Restaurant review: The Cherry Blossom Grill

Both girls were occupied last night, so Frank and I had a date. We went to the Cherry Blossom Grill for Japanese food. This is a new restaurant in Everett that we discovered last summer when Chiara's favorite sushi place was closed. Now we all like this one better! The decor is pleasant, the prices are good, and the food is very good.

Our favorite thing to get is a bento box combo. You get two entrees, rice, salad, and miso soup, all for the bargain price of $8.99 to $10.99 (depending on the entrees you choose). Last night, Frank had a hefty salmon steak and spicy chicken teriyaki, and I had California rolls and tempura. Very delish, and only $9.99 per person.

Another Cherry Blossom highlight is their wasabi (Japanese horseradish). It's the best we've ever had, creamy and flavorful.

For sushi lovers, we recommend the dragon roll. Excellent presentation!

Anyway, check it out next time you're in town!

Writing for success

I flattened my deadline at work and rolled right into the next project. Ah, the exciting life of a tech writer....

"The next project" is a couple of articles for the Web. I really enjoy writing these, since the product they are for is not documented well and we have never been given time to fix that. These articles help to fill some of the gaps. If you're really short on stuff to do, you can read the "Inventory Management Series" on the Web site that I maintain.

Write of passage

Chloe completed her novel—more than 50,000 words in less than 30 days—about a week ago. She was very pleased and still wears the pride in her own accomplishment gaily. We had a little quickie party to celebrate, complete with champagne—the good stuff!

MJ wanted to know why we hadn't had a party when she finished her novel. Our answer was rather unsatisfactory ("Umm, because we didn't think of it...?"), so we now owe MJ one quickie party.

Both girls and I are still planning to take part in the official National Novel Writing Month starting next week. Join us!

Thanks for your patience!

Still here? I'm impressed! I apologize for my blog neglect. Here are a couple of family reports.

Home alone

While Frank and MJ were gone, Chloe and I had a pretty idyllic stretch of mom-and-daughter time. I was (and am) working a LOT, but we still connected to a delightful degree. When I got home from work in the evenings, we both made a point of settling down to be together. It was great!

She made good use of her days at home alone. She is still working on her NaNoWriMo practice swing and put in some 5000-word days last week. Her total wordcount now is up over 44,000, with four days remaining in her 30.

I made good use of my days, too, putting in a whopping 65 hours of work last week. But enough of that! I'll still have some OT this week, but nothing like that.

One of our bonding experiences was reading Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me aloud together. We LOVED this book, although Chloe—being firmly in writer mode—did perfectly anticipate many of the best jokes.

Scrabble, Mollypop, Paul Jr., and the Blues

Frank and MJ returned Wednesday from their dad-and-daughter trip to New Orleans. Here are a few highlights from their visit:

• Dad Marty is doing okay. He has lost a little more right-side mobility due to a second "circulatory problem of the head" (that's a quote from a movie, not his doctors) last summer, but he gets by pretty well with his left hand. Mentally, he is as sharp as ever in some ways—he very much enjoys playing Scrabble and pulls off some sophisticated multiple-word turns—but he has to be strapped into his chair because forgets that he can't walk, and he doesn't consistently remember Gary, whom he has lived with for a year now.
• I'm almost too envious of this one to write about it, but Frank and MJ got to meet Jerry and Cori's too adorable daughter, Molly, who is (umm) 9 months old (I think) and whom everyone calls "Mollypop." She loved MJ's jewelry especially. I'm sure MJ protected her nosering carefully from those clever little fingers.
• Chrissy's son, Paul, and his significant other are expecting! Baby is due May-ish, Frank says.
• MJ wanted to see a couple of bands that were playing at the House of Blues, so Frank took her down there one night. I think he went only reluctantly, but it sounds like he was pleasantly surprised by the experience. She loved it, of course!

.....
There is more to tell, but my time is limited. Maybe Frank and MJ will fill in the blanks in the comments.

Another view of Columbus Day

From Columbus' own journal, written about the Arawak Indians of Hispaniola (Haiti).

"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane.... They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Within a few years of his arrival, 175,000 men, women, and children—half of the Indian population—were dead.

iCave

Succumbing to impulse and clever advertising, Chloe and I each bought a new iPod Nano yesterday. They are terribly cute. Chloe's is red and, for the moment, named Tsubaki (camellia), because it's a gorgeous red. Mine is green, and I'm still thinking up a name for it.

Setting it up is simpler than I thought it would be. I guess I haven't paid enough attention to MJ's iPod routine. I pop a CD in the computer, choose the songs I want to have on the iPod, click Import, and then move on to the next CD. The next time I plug in the iPod, all of those songs automatically get transferred over. Pretty slick.

Sorting through CDs has triggered a few music memories:

• One day not long after Mambo No. 5 hit the charts, I was driving through the sunshine with MJ by my side. That song came on and we mamboed our way down the freeway. When it ended, I said, "Play it again! Play it again!" And the DJ came on and said, "Let's play it again!" And he did!
• There was a time when a very young daughter of mine preferred Britney Spears' cover of "Satisfaction" to the Rolling Stones original. I'm happy to report that she's developed a little taste. She will remain nameless because she finds this past indiscretion terribly embarrassing. As she should!
• My first concert was AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock..." tour, highlighted by booming cannons and Angus antics. My favorite AC/DC album was (and continues to be) Back in Black, but it was a very good show. Kudos to my mom for letting her sweet young daughter (really!) start off at a hard-rock event, especially in the questionable company of my disreputable cousin Glen.
• MJ's first concert took place when she was much younger, but her escort was much more reliable: Daddy. They went to see Christina Aguilera. Her first concert with me was a Backstreet Boys one, at which I was pleasantly surprised by the entertainment value.
• Chloe's first concert was a year ago: EndFest, the all day alternative-rock festival, with headliners the Red Hot Chili Peppers. MJ was her concert buddy, and they didn't get into any trouble that I heard about. (Of course, my mom probably still doesn't know everything about that AC/DC concert...)
• I don't know what Frank's first concert was! I'll have to ask him.
• The first concert I went to with Frank was, I think, the Neville Brothers. We saw them together a few times. At one show, we got to talk to Art, the coolest Neville. (Cyril is a close second.) During a break, he came over to the bar near where we were standing to get something to drink, and we chatted for a couple of minutes.
• My other brush with fame was meeting Devo backstage at the Paramount, thanks to the passes my high-school boyfriend had won from a radio station. The rumor was that the Devo guys were straight-A students, something I desperately wanted to believe at the time, since filling out AC/DC t-shirts hadn't completely clobbered my brainy rep. I very earnestly asked them about it and got to watch them squirm as they danced between truth and what was probably part of their PR machine.
• My favorite concert was Prince's Purple Rain tour. We had been watching the movie and playing the album for weeks. They released the movie to video while it was still in theaters, but that didn't stop us from seeing it on the big screen at least a dozen times. The entire UW campus was "Purple Rain" crazy; you couldn't walk past the dorms and frats without hearing it blaring out of one window or another. Then Prince came to town and watching the show was like living the movie. We knew all the dance moves, we knew all the audience-participation moves: we were in a purple frenzy. And when Prince removed his hip-hugging chain-belt thingie and threw it to the crowd and my sister caught it, my friends and I developed a case of envy that hasn't faded after all these years.

aaaaa

Hmm, I'd better dig out "Purple Rain" and get it loaded onto my iPod... :-)

My oh my

We went to the Mariners game Friday night. WOW! It was so fun!

Top of the ninth, the game is tied 4-4. Our closer, J.J. Putz, comes in, looks a little shaky, and then takes us through an efficient three outs.

Bottom of the ninth, the fans are gleeful with anticipation. We're all doing the rally jig til we're breathless.

Beltre gets on. We rack up a couple of outs.

And then rookie Jeff Clement steps up to the plate and belts a two-run homer.

Wahooooo!

It was such a thrilling game. And how lucky are we, getting a game like that when we only went to one this year?!

The people who left early are IDIOTS. What's a little traffic in exchange for a singular sports experience? I have never understood people who can leave when the game is still up for grabs. Why bother to go at all?

Zoo review

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Frank and MJ just wrote to tell me all about watching "Zoo." To read the report, use your mouse to highlight the empty space below. If you want to have the fun of discovering MJ's performance yourself, don't do that.

MJ's scenes are at the very end; she brought the movie to a close. Frank says she's very cute. MJ is most excited about the fact that she is listed in the credits!!!!!!!!! She's "the unknown girl."

