Look Under Things

Muppets and Messiah

2011-12-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

Our recent entrtainment choices have ranged from

Sublime: "Joyful Noise," a play about George Frederick Handel writing "The Messiah"

to

Ridiculous: "The Muppets"

"Joyful Noise"
There was a lot of yelling in "Joyful Noise," about artistic choice, and shameful past choices, and which soprano stole whose parts, and whether stage actresses (*= gasp!) should sing in entertainment establishments * about the Savior.* My kids loved the frequent funny parts. Handel said the line that's sticking with me: "God belongs in the mud"—out where the people who need Him live. Each character—Handel, the warring sopranos, the indignant bishop, the King of England—made a journey from grief and resentment to redemption, beautifully depicted and sung. I wished they could have sung the whole "Messiah" at the end. But the point wasn't the music, it was the redemption.

(sensitivity caution: One character had a sordid past, rather vividly described.)
For Utah friends: "Joyful Noise" is playing at the Covey Center for the Arts in a vanishingly tiny theatre. If you can't get tickets this year, go next year!

"The Muppets"
One day when I was very small, my mom said, "There's a new TV show you might like." It was "Sesame Street"—maybe not the pilot episode, but definitely close. I grew up on Sesame Street, and when "The Muppet Movie" came out, I loved that, too. (Howard Tayler said it better than I did here.)

When saw the trailer for "The Muppets," I was appalled. I'm definitely the epicenter of the target audience of life-long Muppet-lovers. But, a Muppet re-make? "Re-make" usually means flatulence humor, bad words, double entendres, and drearily bad writing. Was nothing sacred?

But we read some surprisingly positive reviews, so we ventured and came out completely converted. Just like Muppet productions of former years, the movie was funny, off-beat, innocent, and full of feel-good heart. They also punched holes in the "fourth wall" whenever they felt like it. For instance, when it was taking too long to round up the old gang, someone suggested they finish the job "by montage." One three-minute montage later, the car was full of old friends.

This show was apparently Jason Segel's brainchild. I encourage you to send this man money. We will go see this picture, full price, lots of times, to thank him for getting the Muppets right, and to encourage him to do it again!

At least while swirling around in my mind, these two works ended up expressing similar themes.

"Joyful Noise" asks "Can fallen mortals hope for redemption and joy?"

"The Muppets" asks, "Is there hope in the world for innocence and laughter?"

The answer in both cases is a resounding "Yes" for hope!

An icky word for Halloween

2011-10-28T16:11:00.000-06:00

Random Research led us this week into the realm of sleepy sand—that grainy stuff in your eyes when you wake up in the morning, whatever your family calls it. Its real name is

Gound (pronounced "gowned")

We also learned another of its nicknames: optiboogers. And we agreed that Optiboogers would be an excellent name for a rock band. Also Gingerbread Godzilla. And Giant Pez Dispenser. Stay tuned for gingerbread Godzilla, whom we all decided should make an appearance this Christmas.

Anyway, gound is composed of mucus, tears, and/or dust, and it forms because you're not blinking those things away when you're asleep.

What is your family's word for gound?

The CAKE OF THE APOCALYPSE!

2011-10-23T23:04:00.002-06:00

It took however long it took (long!), but we have finished reading the New Testament as a family. We generally celebrate scripture-reading milestones with a cake, and this one merited a big cake. Since the New Testament ends in the Book of Revelation, that was on everyone's mind when we started cake designing. And John's vision lends itself to expression in Legos and cake. So here we have...

The Cake of the Apocalypse!

Note the 7-headed beast.

Also the Pearly Metal Detector (they might have taken some poetic license).

Everyone had a much better time designing hell than heaven. Much cake was had by all!

He can fly!

2011-10-12T22:31:00.000-06:00

We went to Washington, D.C. for the last few days, and saw all we could before our legs, feet, and brains gave out. Interesting study in gratitude: there is so very, very much to see and do there that even the concept of prioritization isn't much help. We could narrow our choices down to ten or so huge possibilities, but after that, we just had to do something, usually enjoy some but not all of it, and let the rest go, enjoying the memory of what we did manage to do and see. Buffy and I completely missed the "Mammals" exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, but we had a fabulous time designing and launching meteors on an interactive computer exhibit, and tossing paper clips at a huge lodestone.

Random Research day centers on the theme What We Learned in Washington, D.C.:

A good parking spot is not a constitutional right.

The pilot of an aircraft carrier is called the "flight boss." It had never quite occurred to me that someone pilots an aircraft carrier.

Lodestones are awesome. We missed the Hope Diamond, but they don't let you throw paper clips at that.

And, most importantly, the ostrich has a tiny South American relative called the tinamous, who can FLY short distances! His skeleton looks like a 6"-tall ostrich. I want one.

Random Recipe: BOB

2011-09-29T12:29:00.000-06:00

Actually, we do have a Random Research tidbit for today:
If exposed to hard vacuum (outer space, not malfunctioning Electrolux), do NOT hold your breath! You have about 14 seconds until you pass out; use them well.

I don't make up recipes very often, but the other day Buffy and I came up with Chocolate-Peanut Butter Banana Bread. It's fabulous, but it needed a shorter name. We settled on "Bob," though "Ed" was a close contender. Here it is, with optional *decadence upgrades.

Bob
4 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
4 bananas, mashed
1 cup peanut butter
6 tbsp. butter, melted, divided use
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
3 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup milk
*1 cup chocolate chips, optional
1/4 cup cocoa

Pre-heat oven to 350. Grease two 9" loaf pans. Mix flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. In another bowl, beat bananas, peanut butter, 4 tablespoons butter, and sugars until creamy—about 2 minutes; beat in eggs and vanilla. On low speed, beat in flour mixture and milk. *Decadence upgrade #1: stir in chocolate chips. Pour half the batter into the 2 pans. Stir cocoa into remaining batter. Pour over batter in pans. Swirl chocolate batter into plain batter. Bake 40 minutes, brush with remaining butter. Bake 5 more minutes. Bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center (try to avoid the optional choc. chips) comes out clean.
Decadence upgrade #2: Serve with Nutella. Be careful here. I'm not responsible if you die of bliss and/or sugar overload.

Random research: gossip

2011-09-16T10:24:00.001-06:00

Before we start, look! This blog now has a "subscribe" button! If you like to stop in once in a while, please join this blog's three intrepid followers. I'd also love your comments.

