Ronnie, and cousins MJ, Chloe, Chelsea, and Megan. The livingroom was a bit crowded, but it was sure a special time!

Blog neglect

I know, I know, no posts in weeks. Sorry! September is always a busy month for us, usually with at least one birthday party each weekend. This September has been even crazier because I had a big deadline last Thursday. I made my deadline, but that's about it for my news because I've spent so much time at work.

MJ and Chloe have been quite the social butterflies. In addition to all the birthday parties, they've had a couple of get-togethers with some of the kids from Not Back to School Camp. They spent one afternoon in Seattle, first in the University district and then downtown at the new library and beyond. There was a pack of about 12 of them, and they ended up having so much fun together that they organized an impromptu slumber party at one boy's house (a boy who obviously has very accommodating parents). That was so much fun that MJ and Chloe invited several kids over here for a sleepover the next week. It ended up being 5 girls and one outnumbered-and-loving-it boy.

As you can see, we have definitely entered the teen years. It's going to be fascinating.

Perhaps because of all this new exposure to other kids, we've had two different colds hit various family members this month. I got both of them, of course. Fortunately, the second one didn't attack until after my deadline.

Frank has been working pretty consistently, doing a second pass on all the files they threw at him so hurriedly in order to make one of their legally mandated milestones. But he's finished that now, so he should get a couple weeks of getting paid for being on call. I'm sure the girls wouldn't mind a tad bit more attention.

MJ continues her work at Hope for Horses. She got to be one of the bosses the day 30 or so Microsoft employees showed up at the barn for the Microsoft/United Way Day of Caring. Also, HFH is gearing up for their annual fundraiser auction, so she helped put together the packets and invites for that. She plans to work the auction, so we went to our favorite thrift store to find appropriate attire for an event at Bellevue's swank Meydenbauer Center. Mom and daughter disagree just a bit about what "appropriate" means. I found her this gorgeous, 100% silk Georgiou dress that looks fabulous on her -- the steal of the century at $5 -- but she thinks it's too boring. She prefers a cute spaghetti-strap number in blue (that I think is a bit casual). Her opinion will no doubt rule the day.

That thrift store is so fun! The three of us spent about $70 total and ended up with six dresses, a skirt, a jacket, and several shirts between us. All like new. Love it!

As you might have noticed, Chloe has not returned to Summerhill. In late August, she started expressing serious reservations about going back. We had a number of conversations about it, and Frank and I shared our best advice ("Go back"), but ultimately she decided that the good times she had there didn't outweigh her loneliness and boredom and some things about the school that made us all uncomfortable. (Here, I'll just say there was an incident that left us with serious doubts about the headmistress' competence. If you want the gossip, send me an e-mail.)

So, we have our daughter back. We felt compelled to advise her to go back, but Frank and I couldn't be happier that she ignored our advice! :-) She's been filling her time with the usual Chloe Variety Pack, but the last week or so has been devoted to watching over a hundred episodes of Inuyasha (anime) on YouTube. She is quite excited about it and now wants to learn Japanese. She's already putting together a bit of vocabulary, just from reading subtitles. The series is set in feudal Japan, so we've made some neat connections to other video ("Shogun" especially) and Dad's sword-based Japanese martial arts.

She's also conducting a bit of an experiment on herself. All this Inuyasha watching has taken place mostly at night, so she's started charting her sleep hours to see if her body runs on a 24-hour clock or not.

Anyway, all is well at our house (except maybe our upper respiratory systems).

Big news from New Orleans

Judy and Gary are engaged!!!!

No date has been set yet.

Happy Birthdays

To Gabrielle yesterday (12)
To MJ, Pam, and Judy today (14 and never you mind)
To Madison tomorrow (8)

The latest on Marty

Judy says:

"We're not real happy with the nursing home. It seems that another nursing home wouldn't be any better. We're VERY seriously considering taking him home once he's done with therapy. I need a little more info on what Medicare will cover and we need to see if we need to make some modifications to the house... I'm just not comfortable with him there & Gary has been very unhappy with their performance even with us going every day & keeping on them about stuff."

We'll keep you posted.

MJ the college student

We enrolled MJ in a drawing class at the community college today. Art 100. At the end of Fall term, she'll have her first two college credits. Not too shabby for a 14-year-old, eh?

Unschooling and allowance and math

Each of my kids gets an allowance. The amount has varied some over the years. Right now, they each get $10 per week. They don't have to do anything to earn that money; it's simply their share of the family income. (And when you think of it that way, $10 per week is not so much!)

The idea is that having money to spend will help them learn how to spend money. I think having a relatively generous allowance gives them more room to learn. I mean, about all you learn when all you have is $2 is that $2 doesn't buy much! At the level they're at, they can actually buy something now and then. They get practice choosing between desired items and saving for more expensive items (without being completely discouraged about how long it's taking), and they are learning how to make a dollar stretch.

The other area that this ready money addresses is math. Every time they go shopping anywhere, they get some math practice. They don't think of it that way -- they're just shopping -- but math happens anyway. Without teaching, they can figure percentages, estimate totals, multiply prices by quantities (or, in Chloe's case, add all those like prices together impressively quickly), and so on. This real life math is natural to them, stress free and practical. It's a far cry from the "I hate math" comments we were hearing when they were in school.

In fact, for most of us, it is only in school that math is something separate. The reality is that math is as much a part of everyday life as reading, writing, and speaking. Here's something I wrote recently about math in our lives:

"I've noticed quite a bit of math going on in our house lately, but I'm probably the only one who characterized it as such. My daughters were figuring out how many of these, estimating how much of that, playing with a new calculator, figuring a tip, calculating how many dollars this many [British] pounds is, measuring each other for their passport applications and talking about converting inches to feet, noticing patterns in some fractions, figuring out which new cage would give the rats the most floor area, asking questions about sales tax percentages, figuring out how many notebooks they could get for so many dollars at Target's 10-notebooks-for-a-dollar sale and how many pages that would be at 70 pages per notebook, and so on. They did all of this in a very matter-of-fact way: I need or want this information, and I'm going to figure it out. It's not 'math' to them, it's just taking care of business."

