Filler

I volunteered to help our local homeschool group* with the monthly newsletter by contributing trivia, which suits me just fine, as I'm sure most of you would agree. You want filler? I got filler.**

Here then is a collection of miscellany for the month of December:

December is: Safe Toys and Gifts Month; Universal Human Rights Month

1 -- Basketball invented by James Naismith, 1891
-- Rosa Parks Day, anniversary of arrest, 1955
-- Antarctica set aside as scientific preserve, 1959

2 -- Monroe Doctrine created, 1823

6 -- Saint Nicholas Day

7 -- Pearl Harbor Day, 1941
-- Chanukah begins at sundown

12 -- Soviet Union dissolved, 1991
-- Poinsettia Day (honors Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett, who introduced the Central
American plant to the U.S.)

14 -- South Pole Discovery by Roald Amundsen, 1911

15 -- Ratification of Bill of Rights, 1791

16 -- Celebration of Las Posadas begins
-- Boston Tea Party, 1773

17 -- Wright brothers’ first powered flight, 1903

20 -- Louisiana Purchase, 1803
-- Sacagawea dies, 1812
-- South Carolina first state to secede from Union, 1860

21 -- First crossword puzzle compiled and printed, 1913
-- Humbug Day (allows those preparing for Christmas to vent their frustrations;
twelve “humbugs” allowed)
-- Pilgrims land at Plymouth
-- Winter begins

25 -- Christmas

26 -- Kwanzaa begins

31 -- New Year’s Eve


BIRTHDAYS

2 Georges Seurat, 1859
4 Leaf Munro, 1905 (author of The Story of Ferdinand)
5 Walt Disney, 1901; Martin Van Buren, 1782
9 Clarence Birdseye, 1886; Jean De Brunhoff, 1899 (author of The Story of Babar)
10 Emily Dickinson, 1830
14 Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, 1832
16 Ludwig Van Beethoven, 1770
24 Christopher “Kit” Carson, 1809
25 Clara Barton, 1821
27 Louis Pasteur, 1822
28 Woodrow Wilson, 1856
30 Rudyard Kipling, 1865
31 Henri Matisse, 1869


QUOTATIONS

At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
-- Thomas Tusser

“I am the ghost of Christmas past.”
“Long past?” inquired Scrooge.
“No. Your past.”
-- Charles Dickens

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!”
-- Clement Clarke Moore (A Visit from St. Nicholas)

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat,
Please to put a penny in the old man’s hat;
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you!
--Anonymous

Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.
-- Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me…
-- Jill Jackson and Sy Miller



* Yes, we're officially back with the so-called inclusive group, at least for the once a month Park Day. They quit opening with a prayer which pleased me, not because I am against prayer per se, but because the content alienated Pagan and Muslim members. A small victory.

** All dates taken from The Teacher's Calendar School Year 2004-2005, loaned to me by the head of the newsletter committee. Could she make it any easier? An interesting book, but let's just hope the editors of Chase's performed due diligence while researching their factoids.

Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne

Hurricane Season officially ends at midnight tonight.

As hundreds of thousands of Floridians breathe a sigh of relief, I wonder, "What about the Butterfly Effect?"

Read aloud

Uncle Tom's Cabin is not a great book for pre-bedtime reading. You already knew that?

What was I thinking?

Out comes Little Lord Fauntleroy instead.

Post Game Analysis

Gravy successful.

Stain removal successful.

This year as it was just G, the kids, and me, I stuck to the tried and true, unlike years past where I pull a Martha Stewart and whip up a few non-traditional items. Like the year my poor father couldn't get over the fact that there were no mashed potatoes on the menu. Instead I offered him a delectable Pommes Anna. That didn't cut it.

"Sweet potatoes or sweet potato casserole with the marshmallows on top?"

"Sweet potato fritters."

"Cranberry jelly?" desperately hoping for his jiggling magenta can-shaped lump.

"Cranberry and mango relish. Yes, Dad, those are pieces of jalapeno in there..."

One thing that remains the same no matter the menu: stuffing, always Pepperidge Farm, herbed, in the bag. I have been known on occasion to get slightly creative, hiding tasty tidbits in there and maybe combining a bag of Pepperidge Farm cornbread variety, but that's it. The stuffing is sacred. As a child I loved it right out of the turkey, but these days, it's prepared separately. Food borne illness be damned, I've just seen too much of the inside of a turkey to want to put my precious dressing in there.

And lastly, the turkey scene in this trailer comes to mind.

Pay no attention to that meter over there...

It's way off. I'm rushing to finish the last 8,000 or so words that Word claims I still have left.

Happy Thanksgiving

There's a lull in the activity here, turkey's done, cooling before cutting; potatoes are boiled and ready for mashing; green beans were steamed and bathed in ice water yesterday, ready for a quick stirfry in some garlic and olive oil; stuffing's done, biscuits set to pop in the oven. Everythings's a go.

Yesterday was a squishy, squooshy, squash day. Two small pumpkins were roasted and mashed for the two pies we whipped up. Too many acorn squashes roasted and mashed for another side dish that I will probably be the only one partaking of. The food will be gone soon, but I don't believe we will ever see the end of the seeds. Darn slippery things ended up everywhere. I just found one in my bathroom, and there's yet another on the floor next to the dishwasher, a spot I have personally cleaned up at least twice since this morning.

This year, I will overcome a giant cooking hurdle, drumstick, er, drumroll please...

Gravy. Giblet gravy.

This was the only part of Thanksgiving my paternal grandmother participated in. It was always perfection. I have never tasted a more heavenly, savory gravy, ever. My mother comes in a distant second, having learned at her mother-in-law's elbow, but is always flustered and complaining about how overly complicated the whole process is. Or maybe it was just because she had her mother-in-law breathing down her neck and must relive the trauma every year. Last night Grammy came to me in a dream and confessed that she had been kidding all those years, "It's really easy, give it a try! I just liked to watch your mother get all nervous and upset!" I should have known, Grammy.

Of course now, Stinky Turkey Mom has showered and dressed, and will be attempting to splash around in a big pan of grease in her nice clean clothes.

This is one of my favorite holidays. Food and television. What an awesome combination. Dinner preparations are well under way during the Macy's Parade broadcast, and we are always reminded how the weather in NYC is inevitably better than the one time we actually got to see the parade in person, standing right on the Nasdaq corner on top of a plywood fruit stand my brother and husband thoughtfully swiped for our viewing pleasure. It was in the teens that day, so windy they were threatening to cancel the balloons, and we were in the shade. These Florida people, what a bunch of crybabies.

It just wouldn't be a real holiday without some live entertainment now, would it? Our special guest this morning is our six year old neighbor, Dalton, who arrived shirtless to show off his new tattoos. They're fake, you always have to look very closely around here, though, but they look authentic. And somehow he and his grandma know exactly where real thugs should wear them: on his neck, forearms, and a giant one that covers most of his back. He came back a few minutes later in his rapper clothes and has been dancing up a storm in our living room. Imagine a cross between Nancy's Sluggo and The Incredibles' Syndrome...

My last Thanksgiving thought, before I go stain myself silly, is that PETA should quit wasting their time harping about the luckless turkeys involved in today's festivities, and should instead turn their attention on a more heinous animal related holiday tradition, The National Dog Show, which has for the last several years been airing immediately after Macy's parade.

Gobble, gobble.

Subversive

I am secretly exerting my influence, systematically attempting to take control of a small private school from within by revolutionizing their curriculum choices.

Dad and I are thoroughly impressed with the preschool L is attending. She is absolutely thriving. It has turned out to be such a good thing that we are wavering on our relocation plans, thinking we will go ahead and build ourselves a house on the four acres here in Punta Gorda (keeping the island, too.) She loves her teacher, her friends, her swim coach. This week she hit a milestone and moved into her first workbook, Primary Phonics, an Educators Publishing Service product. Over the five-day holiday her teacher assigned six pages of homework in the book. She had completed five before dinner tonight. I tried to stop her after three, it was exhausting me to watch, her four year old fine motor skills lagging behind her mental agility, but she insisted. It is amazing to see her reading and writing sentences on her own.

The school continues on up through 12th grade, and the idea of enrolling the older two keeps tempting me. I want to be sure first, of course, that the curricula they offer meshes with what I have been teaching.

Latin - They teach it, but what text? Must speak with Latin teacher. Plenty of research material to share.
Math - Currently using ABeka, but the math teacher told me today she is contemplating a switch to Saxon next year. My recommendation in favor of Saxon was taken into consideration.
English - Not sure what they are using. My aim is to assist them in their selection and make sure writing is a strong part of the program.
Logic/Rhetoric - A classical-styled school must-have. Again, I plan to foist my preferences upon them.

Back at the beginning of the school year, I found two glaring red flags which caused me extreme enrollment unease: excessive typos in an in-house produced information packet for the older grades, and Creation Science. My plan for these minor stumbling blocks will be to voluntarily edit and rewrite their materials, and allow for plenty of eye-rolling.

