Relatively spooky

I had a long weekend due to my college's two-day Fall Break this week. And I saved up all the Halloween prep accordingly. Including the jack o' lantern!



We asked the kids whether they wanted two jack o' lanterns, one for each of them, as we've done in the past (mostly because in the past we've gone to pumpkin patches and let them each pick out a pumpkin--not applicable this year since Noel was going to get the pumpkin at the supermarket). As we suspected, Archer said one was fine. After reassuring Cady Gray that this meant she was in complete charge of the sole jack o' lantern, we were good to go.



More than 200 seeds came out of this thing. CG regards the counting of seeds as an important part of the Halloween ritual.



CG's design was inspired by a pumpkin she saw somewhere with a math equation carved into it. She picked her favorite equation and added nerdy spectacles and a big happy mouth just for fun.



I drew the line at carving out "HAPPY," especially since it was so close to the top opening, but executed the rest of her design exactly as drafted. It came out great!



Let others have their jack o' lanterns that are "scary" and "traditional" and "coherent as a collection of elements." CG's design couldn't be more perfect for this family.

As long as you both shall live

When you teach, you get close to some of your students, and some of your students get close to you, and within those two groups there is significant overlap. When you teach college students, some of your students meet each other and fall in love, and some of those students are those who are close to you and vice versa. And some of those students end up getting married.

And when you teach religion, and your first boss was a Lutheran minister who officiated over the weddings of many of his students, some of your getting-married students will ask you to be the minister at their weddings. And although you are not called to be clergy in any established church, in this age that is no impediment to becoming a person authorized by the state to perform weddings.

That is how I became internet-ordained several years ago when the first of my students asked me to preside at their ceremony. It's the greatest honor and tribute to have this service requested of you. I've never said no.

Today is the wedding day of F. John and Hannah. I was very close to F. John when he was a student in my program a few years back, and given that he kept signing up for my classes, I would imagine he feels the same. I was the adviser for his undergraduate thesis. He was my teaching assistant for a freshman seminar.

Hannah wasn't a member of my program. But we all considered her an honorary member. She showed up at all our public events. She hung out in the dorm. She knew all the professors by their first names.

So when I got a call this summer from F. John asking me to officiate at their wedding ceremony, I was doubly pleased. I knew it was a joint decision for this couple to choose me. That's pretty special.

The event is taking place outdoors on beautiful Mt. Nebo, on a crisp but not cold fall day, with brilliant sunshine filtering through the leaves and shining off the Arkansas River visible in the valley below. I drove up yesterday for the rehearsal. The road up the mountain is "steep and crooked" according to the signs, and that's an understatement. On the way down I counted ten hairpin switchbacks. I was nervous yesterday about whether the Subaru would have the power to make it to the top, but in second gear with the A/C off, I needn't have worried. Even so, I'm glad I don't have to drive that every day.

The wedding party is filled with my students. All the groomsmen are graduates from my program. The congregation will be dotted with alumni and faculty. It's not my day -- it's F. John and Hannah's day. But I couldn't be prouder to be standing up with them at their request, speaking the words, making it all legal. From their past I appear to inaugurate their future together.

F. John runs marathons and wrote his thesis on the concept of cool. Hannah is a talented artist who knows her way around a pair of knitting needles. It's like they are far more advanced versions of myself, split into two people. Surely it's fitting that I'll be the one to tell them today that God has joined them together.

It was mumbly-mumble years ago today

For the first several years of my professorial career here, I frequently was mistaken for a student. It didn't hurt that I never wore power suits or other markers of authority, I'm sure. But I also took those occasions as markers of a generally youthful appearance. I treasured them. I can't deny it.

That doesn't happen anymore, even though I wear suits just as infrequently as ever. Only from a distance or without their glasses could anyone fail to notice the stray gray hairs poking coarsely out of my head, or the worry lines that have creased my forehead. I've probably slowed down just a little, too.

But aside from the particular twinges and pains, and an increasing annoyance that manifests every time I am asked to stoop or bend in any say, I don't feel my age. I suppose I'd need a feelie-o-graph of some kind to be sure, some way to keep a record of how I actually felt as opposed to my vague memories that provide little standard for comparison. But whether it's the slowness of the process or just poor recollection, I can't say that I expected to perceive so little difference between 25 and 35, between 37 and 47.

