On the Fingers of Old Men

I have a very worn wedding ring I inherited from my Dad. It really is beat.

At dinner tonight I was eating my burrito when my wife grabbed my hand/finger/ring and mumbled, "Wow! It really is wearing down to nothing!" My son quickly tuned in, looked me over, and said, "Oh, I thought she meant the ring!" Moving right along, he then pointed out, "If you've got the ring on your finger, how come we can see you?"

I was reminded of my wedding day when Larry, our dial-a-clergy, spoke our vows:
"One ring to rule them all,
One ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them."

My daughter, reading over my shoulder, wants to know--Did he really say that?

My Boy is now Eleven!

He spent part of his birthday dis-assembling an old boom box with CD player, tape, radio & attached speakers. (One of his favorite things to do!)

I can't believe he's almost as tall as me, already!

Emily's Story

Emily’s Story

Chapter #1 Sammy
Emily felt her box move as she was put into Santa’s sleigh. She was going home. Santa’s sleigh jostled as she caught sight of the bright LA lights. They twinkled as she flew further and further into the sky. She imagined her new home. A beautiful girl who loved her, wished for her. She sat under a Christmas tree for three hours. Then finally Sammy, a girl about 8 years old ripped open her wrapping, took her out of her box, and gave her a big hug.

The next morning Sammy brought out two more dolls. “These are Kit and Katie your new sisters,” she said as she pointed to them. They went to the table for breakfast. They had hot cocoa and toast for breakfast. Later she took Emily roller skating. They fell a few times but came home laughing. As Sammy was taking Emily’s roller skates off she heard a pop. She quickly checked Emily’s leg, but it was too late, her leg fell off. That night, Sammy called the American Girl customer service. Too bad, they were closed. The next morning she called again and with lots of trouble arranged a doll hospital appointment. Finally they got all the forms together and sent her to the doll hospital.

Chapter #2 The Doll Hospital
After lots of bouncing around, Emily finally got to the doll hospital. A team of doctors looked at her. “Her leg came off”, one of them said as he carefully removed Emily from her box.

“Obviously”, she thought.

The doctors put her on a little cart, and pushed her through a door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY-LOSS OF LIMBS . There were lots of people moving in all different directions whistling and humming as they took tools, doll arms and doll legs from place to place. She looked around, there were pipes everywhere. It looked almost as if the people were mechanical they were so much on course. No one made any mistakes. She was put on a table with another doll. Soon the doctors left. She waited about an hour until a nurse finally picked her up and told her, in a rapid fire voice, “Hi. My name is Jessica. You can call me Jess. Oh poor little thing, your leg fell off. Well, I will get that fixed.“ She brought her to a cushioned stand and examined her leg. “Oh this is not hard to fix “she said as she popped the leg on and used a tool to pop the string back in. “Good as new.“ She said. Emily was relived to be put in a box and sent back home.


Chapter#3 Home sweet home

When she got home, Sammy, Kit, and Katie had a little party for her. They had tea and cake. They pretended that they were English girls. Then they had a little sleepover, had pizza, and read Meet the Austin’s together. They had lots of fun. In the morning they made bracelets together. Later that day, a package came in the mail. Sammy seemed quite excited about it! Emily became suspicious. Sammy quickly opened the package and took out a box, then she opened the box. “And what do you know, here is another American Girl Doll.” Thought Emily. She took the doll out and said, “this is Mia; I saved up my money to buy her.” Mia had long golden-red hair, and bright green eyes. Sammy’s mom read out loud as Sammy did each of the dolls’ hair, put each of the dolls in different poses, and put different clothes on each of the dolls. Emily was terrifically satisfied. She had a new sister and it was not a dream.

(to be continued)

A Wrinkle in Time- by C

A Wrinkle in Time is a story about three kids called Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin who have to tesser to find Meg and Charles Wallace’s dad.

I thought that A Wrinkle in Time was a really stupid story. For the first reason, it is impossible to tesser. For the second reason, all of the characters are at extremes, such as Calvin being the stud boy at school. These extremes make the characters annoyingly unrealististic. My last thing against it, is that my mom made me read it.

And that is my essay about why I hate A Wrinkle in Time.

Snow, Rain, Snow, Rain

Its been wet and snowy the past few days, unfortunately, not cold enough for the snow to stick.

C made pnut butter cookies today. He's getting really good at it, we're just working on the cleanup, now. He got a Nerf gun for a birthday present, and is annoyingly combat focused. At least he's balanced, I guess.

Sam was thrilled when "Emily" came home from the "Hospital" (her leg fell off right after Christmas, and American Girl gave her the option of sending her to the hospital or getting a new one. Looks like it might have been both, since the secret dot Dad put on the back of her head wasn't there when she came back.) She came with her free hospital gown and get well balloon.

Sam also just ordered "Mia" the marketed doll of the year. Saved all her Christmas money, allowance, washed the dog, and played piano at the Saloon. I was really impressed that she was able to scrape together the $100, so early in the year, but she did it all by herself! Now she's saving up for some overpriced furniture. . .

Oh yeah, and we are learning about the Revolutionary War, Mexican American War, Plant respiration, and the rest.

How MLKs Dream Lives on in Me

We watched the Oprah show from yesterday. She profiled several stories in sort of a pseudo-documentary format, interspersed with children reciting MLK's Dream speech. I think it kind of blew their minds, how different things were just 40 years ago. (segregation, blacks effecively couldn't vote in some areas, interracial marriage illegal in 19 states, race riots, violence). Oprah said that this generation is the "most colorblind" in our history. Interesting.

This was C's response:

How Martin Luther King's dream lives on in me is that I say "so what" about race.

In Johnnie Mae Chappell's case, when she was murdered very few people cared, her case was not officially researched, she wasn't taken to a proper hospital, given a proper funeral or even given a proper article in a newspaper.

Lots of people worked hard to change this and today my generation doesn't care about race.

Back into the routine

School started last week, and with no workshops yet, we've been getting back into a strong routine of reading, writing and rithmatic (fractions).

Today we did some baking, too. Biscotti, chocolate cookies, pasties & bread.

Run, run, run!

Like most Americans, we have decided to start a new exercise program for the new year. Since soccer ended in October, we have been hit-or-miss on our exercise routine.

So, we went and bought some "magic shoes" (for running only!) and started out with a mile. Here's how its gone so far:

Jan 2nd- 2 miles (walk/run) 1 hour
Jan 7th- 1 mile 25 min
Jan 8th- 1 mile 22 min
Jan 10th- 1 mile 18 min!
Jan 11th- 1 mile 20 min

Next week we might add another half of a mile. We've also been stretching and talking about some basic exercise physiology.