Less Than Two Weeks Now

Hey-ho, I have some positive news, good news, even, about this house we're trying to buy.  What a delightful change of pace, right?

Where we last left off (possibly where we last left off, anyway; I can't be bothered to go back and look right now, showing me new lows within the depths that encompass my laziness), the inspector had come and gone, emailed us a 73 page document that we were instructed to read in full (and which, by golly, I did) after which we knew that the cast iron plumbing was rotting and the chimney needed help in a multitude of ways and the knob and tube wiring in the attic was live... which is maybe illegal?  I don't remember. 

As you may recall, we are attempting to buy this house from a cold, soulless bank who does not care if a property of theirs burns down around us as slowly asphyxiate in our beds.  Because of this we assumed that we would be stuck fixing absolutely everything, large and small, that needs fixing in this house.  But lo and behold, miracles do occur, and they fixed the wiring and put a new liner in the chimney (or something chimney related- I'm finding through this process that I know zilch about chimneys).  They did this for reasons that I believe I will be able to divulge after our closing date but not before.  How will you ever sleep at night between now and June 10?

This gif could also be used to illustrate around 40% of my mental state when contemplating this move.  Things are very jittery up in here.

We're down to T-13 days until we leave Iowa.  We're sad, but also ready to stop feeling like we're half in one place, half in another, not really belonging in either.  Caedmon and Adelaide have both had to tour schools they will never attend (upper elementary for C, high school for A because the 8th graders will be there next year as the district does construction on the middle school).  All their friends are talking about the various fun summer plans they're making together which is normal, and natural, but not so enjoyable to listen to when you will be around for none of them.  I'm working on registering the kids for school in a different state, which is time-consuming but necessary.  Thankfully much of this is now online, so I can at least get the first few steps done remotely. 

People keep asking me how the packing is going, but I haven't been packing.  Like, at all.  The movers are packing our things on June 5th and loading them onto a truck on the 6th, so I don't think I need to pack anything else at this point- we packed a ton of crap away just getting the house ready to sell- but I'm getting increasingly jittery (see above gif), thinking that there must be something I'm forgetting I need to do.  At random times of day I'll suddenly dive for pen and paper or for my phone to use the Notes app, remembering that I need to get the oil changed on the van before we drive out to CT, and I need to put the giant saw in the shed on the swap page, I need to call and put an end date on our garbage service and water and who knows what all else. 

Oh, I know- I'll just ignore all of it and continue this (so far fantastic) book!  Maybe everything else will go away on its own?

Possibly Not Homeless

Here is one of the many ways that I am fortunate:  I have a bunch of people checking in on me daily.  "How are you doing?"  "I'm thinking of you!  Still surviving this crazy process?"  "I just prayed for you! Let me know how you're coping!"

And then I gulp back tears because these days a single kind word is enough to cause me to dissolve into a puddle of stressed out gratitude.  

Honestly, though, one of the kindest things my people have done for me lately is to continue to share their own news and lives with me.  I still want to hear the good news!  It's a reminder to me that life is cyclical, and seasonal, and all the other words that indicate that hard times don't last forever.  I also want to hear about your struggles:  it jolts me out of my self-centeredness (Will our children survive this move?  Will I ever find friends as incredible as the ones here?  and on, and on.) and reminds me that nobody's life is perfect, big move on the horizon or not.

I've felt bad about how I've been answering this week's big question, though:  "How was your house hunting trip?  Did you find a house?"

The answer is that the trip, while useful, was also stressful.  So stressful.  I feel like most meals involved Derek and I poking at our food in an exhausted sort of manner all while questioning everything we've ever known.  

First, though, let's talk about the good things, first being Derek.  We have a strong relationship, and usually align on most big decisions (which is funny, because we are so different in so many small ways), which makes everything easier.  This may be hard and stressful and anxiety-riddled, but at least we're anxious together.  

