I love fresh starts.

(That’s one of the things I miss about not being in school; I loved blank notebooks and teachers who didn’t know me. September used to be my favorite time of year.)

So New Year’s is a time of optimism. For that matter, so is Thanksgiving. Or June 13. Pick a date. I bet I could be optimistic about it.

Bad habits? A chance to get rid of them. Clean the closets, get rid of the cobwebs. 2005 is almost here!

Let’s take stock of our year, shall we?

We managed to turn a high school kid into a college kid (and if you don’t think that’s a goal, you have not been paying attention.)

We pursued a big dream, a scary one, and spent six weeks in New Hampshire proving that we weren’t silly for dreaming this dream.

We lost weight!

We played division one at nationals, and managed to achieve our two primary goals: don’t embarrass ourselves and stay away from cameras.

We found music again. (And thanks, Santa, for the blues studies!)

We survived roller coasters and didn’t throw up or give up.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The kids are happy and tired and playing with their new gadgets. I’m getting ready to chop up some butternut squash. Curie keeps hiding her new Christmas bone and then forgetting where. I have wacky music on in the background. And I’m full of leftover hot chocolate.

Up-to-the-minute reporting!

Baking with toddlers.

My niece Julianna is a spy. We’ll be sitting around, chatting or having lunch, and she’ll say, out of the blue, very very meaningfully: “the monkey at the playplace is very scary.” And it is clear that she expects a specific response, although none of us know exactly what that response is. “The blue camel is falling down.”

The creche on my coffee table was quite interesting to her. “Look, baby Jesus lives in a castle. With a butterfly!” (The angel, of course.)

Nieces are great. I can let her just eat frosting if that’s what she wants. It’s not my job to worry about nutrition.

Okay, back to digging cookie crumbs out of the upholstery!

Kick it! Roll it! Play with it! It’s a ball!

This was the advertising on a… yeah, on a rubber ball. Were the manufacturers concerned that the buyers wouldn’t know how to use a rubber ball? Were these supposed to be selling points?

I dunno. Maybe plain rubber balls don’t sell well these days.

Once upon a time, there was this baby girl who chased after bees and escaped into the yard more times than I could count, who followed her brothers into trouble and then told on them, who hated the word ‘cute’ and insisted on cutting her own bangs – off. Somewhere along the way, that baby girl turned into this young lady who still escapes when I’m not watching and wears the weirdest getups I have ever seen, who dyes her hair purple (or blue?), just a few streaks, and fiercely defends her opinions and her friends. She’s awesome.

Happy birthday, Em. The world may not be ready for you yet, but it sure needs you.

Time to make a list. Check it. Twice.

Time to make some plans. Make some food. Make some memories.

Time to live our lives/life and be happy.

Check your watch.

Nobody in this house plays with Legos anymore. They have gone the way of American Girl dolls and Chutes and Ladders and soap bubbles. (I’d add Beanie Babies, but some people in this house still like them. And I’m not talking about Curie.)

This would make me sad, but honestly, the kids are turning into such cool human beings with varied and startling interests. Some of them like the same books I like; some of them listen to music that I can’t stand. They know things I don’t know. When did this happen?? They argue about math and politics and religion. So I miss the Legos, but I really love the poetry and philosophy.

It used to be way easier to find Christmas presents for them, though.

There have been suggestions that, despite my protests, I am indeed a grinch. This is actually helpful. I can cross a few names off my gift list.

This would sound sacrilegious if I were, um, religious. I’m sure it will sound sacrilegious to my kids. Okay. Here we go. Christmas is not my favorite holiday. (Thanksgiving is.) Christmas is not even in my top ten favorite holidays.

I’m not a grinch. I enjoy a lot of the season. The food, the look of things. I have a soft spot for glittery soft gold anything. Those people who do blue and silver decorations, though, I have no idea what they’re doing. They are from the other Christmas planet. Anyway. I love candy canes and Handel and snow.

What I don’t love is the pressure. There is so much to do. So many expectations, deadlines, lists. (Some of these could be alleviated by better organization on my part, I admit.) But so much of it is false, too. Many of these gifts are not heartfelt. How could they be? Gifts for the kids’ bus drivers? I can’t (maybe some people can) go down this list of people I don’t know and find just the right thing to show our love and appreciation and whatever else we’re trying to show. I don’t know their interests. I don’t know if they like peanut butter cookies or peppermint. So a whole lot of people get generic candles at this time of year.

Really, I’m not a grinch.

And I unleash yet another 16-year-old on the world! Happy birthday, Chris. I hope you have a great year of philosophizing and inventing and playing and arguing. You are awesome.



(Where'd this kid get his camera shyness, huh? Boy, genetics are weird.)

Some paths we take run parallel to other paths. We don’t have to sell a house to change jobs, necessarily. We don’t have to give up a dog to have a child. We don’t have to throw away one book just because we’re reading another. Other paths we take do narrow our choices. (Some broaden them.) Some paths require burning bridges behind us. Others don’t. (Lots of times the best paths do, though… a resolute commitment to go ahead and not look back.)

My favorite cure for general gloominess:

Cleaning toilets. Most cleaning works fairly well, actually, but there is something about scouring a bathroom that just realigns things in my brain. Maybe it’s the smell of Comet. I’ve tried to pass this cure on to my children, but they just sense some kind of awful trick and turn away. They’ll realize I’m right some day.

Wine and walking work for some types of gloominess. (Gloria and I combined these last week, strolling around my neighborhood with glasses of wine in the afternoon like escapees from the community center 12-step program.)

Being with your best friend cures almost anything.

Happy birthday, Daniel. I became a new person nineteen years ago: a mother. Thanks for turning out so well despite all my mistakes.

I’m back to posting (obviously). Feel free to keep poetizing!

Life is a little tough these days. Taking a break. I will be back with more tales of grasshoppers and compost heaps and scrabble games soon.

From a book called "poemcrazy" that I picked up on a whim today:

Years ago poet Michael McClure suggested we each create our own "personal universe deck" of words in their simplest form on index cards. McClure suggested we include words of each sense, words of movement, time, place, an animal, a plant, and at least one word that's an important abstraction, like truth.

See where your words take you.

My favorite dream this week: Scrabble, of course. SPIRANT was on the board. I held AEINPRT. I could have played painter or various other boring words. Instead, I played…

ANTIPERSPIRANT.

Now, let’s see if I can see stuff like that with my eyes open!

Last night was just filled with nasty monster-filled nightmares, unfortunately.

I forgot to mention that rainy days are also “difficult basenji” days. She will stand under the eaves, legs crossed resolutely, rather than go out into the yard and do her business. So of course, Marsh the Sap puts on rain gear, puts the leash on her, drags her into the yard, and stands there cursing in a very sweet voice until the basenji figures it’s best to just get it over with. “Come on, you little rat puppy…” Marsh coos.

My mother used to talk very sweetly to inconsiderate drivers on the road. “You buzzards,” she’d say in a kinder tone than she’d use, say, for thanking us for the Mother’s Day Macaroni Montage.

Everybody should be able to babysit a four-month-old niece once in a while. It is good for the soul. (I have a fairly slobbery one, if anyone needs to borrow one.)

Question of the day on ISC (the Scrabble site I play on):
“When you intententionly and consistantly give people terrible letters… no wonder they shout and swear… so play fare and allow unpaying guests to rely on the software without your fingers in the pie… we can all play.”

There are so many things to love about this question. (The long-suffering helper answered something along the lines of “Supporting members get crummy tiles, too – believe me!”)

I love watching the questions and answers. I love watching the chat, too, but nobody else I know seems to enjoy it.

Tonight’s quote: “I’m gonna go now and get ready to go out to eat somewhere and drink some for the veteran befallen in my honor.” Then many chuckles and jokesters and prim and proper folk weigh in on the subject. (Unfortunately no one seems to care about the grammar.)

Who needs TV??

The next couple of weeks are going to be a bit busy. Heh. To say the least. Gloria and her kids (and basenjis) are arriving Friday while I’m out of town at the tournament. So I’m scrubbing and stocking and calling her, oh, every two hours. They will stay through Thanksgiving, which will be terrifically chaotic. Eight children, three basenjis, one turkey……

Of course, being me, I choose to do all SORTS of things that complicate my preparations. The equivalent of deciding to put in a swimming pool before the guests arrive. (No, I’m not doing that. You think I’m a fool? It’s cold out there!)

Maybe a skating rink.

I’m so weather-affected. Windy nights make me restless and anxious. Rainy mornings are a bona fide excuse to sleep in.

Today it is clear and blue and about 55. The leaves are past peak glory but are still breathtaking. They crunch under my feet, blow from my neighbor’s yard to mine and back, startle the dog. (She’s a wimpy dog.) I breathe in and feel my lungs. It is just cool enough to feel the intake but not so cold that it hurts.

And with everything that I have to worry about, the weather makes my brain think that life is glorious, good, wonderful. I don’t care if it’s just an instinctive response. I will enjoy it.

Aaron and Devon and I, with our upcoming tournament looming over our heads, decided Sunday club was necessary. There were only a few others there, because several of the regulars were at a tournament in Philly. I figured that was okay, since really I was just looking for a nice mellow experience for the guys.

I don’t know how I feel about playing people who are a lot less experienced than I am. On the one hand, I know I benefited from my many sessions with tough players who were willing to give me a trouncing to help me learn. So I feel pretty good about doing the same. On the other hand, I wonder if some of the players are upset or demoralized; I would hate to be a detriment to their progress.

(I don’t think I’m all that good, really; I’m just a lot more experienced than most of the folks in the Sunday club.)