Frank says the dry facts of the case aren't really included. Instead, it's very atmospheric. He says:

"The director [Robinson Devor] obviously tried VERY hard to not make these people seem creepy; but they are SOOOO creepy, it came through anyway. Yeech!

"In one sense the most fascinating part was the comments by one of the actual guys (Coyote?) about his interaction with Jenny and John when they came to take the horse. He pontificated on and on about how they knew nothing about horses and didn't understand horses like he did.

"But then again, who'd want to understand horses in that way?"

One note for all: Jenny, MJ's boss at Hope for Horses, was displeased with their use of one of her quotes in the movie. In it, she says something about understanding. Frank says it's pretty clear from her earlier comments in the film that she doesn't really understand, but Jenny was still unhappy that her words were taken out of context, making it appear as if she might condone what happened. She does not.

For those who know that MJ was interviewed by the director, we are sad to report that no interviews were included in the special features.

NEA's latest jab at homeschooling

Okay, let me preface this post by saying I am pro-unions. I am also, in many ways, pro-teachers. But I find the National Educational Association a dangerous organization that consistently ignores what's best for kids in favor of what's best (or so they think) for teachers.

To sign a petition condeming their latest anti-homeschooling resolution, go here.

Spiderman

The "awwww" factor on this is extremely high. Treat yourself!

Fun stuff

Quick little write-ups on a wide variety of subjects:
http://www.ohiokids.org/tellzall/index.shtml

What unschooling looked like today

I'm a little late with my mid-month look at unschooling...

We had a lazy morning, with MJ the only one to do much more than lounge and read. She listened to music, spent some time writing in her journal, and hung out on MySpace for a while. Later, Frank and I watched the Seahawks. Chloe—who has cycled back into a swing-shift sort of schedule after several camp-inspired weeks as a day-tripper—finally appeared and fixed herself some breakfast. She ate, then settled down with her laptop. She is doing a practice run at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), getting herself psyched up for their November sprint. (The goal is to write 50,000 words in those 30 days, and the reward is satisfaction and a certificate that says you did it.)

At 2:30, we tore ourselves away from the game to head down to Seattle (listening to radio coverage of the game all the way, of course). We went to Matthews Park on Lake Washington where we helped our friend Aeron celebrate her 7th birthday. We met several new kids and adults, frosted cupcakes, did some arts and crafts, destroyed a piñata (way to go, MJ!), blew bubbles, and tormented the local wildlife, then some of us settled down to chat and listen to Frank play guitar. The rest played at the playground.

From there, we headed up to Capitol Hill to the Baptist church where Frank plays volleyball every Sunday night. We were early, so we stopped in at Tacos Guaymas for a bite to eat. I introduced MJ to their little open-faced tacos—a great excuse for eating pico de gallo—and MJ introduced us to horchata, a sweet, milky beverage made from rice and flavored with cinnamon. We mostly preferred Frank's Jarritos Mandarina, but it was fun to try something new.

At the church, the girls and I settled in to entertain ourselves while Frank played v-ball. MJ plays there sometimes, but she elected to protect her nose today, so the three of us alternated between watching the action and hanging out in the rec room. I listened to a book on CD briefly, then kept Chloe company while she made some Halloween art. We fiddled on the piano. MJ listened to her iPod.

Then one of the regulars (a church member) suggested we go try out the bowling alley. Turns out the church has its own, two old-fashioned lanes where human hands have to do a lot of the resetting of pins. This was a fascinating experience, and a lot of hard work! The "pit" at the end of the lane was surprisingly spacious once we'd crawled under the (nonfunctioning) pin setter. There's a long, elevated bench back there where the pin boys can sit, taking care to keep their feet out of the way of flying pins, and there's a nifty force-of-gravity ball-return ramp that was fun to play with. (ZP bonus: a fascinating article about bowling that mentions pin boys and one just about pin boys)

We finished up the evening back in the rec room having some carrot cake and chatting with the players. They're a friendly bunch and only ribbed MJ a little about her nose ring.

Now, we're settled in back at home, spread to the four corners of the house. Frank is watching TV in the basement, MJ is going through her photo collection in her room, Chloe is back at work on her novel in the homeschool room (formerly our diningroom), and I'm upstairs blogging.

I'm supposed to do an academic translation of our day now, but I'm tuckered out and not feeling very interested in that. Maybe my readers would like to help me out by taking a stab at it in the comments...?

Zoo

MJ's movie, "Zoo," is now available on DVD. Remember, the subject matter of the documentary is bestiality, so this will not be for everyone.

Strewing

I'm busy with deadlines at work, so I don't have much time for blogging. To keep my loyal readers entertained, I'll post something I wrote on an unschooling board about one of my favorite unschooling subjects: strewing.

First, the definition. Strewing is one of the ways unschoolers ensure our kids are getting exposure to a wide range of topics, events, activities, and resources. We strew their path with interesting stuff.

One day, another mom asked for more information on strewing. Her question is in blue; the rest is me.

Is it unschooling if I have an awareness of subjects, but truly maintain a focus on respecting [my son] and his interests and being open to the process of learning, and joyfully go about strewing (rather than giving mini-lessons or making unit studies)? If awareness of subjects is a tool and not the goal?

I think I know what you're asking, but I'll paraphrase just to make sure I'm answering the right question. You want to know if it's okay for you to keep *school* subjects in mind and let that awareness guide your strewing. My answer is: Yes and no.

I think it's okay to use strewing to calm your own fears that your children are not getting enough (for example) science in their lives. Bring home some test tubes, go for a walk and collect as many different leaves as you can, hang up a human anatomy poster, buy a Magic School Bus computer game, go to the science center, whatever. If you can strew without putting pressure on your kids and without feeling disappointment if they don't (seem to) pick up on what you strew, the result will be that some cool and interesting resources have been added to your lives. Great!

But please note that there are some big If's attached to that. Most of us have a lot of schooled thinking to get over. You might initially find it hard to see those test tubes sitting there gathering dust, or feel frustrated if your son decides to treat the poster like a big paper doll and spends a couple of hours covering up the anatomy. Your challenge will be finding the act of strewing to be its own reward. Do you see what I mean? You must feel satisfied by strewing rather than by your kids' response to what you've strewn.

That challenge exists even when you're strewing something about Green Day or candy-making or the benefits of regular oil changes for the car, but it's usually less emotionally charged than when we're strewing materials that a school might use.

Which leads to the second part of my answer: Strewing is ever so much bigger than school! When Sandra talks about being well rounded, I don't think she is talking about exposure to the handful of severely delimited über-subjects of the school world (math, English, history, science, art, music, physical education, foreign languages). She's talking about exposure to life and the world and emotions and people. It's vibrant, variable, full to bursting, an amazingly complex and beautiful web of topics and tidbits and theories and ideas.

Don't settle for a school approach to the world. Why limit yourself or your son that way?

Fifteen

We celebrated MJ's 15th birthday last Saturday.

Let me just repeat that for myself: MJ—that tiny bundle I carried, nursed, walked endlessly, and so on—is FIFTEEN. Wow. That is hard to take in!

This event inspired some rather philosophical thinking and writing on my part—rather florid passages full of driving metaphors (she is signed up for driver training!)—but I'll spare you all that and move right on to describing her big day.

MJ had two main birthday requests once we'd whittled out the really expensive items: to accompany Frank to New Orleans when he goes next month, and to get her nose pierced. I'm not sure which request was more of a pinch (and I'm not talking about the pain she felt when they stuck her), but we came through for her. She is now sporting a small horseshoe-shaped bit of jewelry in her left nostril, and she and Frank will soon be heading down for a long week in the Big Easy.

The whole nose-piercing thing was an interesting unschooling challenge for us. It's so much easier to support your kids' choices when your kids are 9 or 10 and choosing to wear mismatched socks. :-) But we stuck to our guns, put our money where our mouths (and her nose) are, cowboyed up, and did the right thing. It looks better than I thought it would, and I'm happy she's happy with it (faint praise, I know—sorry MJ!).

After her encounter with the needle, we went to Baskin Robbins for a birthday ice cream cone. This is a tradition for her birthday, adopted in Slidell, LA, the summer Katrina blew through, when there wasn't much more to do for her birthday than go to B&R, because that was the only place open! Frank and I were reflecting on how quickly the last two years have gone. I asked the girls if it seemed fast to them. No.