Second is our realtor, Sanam.  When you're spending a lot of time with someone you just met, many things could go wrong.  Maybe they're a gum smacker.  Maybe they only talk to the man and just gloss over anything you, the woman, have to say.  Maybe they're one doughnut short of a baker's dozen and that hole in their personality is where their sense of humor would have lived.  Whatever, she was great.  Is great.  So nice, and really insightful; just the kind of person you want in your corner when you're making big life decisions.  

Other good things about the trip?  Connecticut is prettier than I remember it being.  This may seem trivial, but aesthetics are important.  Just ask Hobby Lobby, or any other store that makes its millions off people needing to find their surroundings visually pleasing.  The people are also much friendlier there- this was a pleasant if somewhat uncomfortable realization.  Is it possible that- gasp!- I was the problem?  Or that 21-year-old me was the problem, anyway?  Let me also put forward Derek's more flattering theory:  I moved to CT from southern Kansas, where you can walk into a gas station knowing no one but leave having been christened the maid of honor in the attendant's upcoming wedding.  Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but barely.  My point is, the good people of Kansas are very friendly, so to go from that, the only habitat I knew, to Connecticut, where the people are what I privately call "icily friendly" on bad days but "reservedly friendly" on good ones, well, it's a tough transition.  Iowa, however, is a just a tad friendlier than CT, I believe, but definitely closer to the reserved side of the spectrum than the outgoing.  Maybe it's all the northern European descendants?  As in, they're all tall and leggy and light-complected and they'll say hi and how you doing but they don't actually want your life story about how you weren't allowed to eat the food at certain family reunions and also had to be shielded at all times from Uncle Jimmy at those same reunions and haha wasn't that so weird?

Hypothetically speaking.

So there were good things about last week's trip!  But I've also had to relate how when we were moving to Iowa, we went house hunting and had a "That's it!  That's the one!" moment when we found our house.  We had no such moment in CT, which sucks.  It does.  I also don't believe I'm owed a moment like that, however; sometimes you take what's good enough and make it into something that fits your family.  And we can do that.  This is work we know how to do.

All that to say:  we put in an offer on a house.  There's been some volleying of counter-offers back and forth, which sounds fun but is the worst game ever.  Now we're in a period of waiting again, which is something we've been getting oodles of practice doing over the previous few months.  I think next comes... an inspection?  By an inspector?  One who inspects things?

Bookish Gratitudinals

1.  The sound of David Tennant reading the How to Train Your Dragon audio books, currently lulling our boys to sleep.  There are some pretty terrible audio books out there.  These are not among that number.

2. New favorites:

3.  And old:

4.  The best book I've read in quite some time, that I may have recommended here before, but is absolutely worth the possible repeat rec:

5.  Just about anything by Neil Gaiman, forever and ever, amen.  And if you're noting that this list is a little fantasy heavy, well, you'll have to excuse my increased need for a little escapism at this point in my life.  

Three Reasons... (with gifs!)

... to be happy in September, one of my historically least happy months.  If you don't feel like being happy, though, that's okay too.  Go back to your Fiona Apple album and don't mind me.

• First,  a quick and slightly bossy reminder to you to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making because reading a book with beautiful prose and a protagonist named September can help make things better. Or at least appear to be better. Appearances are all that matter, anyway, right?  I'm pretty sure Chomsky said that.  Or Nietzsche, who has a fun name to say but does not appear to have been a fun guy, like, at all.

• This is a book that exists in this world:

This book is so charming, and deals with difficult subject matter with such humor, and I just love it so much.  This is Honeyman's first book, and she has such a deft hand I want to take her, chain her to a word processor, and force her to write a book a year for the next forever, because that's how I express affection.

This is not too much to ask.

• The elastic waist trend is back in women's wear.  I haven't been this comfortable in years!  What a time to be alive!  

Like One of Those Epic Sagas but with a Bathroom

The problem with home improvement is that if you improve one thing, it makes all the other things immediately adjacent to that thing look... less than improved.  In fact, they can look downright dreadful, especially, as it turns out, if you're looking through Derek's eyes, which are terrific at seeing What Could Be.  To get to What Could Be, however, you have to destroy What Already Is.

