Buns of Strudel

Beautiful and Depressing

2011-04-25T15:13:00.000-05:00

Someone posted the link below on a list I read:

Which shows a truly magnificaent ornithopter in flight. I looked further down the page and spotted the Air Jelly:

And then I wrote this to the list:

I have to tell you that my response is two-fold -- first of all, I am charmed and inspired.

My other response is to want to weep and then visit every single ueber-fanatical fundamentalist church, the US congress, and the RNC headquarters and beat every last son-of-a-b*tch into jelly with a sledgehammer for letting their greed, selfishness, resistance to science, and complete, overwhelming lack of true vision deprive us of being the ones to produce things as beautiful and inspiring on a regular basis. I don't begrudge it to Germany, but I am soul-stressingly sad that we don't do this kind of thing any more, or often, because we have dismantled everything that would have made it possible -- from a national sense of wonder about natural science to an education system that would prepare our children to create magnificent things, and we can't even seem to find it in ourselves to tell ourselves the truth anymore. It crushes me. It f*cking crushes me.

My husband and I would have given our eye teeth and then some, to be a part of that in our younger days. Our children, despite brains and dreams, have little chance, due to shitty preparation and an even shittier political (ie funding and infrastructural support) climate, of being able to participate in the genesis of mechanical/technical wonders.

Where's my goddamned sledgehammer?

Stashbusting Continues

2011-04-24T15:18:00.002-05:00

I have picked up the crochet hook in order to bust some more stash. Here's a circular shawl, the pattern for which is here:

Done in discontinued Lion Bran AlPaKa, about 12 skeins 50 grams each. Works up quickly and busts the stash.

Then I looked in my basket, shown in a prior post, and noticed that I had a lot of ugly yarn ends -- they looked fine as accents for whatever I used them for, but they were murky or boring or just butt ugly all on their own and even lumped together in a basket. So, they had to turn into something. Something masculine, given the general dark tones. So here is my mostly wool Butt Ugly Granny Square Afghan:

Strangely, or maybe not, one of my sons has already declared it "Awesome". I did include 3 50 gram skeins of Herrschner's house brand black acrylic and 2 100 gram skeins of black Encore in the finishing, but for washing and warmth purposes, it's still (Butt Ugly) wool.

I am currently working on one with what seems to me to have the charm of a bulldog puppy -- a little ugly but cute, with screaming red, bowling alley gold, and a nice mocha (of which I am a couple skeins short for a sweater, but there's enough for edging each square), which might turn out comparatively presentable.

Yes, the J sized hook is getting a workout, but the stash is noticeably diminishing!

Hiatus?

2011-03-08T09:44:00.000-06:00

I have been absent for a long time. In a few months, I will provide excuses if anyone cares, but mostly, I’ve been incredibly busy working as an independent lay advocate for disabled children. It’s exhausting and rewarding, and there are far too few of us.

But, I have certainly not stopped knitting! It’s my meditation, my Xanax, my Paxil, my whatever. Unless I have a very tricky or very badly written pattern I’m working from, it soothes me, and I need that every day.

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing:

Here’s a sock yarn afghan in mitered squares (don’t know if I shared this one before):

Here’s a felted red hat and an attempt at a Little Red Hen tea cozy, which looks more like the Loch Ness Monster. I’m still debating about whether or not to make it a long-necked chicken or add fearsome sea monster attributes instead. I’m leaning towards monster.

A very effective tea cozy from a pattern called Nanny Meier’s Tea Cozy . It was a little annoying to work on.

A Charlotte’s Web shawl.

Yet another sock yarn afghan made in long strips for my youngest son, who is holding it up. It really is even, you know how kids are about stuff like this…

I have significantly de-stashed – donating nearly all of my acrylic and/or unloved yarn (17 garbage bags full)

Which left this, plus a chest of drawers full of yarn.

And then there are socks. Always. Socks are my travel project – for waiting in line, in offices, at knitting gatherings – they’re small, they are fun to work on, and they are impressive when bristling with double-pointed needles.

In Chroma yarn…

In Continuum yarn…

There have been a lot more, but I just didn’t remember to take pictures.

I am hoping that as work levels out I can take time to post a little more often than once every couple of years (egad).

I am also on Ravelry, as BoS, but mostly I just hang out there occasionally and goggle at patterns.

ARTIC WINTER TOQUE

2010-01-07T13:55:00.001-06:00

(or “How to get really, really good at ribbing,” or “Stashbuster hat”, or even, “What to do with those sock yarn leftovers”)

I’m pretty sure the title has been a dead giveaway. I see these types of hats all the time, available commercially in a far inferior form. Most sports team hats are of this ilk – a long doubled tube of stockinette stitch with the bottom half of the tube shoved up into the top half of the tube, all gathered together at the top and sewn shut, with a large pompom, and the wearer rolls up the bottom to fit the hat to his or her head. As I said, this is a much inferior version of the handmade type.

In the handmade version, the tube of the hat is made in the ribbing style of your choice, which creates a better fit and a much warmer hat; each end is rounded, not gathered, so there is no need for a pompom, which the wearer may not like; and because there is no sewed portion, the hat is completely reversible. And that’s not even counting how you can customize by yarn weight, fiber type, color, age/size of the person wearing the hat, and so on.

(Two AWTs, on the left is one made with worsted weight yarn, the one on the right is made with sock yarn)

Since I make a great many socks, I always have sock yarn leftovers, which has led to some hard-to-believe projects, like my afghans, but this is a great way to use up even shorter lengths or smaller quantities of leftovers. You can use any weight of yarn, and I really mean that.

Supplies:

Yarn leftovers (sock yarn, about 450 yards/5-6 oz. of bits; with other weights, I’d make sure I had a standard plastic shopping bag of bits). You will just add in as necessary, resulting in very pleasing striping.

Needles ONE size larger than the largest size recommended for that weight yarns, for example, socks are usually on 1’s and 2’s, so use 3’s; worsted weight is generally on 7’s or 8’s, so use 9’s. Both a set of dpns and a 16” circular needle. If you don’t have a 16” circular needle, you can do the whole thing on dpns, but it will get very dreary after a while, and you might find you like these hats and want to make a raft of them with all your annoying leftovers, so don’t be afraid to go ahead and get the circ.

Sizes: (taken from the reference chart in Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, a book which I think should be on every knitter’s reference shelf)

Preemie 15”
0-6 months 16.5”
6-18 months 18.5”
18 months – 4 years 20”
4 years to adult small 21”
Adult med/large 23”

OR your measured head size

Gauge:

Hat is worked with 10% negative ease because of the stretchiness of ribbing. This causes the hat to fit snugly, but not tightly, and spreads the ribbing attractively.

Swatch a 20 st wide test swatch in your chosen ribbing (1X1, 3X2, whatever). Knit until approximately square. Measure SLIGHTLY stretched (enough so you can see the all the purled stitches, but there is still a moderate amount of stretch left in the swatch).

Thinking it through:

Let’s say my head measurement is 22”. So, with the negative ease, I will want a finished measurement of about 20”.

I swatch in sock yarn, getting a slightly stretched width measurement of just under 3.5 inches. At 20 sts per 3.5 inches, this means I’m at 5.7 sts per inch or about 6 sts/in, rounding very slightly up. That is just fine for a ribbing hat.

I know I will need to increase up to 120 sts for a hat with a slightly stretched final circumference of 20”, in accordance with the negative ease mentioned above. When in doubt, add that extra stitch rather than subtracting it; ribbing is your friend in estimating without resulting in inadvertently creating a hat for a yeti.

Casting On and Knitting:

Leaving a tail of at least 6 inches, and using dpns, cast on no fewer than 4 stitches, depending on the ribbing you’ve swatched for. Join.

Try to avoid casting on too many stitches. I think 10 would be too many because then you have to “drawstring” it shut later. In my example, I cast on 5 for a 3X2 ribbing

1. K one row plain. Next row, K1, increase 1 st M1 style, repeat around. (10 sts)
2. K one row plain, next row, K2, increase 1 st M1 style, repeat around. (15 sts)
3. K one row plain, next row, K1, increase 1 st M1 style, repeat around. (30 sts)

Continue in this manner until you have enough stitches to do ALL the knit stitches in your chosen ribbing. Throw in an extra increase on a plain row if you need to, to make it come out right.

In my case, with a ribbing pattern which uses 3 knit and 2 purl stitches, and 120 stitches total, that’s going to be a total of 24 repeats around (120 sts/5 sts in each repeat = 24 repeats) when I get to the final number. So, I would continue the increasing until I have 72 (all the knit stitches I will need: 24 repeats x 3 knit sts = 72 sts) sts.

1. Knit one row plain
2. K3, M1 around (96 sts)
3. K 3, P1 around
4. K3, P1, M1 around (120 sts)
5. K3, P2 around

Knit in ribbing for an unspeakable amount of time. I am not kidding. Because the hat will be folded inside itself and then have a deep folded brim (which gives you FOUR layers over the ears), it will need to be extraordinarily long. The sheer bulk of all that folding takes up room, too, so it’ll be about 2 and 2/3 times as long as a normal hat measurement.

For example, according to Ann Budd’s book, an adult m/l hat would be 9” from beginning of hat to where you start the crown. For this hat, work 24” from starting point to where you begin the decreases. (The math: 2 x 9 = 18, plus 2/3 of 9 = 6, so that’s 18 + 6 = 24… Please, use a calculator if you want, or just keep inverting it and trying it on your head to prove it to yourself; I do both.)

(The sock yarn toque in all its glory prior to being folded into itself)

Nearly The Last Part:

Before beginning decreases, invert the long tube (which probably looks like a closed sleeve by now) so that you are looking at the wrong side of the cast on end, pull the yarn tail through to the inside of the hat, and weave through the starting stitches, pulling tight if necessary, and tie off. Just leave the string hanging there on the inside – no need to weave it in; you’ll never see it again.

Decreases:

Basically, you want to mirror the way you increased. Again using my 3X5 ribbing of 120 sts as an example:

1. K 3, P2 tog around (96 sts)

2. K3, P1 around

3. K2, SSK around (72 sts, all knit)

4. K around

5. K 1, SSK around (48 sts)

6. K around

7. K 2, SSK around (32 sts)

Etc. This does lead to a very rapid decrease, just as it led to a very rapid increase at the beginning. If you don’t like it, feel free to adjust with another variation, your choice. Sometimes I change it around myself, like using a slower increase/decrease w/ a swirl pattern.

When you have decreased to the same number of stitches that you cast on, cut yarn, leaving a 6” tail, pull through, tighten, tie off securely, and pull the tail into the inside of the hat.

You now have a long tube, closed at both ends, and it looks like I’ve been playing knitting pranks on you because it’s MUCH too long to be a hat, right? Grasp it in the middle, put your hand at one end, and shove that end all the way inside the other side of the tube. Fold from what is now the opening (at the former middle) up about 1/3 of the way up the hat and put it on your head, adjusting the doubled bottom edge according to your tastes.

Warm enough to keep you toasty while waiting at a Chicago bus stop for your bus, which, in accordance with Murphy’s Law of Buses, does not arrive for 45 minutes. If you’re also wearing handmade wooly socks inside your boots, you’ll seem as tough as an Emperor penguin, babysitting its egg at the Antarctic, to all your freezing, envious bus stop cohorts. Heh, heh, heh!

Cognitive Dissonance

2009-10-20T02:53:00.003-05:00

In case no one noticed, it's been a while since I've posted. There are reasons, which are also excuses, and maybe someday (if I continue to post) I'll explain them. Meanwhile, it's time for a little snark.

This year, I have only one child left in public school (happy dance, happy dance). The high school he attends has instituted "Sustained Silent Reading" for 25 minutes, three times a week. I could go on about how useful I think this is at the high school level, but I would bore myself just writing about it. And, in general, I think letting kids read what they want to read for extended periods of time without interruption is a good idea; we certainly do plenty of it at home and always have, and it's something each and every one of my children has rejoiced over when they attend WeeM with me ("I can sit in the lobby and read and no one bothers me! Wow! It's almost like being at home.").

For the sake of form, I will also mention, whilst mentally looking off to the side as a diversionary maneuver, that this is a loss of 75 minutes per week of instructional time (ack!) on the block schedule. Ahem. However, in the general realm of theory meets reality, I'm OK with SSR, since most teachers use the last half hour of their classes as study hall for the kids to do their homework, so the kids aren't losing anything they weren't deprived of already.

Last month, though, my youngest came home very disgruntled. His PE class was having a free day. Apparently, during a free day in gym, you can throw a dog toy back and forth with other children, which is called "Throwtron", pick some other activity, or wander in a large circle around the gym for 90 minutes. He chose to wander in a circle, and, because that would generally be considered quite supremely boring, he decided to read while wandering. There weren't a lot of other children wandering -- I guess the lure of chucking a dog toy was too much for some of them to resist -- and he was ambling happily and quietly around, reading.

After a short while, the student teacher noticed, came tearing over and told him he wasn't allowed to read.

Take a moment to let that one soak in, please. He wasn't allowed to read. In a school diverting 75 minutes per week of instructional time to a schoolwide policy to encourage reading, my son was not allowed to read during non-SSR time while walking in a circle. Keep letting that soak in.

He asked why and was told it just was not permitted, and he would not be allowed to listen to an MP3 player or Walkman unless he was Power Walking either. So, he put his book aside and continued to amble around in a circle.

Later on, the staff teacher came over and, in a very intimidating manner, asked him why he was giving the student teacher a hard time. He was gobsmacked by this accusation, and, as far as he remembers, just stood there not speaking, at which point the coach/teacher advised him that it was a safety hazard and he was not to do it again. Let that one soak in, too, reading is a safety hazard when you are walking in a fairly lightly populated circle of very few other children who have opted to wander around rather than chucking pet toys at each other's heads.

Now, I don't dispute the teacher's point -- perhaps one of the knuckle-dragging mouthbreather types who might have been participating in a more hazardous activity would have lobbed a dog toy off to the side and clonked my nerdling on his unobservant head. I cannot figure out how that would be my nerd's fault rather than the fault of the mouthbreather, but he still would have wound up being clonked. Perhaps a more exuberant Power Walker would have been distracted by wild lyrics and a driving heavy metal beat on his/her MP3 player and stomped right over my son, which, again, would not have been my son's fault, but he would still wind up with sneaker marks on his back.

And, just to put a cherry on the top of this sundae of dissonance, he received an F for the day for participation. For wanting to quietly read while engaged in a boring physical activity and asking why he was not allowed to read. Beware the scary, non-conformist, bibliophilic nerd; he is a silent lurking hazard.

When Doodle regaled us with this story, my daughter started shaking her head and reminded us of a similar incident that happened to her while she was in the same high school. She was taking dual credit college courses at school, which started a little later, and which were not offered every day. On her off days, she would go to the school library to read, look over homework, and make quiet, productive use of her time.

She would enter the library, find a table near the back, open up a book and start reading or maybe look out the window. For the first couple of weeks, the library staff kept coming over and asking her what she was doing. She told them, and they would just stand there looking at her for a minute. Perhaps they thought she was going to burst into flame or offer them illicit drugs. Mostly, they didn't believe her. And the reason they didn't believe her is that this was aberrant behavior for students in a school library. Take another moment and let that one soak in, too -- a student using extra time to go to the library and read is an anomalous behavior in the school.

They did stop coming over to find out what she was up to after a while, but then spent time just staring at her from their desks/safety positions near the emergency hotline (or whatever), in case she did spontaneously combust or begin dancing the tarantella on the tables, thereby disrupting the other students who.... weren't there. In fact, in a year of going to the library on her off days, the only time other students came into the library was when an entire class came in with the teacher to do a specific project, during which time they were invariably noisy, obnoxious, and didn't concentrate on what they were supposed to be doing.

After this happened a couple of times, she decided to leave a few minutes before the bell and go get her stuff from her locker and make sure to be at her first class a little early. That worked out fine until she got caught being in the halls before the bell, screamed at by a teacher, and sent to the office for disciplinary action...for going to her locker early to get her supplies so she could be early and prepared for class. Let that one soak in, too.

I suppose you'd need to know my daughter to understand why this is possibly the most ludicrous, inexplicable response to her actions -- people smile when she comes into a room because she is a happy, quiet person. She is generally teacher's pet in every class, including the professors she has in college. She is calm, diligent, intelligent, does her homework before it's due, respects teacher time, follows directions, checks her resources, thinks deeply about issues, gives measured and worthy responses to questions, and, so far, has a straight A record in college. Her professors invite her out for a smoothie in the Caf when they need cheering up. They tell her they appreciate having her in class. They give her sweatshirts, hoodies, and free lockers just because she is so swell. She's allowed to use their personal equipment without supervision because she's so darned trustworthy and sensible. And she has always been this way.

So, for the very first time in 13 years of public schooling, her first and only disciplinary referral was because she was doing something as threatening to life as we know it as... getting her class supplies early so she could be early and prepared for class.

Somehow, somewhere, the educational industry has lost sight of reality and has completely forgotten the underlying principle to encouraging good habits and behavior.

It's pretty simple, really, "Reward the behavior you wish to encourage."

I suggest they start taking notes. There will be a quiz.

Do the Funky Chicken

2009-01-12T15:50:00.002-06:00

It’s cold and snowy and about to get much, much colder and much, much snowier. So, like all chronic knitters, my fancy has turned to felting. I have two hats and one Secret Project in the laundry room awaiting felting. I couldn’t wait for messing with a felted something, though, because, for a person who makes things stitch by stitch, I have surprisingly little patience, so I found an old felting project from a previous arctic cold spell and decided to make use of it immediately.

It was a misbegotten attempt at a project bag, and I know exactly why it was so ugly and awful. I was trying to use up two ugly, awful yarns that I had acquired somehow, and I couldn’t think of what to do with them. One was a speckledy purple with some twiggy bits still in it, and the other was someone else’s first attempt at dying yarn – purple and green and splotches of white. I kept shoving them to the bottom of the theoretical project basket until finally I thought “striped felted bag” and cast on, knit like crazy until I was nearly out of each yarn, then I flung it in the washer over and over until I hated it enough to lose it in a laundry basket. I then brought it upstairs and lost it in my husband’s clutter for a year or so. It got moved around for another year, always at the bottom of some pile we didn’t want to deal with, but it escaped a week or two ago, and whispered, in its croaky, hoarse little green and purple voice, “do something with me”.

So, I decided to make a felted tea cozy out of the top half, and maybe use the bottom half for a smaller project bag. I cut 10 inches off the top of the bag, so that I wouldn’t back down and hide it again, and then browsed around on the net for ideas. I kind of figured I wanted a chicken cozy of some sort, but I was looking for a simple enough idea so that I could cut it out, sew it (I am sewing impaired), and make it look reasonably chickeny. I had some success, cut out a rough chicken shape, then realized it was going to need eyes, a beak, a comb, and probably a hanging loop. I crocheted everything but the eyes, and then I found two slightly stoned looking two-tone buttons in my sad little sewing basket, which would do for crazed chicken cozy eyes. Below is the result, which I am pleased to say, everyone one in the house immediately recognized as a chicken, however the follow-up question was, repeatedly, “Why is it purple and green?”

Should you become possessed by the need for a felted chicken cozy and have some unloved felted material around, my rough working outline was as follows:

1. Piece of felted knitting, 20 inches long by 10 inches high; fold in half for a 10 inch square; cut out general chicken shape

2. With about 6 yards of crochet kitchen cotton crochet a beak (ch8, sl 1, sc to end, cut and draw yarn though), a comb (c8, turn sl 1 in first st, in next st * 1 sc, 1 hdc, 1dc, 1hdc, in next stitch 1 sc *, repeat twice, end with sl st in last chain, bo) and a loop (ch 15)

3. Turn chicken inside out, sew from tail across back, inserting and sewing loop at midback (make sure it will hang out on the right side), sew to beginning of top of head, insert comb and do similarly, then about halfway down the chicken face, insert the stub of the beak and sew it in, then sew the chicken breast.

4. Turn right side out and display proudly to family. Fits fairly snugly over a 3-4 cup (or smaller) teapot.

And, it really, really keeps the tea warm. My first test drive included going off to do something else for 2 hours and coming back to tea still warm enough to be soothing and fragrant. If I were given a do-over, I’d make it a couple of inches wider, but it is just the right height.

Which leads me to my Secret Project – a Little Red Hen Cozy. Again, I have some unloved red yarn, and lots of it, in my stash. I’d already made a dog sweater for Gracie from it, as well as a hat awaiting felting for me, and there was still a bodacious amount of yarn left. I have done all the knitting on the LRHC, but I’m going to wait until it’s been felted before publishing. I should probably ‘fess up here and admit that I have a general chicken theme to my kitchen, which so far includes some pictures of cheeky roosters, a ceramic rooster, a wooden speckled hen, and some chicken dishtowels. And a chicken tea cozy now, too.

More Knits

I was sick with bronchitis for most of the holidays, but I can’t stand to have idle hands, so I made, as I mentioned in a previous post, another Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl.

It came out pretty nicely, too. The blues look much more differentiated in tone in person. The sequence is medium blue, marled blue (one strand each of dark, light and medium blue), and light blue, with dark blue in between each section and all around the border.

Oddball Word of the Day

2009-01-12T15:47:00.002-06:00

ablation (ab-LAY-shehn): n. a wearing away, as of a glacier by erosion or the nose cone of a rocket by the heat to high-speed reentry into the atmosphere

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Online Shopping for Older Gals

2008-12-11T16:40:00.003-06:00

OK, some folks may object to the term “gals”. I beg your durn pardon. In my family, we use the term kindly, in the manner of “dames” – slang for women who liked to do fun things, hang out, and occasionally tell an earthy joke.

Nevertheless, we’re hard to shop for sometimes – we won’t tell you our clothing or shoe sizes, we generally have most of what we truly NEED to get through the day, and we have our own quirky tastes, about which we may have developed enough diplomacy to not hold forth with opinions full of clues. Generally, this leaves the well-intended gift giver with two options – a fruit/food basket or bath stuff.