And how does all this translate to the math-on-paper skills the schools hope (but so often fail) to impart? Very well, actually. Neither girl has plans at the moment for going back to our lovely public schools, but I have every confidence they could slide back into the school flow with their former classmates without any difficulty. Except perhaps extreme boredom! ;-)

Artist Trading Cards

MJ has started making Artist Trading Cards. These are baseball card-sized pieces of art that can be collected, traded, or given away as a friendly sort of business card (title and artist information goes on the back). The content is as varied as the artists who create them.

Here are four of MJ's creations, our mutual favorites:





.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

To my Republican readers

I would be curious to know if your continuing support of the Republican party (meaning the more traditional, small-government, fiscally conservative Republican party) extends to Bush and his cronies. The speech linked below, delivered by Salt Lake City's mayor on the occasion of Bush's visit there, outlines several of the reasons that I, even if I were Republican, would find that particular group of people beyond tolerance.

I am aware that parts of the speech are easy-to-spout one-liners, especially near the end, but the middle part -- where he's describing the deliberate misinformation that led us into the war in Iraq -- outlines some of why I consider GW terrifyingly incompetent at best and a traitor and criminal at worst.

I am truly puzzled about why anyone would support him after all that. It's one thing to be determined to continue to vote Republican, whether due to concerns over a particular issue or because of a lifelong affiliation with the party, but why support Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld in spite of their clear failings?

Here's the speech: http://www.slcgov.com/mayor/speeches/2006%20speeches/SPdemonstration83006.pdf

Doing the Evergreen

The girls and I spent yesterday at the Evergreen State Fair. We ate and rode rides until we were green around the gills. A fine day!

The high(?) points:

* The Scrambler!!! This is a family tradition -- it's always the first ride we go on. (Two summers ago, Chiara -- newly arrived in America -- found our passion for it just a bit puzzling.) The girls are big now, so they took the outside and I got the joy of squishing them for a change.

* Visiting the pig barn and admiring the cute little babies, then turning around to see recipe posters and pamphlets prominently displayed.

* Walla Walla burgers!!! It's all about the onions, baby.

* Shriners corn on the cob!!! It's all about the butter, baby.

* Riding the Yo Yo at sunset. Gorgeous territorial views!

* Taking turns swinging the sledgehammer-bell-ringer thingy. Macho we are not, but we all won prizes anyway. Mine is a big blow-up sledgehammer that says "Girl Power."

* Seeing the Clydesdales and Percherons all hitched up and doing their thing.

* Hearing bits of "Footloose" from the Kenny Loggins concert at the grandstand.

* Finding a booth that was selling Crocs and getting to see all the colors in person. They have silver now! And the baby-sized ones are adorable (but sticker-shock-inducing at $25/pair).

* Buying the girls tacky $8 air-brushed straw cowboy hats. Yee haw!

* Taking my junk-food hangover and the remains of my Mother Goose handstamp into meetings at Microsoft today.

The fair runs through Labor Day at the fairgrounds in Monroe. We give it three thumbs up!

On a lighter note

One more Nazi quote

"...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Hermann Goering, attributed by Gustave Gilbert

On my so-called confusion

The Republican speeches coming out of Washington (via Utah) as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches are, in my opinion, reprehensible. Keith Olberman has written a response that says most of what I want to say. Read it here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12131617/

He closes with a quote from Edward R. Murrow that bears repeating (again and again and again, if necessary).

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."

Evidently now we need a new version: We must not confuse dissent with stupidity, just as we must not confuse a person's occupation of high office as proof of his intelligence or honesty or, indeed, morality.

Here are some other quotes that bear contemplation:

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."
- and -
"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."
--Joseph Goebbels

"What luck for rulers, that men do not think."
--Adolf Hitler

Work/camp

About a week ago, Frank got word from his manager that his "one-month" contract, which had already lasted two-and-a-half months, would go on for another eight to ten weeks. Then last Friday, she asked if he's available until next June! Since this job regularly involves full-time pay just for being on call, we're jumping on that offer. We're trying not to count on anything -- it's Microsoft, where nothing is ever written in stone, and this is just about the weirdest project ever -- but we intend to enjoy the extra paychecks for as long as they last.

I picked up four rather dirty, very tired, very happy unschoolers from the train station Monday night. MJ is sad to be home! She had a fabulous time at camp, made lots of friends, and is counting the days until next year. Her four new best friends are from Minnesota -- evidently a big Minnesota contingent comes out every year -- so she's hoping to travel out there sometime. (Should I be concerned that these friends are all boys? Nah.)

Some highlights from the camp:
* Each camper was "fairy godmother" to another camper, leaving him or her notes, small gifts, and so on. The fairy godmothers' identities were never revealed.
* The campers spent a lot of time entertaining each other. MJ has lots of pictures of colorful characters doing flamboyant things (songs, acting, squirrel impressions). They also spent time making each other more colorful. One boy went home with blue hair, two others ended up with spiky mohawks (or maybe one of them arrived with that), a girl with waist-length hair got a shoulder-length bob, and one boy had his ear pierced with the old apple-and-needle technique (and his mom's permission). MJ came home looking pretty much the same as when she left (six holes in her ears and formerly-blue blonde streaks in her brown hair).
* At the prom, nearly everyone wore dresses. Yes, including the boys. :-) She's got some hilarious photos. One boy had this Marilyn Monroe look going on, with blonde wig and tiny red dress; he looked gorgeous!
* At the beach (a field trip out to the coast), the kids buried each other in the sand. MJ has a really cool photo of herself and three or four other kids, all buried into the same huge mound.
* One night, they played "Unconditional Love," a game where half the kids close their eyes and the other half goes around hugging people. Then they switch. It's evidently pretty cool, because you don't know who's hugging you, so you just relax and accept the hugs without the pre/misconceptions of identity.

Since she got home, Frank and I have learned some new vocabulary. An "emo" is a goth-like person who is full of emotion. "Nu Ma Nu Ma" is a bouncy song, in Romanian, that is evidently all the rage. And "skeet" is a bad word. (Hint: MJ cracked up when, during a conversation yesterday about Grandma and Papa's upcoming hunting trip, Frank made a passing comment about "shooting skeet." When Frank said it, it meant firing a shotgun at a clay pigeon. The teen meaning is a good bit more sexually explicit than that.)

