On the Plate

Dame was ranting a bit about parenting tactics she had observed with which she did not agree:

Dame: "How can people become parents without *any* of the necessary skills?"

Me: "Actually, it only takes one skill to become a parent, and you don't even need to be that good."

Dame: <eyeroll>

One of the great pleasures of parenting teenagers is being able to make obnoxious off-color remarks to a captive audience.

Anyway, one of the ones she was disagreeing with was requiring a child to either eat the meal served or go hungry. I understand the desire not to waste food or encourage pickiness, but we didn't wind up going that direction. And I had just been thinking today what a good thing that was. 

You see, it was Dash who had the most trouble eating what was served. It also turns out Dash has extensive allergies/food sensitivities which vary depending on exposure. Odds are most if not all of his emotional reactions to dinner were physical reactions he didn't know how to explain. 

Instead I tried to make sure something everybody could eat was available at each meal, treats were only present in small quantities, and if you really needed to, you could go fix something for yourself. Not that this made things easy, necessarily, when you have a small child with a tendency to anxiety and the metabolism of a hummingbird, who is already to the point of hysterics just making it from snack time to dinner time, and now has to think of something to eat that's not actually visible. (We never could figure out a reliable standby.) 

I am quite certain I was not always very patient or understanding through this process. But at least I didn't make things actively worse. And no one ended up unreasonably picky. It's been a good rule of thumb to assume that I don't know everything, and usually kids are acting they are for a reason, even if I can't figure it out right away. 

Common Ground

Recently I've had the chance to revisit some of my favorite sci-fi, one in books and one in tv series, which I like for pretty similar reasons. The TV show is Babylon 5, and the books are the Sector General short stories/novellas by James White. 

Both of them have a very similar setting: a space station on which various species meet in a challenging, but not hopeless, attempt to learn more of each other and live peaceably. Babylon 5's setting is a trade and diplomatic station, while Sector General is an enormous space hospital. I think part of the allure for me is a lifelong obsession with institutions in fiction--I loved boarding school stories as a child--which I suspect is largely because they are exotic, as I have spent my life entirely outside of them, never having attended an ordinary school or worked somewhere with more than a dozen employees. In real life, I'm pretty sure I'd go crazy inside of a week in a space station, I can barely handle a day trip to downtown Seattle. 

Sector General adds to this a great deal of speculation on different planetary conditions and types of sapient species. Unhampered by the limits of special effects, and with the need of the doctors to understand and prescribe treatment, the author goes wild with speculation on different theoretical body forms and social structures--an empathic giant insect, massive beings who can function in a vacuum but need to paint their food on, calm and small beings who form into a rampaging mass under stress, and of course plenty of tentacles.  Babylon 5, like most 20th century TV sci-fi, mostly has to stick with the humanoid with prosthetics on the head concept for the major species, although Dr. Franklin does get to tackle the occasional odd biological need.

On the other hand, Babylon 5, having been plotted as a multi-season show, delivers a uniquely satisfying and complex overarching plotline that deals with questions of identity, meaning, survival, and spirituality. That also gives time for some incredible character development, and my favorite part of the whole show is watching the individual choices and events that turn Londo and G'Kar, two washed-up playboy diplomats from different worlds, one into a saint (with a rascally side) and one into a supervillain (with some redeeming qualities), every step of the way perfectly believable and consistent. 

Sector General suffers from some of the obvious weaknesses of originally serial fiction, like the basic points being explained over and over, as well as the shockingly casual sexism of the 50s. Apparently it is much easier to envision a doctor with a carapace than a doctor with ovaries. Though it does moderate that in time and in the later stories the comely nurse is permitted to become a pathologist and the prohibition on women taking on the top role ameliorates from a universal rule to a possibly irrational prejudice of the Chief Psychologist. 

Babylon 5 fortunately is from a different era in that regard, and in fact has just as many main female characters as male, who have their own lives and goals and do not exist merely to be prizes for the men. Babylon 5 also is unusual in not assuming that spirituality will be cast aside just because a species develops interstellar travel, and religious figures and themes are frequently explored, in their potential for comfort, conviction, and conflict. (It is funny to watch B5 thirty years out and see the technology it misses that was just around the corner. Cell phones and laparoscopic surgery would have solved a lot of the problems that come up.)

But I think the thing I love most about these two things is the way they explore the question of how can we, seeing things differently, needing different (often conflicting) things, find a way to live at peace? Both Babylon 5 and Sector General are born out of a devastating war engendered by interspecies misunderstanding and a desire to know each other better to prevent future war. Sector General's backstory begins with two former combatants from the opposite sides, traveling about the galaxy to promote peace. But they are not pleased with the effects of the laborious efforts on all sides to avoid offense for fear of another war:

"We must get to really know them, Colonel," MacEwan went on quickly, "Well enough not to have to be so damnably polite all the time. If a Tralthan jostles a Nidian or an Earth-human, we must know the being well enough to tell it to watch where it's going and to call it any names which seem appropriate to the occasion. We should expect the same treatment if the fault is ours. Ordinary people, not a carefully selected and trained star-traveling elite, must get to know offworlders well enough to be able to argue or even to quarrel nonviolently with them. . . "

Eventually Sector General is established for that purpose--where different species can work alongside each other in common cause, and thus get the chance to really know each other--and cuss each other out as the need arises. And in time Babylon 5 provides similar opportunities to those willing to take them. Because it's not enough to have an arms' length tolerance and a list of offenses to avoid. What we need is to genuinely know each other. Which is pretty good advice for Earth, too, and we don't even have to set up a contact suit for chlorine breathers. 

Down to the Sea

The picture at the top of the blog, which I have no desire to ever replace even though the two people on the left side are somewhat fatter now and the two people on the right side are much taller, and the two people who were too terrified of the ocean to come within a hundred yards of it have become comfortable with it, was taken along the Pacific coast in Washington more than a decade ago. I can't remember the exact year because it all blurs together now. It has been our primary vacation spot for a very long time. 

I have many friends who love travel and seeing new and exciting places and I applaud them for their adventures and enjoy their photos and occasionally have a twinge of envy, but mostly I am completely OK with being very boring. I have always been a traditionalist. I was the small child with whom you did not dare to do things one Christmas unless you were prepared to do it every Christmas until the end of time. Also disposable income has tended to be in short supply and this is only two and a half hours away and quite inexpensive lodging if you can fit your food for the week in the car, as the only grocery option is the sole gas station. (Not easy when you are also squeezing in 6-11 people and all their luggage and a couple mobility devices and some beach chairs and boogie boards.)

While we have gone a few times as just us, most of the time it's a group trip with Their Majesties, Wondergirl, and Techboy and Toolboy and their respective families, all staying in separate houses but hanging out together on the beach. (Techboy's children having begun to have children themselves now, it was a four-generation trip this year.) It is not only a great way to spend time together without *too* much togetherness, it is very handy if you are someone like me and always forgetting something essential, because odds are someone else has paper towels on them.

For the past several years we have stretched this out to a week or a little more, which is really an amazing amount of time to unwind enough to actually be able to relax. Unfortunately, this year the Naval resort where we stay changed their reservation rules to give priority to active duty military (Her Majesty as a veteran makes our reservations). Her Majesty, who is a force of nature, after many days on the phone, still managed to find us all three nights at the same time, so we still had time for boogie boarding and s'mores and family taco and game night and ladies' brunch at the one nice restaurant, although it was definitely too short to actually relax. 

Burn bans permitting we have a campfire on the beach and spend most of the afternoon grilling things and toasting things and making smores and counting the heads of people boogieboarding. (Their Majesties can outlast any of the teenagers at this.) Burn bans not permitting, which was the case this year, my brothers have portable gas grills along with any other gadgets needed for comfort. Thus we can have the only fun parts of camping while still staying somewhere with showers and non-leaking roofs. (I have a theory about camping, which is that life needs suffering to be meaningful and people who have insufficient suffering in their daily lives for meaning pick up hobbies to supply it, such as camping.)

