My Truant Pen

The historians of the future

While I was home on my whirlwind watch-my-brother-get-ordinated trip this December, I said something about how I could take 700 pictures at the ceremony, knowing I’d keep perhaps 70 and print probably 10 (20 if you count the fact that I send my grandmother prints regularly).

Now, my father is a historian. A bona-fide, written a book and has a contract for another one signed historian. He specializes in historical photos and runs a business taking people’s old black and white photographs and digitizing/archiving them. As I was lauding the convenience of the digital age, he lamented how I was making the job of future historians harder by destroying this original evidence.

I thought about that for a while. (Well, if you’re counting, I thought about that for three months.) And Dad, I understand where you’re coming from, but I think you may be wrong.

I’m increasingly convinced that the historians of the future will not need to wrest a compelling narrative from charred wooden sticks and a few hieroglyphs carved on a rock. They won’t even be putting it together from a shoebox full of black and white pictures with light pencil notes on the back, like my father does. The key skill of the historian of the future will be finding some way, some algorithm, some method of sorting through the vast and vaster amounts of information we throw off. It will not be finding the needle in the stratus, it will be finding the needle in the haystack.

Consider just my blog. In this WordPress blog I have 562 posts. And I’m missing about 3 years of posts from Livejournal. I also have about 8 paper journals that I wrote as a young girl. And several boxes of letters written and received. Oh letters! I’m using 8.3 gigs of space on Google’s servers, between my letters and my pictures. 8 gigs. Do you know how many 3 1/4 in floppy disks that is? Do you know how vast we thought those floppies back in 1992? We said things like, “All the literature in the world can fit into one bookcase with these floppies.” (Just a back of the envelope calculation… those floppies help 1.44 mb. So my email and pictures would require 8000 of them. Give or take. I should mention Wikipedia has quite a long discussion on just how much they held.) I’m a one woman content creation machine! Oh, and then there are Facebook posts. And Tweets. And text messages. And – let’s be honest – I’m doing well if only 95% of my material is completely worthless.

I imagine the poor historian of the future, who sits down to write a story on some recent event – the Arab Spring perhaps. First this historian starts with the summaries of the summaries – the writings on it that have been proved by the test of time. Then this historian reads the contemporary published writings (many of which were done too quickly and too poorly edited in order to take advantage of “the market”). The historian then moves on the famous non-published writings and pictures. She must be nearly through her PhD by now… only to begin looking at the non-famous sources. Perhaps she picks a person or two. Then, for her period of interest, she reads through the gigs and gigs of material, pictures, posts, updates, emails and LOL-cat forwards for those people. How impossibly daunting.

Our historical anonymity is almost as guaranteed by our vast hordes of information as by the paucity of prior millenia… with one exception. If, for some reason, people WANT to know about you in the future they will be able to. They’ll know it all. When you were sick, and how. (Perhaps they’ll be able to access your medical records and xrays?) Who you contacted. Where you were. What you saw. Everything. But that will happen for so few of us – only the Elvises and Kennedys of the next generation (whose mothers are cheerfully documenting everything from their birth story to their potty training to what kind of trouble they’re having in school).

So what do you think? Are you careful to archive your own history? Or do you prefer to curate, and keep an edited summarized version of your life somewhere that might actually be readable? Or do you think that, as we continue to grow as a people, our descendants will have an even wider range of interest and no previous historical person will be uninteresting and banal? Do you think we might do our children’s children favors in their PhD theses not by saving everything, but by deleting most things?

I'll create terabytes of data in my lifetime!

Connecticate

One of the things I like about this time of year is that not every day is spoken for. From summer through Christmas it seems like every day is part of a countdown to a big goal or deadline, culminating with the vast unwrapping at 7 am on December 25th. But in winter, you don’t feel like you’re “wasting” great weather (because you didn’t have great weather plans), you don’t feel like you’re on deadline, you don’t need to get projects started, and following all the winter planning you did, you don’t really have anything planned.

So it was with great surprise that about two weeks ago I noticed we had a three day weekend coming up. “Hey!” I thought. “Lookie! A three day weekend!” After verifying that my brother was not up for visitors that weekend, I started to think about other things I might like to do. It occurred to me that the last time I brought Grey to our Alma Mater (Connecticut College, in New London), I was still nursing him. And I read this book by Susan Cooper which referenced Mystic Seaport. And then I read a great book to Grey about the Mary Celeste (a book which I would recommend to other parents of budding deductive reasoners!). So I got into a nautical mood and decided a trip to the Mystic Seaport was the thing. I found a hotel room for like $62 dollars, and decided to make a weekend of it. (Thane was very excited to go to Connecticate. His pronunciation was so charming I could hardly bring myself to correct it!)

