Aug 31 2010

A young family of turkey have adopted us.   Story here.


A long math assignment leads to tears of frustration for Mary.

Bedtime lecture: "The Age of Henry VIII: Katherine Howard"
Such unrelieved barbarity - I don't know that Jonathan & I will watch anymore.

Smelly Feet

Delight of my life.

This little boy has hundreds of aggravating teenage-type habits, one of which is touching the ceiling, touching overhead room fans, touching the top of door jambs  -- all the stuff that was unreachable last year.

As we gathered for breakfast he paws at a room divider and I ask him to quit.

"Why?"
"Because it's soiling the ceiling, making it dingy."

The cocky lawyer, he retorts:  "My hands are cleaner than the ceiling."

And he's right; another of his aggravating habits is neurotic hand-washing.

"That's true, your hands are cleaner", I concede, "so that means you're getting your hands dirty."

At that moment, Mary & I have a Vulcan Mind Meld and begin laughing.  We know what happens next.

Jonathan dashes to the sink.

-----

At 13, Jonathan's becoming conscious of his appearance.

At the same time, his  chemistry is changing.  His feet stink; his socks stink; his shoes stink.

He's had me buy foot powder and sole inserts, but nothing works.

Last night -- Sunday night -- he announces that he's going to wash his sneakers in ammonia and soap.  He scrubs away and leaves them out to dry overnight.

On the ride to school this morning:  "My shoes are still a little wet."
Then two minutes later, "My shoes are really wet.  I guess they'll dry as I wear them?"

I hardly mattered, the air was unbreathable.  The stench was overpowering.
I'm afraid to say much, because he's so sensitive.

"The smell is very strong, Jonathan.   Let's drop off Mary, come back home and switch into sandals."

He agreed and his eyes said he was really grateful for Dad.

Churchill Quote

I've discovered the provenance of Churchill's famous quote:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

 

The sentence appears in a speech delivered on the 20th of August, 1940, in the midst of the Battle of Britain.

 

Wikipedia devotes an entire entry to the Churchill's coinage (here) but does not mention any precedent or inspiration.

I'm reading Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples where, in Book Five: "The New World", Chapter Fourteen: "The Personal Rule",  there occurs a passage:

For some days little happened, but one morning a Scottish horseman, watering his horse in the river, came too near the English outposts.  Some one pulled a trigger; the shot when home; the imprudent rider was wounded; all the Scots cannon fired and all the English army fled.  A contemporary wrote that "Never so many ran from so few with less ado."

Since we know Churchill completed much of History before 1940, I think it's plain that at the time of his speech he was familiar with (and fond of) the 1640 quote, and appropriated the rhetoric formula precisely 300 years later.

And in a delightful twist, English cowardice become English heroism!

Aug 29 2010 - Aquatic Center

After lunch we drive Mary down the hill for a birthday party at the Sacramento Aquatic Center and an afternoon of rafting, sailing, swimming.

What exactly is this place?
It's showy and rich, but it has the institutional feel of government, too.

Mary settles in with her classmates while I sign the ubiquitous release forms.

California parents throw elaborate birthday parties: never cake on the picnic table in the back yard.

Jonathan & I wander around. It is a government joint, funded by a potpourri of agencies and a public university.  The stated purpose is water safety education.

There are long warehouses stacked high with rowboats, sculls, jet-skis, etc.

Remember, the State of California is bankrupt to the tune of 300 - 600 billion dollars. It is closing libraries and schools. It pays its vendors with IOUs.

And we Californians fully expect the rest of the country to bail us out.
You.Will.Bail.Us.Out.
You know it's true.  We know it's true.
Ta-ta, suckers, we're going sailing.

Aug 28 2010

Home Repair 101


When the dispose-all breaks, it's my role to make it a teaching moment.  "Jonathan!"

 I want to teach him confidence.  And methodicalness.

There's reason to think it may be an electrical issue.  We devise some tests and they point to the switch.

This gives us an opportunity to learn about the breaker box.  Jonathan switches circuits off & on with his own hands (after spraying the wasp nest).

Get comfortable triple-checking for live wires, pulling switches, testing continuity.

Off to the hardware store for a replacement.  Waa-Laa, fixed!  Wife fulsomely praises son.

After driving Mary to a playdate, I take a walk.

The temperature has dropped from 108 -> 70 in a single day.

Butterflies are abundant this year.  A Monarch rows through the air towards a tasty weed.