Naturally anything done this many times has accreted its own barnacles of tradition, such as the playlist of truly ridiculous songs which must be played each time and gets a little longer each trip, and the milkshakes from the one ice cream shop for the homeward journey. 

The really big thing about going to the same place year after year is that it makes coping with disability so much easier. It actually took us about six trips to be able to work out everything needed to go and make sure DOB was comfortable, could participate, and have adequate mobility to enjoy the experience. I recently came across an online conversation in which many people were criticizing Washington's practice of designating certain areas of the sandy beaches as public roads. While I am sure there is some impact on the environment, those beaches are still undercrowded and full of wildlife and it is immeasurably valuable to have a place where people who are stuck on wheels can get themselves down to the beach. (And no, being able to theoretically possibly rent a "beach wheelchair" so you can be pushed around by someone else is not at all the same thing.)  Washington has plenty more beach that is more protected. 

So though not quite what was hoped for, it was still a good time. DOB and I have plans for a 20th anniversary trip/honeymoon in a couple of weeks that will hopefully afford us a better chance to actually get some rest.

What a Day Looks Like Now

 Every once in a while I succumb to the nostalgia of old blog posts. (Sometimes I was quite brilliant in the past! Other times, not so much). Anyway, it was pretty fun to remember a pretty normal day twelve years ago and no doubt in another twelve years I will look back on today's equally chaotic but very different experience with similar nostalgia. 

4:30 a.m.: I wake up wracked with doubt about some eviction notices a client sent me for review yesterday. I *must* remember to check them again when I get into the office. I lie awake a long time.

7:00 a.m. DOB's alarm starts going off. I must have drifted off at some point because I did not hear Dash (15) get up and get breakfast and let his friend in. That or he has acquired ninja-level quietness skills, which is probably also the case being the only willing early riser among us. 

7:40ish a.m. I actually get out of bed and start fixing breakfasts. This is eggs and thawed frozen blueberries for DOB (he finds blueberries are the optimum size and shape for making sure all his massive pill regime has gone down); eggs, salad mix (I will do anything for arugula, even get out of bed) and a Granny smith apple with peanut butter for me; and I make tea for myself and Dame (15 but definitely NOT an early riser) and microwave some turkey bacon for her as she is allergic to eggs. She has been working very hard over the past six months on keeping a regular schedule and eating at reasonable intervals without oversight, things which can be quite difficult when you are dealing with ADHD and chronic pain and fatigue all rolled in together. But with the progress she is made I think she is ready to tackle 10th grade at public school this fall, even with the ungodly hours they subject high schoolers to. Deux (17) is on day two of his weekly migraine, so I make his breakfast (two burritos and a banana). While taking it up I have the bright idea of helpfully carrying up the laundry he didn't get finished before the migraine struck, only I try to do it one-handed with the hamper handle and the handle breaks and it spills spectacularly down the stairs. BUT breakfast doesn't fall and it furnishes some early-morning entertainment for everyone. Dash and friend laugh at the spectacle before they depart, I believe with my niece who is taking them to teach a 5-day club in the mornings this week. DOB heads to court. I sit down and finish my breakfast and drink my tea while I read the morning prayers and then (guilty pleasure) watch compilation videos of internet stories of people's terrible behaviors towards their friends and family. You would think I got enough of that at work. 

8:30ish I arrive at the office and check the eviction notices. Wonder of wonders, they *were* the right ones and all is well. My work morning also includes:
* A telephonic hearing on a topic of which I know nearly nothing, covering for our third partner. I disconnect us just as the case is called. We get through it anyway.
* A fun advisory meeting with a probate/business client with whom I have concocted a scheme that is at once perfectly above board, ethical, and legally appropriate and at the same time should allow some unpleasant natural consequences to fall on some people who are treating her rather badly. I hope it works out well. 
* Intermittent work on a fairly large project that needs to go out no later than tomorrow that I am still training a young staff person on because my main paralegal has been in the hospital for two months. Also this area of law just changed and I am still figuring out. I realize I used the wrong form in a different but similar case that is on for tomorrow and fix it while I am at it. I have some moments of panic when I think I have misplaced important documents for the third time with this client, but then locate them all.
*DOB returning from court and then heading off to apparently get a buyer for one of our cars (DOB has finally found the people he needs to fulfill his dream of being a car-flipper and so we no longer have a front yard), and he needs my power of attorney so I don't have to meet him but apparently we never scanned in our *own* estate planning documents like we do everyone else's so I have to execute a new one and email it to him.
* Quite a lot of phone calls as we just discovered missing paralegal was the only person who had checked most of our phone messages and so none of them had been reviewed in two months. 

Somewhere around noonish I notice that food should occur. If there aren't leftovers (as is often the case these days) I usually rely on my freezer stash of sausage patties and frozen vegetables, with almond crackers. I return phone calls and forget this three times while it is heating up. 

The afternoon continues with:
* A zoom meeting with a creditor on an estate (I have no idea why this was zoom and not a phone call, but since my camera was out it came out the same anyway). 
* Some tense and at times insulting negotiations with the public tenant defense on a case I haven't filed yet. I am annoyed with myself for not being as professional as I would like to believe I am. I am annoyed with opposing counsel for trying to guilt-trip me over taking a vacation when there are homeless people in the world, or at least for trying to using existential guilt as a negotiation tactic. We still come to resolution and I provide another staff person who is learning *that* area with direction to finish those pleadings.
* A meeting with some cranky clients that has to be delayed for 20 minutes because every meeting space we have is filled with people meeting. They are calmer after we meet and I send a months-overdue demand letter out afterwards. 
* Tackling a messy probate that I am hoping to keep my client out of too much trouble on even though I secretly suspect he deserves it. 
* Not quite finishing that one big project which really, really must go out tomorrow.
*  Making sure I have my files for tomorrow since I am still training staff on how to do this and this is where I really, really miss my paralegal with 30 years' experience who just handed me a stack without me having to think about it. However, everyone has been trying really hard with a great attitude and we are all learning more all the time. (And sometimes, I fear, forgetting other things like how to check the voicemails.)

DOB arrives back very late in the afternoon after a very frustrating court episode that is going to leave a vulnerable adult exposed to more exploitation. He'll probably figure out another tactic tomorrow. I consider drafting one last deed but I am cranky, tense and headachy and I have a potentially lively argument tomorrow morning, so I decide to call it a night. DOB still has a meeting and some other loose ends. 

5:30ish: I arrive home. I see from the signs about me that Dame remembered to eat lunch *and* unload the dishwasher. She is not here, though, which presumably is the fruition of plans she had to attend a youth support group of some sort at some church with some friends, which Duchess (19) was going to drop them off at. I therefore conclude that Duchess is also doing well, though I have not seen her as is the usual state of affairs. She is not working this summer but just got back from a two-week road trip with her friends from high school, all planned and paid for herself, and is looking forward to doing more assistant teaching at the private elementary school in the fall, and also teaching ASL at the private high school (where Dash will attend). I decide to make deconstructed egg roll (with no eggs) and the leftover rice from when Deux fixed dinner on Tuesday. I put meat in to thaw in the microwave. At this point in the day I generally resort to something with chocolate to fortify my resolve to get through the evening, because what I want to do is go straight to bed. I order groceries while the meat is thawing. Then I load the dishwasher with yesterday's dishes while everything cooks. Dash does not have an evening club today as he did earlier in the week, and he wanders through once or twice. I take Deux his supper. Dash and I eat in the living room while playing games on our phone and laptop respectively. (Dash's laptop died tragically last month.) DOB shows up about halfway through, on the early side for him, and takes dinner in our room. At this point in the day we have all had about enough on the human interaction front, except possibly Dash. 