As far as the upcoming tournament, I’m approaching it with my New Attitude. I’m studying, but not frantically. I can only know what I know. I can only play as well as I can play. I will be better one day. I’m not terrible now.

A mantra of mediocrity! I’m happy with it.

Who am I kidding? I can’t stick to a scrabble sabbatical. I love this game!

Next tournament, Stamford, Connecticut. Aaron and I are both playing up, which is always fun, and Devon (yay!) is playing, too – his first tournament.

Dust off the flashcards and print out the superduper secret weapon scoresheets!

I can’t remember where I saw this question yesterday, but it is a good question and a good starting place.

How do we take back the vocabulary?

Let’s start with the word “moral”. How has morality come to be synonymous with bigotry? Let’s the use the word correctly. I found this at linkmeister.com/blog/. “How is it "moral" to spend the country into bankruptcy? How is it "moral" to invade a country which was no threat to us, based on lies deliberately trumped up to fit an agenda thought up by a think tank? How is it "moral" to sell out the nation's public lands to private industry? How is it "moral" to turn a blind eye to science, demanding ideological purity over empirical fact?”

I’ve been doing a lot of random blogsurfing the last couple days. People have many theories on why the election went the way it did.

“It’s a mandate from God.”

“People would rather feel safe than be free.”

I’ve gotten tons of emails (most from my sister Gloria, who apparently is putting her frustration into searching the web for answers.) Some of these emails are scary, honestly. The country is veering into a frightening state that teeters on the edge of fascism, after all. We should all be wary.

I can’t waste time being depressed or even angry, though. Our side didn’t win this election, but our numbers aren’t small. We are smart and we do have a voice, a multitude of voices. We can keep talking. We can shout. We must.

My daughter yesterday said, “we should start a country called howthe***didbushwin!” My friend’s daughter said, “don’t mourn, fight.” We’re already raising the next generation of thinkers, sons and daughters who will fight ignorance and bigotry and evil. So that is step one.

Some people – and I'm including animals – just make others around them feel good. Kind of like those Tribbles from the old Star Trek episode. They are welcoming, loving, peaceful. When we think of them, we smile. Of course, some of these Tribble-people that make me happy might not make other people happy, and vice versa. But I'm thinking of some of mine right now, and I'm smiling.

I miss taking them out to trick-or-treat. That could just be the weather talking, though. It's pretty nice out there tonight. I certainly don't miss the cold years. And I'm not getting much traffic up here at this end of the neighborhood. I've started giving out handfuls instead of one or two pieces. (Which could explain a couple of the repeats I've seen.)

When they were little, I could take them to the store – any store – and point out how cool it would be to go dressed as, say, Peter Pan. "Okay!" And off we'd go. Pouf the hair, spray some glitter around, toss them out the door with a grocery sack. Yeah, yeah, at least one adult went along. Then at the end of the evening, I would collect the parent tithe. Ten percent of all the candy. Plus extra Reeses peanut butter cups.

Now they want to be clever. Em is going as a "vs." sign. Her two friends are going as Bush and Kerry. Chris is going to a party as "the spirit of Halloween." I have no idea what that means. Apparently it requires: a janitor costume, long black fingernails, and a cane, and some other stuff I've forgotten.

Aaron is a very sophisticated vampire. He's wearing his tuxedo shirt. Ironed.

Ahhhhh. I have a few days off. Of course, instead of doing all the things I've been telling myself I'll do "when I have time" – hahaha! – I'm goofing around. I've caught up on my forums for the past few days, done a little bit of housework, played with the wonderful Sophie (aged 3 months), and I'm thinking about taking a nice long walk. (There's a nearby national park with great trails.)

Recommended reading:
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
From the back cover: I was fascinated by the mixture of historical realism and utterly fascinating events: I almost began to believe that there really was a tradition of 'English magic' that I had not heard about. It's an astonishing achievement. I can't think of anything that is remotely like it.

I can't say it any better than that.

Warning: There aren't many car chases or bombs or computers… it takes place in the 1800s, and it's written in omniscient voice (opinionated omniscient at that.) I love this book so far.

The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins
What can I say? He's great. The inside cover flap calls him a "renowned biologist and thinker."

Someday I would like to be referred to as a "thinker."

Okay, I have so little time today, but I just have to say…

FINALLY! All my baseball ghosts can start to fade away.

To do:

Sweep back porch of accumulated ugly leaves.

Pick out a turkey to kill.

Buy assorted candy to give out to neighborhood kids. Sort through the assorted candy and make sure the neighborhood kids get all the coconut ones. Eat the rest.

Call the furnace guy. Something smells funny.

Clean the ovens.

Buy a whole bunch of magazines with cool looking recipes that will not be used.

Organize freezer. That thing is a mess.

Thank goodness the Batman episodes involving Marsha the Queen of Diamonds didn't air until November 1966. I'd seriously wonder about my naming, otherwise.

Batman: "I made a bargain with Penguin, and I never break my word."
Marsha: "Bargain? Why, half the men in the world would fight to be kissed by Marsha, Queen of Diamonds."
Batman: "They certainly wouldn't have to fight me."

Fabulous.

In the fall of 1978, this little long-haired raggedy kid rode around the block over and over in a rage. No one else was outside. They were still in their living rooms, sitting before their televisions in disbelief. So she just rode her red white and blue Spirit Of '76 bike (with banana seat, of course) around and around.

She hated – hated hated hated – the Yankees.

Today, finally, she can let go of her hatred a little bit. Mostly to taunt them, but still. It is progress.

Earlier in the year, I was thinking of going to the Baltimore tournament. I like that tournament. It's close to me, cozy, well-run. I know most of the people there. Even while on sabbatical, I considered going, just because it was so close. Eventually I decided against it.

For the last few weeks, I've thought about visiting on Saturday night, joining the after-hours session, but after Em's difficult afternoon there was no way I'd leave her alone.

Late Saturday night I was reading the newspaper online and came across an article about a stretch of highway near Baltimore that had to be closed for several hours because of multiple (I think the number was 92) car crashes during a few minutes of intense rain. I found myself thinking, "well, good thing I didn't try to go to the play session; I'd have been trapped in that traffic all night."

And now I read on my Scrabble list that the director of the tournament, one I particularly like, passed away on Sunday night, soon after the completion of the tournament. And I'm regretting that I couldn't be there. I will miss him.

I watch people play scrabble online sometimes, and there is this funny little meme that goes around, like a scrabble idea virus. It's something like this: The player makes a move, what they feel to be the correct play. They draw their replacement tiles. And then they say: "Oh, that must not have been the right move; look what happened." Maybe their opponent made a huge play that was only made possible by their last play. Or maybe they drew UUYY. But the truth is that sometimes the correct play doesn't lead to great things. Chance is always a part. The other player is always there. But the correct play is the correct play.

The choices I made were the correct choices, but they weren't correct because of the eventual outcome. The accidents and traffic didn't confirm that my choices were good, and the director's death didn't negate my choices. It was right for me to stay home with Em. That's all.

Em called me this afternoon. (Yes, I answered the phone.) Some guy was bothering her while she was walking home from working on a project with some friends. I went and picked her up, adrenaline pouring through me from scalp to toes. She is okay. We're both shaken. Tonight we're going to buy a new phone for her, because the old phone has been acting up and it took her several tries to reach me.

Counting the fax machine, there are 14 different phone numbers for this household. (I'm also counting Daniel's cell phone, despite the fact that he is in Maine, since I still pay that bill!) Fourteen. This is partly because the cable modem company offers something silly like eight. So even the kids have their own land lines. But they also each have a cell phone, which may seem like coddling the suburban kiddos but is really very convenient for me. The dog does not have her own phone line.

But I hate using the phone. I rarely answer the house line (any line, really). The kids don’t even seem to notice it ringing. Guests will look at us all as we ignore the shrilling – none of us even flinch. We just keep going about our business, talking, eating, whatever. Sometimes guests will even volunteer to answer it, a little uneasily, as if they're wondering if we are avoiding someone specific or whether maybe we all are just a little confused or hard of hearing. Many people are very uncomfortable around a ringing telephone.

So technologically it is very easy to reach me. But first you have to get through the barriers my personality raises.

I lost $38.10 this week at Scrabble. (I wonder if this counts as hobby expense for tax purposes.)

Bob works with some of the school Scrabble kids to help prepare them for their tournaments. One of the kids, an 11-year-old girl named Laura, was playing at the table next to ours. She slapped down some phony bingo and then grabbed for the tile bag. "See that?" Bob whispered, "I taught her to do that."

I stared at him for a minute and then told him he was evil.

To recap for those who aren't paying attention, I've played twelve club games in the past week and a half and have won: Three. This sabbatical thing may be for the best.

It didn't work. The debates were terribly depressing. One is not smart enough; the other can't leave his weasel side at home. The less smart one tried out a few more facial expressions this time, though, which was pretty entertaining. Chris and I watched two things together this week: Drew Carey's new show (can't remember the name) and the debates. We laughed a lot more at the debates.

Curie didn't win her show, and it was a really really easy show to win. She's a great dog and she has one of the best handlers around. So why didn't she win? I still say it's her three-legged dorky dance she does. "What's that?" thinks the judge. "Some kind of amphibian?" Comportment and style, Curie dear. Let's get it together.

Happy Thanksgiving to you folks in Canada. Just because you celebrate it first doesn't mean you celebrate it correctly.

I start studying again tonight. (I need something to do while I listen to the debates. Maybe if I am studying, I won't be quite so depressed by the debates.) The long list of eights without sevens is not quite finished, so I'm sure I'll start there.