Noel and I are in different boats. He writes about pop culture for a living. It used to be rock music almost exclusively, but he's transitioned out of that beat and into more general cultural criticism, television, and film -- areas where a sense of history is valued, and where the inherent youthful rebelliousness of rock is less likely to be leveled at him as a criticism. At 40 he began thinking about what the next stage of his writing life would be, anticipating that he couldn't keep his hand in the young man's game forever.

I am a college professor, and at least in terms of reputation and authority, age is an enhancement. One isn't really a professor until one meets the stereotype, which includes visible aging, at least halfway. I tend to think that keeping in touch with the generations one is teaching (through participating in their culture) is important, but I know that's not a universal opinion. Many college professors are happy to relinquish the effort to stay current with the world's fast-paced changes, and settle down in the slower timeframes of the discipline and the academy. (Well, in the humanities, anyway.)

When I think about the downsides of getting old, I don't think about my job. I think about my family. Will I be around long enough to see as much of my children's lives as I want to, and will I be healthy and vital enough to enjoy it and participate fully? Some people start thinking about retirement when they get to be my age, but aside from a little light financial planning, I resist having it on my to-do list. Instead, I think about whether I'll be able to keep teaching as long as I'd like, which is as long as they'll have me.  And then will Noel and I find meaningful ways to occupy our remaining years?

I probably should use this forty-seventh birthday to reflect on the past or make some resolutions for the future.  But I'm so enmeshed in the middle of so many things -- my children growing up, my career continuing to grow and expand, my research projects taking definitive shape, the books underway, the promotions around the corner. I can see a point up ahead, in a couple of years, when the book is done and the promotion is achieved, where I stop, look around, and decide how I want the rest of my teaching life to go, and where I want to spend it. I'm looking forward to that. But for now, I've got too much to do to feel old -- or even to wonder if I should.

What I see is so much more than I can say

Yesterday I posted a lengthy and photo-rich account of some overdyeing experiments. You can read it all at Toxophily, or if you aren't interested in the details, just revel in the eye candy.



But I know that what Noel and other family members are craving isn't pictures of yarn. So to go along with the above photo snapped as we were heading toward the exhibits at EcoFest 2012, here's a short piece of writing that Cady Gray brought home from school.

The Tye-Dye

Once upon a time, I went to Tennessee with my Grandma Libby. We Tye-Dyed one day with a tye-dye kit. We did three swirl patterns and two bullseyes. I did a freehand and one of the swirls. I did a swirl pair of socks and a pair of splatter socks too. We used a neon color kit, but we have a primary one at home. I hope I get to do it again someday.

Summer's end

Labor Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer, but the weather has picked this moment to give us a last blast of heat and humidity. In the wake of Tropical Depression Isaac, which brought us some much-appreciated rain, the heat index is soaring into the triple digits again. Regardless of how it feels, though, some things are coming to an end, and other things are beginning, just as they do every year.

I'm focusing on the things that are ending. It's not just nostalgia or regret; some of those things I'm glad to see end, at least temporarily. Two of my major summer writing projects, the TV Club Classic coverage of Sports Night and the regular coverage of Breaking Bad, are going on hiatus until next year, and it's a relief. Those pieces take a lot of concentration, time, and anxiety every week, and it will be nice to have them off my plate for a while. Sports Night's last season 1 post went up this past Wednesday, and Breaking Bad's last episode of the current half-season is tonight. It's still a couple of weeks until the other shows I cover regularly (How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family) start their seasons, so I've got a nice break coming up.

It's also pleasant to have the kids' birthday party and the Ravellenics behind me. Last week I went to the Rhea Lana sale and bought most of the clothes they'll need until next spring (I hope). I still haven't cleaned out their closets of too-small items, or unpacked the bags of jeans and jackets I hauled home from that sale, but at least I'm more than halfway ready for colder weather. And with all the Ravellenic administration in the past, I've gleefully started what I hope is a binge of knitting things to keep other people warm, whether they are friends or strangers in need.

We've been having our master bathroom remodeled this summer, and that's nearly done, too. The pace would be considered too leisurely for people more outcome-focused than ourselves, or for a room where the loss of function is more disruptive. But we're just proud that we've gotten the process underway after years of knowing it needed to be done.

That's also the way I feel about starting a conversation with a financial planner this summer. We haven't finalized much yet, but stuff is in the works: more life insurance, rearranging some assets to provide more focused retirement funds, college savings, and an easier way to keep track of it all. I'm so pleased with myself for finally moving in this direction after living so long with the uneasy feeling that I wasn't properly taking care of business, that I'm not in too much of a hurry to get everything signed and squared away; it's enough that the ball is rolling.