7:30: I take the dogs for a walk. As the days get shorter I have to adjust my dog-walking time earlier and earlier and soon I will have to do it before fixing supper, which is challenging. We go around the block (a term I use loosely, three of the roads are private and two-thirds of them unpaved.) This counts as both aerobic AND resistance exercise because we never did get them leash trained and now they are middle-aged and set in their ways though no less lacking in energy and desire to chase every tiny thing they encounter. We make it two-thirds of the way around and then they spot a cat. I do not want to sit down in the gravel road, the only way I can get enough traction to stop them, so they escape. Thankfully they give up quickly and before they get entangled, so I don't need to spend an extra ten minutes climbing through brambles and untangling them.  We finish the walk. I sit on the couch and start writing this (usually I would be playing a video game). 

9:00 I start reminding DOB that he needs to start his evening stretching routine. Dame arrives home by some means and discusses plans for tomorrow and general angst. Duchess comes home and feeds the dogs. Duchess and Dame confer on ride plans for tomorrow. I put away what food remains and set things up for DOB's evening vitamin routine. Alas, Deux is still not up to help either with setup for that or so we can rewatch Babylon 5 with him, so we will just watch Prison Break by ourselves. And then I will take a shower and read a bit while DOB winds down by looking at ads for more used cars  . . . 

Teaching Tidiness When You Are Not

Parenting ideas tend to fall into two categories: Those of parents currently in that stage who are often very enthusiastic about something new but (without realizing it, usually) have no idea of its long-term consequences or sustainability, and those of grandparents who have forgotten what really happened and also failed to account for changing times. So I would like to post something in the sweet spot where I can actually tell if something I did worked long-term *and* can still remember what I did. I am banking on this being an area where the times have changed little, we still don't have robots that will pick up after us. 

To begin with, I have (diagnosed) ADHD, (undiagnosed) probably some degree of dyspraxia, and it is just so. dang. hard. for me to do any cleaning that involves sorting, tidying, putting away. I literally cannot sort laundry into darks and lights. (The solution to this: Wash everything on cold. And if someone wants to buy purple pirate pants from a dubious online retailer, they can wear lavender socks for the next two years.) Also I cannot follow any regular sequence of activities that is more than, say, two items long. On the other hand, I can do the physical cleaning just fine if the stuff is out of my way, and I am capable of great feats under unpredictable bursts of inspiration.

So when the kids were small, there was no way I could implement any of the nice little things people do about having regular tidy-up times to teach children to keep their things in order. Attempting to do so would only lead to misery and no greater tidiness. I also had unpleasant memories of my mother, almost certainly also dealing with her own ADHD, alternating between heaps of chaos and massive projects accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth at our failure to measure up to The Right Way to Do Things.

I had to go with what I could do, intermittent bursts of cleaning and sorting, followed by a slow descent into chaos, but I figured we could at least ditch the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I made it my mission to make cleanup days (whenever they occurred) to be relatively pleasant experiences. I involved the kids to start with and they in the early part of the day had the pleasure of discovering many lost and forgotten items. If they wanted to put those items where they belonged, great. (We kept a few categories of toys in designated bins.)  I let them go when their attention or energy lagged as long as they were out of the way. 

Meanwhile, I started piling whatever was uninteresting to them. Given my difficulty with sorting, I usually focused on a very few functional categories: Clothes/blankets to be washed, books (esp. library books), obvious trash, and All That Other Stuff. There were usually one-two garbage bags of obvious trash. All That Other Stuff went into boxes or baskets that were then stored in the garage indefinitely. 

Anything that we couldn't manage to put away just went in the boxes or baskets in the garage. There was no shame or punishment attached--if you wanted to go dumpster diving in the baskets to find a lost item, you were always welcome to do so. I just knew that there was no way I would have the energy left at the end of the project to actually vacuum if I tried to sort. 

I tried to make things as simple as possible to maintain for those with the desire and ability to do so. For instance, some of the children still have just two locations for clothes: Clean basket and Dirty basket. (TBH, except for my work clothes, this is how I operate as well.) They all started doing their own laundry when they were tall enough to use the machines easily, so maybe 10ish. We never bought a ton of miscellaneous toys, usually just a few large collections that everybody played with (blocks, duplos->legos, dressup, little plastic dinos/knights/soldiers). And stuffies. So many stuffies.  Over the years, when a toy category had clearly been outgrown and everyone was ready to part with it, we passed it on. I never made them give up something they wanted to keep. 

Anyway, at the end of cleanup day there was a nice, empty, freshly vacuumed space which--guess what?--*immediately* inspired a massive burst of creative play that turned it into a mess again. But with all the trash and most of the miscellaneous small items out, the mess was much less perilous to the feet for quite a while. And I made a point of never bewailing this, but rather treating it as the natural reward of the labor of cleaning--having an open canvas to begin again.

These days probably occurred about quarterly during good times and maybe as far apart as annually when times were tougher. We also moved a fair bit during the earliest years and of course that provided a natural opportunity to do this. 

Over the last seven years, I gradually did this less and less with the kids and finally stopped altogether. There wasn't a particular set point for this, mostly I was just too tired to do anything not immediately necessary. If a child ever *wanted* to do something in their room and requested my help, I did everything I could to provide my assistance. So over the last seven years they gradually took over doing it themselves, when it mattered to them. This also coincided with getting rid of nearly all the toys as they outgrew them, except some showpiece legos and of course books will be always with us. 

The end result with them now ages 15-19: they all maintain their own rooms at a level of neatness somewhere between functional but sanitary clutter and showpiece tidiness with zero requirements or involvement from me. (I continued helping Dame for much longer than the others because her combination of ADHD and chronic pain/fatigue made it particularly difficult. However, this week she decided to do it and made it through the whole thing herself, over a couple of days.) They wash laundry with sufficient regularity. Rooms do not stink. 

Mostly up until recently we have not allowed eating in bedrooms which prevents the worst nastiness. However, Deux's extended and intense migraines have made it necessary for him and it is gradually slackening elsewhere. I can always tell when I get home from work whether Deux's migraine has ended by the stack of bowls in the sink. (I use large glass mixing bowls for his meals so that I don't need to bring him seconds.) Having lived with many other adolescent and post-adolescent males in my life, I know the habit of returning dishes to the kitchen is not one to be taken for granted. 

Anyway, I had a lot of misgivings when they were young about my approach so this is, at least, a letter to my younger self: Hey! It worked! And perhaps it might have some helpful ideas for someone with small children coping with similar issues. 

The Real Mary Poppins

I came across a Facebook argument on whether *Mary Poppins* was a worthwhile book to read to children, and I was reading through and thinking about whether to weigh in, when I saw someone had quoted me . . . with a link  . . . from a forum discussion 9 years ago. I basked in the moment of Internet immortality. 

Then I thought perhaps I should reread it again and see if I still agree with myself. It is all too easy to get out of the habit of reading children's books when one no longer has small children to read them to. And I have to admit that *Mary Poppins* was probably not one I read out loud to the children (I'm pretty sure we got audiobook from the library) nor one that any of them particularly latched on to. (Top ones there would be *Robin Hood*, *Winnie the Pooh*, and *Wind in the Willows*.)

It always has a special place in my heart, though, because though there are many families with four children in literary canon and even quite a few with two boys and two girls, they are the only ones with girl, boy, girl-boy twins to match our lineup. (Though I'm pretty sure Jane and Michael are more like 5 and 7 rather than 3 and 4 that I had to contend with. And I did not have a Mary Poppins nor even a Robertson Ay.) 

But it does tend to draw a lot of flack. Mainly because people watched the movie first. And the Mary Poppins of the book is not much like the Mary Poppins of the movie. She is prickly and stern and uncommunicative. 

One of the newer criticisms I saw was that Mary Poppins is a "narcissistic witch." Well, if you don't like magic you won't like Mary Poppins, but she never casts a spell or rides a broom. I feel she would sternly disapprove of both as unnecessary folly. It is just that strange and wonderful things happen around her, things she usually refuses to discuss.

