The tree I wanted to remove

When we first moved in, this tree had to go. It covered the entire back yard with spiky balls that imperiled its use for any outdoor activity. Fortunately we didn't leap into the complex action of removing the tree (power lines on three sides and a house on the fourth). Now is the first fall we've spent here, and I have changed my mind. The tree can stay; we will buy a rake.

In other horticultural news, my $25 worth of free bulbs (tulips and alliums) from Breck's has arrived, and I hope I can get them in this week while the weather is good. It came with another $25 coupon for more bulbs. I think this time I'll get gladiolus--the winter-hardy kind that don't have to be dug up every year. I feel about flowers as I do about children: Once I get them in the bed, they had better stay there. I'm not sure when Breck's is expecting to make money off me at this rate, but I'll enjoy this while it lasts.

Baby Party

Saturday evening we had our birthing class reunion to show off the babies we didn't think would ever come the last time we all saw each other. Fortunately there were no conflicts resulting from the pride of first-time parents; everyone simply remained convinced that their own baby was vastly superior. D1 proved to be, though as tall as anyone, much lighter than the other babies, who were all boys. We tried hoisting them and are not looking forward to the impending weight gain.

For a natural-childbirth class, the statistics were not too great: out of four births, two epidurals, and one of the others still swears he's an only child. So we were the only ones there who both made it through naturally and are still convinced we want to have more. The teacher claimed that, among students in her next class, everyone had four-hour labors and breezed through. Guess we should have gone to that class.

Water Conservation

DOB periodically gets after me for my habit of waiting until the water in the shower has warmed up before getting into it, maintaining that this wastes water. This habit dates from my childhood, when one could easily get hypothermia while waiting for the hot water to wend its way from the basement to the second-story bathroom. Admittedly, our current water system does not take so long, nor is the water initially so cold, but there are still a few moments of chilliness before the hot water takes over. So I wait.

I countered that my water-wasting was miniscule compared to his, because he is prone to taking twenty minutes in there whereas I'm usually done in five minutes. So he bargained that if he could take a shower in five minutes, I would have to get in the cold water. Yesterday morning he took one in four.

Today, though, he had a stiff neck and a headache, so he took a very long shower to relax the muscles. I think we should have clarified whether this was a one-to-one correlation or whether one quick shower has doomed me to a lifetime of cold ones.

Baby Stuff

D1 and I survived her first vaccination yesterday. It was much more traumatic for me; I'm not positive she even flinched. She seems to have inherited His Majesty's pain tolerance; he is the sort of person who could drive himself to the ER to get a leg reattached, as long as he doesn't have to drive a stick.

She is 25.25 inches long, if you insist on that angle of measurement.

I'm considering relenting on the matter of exersaucers. I was convinced that they were a bad idea because (a) they were detrimental to proper bone and muscle development and (b) we didn't have floor space for one. However, having seen how much fun D1 had in one the other day, and having talked with the chiropractor about how to properly modify the seat, I may go ahead and make room for one. Now we'll have to see if one of those free ones I turned down are still available.

Stop me before I bake again

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at a friend's house, sorting through her tubs of baby-girl clothes for the next few sizes for D1. It was fun and breathed new life in an idea that has lurked at the back of my head for awhile: what if I had the two other SAHMs in the church--and all their kids--over to bake cookies in early December?

This would be three preschoolers, two toddlers, and two infants, in a small ranch house whose only workspace is the kitchen table. (If I put down dropcloths, I think I could impress the dining room table into service, too.)

I can hear my aunt and sister snickering now. Here I complain about the extreme labor of their cookie bake (in which small children are only invited for brief times and there are lots of other people and places to pack them off to when their attention wanes), and at the first opportunity I go running off to conduct an even more difficult one! I would not try to do the level of complexity they have, however. Two or three varieties at most, and no fussy ones.

Maybe I was just smoking too many french-toast fumes this morning.

The one downside to yesterday's activities is that I am not used to driving that far anymore and my back is killing me this morning. Fortunately tonight is chiropractor night.

I'll be home for Christmas

Friends and relations in Washington, take cover. We have purchased our tickets. We are now scheduled for a week and a half of baby-exhibiting, present-hoarding, and consuming more cookies than any fuzzy blue creature could imagine.

We never had the legendary holiday difficulties that are reputedly common for young couples. His family celebrates Christmas much like they celebrate several other holidays during the year; my family celebrates Christmas as a six-week extravaganza. No contest. Besides, his family gets us the rest of the year round; my family only gets us for a short visit.

Last year was nice. Last year the first trimester was just over, so I was down to throwing up every other day, a great improvement. I hadn't seen any family members since early November and hadn't been in Washington since two days after the wedding.

This year will (I hope) be even better. I don't expect to be pregnant to any degree. We have the world's most intelligent and adorable baby to show off. We haven't been out there since last Christmas, and no one has been to see us since August.

Maybe I should relax up on my no-Christmas-songs-until-the-day-after-Thanksgiving rule.

Plumbing and Predestination

We got the visa bill last night, and on it was the charge from the plumber for installing the water heater. Apparently his company goes by the name "The Elect Group."

DOB had mentioned that this plumber was a die-hard Calvinist--but even so, that seems a bit much. I hadn't even thought to be concerned about the election of my water heater.

Thin Blue Line

Last night was the GOP fall dinner in the county, an event that brought back many memories. Not that the dinner itself was that memorable, this year or last (that would be contrary to the rules of political dinners).

On the way home from the fall dinner last year, we stopped at a drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. It was embarassing. (I don't know why it should be more embarassing than carrying a baby around--I guess it's the proximity of cause and effect at that point.) DOB tried to hand it off to me to pay for, but I couldn't do it because he hadn't put the credit card in my name yet.

The instructions said to take it at the first trip to the bathroom in the morning. This is a confusing instruction to a pregnant woman. The 1 a.m. trip? The 3 a.m. trip? The 5 a.m. trip? The 7 a.m. trip? I compromised on 3 a.m., because that was about as long as I could stand the suspense.

Here's what mystifies me: Last year, just suspecting I was pregnant, I felt free to consume as much food as I felt like at the dinner. This year, still the sole source of nourishment for a baby now hundreds of times larger, I felt constrained from going back for seconds.

If you don't usually check DOB's blog . . .

. . . you really must check out this link. (Caution: Some minor language.)

And here we are dressed for the Fifties for "Homecoming Day" this Sunday. No, we don't have costume parties at church every month. 

Here's the picture of us in "western" attire from September. DOB's mom is not in costume, but she wouldn't let go of the baby. 

Psychological Mysteries

Sometime late last week I took my shoes off and kicked them under the edge of the bed. One of them caught on the cord to the lamp, causing it to hang out in prime tripping zone. I tripped over it several times over the next few days, causing the lamp to jerk perilously close to the edge. Each time, I thought, "You know, I really should put those shoes away, or I'm going to break the lamp."

This morning, I tripped over the lamp cord, yanked the lamp off, and broke one of the glass panes in the shade.

Sometimes I'm as mystified as to why I do (or don't do) things as everyone else is.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

For those really slow days at work, there's an online artificial intelligence game of Twenty Questions. It incorporates the information from every game played to help it guess in future games.

I was interested to see that the "breadbox" standard unit of measurement is being gradually supplanted by the microwave--which puzzles me, because I would have thought a microwave was quite a bit larger.

At the end of every game, the program posts the answers on which it disagrees with you. It said that when the item was "carrot" that the answer to "Does it bring people joy?" should have been "no."

I didn't think this was right. Carrots bring me joy.

But I've never heard anybody else use that question in playing twenty questions, anyway.

The Will of God (How imposing of a title can you get?)

In the discussion below, Kevin argues that a single guy should not be looking for a wife, per se, but should be looking to find the will of God. Of course I agree with that. But the question then arises, how does he know the will of God in this area? In most areas of life, there is no "default setting"--if you are not married, you are single; if you are not keeping yourself open to getting married, you are committing yourself to staying single for the indefinite future. Which one should it be?

The primary place to go to find the will of God is not our feelings or impressions of what God might be saying to us. (Some might say we should never look there. I'll leave that argument for the more learned.) We can all agree that the primary place to know the will of God is from the Bible.

Now of course there is no passage that says, "Thou shalt get married"; as Paul says, every one has their own gift from God. But that does not mean the Bible gives no further guidance on the topic. Starting in the first two chapters of Genesis, we see that God does not think it good for a man to be alone and that the first command he gives to humans is to be fruitful and multiply, an activity that requires two. Throughout the Scripture we see that the exhortations to marry are applied to broad groups of people over broad swaths of time for reasons tied into human nature (Jeremiah 29:6, I Corinthians 7:2, I Timothy 5:14). Singleness is spoken of as an exception, given to specific people for specific purposes or circumstances (Jeremiah 16:1-4, Matthew 19:10-12, I Corinthians 7:26).

