Arachnophobia

When I stepped out onto my stoop this morning to greet the day and collect the paper, I noticed a firefly caught in a web that had been spun in the corner of our tiny front porch. The spider was nowhere in sight and the firefly looked very vigorous despite the mortal inconvenience of its predicament, and so it was really without a second thought that I scooped it from the edge of the web and set it free.

This evening I shared my experience at dinner. "Oh, yes," said Heidi, "I saw it there, too, but I was late for my class and so I kept going."

"What would you have done?" I asked my nephews, Richard, 7,  and Treat, 18.

"I'd have left him for the spider," Richard shrugged.

I nodded and turned to Treat. "What about you?"

"I would have recognized him for the bait he was!" he shuddered. "Save the firefly? Face the spider!!" 

For the Birds

Heidi has a thing about documentaries. "Why don't we see more of them?" she demands, and who can disagree? So this morning I navigated to our "on demand" feature and found a documentary short that seemed like it might be interesting.

Birders: The Central Park Effect did have a pretty good premise-- that in this age of decreasing woodlands, migrating birds are actually drawn to urban parks as travelers to rest stops and so the diversity of the avian population there is rather impressively wide.

I love identifying birds to begin with, and so I was initially on board. The addition of author Jonathan Franzen was an interesting plus, as was the terminally ill birder who continued to find meaning in life through birdwatching season after season. Ultimately, though, the film dragged a bit for me. Perhaps it was all the distractions of a Saturday morning; in any case, I found myself more interested in the newspaper and my iPad than the television.

Or, that was true until our cat, Penelope, became interested in the TV. All the bird calls and footage of darting, diving, and flying activated her feline instincts and soon she was sitting on a two inch ledge, whiskers flush to the flat screen.

Her pacing and frustrated mewing forced my attention back to the documentary, and hey! We gotta get those birds, those fabulous birds!

Goshdaughter

Mom's a science major and Dad's a science teacher, but Heidi's 13-year-old goddaughter? Doin' time in Language arts summer school.

Why?

She's just not good at that stuff, so she why bother with the homework?

Oh my...

Send her to those humanities lovin' aunties!

No Slave to Fashion

These are socks:

These are Crocs:

Can I wear my Crocs with socks?
Some might mock these Crocs and socks,
but I'll ignore their petty knocks,
and they may just react with shock
at how I rock these Crocs and socks!

In Praise of the Wish List

I started an Amazon wish list a year or so ago. It was really just a tool to help me remember the things I wanted. Of course, it is self-evident how fortunate I am that I need reminders of what I want. How can I describe the items on that list? They are things I consider luxuries; stuff I want, but don't want to buy.

When Heidi shared the existence of my list with my family, my first reaction was umbrage. Hey! That's my covertly coveted collection! It's a secret... I thought, until I started to receive the items on it. What a pleasure it was on Christmas to open the fermenting crock and weight stones I had so long ago wished for and forgotten.

This year, for my birthday, my family practically cleaned out my list, and I must say I have been both surprised (as dim-witted as that may seem) and delighted to receive each gift. Homemade ice cream? You betcha. Brightly colored sneakers? YES! Cast iron grill? Wow! What a difference! Burr grinder for highest quality coffee? Hooray!

So, although I'm quite sure that St. James did not have anything like this in mind, his words are undeniably fitting: You have not because you ask not.

And now I do have, because I'm lucky to have such a family with such resources. All that's left is to count my blessings.

Thanks everybody!

Prequel without Equal

We saw Monsters University today with Richard, Annabelle, Riley, Treat, and Emily. And it might just be the good company talking, but I'm going to go ahead and call it the best darn prequel I've ever seen.

OK, to be honest, how much competition is there in the prequel department? Star Wars? Not so much. Temple of Doom? Nope. There are some reboots that might be considered prequels (Batman Begins, X-man First Class) if they weren't um... reboots. Then there are some prequel-sequels, consider Terminator 2 and Godfather II, but do they count? Meh. Monsters U, on the other hand is a pure sequel and it has a few things going for it.

To begin with, I liked the original, but I wouldn't say much more than that. In fact, when my students wanted to watch it on the bus to our end-of-the-year field trip, it was with a shrug and a yawn that I punched play on that particular DVD. Once it was on, though, I started noticing that impeccable Pixar attention to detail, like the way Boo's laughter blows the circuits way back in the first part of the movie, and I confess to being impressed.

I think that's one of the reasons I liked the prequel, too. It is its own movie with a very entertaining plot, but the continuity with the first one is seamless, and this story enriches that one, particularly in the area of character development.

Plus, it has Helen Mirren.

Pool Time

We spent a couple of hours at the pool today with a 7, a 6, a 5, a 4 and 1-year-old. Oh, there were splash battles and tea parties, cannon balls and dive contests, and even one life guard whistle (for running), but there were no harsh words and not a single tear. It's a pretty safe bet everyone is going to sleep well tonight.

When we were kids, every summer meant at least one visit to Aunt Harriett and our cousins, Jimmy and Bobby. They lived on a couple of acres in the country, but their close friends and neighbors, the Wilsons, had an in-ground pool that they were kind enough to share. After fun mornings, most of our afternoons were spent there, and many times it was just our moms and us-- having splash battles and tea parties, cannon balls and dive contests.

I remember two things clearly about those days. The first is the sign that the Wilsons had prominently displayed: We don't swim in your toilet, please don't pee in our pool. I guess there was just something about the symmetry of the construction that made me feel guilty every time I peed in that pool, either that, or it was a little freaky imagining the Wilsons, Jack, Leona, John, and Karen, so tall and so tan, swimming in my toilet.

The second thing I'll never forget is how everyone conked out at night-- no matter our big plans to eat ice cream, play cards, hunt fireflies, watch TV, whatever, it was always hard to stay awake much past dark. We didn't fight it, though, because we always knew that tomorrow would be another fun day.

And it will be. Some things don't change.