Maybe this change of seasons isn't really about things ending, or about us moving on. It's about not having wasted the time we've been spending. And that goes for time with the kids, too, which right now is not a matter of long looks backward, but lovely moments that still linger in the now.

Eight years ago today

Earlier today I read this post about how time seems to move more slowly when you are taking in lots of new information. That's why childhood days seem so long, and the years fly by the more routine and less engaging your life becomes.

I'll say one thing for routine, though. If you do the same kinds of things at the same time every year, and a momentous occasion happens to coincide with one of them, you get an annual reminder of that occasion whenever that part of your annual schedule comes up. As long as the momentous occasion is a good thing, it's a wonderful chance to remember.

The routine in which I was engaged eight years ago today is something we call PPP -- Professors, Pizza and Pie. The dozen or so freshmen in my Honors seminar meet in the evening with me and the program's dean for some food and conversation. Over the course of a couple of weeks early in the semester, all the freshman seminars will do this, with the dean and their instructors.

Eight years and ten hours ago, I had just come home from my group's PPP. I immediately put on my pajamas and was helping Archer get ready for bed. And my water broke. Copiously. We called a friend to come stay with Archer, I changed into something that wasn't soaked with amniotic fluid (I'm pretty sure it was a muumuu-like swimsuit coverup), and Noel drove me to the hospital. And just a couple of hours later, Cady Gray was born.

I can't think of a single day since that hasn't been more magical because of her presence. I sound like a typical parent when I say it, but I don't know of any way to get across her all-around wonderfulness. She is brilliant, creative, hilarious, sweeter than honey, and beautiful beyond anything that we could have possible contributed to producing. There's a light in her eyes that illuminates the world.

Yesterday, the day before her birthday, I was jokingly bemoaning the fact that seven-year-old Cady Gray was going to go away forever, and I would always miss her. Cady Gray wrapped her arms around me as she does dozens of times a day. "Seven-year-old Cady Gray will still be here," she said. "It's just that there will be a little bit more."

And I was strangely comforted. Yes, the child I love will always be there, receding perhaps under layers of additional years and experience, but never gone. I'll stay connected to her as long as I'm still having pizza and pie with new students, telling them the story of how the dean almost had to assist in her birth, laughing, remembering, and silently giving thanks.

Dazzling

When I got home this afternoon, a delighted Noel made Archer come tell me about an unexpected homework assignment. "I had to do something for my parents without being told to," he said. "So I cleaned my room without anybody asking."

Later that night I reminded him that he had a questionnaire about that assignment to fill out. He came back having written only one sentence under each of the three questions, even though there were several blank lines available. I had a little chat with him about how the space provided tells you something about the expectations, and made a deal that if he wrote enough to get down to the fifth line, he could play some more DS.

I loved what he wrote. He was a little apprehensive about the third answer, asking me "What if what I wrote just started being garbage that is off-topic?", but I thought he fulfilled my request cleverly and well. The first sentence of each answer, by the way, is the original response, before his elaboration.

"DAZZLE" YOUR PARENTS 

Do something for your parents, grandparents, or someone you live with. Do something nice without being asked or told to do it (e.g. clean your room, or feed the dog without being told). 

1. Write what you did to "DAZZLE." 

I cleaned my room without being told. I sorted the books and instruction booklets. I did it with so much vigor, it was amazing! I could not have done it faster. It was clocked in at about 1 minute, 30 seconds. 

2. Write what your parents, grandparents, or guardians did when they were "DAZZLED." 

They were very proud of me! There was no special reward, but at least I got their respect. If I could rate it on a scale of 0 (worst quality ever) to 10 (best quality ever), I would rate it a 9.1. 

3. Write how it made your feel to "DAZZLE." 

I felt proud to myself. I got 100% of the credit. I got 100%, the entire thing, the whole enchilada, yada yada yada.  Cady Gray (my 7-year-old sister) may have helped, but she decided not to.

Eleven years ago today

Eleven years ago yesterday, I had gone into first stage labor with our first child. It was exciting. Noel and I took a walk together, just like we had seen in all the childbirth videos and read about in advice books.

Eleven years ago today, right now, I was recovering from an emergency c-section. My son was put in my arms briefly after I got out of the recovery room.

So much of becoming a parent these days is trying to predict the unpredictable. We read books, we watch shows, we slurp up all the advice we can, and it's all in an effort to peer around the corner and see what's coming, so we can be prepared.