End of a long long week. I survived it.

Censorship update:

According to Em's civics assignment: "Inappropriate news topics will not be accepted. If you are unsure of what is considered appropriate, please consult your teacher or your parents." (The assignment sheet printed that sentence in bold type.)

Her entire summary:

Source: Washingtonpost.com
Headline: House Defeats Gay Marriage Amendment
Main Idea: Debating whether or not gay marriages should be banned
Summary: People in the House of Representatives debate about banning gay marriage, and it turns out they won't be. :) (Penciled smiley.)
Connection: This connects to civics because it has to do with making laws and debating which are big parts of the government.

Now, besides the fact that this is a danged sketchy summary and I'd like to throttle her for that, the only opinion she offers is the little smiley. She is brief and matter-of-fact. Practically boring! If anything, the article that she summarized is even more dry.

She did what she was told to do and checked with me regarding the appropriateness of the article.

Clearly, this job will require my cape and boots.

I'm in a crusade kind of mood this week. I'm getting all bent out of shape about stuff like the dangers of fast food and the public education system and, ugh, the election… I read an article in this month's Wired Magazine about the newest (and sophisticated) assault on teaching kids evolution in our schools, and my heart just sinks.

Where do I begin?

Obviously one place to start is on those walks with the kids or in the drive-through lane or grocery store, over meals, under umbrellas. But of course I do this already. We talk about the silliness of the intelligent design movement – and the cleverness. We talk about a whole bunch of stuff.

But I'm more in the mood for action right now.

Em is taking eighth grade civics. We all know what that means: weekly hunts through the newspaper for articles that have some kind of connection to civics/government. Every Friday the students are expected to turn in a brief summary of the article that they have chosen. It's a traditional way to try to get the students interested in the news. It doesn't work, of course.

Anyway, so last week Em chose an article in the Washington Post that reported on the Virginia legislature's vote against the gay marriage ban. She asked me if I thought the article was related to civics. I said, "of course!" Voting, politics, government – it seemed to be perfect.

The teacher didn't agree. She gave the summary back to Em on Monday with a large NC (no credit) written across the top. "Inappropriate. Please redo."

It is possible that the teacher gave out guidelines at the beginning of the year. I'm waiting to hear. Chris tells me that his eighth grade civics teacher did have topics that were off limits: abortion, gun control, gay marriage, a few others. "Those topics have been covered quite a bit; let's look at some other topics in this class." If this is the case with her class, I will probably just simmer in silence. But I haven't decided. However, if the class was not given guidelines regarding the topics, then I will have to do something. I'm not sure what that something is yet.

A hamburger Happy Meal: 260 calories for the burger, 230 calories for small fries, 110 calories for a child-sized Coke. So 600 calories. That's about a third of the calories a normal woman should have in a day.

560 calories for a Big Mac, 520 for the large fries, 310 for a large Coke. So 1390 for the grownup meal. Large chocolate shake: 1160 calories.

So. If I absolutely must do fast food, and yes, sometimes I must, then I get a Happy Meal. The toys for boys are a little cooler than the toys for girls, generally. But for the sake of the nieces, I usually choose the girl ones and give them to the girls if I remember.

Weekend update!

I'm sitting quietly in my office when I hear a big crash. Crashes aren't all that rare in this house. Youthful exuberance, knotheaded kids, however you put it. But this one sounded like a wall fell over. Turns out it almost did. Chris and Nick were… what, wrestling? Jostling? Brawling? Who's to know? Anyway, now there's a nick-torso-sized hole in the basement wall. Nick doesn't have any bruises. The basement is now very ...clean. All is well.

And for the second weekend in a row I've enjoyed playing scrabble. This week I lost most of my games and ten bucks besides. But I had a great time. One more step towards getting my scrabble joy back.

I weigh X + 7 today. Nice try. I'm not telling you what X is. X is the weight I like to be. I like the way my jeans fit, the way my cheekbones look. X + 10, however, is the weight my body thinks it is supposed to be. In other words, if I eat what I feel like eating, if I exercise the way I like (rambling walks with and without other people), I end up at X + 10. Without fail.

(We'll ignore the effect of hormones for the time being.)

So I was reading this article in Analog about the race (haha) to find a pill to cure obesity. Great article, by the way. Go read it. The author, Richard Lovett, talks about the numbers of obesity. Most adults don't gain fifty pounds a year. Most adults gain about two pounds a year, and it's this creeping gain that causes a lot of us to be complacent. What's two pounds?

It's forty pounds by middle age.

It's 7000 calories. Some of us gain them in small binges, but most of us gain them… just a little at a time. 20 calories a day. That's a carrot. That's a couple of flights of stairs. We're just a little off balance in our intake/output equations.

So right now I'm measuring 20 calories a day against my X + 10 problem, and weighing both of those against my long-term health goals going into my (gasp) forties.

On the way home from school, Aaron (and Chris and Em and Devon) were sideswiped by another teenaged driver. The poor kid spoke very little English and was obviously terrified. Aaron wrote down a notebook page worth of information about the other car, the driver, the passenger; he had three addresses and phone numbers, license plate numbers, vehicle identification number… I think if the kid had had textbooks with him, Aaron might have jotted down the titles. He was very very thorough. The other kid didn't even take down Aaron's phone number. After my initial rush of terror when Devon started out saying: "Hello, Mrs. McPhee, I have bad news," (note to Devon, always start out by saying "we're all okay!"), I was just so relieved that they were okay, that Aaron and his passengers handled themselves so well, that they were smart and calm and kind to the other driver.

Of course, it took me until at least one o'clock in the morning to fall asleep. I kept thinking about what could have happened. Why the heck do I do that?

Required reading for all parents: Calvin & Hobbes. Read. It. Read all of them, every collection. You will be a much better parent. A better person, too.

True confession time again (is it Thursday already??). I've fallen behind on the clarinet schedule I'd given myself. I will not give up, though. I need to find some decent jazz studies. My studies are all classical, which is great and lovely and all that, but … I need jazz. On my way to club on Sunday afternoon, I was listening to a 17-year-old saxophone player on the radio. I was inspired and jealous. So I'm back to working on my poor old tired fingers.

Good surprises, bad surprises

Good: Some joker changed the GPS system in my car so that distances are given in kilometers now. (I'm thinking it was probably Em, since she often switches it to French, as well.) So I went to Scrabble club yesterday (18 kilometers away) using the metric system. I'm not going to change it back. It's about time I went metric wholeheartedly.

Horrifying: The thin grocery bags that come in so handy on dog walks sometimes have invisible holes.

Heart attack: I was weeding/pruning my daylilies (giving them one last chance before chopping them down), and lurking, waiting…



Very good: Then at Scrabble club, which ended up being three people, myself included, I met a player who also writes science fiction. In fact, she's a Clarion graduate (Clarion is similar to Odyssey). I gave her a ride home after club and we chatted about people in the field. It was great to hang out with someone who knows what Odyssey is like and who also plays tournament Scrabble!

You know what happens when you don't practice for a while? You get rusty. Your fingers don't do what your brain tells them to do. Stumble, start, stumble, fumble. Your brain doesn't remember its old tricks quite as well as you'd like.

Then your rating drops about 200 points and people in the rooms with you comment about how much better you used to be. Then you get grumpy and obsessed and play for hours until you remember how to play the stupid game. Then maybe you gain back about 40 of the points.

The thing is… I really am good at this game. Boggle, that is. (I could have been talking about the clarinet, but thank god there's no rating there.) I love playing it, not only because it's fun, but because I am good at it. So I won't stay away quite so long next time. I'd hate to risk mediocrity.

The alert reader may have noticed that I've opened listeme up for comments. I've given my offspring the "don't be a goober and post a bunch of w00t! type comments" lecture. We'll see how it goes. I'm feeling brave or reckless or foolish.

BOGGLE TOURNAMENT - Sunday, October 10
Noon - 4 PM
at BORDERS at The South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa
3333 Bear Street
limited to the first 20 entries
Entry Fee: $20

Grrrrrr. I'd almost consider flying to a Boggle tournament.

Attention Senior Parent(s): Finally your time has come. Tell your child how much they mean to you and wish them well as they leave the nest and move into a successful future. The end of a student's high school career is an important milestone in one's life, so give your senior a source of encouragement that they will look back on for years to come.

Okay, forget the fact that this seems to have been written by a 12-year-old. It's an ad for… senior ads. I can, according to the ad, send in up to ten photos with 150 words about my son. They will "artfully arrange" my photos and thoughts and publish them in the high school yearbook. (Forgive me if I'm suddenly thinking nasty thoughts about the whole Creative Memories movement. I am visualizing clip art of diaper pins and footballs.) Mostly I'm thinking that Aaron would never forgive me if I did such a thing. So, I won't.

Maybe I won't quit Scrabble yet.

It wasn't a normal club night. For one thing, the doors I ordinarily enter through had a penciled sign: "door broken, use side." This building has a lot of doors. And a lot of sides. I managed to find a door that worked, but I really had to fight the urge to try the ones I normally use. They looked perfectly fine. It bugged me to imagine someone just taping that sign there and then giggling at the sight of people approaching, stopping, sighing, and veering off to find another door. But perhaps I'm paranoid.

Club turnout was lighter than usual. I was paired right away with someone I'd never seen before. Her name wasn't familiar either. Several times in the game, I found myself wondering what her plays meant; not knowing anything about her, her style, her rating, her history, I kept falling into a potentially fatal loop trying to analyze her moves. This is a big flaw of mine, I have decided. "What does that play imply about the player's rack and intentions?" I ask this too much. Sometimes it is an important question. Often it is a waste of my time.

