Journeying Jenny

Jenny is in the Philippines with Strider's little sister and a group of other people.

Strider and the little sister's parents drove us to the airport along with a friend of the girls, and the trip was uneventful so I have nothing funny to say- or at least, nothing much.  We did have a minor moment of bewilderment when the HM, who was the only member of the party who had no cell phone, ended up staying with the car at the curb at the airport and then had to drive off just about 20 seconds before we got back out to the curb.

  We left at the crack of dawn, drove and drove and drove and drove and drove (you get the idea), and finally arrived at Chicago's Midway airport.  We checked the girls in and were early enough to go grab a bite to eat= breakfast at a fast food restaurant.  Jenny was too nervous to eat much, but I managed to cajole her into nibbling something.  This was important because Jenny forgets to eat when she is sewing or otherwise engaged in things  more interesting to her than food, and she faints.  Strider's little sister is 18, but she is about 4.5 feet tall in her heels and about as big around as any fragile young sapling of the same size, and we reminded Jenny that Strider's young sister is feisty and capable, but she shouldn't have to carry Jenny on her first airplane flight.

It is a momentous occasion for both families for several reasons.  Jenny's flown before, but Strider's sister hadn't.  The HM and I have been overseas many times and several places, but neither Jenny nor Strider's sister have ever- Jenny's been to Canada, but that's about it.  Strider's little sister is away from home for a month every year working at the State Fair and living in the dorms, and we've never done something like that.  On the other hand,Jenny has traveled without her family before- except not without one sister.

Both girls have minor food issues- Jenny is my pickiest eater.  She didn't join our family until she was nearly 4, and this has been one of the hardest issues for her to overcome.  I believe her first four years she subsisted on tacos, french fries, cokes, and cheeseburgers.  She'd never seen broccoli before, but she did know how to operate a vending machine by the time she was barely 3 (which is when we first met her, and I was astounded to see her demand the right amount of money from her biological parent and then go get her own beverage of sugar laden choice from the machine).

Strider's sister has a gag reflex that gets set off badly at all kinds of things, smells, tastes, stress,and her family is worried about this for her.

Both girls have been working hard preparing for this trip- reading, working on lessons and activities to do with the children they'll be caring for, and getting used to strange smells and tastes.  One of the things I've stressed with Jenny is that things taste bad to *her*, it is not that they are inherently yucky or gross and other people just don't care.  I think it's helped, and I wish I'd thought of it sooner.  I mean, she knew better, of course, than to say, "This is gross," when a guest, but she was still thinking the flaw was in the food and the lack of discriminating taste in other people.

 


So... anyway.  They are in Manilla now.  They left our house at the crack of dawn yesterday morning met one member of their group on the plane, a few more members at the layover in Detroit, and the rest of the party at another layover in Tokyo.  I received a text message mid-morning today that they had just arrived in Manilla and were exhausted.  I could feel the wiped out, exhausted, near tears emotions of Jenny through the text message.  Just a few minutes ago, I received another text message saying, it's a brand new day, everything is new, neat, and exciting, the food is wonderful, the people are wonderful and super kind and nice.  I could feel Jenny's normal upbeat, excited, delighted to embrace a new experience as long as it isn't food personality through that text message, and so that was good, oh, best beloved.

They are helping with a free medical clinic at first today, and then they will head over to the Mall of Asia- the idea being, I think, to let them walk a lot and get in some exercise in an air conditioned, sort of familiar space, get some snacks and bottle drinks for the later parts of their trip, which includes visits to smaller towns and a leper colony.

Jenny is over seas, Pip and the FYG are frolicking along the coast of California (and visiting the Huntington Library), and the FYB, the Cherub and I survived our first day as a little group of three people rather nicely.


Oh, and about the trip to the airport, we saw the girls off at the airport, and as they walked through security we saw a young man in line ahead of them turn and start chatting with them. It wasn't on purpose, my hubby was trying to get a picture of the girls, but he ended up with a good shot of the young man's face.

"Hmmm", he said, "What nickname shall we give this guy?" and he showed the picture to the other parents.
I was thinking George, Fred, or  something like that.


"Suspect X," said the father of ?Strider and Strider's kid sister.

You can see why we love our daughter's in-laws.

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Several family members are making journeys this month.  You may also enjoy:

Journeying Mom- my journey was shorter than the rest, distance wise, but possibly also funnier than the rest.  On the other hand, maybe not- one of my commenters (anonymous, as always with such comments) thinks I was/am disgraceful.

Journeying Girls- two of the girls are off to Los Angeles by train, a journey of over 48 hours by train.  Along the way I hope they will find 'frail traveling coincidences' ready to be 'loosed with all the power that being changed can give,' as Philip Larkin wrote in the poem Whitsun Weddings about his own journey by train.

Inflation and you

High prices at the pump are putting a squeeze on the family budget as the traditional summer driving season begins. For every $10 the typical household earns before taxes, almost a full dollar now goes toward gas, a 40 percent bigger bite than normal.
Households spent an average of $369 on gas last month. In April 2009, they spent just $201. Families now spend more filling up than they spend on cars, clothes or recreation. Last year, they spent less on gasoline than each of those things.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110527/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gasoline_summer_squeeze

The government doesn't count things like food or energy when measuring inflation. There may be good reasons of this, but the fact remains that the government's 'inflation' measurement doesn't actually measure the cost of the things that matter most to those of us who aren't getting rich trading on inside information.

Striderling

Just a few days ago, I shared with a group of friends that the Striderling could only manage sitting up like this for 10-15 seconds at a time. His occupational therapist came the day after I said that and he shocked both of us by holding himself like that for a minute. He's done it a few times since and I managed to capture one of those moments on camera. For all the work he's had to do to get himself to this point, he might as well be climbing Mt. Everest. I'm so proud of him (said in sappy mommy voice ;-).

That toy, by the way, is one of my newest thrift shop finds. The physical therapist has a couple toys like it and the Striderling loves them. I'd decided to start looking out for a couple and found this for $3 last week. It's normally thirteen bucks
at Amazon, which isn't bad for such a cool toy, but I'm happy to have saved ten bucks this way. The factory where Strider works has been dealing with supply issues from the Japan earthquakes and altho' we are still sitting *very* comfortably financially, paychecks have been taking a definite hit since March and may continue that way 'til August. Thus, pinching pennies is of even more value now.

Oh! But back to the Striderling (a happier topic than supply issues and paychecks, wouldn't you say?)... his pediatrician just gave him a copy of Big Book of Beautiful Babies and he (like most babies would, I imagine) is a fan. We read through it this morning, and it was hilarious to see him grinning at some of the pictures *or* trying to imitate the faces.

He also likes to give kisses.

And weighs 13 lbs, 2 oz... which is still not on the charts, but is more than double birth weight. He is in the fiftieth percentile for length, though, which is impressive for a kiddo born in the twenty-fifth percentile who then dropped down to the fifteenth for a while. No wonder I have trouble with him getting too lanky for his clothes.

And cups. He likes cups too...


(final mommy brag: holding something up like that requires a greater amount of arm strength than we normally think about. When you see your baby do something like that, take a moment to wonder at all the developmental and physical challenges they overcome just to play! :)

And I thought No Child Left Behind was bad.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the administration’s new $500 million early learning initiative is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as 5-year olds who “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom.

