... Right, mommy? ...

When Carbon and I were traveling, the others in our tour group started laughing about how often he would interrupt his stream of monologue to say "right, mommy?". He would be giving a little discourse on something - his understanding of ancient Roman history, say - and as he threw out his facts he would look to me to confirm that he was right "right, mommy?", and after my nod he would continue on.

Well, apparently he expects me to know almost everything. I didn't realize just how much of an authority he thought I was until the other night when we were reading Pyle' King Arthur for a bedtime story. Uther Pendragon is described as "that most puissant king", and Carbon stopped me to ask what puissant means.

"I don't know", I answered.

"You're lying!" was his response that took me completely by surprise. After all - why would I lie about knowing a word meaning?

"You have to know! You're like the human dictionary - no! like the human computer google."

How flattering, that my son thinks I'm like Google. We got out the big dictionary (the one all covered in dust), and looked up that word. For the record, it means powerful or strong.

I'm afraid it can only be downhill from here. He's going to gradually start to think that I know nothing and am a complete idiot, and that will peak in the teen years no doubt. I'll have to enjoy this while I've got it.

I wear my sunglasses at night ...

Or rather, during the day. A visit to the eye doctor yesterday left Carbon with dilated eyes and no sunglasses! (I don't know why they didn't give us those dorky disposable things.) So I popped us into a store and picked up some sunglasses so we could finish our errands without inflicting pain on him. New sunglasses = rock show once we got home!

Summer Reading

Summer time hasn't had much beach reading for me, but I've had plenty of airplane reading and since I'm home I've had playground reading while my kids play. I should be catching up on the big pile of professional development books that I bought last year but couldn't find the time to read - I really need to stop buying books until I read all the ones I have.

But that's not what I've done with my summer time. No - I've been reading fun books.

Uglies, Pretties, and Specials (The Uglies Trilogy) by Scott Westerfield. My husband had already read these and had them on his Kindle, so I took this with me on my trip. First - I really want a Kindle now. It was so nice to have a library of books at my fingertips while I traveled! I'm sold - the text is just like reading a book, no extra eyestrain - and you can buy a book you want in minutes without going anywhere! (OK - maybe that part would be dangerous for me).

Back to the books - they are young adult fiction, with all the simplistic language and low levels of emotional complexity that usually go with that. But for what they are, they are wonderful. The heroine is kick-ass, but makes plenty of mistakes and struggles with knowing what she wants in life. Normal teenage struggles of wanting to be pretty, believing you are unlovable the way you are, and needing to fit in with a group are magnified by the plot which takes it all and builds a dystopian future in which all 16 year olds undergo massive surgery to make them of average height and symmetrical features and average skin and hair tone and "Pretty". Until that age, they are known as "Uglies" and are not allowed out of the little ghetto known as "Uglyville".

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. This mystery novel started off very slow and dry, and I had trouble getting into it. I don't know if it's Larsson's writing style or the translation that made it so dry, but I actually felt like I was in a cold and snowy country reading the beginning of the book. Then the heroine finally moves into the plot, and she is an amazing character. Once she is involved in things, the pace picks up and there are some truly shocking scenes and real suspense. The last half of the book was an addictive page-turner.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I forgot that I had pre-ordered this in paperback, so a cheerful Amazon box was waiting for me when I got back from my trip. It's another YA, with yet another kick-ass female main character (I love these kick-ass girls - good counter measures to Bella Swan), and almost from page 1 this is a page-turner. The book is limited in time-frame and scope, being the story of kids who are forced by the tyrannical government of the future to enter a stadium and fight each other to the death. all televised like reality TV. The book felt cinematic, and it would make a great movie (in fact, I've already seen a couple movies with a very similar plot, most notably Battle Royale).

I seem to have quenched my thirst for fun fiction, and now I'm back to reading about Generational Theory and Zen and Comparative Religions and all that. But it was a fun summer reading fling while it lasted.

Summer time, and the living is ...

Each year, as I approach "summer time", I imagine that I will get so much done. I will: paint, catch up on my reading list, do tons of home repairs, go camping, take a trip, do craft projects, and also rest and relax and feel no sense of rush.

That is the myth of summer, that it is a vast open field of unhurried time in which I will attain all the goals I've been unable to reach during the regular church year. It is not the reality, and each summer I've come crashing up against that reality.