The principal has already expressed interest in The Well Trained Mind, now I will encourage him to read Climbing Parnassus, too.

If I am successful in manipulating their curriculum, I will gladly send the girls in the fall. If not, then we keep on.

Am I so self-important that I think I can really influence their selections? No. I learned at our last school that it is very easy to effect change in a small learning environment, squeaky wheel or not. This student body is even smaller, the senior class this year totals eight, and with enrollment down as a result of the hurricanes, they are hungry for tuition money. It all boils down to the green stuff.

(Shuffle, shuffle)

That's the sound of our schedule being rearranged.

S absconded with Little Women. I gave her the option of continuing to read it alone or allowing us to return to it as our read-aloud selection. Uncle Tom's Cabin was suggested as an alternative book for its relevance to her current interest in the slavery themed Historiclay production.

A compromise was reached as evidenced by the sidebar.

Because I had been looking forward to reading Little Women myself, one of those treasured works of fiction I seem to have missed in my youth, I decided to check out my own copy this morning at the library. G, not to be left out either, checked out the Whole Story Series edition of Little Women.

The Whole Story Series of books appealed to me once upon a time for the marginal tidbits, but I could never get past the sneaking suspicion that they were abridged versions, in spite of what the covers claim. For G though, they are a good fit. There was mostly silence in the car on the way home from the library but for her occasional bursts of, "Listen to what Jo said...!"

I've been enjoying Sour Bob for a while now and keep forgetting to add the link to my sidebar. This was a particularly amusing post.

The night before last, G was headed back from the east coast with the two older girls. The plan was that I would have some clothes packed for everyone, then L and I would meet them somewhere along the way for dinner and we would all continue on to the marina and out to the island.

Poor L fell fast asleep on the couch waiting for their call. We opted instead for them to stop by the house, collect their clothes, and L and I would head out the next morning, Saturday, and meet them at the marina.

It was a great opportunity to get some work done on my writing.

Our house sits directly beside its twin, also built by our landlord and inhabited now by his accountant. She had initially purchased it as an investment, for rental income, but with her primary and another rental residence destroyed by Hurricane Charley, she's moved her extended family in.

They were out on their deck enjoying a barbecue. It seemed really loud. It sounded like they were on our deck. I imagined they had boarded our deck like pirates across a gangway. Then I heard and felt a large thump. Someone was having a party on our deck. When I gathered up the courage to peek out the sliding glass door, which I was sitting in front of, I saw a big, fat raccoon trying desperately to open the container of cat food L had left out earlier.

When he saw me through the glass, he took off. I went outside to bring in the cat food. He hadn't climbed down the railing like I figured and I surprised him coming around the corner. He ran right between my legs. I was lucky he didn't decide to take refuge under my skirt, climbing my legs like a tree.

The adrenaline rush boosted my word count substantially.

Oh yeah, gettin' close... (See meter below)

In a frenetic burst of creativity, what comes after spending your entire morning in various auto repair facilities, I managed about 4,000 words, pulling myself out of my one day hole and raring a full day ahead of schedule.

This would not have been possible had not my wonderful, helpful husband allowed the girls to accompany him to work today.

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S and G's stop action play is still evolving. With one pirate completed, S, changed the direction of the production from Treasure Island, to a show about slavery. She has been poring over the collection of books we have on hand, If You Traveled on the Underground Railroad, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself, Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom, Follow the Drinking Gourd, and Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman, researching her newest story. This latest venture will not be a "Palm Tree Production," but will be credited under the title of her latest production company, "Historiclay."

If I'm able to dig out my old copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, she would no doubt devour it. If I can't locate it, off to the library first thing in the morning.

Progress

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I did it again. Last night we finished reading Treasure Island, well, that's what the kids told me this morning anyway. I looked back at the last chapter and did not recall any of it, but they were able to accurately fill me in on the last leg of the voyage of the Hispaniola. They told me I did it with all character voices, right down to Captain Flint's final squawks, "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" I reread the last six pages or so this morning.

Next up, Little Women.

Today, after finishing Math And English, I let the kids off the hook. I have a novel to finish you know.

They are currently in S's bedroom, with the classical music radio station cranking, crafting their characters for a claymation production of our soon to be finished read aloud, Treasure Island, inspired by the recent viewing of our newly purchased DVD, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Wow. Again, with the Taser?!

Sex, Sushi, Socializing, and a Sacrament

This weekend G and I were discussing the topics that are always on our minds: Where are we going to live? Move back to the east coast, or halfway around the world? Is there a way to avoid the cultural decay that surrounds us? Location, location, location?

SEX

Saturday evening started out well. The kids were invited for a sleepover at Nanny and Papa’s on our trip over to the east coast for our nephew’s baptism. With G commuting back and forth across the state almost daily, often the only time we're in the same place at the same time is when we finally flop into bed at the end of a long day, and usually, one of us is already asleep. We always have company. I never knew there was a term for it until I began frequenting various parenting boards, but we have a family bed apparently, and not by choice; on the island we sleep on the living room futon and in Punta Gorda the bedroom door doesn’t have a lock. Big design flaw. So, anyway, Mom and Dad got a hotel room.

SUSHI

Later, over Tuna Tataki, sashimi, and a spicy tuna roll, with a few drinks under our belts, we had almost reasoned ourselves into a return to Fort Lauderdale. We’ll all jump back into the family real estate business and reorganize so that it’s not such a hillbilly operation. With 30 years in business and a host of regular investors and projects, at least seven of us with active sales licenses, one an attorney and one a general contractor, plus two brokers, we should really be able to make things hum. G’s mom needs him, his brother needs him, their poor, overworked office manager needs me, the kids need their extended family. We can tolerate the crime, the crowds, the crappiness. Let’s do it!

SOCIALIZING

We hit our next stop, we have to maximize our free time you understand, dropping in fashionably late to a friend’s surprise birthday party. The timing was perfect, the band was cranked up, Hollywood’s Finest were on the scene waiting for the noise ordinance to take effect and make some arrests, everybody was in high spirits. It was the typical suburban horror show, insipid conversation and manifestations of mid-life crises galore. G promised to order a shipping container first thing Monday morning.

SACRAMENT

And like a bad Ronco commercial, a redundant statement perhaps, “But wait! There’s more!” Today, completely sober again, brunch with my family and my brother’s in-laws after the baptism. This would have been a better time to get loaded. G, Britcom fan that he is, determined that I am related to Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced “Bouquet” from “Keeping Up Appearances.”) I always thought my parentage might be linked to Rube Goldberg, but I think G is on to something. Mid to Low Prole.

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Is running away from a situation a bad thing? Or instead, is it moving toward a good thing?

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Another Charlie Manson White Album moment courtesy of the folks at Mental Multivitamin:

1) Researching the seven basic plots to incorporate into NaNoWriMo project

2) Replies from the (e)mailbag. Here though, in Florida, city or country, I glimpse a vast cultural wasteland. Also weighing the pros and cons of moving from very multicultural South Florida to either Australia (91.4% white) or New Zealand (73.8% white.) Does assuming there are pros make me a racist?

3) Bertrand Russell’s quote, tempered by the closing line

Thanks for making me think, guys.

Bad Mommy

I suppose it's a good thing that I never chose the path to charity work. Once upon a time I thought it would be my life's mission to operate a small orphanage. How noble of me. Tonight I realize that it would have been a disaster. I am the old woman who lives in a shoe.

One of the side effects of the medication my little charge takes is hyperactivity. Last night she dropped right off to sleep after supper, tonight she is rocking and rolling, jumping, thrashing, and singing in bed, just feet away from where my own sleep-challenged tot peacefully rests. I just dosed her with her cold medication, not that her cough is all that bad, but in hopes that it will knock her out.

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NaNoWriMo is chugging along with a current word count of 18,162, just slightly ahead of schedule. It is truly dreadful stuff. My daughter suggested writing a stuttering character into the story, an idea I briefly considered, because in my case, it's all about the word count.

It seems like Arafat's name has been leading every news update these last few days. He's in a coma. He's out of a coma. Oops, back in a coma, again.

Reminds me of the old SNL report, "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

I had forgotten all the bathing suits when we left the island Sunday, and since the girls have been taking swimming Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, we were forced to make an emergency trip out there Monday to recover the suits, and, unfortunately, have an impromptu funeral for one of the octupi. While we were there, S picked up a handful of booklets from our spring trip to Washington D.C., given to us when we visited the offices of E. Clay Shaw, our local (east coast) representative.

She excitedly flipped through the first one, The Constitution of the United States of America, and began asking one question after another. I explained how the Constitution defines the make-up of our government, the distributions of power, and details the rights that each of us have as Americans.

"This is a very important book, Mom!"

"It is. You should definitely be familiar with your rights."

"They should make a book like this and give them out free to everybody!"

"Well, they do, honey, that's how we got ours."

"Then they should make everybody read it!"

