not kicking, not screaming. just not.

I feel kind of popular because people keep emailing me and telling me that they want me to be their Facebook friend. And by people I mean five (5). My Canadian friend Dennine was first around six months ago. I emailed her back and said I didn't really know what Facebook was, but that here in the U.S. I thought it was mainly for college students. Apparently not. I just spent a few minutes very tentatively poking around and I just don't feel comfortable there. I can't really figure out what to do and honestly, I don't want to. The blog is enough for me right now. Even if it's old fashioned and slow and quaint. I don't really care.

Did you know that one of only two known surviving U.S. World War I veterans died on February 11? He was 108.

Did you know that in Tacoma, Washington, transit officials are piping in classical music at malls and bus stops to discourage loitering and reduce disorderly behavior? Apparently it is scaring away the gangs. This is fascinating to me on so many levels.

We live around 10 minutes from the zoo and we usually go at least once a week with our friends. We went twice this week and the first visit ended with Hudson getting pooped on by (we hope) a bird. He was utterly oblivious, but we headed home for a shampoo anyway. The next visit should have probably ended before it started because Harper counted twenty school buses lined up out front. My already eroding faith in our public schools suffered a mighty blow, I must confess. Some of the groups seemed fairly well maintained, but the majority seemed under-supervised and wild. Perhaps I should have played some classical music. Incidentally, Hudson seems to have a Way With Animals. It's probably why the bird chose to poop on his head. He especially enjoys talking to the new baby giraffe. Harper enjoys the bats, the meercats, picking up sticks, galloping around with her friend Izzy and riding the fake animals on the carousel.

O-tay

Harper says "otay" like the kid on "The Little Rascals." She actually has several speech impediments and they are all pretty entertaining. Her current favorite emotion to identify is 'frustrated'. Only her 'r' is 'w' so it sounds like this: "Mommy, are you fwustuhwated?" Of course the question itself is enough to make whatever I am frustrated about seem pretty minor. It's convicting having an audience all day long. Especially now that she is getting so much more perceptive. If she senses a change in my tone, she'll ask, "Are you sad, Mommy?" Something else that she's been doing lately. If I am in another room and she does something she thinks might get her in trouble, she'll call out, "It's otay, Mommy!" which, it turns out, means that it probably is NOT okay. I heard a bang and called out, "What happened?" She came running in, brow furrowed, "Don't say 'what happened'. It's otay." It's like Adam trying to explain the fig leaves.
We're having some great weather. On Saturday while Jodey stayed home with the napping, I walked to Buffalo Grill to get a pancake. I think it's around 4 miles round trip. I sat and ate my pancake (they are HUGE, hence the singular) and scrambled egg, read a couple of chapters of The Chosen, then walked back home. It's a recipe for goodness: a brisk walk, a gigantic pancake, a little Hasidic history embedded in a great story. If only spring didn't inevitably lead to summer.
I do not like putting away outgrown baby clothes. It makes me melancholy. I looked at Harper yesterday and she is such a little girl now. There is nothing of baby left about her. Now that she is so independent I no longer know every inch of her as I did. I'll notice a new bruise on her shin and have no idea when it happened or how. Hm. If only spring didn't inevitably lead to summer.

In Somnia

They look like Hobbit feet, don't they? I've been writing a poem. An homage to "Kubla Khan":

In Somnia lived Hudson John

That's it. Just the one line so far. The subtitle Mr. Coleridge chose reads, "or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment." I woke up the day of Hudson's birthday and said, "Hm. I have not had a full night's sleep in 365 days. How about that?" And actually, if you take into account the last 6 weeks of pregnancy when sleep was fitful because my internal organs were being compressed into a space of approximately one cubic inch, it's been over 400 days. A fragment of fragmented sleep. However, after a few days in Dallas visiting friends and family, during which the boy slept about 30 minutes total, I now have perspective which allows me to be thankful for the sleeping he does do at home. He was so relieved to get back into his dark, quiet little closet/cave that he's been sleeping great (for him) since we got back.
The fragmented sleep creates bizarre dreams. I was thinking about dream interpretation a couple of weeks ago after hearing a sermon about Joseph. I wonder if the dreams then were more distilled because the dreamers were not bombarded by media like we are. All of their experience was direct. No books, no paintings, no tv, no recorded music. As close as they got to indirect experience was hearing stories. I wonder if the characters from stories they heard showed up in their dreams, in the way that several characters from "The Office" kept showing up in mine when we had our marathon a while back. Are Jim and Pam my sheaves of wheat?

short on words

I'm experiencing some blog malaise. It started last Wednesday when I began the morning by calling my husband "buddy." He had said something and, not having heard, I said, rather wearily, "I'm sorry, buddy." My husband is many things to me. He is not and, I would argue, ought not, be my buddy. A little while later I had washed my hair and was trying to blow dry it using some techniques my friend Laura had passed on. I was desperately hoping that if I could just get the blow dry right, I wouldn't need the flat iron. In my zeal I burned off a sizable chunk of my hair. Looks great, smells even better. I need a new blow drier apparently. So.
I read an article in Sunday's paper about an online magazine that asked people to send in six-word memoirs. It was based on a (possibly apocryphal) story that Hemingway was once asked if he could write a novel in only six words. Here's what he came up:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

The article listed some of the entries. Here are the two I liked:

Put whole self in, shook about. (by Melissa Delzio)

I still make coffee for two. (by Zak Nelson)

I've always been a fan of economy when it comes to words though I don't tend to do a great job of living it out de facto. I ramble on answering machines. I write in stream-of-consciousness. But I would like to do better. I had chosen Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning for this month's poems but I only today found my Robert Browning anthology and still don't know where Elizabeth is. Mr. Browning was often accused of being too obscure and I don't think my hair-singeing brain is ready for obscure right now. I think I'll work on some six word memoirs instead.

Euclidian love

A few days after my last Euclid post we were watching "Sesame Street" and Telly, one of the puppets, was waxing rhapsodic about triangles. The British guy who sings that (annoying) song "You're Beautiful (it's true)" was on and he sang the song as an ode to The Triangle. It was all very silly, but the segment ended with Telly proclaiming: "Show me a Euclidean love story and I'll show you a happy ending." I have my finger on the pulse of toddler culture, obviously. There is a love triangle at our house these days and it involves Harper, Hudson, and whatever Hudson is playing with. It does NOT end happily. Here is how it goes. Hudson will be playing with, for example, a piece of the fruit puzzle. I will say, "Do you have a kiwi Hudson?" and Harper, who was busily feeding her puppy Joshua a picnic lunch in a different room will shout, "I want the kiwi!" and she will come running and try to take it from Hudson. This scenario repeated itself around 68 times yesterday, even, at one point, when Hudson was playing with a tiny piece of carpet fuzz. And each time it ended thus:
me: Harper, you may not have the [piece of carpet fuzz]. Hudson is playing with it right now.
Harper: But I don't have ANYTHING to play with.
me: Hm, that sounds like whining. You need to go sit in your room please, until Mommy tells you to get up.
Harper: (wailing, but sitting with her hands folded in her lap) That makes me SAD! YOU make me SAD!!!
me: (turning away to maintain composure) And it makes me sad when you disobey.

I have a smiling/laughing problem when I have to deal with confrontation. It's extremely awkward. I try to think about very sad things. It does not work. Sometimes because it really is funny (as in the case of a melodramatic two year old) and sometimes because I am uncomfortable. It is highly inappropriate. I don't know how to fix it. I'm open to suggestions. I'm also open to suggestions of ways to help Harper invite Hudson into her play instead of wishing him desolate and toyless.