She beat me. I still don't know her whole name. She could be a novice for all I know.

The other three games really went my way. I drew well. I had a blast. I felt like I was seeing the board, the options, the flow of the game.

Sometimes I focus so much on the games that I forget the other part of Scrabble: the community. I get so shy (yeah, I really do), even in my own club. Tongue-tied. Instead of chit-chatting, I wander around and look at boards. What do I think I'm learning from these boards? It's just a coping mechanism so I won't have to talk. But I remember going up to Manchester this summer and being so overwhelmed by the welcoming kindness I received from the club there. Away from home, from my kids, for so long – going into that club room at the back of the supermarket was like being with my extended family. I felt warmed.

The other thing that is not going all that well (which implies there are only two, and of course that's just silly) is my writing. I'm not feeling that itch. Usually there is a deep hunger when I am not writing much, a hunger that is only assuaged, of course, by writing. At Odyssey we were all warned that this might happen. That we might not feel like getting back to writing for a while. Units of time were suggested, jokingly I thought. A few months. Up to a year! Well, surely, that wouldn't apply to me. I have to write. Right?

So I'm following some of the suggestions that were given to us. I'm filling my mind with ideas. Researching and reading outside the genre, journaling (and blogging, I suppose), exercising, talking with old friends. I keep having these flickering ideas, which I'm kind of automatically jotting down. I'm taking heart from the busy discussion boards of previous Odyssey years. Obviously everyone eventually gets back to writing.


A picture from last month's trip to Maine:

My niece, adding her own mark to the post at the cabin.

It has been weeks since I studied for Scrabble. In fact, my flashcards are still in my green duffle bag, unpacked, from Nationals. The entire bag, still zipped, sits next to the laundry basket in my closet. My stems notebook is in the bookcase. I intended to take a couple of days off from studying after getting back from New Orleans. It was the rational thing to do. There was plenty to occupy my time in August.

But now it is September. Past mid-September. I haven't been to club in weeks. This week looks iffy, too. At this point, I've scheduled no tournaments.

So obviously, although there's been no formal thought process on this, I've gone into a Scrabble sabbatical-type period. I’m a little alarmed by this.

I looked out a few hours ago and saw:



(This photo was on the front of the Washington Post web site, so it's taken from a different angle.) I watched it for a moment in shock, and then we all dashed to the basement. Luckily it passed by us.

This is supposed to be a blog, a journal – what, an online diary? Whatever it is. Yet I still keep myself, my innermost thoughts, off the screen. I joke a little, pontificate, lecture, distract, describe, and explain. But I don't tell my secrets, do I?

I think that's okay. This is a transforming process – the process is transforming, and it is transforming me. I'm a private person. That won't change. But some things will.

Driving in the blinding rain, I'm entertained by Chris. He's leafing through a Bible he found in the back seat and wants my opinion on Leviticus. So he reads me verse after verse after mind-numbing verse about dietary restrictions. "What do you think?" Mostly I think the book could have been much shorter. Also, Em and I think it sounds like the kind of advice Captain Picard would have given a primitive people to keep them from dying from food-borne illnesses. Wash your hands, don't eat weasels. This seems pretty sensible to us. I think Chris was looking for a more theological criticism.

Thankfully, we arrive at Target and the scriptures are forgotten.

Don't criticize me for cleaning Em's bedroom this week. Yes, it is pampering her a little. Yes, she should have done it herself. Yes, she knows these things. She also knows I’m looking out for her, that I know she's going through a hard time right now, that I'm on her side. She knows I don't think being a parent is about winning. It's not a game or a war. So I did this for her because I love her and because I want her to have a space that is clean and bright, where she can find her things when she needs them. It is good for her, especially when she's having a hard time.

Why do so many people treat kids' issues like they're nothing? It makes me so angry. Okay, yes, thirteen-year-olds are sometimes difficult. Often. They are mercurial and obstinate and dramatic and sullen, all at the same time. But the stuff that bothers them really does bother them! (Once I saw this little kid being tugged along by his impatient mom; he was shrieking about sand in his shoe, and she was telling him to stop being a baby, it was just sand – and all I could think of was how often I've stopped to get sand out of my own shoe because it was bugging me. Treat the kid like a person, lady. Of course, I didn't say that to her at the time.) So what is my point? I probably don't have one. Except… I remember being thirteen and scared and angry all the time. I remember feeling like no one understood me. I'm sure – absolutely positively sure – that Em thinks I don't understand her, and she is right. I don't understand everything about her. I don't see the personal stuff she deals with at school or really understand why she hates me one day and adores me the next. I understand some things. I know some things that she doesn't think about: that she won't be thirteen for very long, that the people that torture her at school will grow up, too, that some of them will turn out to be rotten people and some will turn out to be okay. I know that she will survive this. She will survive boyfriends and failed exams and a clueless mother. So I don't understand her and she doesn't understand me? So what. At least her room is clean for now.

Driving along, we all noticed the readout on the stereo flashing messages at us. You don't think they were at us? "EARTH GET READY HERE COMES THE SUN" Any reasonable person would have gone home and started building the reflector panels. Any reasonable person.

Grumpy all weekend. Wanna know why?

1. It's impossible to do errands in this town on the weekend. Everything takes far too long. Example: I went to Lowe's (like Home Depot, but less competent). I needed an estimate for repairing my kitchen counter. The guy did not wish to repair my counter. He wished to sell me other things. This took a long time to straighten out. I found a laundry basket while wandering back through the store and decided to pick it up since I was there anyway. I picked line number 8. Line number 8 was the twilight zone of lines. I entered it. I went to another dimension. I finally got out of the store with my laundry basket. The rest was a blur. The laundry basket cost $2.04.
2. I procrastinated and fiddled away my time, avoiding working on a web cast that I'd promised by Sunday, until I had to rush to meet the deadline. I hate it when I do that. It's stupid.
3. Now that they've replaced normal easy-to-use useful grocery bags with thin plastic blue bags, it's much harder to cover textbooks. I had to actually purchase something to cover the textbooks. (I will say, though, that the thin blue grocery bags are useful on dog walks, if you catch my drift.)
4. The female commentator on ESPN's Sunday Night Football is one of the top ten annoying humans on the planet. (Oh! And while I'm complaining about ESPN, I'll mention that they used yet another word – multiple times – last night which would not be allowed on a Scrabble board. In this case, of course, it would not be because the word is offensive but because it's not in either dictionary. I'm referring to the untimed* down.)
5. A lot of bad dreams messed up my sleep.
6. I went to pick up my puppy Curie from the folks who transported her from her show to Virginia. They live in the same exact house I live in. (Same builder, same floor plan). This did not make me grumpy. It was just cool.
7. I had a toothache. It's not hurting any more. Emergency dental visit averted yet again!

He was on such a roll, a fine rage.

Stomp stomp stomp! All the way up the stairs, past where I was doing laundry, into his room, slam!

"I declare this room a sovereignty!" he bellowed.

Well, geez. I thought teenagers were supposed to say: "And stay out!" My poor nerdy boy.

Last night I had a terrible dream. I don't actually remember what made it terrible, but I awoke gasping in terror. During the dream I was pounding on my head and shouting: "no, no, this has to be a dream!" People were looking at me funny. Even in my dreams, folks ridicule me.

There were painters involved, housepainters, and they were painting my house rather garishly. Perhaps this was part of the problem. Bad home fashion can be a nightmare.

Also, a dear friend of mine was hiding in my shower and shouting at me to stop turning on the bathroom light. (If I remember correctly, I started deliberately turning the light on and off, just to be annoying – but surely I wouldn't do something like that!)

So I'm wandering around today, happy to be awake. Occasionally I stop and look around, checking the paint on the walls, just to make sure the dream is over.

Last month's picture of my baby:



I don't know a lot about shows and prizes and so forth, but my sister tells me that she did very very well at Basenji nationals this week. Can one be "proud" of a dog?

Words to live by (if you want to live a long time):

1. Floss.
2. Eat only stuff that can spoil – and eat it before it does.
3. Don't lie to little kids.
4. Live so that you don't have to lie to little kids.
5. Park as far away from the store as possible. The walk is good for you, and it leaves a parking spot for little old ladies or pregnant women or moms with toddlers.

The cycle of life, bus stop to bus stop. They get taller, kinder, grumpier, wiser, leggier, tougher. They watch Big Bird, then scorn him, then wear tee-shirts sporting his yellow head … to high school. They wear the kind of pants my mother might have tried to make me wear: flared, patterned, and weird. I'd have died rather than wear those pants, and not just from the humiliation. My classmates would have killed me in a kind of noncompassionate darwinism. "She has no taste, no taste at all. Kill her before she can reproduce. Quick, do it now!" Those pants are in again.

Em said this morning, "I hate having one of the last stops." For a second I thought she was crazy. Having one of the last stops means you can sleep a few more minutes. The bus ride will be just that much shorter. Who wouldn't want one of the last stops? Foolish me. I wouldn't want one of the last stops either. Then all the seats are taken. Friends and enemies all blend together in a mass, all looking at you when you step up those three big steps. You can't pretend they're not looking at you, because you have to find a seat. You have to look back at them and walk with some pretense at dignity, clunky backpack and all, along the aisle until someone – friendly or unfriendly, and you never know which – makes room for you to sit with them.

This picture was taken a while ago, before Daniel grew a beard.



I'm missing him today. The pre-back-to-school frenzy, finding backpacks, packing snacks… it's just different without him.

I have a confession to make. Ready?