But for us old(er) folks, it's been an eyeblink. Actually, MJ's entire 15 years have been an eyeblink. There's some part of my brain that still "knows" I have two toddlers at home. I have pictures on my desk at work—taken that winter we lived in Destin, FL, when MJ was 4 and Chloe, not quite 3—and those adorable little girls are still the ones I somehow expect to see when I get home from work at night.

Maybe it's time for some new pictures. :-)

Anyway, we closed out the day with a small extended-family party having breakfast for dinner at IHOP. She had candles in her pancakes and some laughs with her cousins. Pretty fun!

George Carlin on those school bumper stickers

http://members.cox.net/jimkaiser/Honor%20Students.wav

We also like "Ax me about my dumbass kids."

More on teens: Not terrible

I subscribe to Scott Noelle's Daily Groove mailing list. I want to share this bit of wisdom that arrived in my Inbox today, a timely reminder for a mother whose daughter was home for half a day before she went off on her next adventure.

:: Terrible Two's & Rebellious Teens... NOT! ::

(Continued from yesterday -- full text at
http://dailygroove.net/terrible-not)

Developmentally, toddlers and teens have one thing in common: they're on the verge of a quantum leap in personal autonomy. They're on a mission to become *themselves* -- to get in touch with their Inner Power more than ever before.

Anytime they feel imposed upon or coerced, that mission is blocked, and they instinctively protest. In nature-based, pleasure-oriented, partnership cultures, such protests are rarely triggered, so terrible two's and teen rebellions rarely occur.

But in our anti-nature, control-oriented culture, parents are expected
(if not required *by law*) to oppose or control children's natural developmental impulses toward personal empowerment, which guarantees the terribles!

The shift from terrible to terrific begins with your commitment to creative partnership. Then, whenever your child exhibits "terrible" behavior, you can re-interpret it as evidence of his or her unfolding autonomy, and ask yourself this:

"How can I use my creativity
to support my child's growth
in a way that works for ALL of us?"

http://dailygroove.net/terrible-not

Copyright (c) 2007 by Scott Noelle
Used With Permission

A Boy Named Jayne

FanVid Credit: enjia

Speed Racer

Frank took Chloe down to Traxx today, where she took their safety training, received her "driver's license," and got to drive the adult course for a while. She loved every minute of it and "only crashed a couple times."

Unfortunately, they left the camera at home.

A quiet day at Microsoft

Today was Microsoft's annual Company Meeting. They rented Safeco Field and more buses than I knew were present in the state of Washington.

We fake employees—who, happily, are not allowed to attend—had a great day for getting some work done, with quiet hallways and minimal interruptions.

Work items

Some terribly exciting additions to my work portfolio:

Using matrix items
August newsletter for RMS: The Register

I love Chicago

If you haven't yet discovered the monthly Q&A at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/, I recommend it. Those wacky University of Chicago Press editors always have something fun to say.

An excerpt from this month:
Q. As you know, CMOS 6.64 says, “When a colon introduces two or more sentences . . . the first word following it is capitalized.” The two examples seem to suggest that the sentences following must comprise a series of some sort... Can you clarify what it means to “introduce” two or more sentences?

A. I think you’ve got the idea. There are bound to be gray areas where a person could interpret more than one sentence as “being introduced by” the colon. But if the material introduced by the colon clearly runs out at the end of the first sentence, that first sentence is lowercased.

• She clung to her wishes: She wished the evil prince hadn’t eaten the golden egg. She wished he would leave the kingdom forever. And she wished someone would do her ironing.
• She was furious: she wished the evil prince would leave the kingdom forever. But meanwhile, there wasn’t an egg left in the house and the laundry was waiting.

...

Bowling for Hope

MJ's charity, Hope for Horses, is holding a bowling tournament to raise some much needed funds. We encourage you to join the fun or just send 'em some money. These people do amazing work.

Let me know if you want to preregister and I'll send you the form. To make a tax-deductible donation, send your check to:

Hope for Horses
PO Box 1790
Woodinville, WA 98072

Click the ad to view details about the event.

Life in brief

Grandma is doing great and has 20-something more days at assisted living before she goes home. We've been visiting her in the evenings. She says, "You don't have to come every day!" when we arrive and "You really made my day!" when we leave. :-)

Chloe, Logan, and I went to the Evergreen State Fair Saturday. (Yum!)

Heroes came out on DVD!

The child-accessible nightshade has been vanquished. I was sad to see it go, but the front yard does look tidier.

A large portion of the unschooling community is in North Carolina at the Live and Learn Conference. Wish we could have gone! Next year.

Chloe's laptop has been repaired. She's very excited to get back to work.

Actually, she came to work with me today. The receptionist asked her, "Why aren't you in school today?" (as if it's any of her business). I smiled and replied, "School doesn't start until tomorrow," which is both perfectly true and perfectly deceptive.

MJ gets home from camp on Thursday! I can't wait. Unfortunately, Amtrak keeps pushing her arrival time back. If they keep this up, it'll actually be Friday before we see her.

I've been learning all about running a Yahoo! Group. My blog-oriented administration of the STUN group had too many limitations, so I switched it to Yahoo! It's been interesting so far. The message traffic will probably pick up when the rest of the gang gets back from NBTSC.

Frank is considering a trip to New Orleans to visit Marty et al. If he goes this fall, he'll probably slot it between MJ's birthday and his eligibility to return to work in October. That's assuming his sisters are ready for visitors in that timeframe.

Speaking of MJ's birthday, Frank's been researching Drivers Ed courses. Our school district doesn't offer them anymore, so we're having to look at private enterprises. Those places want nearly $500 for a basic course! Yikes! Thankfully, our insurance rates don't go up until she's licensed. One financial hurdle at a time...

Diversion

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this poetry diversion.

As Chloris full of harmless thought
Beneath the willows lay,
Kind love a comely shepherd brought
To pass the time away.

She blushed to be encountered so
And chid the amorous swain,
But as she strove to rise and go,
He pulled her back again.

A sudden passion seized her heart
In spite of her disdain;
She found a pulse in every part,
And love in every vein.

“Ah, youth!” quoth she, “What charms are these
That conquer and surprise?
Ah, let me—for unless you please,
I have no power to rise.”

She faintly spoke, and trembling lay,
For fear he should comply,
But virgins’ eyes their hearts betray
And give their tongues the lie.

Thus she, who princes had denied
With all their pompous train,
Was in the lucky minute tried
And yielded to the swain.

—John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
circa 1676

What a pretty vine!

Our care of our yard is always hit-and-miss at best. This year, we've been downright neglectful, so some really interesting weeds have taken over. This is my favorite, a glorious vine with dainty purple flowers and beautiful berries that go from one vibrant shade to another. It's taking over the house, using rhodies and drainpipes as its jungle gyms, and I've been pretty content to let it.

Turns out it's nightshade. But, hey, what's a little poison between friends!

Chloe is home!!!

Chloe got home from camp last night! It seems like she had an amazing time; she couldn't talk fast enough to tell us all about it. :-)

Memory lane

Look what I found in Oregon!

They are still fun, lo these many years later, but the scent of them has changed. It was disappointing; I think I bought them for the scent alone.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here

We had a lovely reunion weekend on the Oregon coast. Pretty scenery, decent weather, nice room, an amazing spread of food, and a wonderful time with the extended clan. As always, my happiest moments came from hanging out with the kids.

....

• To Mia and Heide — Thanks for the spinning and the licorice!
• To Emily — Thanks for a really fun trip to the beach!
• To Tre and Anja — Thanks for the baby fix! (She played peekaboo with me, he fell asleep in my arms. *sigh*)
• To Carl — Thanks for the song!
• To Laura, Kaylee, and Cassie (and Jackie, of course) — Thanks for the shopping!
• To Maria and Maria — Thanks for the smiles!
• To Chase and Ky — Thanks for the sand in my hair! :-)

....
And to everybody else, thanks for a really fun weekend. Hope
to see you soon!

Ciao

Two trips to Sea-Tac later, Chiara and Elena are on their way home. We had a good visit—on the busy side and too short, but good.

Care update for Marty

We received a note from Judy:

"Dad's been getting weaker & also a little more 'testy'. After 8 months, Gary's throwing in the towel. New game plan: I am taking FMLA (family medical leave act), the same thing you use for maternity or paternity. This will give me 3 months off. They have to keep my job & I keep my benefits while I'm out. During that time, I will be finding a sitter, so I can return to work...