Speaking as a middle-aged gal, I can buy my own fruit and food (although, in my heart of hearts, a modest fruit basket IS nice this time of year), and I have enough bath stuff to last well beyond my life expectancy. So, herein are some starting points and my personal favorites. All websites have been visited recently, ordered from within the last year, if not the last quarter, and shipments or emails have been prompt and polite.

Todd & Holland Tea Merchants : My knitting friend introduced me to their teas, teapots, and general wonderfulness. This is real store that has a delightful shop to visit, if you are ever in the area, and you’ll find that everyone is absolutely, positively nice as they can be. The website can be a tad hinky (if it looks like you’re getting a blank page, scroll allllll the way down), but you can make special requests or ask a question in the “comments”: box when you order, and they’ll call you back right away. They also ship like lightning -- I’ve ordered on a Tuesday and opened my box o’ tea on the very next Wednesday afternoon.

My highest recommendation goes to this tea tumbler which is a thermos for loose tea so you can take your tea with you. It’s great, and only $15.

As far as teas themselves (Teas are priced at their large sized packages. Request the sampler 0.05 lb or 0.12 lb sizes in the comments/special request box at checkout), I recommend: Jasmine Pearls (if you like the scent of Jasmine) , which is a delight for the senses, Northern Lights, a white tea with a wonderful spicy, warm aroma, perfect for chilly days, Goji Xing , a white tea with a mild melon flavor from the Goji berries, and Green Tea with Lemon and Hibiscus , which is very refreshing and light.

If you want to do something really fun and special, buy one of their glass teapots and a selection of Performance Teas . Performance teas are not to enhance your performance, they are small bundles of tea which you throw in a pot of hot water and watch them unfold into beautiful tea sculptures as they brew – which is why a glass pot is recommended. My daughter and I brew a pot of performance tea every Friday and do girl talk for a half an hour or so – it is a very nice experience and time for girl-type bonding, a good bargain at $2.50 per tea bundle.

Also, their Bee House teapots are a joy to use, not only because they are cute, but also because they are easy to clean. The lid pulls right off, the tea strainer basket lifts out, and it couldn’t be easier to tidy up when you’re done.

Faerie’s Finest : I don’t know about their other products, but their flavored sugar is great. I have tried the Citrus Burst and Raspberry Ripple and find them delightful. I sometimes like to use the Raspberry in my coffee, which makes it taste almost dessert-like, and you get good value for your money.

Bath and Bodyworks : Yes, I know what I said about bath stuff. They also have very nice socks and other textiles, and everyone I know uses their antibacterial hand sanitizers, and their antibacterial soaps are agreeable, too. I recommend the Kitchen Lemon for the soap – at $3 each, it’s a nice stocking stuffer, and it won’t make you smell like a pre-teen girl.

If your intended recipient likes wildlife, Whales and Friends has nice products. I have a penguin tote of very nice quality that I got as a gift from them.

For knitters, especially sock knitters, this year’s Patternworks has something new – sock yarn knitted into a scarf , then dyed in a funky pattern, and you knit FROM the scarf into a pair of socks. I’m hoping to get one of these this year.

Their “tools” section has all kinds of spiffy stuff, including Eucalan wool wash and a good chart holder. “Finishing touches” has nice shawl pins, clasps and purse handles.

And, finally, if you want something unique and beautiful that is not in any of the above categories, I recommend a good browse through the Art Institute of Chicago’s gift shop. I have found spectacular silk scarves, jewelry, bowls and other wonderful housewares there. Not cheap, but excellent quality and very memorable.

Happy shopping!

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-12-11T16:37:00.001-06:00

boulevardier (BOOL-eh-var-DEER) n. a man-about-town who frequents fashionable places

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

The Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl

2008-12-10T05:49:00.003-06:00

I generally do not encourage, nor practice, any knitting for Christmas after Thanksgiving, unless it’s something I’m already familiar with and which would otherwise be a one or two day project. My main reason for not doing “Christmas knitting” is that the season is already so full of things to do, anxiety and chaos, that sticking a large project in there which must be done in time seems like a recipe for ruining my enjoyment of the season with unnecessary stress. That doesn’t mean that I stop knitting – I pick things that are basically mindless knitting, which I can do in front of the TV, and it’s nice if they look much more spiffy than their ease would imply.

One of these kinds of projects is the Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl designed by Sarah Bradberry, who has a wonderful website with lots of fun free knitting patterns, including this one for the shawl. This pattern is very rewarding for new or insecure knitters because it is easy to make and looks nice, and we “old hands” like it, too.

I’ve made it twice and am working on a third one. The first was made of oddments, looked nice, and I gave it away. This is the second one, made of Wool-Ease oddballs.

The one I’m working on now is in acrylic blues with a sparkle thread (I had a brain spasm) that I bought as a package from Herrschner’s online – Snow and Ice is the name of the color combination. I can tell you from past experience, this is one of the fastest shawls to make that I’ve done. I use needles sizes one larger than recommended for the yarn, which adds extra drape and emphasizes the lacy aspect.

The pattern is screamingly easy to memorize – it’s basically three rows of knit (giving two garter rows on the right side), then a row of knit, a row of purl and a row of knit with the easy doodly pattern, then start over.

When you print out the pattern, it seems daunting because it’s seven pages long. Three of those are pictures for the person who likes very specific visual guides. The remaining pages are double-spaced for clarity. It’s well written with no mistakes or typos (RAH, RAH, SIS-BOOM-BAH!), and the ONLY addition I would make is to add in four markers – one before and one after the feather and fan pattern on row 57 on each side.

I have two reasons for the markers. One, I like a tactile reminder to watch out for the center stitch when I’m aimlessly knitting along (the two center markers do that). The other reason is that the pattern repeats over 18 stitches, and if I want to make mine longer than the step-by-step instructions, adding markers helps me make sure I’ve built up a enough stitches to add in another two repeats. The pattern is certainly well written enough to not need them, if you prefer not.

So, I recommend making a Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl this Christmas, all the way through the holidays, and giving it to yourself when you are done because you won’t mind if it’s late or early or has a mistake in it somewhere (which only you can see, but if you’re like me, it’s the ONLY thing you can see for quite a while).

Wear it in the mornings when you’re having your early beverage, wear it at night when you stay up late to look at the tree, take it with you when you go out to get the mail and sling it around your head and shoulders like a giant scarf. Loan it to the kids as a mini-blanket while watching TV. Wear the daylights out of it and then make another one!

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-12-10T05:45:00.001-06:00

stenophagous (stin-OFF-eh-gehs): adj. able to live on a narrow range of foodstuffs (sounds like teenagers)

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

FREE Knitting Pattern - Welted Tea Cozy

2008-12-01T07:57:00.002-06:00

Welted Tea Cozy
(No sew, knits up quickly, fits a wide variety of teapot shapes and sizes)

Supplies:
Probably 6 oz of scrap worsted - About 4 oz in light color, 2 oz in dark
One pair size 8 needles,
One set size 3 dpns

Finished measurement: unstretched 10 inches around, stretched 18-20, 6” high in welted area, top adds another 2” of height, 5” of I-cord (folds to 2.5”)

SIDE:
CAST ON 25 stitches with size 8 needles in lighter yarn.
Knit 6 rows in stockinette. Turn so back side (reverse stockinette) is facing you. This side of the lighter color knitting will become the outside (right side) of the cozy.
*Change to darker color without cutting lighter color and knit stockinette 4 rows.
Do not turn work yet.
Change back to lighter color, knit one row across, turn, knit 5 rows stockinette.*

(You should now have one sticky-out, bunched-up “welt” in the lighter color, one “welt” in the darker color sticking out in the opposite direction, and a third welt in the lighter color. The work is VERY stretchy. Use even numbers of rows of each color so that the color changes are all on one side.)

Repeat the rows between the asterisks above until you have 5 welts of each color, the last one being dark.

SPOUT OPENING:
In lighter color work first row as above, turn, work 2 rows stockinette.
Next row, knit 8, bind off 12, knit 5.
Next row purl 5, cast on 12, purl 8
Next row, knit 25.

Continue 2nd side as first side above, with 5 welts in each color, this time the last one is light colored.

HANDLE OPENING:
In darker color, knit 1 row stockinette.
Next row, purl 5, cast off 15, purl 5
Next row knit 5, cast on 15, knit 5
Next row, purl 25.

BIND OFF as follows:
Turn work inside out (dark welts protruding). Line up the original cast on side and the last row of the final dark welt. Slip the first stitch of dark, pick up the bottom of the corresponding cast on in light and slip that also. Knit both the next dark stitch and the bottom of the next corresponding light cast on stitch as if they were one, pass the two slipped stitches over. You now have one dark stitch on the working needle, the rest of the dark stitches on the holding needle, and the light edge is dangling.

Basically, what you are doing is a three-needle bind off without the third needle – the cast on stitches are being worked in as if they were on that third needle. If you are more comfortable with three needles, by all means, put the cast on stitches on one and continue binding off.

Bind off all stitches in this manner. You now have a cylinder with one shorter slit for the spout and one longer slit for the handle.

TOP:
With dpns pick up 64 stitches around the top. (I make the side with the color changes the top so I can just knit right over the side floats.) This will pull the work in slightly. If you prefer to pick up more stitches, it’s absolutely your choice, # of stitches is not critical, however they should be divisible by either 4 or 6.

Work 1 to 3 rounds even, your choice. I did one.

Begin swirling decrease:
(SKP, K14) four times (60 sts)
(SKP, K13) four times (56 sts)
etc. – knitting one less between SKPs each row until you are down to 4 sts.

Knit the 4 sts in I-cord for 5 inches, bind off, leave a 5-inch tail, pull through.
Weave tail tightly into inside of top.

VARIATIONS: If you want the top to be flatter, decrease by 6 sections (as opposed the four above). For absolutely flat tops, 8 sections should do the trick. Put one row of even knitting in between decrease rows for a wider top.

Feel free to use all one color, different welting variations, whatever.

I used a loop on top because that makes the cozy easy to remove, and I can hang it on a kitchen hook where it’s cute and up out of mess. The loop is not important otherwise.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-12-01T07:08:00.000-06:00

proceleusmatic (PROS-eh-loose-MAT-ik): adj. arousing to action or animation; putting life into; encouraging

(from MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)

Absent for Cause

2008-10-29T09:19:00.001-05:00

My father passed away on October 17th after a long stay in the ICU of the local hospital. I have been dealing with the aftermath and final rites (and my sister) since then. I hope to return to a more active blogging state once I have finalized his estate matters.

I am both sorry and relieved that he is gone. I will miss my dear father, but I am not sorry that he is finally relieved of living with Alzheimer's in a body so frail and fragile that he could no longer sit upright, nor care for any of his own personal needs, nor had he been able to do so for several years.

My sister has been here for a month, and I have been very close to either sticking a fork in my own eye or in hers. I've settled for drinking a lot of green tea, smiling vacantly at her monologues, and telling myself I was doing it for Dad while, in the words of one of my favorite humor writers, Dave Barry, my brain snuck out of my cranium and went off to do something more interesting.

I wish any readers the best and give you my thanks for checking in. Don't give up. I'll probably need to vent (maniacal laughter) in a week or so.

God bless you.

Absent for Cause

2008-10-29T09:08:00.004-05:00

My father passed away on October 17th after a long stay in the ICU of the local hospital. I have been dealing with the aftermath and final rites (and my sister) since then. I hope to return to a more active blogging state once I have finalized his estate matters.

I am both sorry and relieved that he is gone. I will miss my dear father, but I am not sorry that he is finally relieved of living with Alzheimer's in a body so frail and fragile that he could no longer sit upright, nor care for any of his own personal needs, nor had he been able to do so for several years.

My sister has been here for a month, and I have been very close to either sticking a fork in my own eye or in hers. I've settled for drinking a lot of green tea, smiling vacantly at her monologues, and telling myself I was doing it for Dad while, in the words of one of my favorite humor writers, Dave Barry, my brain snuck out of my cranium and went off to do something more interesting.

I wish any readers the best and give you my thanks for checking in. Don't give up. I'll probably need to vent (maniacal laughter) in a week or so.

God bless you.

Why Kids Don’t Read

2008-08-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

I don’t have this problem. I introduced my kids to literature by reading to them a whole lot when they were babies and toddlers, and they were fascinated by the sound of the written word, the delightful illustrations in children’s books, and by having their imaginations stimulated. I can remember each of their first favorite books.

Spot’s favorite book was a cutout, cardboard book with beautifully illustrated pictures on how to get dressed. It was called Teddy Dresses. Teddy had a lot of trouble figuring out the difference between socks and mittens. Spot used to laugh and laugh at Teddy’s troubles, but I noticed he also took the book to bed with him sometimes and was very carefully (and correctly) clad the next day.

Bunny’s favorite book was the timeless Cat in the Hat. She was lulled by the rhythm of the words, and enthralled by the pictures. She pored over the pictures when I was too busy to read to her and memorized the placement of the disgruntled fish, Things One and Two, and the posture of the misbehaving cat in each drawing.

Doodle’s favorite was a freebie book we got either through a school program giveaway or from some other freebie source, back when giving away kid books was a big thing. It was called Snug Bug. Snug Bug was a mischievous little antennaed fellow who played in all kinds of people places and had to be tucked into bed by his bug mom. It was a good bedtime story; he invariably wanted to be tucked into bed just like Snug Bug.

They’ve all read their way through the Harry Potter (Doodle’s first grade teacher was a good egg – she liked that he was bringing “big, chapter books” to school because it sparked a competitive spirit in her other students and made them want to improve their reading skills, too) several times; they’ve read the Eragon books (and weren’t impressed); they’ve read stories by Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Anne McCaffrey, Agatha Christie, Nancy Atherton, Stephen King, Meg Cabot, Frank Herbert, Janet Evanovich, Lincoln Child, Douglas Preston, Mercedes Lackey, C. J. Cherryh, Diane Duane, Larry Niven… The list of authors whose works they enjoy reading for pleasure is endless. They come by it honestly because I am a compulsive reader, and I’m pretty sure it’s contagious.

One thing these books all have in common is that they are fun to read, not because they are all silly, although some of them are, not because they are all adventure stories, although some of them are, but because they are written with social, emotional and intellectual skill. They don’t bludgeon the reader over the head with ham-fisted moralizing or coma-inducing manifestos on social ills; they allude to them, assume prior knowledge, or analogize, something which seems to escape learned and erudite literary critics, who frequently seem to assign science fiction, horror, suspense, cottage mysteries, and other forms of popular fiction the automatic label of “unworthy fluff”. What these critics seem to be missing is that it takes an open and agile mind to make a point without sticking that point painfully in the reader’s eye.

What writers whose books are frequently read for pleasure understand, it seems to me, is that people read during their leisure time because they want to go to a magic show, not church. We want to be entertained, enthralled, surprised, amazed, see something new, see a new twist on something old, see something through different eyes, and we want it to be easy to enjoy, we want the escapism inherent in becoming engrossed in a book to be smooth and deftly managed; we do not want to have The Point hammered through our “idiot” skulls like a railroad spike driven home with sledgehammer obviousness.

It’s not that common literary themes are not addressed in popular fiction, it is that they are not painted in such broad strokes that they obscure the art and magic of good writing. It is as easy to understand racism from reading Asimov’s Caliban as it is from reading To Kill a Mockingbird. One is considered “classic literature”, but the other is dismissed as “only science fiction”. The former draws the reader into a world which has not yet existed, requires no additional research, whereas the latter requires the reader to learn more about a specific time period with which they may not be familiar, in order to understand The Point. Which one do you think kids would enjoy reading more?

I have yet to figure out why writing a five-page paper on the literary themes in The Good Earth or To Kill A Mockingbird is considered of greater intellectual worth than doing the same from an examination of The Mote in God’s Eye or The Dragonriders of Pern. The intellectual work is more sophisticated with the sci-fi and fantasy books because The Points are subtler. I do understand that it would not be in accordance with a standard expectation of having read “the classics”. I would argue that “the classics” need some amending. It’s not wrong to think outside the paradigm, which is, in fact, something we’d like to encourage in our children.

And, I’m not alone in my thoughts. An article by a private school English teacher in Sunday’s Washington Post, entitled “We’re Teaching Books That Don’t Stack Up” makes this argument, to some extent, as well.

Way back in the Jurassic, when I was a freshman in college, I took an introductory English class. The grad student teaching the class would habitually put a quotation on the board from some literary work – not all were from standard classics. He’d ask if anyone was familiar with the quotation, and my spring-loaded arm would shoot into the air. After a week of this, and the usual skills assessment first paper, the teacher had me come in to his office, and a few other teaching assistants and a professor or two and I conversed in a general manner while I was waiting for my TA to explain why I was there.

It turned out that he was getting departmental permission for me to go on independent study. I’ve written about this before , but what I haven’t said is that I wrote my research papers on science fiction short stories. It wasn’t a problem either; it was a joy, and it was a joy to me because I didn’t have to hack my way through archaic English, characters that didn’t interest me, situations that were insipid, painfully historical, or drenched in one or another overpowering Points. I got to read what I wanted to read, but I had to make good on that by using the skills of good literary analysis. What I read wasn’t important, how I read it was.

I suppose I didn’t understand at the time how unusual that permission and resultant independent study was in the context of English studies. I retroactively applaud that TA, and the English department professors, for being astute enough to understand what the real Point of studying literature is – to enjoy the magic show while being able to unravel the magician’s tricks right down to the equipment, props, and the foundations of the stage itself. But it all starts with the lure of the show, doesn’t it?

I sent my daughter, who is majoring in English, a link to the article referenced above. Here’s her response:

“Thanks, Mom! That was really interesting. I can totally identify with this article, too. When we read The Scarlet Letter junior year, I automatically geared myself to hate it due to past experience, and therefore failed to enjoy what I now realize was actually a really good book. So much of what we have to read for school is obviously good literature, but they make it horrible by dragging us through it by reading aloud and mixing it in with so much depressing literature that we can't identify the great works anymore. I realize now that Great Expectations really wasn't that bad, but since I went into it EXPECTING to hate it, that's exactly what happened.”

Ahem.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-08-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

appetence (AP-eh-tehns): n. intense natural desire; craving

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

SpEd Tip #2: Keep Your Documents…and In Order

2008-08-22T11:32:00.002-05:00

One of the first things I have my clients do is round up all their documents regarding their child – medical records, specialist records, school records, notes from teachers, standardized test results, etc. I ask them to put them in reverse chronological order, with the earliest documents on the bottom and the most recent on the top.

There is a very good reason for doing this – it creates an excellent way for me, and for the client, to review their child’s educational history and how medical diagnoses and treatments affect their educational progress. We can each read through the file, or stack, or mountain, as the case may be, from bottom to top, and get a pretty comprehensive understanding of how the child has arrived at the point where the parent is seeking special education services, and my services as well.

We can see what the school has done, if anything, over time, which teachers were on the ball and which weren’t, and we sometimes, speaking as a parent, find out that we have fallen short from time to time as well. Having the documents arranged and collected in this manner is a real eye-opener.

This also helps highlight which documents are missing, and there will be some gaps. One of the things I do, early in my relationship with the client, is a document review. I check to see if there is a full set of grades, standardized test results, documentation supporting any special ed services, and so forth. There is very rarely a complete set, and that’s absolutely normal.

When that happens, it’s important to fill in the blanks by sending the school a FERPA letter. Further information on what FERPA means and what should be in the school records is here . Here is a sample FERPA letter, which can be altered to fit the child’s specific information:

Your Name
Your Address
City, State, Zip
Home Phone

Date

Mr. , Principal
UNCOOPERATIVE SCHOOL
Street Address
City, State, zip

Re: Name of student

Dear (Principal):

As you are aware, my child is a student at Uncooperative School (or “has been found eligible for special education and related services and currently has an IEP”). In order for me to have a clearer picture of my child’s educational history, please either make available for review and photocopying or send me a complete copy of my son’s entire cumulative and confidential records.

Please be sure to include copies of all evaluations and actual test scores, any electronic communications, computer records or records stored on other media, and any personally identifiable records regarding my child. If there is a cost and policy about photocopies, please let me know immediately.

If you have questions about my request, please contact me at the number listed above.
Thank you for your assistance and quick response.

Sincerely,

, parent

Cc: Name of, Lay Advocate
Name of, Special Ed Director

This letter must be signed by the parent, and it’s important to follow up on it. Usually the school will make copies and have the parent come in and get them. Sometimes they will only make them available and the parent has to come in and review the file and ask for specific copies. Other times they may refuse to make copies, and the parent should bring a camera or hand scanner and get copies that way.

It is often the case that the first letter does not do the job. Some records may have been sent off to the regional office of education, some records are purged annually and are no longer available, and very often schools do not include the emails which mention your child. In that case, I follow up with FERPA letters to the special ed folks, the regional office of ed., and a letter to the school which mentions missing documents and asks for a further search (and copies) or which nicely asks where these items might be.

Schools will not admit to having lost documents, and are often snarky enough to ignore the letter requesting additional or missing documents. It doesn’t matter – if you’ve sent a written request for the documents and/or an explanation, you have behaved reasonably and entered YOUR LETTER into the record. If you don’t get a response within 10 days, send a photocopy, clearly marked SECOND REQUEST (and add the second request date) all in red at the top in large print.

It can sometimes take six months before you can be sure you have exhausted every possible location where a document might be stored and before you are sure you have a comprehensive list of what’s still missing. That’s normal, too. Generally, the first two letters (first FERPA and first follow up) will unearth enough information to make it possible to move forward with reasonable accuracy and efficiency.

Keep copies of all the letters and emails you send, too. This saves time in finding addresses and contacts, and makes your records the best available should legal action become necessary down the road.

This dogged pursuit of every possible document relating to your child is the most valuable thing parents can do to assist themselves, their advocate, or their attorney in getting appropriate and timely services for a disabled child. There is a real wealth of information in longitudinal educational data – charts and graphs can be made showing lack of progress, decreasing scores over time, pinpoint areas of particular concern, show a puzzling relationship between class grades and standardized scores, and so on.

