Hope allayez have been or are having a good time. We have been too. C has been mostly delightful; B has been sick but game (and those long naps are golden no matter what their source)

Today I learned how much there still is to learn.

For me: our sleds are completely unsuitable for packed snow. They don't steer, and the only possible way to slow down, namely digging in both heels, throws up roostertails of snow directly into the faces of the riders. "I can't see! There's snow all over my face! That was not a good experience! I don't want to do it again!" Other people with smaller, boxier pieces of plastic fared much better (as did C and I when we borrowed one).

For C: pretty much everything there is to know culturally about christmas. From Charlie Brown, he got that Snoopy is voiced by an actor. From the Grinch, he got that the scene on top of Mount Crumpet when they pull the sleigh back from the brink is a physics violation. Oh, and the Grinch feels better about christmas when it's over. So many things packed into even simple expressions of the dominant culture, and not clear how much of it can actually be taught rather than just absorbed by experience (which he mostly won't have).

(I whistle a lot when I'm with C, even more with B, since there are only so many things to converse about past "Bring Big Red Barn to Dad", and one of the things I was whistling today was "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". As I did, I considered how much cultural baggage is contained in a passage of a dozen notes or so, how much history. Its use in Dr Strangelove, for example, must be very nearly incomprehensible to people of generations that have not heard and sung it from early childhood -- with all the sentiments about war and familiarity with war that that implies. And Dr Strangelove itself is probably mostly incomprehensible to people who haven't grown up with the likelihood of annihilation woven into their everyday lives. If anything, they watch the movie as a window into that time -- should they care to have one. It puts some perspective on my plans to explain to C that we do some things the way we do because of the views that his great-greatgrandfather formed 150 years before he was born.)

Oh, and when he got home from watching a movie with his friend Henry L tonight: ""this little robot's batteries are dead. Please put three AAAs in my battery compartment in the morning."

Me too.

So this afternoon C found a self-inking stamp among his craft supplies and decided he should set up a library. We folded and stapled some sheets of paper for books (and C drew lines on pages represent text), C pasted slips into the back for due dates, and then we spent half an hour checking books out, returning them, being reminded that they were overdue and paying fines, getting book recommendations and so forth.

He's a freak, but he's our freak. And tomorrow is his 5th birthday HTF did that ever happen?

It was just a concatenation of stupid things. I didn't make sure the basement door into the garage was locked (it blows open sometimes) when I was coming in from the shop to put up the new lights over J's quilting frame. And she didn't think twice when Skillet followed her down to the basement (he's really not supposed to go down there) when she went to get some noodles for supper while C and I were at playgroup. So it wasn't until a couple hours later, around 9pm, that we realized he was out. Indoor cat, no front claws, misting rain and temperatures heading for freezing.

So I went out to the yard and the woods and the neighboring street and called for about an hour, rattling the treat can as I went. We put out food and tuna water in case he needed a guide back home. At 630 this morning, same thing, next street over too. I thought I heard something yelling, but when I went into the woods in someone's yard to check, nothing. C was distressed, but sure that Skillet was out chasing mice and would be back when he was done. He wanted to stay home from daycare so that he could "sit on the front step in my Merrills to greet him when he comes home." (And at daycare he made up a very strange story about how we used to have a cat named Thermos -- we did -- but "Skillet scratched him with his claws and his claws had chemicals on them, so he died -- uh, no.)

In midmorning I went for another walk in the neighborhood and through the park, rattling treats and calling, feeling like a complete loser from every possible direction, still nothing. J put up a bunch of signs, we left the food out and the garage door open. Every half hour or so through the afternoon and evening, one of us would go to the door and call, but not with any real expectations. it started snowing lightly sometime in midafternoon.

I mean, you do those things because you wouldn't feel right not doing them, not because you think that they'll actually help.

Then, about 930, J opened the door and called again, and heard a faint meow from the direction of the neighbor's yard (the one with the two dogs). She called again, and the meow was a little louder, and then Skillet trotted right in, fur cold, unmussed, meowing and marking the corners that had gotten unscented while he was out, demanding in no uncertain terms that the treat can be produced, eating and drinking a little. Then he went over to the basement door, looked at it, looked meaningly at us as if to say, "It's been a nice visit, but I've got things to do."

Cat, you are so grounded.

