It has been seven months and two days since the deck collapsed, and we are all, for the most part, returned to normal. My dear mother-in-law Linda rarely complains about troubles with her hip and, to look at her, you’d never know she had to have it replaced. My neighbor K.C. had the staples removed […]

So last night I had a really bizarre dream. Really, really bizarre. And I didn’t remember it until I was about halfway through my morning walk, and it made me laugh right there on the sidewalk with my iPod playing and nobody around. I dreamt that my ears were oversized. They weren’t gigantic or anything. […]

He practices sitting on a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, which is a fat book, and provides Height. He sits on this, and it on the piano bench, and he doesn’t seem to think of this as amusing, or strange, or, even, something he will outgrow. The book provides the height he needs to get […]

We slept in, which is an Excellent Beginning, and were joined, sometime after eight-thirty, by all three of the children, who climbed into the bed with us. They wished me Happy Birthday separately, they wished me Happy Birthday together, and we were all still in bed when my parents called from South Africa to wish […]

One of the rich pleasures of parenting– and if you are missing out on this particular pleasure then Shame On You– is getting to read and re-read all those books you love and introduce them to your children. It has been my pleasure to read– several times– Charlotte’s Web to my children. We are making […]

Everett asked me today: “When is your birthday, Mom?” And I had to think about it for a minute, because my birthday countdown is occluded by homeschooling and a research paper and, generally, Managing. So I thought for a minute, and I told him: “In five days.” He said, “Five days?” chocolate eyes wide. And […]

I was at Perkins Library again today, bugging the heck out of the Wonderful People at the research desk. Those people Really Know Their Stuff. Which delights me. Because I don’t know their stuff. Not at all. And I was at class again this evening. My professor said some Very Comforting Things about our upcoming […]

ineffective adj 1: not producing an intended effect ineffectual adj 1: not producing the proper or intended effect inefficacious adj 1: lacking the power to produce a desired effect

I lay on the sofa, feet up, reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. It’s a how-to book on writing, as if someone can write a how-to book on writing, which one can’t, and the author says as much. Lamott is an entertaining writer: witty, light-footed, a little crass, honest. I’ve read this book before and […]

Everett was singing a song I love from his seat at the back of the van. I don’t know now what song it was, but it was one I like. And he deliberatly adulterated the words, just to be funny. I don’t know either how he adulterated them, but he was trying to be funny, […]