I have used this kind of information with consistent success and gotten real insight into the clients’ children, finding out things they haven't noticed in the face of more obvious problems. Visual presentations of data are winners in meetings, too – it’s hard for the school district to argue with their own data showing steadily decreasing abilities and scores. They don’t do this kind of reporting or analysis, but you should (or your advocate or other helper).

Your stack of paper will become pretty large, and lots of people are surprised by the eventual size of it. Make a copy of everything, put the originals away safely, and then keep the copies, in the order mentioned before, in a big, sturdy, three-ring binder with a divider for each year. Particularly important documents can be tagged with bright sticky notes so that you can find them easily in order to refer to them. You want copies, not originals, in your “working notebook” because you must not punch holes or make marks on your original documents, if at all possible – that’s why you store those elsewhere.

Bring your big, scary binder to each meeting until you have an IEP or 504 that you think is appropriate and complete. Over time, and with successful interactions with your school district, you will be able to retire the early information, since you won’t need to refer to it much. You can reduce your working binder to this year’s and the preceding year’s information, PLUS the complete set of standardized and special ed domain tests (and your visuals) and grades (and visuals). Remember, this is ALL current information to and from the school district and education personnel – your emails and letters, doctors’ note or letters, etc.

Do not, under any circumstances, give in to the urge to purge until your child has graduated high school, or if they have extended services to age 21, until those services expire. I guarantee you that you will never regret having collected, analyzed, and kept all this information.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-08-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

slumgullion (slum-GUL-yuhn): noun 1. a dish of stewed meat and vegetables, 2. any weak, watered-down soup or beverage

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

German Idiom for Friday

2008-08-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

die Karre aus dem Dreck ziehen (colloquial): to put things right, to sort things out

zB: Mein Arbeitskollege ist wirklich unzuverlaessig. Wenn er etwas verpfuscht, muss immer ich die Karre aus dem Dreck ziehen.

auf Englisch: My workmate is really unreliable. When he bungles something I'm always the one who has to sort things out.

(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-06-12T05:40:00.000-05:00

prosody (PROS-eh-dee) n. the study of verse form and poetic meter

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Knitting Knaughties

2008-06-12T04:51:00.000-05:00

...or "What I've Been Doing (with my needles) On My Summer Vacation"

Making socks... Blue pair above is a Berrocco "Comfort Sock" yarn, 100% nylon and amazingly soft and the yarn is quite fine. The orange and blue striped pair is from some close-out yarn from Knit Picks. The lilac pair is made from Trekking XXL, and is a heavier weight which will be nice and toasty this fall and winter.

Here we have two pairs of socks in my favorite "Jitterbug" sock yarn from Colinette. Boy, is that great yarn to work with -- very smooth, springy, tightly plied, and the colors are fabulous. The pair on the left is colorway "Sahara" and the cuff is a spiraling 3X3 rib, which looks pretty kicky in person. I can't remember the colorway name for the socks on the right.

Then, just this past weekend, a bunch of us Chix left our Stix behind and went off to take advantage of a yarn sale at Peggy's Strands of Heaven a few towns away. What a wonderful
store! It's in a converted bungalow home, with each room having a table of some sort and several comfy seats, plus lots of yarn nicely stored in wall bins, so that you can sit and knit and really enjoy your time there. They were having a sale because of roadwork going on in front of the store, and wanted to unload some inventory and take a vacation until it's easier for customers to get there -- smart idea. I got some lovely bargains, including this FULL POUND of Mountain Colors Weavers yarn in "Wild Flower" at half price (happy dance!), and this other skein of seductively soft sock yarn from Knitting Like Crazy in "Mint Julep". I've been

touching it a lot and it'll probably be my next project. Not shown are a handful of name brand patterns for the amazing price of a QUARTER each (usually priced over $5), and some freebies, all carefully sold in their plastic protective sleeves. I also got a skein of Bearfoot sock yarn in "Ruby River" -- wow!

The gals at Peggy's were running a class on lace knitting while we were getting ready to leave, but they were just as nice as pie, and I can't say enough about their store; it's definitely worth another visit.

I've been quite inspired by a friend's purchase of Ann Budd's "Getting Started Knitting Socks" book because, even though I already have a wooly clue, she writes in a straightforward, easy to follow manner, with lots of useful illustrations, and the books are always bound so that they can be laid open for reference while your hands are busy with needles and yarn. There's a very good illustration of the "eye of partridge" heel in there, and her favorite ribbing is now my favorite ribbing. I was so inspired and pleased that I wound up buying my own copy.

And, because I have spells where I have to buy more yarn stuff, I picked up a few pairs of Harmony multi-colored wood needles from Knit Picks, and I also gave in and got B. Walker's Mosaic Knitting. I'll report back later on how the needles are in actual use; they sure are pretty to look at. Walker's book is... cool. I like how mathematical the designs are, and as I was flipping through the charts and pictures, I got an idea for using a whole raft of the swatch squares for an entire Mosaic afghan. I may come to pass or not, we'll see.

Earlier this year, I tried out Elizabeth Zimmerman's moccasin foot sock. I was not impressed. It was, as all her creations were, extremely well thought out and it did what she said it would, but I just didn't like all the grafting across the center of the sole, and as I stuck my test sock on my foot, it sure looked like there were a lot of areas which were likely to be under more stress than in a traditional sock, thereby creating, as Einstein purportedly said, more holes. So, I frogged it and moped.

Then, I went a-hunting on Ravelry and found a pair of felted booties, which I will show you when they're done (complete with link) which are being a real logic/topology puzzle to assemble, but the finished product might just be cute. Also in the works, a prototype slipper with a crocheted sole and knit body, which is growing out of my frustration with the EZ MocSock. It's going pretty well, and I'll put it up as a freebie as soon as I feel I've got everything written down properly.

Keep 'em clickin'!

Five Things About Living In The Boonies

2008-06-06T12:02:00.002-05:00

(about 0.5 miles from me)

1. Not a lot of traffic, although sometimes the wildlife is both cheeky and stupid. Long drives can be dangerously hypnotic across the flat, flat, flat terrain.

2. Very Big Sky... Which is way cool for those times when you want to lie in the grass or float in a pool or pond and watch the clouds change shape and move on by. It also means tornados, whirlwinds (really!), microbursts, killer arctic winds in winter, and dust storms when it's been dry. And, staaaaaaaaaars, like you wouldn't believe, all year round.

3. Stocking up on canned goods is still a smart idea before the first snowfall.

4. Lots of quiet. Sometimes the loudest noise is the wind.

5. You can let your energetic Labrador off his lead to run and run and run in a straight line, and he'll come back exhausted, happy, and unharmed.

German Idiom for Friday

2008-06-06T11:59:00.002-05:00

Das Eisen schmieden, solange es heiss ist.: 1) Strike while the iron is hot; 2) Make hay while the sun shines.

zB: Kauf dir heute noch das Auto. Ab morgen steigen die Preise. Man soll das Eisen schmieden, solange es heiss ist.

auf Englisch: Buy the car today. Tomorrow the prices are going up. One should strike while the iron is hot.

(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-06-06T11:50:00.001-05:00

Weltanschauung (VELT-ahn-shouw-oong): n. a comprehensive philosophy or conception of the universe and of human life in relation to it.

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Bleeping Across the Radar Screen

2008-05-24T15:06:00.002-05:00

Just a few things that flew by today (w/ links and excerpts, emphasis added)…

Through the EducationNews.org newsletter, a link to an interview with Will Fitzhugh:

Will, why should principals, administrators and school boards be paying a lot more attention to the actual amount and quality of academic work that is being required of students in the schools?

WF: My concern about the decline in the amount of work being asked of students in history grew after The Concord Review Study of the assignment of history term papers in 2002. We found that the majority of high school teachers no longer assign the traditional research paper in history classes. This month, The Boston Globe reported that 37% of high school graduates in Massachusetts state colleges are not ready for college work, including reading and writing. The College Board's Commission on Writing found a few years ago that the member companies of the Business Roundtable estimate they spend more than $3 Billion each year on remedial writing courses for their salaried and hourly employees in about equal numbers. I concluded that high school graduates are having trouble with writing because they aren't doing much actual academic expository writing in school.

First page on a Google scan, link info from 2007:

College Affordability Is Only Part of the Solution

As tuition costs skyrocket, elected officials have begun offering plans to make college more affordable for high school graduates. But better affordability without better preparation will not solve the bigger challenge—making a college degree more attainable to more Americans. America’s college completion rates are deplorably low.
■ Only about half of students who enroll in 4-year colleges after high school manage to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.1
■ College going is increasing, but college completion is not keeping up. From 1975 to 2001, college going increased 14 percent, but college completion remained at nearly the same level as the early 1970s.2
■ Out of 24 countries, the U.S. was one of only two that showed no increase in bachelor’s
degree attainment between 2000 and 2004.3

Poor preparation is the problem.
■ Many college freshmen have to take remedial classes to learn what they should have learned in high school. Nearly one-third of college freshman enroll in at least one remedial course, a figure that rises to 42 percent in the nation’s community colleges, which educate a rapidly growing number of America’s undergraduates.4 In some states, the problem is even worse:

Same scan, same page:

The Remediation Debate
Are we serving the needs of underprepared college students?

Only one-third of students leave high school at least minimally prepared for college, and the proportion is much smaller for black and Hispanic students. Among those who persevere to college, 35 to 40 percent require remedial courses in reading, writing or mathematics. The courses are intended to address academic deficiencies and to prepare students for subsequent college success.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-05-24T14:53:00.002-05:00

dyspepsia (dis-PEP-shuh): n. chronic indigestion

(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)

A Haunting Melody

2008-05-23T14:41:00.001-05:00

(Some identifiers changed for obvious reasons)

Yesterday was exhausting. I had an IEP meeting to attend with a client in a district over an hour away, and the client has had a brain injury. The subsequent damage has resulted in a number of problems, the most significant and overwhelming aspect being frenetic, excessive verbosity.

This has been tough to deal with because the frantic talking is so severe that meeting with them is like being hit by a tsunami of disjointed phrases and topics so disparate that they simply cannot be connected. In addition, the onslaught is powered by a damage-induced frenzy to produce verbiage at a pace and intensity so consuming to the client that he has to be physically grabbed, redirected and told to stop by his spouse.

The first time I met with the clients, I felt like brick wall had fallen on me. That meeting lasted nearly three hours, and I think I got maybe 50 words in. Nevertheless, after a lot of work, I was successful in getting the child’s IEP revised to the parents’ satisfaction. The school district was thrilled to have someone helping the family create comprehensible requests, which in turn helped defuse a situation that had been becoming increasingly contentious and hostile.

There have been additional meetings since then, and in all instances, I have done what I try to do with every client – work everything out well in advance so that the parents and I present at the meeting as a united front, get whatever hard data we can put together in supportive presentation form, and walk in to the meeting prepared for success in getting necessary services.

However, I got blindsided by my clients yesterday. Dad had decided, while I was driving to the meeting, to utterly revise all our previously mutually agreed upon points, opt out of some services, and pretty much wander off in a whole different direction, much to the surprise of Mom and the student. None of us knew about this before the meeting. I usually meet with my clients in the parking lot before meetings to review our position and any strategy, but the family showed up late, and everyone else was already in the meeting room, so we had to hustle. I got no warning of any kind that any changes were in the works.

I did what I could to recover the situation to the student’s benefit and within my clients’ difficult-to-discern, revised wishes, but I was definitely caught off guard. Mom was staring at me, hands cupped around her face, mouthing, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” The district was in shock, too. We wound up rescheduling, having used all the allotted time trying to figure out what Dad was trying to say.

I held my clients back after the meeting and tried to get an inkling of what had prompted this abrupt change. It took a while, but I did manage to determine that Dad seemed to be vehemently opposed to one particular service and would do whatever it took to avoid it. It was a service the student wanted, the mother wanted, private service providers have recommended it, the school district was willing and eager to provide it, and it is a service I thought was a spanking good idea.

So, knowing full well what I was in for, I asked “Why?” In rolled the tsunami. I searched for fragments of possibly relevant flotsam, filled up my mental pockets with likely bits, and finally called a halt when there didn’t seem to be any more progress to be made.

I drove home annoyed, venting to the inside of my car. I walked into my house, flopped facedown on the couch, and decided to mentally pull the blanket up over my head and pretend I wasn’t there for an hour or two. After I’d recovered a little, I trundled off to Chix. It was nice to chat with other ladies about a number of things not related to my day.

I awoke this morning with something from the past floating through my head, which for me, is like playing a game of “Connections”. I need to figure out the theme of the memory and look at it from various angles to see why my subconscious thinks it’s relevant today.

BC (before children), I tutored a great deal. One of my clients back then was a girl who had been an above average student who seemed to hit a wall and needed academic assistance. Over a period of a few weeks, she got edgier and more distracted and less able to focus on the tasks. I worried that it was me – that I was not connecting with her, that maybe a different tutor would do a better job. Then I got a call from her mother, asking me if I would be able to continue tutoring, even though the child was now in a locked ward at the hospital as a result of attempting suicide.

I was a little flabbergasted and asked why the school or hospital was not handling that. It turned out that they only provided tutoring up to a certain level, and the subjects I had been covering with the student were not considered necessary and were therefore not included. She didn’t want her daughter to fall behind, and the daughter had specifically asked for me to come and help her stay current. Mom was crying and reaching for a lifeline, so I agreed.

It was creepy getting cleared through security, but the aura inside was mostly sad. My student was watching me as I came in, checking my reactions, possibly to see if I was repulsed or frightened or disoriented. When we sat down together in the study area, we looked at each other for a minute or two. I raised my eyebrows, and she shrugged, rolled her eyes a little and brought her scared gaze back to me. I winked and smiled, pulled the first textbook over in front of us, flipped it open and said, “How about we get started?” (Or something much like that, which is my standard line.) I set paper and pencil out, the same way I usually did.

I will never forget her reaction. I heard a light snort and looked over to see her sitting rigid, with tears sheeting down her face, pouring onto her shirt. She reached over and touched my arm very lightly and said, “Thank you. I didn’t know if I’d see ‘normal’ ever again,” and her face showed relief.

That was extent of the memory I woke up with, but since I don’t like to leave anyone in suspense, dark stuff was stirred up, the family imploded as a result, I lost touch, and a few years later I got a card from the student indicating that life was back on track, that “normal” had returned.

I wondered why my subconscious had chosen to plaster that particular memory on the inside of my forehead this morning, as I drank my first cup of coffee and watched a rainy dawn break. Then things started clicking into place – all the services Dad wanted removed were those which would have marked his child as not “normal”. Dad was proposing replacing in-school services with private pay after school services to accommodate the child’s needs in other ways so that the child would have a normal day. Dad was not proposing removing services, just altering delivery times, venues, and oversight because, for whatever reason, he thought having a normal day should be a priority.

I can understand that and work with it. I can sound out the client to see if that’s the case, and we can reorient as a team. It may not be what I’d have chosen or what I would recommend, but it’s not my child. Besides, feeling “normal” is important, too.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-05-23T13:48:00.000-05:00

badinage (bad-ehn-EHZH): n. light, playful repartee or banter; teasing; raillery

(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)

Get Smart and End Hunger

2008-05-20T15:25:00.003-05:00

Great website referral from a friend, FreeRice. Use your current vocabulary, learn some new words, and donate rice to feed the hungry. Challenging, very challenging at the higher levels! Check out my Dead and Oddball words for a kickstart.

Also recommended by a friend, for those confused by economics, an explanation of the subprime problems, as told by stick figures. At the site, click on "this stick figure slideshow" to get the lowdown.

And congrats to Lamb and Frog for getting Stinky away from the clinkers and into a place with hope and possibilities. Well fought! Round of applause! (And don’t forget to stay alert and frosty.)

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-05-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

pensile (PEN-sill): adj. 1) suspended, as some birds' nests, 2) that constructs a hanging nest, used of birds

(from the dictionary of MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)

Like a Dog Returning to His Own Vomit..

2008-05-17T12:15:00.005-05:00

(Does anyone else remember that line from the movie “The Sure Thing”?)

Well, it looks like my last post generated some feelings, and I think it’s only fair to address them openly rather than letting them hide in the nether regions of the comments. In particular, one response is from David Rice, an English teacher at MCHS.

It’s ironic that Mr. Rice would take the post personally, although I can see how it would offend him, since I did not name names and thereby exclude him in my post. Of all the teachers at MCHS, he is one of maybe five teachers whom every student and parent adores. If all the teachers there taught to his standard of excellence, MCHS would be a world class school, and I don’t say that lightly. He is always enthusiastic, energized, upbeat, engaged, open-minded, and a joy to have leading the classroom. His projects are relevant, challenging, and advance the cause of learning, as well as the understanding of his topic. He uses every minute of the extended block period for instruction and reinforcement, and I’m not alone in my opinion that if he were head of his department, it would change for the better by an order of magnitude.

Also, for the record, I didn’t make these things up myself. I have little classroom experience at MCHS because, obviously, I graduated yonks ago. I have, however, done classroom observations and listened to over 6 years of complaints and worries from my children at the end of each school day. I have, over the years, called teachers, guidance counselors, the THREE principals we’ve had during that time, attended School Board meetings, met with all of the above, emailed and snail mailed them, too, about my concerns, ad nauseum.

And, one day, I had had enough. So, I wrote down a summary of things, largely tongue-in-cheek, reflecting my kids’ complaints about their high school experiences. I don’t pretend these complaints are completely reflective of other children’s experiences there, and I do not speak for other parents either. However, I did ask all three of my kids to read this list before I posted it. I asked for their input, any changes or additions, and got a round table consensus from them about each item. I also incorporated some things that I have discussed with other parents and other students and former students, but cleared it through my kids.

Bunny said she wished some of the things weren’t true, but they are. Spot (formerly Spawn) gave a rueful laugh and said they were all true and some were worse than I had stated. Doodle nodded his head, agreeing with the others, and added a couple of his recent experiences to the pool.

There will always be exceptions, especially to anything written in a sarcastic or humorous manner, to posts that vent and to posts that laud on a non-specific basis. That being said, I am leaving my original snark in standard type, Mr. Rice’s commentary is in italics, and my responses are in bold.

Title: 20 Things My Kids Have Learned at MCHS
(and 20 Things the Teachers Have Learned About Me and My Kids)

1. If enough of your classmates whine about a test, project, paper, or assignment deadline, the teacher will change it.
(And your kids learned how to whine at home, as is demonstrated by your whining in this post.)
It’s my blog. I could post pictures of shaved goats wearing tutus and clown shoes and label them “Entertainment PhDs” if I wanted.

2. If enough kids whine about how hard a project is, the teacher will make it easier.
(See #1)
Your projects are great. You have never required “gilded spaghetti” projects that waste children’s time. I wish that were the norm.

3. If a lot of the kids act like they really enjoy group work, the teacher will let you all do more, including coloring and skits. There’s always some nerd in the group who wants to learn and does a good job, so everyone gets a good grade!
(And was your kid the one who chose to rely on others’ work? If so, what does that say about what he/she learned at home? If not, then he/she learned that people who work can excel, regardless of what their co-workers do. Still a valuable lesson in life. Moreover, maybe one your kids group mates learned something from your kid? Wouldn’t that be a tragedy if kids actually learned from each other, as well as the teacher?)
Homework is a good thing for everyone. Please see:
Aargh, Student Teachers 11/13/06 – Social Studies department quirks
Five Things for Student Teachers 11/17/06 - self-explanatory vent of things I wish student teachers had assimilated before entering the classroom. There are undoubtedly points for/of disagreement.

4. A five-page paper, double-spaced, is the most anyone will ever expect of you in life. Plus, you get to whine about it!
(In which case it is clear your child did not meet the expectations/requirements of either junior or senior English. Hmmm, not meeting expectations. The fault of the teacher or of the student who CHOSE not to meet them?)
All three of my children have consistently been on the honor roll EVERY year in high school. Not all teachers adhere to the requirements for your department, sadly. Even more depressing is the fact that the school year has ended before the papers were graded and handed back. Twice, to my specific knowledge.

5. No matter if the course title is AP or honors, if the teacher is bad, everyone gets a good grade, whether they learn or do anything or not.
(Gee, everyone who qualifies for an honors class gets a good grade? Your kid obviously did not take Honors English I or II! Mr. Rice and Mr. Kein are notorious for the number of students moved out---followed by a great deal of parental whining about how unfair we are because we actually expect kids to meet our expectations or transfer to a different level.)
Please note that I said “if the teacher is bad” as a condition. Neither of you are bad teachers. There are bad teachers, some are in your department. Two of my three children have had honors classes with both of you and done well but got moved to other designations later, at my behest, because I did not want them taking classes with bad teachers and misleading labels.

While this counted against them in the GPA race, I don’t play that game. They have outstanding skills because I made skills a priority, since those last, as opposed to letting them succumb to GPA games, which leave students lacking in skills, but long on impressive-sounding transcripts. I am not making this up. Parents of “honor” students talk. My kids have outscored all but a couple of cohorts per year (on the ACT) in their “honors” circles because I do know what I’m doing and what I’m talking about.

6. If you’re in sports, you get excused from a lot of assignments.
(If your child learned to generalize, they learned it at home. A generalization such as this would be an “F” on an assignment in my English class. Give me a specific EXAMPLE---or go to work for a political campaign for either party.)
Your first statement is specious. Generalization is not limited to my blog and is considered a skill in the category of social language pragmatics. I refuse to name bad teachers who have given up rigor for pacification because they deserve their anonymity, too. Instead, I talk to them and the administration, which I have done and will continue to do. See also Spawn's Small Town 12/05/06 - latter half are his experiences re the HS.