We started off Sunday morning. I would say bright and early, but I’d be lying. How about bright and middlin?! We stopped to see the boys Great Aunt & Uncle, whom we haven’t seen in perhaps two years. And we made it to Conn in time to check out Harkness Chapel, walk around the Arboretum Pond, and facilitate our children rolling down a small hill for nearly 45 minutes. Then we went to Norm’s diner (Rosie’s having, apparently, been closed down and replaced by a Five Guys) and then to our hotel room where our children proceeded to not sleep. Ah! Vacations!

The Mystic Seaport was cool. By all rights, it should have been frigid out there on the water in mid-February. But we lucked into a sunny 40+ degree day, so while it was by no means warm, it was bearable. We checked out the Charles W. Morgan and got a special presentation on the kids who had lived on board the ship. The boys wielded hot glue guns with abandon, enthusiasm and little regard for seaworthiness as they constructed balsa wood boats. We took a horse drawn carriage ride. We played some cool instruments in the cool instrument exhibit. To sum up: a good time was had by all. After checking out a few more of our old haunts (and after Adam pawed threw many of the very same supplements he forebore to buy from Citadel back when we were students over a decade ago) we once again wended our weary way north to every day lives.

All of this is a boring description to explain all the pictures I’m about to post. Half the fun of outings like this is to take great pictures that, in retrospect, make it seem like life is full of cool adventures and fun things together as a family.

And you know what? There are cool adventures and fun things!

Here are the pictures!

The Magic is gone

Some animals are exceptional, at least in their owner’s eyes. Our cat Justice, for example, is the friendliest and most social cat you’ve ever met. He invites himself in to new houses, makes friends, and may be better known in the neighborhood than I am. Other pets are just who they are – not exceptional but no less loved.

Magic was just such an animal. After noticing Justice was going completely crazy at home by himself, we decided a logical solution would be to get a second cat for him to play with. We went to a now-defunct animal shelter in Arlington where one of our friends volunteered. Magic was always a little funny looking – she had a tiny head with ginormous eyes and a big body. At first glance, she looked a lot like Justice, but further examination would show she was nothing at all like him. She was purry and affectionate from the get-go, but only tolerated a certain amount of petting before suddenly baring claw or fang to the offending hand. Magic loved to eat and to sleep. She was a comfortable house cat – a fixture on cushions, with a funny wheezy snore. She never longed to go outside, happily lounging inside where it was comfortable, like a sensible and comfort loving cat.

This morning she died. She was an elderly cat, and has been on medication for several years. She had gotten less and less active lately. Last night she began throwing up. As we got ready to go this morning, she was trembling and looking terribly unhappy. I had the boys talk to her, telling her they loved her and petting her. Adam took her to the emergency vet this morning, but she died as she was brought in, with his kind and loving hand touching her.

The house is quiet now. No snoring cat lies in the corner. An extra food bowl and litter box can be put away now. Justice’s sister and friend will no longer play with him. My sons face a feline farewell for the first time, faces grave.

Farewell, Magic. May there be sunbeams where you are, and bowls overflowing with food. May no one clip your claws, or want to sit on the seat you’re sitting on. May they leave cans of tuna unguarded on the counter. May you have scritches under your chin and behind your ears – but not too many. You will be missed, and your absence keenly felt.

Those of you who knew her: do you have any favorite Magic memories or pictures?

I was born with music playing in my ears

When I was about ten, my parents signed me up for piano lessons. The genesis of this decision is lost in memory to me. Did I beg and plead? I know I exhibited musical interest, but piano lessons require a piano. Pianos are expensive, and I know for sure we didn’t already have one. (We bought a player piano so that my father, who is not a musical genius, could also play pian.) My parents were far from wealthy, but somehow there it was. A piano. And there I was in lessons with Mr. Hunter, while his two young children listened in the next room.