So which should be considered the default? My argument is simply that, unless God gives specific direction otherwise, Scripture indicates that His will is marriage. Now of course when and how that happens requires further seeking of God's guidance. We are also permitted to use our brains and look to how God has made things to help us discern His will on timing. One of the primary purposes for marriage, having kids, can only be accomplished when one is young; another, avoiding fornication, is at least more pressing when one is young. Therefore, one can deduce that God's will--usually, unless indicated otherwise--would be for marriage to occur sooner rather than later.

I'm not saying that somebody better be out scoping out women day and night or else they are sinning; on the other hand, we shouldn't have the mentality of the guy stuck to the top of his roof in the flood who turned down all passing boats and helicopters because he was trusting the Lord. In the vast majority of cases, God works through the actions of people. Including our own.

I think a very close analogy to marriage would be the matter of work. Like marriage, we can see that God made man to work from the very beginning (Genesis 2:15) and that the general command is to work in order to obtain what we need. (Genesis 3:19, 2 Thessalonians 3:10, Ephesians 4:28) On the other hand, there are certainly times and places where God provides people's needs without their labor (I Kings 17:4) or where he even commands people to rely on the generosity of others to provide for them (Mark 6:8). But most of us realize that unless God gives us specific direction in that area, we ought to be working to take care of ourselves, while trusting God to take care of us even if we are unable to obtain work.

Look at it like this: Suppose you came across an able-bodied man and asked him where he was working these days. "I'm not," he says.

"Oh, are you going to school? Or doing some ministry?"

"No, I don't think that's where God wants me."

"Are you looking for a job, then?" you ask, at last.

"No, I'm praying about whether God wants me to look for a job, but so far He hasn't lead me to. So I'm just sitting around until He tells me what to do next."

Now it's possible that he might have some good reason you haven't asked about. But would it be out of bounds to say that something smells a little fishy there?

Bumper sticker I need

Smile . . . It kills time between disasters.

The Sound of Doom

We have radiant baseboard heaters, which has to be the oddest sounding way to heat a house. Instead of the cozy sound of a crackling fire or the logical sound of rushing air, it makes an assortment of gurgles, knocks and bangs like malfunctioning pipes.

The weirdest one is the one in our bedroom which, after careful contemplation, I have finally determined sounds like the drums in the deep in Moria. At least I think that noise is the heater.

I guess if orcs break into our room one night, we can't say we weren't warned.

Copy Books

Comments on the post below have led to yet more intriguing thoughts (I love this kind of discussion. Everyone has time to think things through and actually say what they otherwise might not think of until the discussion was already over.)

I implied below that some of the reasons people choose for not getting married and/or having children were selfish. As others have pointed out in comments, people may also do so for unselfish reasons or get married and/or have children for selfish reasons. Quite right. No one has a monopoly on selfishness or selflessness.

But that doesn't mean the character qualities have no connection whatsoever to the natural course of family life. Rather the relationship is more complex and subtle, but ultimately very important.

The end goal of everything we experience, good, bad, and indifferent, is for us to know God and be like Christ. With this goal, God has set up the world to teach us these things. The way He has hard-wired human beings for family life is one key way He both reveals himself to us and teaches us to be more like Christ. That's why He constantly uses it as an analogy: "You have been like an unfaithful wife." "I pity you like a father pities his children." "I will remember you even more than a mother remembers her nursing baby." Then he turns the analogy back to us and says, "Now you live in your lives after the Great Pattern of my love."

Each area of family relationships is designed to teach us things. For instance, being "in love" was always a term I despised and would have avoided at all costs as meaningless emotional blather. Then I read someone--I think it was Elisabeth Elliot--define it as "seeing another person the way God meant them to be." That made sense. Some people go overboard into a love-is-blind situation, but if you keep your wits about you and both genuinely love as you are "in love," you know the one you love has many flaws yet, but your desire to see them become the person they were made to be overrides that.

It's like God gives, at least to some, a chance to glimpse things from His perspective. That glimpse then provides us with something to hang on to during the times when the realities of living with a fellow sinner overshadow the grand vision we had at the first. Because in reality, that perspective is the one we need to learn, not just with our spouses, but with everyone.

The love between husband and wife, however, doesn't necessarily teach us the sacrifice that love requires. For most of us, investments in our spouse pay off rapidly. We help and are helped. We receive back in similar kind what we give. When we do have to give in an area where our spouse doesn't give anything back, it's hard to do.

But then come babies. For nine months you haven't even seen this person, yet they rearrange even the most intimate aspects of your life. For weeks on end you care for their every whim, devoting yourself around the clock to their needs. And then one day, they give you the faintest glimmer of a smile, and you go bonkers with delight. Why? Because somehow God puts into new parents the willingness to serve their children and not get anything back. The slightest glimmer of appreciation seems like ample repayment.

These natural drives are amazingly powerful. But they are only natural. Left to themselves, they quickly either fade away or turn to poison--and the stronger the love, the stronger the poison: jealousy, nagging, possessiveness, manipulation, idolatry. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis has some insightful passages where a woman's love for her son is the very thing that keeps her from heaven, whereas a man's lust, submitted to God, becomes the very thing that carries him there. All natural desires are good or bad only as we allow them to draw us closer or farther away from God.

The purpose of the natural drives in family life is rather like those little letters made of dotted lines at the top of penmanship pages. They are meant to provide us with a practice area for learning the genuine love that God desires us to show. We don't keep writing on dotted lines forever--eventually, we have to learn the shapes on our own. Similarly the natural passions by themselves aren't enough to sustain us through the difficulties of life. But they help us learn the pattern, if we look at them as revelations from God and submit them to His sovereignty.

It's quite possible to learn Christ-like love outside of the family, just as it's possible to learn good penmanship without ever tracing anyone else's letters. It's also quite possible to be married and have kids and never learn a thing about love, just as there are plenty of people who started out with good patterns but now have deplorable penmanship. Yet it's no accident that there are traceable letters in penmanship; nor should we ignore the connection God has designed between our families and the Family of God.

New Plan for Wealth Redistribution

As we were driving about admiring the scenery yesterday evening, some particular houses we passed caused me to consider that the problem is not that some people are rich and some are not, but that the wrong people are rich. It's despicable when someone who has poor taste becomes rich and then wastes piles of money building a huge, elaborate, hideous house that is a blot to the landscape.

So what we should do is find out who these rich people with poor taste are and take their money away before they can misuse it. Then we can give it to some deserving poor person with excellent taste. Like me, for instance.

Except DOB said that if I succeeded in implementing this, I would be evil and he would be obligated to fight against me. Rats.

More pictures available in the usual place.

An impromptu sightseeing trip to Caesar Creek lake. 

The Black Box

In an effort to watch the presidential debates, we have for the past week or so borrowed a TV and VCR from DOB's younger brother, who appears to be preparing to open a used-electronics store in their parents' basement. We didn't succeed in actually watching a debate on it, because they come on after our bedtime. But we might have recorded last night's, if it got reception for long enough to record. Peter Jennings was a fuzzy gray blob when we went to bed, and by this morning there was only solid gray.

In the meantime I've had this giant ugly black box in my living room. I do not like it. I recall hearing of a decorator's comment that in the olden days living rooms were designed with the hearth as the focal point; modern living rooms are designed with the TV as the focal point. What a tradeoff: the beauty and magic and warmth of a fire for cold blue light from a square black box.

Forget the moral or intellectual debate over television. It's just plain ugly. (I have similar feelings about computers, which is why they're in the office, not the living room. Or bedroom.)

There are, of course, ways to conceal a TV in cupboards and the like. In our current living room, however, that would require giving up either the piano or the books, something we're not about to do. So to this TV set I say: Be gone! And good riddance!

Word Games

Not having much experience in applying names to the various forms of infant garments, DOB required an explanation when I referred to D1's new cold-weather garment as a romper. However, he gamely accepted this new term and attempted to add it to his vocabulary.

A few hours later I asked him to carry her back to the changing pad and keep her distracted while I finished putting away leftovers. He picked her up and asked, "Do you want me to take her out of her bouncer?" For a few moments I thought he was confused about our baby equipment and was going to tell him that she wasn't in a bouncer, just a playpen.

Also, one evening this week we were in the back of the house when we suddenly heard loud bangs from the living room. We were startled for a minute, and then I relaxed as I realized what it was.

"It's just the CD player," I said.

"What on earth is it playing?" DOB asked.

"I think it's a Haydn symphony."

"I can certainly see why."

And now, pictures on the blog! For those who want more, they are here.

To the Bachelors, to make Much of Time

Anthony Bradley's post complaining about parental expectations for adult children touches on a train of thought that's been running around in my head for awhile, which I will now try to halt at the next station and write down. He's got a point about the brokenness that exists in many parent/child relationships that extends into adulthood. But his post also implies that it's somehow wrong and selfish for parents to hope their children grow up, get married, and have children of their own. (He's probably a bit sore on this point since he's still a bachelor himself.)

