Currently reading:

Paideia Proposal

More on this later.

America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

Buy it. Use it as a textbook. It's that good.

Transient

Florida has always been known as a very transient place. It's really getting weird, though. We've been here just over six months, the first tenants in this newly constructed residence, and we are soon to be the old-timers.

Dave, who we thought was a long-term resident but has only been here two years, has sold his house and is moving back to Pennsylvania. Carol ("Half-a-lung" to my medical professional cousin, Carolyn) has disappeared and her recently paroled stepson is now living in the house. Come to think of it, maybe someone should find out if Carol is still alive. Dalton, our ADHD bi-polar little friend, and his grandparents have sold the house they live in and are scheduled to move in a month or so across town to their new, hopefully hurricane-proof house. And on the other side of us, in the twin of this house built at the same time by the same developer, we are already on our second set of neighbors. First was the bookkeeper of our landlord who bought it from him as an investment, and lived in it briefly with a rotating assembly of grown children while her other heavily damaged properties were repaired. I thought it was to be a rental. It has now been sold and we have new neighbors. None of these properties sold recently have ever had a sign on them. Truly amazing.

(Maybe you're just doubting my realtor skills. I would be too, except that I did find a house last month in a waterfront neighborhood for $45,000.)

Anyway, new neighbors are from Miami and will be enjoying their new property on weekends. They have two boys, Andres and Daniel, referred to by L as "Andy and Dandy," who are close in age to our two older girls. Last weekend there was a giant freeze-tag tournament, bikes and scooters everywhere, even a Civil War played with camping gear and stick ponies. It looked like a scene from The Little Rascals.

We've been keeping our eye out for historic fixer-uppers in downtown Punta Gorda. I've always wanted to live in a little town where you could walk to the grocery store, park, post office, bank, church, assuming one goes, library, etc. Now's the time to grab something, it's quickly on its way to being unattainable. Or, we could stick with our buildable four acres two miles outside of town, or maybe locate an historic commercial building in town with living space above, or a vacant downtown lot in need of mixed-use redevelopment, or...

Sorry, got to cut this short. G wants to look at a ten-acre piece a little further down the road.

Stuff

I hammered out a tentative truce with my mother after receiving a tearful phone call from her about two weeks ago.

"Why haven't you called? Is something the matter? What did I do to make you so angry?"

"Accused me, very publicly, of thinking I'm so goddamned smart and always rubbing it in everybody's face."

"Maybe I was a little upset because I was asking you questions, trying to have a conversation with you, and you were just giving me these short, snappy answers. You always answer me that way."

"I was reading a book. Besides, there is never any conversation required with you. You fire off a list of questions, usually the same old questions, all of which can be answered with a simple 'Yes" or 'No.' The answers to the questions are irrelevant, they have already been assumed. If a question is answered contrary to the presupposed answer, or even if I throw in the occasional non-sequitur expletive, you never notice. There is no reason to elaborate because in your mind you have already proceeded to the next question. You are too busy having your own conversation and I'm too busy to waste time."

"Are you saying I talk to myself? I do not have conversations in my own head!"

"...Or, you see any attempt at discussion as a personal attack and get all defensive."

"I do not!"

"...Or, you rattle off a shopping list of doctors' appointments, aches and pains, medications, and side effects. Not a very interesting topic and, again, no reply necessary."

"How can I make it better?"

"You could start by listening. Pay attention to the actual answers I give. I knew you weren't paying attention when I told you Mildred died..."

"What! When did Mildred die? You never told me that! Should I send a Mass card?"

"No, thank you, you'd only be sending it to [my husband] G, and quite frankly, he doesn't want one. Maybe you could read one of the books I've always got my nose stuck in and discuss it with me."

"Like what kind of books? Not that telephone book-sized one. [The Underground History of American Education, recommended once because she is a retired schoolteacher and I thought it might interest her.] I don't have time."

"But you have the time to read 40,000 spy novels. Take it with you when you're waiting at one of your many doctors' appointments. Try reading something once in a while that might teach you something."

"They're too hard."

"Okay, nevermind, gotta go."

"Wait! What's another book I could read?"

"Try, The Language Police."

"Where do I get it?"