Now, the Random Research Word of the Day:

The word "gossip" comes the late Old English godsibb, from god 'God' + sibb 'a relative', or "a person related to one in God."*

When a woman had a baby, her husband fetched the midwife ("with the woman"), who helped deliver the baby, and the gossips—female neighbors who cooked, cleaned, took care of the other children...and sat around knitting, waiting, and talking. And old usage of the word "gossip" is a friend or confidant.

Seems like there ought to be a moral to this etymology beyond, wow, words sure change over time.

Possibly even beyond, careful about what you speak about, who you speak about, and how you speak about them, even with your close friends.

OK, how about this:
The word "gossip" originally referred to women as sisters, related to us in God. The word as presently constituted implies conversations that draw boundaries between "us" and "them," often in a malicious way. But, who isn't a brother or sister, from God's point of view? If we relate to each person as a brother or sister in God, we won't ever feel inclined to indulge in conversations that hurt others or that cast anyone as an outsider.

Or something! Happy Random Research day!

* Dictionary v. 2.1.3, Apple, Inc.

New! Random Research Day

2011-09-09T23:05:00.002-06:00

I'm forever running into little oddments of information during writing research, usually on the way to something else. The opportunity to share them in conversation just never comes up, so I've decided to make Wednesday on this blog Random Research Day (you may not want to set your clock by that).

Words that mean "green"*:
    viridescent
    virescent
    glaucous

Through the Middle Ages, men wrote books about childbirth (or inscribed them on papyri), but it was considered improper for them to watch babies be born. "In 1522, Dr. Wert, a German doctor, was sentenced to death when he was caught dressing like a woman and sneaking into a delivery room."**

* Dictionary v. 2.1.3, Apple Inc.
** Randi Hutter Epstein, Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth (2010), p. 5.
    A lively and interesting, if not always fastidiously documented, account of birth through the ages. Makes one very glad to be bearing children in the 20th-21st century!

I am grateful for...

2011-09-06T08:51:00.000-06:00

Between the front door and the mailbox, here's what I found to be grateful for this morning:

Four-o'clocks, still "awake" at 8 a.m.

A bumper crop of basil, enough for pesto once a week!

Desert four-o'clocks, a little drowsy at 8 a.m.

Morning-glory* covered mailbox

*NOT to be confused with field bindweed, sometimes referred to as "morning glory." Lyrics to field-bindweed-hating song available upon request.

Bumper crop of elderberries, to become jam within the next 48 hours.

Bluebeard bottlebrush

Butterfly bush


Wild sunflowers

Coming attractions: sedum blooming in the next couple of weeks. It likes to prolong the anticipation.

Pitch contest for YA writers

2011-08-11T08:01:00.000-06:00

I hadn't heard of the YAtopia blog until my friend Luisa linked this contest.

What's a "huge micro-synopsis" contest? (The opposite of a "micro huge-synopsis" contest?) The challenge is to condense your young adult or middle grade book synopsis down to a three-sentence agent pitch. Agent John Cusick will award one full manuscript request and two partial requests to the pitches that best catch his attention.

Deadline is midnight tonight (8/11)...but, hey, it's only three sentences. How hard could it be? ;)

Alternate Uses for a Troublesome Pie-hole

2011-05-16T22:53:00.001-06:00

The other day, I listened in shock as the most ill-considered gossip tripped off my tongue. Seriously, if I took up chewing tobacco, my mouth would still be using its time better than that.

Why don’t I just zip my lip? It occurred to me that being a writer is part of the problem. I love stories, especially ones with a beginning, middle, and end. Especially ones with compelling characters, interesting plots, and a great twist at the end. A part of me threatens to pop, if I know a fantastic story, but I can’t tell it.

Please don’t stop talking to me once you’ve read this! I have a plan. Copenhagen may be the answer. Or maybe Bubblicious.

This blog brought to you by a cat that wanted out at 4:43 a.m.

Sendai?

2011-04-02T21:56:00.002-06:00

Okay, be honest. Before March 11, did you know there was a Japanese city called Sendai?

Me neither, up until 23 years ago, when I received an invitation from my church to learn Japanese, then live and work as a missionary in that area for 18 months.

I spent two weeks after the disaster shouting at the computer: “Which city? Which town? Where, where, where?” On the theory that you might might not know any more than the news media do about the area, here’s a random Sendai intro.

You know about Tokyo, the Japanese equivalent of L.A., D.C., and N.Y.C., rolled into one. You’ve probably heard of Sapporo, which might fill the roles of Alaska (snow and cold), Wisconsin (dairy product capital of the country), and San Francisco (cosmopolitan and chic). Osaka is more or less the gritty and hip Chicago of Japan. Okinawa is a Hawaii-like place, tropical and laid-back. So what’s Sendai?

Sendai is the largest city in Tohoku, or northeastern Japan. Traditionally, it produced most of the country’s rice, and it’s recently become a center for manufacturing.

Tohoku is the flyover Midwest of Japan: maybe Detroit in industrialization, and Des Moines in attitude: countrified, conservative, and not so cool. The Tohoku dialect (“zu-zu-speak”) is also not cool. While I was there, an executive for the Asahi beer company made insulting remarks about the way people in Tohoku talk. The entire area boycotted his product until he apologized. Wikipedia asserts that young people are leaving Tohoku in droves, presumably for more happening spots.

They grow wonderful apples in Tohoku, with typical Japanese care: each growing apple is first encased in a protective wrapping. Then, I don’t know how, they affix the sign of the apple-grower somehow so that the skin doesn’t change color in that spot, like spelling a sunscreen message on yourself before tanning.

Everyone got the day off on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. We spent one autumnal equinox in the park, where police officers were giving away free pumpkins, with skins scarred to spell anti-drunk-driving slogans.

Sendai is on approximately the same line of latitude as Montreal, Canada. Farther north, on Hokkaido, they have adopted central heating. But bitterly cold Tohoku has not. Instead, they are experts at space heating. Space heaters for the bedrooms, covered, heated tables for the dining room, electric toilet seats for the bathroom, hot ramen for the stomach, hand warmers for pockets, sock warmers for feet.

Twenty-three years ago, many, many people on the street felt compelled to comment on my blonde hair—sometimes at the tops of their lungs, across the street. Maybe the reaction would have been the same on the streets of Tokyo. But I kind of think that was the Tohoku view of life—not too many jet-set cosmopolitans up there.

Toward the end of my time in Tohoku, I looked in the mirror. And stared: "Wow. That chick has blonde hair."