Narcissistic . . . no. She is vain, undoubtedly. It is quite often pointed out. But it is an innocent, childish vanity that likes to look nice and has no need to feign otherwise, like Yum-Yum in The Mikado. Narcissism is one of those words that gets bandied about so that everyone's former boss, tenant, landlord, and spouse is afflicted with it. But it is grossly overused and it certainly does not apply to Mary Poppins. A narcissist is someone who makes everything all about them. And Mary Poppins is the reverse of that. Everything about her is deflected back outward. When she gives up her new gloves so that the girl from the stars can have a Christmas present, she downplays it entirely. The little world of the Banks children never revolves around her and she does nothing to make it do so. A narcissist in the nursery would be busy manipulating the situation, playing the family members against each other, treating the children's bad behavior as a personal affront, bribing the children's affection one moment and using it against them the next.

Then there are complaints against the Banks parents as distant and uninvolved, which really I think come from the movie, not the books. Yes, the Banks parents rely on servants, like everyone else of their time and class (and frankly everyone else of upper classes through most of time. We only got rid of widespread servitude with automated home appliances.) But they care more about their children than about funds, they are present in the day-to-day lives of their children, and it is not from lack of care for their children that they got help with all the buttoning and unbuttoning. Mr. Banks requests the children meet him for lunch as a treat--his idea, not theirs or Mary Poppins. Mrs. Banks is around enough that the children can pester her all morning with questions.

Tolstoy was wrong about happy families (he had probably never met one)--they can all be quite different. The Banks might not be a modern attachment parenting family, but they are a happy one, and it is quite a good thing for children (and their parents) to learn that not everyone has to be just like them.

Another new buzzword I have seen applied is that Mary Poppins "gaslights" the children. This because she generally refuses to discuss the magical things that have happened in her presence. On a careful read, though, I found only one case where she appears to deny it, and that is after the laughing gas episode when the children refer to her uncle as "bobbing about" on the ceiling. Even then she doesn't so much deny it as criticize them using such undignified terminology about her uncle.  

But I think this really misunderstands what I think is one of the key themes of Mary Poppins, which I bring up at the risk of reducing a real, whole book full of real, whole people to a mere point. At the end of the chalk painting chapter, Mary Poppins tells the children, "Don't you know everyone's got his own fairyland?" And an entire chapter is devoted to the babies learning that on or about their 1st birthday,  they will forget how to talk to the birds and the wind (Mary Poppins of course being the notable exception to this general rule).

The world of Mary Poppins--and the real world--are full of Wonder. Strange and amazing things are around every corner. But it is easy, easy, easy to lose that. It can be lost through too much talk, too much poking and prodding. We can hardly help but lose it as we grow up and become more rational. Mary Poppins--for reasons we do not and probably cannot know--is a conduit to that Wonder.  She has never forgotten how to talk to the wind. She cannot tell you how, but if you will be quiet for a minute, perhaps you can eavesdrop. And if not, off to bed with you. 

It Has Been a Week

While there are probably many things I could blame for the decline of posting over the past several years, the biggest one has been DOB's succession of car accidents that not only threw everything into chaos, but meant any reference to them or their effects (which would have been every moment of every day) could become part of discovery in ongoing litigation. However, now that things are resolved it is easier to make posts about the day to day.

Which hasn't settled down all that much, though DOB is doing much better than he has in years. 

We started out this week pretty well. Duchess had been working at a camp and missed our annual summer trip to the beach, so she requested a family weekend there. Summer, which was conspicuously absent this June, decided to stay on an extra two months and we had two days of boogie boarding and s'mores on the beach, which we managed to accomplish all by ourselves without the collective skills and supplies of the extended family which we usually rely on. DOB has a three-wheeled electric scooter that rides a tight line between mobility device and off-road vehicle so he can get around on the beach.

After we arrived home on Monday, and I was at last enjoying that moment which all parents of large families know, in which it is finally *your turn* in the bathroom after a two and a half hour car ride, Deux came in and said in relatively calm tones that I was needed in the driveway immediately. Deux, who had been helping DOB finish unloading, is mathematically precise in all his speech, so I immediately emerged. While DOB was backing the scooter down the ramp off its hauler, the hinges on the ramp had given way. The scooter had flipped over sideways and DOB was dangling head downward over the side of the hauler, with his foot trapped under the scooter. He was conscious and able to move himself as much as might be expected for someone dangling in that position, so I decided the thing to do would be to get the scooter off his foot and get him out of there. Unfortunately, no means of doing this did not increase the pain in his foot. (Note: Do not try this at home. I am definitely not trained for this.) But leaving him dangling there while more competent help arrived also didn't sound like a great option. So I finally decided to go with what I could do and do it quickly. I tipped the scooter back up and DOB winced but we got him down to the ground and then upright and he was, astonishingly, still functional. Deux and I were able to lift the scooter down flat on the ground and DOB was able to park it. After several thorough checks from his various medical people, it seems that he sustained no serious damage either to brain or foot, which is amazing.

Anyway, then it was back to work on Tuesday. We are still working through the backlog of appointments and work that got sidelined during our trial last month. For me this includes several evictions that were filed during the trial and therefore I may or may not have reviewed as carefully as usually. Deadlines for evictions are different from normal civil practice, at least for the tenants, who have no deadline for their responses. This is a rule that predates them having state-funded lawyers, but now that they do their lawyers tend to take advantage of it. On Wednesday afternoon I was working my way through my appointments, one of which was a potentially very serious and emergency situation for a vulnerable adult that I was trying to sort out through a language barrier and would need to file in the adjacent county under a statute that just changed and I am still getting the hang of. I finally wrapped it up and went to join the Zoom for my next consult and just briefly glanced at my email to see that the opposing attorney to whom I had wired $300,000 in settlement of a judgment the week before--on which daily interest was hundreds of dollars--was emailing to say that it had not arrived. 

Over lunch I'd wrapped up a response in one of my eviction matters--the lease had been omitted from the complaint as it wasn't a significant element in that eviction and the landlord had brought it by and we'd submitted it with an additional declaration and argument on why it was not important. Another one came in with an 8-page brief that needed a detailed and carefully substantiated response. None of this could I start, of course, until I had very calmly met with my next two clients, both of which were complex trust situations that needed a lot of discussion. DOB went to the bank to find out what happened to the wire transfer but the local branch, although helpful, could not tell us anything except the money had definitely been sent because the wire department was already closed.

Well, that was a rough Wednesday, but I got my second eviction brief mostly drafted before I left for home. Thursday I had another full morning of meetings, including merger discussions with our suitemates, but I was doing OK wrapping up my second eviction brief when I got more briefing in the other case, in which opposing counsel accused not just my client of fabricating the lease because the January date on the lease used the previous year (before he bought the property), but accused me of knowingly aiding and abetting this "fraud." Never mind what the chances are of writing the previous year in January vs. messing up the dates on a document being forged to fool the court. I was a lot more insulted by the implicit stupidity than by the asserted evil. We did find out that the wire transfer was just someone forgetting to click the approve box at the receiving bank so hopefully no one blames us for it. 

Anyway, Friday came, motions day, and I had four evictions on the morning calendar. I moved the "forgery" one to a different judge and DOB argued it so I wouldn't spit nails. Each eviction was argued and examined by the court with great care and it took all morning. The court sternly denied sanctions in the "forgery" case and set it for trial. Meanwhile my paralegal had worked out when and how I needed to file the vulnerable adult matter and I had just time to scarf down lunch before heading to Tacoma.  

We got the matter filed but then had to hang around a few hours until a translator was available. Luckily I had my computer so I went to the law library and tried to deal with a few other emergency situations that I had not yet had the time to address that week. 