We weren't ready for what happened to Archer. He wouldn't nurse, and after his first-week checkup he was immediately hospitalized for failure to thrive. We were sick with worry. And for my part, I felt angry. I felt lied to. All the preparatory apparatus we had consumed that told us everything was almost always all right -- well, it wasn't.

Strangely enough, I didn't feel that way two and a half years later when Archer was diagnosed with autism. That news didn't come as a blow crumbling some ideal developmental expectation we had to dust. Instead, after the initial shock, it was a relief to have a framework to put around his idiosyncracies, to have some steps to take to help him integrate into a neurotypical world.

When I think back to those days of crippling uncertainty, I'm so grateful to Noel for the way he stood behind me. We had to make some tough decisions. Honey, you know what I'm talking about. You didn't hesitate. You supported me in responding the way I felt was right.



Now, years later, we look at each other on a regular basis and just shake our heads in wonder. How did we end up with these brilliant, delightful, surprising, and incandescent children? Archer makes us see the world differently. When he makes a special effort to join our world temporarily, we're so touched. His challenges are singular, but we learn along with him as he faces them. And there's nothing in the world like watching him trying to contain his happiness when it spills over his emotional reserve. His cheeks distort under the effort to control his smile, his spinning and wandering turn into an exuberant dance.

Happy birthday to my handsome, happy robotboy. Gold star for you.

Lying in them

Earlier this summer, I suddenly started making beds.

Not obsessively. But regularly. And for the first time in my adult life.

If I were seeing a therapist, we would probably already have had several long chats about this abrupt change in my behavior. Since I stopped living at home full time at age 18, right up until now, I have never voluntarily made a bed unless guests were coming over and a house tour was likely. I never saw the point. You wrestle the sheets and blankets into place, and then a few hours later you mess them up again. Just leave 'em messed up. All muss, no fuss. As long as nobody but you is going to see it, who cares?

And then, sometime in June, I woke up, got out of bed, got dressed, and decided for some reason to straighten the bottom sheets and smooth out the beautiful king-size quilt that Noel's mom made for us and that covers our bed. Or doesn't, because I never make the bed. Usually the quilt is flipped and skewed and tangled with the sheets. If I had to peg one reason I decided to make the bed that day, it would be because I wanted the quilt to look nice, the way it does after the cleaners have just been to the house and the beds have all been changed.

I didn't go whole hog. Didn't make sure everything was neatly tucked all the way around; just left the sheets hanging off the sides. No hospital corners. As I've just now realized writing this, I still have no dust ruffles on any of our beds to hide the bare box springs (another conventional homemaking practice I've never seen the point of), so the "made bed" is probably still a mess by most civilized standards. But the quilt was centered, and smooth. The pillows were stacked neatly if not decoratively at the head. It was a bed that looked different than one that had just been slept in. It was a bed that looked like it was waiting to be slept in later, instead of one that had just disgorged its occupants.

Then I did the same to the kids' beds. And the next day I did it again. And I didn't stop. Even when we went on vacation, staying in two places that didn't have daily maid service, I made the beds.

I liked it. Not the making of the beds, but the made beds that greeted me when I went in and out of the room throughout the day. And at least in the desultory way I went about it, the process took very little time or energy. I think I experienced a shift in perspective. Before, I saw making beds as something you did to finish a night's sleep, and I found it pointless because I was ready to move on. Now, I see making beds as something you do to start the day. So you can have a room that's ready to live in.

Cady Gray took to thanking me for her made bed shortly after I changed my habits. We talked about how nice it was to have that big piece of furniture neatened up, how welcoming that smooth coverlet is for lounging with a book as she loves to do. And I realized that making the kids' beds is an important broken windows strategy to help them keep their rooms neat and floors clear, as their dad likes them to do.  And if they are able to do that, then all of us are far less stressed as we pass through our home without seeing messes that demand to be cleaned up or (worse) are too massive to tackle ad hoc.

My mother is probably laughing her head off right now as my dad reads her this account of my sudden change of behavior. It's not her fault I spent thirty years as a bed rebel. She did her best to get all of us into the habit. Like most people, I went my own way during college, and then I just took a lot longer to find my way back than others. A lot of folks revert to the basic civilized conventions quickly when they get a chance to control their environments. Others walk the walk, but feel guilty that they don't derive the right level of satisfaction from these domestic niceties, or that no matter how they try they won't measure up. I made my dissent into a habit and (mostly) refused to feel inadequate about it, except when it was exposed to others and I couldn't help resenting the judgment I imagined them passing.