Summer is a finite resource. There is only so much time, and the list of things to do is too large to all fit in there. Perhaps I should be more realistic about what I plan to get done.

Which is why I set my alarm clock for 6am yesterday so I could do this:





And there is plenty more to do! The song should be, "summer time, and the living is



time sensitive if you want to use the sunny weather for necessary tasks before the rainy season starts again... "

Actually, no, it's more fun to sing it the real way while still working hard. At least in my mind I'm in summer mode.

hand wash cold

(picture selected only because this is the closest I've come to a "Zen Moment" in quite a long time)

We expect it to be the way we want it to be; and the way we want it to be is the way we call right. In other words, my way. My way is what you have before you have children. There is no right way to parent; there is only a right-now way.

Karen Maezen Miller, in hand wash cold: care instructions for an ordinary life

Miller is a sensei at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles, and the author of another book sitting on my shelves (but not yet read): Momma Zen. In hand wash cold, Miller describes her journey through broken relationships, personal disatisfaction, and self-absorption toward Zen and falling in love with "an ordinary life". The book is organized into three sections: the laundry, the dishes, and the garden. As Miller says in her book "life is the laundry", "life is dishes", and "life is a garden".

The book mixes personal confessions with remarkably wise insights, and Miller illustrates how we could all fall in love with the life that we already have. A beautiful reflection on Zen for those of us busy with householding duties.

The great car debate

I am currently driving a Subaru Legacy station wagon, with just over 100,000 miles on it. I would like to be driving an electric car (or be all on my bike or the bus - but I've shown I can't do that with two little kids in tow and my work schedule).

The subaru is paid off, finally, but now we are entering the stage where it just is going to go bad, bit by bit. We have a weird noise and a weird jerking-action on tight turns when the car is warm, and today I took it in (again) to see if the shop could figure out what that is. They think it might be the rear differential - which will cost me $600 just to take apart and might cost $2000 to fix. Ouch, on a car that is only worth about $4500 at this point.

I really want to buy an electric car and just park that subaru as our "spare" car. I can buy one of these Xebras for under $10,000, and it would work for my "neighborhood" driving, which is most of my driving. I could get around town on all electric power, but I would be limited to under 30 mph. And the subaru would have to keep running, for times when we needed to go farther than 30 miles from home or go faster than 30 mph.

If I wait a bit longer, I could buy a Nissan Leaf when it comes out. It's still affordable, for me, priced at 25,000 and getting a tax break. It would go freeway speeds, and it's still all electric. And it's bigger, so I could really carry both kids in comfort and maybe get my full grocery run at the same time. Folks who have reserved one could get them in December.

Or there is the Chevy Volt or the Prius plug-in hybrid. They are both more expensive, but they have the advantage that if you run out of electric charge, you can keep going on gasoline. With the Prius, they estimate that you can go 13 miles on just electric charge, so that would get me to work and back again with zero emissions. But - that won't be out until next fall.

I don't want to wait until next year to get a new car. I don't want to still be burning gasoline to run back and forth across town, especially with the new schedule that will hit me this September with both kids in different schools. But I also don't want to spend $10,000 on a NEV (neighborhood electric vehicle) this year and then decide that what I really want is a Nissan Leaf next year.

What to do?

Sibling love

They said they didn't miss each other. Each of them, separately, commented that they were happy to not have the sibling with them on their trip/visit to Grandma. And yet when they were reunited (and after the boy got over jet lag and I was rested enough to put the screen time limits back in place around here) they can spend all day long playing together. Fighting also, but mostly playing and enjoying each other's company.



I often think about the sibling bond. I felt so close to my brother growing up, but we are not so close as adults. My other siblings were much younger than I, so that made the relationship different - too much of a power and authority imbalance.

And yet, I would let any of them move into my house with me. I know they would be there for me if I needed them. Someday, we will have to work together to care for our aging parents. If anything happened to me and my husband, it would be one of our siblings that would care for our children. We share more of our DNA with our siblings than with anyone else.

And a sibling can drive you so amazingly crazy! It can seem like there is only so much love, approval, and respect to go around in the world and your sibling can seem like the main competition for those limited resources. Or they can just be plain irritating, like having to spend too much time focused on your own worst traits.

The bond that never goes away. :)