"The library, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com..."

"What's it about?"

"How devoid of content school textbooks are thanks to the efforts of both the conservative right and liberal left."

"Who wrote it?"

"Diane Ravitch."

"Who is she? What makes her such an expert?"

----

No big surprise then to discover that no mind-expanding books had been read when she and my father arrived for a two-day stay last week. They came over on the pretext of dropping off a birthday present, one single birthday present, as had been previously discussed and approved. It also happened to be a convenient stop-over on their visit to other west coast friends. There was a 3-D slide projector (the approved gift), extra 3-D glasses (acceptable), book of conversational Latin phrases (tolerable for its educational value), and a paint-your-own wooden sandals kit, pair of pants, and not one, but two shirts, plus an assortment of gifts for both of the non-birthday girls.

Things were still tense the next night, my parents doing their walking-on-eggshells routine, designed to keep me, their perpetually angry daughter, from blowing up again, in response to my questions about dinner.

"Where would you all like to eat?"

"It doesn't mattter, anywhere!"

"No, I guarantee if I take you to a Thai restaurant it will matter. What do you feel like eating?"

"Oh, anything is fine."

"There's a really good steakhouse downtown..."

"Do they have fish?"

"Oh, yeah, it's Friday. Right."

Realizing they were only going to be happy eating giant plates of fried seafood, we headed straight for Fisherman's Village. Afterward I picked up some ice cream and we all settled in at home to watch Groundhog Day. My father asked about our television.

"What's so much better about a flat screen? It's smaller than your other one."

"I don't know. I guess it's easier to see from the sides than a regular one."

Later it dawned on me. He was wondering where the hell the big screen television went. The one he had given us as a Christmas present a few years back after babysitting for us and having to suffer through a Dolphins game on our miniscule old set.

It's still all about the stuff.

Burning the candle at both ends, that's what I've been doing. That, and hacking up great green globs of, oh, never mind. We're all sick -- every single last phlegmy one of us. Some of us are even on antibiotics! You heard that right. The person who believes bodies are designed to be basically self-sufficient has gone and picked up loads of cold medicine and is dosing everybody up left and right. I just couldn't bear the whining any more.

We had to cancel a birthday get-together with our snowbird homeschool friends for today and missed swimming lessons yesterday. Tomorrow is G's birthday and I hope we are least able to crawl over to the pool in order to share the giant Death by Chocolate layer cake I ordered with her swim buddies. The snowbird friends I didn't want to infect, the swimming people, who cares. They will never know if we gave it to them or if they picked it up at school.

Wireless is wonderful. I almost feel a part of the twenty-first century! I can be sick in bed surfing away, my laptop the world's most interesting heating pad.

I had a real estate listing, my very first, dropped in my lap yesterday. Vacant land. Stick it in the MLS and watch me collect my ten percent. Pretty soon the phone will be ringing off the hook, people begging me to list their properties, as I wallow in closing checks. I'm already planning a mini-vacation this summer with the girls in NYC. See a couple shows, stay at a grand hotel... Always counting my chickens before they hatch, that's me.

The private school plan is moving along. Forms to fill, fingerprints to be inked. We'll see how far it goes.

Now just the other day I was about to reply to a post on another blog about how good parenting, especially with homeschooling, is a full time job. Can you work two full-time jobs? Sure, but one or the other, or your sanity is going to suffer. Do one thing and do it well. That's what I was going to say, before I became a homeschooling, real estate selling, private school administratoring mom. Whatever.

As G and I sat in the orthodontist's waiting room the other day waiting for S to have her impressions done, we listened in on a conversation taking place next to us between a grandma who was waiting on her grandson and grandma's boyfriend.

I had Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell plopped in my lap and had to remember to occasionally turn a page or two. G was leaning across me also feigning interest in my book. She would reach over and help me turn the pages when it became too obvious that I wasn't reading.

What first caught our ear was his question regarding the article she was reading aloud to him on OCD, "What's OCD?"

"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

"Oh. I think I must have that."

"You do not!"

"Yes I do, I'm obsessed and compulsive about you."