My theory runs somewhat opposite: it's wrong and selfish for young people to purposefully avoid the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing in order to pursue fun, careers, or just because they're too lazy or timid to try. Now before everyone gets up in arms, note the term "purposefully" and the three qualifications on the end. People to whom God does not give the opportunity to marry or have children are not included in this statement; God has called them to something else. People who are giving up or delaying marriage because of a clear call to a ministry that is inconsistent with raising a family (say, constant treks into hostile territory) are also doing fine.

But I suspect many Christians are staying single or childless for the same reason a lot of non-Christians are remaining single or childless: it's easier and more fun. Those are not legitimate reasons. You don't need a special sign or calling from God to marry and have kids. Read Genesis 1:28. Marriage is the rule; celibacy is the exception. It is often a God-given and God-blessed exception, but it is an exception.

I'm going to aim this at guys because it's primarily their duty to take the initiative. Women chasing men isn't pretty (although there are times when standing where someone will trip over you isn't out of place--go read Ruth). A Christian guy who has an education and a job, who finds women attractive and has no specific calling to celibacy, ought to be looking for a wife. If you don't want to be "hunting," you can at least go for long walks in the woods with your gun handy. This is not advocating desperation, which is most unattractive: the goal is not to get married because you're the black hole of emotional need, but because getting married is a good and worthy thing to do.

It's your duty as a human being. To quote Benedict, "Nay, the world must be peopled!" It's your duty as a Christian. What's under attack from Satan these days? The family. The best thing most of us can do right now to advance the kingdom of God is not running around trying to ban gay marriage or change the divorce laws, or even evangelism, but to have good marriages and well-raised children. That's how we can show that the gospel has power.

All right, that's enough ranting. Think I'll go put on a poncho for the flying tomatoes soon to descend.

Ben-Hur

We watched Ben-Hur over the weekend and the making of it last night. We always turn movies into unit studies anyway: researching the setting, looking up the past and future of the actors, debating the artistic and moral implications of the plotline. We can't help it, we were home schooled. All those extra features on DVDs just provide greater fodder.

For those of you who get annoyed with the Christian bandwagons rolling through town, did you know that back in the day Billy Sunday urged people to go see the stage production of Ben-Hur? Apparently the phenomenon has been around awhile. The stage production must have been something to see, though, with up to five chariots racing on mechanized tracks. One time the machinery malfunctioned and Messala won.

The first time it was filmed the producers decided to save themselves the trouble: they just filmed someone else's chariot race. That film provoked a lawsuit which ultimately established authors' copyrights to the film versions of their work.

In light of the Worldview Fiction contest, what really struck me about Ben-Hur is that the compelling thing about the book is the story. Lew Wallace was not all that great of a word crafter; nothing he wrote sings in my head years later like lines from my favorite authors. But things happen in Ben-Hur. Exciting things. Compelling things. Characters love and hate and seek revenge and encounter insurmountable obstacles and succeed and fail. That is what people respond to.

Reading both the stories and the critiques in the contest, I've come to realize that the problem with most of them is that they aren't stories: some of them are interesting character sketches or colorful slices of life. But nothing really happens. I wonder if an actual story is the most difficult thing to write.

The Virtue of Resentment

One of my nursing-reads (what sort of boring people only read one book at a time?) is a battered paperback picked up for free at a garage sale entitled Foreign Policies of the Founding Fathers. It's intriguing if you like that sort of thing, which I do. Anyway, within it I came across a quote from John Adams:

"Resentment is a Passion, implanted by Nature for the Preservation of the Individual. Injury is the Object which excites it. . . . A Man may have the Faculty of concealing his Resentment, or suppressing it, but he must and ought to feel it. Nay he ought to indulge it, to cultivate it. It is a Duty. His Person, his Property, his Liberty, his Reputation are not safe without it. He ought, for his own Security and Honour, and for the public good to punish those who injure him, unless they repent, and then he should forgive, having Satisfaction and Compensation. Revenge is unlawfull. It is the same with communities. They ought to resent and punish."

This certainly doesn't seem to be a Christian perspective, yet there's some truth in it somewhere. If not appropriate personal policy, is it good foreign policy? And if resentment is not allowed, how do we ensure that evil does not go unchecked?

General Developments

Our hot water heater gave up the ghost on Friday, as DOB learned by walking down the hallway in his stocking feet. I would say "blew up," my standard term for any significant malfunction, but I find that when I say "Our hot water heater blew up" people get the mental image of a gaping hole in the side of our house with shrapnel everywhere. So no, it merely rusted away. Quite dull, but still expensive. The plumber has come and gone and replaced it, a difficult task because the house builders forgot to put in a place for a hot water heater and wound up stuffing it in the intended linen closet, for which it was too large.

While the heater was draining we collected a great deal of water in all our pots and bowls, which are now all over the kitchen. I was supposed to use these to distill, but I find I cannot remember to put them in the distiller; as soon as I have it scrubbed out, I automatically fill it at the tap. So I will see if I can remember to throw the extra water in the laundry.

That's a water distiller, not the other kind.

We went to the library book sale on Saturday--the event of the year in the Duchy--and returned with three boxes of books, including several excellent children's books for the day when D1 learns to prefer interesting stories over Motortrend and the Wall Street Journal.

D1 could roll back to front if she wanted to, but she doesn't. She rolls all the way up on her side, teeters on the edge, and then thinks to herself, "Why should I roll over on my tummy when I'll just immediately wish to return to my back?" So she stops.

And speaking of D1, thanks to a generous friend we now have a digital camera. (O joy! O rapture!) More frequent picture postings after I dig out from under the weekend mess and learn to use the thing.

Yesterday afternoon DOB sprained his ankle. (OK, it was during a football scrimmage, but he vows he placed his feet very carefully. It's just that his footgear was too slick.) The weird thing is that it was his good ankle, so he's having a terrible time using crutches in the opposite way from what he usually does.

It's very difficult to make popcorn when all your bowls and pots are full of water.

Literary developments

Looking at the Worldview Fiction contest finalists, I was struck by one literary question: What is it with the first person? Of the six stories posted so far, five are in the first person, and several are also written in the present tense. Is the third person past tense now passé?

For some of the stories, it makes some sense, but this one (one of the better ones, IMHO), for example, would lose nothing if you just went through and changed the pronouns and verb tenses.

Maybe it's part of the narcissism of modern society, or it's a peculiarly Christian phenomenon stemming from the concept of giving a testimony. Or maybe it just seems easier and is common in amateurs.

It reminds me of the way in The Moffats the children would race home from the library and quickly peek in their new acquisitions to see which books were "I" books. Those were then put to the bottom of the pile to read, because although a few favorites had been found that way, in general it was a sign to them of a book that was not going to be as good.

Works for me

You're Hobbes. First of all, the makers of this
quiz would like to congratulate you. You have
our seal of approval. You are kind,
intelligent, loving, and good-humoredly
practical. You're proud of who you are. At the
same time, you're tolerant of those who lack
your clearsightedness. You're always playful,
but never annoying. For these traits, you are
well-loved, and with good cause.


Which famous feline are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And DOB, of course, will play Calvin. It would be perfect except we've got the relative heights backwards.

Paths back to joy

I've been thinking about the discussion on the desperate-housewife story. (Both here and at worldmagblog.) And I realized I have two big advantages in staying out of the slough. Two things that help me set aside the bad things, savor the good things, and enjoy life. Even on days when the baby is sick and I'm sick and the house is an intractable mess and I do something really stupid that costs us all the money I've managed to save.

They're not nice things. Nothing cozy and fun like calling up a friend and having a good chat, or raiding a secret stash of chocolate. They are, in fact, the two most difficult things in my life. The two things that if I could wave a magic wand and change, I would.

One is DOB's physical problems. Now granted, there are times when they just add to the things I have to whine about. But they also help me in several ways. I'm sure it would be difficult for me (and I suspect that it is difficult for many young mothers) if my husband were still bursting with all the youthful vigor that I had before I started having kids, coming home from a day of desk work full of pent-up energy while I just wanted to collapse in a puddle. There are days when I think this would be nice--"Why can't my husband have the strength to wait on me hand and foot, like everyone else's? Oh wait . . . "--but on the whole I think the contrast would be depressing, especially since I've always felt the need to keep up with anyone in the vicinity. It's not a problem around here. If anything, I have quite a bit more stamina and energy, and the greater physical demands of my work make things just about even, leaving us both collapsed in a puddle simultaneously. Logistically it causes some problems, but emotionally it makes things easier.

DOB's challenges also help me put up with the physical difficulties and changes that come with bearing children. There will come a day when I give birth for the last time, wean my last baby, and am not constantly tied down with little children. There will never come a day when he can walk freely or run. If he can deal with permanent handicaps, I can deal with temporary ones. His attitude also encourages me (not that he doesn't gripe occasionally, too): he never gives up on doing something he loves just because it's hard. If he can't run, at least he can pitch and bat. If he can't do sales appointments all day, at least he can make the calls. It encourages me to find ways to keep up on the things I want to do, even if I can't right now do them to the extent I would like.