As it turns dark I go to pick up Mary.  A police roadblock checks for drunks.  People wouldn't have put up with this 50 years ago.

We try to watch an episode of "Lark Rise to Candleford" but it's degenerated into a socially-aware Victorian soap.

Aug 27 2010

We ordered a super-duper electronic scale from Amazon.
The kids are weighing themselves before and after bathroom trips and reporting the difference.

A mysterious sign at the community gate:

Wanted

Tail

Thieve's

We figure a prankster is cutting off horse's tails, but that's a guess.

 Short walk before dinner.

• Meet Gary on his bike, exercising himself and his dog.
• Hawks gather in twos & threes, sometimes circling at great heights; in fact, all the birds are beginning to flock
• A cold front is moving in, clouds on the horizon
• The doveweed domes look outlandish

• asdf

Bedtime Move: "The Ghostbreakers", Bob Hope, 1940

Aug 26 2010

Mary spies from her bedroom window a new family.  10 chicks - we'll keep count over the next few months.

Danged stray cat might be brave enough go for one of the chicks if mom isn't attentive.

While the kids take piano lessons, I grocery shop.  Thursday afternoon must be Old Folks Day -- I'm the youngest customer.  Canes, blue hair, electric carts and seeing-eye dogs.

Waiting in the checkout line, I see one bag-boy (who I know is kinda retarded) pushing an old lady in her electric cart, trying to make it go faster, yelling something... I couldn't see her face, whether she was laughing or terrorized.

Aug 25 2010

Before I forget:

• The cat threw up, we feed it too much
• Playing "16 Candles" with the volume turned to 11.
• The drive to school, a gray-headed geezer wearing black socks, sandals and a Che t-shirt is taking a stroll.  In keeping with my new strategy of letting no liberal idiocy slide, I intend to stop and confront him on my way back home but he disappeared into one of the million dollar homes.
• The car in front of me has an ad in the window:  2BFree Bail Bonds (ah, a website)
  
• Pulling into the driveway, it's a menagerie.  A black cat pretends to stalk a dappled fawn.  The fawn's mother is getting bolder by the day -- I have to steer around her.  At the top of the hill, turkeys flee my car looking exactly like little velociraptors.  They stampede over the stray cat sleeping under the bird feeder and he wakes up screeching, paddling the air like a cartoon.

View from my seat, deer & turkey.

Pulling up to the house after fetching the kids from school, 2 beautiful butterflies danced around.  I chased them with a camera but captured only this glimpse:

"California Sister" is the match found at FloraLore.

He can't help it.



Before bed: "The Age of Henry VIII: Dissolution of the Monasteries"
In bed: Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples" covering the same period.
Contra admiring historians, it only drives home: "Great men" are loathsome & the State a brutal racket.

Aug 24 2010

Cross-country practice begins this second day of school.

It's also the hottest day of the summer, 107.

Jonathan TOWERS over every other child on the field, a big galoot liable to step on the tiny kids. He wants to play with them but he's going to hurt them.

The kids & I cooked supper together;  Mary made fresh lemonade.

Aug 23 2010 - School Resumes

The kids return to school.

On their own initiative, they dress nicely.  (Later they say classmates showed up like bums, torn dirty shirts, etc.)

Here is the photo we take every First Day of School; I'll make a slideshow when they get older.

Moments earlier, Jonathan discovered a frog in his shoe -- after he'd put it on.

And so, we're back in the saddle again. 

Picking the kids at 3:30, there's a traffic jam.

All the parents are glad to see one another again.  There's a festive air.
Is there anything prettier in the world than young mothers?

When supper is over, kids take the trash to the street...

...and I snag a photo of the moon...amazing, considering it's a pocket camera

We get into our pajamas, Jonathan & I watch "The Age of Henry VIII, Trial of More";  it's a 24 part series that's our routine this month.

We follow that with "World at War, Part 6";  the collapse of Germany, strange and disorienting.

Aug 22 2010

Before Mary's last dog-sitting session, the kids separate bottles and cans for a trip to the recycler.

A Great Sunset Stroll

Mary & I head out to feed and water the dog once more.  It's about a mile each way.

As this summer deepened, we noticed ant beds at the roadside  (they're actually jagged holes, not cones) were often surrounded by a wide circle of sawdust.  First impression was, in some mad ant fury, they obliterated a nearby plant. 