Grandma giggled and then went on to point out the mini melodrama unfolding across the room. A teenage girl was waiting with her mother, and when it was time for the mother to go in for her appointment, she asked her daughter if she wanted to come back and wait with her there. She stayed put, eyes rolling.

Grandma explained, "It's just NOT the thing to do when you're a teenager."

"What?"

"Be seen with your parents!"

"Since when?"

"Since always."

"It wasn't that way when we were growing up."

"Of course it was. You just don't remember." She then relayed several anecdotes about her own grandchildren describing the social suicide of being seen with parents and the ridiculous lengths kids go to avoid the situation. She seemed to accept disrespect and insolence as the norm.

"No, I remember, I'd never admit any different to you anyway, and I don't recall ever being embarrassed about being with my parents at that age. Well, except when I went on my mother's honeymoon."

"What?"

"When Mother married Bob, they took me along. My aunt offered to keep me, but Mother had never left me with anyone else before, and insisted I come along. I thought it was a little odd, but nobody except me even knew they were on their honeymoon. It looked like a regular family vacation."

"What kind of accommodations did you have?"

"We just had the one bedroom. I was old enough to know what was going on, and as I recall, they sent me off to the movies quite a bit."

G and I suppressed a chuckle, and as I looked around at all the other surly looking kids in the room I wondered when kids' attitudes got so ugly and what caused it, and why people are willing to accept it as just the way things are. My grandparents were respectful, participating members of their own families. They may not have cared for their parents' music, and cut loose once they were finally away at school, as evidenced by my grandmother's flapper hairdo in her college graduating photo and stories of my grandfather and his tuxedoed Yale buddies hotwiring a tractor and taking it for a midnight ride. My parents had minor, innocent rebellions, sneaking down to Billy Sullivan's basement and dancing the night away, riding motorcycles, but they were always respectful and close to their parents. I had a big nasty rebellion, but as long as I lived under my parents' roof, I was an unwilling, though always publicly respectful participant.

My bright, sunny, S came out of the back about then, wearing the t-shirt the orthodontist had given her as part of an incentive program, and a big, happy smile. For arriving on time, good brushing, and wearing the shirt to appointments, you earn wooden nickels redeemable for some pretty good rewards (she's shooting for the $15 VISA check card.) If you bring your appointment slips with you, you can enter them in a monthly drawing for more prizes. She had the remnant shell of a lingering baby tooth they decided to remove tucked safely in a little pink, plastic treasure box. I could sense the scorn at her enthusiasm oozing from the jaded ones still in the waiting room. Both girls wrapped their arms around my waist, my arms around their shoulders, and as a single entity, turning sideways so we could fit through the doorway, exited the office.

In the car we laughed about how the other kids in the waiting room were too sophisticated to be seen with their parents, or in their t-shirts collecting wooden nickels, or entering silly raffles. We agreed that their bad attitudes were very cool. It increases our odds of winning.

Mommy Mania

Over the last few months, I have read numerous articles describing, acknowledging, admitting, denying, placing blame, and mocking the big Mommy problem. I stand firmly in the mocking camp. Like you couldn't have guessed. It's all become very tiresome and there wasn't much chance I'd bother reading a whole parenting book about it.

Then I read "Marshal Plan" in the March issue of The Atlantic. There are a new batch of intriguing titles, The Three-Martini Playdate, Confessions of a Slacker Mom, and the one which has me kicking myself for not being, if not ahead of the trend, at least onboard, Cheap Psychological Tricks for Parents. My kind of titles, and some I may have to take a look at. Remember Brainwashing Techniques for Parents? That'll teach me.

My favorite part of Sandra Tsing Loh's artcle was her discovery of a very effective technique for stopping a screaming child, one that I myself have used on occasion. Give it right back to them. Scream at the temper tantrum thrower with the same volume and hysterical tone. Everyone will stop dead in their tracks. Then everyone will burst out laughing. Of course this is one you can't use very often as it's strength comes from the element of surprise, and one I wouldn't recommend for use out in public.

It's difficult being a trend setter.