“You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten class, and it has to be the whole range of issues that go into healthy child development,” Sebelius said during a telephone news conference on Wednesday to announce the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge.

From Darleen Click at Protein Wisdom.

This is counterproductive. It doesn't even make sense. It's going to create children with a whole range of UNhealthy development. A kindergarten classroom shouldn't be a place where children have to do a lot of sitting still, and the government has NO business getting involved with families from birth onward in order to make sure five year old children can do something that isn't developmentally appropriate to begin with.

Our kids are losing the ability to think, and their lack of free play time and experience with trees, mud, sand, grass and water may just have a lot to do with that.

The research is pretty clear that children need a lot more time playing and less time 'sitting still.' If we truly understood how important this play time is, we'd be as likely to let a day pass without letting our children be the little mudpuppies God meant them to be as we would to let an entire day pass without feeding them.

My DHM

Guests, company, people (lots), the more the merrier has always been my motto. I love people, well, because it comes naturally and takes absolutely no work on my part. It’s my personality. She on the other hand is not me, nor has my personality, (which is good because I don’t think I could live with me!) but has welcomed countless guests into our home. Sometimes I think about how fun it would be to attempt to add up how many miles her and I have driven together. It must be a million or more miles. I think I could retrace our trips and get a pretty good estimate of that number. What I could not do is count up how many house guests, some overnight, some for dinner others just for dessert she has entertained.
Not only has she mastered it for over a quarter of a century, but she taught our daughters to do the same.

I am gratefully amazed. I am amazed at her, and grateful to my God for giving her to me.

Memorial Day

Remembering those who have fallen...

Like this fellow veteran of our son-in-law Shasta.

 I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and the United States of America.

From the U.S. Army Code of Conduct
 

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"Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue" - the US Marine Corps Memorial

FACEBOOK guess the picture

the picture to guess is here.

The answer is below:

It's either a small planter/vase, or a holder for a kitchen sponge/scrubby, or????

The Holy War, continued

Up until now we've been reading about the attack on the kingdom of Mansoul from the viewpoint of a narrator watching and listening to Diabolus, his henchmen, and the townspeople.  The last chapter concluded with:

He that Diabolus made Governour over the first of these, was one Spite-God, a most blasphemous wretch. He came with the whole rabble of them that came against Mansoul at first, and was himself one of themselves. He that was made the Governour of Midnight-hold was one Love-no-light. He was also of them that came first against the Town. And he that was made the Governour of the Hold called Sweet-sin-hold, was one whose name was Love-flesh, he was also a very lewd fellow but not of that Country where the other are bound. This fellow could find more sweetness when he stood sucking of a lust, than he did in all the Paradise of God. Diabolus And now Diabolus thought himself safe. He had made his nest and taken Mansoul; He had engarrisoned himself therein; 

He had put down the old Officers, and had set up new ones; He had defaced the image of Shaddai, and had set up his own; He had spoiled the old Law Books, and had promoted his own vain Lies; He had made him new Magistrates, and set up new Aldermen; He had builded him new Holds, and had manned them for himself. And all this he did to make himself secure, in case the good Shaddai, or his Son, should come to make an incursion upon him.

 In this next section we will hear and see the response of Shaddai and His Court:

Now you may well think, that long before this time, word, by some one or other, could not but be carried to the good King Shaddai, how his Mansoul, in the continent of Universe, was lost; and that the runagate giant Diabolus, once one of his Majesty's servants, had, in rebellion against the King, made sure thereof for himself. Yea, tidings were carried and brought to the King thereof, and that to a very circumstance.

At first, how Diabolus came upon Mansoul (they being a simple people and innocent) with craft, subtlety, lies, and guile. ITEM, that he had treacherously slain the right noble and valiant captain, their Captain Resistance, as he stood upon the gate with the rest of the townsmen. ITEM, how my brave Lord Innocent fell down dead (with grief, some say, or with being poisoned with the stinking breath of one Ill-Pause, as say others) at the hearing of his just lord and rightful prince, Shaddai, so abused by the mouth of so filthy a Diabolian as that varlet Ill-Pause was. The messenger further told, that after this Ill-Pause had made a short oration to the townsmen in behalf of Diabolus, his master; the simple town, believing that what was said was true, with one consent did open Ear-gate, the chief gate of the corporation, and did let him, with his crew, into a possession of the famous town of Mansoul. He further showed how Diabolus had served the Lord Mayor and Mr. Recorder, to wit, that he had put them from all place of power and trust. ITEM, he showed also that my Lord Willbewill was turned a very rebel, and runagate, and that so was one Mr. Mind, his clerk; and that they two did range and revel it all the town over, and teach the wicked ones their ways. He said, moreover, that this Willbewill was put into great trust, and particularly that Diabolus had put into Willbewill's hand all the strong places in Mansoul; and that Mr. Affection was made my Lord Willbewill's deputy in his most rebellious affairs. 'Yea,' said the messenger, 'this monster, Lord Willbewill, has openly disavowed his King Shaddai, and hath horribly given his faith and plighted his troth to Diabolus.'

'Also,' said the messenger, 'besides all this, the new king, or rather rebellious tyrant, over the once famous, but now perishing town of Mansoul, has set up a Lord Mayor and a Recorder of his own. For Mayor, he has set up one Mr. Lustings; and for Recorder, Mr. Forget-Good; two of the vilest of all the town of Mansoul.' This faithful messenger also proceeded, and told what a sort of new burgesses Diabolus had made; also that he had built several strong forts, towers, and strongholds in Mansoul. He told, too, the which I had almost forgot, how Diabolus had put the town of Mansoul into arms, the better to capacitate them, on his behalf, to make resistance against Shaddai their King, should he come to reduce them to their former obedience.

Now this tidings-teller did not deliver his relation of things in private, but in open court, the King and his Son, high lords, chief captains, and nobles, being all there present to hear. But by that they had heard the whole of the story, it would have amazed one to have seen, had he been there to behold it, what sorrow and grief, and compunction of spirit, there was among all sorts, to think that famous Mansoul was now taken: only the King and his Son foresaw all this long before, yea, and sufficiently provided for the relief of Mansoul, though they told not everybody thereof. Yet because they also would have a share in condoling of the Misery of Mansoul, therefore they also did, and that at a rate of the highest degree, bewail the losing of Mansoul. The King said plainly that it grieved him at the heart, and you may be sure that his Son was not a whit behind him. Thus gave they conviction to all about them that they had love and compassion for the famous town of Mansoul. Well, when the King and his Son were retired into the privy chamber, there they again consulted about what they had designed before, to wit, that as Mansoul should in time be suffered to be lost, so as certainly it should be recovered again; recovered, I say, in such a way, as that both the King and his Son would get themselves eternal fame and glory thereby. Wherefore, after this consult, the Son of Shaddai (a sweet and comely Person, and one that had always great affection for those that were in affliction, but one that had mortal enmity in his heart against Diabolus, because he was designed for it, and because he sought his crown and dignity) - this Son of Shaddai, I say, having stricken hands with his Father and promised that he would be his servant to recover his Mansoul again, stood by his resolution, nor would he repent of the same. The purport of which agreement was this: to wit, that at a certain time, prefixed by both, the King's Son should take a journey into the country of Universe, and there, in a way of justice and equity, by making amends for the follies of Mansoul, he should lay a foundation of perfect deliverance from Diabolus and from his tyranny.