I have an excellent memory, so I’m a little appalled at how little I recall of these lessons. They went on for years with two teachers. I remember that my mom combined the piano lessons with my brother’s weekly trips to Yelm for futile vision therapy. I remember the silver books and the arpeggios. I remember that I was terrible at site reading but could memorize pretty easily. I remember some recitals most vividly playing “Take 5” with Tyler in a duet. I don’t remember practicing particularly diligently. And I certainly don’t – can’t – remember being successful. After years of piano lessons, we were left to conclude that maybe I wasn’t so musical after all. Then I got a trumpet, got my pride in a huff and became one of the best high school trumpet players in the state — playing in a premier Youth Symphony. I briefly considered going to conservatory for college.

All this is to say: I love music, I care about music, I want my children to love and play music, and I know that sometimes you have to try a few instruments before you get to the right one.

Grey and Thane both show musical interest and some aptitude. They both sing nicely, and have at least partially inherited their parent’s tendency to sing often. Last year, we tried a piano lesson for Grey. It went ok. But he was dutiful instead of passionate. We didn’t do a second one. Then Grey started asking for drum lessons. Heaven help me, he wants to be a percussionist. My orchestra-snob instincts rebelled. I mean, do percussionists even use notation? Can they read music? I struck a bargain: become a competent guitar player (still a cool rock ‘n’ roll instrument) and I’ll consider your percussion request. He reminded me several times: how about guitar lessons, mom?

Finally, I found a school (right next to our library!) and took him to a free trial lesson. His teacher, shy with distracting earlobe extensions, emerged from the room half an hour later. “We don’t usually take kids this young. But Grey seems really passionate, and ready to work hard. He’ll need a half size guitar, but I think I can teach him.”

And so it is. We tracked down an adorable half-size guitar for him. He’s gone to two lessons so far. He’s supposed to spend 5 minutes at a time pressing down on the frets to build up finger strength so he can actually play. He talks about the “1-2-3-4” (clearly he’s being taught to count time). He daydreams about sounding like Simon and Garfunkel. He looks proud as punch with his guitar strapped to his tiny back.

A few years ago, on a cold night, we were camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The boys were scattered across the floor of the test, and Adam and I tried to catch some chilly sleep, knowing that Thane would wake us up at a brutal hour. In the campsite a few twigs away, friends were gathered around a fire. One of them, some anonymous voice, pulled out his guitar and sang. Despite our weariness, the cold, the knowledge of an early morning, Adam and I listened and loved every moment of it – this shadowed serenade.

My son may give up after a few months of guitar, with no mastery. He may rise to the level of mediocrity through years of practice, as I did with piano. He might find an enjoyable level of accomplishment – enough to break out his guitar around a campfire and make his attempting-to-sleep neighbors glad instead of grumpy. Or perhaps he will become a master – classical, jazz, rock. Perhaps he will forget that it is possible to have uncalloused fingers, and find it hard to imagine not knowing how to turn those strings to music. Whichever way he ends up, I wish him the joy and the love of it.

Has your family tried them, powdermilk?

We were driving home from church today. It’s a bright, sunny cold February day here in New England, and the roads were clear of traffic as we came home. It had been a good church service: an excellent sermon on Sabbathing even from church commitments, both my husband and I in the pews for once, a series of hymns with modern words and ancient tunes, and a little bit of honkey-tonk piano to round it out. I had my traditional post-service “Grande two-pump nonfat extra hot no whip mocha” in hand. The boys were goofing off in the back seat – being brothers. Thane has not had an “incident” in 24 hours. And Garrison Keillor was on the radio talking about Powerdermilk biscuits. My, they’re tasty and expeditious.

And I was washed over with a sense of well-being and contentment.

Well-being and contentment are not such common emotions to me that I fail to notice them. In fact, it’s been quite some time since I’ve felt them without threat looming at the edges of them, as though I better enjoy them now, quickly, because if I start thinking about the wrong things they will go away. No, I just felt happy, and like I very well might stay happy all the way through the end of the Superbowl tonight (and beyond, when the Pats cream the Giants!)

By the time the Ketchup Advisory board commercial came on, we were eating funny curly spaghetti-type pasta (bought from our local butcher), and giggling around the kitchen table. Garrison made a joke about radio, and how no one was listening to it, and it got me thinking.