I really don't like Seinfeld. Let me make that stronger, in fact. I dislike the show. It is funny. It is hilarious, really. I've probably seen every episode. The writing was great, the actors, the directors.

But I don't like it.

(Interestingly, I've done an informal poll over the years and most – as in all but one – of the people that I've found who have disliked Seinfeld have been female.)

I also don't like talent shows of any kind, particularly if anyone I know is in them. I've paced a lot of hallways in my life waiting for talent shows to finish. My heart in my throat, my fingers ready to go to my ears (lest I hear anything).

Then again I've been known to run out of the room during crucial plays of professional ball games (so I won't see my team "fail"). I missed several of the Patriots' key plays two years ago as a result. And there's no way I can bear to sit and watch the balance beam competition in women's gymnastics. "Ack, any moment she's going to slip and her career will be over!" But – I'll return to see the replay of her fall.

The suspense kills me.

I forgot how much I love playing the clarinet! My Buffet is hidden somewhere in this house (and it's not like the house is even messy). So I'm stuck playing on the medium-grade clarinets. Luckily, I'd stored my favorite mouthpiece in my office. Otherwise, Heads Would Roll.

My mouth is still a little soft from not playing for a while. It works, though. I cruised around in my old Rose and Weidemann study books. The fingers still remember. They still remember. I'm amazed anew at what the muscles and brain together can remember.

Why the heck am I playing again? I don't know. But it feels good.

What is my purpose? What are my priorities? Why am I here? Will I ever know?

September goals.

1. Get back to a regular writing schedule.
2. Organize all the material from Odyssey. (This is actually part of goal one, but I'll let it be a gimme. Back when I made real heavy duty lists with different colored markers and stickers – the Insane Era – I'd put "make bed" at the top of the list every day, knowing I had already done it for the day, just so I could immediately have something to cross off.)
3. Launch the scrabble journal by September 15.
4. Practice the clarinet five days a week.
5. Finish making the eights-with-no-sevens flashcards.

Maybe posting these will keep me honest. I will add more as they occur to me.

Smells like September around here. New resolutions for the year, shopping bags, the beginning of a nip in the air in the evening, rubbery yet-to-be-worn sneakers piled in the foyer. I'm feeling a hint of excitement about writing projects, web projects, and the promised Scrabble journal. I've even found myself thinking with anticipation about "fall cleaning". You know, it's time to "get my life together".

I'm almost ready.


You need special training for missions like these:

"Go, go, go! Now's your chance!"

I wait on the end of the aisle, as there's no way the cart is going to make it through that mess of parents with lists and whiny little kids. "Red ballpoint pens; I think I see them about halfway down."

He comes back, after far too long. I've added Cheez-its and hot pink erasers to the cart and am eying some gumballs. "This is all they have." He hands me a gaudy golden pen with a squirt gun built in.

"Give me a break."

More lake news: they've installed microwaves in the cabins. Okay. This is deeply disturbing to me. First of all, let's be honest. The furniture is rickety at best. Harvest gold plaids went out of style with the Bradys. The easy chairs with no legs never were in style. The high chair is just plain dangerous. The pots and pans are not non-stick; that's baked-on grease. So bringing in cute little white microwaves seems like some perversion of priority.

Not to mention! Microwaves introduce things like frozen dinners, oatmeal with dinosaurs, and something called EasyMac. This is just wrong. Sick and wrong. Why, when I was a kid we chipped ice away from the lake's edge just to get our drinking water and then lit a fire to melt it.

And the microwaves are really tiny and inadequate. It took 14 minutes to defrost my chili.

I'd like to say I was gentle, wise, beatific even. But I wasn't. I wandered the woods and lakes of Maine this past week, a wraith in a snit.

I sat by the lake Saturday afternoon, book in my lap to ward off passing conversationalists. Kids ran back and forth into the water, out of the water, kicking up sand, back into the water. I basked, grumpily.

Mrs. V came by. At first she thought I was my sister Gloria, of course. Once we straightened that out, she asked how I was doing. I told her I was up in Maine for the weekend, dropping off my oldest at college. On her face I saw my own thoughts mirrored: "She was just a little kid last time I looked, and besides, didn't she just go away to college herself? How could she have a son old enough for college? How could that many years have gone by already?" For Mrs. V has known me since I started going to that lake when I was nine years old. She saw me change from year to year, every August, from sunburned long-legged long-haired kid to surly teenager carrying a towel and shampoo around everywhere. She cooed over Daniel the first year I brought him to the lake. He ate sand, eagerly. She exclaimed over my children, how fast they were growing. I didn't notice them growing so fast, of course. I saw them every day.

In the "big" cabin, Gloria's cabin, in the center of the living room there is a supporting post with lines and words etched into the wood. Jeff, 1986. Patty, 1991. Some are three feet from the floor. Some are above my head. Names I don't recognize. Names of my siblings, my children. Daniel 1987, I have to crouch to see. Now I'd have to stand on a chair to mark his height.

There are new people, of course. John and Becky, with their two sturdy blond daughters, splashing in the lake with their chocolate lab. They say they're coming back next year for sure. There are people I've known forever. Vern and Judy. Their oldest son used to play with my baby sister, toddlers screeching and throwing sand and eating peanut butter sandwiches. Their son died recently, tragically. Vern and Judy were there, though, at the lake. Looking the same and utterly different. I hugged them very hard. They told me to tell Daniel that they're only about 20 minutes away from his college, that he can call on them any time.

Here's what we're doing tonight. Salmon and steaks (for those who foolishly don't want salmon), corn on the cob, asparagus and artichokes, a simple pasta with parmesan. Our friend Devon is baking a cake. (Yellow with chocolate frosting, I've been informed several times.) So we're going to eat. A lot. Chris will likely play a practical joke. Emily will insist on blaring music in the background. Daniel and I will take a walk. It's 90 degrees right now, but it will be great walking weather at 7:45. I'll panic for a little while about packing.

There have been a lot of days like this one in the past 18 years. They have been good.

We'll stuff the Suburban full. Let the cats out, let them in. Water the grass if the rain holds out. And the day will be done.

I went to a tournament in Philly yesterday. It didn't go so well. Curie must have been picking up the vibes from afar.

There are many ways to arrive at the truth.

Ask: "Why did you hit your brother?" (Don't ask whether he hit his brother if you were standing there watching it happen; why give the kid a chance to lie and make it worse?)

Gather evidence. Pick up the broken pieces of flashlight. Let the neighbor kid attempt to reassemble the flashlights. Send a sibling for frozen vegetables. (What, you thought you had actual ice packs in the house? Those were used for science experiments years ago.)

Speak very calmly.

After a while, come up with the brilliant plan to ask the combatants for "written accounts" of the event. These accounts will be funny and sad and will include accusations of everything from poor hygiene to communism. Really.

(Leave the written accounts on the kitchen counter and the oldest sibling might come by and edit them for grammar and spelling.)

Think about your parenting for a while. Don't forget to think about Cain and Abel. At some point in your musing, decide that it's really important to you to remember which one killed which and go do a google search instead of trying to come up with an actual print version of Genesis, which wouldn't be all that hard to do, right? Try to decide whether the fact that the first two google hits refer to Microsoft products is the first sign of the end times.

Talk to the boys. You can load the dishwasher while you talk; it makes things seem more … ordinary. Don't forget about the frozen vegetables. They get mushy fast and then you'll worry about botulism, and really, who needs to be thinking about botulism at a time like this?

Lest anyone think I was being sexist in my last post, I should clarify that my relief at the idea that watching Mary Poppins was the "girls' idea" was not gender-based whatsoever. The girls in question are not related to me. So I was just relieved that my own offspring had not chosen that particular movie. (And I'm still glad about that.)

One unfortunate side effect of the Odyssey experience is that I still can't read fiction for enjoyment. I get about two paragraphs into a story before I'm reaching for a pen. "Beginning doesn't hook me. The main character – is this the main character even? – is wooden and has no motivation at all. You should kill the main character off. In fact, you should kill all of your characters. Try macrame." Critiquing … takes a bit out of a person.

Honestly, I found the critique sessions exhilarating, both when I was in the spotlight and when I was just part of the circle. There is a power in a group like that, all sixteen of us earnestly trying to give one another our best work and our best feedback. Telling one another hard truths. Quietly listening to the hard truths. Not only did it improve our writing, it bound us together.

For now I'll stick to nonfiction, though. I'm reading "Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War" and perfectly happy with the main character so far.

Tonight is going to be so exciting! Teenagers and jangly loud music and pepperoni pizza and five different kinds of soda and…

Mary Poppins.

Um. What kind of freaks am I raising? Aren't they supposed to be trying to sneak racy and violent movies past me? I'm a little relieved that it's the "girls' idea". I'm also relieved that my son is referring to Mary Poppins herself as a wretched harpy. But I dunno, maybe I should spike the soda.

Back from the errands of despair (also known as the Wal-Mart Wasteland). The process: make list, drive to store, enter store with list. After that, things start deteriorating. "AA batteries." I have nothing resembling AA batteries in my bags. I do have multicolored index cards and a few different types of Little Debbie Snack Cakes. Oh, did I mention I had teenagers along?

But I really need the batteries! This means that I will have to face that evil place again. (And by the way, the sense of evil I get from Wal-Mart has nothing to do with corporate policies or the loss of mom-and-pop outfits in the modern era. It has to do with the fact that when I enter the store I am zapped with rays (maybe from all the smiley logos) that cause me to lose all rational thought, memory, and free will.) Or I could pick up batteries at the convenience store. I mean, it's only a couple bucks more. It's worth the price, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I have all these paper towels to stash somewhere.