"Yep."

Christmas gifts Part 2

I have decided that everybody on my shopping list will receive one of these this year. Or maybe this. Why? Because they probably don't have one yet, and it sums up my holiday sentiments.

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Plans are finalized. Thursday through Saturday I will be babysitting my friend's child! This may not be a big deal for most of you, but:

1) I intensely dislike responsibility
2) Putting up with children other than my own is difficult at best
3) I have a novel to write
4) The poor thing has serious, scary medical issues

I know CPR, I can follow her meds schedule, I can dial 9-1-1, which are all requirements for this child. I admit celebrating my first child's first birthday because the said child survived ONE WHOLE YEAR under my care, unlike the Sea Monkeys and the hamster and the frogs. And she didn't even have instructions.

This will be a nerve-wracking week.

Brainstorm

Thanks to a bug in my ear, from the concierge over at Itinerary of Marlette and Guisseppe, I have a great idea for all those Christmas present idea requests that are starting to come in.

Plants.

We love plants. Fruit trees, flowering shrubs, shade trees, you name it, if it's tropical or subtropical, we love it. The best part about tropical gardening is that you can't hardly kill the stuff. Find the right spot for the plant and you're all set.

That's the kind of gardener I am. Just don't get me any orchids, please. Oh, some people have tried to assure me that they are easy, I did have one native species that stayed healthy for almost five years, but I'm an orchid killer, and in the end, that one's not going to make it either, because they all require even minimal care.

Daughter G once requested a chenille plant for her birthday, deciding after a visit to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates that was her all-time favorite plant. I am happy to say that after being transplanted twice, it is now thriving out on the island.

I'm making a list and checking it twice...

Gumbo Limbo
Mango
Live Oak
Hibiscus
Paurotis Palm
Bottle Palm
Coconut Palm
Key Lime
Grapefruit
Giant White Bird of Paradise
Passion Vine
Lignum Vitae

That should get them started.

Here's a great site for information on Florida plants. I tried to link to individual plant photos but it defaults back to the main page, so you'll have to look them up yourself.

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Our read-aloud, Treasure Island, has been on hiatus, so tonight I will make a conscious effort to pick it up and get through a few more chapters. The closest we came to any literature this week was the Quixote brand chorizo sausages G threw in to the pot of gumbo he made last night.

Yeah, what she said.

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Day 3 NaNoWriMo

Need to make my word count goal for today. This might be a tricky proposition at 11:21 PM. Time for a DoubleShot.

I feel as if my head is in a juicer. In the last 24 hours, I have considered ripping off plots from old television shows, having my characters wake up somewhere else. Dorothy does Dallas?

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Climbing Parnassus is a most informative read, and surprisingly, neither dull nor difficult. It's so interesting, in fact, that I have dog-eared nearly every page and dulled my pencil underlining. It's been slow going with many other concurrent projects, but I'll definitely have comments coming.

Results

You won’t hear me gripe about election results. I never thought it would turn out the way I wanted, so, no surprises there. My kids however, are very disturbed.

“Oh, great, we’ll get bombed!”

“Nah, Little Gasparilla Island is probably not high on terrorists’ list of potential targets, and there’s not really enough of Punta Gorda left to bother with.”

“We’ll get drafted!”

“I don’t think anyone would allow that, honey, but if it happens, we’ll work around it.”

“Yeah, like, we’ll just tell them we’re gay!”

“See, girls, maybe it’s a good thing Bush was reelected.”

They don’t get it from me, I swear.

Giving it a try...

Jumping in late, as usual, but I jam under deadlines. This is the perfect thing for my short attention span. I am notorious for picking up a skill or hobby and once having accomplished it, dropping it in favor of some new, untried craft.

My mother's favorite line, "Oh! You should make those and sell them!" uttered perhaps in the hope that one day I will have a real job, never inspired me on to mass production of my miscellaneous creations. Most just weren't economically feasible. I always thought though, that writing was the one product with the highest potential return and the lowest initial investment. Let's see.

Bittersweet

Last night's haul was lighter than years past.

Back in Hollywood, on Harrison Street, it took hours for us to walk the five blocks from our house to my brother-in-law's. There was always a gang of us, friends, neighbors, relatives, dragging coolers for the adults and wagons for the kids. Neighbors had performing magicians and clowns (tricks), cotton candy and snowcone machines, beer on tap for parents (treats), and tons of candy for the busloads of people who would visit our broad, well lighted historic boulevard. It was a giant street party where we would bump into more friends and drag the whole motley crew back to our house for a post trick-or-treating respite.

This year we decided to join the crowds that descend on the historic homes in downtown Punta Gorda. Only, there weren't as many as there used to be, both in terms of crowds and historic homes. It took just under one hour to cover the two main drags and five cross streets. Still, the houses that remain standing gave their all for the local kids, decorating their yards to the hilt. It was very moving to see vacant, condemned homes decked out in their spookiest, and recently cleared lots where former homeowners had placed giant tombstones marked with their addresses and "RIP", after losing their battle against the elements and the wrecking ball. It was even more moving to see the costumed owners of these properties standing out in front of their destroyed homes giving out candy in spite of it all.

Trick or treat?

I kept telling the girls to back up to get the palm tree in the background. We didn't realize until they were about to get into the car that I had backed them into a pile of dog poop.

Happy Halloween!

I thought I was making a huge mistake. I had accepted an invitation to dinner from my ex-boyfriend’s best friend and roommate. The two of us had bumped into each other at a party, and I was surprised to learn he was not the grouchy, grumpy guy I had seen previously only in passing. Later I realized this was going to be very awkward and I immediately regretted agreeing to go.

He wined and dined me, dinner alfresco at the Kaleidoscope in Coconut Grove, drinks at the Grand Bay’s piano bar, and two more stops at late night clubs before we returned to his place and sat out all night talking on the lifeguard stand in front of his apartment.

Two days later we were headed down to Key West for Fantasy Fest, a possibly more debauched Halloween version of Mardi Gras. We miraculously located a hotel room in about five minutes without a reservation, ran into Bugsy McGraw sitting alone on a bench, a former professional wrestler working as a bouncer at Sloppy Joe’s that we both recognized from too many childhood Saturday afternoons watching TV, who gave us the Fantasy Fest ’85 tee shirt right off his back, I still have it, and generally had a fabulous time.

From then on, we considered Halloween our anniversary.

After five years of cohabitation, we decided to make it legal. We had the license, which had been taped back together at one point after a rather heated disagreement, and made plans for a small, private ceremony with a few close friends. We arranged to rent a cottage in Key West, on Love Lane, for a weekend, fly eight friends down, get married at the freak show that is sunset at Mallory Square, and charter a deep sea fishing trip the next day for everyone on a private boat.

It soon got out of hand as other friends, acquaintances, and family got wind of it and made plans to join us, invited or not. They began planning a reception for us. Now, neither one of us had ever wanted to have the traditional walk-down-the-aisle-be-the-center-of-attention-reception type of wedding, so plans were cancelled.

At work, on Halloween, I received a call from G, wishing me a happy anniversary and inviting me to lunch with him in Fort Lauderdale. We met, I got in his car, and he surprised me by pulling up to the courthouse a few minutes later, asking if I wanted to get married. The county clerk that performed the service was wearing a clerical collar for a costume, as close as we would ever come to the full-blown church wedding my mother would have liked. We grabbed a bite to eat downtown and went back to work.

Limbo

The Red Sox were a pleasant, if not anxious, distraction. What will keep me occupied until Super Tuesday? What was it Yogi Berra said? As if. We've already got a snafu in Broward County, Florida.

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Yes, we've resigned ourselves to the idea of being monks for the preservation of the best of our culture, read Berman's book, but can we please come up with a more interesting moniker? Monks are dutiful, virtuous, and earnest surely, but they are just so, well, I hate to say it, but, boring.

(True, and stop calling me Shirley.)

Certainly we, our family and yours, are not boring.

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Mental Multivitamin reminded me today of one of our favorite movies, destroyed years ago by a curious toddler, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I decided to order it immediately on, hopefully, unbreakable DVD, but I'm $11.01 short of Free Shipping. Buying another book is always preferred over paying shipping, but I am, unfortunately, drawing a blank.

Expanding our minds

I got DSL! I got DSL!

The phone guy showed up exactly, right on schedule. He plugged everything in. I installed the program. Beautiful, everything worked. I take back all the uncharitable things I said about Sprint, at least until something screws up.

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The downside to educating your children, and I am refering to the high-minded Greek idea of education here because I'm reading Climbing Parnassus, is that you create cultural aliens, cultural in the anthropological sense.

My older girls realized today that they do not fit in. They complained about not being able to hold a decent conversation with their peers during today's swimming lessons. The only topics discussed with enthusiasm were Pokemon, Manga, and Game Boys, none of which my darlings know or care anything about. When my kids shared their story about finding the octupi this weekend, they were met with blank stares by the other children and parents who interrupted them midsentence to mention their savvy $2.00 savings on Pepsi at Winn-Dixie. S was very frustrated by the general ignorance, and both girls lamented the fact that the odds of making any real friends here are very low.

