Auto-ignorance
I can't tell cars apart. I can tell a car from a truck or even an SUV. I can identify colors and age (within a decade). Once I get close enough, I can read the vehicle name. But apart from that, a car is a car.

DOB sees things differently. He can identify a car going 75 on the opposite side of a six-lane freeway. If we are driving through his hometown, where he used to work in car insurance, he can also tell you who owns the car. I have trouble identifying our car in a parking lot.

Recently, DOB has decided that he would like to purchase a Pontiac (I think) Bonneville someday. In furtherance of this goal, he has instituted a game of "Spot the Bonneville." I still have trouble remembering he's not talking about a public utility, and pleaded for a game of "Slug Bug" instead (I can identify them), but to no avail. He did establish the rule that there would be no detriment to points from an incorrect identification.

So one day he had just spotted a Bonneville and was trying to point out to me the virtues of the Bonneville in styling so that I could better identify it. I tried to notice the shape and features of the car. Then, emboldened by the knowledge that it wouldn't hurt me to be wrong, I pointed at the next likely candidate and shouted, "Bonneville!"

Then I realized I was pointing at the lot of a Saturn dealership.

The bag of clothes finds a home
After some pondering on the specific characteristics of our nearest neighbors, I came to the conclusion that the only likely target was the house next door to the left. So when I saw the lady next door out tending to her flowers, I showed her the bag and asked her if she had any idea where it came from. She did not, but volunteered the information that they took clothes downtown to a mission working with Mexican immigrants. I figured the clothes could not serve a better purpose, and gave her the bag. The end.

On a related topic, I have enough frilly dresses for D1--between hand-me-downs and things other people found at garage sales, etc.--that she could go to a party every day for a couple of weeks. She's not even going to have opportunities to wear them all before she outgrows them. I guess I shall just have to pick out a few favorites and save the rest for a garage sale, a hand-me-down bag, or in case I ever have twin girls and need more dresses at once. Or perhaps D1 will like to put them on her dolls.

Monday Morning
The station wagon broke down again. Won't start. Fortunately it did it close to DOB's work (at his partner's house, in fact) instead of in Hicksville this time. And his partner was kind enough to loan us his car to get home in. So we drove out in a 95 Taurus and home in a 01 Saturn. But we have to return it, so it doesn't count.

We've been gone all weekend again and the house looks it. Why don't the fairies ever come and do the dishes while I'm gone?

Marsha has become a regular blogger at last and has good comments on her political philosophy. (Which resembles mine except I'm less of an ideological purist.)

Time for me to start work. My first task is inputting various financial data from the Wall Street Journal. After that I shall try to clean off the desk so that when I have more work to do I have room to do it in.

Low-Budget Operations
One of the local radio stations plays a variety of music--swing, classic country, polka--according to the tastes of whomever the host happens to be. We appreciate the diversity, but apparently not enough other people do to make it particularly lucrative. The other evening we were listening to it on the drive home and the DJ came on saying, "Could the person who called a couple of minutes ago please call back? I was on the air at the time and couldn't answer the phone." Now I'm not surprised they can't afford a second person around the station--but not even an answering machine?

Real Life Mysteries
Last night, while we were out running errands, someone left a bag of clothes on our front doorstep. Had these been a bag of baby clothes, I would not be particularly surprised. But these were a bag of women's clothes.

In the Sunday School stories, someone receives such a bag of clothes after praying for clothes they desparately need. But I don't need clothes. And if I did have to pray for clothes I do hope--with all due respect--that God would have better taste. These garments are not my color, not my style, and not really my size. (The term "my size" has a different amount of flex to it after pregnancy.) They would be better suited to someone three times my age.

Now that is a fair description of most of our neighbors. It may be possible that, in this neighborhood of somewhat similar houses, someone mistook the doorstep and I am holding the clothes that some lady down the street is wondering why her friend never dropped off. But if this is true, how do I find it out? It seems awkward to go door-to-door, holding up a bag and asking, "Excuse me, are these your clothes?" On the other hand, it would be just as awkward for them to go door-to-door asking if anyone has taken in a mysterious bag of clothes. Maybe I should just take them out and set them in the yard for all comers.

Football Season
The fall football season has begun. I refer not to the NFL season, about which I know nothing unless I happen to notice DOB has football articles up on ESPN.com instead of baseball articles, but to the season of plotting and training for the annual family football game on Thanksgiving.