I am still compiling all my notes from Odyssey. This is a huge task. I expect to have something coherent to say about it by November.

Also: I'm working on getting my scrabble journal up and running. If you thought my daily life was boring, just you wait!

Scary things. Ultrasounds may cause minor brain damage to unborn babies, particularly boys. Increased left-handedness, minor speech delays, other "minor" issues. Vaccines may or may not be linked to disorders like autism. Aspartame, lead paint, insect repellant. We advance, we pull back. We help, we harm.

I have three left-handed kids, one who had early speech issues. One had a bad vaccine response.

There are new whiz-bang products every day. Antibiotics fed to cattle. Antibacterial soap. Acne medications. Vaccine series that start now before the infant leaves the hospital. We try them, all of us, we humans.

I wonder if I have enough room on this plot of land to build that bunker.

Hypothetical job opening: looking for someone who loves hiking.

Now, I could read that and within about thirty seconds convince myself that I'm utterly unqualified for the position. "Loves? Can I say I love hiking? Maybe they're looking for someone who would express a lot of enthusiasm. I'm probably too reserved for what they're looking for. And hiking. Hmm. I mean, I do walk. I better check the dictionary, make sure I know the difference between hiking and walking and strolling and jogging…." And I'd never apply.

There are some folks, though, who would do the opposite. "Hey, I once owned hiking boots! Remember? Those pink ones? They were sooooo cute." And they'd apply and get the job and probably fall to their deaths from a cliff. So, see, my way is the best.

When I had a daughter, Em, I worried at first that she might lack self-confidence, independence. Would I pass on my shyness? Were any of these traits genetic? Which were learned?

At age four, she wanted to go to 7-Eleven (a couple of blocks away) one day to get a Slurpee. I had the flu and just wanted to sleep. I told her that when we went to the bus stop to pick up the boys from school, we'd get a Slurpee. I dozed off on the sofa. I woke to a knock on the door – a policeman. He'd picked Em up at the 7-Eleven. She was trying to operate the Slurpee machine. She had no money, so I later realized she was trying to rob the convenience store, but that didn't occur to me at the time, thankfully. The policeman's arm was bleeding from where she'd raked him with her fingernails trying to get away from him in her terror. She'd stubbornly decided that she wanted the Slurpee now, not later, and that she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. She'd dressed herself, knotted her shoelaces, and snuck out while I snoozed.

She is stubborn. She is passionate. She is impossibly independent. She might break my heart in the years to come. She'd apply for the hiking job, sporting her pink boots and attitude.

"The Basenji is a small, short haired hunting dog from Africa. It is short backed and lightly built, appearing high on the leg compared to its length. The wrinkled head is proudly carried on a well arched neck and the tail is set high and curled. Elegant and graceful, the whole demeanor is one of poise and inquiring alertness. The balanced structure and the smooth musculature enables it to move with ease and agility. The Basenji hunts by both sight and scent. Characteristics--The Basenji should not bark but is not mute. The wrinkled forehead, tightly curled tail and swift, effortless gait (resembling a racehorse trotting full out) are typical of the breed."

Yeah, that's my girl.

My basenji, Curie (Dark Skies Cherry Bomb) won her first points towards her championship today. Some of us were beginning to wonder about her. Not about her soundness or anything like that but about her dorky attitude in the ring. "Get this collar off me!" Her waltz around on three legs so that she could try harder to remove said collar. But a little bit of liver treat seemed to distract her.

My sister (her breeder and handler) thinks Curie's a lot like, um, me. She freezes when she's startled – mute and stockstill. She likes shiny things. She gets spooked by things ordinary basenjis ignore. (Getting her picture taken today with her ribbon, she was so surprised by the squeaky toy that the photographer wielded that she jumped backwards off the table.) She's bitchy and bossy.

I dunno. Maybe she is. Maybe we seek out those creatures who share common traits with us. People who like the same hobbies, hate the same movies, those who like the air conditioner on high or the salsa hot-hot, who laugh at the nerdy comedians we love. Maybe if we're really lucky, those creatures love us back.

Batten down the hatches, Charley's comin' to town. Well, maybe. And by the time he hits here, if he does, he'll be a lot of rain and not much else.

So I was catching up on the weather and it occurred to me: we don’t have to do that. I mean, go away for eight weeks and we leaf through magazines and newspapers to see what we might have missed. A cat got into a plane cockpit causing much mischief (and people try to convince me that flying is safe). Some pitcher broke some record. He was the 22nd guy to do so, but apparently that's big news to some people. "Oh, Julia Child died, my gosh!" But we don't go back over the old weather forecasts. I don't know why, but this seems so revelatory and profound. "It was supposed to rain on Tuesday, July 10. I wonder if it did!" No one does that.

Okay, so back to filling containers with water and making sure the flashlights are charged.

Playing videogames is a waste of time. Everybody knows that. With the couple of hours I spend playing with the boys every once in a while, I could do lots of productive things. I could do laundry or balance the checkbook. Hey, I could write a sonnet. I could study flashcards.

But now and then, we play. The boys and me, on our various computers, connected to a multiuser game via the Internet. We team up to battle the forces of evil (various ichor-dripping monsters). We have to be careful in our team creation. If you choose four big strong ox types, you won't have enough magic skill in your team; if you choose powerful sorceresses, you won't have anyone to take monster hits. And there are are all sorts of permutations. You need characters that can use ranged attacks and characters that have a lot of ability to find cool items. So we build our team and the fun begins. Daniel, skillful and aggressive, dashes out ahead, seeks out monsters, trouble spots, treasures, and then shepherds the rest of us (still goofing around in town, sometimes) where we need to go. Chris wanders independently, often getting himself in huge trouble, surrounded by far too many monsters. "You need help, Chris?" "No!" Aaron tries to be everywhere at once. He tries to help Daniel find quest items, help Chris stay alive, help me, um, navigate. Often he's also IMing with his girlfriend and negotiating major trades with other players in other games. When spats erupt between Daniel and Chris, he placates, soothes, distracts. I usually have a character who can use ranged attacks. I tend to stick with others, let them wade into the fray while I stand back and pick off the baddest with arrows or spells. Some call that cowardly; I prefer the word "pragmatic".

We all have to team up to beat the worst monsters. The brutes go in and hammer on them. I rain arrows. Sometimes we have to hire helpers in the town. The spellcasters try various dangerous magical spells. We can see one another's health statistics, and if one of our health bars goes down too far, the rest of the team tries to cover, lead the monster away a little, distract.

Eventually, many deaths and gold pieces and arrows and curses later, we do kill the monsters. Usually then someone types "water break" or "kitchen" or "pie?", and we congregate in the kitchen and congratulate ourselves. We discuss what we should do next time around. Daniel and Chris growl at each over the pie. We compare notes on items we've found, pass them around to better benefit the team. "Hey, I found a great sword for you." "Oh! I got a new helmet; want my old one?"

Then we go try it again.

Christopher came over last night. He's a dear dear friend of my kids (and of mine). He's 11. He calls me his other mom. I missed him a lot while I was gone. I can call my own kids and catch up with them, but it's a little weird to call someone else's son and say, "hey, I miss you, how you doing, buddy?" Luckily… he practically lives at my house and answers the phone more than the kids that do live there, so I got to say "hi" once in a while.

We do tend to collect extra kids here. Not sure how it happens. Christopher and his older brother Nick, a friend Devon (we've turned him into a Scrabble player, woohoo!), various others here and there. I'll wake up any morning and find that while I slept children have appeared and are sleeping in the family room or the basement. They know where the cereal is, the security codes, the flashlights. If they're here at dinner, they know they can eat with us – and they better clear their plates away afterwards.

Next stop in the Crazy Summer of 2004: Waterville, Maine. The week after next, I pile the college freshman and his belongings into the back of a Suburban (yeah, I know, bad gas mileage) and drive up the coast to drop him off. I was reading the stack of paperwork from the college, and there is a line in the schedule, italicized and bold: Parents Leave At This Time.

I could snicker at the thought of weeping parents being dragged away from surly teenagers. "Ma'am, put down the hot-pot and come with me." But I do remember being a little – oh, what's the word? – clingy when I dropped him off at kindergarten. What, they won't call me after school the first day and let me know everything he did and said? What about fingerpainting? What if he does something amazing? What if he's sad and lonely? They can't seriously think parents don't need a daily update.

So I am refraining from snickering.

One of the days in Maine I will spend on my beach. It is not the most beautiful beach in the world. It is on a rather small lake, lots of muck, a few beach houses, pine trees everywhere. It is one of my favorite places in the world. When I was little, I'd perch on a rock (near cabin 1a) and look out over the night sky over the water and pretend to be talking to my friend from Alpha Centauri. Telepathically, of course. Everyone should be able to revisit their childhood telepathic communication stations once in a while. It's good for the soul. If anyone needs to get a message to Alpha Centauri, let me know; I'll pass them on while I'm there.

This morning I awoke thinking I was still on the train. I used to get confused when I was a little kid, waking at my Grandma's house, wondering where I was for a second. But I'm a grownup now. I'm supposed to know where I am!

No, I am not on the train. I'm in Virginia.

Virginia is gorgeous. "I've been sunny and 80 degrees and breezy the whole time you were away," Virginia says tauntingly. I believe her. The weeds have grown a lot in my absence. The kids have done a decent enough job keeping up with chores, but there are still things I must address. Weird pockets of dirt and decay that a paper towel wielding teenager will not see (and if they see it, they will pretend they don't). A very strangely outfitted pantry (lots of Ramen noodles and cream of mushroom soup?). I can't imagine what they thought they'd make with those. I don't want to imagine it. There's still plenty of toilet paper. Most of the bath towels are missing.