7. If your teacher is a coach, there’s a lot of free time in class and very few assignments.
(And if a student athlete is ineligible, the FIRST call a teacher gets is from Mom or Dad----whining about how we’re penalizing their son/daughter and removing the ONLY reason they come to school anyway.)
Not my fault. I’m the one who stands alone in front of the school board, the principal, and the classroom teacher arguing for greater rigor and higher expectations when necessary. Please see:
The Talk 4/2/07 about high standards, intrinsic rewards, and the quest for personal excellence,
The Letter I Didn't Send 5/29/07 morally questionable selling of academic indulgences,
Plans for Life 4/23/07 – prepping for the ACT and my opinions about high school studies and the early years of college

8. Homework? What’s homework? We do that in class instead of getting a full 90 minutes (block schedule) of instruction or learning activities.
(See #6)
See 6 and 7, as well as:
Notes I Have Sent 5/3/06 humorous notes I’ve sent to elementary, middle and high schools. I think you will find the last one particularly relevant.

9. Ninety minutes of silent reading while the teacher is on the computer is considered a good use of our time at school.
(See #6)
See 6 and 7

10. We guess you can learn a lot from movies. We sure see plenty of them, including the same ones year after year or stuff we’ve seen at home already.
(See #6. Gee, this is getting boring! Do you already work for a Presidential campaign, or are you just a talented amateur at this?)
(Snort) See 6 and 7. Then go talk to the librarians about how many movies they plug into the system over the course of a semester. I have. It might open your eyes to what your cohorts are doing. Doodle saw 5 movies in his first term of English, none of which were relevant to the course, nor were they reviewed, nor were the students tested on them, nor were they discussed in class. Bunny saw three in her senior English class, only one of which was relevant; the rest were time fillers. In a different English class, they saw two, also not discussed, reviewed, or accompanied by assessments of knowledge.

You have no idea how sad it makes me to know that my charges, even phrased tongue-in-cheek, are true.

Last Sock in the Nerd Hamper 3/5/07 – a humorous take on validated giftedness
Nerdliness Further 2/13/07 – living with gifted children, and memories

11. If you’re involved in enough activities and can’t keep up in class, get your parents to complain and the teachers will lower their expectations!
(Are you talking about YOUR kids? If not, how can you be sure that the information you have is accurate? I’m sure that every time your kids tell you, “But ALL the kids are doing it!” you accept that and give in, right? Then why do you assume that their version of what happens in my class is accurate?)
If it were YOUR class, I would not have this complaint. Sadly, you remain a statistical outlier on the scale of teacher excellence, along with a few other teachers. I have no problem with you defending your own conduct, but I would advise you to be careful of generalizing the other teachers’ classroom conduct and expectations, just as you have cautioned me on my generalizations.
Really, do you have any idea of how demoralizing such behavior on the part of teachers can be to the student ?
I urge you to read some of my other posts before assuming you know the basis for my snarky remarks.

12. If you get a tough teacher who makes you learn and work, you will remember them fondly forever, and, regardless of the class, it will be what you wish for in every other class you ever take.
(Just like every worker remembers his/her good bosses fondly. Again, a lesson in life. Another one, though, is that not every student is inspired/motivated by the same teachers. For every student who thinks Teacher “A” is the worst teacher ever, there’s a student who thinks that Teacher “A” made school bearable/interesting/exciting. Again, is YOUR child’s opinion of a teacher the only one that matters?)
Nope. I never said so. I am answerable for what I say, not for what you think.

13. Never complain about not having enough work, hard enough work, or expectations being low because then the teachers will give you a lower grade to “prove” you wrong.
(See #6. And then ask yourself if you actually brought your concerns to the TEACHER and or the PRINCIPAL with specific examples that someone could actually address? Probably not. It’s a lot easier to blog!)
And, it’s a lot easier to pretend you know who I am, who my children are, what I support, and what my expectations are, rather than reading my previous posts… Which are pretty clearly categorized.

14. If you have to read a book for a class, it will be depressing. If you already don’t read for pleasure, this will help make sure you never do.
(Gee, nobody ever learns anything from books like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or ROMEO AND JULIET. They’re so depressing. Hey, let’s read CHICKEN SOUP books, instead! They’re inspirational, require no thought, and teach everyone that mediocre writing can become a best seller. And then we’ll all pretend that the folks on AMERICAN IDOL are just as good as Yo-Yo Ma or Frank Sinatra or Maria Callas or the other great artists of the 20th C.)
Well, that’s certainly a leap without any basis. And, let me lob this one back, that must mean that there are NO books worth reading, or genre worth exploring, which do not involve graphically depicted violent death, racism, suicide, or mental illness, and those which fail on the “depressing” scale are therefore are intrinsically unworthy of being analyzed for literary merit.

15. If you are smart and non-conformist, someone will call your parents to discuss your “problems.”
(Hmmm. Non-conformist. Is that the student who refuses to follow the classroom assignment to keep a binder with his/her papers in neat order, to aid in studying/reviewing because that’s not her style? Or is that the student who wears the t-shirt with the inappropriate message? Or the one whose smell is so bad that every student in the class BEGS you to talk to the nurse? Again, a bit of specificity on how your darling is a “non-conformist” might help!)
You might recognize one of the references in the following:

My Kids Aren't From Stepford 4/29/06 -actual calls I’ve gotten from schools, and my responses. In reality, I did say these things, but followed them up with more situationally and socially correct remarks as well.
Or here:
Notes I Have Sent 5/3/06 humorous notes I’ve sent to elementary, middle and high schools

16. If you hate school – go anyway! Make sure to take classes with coach-teachers to keep your GPA high. They’ll give you a diploma just to get rid of you!
(Again, a non-specific charge with no support. Hope you don’t have a job which actually requires you to back up your opinions. Or do you work for Dick Cheney, in which case neither logic nor support is required.)
ROFLMAO! (wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, and then…t-i-c again…) Oh, so poorly fletched an arrow poses risks to birds a-wing! Take a look at MCHS’s school report cards, which indicate, quite objectively, that the majority of students graduating fall BELOW the PSAE benchmarks across the board, and the ACT scores which show students averaging below college readiness benchmarks in all areas excluding reading.

17. If you want to know if you’re prepared for college, refer to your ACT score, not your high school transcript. That’s what colleges do.
(And is that OUR fault?! Or is this sarcasm? As with all the other inane generalities, your failure to actually give a concrete example makes it impossible to respond. Of course, that’s the point of this diatribe, isn’t it? After all, it’s SO much easier to sling mud in large quantities rather than accept the fact that your son/daughter may have thrown away innumerable opportunities to excel, to participate in the myriad extra-curriculars this school offers, or to take the BEST of our EVERY class, regardless of whether he/she like the teacher.)
No, it’s systemic and nationwide, but it is also local and therefore relevant. See above for objective references. Also refer to The Talk .

18. If you want to know what college work is like, ask a parent or a college student. Don’t count on your teachers or classes to help prepare you for it.
(It’s amazing what an incredible percentage of students we have failing out of college, isn’t it? Oh, wait. We don’t. Well, in that case it’s amazing what an amazing percentage of students we have who have learned EVERYTHING they know in the first 2 weeks of college! Gee, your darling is a genius, just like you told everyone when they were 2 and knew all their colors, even “Fuschia”!)
Not sure where you’re getting your data, which appears to be largely subjective. I think you should instead, for anecdotal purposes, poll the graduating students and find out what percentage are going to have to take remedial courses when they start college. And see the above references. Nationwide, 40% of incoming college students require remediation (Journal of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed.), and over the last 10-15 years, colleges have had to institute competency tests in order to place students in appropriate math and English courses, which is a sad, sad statement on the ability of high schools nationwide to prepare kids for college. There is no shortage of information available, if you choose to seek it out.

And:
The Mind of Spawn 8/23/06 about dealing with gifted children and their thirst for knowledge,
Phrase Migration 1/10/07 – last third, school encounters
Holding Forth 8/28/06 – teaching language skills from the get-go

19. Friends are great. Sometimes they’re the only reason to show up.
(Friends and family are the only reasons ANY of us survive in this world. How is that a problem? Rather, that is what keeps all of us going through good times and bad. It’s called life.)
See: The Talk

20. The lunches still suck, but there are fewer pizzaburgers and less mystery meat.
(And how many times during your sweetheart’s junior/senior year did he/she choose to partake of the haute cuisine at Mickey D’s, Burger King, Dave’s Dawgs, etc.? You want your kid to eat healthy food, stay on task, and reach his/her maximum potential? Take away the car and the video game, put the computer in the FAMILY ROOM where you can monitor what he/she is doing on it, and give him/her a curfew. Then while he/she is working on homework, fix a FAMILY MEAL and require the WHOLE FAMILY to eat together.)
Well, that response certainly went off at an obscure angle, but I’ll be happy to answer your deflection. Not very damned often, since I make them pay for that (and gas, and the insurance if their grades drop below a B average) out of their own pockets. I restrict the use of automobiles, and I remain final arbiter in whether or not they get to use the computer, the internet, and videogames. In addition, all of those privileges are earned privileges, not rights, and they are expected to do household chores on a regular schedule and a consistent basis in order to earn them, in addition to doing their schoolwork. We are also famous amongst my children's friends for routinely having family dinners, some of which my children cook from scratch themselves, because I consider that a necessary skill and have spent many years (and gamely eaten many odd things) teaching it to them.

And, now, it’s my turn to have my say…

You have held forth a great deal about my assumptions and how erroneous they are, but I think you have failed to address the beam in your own eye. You did not read my prior posts to see what sort of a parent I am; you made assumptions that I am the worst sort, the kind that throws obstacles and fictional objections in your way. I am not.

I am data driven, with a background in the hard sciences, financial analysis, and special education law. I am a tireless researcher with outstanding credentials in a wide variety of fields. And, I am a parent who invariably supports and applauds teachers with high standards, high expectations, and the grit to continue in the face of public and systemic pressure to lighten up, dumb down, or phone it in.

None of the “charges” I’ve made are based on slapdash, haphazard assumptions. Not all of them are the results of statistical data, either. They are what they are – some are based on objective measurements, some on widespread, nationally applicable criticisms and observations, and others are a result of combined anecdotal input from a variety of sources, not by any means limited to my own family, and including other parents of honor students, the students themselves, past students in the same category, web searches and blog analysis from students and the hardships they encounter when they go off to college after graduating from MCHS, and newspaper or other journal articles, locally, regionally and nationally. I have no problem dismissing things that are clearly personal whines, nor do I have a problem in recognizing patterns and similarities, nor am I unable to choose whether or not I consider them relevant and worthy of further investigation.

I have also made sure to gather data directly from MCHS, the school report cards, requests to administrative personnel for longitudinal data on AP scores, ACT, and PSAE scores. I have been doing this for 7 years, one year prior to my oldest child starting at MCHS, because I believe that research and information are exceedingly important.

I have made all of these points over the last 6 years, to all three principals at MCHS, to a number of teachers, and to members of the school board. I have stood behind what I believe, and what I have researched, and I have spoken directly to those involved in the most egregious offenses, ONLY when I had substantive data to back me up – because it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

And NONE of that means that I don’t get to vent, blow off steam, or express my opinions on my own blog. As I stated at the beginning, I could put any variety of witless, fictional fluff I wanted, and it still wouldn’t mean I was in violation of anything. You can read it, you can agree, disagree, move on, never visit again, whatever. I don’t care. It’s up to you.

P.S. One thing MY father taught me is that anyone who is afraid to stand up and take responsibility for his/her opinion and uses the “anonymous” label isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. That’s why I’m glad to sign my response.David M. Rice, Proud MCHS English Teacher.

Potpourri and Reasons for Anonymity 8/5/07 self-explanatory

In no particular order, the following is a list of relevant prior posts. It is not comprehensive or all-inclusive.

The Talk 4/2/07 about high standards intrinsic rewards, and the quest for personal excellence
The Letter I Didn't Send 5/29/07 morally questionable selling of academic indulgences
Potpourri and Reasons for Anonymity 8/5/07 self-explanatory
Spawn's Small Town 12/05/06 latter half are his experiences re the HS
The Mind of Spawn 8/23/06 about dealing with gifted children and their thirst for knowledge
Notes I Have Sent 5/3/06 humorous notes I’ve sent to elementary, middle and high schools
School Supplies 4/30/06 – a humorous parody of notes sent home from school for additional supplies, elementary and middle school years.
My Kids Aren't From Stepford 4/29/06 l – actual calls I’ve gotten from schools, and my responses. In reality, I did say these things, but followed them up with more situationally correct remarks as well.
Plans for Life 4/23/07 – prepping for the ACT and my opinions about high school studies and the early years of college
Last Sock in the Nerd Hamper 3/5/07 – a humorous take on validated giftedness
Nerdliness Further 2/13/07 – living with gifted children and memories
Phrase Migration 1/10/07 – last third, school encounters
Aargh, Student Teachers 11/13/06 – The Social Studies department quirks
Five Things for Student Teachers 11/17/06 – self-explanatory vent of things I wish student teachers had assimilated before entering the classroom. There are undoubtedly points for/of disagreement.
Holding Forth 8/28/06 – teaching language skills from the get-go

20 Things My Kids Have Learned at MCHS

2008-05-01T05:52:00.001-05:00

1. If enough of your classmates whine about a test, project, paper, or assignment deadline, the teacher will change it.

2. If enough kids whine about how hard a project is, the teacher will make it easier.

3. If a lot of the kids act like they really enjoy group work, the teacher will let you all do more, including coloring and skits. There’s always some nerd in the group who wants to learn and does a good job, so everyone gets a good grade!

4. A five-page paper, double-spaced, is the most anyone will ever expect of you in life. Plus, you get to whine about it!

5. No matter if the course title is AP or honors, if the teacher is bad, everyone gets a good grade, whether they learn or do anything or not.

6. If you’re in sports, you get excused from a lot of assignments.

7. If your teacher is a coach, there’s a lot of free time in class and very few assignments.

8. Homework? What’s homework? We do that in class instead of getting a full 90 minutes (block schedule) of instruction or learning activities.

9. Ninety minutes of silent reading while the teacher is on the computer is considered a good use of our time at school.

10. We guess you can learn a lot from movies. We sure see plenty of them, including the same ones year after year or stuff we’ve seen at home already.

11. If you’re involved in enough activities and can’t keep up in class, get your parents to complain and the teachers will lower their expectations!

12. If you get a tough teacher who makes you learn and work, you will remember them fondly forever, and, regardless of the class, it will be what you wish for in every other class you ever take.

13. Never complain about not having enough work, hard enough work, or expectations being low because then the teachers will give you a lower grade to “prove” you wrong.

14. If you have to read a book for a class, it will be depressing. If you already don’t read for pleasure, this will help make sure you never do.

15. If you are smart and non-conformist, someone will call your parents to discuss your “problems.”

16. If you hate school – go anyway! Make sure to take classes with coach-teachers to keep your GPA high. They’ll give you a diploma just to get rid of you!

17. If you want to know if you’re prepared for college, refer to your ACT score, not your high school transcript. That’s what colleges do.

18. If you want to know what college work is like, ask a parent or a college student. Don’t count on your teachers or classes to help prepare you for it.

19. Friends are great. Sometimes they’re the only reason to show up.

20. The lunches still suck, but there are fewer pizzaburgers and less mystery meat.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-05-01T05:50:00.001-05:00

puce (PYOOS): adj. purplish-brown in color; of the color of a flea [from the French word for flea]

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Doggie Diversions

2008-04-14T14:01:00.002-05:00

Gracie may be nearly a year old now, but she’ll always be Baby Gracie. Hoover has finally gotten used to her and her ways, for the most part, but the Baby has one toy that still drives him nuts. (For Hoover, being driven nuts means that he raises his head, looks at her, looks at me, looks back at her and snorts disgustedly, as if to say, “Do you see what she’s up to? Honestly!”) It’s her pink squeaky dumbbell. She loves that toy. She hasn’t put so much as a tooth through it because she loves to run around squeaking it at everyone.

Shortly after we’d first adopted her, and she’d worn out poor old Hoover, she’d grab her pink squeaky, walk over to him, lay the toy on his EAR, and then squeak it like mad. This was a game to her. To Hoover, it was possibly cause for deafness. I only saw him show irritation once – he sat up and growled at her. She peed in submission, put her tail between her legs, and went to hide with her squeaky in her crate. Hoover looked ashamed of himself.

As a result of squeaky overload, we have to ration Baby Gracie’s squeaky time, or we’d all growl at her. When she’s particularly bored (read “dumpster diving and gnawing dishtowels”) I give her back the beloved toy for a few hours.

Last week, after the kids had gotten home from school, Baby Gracie was showing all of us her wonderful squeaky. Hoover was sick to death of it, but he just snorted a couple of times at her. Bunny got tired of the squeaky and diverted Gracie with a tennis ball and a game of indoor fetch. While Gracie was off getting the tennis ball from another room, Hoover ambled over to the squeaky, carefully picked it up and ambled into the den. He was gone a couple of minutes. When he came back, he sat down near me, looked at me, and laughed. He also looked smug. I looked at Bunny and said, “I think he just hid Gracie’s squeaky!”

Bunny went to check and found that Hoover had not just taken it into the den, he had put it behind a box, where it would be hard to find. She giggled with laughter as she was telling me about Hoover’s craftiness, and gave him a big hug and a scratch. I was going to put it down to mere luck that the squeaky toy wound up behind a box, but later than evening, Gracie found it again.

She came leaping and bounding through the living room, flying around the room, squeaking for all she was worth. After about 20 minutes of loud squeaking, hubs got a little tired of it and tried to take it away from her, but she stayed just out of range. Hoover had been lying on the couch, watching her in disgust. He finally oozed off the couch and ambled out of the room. I said to hubs “Guess he couldn’t take the squeaking any more.”

About 3 minutes later, with Gracie still on the squeaky warpath, Hoover came back into the living room and sidled up to hubs. He dropped a tennis ball next to his foot and, clearly not intending to play fetch, went back to his couch and lay back down. I was a little surprised, and told Hubs about the tennis ball diverting Baby Gracie from her squeaky earlier, and what Hoover had done with it. He said, “I think I can take a hint!” and the next time she dashed by him, he chucked a tennis ball for her. She dropped her pink squeaky and went for the ball. Hubs grabbed the squeaky and hid it behind a couch cushion. Hoover let out a sigh of relief and went to sleep.

I’m pretty sure our old dog has taught us a new trick.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-04-14T13:59:00.001-05:00

feckless (FEK-lis): adj. reckless; inefficient, incompetent; without worth or spirit; indifferent

(from the dictionary of MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

SpEd Tip #1: Stay Frosty

2008-02-28T17:21:00.000-06:00

This is the first piece of advice I offer anyone about to enter the labyrinth of special education, related services, and 504 plans. Most every parent who gets to the point where their child is getting in trouble, getting poor grades, clearly not able to do grade level work, and admits to themselves that the kid might need special ed, gets mad. They’re mad because they think, rightly, that the school should have spotted it, should have done something about it, should have taken steps.

Maybe the parent is mad because they’ve been asking, year after year, for help for their child, and the school district has been delaying, dallying, denying, and generally dinking around, while the child is falling further and further behind. Maybe the school district has lied outright to them on any number of issues.

You’re mad because of a betrayal of expectations. We expect schools to know what they’re doing, know what they’re supposed to do, and then we expect them to do it, by gum! We expect them to be knowledgeable professionals with the best interests of our children as a priority.

We don’t expect them to lie, be incompetent, refuse to help a child in need of assistance, or to make excuses for why it’s OUR fault and not theirs. We don’t expect them to squirm like snakes to get out of providing necessary services. We don’t expect them to complain that they can’t afford help for our children because there are so many other children with greater needs. We don’t expect them to be stupid or malicious.

But they are. And that is why parents get mad; normal expectations have been betrayed, and we are hurt, hyper-alert, and angry.

So, my advice is to “stay frosty”, in other words, get cooled down and stay there while I fill you in on the reality of school districts. There are some good ones who know what they’re supposed to do and do it without even blinking. If your child were in one of those districts, he’d already be in SpEd, and you’d be reasonably well-informed and engaged in the process of getting services for him. Many school districts are not like that.

The problem is rarely malice. It’s usually a combination of ignorance and inappropriate gatekeeping. There are very few people in schools, administrators, teachers, nurses, or others who actually know more than a thimbleful about special education and the law. They only know what they’ve been told, and that’s not much.

Administrators have next to nothing to do with your children. They are the logistical planners for schools – they arrange transportation, days off, negotiate for supplies, review bills from utilities, manage office staff, call for substitute teachers, and deal with similar things. They prepare reports for the school board, report to the superintendent, and are supposed to be well-versed in the general laws regarding schools. The assistant principal may be in charge of the mechanics and procedures of formal discipline. Administrators tend to be fixated on cost containment and will do their gatekeeping (preventing your child access to special services) on that basis.

Teachers are used to dealing with “average” students. The average student acts up occasionally, responds reasonably well to consequences, gets reasonable grades, and is kind of predictable. Teachers feel themselves to be primarily responsible for teaching average students, the middle 80% of children – they rarely know what to do for a gifted child or a child with special needs. They can get belligerent if they feel they’re being blamed for your child’s poor performance (and they always feel that way). They don’t like having to do extra stuff, or complicated stuff, or things that are “more” than what they’re doing for the 80% because they feel like they’re shortchanging their “real” students. Fortunately, they can be very cooperative if the parent knows this and accommodates the TEACHER’S needs, too. Teachers will resist and gatekeep if they think you’re asking too much of them.

The only people in the whole school system who have even a moderate understanding of special needs, disabilities, and services and programs are the people in the Special Education department. Therefore, it’s important to get through the other gatekeepers, the teachers and administrators, and get to the SpEd folks. They will be gatekeepers, too, in kind of a microcosmic reflection of the regular administrators and teachers. They are always understaffed, underfunded, overworked, and you’re always asking for too much for no good reason. Oh, woe is me.

However, it is their job, and their responsibility to know the laws, to follow them, and to get your child the services required. And, eventually, they will, God willing, and with the help of research, good friends and sound advice.

Now that you know that, you need to blow off all the steam that built up while dealing with the gatekeepers in regular education. If you take your anger with you into the SpEd department, it’s only going to make you look hysterical and unreasonable. Stay frosty, because for the SpEdders, special services are their everyday business. Asking for appropriate programs should be done the same way you’d ask the butcher for a pound of good, fresh pork chops, or the greengrocer for oranges from the latest shipment. It’s really no big deal, they have to follow the law, and this group of people knows that.