The other thing that helps me keep looking back up is my mother's death. Coming when and as it did, it overshadowed our whole courtship, engagement and marriage. Every time we were together, we were acutely aware that we had no idea, and no right to demand, that we would ever see each other again. All we had was right now to enjoy. Add to that the paranoia of early parenthood, and hardly a day goes by when I don't ponder how fragile life is. I don't know if I'll have seventy years more to spend with these people, or only today; I do know that however long I have, it won't be long enough. So when I pick my baby up or see my husband drag home exhausted, I smile. Every time (well, almost). Because I don't know if it's the last smile I'll be able to give them.

Life is too short to be miserable. I want to keep remembering that.

Problem Solved

Square containers are great for freezing things. But their lids always look like all the other lids of other square containers that are very similar but not quite close enough to swap lids with. And since no one ever acquires their lifetime supply of square freezer containers at once, any attempts at freezing must be prefaced by matching up every possible container and lid until one finds a match.

Today I wanted to freeze chicken broth, in a quantity suited to two of my larger square containers. I found a lid for one. On the second, I found a lid that I thought might work, with coaxing. So I poured away, put the lid on the first container, and started to put a lid on the second container.

Coaxing availed not. Instead the pressure induced the container to tip and skitter away, dumping the broth all over the stove. (Once again I gave thanks for a smooth-top stove.) So I had a lot of broth to clean up but I could now easily fit the remaining broth into a smaller square container, for which I had plenty of lids.

Privileges of Age

From last night's speaker, the local party chair:

"And then . . . have you all heard this story before?"

"You all have. Well, I'm going to tell it again, anyway."

Cleaning update

Superglue eventually just absorbs into your skin, right?

Mini-blinds wash up quite easily in the bathtub. They also scratch the bathtub just as easily. Our bathroom fixtures are a) an ugly color; b) very easily scratched; c) very solidly attached.

I've decided this is my practice house.

Unless ye become as a little child

DOB's mother is giving me Suzuki piano lessons. This both lets her learn the lesson-giving technique and lets me prepare for the eventual day when D1 gets piano lessons. (In Suzuki the mother has to learn the first book before the child, and the child can start just about as soon as she can reach the keys.)

So, after having played the piano for twenty years, I'm taking beginning lessons again. It's painful. (This has nothing to do with the teacher, who is doing fine--it's the thing itself.) It's like having someone come in my kitchen and say, "This is a half cup measure. Put in exactly half a cup of flour. Don't spill any. Now take the teaspoon measure and put in two level teaspoons of cinnamon." And I just want to grab the stuff and dump the cinnamon in, like I always do.

It's hard to start over from the beginning. Hard to undo bad habits. Hard to learn things you already thought you knew. But it's also rewarding to swallow my pride and take things like a little kid again, one concept at a time.

And who knows, maybe it will carry over and make me neater in the kitchen.

Fall Cleaning

This week the weather is clear and crisp and I have a source of free labor. That makes it time to do fall housecleaning. High time, since I never did spring cleaning, and I'm not sure how much the previous occupants (we bought from the realtor) did, as the junk mail indicates their baby would be about a year old now.

The free labor is DOB's youngest brothers. We get a lot of help from DOB's family, which we repay by producing grandchildren.

Yesterday we did the windows. We discovered that they are the kind that tilts inside and is very easy to clean, which was good because they were utterly filthy. They needed several preliminary scrubs with Bon Ami and a Super Scraper before window spray could even be considered. I used up my entire rag collection on them and the frames.

Today it was--and still is, though my help has gone and I must carry on alone--blinds, mini and vertical. Thanks to my sister's suggestion, I have figured out how to shorten the mini blinds so we don't have an extra two feet of blind that keeps falling off the windowsill if you don't balance it right. I don't know if the vertical blinds are washable or not, but if they dissolve while soaking in the bathtub, good riddance. I am beginning to suspect they were not originally light gray.

Is it OK if I be happy?

I may be misinterpreting this story from among the Worldview Fiction contest finalists, but I find it very hackle-raising.

For those of you who don't follow links, the tale is entitled "Wanted: Perfect Life (Will Settle for Mediocre)." It follows a young mother who has awoken from her dreams of marrying Prince Charming and raising beautiful children to realize she is married to an emotionally distant boor, has bratty kids, hates her life, and especially is annoyed at her apparently-perfect friends. She finally blows up at a ladies' meeting and tells them all how she feels, thus losing some friends and regaining others who finally confess that they feel the same way.

Now there are some good parts to the story: quite a bit of humor, some clever insights, and the point that plaster sanctimony is a great evil. There are also some artistically bad things: a fair amount of cliche and sterotype, and a sloppy writing style that isn't justified by a quasi-stream-of-consciousness perspective. But it's the apparent final message that really bugs me.

Maybe I have an unusually wonderful husband and child (but of course). Maybe it's just that I'm still (practically) a newlywed and only have a remarkably angelic 3-month-old so far, and in five years I will hate my husband and children, too. Maybe it's because I haven't had post-partum depression. (From the way I used to get post-Christmas depression, I fully expected to.) Maybe it's just that I've never really gotten into the whole "girlfriend" thing.

But honestly: my life is not this bad.

Sure I have my grouchy days (or at least grouchy minutes--I try not to drag it on all day). That's life. But I don't find myself wishing desparately to escape, like, well, like the feminist stereotype of a housewife. I don't envy DOB leaving for work every morning. I've worked at a job, a wonderful job that I loved, with great co-workers (I have to say that, they read this). But in every job there are going to be parts that you hate. I've had morning sickness, and I've written grants: I'll take the morning sickness.

From the way the story is written, the author doesn't appear to be suggesting that there's really anything wrong with this attitude: the woman doesn't stop griping, she just finds friends with whom she can get together and complain about their husbands and wonder why the dishes never get done. Now, I'm sure real friends are great, and definitely superior to fakers, but is that really all the hope there is?

Isn't it possible to be real and be happy? Isn't it possible to be pleased when your husband is feeling romantic? Isn't it possible (do I ask too much?) to teach your children to eat their supper and not to barge into the bathroom?

Frankly, I'm not certain her new group of friends would necessarily be any more real. I'm not sure, for instance, that I'd feel comfortable announcing among them, "I did the dinner dishes before bedtime every night this week!" (Not that that has happened yet, but in case it did.) I've been in situations where I felt guilty for having anything good going on or doing anything right, and it's just as unpleasant as situations where everybody was pretending life was unflaggingly wonderful. The only difference is, it's easier to meet the group standards when they're set at failure.

Come to think of it, I've known and admired a lot of women who were real and happy. Who still liked their husbands and their children. (And whose children, though not perfect, were not brats either--I know, I babysat them.) Who could weep with those who weep, but didn't have to wallow with those who wallow.

I hope this story is just the first chapter, and that the woman goes on to find a better life. Whether she does or not, though, I'm not going to give up hope on having, not a perfect life, but a good one. Because that's what I have.

Not that liberal

Last night while we were staffing the GOP HQ, a student from the local college came in to get a sign. As she babbled on about her great affection for Bush and the political climate of the college, DOB asked her how the professors stood on the upcoming election.

"Oh, they're mixed," she said. "Even though it's a liberal arts college, they're not all liberal."

Apparently no one at the liberal arts college had bothered to explain to her that the "liberal" there had nothing to do with ideology. Then again, maybe the current state of academia is the result of an innocent semantical confusion.

Two, Four, Six, Eight

More fun from the WSJ: an article on the cost of having a third child.

It seems that if you have a third child you need a house with more than three bedrooms, which is hard to find. You don't fit at restuarant tables, not even at Burger King. You can't fit all the car seats in your convertible, so you have to buy a minivan. You can't put five people in a room at fancy hotels.

Having grown up in circles where a family with three kids was considered small (and being the fourth child myself), I was highly amused by these challenges. But now my mom's statement that three children was the worst number to have makes sense. At three you outgrow all the things meant for families with two children. After that, it doesn't really matter how many more you have.

Either that, or life just got better when I came into the world.

Spiderman

Last night we watched Spiderman. (We rarely watch movies until they have been out so long we can borrow the DVD for free.) This was definitely not my typical movie genre. I don't do action and I don't even read that type of comics. (That's a comic strip? But it's not funny!)

But I liked it. Good and evil weren't just abstract concepts or arbitrary delineations, but specific choices people made. The hero respected his authorities (and they deserved it). Sure the villain was an executive, but it wasn't portrayed as if being in business was bad, but that choosing money and prestige over what is right can take you farther down the road of evil than you ever thought possible. Which is certainly true.

I did find it scary in parts. For some reason surreal, creepy violence is much more disturbing to me than realistic violence. D1's birth has also made a difference. If we watch a scary movie I have to check her much more often.