I have so many papers to go through from Odyssey and from Scrabble Nationals. So much to think about, to plan, to decide, to remember. But not yet. I'm busy arguing with Virginia about the weather and looking for towels.

There was this guy who drove an ice truck.  I don't know his name.  I imagine him sometimes.  I think about one particular morning he woke up to go to work.  His wife probably made him breakfast.  Those were the times, after all.  He dressed and headed out to make his rounds.

This day I'm thinking about, I don't know his specific route or really many specifics at all.  What color was the truck?  How many stops did he make?  Was he early?  Late?  I do know one stop he made.  It was in front of a little house in Lewiston, Maine, in one of the poorer parts of town.  A family lived there.  A mother, a father, four children.  Norton, Gloria, Dicky, Fred.  It was Fred's first birthday.

Dicky, almost four years old, was a daredevil.  He scrambled up onto the ice truck – to snatch chips of ice, I guess.  The driver didn't see him.  So when he backed up, he didn't know that Dicky lurched and fell, and he backed over him, killing him.

The family was devastated.  It still is, really.  It was more than 50 years ago, and the family still feels the effects.  The mother and the father went to a doctor (a general practitioner?  I don't know even that specific), and the doctor told them to go home and make another baby.

So they did.  That baby later grew up and had babies of her own.  I'm one of her children.

I think about the guy who drove the truck.  My entire history hinges on the path he took that day.  If he'd been earlier or later, if he'd been more careful, if he'd had the flu … so many other choices or circumstances, and the chain of events that led to me wouldn't have happened.  And before him, before my grandparents, after them, all the way to yesterday, to today, causality weaves this thick pulsing mass of threads that lead to me and away from me.  I would be paralyzed by the simplest of choices if I let myself think of the ramifications of every decision I make, and yet every decision does impact me and others, sometimes in surprisingly profound ways.  Maybe the effect won't be known until later.  Maybe I will never know the effect.  But it is there, and I must consider it.

I left for Odyssey with such naïve thoughts.  "I'll update the blog every day."  Haha.  "I'll visit friends and family in my spare time.  I'll make more flashcards and be ready for Nationals."  Even the gods are laughing at my silliness.  Heck, even small forest creatures are laughing.

That's the long way of saying Odyssey was time-consuming.  And it was far more than that.  Mind-consuming, soul-consuming.  Several of the speakers commented that post-workshop divorce rates are a little higher than the norm (they were speaking about other workshops as well, not specifically Odyssey), and I think it has nothing to do with new – what's the word? – alliances and everything to do with this great feeling of change.  Put people in a difficult and alien environment, away from their crutches and helpmates and best friends, and what comes out at the other end is change.

Two days post-Odyssey, I don't know what that change is for me.  I feel it.  Fragility and optimism war with one another.  I feel like I could take on the world or shatter at any moment.

Some of the things I’ve done wrong raising this boy:

Occasionally I played video games with him instead of doing the dishes.

Once in a while, we had ice cream sundaes for dinner.

We racked up large library fines together.

We read entirely too many comic books.

I told him that parents get a Halloween candy “tithe”.

I didn’t let him beat me at tic-tac-toe. Or hangman.


I was going to write something sentimental here, but I find I’m too close to some emotional edge. I keep veering away from heartbroken tears. It’s not the fact that he’s grown up and is about to leave. All parents everywhere know that day comes. It means we've done our job. It’s all the missed opportunities, the real mistakes, the blunders and wrong turns. On the eve of graduation, those hammer at my soul relentlessly. I should have done this. I should have done that.

So I iron his gown for tomorrow (“cool iron only, Mom!”) and know that I’ve honestly done the best I could possibly do – and wish with all my heart that I could do it over again.

I’m like a little kid, sitting in the middle of small piles of toys and shiny things. These are the things I can’t conceive of leaving behind. I’ll skip the descriptions of socks, blue jeans, and tee-shirts. Two zip-lock bags of pens, different kinds for different moods. My favorite books. Stationery Em gave me for my birthday – with orders to use it to write to her. One of my carved elephants. A teeny baggie filled with cicada wings. Baby pictures of my children. Older pictures of them, too.

Not everyone recognizes that a magpie’s piles are full of treasure.

My haircut girl, Linda, is on vacation this week. I hope she’s having a nice time, but, honestly, she’s messed things up for me greatly. It takes someone like me (i.e., a slightly neurotic and self-conscious person with very stubborn hair) a long long time to find the right person to work with her hair. Linda is very soothing. She is far more beautiful than I thought I’d ever tolerate in a haircut girl – thin, exotic, great hair. She has a German Shepherd, which her husband and son like, but she wants a cat. She is the only person I know who’s gone off and gotten married using one of those marriage packages. “Bahamas Cruise and Wedding Package”. She loved it. I like Linda. I’m comfortable with her, and she does my hair the way I like it. (People probably think I chop at it randomly myself to get this tousled effect, but no, I pay a lot of money to have someone else do it for me.)

But Linda decided to go away this week. She recommends Trish for her clients. Okay, I can deal with Trish. I don’t know her very well, but I can deal with her. No cause for panic. Until Trish foolishly decides to get sick this week!

Now I’m not even sure I can get a haircut at all. No, no, says the receptionist, Sharon is available today. Can you come in at 3:30?

Sharon. I have nothing against Sharon, of course. In fact, she was one of the hairdressers I used when I first went to the salon when I was deciding which hairdresser suited me. (I’m sure she doesn’t remember this, but I feel slightly awkward about her now, as though I rejected her.) But I have to get a haircut before going out of town. So Sharon it is.

We talk about the end of the school year and, of course, Reagan. She’s very moved by all the coverage of the memorial services. She finds the people who show up in shorts and sandals very disrespectful. A lot of the men aren’t taking off their hats, either. We decide that they don’t mean as much disrespect as it may seem.

Then she starts talking about her dad’s funeral. She says she understands a lot of what Nancy is going through – how it is out of her hands. It is the nation’s grief, not Nancy’s. That’s how it was for her dad’s funeral. She and her mom just went along with the plans. She talks about the military doing things a specific way. Two things are clear in her story: her dad was someone important and she wants me to ask who he was.

I feel terrible about this. I didn’t ask. Three or four times she left pauses, places for me to ask for information, for details. Space for me to say “wow”. I just went along with the conversation, almost as if I already knew. Would it have killed me to just give her this? Yes, it was a slightly manipulative conversational tactic on her part, but I could have let her have a few minutes of attention. I could have let her brag a little bit about her father. I should have.

I start out with these grand lists when I plan trips. Projects to do before leaving. “Complete landscaping backyard.” (Well, one can’t leave for a trip when the backyard is incompletely landscaped. What if the neighbors had to go back there to rescue a wounded bird or something? How embarrassing.) “Put all eight letter bingos on index cards, with extensions and anagrams.”

Then there’s the packing list itself. Shampoo (including brand and fluid ounces). First aid kit including suture kit. All the shoes I’ve ever worn. Number of books to bring: number of days x 3. The packing list grows to pages and pages.

Up until about two days before the trip, I continue to methodically gather these items and work on the projects. Then panic strikes. I realize that the backyard progress so far is a pile of broken slate and three barberry bushes which should have been planted in May. The suture kit is really my mending kit, which is missing all the buttons from when Em made puppets out of the winter socks.

It is at this point that I face the pile and realize: there is no hope. The list is a sham and an illusion. If the emperor did have clothes, they certainly wouldn’t be packed in time to leave town.

Then I start flinging things into suitcases.

Funktionslust. It is the pleasure in doing what one does best. A dancer. A singer. A cheetah. A painter. There is a pleasure in the doing. It is a significant pleasure, and it is not just the pleasure of a job done or the admiration of an audience. It is a joy that begins when the pianist limbers up his fingers in an empty house.

I love the word itself. It looks made up, for one thing. It looks more than vaguely vulgar. I play with the sound, the meaning, the origins. I have fun with the word. For words – words are my funktionslust. Spoken words: conversations and jokes and stories and arguments. Written words: essays and stories, letters and conversations, and now electronic conversations. Word games: Scrabble of course. Boggle. My brain feels so alive when I play games. The pathways are open, wide open, all channels blazing and blaring. It is a fierce joy.

Last night, I went to scrabble club for the first time in a couple of weeks. I did not have time for club. I kept hoping Aaron would tell me he had to study for finals or something, but he was anxious to go. And honestly, it was a chance to touch base with him before leaving for weeks. (Nothing like a commute for some good mother-son time.) So off we went.

Twelve people were there. (Ordinarily there are at least double that number.) One rusty expert, the rest novices or low intermediates. I wandered around, looking at the boards of the games in progress. Saw a couple of beautiful plays and some terrible plays. Eventually another player showed up and Aaron was paired up with her, and then a couple of the earlier games were finishing up, and I was put into the rotation. Okay, I admit, I had a bad attitude. I was thinking “oh, great, I won’t get any good practice in before nationals; there’s hardly any competition here.” But I’m trying to be a grownup, a good human and all, and so I joined in. From the first rack, I could feel the joy. The funktionslust. The anticipation triggered by a blank score sheet and the clock at 25 minutes. The sheer fun of taking a rackful of consonants and finding a 40 point double-double through a couple of vowels. I love playing. It makes me happy. I came home so revved up I couldn't sleep for hours.

What are we born to do? That’s part of the journey for all of us, figuring that out. I’m wired to write. I’m built to hike. I love to play.