I have a knack for living with What Already Is. Sure, the peel-and-stick tile is coming up off the bathroom floor, but so what?  It's a matter of seconds to slip it back into place with your foot.  And the finish flaking off the medicine cabinet?  It's not ideal, but neither is the reflection in the mirror right next to it.  Both speak to the second law of thermodynamics, in that everything eventually degrades and decays, so to do away with the medicine cabinet is to do away with our children's grasp of science!  Or something!  Anything that makes it so that we don't have to embark on another home improvement project immediately after finishing the last one!



I am not an optimist by nature.  I wouldn't say Derek is, either, except when it comes to this house, specifically projects undertaken on this house.  All he really wanted was to get the bead board off the bathroom walls and to lay the new floor.  The work of a day, he thought.

The house had other ideas.

As it turns out, the previous owners (rather brilliantly, I have to admit) covered half the bathroom walls in bead board so that they wouldn't have to properly finish those walls:  drywall, tape, spackle, etc.  So what was awaiting us once that bead board had been removed?

That's right:  more plaster.  More lathe.  More crazily uneven walls and problem solving and work, work, work.

Caedmon, our child who either wants to be "a professional football player, a professional soccer player, or if I can't do those things, a construction worker," was eager to get in there and help.

If you look closely, you'll see the dimple that pops out when he's hard at work.  His dad's does the same thing.  This is incredibly sweet.

Added in to all this was the fact that Derek saw a mirror a while back that had the lighting built in to the mirror.  Fact:  people who work in video are semi-obsessive about good lighting.  Mirrors with built-in lights apparently make for good lighting.  So while we didn't have to have towel warmers or a wifi toilet or fake old fixtures (you know- those new fixtures that they purposely mess with to make them appear old?), we did have to have a lit mirror.  This meant that Derek had to put in a new outlet and new light switch, which involved wiring, which is always always a good time in an old house.  And by "good time" I mean trying not to burn down the house as you discover that none of the outlets are grounded or follow any kind of modern safety protocol.

Fun fact:  Derek says the same kinds of things whether things are going well or have jumped in to a handbasket and are heading straight south.   The other day as he was yet again working on electrical stuff I had to scooch around the bathroom so that I could peer into his face in order to correctly interpret the chuckle he'd just emitted.  And don't even get me started on the monosyllable "huh."  "Huh" can mean "Yes!  It fits!  I just fixed this nagging problem," or it can equally mean, "Well, that's definitely not supposed to look like that."

But!  A million "huh"s and a few dark chuckles later, he's got the wiring done.  Did I worry about him being electrocuted at some point? Especially after he attempted to assure me yesterday by saying not to worry, he'd already "gotten a little juice" from the outlet he was working on, and that it wasn't that bad?  Yes.  Yes I did.  Is it likewise done, though?  Yes.  Yes it is.

Please ignore my poor framing of this shot and focus on that beautiful mirror.  It is so dang purdy.  And if ever you feel the need to be mirror twins with us (sounds like the premise of a ghost story... I may have just ruined this mirror for myself), let us know because the company we bought it from is third generation family-owned- just the type of thing I'm a big old sucker for; we'll happily share all the particulars.

Now, brace yourself, because I wanted to show you how well this mirror actually lights its subjects, but to do that I had to take a for-real picture of myself.

The overhead light is not on; that's all from the mirror.

Somewhere in this timeline Derek replaced the flooring.  This consisted of me laying down the moisture barrier (a sheet of a kind of foam material that had to be connected at the seams with no overlapping but also no gaps), while Derek did everything else, including cutting the flooring to fit around a large pipe that randomly runs from the ceiling to the floor right next to one of the bathroom walls.  Derek suggested taking it out but I meekly said NO NO NO WAY NOTHING GOOD CAN COME OF THIS.  So he didn't.
If that workload sounds unfair to you, it's only because it is.  Now, I wasn't reclining on the couch, idly thumbing through a novel while he toiled away upstairs; we do still have those three children who require care and keeping.  I also handed Derek things as he needed them.  Please hold your applause.