"Lori is still going to come 1 day a week , but not necessarily Wed. We'll iron out the specifics later. My paper work goes in tomorrow. I've requested to start September 10. I'll call my supervisor tomorrow to let her know what's coming. I have to get the official OK from Team Member Health. I'm kind of looking forward to being home, but have mixed emotions about it. I plan to be optimistic & figure everything will work out like it's supposed to."

Frank and I appreciate very much the sacrifices that Judy and Gary continue to make to see that Dad gets the care he deserves. We are in their debt.

The right purse

Here's a problem most guys don't have: choosing the right purse. I imagine most guys have no clue what a difficult endeavor this is.

Come to think of it, maybe some women have no idea what a difficult endeavor this is! It's probably not a difficult endeavor for every woman. Some women buy a purse for every occasion, so the selection process comes down to finding the right look and color for a given outfit. That is not so difficult; the couple of special-occasion purses I own were easy enough to purchase.

But my *main* purse, my everyday purse—finding that is a real quest. I usually spend months at it, eyeballing bags wherever I go and carrying my increasingly ragged old purse around while I wait for inspiration.

It has to look good. Of course, it does. But I will sacrifice aesthetics in a heartbeat if I find a bag that works in all other ways.

It has to be comfortable.

It has to have compartments, with none too large, so I can pretend to be organized.

It should not have frills. Eww, ick, frills.

It has to be big enough for all the things I must have with me: money, cards, ID, and keys, of course, but also necessities for my life. These necessities include stuff for me (datebook, asthma medications, dental floss, stamps, tissues, photos) and stuff for my kids (Band-aids, hair bands, safety pins). Like the proverbial boy scout, I have to be prepared!

And most of all, it has to be fun.

Purse as metaphor for my life.

And in one of those wonderful, serendipitous happenings of Life, my current "right purse" is one I didn't even pick out. I had been engaged in one of my aforementioned purse searches for some weeks, when a package arrived in the mail from our most excellent friend Bob. He was hardly late at all for my birthday, and my present was The Right Purse. It's compact but big enough; reasonably attractive (red!); flexible enough to be purse, backpack, or fanny pack; and fun.

It's so nice to have friends who know me well! Thanks, Bob!

An almost perfect photo

Mine is cuter than this, with curves instead of corners, but you get the idea. The little pocket on the right is for my cell phone, and the front zipper opens to a wallet area with card slots and coin pocket. And if I only want to use one strap, the other tucks away neatly in the back.

From the mountain to the Mary Jane

What a week!

After I put in a little work Monday and Tuesday, we took Chiara and Elena up to Mt. Rainier on Wednesday. It was a glorious day for it, but I was sure overdressed. (How could I have known it would be 80 degrees at Paradise! There was nothing like that in the forecast!) Despite some mild overheating, and despite the mountain being as brown as I've ever seen it, we had a lovely day. We took a few short hikes, chatted with other tourists, communed with Nature, and got away from it all.

Friday was STUN day. We met at Wyatt Park in Lake Stevens and spent a couple of enjoyable hours swimming, playing frisbee, and chatting. We came home from there with a few extra people, STUNners Michelle and Robin and a couple of extra NBTSC campers. M&R stayed at our place long enough to meet the rats and let Michelle be convinced that, yes, Chloe's room is the messiest of all. The campers stayed overnight.

Yesterday, I hauled the lot of them down to Seattle to HempFest. When MJ first told me several weeks ago that they were planning to go to HF, I signed up as a volunteer there, just for the heck of it, working in one of the beverage booths from 12:30 to 4:30. By the time I got all those teens out the door (nearly an hour later than I wanted to leave), I was much less interested in the idea. But a commitment is a commitment, so I persevered.

We found a relatively convenient parking space for only $8 then joined the throng. At the entrance, Chloe (who had decided to join me in my volunteer efforts) and I parted company with the gang, and that was the last we saw of them. (After the festival, they got themselves and all their luggage to the Greyhound station and their bus to Portland. They attended a concert there yesterday and are meeting up with Chloe and the rest of the campers at the Amtrak station today for the trip to Eugene.)

Chloe and I ended up clad in snazzy purple "Staff" t-shirts, working the beverage booth nearest the main stage. It was great being able to hear the reggae and the speeches, but it was sure a busy spot! We worked so hard! It was our job to pass the requested drinks to the cashiers and keep the coolers full of stock. It involved lots of lifting cases of water and pop, reaching and stretching for the Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper that was down around behind all the other stuff, keeping our ears open to hear the orders, and scrambling to replace every bottle that was removed while breaking down empty boxes and adding more ice. Phew! We were really worn out by the end of it. I think the owner dude was pretty impressed with Chloe's work ethic; he gave her the $5 in tips that had come in during our shift. With that and the t-shirt, she made a decent hourly wage for her volunteer time. :-)

Sunday was for resting, laundry, and packing. Chloe is pretty calm about this whole camp adventure. She's going down with her good friends Logan and Kyla and knows several other campers. Plus, I think a one-week trip to Oregon is no big deal after doing nearly four months in England!

Last night, Chloe and I visited my grandma for a little while. She's a little gloomy and seems convinced that she isn't doing as well as her doctors and progeny tell her she is. We're told a little depression is normal in heart surgery patients, but it's still hard seeing her so low. No word yet on when she can return home, but I'm sure that will cheer her up immensely.

This morning, I dropped Chloe at the train station at oh-dark-thirty (as Frank calls it), so Frank and I are down to two daughters. Chiara and Elena return to Italy on Thursday. (Wah!) Frank and I won't really have a weekend alone, though, because we're driving down to Oregon ourselves for a family reunion. It will still be a weekend away, mostly restful, on the Oregon coast in August. I imagine we'll be able to steal a few romantic moments!

P.S. A note about HempFest — Our participation in this event is a reflection not of our lifestyle but of our belief that our current drug laws are hypocritical in the extreme. If our government is going to endorse and even subsidize the alcohol and tobacco industries—industries that account for SO many injuries, crimes, and economic losses in our country—we don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to marijuana. Plus, HempFest is a great place to hear reggae.

Gut check

Frank found this article today, written by Charles P. Pierce (great name!) and featured in Esquire magazine. I thought it was worth featuring here. It's something to think about (emphasis on the word think).

Greetings from Idiot America

Excerpts:
"They have come from Indiana, one woman says... because they have been home-schooling their children and they have given them this adventure as a kind of field trip... [T]hey are greeted by the long neck of a huge, herbivorous dinosaur. The kids run past that and around a corner, where stands another, smaller dinosaur.
"Which is wearing a saddle.
"It is an English saddle, hornless and battered. Apparently, this was a dinosaur used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Any working dinosaur accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs along the dusty trail almost certainly would wear a sturdy western saddle.
"This is very much a show dinosaur."

"The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise."

"In the place of expertise, we have elevated the Gut, and the Gut is a moron, as anyone who has ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked an errant lawn mower knows."

"The Gut is the basis for the Great Premises of Idiot America. We hold these truths to be self-evident: 1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units. 2) Anything can be true if somebody says it on television. 3) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it."

"'You can just as easily have a faith-based, or ideologically driven, policy,' [David Phillips of the State Department] says today. 'You start with the presumption that you already know the conclusion prior to asking the question. When information surfaces that contradicts your firmly entrenched views, you dismantle the institution that brought you the information.'"

"'We went in blindfolded, and we believed our own propaganda,' Phillips says. 'We were going to get out in ninety days, spend $1.9 billion in the short term, and Iraqi oil would pay for the rest. Now we're deep in the hole, and people are asking questions about how we got there.'"

"On the same day [8/19/2005], across town, a top aide to former secretary of state Colin Powell told CNN that Powell's pivotal presentation to the United Nations in which he described Iraq's vast array of deadly weapons was a farrago of stovepiped intelligence, wishful thinking, and utter bullshit.
'It was the lowest point in my life,' the aide said."

"And the president went on television and said that nobody could have anticipated the collapse of the unfortunate city's levees. In God's sweet name, engineers anticipated it. Politicians anticipated it. The poor bastards in the Ninth Ward certainly anticipated it. Hell, four generations of folksingers anticipated it."

"For Idiot America is a place where people choose to live. It is a place that is built consciously and deliberately, one choice at a time, made or (most often) unmade."

I'm speechless (but probably not for long)

Bulletproof backpacks for kids returning to school:
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_13653.aspx
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=1016084

Oh, yeah, school's a good place for socialization.

This is me breathing

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water.