I remember when NPR started being part of our life. It was shortly after we moved to Mineral, perhaps 1988, with the long car rides that entailed. Before that, we listened to oldies on the radio, and tuned in specially to listen to Paul Harvey. It was before the real rise of talk radio. With NPR, suddenly, the news entered my life. I struggled to catch up and figure out what the Iran-Contra affair was. I was completely snookered by an April Fool’s joke announcing that Starbucks was building a trans-continental coffee pipeline. I joked that I was getting my NPR PHD, and I listened all the time, even during lunch at school to Ray Suarez (who was infinitely preferable to Juan Williams IMO) while eating a pizza pocket and drinking apple juice. The theme song to “Talk of the Nation” still generates a Pavlovian mouth-water reaction and a great desire for pizza pockets.

These NPR shows were a very important part of my family’s lives. Every week we listened to a somewhat younger Garrison Keillor, after our own Protestant church services. He spoke of a world more familiar to us than the urban and urbane one that dominates most media. We too lived in a small town with a lake and a good network of gossip. Saturday mornings were also precious radio-wise. I woke early and joyfully (those of you who know me know how incredibly implausible that is – but true!) on Saturdays to take the hour and a half trip in to Tacoma to the Tacoma Youth Symphony rehearsals. My commute was accompanied by “Rewind” and “Car Talk”. I usually passed the Tacoma Dome as they ran the Car Talk credits. I remember I was leaving a rehearsal the day that Yitzak Rabin was assassinated, and was just old enough to weep for the chance for peace that bled out with his assassin’s bullets. My family would again gather in the evening to hear “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” trying to guess the quiz answers before the guests. If we perhaps scheduled it so we could be sure to catch our shows, well, that only made sense.

As I shared some of those same moments with my young and growing family, I thought of how lovely it is. The most precious of these radio shows are still on, with their original casts. Click and Clack are still there. Garrison somehow still finds new material in a gentler age that fades into memory. “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” is still wicked funny. (Rewind didn’t survive, but you take what you can get.) In tv, even the best shows only last a decade, if that. M*A*S*H only lasted 11 seasons. The entire world of media has fundamentally shifted in the fifteen or twenty years since I was a kid at home listening with my parents. Everything is change and newness. Except these things, which mean so much to me.

But for now, for at least this bright cheerful Super Bowl Sunday, Dusty and Lefty are still out there herding cattle on the prairie, just like they were when I was a girl. You can still win Carl Kasell’s voice on your home answering machine (as if anyone has one of those), even though he laid down his serious news microphone. And Car Talk’s official statistician is still Marge Innovera. And there are still bright Sunday mornings to be filled with the joy of living and family.

Healthy for a sick kid

Thane is awfully healthy for a sick kid. Alternately, he’s awfully sick for a healthy kid. Something like that. After Thane’s three days of vomitin the week I was off, we had a week of general good health as I started my job. Then last weekend it was Grey’s turn to throw up.

But on Monday when I went to pick up Thane, the nice daycare lady had a piece of paper for me to sign. After two – ahem – liquid stools a day, a kid can’t go back to the Y for at least 24 hours. So Thane was verboten to go back Tuesday. I’m having trouble remembering now if that’s when the problem really started, or if it stretched back to the weekend. Usually I would check my blog, but I periodically pretend to make attempts at taste and discretion and failed to chronicle this fascinating issue. Anyway, my patient, long-suffering husband worked from home with a constant Scooby Doo sound track in the background. Wednesday morning my husband took my son to the doctor for another issue. While there, Thane – ahem – demonstrated his digestive problems for the doctor.

The doctor recommended immediately discontinuing all dairy products for at least a week after Thane got better. This threw us into a tizzy since 80% of Thane’s calories come from dairy products. His favorite foods are milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and bacon. (The bacon being the 20%) But the very idea of a long term dietary constraint terrifies me, so I comply. I’m not strong enough for a life without dairy, or an elimination diet. No! Thane returned to school – briefly – before being sent home again. Once again, my husband manned up to the task.

Thursday dawned with no improvement. My husband now has the dialogue memorized for all the Scooby episodes, including that one with the Speed Buggy. I called my brother, figuring hey! He’s part time! It’s totally, like, pastoral to drive 8 hours in a 24 hour period to watch your sister’s child with digestive problems, right? Anyway, he gets several dozen hero points for taking Thane today, and moreover having dinner ready for us by the time we got home.