The time finally came and we had a long and difficult hearing what with the language barrier, the translator being on phone and not able to hear half the time, and us having almost no information to support our petition (which was the basis for our petition--the petitioner had been locked out of all her own bank accounts and we're still trying to figure out what the heck happened). We didn't get a temporary order, but we did get a hearing set and court authority to support getting the authorization we needed. 

Anyway, I do not carry fluids with me because I would just dump them on important things, and the courthouse, as far as I have been able to ascertain has a total of one water fountain set to "dribble." After an afternoon of this I was absolutely parched and did not think I would make it home. I thought, "Normal people would drive through a coffee shop and get something." I hate coffee but thought there was a chance someone might have unsweetened ice tea.  But not being a normal person I could not find one. I took an exit that I knew led to a large shopping area but there was no coffee shop there. There was a Target, so I thought maybe there was something *inside* Target having vague recollection of seeing that before. (Not being a normal person I go inside Target maybe twice a year and have never actually purchased a beverage there.) 

I couldn't find anything, but I thought, "Target sells water, right? I could buy water?" I walked to the back where of course I realized that Target does sell water but only in large cases. So I got a case of water and a bag of chocolate-covered nuts because water alone seemed insufficient at that point and as I'm standing awkwardly in the checkout line with a case of water and a bag of nuts (and no cart because I'm just getting a drink, I don't need a cart), behold there is Starbucks immediately before me, right next to the door I came in.

Anyway, I hauled everything out to my car. There was a rather random-looking gentleman walking behind me as I went out to my car and he was saying something I couldn't quite work out, but when I got to the car he appeared interested solely in addressing the sky and the Office Depot opposite so I left him to it while I slammed a couple of bottles of water. 

I then got lost trying to get back to the freeway and passed several more coffee stands. I always get lost in Tacoma but I never worry about it because if the sun is in my eyes I will find my way home eventually. And I got a chicken at Costco and came home and crawled into bed. 

I hope next week goes better. 

A Few More Books

 We are midway through a jury trial which is the culmination of four years' hard labor, most of it solo while DOB was recovering even though litigation is not my preference. Despite the disjunction, it all seems to be coming together. And DOB is noticing that his strength and stamina are even notably improved from the trial we did in April. Mine, alas, has not changed and regardless a multi-week jury trial is a grueling physical and mental marathon.

So I am not attempting any new projects nor many very ambitious books. I did finally finish one called The Lords of Easy Money by Christopher Leonard. It was not a cheerful book, being about the policies of the Federal Reserve over the past two decades. It takes a full book to translate financial gibberish into moderately understandable terms and I am going to try to sum it up in a few sentences. Without conspiracy theories or using the ever-amorphous capitalism whipping boy, it pointed out how the Federal Reserve, acting from no worse motive than an earnest desire to be useful, or at the least to appear to be useful, has taken it upon itself to always take action to ensure continued economic growth. Unfortunately, the only tool it has at its disposal for promoting that growth is, in one form or another, lending money it just created to the people and institutions who are already the richest, creating incentives for them to purchase riskier and riskier debt, and then bailing those same people out when those risks do in fact occur. The result has been economic growth that is highly inequitable, largely illusory, and completely unsustainable.  And it has gone on and on and compounded regardless of administration or economic ideology, because they are not elected and very few people can even get their heads around what they are doing. 

I also gave a try at podcasts, which are all the rage, but I find that I do not like listening to people just talk, not even people whose blogs I enjoy on topics I am interested in. However, SOME people have created podcasts that are in fact audiobooks. I have never been much into audiobooks, but the house is intermittently quiet enough these days that an audiobook is not bad, and coupled with a peaceful building game relistening to Jane Austen is a highly relaxing activity. Even though I must now acknowledge with some chagrin I am almost certainly older than any of the living mothers.  

The first one I did was Mansfield Park. Emma is notorious for being a heroine Austen thought nobody but herself would much like, but I always suspect in Fanny she set herself the challenge of writing a heroine she didn't much like. She is quiet, docile, feminine, almost completely passive, everything that ought to make her dull as dishwater. Except she is not. The reader has the uncomfortable feeling of growing in appreciation of Fanny parallel to the villain, Henry Crawford. (And Crawford is perhaps Austen's least redeemable villain.) On the things that actually matter to her, she is bedrock. And Austen upends--before the genre had really gotten going--the romance novel convention of a charming rogue tamed by the love of a good woman. It could have been done, she acknowledges, but she will not sacrifice Fanny to the cause. Crawford is not willing to exert any effort to redeem himself, so he deserves no help from any other quarter. 

Then I did Sense and Sensibility. The dichotomy between Eleanor's sense and Marianne's sensibility is of course a commonplace, but I could not help noticing that Lucy Steele shows us there is another end of the spectrum. Eleanor is actually the golden mean--she has sense, yes, but also genuine feelings. She just knows when feelings should be expressed and when concealed. But Lucy Steele is all calculation; has no genuine feelings at all for anyone else, simply acts always and inevitably to what will advance her own self-interest. 

Another thing that is simply lovely in Sense and Sensibility is the warm and genuine friendship between Eleanor and Colonel Brandon, which exists before there is much hope of their ever being related, which never gives rise in either of them (though occasionally speculated upon by their friends) to any expectation of romance, but is simply two people who quite like and respect each other. Even in books where there are reasonably congenial brothers in law, none of them are really friends--Elizabeth and Mr. Bingley, say, are not what anyone could call friends. He never confides in her and she never seeks him out. I am sure in later years they have pleasant enough dinner parties and Christmases but I doubt they ever recommend books to each other. 

Also I cannot help but think that if I were Mrs. Dashwood and widowed at 40 I might have made a move for Colonel Brandon myself. 

A Slight Apocalypse

 Every once in a while, a long time after everyone else, I get around to something and Have Thoughts on it. 

This time it was *Dune*, which I decided to give a try since it's considered iconic and I do like some science fiction and it seemed better than making myself sit through any of *Star Trek*. (OK, so I really only like *obscure* science fiction. *Babylon 5* forever!) 

Perhaps it is just now being the mother of teenage boys, but I feel like the teenage-boy-protagonist-will-save-the-world thing is way overdone. With apologies to Deux and Dash, who are quite decent human beings, really, here are the responses you would *actually* get if you asked a teenage boy to save the world: 

• "Does the world really have to be saved? Couldn't we just skip it this time?"
  
• "I saved the world *last* week. It's Andromeda's turn to save the world."
• "Mmmppphh."
• "I have to finish fighting this boss first."
• "Oh right, I forgot. Save the world. Will do."
• "I would, but I'm leaving right now. Maybe when I get back."

Finally, in exasperation, one would lay into them with a store of accumulated righteous indignation, only to have them say, "I already did it!"

Repeat weekly, which is how often world-ending scenarios come up in science fiction anyway.

However, it's not just the having of a teen hero. After all, the Codex Alera books have a teenage hero saving the world, and they're delightful. Mostly, I think it's just that Paul is such a thoroughly dislikable person. Cold, detached, unrealistically competent, followed by unreasonably adoring fans and worst of all, he's boring. I would not want to be his mother. Whereas I would be quite proud to be Tavi's mother. He's warm, curious, funny, he makes mistakes and has to deal with them, and just all round feels like an actual human being. 

I think the clincher for me is when Paul is proposing to the Emperor's daughter and his common-law tribal wife is like, "Oh, Paul, you don't have to worry about me, I won't get in the way of your galactic ambitions." Even though *their child was just killed by the Emperor's forces*. Kitai would have throat-punched Tavi if he had even thought about something like that. And he would have known he deserved it. 

Then again, maybe I'm just too old for this, and I will go back to cheering on Thursday Next and Precious Ramotswe. 