C was grousing about our decision that he's not old enough to see Star Wars (J says 6, I think a passing shot of charred corpses might wait a little while longer) and while we were retailing the list of movies that he could see, it struck me just how heteronormative so many children's movies are. Sure, we don't get that big a sample -- and where have I been, Mars? -- but there's so often a boy and a girl, and they end up loving each other forever, and it's really so thoroughly unnecessary to the action. It makes me wonder -- obviously the crazies would freak if there were a same-sex love interest (unless they're bluff hearty comrades like Damon and Pythias), but would they freak if the question just never came up?

Sure, you'll stay in the fridge, and I'll feed you and bake with you now and then, but commercial yeast is just too damn easy.  I know you make more interesting loaves, with chewy crusts and a delightfully irregular crumb, but what we need these days isn't bread for cheese or pate or artisan butter with a sprinkling of fleur de sel. It's plain old sandwich bread. Maybe for cheese toast. or french toast. Or bread pudding. Bread that stays sliceable until it's all gone.

Face it, you never did get along with the bacon grease. And as for a dollop of instant oatmeal...

When the kids are in school, we'll talk. I have plans. Maybe even an outdoor oven.

C and I made some tonight, based loosely on the old recipe I got from my mother and misread 20+ years ago, and it was good. I think I need to work on what to do with it once it comes out of the water, but the texture was about right, and the flavor was yummy (it's the touch of nutmeg). And of course I love my old spaetzle press...

Oddly, after having helped mix the dough (is it dough or batter?) and squeeze it into the pot, C took a fraction of a bite and then declared he didn't like it. B, meanwhile, wanted nothing else, and put away several helpings. (He delicately tossed the broccoli off his tray, and ignored the meat, except to separate it from the noodles.)

We're still preparing for winter here. Today I moved some more stuff out to the shed, and J and I hoisted the deck table up to the ceiling of the garage (I don't love the rigging, but have a year to figure out how to change it)

elissaann

To get an verifiable anecdote for a discussion at another site about kids not walking to school anymore, I checked Google maps for the distance between our old house and elementary school. And of course I couldn't help zooming in for street view. They cut down all the hedges. There's grass growing in the driveway. But at least the front door is still red...

(Oh, and it's six tenths of a mile, which I remember as rather more.)

I feel, once again, like I've been beaten about the head and shoulders with a rubber hose. And tomorrow both kids are home again. It's not any one thing (although the tantrums and the vomiting do wear one down) but just the wear of being on for 12 hours plus, especially with both kids. C has been having a lot of whiny "pay attention to ME" episodes -- which are perfectly justified. But B has just entered suicide-baby stage (climbing stairs, climbing rocks and not knowing how to get down, scurrying toward curbs and doors as fast as his four legs will carry him, grabbing stuff off tables) so when they're together it feels like both of them get shortchanged. But if we divide and conquer, neither of us gets anything done.

On the plus side, B is now cooperative enough for me to carry on my back, so that's a good way to do stuff with him around. This weekend I walked down to the farmers market and got groceries with him (delicious late strawberries and blueberries). Then C and he and I went to the park for an hour. Our Labor Day observance was the big parade in a neighboring town, which (perhaps not entirely inapposite) was dominated by marching units from the military college located there. B ate scraps of pizza and C played in the bouncehouse at the street fair on the village green (the guy who ran the concession says that business is way off, with kids who in previous years would have gone through several times per venue now going once if at all).

Tomorrow is story time at the library, where we will be returning "Henry and Fred Learn About Lead". Wish us luck.

The little antiseptic covers are everywhere, accusing us in their emptiness. But this morning we were down to two. (Stripmining the back seat of the car produced another pair, which have been, uh, thoroughly washed.)

I'd laugh, except B is teething. So when he throws a couple of them into the dirt, it's pretty much lamentations until further notice. (C sits in the car next to him, saying things like "He's really very loud and unpleasant" or "Please be quiet. Let me show you.")

Tomorrow I'll be prospecting under the crib and in all the couches, going through the pockets of not-yet-done laundry and enquiring how many we've left at his daycare...

(The little bastid really is quite cute. He's decided he really likes chili with brown rice and chopped veg, so when he sees a bowl he unhinges his jaw and smiles like a maniac while uttering the cries of a juvenile pterodactyl. No, really, it's cute.)

When you have to improvise at length on a regular basis, you start using tricks. The greek chanters had their epithets (dozens of descriptions they could throw in depending on how many feet they had left in a line); C and I have <Size Adjective> <Color> <Gerund, usually locomotive> <Item of Clothing>. Along with any natural or artificial obstacle and any means of circumventing same that comes in handy. I think he's onto the pattern, but he still enjoys seeing how it plays out. Only two and a half years to go, and then it will be B's turn.