After flooring came replacing the vanity, a journey which was made up of a series of small catastrophes.  First we picked out a vanity, muscled it into the van, squishing the kids into the back bench of the van, hoisted it into the house, opened up the box... only to find that the vanity inside did not match the picture on the outside, nor the model we had chosen.

Whatever, we can return it, and that one was probably too big, anyway.  Let's try this other one!

It was pretty!  The top was sleek marble!  The base color was "cloud," which was somehow important to me!

This one we managed to get all the way up the staircase- which includes three turns and two landings- and into the bathroom, where we swore up and down it worked and looked great.  Derek cut a hole in the bottom and we carefully lowered it down over the plumbing.  At that point we realized that it looked just a tad big.  Not terrible, we told ourselves.  We even lived with it for a day before we were both forced to admit that any bathroom fixture that forces you to close the door before you can squeeze past it to get to the other side of the room- well, it probably doesn't fit.  Somehow we managed to sell it on a Facebook swap shop- couldn't take it back to the store since we'd already cut into it- which included (not a little bitterly) maneuvering it back down the stairs, into its box, and out into a storm to meet the seller, who ended up being delightful, by the way.

Oh, and I forgot the drawer pulls, so I had to mail those afterward.  She was very understanding.

A bunch of other things happened- imagine a series of things going wrong, one after another, and you'll pretty much have it- but we finally got the right vanity and sink into the there.  Did it weigh hundreds of pounds and take three of us to get it up the stairs?  Does it fit perfectly in our space, as it is long but narrow, like our weird old-house bathroom?  Is it the first one Derek suggested but I poo-poo'd at the beginning of this saga?

Add baseboards, paint, wrangling a faucet into place, and a million other details, some of which are still unfinished, and we're done.  Nearly done.  Will this bathroom ever be done?

Close enough.





I'll get up a post up with more "we are so done" pictures (I like that term better than "after") soon, but for now, reward yourself for making it all the way to end of this long post by making these amazing chicken tinga tacos for your culinary pleasure and sit down with Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai, one of my favorite books I've read so far this year.

Falling and Getting Back Up and Falling and...

Our family recently went ice skating.  It was the kids' third time ever, my second, and Derek's hundredth.  Or something.  The point is, he's been a lot, the children and I have not.

As such, Derek is very steady on his skates.  Adelaide and I actually skate quite well, for novices, whereas Caedmon takes a while to master his fear and let go of the wall.

Atticus, meanwhile, continually hurls himself across the rink at high speeds, inevitably falling in a flailing and sprawling of limbs. He is never seriously hurt, usually smiling as he gets back up.

Taking a break between skating/falling/skating/falling.

I, on the other hand, fell twice in the two hours we were there, and now have a bump at the base of one of my fingers, where digit meets palm, which hurts when pressed on, and which one of my friends has given a layman's diagnosis of a bone chip caused by these falls.  This is apparently the difference that 25 years makes in falling.

Just a few years ago I was pretty good at falling; I had frequent practice, tripping every few months while walking or running throughout my life, and had learned a way to not fall quite so hard.  With increased yoga practice, though, my balance has improved dramatically, to the extent that I can no longer recall the last time I fell.  Barring the time I strapped blades to my feet and went coasting along on a sheet of ice, of course.

I've been reading a lot about falling lately, in large part due to this book that we got at the library several months ago.

I don't think I'm within the intended audience age bracket for this book, but I can't help it:  I still found it helpful, and it's caused me to re-evaluate the way I do a number of things in my life.  I think my favorite part is that the author recruited a group of women, who call themselves "goldeners" and who are all over 70, all of whom went through Bowman's program and benefited greatly from it.  There are sections throughout the book written by these women, where they talk about what led them specifically to the program, or about things they found they could no longer do, and how the exercises or shifts in movement helped them, along with any number of other things that I can't think of without the book in front of me.  In short:  it is so good.