Somehow I didn't fully comprehend, before marrying DOB, how important this would be. They should put this in premarital counseling: "Will your family traditions require your wife to learn to play contact sports?" Fortunately DOB did not make prior ability a qualification, since I didn't even know how to throw a football until he taught me. (This was not because I was prissy--my brothers don't play football, either. We prefer individual sports without rule books. We're not team players and we'd rather argue than look things up.)

But willingness to play was a necessary feature. His brothers also expect their wives, whenever they may appear, to play football as well. I mentioned the possibility that these theoretical young ladies might not want to play football. They countered that all girls worthy of consideration would be willing to play football; since they define a worthy girl as "one who is willing to play football," I couldn't really argue with them.

Last year I escaped on the grounds of being pregnant. That not being a good idea this year, I shall have to play. The teams have been designated, the players ranked in their various skills, and our team has a significant point deficit. DOB nonetheless thinks we can win, due to his superior strategic and leadership abilities. But I had better get in training. I ranked high on catching ability--or at least colliding with the ball ability--but low on throwing and stamina. So I will make my daily walks more vigorous and begin playing catch in the evenings. Can't let those Bengals win.

Sunrise, Sunset
D1 has outgrown her first clothes. Amazing. A month ago we had such a tiny, helpless baby and now we have . . . a slightly larger and more wiggly tiny, helpless baby. But it feels significant to us!

She has enough clothes in this size that I'm wondering if I'll ever have to do laundry. (Hint to people giving gifts to new babies: they'll need clothes after they're six months old, too.)

Here's hoping for a cool, early fall because at the current growth rate she'll have outgrown this next set by late October and if the weather stays warm all the fuzzy fall outfits she has won't be any good.

Small Miracles Gratefully Received
Yesterday I tried to get on the deceased computer long enough to copy off the files I had neglected to back up. It allowed me to get on (good), open the CD burning program (better), line up the documents I needed to copy (yes!) . . . and then I could not find my emails! Every combination of versions of Outlook and Windows hides them in a different place, and while I was searching for the current hiding place, it crashed again. (arrrrrghhhh!) And wouldn't come on again, no matter how hard I tried. Add to this that I was trying to feed a fussy baby, we had people coming over in two hours and the house wasn't ready, and I knew I was in trouble because I hadn't taken the nap I should have taken, and things were getting a bit hairy.

But today, after the meeting was over and the house had recovered, after I'd had a good night's sleep and a nap, while D1 was taking her nap, I tried again. And it booted up. And let me open the CD burning program. And grab the documents. And I found my .pst file. And they all got written onto the CD. And then the computer crashed.

Now I can ponder what to do with the computer at my leisure. Meanwhile, as the Oracle constantly points out, I had better back up more often. I haven't had a backup since he did it last summer before I got married. And if I only do a backup once per name change, my data is going to be in constant danger.

Alternative Lifestyles
D1 has spent an unusual amount of time either playing by herself or being held by someone else the past several days. Also I am planning on starting working from home for DOB tomorrow. These factors have caused me to realize that if I worked a normal job, I would be putting D1 in daycare about now, and thus caused us to ponder how our lives would be different:

We'd have a much bigger house, because my income would qualify us for a bigger loan and we'd need it because that's the kind of house financial professionals and lawyers live in.

And nicer cars. And we would just go out and buy an infant car seat instead of making the all-four-years one from the hospital work until one of the people who've promised to give us their old one finally remembers to do it.

In another month, when D1 started putting things in her mouth, she'd get sick all the time because she'd be putting toys in her mouth that twenty other kids had put in their mouths. So she'd be on antibiotics all winter, and I'd be stressed out because I'd have to keep taking time off work to take her to the doctor or stay home with her if the daycare wouldn't let her come.

With all that going on, we'd never get enough sleep. We'd drink a lot of coke and coffee to stay awake at work. We'd be grouchy.

I would be too tired to cook. We'd rely on frozen dinners and take out. Our food budget would probably be double or triple what it is now. And with the processed foods and D1's constant sickness, we'd be catching things all the time, too.

When we both got home, we'd be too tired to talk or read together. We'd watch TV for a little while and then go to bed.

Then again, we probably would have realized this would be a problem, and what with all our house and car and credit card (gotta furnish the big house) debts to pay off, we would put off having kids for another five years or so. No D1, D2 or D3. And by the time we did decide to have kids, I'd be older, we'd still have eaten a poor diet because I'd still be too tired to cook, and several years on the Pill might have messed up my hormones, so we might need fertility drugs. Maybe we'd get triplets to make up for lost time. :-P Even one kid would seem like a huge interruption, though, after we'd forced ourselves to get comfortable with life without them. My career would be that much farther along, and I'd probably want to get back to it ASAP. I'd take a few years off to get the (two) kids off to a good school, and then return to my more important work. We'd never have the time to know them--or each other.