A Few of the Books

Dame never really adapted to regular school, and deals with a lot of chronic pain and fatigue. Last February she was missing so many days from not feeling well that we decided to let her come back home. This is equal parts delightful and exhausting for me, as I missed homeschooling very much but also don't have a lot to give after work (and Dame is not a person who prefers to work alone, so not much is done before I arrive home.)

What we do is about equal parts Ambleside Online (currently roughly based on Year 7) and um, let's call it unschooling but it's mostly Youtube videos and her designing her own fantasy universe in luxuriant detail. Deux also still enjoys fantasy worldbuilding (the "world in his head" has been a major presence in our life since he was very small indeed) only while Dame is aimed towards books in the end Deux builds RPGs, which we cannot possibly play as fast as he designs them. 

Although Deux is doing Running Start, his classes have still been entirely online and they do not appear to absorb much of his time (I assume he is passing when he gives me the parental permission sheet to sign up for the next quarter), so he and Dame have plenty of time for intense arguments about the logistics of their respective worlds and magical universes. Deux has the edge in physics and chemistry, but Dame probably knows more about habitats and zoology. Regardless, the discussion is always lively. 

For assigned school we are reading about the Middle Ages. The really long readings we tend to listen to on Librivox while we play video games. This is not a very impressive scholastic habit, but it keeps us going. And we are reading Ivanhoe (which I have never actually finished before), and Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and In Freedom's Cause this way. We tried Idylls of the King but the readers just didn't quite make epic poetry easy to follow, so I'm reading that one aloud, along with Molecules by Theodore Gray, Eric Sloane's Weather Book, and Julius Caesar in which we take parts. There are also a goodly number of books she reads on her own, one of which is a Chaucer adaptation while I am tackling the (translated) whole thing. I can't believe it's taken me this long to try Chaucer, he's really quite hilarious and snarky. 

I also do some reading of books I might like to try for the future. Next year I want to tweak her science to give maximum support to worldbuilding, so I am looking for books on anatomy (especially comparative animal anatomy), ecology and habitats. We already have The Way We Work by David Macaulay to get us started on anatomy. I read The Hidden Life of Trees  by Peter Wohlleben and absolutely loved it, but was a little saddened that it was (naturally) so strongly skewed to the species in his native Central European forest, where Douglas fir is an ill-adapted stranger. So now I am looking at a North American focused book called Forest Walking but it annoys me just a tad because it (reasonably enough) has a North American co-writer and I always find the way people interject things from the cowriter to be odd. But content-wise it is probably more what I am looking for, there's a great deal about things we might see on a walk around the neighborhood. 

It Has Been Too Long

Somebody (perhaps Lewis Carroll?) advised that one should never begin a letter with an apology for how long it had taken to write back, and I suppose the same should apply to blog posts. I took an actual Day Off this week, an extremely rare event, and even though I spent a pretty large part of it scrubbing the kitchen which was sustaining several new ecosystems, I took some time to sit about long enough to remember that I needed to hunt up photos for Duchess' graduation slideshow. And the only place I really have photos is on here.

I have always figured that one of my glaring failures as a mother would be a lack of photos for the graduation slideshow (since graduation classes at Duchess' and Dash's school generally consist of 4-6 seniors, everyone gets star billing), but I was pleased to discover I was able to supply quite a respectable number even before she turned 13 and started keeping her own. Of course, most of them have Deux in them but they are quite tolerant of each other these days. 

I don't know if other people find this about growing older, but I realize that I don't feel my life stretching behind me as a sequential thing. Myself as a 12 year old scrappy know-it-all and myself as a 25 year old new mother or a 36 year old trying to juggle everything are all still here and the people and the worlds of those times do not stretch out behind me in receding distance. They are like the blog posts, just around the corner. I could step into them at any time; I might go into a room and find my mother and grandfather deep in a friendly argument, or step into the back yard and find a troupe of little Ducklings constructing a monument to unspeakable chaos out of scrap lumber. I could, but somehow I don't. 

Instead, the former Ducklings remain distressingly tall (Duchess is the only one who is shorter than me, and likely to remain so at this point) and disconcertingly independent. Somehow, as attested by the datestamps on the blog posts, eighteen years of parenthood are behind me, and Duchess is about to graduate and start her first job and college, Deux is in Running Start (at which he needs absolutely no parental guidance whatsoever but fortunately he does still appreciate parents who will play a round of Magic: the Gathering), and the twins (Dot now prefers Dame, but Dash will always be Dash) will enter high school in the fall. I feel less prepared for parenting than I did at the beginning when the first panic of having a small human in care hit me--and yet somehow, incontrovertibly, we have made it this far. 

I never did get much better at the things I was bad at (I still have boxes and boxes in the garage of Miscellaneous Things I Didn't Have The Patience to Put Away). I have faced many challenges I never expected and given up on many things that were important. There were quite a lot of things I never got to until it was too late. We never did music lessons, or sports, or make beautiful nature journals with watercolors. We did much fewer read-alouds and much more screen time than I would have believed. But I still think--hope--I managed to hold onto everything that was truly essential. 

I spent a lot more of these past seven years working than I ever wanted. I can't get that time back and it hurts every time I think of it, though it was what was necessary. But I made quite a lot of good soup, and we still had a backyard (however overgrown) and books were at least about the place and everyone learned to hate bad grammar, verbal ambiguity, and Christmas songs before Thanksgiving. And DOB is doing better, mentally and physically, than he has in many years and is finally able to return to work. 

A fair portion of my work is estate planning and so I sit down with a lot of elderly people--often their children are older than I am--and they talk about their lives and families, and sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's heartbreaking. In the end, not a lot matters. Not the type of diapers or the dietary plan or (within reason) the type of discipline. If your children are honest and reasonably responsible and still on speaking terms with you, you have done about as well as anyone can hope for and been luckier than many. 

And since this is a good place for my pictures, here is one. It's actually a year old (from my oldest niece's wedding--I now have three married neiphlings and two great-neiphlings), so add an inch to Deux and three to Dash, but otherwise it's pretty on target .

Protecting Dissent

The consequences of freedom of speech when a global platform is within the reach of just about anyone seem to have gotten a little overwhelming lately. On the one hand, it's true that freedom of speech is a political right, and therefore is not intrinsically infringed by the choices of a private entity. On the other hand, it's equally true that political rights do not thrive when they cease to represent the values of a society. 

And it is difficult to remember just how unnatural the concept of freedom of speech is. The natural human instinct is for consensus, for harmony, and for shunning if not blotting out people who disagree, a practice that was undoubtedly in place long before the Pharaohs started scratching out engravings to their disfavored predecessors. 

Even though it's my job to have people disagree with me, I still hate it every time. Still get sick to my stomach when I see that new round of pleadings come in, still get annoyed when a malicious tenant has managed to cajole a public interest attorney to dragging out an eviction to the damage of everyone around them.

At the same time, I know that this is absolutely necessary. That without that adverse position, I would get sloppy and cut corners, no matter how much I tried not to. There's no substitute for someone actually getting in the ring against you to keep you honest and careful.

And dissent in every setting has that same function. A recent book by Charlan Nemeth, In Defense of Troublemakers, points out that dissent improves thought processes and decision making--even when it is 100% wrong. It's not just that dissent is valuable because it might be right--it's because even when it's wrong, facing up to it causes us to dig deeper, consider more angles, probe underlying reasons and causes, and ultimately come to a better decision. It's because welcoming even stupid dissenters makes it more likely we'll get to hear from wise ones.

So while I certainly understand the difference between government censorship and the content choices of a private organization, I also think it's worth speaking up and fighting for freedom of speech as a social value, not just a constitutional right. That it's worth preserving the voice of the cranks, the ignorant, the prejudiced, and that one guy who has questions about line 48 in the budget just as the meeting was about to adjourn for doughnuts. Because freedom of speech is hard. It's not natural. It takes practice. And it's how we keep learning. 