I came up with as many explanations as I could. Among others, maybe:

-- the kids didn't believe it
-- it sounded like bragging
-- the parents believe children should be seen, not heard (thus the proliferation of hand-held electronic toys?)

Further discussion at home determined that moving back to Hollywood or Fort Lauderdale would not change things. Going to an expensive private school would not change things either.

We do have some homeschool friends who are on the same track as we are, but they are not full-time Florida residents. Kind of like you all.

Instead, we live among people who visit the "specialtist" when their regular doctor won't do, who marvel at the "zefflin" flying overhead, who advertise "Happily Divorced 2x's" on their pick-up's window tint, who give their ADHD, bi-polar, heavily medicated kid a Game Boy, at their doctor's suggestion, to improve his eye-hand coordination, who are great-grandmothers at 45 years of age and raising their grandchildren, and belong to churches like the True Highway Holiness Hallelujah Freedom Bible Church of the Love Gospel.

Tonight, rather than watch The Game, even though she has a huge crush on Johnny Damon, G decided to watch "The Missing Link" on NOVA (I thought that was Johnny Damon), and S has been taking apart old, broken watches to see what makes them tick.

So yes, we are freaks, oddballs, foreigners among our fellow residents. Always positive though, the foil to my pessimism, my husband pointed out that this particular housing experiment has been an eye-opening, mind expanding experience for us.

The girls were entertaining us tonight with their version of The Swan - Extreme. The poor unattractive girls were drawn on, and all surgery performed on, our whiteboard. The results are amazing! Then they spoofed hip hop fans.

I remember Billy Crystal's stories about performing for his parents. Please, not that. But they are truly hilarious children.

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As part of a check for a hormone imbalance, no facial hair yet thank you, today I took an at-home saliva test. It did require some studying. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fill an entire test tube up with spit? Bubbles don't count. After I packaged it up, it occurred to me that not all deliveries from the UPS man are pleasant.

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We have two very cool additions to our menagerie, Oscar and Octavius, tiny little octopi, that the girls discovered inside some conch shells they were collecting yesterday out on the island. Dad was sent out on a mission to purchase and set up an aquarium for studying them. Our current research involves learning the differences between octupi and squid.

Mission accomplished

The older two girls and I enjoyed chaperoning a field trip today for L's school to Hunsader Farm. I had been a tad nervous after learning that we would not be visiting as an entire class and would be drifting around freely in our own little groups. This after offering to accommodate up to four passengers in addition to my own three kids. Visions of suffering a two hour drive with a carload of maniacs, and trying not to lose any during our four hours on site, had me tossing and turning, and then ultimately out of bed much earlier than need be this morning. Fortunately our only passengers were a classmate of L's and the classmate's grandma. So grandma was responsible for her little darling and I was off the hook.

A pony ride-corn maze-circus performance-pumpkin patch-petting zoo-hayride later, and I am ready to dig into that big, heavy box the UPS man left on my doorstep. First up, Climbing Parnassus.

A few well-timed nods of the head, several glances, including eye contact, and 157 pages of Skinny Dip, that describes my daylong Board of Realtors orientation.

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Last week Dy wrote about loving your home. Since we sold our house in Hollywood four years ago, I haven't felt that happy, welcoming, secure feeling from any of the myriad properties we've inhabited, until this past weekend.

Late Friday evening, after a mishap with a malfunctioning tilt switch and a last minute swap of the car battery for a dead boat battery, we arrived at the island, anticipating a weekend of the best weather we have had so far. I finally felt like I had come home. That's where I want to be. That's where I want the grandkids to come visit. That's where I want to die. Throw my ashes out in the bay, or just feed me to the crabs.

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And in that same morbid vein, it must be Halloween coming, does anybody else enjoy visiting old graveyards? Our family loves to walk amid old headstones and imagine the lives and deaths of the people buried there. Last week we discovered Pine Knoll, an historic burial ground outside of Arcadia, Florida, that contains the remains of some of the area's pioneers. Definitely a hardscrabble life out there in the scrub. Modern cemeteries, boring and sanitized with their uniform bronze plaques recessed into the ground for easy maintenance, give me the creeps, I want to get out of there as quickly as possible. But plots with elaborate statues, engraved obelisks, stones so worn they are unreadable, family plots and crypts, and custom epitaphs are fascinating and can occupy my imagination for hours.

A few years back, driving through Comer, Georgia, at dusk, we found the old cemetery where my husband's ancestors were buried. Spooky old moss-draped oaks lined the short loop road. When we spotted familiar surnames we stopped the car. Two of the kids were asleep, the other was terrified, hiding on the floor of the car. "It's okay, honey, these are family." G got out for a closer inspection of the headstones beyond the reach of our headlights. Minutes passed and I could no longer spot G as a fog had begun to creep in. Suddenly G appeared, wrenched open the door, jumped in, slammed the door, locked it, started the engine and sped away. He said while he was kneeling down reading an inscription on one of the stones in the last row, he heard a twig snap directly behind him in the woods.

So now we only do our jaunts in broad daylight.

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My favorite epitaph:

As I am now,
So you shall be,
Prepare for death,
And follow me.

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Here's a fun one.

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Finally, my dream Paris itinerary:

First The Louvre, then this.

Pressure

I'm no sports fan, as a child I'd sit in the stadium with my nose buried in a Nancy Drew mystery when the rest of the family dragged me out to the ballgame, but I have been glued, nail-biting, to the television the last two nights in morbid curiosity. Can the Red Sox actually pull it out?

If forced to pick a favorite team, I'd have to choose the Yankees. Ever since those reluctant family outings to see America's favorite pastime, I've always thought their pinstripe uniforms were just so much better looking than anyone else's, and well, my mom is a Red Sox supporter.

This time though, it's those poor, long-suffering Boston fans that I'm rooting for.

But I can't take it, it's much too stressful. Twelve innings? Fourteen innings? Just please tell me when it's over.

More vulgarity and blasphemy from yours truly

One consequence of watching Les Miserables last week, is that I have been occasionally bursting out, Tourette’s-like, in snatches of song. My husband was slightly surprised, and dare I say it, a little excited, to hear, “Bargain prices up against the wall!” from “Lovely Ladies,” come flying out of my mouth today.

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This past Tuesday, our local public radio station, WGCU-FM, had as a guest, Jan Davidson, author of Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. (Audio archive here.) One of the statistics I heard was this:

Children enrolled in Special Education classes account for approximately 15% of the student population. A little less than half that, 7%, are considered gifted and qualify for placement in accelerated programs. There is some overlap between these two groups. The balance, 78%, are in regular classes.

Here’s a radical notion: The term “gifted” is overused. Maybe the 7% aren’t really gifted, not in the true Mozart-Einstein-Michelangelo way, but are simply above average, bright, hard-working, creative students, befitting the higher expectations and stringent standards of old. Maybe the 78%, is actually a lump sum of a few average students and a majority of below average students, products of a failing educational system and lower expectations of a culture obsessed with entertainment.

I honestly do not see 7% of our students, or our population in general, coming anywhere close to being truly gifted.

And please, oh, please, do not suggest that all children are gifted in some way. Yes, everyone has their individual strengths, and weaknesses for that matter, but to say that every child is gifted in a particular discipline is akin to giving every team in the league a trophy for playing the season.

Maybe I’ll be nominated for the Golden Icepick Award.

Thank you, Maitresse, for reminding me about Ramadan. This suggested a visit to our Turkish friends’ oceanside restaurant this week when we travel over to the east coast for a few days. I’m going to be stuck in a realtors’ board-required, 9 to 5 orientation class. Besides finding a seat in the back and enjoying my own reading material for eight undisturbed hours -- there is no testing required, only attendance -- I now have another reason to be enthusiastic about the trip.

We first met our friends when we stopped in to try their new restaurant on Hollywood’s Broadwalk. S was a newborn, only a few weeks old. She had just finished nursing and I was trying to burp her and get her to sleep when our food arrived. Gulten, our hostess, asked if she could please hold the baby while we ate. A restaurant with babysitting? We were sold.

Since then, countless days and nights have been spent enjoying the excellent food and company of what we all call, “Gul-and-Hasan’s,” instead of the proper, “Istanbul,” while their two children, the same ages as G and L, race around with ours in the sand, steps away from our table.

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Fall has finally arrived here in South Florida. It takes some expertise to detect it, though. No garishly colored leaves or frosty, chill mornings here; it’s very subtle. The air is drier, drifting silkily across your skin. The sky is an almost cloudless, lighter, brighter shade of blue. The light is lemony, changing to a mango hue by late afternoon. The end of October brings cool, damp, blustery nights, accompanied by the wild, chattering, sweeping sound of the palms; perfect weather for trick-or-treating.

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Old news?