I've never been quite the same since Tohoku.

So. They're cold right now. You've seen the snow. They're sharing vegetables and blankets, and doing radiation checks, and wondering what happens next. And I stare, and yell, and cheer, and pray.

Limerick attack!

2011-02-01T09:12:00.002-07:00

So, on the way to helping my 12-year-old prepare for the spelling bee, I learned the word "crepuscular" from the 9th-grade word list: of or pertaining to twilight.

My stream of consciousness skipped easily from twilight to "Twilight."
Then the limericks hit.

When caught in a tale that's crepuscular,
Just go with the werewolf who's muscular.
While Ed may requite you,
He just wants to bite you:
His interest is merely corpuscular.

My husband has to claim partial credit for this work.

Christmas Review

2010-11-16T11:38:00.005-07:00

Just got done with the delightful little book, Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas, by Bill McKibben, which is so delightful and so little that it’s tempting just to quote the whole book.

Despite the name, the author is not advocating a strict hundred-dollar Christmas. He traces the origins—some of them surprisingly recent—of our society’s current Christmas practices. Then he submits the radical proposal that Christmas can be what we need and want it to be...and it always has been. For instance, back in frontier times, when life was grinding and cold, and there wasn’t anything on TV, Christmas was a day for mischievous boys to set off loud explosions. It was different than every other day. All that noise and mischief were what led reformers to make Christmas into a gentler, family-centered day. Now, we have 24-hour explosions on TV, and explosions of stuff, and explosions of appointments. What a lot of us—what I—need is more peace. And Christmas is a good day for that.

It’s not a hundred-dollar Christmas this year, and I can feel the Christmas crazies reaching their tentacles after me. But we have made a family goal this year to

a) share the work of Christmas
b) eliminate the stuff we don’t really like about Christmas
c) made sure we do the Christmas things we love

What do you love about Christmas? What do you not love so much? How do you beat off the crazies?

A complete (practice) disaster

2010-09-28T10:34:00.005-06:00

Once or twice a year, our neighborhood has a mock disaster. No one specifies what has befallen us, though flood and earthquake are possibilities that come to mind. We all check in at a central location, where someone has a HAM radio, and we're encouraged to practice our family disaster procedures at home.

This year, our family decided to try out our 72-hour disaster kits. We each have a backpack full of personal supplies, plus a family duffel bag of food and misc. We grabbed those, threw some bottles of water in the back of the van, and randomly drove to a pond we've been wanting to visit a ways down the freeway. Then we piled our backpacks on a picnic table and attempted to cook and eat dinner.

Cooking, we managed. We had pieces from three different kinds of emergency stoves, plus a firepit at the campsite. Thanks to our time in Cub Scouts, we had a "buddy burner"* made out of paraffin, a tuna can, and cardboard. We'd realized we didn't have a pot in the kit before we left, so there was a big pan for warming up our can of beef stew.

There were not, however, any bowls for our stew, or cups for our water. And everyone was dismayed that we'd eaten up the granola bars in some past "emergency."

We ate from the communual pot, found a geocache, made friends with the feral cats in the dumpster, went out for burgers to supplement the emergency rations, and had a great time.

Still not ready to think about basements full of mud, traffic jams full of panicked people, and/or actually living on our provisions, though.

*Note discussion at this page about the possible dangers of plastic-lined tuna cans. I think ours was old enough to not have a lining.

Escher Dress

2010-08-31T15:20:00.003-06:00

So, I'm putting a ruffle on the bottom of my daughter's dress. I sew together the narrow ends of four long rectangles, forming a loop. Then I run a line of stitching all the way along the top edge of the loop.

Except, the line of stitching does not end on the top edge. It ends on the bottom edge. Turns out, I've sewn the loop in a mobius strip.

I think I fixed it. If my daughter puts on the the dress and ends up in some alternate dimension, it will be time to pull out the cosmic seam ripper.

Now to think of a story involving a mobius dress...

Watch for Armadillos

2010-08-14T07:03:00.006-06:00

Ever notice something obscure—say, for instance, armadillos—popping up in daily life and conversation, even though you hadn't previously thought about that thing for months or years?

I was sitting in a restaurant, waiting for friends and idly contemplating an abstract painting in orange and yellow. Hm, thought I, that shape on the right looks like a mitonchondrion. The friends arrived and began talking about how another friend's health problems were finally diagnosed as mitochondrial disease. Now, I do not spend all day thinking about the thingies inside cell bodies. I can't even remember what mitochondria do. But there they were, twice in ten minutes. That's an armadillo. Possibly even an atomic armadillo.

My sister invented the concept after an armadillo involving—you guessed it—armadillos. Particularly spectacular armadillos are called atomic armadillos. Armadillos which, upon further examination, have some logical explanation are called near-armadillos (e.g. an armadillo involving vampires probably has its roots in Twilight advertising).

And now you have a word for those experiences! Next we need a word for how, when you say a word (like "armadillo") a whole bunch of times, it starts to lose its meaning and look ridiculous. Armadillo, armadillo, armadillo...

Have you ever had an armadillo? Do you think "Vampire Armadillos" is a good name for a rock band? Share!

Photo from http://www.animals.nationalgeographic.com

On the salutary effects of incendiary facial hair

2010-03-23T23:37:00.008-06:00

So, Buffy, Hammer, and I are outside the university art museum, and there are all these fire trucks out front. Out back, there's a little knot of fire fighters, but no obvious emergency.

Then, at the head of the reflecting pool, we see it: a wide, black monolith holding a steel outline of a giant mustache.* And the mustache is on fire!

We giggled, snorted, and guffawed all the way across campus. Giant mustache! On fire! Hello, 911? My mustache is on fire! (OK, maybe you had to be there.) I could hardly breathe. Continence was a problem.

Then Hammer looked at me, eyes wide with delight. "Mom's laughing!"

Once I'd gotten over the giant, flaming mustache, this made me think. Our family loves a gut-busting, drink-spewed-out-the-nose laugh. It lingers all afternoon, both in little giggling aftershocks and in a general feeling of having shared something wonderful. Cuts right through teenage and tweenage angst, and parental exasperation. But if the kids are astonished to see me howling in glee, then by golly, we're not LAUGHING enough!