Here We Go A-Wandering

It is one of our most treasured if ill-conceived traditions that we always do a Real Tree, and if humanly possible, cut it from a u-cut farm. Now that DOB is not really up to the trek, I usually pick the kids up from school on a day in mid-December and we go straight to the nearest farm to pick one before dark. We are very quick in our selection. (Is this tree short enough to reach the top? Is it right here? Then it is good.) And last year I finally learned how I had been cutting trees wrong my entire life so now the cutting down is quick, too.

Unfortunately this year obtaining a tree was delayed a week or more past our usual late date because of the repair work still being done on the house from the pipe leak that happened in August. The back room was finally finished, though, and I had Toolboy scheduled to come help me set up the new couch later in the afternoon, so I figured we could squeeze it in yesterday.

It was inconvenient but not surprising that the window to get the tree coincided with the commencement of a three-day storm of torrential downpours. It was surprising that the tree farm was already closed and since I still refuse to get a smart phone as long as my 14-year-old flip phone keeps working, I had no backup plan for finding or checking if another one was open. (To be perfectly honest, even my flip phone was dead, which is why I don't really want to bother with a smart phone.)

So the kids (Duchess, Dot and Dash--Deux had been coming down with something and elected to stay home) insisted that we needed to go try to find another farm. The only one whose location I was certain of was about half an hour drive away through the busiest roads in the county at rush hour in the downpour. Duchess was driving and insisted she keep driving. I told them we might arrive just to find it closed for the day or the year, but they all wanted to go anyway. We could always give up and go to Lowe's on the way back.

In due course we did arrive, and amazingly enough it was still open (we were the last customers of the day) and they were immediately overcome with its size and majesty, as it was about a square mile of Christmas trees. We drove out to the section with our preferred species, forded a small river that had formed in the downpour, and cut down our selected tree.

It was then I realized that, relying on the Christmas tree farm to provide the service, we had failed to bring anything to tie the tree to the top of the car. But first we had to get it back to the office, which was about a half a mile hike back through the downpour and dusk. So I told Dash to pick up the short end of the tree and we headed off while Duchess drove back to the office. Dot accompanied us out of an overpowering desire to commune with nature.

We had made it most of the way back and watched Duchess drive past us en route to the office when Duchess came driving back, with twine to tie the tree to the top of the car. (It was at this moment that it occurred to me that we could have done this in the first place.) So we did, although not very well, and at this point after fifteen minutes walk in the downpour I had finally noticed that I was missing my hat, which I had actually knitted myself during a triennial fit of craftiness, out of green and brown variegated yarn.

So Duchess, Dash and I decided to drive all the way back to the place we cut the tree before it got darker to try to find the hat, while Dot elected to continue on to the office and commune with hot cocoa. We found the spot again easily enough (the small river was handy in location) but it now occurred to me that a knit hat made of green and brown variegated yarn looks exactly like the ground in a Christmas tree farm in a downpour at dusk in December. Happily we did find it.

Somewhere in here the tree fell most of the way off the car and I had to try to tie it on again, but it was still threatening to careen off the side the whole time.

Then it seemed to Duchess that rather than turning around what with stumps and streams and all she would be better off to keep driving on the assumption that the roads in the tree farm would loop back around to the office sooner or later. They did, but by the time we made it back Dot had finished her trip to the office, drunk an entire cup of hot cocoa, and come back out to stand in the rain and wonder what was taking us so long.

Then everyone else who wanted cocoa got it and the man still waiting for us to leave tied the tree on extremely securely and I insisted on driving home. We were all soaked to the skin and I still had a sectional couch to set up.

Everyone thought it was the best tree expedition ever.

Crime and Punishment

It was not an easy read. It was a good read, but definitely not easy, as much for the emotional intensity and theme as the usual Russian habit of giving everyone 6 different names and swapping them in and out at random. (Next time I start a Russian novel, I need to create a cast of characters to accompany me, because half the time I'm not sure who's talking.)

I probably shouldn't have been reading The Secret History of Moscow at the same time, which, although an intriguing book, made for altogether too much Russianness. We are all doomed, so let's drink more vodka.

Still, it was amazing and the scene in which he confesses to Sonia and she sees right through his confusion and misery and inability to repent to the suffering human at the core without the slightest hint of excusing wrongdoing is one of the most amazing things I've ever read.

It was a tough summer (and fall) and not much good for heavy reading. DOB had another new and different health challenge, some new diagnosis and a lot of uncertainty still.

So I'm certainly not going to finish out my Back to the Classics challenge, but I can surely fit in one more before the end of the year. And the dice roller says it will be Jude the Obscure, another one I suspect may be hard to get through.

That only brings me to 5 (having abandoned Swiss Family Robinson), so I'm going to throw in Orthodoxy as a bonus because I can certainly do that before the end of the year and at least make half my goal.

Considering the year it's been, that's pretty good, and maybe I can do the other half next year. 

The Scarlet Letter

It's always risky revisiting a book that one remembers from childhood or adolescence; it may live up to your memories, it may not, or you may realize that you completely missed the point as a young person.

Fortunately The Scarlet Letter and I both survived the test of the re-read. It's a wonderful book, and although I certainly didn't get the full depth of the book at 15 (or now, likely enough) neither was I entirely uncomprehending.

Interestingly, I think the version I read back then must have omitted the author's preface explaining his finding of the story-sparking manuscript, which is largely a personal polemic on the character-sapping influences of a safe government job. I found it pretty entertaining now, from the position of the envious but proud private sector.

Simultaneously, I was reading Games People Play, one of the iconic works popularizing psychology from the 1960s. There was certainly some overlap--you could certainly see Chillingsworth playing a game of Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch disguised as I'm Only Trying to Help You while Dimmesdale plays Kick Me. They both get what they want from the relationship. (Psychology from the 60s still sounds far more judgmental than modern works. It's fascinating to begin to feel the distance from an era that I am old enough to think of as not that long ago.)

Psychology is intriguing, but literature will always tell us more, because it shows people from the inside. Only through literature can we get to be Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingsworth and maybe even little Pearl. On the whole, I liked Dimmesdale the least this time around, for his moral cowardice. But then, at least he turned it to kindness which is better than many in his situation do. It was really Pearl he wronged the most, and perhaps that is why Hawthorne shows her the most healed by his final confession.

Also reading: The Queen's Thief series, a re-read after I got Deux hooked on it. Just an absolutely fantastic series. And The Phoenix Guards, a fantasy swashbuckler. And The Genius of Birds, which is intriguing but will not tell me a question I have been wanting to know, whether anyone has found out if rabbits can do math. And I picked up Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope at the library booksale, and it promises very well indeed. Summer Reading Challenge at the library has started and I intend to at least get the 10-hour book bag, although the 100-hour t-shirt may be a bit ambitious for me.

Next on the classics challenge roll:  Crime and Punishment. Gulp. I'm almost as intimidated by that one as by the Aeneid, but here goes.

Laws and Customs

Washington, in the true populist tradition reflecting its heritage, has elected, non-partisan judges. At our recent Law Day celebration, the Supreme Court justice who spoke referred to it as a right we "would never surrender, and never exercise."

He was speaking more generally of the ignorance the voting public has of judicial candidates, but the quote was even truer than that, as is evidenced every time a judge retires. At least in our county, the judges never retire at a time that they could be replaced by an election. Thus, the governor must appoint a replacement.

There is an extensive vetting process through the governor's office, various attorney associations conduct panel discussions and make recommendations, and someone is chosen. None of the process is open to the public at large. At some point the new judge will have to run for re-election, but they will do so with the full weight of incumbency behind them. Since I have been practicing in the county, no one has upset a sitting judge or even run a serious campaign against one.

At the most recent judicial panel, someone raised the question of whether this practice was good or whether it thwarted the public participation that was intended to be part of the process. To my surprise, not a single candidate of four criticized it. They all spoke in favor of the current practices as weeding out unqualified candidates, as there is simply no way for the public to assess whether someone would be a good judge--the qualities that make for a good candidate are likely to be the opposite of those that would make for a good judge.