Michelangelo’s David not anatomically correct.

John Cage's world’s longest concert. Back in July things really got crazy when three notes were played.

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Yesterday, waiting for Property Appraiser staff to return from lunch in order to complete a petition for reducing our taxes* (“Do we get to hold signs and march, Mom, or do we get to ask lots of people to sign our paper?!”), we popped into the library for a few minutes. I happened across a slim volume by Steve Martin, Pure Drivel, a collection of short essays described by the author as, “little candy kisses, after-dinner mints to the big meal of literature…” I gobbled it up in about an hour and now am craving more. Not much makes me actually laugh out loud, MFS’s comments yesterday aside; this is some funny stuff.

I also picked up on tape, Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters and Wodehouse’s Jeeves and the Mating Season, just what I need for our upcoming drive.

*Our island taxes nearly tripled two years ago and this year doubled again. That’s with a homestead exemption. Without any county services, no sewer or water, no paved roads, no public transportation or schools or emergency services, it would almost be comical if it weren’t so damn expensive. We fortunately discovered that we have been incorrectly billed using the millage rate for Gulf front property, which we are not, and at a rate nearly thirteen times some of our neighbors. We think we have a pretty good leg to stand on.

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Odd Replies

Diane – I finally had a chance to look back through the archives on introverts at WTM Secular. I should have known. That is such a great list, I need to check in more often. Oh, and thanks for the link to Betty Bowers.

Jose – Ah, to be young and innocent again. Don’t worry, it could still happen to you one day. Keep your eyes open.

Joyce – Artes Latinae looks great. The only problem is that you really need to begin with that program since they teach the case paradigms in a different order. Had I realized that before beginning Latina Christiana…

And:

Saw a chiropractor. Chronic back pain has always been a problem, but nothing a good massage wouldn't fix. These last few weeks though, since what I thought was a pretty minor traffic accident, I have been almost flat on my back. The chiropractor felt that the accident was enough to have severely aggravated a minor pre-existing condition. I've been for two office visits so far. The adjustments, with their loud snaps, felt wonderful. I felt taller.

Got hit on. In the supermarket, after my adjustment. It must have been the big smile on my face.

What I've done the last few days:

Passed. I had a senior educational professional in my classroom observing my performance the last two days and am happy to report my high marks. No, it's not a state or county school board requirement. My mother, the retired early childhood specialist, was here for a visit. Both she and my father came over to see where we're living these days and to keep an eye on the kids while Dad and I went to Open House at L's preschool (and snuck out afterward for a nice dinner.) She said she was impressed with both the content and the effort of our studies. I am redeemed.

Learned a new word. Synecdoche. Now I need to use it. Besides trying to fit "synecdoche" into a sentence, I will try to incorporate it into my writing.

Ordered books.
Climbing Parnassus
Who Killed Homer?
Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare
Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Peer pressure can be a good thing sometimes, no?

Kept abreast of GG Mil's situation. A few days ago my husband's grandmother fell in her assisted living facility and was found unconscious on the floor with a fractured wrist, and what else, a broken hip. The upside is that even though her mind is beginning to deteriorate as rapidly as her bones, she is still having a good time. Her long dead husband moved back into town and came for a visit the other day. She believes she hurt herself when she tripped on a rug, dancing the night away at Monroe Station.

Released some of my vitriol. Yep, blame it on the hurricanes and the election. Maybe it's out of my system, but don't bet on it.

Determined to read some Mencken and Berry. And Twain and Postman. Oh my, where to start?!

Gasped. I read Mental Multivitamin's most recent "On the nightstand..." post and then seconded R.T.'s sentiments, "Thank you for that effort. This is my my selfish vote in favor of the continuation of your blog because it is still fresh, it is still unique, and it still challenges me." Here, here!

Here's another blog I'll be adding to my sidebar:

Itinerary for: Marlette & Guisseppe

Honestly trying not to be too provocative...

Religion, especially organized religion, irks me. I have a sense that there is an incomprehensible greater intelligence out there somewhere, but to pretend to know it and explain it seems arrogant and ignorant. I also feel it's too easy, unthinking, and naive to resign oneself to the idea of being part of someone else's master plan. It removes personal responsibility. No wonder some of these believers seem so gosh darn happy all the time, it's never their fault, and they're always forgiven.

Here's where I quit being so snarky and show some genuine concern for those believers who lean a little more to the right than I...

Lately, more and more, it appears to me that, Bush, darling of the religious right, is blatantly misusing the trust and manipulating the faith of many Christian Americans by claiming to do the will of God. I thought fundamentalists were ever vigilant, on the lookout for their false prophets and anti-Christ. Maybe they are too literal, seeking beasts and fiery dragons instead of someone who contradicts the simple commandment, "Love one another," someone who promotes death, destruction, greed, and hatred, and misleads the people in a most reprehensible way, by using the name of their God to sanction his self-serving behavior.

Okay, I'm not suggesting that Mr. Bush, our fearless leader, is the anti-Christ, that would put me in league with some real crack pots, although it might be fun to turn up in a Google search using both those terms, and the comments would certainly be entertaining, I'm just wondering, seriously, isn't that blasphemy? Why would they support that?

“Lights, Camera, Democracy!” one of the essays in Waiting for the Barbarians has my hackles up. Lapham muses that our country grants parallel sovereignty to both a permanent and a provisional government. The permanent government is comprised of Fortune 500 companies, their lobbyists, big media and entertainment syndicates, civil and military services, research universities, and law firms. They hire the politicians and set the terms under which we, the people, can exercise our rights. The provisional government is a spiritual democracy; a fraudulent-voting, flag-waving pageant.

I’ve considered this before but have only the most minimal understanding of how big and pervasive it is. How many others have felt the same uneasiness, catching a peek of dark things darting just beyond our peripheral vision? (I’m not counting the ones wearing tinfoil hats or victims of alien abduction.) Seeing in black and white, explained so clearly and eloquently, that democracy is a big fat lie perpetuated by a corporate oligarchy is hugely depressing. Not only is the glass half empty, but what is that scum floating on top? Who drank it up? I’m sure they left their nasty germs on the rim.

What frightens me is how many people don’t recognize this, and more so, how many don’t care. They have a home, they have a job, or at least a government subsidy, they have food, they have clothes, they have entertainment. What more could one want? What more does one need?

Has there ever been a society not governed by an elite? Why should it be any different here and now? People survive and live under all brands of government. Does the name given to a particular form of rule matter? Why should it bother me that the ruling class promotes an illusion of freedom and democracy? Does it make any difference in our day to day lives?

As far as a classical education is concerned, are we offering our children a superior education in hopes of breaking them into that upper echelon, to join the nobles and escape serfdom? Or maybe breaking them in to effect a change? If we are teaching them to think, what shall they think about? What a hopeless situation we are locked in? Are our aspirations to educate our children a fantasy, as distracting and time consuming as sitting in front of a television? Even remembering the past, are we not still doomed to repeat it? Are we simply vessels of information, keeping knowledge alive through the dark ages, like monks, for the next renaissance?

In spite of Lapham’s perspicuity, he has not offered any solutions. Ideas, anyone?

Reprise (and some vulgar name dropping)

That would be "vulgar" modifying the act of dropping the names, not the names themselves. Except as I now, in passing, mention the nasty real estate agent I once encountered named Anne Orefice -- yeah, you know which one, too -- and another slimey realtor named Harry Cockey -- he could have easily been "Harold," it just wasn't as much fun, I guess.

Today, to reward ourselves for all our hard work of late, or to be completely honest, because I am still licking my wounds from yesterday, we watched movies.

History related, and therefore, of some educational value. Right.

The new flat screen LCD TV/DVD that Dad brought home has some tricky sound modulation that I haven't quite mastered yet. Some DVDs will not play above a certain volume level no matter how high the sound is turned up. To overcome this problem, we activated the subtitles for our first selection, Les Miserables in Concert, and all sang along at the top of our lungs in mock operatic style.

Next up, The Madness of King George, and then back to Hugo's story in Bille August's adaptation of Les Miserables.

It occurred to me during the musical's credits that I am following in my great-grandmother's footsteps, though I have a much smaller and less impressive collection. Cameron Mackintosh once sent me a thank you note for beach towels I designed as gifts for the cast and crew of The Phantom of the Opera, which we had for six sold out weeks as the very first show in the brand new Broward Center for the Performing Arts. They were terribly clever, made to resemble postcards with "Wishing you were somehow here again...," a completely insincere sentiment by the way, scrawled on one side, the mask as the stamp, and show dates as the cancellation mark. I'm sure it was major copyright infringement, but thankfully, everybody like them. A thank-you note to our CEO from Andrew Lloyd Webber for some London opening night gift basket was doomed to be forgotten, and ultimately disposed of, in some long-lost file somewhere had it not been for my refiling it in a safer location. And when Greg Louganis mailed a postcard to his friend who shared an office suite with our company before he left under unfavorable circumstances with no forwarding address, I rescued the postcard from the trash. That one was from a dive trip Louganis had taken in Belize shortly after we purchased our farm down there, I couldn't resist.