You don't know Mary Poppins

There's an article in yesterday's WSJ about a new TV reality show called "Supernanny" in which a strict British nanny tells parents how to make their kids behave. (I don't know yet if they have a call-in number where you can nominate other families--you know the ones--to appear on the show.) A line from the article:

"Many Americans, for whom the words 'British nanny' tend to conjure up Mary Poppins, may find some of Ms. Frost's take-no-prisoners methods surprising."

Now anyone who thinks of Mary Poppins as opposed to strictness clearly knows nothing about Mary Poppins. Even the movie didn't soften her up much, and in the books she is a Terror. She hears no nonsense, brooks no opposition, and when it is Time To Go Home you go home, even if you were bobbing up and down on the ceiling a moment before.

Jane and Michael do love Mary Poppins, of course, in part because she is so strict (though fair)--knowing what the rules are is much more comforting than the typical modern parenting style of "do what you want until I blow a fuse." But in that time and place they would have had that (though perhaps not the fairness) from any nanny. The primary thing is the utterly unpredictable and delightful things that happen around her, which she offers no explanation for and often does not even seem to remember.

Predictable rules and unpredictable fun. Not a bad goal to shoot for.

Foreign Policy, unencumbered by knowledge

Not that I know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that North Korea, even if its weapons program is more advanced than Iraq's was, poses less of a threat. Kim Jong Il strikes me as someone who has taken over a country and is running it for his own personal profit and finds that quite adequate. He doesn't seem to have ambitions to blow up everyone else. (Though of course he might find selling weapons accrues to his advantage.)

On a side note, doesn't it seem from both the professional and--ahem--personal lives of power-grabbing tyrants that they have an unusually high level of testosterone? Maybe if we got them some sort of treatment for that they would pose less of a threat.

For actual analysis of the debate (and our bipartisan top 10 lists), go read the Duke's blog.

How weird is it that Blogger's spellchecker doesn't include the word "blog?"

Random Thoughts

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he's supposed to be doing at the moment." -Robert Benchley

Wouldn't it be cool if we had triplet boys next and named them Ronald, Roland, and Arnold? (OK, maybe not.)

Why does the guy across the street spend a large part of every day sitting in his open garage, staring off into space? Is this what we have to look forward to in retirement?

Personals

Ht: 2 feet, or thereabouts
Wt: 13.5 lbs
Eyes: holding steady to blue so far
Hair: sparse, but tending to strawberry blond
Favorite Activities: watching stuff, making noises, kicking, trying to grab things, sleeping, eating (in that order). I find rolling over to be a fascinating, if sometimes frustrating, challenge.
Looking for: Anyone who's good at making silly faces.

Carrot Quandry

Taste of Home is holding a contest for carrot recipes.

Surely an obvious opportunity for me to enter and win. After all, I probably have the world's largest collection of carrot recipes--I have several carrot recipe books, including a beautiful one on my coffee table, and many carrot recipes that people have given me over the years, a large number at one of my wedding showers.

But I've never tried any of them.

Part of the reason is that I think carrots are best eaten raw straight from the garden, with most of the dirt wiped off. Part of it is that I'm just not a recipe person. (The one exception is carrot cake recipes--I do feel a need for at least having a recipe within sight when I make cakes.) But mostly it's just because I have never gotten around to it. I fix carrots raw and grated with apples, or cooked with honey and basil, just like my mother did, because that's what I'm used to doing.

Maybe now I will feel inspired and actually try something adventuresome. Carrot-Ginger Soup? Spaghetti Carrotese? Curried Carrot Deviled Eggs?

Have a Nice Day, pt. 2

Thanks to everyone for the useful suggestions on how to have a good day.

Tuesday morning had "Not A Good Day" written all over it. We were running late and short on sleep. My cold lingered on. The baby was still sick (better, but still sick). The sky was gray and dreary. I found out it was my fault that DOB's cell phone had broken three months before the contract would have replaced it for free. (Those little charger plugs don't like to be upside down.) The kitchen was a mess and the task for the day (cleaning out the freezer) particularly loathsome.

So I decided it was time to put all this into practice. I was going to have a good day, regardless.

I tackled the nasty things in the kitchen first, and they didn't take as long as I thought. I put my hair in pigtails (nothing like weird hair to perk up a day). D1 and I went for a walk, after the gray skies blew away and left a bright blue September day. When the rack of diapers blew over for the fifth time in a row, I found a bunch of leaves had blown into them, so I turned the leaves into a bouquet for the kitchen table. (And gave up on drying the diapers outside.)

I did a job that I had been putting off for too long (thank-you notes) and one I had been wanting to get to (fancy bibs for D1). I took a nap. I made mashed potatoes for supper and turned the butternut squash (ugh) into butternut squash bread (yum).

It was a good day.

Today it was easier to get up and decide to have a good day again.

Adventures at the cutting edge of thrift

Dryer sheets: These are unnecessary. Most clothes don't get staticky if you don't let them tumble around in the dryer for too long. If you do get a few staticky items, you can discharge the electricity by snapping them vigorously in the air. This is particularly exciting on dry days in the winter.

Baking powder: Some of us are uncomfortable consuming aluminum. Aluminum-free baking powder is expensive. Baking soda and cream of tartar are often touted as a less-expensive substitute, but cream of tartar is hard to find in bulk and still fairly pricey.

The purpose of baking powder is to create an acid and base reaction in the middle of your food so that it will bubble up and then be trapped by cooking. Well, what's the classic kitchen acid-and-base combination? Baking soda and vinegar, of course! And vinegar is very cheap and very easy to find in bulk.

The trick is figuring out the right proportions. Right now I'm using about 1/2 tsp. soda to 2 Tbs. vinegar as a substitute for 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. If the substance contains some acidic ingredients (like fruits or veggies) or very strongly flavored ingredients (like chocolate) not quite so much vinegar might be needed. But knowing the dire consequences of unreacted soda, I generally err on the side of caution.

To look down on Camelot

We finished the last King Arthur book last night, bringing Camelot to a sad but satisfying conclusion. As is inevitable with tragedies, I am always left looking for the way out . . . "Why didn't Sir Bors or someone find an excuse to fight Mordred before he could cause any problems?" ("Why doesn't Cyrano just wait a decent period of time and speak for himself?" "Why didn't Romeo soliloquize a few more minutes so Juliet can wake up?")

The obvious answer is, "Because if they did, there wouldn't be any story." The less obvious reason is that's the way life is; the obvious little thing that ought to be done isn't, and everything else falls apart.

Now we've started The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. I hope DOB likes it as much as I have represented it to him. Is it possible to oversell Chesterton? I doubt it.

One problem I've had since getting to know DOB well is it rather stymies my ability to read because if it's anything he would be interested in I feel like it's a waste of time to read it by myself; I want to wait until he can read it, too, and we can discuss it. Which is a problem since I have much more reading time (six feedings a day!) than he does. I have to start reading homeschooling books during that time or something of the sort.

Have a nice day

What makes a day good? I've been pondering this not only because I like to have good days, but also because I want my children to have good days--and I think what I do will be the primary factor in determining that for quite awhile. (Maybe permanently. Happiness is in large part a habit.)

There is an irreducible number of bad days in life, I suppose; yet on reflection, some of the days in my life that ought to have been bad were not. Like the day that the car broke down on the way home from the dentist, my grandmother had to go to the emergency room, and my dad got laid off--all within about two hours. At that point the woe had piled up so far it was almost funny. (Grandma turned out to be fine and Dad eventually got a new job.) Or the day last December when DOB was so sick with the flu and I was so sick with the baby that neither of us could get up. In retrospect, it turns up on our "best days of last year" list.

A big factor in whether a day is good or unpleasant is whether what you do in it corresponds with your expectations. (One reason why catastrophic days are often not "bad days" is one automatically adjusts expectations--"Well, we've all got the Martian Death Flu, so we'll just have to survive without cleaning the bathrooms today.") Going on, day after day, without being able to do the things you want to (or think you need to) do is what drags a day down. Feeling like you got it all (mostly) done makes for a satisfactory day.

Making a day's activities match expectations is a challenge; it involves both planning and organization to maximize what you can do in a day, and mental and personal adjustments so that your expectations fit with reality.

Another important part of an everydayish good day is balance: some work, some play, some learning, some physical activity, some mental activity, enough rest, some time just to contemplate. And cushioning between different things so you have time to stop and catch your breath and notice that you are alive. Personally, I'm happiest if the day is front-loaded so I get stuff done early on and can then savor the last few moments of the day doing only things I want to do. I also find it an important part of a good day that the food tastes good and my clothes look good.

Is it feasible to try to make most of the days around here like that? Is it a worthy goal? And am I missing something?

Ti, a drink with jam and bread

I am an infrequent drinker of hot beverages. I can't stand even the smell of coffee. Hot cocoa I have maybe once a year. Tea I have a bit more often, but not much. But even on the rare occasions I do drink something hot, my reticence over it is immediately reinforced because I burn my tongue. I marvel at people who drink coffee all day. Do they have constantly burned tongues? Or do they know some secret to sipping hot beverages that I have not yet learned?