Then, as legal requirements click along at a pre-determined pace, like a train on the tracks, it’s easy to get frustrated and let all that residual frustration and anger come back again. Don’t do it. Let the process flow; remain frosty.

Remember, as long as you are the coolest cucumber in the room, you’ll last the longest.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-02-28T17:18:00.001-06:00

caduceus (Kuh-DOO-see-ehs) n. the symbolic staff carried by Mercury as herald of the gods, now used as a symbol for medicine

(from the guide to MMMW edicted by Laurence Urdang)

Startitis

2008-02-27T14:17:00.001-06:00

Every knitter knows it, and lots of us suffer from it. It’s the uncontrollable urge to put down whatever project you’re working on right now and start something new. Maybe you want to get your hands on a different color, yarn weight, texture, something sparkly, something not-sparkly, something bland you can knit in the dark, or just something NEW. Even knitters of extraordinary character and will power may hear the siren call of Startitis – they’ll hang onto their current projects like moray eels until they’re finished, but they hear the wilding call nonetheless.

I kind of gave up fighting Startitis a decade or so ago and decided to call it either Knitting BiPolar Disorder or Seasonal Affective Knitting Disorder. Mine cycles, and, fortunately for me, while I don’t spin fleece, and can spin words and ideas. My KBPD/SAKD (see, it’s official – it has an acronym!) goes like this…

September: It’s still warmish out, but the leaves are starting to change color, so it must be time to knit. I start and finish sweaters in September. I finish up leftover projects from earlier in the year.

October and November: I start thicker sweaters, the kids start asking for them, and then I want to knit them. I think about knitting myself a sweater and may even go buy some faboo yarn for one. (Years later, it will wind up being a sweater for someone else.) I knit hats and scarves and work on trickier sweaters. I get a Great Idea for using up oddball yarn in Yet Another Afghan. I finish up the last of the hangover projects, but I still have four or five things on the needles.

December: I knit things that are not for Christmas, but that I can put down easily without forgetting what I was doing, such as socks for myself, mittens, hats, and Knit for Kids sweaters for donations. I do not take requests for knitting during the month because it’s already completely knuts around here.

January: I start hating all my works in progress. The scarf is bulgier than I like and doesn’t show off the yarn right. The thick sweater p*sses me off because the yarn is color pooling or I found twigs in it, or I’m running short. I have so many pairs of socks that I don’t want to start another pair, but then I find really excellent yarn that I’ve been looking for all my life, buy it, and cast on a sock. I’m tired of the afghan for some reason – too heavy, too random, the stitch is too fussy for my short attention span, something. I don’t like any of my yarn and start window shopping on Ebay and online yarn stores.

February: I’m depressed. I have all these projects and nothing’s really DONE. I’m still convinced they’re worthy, so I don’t frog them all, but I can’t stand to work another stitch on any of them. I buy another skein of sock yarn, just to look at and touch. I eat too much chocolate and cook comfort food. My whole family sleeps too much from carbohydrate overload. Right about the end of the month, I’ll pick up some project I sidelined last fall and finish it.

March and April: I realize I need to finish the heavy, winter stuff before it gets too warm, so the mojo kicks in and I knit like a bat outta hell to get the afghan, scarf, sweater, and fancy patterned thing done. I set aside lighter weight projects to work on later. I might buy more needles, “to complete my set of…”

May: I’m depressed. I still have at least one project that I know I won’t get to until the thermometer dips into the 30’s, so I put it in the Naughty Closet. Sometimes projects go there because they were naughty and ticked me off; sometimes projects go there because I was naughty and didn’t finish them during the “right” season. I notice I have too much yarn and way too many patterns. I sort through the yarn and match it up with patterns. I throw out a few patterns. I think really hard about getting rid of some pattern books. I rummage through all the rest of my yarn and realize I have some nice stuff, so I move it to the front or top of its storage zone.

June and July: Mornings are mindless knitting. I knit things from cotton or non-wool – dishcloths, coasters, mini afghans of washable fiber for my dogs, small clothes for Bunny’s beloved Theodora bear, and maybe a couple hats from sock wool.

August: I’m out of cotton, which is good because I hate it now. I can’t stand the sight of another hat, another mitten, or another sock. I cast on a shawl to work on because by the time it gets heavy, it’ll be cold out, or so I tell myself. I box up donations and ship them out.

And then it’s September again....

My family thinks I have wooly caterpillar DNA because they watch what I knit and when. If I’m already starting a sweater in late August, they start airing out their parkas and checking felted hats and mittens for pest damage because they know there’s a cold winter coming. They want to get their requests for repairs or replacements in early.

Me, I’m just glad I’ve learned to find a way to make my KBPD/SAKD work for me – stuff does actually get finished before people grow out of its size, and I do cycle through my yarn pretty well.

I’ll be posting pictures of what got knitted after it gets washed and blocked. We already wore most of it since this has been a right nippy winter so far.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-02-27T13:35:00.001-06:00

zygodactyl (zii-guh-DAK-till): adj. with the toes of each foot arranged in pairs, one pair pointing forward and one pair backward, as in a parrot

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being...

2008-02-26T13:31:00.000-06:00

...in my backyard. We had another 6 inch snow last night, and it was even prettier, although harder to photograph, while coming down in big, fat flakes. Yes, that is our tacky above-ground pool.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-02-26T13:29:00.000-06:00

therblig (THUR blig): n. any element in an operation or procedure that can be subjected to time and motion study

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

My Ding Dong

2008-02-25T12:45:00.002-06:00

My kids, especially the two ADHD boys, are night owls. If you know ADHD people, you know that an alarm clock just doesn’t do the job, and for the last 20 years, I’ve had to learn a thousand, million ways to wake them up and get them dressed, fed, medicated, cleaned up, and out the door for school.

I’ve tried hollering, banging on their bedroom doors with wooden spoons, metal pots, and my flat hand. I’ve bounced cheerfully on their beds until they’re queasy and roll out of bed before they barf. I’ve tried tickling, letting other family members tickle them, and I have sent dogs into their rooms to bark, whine, slobber, and frolic them awake. My favorite method involving the dogs has been to stand at the doorway with the dog nearby and throw bits of dog treats onto the sleeping night owl, so that the dog bounds energetically to and fro around on the sleeper. My oldest son still refers to this tactic as the “wet biscuit” method.

I’m kind of tired of finding ways to wake them up in a timely manner. My creative juices are not really flowing in that direction any more. I’ve managed to turn myself into the biggest lark in the house, getting up around 5 am, if not earlier, every day of the week, and I have no more patience for waking the comatose.

Well, over my hiatus, my husband was working on my mother-in-law’s First Alert clone alarm system. Since her husband died and she moved into a quad home area with other seniors, we all agreed that a pendant she could push for help would be a good thing. This one phones my husband’s cell phone first, and she can then speak or just keep mashing the button. If someone else is in the house, but maybe not right where they could see her, she can also push a button to make a heinously loud alarm sound from the main unit, and then the other person would have to find her and turn off the alarm from the pendant. Something went wrong with it, and my techie spouse brought it home to fiddle with. It did make an ear-splitting racket, no doubt about it.

He couldn’t seem to get it to dial the phone again, and in disgust said, “well, it would make a good alarm bell for in the house, I guess, but she really needs one that will dial out.” I nodded in agreement, and then called for Doodle to come and do one of his chores. He didn’t show up. I called again. Still no Doodle. I was cranky and got up to go find him and give him a good glaring-at, when a light bulb appeared over hubby’s head.

“Hey,” he said, “why don’t I put the alarm box in his room and give you the pendant? Then you can just press the button and not have to yell?” I looked at him with wonder. “Can you do that? He might unplug it,” I said. “I’ll hide it,” he replied, and he went off, sent the Doodle in my direction, and installed the alarm. We didn’t tell Doodle about it because we are sneaky, evil parents.

Later on, Doodle was sloughing off on another chore, and I opened my mouth to holler for him, spotted the pendant and pushed the alarm button. A sound like the spaceship from that “Klaatu-Barada-Nicktu” movie went off in his room, and he came dashing out of his room yelling, “HEY! WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?” I pushed the “off” button, which generates a two tone sound like the elevator in a posh department store, and said, “It’s my Doodle Call. I don’t have to yell for you any more,” and a wide, wide grin spread across my face.

“Holy Crap,” said Doodle, “well, what do you need me for?” “Dish chore,” I replied, and went back to the living room enveloped in a feeling of bliss I haven’t experienced since my last encounter with a chocolate-raspberry truffle.

The next day, my daughter decided to ignore me when I called for her, and I wound up banging on her door after the third call, opening it up, and finding her in front of her computer with a pair of headphones on, be-bopping to heaven only knows what. “Hey,” I said, “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Well, kind of,” she replied, “but I was really enjoying this song.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? I could have waited,” I said.

“Ummmm,” was her response.

“Ah, I see,” I said.

That evening, I asked my husband if he could find another buzzer and put it in her room. I asked that it be loud enough to be heard through headphones and rock music. “No problem,” he said, “I love home improvement stuff,” and he winked at me and headed off to the hardware store.

When he came back, he had a remote doorbell, which generates a different, tinny kind of two-tone chime, and he snuck into her room when she wasn’t looking and installed it. He came back into the living room, and we grinned evilly at one another. “Need her to do anything?” I asked. He thought for a minute. “I’ll bet the dogs are in need of food and water,” he said. “I’m on it,” I replied, and pushed the bell. “HEY!” we heard, “NOT ME, TOO!” and she came into the living room looking very cranky and said, “WHAT?!” in that very special way teenaged girls have.

Hubs said, “I think your poor puppies are hungry and thirsty. Please feed and water them,” and he smiled innocently at her. “Oh, GOD,” she said and stumped off, grumbling the entire time she was filling their bowls.

“Two down,” I said, looking at hubby and quirking an eyebrow, “do we dare go for a three-fer? It’ll have to be the loudest one made, Spot sleeps pretty deeply.”

“I can do that,” replied hubs, “I love a challenge.”

He had to hit three hardware stores before finding an alarm just a few decibels below the “illegal noise level” range. It’s been hard-wired into Spot’s room. I have a little key chain now, with four alarm buttons on it (we decided not to let them hide in the basement, pretending they couldn’t hear any alarms). Each one gives a different tone, and I can choose among eight different tunes for the one in the basement.

I don’t have to yell anymore at all. I just gently push a button and wait. If no one shows up, I push it again, and again, and again. Someone always shows up. They may not be happy, but they are all getting to school on time, and I don’t have to yell until I’m cranky, or get up from whatever else I’m doing to hunt them down to remind them of chores.

I don’t think I’ve been this happy since I first discovered orgasms.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-02-25T12:43:00.001-06:00

Dead Man's Hand: (in poker) a hand containing two aces and two eights

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Fiddle Dee Dee

2008-02-22T10:18:00.002-06:00

Well, it’s taken me longer to return than I expected, but here I am, in all my winter glory – snow-covered and chilly, but hanging in there. The short list of what’s been going on since I last posted looks like this:

Dad’s not dead.
Neither is anyone else in the family.

After two 24-hour + power outages in extremely cold weather, we now have a new refrigerator and a new range.

The septic field is fine, but we were nearly too late getting the tank pumped.
We have a new appreciation for phones that work consistently.
And garage doors that are not too heavy to manually lift.

I’ve made a half dozen pairs of wool socks for myself.

Two of my kids are older.

We survived the holidays more easily than I expected.

I’m at the leading edge of a “new” career.
It’s very time-consuming, but cool.

The baby dog, Gracie, is calmer, spayed, and seems to have given up shoe-hunting in favor of digging holes through the snow and permafrost and into the vicinity of telephone lines.

Urk. I want to thank (picture me in a modest evening gown at the podium) everyone who kept stopping by during my long hiatus, everyone who sent me a note, and everyone who didn’t publicly lambaste me as a totally useless wiener. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back on a fairly regular schedule for writing.

So, the new career… Well, as you may remember, I have advocated for my own children because of their ADHD over the years – with school districts. I’ve also volunteered time and scarce brain cells to assist others lost in the morass of special education law and procedures. I’ve done some of it entirely by remote, over the computer, some of it in person, hunched over tables in the library, chairs in the doctor’s office, or while knitting at Chix with Stix.

A few months ago, another lady briefly joined the women’s group, and she has a child with profound disabilities. The table discussion that day concerned a variety of special education issues, and some of the other ladies are teachers, substitute teachers, or just have concerns about themselves, loved ones, or offspring. Apparently, without realizing it, I came off as being a real whiz kid on special ed issues. The moderator recommended that I consider becoming a paid advocate.

I pondered it and discarded the idea, feeling insecure and inadequate. She brought it up again in another group, so I pondered it again, did some research, and set my subconscious to the task of grinding away at the idea. I got closer to the precipice labeled “OK”.

Once again, in mid-January, the moderator, a clinical psychologist, brought it up, and I said, “yes”. She promptly handed me a referral. Tough case, too. It set my juices flowing, got blood pumping through my brain again, and I reached down into the dark, damp dungeon of my insecurities and examined them more critically.

I’ve spent twelve years advocating on an on-going basis for my own children. I’ve done a bang-up job of it, and I’ve had success with the assistance I’ve given other people. I checked state law and requirements, joined some support lists, and realized that I actually do have a clue about how to do this. I’ve surprised myself by feeling reasonably confident, competent and enthusiastic.

It’s that last feeling that really surprises me the most. Over the years as a stay-at-home mom, I’ve lost enthusiasm for rejoining the work world. I know how much it would take away from my ability to be a good mom to my kids, to keep my household running without lots of stress, and to maintain basic standards. I’ve learned to value myself and my needs, and they can sometimes be time-consuming. It’s been hard to try to figure out a way to put all of that in a framework so that nothing gets so badly neglected that it becomes an “issue” unto itself.

I tried signing up for at-home work, and that was a bust for several reasons. I tried signing up to be a secret shopper type person, and, really, there’s nothing intellectually fulfilling about it, and it felt more like tedious busywork. I’m not the sort to sell real estate, and other things just don’t generate enough income to make them more than a hobby. I am, however, a relentless researcher, and that’s a fine trait indeed for a special education advocate.

So, anyway, I decided on a fee schedule, checked the market, checked my conscience, and heard the “Click”. Everything fell into a place that felt like it fit. I met with my new (first) clients, and, more “click”-ing. Then, I let the data-mining juggernaut within loose. I roared through stacks of special education law, paperwork, historical data, case law, due process decisions, educational files going back nearly a decade, descriptions of applicable disorders and conditions, and felt… invigorated. Taller. Like I was breathing easier. Engaged. Focused.

I kept my clients’ butts covered and set loose the twin dogs of strategy and salesmanship. And we won. Everything the clients wanted. And everyone is still happy, the child is protected and in the right place with the right program in place, the clients can sleep at night, the school district was guided to the appropriate decisions and does not appear to feel steamrolled, and I can sleep, too.

It worked. I did it right, and fate smiled. I can, in fact, do this.

I’ve gotten two more referrals since then, and we’ll see how those go. Sometimes people are not going to really need me, they’ll just need someone to adjust their compasses. Other times, folks may have unreasonable expectations and it might not be a good fit for us to work together. But this does feel right for me at this point in time. I can make some measurable money and still be a mom and wife. I can say “no” if that’s the right choice. My brains are turning back into brains instead of being motherhood haggis, and I can take pride in doing a hard job to the best of my ability.

Wish me luck.

Oddball Word of the Day

2008-02-22T10:14:00.002-06:00

anneal: (uh-NEEL) v. to toughen (as glass or metal) by heating and gradually cooling

(from the Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words edited by Laurence Urdang)

German Idiom for Friday

2008-02-22T10:10:00.002-06:00

die Gelegenheit beim Schopf packen: to jump at the opportunity

zB: Sein Opa packte die Gelegenheit beim Schopf, zum ersten Mal eine Flugreise machen zu koennen.

auf Englisch: His grandad jumped at the opportunity of being able to travel by air for the first time.

(from a Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Things That Weren’t

2007-11-13T13:08:00.001-06:00

There were a lot of things I was going to share with you last week – when I got stuck waiting for a train to pass through town and got fascinated by the “urban art” – how beautiful some of it was and wondering how the graffiti-ists ever found all the time to do it; how every household, especially mine, needs an alpha mom more often than they think; how Spawn (hereafter to be called “Spot” – if I remember) has gone ahead with his legal name change; a sweater I’m knitting; cool stuff from my women’s group and my knitting group, but…

There’d come a call from the nursing home and then from the hospital, and everything extra had to stop. “Your Dad fell and seems fine,” “Your Dad fell and has a cut on his forehead, so we’re sending him to the hospital,” “Your Dad’s temperature is elevated and his breathing is congested and he’s groggy, so we’re sending him to the hospital.” And, “his leg is swollen, hot, and red, so we’re sending him for a Doppler.” On and on. He’s still alive, and doesn’t seem as bad as so many calls would indicate, but there are small signs.

He’s stopped being aware of where he is geographically – doesn’t realize we’re in the same city and state and keeps thanking me for making the long trip to see him. He doesn’t like his nursing home because they have too many rules and he can’t go bike-riding or out for a walk (which he hasn’t done for over 15 years anyway, since he can’t even walk); he forgets that my sister hasn’t visited for some time and talks about the last time they spoke as if it were yesterday. Time and distance and reality have collided and combined into an alternate reality for him, which is more obvious and sadly disturbing than ever. He has slipped another mile down the tunnel towards the end.

I am trying to figure out if now is the time to call my sister and tell her to come back for the last good bye before he passes. His health, fragile though it is, is comparatively stable, but his mind is leaving. I’d hate to wait until he was no longer able to recognize her and enjoy her company.

I was able, this weekend, to spend a few hours with Bunny at the mall, buying far too many good-smelling things at Bath and Body Works, and sharing a fruit smoothie with her before we assaulted Linens N Things for a turkey lifter and some bathroom refurbishments. Unfortunately, I seem to have subsequently come down with stomach flu and am taking the hint from God and Nature to lie down and rest.

So, I’m just going to have to admit to and take a hiatus for a while from blogging. If I get a chance, I’ll post the little things, and I’ll certainly keep you posted on the big things.

Wish me well.

Sharing Middle Age

2007-11-05T16:54:00.000-06:00

My neighbor lady friend and I went out the other day. She’s a few years older than I am, but my family goes through menopause early, so we’re about even on the hot-flash-o-meter. We were enjoying our cranberry scones and raspberry flavored coffee (it’s the ONLY added flavor I can stand in coffee), and I said, “I hate being middle aged.”

“Why?” she asked. “You get to be cranky, curse in public, and rearrange the furniture on a daily basis and blame it all on menopause!”

“Hair. In. The. Wrong. Places.” I responded with a corresponding grimace.

She nodded wisely. “Oh, I know what you mean. I had one on my chin that was not there when I went to bed, and when I woke up it had grown enough to have a CURL in it!”

“I hate those,” I sympathized.

“Oh, and when I pulled that bad boy out, I swear the root was 18 inches long! I felt the back of my HEAD sink in a fraction of an inch when it finally came out!” she said. “Where was yours?”

“I woke up yesterday morning and went to brush my teeth,” I said, “and when I looked in the mirror, it looked like Tufty the Nose Mouse had nested in my nostrils. I was so shocked I screamed, and then I couldn’t bring myself to explain why to my husband.”

“Has he started sprouting that gnome like ear hair men get?” she asked. “My husband has, and on those days when I decide I hate him, I have a really mean urge to put hair gel on it while he’s snoring and freak him out. Of course, he’d probably never notice.”

“Not so much, mostly it’s either end of the alimentary system that’s getting him,” I said.

She rolled her eyeballs and said, “In English, Wordsworth.”

“Teeth and hemorrhoids,” I responded.

“HEY!” yelled the guy in the booth behind us, who had been hidden by the back of the seat. “Enough already! I’m only 32, and I really, really don’t want a reason to drive off a cliff before I have kids!”

My friend and I looked sagely at each other, and she told him, “Oh, it’s the kids that will put you on THAT edge. Grandkids are the reason to stick around.”

I’m pretty sure he said a nasty word before turning back to his blueberry muffin.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-11-05T16:51:00.000-06:00

amaranth (AM-uh-ranth) n. an imaginary flower that never fades or withers

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

WeeMed Out

2007-10-29T13:44:00.000-05:00

Oooh, that sounds a little nasty. Anyway, it was lots of fun this year – some of the same programs and some new ones, basically the same food menu with more bounteous and more chocolaty sweets this time around (last year I was late and wound up confronted by what looked like an angry blanc mange as the sole remaining treat). It was nice having my daughter with me because I got to see some things through fresh eyes. Some of her observations:

1. No one bothers you if you’re reading, even if you’re doing it during dinner at a full table. They respect your love of reading.

2. Very few shirts for sports teams – mostly smart aleck remarks or puns or clever quips. She even spotted an IMSA t-shirt. (My favorite: I don’t think much, so I might not be.)

3. Puns and smarty-pants remarks on the posters – “Free Soda: Exact Change Required” or a sign under the quiche, “Vegetarian, not Vegan…Duh!”

4. We missed some programs because we were too busy talking with interesting people.

5. Everyone is nice, and (ahem) Mom is popular (grin).

6. The souvenir shirts are cool. So are squirrels.

Some things I noticed:

1. Many people expressed a sense of relief or joy at being with other Mensans – two memorable remarks: “I haven’t spoken that deeply on a topic in MONTHS” and “It’s so nice to be somewhere where I don’t have to explain what a Klein bottle is.”