Cringe

What happened? I have no idea.

Yesterday I wrote up every important thing I could think of to explain The Well Trained Mind. Then I edited it and rewrote it. When I was satisfied with the content, I timed it, 10:47, and decided after reading it over and over, that I should rewrite it in more of an outline format. There was plenty of material here to work with, I could easily talk it up, but didn’t want to drone on, so an outline would keep me focused on the key points.

Today I got up in front of the podium, took a deep breath, introduced myself, began my spiel, voice wavering, unaware that the microphone wasn’t picking me up because the pounding hum in my ears and the heat in my face blocked all other input, including my vision apparently, for I could not seem to follow the notes I had in front of me, looked up and down a few times pretending, in my hysterical blindness, to make eye contact, even ad libbed a little and held up my revised and updated volume for a visual aid, asked for questions, none?, good, I’m done, thank you very much. I took my second breath and teetered to my seat.

Dead silence, blank stares, and then, after I had returned to my place and sat down, weak, tentative clapping from our group leader.

It was mercifully short, all of about two minutes. Like reading a grocery list. Underwater.

Okay, so I now have a huge new appreciation of Dick Cheney. Live television, millions of viewers, the presidency at stake, lights, camera, action, controversy, accusations... He never flinched. Old Ironsides, man.

Later, a homeschooling mom came up to me and asked how long it took to complete our schoolwork. I figured we have five hours, the time between dropping off and picking up my youngest from preschool, including lunchtime, to finish all subjects, four days a week, the fifth day being less than half a day with the balance reserved for extracurricular pursuits.

“Really?!”

Silly me, I thought she was marveling at how we could manage to pack so darn much education into such a short time.

“That’s a lot.”

“But we only do four and a half days, that includes their lunch break, it’s shorter than a regular school day, and we don’t even have homework,” I feebly protested.

“Huh,” she snorted and walked away.

I hurried home and in my haste to forget the trauma of the morning, threw myself into my last big hanging-over-my-head unpacking project, transferring all photo albums and miscellaneous memorabilia from raggedy cardboard bankers’ boxes to solid plastic bins.

“Look! It’s Mom’s high school yearbook!”

Open to find a picture of me standing in front of another podium long ago, looking properly humiliated as Sr. Ann Ferry stands next to me, chastising me during an oral report on Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn for the appallingly careless way she felt I was handling my visual aids. They were handwritten pieces of music autographed by the composers for my great grandmother, part of her large collection. In the photo, Sr. Ann is holding them with the absolute tips of her fingers, as if she really didn’t want to touch them at all. It was the one time this poor southern girl could actually understand everything the nun, with her Boston, by way of Quebec, by way of London, by way of Belfast accent was saying without having to ask for clarification. I can see the red burning in my cheeks through the black and white photo. I can still feel the blinding, pounding hum.

And the winner is...

Henle.

For those of you interested, Henle appears to be a better follow up to Latina Christiana.

PROS

Henle's lessons are more incremental, sticking to one topic at a time. Henle's first lesson, on the first declension, only teaches vocabulary using first declension nouns, while Wheelock's covers first and second conjugations: present infinitive, indicative, and imperative active, and gives sentences to translate that contain words not included in the vocabulary but are introduced in footnotes. I think S would get frustrated even though she has already covered the topics.

Henle uses a more limited vocabulary. Maria orat. Nautae orant. Nauta orat. Nautae non orant. Vident. Nautae vident. Maria videt. Videt. Nautae non vident. Non orat. Ad nauseum. It works as a confidence booster.

Henle has an answer key. I do not have an answer key for Wheelock's. Answers are given in the back for some exercises, but not all. I also have the Wheelock workbook which is void of answers. Workbook questions are taken directly from the text, so presumably you could check back in the text for answers, but this does not satisfy my "ease of teaching" requirement.

CONS

Henle's lessons vary greatly in length, which makes planning a weekly schedule challenging. I have the First Year Henle study guide from Memoria Press which breaks the lessons down into five-day weekly lessons, but I don't think I'll bother using it as it progresses v-e-r-y slowly through material she's already learned.

It's very Catholic, although the religiousness seems to taper off a bit around Unit Four. Not a big problem for me, I was raised Catholic, it's just a bit tiresome.

I am looking forward to Rhetoric. I’m eager to learn how to communicate more effectively. Too bad I won't have a chance to study it before Wednesday, when our homeschool group gets together for Park Day. I was asked to introduce The Well Trained Mind to the group.

Know why I blog? Because I love to blather on and on about topics that interest me, but in real life, I'm a terrible conversationalist. It's much easier for me to type it all out. Small talk kills me, trying to think of something worth saying, and when something does interest me enough to share, I get tongue-tied, lost in the details, trying to pack a multitude of thoughts into one coherent statement. Add that to an introverted personality and well, you can see why public relations rep was the completely wrong career choice for me.

I couldn’t have cared less if nobody ever came to our shows, couldn’t make fake, happy party chitchat with reviewers, directors, or producers, and I couldn't ever think of anything dazzling enough to say to a celebrity that they wouldn’t instantly forget, having heard it countless times before. I was Andy Warhol, hanging back, observing, taking notes.

Add a little fatigue or stress and the situation deteriorates. Mixing metaphors, I am Mrs. Malaprop. Once, forced to temporarily handle six lines of incoming calls for a vanished receptionist while simultaneously juggling one grouchy CEO and two impending printing disasters that had been the responsibility of my now out-of-town boss, I attempted to relay the information to the very impatient caller that Cyndi, my boss, was on holiday and ask if I could take a message. What came out was, “May I please take a vacation?”

Give me time to compose my thoughts, edit, and revise them and I do a little better. Maybe Wednesday won't be too much of a disaster.

Th-th-th-that’s all folks.

The Big Debate

Everybody has their own opinions, and mine, you know I'm going to give you mine, is that Kerry may have slightly edged Bush out last night. They were generally equal in their presentations. Kerry kept Bush on the defensive more than vice versa, but he also made some chillingly aggressive statements. So, basically, a tie. Unless you count their physical appearance, and then Kerry won. That though, is only my very obviously unqualified, shallow, soundbite of an opinion.

My daughter, G, however, took a very scientific approach, creating a chart of pros and cons, analyzing each major point, and assigning points based on the weight of each issue and the candidates' responses. This was all done on our erasable whiteboard, in meticulous detail. At one point, running out of the room for a bathroom break, she flung the board into my lap and asked me to keep score in her absence. Sorry to say, I was not up to the task, and not much help. In my defense, it was very complicated.

When the points were tallied, she announced Kerry had won by a score of 14 to 8, but insisted that this is inconclusive as there are still two more debates to go. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted.

Salve, Magistra!

This day snuck up on me. S finished her final Latina Christiana II test this morning. She's now ready to move into a high school level text. I'm not. The older two girls left with their father earlier after completing most of their schoolwork, so I have the rest of the morning and a little bit of afternoon to figure out what comes next. Henle or Wheelock? Wheelock or Henle? Both are highly recommended. Both are on my shelves. Both incorporate a good deal of history and readings by noted authors. Both have guides and workbooks, which, of course are also on my shelves.

One is secular, one is not.

By now, some of you may be doubting my secular status. Hmmm, Latina Christiana, Rod & Staff English, a brief stint last year using Tapestry of Grace...? Our curriculum choices are based almost entirely on thoroughness and ease of teaching. I don't mind texts having a religious slant as long as they are not preachy. Any religious content must have a reasonable connection to the subject being studied. Grammar? Okay, using Biblical and Christian lifestyle references to analyze sentence constructs, I can handle that. Math? No. Latin and History, Music and Art? Sure, there are logical tie-ins there. Science? No.

Oil and water, fact and fiction, some things can be mixed together better than others.

Now, back to the books...WheelockHenleWheelockHenle...

The weatherman tonight mentioned two "small disturbances" just off the west coast of Africa. It doesn't matter that they're disorganized or weeks away. Everybody in Florida knows what that means. They're headed straight for us.

I imagine the lines at the gas pumps will be backing up any minute now. And the shelves at the grocery store will be emptied again just as they were finally being restocked after Jeanne. Who says all these hurricanes are bad for Florida's economy? Not the hotel and motel owners. Not the supermarket chains. Certainly not the hardware or lumber stores. Or anyone collecting an insurance payout. Contractors? Right.

Not since Texas in 1886 have four hurricanes made landfall in the same state. I searched online to find evidence of stress related insanity in storm ravaged 1886 Texans, but all I came up with was this, which is kind of crazy in its own way.

Forget all that "It's bigger in Texas" (and by the way, that is a really bad search term to Google) hooey, we're going for the record! Yeehaw!

Blame it on the weather. Hardee County schools, in anticipation of lousy scores and fearing retribution from the No Child Left Behind powers-that be, will ask for some slack because of hurricane season. Pass 'em all, let Bush sort 'em out.