Now I simply exist in fear. What if Thane isn’t ready to go back to school on Monday? Or Tuesday? Or ever again? I’m in week 3 of a new job. My husband has a wonderfully flexible company, but there are limits. (It’s also tough on the ol’ patience to have a three year old with a Scooby fixation while you’re working on some complicated code bug.) Ugh. Anyway, Thane is eating a diet entirely comprised of constipating foods (would you like another banana?) and I’m crossing my fingers.

Which brings me to his other issue. As I mentioned, he was taken to the doctor on Wednesday for another delicate, but unrelated problem. After long soul-searching, I think it is not TOO inappropriate (or at least no more inappropriate than usual) to tell you that we’ve learned that Thane has a hydrocele. Given his age, it is not unlikely he will need the surgical remedy, since it hasn’t resolved itself and it might lead to complications if left untreated.

So here I have a little boy who’s been sick from school several days with – ahem – diarrhea (and hey, I actually wrote it out this time because this bout has been bad enough that I have FINALLY ACTUALLY learned how to spell diarrhea!) and who probably needs surgery. And yet this kid is the least sick kid around. He’s full of vim and vigor (I almost said piss and vinegar, but that’s too close to the truth…) He’s FINE. He’s bored. And he sooooo needs to go back to school on Monday!

Nest thermostat

A few months ago I won a sustainability award at my old company. Basically, we were asked to submit stuff we were doing for sustainability. I wrote in about our worm bin, our (vacant) bat house and a few other minor things we do. Every submission was a winner, and so I got a nice check for about a hundred dollars.

Now, when you win a nice sum for sustainability, it seems somehow ironic to blow it all on Starbucks. And I’d just read about this ultra cool futuristic thermostat. So it was that I placed an order for a Nest.

My thermostat passes moral judgments on me

At this very moment, a highly sought after piece of cutting edge technology is sitting on my wall, lamenting that of all its beautifully designed brethren IT has to live on a wall with ’70s era dark wood paneling.

Guys, this thing is so cool. My husband is, as we speak, putting a detailed schedule in (online), including the fact that he’s gone to aikido at a certain time, etc. etc. If we make manual adjustments, it will “learn” from them and modify our schedule. It has wireless access, so you can totally change the temperature from, oh, your mobile phone. (I can forsee endless fun with this.) It tracks and monitors your power usage. It has a light sensor to see if you’re actually at home or if you left. It shows you reports on your energy usage.

Now all I have to do is paint that wall, so my ultra cool piece of technology doesn’t feel so embarrassed.

Things we like

First let me start by saying that this post is not sponsored by anyone. I am so far from being big enough or influential enough to be sponsored, you can’t even see it from here. I believe this entitles me to say that I have moral high ground and am philosophically opposed to polluting the purity of intention of my blog by crass commercial considerations. Of course, what I really mean is, “I’m too small to be sponsored, but there’s still some stuff we like.”

So here’s some background information. I have two boys, age six (Grey) and three (Thane). The six year old boy is a reader. The entire family loves games and books. And like most American families, we try to limit the amount of “screen time” (with varying success) and have more real life play time. Of course, like most American families we find this leads to squabbling and fighting, but hey. You can’t make an omelet without breaking any eggs…

And here are some things we like:

1) Busy Ball Bopper

We’ve had ours since Grey was a year old. I personally cannot believe that through some miracle, we still also have all five original balls that came with it – that’s just a little unreal. But this is probably the only toy that’s been in constant rotation for five years. Every kid who comes to our house – chances are – ends up playing with it. And even my oh-so-sophisticated Kindergartener can still sometimes be found setting and off and playing with it. If you’re a grandparent or aunt/uncle and need just one toy in your house for a wide variety of periodically visiting children, I highly recommend this one.

Scores
Parents: B- : needs batteries, makes noise and relatively large
6 year old: B+ : Not endless fun, but experiments with air pressure add interest
3 year old: A- : Chasing balls around is fun. Also seeing if your car can go through.
1 year old: A+ : Best. Toy. Ever.

2) Imaginets

These were one of those toys I bought because parents must try to give their children creative and educational toys. For their part, children try to only play with toys that come from fast food meals and/or have strong marketing tie ins. My children must have overestimated the marketing budget for this toy, because they love it and they play with it all the time. Basically, it’s a set of colorful magnets in different shapes. We did 17 layers of magnetic paint on our wall, but it was still insufficient for the heavy ‘fridge magnetic toys. But it turns out perfectly for these lighter wooden shapes. The kit comes with a metal box for the magnets, so you can play “on the go”. It also comes with a bunch of patterns for kids to use. My children disdained the patterns, and have crafted their own numerous fantastic creations. In fact, my only complaint with this toy is that the boys whine when their brother destroys their latest amazing design.