In the book Bowman states that fear of falling is just as crippling as actual falling and outlines a series of exercises addressing this, which I apparently need to incorporate into my daily routine.   Also, I want to take one of the classes featured in this New York Times article.  Do you think they'd let me in?  And who wants to pay for my flight to the Netherlands so I can fall with the elderly?  That's not a euphemism.  

For now I'll just treat every run as an opportunity to potentially practice my falling; we've been covered in snow and ice for a while now, with only a couple days above freezing to allow any melting.  I've tried running on the treadmill at our local gym, but anything more than ten minutes on those things makes me want to go full Office Space- Printer on them.

Yes, that is an imperfect analogy, as the treadmills don't enrage me by malfunctioning; I just can't abide spending copious amounts of time on them without being overcome with feelings of worthlessness and resultant, irrational anger, usually going something like this: "I'm not going anywhere.  I'm not getting any of the benefits of being outdoors.  This entire enterprise is utterly meaningless.  Life is meaningless." 

So, I run outside, even though yes, it is very cold out.

At that point I find I have exorcised what may be some underlying anger issues for yet another day.   Life once again has meaning!  Huzzah!  

Three Things

• First of all, brace yourself, because this is indeed what passes for excitement in our house:  Caedmon found a quarter lacking a mint mark.  I KNOW, RIGHT?  Our youngest is just a tad obsessive about looking for those marks as soon as a quarter finds its way into his hot little hands, always on the hunt for that elusive "P."  Around here we have way more "D" quarters- that is, quarters from the Denver mint- than P, I assume because we are closer to Denver than Philadelphia, although perhaps Denver also makes more quarters than Philadelphia?  I really don't know.  Anyway, Caedmon was given a quarter that was stamped with the year 1965, but with no mint mark.  A quick google search led Derek to educate us all on how from some year to another year (I don't remember) too many people were collecting coins and something about something else, the result being they stopped putting mint marks on coins for a short time to stop people being so crazy.  *Waves wand* May this be the least intelligible paragraph you read today.

• Adelaide has been losing teeth.  A lot of teeth.  As in, all her molars on the bottom left side have fallen out within days of each other.  Naturally, this leads to me finding teeth in random places throughout the house.

I'm not that worried about the fact that she's lost seven teeth in six months-  none of our kids got their first teeth until well after their first birthday, so they tend to be late losers- but I'm still glad she's due for a visit to the dentist in a month, just so he can assure me that she doesn't have some obscure mouth disease, then turn right around and devastate me with impending orthodontia news.  Dentists are good at that, you know.

• If you've been itching for a good memoir, pick this one up:

If you like to experience the entire gamut of human emotion in one sitting, this is the book for you.  It is so funny, and so entertaining, even while being about cancer and fear and doctors who really need to work on their bedside manner.  Maybe don't read it in a public place, unless crying in front of strangers is your thing, in which case I'll just say stick some extra Kleenex in your pocket.  It's a good one.

Of Bishop's Weed and Books

I was recently reading a memoir in which the author references the troubles of bishop's weed.  She spoke of how difficult it is to get rid of, its root structure, how very weed-like it is.  Being unfamiliar with this chlorophyllic pest, I googled it.  What stared back at me on the screen was my beloved snow-in-the-mountain.

How dare she?  I was flabbergasted and flummoxed and furious in a way that you only get over something that matters not even a little bit.  But then I saw a map.  For someone with such a tenuous grasp on geography, I seem to love maps in an unreasonable amount.


[Side note:  I am currently attempting to complete my bishop's week/ snow-in-the-mountain thoughts while one child butchers the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner, the other asks me to play "the chainsaw video" for the umpteenth time, and the other hollers to me from the laundry room that I should maybe wash the sleeping bag today as she's pretty sure a close-knit family of insects took up residency while she had it at camp.  If another person asks me why I've been such an absentee blogger as of late, I'm going to station all three children around said person and have them interrogate at will, because that is a fairly accurate picture of summer break.]