As predicted, Not Back to School Camp has been educational for all of us! Chloe will be old enough to attend next year. MJ is looking forward to sharing it all with her.

One year after Katrina

The media is doing a pretty good job of showing how much recovery is left to do in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, so I'll just mark the anniversary of Katrina with a couple of anecdotes and a poster baby.

Our friend Bob has spent the past year embroiled in recovery efforts for his properties uptown, plus his mother's house in Gentilly and rental house in Chalmette. He discovered a few days ago that there is a cutoff on August 31st: remodel/renovation projects that don't have building permits by then have to adhere to the new building standards. The new standards involve raising buildings onto stilts or posts and expensive stuff like that, or more probably razing the old house and starting over, so he became very concerned. How could he possibly get all the inspections, structural engineering, and so on in just a few days?!

Well, he didn't count on good old free enterprise. When he left whatever government facility he was visiting, he found a line of electrical inspectors, structural engineers, and contractors, vying for his business, carnival-barker style. With a little old-fashioned New Orleans greased-palm wrangling, he just might make it.

Bob's second story is about his recent visit to his mom's rental house in Chalmette. As you may know from the news, Chalmette is still in a ravaged state. The houses are in bad shape, debris and trash line the streets, and blue-tarp roofs abound. So Bob was standing in this wasteland, no doubt wondering if recovery is even possible, when he heard the faint drift of tinkling music: the ice cream man was making his rounds. It must have been like landing in a Bergman film. :-)

In closing, I'll let a friend's grandbaby sum up what we think needs to be done:

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Note: These t-shirts are available from New Orleans-based www.metrothree.com. Proceeds go back into the community.

Ernesto takes aim at the Keys

Tropical storm Ernesto is expected to strengthen as it leaves Cuba then run over the Keys sometime tomorrow night. A hurricane watch is in effect throughout the Keys and along the east coast of southern Florida.

On the bright side, the storm has shifted somewhat to the east, aimed right at Miami. This means Key West and the Zombie Princess will probably be in the better quadrant of the storm, since the area south and east of a hurricane is usually the worst place to be.

In other boat news, the yard where the boat is stored has been sold and we've been given 30-day notice to vacate. This morning, we talked to Vanessa, our broker, and she said the local gossip runs toward the new owners being developers who are trying to circumvent the state moratorium on converting boatyards into condos. Regardless, it seems like we have to find a new home for the ZP. Vanessa has a guy who is interested, so keep your fingers crossed that finding her new home will be somebody else's problem!

MJ is on her way to NBTSC

I dropped MJ and three unschoolers at the train station bright and early this morning. There, they met up with two other unschoolers, to make a sixpack of very excited teenagers. They're headed down to Oregon to Not Back to School Camp, a camp for unschoolers that was founded by Grace Llewellyn. She's the author of "The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education." I highly recommend it, even to adults. It's all about grabbing the world by the tail.

Anyway, the kids are traveling down together by train and bus. They'll spend a week hanging out, attending each other's workshops, swimming in the pond, and being inspired by each other. There may not be much sleeping. Then they'll come back home to us, probably a bit worse for wear. :-)

A Midsummer Day's Fun

This past Saturday was another great day. We drove into Seattle to Seward Park and met up with a sailing/homeschooling family that Frank met online. They had their catamaran anchored in Lake Washington and dinghied to shore to pick us up when we arrived. We had some lunch aboard (Frank made Rosie's scrumptious crab mousse!) and the five girls (aged 5 to MJ's almost 14) swam and got acquainted. I jumped in the water, too, but levitated right back out again when I discovered the temperature.

After a pleasant couple of hours visiting, we ferried to shore and watched a Shakespeare-in-the-park presentation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We all baked in the sun, but it was really fun anyway. The players were energetic and humorous, and all the kids had prepared by watching the movie version, so they were able to follow the action pretty well. The littlest girl, Aeron, decided Frank was her new best friend and spent much of the show on his lap. He said his legs went to sleep a couple of times, but I didn't hear him complaining. She's a sweetie!

After the play, it was back to the boat for more swimming and more food. We were all having such fun that we ended up spending nearly 9 hours together. Not your typical first meeting, eh?

A note about Puck: In this presentation, the mischievous one was played by a cute, spiky-haired female. She did a really great job and was obviously having a terrific time doing it. Chloe found her quite inspiring and came home to read the play herself. She has memorized Puck's epilogue ("If we shadows have offended...") and is answering mostly to "Puck" now. :-)

EndFest

Saturday the 12th, MJ and Chloe went to EndFest, a rock concert/festival put on by local radio station 107.7 The End. They saw a whole string of bands, including the Subways, Mars Volta, and the headliners, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There was also a carnival midway and a whole bunch of sponsor booths with freebies to keep them entertained for 10 hours.

The concert was held way down at the White River Amphitheater (south and east of Seattle), so Frank and I decided to drop them off at the shuttle buses and then make a day of it instead of driving all the way home and back again. We spent a nice couple of hours at Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, on the Green River (yes, the one the killer was named for). We waded a bit, and walked a bit, but mostly we stretched out under a tree and went "Oooh, leaves." It was very peaceful and refreshing.

After the park, we had some food then went to Southcenter Mall. It's a completely integrated place and made us realize anew just how white-suburban Everett is. Anyway, we were wandering around, not finding much to interest us until we walked into Kennelly Keys. Frank picked up a guitar and started plucking, and I had an epiphany.

Let me tell you about Frank's guitar. It's an old friend, but as such, it's been through a lot. It once upon a time served as an emergency canoe paddle, and, more recently, it shared a household with a couple of toddlers. The body is scarred, one of the tuners is completely gone -- he's been using a pair of pliers to tune it -- and the neck is just a bit warped. As you can imagine, the sound is less than perfect. I knew this, or I thought I did. Then Frank picked up one of those shiny, beautiful new ones. It only took a single chord for the light to dawn over my oblivious little head. Oh, yeah, that's what a guitar sounds like. Even a relatively inexpensive guitar!