It’s creative, quiet, colorful, collaborative, quasi-educational, compelling and non-messy. This toy gets my highest marks. I’m not sure it would work quite as well if you didn’t have, you know, a central wall right in the action with great exposure, but it’s definitely worth the attempt.

Scores
Parents: A+ : quiet, creative and absorbing
6 year old: A : Grey is the one who plays the most with this. He like both abstract and concrete “sculptures”
3 year old: B : I thought the patterns were too advanced for Thane, but the other day he made quite a credible happy face. He may not have the fine motor skills to draw representationally, but he can make pictures with these shapes.

3) Captain Raptor

I periodically get compliments from people on the books that are part of every present I give to kids. Once or twice people have asked me, “How do you find such great books?!” The answer is that I go to the library. We get about 20 books a fortnight. 18 of them are no better than ok. (And in the case of the freaking Scooby Doo readers… well, the less said about those the better…) And then one or two of them will be really good. About once every one or two months I uncover a new favorite. That’s how I discovered Captain Raptor.

Captain Raptor is freaking amazing. Basically: dinosaur astronauts in a pulp comic genre. Every third page ends with the line, “Is this the end for Captain Raptor?” I LOVE this book. There are a few more in the series that I haven’t bought yet because I’m savoring them. If you know an adventure-loving, space-loving, dino-loving kid from age 2 to 10, you should get them one of these books because they are that awesome. Alternately, if you know a parent who might consider illiteracy not really so awful after all due to having to read “Scooby Doo and the Shiny Spooky Knights” every single night for the last two years, do them a favor and give them some alternate ammunition.

Scores
Parents: A+ : Fun to read, no uncomfortable subtext, great illustrations, get to say “Is this the end for Captain Raptor” repeatedly.
6 year old: B+ : Grey still likes picture books, but doesn’t get the in-jokes. He’s not the dino/space fanatic his brother is, so while he likes this book, he’s not as enamored with it as I am.
3 year old: A : Loves the dinosaurs. Loves space. Thinks it’s incredibly silly when humans are referred to as aliens. Only prevented from reaching an A+ because it’s not Scooby Doo.

4) Scooby Doo

So Thane is obsessed with Scooby. His complete absorption in all things Mystery Inc. has not abated one whit, to my surprise. He wanders around pulling masks off people and saying, “Let’s see who it really is!” But for all my Scooby-fatigue, I think I could have done a lot worse in the obsession department. Even after wearing out several DVDs of Scooby, I still find it pretty funny when I’m in the room. It leads to fun and un-objectionable role-playing on the part of Thane. It doesn’t have the fast cuts which have been shown to not help concentration of kids. And hey, the music is actually pretty good. (You remember those chase montages?)

Scores
Parents: B : Not bad source material (as long as you avoid the atrocious “13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo”), enough stuff in the genre to spread out and be able to buy tie in materials, just a little wearying after the first 6 months.
6 year old: B : Grey prefers variety, so he gets annoyed when all his brother ever wants to watch is Scooby. Still, I think he suffers less than he would if his strong-willed sibling was obsessed with, say, Barney.
3 year old: A++++ : There is nothing in this world better than Scooby Doo.

5) Zingo

Playing games is part of what we do as a family. Adam and I play board or role-playing games one or two nights a week every week. Grey, now that he’s a reader, can play a relatively wide variety of games. But finding a game that all four of us can play – non-reader to experienced player – that does NOT make the adults want to gouge out their eyes or that is incredibly tedious to set up is a challenge. Zingo meets this challenge. There are cards with simple words and pictures (actually a language acquisition opportunity, since the bored parent can start pointing out the phonics of the cards to the kids). There’s a very simple mechanic for revealing the tokens. There’s no turn-taking for the impatient children. And the game is well-balanced so no one runs away with all the honors too quickly. It’s also got a mechanic that makes it easier for a grownup to throw the game (first person to call the card gets it… so you just have to be slightly slower than your three year old). This is the first game we’ve been able to play – all four of us – sitting around our kitchen table. That’s a pretty cool thing.