If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,

you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,

you put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

— Bruce Lee

A mighty heart

My grandmother's heart surgery yesterday went well. They replaced two valves (mitral valve damaged by childhood rheumatic fever and one other) and did two bypasses. She's 86, so her recovery will be slow, but she's making small, steady improvements already. Frank and I are off to visit again now.

UPDATE 8/12
I spent a couple of hours with my grandma last night. Her wonderful night nurse had me coax her into eating some chicken noodle soup. It was pretty bad soup, so I bribed her with alternating bites of yogurt. After this had gone on for a while, I said, "We've got this soup about licked, Grandma," and she fired back, "Good, then throw the rest out."

He also had her up and walking while I was there. She liked that even less than the soup, but she got the job done. So, she's pretty miserable but doing well.

The plan is for her to move into transitional care on Tuesday, be there for ten days, and then return home. She'll need daily help there for a while, which I don't think we've quite figured out. She really hates having strangers messing about in her home (and who can blame her).

From sea to shining star

Catch a falling star

And put it in your pocket

Save it for a rainy day...

We've been having some good times with "our Italian girls." (I don't know if they like being referred to thus. They are women, not girls, and they certainly belong to only themselves, but we can't help feeling a little possessive!)

I could write for hours about all they've been up to (EMP, SAM, parties, visitors, shopping), but I don't have hours, so I'll just share a couple of highlights.

Sunday, we caught the free ferry (a thrilling 90-second ride) over to Jetty Island and hung out on the beach for a while. The tide was going out, so they got to experience the incredible feet-swallowing sand/muck of the tideflats. What a treat! They also got to enjoy one of Puget Sound's rare sandy beaches. In the sunshine!

We came home on the second-to-last ferry back and decided our sea proximity had put us in the mood for sushi. Well, Chiara, Derek, and MJ were in the mood for sushi, Elena and Chloe were game, and Frank and I knew we could find something delicious and cooked to enjoy. So, we piled back in the van and went to Daruma, a nice little Japanese café right there by the Everett Marina. Yum!

Last night, Frank made us another delicious dinner, but with fish from the river this time. Trout! My very favorite! Our meal was accompanied by the very nice white wine Elena's dad sent to us. (And we still have a nice red to look forward to!)

After dinner, we went in search of some dark. It seems August 8th is the Feast Day of St. Lawrence, traditionally celebrated in Italy by watching for shooting stars. After being cloudy all day, the weather cooperated nicely and provided clear skies. There's too much light pollution in the city, though, so we piled in the van (we do that a lot!) and headed east. A park on Lake Stevens was our first stop. It wasn't perfectly dark there, but we saw an amazing meteor—with long, luminous tail—before we got kicked out of the park by the cops. (Yeah, we knew it was closed, but we took a chance moonpie.) Once they realized we were a family group rather than (only) a pack of "dangerous" teenagers, they were very nice and turned off their blinding spotlights. Then they directed us to Lake Cassidy a few miles to the north. It was significantly darker there—and creepy with mist rolling off the lake and making us all think of every slasher horror movie we've ever seen—but we didn't see any meteors to rival that first amazing flasher.

It was really fun, so we'll probably head out for more stargazing when the Perseids come through about August 12th.

And that's the news from Party Central!

New toys

I've been playing with the sidebar again. Hope you enjoy our new features!

Update 8/12 about the Quote Zone:
I've made a place where I can archive the featured quotes. It's here (and you can always get to that page by clicking the Quote Zone header).

What unschooling looked like in the middle of the night

I usually try to avoid making a big deal of the schoolish moments that happen in our house, because it tends to make non-unschoolers (schoolers?) think that unschooling *only* works when schoolish moments happen. But this was too cool, so I have to talk about it.

Last night, Chloe confessed that she isn't sure she's acquiring skills marketable enough to land a job when she's old enough. We talked about her options some, then I made an offhand comment about her abilities as a proofreader. One thing led to another and we were soon huddled around the computer playing with words. I typed out a series of flawed sentences, then Chloe corrected them. It was so fun! We played with changing punctuation to completely change the meaning of a sentence, and we found some badly written paragraphs on the Internet that she and I fixed in different ways. This went on until three in the morning!

Here are a couple of examples that made her laugh. The first I borrowed from a recent discussion of punctuation on Grammar Geeks.

Woman without her man is a savage.
Woman: without her, man is a savage.

Real men don't eat spinach, but I like it.
Real men don't eat, Spinach, but I like it.

I discovered to my delight that Chloe knows how to punctuate speech perfectly, and she—normally the queen of lowercase—knows perfectly well that the pronoun "I" is always capitalized. What can I say? Such things are near and dear to my heart.

She told me one of her pet peeves from reading fan fiction. I will share it here in the hopes that somebody somewhere will see the error of his ways. She says fan-fiction authors often write spoken questions like this:

"Are you crazy" he asked?

That is very bad indeed, and I can only thank my lucky stars that I have never come across such wretched punctuating. Here is the corrected question:

"Are you crazy?" he asked.

With Chloe reassured of her skills, we talked about how this is one of the perils of unschooling: sometimes unschooled kids have little idea of how much they have learned. Kids in school get regular validation (or correction), and they are constantly compared to their schoolmates, so they have some feel for where in the spectrum their knowledge falls. Unschooled kids know that they are experts or budding experts in the areas they are passionate about (manga, music, karate, Swahili, whatever), but they don't always realize how much general knowledge they've acquired. So, Chloe had no idea she is an expert at grammar and punctuation, and she will tell you that she is bad at math, just after she's added a column of numbers in her head or worked a fraction problem effortlessly. We'll work on it.

A post just for Randi

Yes, I'm a slacker!

The visit with Chiara and Elena is going great! Our two airport runs Friday were complicated by heavy traffic and a certain lack of flight information, but by midnight, we had two Italian women tucked into our house and family. Yay!

Saturday was for sleeping off jet lag, settling in, and making contact with friends we haven't seen in two years. Saturday evening, C&E went over to Jared's house in downtown Everett to visit with buds from Everett High.

Sunday day was for family. We had a little festa out at the beach, letting everybody get acquainted with Elena and reacquainted with Chiara. Sunday evening, Ryan came over to show off his newest tattoos and entertain us all (we love Ryan). We finished up the day by watching "Love Actually," which C&E had never seen.

And yesterday, I dropped C&E off in downtown Seattle 'on my way' to work. They spent the day wandering through Pike Place and other shopping meccas, talking to "weirdos" down on the waterfront, and trying out the express bus home.

As for us, well, we're just happy. Our family is whole again. (If we could shake off the dregs of the cold that's been beating us down for more than a week, we'd be even happier.) And I'm loving all of the language-and-customs conversations we've been having. Chiara has lost just a bit of her English—she says she doesn't think in English any more and has to translate from the Italian—but all the slang is coming back to her quickly. She's a fricking genius! (that's an inside joke) And Elena's English is almost as good, so we're doing lots of talking.

Tomorrow, C&E are going to join us at our STUN gathering on the Pilchuck River. It's supposed to be 80, so we picked a good day for it!

Chiara is on her way!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Chiara's flight from Paris is well under way. She'll be here in about eight hours!

Harry Potter 7 part 2

Okay, we've finished it. This post contains spoilers, so I've hidden it. To read, click and drag your mouse to select the blank space below; my words will be revealed as if by magic! For those who don't want to be spoiled, I'll just say that it was a fabulous book, perhaps the best of the seven. But it's not for the faint of heart.

Here's an amazing fact: Chloe chose to be the Gray Lady at the release party for this book, and the Gray Lady (otherwise barely a footnote in the books) plays an important role in this book. How cool is that? Chloe is psychic!

J.K. Rowling is an amazing writer. She did everything that was required to make this book satisfying and complete. All the questions are answered, all the stray details she included in earlier books are wrapped up into a neat package, and there were numerous times when we were moved to tears.

Of course, some of those tears were over the heart-wrenching deaths of a few beloved characters. I wish she'd been a little kinder to our old friends!

But others were over amazingly written sequences, moments of such profound significance to those of us who have lived and breathed Harry Potter for a decade that we couldn't do anything but cry. In this book, we got to revisit almost every scene in the preceding six books, so it was both retrospective and conclusion in one tome. Awesome!

Also, she spread the triumph around. It was great! Neville came completely into his own, winning even the admiration of his crotchety grandmother. And Luna shines as usual. And Mrs. Weasley kicks ass! And a number of people are redeemed for past failings.