Moreover Emmanuel resolved to make, at a time convenient, a war upon the giant Diabolus, even while he was possessed of the town of Mansoul; and that he would fairly by strength of hand drive him out of his hold, his nest, and take it to himself to be his habitation.

This now being resolved upon, order was given to the Lord Chief Secretary to draw up a fair record of what was determined, and to cause that it should be published in all the corners of the kingdom of Universe. A short breviate of the contents thereof you may, if you please, take here as follows:

'Let all men know who are concerned, that the Son of Shaddai, the great King, is engaged by covenant to his Father to bring his Mansoul to him again; yea, and to put Mansoul, too, through the power of his matchless love, into a far better and more happy condition than it was in before it was taken by Diabolus.'

These papers, therefore, were published in several places, to the no little molestation of the tyrant Diabolus; 'for now,' thought he, 'I shall be molested, and my habitation will be taken from me.'

But when this matter, I mean this purpose of the King and his Son, did at first take air at court, who can tell how the high lords, chief captains, and noble princes that were there, were taken with the business! First, they whispered it one to another, and after that it began to ring out through the King's palace, all wondering at the glorious design that between the King and his Son was on foot for the miserable town of Mansoul. Yea, the courtiers could scarce do anything either for the King or kingdom, but they would mix, with the doing thereof, a noise of the love of the King and his Son, that they had for the town of Mansoul.

Nor could these lords, high captains, and princes be content to keep this news at court; yea, before the records thereof were perfected, themselves came down and told it in Universe. At last it came to the ears, as I said, of Diabolus, to his no little discontent; for you must think it would perplex him to hear of such a design against him. Well, but after a few casts in his mind, he concluded upon these four things.

We'll save the four things for next week.  Meanwhile....
How does Shaddai respond to the sin of Mansoul?
What is His plan?

:

. . . . . . . .  In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.  (Ephesians 1:8-10,TEV)

Who's in command of your kingdom of Mansoul?

Ten things for bored children to do

1. Finger paint with shaving cream
2. Play one of the games here.
3. Variations of 'hunt the thimble,'- you hide five pennies for the children to find, or they take turns hiding their.... click through to see.=)
4. Make little boats and have boat races in a puddle or a dishpan of water.
5. Make musical instruments with a row of glasses of water (or glass bottles)
6. Matchbox cars and cardboard tubes from paper towels or toilet paper.
7. Use your junk mail for paper doll families or scrap booking
8. Coffee filter art, which you can expand to home-made dyes. or not.
9. Play Hull Gull
10. Make this clothespin game - it can be color matching for young kids, math facts for slightly older kids, riddles for other kids, or have the kids make the game by themselves to give to some harried young mother at church.

Bonus: Have them write "Only the boring are bored" ten times in a row.=)

Linked at We Are That Family

Book Places and Spaces

Thanks to Harmony at Thou and Thou Only, I have spent too much time this morning looking at these seriously cool and unusual bookshelves- love the one built into and under and around each step on the stairs.

If you enjoyed that, you might want to look at the links:
Here- including a table and chairs made from books

Here- love the use of an old stepladder.  I have the old step ladder.  What I do not have is the wall space to hang it.

here- it's a home-made bookcase for toddlers, the books face out, with a dowel to keep them in.

And here are the very cool rain gutter bookshelves with a tutorial:at Raising Olives
I had a friend who told me about the rain gutter idea several years before I had a blog, but my walls have always been filled with, um, bookcases, so I couldn't use it.  I wonder about mounting something like this on a foot board or on a bedroom door?


What's the most creative thing you've seen done with books or shelving? 

Happy news!

I blogged about the child denied adoption because he had Down Syndrome here.

The Supreme Court of his country over-ruled the Judge's ruling, and little Kirill is adopted.His parents are picking him up as soon as they get the signed court order.

100 Verses in 100 Days

Here's a memory challenge I find daunting, but I might give it a tentative shot.  If I'm lucky, I'll already know some of the verses- that's true for the first week.  What do you think?

Dehydrating foods

I have a post on foods I've dehydrated at Frugal Hacks.

Journeying Mom

Wednesday morning very early, earlier than I usually get up,  I left for Chicago (by train) with my youngest two girls. While at the station (which is more of a three sided overhang as for a bus, no attendants), we listened (we couldn't NOT listen, he was too loud) to a man with four teeth, long hair, and a bandanna on his head talking on the cell phone to various people about how he didn't know what he was going to do when his money ran out, how the girl he was talking to at one point should not get back with him but stay with that one guy, how his other friend he was talking to at another point had been drinking all day and was going to go back it when he got off the phone,how much drinking he'd done, how broke he was,  and there was a long, repeated (because he kept hanging up and then calling back) argument with another friend that I never figured out. He kept saying, "We go back a long way, don't be like that. Don't start. You always do this.  And anyway, I'm coming to see you in 2 hours/an hour/40 minutes..."

Then when the train arrived, naturally that's who I got to sit with. I spent part of the journey alternating prayers of "Please don't let him talk to me" with scathing reminders to myself that God loves him, too, and I finally compromised with myself by singing Amazing Grace and Jesus Loves Me under my breath, but just loud enough for him to hear. He got off at a stop partway between our house and Chicago.

Once in Chicago we made our way to the waiting room and the girls wanted to put their luggage in a locker- which was operated by fingerprint.  We talked to a nice young man who kindly offered to help with their luggage, and the multiple piercings inside his lower lip didn't make him that hard to understand, although it did make it so hard to drink from his coke bottle that it was hard not to laugh. He turned out to be active duty military on leave, and he had to spend something like two days at the train station waiting for his next connection. We also saw old order Amish, tattooed biker gang types, business men and women, and all manner of interesting sorts of people.

It was raining when we got off the train, and expected to rain all afternoon, so I bought an umbrella at a drug store down the street. It stopped raining by the time we left the store.

We walked three blocks to a little park where we had a picnic lunch across the street from St Patrick's, a Catholic church building that is the oldest public building in Chicago, the Chicago Fire having missed it by two blocks. We accidentally crashed a mass inside the building- we were standing outside debating on whether to go in or not, and a man talking on a cell phone near by must have misunderstood our concerns- he told us he worked there, that it didn't matter that we were late, ushered us quickly up the stairs and hustled us into the building in mid-mass.  I told Pip I would stay there with their too heavy backpacks if she wanted to go back to the park and take pictures with her telephoto lens (as she'd wanted), but she was too embarrassed to disrupt the service a second time.

It's a gorgeous little jewel of a building with designs on the walls based on the Book of Kells, and lovely stained glass windows dedicated to various Catholic Saints, my favorites being Brendan and Columb. It surpassed my expectations, and yet, it was a small building and not overwhelming, and the walls and windows were lovely.  According to Wikipedia:

"Thomas Augustus "Gus" O'Shaughnessy (1870-1956), an Irish American Celtic Revival designer, who worked in stained glass. He was employed as a Chicago Daily News staff artist. He is best remembered for having created the greatest example of Celtic Revival architectural design in America. He personally executed and installed fifteen stained glass windows at Old St. Patrick's Church at Des Plaines and Adams, in Chicago between 1912 and 1922. He was inspired by the Celtic art exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The windows include a triptych done with an especially beautiful blend of the Art Nouveau and Celtic Revival styles. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago History (getting the date usually ascribed to the Book of Kells wrong):


thanks to the genius of artist Thomas A. O'Shaughnessy, St. Patrick's was transformed, between 1912 and 1922, into the best-known example of Celtic Revival Art in America. Drawing inspiration from the ninth-century illuminated manuscript known as the Book of Kells, O'Shaughnessy created luminescent stained-glass windows and interlace stencils. Restored to their original beauty in 1996, O'Shaughnessy's designs continue to challenge conventional notions of Irish identity and sacred space."