So Frank has a new friend. It's very pretty, and we talked the guy into a 20% discount because it has a tiny scratch on it. Plus, we managed to resist the $600 one with electric pickup.

The next stop on our EndFest odyssey then was a pleasant hour or so in the mall parking lot, with Frank playing songs while I read a new book. It was growing dark now -- only 3 or 4 hours to go!! -- so we headed back down to Auburn. Despite eating too much food earlier, we decided the perfect thing to do was popping into a Mexican restaurant for more food and strawberry margaritas. We sat in the bar and watched the end of the Seahawks preseason game (can't even remember who they played, but they lost regardless). Then we drove the two blocks back over to the shuttle stop, stretched out on cushions in the back of the van, and napped and chatted until the buses started rolling in.

Soon, the air was filled with revving engines and cries of "Woohooo! Chili Peppers rock!" Chloe and MJ appeared not long after, full of stories and smiles. While MJ has several under her belt (she became a music fanatic at age 8, I think), it was Chloe's first rock concert. Nothing like starting your 12yo off with a festival dedicated to alternative rock! I'm sure it was very educational.

And Mom and Dad had a good day, too.

Unschooling and chores

An unschooling friend pointed out that the following sentence in my previous post makes it seem like we require the kids to do regular chores: "She's discovered things she likes better at Summerhill -- no chores there...."

Well, this is biting off a big mouthful, presenting all this to a mostly non-unschooling audience, but I'll give it a go. Just bear in mind that the topic of chores is one that inspires hours of debate and discussion even among those of us committed to unschooling. I'm probably not going to convince you that this approach is right, but by the same token, you won't be able to convince me that it's not. With that understood, here we go.

To clarify, while chores do get done at our house (eventually), we no longer believe in assigning them to specific people. Frank and I chose this lifestyle -- having a house with a lawn, eating in, using stoneware and stainless instead of paper and plastic, etc. -- and we tend to set the standards for how that lifestyle should be maintained. We are, therefore, ultimately responsible for maintaining it. That's it, the bottom line.

As part of our family, the kids often voluntarily contribute to that maintenance, and when company is coming over, we all participate in the fire drill that makes the place guest-ready. Beyond that, the "chores" that the kids "must" do are things like occasionally hauling all their stuff to their own rooms, carrying dishes to the sink or dishwasher, and bringing me their dirty laundry.

Some unschoolers don't ask their kids to do even that much. Or if they ask, the kids are free to be too busy. It's all about respecting that the child's needs of the moment are as important as the parent's needs of the moment, and fostering an attitude of cooperation and joyful sharing of tasks. My schedule tends to be too tight to allow for that ideal flexibility. If now is the stolen moment when I have the time and willpower (an elusive combination) to start a load, now is the time the girls had better bring me their dirty clothes. However, they are free to choose to go without clean clothes for another week, and to accept the risk that one week might stretch into two.

I suppose I'd better talk about teaching responsibility, since that's what people always ask: How will your kids learn how to be responsible if they don't have any responsibilities? My answer is that OF COURSE my kids have responsibilities. Responsibility is unavoidable, and anyway, avoiding it is not something they have as a goal. Without external force being applied to them, my kids care, create, work, clean, correspond, keep schedules, remember details, pick up slack, invent, investigate, and help out. Making them do the dinner dishes once a day is not going to improve on that. Especially when they probably would have preferred cheese pizza on paper plates. :-)

Do Frank and I wish we had more help? Of course! What parent doesn't fantasize about having faeries that clean up all the messes overnight? Are we willing to assign, remind, harangue, harass, and punish in order to have that help? No way! Talk about time-consuming, nasty work! Ugh. Anyway, the peace of our family is not something to be sacrificed in the name of passing the white-glove test.

Even in our frantic moments, we try to help-because-we-love. And in our better moments, we are able to remember that everything we do, we do because we choose to. I don't clean the bathroom because I have to, I clean it because I like having it clean. Or because I like my kids to have a clean bathroom. Or because I don't want Frank to feel stuck with it. In my better moments, every chore I do is a gift to myself or someone else.

Filling in the blanks

Well, my blog posting has been somewhat sporadic recently, so I've got some blanks to fill in.

Marty
Marty moved to his new home at Heritage Manor on Monday. Here's Judy's report, sent Tuesday:

"We got dad moved in yesterday. Right now he's sharing a room but he's on the list for a private room as soon as one comes available. We got there just in time for lunch & he chowed down. He wanted to hang out in the hall with the rest of the gang afterwards until bingo. Gary & I went back this afternoon to do the paper work. It was worse than buying a house!

"He's using one of their wheelchairs but we're going to get him his own. I need to speak with one of the therapists to be sure I get all the right amenities... I hope to get his phone transferred this week. We still need to move his stuff over... We'll be getting a report from the therapists after they've had time to make an assessment...probably at the end of the week."

The foal
The foal's name is Hero. He's healthy and sassy and will no doubt feature prominently in an all-day fundraising event this coming Saturday. MJ is volunteering at their booth there. She's going to spend Friday night out at Hope for Horses so she can ride down to south Seattle with the owners.

Oh, there are a couple of photos of MJ, and even one of me, on the Hope for Horses Web site here: http://67.59.174.44/index.php?page=home She's right there on the home page, wearing the ballcap. Then click Our Volunteers to see the one of the two of us visiting with Faith's older baby and her corral-mate. It was taken at the volunteer appreciation BBQ 7/15.

Chloe's first week at home
Last Wednesday, Grandma hosted a welcome home party for Chloe out at the beach. It was a sunny day, although a bit cooler than the 90's we had been having. Still, all the kids got in the water. I stuck to wading, although Angelo (my mom's dog) and Bentley (the dog next door) did their best to share the water with me. I remember swimming in Puget Sound as a kid, but it's hard to imagine being willing to do so now. That water is COLD!

Chloe's friend-since-Kindergarten Gabrielle joined us for the party. It's been a while since we've seen her (at least 3 months!), so that was really nice. She's at North Middle School now, I'm sorry to say, but she seems to have adjusted well. And she's quite the soccer star, playing for a local league for soccer prodigies.