More on the driving front: I’ve been a foolish foolish woman, flaunting the zeroes as I’ve been doing. So the fates have slapped me. A couple of hours ago, Daniel managed to take down two of our cars in one accident. He backed out of the garage, somehow locked the car he was driving into the side of the convertible in the driveway, and the two cars engaged in some kind of duel to the death. The convertible lost, but it was close. So I now own two reasonably expensive nearly-mortally-wounded automobiles. I think that puts the tally at 0 tickets and 1 accident, but it may count as 2 accidents.

He looked so stricken afterwards, as if thinking: wait, wait, pause, let’s reset this game, I got off to a bad start! We both stood in the driveway silently for a while, then made a couple of jovial attempts at jokes. Neither of us ate lunch.

More on the countdown. Finals are in full swing. Trails of last minute projects run upstairs, through the storage rooms, veer spatteringly into the bathroom, and end at the front door. (Finish the projects over the weekend? Haha!)

I’ve not raised four perfect children. Heck, I’ve not even raised one-half of an organized child. They are busy and happy, and they operate under the motto that if one pile of papers is tolerable, five or six must be downright desirable. They love to learn, but this is not always reflected in their grades. They don’t always get along with one another. (Opinionated and stubborn are not just basenji traits.) These kids have strong feelings about everything from politics to video games, and sometimes they clash. They are good humans, though. In a long-ago speech I heard (at church maybe?), the speaker’s general point was that many parents try to raise their children to be happy, while many others try to raise them to be successful, and although these are fine goals, what about raising them to be good? I had two babies at the time. I didn’t know what was ahead. But I liked the concept. I still do. Raise them to work hard, yes. Try hard to keep the home filled with peace and happiness, yes. But worry more about compassion, mercy, kindness, justice, gentleness – where else will they learn these?

Too bad they don’t have a “mercy” category on the report card.

My third story for Odyssey is not going well. After ten or twelve false starts, I have a reasonably coherent plot and an opening paragraph that doesn’t tempt me to toss the keyboard out the window. I’d call the main character wooden, but that would imply a degree of solidity that certainly he does not possess. So a lot of work left there. I think what I need to do is let the story jell for a day or two more and let my brain pick at it and figure out what is going wrong. Of course, I only have a few more days left before I leave. Panic panic!

In driving news, we’re still at 0 accidents and 0 tickets. As far as I know. The results are a little skewed, though, as Daniel still has only driven once. Aaron continues to fabricate reasons to drive. As I’m lugging in groceries, he says: “forget anything? Need me to go back to the store for you?” Having an eager errand-runner around is coming in handy this week.

Why do we like Snape so much?

Why do we grin in the dark theater when he first comes on the screen?

Of course we like the others… the perpetually surprised Ron, the gorgeous and brilliant Hermione, kindly Dumbledore, kindly Mrs. Weasley, kindly… well, there sure are a lot of kindly grownups. Maybe that’s part of it. I mean, we were all children, we all dealt with lots of grownups, and honestly, how many of them were really kindly? They fed us; they made sure we didn’t get struck by buses. Not all of them liked us, though. Some of them pretended, and we were fooled for a little while. Maybe a kindergarten teacher with a sweet face and tiny hands and a gruff voice that only came out when things got “out of hand”. A shocking surprise to a five-year-old. Or a beautiful and distant aunt who gave gifts but couldn’t bear dirt and noise… and we didn’t know that before we leapt into her lap happily, covered in mud. Some grownups were scary.

Some never tried to seem sweet. Our 11th grade English teacher gave a long speech that began “I am not a popular teacher.” And she wasn’t. We didn’t like her much.

So much of our childhood was about figuring out what the grownups were about. Who seemed nice? Who loved us? Who was Good? And then we further figured out that the ones that were nice weren’t necessarily the ones who loved us, and the ones that loved us weren’t necessarily Good, and all sorts of variations in the mix.

So when cranky Snape comes on screen, maybe we remember some of that. Maybe we remember the day we realized that the 11th grade English teacher was the best teacher we ever had. Does it make her any nicer? Nah. Does it make us like her more? Maybe. We do know enough about Snape to know that he’s probably a good guy. A Good Guy. (Rowling may throw us a curve later, but that’s our interpretation for now.) So we see him through many lenses: his cruelty towards Harry and the gang, our memories of our own cruel teachers, our knowledge that crabby does not equal evil, our sense that he is a solid human.

We really like Snape.

The closer it gets to June 14, the more apparent it becomes: I’m insane. I’m outfitting this place like a bunker. Extra bottled water, because you never know what might happen to the water supply. Not just stocking the first aid kits… creating new ones. Batteries everywhere. Should I buy yet another fire extinguisher? I bought an extra can opener. The upstairs linen closet has no room for linens; four jumbo packs of Scott tissue take up every spare inch. (You know how many rolls to a jumbo pack? Twenty. Number of days I’ll be away? Forty-two. Apparently I think they’ll use nearly two rolls a day.) I have posted every phone number I can think of on every level of the house.

“Okay, we’ve tried Aunt Emily, the church, Grandma, 911, and Pizza Hut; no one is answering… oh, thank goodness, Mom left us the number for my old fifth grade teacher! Try that one!”

Clearly I’m worried that these children won’t last five minutes without me.

The pad of paper by my bedside is now a bona fide tool for self-analysis.

First, the character sketch. I’m not sure if I dreamed him, but when I woke about 2 am, there was this merry little boy, maybe nine years old, just begging to be put down on paper so that the world wouldn’t lose him forever. Or at least so the author wouldn’t. So I jotted some notes. In fact, while I was jotting, I gradually woke more and more and ended up filling the whole four-by-six page. Rather pedestrian imagery… flashing black eyes, dark dark hair, a little bit too long, unbrushed, stone under his bare feet. But more kept fleshing out. It was an underground scene, rows of cells, prison cells, and the boy was running along and peering into the various cells. No one was paying him any attention at all. In fact, as I wrote, I decided this was important. I made him a little more hyperactive. An attention-seeker. He wouldn’t walk from cell to cell, I decided; he’d bound up and down the stone hallway. He’d stop, he’d hold the bars, he’d try to get the attention of the people within. He’d bounce. He’d say something nonsensical, maybe.

Under those notes, I wrote: “chitter butt”. That seemed fun and funky, a thing a little boy might say, kind of tauntingly even. The rhythm might catch him up in it. Chitter butt chitter butt. Jumping up and down, holding the bars of the cell. Chitter butt!

Okay, I jotted down a few more thoughts. Who knows where this boy might eventually end up. He might end up being a girl. He might just disappear into a dusty shoebox on an index card. But he was a fun little character.

I went back to sleep.

Now the analysis. Here I am at my computer this morning. I keep a list of words next to the keyboard, words I run across while I’m playing Jumbletime (an anagram solving game), new words or tricky ones, words I notice in my studies. Words I see when I watch people play on ISC (the Internet Scrabble Club). This is something I do a lot. Watch folks play scrabble. I try to analyze their plays, guess what they might decide to do, puzzle out their racks. I watch far far more than I play. If either of the people playing is a friend of mine, I have even been known to comment or, god forbid, heckle. On ISC, players can also match wits against computer opponents who range in “ability” from novice to satan. The top ones can be beaten, yes, but they are often frustratingly tough. They always find the best play. So sometimes when I’m watching a buddy play one of these satanic computer players, I refrain from heckling. “Cheater bot,” I say sympathetically. “Cheater bot.”

Er. Let me get this straight. I watch from the outside and I say “cheater bot”?

Are all of my characters… me?

So many countdowns continue. Finals begin today, the last stretch before that child/man finishes school. The stack of books/clothes/towels/buckets/pens/flashcards grows bigger as I keep packing for Odyssey. My to-do lists are still entirely unmanageable – but they are down to two. Two pages.

I’m not good at countdowns. I get tense and teary. This is the last week of school. This is the last time I’ll have to clomp downstairs, refraining from morning grumpiness, and say: “Hey, you planning to go to school today? The bus leaves in 12 minutes!” (Actually, I have five more chances to say that.) Last things bug me. I’m positive that next Monday morning I will even be sad when the little rat puppy wakes me for the “last time” (meaning until I get her back in six weeks).

Good things just should not have to end.

When I was very young, it was a great treat to go to a real swimming pool, the kind at the YMCA, and swim for 50 minute sessions. I spent the whole 50 minutes dreading the end of the session. I couldn’t enjoy it at all. I fear that tendency is still inside me. I start worrying about saying goodbye almost as soon as I say hello. I am so afraid that I will miss the wonderful parts of the next few days and the summer with Daniel in my dread of his leaving, that I’ll focus on the end of the summer instead of today.

Right, get a grip, says the rational part of me. Daniel is a success. He’s moving on to the triumphs and happiness (and responsibilities and credit card payments) of adulthood. He may even find the love of his life soon. For me, Odyssey will be terrific, probably life-changing. Rat puppy will go off to her show ring and glory. The house will survive for six weeks. The rational part of me has a somewhat nagging whiny voice.

The rational part of me is kind, though. It’s okay for me to be sad, it says. About serious things and silly things.

(The rat puppy, Curie, is actually a gorgeous little creature. Her real name is Dark Skies Cherry Bomb, and she’s the descendant of many champions. One of my favorite things about “owning” a basenji is the great amount of information out there about the various lines and recent history of the breed. The African Stock Project, which was an effort to increase the genetic diversity in the breed by importing stock from, well, Africa, is very well documented and fascinating. Curie’s father is also a champion lure courser, and his daughter seems to have his speed and agility. Basenjis are stubborn and opinionated. She fits in well in this house.)