2. Even if I don’t care about a topic, listening to the selected programs is always interesting. Being me, a total goober, I walked into a conference room to attend a meet and greet for online Mensans. Turns out, the last program was still going on – on foreskin restoration. It took me a couple of minutes to figure that out, since there were no explicit pictures or language for those couple of minutes (although the large pink florescent penis and partial balls on the table should have clued me in, but I don’t like to assume…), and by then, I was moderately interested, even though I can’t imagine a topic I’d be less likely to seek out. It was very scientific and clinical, the speaker read testimonial letters, and I could tell he felt very sincere and earnest about his topic. Twenty minutes later he finished up, redirected a lot of people looking for a speaker on ghosts, and then the online thing started.

3. The hugs were even better this year.

4. It’s fine, even normal, to skip all the programs and just hang out and snork up beer and/or broccoli and chat with other Ms.

5. I’m not the only person who gets a little ferocious when the caffeinated coffee runs low.

6. Even the inexplicable costumes were funny.

7. No one b*tch slapped me for knitting all over the place. I even knit during the Saturday evening show and tried Very Hard not to clank like a member of a chain gang.

8. Hi, Bill! It was nice to finally meet you in real life!

OK, so I have to go catch up on laundry and get dinner started. I’m still smiling, though, which is nice.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

intelligensia (in-TELL-ih-JENT-see-uh): n. pl. intellectuals, considered as an educated, influential class, esp. as an elite.

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Also, dang tasty coffee.

WEEM…Plus

2007-10-26T10:11:00.000-05:00

I’m off to WeeM today – that’s the Chicago Area Mensa Regional Gathering. I’ll be taking my daughter, since I use WeeM as a senior year treat. We’re both looking forward to it – if nothing else, one of my favorite things about staying in a hotel is the unlimited supply of very hot water – I can have a hot bath that lasts a full day (with periodic reheating) if I want! Oh, the luxury. Plus, someone else worries about the cooking.

Anyway, I’ve been a naughty blogger. Here are some of the things that have been going on since I last posted:

My dad went into the hospital twice – the first time was when his blood pressure dropped really low and he was even more confused and tired than usual, plus the congestion in his chest got worse. Once he was checked in and poked and prodded, he and his blood pressure perked back up, but they still kept him for three days. Then, a day after he got back to the nursing home, he tried to get out of his wheelchair and fell and broke open the skin on his forehead, so he had to go get scanned, checked out, and sewn up.

Then, my dear knitting friend had a partial knee replacement, the “Oxford Knee” (Name brand surgery!). I had to go up to Fringe to pick up some special order yarn, and I decided I’d pick up several skeins in autumn colors for her, too. Then, while in traffic on the way there, I had a brainstorm – a yarn bouquet. The yarn store owners looked at me like they were wondering where I was hiding my third eye, so, as I sat in traffic on the way home, I decided to try my local florist. I know the owner there, and she’s wonderfully creative.

I stopped in, showed her the yarn, and asked if she could combine it, safely, with some autumn toned flowers in a basket for a unique bouquet. She looked thrilled at the chance to do something new, and said sure. I left it in her hands, and toddled home. I got a call from my knitting friend (OK, it’s Irene. I’ve outed your first name. Be afraid!) who was overwhelmed at the lovely bouquet. I couldn’t resist, so I went over and took a picture of it:

Faboo, eh? (I have it on good authority that the yarn was severely fondled before I took the picture, so It's not necessarily in its original state.)

Then, let’s see, it was let the dog out every two hours so she didn’t pizzle in my house, I had another 504 meeting for my youngest, and he had a dentist’s appointment and a med. Management appointment; I had four bouts of volunteer tutoring, two rounds of extended length private tutoring in German (excellent adult learner, though, which is cool), and one afternoon Spawn came home to announce that he was going to legally change his first name.

I could have gotten all worked up about it, but I decided that it was probably better than getting a strange piercing or obscene tattoo, so I smiled and asked what his new name would be. He wouldn’t tell me. So, I’ve been calling him “Spot” or “Fluffy” or “Lars” in the hopes of irking him into telling me. So far, no luck. My husband has not reacted calmly, even though Spawn fully intends on keeping the family name. Being a whimsical teenaged boy, Spawn didn’t do his homework and found out it would take six weeks to legally change his name, would involve a lawyer, a fee, and publication in the newspaper. We haven’t heard much about it since then.

And then there’s knit stuff:

About 10 years ago, I made my daughter a “hot damn” afghan from a pattern on the Knitlist. It involved multiple strands of thin yarn, size 35 needles, and muscles like Conan in order to tame the yarn and needles and wrassle them into compliance. I swore, silently, that I would never make another one, and, of course, it’s Bunny’s cherished blankie. Well, between 10 years of daily use and one new dogette, the afghan developed a huge, scary, tangled hole in the middle, and then somewhere midway between middle and end, in each direction, the yarn failed and there were two splits. Bunny wanted the afghan fixed. She moped; she stuck out her lip, she said encouraging words.

I bit my tongue, yet still managed to offer to make her a brand new one. She cried and said she just wanted the old one fixed. I pointed out there was no way I could ever hope to match the yarns again, showed her the only possible yarn I have which I could use to fix it, in the hopes of getting her to agree to a new afghan instead. She perked up and said they’d be fine; that she didn’t mind if her blankie had battle scars. So, I gave in.

And I began darning, and darning, and darning. The two splits weren’t a problem, but that big danged hole in the middle took me, well, several days to build up the courage to deal with it, then four days to – a) untangle the mess and find out what was split, missing, etc., b) knit back what had unraveled, as best as possible, and c) two days to darn the 12 inch by 6 inch remaining hole. The craftsmanship is fine, but, boy, oh, boy does the darn stick out like a thick, sore thumb. Bunny, however, is delighted. I may finally be over the throbbing headache that accompanied it.

Then the Doodle came to me after dinner one night, as I was meditating over a new sock, and announced (I think I have a family of budding Walter Kronkites – they announce stuff rather than just casually mentioning it) that he needed a new sweater. I asked him about the two sweaters I made him two years ago, which were very handsome -- made with doubled sock yarn for warmth and durability, and in masculine variegated blues, which he had been wearing quite happily up until his announcement. He said they didn’t fit any more, and I made him try one on.

He was right. He looked like Pappy Yoakum, with his belly showing and most of his lower arms sticking out. The width was still fine, though. I said, “Holy Crap! When did you grow so much?” He laughed and said he didn’t know and could he please take off the sweater since it made his armpits feel funny. Aaargh. So, he got measured up for a new sweater. The durned kid has pretty much grown three inches beyond the limits of the previous sweater in all vertical zones. We picked out a yarn, and I swatched and cast on. And, no, he doesn’t want any fancy stitches or stripes or patterns, he just wants a plain John Doe sweater made by Mom. That’s OK, everyone needs a little mindless TV knitting.

Then there’s Being On Hold, which should be a paid job. Or, I should at least get extremely valuable discount coupons because I think I’ve spent 24 solid hours either talking to people in India or touch-toning my way through corporate phone labyrinths over the last two weeks in order to: update two Tracfones, get a monstrously wrong electric bill straightened out, make a consumer complaint on a product, and making an inquiry on one of my Dad’s bills. I dozed off at the dining room table twice while waiting on hold, lulled to sleep by the sound of an electronic female telling me how important my call was.

Last night, I woke up from my unintentional nap on the couch, at 8:30, to the startling realization that the only clean pants I had were the ones I was wearing, so I headed down to the laundry room, where there was another startling discovery. My family decided to show me how much they’ll miss me by saving up all their laundry until the night before my departure. It’s piled on a waist high counter to a height over my head, and stretching about 7 feet wide. There were throw rugs, robes, uncountable towels, and, of course, all of my pants in there. I quirked an eyebrow at the mountain of pong, fished out a couple pairs of my and Bunny’s pants, and threw them in the wash. I did the same thing with underwear and shirts this morning. The rest of it can wait for me to get back, or for the weight of the laundry to turn the socks into diamonds; I don’t care. They all know where to find the soap and turn the dials.

So, I’m off to WeeM. I may never leave the room because I’ll be enjoying the hot water, the lack of phone duty, and the laundry being someone else’s business. Hope to see some of you there, and, if not, have a hot bath and a great weekend on my behalf!

Five Completely Dumb Things I’ve Done...

2007-10-12T16:41:00.000-05:00

…in no particular order

1. When I was a kid, despite knowing I should stay away from electrical outlets, I still tried to plug my plastic iron’s plastic cord in, just in case (also, don’t put me near signs that say “Wet Paint”). When I got up off the floor, with my hair sticking straight up and a snootful of electrically fried plastic smell, I decided that maybe staying away from electrical outlets would be a good general principle after all.

2. I took a driving test in a car that was really amazingly awful. The horn didn’t work, so I had a rubber ducky that I used as a horn. My three-point turn, because of stiff steering bits, was more of a five point and big smile at the examiner turn. It wouldn’t go over 45 miles per hour without shimmying and making scary clunking noises. The headlights chose their own brightness, pretty whimsically, which made night driving extra spicy. I passed the test, though. Maybe the examiner just wanted to get the hell out of the scary car with the dangerously perky (it was a sham; I was embarrassed and scared shitless) driver.

3. I sat in a train station in Paris and pelted pigeons with dried chunks of baguette. I was frustrated and hungry, and the damned baguette was inedibly hard. Even the Parisian pigeons snubbed it. I beaned one big b*stard pretty hard in its tiny head and got cussed at (in lovely French) by an old lady.

4. In high school, my best friend and I went to see a sci-fi movie. When we bought our tickets, the clerk looked at us funny, and pointed us to the correct theater (one of three). We were a little late, so we squinched into some seats in the back so we wouldn’t disturb people. We watched the screen for a few minutes and realized that a whole lot of people were having a lot of sloppy sex. My friend poked me and said, “I thought this was going to be a sci-fi movie”. I said, “Maybe it’s alien sex. Maybe it’ll be over soon.” We decided to tough out the alien sex until a few seats away we heard a guy, well, you know, doing the Pee Wee Herman thing. We looked at each other in embarrassment and left. We checked the marquee; it was supposed to be the sci-fi movie. We asked the clerk, and he said we’d gone in the wrong theater, but we hadn’t – the sci-fi movie was listed on the sex movie theater. So, in the spirit of adventure, my friend and I went back in and watched the porn. It was yucky, and we were the only girls in there, which was also yucky. The sci-fi movie was next, but we left halfway through because we were still stunned and kind of numb from the porn, so we headed for a coffee shop and spent a lot of time looking at each other in VERY BRIGHT LIGHT, drinking coffee and saying, “Well…Holy shit.”

5. I got very, very drunk in my late teens, and spent the night at my stepbrother’s house. His wife took in stray animals, and I woke up covered in cats. I thought I was hallucinating, or having the dt’s or something. I got up to go wee and had to pry cats off my head, my neck and my arms. When I sat down on the throne, thinking I was in a fur-free zone, the window clicked. I looked up, and there was a cat, sitting in the window, watching me wee. I had to scrape cats off my pillow to get back in bed, and the sound of all that purring and scratching totally freaked out my still-drunk self. I have not gotten snockered since, and I don’t have any cats. I wonder why?

Here’s to a wiser weekend!

Odd

2007-10-12T14:49:00.000-05:00

Rabelaisian (Ra-beh-LAY-zee-ehn) adj. broadly or coarsely humorous, satirical, etc.

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

A Moment of Calm

2007-10-11T14:44:00.000-05:00

Bluebird by Robin Trower/James Dewar

I remember when this song came out in 1977; I heard it on the radio one cold morning. It was so beautiful that I lunged up out of bed, then lay back down, listening in awe. It calms me every time I hear it, while overwhelming me with the amazing guitar skills. If you wait past the first few awkward seconds, it'll be worth your time -- the recording is from 1977, so there's a little noise.

Relax, and let it happen. You could even knit while listening!

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-11T14:42:00.000-05:00

plangent (PLAN-jehnt) adj. having a loud, vibrating, lamenting sounds, with a wave-like beat or surge

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Friendship

2007-10-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

We were discussing friends and friendship in group yesterday. Some folks have trouble trusting that they are likeable enough to have real friendships, others have trust issues, others are so isolated and unfamiliar with social settings that they are horribly self-conscious and feel awkward and too weird to make friends. I feel lucky.

I was not a person who inspired friendships until I hit my midteens and moved in with my Dad and Stepmom. Prior to that, I had your typical cynical, acidic, alienating and alienated attitude that most kids have who are abused. “Don’t get close to me, you’ll just cause me pain” is how that shakes out lots of times. Dad and Ellen made the difference.

They liked me, even when I was obnoxious and peculiar, they found my sense of humor hilarious, they pointed out my good features physically and mentally, and they accepted me. That made such a huge difference. After having been treated with hatred, violence, distain, and dismissal for so many years, having someone else not only see me, but also see the good in me was a revelation.

Looking at it from here, my spot years later in life, I think it works that way for most people, regardless of their upbringing. I think that when others accept us and like us, we are more able to accept and like ourselves. I think we begin to take ourselves and our right to friendship and decent treatment more seriously and learn to discern the difference between someone who enjoys our company and someone who is working a hidden agenda.

I think back over the friends I’ve had over the years. Some people, like me, just needed companionship for the short term, or their lives took different paths, but during the time we were friends, we laughed, we threw popcorn at each other, we were able to let down our back hair and share emotions, worries, gossip, adventures, and deepest secrets.

Others started off like friends, but, and I don’t think I’m the only one who’s faced this, at some point, their eyes shuttered, they drew back and didn’t share. There were places they were not willing to go, be it in shared silliness or seriousness, or there were things they were afraid of – rejection, judgment, criticism, I don’t know. I do know I’ve sometimes been on the other side of the shuttered eyes and mind, too.

Sometimes we just needed a break from one another – things had been intense or taken too much time, and we were enjoying relating so much that we let important things fall by the wayside, so we had to step back from the time-eating friendship for a spell. If we granted each other that space without resentment, then things went well. If that was too threatening for one person or the other, sometimes the friendship altered or died.

I don’t enter into friendships expecting one person to solve or resolve all my needs – that would be overwhelming and imprudent. I share different aspects of myself with different friends, as they do with me, and that’s enough. There’s usually plenty of crossover, too, in areas and issues. It’s manageable, it’s safe, it’s sane, and it’s normal. I’m not looking for a “bff”; I’m happy with a “gffalail” (good friend for as long as it lasts); I don’t require perpetuity of my friends; I think that would be a little frightening because so many things lie between here and forever.

I suppose the best thing I have going for me in my approach to friendships is that I truly believe I am likeable, but I don’t expect everyone to like me, and I’m not devastated by rejection. Plenty of fish in the sea, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. I don’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea.

So, as I often do, I bring the things talked about, or alluded to, in group home and roll them around in my mind, chewing on them, pulling them apart, examining bits in greater detail and so on. I was thinking about friendship skills and my kids and wondering how I’ve done, if I could have done better, if circumstances conspire against them, etc. I suppose only time will tell.

They are selective in their friends, which I think is a pretty good thing. I figure the adage, or variation thereof, that a man who is everyone’s friend is known by none of them is true – it smells of people-pleasing and burying the bits of oneself that can create a deeper friendship. They each are working on learning about friends and friendships; Bunny has had friendships that slowly evaporated over time and distance, and we’ve talked about how that just happens and how to keep in touch if they both want to. Doodle has learned to let friendships build over time and let trust enter in manageable increments. Spawn is having introspective moments over what a friend really is and what’s appropriate to expect from friends (and what they can expect from him) as he and his cohort age and move into different phases of their lives.

If they ask me questions, I answer them with personal experiences, and I really do try to avoid holding forth too much. Sometimes I’m not completely successful at that, but their questions are always welcome, and I hope I let them know they’re not alone, they’re likeable and loved and accepted, and that finding people who like them and appreciate them is often a matter of luck and circumstance, as well as liking themselves well enough to be honest and real in encountering others. I’ll never really know by what yardstick they are measuring themselves, though, I suppose.

But, they are always welcome and loved here, and I guess that’s pretty much all a parent can do.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

caryatid (KARE-ee-AT-id) n. (in architecture) a draped female figure serving as a supporting column

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

College Season and Small Dogs

2007-10-09T16:27:00.000-05:00

Well, the colleges are bombarding Bunny with pamphlets, offers of scholarships, enticing letters, multi-colored flyers, and email. Lately, our mail has been 2/3 college mail and 1/3 bills and dross. I’m cynical, and I should probably do a better job of hiding it. I’m pretty sure most adults, especially most adults who were smart high school students, got the same kind of mail – offers of scholarships, but when the actual offers show up, they’re not usually full scholarships – those are reserved for the students who can pay back the college in entertainment value – namely, conference sports. Yep, I’m cynical.

And, the smallest dog has been working my patience pretty hard. We had “Adventures in Wee” day on Saturday. Gracie wee-weed in every room in the house, including leaping into the upstairs bathtub, wee-ing in the tub, then leaping out, with the shower curtain still in place, hiding her crime. I am just now discovering some of the more cleverly hidden damp spots. We’ve already shampooed and Dog-gone-d the downstairs carpet once; I have to take the Bad Shaky Can with me if I let her accompany me when I go to do laundry. Funny how she doesn’t wee in her crate. Aaargh.

Fortunately, her big brother is fine. It cost us one arm and three fingers to get his shots updated and him fully checked out and protected against all possible infestations and diseases, but the vet says he’s in fighting trim and that all that playing with a kid sister is good for him. I invited him over to massage the Hoove after a hard day of sister-wrestling, but he laughed at me and gave my dog a cookie. Humph.

It’s also time to vacuum again – between chewed up pencils, chewed up chopsticks, chewed up straws, chewed up paper (Oh, she ate the one kiddy book I was actually pretty sentimental about), chewed up toys, and shed hair, it looks like Kim and Aggie would have words for me. Sigh. Time to go lie down on the couch, pull the blanket up over my head and pretend I’m not there! (Think that will work?)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

younker (YUNG-ker) n. a youngster

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

In case...

2007-10-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

You're blue...

Meme Scheme

2007-10-07T19:41:00.000-05:00

OK FugueStateKnits has tagged me, and I’ve come out of my dark, yarn-infested lair and decided to play nice with others, having set my snips aside for the nonce. It’s a random things meme, and here are the rules: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they've been tagged.

(Oh, great, now I have to come up with eight people who also have sites, and who may choose not to wreak cyber-havoc upon me for tagging them. Feel the dread.)

1. I would love to have a clutter-free, pristine house, but that would last as long as it would take me to open up a newspaper. Then there’d be inserts on one end table, which I might not get to chucking out right away, bits would probably fall out, which I wouldn’t vacuum up for a while, and then I’d wind up with the crossword puzzle and Sudoku puzzle section folded open and left on the coffee table until I got a chance to do them. My cluttered house isn’t just the fault of my family and pets; it’s my fault, too.

2. I’m actually looking forward to my children being all grown up and living elsewhere. It’s not that I can’t live with them; I love them, and they are dear and wonderful people. It’s that I’m wearing out on dealing with the teenaged years. I’ve already really, seriously done the midnight feedings and diaper years, and I have a puppy, so I’m dealing with a doggy version of the “toddler” years all over again. I’m looking forward to relating to my kids as fellow adults to whom I am related, with a lot less “Mom” stuff.

3. I am a really good friend except for one thing – I don’t do “Hi, how are you?” phone calls or emails. I can’t stump up any motivation for calling someone up to talk about nothing in particular. I enjoy it when my friends call me up for those kinds of calls, but I never seem to do it myself, and even when I think I should, I wind up agonizing over coming up with an actual reason to call. Some people find that peculiar.

4. I have an inappropriate sense of humor almost all the time. I will burst out laughing in the emergency room, especially if it’s something going on with me. It’s probably a defense mechanism – finding something absurd in almost everything, but I don’t think many people find it amusing. I’ve been known to snicker during my women’s group because something said makes a wild, loony image in my head, or I notice bizarre things when other people are having problems, and I have to really fight down my urge to point out whatever inappropriate and probably insultingly irrelevant thing it is. I couldn't stop laughing during my Dad's retirement party and had to go to the little girls' room before I embarrassed him. That was about 25 years ago, and I haven't gotten much better.

5. I went to a Catholic high school for my last two years of public education. I am not Catholic, and it was kind of an eye-opener into the dogma of that religion. I still have my plaid, pleated polyester skirt in a memory box somewhere.

6. I am a survivor of severe childhood abuse. It is not all that I am, nor it is the most important thing about me, but it is something that will always be with me. Sometimes, I have very blue times, which, really, only other survivors can understand. June is a rough month for me. An acquaintance has tough Julys. I have alluded to the abuse in my childhood in previous posts, but here’s why June is rough for me.

Shortly after my 12th birthday at the beginning of June 1972, my mother and I were visiting her family in the south. She had a rage storm, hit me over the head with a heavy object, and I wound up in a coma. For once, she did it in front of a witness, my uncle. He sent her back to our home, and he and my other relatives took care of me. According to them, I was in a coma for 6 days. They did not seek medical treatment for me because of a number of factors, ignorance and fear of the law being two of them. When I came out of the coma, I could not bear light, could not speak, could not walk, talk, figure out how to eat, toilet, drink fluids, read, or do any of the other ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) necessary to survive.

They found a C.N.A. to watch over me, and my aunts and uncles worked, very lovingly, to help me recover. By the end of the summer, I could go outside with dark glasses and a loose, billed hat on; I could walk, but not well, toilet, eat easy-to-chew foods, and drink from a straw. I could not remember mathematics or read for more than a minute or two at a time. I went back to school and struggled to get back up to speed. It was grueling and frightening, since I don’t know what my mother told the officials to explain my problems.

I caught up with my studies within a year, but it took me almost two years to recover all my abilities, and, like other people with TBIs (traumatic brain injuries) I have some problems that have lasted until today and will last the rest of my life. They are not significant, and I don’t even notice them anymore unless I think really hard about them. Surviving attempted murder was a life-altering event. So were finally having a witness and champions.

And, to pre-empt the question, no, that's not all there was. It just explains blue Junes.

7. I do know how to ask for help with various things, but I don’t do it very often. I envy people who are able to, without even thinking about it, ask for assistance with big and little, everyday and out-of –the-ordinary things. I think that gene fell off my DNA somewhere along the way.

