Sending a spider to a better place

"Well, I don't blame the spider for wanting to live in our nice house, but I'm not going to let him." Me
"That's right! Go find a haunted house to live in! Or, a broken-up tower with bats and --- and creatures of the night. Creatures of the night INCLUUUUUUDING insects! That way they'll be eaten up and won't be a bother." Meg

Helpful distinctions

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting a tomato into fruit salad.

Knowledge is also knowing that a pterodactyl is not a dinosaur, because pterodactyls can fly. Wisdom is not putting pterodactyls into fruit salad.

(My apologies to Pinterest and whoever originally made the point about fruit salad.)

"Daddy, I think what you really are is a battleasaurus." Meg

A pink dinosaur cake with jelly beans

Meg had a birthday on the 30th (as she does every year), and this was definitely a year of prioritizing. In a perfect world, we'd have invited friends, the presents would have been wrapped ahead of time (with ribbons too and actual bows), we'd have fixed a special dinner of foods she likes best, and I'd have been able to find and hang streamers.

However. This year I had to choose whether to fix a cake or dinner, and the cake won. We had a makeshift dinner of fish sticks and acorn squash which is weird but nobody cared, because it was a pretty epic cake. Ever since she turned three, a whole year, she's been requesting a pink cake - a DINOSAUR cake - with jelly beans. How did that work, you may ask? We baked chocolate cake in regular round cake pans, spread cream cheese between the layers, and made a really excellent strawberry buttercream frosting. It was all cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and pureed fresh strawberries. Next time I'll chill the frosting to thicken it before I put it on, but it was so good. Then Meg washed her hands and decorated her pink cake with toy dinosaurs, run-through-the-dishwasher-first-thank-you-very-much, and filled in the gaps with jelly beans.

I also prioritized wrapping all her presents without bows over getting half the presents wrapped with bows. I only had her "naptime" to wrap in, and Meg didn't care about ribbon. She cared about ripping paper off, and did so with aplomb. It was an excellent birthday. Meg even got to skype with both sets of grandparents and an aunt and an uncle and her cousin, who JUST started walking (yay James)! So that was pretty fun.

We found out later that the washing of the dinosaurs kind of went badly, though. Meg helped arrange dinosaurs in the top rack and I didn't realize she had included the grows-in-water parasaurolophus. She thought he needed a bath.

Never, ever, ever, put a grows-in-water toy though your dishwasher. Never.

Jonathan recovered the body, looking very much like a drowned victim who'd been underwater too long, and we've been picking styrofoam dinosaur bits off all our dishes for two loads now. It's pretty disgusting. I actually resorted to hand-washing things until we get the dishwasher grate cleaned out, which tells you the situation is serious.

But for all that, we have a delightful four-year-old and you've never had such a wonderful pink dinosaur cake with jelly beans. I think that cake will go down in family history.

No fishing

"We do not fish for our sister, not even with a leopard-spotted scarf." Jonathan

The great sunscreen debate

I have an impressive friend. She fell in love with evidence-based health care, arranged her college career and now motherhood around learning to read studies and statistics, and she delights in figuring out what exactly the best and most recent research says on, say, using toothpaste for a child under two. Then she does it.

I bring this up because with the warm spring weather comes (a drumroll, please) sunscreen season! Sadly, I do not have the educational background or mental rigor left to actually inspect the studies on sunscreen use. I just have a naturally suspicious nature and the remnants of philosophical/theological education. This leads me to doubt whether I should slather my child with SPF 100 before going out to get the mail.

Quite apart from whether it's the best use of our time and money, I just wonder whether it's good to insist that every member of a population ritually put on commercially-produced chemicals daily. I saw a headline of a study saying that skin cancer rates have actually gone up since sunscreen use started. Because of the sunscreen? Because people thought it was okay to stay out way longer if they had sunscreen on? Because those people drank too many cokes and it made them more sensitive? Or was the headline completely bogus? I don't know.

This is the whole question of wisdom. How do I parent properly in a world of imperfect information and a whole lot of limits? My dad always said, "The only thing you can't go overboard on is Jesus Christ." He was specifically talking about theology, but I think the principle holds across pretty much everything. I think C. S. Lewis was getting at the same thing when he said some things are a duty to maybe die for, but not to live for - like serving in a war or practicing lifesaving. You may die for that duty, but it shouldn't consume your every waking thought and affection. And Aristotle, of course, was all about virtue being finding the golden middle path between falling off into error on either side.

I could refuse to sunscreen Meg, ever, and cover her with trendy coconut oil (all those health benefits!) so she could get really tan and smell like summer all the time. Or I could sunscreen her every morning just in case we poke our noses out of doors.

The best I've come to, and you might disagree, is that we put on sunscreen when we're going to be outside for a significant length of time. I figure, when experts discover that excessive sunscreen use causes [whatever], we won't have used it excessively. And in the meantime, we won't get many sunburns. Because nobody likes crunchy red skin.

I emerge from the sewing table to report

My marathon sewing weekend has lasted all week. So far, I've finished that red dress (yes!), made a skirt, hemmed a pair of Jonathan's pants, made a fuzzy bright blue elf coat for Meg that only needs about 5 more inches of pompoms sewn on, started revamping a clearance sequined shirt*, and boldly attempted a nightgown. The nightie failed pretty epically, like one of those legendary Pinterest fails, but one's artistic vision must be allowed to bloom, to range freely! The true chef must be willing to try things that do not work. Anyone can cook - only the fearless can become great!

Ahem. I fell into Ratatouille there for a minute. It's been a pretty productive week, sartorially speaking, except for the nightie. I have also schemed up about four more projects that I may or may not get to before I have to put the sewing machine away. We might decide we want that table for eating or something ridiculous like that.