For the past few days, an article has been nagging at me -- it was linked from ezra klein, and it's a mean-minded little piece by Katie Roiphe (is that redundant?) about the supposed genre of "stripper memoir" and how formulaic it is. I've been trying to tease apart the different reasons the piece annoyed me.

First, of course, one of the writers being slagged is a friend. But that's merely why I think I know enough to be annoyed.

Second, duh. Pick pretty much any genre of memoir, and in a thousand word essay you'll be able to lift similar passages from most of them. That's why they call it a genre. Political memoirs: the unexpected win, the gritty defeat, the human side of this or that politico, the battle against cynicism. Stage memoirs: the big break (usually preceded by the dead-end job), the hard work in production, the other famous people, the just-plain-folks moment. Sports memoirs: fill in your own blanks, I haven't read any since Ted Williams and Jim Bouton.
Third, Roiphe manages to miss the plausible notion that some of these formulaic bits might be important. For instance, the cost of skimpy outfits -- any parallels with the excessive cost of more-mainstream businesswear? Or the fact that all the authors had more-or-less-ok middle-class upbringings and didn't do brain-destroying piles of alcohol or drugs compared to the women around them. If they had, they'd be dead or living in a crap-ass apartment somewhere, or maybe married to some random guy. They certainly wouldn't have been writing books.

Which brings me to the fourth part of the annoyance. "Stripper memoir" is a genre pretty much constructed by prudes like Roiphe. No one goes to some famous, respected stripper (not since Gypsy Rose Lee) and says, "Hey, will you write a book for us?" The authors in question are all writers with long lists of published work before and after their memoirs. They write on some of the same topics she does, and sometimes in more interesting, thoughtful ways. So when Roiphe complains that "stripper memoirs" don't meet her aesthetic criteria, she's also reminding us that these particular competitors of hers took their clothes off for paying customers while she went to Harvard and became a "respected academic". And by implication, that they should just shut up and let their betters carry on the cultural conversation.

The BBC covers a french museum exhibition about Tarzan, and wonders why some people should think the works and character problematic.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

C keeps on asking me to tell him stories about arc the dragon, and I'm starting to lose track. So this is as good a place as any to put the facts.

Arc is the dragon whose flame is small, blue and hot (unlike other dragons whose flames are big and yellow-orange) except when he doesn't eat enough minerals and ironwood. Spot is his dragon-dog pet/co-worker, whose teeth turn white-hot when he chews, so that he mostly has to eat soup. There is also Red, who has no flame, only a very warm red glow.

Thus far, Arc has become famous for running a welding and casting business, with a sideline in rescuing baby dragons from bank vaults (with the help of his sister, who blows regular air on the places where Arc is melting holes. He also has a glass-blowing studio, with apprentice dragons who tend the annealing oven at night in return for instruction during the day. And he and Spot do sheet-metal-on-frame work, always remembering to leave an openable panel when Spot is working inside a closed structure. Red is a baker. Oh, and there's also Johnny Ironwood...

So where do we go from here? Maybe Red could have an older cousin who does smelting, or Arc's sister (gonna need a better name than that) could start a raku kiln business (albeit not clear what that would be good for, since we've already established that dragons, being clumsy with their claws, use mostly metal for plates and vessels). Maybe the regular dragons could worry about air pollution.

If I don't come up with something new every night it's back to the Rabbit with Extra-Sensitive Ears.

C has been into being told stories lately, and it's exhausting. (Hmm, I wonder if I could start him off with Whan that April or Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit thereof or even Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita) But I have some series going, and one of them is the little robot that builds things.

In the first installment, the little robot learned that a clean workplace is a safe workplace after it had to have a new foot welded on. Tonight's chapter had the little robot getting tired of putting all its tools away at the end of each stage of work, and inventing a series of ever-more sophisticated tool-putting-away machines. It was fun because somewhere in there C chimed in, and it was clear he had figured out the progression and knew what was going to happen next. He really is a cute little batsid sometimes.

Now back to the word mines.

So we got B these cool tats, and...