Other than partying, Chloe has been settling back into life in America. She's discovered things she likes better at Summerhill -- no chores there, and she says she is generally treated with more respect (we're working on that) -- but she's clearly happy to be with us again. We've been eating all that good food she requested, getting her caught up on the House episodes she missed, and just hanging out together.

Social weekend
Friday night, the girls and I attended a bridal shower for Tom's grandniece, Ryan. It was held up in Mt. Vernon in a lovely log building with adjacent Zen garden, and it was a nice gathering. Randi, our hostess, was amazingly calm. Must have been the Zen influence. :-) The wedding will take place in Grand Coulee in early September.

Saturday, Frank's cousin Mary and her fiancé Steve hosted their annual backyard BBQ. It was great to see so many Maiers in one place (even if it was only a small fraction of the clan). Sonya and Robert were there with new baby Anja and adorable 3yo Heide, so we got a nice infant-and-toddler fix. It kind of bummed me out to see the smart, talented, and very good looking teen generation of Maier males, though: My daughters don't get to marry one of them! (Hmm. I just checked the Revised Code of Washington and, legally speaking, second cousins can marry. I still think it would be too weird, though!)

The parade of pirates
Nearly a month ago, my brother asked me to explain about the parade we participate in on the 4th of July, and I don't seem to have done it. So, Nick, sorry for the delay, and here's your answer: Every year, one of my mom's neighbors organizes a kiddie parade down the road. Kids of all ages turn out for it, and the decorations and riding-mower-drawn floats have gotten steadily more elaborate. Three or four years back (hmm, after the 2000 elections maybe?), our crowd abandoned red-white-and-blue and began dressing up as pirates. Nowadays, a pirate-ship float and candy throwing have become part of the routine, and our supply of pirate clothing and accessories and weapons has grown to impressive proportions. I don't have a picture here at work, but I'll try to dig one out and post it later.

Snowball and the boys
Snowball is doing very well. She had to have her verrrrry long teeth trimmed, and she didn't care for the procedure one bit, but she's bright-eyed and eating well now. And the boys are settling in nicely. They aren't (much) afraid of our hands any more, and Snowball has taught them how to lick treats off of human fingers. They still get confused and nip now and then, but their teeth aren't lethal yet, fortunately.

They are still in separate-but-adjacent cages and will probably remain so. Snowball has *probably* reached menopause, but rats can produce as many as 20 babies in one litter, so we'd rather not take any chances. They socialize through the bars a bit, and they get daily supervised nonconjugal visitation.

Work
Frank's weird project continues. He regularly has days where they're paying him to be on call, with no work ever turning up. And he occasionally has days where he's working well into the night. Either way, it's money in the bank. (Kind of a bummer that it's all going to end up in Summerhill's bank, but Chloe is clearly having a unique and fulfilling experience, so we try not to think about it.)

My work is going well, too. After 2-1/2 years with this team, I definitely know more about the products than is good for me -- I am solely responsible for two huge projects that are due at essentially the same time!! -- but it's a good team to work for. My boss is a dream manager: a personable, creative, flexible realist. This Friday, we're moving to new offices. It's a classic Microsoft move: our new space is two hallways away, and we'll be even more crowded there. Too silly.

I hope you are all doing well. Drop us a line!

Marty update

Marty is doing well, but hasn't improved enough to return to St. Francis. Instead, on Friday, he'll be moving to the nursing home Judy found over on the North Shore. He'll do therapy there with the hope that enough improvement will allow him to return to St. Francis. The new place is very nice, though, and he should be comfortable there. And knowing Marty, he'll have a new bevy of girlfriends lined up in no time.

Judy and Chrissy are very busy with caretaking and arrangements these days, as you can imagine. We appreciate their efforts very much.

A sad good-bye and a couple of tiny hellos

Mezza Luna the rat left us to go on to her next great adventure yesterday morning. We'll miss her very much.

Mezza Luna

2004 - 2006

Sister, comedian, intrepid sailor,

flying wonder, determined explorer, friend

To keep Snowball from getting lonely, we brought home a couple of new friends yesterday afternoon. Please join me in welcoming our two very tiny boys, Rodney the Rat (pronounced Wodney the Wat) and Lestat.
















Rodney is in the foreground. Lestat was irritated with all the flashing and wouldn't come out any more. (Vampires don't like the light, you know.)

One more:

All is right with our world again

Chloe is home!!!

After an all-night farewell party at school and a *really* long travel day, Chloe arrived safe and sound in Seattle earlier this evening. She is full of stories and laughter and eager to dive back into regular life here. She's especially looking forward to the food; we hit the grocery store this morning to stock up on all her special requests (things ranging from Cornish game hens to lemon meringue pie to strawberries).

Right now, she's asleep in her own bed after having a bath in her own tub. I hope she'll sleep through the night and avoid the whole jetlag thing. It'd be nice to have a little time with her tomorrow! :-) I'm taking a couple days off for that purpose. Frank isn't sure yet what his work schedule will be like -- they don't know more than an hour in advance when they're going to need him. Anyway, we'll put together some fun family time. We don't have any firms plans for what to do except that, tomorrow, we're going to see Pirates 2 again.

Marty moving soon

The report from Judy:

"Not so great news. Dad's social worker called Chrissy today & said that the neurologist did not expect him to improve much so he'll need to go into a nursing home when he leaves [the hospital].... We're trying to get as much info as possible on the homes that are available. I think we'll try to go Sat. to look at them. There really is no reason for dad to be in the hospital any more so I expect he'll be getting discharged soon.... I'm concerned that he'll get very depressed when he finds out that he's not going back to St. Francis. We may tell him it's temporary to keep his spirits up. We'll have to see."

Also, the docs plan to do another assessment on Tues. and then meet with Chris and Judy. I'll post an update as we hear more.

A new flower on the Maier family tree

Proud parents Sonya and Robert welcomed a new addition to their beautiful family yesterday!Anja (pronounced "AHN-ya") Grace was born July 3rd at 2:37pm - 6lb 10oz, 20 1/2" long. Sonya says, "It was a very peaceful and amazingly smooth birth.... Her big sisters are very enthusiastic, and Papa's very proud of his new princess. Grandma [Grace] and big sister Maria were there for the birth."

Our congrats!!