Looking forward to a fun night of television with Survivor and the debate. Can't wait to see who gets voted off the island.

Picks

G, my reluctant reader, seems to finally be over the hump. Or maybe I am. In an unusual turn of events, the last few books I've selected for her have been met with great enthusiasm. She is requesting that I go online at Amazon.com and order the sequels to Sarah, Plain and Tall, and is digging into the first of the Little House books, Little House in the Big Woods, while she waits for her sister to finish with the latest in the Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 11, The Grim Grotto. In the meantime, she has temporarily put aside Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which she had been reading on her own after having it read aloud last year, in order to get through her newest favorites.

Wow. How did this happen? All the other books I picked were boring and stupid and dumb. I must be on a roll though, because in addition to some successful literature selections, she is also happy with the following curriculum choices:

Spelling Power – The lessons are short, no more than 15 minutes. She is more confident and encouraged because she can spell most of the words correctly and then only needs to focus on the misspelled ones. I purchased the box of activity cards and she enjoys choosing her own activity to complete the lesson.

Rod & Staff English – This was a hefty step up from Easy Grammar. It assumes familiarity with terms and lessons learned in earlier books, and had both girls grumbling at first. We started on grade level, 4 for her, 7 for her sister, and I now understand the recommendation to start one level below grade if you haven’t previously used the series; it’s challenging and rigorous. I’m happy with the all-in-one aspect, which greatly simplified our previous Easy Grammar/Mary Daly’s First Book of Diagramming/Write with the Best combo, and the comprehensive Teacher’s edition which incorporates review questions, reproduces the student’s page and includes answers to the text, tests, and supplemental pages. Her enthusiasm peaked this morning when she received a perfect score on her first chapter test.

Saxon 5/4 Math – Something about those timed drills, she just loves them. After completing the problem set, she likes to go through and check her answers, then lets me know which ones she got wrong and why. We went with the new paperback format which seems a little flimsy, but the consumable drill and test book is worth it.

The Violin Book – I don’t know yet how valid the author’s claims are, that your child should be at a junior concert playing level when the entire series is completed, but G is definitely having fun with it. She excitedly goes through her practice and is trying to teach her older sister. (Oh, yes, we found the violin two days ago -- hurray! It was at the island. She must have brought it out between storms for a little practice.)

What about my older daughter? Doesn’t she have any Picks or Pans? No, not really. She plugs along, completing the assignments she’s supposed to, I'd like to say with nary a complaint but that might be stretching it, and reads everything she can get her hands on. It’s nice to have one like that.

Looks like I might have two now.

Ho hum. Another hurricane.

Riding the storm out takes on a literal meaning when the house begins bucking underneath you, shaking you out of your weekend plans to sleep in. I was up at 5:00 AM to take a shower and blow my hair dry before the power went out. (Remember my renewed commitment to beauty?) The electricity is currently on, but has been intermittent, cutting in and out at least twenty times in the last two and half hours. I have been listening to the weird harmonic effect of the wind blowing a bass vibrato across our eaves. Low E maybe. Rain pelting the window sounding more like hail, followed by a rattling sound as the gusts die down. Something, maybe more siding or a piece of soffit, has blown loose. The local news reported tropical force winds, around 38 mph, in our area three hours prior to the time I was rudely awakened by Jeanne, long before the house began rocking and the chandelier started swinging. We must be up to about 60 mph by now.

We had noticed cracks appear in the joints between the walls and ceiling, and a spot where the front gable’s truss had been pushed inward causing the drywall screws to protrude after Hurricane Charley, so we know this building has been compromised somehow. With the continuing exposure to high winds, I’m wondering how much more this structure can take and half expect it to break loose of its twenty foot high pier foundations and do a Wizard of Oz. On the up side, if I ever need to go looking for my heart’s desire, or my roof, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.

What do the kids do during a hurricane? S camps out on her bedroom floor for fear of being cut to ribbons should her window implode. L watches her PBS kid shows complaining when the broadcast signal is briefly interrupted that the TV has gone all “fluffley.” G sleeps snuggled up with Orlando, the marmalade cat, who’s enjoying a respite from rat catching in the plentiful, large debris piles heaped about our neighborhood.

What does Mom do? She settles in with the best hurricane supplies of all, her books.

Looking through some pictures from a mere three years ago, I was shocked to discover that I looked good. I was blonde. I was thin. I used to wear makeup and style my hair. Feeling sorry for myself I asked the girls, “Am I really that unattractive these days?” “Ummm, not totally, but medium-high,” was the kindest reply I received.

I quit highlighting my hair shortly after my last daughter was born. I decided to become Nature Girl. Since we were planning to move to some remote part of the globe, Nature Girl just couldn’t be getting her roots touched up whenever she pleased, so best to let it all grow out. Besides, wasn’t I always getting all uppity and moralistic about how absurd women were for being slaves to fashion and vanity?

“Your body is perfect the way is,” was the message I conveyed to my girls, mostly in an attempt to discourage them from acquiring tattoos or body piercings in the near future. We scoffed at nail polish, make up, and the girly-girls who wore them as silly, stupid, and a waste of money. “Our Mennonite friends don’t even cut their hair or shave their legs!” I proselytized. “God made you just the way you are, don’t change a thing, babe.”

These days numerous white hairs are sprouting on top of my head, a head with hair color delightfully described by my friend Alex as “mouse-turd brown,” and I am fairly sure no one will ever mistake them for highlights, as I’d initially hoped. I also now have three hurricanes, literally, under my belt. And there is yet another on the horizon. I am loath to throw out food, but the cookies, crackers, and Twinkies really must go. (Honestly, Twinkies, what was I thinking?) Time for some kind of improved diet. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And flabby.

So, I’m going to be a hypocrite, one with artificial color added, get my hair done, lose some weight, and wear makeup. Maybe then one day there’ll be a picture attached to my profile.

I’ve always been low maintenance, but this is ridiculous.

We survived our first full week of preschool, early mornings, and long, busy days. L loves it. There have been a few tears the last two days during the morning drop-off, but these are balanced out by the annoyance she greets us with when we pick her up ("Why did you come get me now? Can't I stay longer?!")

This coming Monday I was supposed to attend an all-day seminar on the east coast for the local board of realtors and S had a follow-up dental appointment scheduled, but it looks like another hurricane is a-blowing, so everything has been pushed back one month. That's fine with me as I plan to sleep very late this weekend and don't want to be driving all over creation. Maybe I'll take a ride out to the island to collect a few more books for our studies, but that's as busy as I plan to be.

We are actually accomplishing things here! S and G are back on track with their school schedule, except for the violin lessons due to the still missing instrument, and have fine tuned their performance to maximize the quiet time we have before L comes home from preschool. The laundry is caught up, dinner is being cooked several nights a week, and a mass mailing for damaged property is in progress. Chalk that up to the massive amounts of caffeine I have been consuming.

Weird that left to my own devices I am a lazy, lazy person, but give me projects with deadlines or a schedule to follow and I jam.

Sprint is making me crazy

My line is still not buried and the connection keeps cutting out, so until Sprint gets its act together, posts will be sporadic.

Catching the final night of the Republican National Convention and then bearing nearly three days of downtime during Hurricane Frances, my husband and I had plenty of opportunity to discuss our county’s future. I must say I am disturbed to see him exhibit a neo-conservative bend. He agrees with me that things must take a grassroots approach to bring this country back around to the great ideas instituted by our founders, but is unwilling to step in now and make a change "midstream." Changing leadership in wartime, (though how do you legitimately declare war against an abstraction and not a specific enemy or country?) will cause some distraction, but in four years we’ll be changing leaders again anyway. First of all, for this to be midstream assumes that the war on terror will last only eight years. Secondly, the distraction of changing leaders is hardly more than changing the names on the doors and letterhead, and also assumes that there is a huge difference between the self-serving, frat boy candidates and their pre-programmed policies. I think we all know better than that, don’t we? Lewis Lapham’s Theater of War, subtitled In Which the Republic Becomes an Empire, has conveniently been left atop the tank for his morning constitutional.

Classical enthusiasts may enjoy, in horrified, nodding agreement, the parallels to the Roman Empire. We all know what happened there. The motives and foreign policies of our last nine presidents have been directed by, and in the name of, their respective God, who seems to be advising them that crusades and empire building is the way to go. Remember the Crusades? What is the difference between Bush and Ashcroft’s declaration of holy war in the name of God and Democracy and Bin Laden’s jihad in the name of Allah? Lapham references this quote from Evan S. Connell’s Deus lo Volt! Chronicle of the Crusades:

“We hear ominous tidings. We hear of a malevolent race, withdrawn from the communion of our belief, Turks, Persians, Arabs, accursed, estranged from God, that have laid waste by fire and sword to the walls of Constantinople, to the Arm of St. George…. Turks perforate the navels of God’s servants, pull forth and bind their intestines to stakes, lead them about while viscera discolor the earth. They pierce Christians with arrows, flog the suffering. What else can we say? What more shall be said? To whom, therefore, does the task of vengeance fall, if not to you?”

