One Year Ago Today...

...over on Facebook I posted these words from the road to Syracuse:

"Driving back to Syracuse to hopefully be with my Dad for some moments before his moments run out. And listening to the "Words" episode of Radiolab. Acquisition of language, words as brickwork for abstract thought. This also makes me think of my Mom, her memory going, the symbology of words starting to leave her, and what it means to be human, and alive, and connected to the named things of this world. Phewf."

Five days later, my Father died while I slept on the floor next to his bed.

Clutter Survey, Summer 2010

"Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

-Albert Einstein

Dad, Dad...

This is a little late for Father's Day, but today finds me thinking a lot about by Dad. A Ben Gibbard cover of Pedro the Lion fell into my lap, though, and fits the bill.

Ben Gibbard covers Pedro the Lion's Big Trucks from BlearyEyedBrooklyn.com on Vimeo.

The River Rock Campout 2010

Another lovely year-end camp-out with the big messy family that is River Rock School has left me suffering from a mild case of Failure To Thrive but a deep appreciation for communal care, deep-into-the-night songs around a campfire, capture-the-flag and, well, the delight of being coaxed out of bed to join a circle of fire watchers, and then riding the night out--bourbon, folk songs, Persian poetry and all--until the banter fades, the sky brightens, and some of us find ourselves a little ragged around the edges.

It was a grand time. If only we could coax Bob, Michele, Zoe and Henry to come to one of these things....

The kid can draw

The kid can draw
Originally uploaded by baseballpajamas

Drawings by Fergus, aged 10 (apparently based on illustrations in a "how to draw" book--but still). Matilda, here, is giving a truly withering look.

Maine/2002. California/2010.

(so much in between)

Just This

Okay, look, I really miss my sister Wendy. Tomorrow would have been her 57th birthday.

Blessing for a Dead Ladybug

My 6-year-old daughter (who is a cat as well as a human) discovered a dead ladybug in the house the other day and said this impromptu blessing:

"By the great Cat Lord may you be blessed in the underworld. Our great Lord Hades will bless you as his very companion. And you will be so ever-on blessed, until your soul floats up into the sky to join the other souls. Amen."

The Boy Turns Ten

The Boy Turns Ten:

Agent Comedy: The Gates of Death

Found under a chair:

A movie-poster-like drawing (Titled "Agent Comedy: The Gates of Death") by my son of a sneering guy holding a smoking gun; behind him is a menacing maw of some kind, with a ramp leading up to it. On the flip side of the paper is this cast listing (how does my 9-year-old know who these people are?):

CAST

Jackie Chan as The Jester
Beyonce as The White Skeleton
Harrison Ford as Dave
Scott Shambliss as Agent Swipe
Eric Bana as the Grim Reaper
Jack Black as Agent Chase
Skeleton Controllers: Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin
Michael Gambon as DJ
Stuart Craig as The Crown Knight

...Not really my kind of film, but if Michael Gambon is in it maybe I'll go see it....

Notes For Santa, By Norah (Up Close)

Norah had a lot to say to Santa Claus this year.

The American Girl catalog was there, I think, to give Santa some last minute ideas. But she certainly didn't want him to take it back to the North Pole with him.


I love that her drawing identifies so many of the figures with the qualifier "up close".

Will Santa still be awesome next year? Who knows?


"Please send me a picture of you; you are awesome"? I think I wrote those same words to Bobby Sherman when he was on "Here Comes the Brides."

Happy Hoedown; Holiday Poetry to Come

This christmas is once again brought to you by OfficeMax, a fact to be mitigated when I get a chance to post Fergus and Norah's winter-themed poetry here.....

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A Season Yet to Come?

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Thankfulness

Norah had a friend, Erin, over for a sleepover on Saturday; I think that was the first time Norah has had a friend over for the night. Fun was had by all (despite a certain level of girl-intensity) and a fair amount of sleep even happened. Norah has declared Erin her "BFF" (Best Friend Forever?), although Norah seems to enjoy a lot of people at school. Frankly, Erin probably has a lot of BFFs, but she and Norah do have a good time together.