Here's more:

"Starting in 1912, it took O'Shaughnessy 10 years to redecorate St. Pat's in 5th Century Celtic motifs.


The glass glints with hundreds of soft tints that are in the material itself. He even worked molten gold into the mix to give the windows their glow. Very little is painted. The glass is so fine that you almost can see through it.


Saints and Gospel figures, twining natural forms and symbols, scenes of nature and Art Nouveau curves all distinguish the windows. The Faith Window, 25 feet high, combines about 250,000 bits of glass and 2,000 tints and is a tour de force."

During the mass that we crashed, while others had their heads bowed in prayer I was looking hungrily at the walls and windows, and I am not sorry. The green, cream, and sort of soft apricot colored celtic knots on the walls were added during the restoration in the 1990s, or completely redone as the originals had been destroyed by previous paintings and years of grime.

O'Shaughnessy, btw, died of complications of a fall when he was 86. He fell because he gave up his seat on the train to another elderly train rider- one who was probably not 86 years old. That is tragically poetic, is it not?


The poor FYG also accidentally crashed to the floor in the middle of Mass when she tried to sit down where there was no pew, something difficult for any 15 year old to endure, although nobody turned to look at her and see what was the matter.

The elevator was not, apparently, renovated in the 1990's.  It was funny, quirky, and kind of spooky- long, narrow, dark paneling.  It still had the metal grate doors sort of like an old fashioned baby gate, but with newer, cheap plasticky accordian doors to cover them when the elevator was in use. You had to wait for the doors to close completely before you could press the button for your floor, and then the door swung shut with a jarring thump.  Only two people permitted on at a time.  The girls refused to get on with me and were sure I breaking some sort of rule for trying it out.  I wasn't playing around, though. I was looking for a bathroom (successfully).

We walked back to the train station, and it started raining more heavily. The FYG commandeered the umbrella, and I let her because I adore rain.

We took a detour to a public map sign because I wanted to see what else was around. A very nice one-eyed man in shabby clothes explained where we were, where we could go if we wanted to see the sites, where he would go if he were us, and then he went through it all three times more. Then he offered me a "free newspaper"- but I've been there before. There is an organization that gives the homeless papers, which they 'give' to people, practically shoving them in your hands while telling you it's free, only when your hands reflexively close on the object that's been placed there, the newspaper 'donors' become slightly less nice and demand money and lay a guilt trip on you. In this case, I actually would have loved to give this man some money, but the girls were anxious to get to the train station, and I had packed my change purse at the bottom of my purse and there were so many things on top of it (including a folded canvas totebag with my dinner in it) that finding it would have entailed emptying the contents on the ground. Not happening. So I apologized, but kept my hands behind my back did not take the paper.

We went back to the station and I waited in line a while to buy my return ticket home (initially I wasn't going to need one, but my ride offer had to rescind the offer, and I was so focused on getting the girls to the station I didn't think ahead to my need to get home), watched the large man in front of me topple over onto the floor for no apparent reason, watched him struggle to stand, and then stumble up to the counter to get his ticket, realized he was embarrassed and tried to stop watching him. My guess, honestly, is that he is in the early stages of some disease that deteriorates the muscles or coordination- he was with his wife and baby and the baby was too adorable to have a drunkard for a father. I finally made it up to the counter where I was told by a ticket sales person that my train was all sold out and I couldn't get a ticket.

. This presented a crisis, as I had no way back home and the next train for home didn't leave for another 28-30 hours. I was astonished- NOBODY goes to my town. The train doesn't even always stop here because sometimes nobody has bought a ticket. I was baffled. The ticket agent was supercilious and anyway I was holding up the line, so I left. I walked the girls back to the lockers where they had stored their luggage. Then I sat with their backpacks while they checked their luggage. I used my Kindle and texted the news to my private Facebook (I mentioned I LOVE my Kindle?),and felt a bit sick at my stomach.

The girls came back,laughing.  At the baggage check, the attendant kept explaining everything to the FYG and kind of ignoring Pip.  Then she looked more closely at their tickets (one is for a child) and asked, "How old ARE you girls?"  When Pip said she was twenty, and the FYG was 15, the woman started to laugh and apologized, because she thought the FYG was the older.  This is going to continue for their entire journey, I believe.  Pip wants a shirt that says, "I'm older than you think," and my husband wants the FYG to have a shirt that says, "I'm not as old as you think I am."

We reviewed warnings, encouragement, and terms of endearment, and then rather than wait to see them off as planned, I had to leave to go figure out what I was supposed to do. As I kissed them good-bye and walked off, my dilemma became more real to me and I felt a bit shaky, so I went in to the bathroom and shut the door of a stall and thought, "Maybe I should cry? " Then I thought that no, that wasn't going to be helpful, so I wouldn't. At that point, the strap of my purse broke and the contents spilled on the floor. I laughed. I am sure that was bewildering to anybody on the other side, and perhaps a bit frightening. Who stands inside a public bathroom stall and laughs out loud?

I cobbled my belongings together, and wandered out to the main part of the station. I checked my Kindle. I had received two generous offers- one to try a ticket to the home town of this kind person, spend the night, and take the next evening's train home.  I really wanted to do that, but I didn't want to be gone from home another day.  I received another generous offer (yah, Kindle again to the rescue) from a friend of my mother's that if I could get a cab to a different train station and then take the local Chicago train to the end of the line, he would pick me up there. I had no idea how much that would cost, but it seemed like it would probably be cheaper than a hotel within walking distance of Union station, and it would get me home by midnight.

On my way out of the station to get a cab, I noticed something I hadn't seen before- automatic machines where you could order a ticket with a debit card and no human being with a supercilious smile standing there to tell you nay. I thought, "Why not?" I struggled to pull my debit card out of my purse and the other strap broke, spilling things onto the floor, but I finally found the debit card and started going through the process of ordering my ticket. It took a couple minutes before I noticed the listings were in alphabetical order (I felt more numb than panicked, which means my synapses were firing off as though they'd been put down for surgery), and I found my little town, and ordered my ticket with ease. I got it printed out and then had a momentary panic where I thought perhaps I'd gotten my dates wrong and Wednesday wasn't the 25th after all.

I went to the gift shop in the station and bought two post cards, because the girls had wanted Chicago post cards and hadn't gotten any. I also asked for a plastic bag to put my purse in and received two from the nice lady behind the counter because she said she didn't think one would be heavy enough.  I went back to the waiting room where the girls were, surprising them greatly. I showed them my ticket and asked Pip to see if it was all in order because I couldn't think straight. She said it looked correct to her, and the date was right.

Then it was time for them to get in line and I had three more hours to wait for my train, so I kissed them good bye again and walked a mile to a Chicago library. Along the way I stopped to get my bearings and look more carefully at the map.  It was only that I realized that the canvas totebag wrapped up folded up over my supper was large and sturdy enough to hold my strapless purse, so I rearranged my dinner, opened the canvas bag up again and put the purse in the bag. This time I made sure my change purse was accessable. The canvas bag, by the way, is old and stained.  Jenny-Any-Dots painted a lady's slipper orchid on it, big and bold, when she was just 11 years old, and the signed it.  It's rather conspicuous.