Jo said in an interview about a year ago that the last word in the book was "scar." That, like so many of her comments in interviews, has proven to be less than the whole truth. I really admire the way she has protected her own secrets, even to the point of misdirecting her devoted fans.

I can hardly believe it's over. My kids grew up with this saga. We read our first one before the girls were in school! And now they have to muddle their way into adulthood without Harry. On the other hand, Chloe is already talking about re-reading the whole series.

For me, it's done. I know some people take consolation from having two movies still to come, but the movies have never been my thing. It's the end of an era.

It's not easy being green

I thought I was losing it! I took a bite out of my almost daily Snickers bar just now and the filling looked green. Ewww! Fearing a food poisoning trip to the ER, I Googled "green snickers" and learned it's a Shrek 3 promotion. That's when I noticed that the label even says so. Duh!

Reception of the green Snickers has been mixed. Here's my favorite review, even if it doesn't quite rhyme:

I do not like them on a cardboard box.

I do not like them near my tube socks.

I do not like green Snickers bars.

I do not like them Sam-I-am!

(credit goes to shyvixen on this Stewart Copeland forum)

Harry Potter 7

There is a theory that the seven Harry Potter novels mirror the seven obstacles the kids faced in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." Here is Chloe's writeup on this theory. I found it really interesting.

"Fluffy, he's easy, the beginning, and all you need is some information and some help, and then you can work the rest out yourself. COS is organic, alive, like devil's snare, but also a deadly trap, pulling you in and killing you. POA is difficult, but it's a chase, trying to find people, catch them. and GOF is, as you noticed, a game. can't really figure out how the troll goes with OOP [note from Ronnie: perhaps the troll represents the death Harry must face in OOP]. HBP involves logic, figuring things out, putting together the pieces so you will know what to do, and then deciding you have to go on alone. and then DH is the real thing. what you've really been working towards the whole time. your goal, your destination. where the thing you're trying to get is so close all you have to do is reach out and take it.

"i don't even know if i believe this theory of course, but this is how it could be true."

The obstacles:

• Fluffy, the vicious, gigantic, three-headed dog
• Devil's Snare, a plant that wraps you up and suffocates you
• Winged keys, very fast moving, and only one will get you through the door
• A giant chessboard with living pieces that bash you over the head if you get captured
• A troll, huge, smelly and violent
• Several potions, some poisonous, with a logic problem to help you know which one to drink
• The mirror of Erised, a clever and seductive mirror that shows you the thing you most desire

We were in the crowd at the Borders at Alderwood Friday night, picking up our copy of the book. MJ went as Professor Trelawney, Chloe, as the Gray Lady (Ravenclaw's ghost), and I, as Archie, the wizard who thinks any old Muggle clothes will allow him to pass as a muggle. The girls looked great (and were very well received by the crowd at the costume judging), while I looked merely ridiculous.

Photo coming soon!

Thanks to Frank's kindly stop at Borders earlier in the day, we had a coveted orange armband, placing us in the first group of people to get books. This meant we were about 200th in line (no exaggeration).

We're completing our HP tradition and reading the book aloud together. Work is really getting in the way of that! But we have less than a third of it left after a snuggled-in weekend.

One more OCF picture

A photo of our group at the Oregon Country Fair:

From left to right:
Mary, Neebin, John, Qacei (with Hannah in hand), Ronnie, MJ, Donna, Chloe, Conor

To read Mary's beautiful post about releasing Hannah's ashes at the fair, click here. We have a packet of her ashes to release, too. I have a spot in mind for them, but Diana warned us not to get too attached to any one place; Hannah has her own ideas.

What unschooling looked like yesterday in MJ's words

One of the perils of being a working mom is that I sometimes get disconnected from what's happening at home. This is such a time, and since I wanted this month's "What unschooling looked like" post to be about a day at home instead of a day at the Oregon Country Fair, I had to ask the girls to describe their day for me. We picked yesterday.

Well, I've just received MJ's description of her day. She ought be be writing this blog! So, here's yesterday, in MJ's words:

Woke up with a sore throat, thought I had Chloe's cold, so I called in sick to Hope for Horses, but it wore off later. Watched Return of the Living Dead. Had a fight with Chloe over yogurt, of all things. Fight was resolved. Had pseudo White Castle burgers, continued the movie. Watched The Fifth Element and updated my profile on MySpace. At the same time. Yay for multitasking!

Then I got the brilliant idea to convince my still-sick sister to go to the thrift store with me. It took me quite a while and I composed a list of things I'd do if she came:

Things MJ Will Do If Chloe Goes to the Thrift Store
1. Buy her Toblerones
2. Buy her Things at the Store
3. A Fuckin' Happy Dance
4. Develop Contacts Within NASA and Send Her to the Moon
5. Write Another Chapter of My FanFic
6. Write 55 Pages of Vanguard in a Week
7. Let her Tug On My Piercings Once They're (Gotten and) Healed
8. Take her to get her Laptop Fixed
9. Take AMAZING MySpace Photos Of Her
10. Once her Laptop Is Fixed, I'll Make Her 4 AMVs With Songs of her Choosing
11. Help her look Fabulous (or not) On Any Day Of her Choosing . . . Ever
12. Dance With Her At Steve and Mary's Wedding
13. Watch .hack//SIGN, Deathnote, Tokyo Mew Mew and Any Others.
14. Help Her Write *Eight Days a Week* and *Madame Sarah's School For Strangers*
15. Stop Bugging her to Go to Concerts
16. Take her to IRELAND!!!
17. Find Loki and Make Friends.

She agreed and we got ready, went to the bank, crossed the street to the bus stop, waited, bought gum, waited, got on the bus and went to the Thrift Store. I looked for clothes for Rocky Horror and Chloe looked for dresses. She tried on two fancy ones and I took pictures. We shopped some more, added up how much we were spending and checked out. The guy that rang us up was the hot gay guy I saw at Pride. We chatted with him about Rocky Horror while we checked out. He said he liked my shirt (the one with the rib bird cage).

We left and got on the bus for home. We got off and went to the grocery to get the promised Toblerones (and to look for Vincente, Sexy Bagger Boy), but they had none. We got a Snapple and walked home. Chloe put on her dress and showed Alecia and Lilly [neighbors] and I showed them what I'd bought. Went inside, found the hot glue gun, and listened to Countdown while I glued, in tiny pearl beads, the letters D-A-N-C onto the red shoes I bought. In time, they'll say Dance the Blues. Checked MySpace. Sewed up a hole in my jeans, made the lace gloves I bought into fingerless lace gloves. Read FanFiction, drank Snapple, blah blahh blahhh.

Talked to Conor on MySpace for a while and I was made a Goddess. I declared that the 11th Commandment was 'Thou Shalt Watch Fight Club.' We talked anime, then I went to bed, but not before writing a journal entry about Cody, Alex Beam, and Conor. Woke up this morning and got on MySpace. Talked to Madelyn, tried to make plans for Rocky Votolato [rock band concert tonight], made plans for El Corazon [rock festival tomorrow night]. Downloaded a ton of music, listened to more, talked to Mom, showered. I have yet to eat. It's gonna be a good day.

Academic translation by Ronnie:
Clearly, writing was involved! :-)
Art of negotiation
Socializing and socialization and lots of it
Home ec
Art class
Current events
Math at the bank and while shopping

About MySpace:
Beyond its value for socializing, "playing" on MySpace leads to a lot of learning. To achieve the profile one desires, one might have to learn some HTML coding, look up facts, or do art projects (such as MJ's Visual DNA, a collage of images and words that illustrate her view of herself). And then there's the conversations! I stay out of her MySpace business for the most part, but I can give you two examples from my own recent MySpace cruising:
1) I joined a group called Grammar Geeks. We talk about grammar. It's really fun, really wonderful to be in the company of so many people who write well, and I've learned a few things I never knew.
2) Every so often, a quiz comes through. I recently got to think up a variety of words that start with the first letter of my name. It was challenging, creative, and fun, and I Googled a couple of different things in my effort to provide unique and interesting answers. (Using Google always leads to learning, in case you were unaware!)

About the movies:
"Return of the Living Dead" is a spoof zombie flick that contains lots of cultural reference jokes. MJ gets all the jokes. I've learned not to underestimate the value of this kind of knowledge! There are no ivory towers around here.

"The Fifth Element," besides being a visual treat and an entertaining movie, deals with some interesting themes: what it means to be human and whether sacrifices to preserve humanity are worthwhile.

Chloe's description is still forthcoming, so I might post more later.