8. I read romance novels, mostly Regency ones. And I like them.

Alrighty! I’m tagging Crazy Aunt Purl (who will probably think I’m an annoying stalker), Franklin at the Panopticon (who is still recovering from an exciting infusion of knitting in color and who, I am sure, will be offended that I have tagged him), Joan (of the famous Knitlist socks) . Christie, Wendi, Lamb and Frog , a survivor blog – the Memory Artist, and some unlucky blogger I just happened across.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

shandy (SHAN-dee) n. a drink of mixed beer and lemonade (sounds a little yucky)

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

The Randomizer

2007-10-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

(Strange side note: When I write that word, which I’ve used more than once, I invariably think of a sci-fi movie that took place in a prison in the year 2XXX, and all the prisoners had an “abdominizer” implanted in their stomachs. Rather than being an effortless way to a super six-pack, it was a punishment device. If they tried to escape, the abdominizer ball would sprout wicked blade wings and puree them from the inside out. Being perverse, I kind of thought that would be a great idea for blending soup or clearing clogged drainpipes… You know, unless it got beyond itself and went out of control.)

ANYWAY!

The iPod “1-2-3-4” song is here. I can only understand a few words of it, but they seem like nice words, and the voice and tune are pretty.

I think my parrot is smart, and it’s been hard work keeping him on the straight and narrow path of virtue and honesty. Not so lucky were the caretakers for this birdie.

Courage, wisdom, fortitude and spirituality. I was reading a post about faith here, where the blogger mentions moments of that hair-raising, eerie feeling that you are not alone in the moment – that something greater, kinder, and wiser is with you. I’ve had those, too.

About 8 years ago, my husband lost his job due to the machinations of a person of evil intent. We were in poor shape financially, the children were all under 12, we hadn’t been here in our little town long, and I was scared – scared that we wouldn’t make it, that my husband would become so depressed that he’d be unable to work or seek work, and that I wouldn’t be able to bring in enough income to keep the wolves at bay. I don’t cry on many shoulders, but I had cried, very briefly, on the shoulder of a female friend who’s had her share of scary moments. It helped, but not enough.

One morning while I was deep in the fear-of-the-future well, I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing a pot. It was early morning, I was the only person awake, and I was crying silently. The sun came through the window; I took a deep breath, put down my head and prayed -- I asked God to grant me the courage, wisdom, fortitude and spirituality I would need to get through the coming days. As they say in 12 step groups, in that moment, I really did give it over to God. I felt the worry slip from my shoulders, the hair on my neck stood up, and I felt a greater presence. Two days later, my husband got a call from his former employer, asking him to come back – they had uncovered the misdeeds of the other fellow, fired him, and wanted to make amends (and keep clients). I’m not saying the two were related, but I know I got through the two interim days with a lighter heart and true hope.

Anyway, when it comes to the topic of faith, that little foursome – courage, fortitude, wisdom and spirituality – represent to me a prayer applicable for life, to whatever greater power a person believes in. And then I think of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. I’ve never been a Catholic, but I believe there is wisdom across the spectrum of faith. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a local paper published an interview they had with him, and he was quoted as saying something along the lines of “I don’t pray to God to take away the cancer. I pray to him to give me the strength and wisdom to deal with it and to help others to do the same.” I was humbled by that statement, and breathed it in as wisdom that I needed then and continue to need when obstacles arise.

On a more light-hearted note, one of the gals in my knitting group makes me laugh because she has a “punishment” closet for craft projects gone bad. If the project annoys her, has awful instructions, insufficient bits, or is getting on her nerves for any reason, it goes into the closet for being naughty. Eventually, when she feels like she’s able to deal with a truculent, fiddly project, she’ll rootle through her closet and find something that has been suitably punished and bring it out and work on it. She claims, tongue in cheek, that sitting in the closet causes them to rethink their resistance to being crafted and they are much more amenable later. She has one project though that still shows no remorse, despite serving a total of nearly 10 years in the closet. It has not yet been deemed completely unsalvageable, and she optimistically estimates it should be more approachable before the end of the decade.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-10-01T09:42:00.000-05:00

ruction (ruck-SHEN) n. a noisy disturbance, quarrel, or uproar

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Friday (Where did the other four days go?) Five

2007-09-28T13:37:00.000-05:00

1. Tutoring: I’m a volunteer tutor two days a week at the middle school and a private tutor for an adult learning German in the evenings, once or twice a week, depending on when she can get away.

2. Housewifery: (snort) Of course. It’s fun being the fill-in-the-blank fairy, i.e. grocery shopping, toilet sanitizing, laundry, dry cleaning, stair mopping, dog training, dinner cooking, etc. Amazing how much time gets spent doing things other people find invisible.

3. Following up on “professionals” who ought to know better: School district employees. I think that’s self-explanatory.

4. Calling depressed people: I’m no Pollyanna; I just call up folks who missed group and find out why the hell they weren’t there because I’m nosy. Usually, they wind up admitting they didn’t go because they were too depressed, and, yes, they realize the irony, and then they promise to show up the following week and most of the time they do. I’ve bailed once or twice myself. Someone called me, too.

5. Getting ready to get ready, aka Productive Procrastination: I have a bunch of family accounting to do. It’s mounting. So, I’m neatly arranging and categorizing piles of paper, labeling files, organizing receipts, and…. Not doing it. I’ll get there. I just need to get really DANGEROUSLY ready. Urk.

Have a good weekend!

German Idiom for Friday

2007-09-28T13:33:00.000-05:00

Was soll das heissen? : What's the meaning of this/that? (I've also heard it as, "Was soll das?" and akin to "what do you think you're doing?" or "What's THAT supposed to be?" in tone and intent.)

zB: Was soll das heissen? Warum bist du nicht in der Schule?

auf Englisch: What's the meaning of this? Why aren't you in school?

(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

splendiferous (splen-DIF-er-us) adj. magnificent; splendid

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Knitopia

2007-09-27T11:09:00.000-05:00

First off, I just finished a pair of anklets for my daughter from Zarina washable baby wool. It’s very, very soft. The ball band says to use size 4 needles, and my swatch was dead on gauge. The problem, however, was that that size needle led to a super stretchy fabric, which would have made the socks sloppily large. I went down to a size 2 needle, and, due to the stretch, was able to use the same number of cast on stitches for a tidy pair of anklets.

Then, I bit the bullet, so to speak. I’ve been desperately in need of putting my knitting tools in some kind of sane, predictable, adult order. Some time ago, my husband bought me a carpenter’s tool bag for a gift, since I had envied the stay-open top and multiple pockets. I knew I’d need further internal organization for the needles and such because having them flop around inside would not really solve the problem. I already had one fabric needle case for straights, but I didn’t like it – there weren’t nearly enough slots for all my needles, there certainly weren’t enough spaces for my dpns, and I couldn’t see inside of it. Also, being opaque, I was likely to open it upside down and then things would fall out and need to be size-checked and put back in – very often. Highly annoying.

So, I went on an online quest. I searched many, many online knitting suppliers and finally found what I was looking for at Elann. They carry Ashland Sky Knit Stick Sacks, which are made of very heavy duty frosted plastic with durable fabric trim, in a wide variety of styles and sizes. You can look at their wonderful offerings here .
(This is the circular needle sack, into which I just shoved the packs of circs to make sure I had enough space for them all)

I got my Stick Sacks two days ago and was so inspired by their high quality that I started sorting and loading my excessive hoard of knitting needles into them within 24 hours. I would not have believed it possible, because I really do have a LOT of needles, including numerous multiples of some sizes (which comes from buying stuff for a nickel at thrift shops/garage sales, and then spacing out on which ones I have when I go to a real yarn store, and buying more of the same), but I was able to fit every single need I own into the stick stacks. And I can see them without having to unfurl the sack. It’s wonderful!

One of the nicest features about the sacks is that they each have a deep flap which covers well past the exposed part of the needle while it’s in its compartment, so I could just about juggle with them and nothing would fall out. The slightly textured plastic holds them in place pretty well, too. I am extremely pleased with them and recommend them to anyone who has more than one set of needles – they have a “multipack” for fairly new knitters who may have only one or two of each type – single points, dpns, circs, etc. You can locate either an online store or a knit shop near you, which carries their goods at the link above. They also have sacks for crochet supplies.

It was a huge load off my mind to have all my needles in good order for once, and in one location, so I made good use of the carpenter’s bag, which is big enough for my folded up ball winder and swift, too. My worktable is now fairly clear, and I feel much easier about my supplies being protected from marauding children and baby dogs, and I can FIND things now, right away!

So, mind at peace, at least to some extent, I swatched the gorgeous Blue Heron beaded wool. The ball band says to use size 7 needles, so here’s the swatch on 7’s.

It was wonderful to work with – smooth on the fingers, and for a textured yarn, it knits up pretty evenly. Even the back looks nice!

(P.S. -- I am a sucky photographer, but I mean well)

I think I could easily go up at least one more needle size, if I wanted to, without it starting to look scrawny and overly gappy. I’m thinking of making a sweater for myself, especially since I picked up a copy of Big Girl Knits. Nice fitting tips and a couple of nice patterns in there for the fluffier amongst us. While I ponder the delights of a luxury sweater for myself, I’m swatching a pair of anklets for myself from Fleece Artists washable merino sock yarn in autumn tones. Oooh, it feels nice to spoil myself!

Knit on!

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

nostrum (NOS-trehm) n. 1. a patent medicine, 2. a remedy, scheme, etc., intended to solve all problems; panacea

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Snobs

2007-09-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

I had one of those negative moments of enlightenment last week. I don’t like them much.

Some time ago, and completely without malice, one of my kids mentioned to a friend that I was a Mensan, and that kid mentioned it to their mom, and the mom became interested in being friends. I don’t like to make assumptions, and I don’t casually spurn offers of friendship, so we’ve met for cards or lunch from time to time and have a good time talking and so forth.

For the most part, I thought we were bonding over being in the same age range, having kids the same age who were friends, having similar interests, and all that other “friendship” stuff. I did know that I wished she didn’t know about my Mensan status because she brought it up several times in conversation, and it made me uncomfortable. I turned the conversation in other directions and mentally moved on.

Well, earlier this week, we were both in a group of people, and we were all talking about experiences with doctors. My friend mentioned her doctor, I asked what she liked about him, and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Well, he’s a Mensan, so, you know, we get along…” It was like she was saying he was a member of the right country club, or the right class, as if we shared a mutual bigotry.

Now, mind you, my friend is not a Mensan. I have no idea of whether or not she has checked into joining, or if she’s qualified or not. I’ll be honest, though, and say that I have my doubts and leave it, snottily, at that. And, basically, I don’t care because I don’t become, or stay, friends with people on that basis. It has never occurred to me to even consider whether or not friends are up to some intellectual benchmark, other than I may realize on some level that they are having trouble learning something I take for granted, or they occasionally poke fun at me for being a walking dictionary.

When she said that I was shocked, and then I was hurt, and then I was angry. I could feel myself withdrawing from her, too. I feel betrayed, too, and the suspicion is there that if I hadn’t “qualified”, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. None of this means that I’m going to dump her, reject her friendship, or cut her out; friends are too rare and, by gum, I have plenty of my own flaws and quirks and subconscious white noise going on to take it THAT personally.

But I heard it, and it stuck, and it fit, and that makes it unforgettable, which is the hard part of the entire encounter. I also know now that we will never become the kind of friends we might have been had I not realized how important other people’s IQ qualifications are to her. I feel dirtied by implication. I have, unknowingly, lain down with fleas, as it were.

And, I’m going to have to explicitly set a boundary with her myself, which pisses me off. I’m going to have to tell her, just like I’ve told my family, that I consider it personal information that should not be disseminated without my express permission. I hate that she and her ego have put me in the position of having to do so.

Or, possibly, I am a big wienerhead.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-24T16:56:00.000-05:00

chary (CHAIR-ee) adj. cautious; careful; wary; timid; frugal or sparing

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Five Things I Could Have Done Without This Week

2007-09-21T13:41:00.000-05:00

1. Monkeyshines with the school district: They had a total lapse of brain function with respect to proper procedure for Doodle’s 504 and handed out THEIR rough draft without ever giving me a copy and without letting me know they were doing so. Consequently, I was contacted by a couple of teachers asking about the particulars. I think the teachers were great – they were jumping right on to helping Doodle. Unfortunately, it felt a lot like sandbagging to me. I wrote an extremely polite email to the gun-jumpers about procedural safeguards. I later received a reasonably polite response and acknowledgement that I was right. It’s enough. Why do they always think they can do stuff like this and get away with it? (OK, that was 90% rhetorical.)

2. Hot weather: Hey! I thought we were done with that for the year! I was looking forward to long pants again!

3. A slow leak into the basement: One of the toilets needs a wax ring replaced. I hate knowing this much about plumbing.

4. A backed up kitchen sink: see no. 3 above. I should be grateful that my husband will jump into the breach and deal with the nasty bits, though.

5. Insomnia: always makes me feel like I’ve missed the next day. It happened twice this week. I did get to watch some interesting movies, but in a choice between REM sleep and movies from the 80’s, I vote for sleep.

Soldiering on…

German Idiom for Friday

2007-09-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

Mir faellt ein Stein vom Herzen. : It's a load off my mind.

zB: Als der Lehrer mir sagte, dass ich nicht sitzenbleiben muesste, fiel mir ein Stein vom Herzen.

auf Englisch: When the teacher told me that I did not have to repeat the year, it was a load off my mind.

(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

derisible (dee-RIZ-ih-bul): adj. worthy of being mocked or derided

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Big Hocks

2007-09-20T12:42:00.000-05:00

I have finished the “Big Hocks” socks for Doodle. I think one is ¼ inch longer in the leg portion than the other one, but also hope he won’t notice. I’m not going to tell him, and if you tell him, you get to fix it! Ha!

Also, notice how I have ostentatiously displayed them on top of luxury yarn from my last yarn waddle. I like to get all kinds of mileage out of my yarn purchases – pictures included!

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

charily (CHAIR-eh-lee) adv. cautiously; carefully

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-19T12:33:00.000-05:00

agrypnia (eh-GRIP-nee-uh) n. sleeplessness; insomnia

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Beat the Rap

2007-09-18T07:11:00.000-05:00

I’m the yarn manglah
A stone skein tanglah

Don’t matter if it’s costly
Or if the stuff was free
What’s jivin’ is how easy
It is to get to, see?

‘Cause I’m the yarn manglah
A stone skein tanglah.

I sneak up in the night
When the Momma’s outta sight
I slither and I slink
To get the wooly thingk.

‘Cause I’m the yarn manglah
A stone skein tanglah.

They gave me a Kong Wubba
It’s tougher than my Bubba.
The Hoover’s all wore out,
But the Wubba is still stout.

But I’m a yarn manglah
A stone skein tanglah.

I got my neck some bling
Love the sound of it, “Ching, ching”
But nuthin’ beats the string,
It’s the only, every thing.

‘Cause I’m the yarn manglah
A stone skein tanglah!

The…
Notorious…
Baby…
Gee..

(whispered) “yarrrrrn MANGLAH!”

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-18T07:09:00.000-05:00

snollygoster (SNAHL-ee-Gahs-ter) n. a clever, unprincipled person

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

The Day My Kids Grew Up

2007-09-17T08:42:00.000-05:00

This morning I awoke to the sound of Bunny yelling, “BUS”. I ran to the kitchen to see her and Doodle lunging across the lawn and climbing onto the school bus. At my spot at the dining room table was a note, which read:

Mom –

Doodle and I got our lunch money and he took his pill. I decided to let you sleep – please don’t be mad. Love you.

- Bunny

When I read it, tears formed in my eyes because for the first time in the 20 years I’ve been a parent, someone else:

a) knew what needed to be done
b) did it
c) without being asked
d) got it right

For the first time in 20 years, I didn’t HAVE to be the officer on deck. Someone else picked up the reins, responsibly, and carried through. Only another mother can understand what that means. It means freedom.

Because there is a secret in the world of stay-at-home moms; the vast majority of us do it because we don’t have a choice. The reasons are varied – maybe our jobs didn’t pay enough to cover childcare and transportation to and fro. Maybe our spouses never did learn to pick up a 50% share of parenting without resentment and/or ineptitude. Maybe their jobs didn’t allow them to do so reliably. Maybe our kids have special needs that make extra time devoted to parenting and supervision and follow through necessary. Whatever the reason, few moms leave the security of a second income, pension, and paid health care on a whim; most of us have to leave.

And, we go back to work when and how we can – working from home, squeezing whatever income we can out between being in full charge of the children and home, working weekends when possible, working swing shift if husband’s hours are regular enough to let us do so; we know the consequences of being away from the work world for too long – lack of income, lack of financial security, lack of respect, loss of identity, etc.

I’ve made those choices myself. I am long past grieving the goodies of a full-time job and well entrenched in understanding the intangible rewards of being a stay-at-home mom. I’ve worked weekends, tutoring, small projects, doing what amounts to petty cash pick-up over the years with no reward other than the cash in my hand, a change in my routine, and a filthy kitchen and cranky family members to come home to. Sometimes it’s just not worth it, so I stop for a while.

But today, someone else stepped in where there was a need – I didn’t get to sleep until very late last night and consequently overslept. In the past, this usually meant that the kids didn’t wake up on time, didn’t get the essentials done on time, and I had to drive them to school or come in later with whatever they forgot.

If, in the past, I were sick, I needed to ask in advance for help—to ask my husband to get them up, medicated, fed, etc. He would do so, but there was always the underlying silent message that he hoped I wouldn’t thus inconvenience him for too long. Sometimes he’d even say, “why can’t they do that for themselves?” not being able to step outside of himself enough to notice that they’re children, not miniature, uncooperative adults, and they need supervision and leadership. On the rare occasions when I might have overslept, he’d blithely leave for work without waking me or the kids, and then I’d wind up in full ultra-panic mode when I did wake up. Sometimes, when he was at his least involved in the family, if I thought I might oversleep, I’d just bring my alarm clock downstairs and sleep on the couch, or stay up all night until I got the kids off to school, and then collapse with great guilt and sadness and sleep during the day. Fortunately, the worst of those days seem to be in the past.

For the last three years or so, I’ve given increasingly more serious consideration to going back to work. We have the financial need; the sticking point has been the potential stress/mishap level if I am not available to be the responsible parent when the kids need to leave for school and come home, and if I’m not here when homework needs to be monitored. I threw the suggestion out, told the family what would need to happen on their parts, and watched, as I work on getting myself more prepared for another major life transition. There are trade-offs to be weighed in terms of what can and cannot get done, the stress level I’m willing to accept for myself and the family, and compromises to be analyzed for short and long-term impact.

The results have been mixed; kids oversleeping, homework not being done promptly or without prompting, no one taking responsibility for feeding the pets, cleaning up after themselves, with some changes occurring -- helping out, working more as a team, dual grocery shopping, hubs helping to make dinner once a week and taking more of an interest in interacting with the children, the kids doing better at getting up with their alarms… Mixed, like I said.

Until today. This note is the first real ray of substantial light shining from the end of the s-a-h tunnel. There’s a chance that I could actually go back to work on a regular basis without the whole family crashing around me as a result. It’s being a surprisingly emotional moment for me, in a good way.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-17T08:39:00.000-05:00

autonomy (aw-TAWN-uh-mee) n. 1. self-government; independence. 2. a self-governing community

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Yarn Update

2007-09-14T15:34:00.000-05:00

Ooh, naughty me! I went yarn shopping at FRINGE and didn't share the lovely yarn. Well, here we have, back left, some Blackberry Ridge Olive Tree worsted weight; going right, Cherry Tree Hill superwash worsted in "Life's a Beach", then a noname ball of mohair blend on top of a couple of skeins of Blue Heron beaded wool in colorway Copper (to die for, just to die for -- soft, smooth on the fingers, and a truly wonderful colorway). Bottom right is some UltraAlpaca in Teal Blue, which has a little violet in it that's hard to see.

Here's a better view of the UltraAlpaca on the left, with another view of the Olive Tree yarn at the top. Again the Blue Heron Copper yarn in the middle, and two skeins (the last two in the store, which got me STERN looks from my cohort in yarn shoppery!) of Mountain Colors Bearfoot, Sunburst and Indian Corn.

I now have five of the generous Bearfoot skeins, all in similar colorways, and I'm thinking....shawl in graduated tones? Hmmmmm. Meanwhile, I'm fondling the yarn.

This is going to have to be the end of large purchases for a while, though. I have plenty of new yarn to keep me busy through year end, and let's not even discuss the SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) status. The hot summer really put me off pace for grinding through that. I'm finishing up Sock Two! The Sequel! to the Opal yarn socks for Doodle. I have to think of it that way to keep myself excited about doing the second sock, otherwise I might wind up the owner of a great many singleton socks.

Baby Gracie did get ahold of one of the Blackberry Ridge skeins of Olive Tree the other day. We had words. Some of them were "bad" and "dog" and "yarnmangling mammal". Others involved where dogs, no matter how little, might find themselves if they continue to mangle yarn. It wasn't as bad as it could have been; she didn't actually eat through the yarn, she just tangled it into a scary looking squirrel's nest. The hank ties were still in place, so I was able to finger comb about 70% of the tangles out, then I put it on the swift and hand wound it into a ball. It's fine, and the wee emergency back up dog and I are friends again.

Speaking of wee doggies, here she is, enjoying a warm spot on Bunny's bed. We gals all like the same things, regardless of age!

German Idiom for Friday

2007-09-14T15:23:00.000-05:00

sich (dat.) kein Bein ausreissen : not to strain oneself

zB: Wenn Guenther im Garten arbeitet, reisst er sich kein Bein aus.

auf Englisch: When Gunther worsk in the garden, he doesn't strain himself.

(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

nabob (NAY-bahb) n. a man of great wealth, esp. one who has made his fortune in India or some other eastern country.