So now I actively pursue stuff for us to laugh at. Some of it comes naturally: we're kneeling in a circle for family prayer, and the cat settles himself in the center of the circle, as though we're praying to him. This is good for at least five minutes of hilarity. God doesn't seem to mind waiting. I also seed the reading areas with Calvin and Hobbes, the iPods with Weird Al, and the DVD player Abbott and Costello or the Marx Brothers. You just can't laugh with your brother and be mad at him at the same time.

Just don't light his mustache on fire—'kay?

*Andrew Sexton, Self Portrait, 2006, steel, rubber tubing and propane, 19 x 66 in. Brigham Young University Museum of Art "Mirror Mirror" exhibit. October 2009.

Score!

2010-02-28T21:17:00.004-07:00

The goal we set 20 years ago: to become a reading family

The piles I sorted things into while picking up the living room yesterday:

Buffy's books
T-bone's books
Hammer's books
Dirty socks
General family kid books
Grown-up books
Current magazines
Magazines to file
Magazines to throw away
Books other people loaned us
Basketballs
Public library books
University library books
Elementary school library books
Junior high school library books
Jackets
High school library books
Newspapers

Available evidence indicates that living (as in living room) = reading.

Yes!

Thanks, Shaun White

2010-02-20T23:28:00.006-07:00

I must not have been paying attention to the Winter Olympics lately, because there are some way-out sports this year I’d never heard of before. Freestyle moguls? Board cross? I watch with jaw on floor.

So far, though, Shaun White totally owns the Olympics for our family. He’d already won halfpipe when it was his turn for his second run. He even joked that he could just slide straight down the middle if he wanted. Instead, he blew his own gold-medal score off the board with an incredible set of flips, twists, and spins that made my whole family leap to our feet, clapping, shouting, and laughing.

Thanks, Shaun White—for that grin, too.

One question remains. What if half-pipe had been invented 400 years ago, and figure skating were invented tomorrow? Would half-pipe take place indoors, with sequins and chiffon, and would figure skaters shred over an outdoor lake in parkas that look like flannel shirts and snow pants that look like bluejeans?

Just asking...

Just one more dream...

2010-01-27T17:20:00.004-07:00

Ok, I absolutely promise this blog is not my dream journal. But this experience cracked me up. I was stuck on a pretty important plot point, and I just KNEW the answer was locked up somewhere in my brain, so I decided to harness the power of my subconscious. As I drifted off to sleep last night, I asked myself several times what to do about my sticky problem.

Then I dreamed a dream:
After a long time dealing with infertility, I was at the hospital, and I'd just discovered I was pregnant! The entire hospital staff lined up on a video phone monitor to congratulate me.

Soooo....
It appears my subconscious mind agrees with my conscious mind: Yep, it's in there somewhere, all right. This is not to say it's actually in there. Just that my waking and sleeping brains agree that it is.

To be fair, as I was brushing my teeth, I did get a good idea that didn't entirely solve the problem, but might be an intriguing approach to it. That first, half-conscious idea, is often the best, truest idea of the day.

Dreamin'...

2010-01-21T22:28:00.003-07:00

I've been working really, really hard on getting this book done by the end of the month, and it's pervading my subconscious. Tell me, gentle readers, what the following could have to do with writing a book:

1) I'm pregnant, and "they" tell me it's time to go to the hospital. I don't really feel all that pregnant, and I don't look that big, and I haven't had any contractions, but still I'm lying in this bed, feeling dumb.

2) I have a blanket made of woven bands with these long, unsecured sections of pattern resulting in floppy strings hanging off the back. It's wearing out too fast because of the floppy strings.

3) I have sold my ostrich on the Internet. The guy who bought it is trying to tie the ostrich into his pickup truck, but it's not working. A bale of musty hay lies in the gutter down the street. The guy who bought the ostrich should pick it up for the ostrich to eat. (Hint: the book involves ostriches)

4) I have taken all the leftovers out of the fridge and made them into soup. The stove is out on someone's front lawn in my neighborhood. I plan to use the soup as my master's thesis, but I'm late to a meeting with my thesis chair. The janitor tells me my idea is stupid: "Your master's thesis needs to be about LIFE OR DEATH. Or else something really big. Not your leftover soup." (This was real soup. It wasn't that good.)

5) The crabapple tree in the back yard has suddenly grown HUGE. It looms over me, and I am afraid it will fall on me and crush me. It needs to be removed, but a) it gives nice shade to my bedroom window in the summertime b) I don't know how I'll get the stump out c) it will cost a lot to remove the tree.

Googling my blog

2010-01-04T23:03:00.002-07:00

Signed up on Swagbucks to earn free Amazon.com cards, so I routinely google my own blog as a roundabout way of getting here and maybe earning a "buck" on the way. Each time I type in "lookunderthings," the search engine asks brightly whether I didn't mean "look underthings." As in, I suppose, "Look! Underthings!"

Ahem. We are NOT that sort of a blog. Though I probably just increased that sort of traffic.

It also suggests pages with wilderness survival tips--look under things so you don't miss important environmental details like rattlesnakes. That's a public service announcement I can get behind.

How not to parent

2010-01-04T22:47:00.005-07:00

Had an interesting discussion with a 25-ish friend of mine, formerly one of my Cub Scouts. He's been around some blocks he wished he hadn't, and he was holding forth on the subject of parental reaction to children's substance abuse. His thesis was that, if they find out their child has been using/abusing, parents should stay calm, not freak out, and talk with their children about it instead of coming down hard with the punishments.

Sounded interesting to me, so later I ran this by Hammer, who is always quite willing to voice his opinions.

Me: (after expounding the theory)...so, what do you think about that?

Hammer: Well, Mom, before you told me that, if you ever catch me drinking, you'll remove my appendix without anesthesia, pickle it, and hang it on your keychain as a lesson to other stupid children.

(long pause)

Me: Did I really say that?

Hammer: (nods so vigorously I know he's not making it up, though I can't remember that conversation at all).

Currently trying to figure out how to use both approaches at once...

Annum Rasa *

2009-12-30T08:08:00.004-07:00

It was a great trip to Grandma's house--my kids got to play with their two little cousins, Christmas itself was awesome, and we each had a chance to recharge in our own unique ways. But between the recharging and the 13-hour trip home in the snowstorm yesterday, my New Year's resolution turned into something like, "Do a lot more just sitting around next year."

The weather mirrors my resolution this morning. The whole street is still sleeping at 8 a.m., covered with a new blanket of snow--no paths defining where we need to/want to/are supposed to go or allowing us to get there easily. Just a blankness that invites staying in and sitting around.