*This shirt is a really darling turquoise with silver sequins in a chevron pattern (trend alert: check, check, check, and check), but it's one of those cropped swing tops that are enormously wide. It would cover about two of me... call it one and a half. Me and Meg.

Wow...

Jonathan is researching alcohol regulation for his big project this week. It turns out there are three exceptions to the "must have warning on it" rule. These are:

-Alcohol for export
-Alcohol for ships' supply on international trips
-Alcohol for the armed forces.

So apparently the three groups of people who don't need to hear about the dangers of drinking are foreigners, sailors, and soldiers. Um, okay...

Today I learned

Any sentence beginning, "The Brench and the Fritish" is probably not going to succeed, and should be started over.

They did not choose life

Bicyclists in Richmond have no fear. They're quite a remarkable breed, especially downtown. They also have apparently even less concern for mundane traffic regulations than ordinary Richmonders. I can give you two instances from this week.

The other day, Jonathan and I were stopped in traffic in the heart of downtown. It's a one-way street, very busy at rush hour, and everyone's waiting for a bus or a red light or something. A bicyclist comes whizzing downhill in the most nonchalant manner, right down the center line between the cars. It's only after he's past that we quite realize he'd been riding the wrong way down Main Street.

And then today, we were stopped again on that same patch of Main Street, when another bicyclist comes riding up the center line. He's going the right way, but he runs the red light! With steady traffic coming through the intersection! It was an amazing game of Frogger, but he not only survived, he rode up the hill and right through the next red light too, like the devil was on his tail.

Meanwhile, my bike is currently chained to the back railing with two flat tires. I'm inclined to leave it there.

Good instructions

This is a poem from Neil Gaiman, the author (I learn) of the book Stardust, and it's full of good advice if you should happen to find yourself in a fairy tale.

Hat tip: Semicolon.

Our own Dr. Mitchell on the economy

Thanks to my excellent husband for forwarding me this article by our own Dr. Mitchell. I like the bit about dusting off the old-fashioned virtues of thrift and humility. And yes, you caught me blogging about the economic crisis. Enjoy it: it will be rare. :-)

Proverbs for bloggers

Behold here a pile of international proverbs: some funnier than others in connection with blogging. :-)

"Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel."

Discovery, prompted by cleaning the stove top

In the noodle realm, there are no specific ones. They're all random noodles.

Camels

"It's a mistake trying to cheer up camels. You may as well drop meringues into a black hole."

--Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

You might be a medievalist if...

"You add the word 'yet' to the statement 'I don't know that language.'"

You may find the complete list at this post. :-) Hat tip: unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.com.

Blogger being weird

Incidentally, for about the last month, Blogger has been doing weird things to my formatting--it randomly removes my line breaks and double-breaks between paragraphs. I've hunted through their help files and tried to report the bug, all to no avail. Has anyone noticed this? Anybody have ideas what to do about it?

See, there's this couch

I don't know if he was human or angel, but we were sure glad God sent him. It was what you might call Divine Timing.

See, Jonathan and I have been getting married, going to Scotland, packing me up, road-tripping to Virginia, going to Ben and Lisa's wedding, and moving into the apartment here in Richmond. The cubes arrived Tuesday, and today (Friday) we're finally getting to the Last Items therein. We left them to last because they were big and awkward and heavy. But today we were brave. We cleared a space in the study and got my gigantor bricks-and-boards shelf set up, rather the worse for wear.

That left The Couch.

This is The Couch I inherited from Aunt Frankie, which has been sitting in my family's living room for the past few years until I got my own place. It weighs about a ton, and it took Jonathan, my dad, and my sister to get the thing into the cube. We had dire doubts Jonathan and I would be able to get it out again; upper body strength not being one of my notable mad skills. But it had to go, and we'd have to do it, so into the cube it went.

And today there was no putting it off any longer. So we walked the couch clear from the cubes and onto the front porch steps, tipping it first this way, then that, caterpillaring it along two hunks of cardboard so it wouldn't rip all the upholstery off. But we couldn't get it inside. The trouble was, the stairs to our second floor are right at the front door, and we'd have to lift The Couch over the bottom rail to get it into the living room. I couldn't. I just couldn't. And Jonathan couldn't all by himself. And we don't know a soul in Richmond to call.

So there we were, couch half in, all our nice cool air absolutely pouring out, Jonathan reduced nearly to profanity, and us all set to give up and go around and try coming in up the back stairs and through the back door ("NOOOOO!!!!") when this big guy drives up. He's wearing the shirt from our property management company, and he asks how's it going. Jonathan admits it's "one of those days."

So he gives a hand, hoists The Couch right in, and we're done. I tell you, that was divine timing.

THANK YOU!

Grace and coffee

Ruhamah once told me a story about how, in a sense, when she was getting ready to graduate, she could feel God's grace for her college time lifting. It was just time for her to go, and His grace for her was going elsewhere, and she better not try to hang on without Him. I can't come up with an exact Scripture for that, but the principle seems sound.

And when I graduated, something of the same thing happened. There was enough grace for as long as I was supposed to be there, but it wouldn't have been good to stay longer. As a nice little extra, I got an illustration. I had precisely enough coffee grounds to last me and Kay through graduation morning, and none left over.

This afternoon I was setting up my pot of pinon coffee for my last day of work tomorrow, and once again I had enough in the package and finished it off. The grace and the coffee are sufficient.

I'll buy more coffee in Virginia. :-)

Quote of the day

"Nietzsche was not what you'd call snuggly." --Jonathan

"I'm with Aristotle on that one, though: a person who is not snuggly is either a beast or a god." --Jonathan, again

Quote of the day

"I'm losing my socks. I hate it when my socks fall down into my boots, don't you?" Me

"Better to lose your socks than your mind. You can always get more socks." Lisa-here-at-work