Writing Our Own Job Descriptions
Judges deciding they could legislate was only the first step; now executive branch officials are deciding they can judge. Michigan election officials voted to deny ballot access to an initiative with plenty of signatures because they don't think it's constitutional. Note to election officials: That's not your business to decide. From the language given in the article, which is unusually broad, I suspect it could be construed in an unconstitutional manner--to prohibit, say, a private employer from granting benefits to same sex partners, or even preventing a private wedding chapel from conducting a same-sex ceremony. But a judge could also construe it to refer only to government actions, in which case it would likely be constitutional. Regardless, it's the judge's job, not theirs.

And in Louisiana, it seems they're up their old "one subject" trick. As if legislative bills are ever held to this standard. For some reason an initiative that addresses same-sex marriage and civil unions violates the one issue rule, but the Consolidated Multiplied Omnibus Bill passed at midnight just before adjournment never does.

Cheap Thrills

• Making a casserole using leftover rice, leftover turkey, leftover cheese, and leftover broccoli, that turned out delicious.
• Sewing a birthday card using scrap fabric and tissue paper on a blank card that turned out really cute and took about five minutes, less time than looking for one that wasn't obscene or too mushy. (Just stack a couple different scraps of paper and fabric artistically and sew them on with a regular sewing machine.)
• Saving $35 over the previous month's electric bill by hanging four loads of clothes a week and turning off the A/C during a week of cooler weather. (I've discovered I really like hanging laundry. It is an excuse to get outside that doesn't get dirt under my fingernails.)

Milestones the Baby Books Miss: Burping
True, burping has been part of D1's life since day one. But in the early days, coaxing her to burp was a huge problem, requiring the united efforts of all adults in the vicinity, involving a dozen variations of position and patting techniques, and generally taking as long or longer than the meal itself. She would inform us of her misery intermittently until the burps were gone. If we misjudged the absence of further burps and set her down too soon, we would be punished with wails of anguish.

Due to improving skills at nursing, increased torso and neck strength, and perhaps DOB's fine coaching and example in the activity, matters have improved greatly. Now all I have to do is sit her up on my lap for a few seconds and we both wait calmly until she emits a noise that would attract admiration in a junior high cafeteria. After that, all is well.

Such a noise is, of course, loud enough to attract attention in other venues as well. Like last night in church.

Very Briefly, Before D1 Wakes Up:

• DOB's mother's 50th birthday party on Saturday came off as a complete surprise. A good time was had by all. We have plenty of leftovers, which are essential after a party because you don't feel like cooking.
• Cardamon is the cayenne pepper of baking spices. Do not attempt to include it in equal quantities to things like nutmeg and allspice.
• My computer has, reputedly, died. I was not present when the death occurred. I am using the home office computer, which I hope does not jeopardize its tax-deductible status any more than DOB using it to check ESPN does. E-mail will not be functioning until I find a workaround with the laptop (which was broken when we moved in, so we've never bothered to set it up with an Internet connection). I hope the data can be recovered.
• We were essentially gone all weekend, yet the house is a disaster. I've never understood that phenomenon. And we have guests coming tomorrow.

Interesting Thoughts Afoot

Some people refuse to understand the natural law concept. (I wanted to reply but it required an email address. I need to get me a throwaway address for online use.)

Our school email group is having a rousing (and so far quite civil) debate on whether minor, non-dangerous, traffic infractions are unimportant and should not be enforced (or observed) or whether the Law is the Law. It's a difficult matter because on the one hand a) you can't pull over every speeder, so some enforcement will be selective, yet b) any acknowledgment that enforcement will be selective opens one to charges of prejudice and profiling. And I don't think anyone is arguing that we can abandon the vehicular code altogether. We could perhaps make the code entirely a question of prudence, but that wouldn't really solve the problem in b).

I'm thinking about writing a defense of why women should vote, in response to this. In very brief form, I think that while household voting is not necessarily a bad idea (a sort of mini-federalism), it is certainly not the way things are now and there is nothing illegitimate about individual voting, as the civil government must deal with us as individuals in other aspects.

But all these thoughts must await further pondering. Great things afoot today, on which more later.