Bush post September 11, or Pope Urban II on the eve of the first Crusade?

Lapham suggests for an honorable, enlightened foreign policy we first ask potential allies:

“…not ‘Are you for us or against us?’ but ‘In what circumstances do we find those of your people not living in the palace? Do they walk upright on two feet in the manner of human beings or do they crouch on their hindquarters like humiliated dogs?’”

Hmmm. Diem, the Shah of Shahs, Somoza, Thieu, Marcos, Noriega, Saddam Hussein…I think he’s got something there.

Squeeze this book in before the election.

Next on my list is to finish Lapham’s Waiting for the Barbarians. (Margaret, I’d like to hear about Gag Rule since I’m on a roll.

Anyway, about the election, tell me I’m wasting my vote, throwing it away, pulling needed votes away from another candidate, you may be right, I don’t care; I’m voting my conscience. My preferred candidate will not win this election but enough votes to third party representatives will hopefully make someone take notice that we’re not all happy with the status quo. Whether it’s the politicians, my fellow Americans, or citizens of the world, somebody needs to see that we’re not all going to go gentle into that good night.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

---- Dylan Thomas

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s about death, but the death of democracy works for me too. Here's a more obvious one:

War Pigs

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh Lord yeah

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight
They leave that all to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'til their judgment day comes

Now in darkness world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh Lord yeah

---- Iommi/Osbourne/Butler/Ward (Black Sabbath)

Did anyone see Letterman last night? While Kerry smarmily tossed out one-liners, Dave seriously and persistently picked away, and Green Day performed “American Idiot.” Take that, critics of the liberal media.

When you're in an accident and your airbags don't deploy is that a good thing, as in we mustn't have been hit too hard, or a bad thing, as in these things don't really work very well, do they? My Excursion will go in the shop Monday for an undetermined length of time, at the end of a very long line of hurricane damaged cars, after someone decided to make an abrupt left turn from the right hand lane directly into my path. Lucky for me there was a Sheriff right behind me who witnessed the event. My driving record remains unblemished, it was 100% the other guy's fault, but even still, I know what people are thinking as I drive around in my oversized, crumpled vehicle with one dangling headlight, "She can't handle that big thing." O ye of little faith, I once whipped into the poorly engineered municipal parking garage at the Fort Lauderdale main library, effortlessly backed into a spot designed for a compact car, and was greeted with applause from the bikers who had been eyeing me warily from the adjacent parking space.

L jumped into my bed this morning to ask if was a school day. She was very disappointed when I explained weekends to her. She told me that on Monday I don't need to drive her to school, she will get up early and ride her tricycle there. "Do you really think you could ride your tricycle over the big bridge all by yourself with all those cars and trucks zooming by?" I asked.

"Well, Daddy will have to fix my bell first."

I'd better get up extra early to be sure she doesn't start out on her own, or hope that the ramp onto I-75 slows her down some.

Later S exhibited her amazing, inherent musical talent when she serenaded us with Lenny Kravitz, Green Day, and old Black Sabbath tunes, picked out on L's Lights 'N Sounds Festival Orchestra ( a toy we most assuredly did not buy.) We really must think about purchasing another piano or at least a keyboard for the poor girl. L is also the only child I've met who taught herself to whistle at the tender of age of three. She accompanied S, whistling along on "Iron Man."

S and I spent the day clothes shopping, my least favorite thing. The mother-daughter time was silly fun and you cannot beat the Old Navy clearance rack; shirts for $1.97, dresses for $3.97. We went a little nuts. She is growing up so quickly.

Monday, after Larie goes to school, after my car goes in the shop, after I get a rental, S and G will begin carschooling while we ride around Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte in search of distressed properties for my brother-in-law and his ready, willing, and able partners to invest in. Carpetbagging, they call it. Lots of potential for commissions. Unfortunately, money doesn't motivate me. I am motivated to find some quiet time and relax with a good book.

Back on track

It occurred to me that there is no difference between pulling the rug out from everyone again or taking advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity. So what the heck, eh?

Our plan du jour is for G to finish up his two big contracts, let the littlest one go to preschool, put our properties on the market, continue to live in our Punta Gorda rental, and be ready to head Down Under by the end of the school year, sometime around June '05.

Now that that's settled, I feel much better.

Two days in a row we've been able to get our official schoolwork done. There was even time yesterday for the two older girls to drag out our Australian travel guides and every other book we own containing information on Australia and teach their little sister all they know about the place. Then they produced a written test for her and she scored a 95.

Today we finished up a fairly productive day by spreading open the wall map, which is still not yet hung on the wall, and located Vanuatu in preparation for tonight's Survivor season opener. We also had a sympathy dinner of rice and steamed vegetables, although in a very un-Survivor-like twist, I ended up melting cheese in the microwave over the tops of the kids' servings. Watching the survivors melt away week after week always inspires me to try eating tiny servings of rice for a few weeks as a weight loss plan. This bunch is too skinny to begin with. Was anybody else surprised that the natives of Vanuatu look less like Polynesians and more like Aboriginals?

Our friends in Pensacola Beach made it through Ivan with their home still intact. John and Larry remember every birthday and anniversary with a phone call and also give "hurricane calls" anytime a storm threatens one of our areas; we've spoken to them a whole lot this season. We are now watching Hurricane Jeanne with great interest. We are also now quite slaphappy and can only laugh at the thought of yet another storm. Let's just leave the windows boarded up until Christmas!

Where have I been?

Right here, wondering how my posts and I come across in cyberspace after reading these at Poppins Classical Academy and Mental Multivitamin. Morose? Sarcastic? Skeptical?

Good. Honesty is the best policy.

Speaking of pathological liars, well, maybe you weren't, but I am, my ex-sister-in-law sent my brother four emails this past Sunday seeking more child support money. This in spite of a financial arrangement drafted by her own attorney in consideration for my brother's permission to temporarily alter the custody arrangement, thus allowing the children to live in London for two years.

Monday I made a hasty call to my brother to be sure he hadn't been caught scaling the wall at Buckingham Palace.

Whew

It looks like Ivan is heading toward the Panhandle and will not be a problem for us. We are worried about our friends' Pensacola mobile home and hope they will come on down to our place for a few days.

------

We're waffling again. Our Australian residency expires shortly so we are contemplating getting ourselves established down there. Again. Before it's too late this time. Before we get ensconced in a life here in Punta Gorda.

Blame it on Charley and Frances. I think if our formerly pretty little town had been spared we wouldn't have dredged this up again. We were happily planning to take sailing, golf and swimming lessons but the storms have ruined practically all chances for the girls to participate in any kind of extracurricular activities. There's really no other reason for us to stay in this neighborhood. Building an addition on the island is impractical. We need a land base. The thought of moving back to the sprawl and degrading conditions of the Miami/Fort Lauderdale/Palm Beach area is unacceptable.

We also have no health insurance, and socialized medicine looks pretty good to us at this point.

Three years ago, after we sold our Hollywood home, we were all set to go until we stumbled across the island (a.k.a. "The Monkeywrench") and decided that investing short term in such a property would only increase our equity. Besides, if we could achieve our goals without traveling halfway around the world, then all the better for us. Equity did indeed increase, but we have not accomplished the goals we've set for our family.

G and I sat down Sunday and compared our lists to be sure we were still in agreement on the direction our lives should take.

I never thought my life could be
Anything but catastrophe
But suddenly I begin to see
A bit of good luck for me

'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye

Yes, and like Charlie's, the date to cash in our golden ticket, Australian residency, is rapidly approaching.

Hurricane Charley negated the reasons for staying in Punta Gorda. Returning to the island full time puts us back in the position of having no extracurricular activities.

What to do? Pull the rug out from under everyone again or take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity?

Something school related for a change

Last night I sat down and read the parent/student handbook for the private school we investigated yesterday. Typos galore; some simply mistyped, others, like the substitution of "their" for "there" in the school song, just plain eeg-no-rant. Big red flag or a personal pet peeve? Probably both. Then I got to the curriculum list in the self-described non-parochial school booklet where they highlighted their creation science. Uh oh. Definite red flag.

The preschool, a combination of Montessori plus some gentle reading and math instruction, will be just right for L. In addition to the fun looking classroom, competent teacher, happy looking children, and low teacher/student ratio, I was very impressed by the strong smell of Clorox Clean-up.

I had to rethink my plan for the older two. Fortunately, I read they offer a homeschool umbrella option. I can enroll the older girls for a minimal fee, taking care of our legal requirement for the state, continue to use our present curriculum, and the girls will be allowed to participate in the school's sports, science fairs, chess club, debate team, field trips, and (optional) testing.

Now, if the school is still here next week, and we still have a house in town, we're all set!