Now DOB is theorizing that tea right before bed (as we had last night, in an effort to combat my cold) leaves him feeling better in the morning. Clears out the passages for a better night's sleep or something. Anyway, how do we make this a regular habit without also adjusting to constantly burnt tongues?

Milestones the Baby Books Miss: First Illness

Yes, D1 is sick. Not hand-foot-and-mouth disease or (as far as I can tell) pertussis. Just an ordinary, snuffly, miserable cold. She's a game little character who smiles in spite of it, but we are suffering a due amount of new parent anxiety.

Songs my mother taught me

Overlooking the cheesy graphics, the obvious improper use of government, and the irritating "health messages," this website Juliana found is really cool. Not only does it have the words and tune to "Do Your Ears Hang Low?", it has quite a selection of other classics.

My mother had an enormous repertoire of songs--or song fragments--on every topic under the sun. We used to make a game of it, trying to come up with a topic and see if she could sing a song about it. She always could. Thus it has always been one of my maternal ambitions to know a large array of songs. But, alas, I actually learned very few of my mother's songs--or if I did, only a small portion of the song.

Now I can begin to remedy that problem. I can toss in songs my grandparents sang to me as well. So from now on D1 can expect to be regaled with "Be Kind to Your Webfooted Friends," "Deep in the Heart of Texas," "Frog Went A-Courtin'," "Shortnin' Bread," "Six Little Ducks," and much more. And I'm sure my whole family will be thrilled to see the complete lyrics to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

More home adventures

I've figured out the solution to my refrigerator-cleaning problem. I've divided up the kitchen chores that need to be done about once a month into four parts (under sink, fridge, cabinets, and surfaces). Then I'll spend half an hour each Wednesday doing one of the four. If a month has five Wednesdays, I'll do more cabinets. You can all cancel your calls to the health department now.

I think I've killed all my plants again. Well, the peace lily was probably dead anyway. But the lucky bamboo may have finally gone this time, and the philodendron looks frighteningly pale. I'm not good with plants. I can tend to things that need it at frequent intervals (husbands, babies) or make noise when neglected (babies, husbands). Plants don't make noise and don't need to be remembered very often. So in my house they don't get remembered at all--especially since these were out in the garage until I found a place to put them in the house, which I never did. I'm going to try to revive the remaining plants (especially Philo, with whom I have a long history) and put them back on the refrigerator if they pull through. Maybe I will remember them there.

Taking the blame

I get annoyed at Dear Abby (not D1, the one in the newspaper) fairly often. (Why do I continue to read it? There's not much in our local newspaper. It's that and how Dorothy decorated the table when the Modern Homemakers met last Tuesday.) She generally serves as the prophet of Conventional Wisdom, mingled with a touch of Political Correctness.

This week a girl wrote in confessing that she had been sexually assaulted by her high-school boyfriend of 18 months but had never told anyone; now that she was in college, she found herself unwilling to date for fear of what might happen. DA advised her to go get counselling, and reassured her, "It's not your fault. The victim is NEVER to blame."

I don't want to take one iota of blame off the boyfriend. Indeed, I'd hold him primarily responsible even if she was a willing participant; it is a gentleman's duty to protect the honor even of ladies who do not wish to be so protected. And there are certainly victims (e.g. young children) who should be told they couldn't possibly be blamed.

But isn't there a pretty high likelihood that somewhere in the course of the 18-month relationship this girl did something that contributed to the situation and for which she quite properly feels guilty? Maybe she sneaked out behind her parents' backs to see him; or said "Yes" once and found he wouldn't take "No" thereafter; or tried to draw a line in a place where a line won't hold. It's not doing her any favors to gloss over that possibility and just insist, "It's all the guy's fault." In order for her to resolve this situation and have healthy relationships in the future, she's going to have to deal with her own guilt (if she does in fact have any) as well as her anger at him. She'll need to figure out what she could do differently in the future as well as identify the characteristics of men who might mistreat her.

Obviously DA couldn't have helped her through all that in a newspaper column. But she shouldn't have closed off one of the essential parts of the healing process with a blanket statement.

Contagions

I have a cold. Rose had a cold. DJ had a cold. Amy has a cold. Can colds spread through the blogosphere? Maybe I should disinfect my keyboard.

Marching On

I had a thawing-hamburger related problem this morning that required me to clean out the entire refrigerator. Which on the whole was a good thing, considering how long it has been. (If I keep blogging about my housecleaning problems, I wonder if people will no longer dare to come over.) I had it 2/3 done in the time it took DOB to shower and dress, making me wonder why I had waited so long. Actually, I know why I waited so long. I didn't have a plan where it came up as The Next Thing To Do, and so it waited for an emergency.

But I have developed a new plan that, while not addressing the refrigerator problem, should help me in organizing the rest of the house. That is to take one room per month and have that room be my focus: deep cleaning, organizing, decorating, whatever. Then when the month ends, I give up on that room and move on. This prevents me from either getting bogged down for too long or getting sidetracked too soon. So my plan is now: September, nursery; October, office (dread, dread); November, master bedroom; December, take a break; January, kitchen; February, bathrooms; March, living and dining rooms; April, garage. In May I'll either work outside or start over again.

I have also figured out a simple scheme that will allow me to fit three and maybe four children in the house without giving up the home office or feeling too crammed. That should do us for six years or so, which is enough for me to feel reasonably prepared. (So I like to plan ahead. Way ahead. It's next week I have trouble thinking about.)

Whine, Worry and Song

Whine: I have a cold. I've been debating for a couple of days whether it is a cold, paint fumes, or newly-developed seasonal allergies, but I've come down in favor of a cold. It's not right to have a cold at the time of year when it's too hot for chicken soup. I should fix some seasonal cold-defying menu, like spicy enchiladas, but tonight is YR board meeting night so we're having pizza, the second-worst cold menu.

Worry: Rumor has it that pertussis is going around, and possibly even in the family DOB's sister babysits. That puts a hard new edge on vaccination decisions. (Although I've read even in pro-vaccination accounts that the pertussis immunity doesn't kick in until 5 months, so it wouldn't matter yet.)

Even more immediate, DOB was exposed to hand-foot-and-mouth disease yesterday. (Tip for job applicants: Exposing your interviewer to painful, highly contagious diseases may indeed cause them to remember you, but will not impress them with your professionalism.) He took all reasonable precautions of washing or throwing away everything he might have touched, but we will wait anxiously for the next week to see if that was enough.

Song: D1 is very fond of singing "Do Your Ears Hang Low?", which I looked up all the words to before she was born just for that purpose. DOB has never heard anyone but me sing the song, and somehow he always twists the tune a little bit when he sings it. Once I've heard his twisted version, I can't remember how to sing it correctly for quite some time. So I have been unable to correct him and his version drives me crazy.

We decided we would settle this question once and for all by checking the book out of the library again. So I reserved the book, DOB brought it home, and I sat down at the piano to demonstrate to DOB once and for all what the right tune is. And then I realized in horror that the book had the wrong tune. It was not the one I grew up singing. (Taught to me, no doubt, by my elder siblings, but they usually deny having anything to do with it.)

So we're still stuck. I'm going to have to see if I can pick it out on the piano. Unfortunately tunes of which I only have ancient childhood recollections tend to elude precise rendering.

No whited sepulchres here

Last night DOB recoiled in horror when he noticed that the outside of the salad bowl was distinctly greasy feeling. (I'm definitely not the world's most skilled dishwasher, and plastic bowls tell all.) I apologized and tried to reassure him.

"I know the inside is clean, I just sometimes forget to get the outside clean, too."

"If you don't clean the outside, it's going to get the inside of another bowl dirty."

"I know. I guess it just goes to show that I'm not a Pharisee." (Referencing Matthew 23:25.)

On further examination of the passage, it even could be construed to offer divine endorsement of the idea that cleaning the inside is sufficient. But DOB assures me that it is not.

Galahad and the grace of God

I have been pondering DJ's comments on Galahad. Come to think of it, Galahad's situation does result from a lot of unmerited divine favor. My difficulty in accepting him parallels my difficulty in swallowing the inequalities that come from God's grace in real life. That's why I tend to feel envious when it seems like God has given someone else a free ride, and guilty when others don't seem to have it as well as I do. (Not just monetarily, but in all sorts of areas.)

As DOB points out, deep down, I'm a liberal. I want things to be fair. Shouldn't we all get the same? Or, at least, shouldn't we all get only exactly what we deserve? (Don't answer that.) Or if God is handing out undeserved things, shouldn't we all get the same size of ice cream cone?

But we don't. What keeps me from going around redistributing the ice cream is two realizations: one, that human efforts cannot even things out, and will create even greater inequalities from trying; two, that even if I don't understand God's purposes in his unequal distribution of his blessings, He does have them.

Though God's purposes are higher than my comprehension, perhaps I can guess at some of them. If we all received equal blessings at the hand of God, there would be no occasion for compassion or generosity. No one would get the character that comes when you start out behind and have to catch up. There would be no stories worth telling.