Quick poll

I'm still working on this umbrella school idea. In order to proceed however, I have to have an official name. I was thinking of incorporating "Schola" somehow, but maybe that's too obscure. Schola of South Florida, South Florida Schola, something like that.

schola 1a: an ancient Roman school b: a private room in an ancient Roman residence c: a lecture hall or meeting room (as of a guild or corporation) 2: an ancient Roman association of persons (as military men) sharing a common interest or profession

It's also one heck of an acronym.

What do you think? Any and all comments appreciated.

Valentine's Day

What would be the best thing you could give me on Valentine's Day, someone who does not appreciate cheesy Hallmark sentiments, who is trying not to ingest excess carbs, who appreciates flowers but would rather not have them killed on my account, who doesn’t need another piece of jewelry or anymore dust collectors in her life, someone for whom a homecooked meal would be a bigger treat than a night out?

How about having all the school work done cheerfully and then the entire house cleaned, thoroughly, and all laundry folded and put away by my darling daughters? Well, they folded most of the clothes and are baking cookies for me. I’m going to call that a perfect gift.

Last night when I went over to Wal-mart (yes, I’m part of the problem) to pick up my network hardware and supplies for L's Valentine exchange at school today, last minute being as good as any, I was horrified by the vast amount of pseudo-holiday junk. The aisles were completely torn apart. We were seeking one extra card pack because the first pack I picked up weeks ago, the Hello Kitty cards, only came in a box of 24, and Thursday I was notified that there are 30 children in her class. A woman in a little blue vest with a smiley face on it informed me, with an attitude that screamed, "You should know better than that!" that there were no more kid cards left. In disbelief and determination I dug through the ravaged remains until I victoriously located the one and only set of kiddy Valentines left in town, Polly Pockets. Perfect.

The rules were that they only sign their name, leaving the recipient’s name blank, and there must be one card for every student. We don’t want anyone’s feelings to be hurt, but seriously, who keeps track of these things? I never compared my Valentines cache to anyone else’s. Did I get cards from the mean girls or the weird kid? Did I have fewer cards than anyone else? I can’t remember. The only one that meant anything anyway was the card from Joe Riggs. It had a furry, bucktoothed creature on the front with the cryptic, “I gopher you!” I knew what he was trying to tell me. Just like when he serenaded me with “Bungle in the Jungle” out on the playground.

L’s haul today was a collection of mass marketed cartoon characters, a few premium cards with candy attached (from the really fun moms), one goody bag containing a pencil, bendable heart guy, and a fortune cookie (from the Chinese kid), and one handmade card.

Let me leave you with this song, which is technically not a Valentine song, but all this talk of hearts and love, and the fact that we recently rediscovered this gem of a CD when we cleaned out another box, has this playing in my head today like a loop tape.

Share the love.

Hello

It was a very busy week.

We had a fun day visiting our friends down in Naples on Wednesday. Aside from the obvious similarities, three girls and secular classical education, they are just as up in the air about their future, so T and I had lots to talk about. It's a big boost to hear someone who seems to have it all together express the same doubts regarding children, schooling, and life in general. And that would be her, the one that is so together, not me. Their girls are just so sweet and all of them get along so well. We can't wait to see them again in a week or so when we celebrate G's 10th birthday.

Thursday we plunked down a large deposit on orthodontic services. S is very excited about starting the process and G can't hardly wait to get hers it looks like so much fun. The first semi-permanent appliance she gets requires me to do daily small adjustments, so I will be doing some homeschool orthodontics after all.

Thursday I was also reminded of the mental telepathy between good friends. Somewhere in this world, I am absolutely certain of what went through my friend Alex's mind upon hearing the announcement of Prince Charles's upcoming marriage: "I want to live inside your knickers" and, "Ohhhhhhh, Chahhhhhhhles!" -- our take on the infamous Camillagate tape that kept us in hysterics. She probably even said it out loud at least once but more likely several times that day. Later, when I heard that Boston was expecting another snowstorm, I thought of Carolyn and how this would finally push her over the edge and right down to Florida. Guess who called that night? No tickets yet, but she's looking.