*Just taking a stab at the Latin here.

Win-Win-Win-Win

2009-12-03T09:18:00.004-07:00

If you came to this blog for cleaning tips, you should leave right away. Occasionally, however, I pick up a useful

Remedial Cleaning Tip of the Day:

You know those rust "spots" that form when you get a chip in a porcelain sink? Well, it turns out that a spot of rust ("spot", to me, implies "surface stain") can spread like sink cancer, eating away at the iron under the porcelain. Then, when you finally decide to apply CLR and elbow grease, you punch your thumb right through the thin tissue of rust spots. You can't even blame the kids!

So, I needed a new bathroom sink, right in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. Luckily, we have a ReStore nearby. ReStore is a thrift shop run through Habitat for Humanity. Individuals, contractors, and businesses donate unused building supplies and household goods, which are sold to the public. The proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity.

Here are the four "wins":
-- Someone got rid of that spare bathroom sink they didn't need anymore.
-- I got a used bathroom sink with no holes (or rust spots!) for $10.
-- My $10 helps Habitat build houses for underhoused families.
-- A perfectly good bathroom sink stayed out of the landfill.

Can't think how to keep my perfectly awful bathroom sink out of the landfill, though.

A mind like a steel sieve

2009-11-07T22:51:00.006-07:00

My son Hammer loves all things geography—he started with flags and maps and quickly moved on to politics and history. I do my best to answer his questions ("Mom, what did lead to the breakup of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?" etc. ad infinitum), but mostly I point him toward his dad, who's equally good at learning and remembering those areas. I wrote a whole, heavily researched novel about the Book of Ruth, but I stutter and stumble over questions about places, people, times, and Biblical teachings I used to know inside and out. It just doesn't stay in my head.

Fortunately, Hammer and I have found a way to talk about geography. He is teaching me all the capitals of the world. I already knew some of the Greater Antilles (Haiti, Puerto Rico, etc.) , so that went OK, but it's slow going in other areas. Here's my haul of new knowledge for today (Pop quiz! Put away your books!)

1. What is the capital of Krgystan?
2. What is the capital of Tajikstan?
3. Of what country is Ouagadougou the capital?

Answers: 1. Bishkek 2. Dushanbe 3. No idea. But I like to say Ouagadougou.

Frederick Weather

2009-11-04T23:21:00.005-07:00

Sharply-defined mountains against an achingly blue sky; sunlight filtering through the remaining golden leaves...it's Frederick* weather.

If you missed Frederick by Leo Leonni as a child, quick go buy it used on Amazon (or, strangely, new in Spanish), before the weather changes. While all the other fieldmice gather grain and nuts, Frederick sits peacefully on the wall, doing his own kind of gathering. Then the mice take to the wall for winter. When the food stores dwindle and the stones grow cold, Frederick brings out the memories and feelings he stored on the stone wall in the sunshine.

Days like today make me want to harvest sunshine, before it crinkles up and blows away.

*And, um, if anyone from the FTC is looking for full disclosure, no one gave me a copy of this book. My sister got it for her birthday when she was three, and she let me read it. A lot. I got Swimmy, which is also fabulous, but not necessarily for a fall day. I was four. I accidentally found Frederick in my possession for a while, but gave it back when I was 32. Or possibly 38. The last fifteen years are kind of a blur, and full documentation was not maintained.

Tagged!

2009-10-31T15:00:00.004-06:00

Luisa tagged me "to the fifth power." Five is my favorite number, so here goes...

Five North American Cities in Which I'd seriously consider Living:
1. Seattle, Washington
2. San Antonio, Texas (but only in the winter)
3. Providence, Rhode Island
4. Danville, California
5. Reston, Virginia

Five Songs to Which I Know All the Words :
1. "If I Had a Million Dollars," Barenaked Ladies
2. "Young, Dumb, and Ugly," Weird Al
3. "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch," from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"
4. Most of the musical "Cats"--words by T.S. Eliot
5. "Why Can't the English?" from "My Fair Lady" (Audrey Hepburn showed up in a dream last night. I was babysitting her kids.)
(Mostly thanks to kids playing them over, and over, and over...)

Five Foods I'd Hope to Have in Unlimited Quantities on a Desert Island:
1. fresh tomatoes
2. fresh bread
3. chocolate
4. raspberries
5. bell peppers

Five Chores I should Be Doing right Now Instead of Blogging:
1. starting dinner
2. trimming the lavender off the sidewalk
3. moving a large pile of dirt to be a mountain in the train garden
4. cleaning up the front yard for trick-or-treaters
5. pulling up dead tomato plants

Five Childhood Friends I'd Love to See Again :
1. Kristi Steinman
2. Susan Willis
3. Ken Fischer
4. Gina Rhoden
5. Lori Hettinger
(Not counting Diana, Becky, Kathy, other friends I have had the blessing to see once in a while!)

Now, tagging five friends.
This blog doesn't have five readers, (Hi, Mom.) so...
Erin, Alison, Amanda, Jenn, Liz
Feel free to adapt or change the categories to your liking.

Have a glorious morning!

2009-09-16T10:15:00.001-06:00

A raspberry is not a metaphor

2009-08-24T22:56:00.003-06:00

So, I was in one of those moods, where I'm sick of being in my own head, but good and stuck there.

God: (to whom I wasn't especially talking at the time) You ought to go out back.
Me: Yeah, I guess You're right. Watching the weeds choke the life out of the strawberries won't put me in a worse mood, and I can put a hose on the tomatoes.
God: Whatever. Just go outside.

So I go outside and pull ugly weeds for a while.

Me: Hey, raspberries!

They've got viney weeds creeping up them, and they've developed an infestation of little black bugs I haven't seen before, but still I get a whole grundle—enough to eat AND share.

Me (working my way down a row of defunct broccoli): Whoa. Golden raspberries.

I bet I got a dozen—almost unheard of from this bush, whose raspberries are called "golden" for more than one reason.

God: Heh. Told you so.

Lots of Useful Mental Health Facts , and some Tedious Metaphors could be gleaned here. But a raspberry is not a metaphor. It's a very small gift from heaven. And a golden raspberry is an outright miracle.