The foal arrived!

The foal was born in the wee hours of Saturday morning. He doesn't have a name yet, but it will probably start with H (they (re)name their horses alphabetically, and he comes after his mother Faith and sister Grace). Jenny votes for Hallelujah, but John doesn't like that much, so the debate continues.

As you can see from the picture below, his extra month of "cooking" time made for some loooong legs on this little guy.

GG and Mezza update

My grandma is home from the hospital and getting steadily better. She's very impatient to feel well, but she's enjoying all the visitors she's been having. She will probably skip tomorrow's festivities.

Mezza is a yo-yo. One day, she's at death's door and the next, she seems better. Today is a good day. Her appetite is good -- she *loves* sweet potato baby food -- and she isn't falling over quite so much. We're keeping our fingers crossed that today's good spell is a sign of things to come.

The gauntlet has been thrown down

To those of you who come out to the beach for the 4th:

Please be advised that one of my mom and Tom's neighbors has let it be known that her family will be dressing up as pirates for the parade. We are taking this as fine flattery -- obviously, our Priest Point Pirates have been quite an inspiring sight in years past. But we also take it as a call to arms. Please bring all your finest pirate garb, weaponry, and decorations so that we can defeat these interlopers into our territory.

BATTLE!!

Marty update

We just talked to Chris. Marty is doing pretty well, but they aren't seeing the kind of improvement we had hoped for. While his spirits are good and his speech isn't too impaired, he still has pain and doesn't have much mobility in his right arm and leg. His medical team will do another evaluation the middle of next week that should give us a better idea of where he'll go from here. In the meantime, Chris and Judy are looking into rehab centers and nursing homes but holding his spot at St. Francis, and Marty is watching a lot of Law and Order to fill his time.

Crab horror

Being out at the beach yesterday reminded me of this photo. Our two Chiaras were appalled by crab cookery at my best pal's annual post-Thanksgiving seafood feast, November 2004.

Getting healthy

What a week of health issues!!

Dad Marty -- The speech therapist thinks all of Marty's speech will come back. And the folks at St. Francis Villa are eager to have him back, so we hope something can be worked out. He'll probably be at East Jefferson for another week or so.

GG -- My grandmother was hospitalized two days ago for diverticulitis. Her latest CAT scan revealed a couple of abscesses that may need to be drained (not sure what that entails). They were talking about letting her go home today, but she isn't eating enough yet, so it looks like another day or two.

Mezzaluna -- We've had one sick little rat on our hands. She's been to the vet 3 times since last Friday, with the last visit revealing reduced liver function and a certain amount of regretful pessimism from the vet. We've been giving her antibiotics in raspberry syrup, SAM-E in maple syrup, a daily subcutaneous injection of fluids, and baby food meals. By last night, she was perking up enough to be really irritated with all the medical attention, and today she seems almost, um, human? again. Well, almost back to normal anyway. She's still having some trouble regulating her own body temperature, so she's keeping company with a hot water bottle. Anyway, we're feeling much more hopeful.

In other news, Frank starts a short (month-long) contract at Microsoft next week. We're looking forward to the extra paychecks, but it's going to make for some family schedule juggling. Chloe is having loads of fun and some decent weather, and they're finally getting going on the Cold War game mentioned previously (she's a private). MJ is back at work this week after missing two weeks' worth due to her New Orleans trip. The foal hasn't arrived yet, so she didn't miss the action. And I'm enjoying my time off, even if it has been dominated by rat care. The weather is FABULOUS; hope it continues indefinitely.

Yesterday, we went out to Jetty Island for a fun day of hanging out on the beach with unschooling friends Jim, Larisa, and Sarah. It was lovely, and we had the place all to ourselves until late afternoon, when the kiteboarders started to arrive. We saw eagles and herons and seagulls, discovered shrimp as we slogged in the squishy sand/mud of the tideflats, and soaked up the long overdue rays.

This weekend will be spent gearing up for the annual chaos of the 4th of July. MJ is totally psyched. I have my annual mixed feelings about the whole deal. :-)

Marty news

Frank again. I swear I won't make a habit of this.

My dad, Marty, had a "minor" stroke and is in the hospital. They've ruled out his 20-year-old heart pig valve as a potential culprit and will be conducting more tests starting Monday. Currently, his right side is impaired, especially below the waist. Bowel and bladder function but no control. More news as we hear it.

Chrissy and Judy are taking turns being with him, when they're not working. My sisters are the best! Thanks, you two!

We're hoping for a speedy and significant recovery so he can quickly return to St. Francis Villa and his "harem" of female pals for exercise sessions, card games, and whatever else is on his mind!

BHD (re)reunion info for brother Nick

Cap'n Franko posting, so don't expect Ronnie's usual style. My apologies to the literati.

First, congratulations on your engagement! The photo arrived and now we have a visual; that's always nice! When you set a date we'll have an excuse to visit San Francisco and see you. Excellent! Here's an idea, a KENDO bachelor party! Huh!? Strippers in bogu! Oh yeah! Whaddaya think? Well, it's just an idea.

After our BHD reunion in 1991, there were a few negative realities for a re-reunion. Those would include the fact that we're scattered around the country and some of us are very busy with life and work, so scheduling is difficult; but honestly - bluntly - the greatest negative is that Mangey was really pissed at John and never wants to play with him again. Long story and I won't bore you with the details; but there it is.

The other, more recent, negative is that Rickey (our drummer) had a massive stroke in the late 90s and barely survived. He was a CPA and financial consultant and his life *really* changed after that. On the good side, he has come back pretty well personally, except for significant aphasia, which of course means that he is professionally retired. In recent years, he's begun taking drumming lessons again, feels that he's ready to do a short set, and would very much enjoy doing so.

Also on the good side, the Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau sponsor recurring shows at New Orleans' famous Rock 'n' Bowl and asked us to do a show with Question Mark and the Mysterians (remember them?) a couple of years ago. My schedule prevented me from doing that one and Mangey was also too busy (mostly true); but Rickey and Steve arranged to sit in with the Royal Pendletons, who are a current band who've covered our songs. Steve wound up sitting in with them; but once he was actually there, Rickey decided that he wasn't quite ready yet. However, he says he is now feeling up to it and these folks would be happy to schedule us to play a short (4 or so) set pretty much any time we want, which would be wonderful.