Friday, rather than get frustrated at the lack of schoolwork we would accomplish with L home from preschool, we all rode over with Dad to the east coast for the day. G's mom wanted the three girls to come up to her place for a visit and offered her car to me for the day. I had a bunch of gift certificates from Christmas that I figured I could burn up. Have I mentioned that I can't stand shopping? It was a beautiful winter day and after meeting my husband and his architect for lunch and stuffing myself with sushi and sashimi, I thoroughly enjoyed zipping around Las Olas Boulevard, down Fort Lauderdale beach and over to the Galleria in my mother-in-law's Turbo Diesel Mercedes, sunroof open. I just did not have one bit of fun looking for clothes. I still have balances left on all the cards. Argh.

Saturday and Sunday we spent at the island. Didn't notice until we were nearly to the marina that my laptop had been left behind. Whoops. The weather was clear and cool, but a red tide finally arrived in our waters Saturday and the beginning of a fish kill was evident. There were thousands of one to three inch fish floating on top of the waves. By Sunday the bigger fish were dying, mostly sea trout and mullet up to two feet long, jumping out of the bay, gasping for air as the algal bloom suffocated them. It was heartbreaking.

Last night I did have some success in the store credit redemption department. I picked up a wireless network system for our computers at Walmart. Today, in between checking papers and Latin vocabulary flash cards, I'll be hooking us all up.

Homeschool Lite

Today started out with good intentions and we all know where those lead, right?

After dropping the little one off at preschool, we ran by the bank and the post office to do a few quick errands before returning home and hitting the books. Then, being in the neighborhood, I remembered the $10.00 Staples gift card I had in my wallet, a promotion to visit the store's post-Charley reopening, which was about to expire, and the print cartridge I need to replace. We stopped in there. On the way home I saw signs for a big quilt show scheduled for today and tomorrow that I had intended to see, but had forgotten about. Had to drop in to admire the displays and buy a few raffle tickets. While we were there, I received a call that my old laptop, yeah, the same one supposedly fixed last spring, was ready to be picked up. Back across town we went. We grabbed sandwiches at our grocery store's deli and then it was time to pick the little one up already.

One down, four to go.

Tomorrow is P.E. day, the girls are working on their Presidential Fitness Award with the homeschool group, followed by swimming lessons.

Wednesday we are heading down to Naples to play with our snowbird homeschool friends! Yay!

Thursday S has an orthodontic consultation, the preschool has early dismissal, and they all have swimming lessons.

Friday is a day off for the preschoolers, which means with L home, we won't get our schoolwork done either.

Better luck next week.

----

On a more productive note, I believe I have finally found a spelling curriculum that works for G. McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book is so simple. The words are arranged in groups by construction and use diacritical marks. The book is small and slender, like the famous McGuffey readers, so is not the least bit intimidating. There are a total of 247 word lists. G is very excited. We started with the first list, one syllable words, short "a" sound spelled "a" (am, an, at, etc.) Being so easy, it was a great confidence builder. Spelling Power's format of the daily test and review of misspelled words was effective, but the word lists jumped around too much. We'll continue in a format similar to Spelling Power using McGuffey's lists. Some of the words are very old-fashioned, "wen" and "ken" for example, which required some explanation, and it was funny to see her squirm when asked to spell "fag" and "sex."

Break Out the Popcorn

We lounged around yesterday afternoon and watched our new trove of movies from Netflix. These have nothing to do with our historical studies, but were chosen for their social relevancy.

Mean Girls - Tina Fey didn't have much writing to do here. Almost every character and situation sketched out in Queen Bees and Wannabes was in there. All she had to do was put it together, but oh, what a good job she did. It was very funny moralistic little story. Amy Poehler as the mother of the Queen Bee was particularly hilarious.

"Still think you might want to go to school, honey?" "Ha!"

Cane Toads - A really offbeat Australian documentary about the Bufo Marinus, a particularly invasive non-native species of toad, imported in the 1930s to help control, alas unsuccessfully, the Cane Grub.

Americans and Australians are both the bastard children of England, but the Australians have more of their mother's eccentric sense of humour.

Fahrenheit 9/11 - We only watched about one third of it so far, planning to view the balance this afternoon.

This movie is great for spurring discussion. Why, last night alone we talked about the oil industry, relationships between government heads, responsibility of leadership, influence of money, psychology of fear, media slant, editing techniques and bias, foreign cultures, and the justification for using force. S and G are fascinated. They closed their eyes for the public beheadings and the more gruesome scenes of Iraqi bomb victims, though.