The sleepover came a day after the annual "Harvest Supper" potluck at the kids' school. For that event, many of the kids had written statements and poems (many with illustrations) describing what they are thankful for.

Fergus, for example, was thankful for cats.

Other kids were thankful that they were driven to school each day, or for chinchillas, or for "fish and knives," or that Stevie Wonder is still alive.

One student said she was thankful for veterans, including her dad, and thankful that her dad was "not dead" (we patted him on the back and said we were glad too).

Some of the kids, Norah included, were feeling too shy to read their thanks out loud, so one of the teachers, Shawnee, read those.

As it turns out, Norah (that delight) is thankful for: "Oxygen, soil, water, fire, books, shelter and Erin--because life wouldn't be possible without six of these things...and Erin makes me laugh."

Sigh of pride. Sigh of thankfulness.

After the Camp Out

(Norah and I coming down for the morning)(picture by Shawnee)

Another splendid school campout last night at Les and Allison's place on Sparrow Farm Rd. A chilly, chilly night, though. But lovely in the morning as the fog began to burn off.



(Here Libby walks by as I pack up our tent, Les' unfinished sugar house in the background)

My favorite time of year in Vermont.

Tom's Awesome Adventure With Fergus and Norah

(based on real events from our summer 2009 trip to Seattle)

I've always wanted to be immortalized in art, even as someone with crackpot (though entirely appropriate) fears of Benjamin Franklin. But Tom, Ned, Fergus and Norah are the stars of this show....

Parents Say the Darndest Things

(Email exchange with my 85-year-old father)

From: Me
To: My Dad

(Re: Euphemism Generator website)Dad, This is a useful website on those days when you can't find just the right euphemism for a given situation....

_______________________

From: My Dad
To: Me

Thanks. I read about 50 of them, and none seemed to fit what i might need at any foreseeable time. However, you might enjoy what i found last week when I tried to find a work written by Benjamin Britten. The work turns out to be named "Hymn to the Virgin". Some very young (I guess) lady posted a note on the site I found which read something like: "I was humping real hard yesterday and after I was done, I found some blood. Does this mean my hymn is broken?" She needs a spelling lesson. Dad

Rainy Day Breakfast #12 and 35

While eating breakfast this morning, a drippy Saturday morning, Norah had some advice about venturing outside in pajamas:

-You know why it’s not good to go outside in your pajamas when it’s sprinkling?
-Why?
-Because that’s God drinking from a sippy cup.
-Oh yeah?
-Drinking juice from a sippy cup.
-God drinks juice from a sippy cup?
-Yes, because God has Down's Syndrome.

????

First Day of School

Sexology

Tonight's Fergusworld Episode:

From the next room he called out, "What's Innuendo mean?"

I tried to explain, but it turns out to be pretty hard to explain, especially to a 9-year-old. So I said, "Wait a minute; I'll get the dictionary."

When I came back, flipping through the pages, he said, "Just give it to me. I want to look it up."

Honestly, I wasn't even sure he knew how to look up a word like that in the dictionary. But he did, and read the definition out loud:

in-nu-en-do 1. An indirect intimation about a person or thing esp. (he pronounced this "esp") of a derogatory nature. 2. Law a. a parenthetic explanation or specification in a pleading b. (in an action for slander or libel) the explanation and elucidation of the words alleged to be defamatory.

Then we went on to read the derivation of the word, mostly phonetically, since it was rife with cryptic abbreviations.

He sat there for a moment. Then he announced, "I did not understand a word I just read."

But he held onto the dictionary.

Five minutes later he announced, "Sex! Norah, Sex is here! In the dictionary!"

There was a pause.

"Everything is sex!" he said.

"Sex act. Sexagenarian. Sexagesima. Sex appeal. Everything is sex! Sexavalent. Sex chromosome. Sexism. Sexologist. Sexpartite. I want to be a sexologist. I'm going to be a sexologist!"

As I say, the kid is nine.