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is realizing that what you thought happened, didn't."

-- Byron Katie

Frank's not so happy Sunday

Frank spent Sunday prepping for his colonoscopy Monday a.m. He was not a happy camper!

But the bright side is, it went just fine, and he's done with *that* for a decade!

Happy hippie weekend

It was another busy weekend for us! This seems to be the developing theme of our summer — always something to do.

On Friday, the four of us went to the STUN gathering at Morgantown Park in Snohomish. This turned out to be a really nice spot (I picked it pretty much at random from the Snohomish Parks Department Web site), with access to the Pilchuck River. We spent pretty much the whole time in the river, which was about two feet deep all the way across. We waded in the river, played frisbee in the river, skipped rocks in the river, played improvised softball in the river, and had nice conversations in the river. Fun!

Friday night, the girls and I piled into the van and drove down to Eugene, Oregon. We spent Saturday hanging around town (one of MJ's favorite places) and going to their Saturday Market, then on Sunday we headed out to the Oregon Country Fair. What a wild, wonderful experience! It's a real hippie haven, with lots of happy people, new-age and age-of-Aquarius wisdom, arts and crafts, music, dancing, people watching, and liberal politicking. Fascinating place! And it was interesting how many people knew each other there. Thousands of people, small community. A frequent overheard greeting: Are you having a good fair?

My favorite thing—absolute favorite, can't wait to experience it again—was the Drum Tower. A couple dozen people, using a variety of drums and percussion instruments, sit together and DRUM, baby! "Drum circle" doesn't describe it; there are bleachers and benches and a dusty dancing area in the middle, and none of these people has rehearsed with the others. The energy was amazing, a tangible thing, and the gradual, synchronous shifts in rhythm were astonishing. I could have spent the whole day soaking it up. If we go back next year, it will be with a drum!

The downsides of the day were twofold: One, Chloe fell ill, suddenly covered with goosebumps despite the 85-degree heat. She spent most of the afternoon sleeping in the van (and is still under the weather today). And two, we got separated from and didn't get to see much of the Golds, our Corvallis unschooling buddies and the organizers of LIFE is Good. We spent the morning running into each other even when we'd separated, so I got casual about it when I left to take Chloe back to the car and didn't arrange a meeting place. That was the last I saw of Mary and Jon, although I did manage to locate MJ again eventually! As one woman told me, that's the fair for you!

Some photos:





Here are some more photos, on Mary's blog post from the 2006 fair. I bought a card-sized print of the fire people. Love it!

Family news from New Orleans

Judy and Gary have found some Wednesday help with Marty: Lori! She wanted some extra work, and J&G are thrilled to have someone they know will take excellent care of Marty. Now J&G can more easily get some weekly errands done, schedule appointments for themselves, and maybe even have the occasional date. Hurray!

Lots of weekend news from here, too, but I have to run. More later!

A small rant about spelling and grammar checkers

I hate to break it to you, dear readers, but you can't trust your spell-checker. I've spent today writing in Microsoft Office Word and being disgusted with the number of things it tells me are wrong that are actually correct. Here are a few examples:

Word thinks "noninventory" is misspelled. Actually, Word thinks just about any word starting with "non" that doesn't have a hyphen in there is misspelled. This is simply not the case. The Chicago Manual of Style and the American Heritage Dictionary agree: "non" words are nonhyphenated unless:

• The hyphen is arguably needed for legibility (non-native)
• The "non" comes before an already modified compound
  (non-English-speaking)
• The non is part of a Latin phrase (non sequitur)

Watch out for this sort of spell-checker confusion whenever you're using a prefix. Chicago says compounds made from all of these prefixes should be closed (no hyphen, no space) in most cases: ante, anti, bi, bio, co, counter, extra, infra, inter, intra, macro, meta, micro, mid, mini, multi, neo, non, over, post, pre, pro, proto, pseudo, re, semi, socio, sub, super, supra, trans, ultra, un, and under.

Word has as much it's and its confusion as the next guy. Word told me that "it's" in the following sentence should be "its".

The file is not ready for review, but it's close.

This is simply not the case. That "it's" would only be "its" if I were talking about the close (of business, of the letter).

"It's" is a contraction standing for "it is." The verb that is tucked in there means "it's" tends to come before adjectives ("it's hot") or gerunds ("it's going to be another hot day tomorrow"). It's active or descriptive.

"Its" is about possession and always comes before nouns (although the nouns might be modified by an adjective first, as in "I was distracted by its faulty reasoning"). It's its own thing.

Word can't handle a little creative writing. Finally, Word is forever getting lost in my sentences and telling me my subjects and verbs do not agree, when clearly they do. Of course, this one might be just the tiniest bit my fault for writing such long sentences. :-)

Anyway, the point is, don't turn off the spell-checker or grammar-checker in your head. If you think the checker in your software is mistaken about something, you just might be right! Get a second opinion!

P.S. I should clarify something. It is not that Word actually thinks "non-inventory" is preferable to "noninventory." There are simply too many possible "non" words for all of them to be in Word's dictionary. So, it doesn't recognize "noninventory" at all, but when you type "non-inventory" instead, it recognizes "non-" as a prefix that is in the dictionary, and it determines that "inventory" is spelled correctly. I don't know why it doesn't recognize "non" as a prefix without the hyphen; that was evidently too much refinement for the developers to cope with.

I should also point out (or maybe I just want to) that if you previously had blind faith in your word processor's spell-checker, you're not alone! I've had professional writers and editors tell me I was misspelling a word because Word didn't recognize it. That's one for the pet peeves file.

Ninety!

The Pacific Northwest is HOT, baby!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Free Hugs

Have you seen someone (like maybe one of my daughters) carrying around a big "FREE HUGS" sign? This is why:



Juan Mann started it all, now it's spreading all over the world. Look at
all these Free Hugs videos! Korea, New York, Hollywood, China, Amsterdam, Romania, Spain, Italy, Canada, Seattle (of course!), and thousands more.

Free Hugs Campaign Home Page

We could be rich!

Big BHD news!!! Check out this auction for the 45 that the Better Half Dozen released in ~1966.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260135070483&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:2

Scroll down a bit to see just how rich we could be (if we could ever bring ourselves to part with this cherished item in our record collection).

Learning all the time

I'm having a good time reading on this site:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/

From their "Our beliefs" page:
As of 2006-JAN, we consist of one Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Wiccan and Zen Buddhist. Thus, the OCRT staff lack agreement on almost all theological matters: belief in a supreme being, the nature of God, interpretation of the Bible and other holy texts, whether life after death exists and what form it takes, etc.

Helloooo, baaaby!

More on teens

I love this quote from one of Sandra Dodd's teen pages.

"Teens who were always unschooled *know* things that other people don't know. My children, for example, know one can learn to read without being taught. They don't think it, kind of believe it, or have a theory about it. They know that it's possible to be honest and trust your parents. They know it's possible for a fourteen year old girl to hang out with her older brothers pleasantly and at their request. They understand why those with unlimited TV in their own rooms can go a long time without turning it on, or why they might want to leave it on to sleep. They have years of experience with the fact that someone with the freedom to choose to stay awake will get sleepy at some point and want to go to bed and sleep. They all understand when it's worth going to sleep even though fun things are going on, and they know how to decide when it's worth setting an alarm to get up.

"There are many adults who don't know those things."

A quote and a wish

The quote:
“There is no argument worthy of the name that will justify the union of the Christian religion with the State. Every consideration of justice and equality forbids it. Every argument in favor of free Republican institutions is equally an argument in favor of a complete divorce of the State from the Church. History in warning tones tells us there can be no liberty without it. Justice demands it. Public safety requires it. He who opposes it is, whether he realizes it or not, an enemy of freedom.”

-- Benjamin Underwood, "The Practical Separation of Church & State," an address to the 1876 Centennial Congress of Liberals

The wish:
That one of these days, we won't have to talk about the separation of church and state any more because it will be a lasting fact of life.

More about Benjamin

Now you can see LIFE is Good

Oh, what a happy discovery! Now you can see how much fun the LIFE is Good conference was!



Frank and his guitar and I are in an early scene, and I spotted my good buddy Mera and STUNning Michelle. There is unfortunately not any footage of the stairwells, so I don't think you'll spot MJ or Chloe. Let me know if you do!

A billion thanks to Fergus' dad for posting this! And a billion more thanks to EccentricSimplicity for bringing it to my attention. It took me right back into the boundless heart of LIFE is Good.