So how about you? Have you experienced any of the wonders listed above? What are some of the popular toys/games/books in your family? Do you have recommendations?

Changing the rules

In everyone’s life there are periods of lesser and greater stasis. For example, when you are a parent to an infant, nothing stays the same and nothing can be relied upon. The minute you’ve figured out how somethings works and what you’re supposed to be doing, it changes. On the other hand, I just went through a period where things were chaotic within well expected and known bounds. Lots of activity, but little change. I knew what I needed to do, even if I didn’t have enough time to do it all.

Then I switched jobs.

It’s funny, but so far it’s not the job that has me on my toes, it’s the commute. The bad news is that the commute is rather worse than I was hoping for. For those of you in the area, I’m trying to get from Stoneham to just south of the Children’s Museum in South Boston. The best option I’ve found so far is the 354 Express bus. It stops less than a mile from my house, and then goes directly in to State Street. From State Street it’s a mile’s walk through the city to my office. (Almost exactly. The horizontal distance is 9/10 of a mile, and then I climb five flights of stairs.) Walking, it takes me 15 – 20 minutes depending on how I catch the lights. Optimally, this would be a 40 minute commute. However, when the traffic is bad (which it often is, in my narrow survey), it can take me more than 80 minutes to get in to work. Driving, I get caught in the same traffic (although I don’t have the 20 minute walk), with the added disadvantage of not being able to take the carpool lane. The T was my first plan, but here would be all the steps in that: 1) Drive to Malden station (15 min?) 2) Park at parking lot 3) Walk from parking lot to T (5 mins), 4) Take Orange Line to Downtown Crossing? (China Town, NE Medical Center?) 5) Walk from there (.5 of a mile?). That’s a very multi stage commute, and also rather expensive, paying for parking and a T pass.

So, hrm. The good part is that when I spend 40 minutes on the bus, I get to do a lot of reading. It’s also a good napping environment (based on my comrades in bus), because there are no stops. I get off when the bus stops, along with almost everyone else. The bad thing about a bus commute is you live in constant fear of being late. That and the straight up time it takes.

With the actual job bit, I’m still in the “reading documentation” phase. I thought I’d gotten through most of the extant documentation in the company, but someone just showed me the repository where all the previous documents created by my group are kept, so I now have plenty to keep me busy. In my early analysis, however, everything seems like it should work out nicely!

Kindergarten is a bit like starting a new job, with the context switching. You are presented with new problems that your baby days had not prepared you for. For example, my son came home with a pledge form for the “Jumprope for the heart” fundraiser. I actually remember this one from MY days in grade school, back when I rode a brontosaurus to school every morning (uphill both ways barefoot!). They’ve watered it down. When I was a kid, people pledged per jump. So $.02 a jump, and then you jumped as many times as you could and ended up collecting $1.20 before you gave up. There’s no such incentive for hard work in this one, it’s just a straight “Give us money form” (now with convenient web links!). So what do I do? Do we personally just sign up for the t-shirt level? Do I offer this tremendous opportunity to the suckers, uh, I mean, grandparents of said children? Aunts and uncles? Blogosphere? What is the etiquette here… the cross between being a good PTO parent, a good citizen, and not completely obnoxious?

I still haven’t figured this one out, but would be curious what you think.

Back in the saddle again

So I went back to work today. My extensive period of absolute leisure came to a close. Of course, it was significantly impacted by having no daycare on Monday, and Thane having a “vomit every 12 hours stomach bug” for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. But oh! The Tuesday!

Ah well. Isn’t that how it always happens? I did not program a DROID app. I did not clean the attic. I did not finish transferring things to the new computer. I did not conquer Mt. Laundry. I did play a bunch of FABLE, do three PT session, get excused from all future knee-related work, make a gourmet meal and take care of a sick little boy.

Anyway, I’d forgotten how darn tiring newness is. Everything was new today. New routine, new kind of commute (bus! at least until the T cancel it!), new worries (will I make the bus?), new failures (didn’t have enough money on my Charlie Card because the bus is an express, forgot my Kindle and really needed to have headphones for online training but didn’t), new people, new cultural expectations. Phew. New is hard. But I think once I get past the new and into the rhythm, this is going to be a pretty cool thing! Heck, their first expectation for me was to get a fully functioning IDE up and running on my computer. Niiiiice. I’m back, folks!