So the next time Sir Galahad rides through town with his shield blazing in the sunlight, I promise to swallow my pride and cheer with the best of them.

If you want something done right

DOB's next younger brother has vehicles that are, if possible, even more troublesome than ours. (Of course, he takes cars for free, so it is to be expected.) Right now he has his truck parked in our garage and comes over in the wee hours of the morning (he works graveyard) to tinker with it until DOB leaves for work. He also is thus available for various tasks like taking doors off their hinges to be painted.

This morning he and DOB were conferring in the garage. DOB came back in and said, "You got paint all over the doorknob."

"Yeah, I know. It's really hard to get around it. I'm going to clean it off."

"Why didn't you just take the doorknob off?"

I don't know, I guess I always thought paint on doorknobs was an inevitable part of life. Removing the doorknob had not occurred to me.

DOB pointed out that one of the key distinctions between us, when we are faced with a task, is that if he sees a problem with accomplishing the task the way he desires, he will stop and analyze it until he figures out how to fix it. Whereas I will just soldier on in spite of everything. The end result is, if I do it, it may not be done right, but it will be done. If he does it, it may not be done, but if it is, it will be done right.

Anyway, his brother took the doorknob and hinges off, so I will be cleaning those today in addition to painting the inside of the door.

Wardrobe Malfunctions

The door-painting project got postponed until this week, due to a combination of scheduling and weather factors. (Apparently hurricanes affect weather even this far inland. I don't think hurricanes should be allowed to impact weather anywhere you can't get good fish for a decent price.)

With painting on the agenda for today, I dug in my closet and located my painting skirt, a garment that was once an acid-washed denim, late bleached, painted, and adorned with dark blue patches where the bleaching got carried away. I put it on and realized in the couple of years since I last had occasion to paint the elastic had disintegrated and it no longer had any power to hold itself up. I am contemplating whether it is worth saving for the second trimester of future pregnancies, but I'm not sure I would be engaging in any projects sufficiently toxic to justify it. I don't think anyone else would want it, and it is rather past the point of being used for rags, so I may have to just plain throw it away.

Regardless, it was not suitable for wear today. So I pulled out another skirt, nearly as old but not yet so colorfully adorned, and tried it on. The elastic had likewise disintegrated, but it had a smaller circumference to begin with, so it seemed to be staying up. Over the course of the day, however, especially when I put my cell phone in my pocket, it began to sag threateningly. Before heading out with D1 for a walk, I decided it needed the added precaution of a safety pin reducing the waist band. So far, so good.

I'm not sure how well the door painting is going. I've had little experience with home improvement projects, as up until now I have lived with people who were much more competent in the area and were content to do it and leave me to fix dinner. But since the front door was never even painted by our predecessors, and was industrial gray accessorized by tape fragments and rust spots, I don't think I can make it look worse than it was.

Time for another coat.

Getting Away With It

Eats, Shoots and Leaves was, as expected, a delicious read. (It was the sort of book I can always imagine myself slowly savoring homemade chocolates while I'm reading it. Not that I have any homemade chocolates; I just have to imagine them.) Plenty of ghastly examples and very witty renderings of grammatical rules and history. If I get very inspired, I may post some favorite quotes.

It did recognize that famous writers can get away with flouting the rules of punctuation, rather as people who could draw at some point can pile up garbage and get museums to buy it; thin, beautiful people can wear ugly clothes and call them fashionable; rich people can decorate their homes with trash pickings and call it chic; and, as Rose pointed out, Ogden Nash can utterly disregard the meter when he wants. Contrary to the apparent beliefs of some, however, the corollary is not true and disregarding punctuation is not the path to literary fame and fortune any more than wearing ugly clothes turns you beautiful.

The Wild West, or something like it

This week was "Roundup Sunday" at our church, where we were to dress up in western attire. (You don't have costume days at your church? Actually at a lot of churches it would seem rather cheesy, but at a small, close-knit country church it doesn't seem out of place.)

Anyway, DOB and I had been plotting our attire for several weeks. With his mid-1800s suitcoat and vest from our wedding, gray dress pants, a black grosgrain bow tie and a top hat, he was a very dignified figure. My outfit consisted of a long brown wool skirt, embroidered white blouse, brown scarf, brown hat, and boots. Although this was no doubt not what anyone else thought of when they dressed western, we determined that we were George and Eliza Richmond, George being a railway official sent out West to supervise railway expansion, circa the 1870s. (I'm sure we were the only people there who felt compelled to create a backstory.)

I dressed D1 in a long, smocked gown that had been made for one of her uncles (one of those generic garments that babies of both genders used to wear) and a frilly white bonnet.

We won the prize for best-dressed cowboy and cowgirl--I'm guessing they put the emphasis on best-dressed, not on cow handling, because we didn't remotely resemble cowpokes.

I hope to get pictures back from someone soon. The deacon has a digital camera.

Milestones the Baby Books Miss: Imaginary Words
That is, the first sounds the doting parents can pretend sound like real words. Yesterday morning, while D1 was supposed to be having breakfast, DOB came in. D1 looked him straight in the eye, grinned, and said, "Hi."

She's convinced she can talk as it is. (And Grandpa is convinced he can understand her.) She likes it best when she is supposed to be eating. I foresee a childhood of plates growing cold.

This does sort of remind me of the dueling baby boasting in the movie Bachelor Mother:
"Can he talk?"
"No."
"Well, this one can, can't he dear?"
"Indeed. Why last night, he said the first two lines from 'Gunga Din' quite distinctly."

How NOT to write a love letter
Reader's Digest has a short feature this time on "How to Write a Love Letter." Here is one of the examples, verbatim:

Use Simple Prose Leave flowery talk like "How do I love thee, let me count the ways" to the Brownings. Write in a natural voice, such as, "I've never been as happy since the day I met you."

Yeah, a heartfelt message like that should really endear your sweetie to you. I may not be sappy, but even I wouldn't claim DOB has made my life less happy.

Narrow Passages
Tomorrow we are planning on picking up some free furniture from DOB's partner. We don't have room for it in this house, so DOB's parents are going to store it for us. DOB's mother wants to put the china hutch in their living room, but she first wants to repaint the living room. So until that happens, we will keep it in the hallway here. Thus we are storing the furniture for ourselves, which reminds me of that quintessentially Wodehousian situation in Picadilly Jim where Jimmy Crocker, due to a sequence of events I could not possibly explain here, winds up deceitfully posing as himself. (I really must read that book with DOB. Maybe we can get it next--it will be quite a relief after we mourn the end of Camelot.)

The only place we have to put it is in the front hallway, which it will probably mostly fill. Meanwhile as fall comes on I've discovered that I can put up my drying rack in the back hallway/laundry room and still have room to (just barely) get by. It's fortunate we are all skinny these days. Of course, when one of us (naming no names) was not, there was as yet no cause to dry diapers.

The Quest for the Holy Grail
Earlier this week we finished the second King Arthur book, on the quest for the Holy Grail. I discovered I was much mistaken in my understanding of it. (No doubt betraying despicable ignorance here.) I thought they were off trying to find the Holy Grail and then perhaps restore it to its rightful place or something. Instead, it turns out they all knew exactly where the Holy Grail was. The quest was rather to have the Holy Grail reveal itself to you and enter into the mysteries thereof. This involved proving one's self worthy of receiving those mysteries, by defending some fair maidens and resisting the temptations of others, for the most part. There are a lot of very weird episodes that are evidently demonic ruses to tempt the pure in heart.

I didn't care much for Galahad. He just has it all too easy. He's the best knight in all the world (so dubbed before he even goes out and does anything). So of course he gets the magic swords and the powerful shield that's been waiting around for hundreds of years and he just rides around, not even tempted by evil, and carries all before him until he alone is permitted to enter fully into the mysteries of the Holy Grail. Of course, then he dies, but he doesn't seem to mind.

I guess he's supposed to be more a symbol than a character. He's not a christ figure, because the innocent sacrificing is done by someone else (Percival's sister). Probably he's supposed to be the embodiment of chivalric ideals. Hence he becomes yet another example of why an ideal would be very unpleasant to live with.

I like Percival and Bors better. They have to struggle to get where they are.

More Firsts
D1 got to attend her first official government proceeding last night, as DOB took us down to introduce us to the Marion Township Trustees. (Townships are an aspect of government I had never encountered in pre-Ohio days. Why people need yet another governing body I'm still not quite clear on, but I think the theory is it keeps power from accumulating so much in the counties.) She made no disturbances--although since the meeting was conducted with rather less formality than a Rotary meeting, and most of the members were proud grandparents, I don't think it would have mattered if she did. She was duly entered into the minutes.

"Our Story" (No Sap Added)
The Unrepentant Bachelor Blogger has been complaining about the inevitable sappiness that ensues when couples share "our story." Now I have some sympathy with him, because I abhor sappiness, too. But I don't think it's an inevitable part of getting married. I think DOB and I survived the premarital process without inflicting any sappiness on our friends and relations. (Not to say that we didn't inflict other things, like permanently tied-up phone lines, on them.)