The cure for Adultitis

Are you stuck in a rut, bored with your life, perpetually grumpy, or otherwise excessively adult? You might suffer from Adultitis. Take the quiz and find out.

Regardless of your diagnosis, you might enjoy the cure. Read about the 40-day Challenge Escape Plan.

Blog ring

In case you haven't noticed, this blog is now part of the LIFE is Good blog ring. To enjoy the wonderfully varied blogs of other unschoolers, click the Previous and Next links in the LIFE is Good Tribe Member box at right. The behavior is a little random right now (or stochastic, as Frank would say), but Mary is working on that.

Adding labels

I've spent some time today adding labels to the blog. (Once an indexer, always an indexer.) Scroll down to see the list of labels in the sidebar at right, then click a label to see related posts. I've got more than 200 posts on this blog, so I may not have applied the labels to everything that needs them, but it's a work in progress. Feel free to let me know if I've missed something.

Some notes:

• The sailing label is (in theory) on posts about sailing rather than posts about hurricanes. I can understand your confusion on this issue when it comes to this particular blog, but I tried to separate the two. See the katrina and hurricanesother labels if you want storm stuff.
• The unschoolingtoday label is for my monthly "What unschooling looked like today" posts. These come out approximately mid-month.
• I think the entertainments, photos, and quotes labels are particularly fun. You get a real hodge-podge with those.

Send label suggestions if you expected to find something and didn't! Enjoy!

Marty and Molly

A photo stolen from one of Jerry's MySpace photo albums.

Skiing in Dubai

Aunt Jorene sent an e-mail about this place. Amazing!

http://www.snopes.com/photos/architecture/indoorski.asp

And on a lighter "Firefly" note

All you fans of the Big Damn Series, Big Damn Movie, and our lovable Big Damn Heroes might enjoy the Big Damn Site.

South Park Jayne cracked me up.

And as long as I'm link-happy, here are some more:

http://browncoats.com/
http://www.fireflywiki.org/
http://www.myspace.com/nathanfillion
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=147037658 (Jewel Staite's MySpace page)

I am Dua Khalil

http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271

The link above is to an essay by Joss Whedon on the recent "honor" (????) killing of 17yo Dua Khalil, while dozens looked on and even videotaped but did nothing to help her. Joss is the creator of (among other things) our much-loved "Firefly" TV series. Here, he gets political—or perhaps simply human.

If you want to watch the horrific video—and maybe we all owe it to this girl to at least look head-on at what was done to her—the video is available here.

You can help! Speak out against violence against women. Contribute. Join the I Am Dua Khalil awareness campaign. Use your online presence to publicize the essay or story above, or simply link to my blog.

I am Dua Khalil, and I refuse to accept honor killings and the inequality of women as an acceptable status quo.

Bravo, Keith

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19588942/

Watch and understand why I wasn't waving an American flag yesterday.

Just the facts

Once we thought the earth was flat

What of that?

It was just as globos then

Under believing men

As our later folks have found it,

By success in running round it;

What we think may guide our acts,

But it does not alter facts.

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

-- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

To learn more about Charlotte, visit this Freethought of the Day page.

On enjoying teenagers

The other day, I was on my office phone working a transportation deal that involved some intensive juggling, car swapping, backtracking, and a number of teenagers. When I finished wrangling, I hung up and let out a heartfelt "Phew!" Then I commented to my officemate that having two teenagers is sometimes rather complicated. She said she imagined so, then I added, "But it's more fun that I thought it would be!" Even without knowing my history, this comment surprised her. She, like so many of us, has bought into our cultural animosity toward the breed: Teenagers are dangerous and scary.

It was this general state of fear and loathing that led me to regard my own children's adolescence with apprehension—even before they had been conceived. MJ recently uncovered a piece of paper that apparently dates back to the early years of my relationship with Frank. On it, I had listed the pros and cons of having kids, and the teenager thing made the Cons list (one of the few cons I, as a rabid kid-lover, had been able to come up with). Needless to say, we carried on with the baby-making even with the dreaded horrors of puberty looming ahead. MJ arrived in all her glory and I was thrilled.

And then came The Talk Show. When MJ was two months old and cousin Chelsea was a newborn, my sister-in-law, Denise, and I were having a little visit, each with infant in arms. The TV was on in the background, and some talk show came on. The topic of the day was teenage girls who hate their mothers. We listened to the venom spewing out of the mouths of those girls and their moms, looked from the TV set to our sleeping cherubs, and then looked at each other in horror. Ohmigod, is that what's in store for us?

And thus began for me a years-long stretch of what-ifs and how-can-we-avoids. Books like Reviving Ophelia and Odd Girl Out both hurt and helped my state of mind: they vehemently, painstakingly confirmed that I had Something to Fear while at the same time offering a glimmer of hope that school was at least part of the problem. Aha! I didn't have any real hope that I'd be able to avoid an adversarial relationship with my future teen girls, but school—and in particular the red flag danger zone of middle school—we could do something about. Our tentative homeschooling plan was born.

As most of you know, that homeschooling-for-middle-school plan has evolved into an unschooling-from-3rd-grade-on plan. What you may not know is what it's meant for my relationship with my daughters, including Chiara. And all their friends. And teenagers everywhere.

I found out something fascinating! Did you know that teenagers are PEOPLE?! Yes, really! It's the most amazing thing! They have ideas and interests and opinions, insecurities and hopes and dreams. They tell me things I never knew ALL THE TIME. They introduce me to people and places and experiences I would have missed otherwise. And it takes so little effort to make friends with them, I'm embarrassed for adults everywhere who freeze up when faced with a teen to talk to. As a group, teenagers are the most creative people I know, with eager brains and compassionate hearts. And all they really want from us is respect.

Why is this such a well-kept secret?

I think the answer is this: Most adults do not want to give teenagers any respect. It's inconvenient. It's not how we were raised. It's scary. And the simple fact is that it seems easier to just lay down the law. "My way or the highway" and "As long as you live under my roof."

Of course, that is exactly false. It is that attitude right there that leads almost inevitably to that adversarial relationship I so feared, a relationship that is stressful, difficult, and time-consuming in the extreme, one that often leads to lifelong damage and expensive psychotherapy.

There is an alternative! The main thing I had to do to become what I am now—a parent who is thoroughly enjoying her teenagers and who feels privileged to be a part of this great adventure they're on—was to learn to really listen to my kids. For years, I have made an effort to put myself in their shoes in every situation, to see through their eyes. And now that they're teenagers, I try to remember that it is their job right now to expand their own horizons and build their own lives.

That knowledge of their quest makes every decision a simple one—not always easy, but simple. It is not my timetable that matters, it's theirs. Any attempt I make to hold them back from what they feel ready for is going to lead to resentment, anger, secrets, and fights. Sometimes what they're ready for isn't comfortable for me. Sometimes it takes tremendous courage for me to set that discomfort aside and trust what they know. But I do it, because it's not about me. It's about them, and it's about saying "yes" to the steps they want to take.

MJ feels ready to hang out with 17 and 18 year olds. (Deep breath, you'll call me if there's drinking and you need a ride, okay, yes.) Chloe feels ready to walk the neighborhood alone. (Deep breath, you have the cellphone, okay, yes.) MJ feels ready to see an intimate documentary about an illegal drug. (Deep breath, you can talk to me if any of it is upsetting, okay, yes.) Chloe feels ready to experiment with haircolor. (Deep breath, you understand hair dye is permanent, okay, yes.)

It's about reexaming my own attitudes about... oh, everything. Sure, I have my own experiences, my own lessons learned, and I do my best to share my nuggets of wisdom with them. But when it comes to their lives, I am the ignorant one. I am the learner. I don't really know this world they live in; it isn't the same world I lived in when I was their age. I don't really know what's best for them. All I know for sure is that my girls will always tell me how it is and what they need from me.

Contrary to popular wisdom, my job is not to set limits. I don't have to restrict their exploration or make judgments about their choices or set curfews or punish them for transgressions against my arbitrary rules. Instead, my job is to work with them to recognize the principles that we all want to live by, principles of trust, respect, honor, legality, and good manners. My job is to support them, to listen, to be available, and, yes, to arrange transportation. My job is to offer resources and time and nuggets and—rarely—a shoulder when one of them discovers she's made a bad choice.

Yeah, that's a lot of jobs! :-) I'm working pretty hard, and sometimes it gets complicated. But we're all having a good time! No venom here. And I'm doing my best to spread the word: Teenagers are fun!