A day that will live in . . .
I don't usually post birthday greetings here (so nobody else get offended that you weren't mentioned, ok?) But today is unique for being both DOB's mother's 50th birthday, and my big brother's 33rd birthday. (I think. I need to get together with my nephew on this question. He was once reciting the family's ages and he came to Papa and said, "Papa is two and . . . I can't remember what other number he is." Well, I can remember the first number, Judah, so you just tell me the last one.)

Today is also the second anniversary of a significant telephone call from DOB to His Majesty, one of a very, very few occasions when DOB found himself tongue-tied.

Ownership
After seven months and a call to the title company, we now have a deed to our house. Woo-hoo! We are officially home owners!

The deed itself is boring. I've seen more impressive certificates from VBS. Couldn't they at least put on a fancy border?

Nomenclature
DOB and I have few areas on which we just do not understand each other. Less than most couples, I think. But we still have a few.

One of the primary ones is tie descriptions.

Every morning, DOB puts on the shirt and pants I have ironed and then calls out, "Which tie should I wear?" (Even if he always wears the same tie with that shirt.)

I call back from the kitchen, "The dark blue one with light gray spots."

"Which one is that?" he asks. He only has one tie currently in use that remotely resembles this description. I don't think he even looks.

"The one I bought in February when I went shopping with Kitra for maternity clothes," I elaborate.

"Oh, OK," he says. A few moments later, he emerges wearing the right tie.

What is so hard about matching a clear description to the tie in question? And what is so much easier about recalling the precise circumstances of its purchase?

It might be easier to just go with the description that he understands. But I refuse to concede my ground that visual descriptions are more logical than recounting the life history of the tie.

Thus, we are working on yet another tie descriptor that we can both agree on. Following Deontologist's example, we are starting to name the ties.

Today's tie, the dark one with the light gray spots, is called "Nuclear Fallout."

Alas, DOB's ties are much more conservative than Deontologist's ties. It's going to be tricky coming up with memorable names.

Or I could just lay his tie out with his shirt. But why make things boring?

The Good Divorce
This month's Reader's Digest had an article on the broader acceptance of the reality that there is no "good divorce" and all parental divorces traumatize children.

So what should be done about it, according to the article? Get the kids counseling to help them deal with the trauma.

I'm not sure this perspective is an improvement. Is it better to be irrationally optimistic or pragmatically calloused?

King Arthur and His Syncretistic Knights
Setting aside mysteries for the time being, DOB and I started reading Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling of the Arthurian Legends, The Sword and the Circle. So far I'm impressed with the version (but I have always enjoyed Sutcliff): it has the right tone for an ancient legend while remaining entirely readable, and it handles the immorality and occultism at the heart of the legend well, neither glamourizing it, camouflaging it, nor going into excessive detail. Alas, unlike the gorgeous illustrations for her retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey, there is only a cover illustration and it looks like three modern teenagers in Halloween costumes.

When you look at the whole story, the mix of beliefs is indeed strange. People go to the church feasts, yet they still look for omens from the stars. Children are raised in convents, but also study black magic. Incest is taboo, but adultery is acceptable--and so is revenge killing, or even killing for the fun of it, as long as it's a fair fight. It is not yet a Christian world, but a syncretism of Christianity and the old practices. There is a God, but He seems too far away for practical purposes. It reminds me of what I've read of some areas in West Africa today, where people may profess Christianity or Islam, but still do voodoo on the side.

Because the pagan beliefs are still strong, there are a lot of random or unknown quantities in the stories. Sitting at the end of centuries in which the universe has been accepted as orderly, first as created by God and then by the laws of science, it is harder for modern inhabitants of Western civilization to appreciate the world of Merlin, where things just happen, and don't have to make sense. But it has been a common outlook on the world, and is likely to become more so, as a society that no longer has an intellectual faith in God begins to lose its faith in science.

This is not the world of the Middle Ages, whose romantic lens we usually see it through, but the Dark Ages, in which semi-barbaric peoples struggle to survive after civilization has disintegrated. People commonly muddle the two, and then blame the resulting mess in their minds on the ascendancy of the church. But the Dark Ages were so dark precisely because the church had so little influence. It was in the Middle Ages, when the church became the final arbiter of morals and manners, that civilization was able to stabilize enough to move forward after the wreck of Rome.

Hints from Heloise

• Don't try to take stains out of white shirt collars immediately after washing the windows using old newspapers.
• Poached eggs make a great quick meal on toast or fried potatoes, but they're really not all that hot on popcorn.
• It's not a good idea to open shampoo bottles with your mouth, but if you keep forgetting to open it before putting the baby in the bathtub, that's what you'll be stuck doing.