I walked on, crossed a bridge and the girls called me to tell me they could see me from the window of their train. I waved at the train and bravely did not sniffle.  I took out my ticket and looked at it again, but still could find no error.  I comforted myself with the thought that if there was some mistake, it was now Amtrak's responsibility not mine.  I walked on.

Good thing I kept my change purse handy because I passed multiple beggars, all but one of them men who looked like their condition was the result of lifestyle choices. I gave them change anyway just because it was now a sunny day and I had a train ticket- sometimes I asked them for information so it was a hand-out with a modicum of dignity (where's the library, where's Union Station, how much further to the library) . Most of them said 'God Bless you," one of them was rather snarly, and even as he knew I was rummaging through my bag for the change purse (which had slipped out of position) he moaned loudly to somebody else who turned him down, "One of these days somebody is going to help me out." I almost gave up the search for the change purse and walked off, and I do believe that would have been totally justified, but I didn't because it was sunny and I had a train ticket.

I took a break on a bench in a courtyard at a correctional center and watched a man feeding the pigeons and marveled at the architecture of the older buildings around the center. I walked past the financial district where well dressed people were rushing out of the offices, and I realized why I was passing so many beggars.

I finally arrived at the Harold Washington Public Library, approximately 756,640 square feet of imposing marble, fountains and air. I didn't find the books.

Okay, I lied. I found some books- after wandering in stunned fashion past a place that looked and sounded more like a youth club than a library, through the large and airy lobby, and up the stairs to a gapingly huge room that had banks of computers, newspapers, and periodicals (but no books), and up another flight of stairs I saw the children's section and breathed a sigh of recognition and dashed in.

I just didn't make the most of my visit there- I was too tired, too sore, and too overwhelmed- mostly overwhelmed (the lobby is two stories high and has no books) to make the most of it. There is a winter garden and a sculpture on the upper levels, and I would have liked to see them. I contented myself with viewing three precious old volumes of children's history that are so old and so special they are kept in a back room in a specially designed box and to look at them I had to give the librarian some picture I.D. and promise to be careful and not lay them flat, and then return them to the librarian to get back my picture I.D.

I walked back to the station, this time passing only one beggar (the rude one), and sat down on a bench in a courtyard in front of a newish office building. There were flower beds with some incredibly heady pink stuff in them. My sandwich was squished flat, but I ate it anyway, and emptied my water bottle. I turned sideways and sat with my feet up on the bench for about fifteen minutes. I had not chosen the right shoes, the ankle band I have to wear if I am going to walk more than five minutes was raising a blister at the edge of my foot and my foot was in a heated argument with my shoe (an argument the shoe was winning), and it felt wonderful to sit there with my feet up.   I thought about taking off my shoes and dabbling my toes in a puddle and the only reason I did not was because I was afraid it would make me cry if I took off my shoes and then had to put them back on, and I was not walking through Union station barefoot.  Ew.

I got back to the station in time to watch an argument between a couple passengers being mediated by a police officer (Union Station actually has a counter with full time police staffing - almost a miniature police station). I wanted more water, but it was 1.75 at the machine. I looked further and found a drinking fountain, and refilled my refillable bottle there twice. I was still half afraid that I would on the train and they would tell me my ticket was a mistake. I waited in the station for about half an hour and then they started boarding my train- they let me on, but I still had to present picture I.D. to the attendant once the train started and I was still half afraid he'd kick me off again. There were some funny train announcements- they wouldn't be funny repeated, but they were funny then and there, and they kept repeating the same things, and finally said, "If you are in line for train 234, you are NOT IN LINE BECAUSE THERE IS NO LINE, please get out these nice people's way," and it cracked me up.

There was young man covered in tattoos with a military hair cut (he wasn't military, or at least not owning up to it, as they let active duty military on the train first, with old people, families with children, and the disabled, and he didn't go anywhere) in line near me, and the same things that amused me made him laugh, too, and he kept catching my eye and rolling his, which also made me laugh. When they let us leave the station and go to the train, they didn't tell which train car to get on, and it was obvious that it made a difference.  The attendant was busy with a group of elderly and disabled passengers, but there were two cars open, and we didn't now which line to use or even if this was the right train to our state (there was another train loading passengers right next to us, so it was confusing).  The tattoed young man asked the attendant if this was the right train for our state. The harried attendant snapped, "I can help you get on the train when I am finished with these people, can't you see they need help?"  The tattoed young man looked frustrated, as well he might, and I also did not want to stand for several minutes at the wrong train if I didn't have to, so I said, "Yes, of course we don't mind waiting, we just want to be sure we are waiting at the right train. Is this the train for ____________?"  He said yes, and Tattoos grinned and rolled his eyes at me again.

It did matter which car we got on, too.  Tattoos was traveling further than I, so he got on one car, rolling his eyes at me in farewell, and I got on the other.  On the train I counted over a dozen empty seats on my car alone- and there were other cars as well, and I thought imprecatory thoughts about the person who told me there were none . They let me stay on, and I settled into my double seat comfortably.  That's when I remembered that I hadn't made arrangements for anybody to pick me up at home (my family had a prior engagement so they couldn't do it.) I texted my mother and she said she'd be glad to.

The ride home took twice as long as it should because we kept pulling over to let freight trains go by. We passed a herd of deer, about thirty, which astonished most of the other passengers. At the town where I'd lost my seat mate of the morning that same seat mate got on the train and nodded cooly at me, but didn't sit with me. The fact that my feet were up on the empty seat beside me might have had something to do with that.It certainly made the little boy across from me laugh at me.  I didn't care.

I texted the girls a few times. They are having a grand adventure and making the most of it.

My mom was waiting at the station- she says when she was a girl my grand-dad worked as a teacher and then principle at a school in Chicago and they used to pick him up at the same station, although the old building was torn down decades ago. Now there's just something like a bus shelter there.

I came home, kicked off my shoes and put my feet up.  I am not sure I've moved since then.

The girls may have completed their journey by the time you read this and be having a grand time with very old friends, a fellow homeschooling and still military family with many children from the age of 18 down to about five or six. They will visit the Huntington library and see Pinkie and Blue Boy and other delights. They will see the ocean. They meet with other friends who live nearby. They may or may not meet members of my husband's family- his parents live a couple hours, at most, from where the girls will be, as do numerous aunts and cousins, but it is debatable if any of them will make the drive over.

The girls have visited at length with a couple passengers from Australia and enjoyed that very much.  They have learned that at all the stops, however short, smoking passengers storm off the train to desperately suck on their cancer sticks, poor dupes.  They have learned that in the morning and most of the day the observation car is a grand place to be, but in the evening the observation car fills up with people who seem to have had too much to drink. An old man asked Pip to mail some things for him when she got off the train.  She said no, she didn't think she could do that.  He gave her some papers, saying he was an author and they were a limited edition of his work, but he was trying to get it published more broadly. I asked if they were plans for some secret weapon and she'd fallen out of a travel narrative into the pages of an improbable spy novel. She says the pages appear to be poetry.  I suggested code.  She says perhaps, but she's busy reading her Agatha Christie right now. She wanted to take a copy of Murder on the Orient Express, but we couldn't find one here at short notice- I thought I owned one, but it seems not.

