Good Advice

Tonight, in frustration, Chloe said to the dog, "You need to stop being so darn annoying."

If only. These are words to live by, for all of us. Stop being so darn annoying, okay? Thanks.

Comeback

What a good reply to such a comment...

Flying Fish

When I came downstairs, I asked if I'd missed anything.

"Yes!" my three children answered.

They proceeded to demonstrate their skill at throwing goldfish crackers into the air and then catching them in their mouths. Again and again and again. Fortunately, we buy goldfish in bulk.

The kids miss plenty and the dogs stand at the ready to clean up the casualties. And the kids miss so much that the dogs don't even scramble for the scraps, they politely take what comes.

I bet the dogs wish we ate all our food this crazy way.

A Chainless Mind

I have only read (and enjoyed) Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, but I want to read more after hearing Scott Simon's story on Hitchens' death on NPR:

It may be telling that Christopher Hitchens should die in this season. I don't mean the holiday season but a contentious season in Congress and on the campaign trail, with politicians jabbing fingers and accusing each other of inconsistency.

Writers and thinkers are fixed with labels these days so that people can order up opinions like flavors in an ice cream shop: chocolate or strawberry, liberal or conservative. A lot of people seem to turn to news for a bolstering jolt of reassurance that they're right: news and views to strengthen convictions that they're already sure they hold.

But you couldn't fix a label on Christopher Hitchens; that's why he was worth reading and hearing.

He called himself a Trotskyite-Marxist in the 1970s, though he seemed much funnier to me than whatever I ever imagined a Trotskyite-Marxist to be. A number of years ago, after his falling out with The Nation magazine, people stopped referring to him as liberal. A little after that, as he became outspoken about his atheism, they stopped referring to him as a conservative. By the time he died, no label applied to Christopher Hitchens. I think he worked hard to achieve that.

We often seem to treat consistency of thought as a sign of character. Politicians and pundits are applauded for repeating themselves. Observers and activists say, "Aha!" if they discover a distance between what some public figure believed five years or five months ago, and what they say today. Compromise is difficult when changing your beliefs is taken to be a moral cave-in instead of the sign of a curious, lively mind.

But I wonder if always making consistency into a virtue is wise for anyone. Why strive to enjoy a rich life, filled with the deep, transforming experiences of family, travel, learning, love, daring, triumph and loss if you're determined just to cling to the same ideas that you've always had?

I think Christopher Hitchens enjoyed his rumpled, smoking, tippling, blue-eyed lizard caricature. But he was also a prolific and inspired writer, and a restless thinker who challenged his own certitudes. He thought and drank deeply and gabbed with people for hours on end wherever he went and let his thoughts be shaken by life. He was aggressively inconsistent.

"There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb," Christopher Hitchens wrote recently. "But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking."

Just Because

Paul Newman at the Venice Film Festival, 1963:

Brotherly Love

Chase made this for Chloe. So sweet:

"Simpsons" Horror

I'm old enough to have really fond memories of the early years of "The Simpsons," back when it was so new and different and so was the Fox channel.

Now that my kids are older, I thought it might be fun to watch the annual Halloween "Treehouse of Horror" episode together. I tried it last year and they were just bored. We tried again this year, with mixed results. Well, the best result was when Emma turned to me and said, "This is just so disrespectful!" Yes, that was the idea always, that was the charm of the show.

But this year the show also skewed one of my favorite books, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," morphing it into "The Diving Bell and the Butterball." Homer communicates only through farting. A much better review can be found here, and I agree with the writer, Tim Surette, that this was just bizarre, a bit of a horror all around. Sorry kids.

Just in Time for Winter

This awesome video showing how to tie a scarf:

Chase Loves This

And I do, too:

So True...

I've heard all of these statements, but not from ants.

Random Portrait

This recently appeared on the marker board, courtesy of Chloe. I love that it's labeled, "Mom," just in case. Although since I don't always wear my glasses, that is helpful. And I'm not this thin.

Run to Them

There are many nights when I am exhausted and I'll say to the kids, "My pajamas are calling my name." Recently, Emma quipped, "Run to them, Mom, run to them!" And while I don't exactly run to them, it is nice for the day to be over.

Wilco

I really like Wilco, but don't usually laugh hearing Jeff Tweedy. Here, I can't stop as he recites "My Humps," by the Black Eyed Peas:

"I'm gonna do all of this." Great line. Watch it all. Enjoy.

It Must Have Been Hiding

This weekend, while rummaging for lunch, I found a Lean Pocket in the freezer with a best used by date of 2005. SIX YEARS AGO. Which means I likely purchased it years before then. (I didn't eat it, I pitched it, I'm sure it was hiding all these years.)

As Chase pointed out, I might have bought it when he was two. And as he further pointed out, I could go buy another today and ignore it until he goes to college in EIGHT years.

I teased him that when he comes home from college, I could feed it to him. "Yeah," he said, "antique food. Yum."

Rainbow Prayer

The tiny trolls who work at Amazon analyzing my buying habits recently suggested I might like Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. Those little trolls know me well.

First of all, what an awesome name: Rainbow Rowell. And then the author continues the awesome nameness by having one of her central characters named Beth, which is rare, let me tell you. I read the book crazy fast, really loved it. I also loved the following passage, which is not particularly central to the story, but just one of Rainbow's many great nuggets:

(One of the main characters has been single too long and he's confiding in a friend about a possibility)

"It's a girl!" Christine whispered as soon as Dave had gone. "Our prayers are finally answered! Tell me all about her."

"Have you really been praying for me?" Lincoln asked.

"Of course," she said. "I pray for everyone we care about. Plus, I like to pray for things that seem possible. There are so many things that I pray for that seem almost too big even for God. It's rewarding to pray for something that might actually happen. It kind of keeps me going. Sometimes, I just pray for a bumper crop of zucchini or for a good night's sleep."

Why?

Emma is often up late with homework, often up later than the rest of us. So it was surprising when I recently found her in her room while we were all still upright. I then made the unusual move of lying down on her bed, in the spot where the dog Charlie usually sleeps for the night.

Charlie was really excited by my simple move, she started jumping on and off the bed, running around in circles. Who knew I could rock her world so? Emma and I laughed, assuming Charlie was thinking, "Why is this happening? What does it mean?"

While it was funny to see her so excited, I can relate to being confused, sometimes, often.

Why is this happening?

What does it mean?

I often don't have any better answers than Charlie.

Dark

The nearer the dawn, the darker the night.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Yes

From one of my design-blog addictions, Desire to Inspire. The composition is pretty, but I especially like the art.

Autumn

by Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today is the official first day of fall, and I could list here an explanation of why it's this day, what it means weather-wise, but what it really means is that we are in my favorite season. I like 'em all, but fall is so lovely. Maybe because it is so short, it is so sweet.

Lazy

"My memory is a lazy creature."

So lazy, that I can't remember where I read that fabulous line, but I did and it speaks to me. And explains why I have a blog: my memory is a lazy creature.