Looking more closely, we recognize a variety of seed husks.

Mary's photos are more artistic than mine.

Here's a close up of Dove Weed (Turkey Mullein), flowering at last, now that everything else has dried and shrivelled.  The clumps of Dove Weed lining the roads look extraterrestrial, 2-foot blue hemispheres.

A new, unknown weed catches our attention...

Each stalk has a yellow nodules at the flowering end.  A powder fungus?

But, it's not fungus.  I'm startled to see the stuff move.

And among the fat yellow mites are skinny white mites.  So strange and unexpected that we giggle and yell.

Lewcie is happy to see us.

The owner boasts she's a multi-thousand dollar thoroughbred, and I believe it.  It takes your breath away to watch her move, snuffling in the grass, chasing lizards and squirrels.  Her temperament is merely perfect, too.

On the way back home the moon rises, almost full.  At this time of day is the nicest orange glow.  A light breeze picks up.  You can't help dancing.

We play with the moon, balancing it on treetops

and telephone poles.

Creative young artist girl rolls it down a wire.

I put it on her head.

It doesn't get better than this.

An Acorn Woodpecker lets us watch it feed.  At this time of year it's a flycatcher.   From the top of a post or telephone pole, it waits for an insect to buzz past.

Every 10 or 15 seconds it leaps up and plucks a bug from the air, pretty as you please, and returns to the fencepost.

Easy, easy living.


Finally, close to home, two planes in the distance fly in formation.  I'd never seen fighters move so slowly.

When I blow up the picture, they are 727-sized jets, refuelling.  What the heck?

Aug 21 2010

School resumes Monday.  We get a haircut to look presentable.

I drop Mary at her dog-sitting job.  She's a bit nervous, to be left alone in a strange house.  We practice locking the doors.  I promise to be back in a couple of hours.

When I walk over to bring Mary home, the sky has clouded up.  These are the first clouds this summer, and weird ones, too.  Everyone feels excited and quickened...

...but soon enough it's the regular monotonous blue.

Evening, I walk Mary to play with the dog again.

Movie: "Stand By Me"

Aug 20 2010

Mary begins a dog-sitting job tomorrow.  We need to walk to the owner's house for last minute instructions.

As we pass the "Doctor's place"  border collies race back and forth at fence, barking madly.  It's a familiar routine.

   Lorena is outside and we talk over the fence.  She has a camera around her neck ("snapping butterflies").  We gossip about neighbors, gardening, photography.  She offers to let Mary borrow her SLR.

When we reach the dog-sittee's, the man of the house is gone and the woman of the house gives us an earful about the man of the house's shortcomings.  Very funny stuff about serial mid-life crises.

Aug 19 2010

A lousy day:

• I drop a car by the mechanic for a checkup.  He calls back with a laundry list of critical problems.  Estimate: $2000!
• A bunch of crazy old ladies are taking a day trip to the mountains, but they don't invite me & the kids - it's "women only"
• So while some folks are skipping through the mountain wildflowers, Jonathan and Mary and David will be cleaning the storage room.

No, I don't have pictures of the storage room --  "Ladies Gone Wild" took my camera.

All I have to show is what I found when the camera came back.

"I'm sure glad we're not cleaning a dirty old storage room."

"Let's pretend we're in  The Sound of Music."

At 8000' there's still snow.  Sure looks nice.

Sorry the kids & I couldn't make it.

Aug 18 2010

Did I mention that Mary is supposed to be my photo-journalist, but thinks she's an artist?

I had urgent Home Depot needs -- yard lights, dryer vent, weed-eater line -- so we drove to Placerville.  The kids don't "respond" to Home Depot like I do; when I discovered I'd forgotten my shopping list and necessary measurements and that the trip was basically wasted, they gave me the cold treatment.

We wandered around aimlessly, leaving with only some air filters.

The days have been weirdly cool this summer; you can go outside mid-day.
We try to refurbish a barrel for use as a water trough for the deer and varmits.

The rest of the afternoon spent taking 4 different  weed-eaters apart, trying to build 1 good  weeder from the various parts.

A walk at sunset.  Across the lawn, up in an old dead pine, a turkey hen and single surviving chick make an early roust.  Something on the ground must have them spooked.

The limb bends under their weight.  One good bounce and the branch will give way.

Last sight of the day is a small horned owl.  (I've brightened the picture -- it was pretty dark by this time.)