She says everybody is quite nice, but they all seem to think she's about 12, and they generally think that the FYG, five years younger than she,  is the older of the two. We can all tell her she will like that some day but she's heard it before, and their two oldest sisters (both on the sunset side of their 20s) are still waiting for that day.

Meanwhile.... three kids at home, and two after Monday. Neither of the two left behind are what I would call cooks, although the Boy does make a practically perfect omelette.

That was poor planning on my part.

----------------------------------



Several family members are making journeys this month.  You may also enjoy:


Journeying Mom- That's this post that you've just read, but don't miss the comments.  One of my commenters (anonymous, as always with such comments) thinks I was/am disgraceful. Probably I am, but I think not for the reasons said commenter imagines.


Journeying Girls- two of the girls are off to Los Angeles by train, a journey of over 48 hours by train.  Along the way I hope they will find 'frail traveling coincidences' ready to be 'loosed with all the power that being changed can give,' as Philip Larkin wrote in the poem Whitsun Weddings about his own journey by train.

Journeying Jenny- Jenny-Any-Dots travels the farthest- she is off to the Philippines. 

Four Moms Q and A

 Don't miss what the other three mamas have to say:

Kimberly at Raising Olives answers questions here

Kim C at Life in a Shoe answers questions here
Connie at Smockity Frocks answers questions here 

It's Q and A week at Four Moms Thursdays.

Some of y'all had questions, I have answers.  Let's see if they match.

Olive Beaupris Miller's Story of Mankind- I recommended this in a list of books we used for history, and forgot to share that it's a series.  Oops. Blush.  I hang my head in shame.

 There are several confusing things about this.  There are two Story of Mankind books, the other is by Hendrik Van Loon.  We used it, too, but many of our readers won't like it. He is rather hostile to Christianity at times.

Olive Beaupris Miller's book also goes by two titles, and there is more than one version (so far as I know, all of them are just as good).  The full title of mine is The Story of Mankind : A Picturesque Tale of Progress Beginnings 1 and 2.

I believe that at first, they were published as separate volumes under the name of A Picturesque Tale of Progress.  Then, to save money I suppose, the publisher republished them, only this time two books to a single volume, and with the fuller name.  Harry Neal Baum Miller worked with these as well.  I do not know if he was involved in the first editions, the single volumes.

I got mine at a thrift shop, which pleased me very much. But I do not have a full set.  I have just Beginnings, 1 and 2. and
The Story of Mankind: Conquests 1 and 2 by Olive Beaupre Miller


There is some nudity in the sketches, particularly the Cretan women, but we used them anyway.

Other books in the series:
The Story of Mankind: New Nations by Olive Beaupre with Harry Neal Baum Miller
The Story of Mankind: Explorations by Olive Beaupre Miller
The Story of Mankind: Index by Olive Beaupre Miller

My thrift shop find was quite serendipitous, and at first I didn't even know what I had.  I knew I liked them, but I didn't realize how big the full set was or how special Miller is as a children's historical writer. When I did find it out, it seems everybody was finding it out, and the books were in high demand and out of my price range. They seem to have gone down since then.
So the answer to the question is, no, we didn't use the others because we didn't own them and couldn't afford them at the time, but if the prices had been reasonable, I would certainly have purchased and used the rest of the set.

People often leave out the Beaupre or spell it Beaupres and even just Beaupr, so try different variations on that middle name and you might find a less expensive version.

Nicknames- The nicknames on our blog don't seem to have a theme, and somebody wonders how we came up with them, and do we use them in real life

Yes, we do often use them in real life. We use a lot of nicknames in real life- most of us have more than three.  We are just silly and playful with words and names (drives my sister-in-law nuts). My husband and I each have a coffee cup with our blog name on it. Well. I do.  His fell out of the van into the church parking lot last Sunday.=(

Granny Tea chose her own- T. is the first initial of her maiden name, and she has a long tradition of having formal, dress up clothes, gloves, and gowns tea parties with the Progeny.

The Common Room, Headmaster, Deputyheadmistress, HG (originally Head Girl), FYG and FYB do sort of have a shared theme- they are all based British boarding schools.  Only the HG graduated University and got married.  Happily, she graduated with a degree in history, so she's morphed into the History Girl without having to change her initials.  The First Years are growing up and haven't been First Years in a long time.  So they've become Fine Young  Girl/Boy.

The Equuschick chose her own nickname, because she was and is mad about horses.

Jenny-Any-Dots is from a Cats poem by T.S. Elliot- Jenny-any-dots is the cat upon whom a well ordered household depends, and that is certainly our Jenny.  Like a cat, she also hates the rain, utterly disdains being rained upon, and she sneezes like a kitten.  She also carries hand sanitizer in her purse and uses it often.

The Cherub- well, that's a private joke, rudely played out in public without explaining it, sort of like whispering or pointing in public. I'd like to say I'm sorry, but we're going to keep doing it, so that wouldn't have the ring of sincerity, would it?

Pip- She chose Pipsqueak, which had morphed from Pippin, like the hobbit in Lord of the Rings.  For a while she and Jenny-Any-Dots were Pippin and Sam.

Shasta- The Equuschick chose her husband's nickname from the Horse and His Boy, and it was very fitting.  Their first baby was born on National Pirate's day, so at first he was the Pirate, and then, of course, because of the Princess Bride, he became the Dread Pirate because it was just funny to call the little mite anything beginning with 'Dread,' only perhaps that was unwisely prophetic. But the Dread Pirate in Princess Bride has a name- he's the Dread Pirate Roberts.  So the little fellow became the Dread Pirate Grasshopper, in what is essentially another private joke.  Naturally, once we started the bug theme, we needed to continue, so the little sister is Ladybug.  We looked to see if she had a great "National ____ Day" that we could use with her name, but she was born, alas, on National That Sucks Day.  I am not making that up.

The HG married Strider, and we solicited our bloggy friends for a nickname for him.  It's not a perfect fit- he's more musical, gregarious, and boyish that Strider. I think he's a Tom Bombadill, but for some reason (I really do not recall why), he is Strider.

The Striderling, well, with his precarious birth and tenuous hold on life in the first few days, Striderling just seemed to fit- and it still does- he is the spitting image of his Papa.  Like HG, it will probably have to morph a bit later.  I never think ahead anyway (as you can see from some of these names), and when I was needing a name for him on the blog to plead for prayers on his behalf and give updates, there was no 'ahead.' Those early days were a time when I truly, honestly, did not believe we'd be bringing home from the hospital but pretended I did because everybody else seemed to be utterly blind to the realities of his condition.  I figured they were delusional, but I wasn't going to be the one to say dark and horrifying truths if their delusions were what they needed.  I envied them their delusions and wished I had them for myself.  I suspect the reality is that most of us probably felt that way.

I don't think I can ever convey just how dark and horrifying that time was. It was very traumatic, there are still tender, raw, and sore spots, thoughts that I have to slide past instead of facing bravely.  Just now, you see, I started to be more specific in the sentence above. I typed "I wasn't going to be the one to say..." and I had every intention of typing out specifically what it was I wasn't going to say, more specifically that that euphemism that is the only thing I can say, "not bringing him home from the hospital." because my mind doesn't reel under the weight of that phrase.  It could mean we were taking him to England, or moving in to the hospital, or selling the house and taking him someplace new couldn't it?