Next up...Super Size Me.

Field Trips

I'm not big on group field trips. Our homeschool group's last visit to the Calusa Nature Center was pleasant enough, until we got to the planetarium show. Kids were ignoring the instruction of the narrator and strolling around in the pitch black. I kept waiting for the star machine to come crashing down, the universe imploding on itself. There was constant chatter. Someone decided to take some flash photography and another was playing with a flashlight, nearly searing my eyeballs. But that's to be expected, no?

In spite of the usual troubles inherent in group activities, I am definitely not going to miss this one, tentatively planned for the spring. Wannado City is a theme park where kids role play different occupations in a simulated city. The educational value is negligible. The real value comes from observing what the entertainment biz believes are worthy careers for kids. You've got your basic fireman, policeman, doctor, pilot, and nurse. Pretty standard stuff. Then, for the potentially learned, you have archaeologist and reporter. The major source of employment seems to be from the arts and entertainment field: TV Director, Dance Club DJ, Model, Theater Actor, Fashion Photographer, Master of Ceremonies, Theater Director, Prop Master, Wardrobe, Fashion Show Director, Fashion Stylist, Animal Tamer, Boom Operator, Film Director, Film Actor, Radio Station Editor, Sculptor, Camera Operator, Newspaper Photographer, and Fine Arts Painter. For the lower achievers there seems to be quite a few positions available in food service and retail, and if that's not your cup of tea, there's always Hairdresser or Manicurist.

I can't wait!

February

National Heart Month -- Black History Month -- Library Lovers' Month

1 Anniversary of Greensboro, NC first lunch counter sit-in, 1960
2 Groundhog Day
Candlemas Day or Presentation of the Lord
3 Sixteenth Amendment ratified, grants Congress authority to levy income tax, 1913
6 Accession of Queen Elizabeth II, 1952
100 Billionth Crayola Crayon produced, 1996
7 First untethered space walk by Challenger astronauts, 1984
First ballet in U.S. by French danseuse Madame Francisquy Hutin in New York, 1827
8 Boy Scouts of America founded, 1910
Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)
9 Ash Wednesday, Lent begins
Chinese New Year – Year of the Rooster
10 First computer chess victory over human by IBM’s Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov,
1996
Islamic New Year, calendar date: Muharram 1, 1426
Treaty of Paris signed ending French and Indian War, 1763
11 Anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s Prison Release, 1990
14 Valentine’s Day
18 Jefferson Davis unanimously chosen president of the Confederacy, 1861
Pluto discovered, 1930
21 Presidents’ Day
23 Researchers in Scotland announce first adult animal cloning, Dolly, 1997
26 Grand Canyon National Park established 1919

Thirty days hath November,
April, June, and September;
February hath twenty-eight alone,
And all the rest have thirty-one.
-- Richard Grafton (Chronicles of England; 1562)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.
-- William Shakespeare (As you Like It)

Antiphanes said merrily that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer.
-- Plutarch

O farmers, pray that your summers be wet and your winters clear.
-- Virgil


BIRTHDAYS

1 Langston Hughes, 1902
4 Charles Lindbergh, 1902
Rosa Lee Parks, 1913
6 Babe Ruth, 1895
7 Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867
Charles Dickens, 1812
8 William Tecumseh Sherman, 1820
Jules Verne, 1828
11 Thomas Alva Edison, 1847
12 Charles Darwin, 1809
Abraham Lincoln, 1809
15 Galileo Galilei, 1564
19 Nicholas Copernicus, 1473
20 Ansel Adams, 1902
22 George Washington, 1732
23 W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868
George Frederick Handel, 1685
25 Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841
26 Levi Strauss, 1829
William Frederic “Buffalo Bill” Cody, 1846
27 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807

We had a report somewhere around 4 o’clock in the afternoon before that the weather would be fine, so we thought we would try it. -- Charles Lindbergh

I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so. -- Rosa Parks

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
-- Thomas Edison

Important principles may and must be inflexible.
-- Abraham Lincoln

But it does move! -- Galileo Galilei

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. -- W.E.B. Du Bois