Confessions of a closet Cruella

2009-08-16T22:17:00.007-06:00

Hammer and Buffy just got done participating in a children’s musical version of 101 Dalmatians (they were a stage hand and a boxer, respectively). Fortunately, they both loved it, so they didn’t notice me living vicariously through them. I did costumes and backstage “kid wrangling”: “Shh! Knock it off! The audience can hear you!” But my soul was sashaying onstage with Cruella, calling everyone nincompoop, boxing evil henchmen’s ears, and throwing fits over my beauuuuutiful Dalmatian-skin coat.

Okay, it was a children’s production, starring a 16-year-old Cruella in a fright wig. But my soul has always yearned for the stage, and ended up sewing costumes and managing props.

The community theatre is holding auditions for Harvey soon. It seems like a no-brainer, from certain points of view: Go for it, girl! You’re not getting any younger! At least you won’t have to sing!

Except for all those other dreams and goals. My soul specializes in yearning. With Henderson the Rain King, it wanders around murmuring, I want, I want... It doesn’t yearn for glory or attention, but it likes to create. And it has no sense of proportion, balance, or timing. It gets a fair bit of what it asks for, but it still wants.

So. Presupposing a theoretical modicum of talent, do I bundle up existing commitments and dreams to throw under the bus if I “make it”? Or do I acknowledge that the current batch are more than enough for any reasonable soul, and save the theatre dream for some future life? When does achieving balance turn into burying your (theoretical) talent?

O woeful, woeful, woeful! (That’s King Lear, just in case...)

1, 10, 100, 1000...

2009-08-01T23:43:00.000-06:00

Hammer: Mom, I can’t sleep
Me: Try counting very slowly.
(5 minutes later)
Hammer: I tried counting, but I didn’t know what comes after septillion.
Me: This time, try counting by ones, not by orders of magnitude!

Might as well face it...

2009-07-30T07:07:00.001-06:00

Last night, my husband said,

"I think I'm addicted to reading. Right now, I want that good feeling that comes from reading a book, without actually reading a book."

Happy Potter Day!

2009-07-15T13:40:00.003-06:00

Instructions for awesome, cheap, and easy magic wands here. We made about a dozen.

Green Eggs and Ham Revisited

2009-07-12T21:59:00.004-06:00

My friend Luisa blogged the other day about the "immersion" activities she's using to prepare her family for a trip to France. We're planning a trip to Boston, so we did a pared-down version of her plan, and on the way learned that Dr. Seuss was born in Boston. That, of course, meant we had to pull out Green Eggs and Ham.

While reading aloud, I had fun watching Hammer, age 12, and Buffy, age 10, revisit the book with new eyes—and love it in a new way. They laughed out loud at the silly rhymes and stopped me so they could study the funny expressions on the characters' faces. Dr. Seuss's bio said that he'd taken a bet that he couldn't write a book using only 50 words. So Buffy and I went through the whole book, writing down each new word as it occurred: 49 total, if we counted right.

It happens that I'd recently spent a minute or two mourning the passing of the old Green Eggs days. But when a kid becomes a seasoned old critic of 12 or 43, it turns out Green Eggs is still waiting patiently to be rediscovered—and loved all over again.

Fledged

2009-07-09T23:10:00.003-06:00

Sigh. I'm an empty-nester, as of July 2. At least this year there's the hope that Mama hummingbird will come back and rebuild the nest again next year.

Baby #1 disappeared before I noticed they were starting to fledge. Baby #2 stuck around for a few days, first in the nest, then on a branch beside it, preening, flapping—it looked like procrastinating to me. Perhaps he (she?) was just enjoying a little elbow room with #1 gone. I watched nervously all morning, but eventually #2 launched with no apparent trouble.

And now I'm all alone.

Picture by Kiyoteru Tokuyasu, and lots more hummer info here, as usual.

The place for me on the 4th of July...

2009-07-09T23:00:00.004-06:00

...is under a big old tree in a city park at noon, eating a hot dog, listening to a small-town community band play "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Then, at 10 p.m., the right place is the back of a minivan in a weedy field, surrounded by pickup trucks, all with our radios tuned to patriotic music on the local radio, watching fireworks. The music doesn't quite start and end in sync with the show, so the grand finale is to the tune of a tire-store commercial.

We had to travel 700-plus miles to my mom's house for this home-town Independence Day, but it's worth it every year.

A McKillip and a McKinley

2009-06-28T23:23:00.006-06:00

Pinch yourself. This year is too good to believe: Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley have both released new books: The Bell at Sealey Head for McKillip, and Chalice, for McKinley. Interestingly, they explore a similar theme: the roles, limitations, and importance of ritual.

McKillip, who often choses medieval-flavored settings for her novels, is writing in a more Jane-Austenesque world this time. In the sleepy, isolated fishing town of Sealey Head, for hundreds of years, an unseen bell has rung throughout the countryside, just as the sun sets. Most folk don't even hear it any more—it's just part of life. Judd Cauly, the struggling innkeeper, and Gwyneth Blair, the merchant's daughter, who's a closet writer, still hear it. So does Emma, the maid at Aislinn House, who sometimes opens doors in the old mansion and finds her friend, Princess Ysabo, diligently attending to a mysterious ritual that no one in that other world understands. Then Ripley Dow comes to town, full of questions about magic, and especially about Aislinn House, and everyone's lives change forever.

As usual with McKillip, the book has beautiful, haunting descriptions and a sometimes-comical lilt that keeps it from dragging or taking itself too seriously. I kept waiting for the tremendous experience that usually accompanies a McKillip book, but it fell a little flat for me. Was it that she'd created too many POV characters with not enough for everyone to do? Was it the evil bad guy, straight off the evil-bad-guy shelf? Perhaps it was that the ritual she portrayed, and the conclusions the book seemed to draw about ritual itself, fell flat for me. Or maybe I just had unreasonably high expectations. Even Patricia McKillip is entitled to an "off" book.

In Chalice, Mirasol the beekeeper has suddenly become the Chalice, in a land that requires a whole quorum of magical keepers and a complex set of rituals to keep it stable, wholesome, and productive. Mirasol's newfound powers work through her honey, and her bees, as a group, are an integral character. Most Chalices serve a long apprenticeship and take up their duties smoothly when the previous Chalice dies. But this time, both Master and Chalice have died horribly wrong deaths, the land is in an uproar, most of its keepers are brand-new at their responsibilities, and the new Master has been wrenched out of his training as a fire-mage. The moment he arrives, he accidentally burns Mirasol's hand to the bone with a mere brush of his burning hot finger. Master and Chalice must wrestle with unfamiliar new powers, political pressures, and their own doubts to save the land and themselves.