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Baby Gracie Plans a Trip

2007-09-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

(One sandal, one slipper, one sneaker, one mitten, an umbrella, three squeaky toys, a sheet of notebook paper, a pencil stub, an ice bag, and a pamphlet from the University of Illinois)

…Meanwhile, over in the corner in the kitchen, Baby Gracie’s Mommy realizes she should have cleaned the fridge right after the power outage two weeks ago. BGM is going to use a LOT of Lysol today.

Oh, Kim and Aggie! Where are you when I need you?! Oh, woe and dismay. (Stop licking the stinky fridge, Gracie.)

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

blowzy (BLOU-zee) adj. 1. having a coarse reddish-colored complexion, 2. untidy in appearance; unkempt, sluttish

(from the guide to MMMW by Laurence Urdang)

Frabjous Yarn

2007-09-11T08:31:00.000-05:00

[One Popular Science Magazine, two pieces of graded homework, one ball of red yarn (Bad Dog!), one empty toilet paper roll, two cups of coffee, and one vitamin…]

Good Morning! I went on another yarn crawl yesterday with my nice friend from Chix who is kind enough to do all the driving and who has excellent taste in yarn, patterns, and, of course friends. We went to FRINGE where I bought way too much beautiful yarn, we ogled the gorgeous hand-dyed yarn the owners make, and then talked about Stitches Midwest.

Same good friend and I had gone to Stitches, but I hadn’t talked about it because… I wasn’t that excited. I didn’t go to any classes, and, while there is a world of stuff to be learned in knitting, after doing it for over 30 years, I’m really OK with my skills and preferences as they are. I have no interest and no time for getting involved in spinning or raising fiber creatures, and, most everything else I’ve either done or can figure out with a few good pictures and one reliable introductory pattern. I suppose I’m jaded.

Anyway, we did go to the yarn market. It was better than the best yarn store, however, there wasn’t anything this year that really grabbed my attention and made me want to set roots into the floor until I could claim it as mine. There were lots of hand-dyed yarns, many, many shop displays, and a nice little corner where I sat down and knitted on a square for a local group’s Project Linus blankets. I did do one thing that I’ve been wanting to do for many years – I got to see and touch qiviut yarn. (I just found out it’s pronounced KIV-EE-UTE, not kwivet, as I had previously seen and said. Love learning new stuff!)

Now, the legend dwelling in my head says that qiviut yarn is made from hand-plucked fibers from the undercoat of the Alaskan Musk Ox. Possibly wild musk oxen, but even my imagination has some limitations. I’m pretty sure it must be hand-plucked because building an apparatus for musk ox undercoat removal doesn’t seem like a big market to me, plus, just thinking about standing in front of a musk ox and saying, “Hey, pass the musk-ox-undercoat-plucking apparatus” makes my tongue dizzy. It’s reputed to be the most expensive yarn in the world. At $82 for a teeny tiny 2 oz. ball of superfine lace weight yarn, I’d have to say that sounds accurate. It was definitely $82 dollars worth of slobber-inducing softness, though, and I’m glad I got to finally fondle some.

Anyway, when I brought this up yesterday, the shopkeeper asked, “What would you make with it?” I couldn’t think of a single thing that I’d want to spend such an unspeakable amount of money per yard on, and the first thing that popped into my head was, “Nothing. I’d keep it in my pocket like a talisman to fondle, and on the last day of my life I’d swallow it and yell, ‘I’M TAKING IT WITH ME!’ before I check out.” After we all finished peeing in our pants, I bought enough lovely Blue Heron yarn to make Bunny a sweater, and we toddled homewards.

I have no idea what came over me, but it’s probably closer to the truth than I can easily admit to.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

san souci (sahn-sue-SEE) French. without care; carefree; unconcerned

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Life With Gracie

2007-09-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

Monday: Ooh, isn’t she cute? She’s so little! Look at her tiny feet! Oh, she piddled in the house; she must be nervous, poor little thing. Oh, I guess a talking bird is a surprise to her. You’ll love it here, Gracie, we promise!

Tuesday: early - Why does my den smell like a cesspool? O-h-m-i-g-o-d. How can such a tiny dog produce that much crap? Holy sh*t. And the area rug is damp, too. Oh, my. Doodle, get me the window cleaner, a scrub brush, a roll of toilet paper and a roll of paper towels. Bunny, get me a bucket of warm water. Spawn, I’ll need you to amuse Gracie while I clean this up.

Tuesday: 30 minutes later – Have a great day, kids! Close the door! ALL THE WAY! HOLD IT, Gracie; I’m only in my robe! Gotcha. What’s that in your mouth? Paper? Where did you get… OK, trade you for this tiny treat. No, really, ooooooopen your mouth and give me the… COME BACK HERE!

Tuesday: after first cup of coffee drunk - 7 different shoes, one crossword puzzle book, two ball bearings, two (partially licked) school glue sticks, three dried up marker pens, countless bits of paper, some of which were thoroughly disgusting, later… Need to go outside, Gracie? (Vacuum entire first floor and close all possible doors while the dogs are out) Hey, did you guys have fun? HEY, didn’t you piddle OUTSIDE? Where’s the mop?

Tuesday: late afternoon after fourth aspirin for aching back – Hello, hubs? I need you to make stopping off for a crate for Gracie a priority. Trust me on this one. (falls asleep on couch at 8 pm)

Wednesday: 3 shoes, one magazine, one pencil, one pen, one marble, a sock, and one cup of coffee later – Let’s wake up the kids, doggies! Gracie, wake up Bunny! “AAAAGH, don’t lick me! Oh, it’s you. Hi, Gracie, I’m up now.” OK, let’s wake up the Doodle… “AAAAGH, stop smelling my armpits! No, don’t jump up here; I don’t want your slimy rawhide on my bed! I’m up, I’m up!”

Let’s play fetch, Gracie! Look at this great squeaky pig! FETCH! Bring it to Mommy! Good girl. Release. Release. Trade you this tiny treat for the… No, Hoover, it’s for Gracie. Let’s try this again. FETCH! Oh, thank you, Hoover. OK, leave my pocket alone, here’s a treat. HOLD ON, what’ve you got NOW, Gracie? Is that a plastic covered planner? I didn’t even know we had that. Thank you. Let’s try learning to sit. No, don’t lick my pants. Leave my shoe alone. OK, let’s watch TV.
Oh, yuck, I can’t believe you did that in your crate…and…chew your food better!

Thursday: two shoes, a worksheet packet on German nouns, a cup of coffee and a vitamin later – Right! Crate clean? Den clean? No obvious papers lying around? Garbage swept up from around the can? Okey dokey! Hey, why do you look like Father Christmas, Gracie? What is that? Is that a wad of Hoover’s shed hair? Where did you find that? No, don’t eat it…. Too late.

Oh, good, you guys are wrestling, tails are wagging, play posture in evidence, I can do laundry. Oh, wrestling in the basement? That’s OK, too. Tra la la, this is OK, I can even sit down now! Uh-oh, stop smelling his eyes, Gracie, he doesn’t like that. And don’t lick his mouth, he’s tired, you wore him out. Whoopsie, guess she’ll remember that little reminder from Hoover! Too bad I can’t praise him for that bark. That was bodacious. Nice to know he can do that.

Thursday, later: Oh, that’s cute, Gracie’s sitting on Hubs’ lap. That’s precious. “Hey, dear, grab the camera, you’ve got to see this!” Back to living room to find Hoover on Hubs’ lap and Gracie leaping along the back of the couch, smelling Hoover’s eyes again and trying to lick his tongue. I get a picture of the back of everyone’s head as Hoover buries his head in Hubs’ armpit.

Friday: two cloth napkins, two of Spawn’s bedroom slippers, a cup of coffee and a vitamin later – Gracie goes out, does her business, comes back in with Hoover, sits for a treat. She drinks her water, lies down on a throw rug and chews her rawhide while the kids get ready for school. They open the fridge, she runs over and licks the frame. OK, can’t solve everything in a week. No more poos or puddles in the house, we’ve stopped smelling everyone’s eyes and leaping on people, and we are learning how to behave acceptably. We have a little paper and ice cube fixation, but a nice steak bone from tonight’s dinner certainly seems to distract us from paper.

Saturday: one magazine insert, one shoe, one bedroom slipper, coffee, and a vitamin later - WALKIES! We love walkies! We ignore lots of things during walkies, except smells; we like smells. Sniff tour of backyard with Hoover, who knows where everyone and everything is and what they’re called. Rabbit used to be here, old dog to the west, two middle-aged dogs to the north, oooh, is that a bird? Outdoor wrestling is great!

Sunday: one bedroom slipper, one bobby pin, one sheet of homework instructions, one ball of yarn (Bad Dog!), two cups of coffee and one vitamin - Gracie meets the Bad Shaky Can because she jumped on a visitor. I refuse to feel guilty when she slinks away and eels under the coffee table in shame. The Hoover dog gives her a disgusted look after checking to make sure he hasn’t done anything bad enough to merit the sound of the shaky can. She is roundly snubbed by Hoover until she makes amends to the visitor by sitting at his feet and has a proper round of Fetch with Alpha Mom.

Life is great here after all, Gracie! Wrestling, couches, five people to scratch Baby Gracie and coo at her, a big back yard, walkies and fetchies and run till you drop if you want to! Whee! But no piddling in the house; that’s OK, she’s learning to go as soon as she goes out; the Hoover dog showed her the “zone”.
…
…
…
Breathe in, breathe out. Cuddle the puppy; she’s working hard, too.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

monteith (mon-TEETH) n. a punch bowl, usually of silver, with a notched rim on which punch cups can be hung

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Happy Doggy Day!

2007-09-04T09:18:00.000-05:00

We have a new/slightly used 4-month-old black lab named Gracie. She and the Hoove have been having big fun in the back yard as he teaches her the finer points of playing fetch and smelling every corner of the yard to make sure she knows who and what has been there.

Gracie also got a big surprise in our kitchen. She noticed Hawthorne, and he noticed her. As she got closer and closer to smell better, he gave her a hearty “HELLO!” which startled her so much she backed three feet away from him in a nanosecond.

She’s a good learner – so far she’s working on the “release” part of playing fetch fairly successfully, and she has no problem being subordinate to Old Man Hoover, who is not all that bossy anyway. She’s social and shares well. We do have to stop a few of her bad habits, though. She jumps onto people and slobbers in their faces very enthusiastically, neither of which are really all that friendly, when you think about it. No problem – Hoover was the same way.

Puppies are good teachers, too! Today I learned that we have too much crap and most of it is on the floor! Good thing she’s made such headway on “bring it to Mommy” and “release!” We had a very zippy morning; so far we’re up to seven different shoes, one lost highlighter, a crossword puzzle book, three pieces of paper, and a large wad of Hoover hair I couldn’t get to with the broom.

She likes to be helpful. This morning she helped my sleepy children out of bed by first leaping on Bunny and slurping her face, “AAAAGH! Good morning to you, too, Gracie!” Then she assisted in rousting the Doodle by snorting in his armpit, and, when he lurched straight upward, hooting, “Noooo! Down!” she grabbed his shoe and dashed off.

Gracie made sure Spawn didn’t miss his early college class by sneaking into his room when he slouched off to the bathroom and stealing one of his aluminum cans. She then flung it repeatedly on the tile floor for that audio component of waking-up cheer. Like I said, good thing she’s getting better at “Release!”

I also learned that she needs to go out more often than anyone other than me is willing accommodate. We will be exploring her reactions to a vacuum cleaner and a mop shortly.

She likes a good game of tug with a knotted rope toy, and we had fun playing indoor fetch with a squeaky fabric pig. Rawhide helps the itchy, teething gums, and, like most puppies, when she’s tired, she falls over and sleeps like the dead for a half an hour to recharge her batteries. She’s a cuddler and a quick learner, both good things.

She’s just a busy, sweet, curious puppy who is very eager to learn how to be a good dog. I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun getting to know each other better.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-09-04T09:16:00.000-05:00

riant (RYE-ent) adj. laughing; smiling; cheerful

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Thockieth

2007-08-30T08:07:00.000-05:00

Hot weather, humidity, power outages…stick a fork in me, I’m done. When the road gets this rough, it’s time for socks that pamper. For me, that means socks that pamper my fingers as I knit them. I like making socks for myself, but there just aren’t that many occasions for me to wear upscale socks.

My oldest son has the advanced teenaged male habit of wearing socks until they are stiff and horrible, which does not work well with handmade socks at all. My daughter wishes her feet were smaller, so her socks are crammed into shoes (along with her feet) that are, um, insufficiently roomy, so the socks get stressed along the heel line. Hubs is not a sock man; he’ll wear plain black socks all year round, and the only time he makes noises about wooly socks is in the winter, but he just wants plain black. I’d rather stick my needles in my eyes than make a bunch of plain black socks, so I just buy him socks.

Doodle, on the other hand, is young enough to find colorful socks fun, has no problem answering the question, “Oooh, wild socks! Where’d you get them?” with appropriate smug delight that someone loves him enough to hand make him socks by saying, “My Mom! Aren’t they cool?” To which the answer is usually, “Awesome! Your mom can make SOCKS?” All of which makes for nice ego maintenance when he tells me about that days’ sock conversation. He also wears his shoes a little big, since he’s still growing, and the socks last longer.

On one of my delightful yarn crawls this summer, I picked up this beautiful “Blauer Mond” yarn by Opal. I tried the sideways sock pattern, but the further I got, the less I liked it. I dithered over frogging for a while, and, just before the big rains hit last week, I did the dirty deed. The subsequent lousy weather mandated that I do something relaxing and low tech, so I started a sock for the Doodle; it’s a manly sock of ribbed leg and top of foot, but with that fabulous yarn. I’m through about 2/3 of the required foot length, and I still love this yarn. It looks like, at 100 grams, there will be plenty for a pair.

HOWEVER, and this is one of those sneaky cheapskate things, even if there isn’t quite enough, I can add in another sock yarn, possibly contrasting, for the toe, which no one will see. I’ve done this before, usually when a yarn ball runs shorter than I, or my gauge, anticipated, and the kids kind of like having different colored toes on their socks. I have also been known to unravel a finished toe zone to scavenge enough yarn for the ankle area of the second sock so that, while in shoes, they look like a match. Then, each sock gets a toe in some other yarn. This is possibly one of the reasons that I generally prefer leg-down sock making rather than toe-up socks. (The other reason is that working toe-up feels funky and strained around the heel/ankle area, and I don’t enjoy it.)

These cozy puppies should be ready, washed, and snuggly in plenty of time for the first frost. Mmmmmmm.

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-08-30T08:05:00.000-05:00

billet-doux (bil-ee-DOO) n. a love letter

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

Powerless

2007-08-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

We’ve had a great many heavy rainstorms lately, and while I normally enjoy rain, this was not the kind I could watch wistfully or offhandedly from my perch on the couch and daydream about hot soup and giggling children stomping in puddles. It’s been the kind of rain where the dog clamps his body to my feet, shivering in terror while the wind blows branches off trees and shingles off roofs, the lights flicker on and off, and the children get sent home early because of tornado warnings.

We lost power on Thursday night, along with several thousand other people, and made it through to Friday morning, when we listened to the car radio to find out if the kids were still supposed to go to school, which they were. It wasn’t raining at the time, and I had hopes of being electrified again, so to speak, within a few hours. Just like the last couple of weeks, it was a 90-degree sauna outside, so the dog and I decided to hang out in the coolest room in the house, the living room, for a while.

The school sent the kids home just ahead of the next big storm, and man, oh, man did it rain! My husband was out checking on some clients who’d had lightening strike their home directly, so we knew he’d be late, and since the water supply was dicey with the pump out of commission, I started instructing the children on how to preserve the potable water.

“Don’t flush the toilets!” I urged, “The water in the tank is presumably potable!” Having seen the inside of the toilet tanks, I figured we could all manage on Kool-Aid and soda pop and give the tank water to the dog, if it got that bad. “Use hand sanitizer instead of washing your hands, we’ve got Stridex pads for all for sweaty faces, and nobody open the fridge!”

The kids gave me a look like I had just announced we were going to live in a bog and feed off of swamp critters for the remainder of their lives.

“Don’t flush?” they exclaimed, “That’s yucky!”

“You get one flush, guys, if you do, and then you’ll have used up the majority of our water supply,” I responded. Naturally, that made everyone have to pee, and, of course, ten minutes later, out of habit and sheer absentmindedness, there was a flush.

“AAARGH!” I yelled at the flusher, “What were you thinking?”

“Dang… Oops,” he replied. I handed him a bucket. Then I handed buckets to the other children. “It’s time to learn about manual flushing,” I said, “go get a bucket of water from the swimming pool.”

Bunny looked at her bucket and then looked at me in dismay. “You’re kidding, right, Mom? You don’t actually mean this, do you?” she asked.

I looked at her, raised my eyebrow and said, “Fortunately, it’s chlorinated, too. That’s an added boon. Shoo!” The kids trooped out to the pool like a fire brigade, returning with filled buckets. I showed them the technique. They decided it was icky. I told them it would be a lot ickier if we didn’t use that method, and had a bucket of water stationed in each bathroom. I decided against regaling them with tales from my youthful vacations to country relatives of outhouses, snake warnings, used catalogs and combining all three in the dark.

And that was only the first of the lessons in living without power. I’d have had to be more assertive and knowledgeable and really resourceful if my husband hadn’t come home. I think he was born under a lucky star in some ways. Cars that clank and thump and wheeze when I drive them run like Formula One race winners as soon as he gets behind the wheel – he doesn’t have to do anything other than exude mechanical competence at cars for them to run at peak performance. He has the same kind of luck with electrical stuff, which we found out about when he got home.

He walked in, carrying two cases of bottled water, given to him by the grateful lightening-struck clients, and said, “We’ve got power in the barn.”

“Hurray!” we all yelled, “does that mean we’ll have power back here soon?”

“Probably not,” he replied, “the barn is on a different transformer, but I can run an extension cord from there to here, and we can run the phone and maybe the refrigerator, and I’ll see what else I can figure out.”

“Holy crap,” I said, at a loss, “Well, welcome home, hero!” He replied with a smart aleck grin.

He managed to run two heavy duty extension cords, linked to smaller extension cords, over and over again into the house, and he set up the things that were important to him – One cord ran the phone and the frig and had an outlet left over for use on either the coffee maker or the electric skillet, which, with an all electric house, was going to be the only way we were going to get a meal that wasn’t straight out of a can or smeared on bread. He used the other cord to turn the living room back into his personal Man Cave – he plugged in his big screen TV, the satellite box, the VCR, a lamp, and an upright fan. “I’m fine now,” he said, “I’ve got light, moving air, and entertainment. I’m a happy camper.”

I looked at him, feeling vaguely annoyed, and said, “Well, you’ll be glad to know there’s a filled bucket in the bathroom, too.”

“Oh, good,” he said as he lay down on the couch and yawned, “I was wondering what we were going to do about that. Any dinner ideas?”

When I called the power company, so many people were suffering outages that I got an automated response telling me we wouldn’t even have an estimate for repairs until late Sunday night, so I wound up teaching the kids how to brush their teeth with mouthwash, dine cheerfully by candlelight on foods that can be cooked in an electric skillet, and take sponge baths with a minimum of water.

They were a little grumpy about having to watch Dad’s bang-clank TV choices and not having the Internet available to them, but we’re all big readers, so it wasn’t too much different for us during the daylight hours. When the power was restored late Saturday afternoon, we let out a cheer, turned on the air conditioning, and coiled up the extension cords.

All in all, it was a lot like camping only somewhat better. Lots of people in our area were not so lucky – our county has been declared a disaster area by the governor due to flash flooding that occurred, and many people are still cleaning out their manky, flooded basements. I’ve complained in the past about my nasty, sandy soil which makes it hard to grow flowers and vegetables, but I was awfully glad for it this past weekend – no leaks, no drips, no mildew, mold or mustiness.

And, no, I don’t want to buy a generator. In the 11 years we’ve lived here, we’ve only had one other significant power outage, and that only lasted 12 hours. I don’t think we’d really get our money’s worth out of it.

Now, if only my husband’s lucky star covered plumbing, too, I’d never have to worry about the septic tank ever again!

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-08-29T12:25:00.000-05:00

fallal (fah-LALL) n. a frivolous piece of finery; a useless article of dress

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)

There’s a Cream for That?

2007-08-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

Sometime ago I think I mentioned that we sent Spawn off for anger management therapy. It’s been pretty successful – we haven’t had any more scary temper storms, and I think it’s very helpful to him to talk to an adult to whom he is not related and get a third party point of view. He’s still going, and I really don’t care what they talk about; if he feels he’s getting value out of the time spent there, it’s not wasted money.

A few weeks ago, he asked me for a recommendation for a dermatologist. He’s had a slight problem with his complexion being flaky on top of teenaged acne, and it was getting on his nerves enough for him to want to talk to an expert. He went off for his first appointment today, then went to work in my husband’s office that afternoon.

When Spawn came home that afternoon, he told me the dermatologist had said he needed to use a prescription cream and cleanser, and if those didn’t work, there was some kind of pill they could try, but they were going to do this other route first. He seemed pleased with the doctor, and I went back to my normal routine.

It was a little different when Hubs came home, though. He charged in through the door, gave me a kiss and said, “Did Spawn tell you about the mix up?”

“Well, no,” I said, “what happened?”

“Well, he came into my office and announced, ‘I have bad news, good news, and better news. What do you want to hear first?’ I told him I’d take the bad news first, so he told me, ‘What I have is incurable!’ Then he said, ‘But the good news is that my doctor has it, too, and the better news is that there’s a cream for it!’ I thought he was talking about his therapist, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that there was a cream for anger management, so we had quite a time straightening out that misunderstanding!”

“Oh, shit,” I said, “’A cream for that, eh?’” And I started laughing and laughing and finally said, “Oh, lord, can you imagine the commercial? ‘HEAD-ON! Apply directly to the head! HOTHEAD-ON! Apply directly to the…’” And we both dissolved in laughter.

What a picture!

Oddball Word of the Day

2007-08-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

unguent (UHN-gwent) n. a soft or liquid ointment for wounds, etc.

(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)