Maps.  Bishop's weed.  Right.

This map illustrates which states find bishop's weed to be an invasive plant.  The author in question lives in upstate New York where, according to this map, snow-in-the-mountain is not invasive, but apparently in neighboring Vermont it is.  Since we all know how respectful plants and other wild things are of state lines, I think I'll give this lady a break.

Also, it just dawned on me that perhaps I enjoy maps so much because I have such a poor grasp on world geography.  They are truly useful to me and my reaction is often one of delighted wonder.  I know my North, Central, and South American geography quite well; the rest of the world, I mean, it's really far away.  (Why, yes, I have used this as an excuse in the past.)  This means I more or less shackle Derek to me when we are going to play any sort of trivia game, as his knowledge of all things geographical and really anything involving spatial relationships is excellent.  I excel in the Harry Potter categories, which come up more often than you think.

[And now Caedmon is upstairs yelling things out his bedroom window at his brother in the backyard.  Something about listening to the Eragon audiobook without Atticus, a grave sin indeed in the context of their relationship.  Adelaide is snuffling over the fact that her brothers already know who their teachers are but she doesn't and how could the United States Postal Service fail her and why is life so unfair?  It would appear that I am expected to answer these questions to her satisfaction.  Spoiler alert:  Even those newspaper advice columnists could not generate a reply that satisfied Daughter when she is in this state.]

Speaking of newspaper advice columnists (why, yes, forced and clumsy segues are kind of my thing), the book that provoked this plant-based inner turmoil?  It's fantastic.

Ms. Dickinson has been giving strangers advice for years through her column Ask Amy; I don't confess to being particularly acquainted with this column except on occasion.  I read an excerpt of this book a while back some place or other and knew it had to be mine, or at least the library's.  As soon as it had been processed, I snatched it off the library shelf before anyone else could (a disturbing practice of mine that I confess is becoming more and more habitual; the only problem with this is I have less time to read than ever, so half the time I return the books unread), and have plowed through it over the course of yesterday evening and in small snippets this morning.  It's short, and relatable, and you'll find yourself wanting to underline passage after passage- although if you are a person who engages in this type of behavior with library books, may I instead recommend the following:

A charming children's book about how to treat library books that would benefit more adults I see at the library than kids.  (Interaction with a very nice, responsible patron some months ago as she is checking out:  "I'd like to check this book out, but there seems to be something on it.  Is it just me, or is that blood?"  Me, appalled:  "Let me just clean that off for you."  *Uses an excessive amount of Clorox wipes, makes weak joke about finding blood on the cover of a murder mystery.*)




Also, because our children have altered my brain in such a way that it hops back and forth more than ever, here is "the chainsaw video" that was incomprehensibly introduced to our daughter at church camp and that all three of our offspring are more or less now obsessed with.



Adelaide spends half the time this video is playing staring at my face, as it wears an expression of apparently hilarious bewilderment.  Really, though, this is supposed to be farcical, right?  These people aren't doing this with any degree of seriousness... right?  (See also:  "Signs you are getting old.")  And now, to round out this meandering and increasingly digressive post, a multiple choice question:  How many of our children can currently be found doing "The Chainsaw," a dance move seemingly engineered to make Christian kids look as profoundly not-cool as possible?
Is it
a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
d) I don't know because they are in the backyard and under no circumstances am I upsetting a climate in which I get to think my own thoughts for five straight seconds.

Good Books and Infuriating Books

Eight-ish months into my tenure at the library, things are good, things are comfortable but interesting, and I'm still learning new things every week, which I like.

This week, for instance, was the first time I had to suppress the urge to set a book gleefully on fire, and instead process it, as it is a new book that just came into the library and we need to do all the things necessary to get it ready to go on the shelf where it will hopefully NEVER BE CHECKED OUT.