So, as Mange's old school buddy, I gotta start working on him to get him to agree to do a 4-song set. Rickey and I discussed it during my recent N.O. visit and we're VERY ready. Steve would do it in a heartbeat. We're pretty sure Eddie would happily jump in.

Anyway, I'm gonna start twisting Mangey's arm, 'cause our 91 reunion was a total kick-ass funfest! I loved it! If you read my comments from the link on Ronnie's previous post, I pretty much said it all there.

Mangey has recently taken up sailing again after a 30-plus year hiatus. (We almost bought a cruising sailboat together with my college gymnastics buddy Bob back around 1970. Ultimately that deal fell through and Mangey hasn't sailed since then, until recently.) So I figure I'm gonna try to tempt him with a combined vacation. We'll meet in New Orleans, play the gig, then go to the Caribbean for a sailing vacation. Sounds pretty good, huh?

Wish me luck. Rickey and I were talking about trying to get something scheduled in the two-years-from-now time range. If we do, I'll certainly let you know and you should try your damnedest to make it. I guarantee it'll be big fun!

Preview the songs of the Better Half Dozen

Rickey told us about a site where you can listen to a snippet of each of the songs on the BHD single.

I Could Have Loved Her
I'm Gonna Leave You

If you end up on the home page, search for Better Half Dozen, click "The Better Half Dozen" (not the others), click the name of the song you want to listen to, and then click the Play button.

The site also has a link to the Louisiana Punk CD that contains both tracks, but it doesn't seem to be available any more.

The Chick-Flick Scale

In reporting on activities to Chloe, I invented the chick-flick scale, my very own movie rating system. Instead of stars, chick flicks get 1 to 4 hearts (of course). Here are mini reviews of the movies I've watched this past week or so.

About a Boy -- Cute, and I liked that Hugh's romance is almost an afterthought in the movie, and he doesn't fall in love with the boy's mother -- 3 hearts

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days -- Fun enough that I could have overlooked how contrived it is, but the ending *really* fizzled out -- 2 hearts

Love Actually -- Fascinating, moving, unapologetically sappy, and fun. Colin Firth is awesome -- 4 hearts

An Ideal Husband -- Fun but slightly flat adaptation -- 2-1/2 hearts

Brokeback Mountain -- Outstanding performances couldn't quite make up for the lack of romance. The cowboys seemed to have a purely sexual relationship; there was nothing that told me why these guys made such an effort and took such a risk to see each other for 20 years -- 3 hearts

Life or Something Like It -- Tony Shalhoub makes up for a lot -- 2-1/2 hearts

Miami Rhapsody -- Shrug. Antonio's cute -- 2 hearts

Jane Eyre (A&E Presentation) -- Exquisite performances, completely authentic (to the book) melodrama, lovely -- 4 hearts

Roman Holiday -- Audrey at her shining best -- 4 hearts

Ever After -- Sweet version of Cinderella -- 3 hearts

Summer begins

Here we are, a post in honor of the solstice.

Frank and MJ have been in New Orleans for 10 days, staying in one of buddy Bob's vacant-due-to-Katrina apartments (thanks, Bob!) and visiting with many Maiers. Jerry and Cori were in town, too, and Chuck and Karen came over from Houston. Lori hosted a big Father's Day get-together at her place on the river -- a nice spot to be when the temp exceeds 90 degrees!

Frank also visited with the crew of Jojamela, some sailing folks we got acquainted with online. The original Jojamela was done in by Katrina over in the Oak Harbor Marina (in Slidell). Another couple whose boat was damaged in the storm are also online buddies. They are two of the very few boats presently in Oak Harbor Marina and both couples are living aboard in less than top-notch conditions. The whole gang went to see Big Daddy O play some R&B at Ruby's Roadhouse in Mandeville.

While they were doing that, MJ hung out with cousin Brian at Gary and Judy's. G&J are all moved back into their house, with front stairs replaced and the mud removed from the inside. I'm sure they're glad to be out of their FEMA trailer now that the summer heat and thunderstorms have hit.

Yesterday, Frank and MJ went to see Rickey and Brenda. Rickey was the drummer in the Better Half Dozen, and he had a cleaned-up video of their reunion gig from 1991. As entertaining as I'm sure the video is, Frank and Rickey evidently became the main attraction as they told stories and cracked each other up. I'm sure MJ found it quite educational.

The travelers are due home tonight, which means my alone time is drawing to a close. I've really been soaking up the solitude, watching chick flicks and doing just whatever I want. I can't remember the last time, if ever, that I've had so much time to myself in a stretch like this. But it's been going on long enough now that I'm starting to feel lonely. I'll be glad to have most of my family back (and to be down to only one month til Chloe returns!).

Saturday, I had a nice little gathering of females at my house. It was a fun mix of unschoolers, Microsofties, Maiers, Minshulls, neighbors, and otherwise-uncategorized friends. We had more food than we knew what to do with, and we talked about everything from vegetarianism to racism to labor and delivery to growing up Maier.

Sunday, I woke up with a cold that was maybe really an allergy attack, and I totally punked out on Father's Day. Apologies to my three fathers!! I do love and appreciate you, despite appearances!

Last night, my niece Emma came over for a sleepover date. We did a couple of craft projects (I just love my hot glue gun!), watched "Ever After," talked, read, ate party leftovers, and had a lovely time all around.

Now, I'm sitting here in my clean house, blissfully temporarily unemployed, with my allergies under control and 10 more hours of alone time to enjoy before most of my family returns. Not a bad way to kick off the summer.

Some unexpected free time

Hmm. I just got word from my manager that I am laid off for the remainder of June. Seems the team did a cruddy job of budgeting and they have no money to pay us temps til the new fiscal year begins July 1. Pretty significant snafu by what is supposed to be a world-class corporation. Sheesh.

Anyway, my manager is going to work with me so it won't be such a big financial hit. He says I can make up the time in July and August. And -- in a nice bit of cosmic timing -- our tax refund just got direct deposited to the bank account.