But this time... this time I was going to say... It.  The reason.  What we'd be doing instead of celebrating..  But I still can't say it. My fingers froze.  My mind recoiled.  It was like turning over a rock and finding something dark and ugly skittering around the murky edges of my mind and I had to quickly flip the rock back down, stamp on it, and fill the space around the edges with something else.
And he was six months old this week and I am only Grandmama.
If ever I seem to bring this up too often, it's that writing these things exorcizes my demons. 
That was more than you wanted to know.

And in my next question I am going to tell you less than you wanted to know- or at least, less than my questioner wanted to know.
The question is- do we spank.

The answer is.... no.  Not anymore.  Because our youngest is 12.  But yes, we did spank, and yes, I would do it again and I think we were quite right.  There is one I wish we'd spanked less- not that she got that many. She actually got fewer than her siblings, but I think it might have been better for her if the number approached none.  There is another I wish we'd have spanked a lot more.  The rest, I think we got it mostly just about right.

Should you spank?  That is a different question and one I won't answer over the internet. The possibility for confusion and misunderstanding is too great and the stakes too high.  I think you should only apply parenting advice of this serious nature (i.e. disciplinary/training) from people who know you and your kids in person, and whose children *you* know, preferably whose children are past the teen years so you know how it turned out for them.

Even then... well.  I recently did give some advice to a woman I know personally and who knows us, and who who asked for my help with a parenting issue. I explained what I would do and how, and she thanked me, and then a few days later emailed me saying "Help, this isn't working.  I did just what you said, the children did this, and I did that, and they did it again, and I did that, and it was a total failure because then this...."

To my horrified dismay, she had not done just what I said, she had done something totally different, something I would never, ever do.  Our backgrounds and understanding of what is acceptable behavior for children, of what is reasonable discipline and what is just harsh and arbitrary- these are just far too disparate for her to have understood me.  Happily, I know her in real life so I can see what's going on with the family and  can tell her, "Look, I see what's happening with these children, and I was wrong and I think you misunderstood me, but at any rate, please don't do what you think I said.again.  You're right, that won't work.

In general terms, I will say that whatever form of discipline or consequences you use:

It should never be a surprise to the child.  They should not be able to say, with total honesty, "But I didn't know I couldn't do that."  This not the same as forgetting- forgetting was against our rules, too. Yes, everybody forgets, but when there are no consequences to forgetting (whether your consequence is a sticker, the loss of a sticker, the loss of a privilege, whatever), there there is only more forgetting.The child should know clearly what the rules are and what the consequences are.

Enforce rules, not results.  If you have a rule about not jumping on the bed, make sure you do not permit jumping on the bed. Do not ignore it until something gets broken and then deliver a reprimand. You aren't addressing disobedience or dangerous behavior that way. You are only being petulant because of an accident.

Discipline for chosen bad behavior (that is, bad behavior the child deliberately chose), not for accidents and not for your bad mood. Your mood is a moving target, at least if it's anything like mine, and I presume it is. 

Whatever you do, set yourself limits in advance- especially if you are the kind of parent who is afraid to spank because you might go too far.   I have known of a toddler whose parents didn't believe in spanking, but did believe in 'time outs.' The time outs were in a high chair, and the child was left in the chair so long she could walk herself across the floor in the high chair.  You can go too far in the use of any method, so keep that in mind if over-reacting is a concern for you. You aren't home free just because you decided not to spank (nor because you decided to spank, for that matter).



How did you use AmblesideOnline?

We mostly just... did.  I tweaked the schedule every year for our family, made very few substitutions and, this year for the first time I am largely using it as written (year 7), with a handful of substitutions, additions.  I read aloud, the children narrated, as soon as they could read their books for themselves they did.  I did have a rough couple years when I had two in high school (there was no HEO for their level then), two in about year 6 or 7, and two just starting.  Then I did a lot of scrambling to fix our schedules as I generally scheduled everybody to have a different book read aloud by me at the same time, or everybody to practice piano on our one instrument at the same time, or everybody to do Triple Play French, Mavis Beacon, and Logical Journey of the Zoombinis at exactly the same time.
More often, I did all three, and the first few weeks of every term involved a lot of tears, hair pulling, and head desking.  The kids grumbled, too..

The Maxwell's Managers of Their Home really helped me, even though I completely ignored most of her advice.
I had a nursling, and I don't put nurslings on a schedule for anybody.
I did not want to have the same schedule every day, doing math at the same time or in the same order every day, so I didn't.
I did not do time slots, but rather a sort of order of events.  Where I did do time slots I generally scheduled twice as much time as I thought we'd need so we had a nice cushion.

The thing about her scheduling that helped me the most was the visual way of doing a schedule so I could see at a glance when I had scheduled myself to be available to five children at the same time for mutually exclusive activities.

I don't really feel like I answered the question adequately.  I'd be glad to try again if you have more specific questions.

Updated to add the answer to the following question:

What's this?

Over on The Common Room's Facebook page I've been posting oddly cropped pictures of interesting items from The Rattery, and readers have been making guesses as to what it is.  This week's picture is....

But this probably doesn't actually help, because looks are deceiving. 

It's a diaper pail.  We know this because it did still have the original sticker on the bottom identifying it as a diaper pail.  The sticker was so dilapidated it fell apart at a touch, but the pail cleaned up nicely, didn't it?  It would make a great compost bucket, bathroom trashcan, plant pot, or a bucket to hold home-made cleaners. 

There's also a new picture to guess up on Facebook.

Thanks, everybody, and be sure to come back next Thursday when we'll be discussing.... well. That's a surprise! (to me, too).

Mother Carey's Chickens, FREE (On Kindle)

Mother Carey's Chickens

Lovely family read aloud.

William Happer:

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

He asks:

How close is the current atmosphere to the upper or lower limit for CO2?

The answer may surprise you.

Gobekli Tepe

I briefly mentioned Gobekli Tepe here. It's a pretty astonishing archeological find. (Updated to fix an omission Laura thankfully brought to my attention- the original article is here)::

Known as Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh), the site is vaguely reminiscent of Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals—a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. It contains the oldest known temple. Indeed, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these pillars were erected, so far as we know, nothing of comparable scale existed in the world.

I like that 'so far as we know.' It's an important qualifier.
It's been overturning ideas, causing archeologists to rethink everything they thought they knew about human beginnings.

Just 20 years ago most researchers believed they knew the time, place, and rough sequence of the Neolithic Revolution—the critical transition that resulted in the birth of agriculture, taking Homo sapiens from scattered groups of hunter-gatherers to farming villages and from there to technologically sophisticated societies with great temples and towers and kings and priests who directed the labor of their subjects and recorded their feats in written form. But in recent years multiple new discoveries, Göbekli Tepe preeminent among them, have begun forcing archaeologists to reconsider.

This is a curious thing, one of many in a long list of curious things:

For reasons yet unknown, the rings at Göbekli Tepe seem to have regularly lost their power, or at least their charm. Every few decades people buried the pillars and put up new stones—a second, smaller ring, inside the first. Sometimes, later, they installed a third. Then the whole assemblage would be filled in with debris, and an entirely new circle created nearby. The site may have been built, filled in, and built again for centuries.

Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C. Göbekli Tepe was all fall and no rise.