McKinley drops the reader right into the action, then backtracks repeatedly to explain what has gone before. This didn't work well for me, but the descriptions of the world were so lush, and the fantasy elements so fresh and unusual, I didn't care much after a few chapters. Who knew you could get attached to a special hive of bees as a character? And who knew honey could fascinate? In this book, what's known about the old rituals doesn't always fit with the alarming situation in which the main characters find themselves, so they have to let go of their preconceptions to understand, then evolve the rituals. I found this approach to ritual much more nuanced and satisfying than McKillip's. It got me thinking about the evolving role of the rituals in my own life.

But. Wrinkles and all, these are both fabulous books. Pinch. Buy. Read.

This is the (itty bitty) forest primeval

2009-06-24T09:38:00.010-06:00

To the south of my house, a thick forest grows. Note the closely-grown trees competing for sunlight, and the path clearly marked to protect unwary travelers. Three steps in, chokecherries, elderberries, and gooseberries set fruit to feed the abundant wildlife. A bright-orange mold slowly devours a weathered stump.

Another six steps, and you trip over the next-door neighbor's kiddy pool.

I live in the desert in the suburbs, but I want to live down the path from Hansel and Gretel. So I had to plant my forest primeval. And weed it, and prune it. But this year, there are at least three different camera angles from which you can't see suburbia at all!

I like the wildlife the best. Tiny yellow birds perch on wild sunflowers and eat the seeds. Lazy cats sleep all day in the shade. Cub Scouts pass off the "identify 20 native plants" requirement. And little girls flit among the trees, fleeing from fairies and Indians and witches...or sometimes becoming them.

Mom, he's touching me!

2009-06-24T09:33:00.002-06:00

Our nest survived the torrential rains last week, and now our twin hummers are starting to look crowded. With those sharp beaks always pointing up, I don't blame Mom for spending more time away from the home.

Photos, again, from RBerteig, here.

Anniversary

2009-06-08T10:05:00.001-06:00

Just got an email from the Honda dealer, congratulating me on my minivan's first anniversary. What's customary here? Should I buy it a present made of paper? And what should I expect it to buy for me?

I am not a wildlife photographer

2009-05-20T21:53:00.003-06:00

This time last year, a single mom moved in near our house, reared a lovely family, then moved out. This year, she's back, fixing up the house, and preparing to raise another family. If I were a wildlife photographer, and if my windows were cleaner, I'd show you the tiny nest made mostly of dead crabapple blossoms, on the remains of last year's nest. Instead, here's a picture (by RBerteig) that looks exactly like "my" nest. For a lot more fabulous hummer photos, go here.

I am not a re-reader

2009-05-19T22:33:00.006-06:00

I think I was the last science fiction reader on the planet to discover Connie Willis. In some ways, that's nice, because I'm just now discovering the huge backlog of books she's been writing for the past 20 years. If you haven't read it yet, go NOW and find To Say Nothing of the Dog.

OK, you're back now. Let's talk about Passage. Except we can't, much. The huge, overarching, deep and beautiful metaphor that encompasses the entire book is revealed slowly, and it would ruin the book to reveal it. What's left, after leaving out that most important part, is a story about two doctors battling time, administrative craziness, a life-after-death loony author, an unbelievably complex maze of a hospital, and a whole cast of supporting crazy people, to discover the nature of near-death experiences (NDEs). They're pursuing the theory that the brain can use the NDE as a protective mechanism to bring itself back from the dead.

On the one hand, this book drove me nuts, as the cast of supporting crazy people and other obstacles were constantly, noisily interfering with the main characters' progress. That seems to be Connie Willis, and as in Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, all the disparate threads eventually, improbably weave in with that central, towering metaphor we can't talk about. After taking its sweet time for the entire first half, the book suddenly turned up the pace and the tension to Extra High, culminating in a climax and resolution that were sweet, moving, and thought-provoking all at the same time. What is death? What is real? This book doesn't try to tell you, but it shakes up your tidy notions, no matter what opinions you came in with.

I don't re-read. Drives everyone who tries to talk books with me crazy, because I'll remember enjoying a book, but I can't remember characters, major events, author...nothing. I finished Passage, turned to the middle, and re-read the whole second half. For days, I sat around thinking about the resolution. One morning I woke up and just lay there, happily thinking about this book. Six months later, it's still with me.

I am not a horror reader

2009-05-18T10:33:00.003-06:00

I am not a horror reader, but at BYU's science fiction symposium, I heard Dan Wells read from his new book, I Am Not a Serial Killer. The main character charmed me in disturbing ways: John Wayne Cleaver is a 15-year-old mortician, and a diagnosed sociopath...but he's trying very hard NOT to become a serial killer. It's kind of the ultimate application of all those rules about YA fiction: main character has to be a teenager, has to be relatable, has to be somehow different, all at the same time. In the part Dan read, John's getting bullied at the school dance. Relatable, right? He scares the bullies away by describing just how indifferent he feels to them as living human beings, and just how interesting he thinks it would be to take them apart and see what they look like inside. But he also manages to creep out the cute girl who almost asked him to dance. See? Charming. Creepy. Disturbing.

Then a real, live serial killer comes to the kid's town, and it's up to John to outwit the killer while holding onto his own sanity.

You don't want to give this book to your precocious preteen reader. My kids—even the full-on teenager—were intrigued by the title while seeming to know they needed to leave this one alone. But even if you don't usually like to read about murder, guts, autopsies, and seriously sick individuals, you might be disturbed to find that you really enjoy this book.

Go to Zion

2009-04-16T23:12:00.006-06:00

We almost never go on non-Grandma's-house vacations, for outdated reasons: once there was a diaper of legendary proportions in a restaurant, once we got yelled at by the management for being too loud in a hotel...stuff that made a big impression, but isn't currently applicable.

So, we took the family for an overnighter to Zion National Park and the St. George LDS temple. It takes a lot to make my kids stop and say, "Whoa!" But the park and the temple both did it. Here's our top ten (in no particular order):

1. Little kid in a video at the temple visitors' center: "Jesus helped sick people, and he made the leopards feel better."

2. Giant mule deer head in a Subway restaurant somewhere between Nephi and Fillmore, UT. The kids took pictures.

3. JC Mikkelson's. We hadn't been to this Nephi restaurant in ages. When we went this evening, they'd just finished remodeling and putting in a huge G-SCALE TRAIN! It goes all over the ceiling on tracks, and there are two big central things made of trees, with no less than 6 different trains running.