Now I just have to figure out how to enjoy this impromptu little vacation. How will I ever fill the time?! Let me think....

A long chat with Chloe

Big doings at Summerhill this weekend. It's Half-Term Weekend, which essentially translates to "Big Party that Parents Can Attend." The kids voted to make Friday and Monday "slobbing" days like the weekends always are, which means no classes and later wake-up and bedtime times. There are activities planned for each of the four days, as follows:

Friday night -- The Midnight Walk -- Large pack of Summerhillians roaming about Leiston and the English countryside after dark.

Saturday

* Half-Term Crafts Sale -- Poc ("pocket money") will be handed out a bit early so the kids can spend it all at the sale. Proceeds benefit the school.

* Archery Competition

* Miss Half-Term Talent Show and Party -- Yes, boys can be crowned Miss Half-Term, too. Chloe, Ellie, and Popono will be performing a Summerhill version of "What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor," with verses tailored for each of the 5 age groups at the school. Chloe says they are suffering quite a bit of stage fright.

Sunday -- Races and swimming games (field day)

Monday -- Football (soccer) match and Capture the Flag

Parents who attend will either camp on the grounds or stay at the pub in town. I know from the traffic on the parents newsgroup that the parents have a few activities planned, too, including a meal in the Jazz Cafe (on the school grounds) and something about a late-night kitchen raid. Wish we could be there for the fun!

In other news, Chloe seems happy and settled. She's making friends. Some of them are younger than her, which works out nicely since Chloe is never very interested in teen conversation and the younger kids need an escort to walk to town. She spent a day last week with Little Ruby (yes, ~85 students but two Rubies) listening to music by Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Death Eaters. Obviously a kindred spirit there!

For some reason, not all of the laws (school rules) are written down, so she occasionally blunders. The only time she's been punished, though, was for oversleeping one morning. Some of the older kids are "Beddies Officers." It's their job to (1) wander the school -- all 11 acres -- at bedtime making sure everybody heads to bed, and (2) shake out the sleepyheads in the mornings. All students are supposed to be up and dressed by 8:30. Chloe's penalty for sleeping in was a "Small Job" -- 20 minutes helping out with housework.

Something I didn't know before: The Beddies routine includes bedtime kisses-on-the-cheek upon request. The Beddies Officers try to avoid this part of their duties, which I'm sure makes the other students determined to make demands. Chloe said one Beddies Officer got so flustered by kissing one of her top-bunk roommates that he fell off the ladder. :-)

Chloe is regularly late for bed, but apparently there's no penalty if you're late because the Beddies Officers didn't find you in time. Chloe makes them work for it, having cozy little thinkin' spots out in the woods and way up by the entrance. (As you can tell, they all spend a lot of time outdoors.)

For the first time today, Chloe seemed pretty sure that she's going to want to go back for Christmas Term. There goes the budget! But I do want her to have a term where she's not the new kid.

Which didn't stop me from blubbering a bit when I got off the phone. I miss her!!!

Replies to comments

Scott -- No, the BHD never would have referred to themselves as "punk." That's a more modern label. They considered themselves rockers. Period.

Mom -- Burt Rutan is the engineer who designed SpaceShipOne, the ship that won the Ansari X Prize by reaching space twice within two weeks. He is one of the major players who will make it possible for space tourism to happen, with SS1 being the prototype for the Virgin Airlines craft that is expected to begin making commercial space flights in 2008.

House is on Fox on Tuesday nights. Right now, they are running reruns so you have a chance to get caught up on a very eventful season. On the West coast, two back-to-back episodes air on channel 13 starting at 8:00 p.m. You can also see older episodes on USA on Friday nights at 11.

Randi -- Yeah! :-)

Make that a baker's dozen

And #13: Watching House, M.D.

A dozen things we proselytize about

Here's a quick list of things we wish more people could enjoy as much as we do:

1. Attachment parenting
2. Unschooling
3. Pet rats
4. Caribbean vacations
5. Freedom sailboats
6. Cajun food
7. Thai food
8. REI
9. Crocs
10. Burt Rutan
11. MR2's
12. Swordfighting

I'm going to be a grandmother!

Okay, sort of, but I couldn't resist the shock value of that title. :-)

Nephew-son Jerry and his wonderful wife Cori called today to let us know they are expecting a little one on or around February 7, 2007. (02-07-2007 would make a cool birthdate, wouldn't it?) So far, Cori is feeling good. The doctor does have her taking pren-a-tal, that same mystery drug they put me on when I was pregnant with MJ. (Prenatal vitamins, really, but the label on my bottle only said "Prenatal", and poor Jerry, who suddenly found himself at 17 living in a house turned upside down by baby plans, asked one day what the pren-a-tal was for.)

We're totally tickled and can't wait to welcome our new grandniece-daughter or grandnephew-son.

The immortal Better Half Dozen

A friend just sent us this link to a list ranking the "most legendary" garage-band 45's from the '60's. The single put out by Frank's band, the Better Half Dozen, came in at number 31. Here's what they have to say about "I Could Have Loved Her" and "I'm Gonna Leave" (reviewed on another site as "a great, previously undiscovered girlfriend trasher"):

"A supreme 2-sided masterpiece which has everything. The a-side is a monster punker with frantic organ, basic pounding drums and a ridiculously effective stuttering guitar solo. The b-side combines a memorable haunting chorus with upbeat popsensibilities, and more frantic organ and killer guitar. An estimated quantity would be a bit dangerous here. It's incredibly rare, but also incredibly great and it's likely there may be a few copies tucked away that no-one knows about. We know of 6 copies, only one is near mint. Hear both killer tracks on Sixties Archives 5 - Louisiana Punk Groups from the 60's"

Frank was the "frantic" organist, with his good buddy Mike Mangiapane (aka "Mangey") on the killer guitar. Rickey Moore was on drums, Steve Sklamba provided lead vocals, Eddie McNamara played rhythm guitar, and John D'Antoni played bass.

We own a copy of both the 45 and the Louisiana Punk compilation, so if anybody wants to hear these deathless tunes, let us know.

For somewhat R-rated reminiscences by the band, visit http://home.unet.nl/kesteloo/betterhalf.html. Frank's comments start about two thirds of the way down.