In the last round, the candidate that was chosen had already been serving as court commissioner for over a year. She'd been hired originally by the judges and the local bar had had ample chance to observe her in the courtroom and determine whether she reviewed her materials, kept up on the law, kept control of the courtroom, and rendered fair decisions. It was a good pick.

What is fascinating to me is how, in a time that is still strongly driven by the desire to rip out old inequities and replace customs with great systems of logic, yet customs grow up anyway. Logical systems are never quite enough to go on with.

The Fall of Arthur and other books

This was nice and short. I didn't realize that about two-thirds of the book was appendices and explanatory material which I do not feel obligated to read as they were not written in the twentieth century. I did enjoy the one explaining in a bit more detail the rules and history of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse that Tolkien employs. It's far more intricate than initially appears, and it creates a weighty style, all sharp edges and hard corners, that is excellent for epics and marvelously atmospheric.

Not on the list, but maybe I'll pretend it was if I don't get them all in, I read Phantastes by George MacDonald. I think I read it once as a teenager; it was well worth revisiting.

Completely not on the classics list, I'm reading The E*myth Enterprise in an effort to get my head around running the business side of the law practice, something that has become acutely necessary in the past few months. (I can make no sense of the title by the book, by the way, and it annoys me greatly and sounds very cheesy. Still, there are some good ideas in there.)

I'm thinking about ditching Swiss Family Robinson. We've completely gotten away from reading out loud, and I think the book is partly responsible. It's just too implausible and too preachy. Also, it's part of the literature assignments the kids either have or will get to at school, so I feel no urgency to read it. I'm not a quitter, but when a piece of the thing is blocking the whole thing from occurring, it's time to ditch the piece. I'm not sure what to choose next, though. Nothing has lived up to Lord of the Rings, unsurprisingly. I want to read The Sword in the Stone, but I'm thinking of doing a traditional Arthur telling first.

And for my next trick--I rolled a 9, so it will be The Scarlet Letter. I'm really looking forward to it.

Next Challenge

Time for a new book. I'm kind of behind if I'm going to finish all twelve this year, but my first two selections were long, so maybe I will pick up the pace.

And the next selection is:

2. The Fall of Arthur

Time for some more epic poetry. I think I'll find Tolkien more readable than Virgil, though.

In other undertakings, we are ssllllooowwwwllllyyyy reading through Swiss Family Robinson. The twins seem to be enjoying it, but even Dash asked, "Why does the father know how to do everything?" It seems to work best if we envision it as an RPG in which the players are all overpowered, the GM is far too indulgent, and everyone always rolls a 20.

Kristin Lavransdatter, Mistress of Husaby and The Cross

Alas, I finished it. Now I have to move back to reality. I didn't die of the black plague, though, so that's good.

And I find it impossible to sum up. So much life. 

The middle novel details the years of prosperity--Kristin, finding herself mistress of a large noble estate in near-ruins thanks to Erlend's ineptitude, rises to the occasion in between birthing seven sons. Erlend wanders in and out, making himself a decent name as a border governor. They fight and make up, have another baby, fight and make up again.

Undset is incredibly good at showing the tangle of feelings, of desire and resentment, of missed cues and muddled responsibilities of a struggling marriage. Kristin's steadiness that gives her the ability to rise to being mistress of a noble estate--CEO, doctor, brewer, farmer, head of charity and society woman all rolled into one--goes along with a steady resentment that Erlend cannot be more like her even steadier father (though of course she never could love the steady man her father picked out). Only by tossing aside reality can she enjoy a bit of peace with Erlend, and that never happens for long once she has the heritage of her sons to worry about.

After a particularly nasty argument, Erlend has a brief revenge affair, which ends even worse than expected--it turns out he's been leading a plan which, had it gone well, would have marked him down as a hero of his country, but thanks to his idiocy the plan is discovered and he is tried for treason. 

Always at their best in a crisis, Kristin and Erlend reconcile and thanks to the tireless labor of Simon, Kristin's former betrothed (and now brother-in-law), Erlend is freed, but at the cost of land and titles. The family retires to Kristin's childhood home, which is her own property.

In the final book is the fallout. The fragile reconciliation falls to pieces again. Life goes on until it doesn't any more.  At the end, one son takes over the farm, the others scatter to seek their fortune or the cloister, and the widowed Kristin enters a convent. 

I saw one review commenting on the centrality of motherhood to the book and that is a major theme--and as I first read the book over a decade ago, when I was still in the baby stage and now revisit it as my children are entering their teens, I feel it with her--the constant loss, the fears, the joys that are only remembered in retrospect and the pain that is better than joy--even more than the first time through. 

But another theme that comes through is the journey of the soul to God--that all the things of life, the worries, the triumphs, the joys and sorrows--are not the main thing that most people think, nor distractions as people trying to be devout think, but the way through which God himself shows himself to us. On her way to the convent, Kristin gets sidetracked by a crowd of little boys: "And when the moment came that she had longed for all through her journey, when she stood below the cross on Feginsbrekka and looked down on Nidaros, it came not so that she could collect her thoughts for prayer or meditation. All the bells of the town burst forth at that moment to ring to Vespers, and the boys all talked together, wanting to point out all that was before her--"

Or, to put my favorite song with my favorite book, 

"Every heart--every heart to love will come/But as a refugee."

Here is my review from 2006. I will read this book again. Maybe in 2030. 

Kristin Lavransdatter, Book 1: The Bridal Wreath

I don't know if it's cheating or overachieving to smuggle in a trilogy as one selection in the Back to the Classics challenge, but I will do it for Kristin Lavransdatter. If I had a cabin and a pot of soup and Kristin Lavransdatter, then that would be the best vacation ever.

So it is hard with such a book to sum up or critique. I don't read Kristin Lavransdatter; I move temporarily to 14th-century Norway. All the people and the life are so real, shown without romanticism or grotesqueness. The people live in their own world, unastonished at their own life for all its strangeness to us, yet still as real and ordinary as anyone you might know.

The Bridal Wreath gives a bit of background on Kristin's family and then tells her growing up years, from early childhood to her wedding. Kristin's doting and devout father, Lavrans, is a well-respected knight and a skilled farm manager; her mother is dedicated but melancholy, weighed down by many infant losses and a dark secret. In due course Kristin's father arranges her a good marriage to Simon, a perfectly suitable but rather boring young man, but Kristin is not so sure. At Simon's suggestion, she spends a year at a convent school in the south to get a bit more worldliness. What she gets instead is an introduction to Erlend, a dashing, higher-ranking, and not all that young man who is, in more than just Lavrans' estimation, not good for much but seducing women.

Well, things go much as one would expect in any century. Or again, not, because no one here is a stock character. Even the minor characters, like the saintly Brother Edvin, or the enigmatic witch Lady Aashild, are very real. The actions of a 28 year old who seduces a naive 16-year-old girl out of a convent to a brothel are as despicable to the medieval Norwegians as they would be if it started in an online chat room today; yet Erlend does genuinely care for Kristin, after his own weak-willed fashion. And while Kristin learns to lie and sneak and is as utterly short-sighted in romance as a teenage girl can be, yet her devotion has its own greatness and beauty to it.

Two quotes from either end of the influences in Kristin's life:

Lady Aashild: "In this world they call him a fool who wastes his heritage that he may make merry in the days of his youth. As to that, each man may deem as he lists. But that man only do I call a fool and a very dolt who rues his bargain after it is made . . . "

Brother Edvin: "There is no man nor woman, Kristin, who does not love and fear God, but 'tis because our hearts are divided twixt love of God and fear of the devil and fondness for the world and the flesh, that we are unhappy in life and death. For if a man had not a yearning after God and God's being, he would thrive in hell, and 'twould be we alone who would not understand that there he had gotten what he desired."