No, it's just that he's entering a phase (shouldn't be more than 20 years long) where pretty much everything he does seems designed to get him killed. Every time you tell him "no gates for baby" and take him away from the stairs' edge he laughs and crawls there faster. (The other day C and I put in a bunch of outlet covers, and the first thing B did after being taken away from the gate was to crawl at top speed to the nearest wall, where he put his hand on a now-safe outlet and then looked at me with a puzzled smile, as if to say "This trick used to make you talk loudly and come get me; how come it doesn't work any more?")

When you're holding him, he pushes away, sometimes with a pleasant straightarm to the windpipe. Or he climbs, and when he gets to shoulder nad head he just keeps going. Piss him off, say by taking away the cat food or not teleporting the toy he just dropped back into his hand, and he yells and arches his back. Sending the back of his head walloping into whatever's behind or below him. And that's even before we get to the series production of Escape From the Diaper Table.

C was also a crazy suicidal little mofo, but he was late crawling and walking, so he had a tiny modicum more sense and more responsiveness to commands. On the other hand, by the time he started walking he was also too old to just slavishly follow mom and dad around, so he's never really developed the habit of sticking close, and would gladly dash out into traffic if there was a piece of paper in the middle of the road for him to read. Swings, roundabouts.

Some friends from Seattle visited thursday and friday, and I've been past deadline since thursday noon, so it's been a wearing time. Beloved offspring most of the day, beating my head against OpenOffice most of the night.( software rant )

So I am happy to report one good thing, which is that rock-stale ciabatta (?) makes a great base for breakfast casserole. Six eggs and milk to soak overnight, then add a quarter pound or so of extra-sharp cabot and a few ounces of diced ham, start in a big buttered skillet on the stove, add some more shredded cabot on top and finish under a distant broiler.

Oh, and in the interstices I read a really bad book from Gutenberg, which can only be properly treated by a TV-Guide style summary:

Long day. Got the cold that's going around. B was up at 530. Two very short naps, lots of crying when he wasn't being held, and when he was. Whoever thought this was a good idea for growing teeth shoulda thought again. C alternated between charming and complete ass ("Yes, we know you're sad that you friend knocked your snack on the ground, you've been telling us at the top of your lungs for the past 10 minutes. And perhaps if you had stopped wrestling with each other the fifth time we told you it wouldn't have happened.")

And then it rained.

sf dream last night, or early this morning after drugging b. I've had them on and off ever since reading too much cordwainer smith in high school. It's always fun to pick apart where these dreams come from. In this case,  premise from Dr Who and daleks rerererererereredux, cheesy medieval sets from  the embedded stargate commercials, and a few tidbits from a tutorial on rsync (which I am going to set up just as soon as I get my new machine).

I'm almost tempted to write the thing, except I have no idea where it might go and it appears to involve horses. A woman from some kind of S&S timeline is trying to pay 150,000 somethingorothers for the most gorgeous horse she's ever seen (I don't know what the rate of exchange is, but apparently a lined poly/nylon windbreaker with a machine-embroidered logo can arguably fetch 2000 whatevers when haggling with the horsetraders). Someone from a 50s/60s timeline seems to be the voice of reason, and there's a geek who believes that if lots of other people in this timeline can do magic, so can he once he's learned all the words and first principles. Oh, yeah, and a magic sword and a scene in an abandoned stable with a shapeshifting alternate beautiful disembodied head and tantacle predator based on dalek internals arguing with the geek while he/she/it triies desultorily to kill him, because it's zir nature.

The obvious thing would be for them to go on a quest for something, probably for whatever is causing the spillover in the first place and saving the universe, but who the fsck cares...

That the problem with getting motivated to write anything not either a commissioned piece or a blog entry/comment these days -- lots of work, and why bother.
 

Ben thought 6 was a good time to wake up and start singing. He also thought midnight was a good time to scream for a bottle. The problem with waking up that early is that the rest of the house is asleep and there aren't a whole lot of silent things you can do with a baby. Ok, that's one of the problems.

I've been on deadline for a technical-writing project, and have learned way more than I wanted about Microsoft Word, or rather the Open Office bastardization of its functions. (And not open office either, but neooffice, which is the molasses java version of it, because I still have a G4 machine and you can't get real openoffice for it...) Bad things happen when you assemble a large document from sections written by different people each with slightly different notions of style and formatting.

But Ben is asleep for the nonce, I'm snacking on a bowl of Cabot Greek Style yogurt (milk and cream), and sleep is not too far off. And tomorrow there is more coffee. When I was in college, I drank tea, saying that I was saving coffee-drinking until I really needed it. That would be now.