Catching up

Doing a little blog running...

I read Dy's post about the librarian's reading suggestions to my husband.  He was astonished that there were such books as Walter, the Farting Dog, which led to a discussion of other children's books in the Captain Underpants vein, and that a librarian would actually encourage a kid to read these.  He suggested we write our own children's book, Orlando, the Puking Cat, which, unfortunately, is based on a true story.

Maitresse has some links to interesting articles.  In the Village Voice piece, the bit about linoleum made me laugh out loud; it's a fitting metaphor for our president.  In Patti Davis's article about finding a presidential candidate who loves us, she remembers back to the Vietnam era, spelling America with a "k":  Amerika.  This reminded me.  Has anyone seen the Amerika gas stations?  In the last year or so, in Florida, I've noticed several of them.  A Google search didn't help.  Does anyone have any more information on these?  Either it's some evil foreign corporation asserting their power on our soil, with some in-your-face statement about our country, or they are just really poor spellers.  Either way, it gives me the creeps.

While I have done nothing but play these last few days, I see many of you have been busy.  Shame on me.  Back to work.

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Housekeeping day.  While cleaning up the thick coating of baby-powder fine gray sand that accumulated under our sea-grass carpet, which had been removed and hosed down because of the aforementioned vomiting feline, I found one of our missing refrigerator word magnets, "tradition," and as the whole mess was being swept into the dust pan, I found that an appropriate metaphor for my life.

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Yesterday's visit with two very different sets of friends left me a bit dazed.

It started out at our homeschool friends' place.  Their three and our three girls all played contentedly and quietly with the Playmobil toys for hours.  They practically had to be forced out to the beach, but while there, they continued to play all kinds of games, having a delightful time splashing in the surf, and later swimming relay races in the pool, with their friends.  It was all very innocent and sweet.

Fast forward five years to our next stop.  It was all hairdos, hip hop dance lessons, and hurrying out of the hotel room whenever the teenaged male guests made an appearance.

Different strokes.

Sometimes it surprises me how varied our friends are:  Muslim, Catholic, WASP, Jewish, Wiccan, agnostic, atheist, gay, straight, gay-and-just-doesn't-know-it-yet, foreign, domestic, rich, poor, conservative, liberal, radical, modest, thoroughly depraved, and so on.  We've lived between neighbors we characterized as the Wild and the Mild, and were on good terms with both.  That's where we are comfortable, somewhere in the middle.

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As I aim to finish Undaunted Courage, I've picked up a couple of Lewis Lapham's books:  Waiting for the Barbarians, and Theater of War.

Yep, I'm in one of those moods.