4. JC Mikkelson's. The food is good, too. I like my BBQ sandwich, but my husband's Italian chicken on foccacia with a huge dollop of pesto was to die for. Please go eat there, so they'll stay open for another 100 years.

5. Zion Park tour guide: Most of them were content to run the pre-recorded tour tape, but this one guy was an original: "That tall mountain with the red splotch on it is called the 'Sacrificial Altar.' If you bring food on this tour bus, the ranger will give you a guided trip up to the Sacrificial Altar. One-way."

6. Cloud pictures in the sky. Buffy saw about 47 different staple removers. Hammer saw a rabbit dressed like Ironman flying and carrying a chainsaw. Best I saw was a flying ostrich, but I'm way out of practice.

7. Zion park: Different people named different landmarks. The "Three Patriarchs"--Abraham, Issac, and Jacob were named by a Protestant minister. They stand peacefully together with a mountain named Moroni. There's also the Temple of Sinawava. Tour guide: "That was named by the Union Pacific, trying to get people to come and visit. There ain't no temple there. Never has been."

8. Zion park: You have to love a park with a landmark named "Menu Falls," so named because the waterfall's picture was on the menu at the restaurant.

9. Weather: It was snowing, lightly and a little weirdly, at the park. On the way home, we were heading north as a huge storm front was heading south. We could see squall after squall coming as we drove into it (see cloud shapes, above).

10. National Parks Service: Usually it costs $25 to get in for a week at Zion. But my mom was with us. For $10 they sold her a lifetime national parks senior pass. Good business. The kids are already plotting how to haul Grandma out to more national parks.

Just call me Tom Sawyer

2009-04-06T19:01:00.000-06:00

Did you know that you have to cut back elderberry bushes to the ground every spring? I have three, and I'd managed to cut down one so far. Buffy and her friend Rosmerta found the long, straight sticks and immediately started building a teepee (the Great Idea of the previous post). But they didn't have enough sticks. Would I cut some more for them? No, I was busy, but I allowed them to cut down the bush themselves. They were so pleased with the results that they ran back in to ask if they could cut down the other one. Heh, heh, heh.

I can relate

2009-04-06T18:55:00.002-06:00

My daughter Buffy started typing up her novel today. But the weather's nice, and her friend Rosmerta called up with a Great Idea, so off she went. Here's her manuscript so far:

Chapter 1
The

Twins

2009-03-23T13:24:00.004-06:00

Outlines are my hardest thing--I can do characters, I can write scenes. It's the figuring out What Happens, and What Happens Next that drive me crazy. So a week in which I manage to write down two complete outlines is an amazing week.

Of course, announcing the arrival of twin outlines is like announcing the conception of twins. Might not be quite time to for an announcement...

You know you've been married a long time when...

2009-03-20T22:40:00.002-06:00

...you're looking through your high school yearbook, and you look for yourself under your married name!

A Contest

2009-03-13T22:02:00.003-06:00

It could be your lucky day! Go visit Anne Bradshaw's blog:

annebradshaw.blogspot.com

Now make a comment, and link to your blog, and you could win a copy of my newest book, Tiny Talks 9, My Eternal Family.

Then cruise around Anne's excellent blog for a while.

Our Favorite Christmas Books

2008-12-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

My kids love Dec. 1, when they finally get to haul out the Christmas decorations. Every year, I plan to put up a little at a time, taking a week or more and savoring the process. And every year, their energy for Christmas decorating just keeps going until it's ALL up on Dec. 1.

One of our favorite boxes is the Christmas books. We have several less-known favorites:

Letters from Father Christmas, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Tolkien imagined up a funny North Pole world that includes the North Polar Bear, an elf named Ilbereth, and ferocious goblins. Each Christmas, Father Christmas would write the Tolkien children a letter describing the year's adventures. As the years in the book go on, the North Polar Bear gets his own language and alphabet, a huge goblin war is fought and won, and the bear and the elf start inserting their own marginal notes in the letters. Father Christmas frequently includes a watercolor painting, as well. Each night (more or less) in December, my husband reads the kids one letter—and they can often be found reading the book themselves the rest of the day. (Note: there seem to be several editions of this book, some longer and more complete than others.)

The Story of Holly and Ivy, by Rumer Godden
This is a sweet Christmas story of a Christmas doll and an orphan girl who are meant for each other. Which makes it sound sicky-sweet and unbearable, but it's not.

Christmas Trolls and Trouble with Trolls, by Jan Brett
Saying that Jan Brett writes and illustrates picture books is like calling Tolkien a fantasy author—true, yes, but completely inadequate. My kids love her fractious trolls and the hedgehog with his own agenda in these lush, lavish books.

Huh. Turns out this list could be called "Books that we usually can't bear to put away after Christmas is over." What are your favorite Christmas books?

Sound and Sense

2008-11-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

Went to the BYU forum assembly today to hear Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. She freely acknowledges herself to be both a "stickler" and a "grouch," and she recognizes the merits of the "get a life" approach to punctuation...but she maintains that it is the responsibility of a writer to respect the "sound and sense" of language, rather than writing any old thing and expecting the audience to catch the gist.

Ms. Truss has a real gift for hilariously illustrating the importance of proper punctuation. Take, for example, these two sentences:
The defendant said his barrister has a history of drug use.
The defendant, said his barrister, has a history of drug use.

She also mused on whether the "slow children" on road signs eventually grow up to become "slow men working."

And you can draw your own illustrations for these two sentences:
Look! It's behind.
Look: its behind.

My husband and I are already firmly in the stickler camp, but I sure hoped at least one eager freshman got excited to go and sin no more against the rules of English punctuation.

Look Under Things

2008-11-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone who knows my mom knows her sure-fire, one-step method for finding what you're looking for: look under things. Her mom always says it to her, she always said it to me, and if my kids have lost something, I just ask, "What would Grandma do?"

"Look under things," they sigh.

The thing is, she's usually right (as she is quick to remind me—that's the other thing she always says). You scan the room, look around a little, find nothing. But you start picking things up, and there are your keys or your markers or your marbles. Marbles, especially—I lose those on a regular basis.

So, we have here the Look Under Things blog, dedicated to looking at, around, and under whatever's on my mind at the moment. Statistically speaking, this is likely to include:
kids
writing
plants
sewing
words
books
misc.

You must especially remember the misc. Welcome! Come have a look with me.