I will not pass this opinion on to any patrons, though, because uuuuuggghhh integrity and ethics and garbage.

Still, though...

Dear Mr. O'Reilly,

I can't imagine what it's like to hold so much hatred within one body.  It must be exhausting!  I do hope you're hydrating.

Yours sincerely,

One of the many you disdain

In other, less incendiary news, I survived our second book sale, but this time I also helped box up all the books that didn't sell.  This proved to be dangerous.

 I mean, they were free, and they were about to be homeless, and I only meant to take one!

Books and Caedmons and the Barkley Marathon

Caedmon didn't have school on Friday.  This meant we got to spend the whole day together, which is thankfully still good news to our youngest.

We had very important things to do.

He coached me on the finer details of Pokemon.  Again.

This is his "explaining important Pokemon stuff" face.

We read a big pile of books together.  Again.

As a big old parenthetical, the above is one of my most recent favorite picture books, along with

Triangle

It's so cute, and so strangely funny, and really I just love anything illustrated by Jon Klassen.

Also Pig the Pug

because again, hilarious illustrations, plus it's about sharing.  Maybe your kids are perfect, but ours could perhaps use a reinforcing message here and there on the benefits of sharing.

And finally, They All Saw a Cat.

This is one is so conceptually brilliant you'll want to buy it to own yourself.  Even if you're an adult.  Adults are allowed to buy children's books, you know.  A cat moves along, walking around, and each set of pages contains an illustration depicting how he is viewed by different creatures, giving you a depiction of the way a cat might be viewed from the perspective of a dog, a mouse, a bird, and so on.  Good, good stuff.


Parenthetical book thought over.

Caedmon also came to work with me for a couple hours on Friday, where he was so good one of my co-workers plied him with candy.  At one point, after returning home, I told our youngest I was going to do some yoga.  He asked if he could join me, and I responded that of course he could!  Yoga for everyone!

As it turns out, Caedmon's not real big on personal space during yoga, so I got to go through all my sequences with a small boy rightnexttome.  It's definitely a different experience to push back into downward dog and have a little face appear under you, asking, "Are we almost done?  Is this one hard for you?  Can I tell you about Charmander's abilities, now?  Do you know what my powerfullest Pokemon is?"  

Just about the time I want to say something like, "NO MORE POKEMON TALK.  EVER," he hands me this.

And then I'm stuck.  Three more hours of "I have four EX's, but Atticus has more; he has seven, but my charizard is jfo;awenvoaiwrb."   Nonsense letters at the end there because that is what all it sounds like to me:  a bunch of nonsense syllables.  Then we got to thumb through his Pokemon cards and look for something- I don't know what and I didn't care.  

That must be how Derek has felt all weekend when I've given him Barkley Marathon updates (#gogarygo):  "Yikes, the race started at 1:42 A.M.," "Loop 1 took them 9 1/2 hours!"  "They're on Loop 2, and have had trouble finding the books in the dense fog."  Lucky, lucky Derek.

Three Things

• I feel like I've had pretty mediocre luck with books lately.  I was thoroughly fooled by all the amazing blurbs on the cover of the The Rising ("I couldn't be more excited about this book," and "A classic in the making," etc, said by several well-known, decent authors) and picked it up.  Well.  Talk about bleh.  Thankfully I then found The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence.  

The problem is I'm having trouble putting to words why I liked it so much.  I didn't agree with much of anything the author had to say (via his characters) on a philosophical or existential level, and given the nature of the plot, there's a lot of both in there.  I really did enjoy the characters, though, from the protagonist who is hit by a meteorite as a child (and no, this novel does not fall within the fantasy genre) to the crusty, cranky widower with a penchant for Vonnegut.  I guess it's the same with some friends:  You have completely different viewpoints, to the extent that you sometimes look at each other and say, "It is so surprising to me that we are friends," but hey, you like the person.  Just as I like this book.  (Man alive, just when I think my book reviews couldn't get any more meandering and circuitous, I find a new way to do anything but get to the point.)  And here, a barely related image that I nevertheless find amusing.

