remember

I'm grateful to be old enough to remember the day the Berlin Wall came down.

I didn't understand it then.

It's scary to think we live in an America that wouldn't understand it now.

Take 25 minutes and remember.

more life coaching

Natty just came into my room to ask if I could give her any receipts, because she is working a lot of jobs and needs receipts to show where she paid money (When I was small we used to play house. And we were ALWAYS indigent [especially during the Clinton campaign when I listened to Rush Limbaugh a lot and was convinced that the end of the world was imminent]; looks like the tenor of the family may have changed a bit . . . that, or there's still only one tenor in the family . . .).

She found one receipt and was scavenging for more when I said,

Me: I know I'm looking for something, but I can't remember what it is.

Natty: A job?

marketing advice (from a 6-year-old)

Natalie just came into my room for help with a math problem. While I puzzled out Saxon Math 3, she was looking through the paper sediment on my desk and picked out the business card for Emma Parker Diamonds.

She said, "I think this poem is funny," and read me the following from the business card:

He came to her on bended knee
With velvet box in hand,
To ask her "Will you marry me
And wear my wedding band?"

"It sounds like he's coming up to her dragging his knee," she said, demonstrating.

It was pretty funny. And probably not politically correct. At all.

And, although I never have been able to read that poem with a straight face, now I just laugh the whole time.

We tried to fix it, but it proved awfully difficult. For instance,

He came to her and bent his knee
With velvet box in hand

sounds like his knee has a box in its hand.

Or

He came to her romantically
With velvet box in hand

But that's just sappy.

Maybe

He came to her expectantly

but that makes him sound like a hungry puppy.

Maybe he's already assured of his success and

He came to her triumphantly

mmmmmmmmm . . . not quite.

(See how easy it is to distract me from math homework? She's talented, this one.)

postponement strategy

I have conducted an informal survey of all the bloggers I know, and come to the following conclusion:

I will start taking (and posting) pictures when/if I have children. Nothing will stop me from posting them. I will post a lot of them.

This will make many people happy, since pictures of children are widely reputed to be well-received.

(Yes, this is a sorry excuse for not taking OR posting any pictures of social functions, special events, or other things that probably I should be photodocumenting. But I don't really have anything better to go on.)

music AND linguistics: what could be better?

The Sounds of our English Words are commonly like those of String Musick, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other Languages are like the Notes of Wind Instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthen'd out into variety of Modulation.

Joseph Addison, 135 The Spectator (4 Aug. 1711), in Classics in Composition 76, 77 (Donald E. Hayden ed., 1969).

out of school too long

Thus religious centralism turns out to be the homology of the legal centralism of positivists.

I keep reading and re-reading this line from the law review article I've been (not very successfully) reading all day.

Even though I think I know what the author is getting at, it's just not clicking into place. And I think the problem is me and not him . . .

warning against spiritual malnutrition

To look at Christ is to live, but for strength to serve him you must "come and dine." We labour under much unnecessary weakness on account of neglecting this precept of the Master. We none of us need to put ourselves on low diet; on the contrary, we should fatten on the marrow and fatness of the gospel that we may accumulate strength therein, and urge every power to its full tension in the Master's service. -- Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

taking a man from his meat

There are some large, hairy, deep-chested sportsman-type men in the world who look like they could subsist, and enjoy subsisting, wholly on meat. You know, the Gaston types who like to kill it themselves and then tear the insides out before roasting it on an open fire. In the woods.

My dad is not one of those men.

There are also some maybe-not-so-rustic but demanding men who would object fiercely if their womenfolk insisted on stocking the house with a diet consisting, roughly, of salad, beans, and, well . . . salad.

My dad is not one of those men, either.

But he is a man who likes his meat.

At about this time last year, the older two thirds of the Sixterhood, along with our esteemed mother, decided to take on the challenge of a 4-week vegan, dairy-free, wheat-free, sugar free cleansing diet. It was actually fun, and everybody felt better. We learned a lot about sugar and fats, and how little we really need to eat to be satisfied (something you learn pretty fast when nothing seems to taste good). And we learned how to cook some delicious stuff from basic and healthy ingredients. And we also started to appreciate more simple joys like cilantro, avocados and cashews.

This year we decided to do it all over again.

All that to say that, for the last two weeks, there hasn't been a whole lot of meat in the house.

Obviously we were aware of the general pain that this may cause the remaining members of the family.

But we had no idea just how deep and horrible it could be.

Until I went with my dad to the grocery store.

He groaned when he saw the cart loaded high with produce. "How embarrassing! Look how many vegetables, and no meat!"

I was shocked. I thought that the goal of all Southern Californians was to appear healthier, more tanned, richer, better connoseuirs of sunglasses, and more like they owned a BMW than their neighbors.

But, the further we went, the more obvious it became that my grocery selection was an affront to his very manhood (draw your own conclusions about what this means for California).

He was still looking around furtively as we rolled into the canned bean aisle. The beans were cheap (and convenient; I keep forgetting to soak raw beans . . . thanks, Fresh & Easy!). Three cans went in. Six. Nine. Ten. Eleven...

"Stop!!" he insisted in an urgent whisper, trying not to attract the attention of the other shoppers. "Enough beans!"

That's when I knew that when Brendon brought over the ribs the other night, and my dad said, "You saved my life!", he meant it. He really did.

This is sacrifice, people.

My dad is a hero.