I can even tell "our story" without a drip of sappiness:

Once upon a time, DOB was looking for people to argue with. Since QOC was also looking for people to argue with, they encountered each other and argued. DOB, by foul treachery (or so QOC alleged) won that debate. So QOC was very annoyed, and kept arguing with him.

After a couple of years of arguing, they spent so much time at it that His Majesty became concerned that all this arguing might jeopardize QOC's job. So he told DOB he should either begin subsidizing QOC's existence himself or stop taking up so much of her time. DOB duly considered the matter and decided that the former course would be more expedient, as it is very difficult to find people who like to argue that much, and QOC was also a good cook.

So DOB and QOC got married and lived together ever after, but they were too busy paying the mortgage and populating the world to argue any more.

See? That's not so bad, is it?

The Grammar Commando rides again
I finally got Eats, Shoots & Leaves from the library. Now I can nourish my inner grammarian.

Working Out for Bush
D1 received a Bush/Cheney onesie as a gift from some YR friends. Clearly, the perfect attire for her to wear when we staff the county GOP headquarters on Friday nights. But I am concerned about her legs getting cold, especially as fall comes on. Her wardrobe is very predominately pink. The only thing that even remotely coordinates is a pair of red tights (which as it happens don't go with anything else). I hope that works, although I fear she'll look like she escaped from an aerobics class.

Thomas Sowell and Diaper Changing
Now that D1 sleeps all night long, I always double-diaper her before bed. The two diapers are quite adequate to the task--indeed, they're not even that wet in the morning. I generally feed her around 6:30, put a fresh diaper on, and put her back to bed as she's generally quite sleepy until after 9.

The problem was, after that diaper changing, she would always soak through everything before she woke up from her nap. (She never does this later in the day.) I was complaining of this to my sister yesterday and she said, "Well, why don't you double-diaper her first thing in the morning?"

Duh.

But I realized I wasn't doing this because it seemed more logical to me that she would wet more overnight than she would in three hours. She ought to wet more at night. It wasn't my fault if she didn't!

This reminded me of Thomas Sowell's distinction between the constrained (conservative, roughly) and unconstrained (liberal, roughly) vision. The unconstrained believe more in what Sowell called "articulated rationality"--i.e., if an intellectual can explain it and it sounds logical, then it must be true. The constrained believe more in experience; who cares what reality ought to be, it's what reality is that we must deal with. I was allowing my articulated rationality of diapering theory to trump what I had observed to be true.

So to avoid becoming a liberal intellectual, I double-diapered her this morning.

Rain and what follows
Yesterday afternoon, after a highly productive morning (14 qts. of applesauce and all the bulk goods rearranged), D1 and I were taking a well-earned nap. Through the fog of sleepiness and the usual household appliance sounds, I slowly became aware of yet another noise. It finally convinced my sleep-impaired reasoning that it might be rain. I dashed to the window to check and discovered we were having an unforecasted torrential downpour. (Rain in Ohio is a whole different animal from rain in Washington.)

My immediate thought was for the clothes I had out on the drying rack. I dashed to the patio door and realized that, alas, it was too late. The clothes were already far wetter than when I removed them from the washing machine. Since DOB had to have dry socks by this morning, I had to take the load in and dry it in the dryer anyway.

The rain and extra work also distracted me from taking out the garbage. I awoke this morning and realized that it was garbage morning, but thought I still had time. But, alas, we were running late and before I could take the garbage out I had to get dressed and before I could get dressed I had to take a shower and before I could take a shower I had to get DOB's clothes ironed and by the time I had done all that and went out front, I realized the garbage truck had already come.

Now I was in despair because I had been cleaning out the garage and finally decided that I really was not going to use the giant bag of wadded up paper that was left from moving, and so the garbage can was overflowing already even without the most recent garbage added. Having it sit around for another week was not a cheering prospect. And I was sure that the garbage truck came first to the street behind us (we front on two streets) and to the street out front (where we set out our garbage). But just as I was about to give up, DOB called out, "Quick, take it out back!" I dashed out and sure enough, there was the truck almost to our house. I handed the can to the garbage men personally. They insisted I was wrong about their street order, and they were just running early today. I did not really care anymore.

In the Mood
I'm enjoying the thrill of a highly-successful weekend. For the first time since well before D1's birth, the only mess left from the weekend was the Sunday night dishes. It's nine o'clock on Monday morning and the house is tidy (mostly), the laundry is running, and D1 is still napping. Ah, the possibilities.

Also this weekend, I scored a touchdown in the Sunday-afternoon scrimmage. DOB and I went to a (free) swing concert at the local high school in the evening. We had to leave early on account of it being D1's bedtime and also needing to get up for work in the morning (clearly no longer a concern of most of the other attendees). But it was great fun and we got a cd to continue the concert. Query: How big does a band have to be to be a big band? This one only had about 16 members, but they did a great job.

So, with all that, I should be primed for this week's activities: freezing applesauce and painting the front door. DOB's sister is coming over today and we are going to attempt a bushel of apples. I'm not sure how much that is, as my family had an orchard and picked the apples into whatever old boxes we could find. My mother and siblings and I made applesauce until the freezer was full, our arms were falling off, and the floor was so sticky small children got entrapped trying to walk across it. Then we quit and all went swimming. So I'm not sure how much is reasonable for two people to attempt, but we shall see.

The front door is another project that cannot be put off. Apparently the previous owner never even got around to painting it, and it shows. And it had best be done before the weather changes and the storm door is an inadequate barrier. I will see if I can paint more neatly than my last major attempt, when my repainting of my bedroom resulted in me also needing new carpet.

Le Restaurant Richmonde
Anniversary Weekend Specials

Dinner
Chicken Tetrazinni (cooks in the crockpot, so chef is free for pre-dinner activities)
Toasted Baguette with Garlic Butter, Homegrown Tomatoes and Fresh Basil (Worth all the work of growing tomatoes and basil. So far D1 is showing no reaction to the garlic butter, hurrah!)
Peas (What are french peas, anyway?)
Stale Cake (At least a designated couple of bites of the one saved from the Ohio reception. Who invented the saving the cake for a year tradition, anyway?)
Strawberry Crême Glacée (Much better than the cake.)

Breakfast
Fresh Currant Scones (Actually raisins--I can't find currants at any of the stores around here. And I left out the sugar. Fortunately that was easy to remedy by serving them with honey. The time I made three orange cheesecakes for a four-course meal for thirty people and left the sugar out was a little harder to fix.)
Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Cheese (An omelette would be better, but my pans are incorrigible.)
Sliced Peaches (that should have ripened longer)

I think I'll stop there as the menus have now descended to leftovers, beans and rice.

To be (or not to be) a snob
I have been troubled lately by the suspicion that I may be a snob towards a certain class of people. DOB and I were discussing this at 4:30 this morning. (Why were we awake at 4:30 on Saturday when we can scarcely hear the alarm on weekdays? We wish we knew.) Anyway, this is the distillation of the discussion.

It is not lack of money that we are tempted to look down upon. For one thing, there are few people who have less than we do at the moment. (Although there are certainly those with much more debt.) Nor is it a particular kind of employment--we have many good friends and relations who work with their hands, whom we respect and admire.

Rather it is a particular outlook on life: an attitude of entitlement and resentment, one that puts in only the required amount of time and effort and then complains about the pay. A perspective that only sees and spends for the present, indulging in pleasures that are gone in a moment while long-term needs go unprovided for. I also think it tends to accompany poor taste in clothes and decor--but that makes sense, because it is a mindset that does not strive to learn or grow.

These people do tend to work blue-collar jobs and be poor. But that is a consequence, not a cause, of their mindset. People who work blue-collar jobs who take pride in their work, poor people who spend what they have wisely, people of any class who are always trying to learn and grow, who appreciate beautiful things and try to further them--they are all worthy of respect and a pleasure to be around.

It's not necessarily snobbish to note characteristics that are undesirable and criticize them--or even to minimize contact with people whose bad attitude is catching. It could be snobbish, though, to assume a person has certain characteristics before getting to know him, or to condemn the person rather than his behavior. Since that's always easy to slide into, I shall have to be careful.

Interview Answers
In addition to DOB's answers below, you can read answers from Rose and Marsha on their blogs. Juliana, Jeremy, and Jaclyn all answered in the comments. (There wasn't a rule about people whose names start with J, it just happened that way.) All quite intriguing, though I found DOB's most fascinating--of course, I find DOB most fascinating, anyway.

I have now completed answering my interview.

Doesn't D(uckling)1 need her very own set of royal rubber ducks?

The Downward Slope
I was just reading back through a month of the archive. My writing six months ago seems so much more witty and profound than the current batch. I always feel this way when I read my old writing. I hope it's just that I can better appreciate my own writing once I've achieved some distance from it, and not because my writing has been in a constant state of decline since I was seventeen.