• Speaking of books, we can't get enough of these:  

Pardon the shoddy photography; I am, as ever, a poor photographer.  This is one of the Usborne Shine-a-Light books, a series that includes such titles as Secrets of the Rainforest, On the Space Station, and the above, The Human Body.  They take children through the subject matter by showing them pretty if rather standard illustrations,

but then have the reader shine a flashlight- or hold the page up to a light- and discover what's beneath the surface.

The reverse side of the page includes an explanation.  It is awesome.

• The internet is constantly providing me with things that remind me of Derek.  I helpfully send these on to him immediately after viewing.  I am sure he appreciates this 100% of the time.

Comic by Poorly Drawn Lines

Two Things and a Book Review

Well.  It would appear that our laptop has a virus.  This has made it impossible to access the internet from that device, which I need to get onto Blogger, where I do all my bloggy things.  Which as resulted in the lack of recent posts.  Derek suggested I type my posts out on the word processor on the (EVIL INFECTED) laptop, save it to a thumb drive, then publish it at the library.  The man is clearly a technical genius.  (Why did this not occur to me, you ask?  Because I am excellent at wailing in anguish when things like this go wrong, but problem solving, well... it's not exactly my forte.  If you need me to point something out in the fridge that NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE WITH THEIR FUNCTIONING EYEBALLS, HOWEVER, I'm your girl.)  Oh, except there is nary a thumb drive to be found in our house, so I typed this out on laptop, took a picture of it with my phone, and am now transcribing it into Blogger at the library.  Now that is dedication to blogging (happy, Mark?).

Because I can't use my beloved gifs on these pecked-out-on-the-word-processor posts, I guess I'll have to fall back on my old stand-by:  The List.

• We drove down for a whirlwind visit to Kansas last weekend.  Included in this visit were:  The holding of babies, the baptism of babies, golfing, and visiting the church I grew up in.  Highlights included all those babies and being so lovingly embraced by the church that helped raise me, to the extent that I had old ladies talking to me through bathroom stalls even after I had closed and locked the door and was taking care of my business.  I think it's safe to say that Evelyn and I are now very close.  (But don't tell her I called her Evelyn.  She is the type that will tell you her life story as you pee but be offended if you address her by her first name.  I know this because, again, very close.)

•  Our children are all still alive.  (Pumping my fist victoriously in the air, as these days they often seem to live their lives as if they're engaged in some sort of familial version of the Hunger Games.)  Why do boys seem to so enjoy throwing each other to the ground when they see one another?  This morning my normal "Separate!" edict wasn't enough; I had to instruct them not to so much as make eye contact with the other, lest it be construed as an act of aggression.  Then Caedmon stumbled down a couple stairs and Atticus rushed to his side to help him up.  SOMEONE HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS.  Not to worry, though, we have Adelaide who is always happy to lend advice to those in need, which means I find myself frequently replying, "Daughter.  I appreciate your concern, but I do not need your help parenting.  So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye."  Then she points out that she has read more parenting books than I have.  Which is true.

•  This book?

It is good.  The kind of good where I lost time to it.  The author is a reporter who began having mild but rather random symptoms one week, which rapidly progressed to the point that she had descended into full-blown madness (her words).  They- and by "they" I mean a whole team of doctors and specialists- couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.  Nervous breakdown?  Schizophrenia?  Alcoholism?  (Yeah, you're not going to like the doctor who gave that last diagnosis.)  If you're a self-aware hypochondriac, maybe give this one a pass, but if you like medical mysteries that move quickly, induce empathy, and have (spoiler alert) a happy ending, check this one out.  I included the link below, something I would usually embed up there in the paragraph, but library computers don't allow the copying and pasting of hyperlinks.  *groans-wails-gnashes teeth-admits how spoiled I am*

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brain-on-fire-susannah-cahalan/1110918640?ean=9781451621389