"Come, Tell Me How You Lived" is, Agatha Christie says, the question all archeologists (and most of the rest of us) find most interesting. So how did the people of Gobekli Tepe live?
We don't know, because none of them seem to have lived there at all. So far as they know at this point, the nearest water source is 3 miles away, there are no kitchens or sleeping shelters, and food seemes to have been provided by bringing in game from a distance:

"These people were foragers," Schmidt says, people who gathered plants and hunted wild animals. "Our picture of foragers was always just small, mobile groups, a few dozen people. They cannot make big permanent structures, we thought, because they must move around to follow the resources. They can't maintain a separate class of priests and craft workers, because they can't carry around all the extra supplies to feed them. Then here is Göbekli Tepe, and they obviously did that."

Even if we have never heard of him, much of what we think we know about this dark and distant period comes from the theories of

V. Gordon Childe. An Australian transplant to Britain, Childe was a flamboyant man, a passionate Marxist who wore plus fours and bow ties and larded his public addresses with noodle-headed paeans to Stalinism.

The idea that human beings were wandering nomads, hunter gatherers who the made the next explosive step towards civilization by becoming agriculturalists who farmed a fixed spot of land is his. He called it the Neolithic Revolution and said it was only surpassed in human history by the gift of fire.

Archaeologist Samuel Noah Kramer summed up that view in the 1950s in his book History Begins at Sumer. Yet even before Kramer finished writing, the picture was being revised at the opposite, western end of the Fertile Crescent. In the Levant—the area that today encompasses Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and western Syria—archaeologists had discovered settlements dating as far back as 13,000 B.C. Known as Natufian villages (the name comes from the first of these sites to be found), they sprang up across the Levant as the Ice Age was drawing to a close, ushering in a time when the region's climate became relatively warm and wet.

The discovery of the Natufians was the first rock through the window of Childe's Neolithic Revolution. Childe had thought agriculture the necessary spark that led to villages and ignited civilization. Yet although the Natufians lived in permanent settlements of up to several hundred people, they were foragers, not farmers, hunting gazelles and gathering wild rye, barley, and wheat. "It was a big sign that our ideas needed to be revised," says Harvard University archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef.

For a while the theory was that the Neolithic Revolution was caused by climate change, but this theory had problems as well:

"You had an entire theory on the origins of human culture essentially based on a half a dozen unusually plump seeds," ancient-grain specialist George Willcox of the National Center for Scientific Research, in France, says. "Isn't it more likely that these grains were puffed during charring or that somebody at Abu Hureyra found some unusual-looking wild rye?"

Schmidt says Gobekli Tepe is evidence that another aspect of the accepted theories of human development is wrong as well, the element of religion:

The construction of a massive temple by a group of foragers is evidence that organized religion could have come before the rise of agriculture and other aspects of civilization.

I find this site fascinating, and there are just not enough pictures of the whimsical carvings available to suit me. Whatever its age or purpose, whatever its place and meaning is in the history of human civilization, whether human beings ever discover a definitive answer upon which all can agree, this mysteriously beautiful site is fascinating in its own right.

National Geographic has a slide show here.

This, from Wikipedia, is also intriguing:

Around the beginning of the 8th millennium BC "Potbelly Hill" lost its importance. The advent of agriculture and animal husbandry brought new realities to human life in the area, and the "stone-age zoo" (as Schmidt calls it) depicted on the pillars apparently lost whatever significance it had had for the region's older, foraging, communities. But the complex was not simply abandoned and forgotten, to be gradually destroyed by the elements. Instead, it was deliberately buried under 300 to 500 cubic metres of soil.[14] Why this was done is unknown, but it preserved the monuments for posterity.

News Links

 So why didn't George W. Bush create a White House position specifically to respond to all the negative stories about him on the internet with 'corrective' information?  He could have called this position the Director of Progressive Media & Online Response.  It would have been this person's job to squash negative stories about the President and build up his online presence. Wouldn't that have been great?  Well within the scope of the President's taxpayer funded communications team?  Hmmm? NO?

 The SEIU staged a protest on Marcellus shale drilling. either they can't read a map, or they don't know one kind of drilling from another, because they set their protest up by a surface well that hasn't ever done shale drilling and isn't equipped for it. But there's a bigger question involved here, a very good one. I'd like to know the answer. Scroll down to read Ed's cogent question.

Netanyahu speaks to Congress, and puts a girl heckler in her place- and that place is lucky to be in America, where she can publicly speak out without being physically attacked.

Drew at Ace of Spades on Obama Care's latest snafu:
During the health care debate Obama and the Democrats went on and on about how great screenings and preventative medicine would be to keep costs down. Now, it was pretty clear to everyone not trying to shove health care "reform" down Americas throat that was not going to pan out.
Now liberal wunderkind Ezra Klein has decided that all these screenings are going to cost way too much and not provide enough benefit. What's a good liberal to do when their talking points run into cold, hard reality? Admit that maybe they aren't that smart and perhaps should be a bit more humble about their ability to control the health care decisions of hundreds of millions of Americans? Of course not. Obviously the solution is to have doctors stop talking to patients about available options.

tornadoes and climate change

This?  This is just interesting, very interesting.  Hailstone the size of a twenty dollar bill (it's the size of a one dollar bill, too, but a twenty is just cooler)- and the role bacteria play in hail?  Makes me feel all Spockishly fascinated.

Other weather related news is not so cool- at the time of I was typing this, 1500 people were missing in Joplin Missouri due to horrific tornadoes.=( 

If you're an online shopper....

Reasons why you should consider signing up for ebates:

Ebates is the pioneer and leader of online Cash Back Shopping. The company was founded in 1998 by two Deputy District Attorneys in Silicon Valley who used to prosecute online fraud & identity theft before starting Ebates (so you can be sure we are very into secure online transactions!).

If you signed up for Cashbaq and got left with unrefunded money in your account, eBates is honoring that! You have to shop with ebates to make it worth their while, but I think you'll find plenty of stores carrying items you were going to buy anyway at competitive prices, especially when you factor in the rebates.

%4 percent back from half.com; %5 back from Abe books.

Other stores I saw when glancing through their offerings- Coldwater Creek, Walmart.com, Target, The Disney Store, Drugstore.com (this one has a big 8% cashback, and their prices are quite reasonable), 4% off from Back to Basics toy store, and 4% from the delightful Chinaberry books- I've been ordering from them since my children were quite small. Hearthsong! Even Jo-Anne's online store! Lego! And 7% from Melissa and Doug (ooo lala!) Staples, Vistaprint and more.
Asian grocery store, Adagio teas, and still more.

Read the introductory offer carefully. If you never shop online and never will, this is a lousy deal for you. If spend less than 25 dollars a year online and don't ever intend to spend more, this is not for you. It's working nicely for me. I'm not spending more money than I usually would- in fact, I've been able to take advantage of eBates daily doubles to get presents I was going to buy anyway for half price, with an addition percentage of my purchase back.

Blooming

a few weeks ago the driveway was flooded badly- one of the rain gutters was stopped up and the water spilled right by the front doors. We set up this emergency entrance, as we were, naturally, expecting company. We put a couple pallets down, and then covered them with a large mat for a horse-stall.

This little fellow seems to think we've built him a safe house. He's about two or three feet from the front door.

I don't know what these are, but they spread nicely in sandy, shady soil.  The blooms end in early summer, and then leaves get a rich, dark color and they spill over rocks and tires.

What's blooming with you?