And now I've joined the ranks of barely-minimum adequacy in the bed-making department, not nearly enough for Martha Stewart I'm sure, but a huge leap for me. It's not the result of some determined effort of self-improvement or long-procrastinated adulthood. Just a whim that's persisted so far, under summer conditions when there's little pressure to leave home in the morning in an all-fired hurry. We'll see if it survives once school starts next week. And we'll see if it's part of a pattern -- if it means anything more than my conscious mind grasps right now.

And the public wants what the public gets

Today's post about a lucky break and the Olympic spirit is at Toxophily.



And check out my medals! Toxophily is now wearing them proudly. The Ravellenic Games weathered an early controversy, benefitted from a huge outpouring of support from the knitting world and publicity far beyond its borders, and were an unqualified success, far beyond the few awards I earned. Full report coming soon!

Hold your head up, you silly girl

Today's post about uncharacteristic perfectionism is at Toxophily.



We're pausing here and taking a deep breath before plunging into vacation with family next week. After that it's time to flail toward the start of school like the Olympic swimmers in the 50 meter sprints. See you on the other side!

Feathered friends

Last time we spent a few days at Noel's parents' house, Cady Gray couldn't get enough of Grandma Libby's bird feeder. She watched through the living room and kitchen windows as the birds flitted on and off the deck, collecting sightings and assigning personalities to the various species.

I filed that experience away in the back of my head. And when I saw a bird feeder recommended on Kevin Kelly's marvelously useful Cool Tools site, I decided to bring it home.

Since then, Cady Gray comes to me daily with reports of what bird has made an appearance at the feeder. We've had our share of sparrows and wrens and Carolina chickadees and tufted titmouses, as well as the abundant cardinals in our neighborhood.  Both of us have marveled at how many house finches live around us, and have thrilled to the brilliant neon flash of eastern bluebirds. And most exciting, we've often been visited by a pair of downy woodpeckers and even the occasional hairy woodpecker.

Last week, passing through our front room with the big bay windows, I was startled to see a hummingbird buzz by -- and then another. Hoping to attract more, Cady Gray and I acquired a little feeder to stick on the window. Then we waited. Day after day we watched. And yesterday evening, Noel and I were rewarded with a visit from a couple of hummingbirds. I reported to Cady Gray that our feeder had been found, and before we took off for language camp this morning she insisted on watching for a bit. Not two minutes passed before she came running to report her first hummingbird sighting to me.

We've learned that the ruby-throated hummingbird summers in Arkansas, and it appears that we've been visited by both females (who lack the red patch on the throat) and at least one male (who I saw just this afternoon).

I love the excitement that dawns on Cady Gray's face when she tells me about the species she's collected, and describes their behavior. It gives her a pride in expertise, too, as she adopts the role of my guide to Arkansas' bird life. What an unexpected delight, these series of moments prompted by the nature Cady Gray loves so much.

She is dancing away from me now

Today's post about a highly unlikely shawl is at Toxophily.



Three separate people -- well, one married couple and another person -- have mentioned that they miss this blog. Message received, universe! I've got a lot of Toxophily posts in the queue, but I'll also try to do some prose writing here, too.

Just an old sweet song

Back from our trip to the place of Noel's birth, to the metropolis where we played and absorbed culture during our University of Georgia days, to the team that haunts our childhoods and commands our undying loyalty. Back from Atlanta, where we seized the excuse provided by a colleague's wedding to introduce our children to some of the city's riches. Here are a few highlights.



We got to experience two, count 'em, two Staybridge Suites about a mile apart! This photo was taken outside the first one.




Walking the downtown streets.




Archer utterly confused this attendant at the World of Coca-Cola's secret formula vault exhibit with a robotboy question.




Granny Lou and Papa were with us for a couple of days, and the kids worked hard to give them enough love to last until the next visit.




We may not have eaten very healthy, but we ate very happy, including this Johnny Rockets lunch ...




... followed by rock candy on a stick.




We got to hang with old friends from our UGA days.




These are the kinds of smiles that happen inside a Legoland Discovery Center.




And these are the kind that happen when you're in the home of Hammerin' Hank.




Look at that form!




He's trying to stretch it to three! Really testing the arm of that right fielder!




More old friends at the ball game.




Our tomahawk chop took a while to get coordinated.




Cady Gray insisted on keeping score.




An enthusiastic rendering of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."




Outside Staybridge Suites #2. It's a long story.




The Georgia Aquarium mesmerized Cady Gray.




Peeking at penguins.




There was even a fish for Archer.




CG picked up so many feathers for her collection that I was sure she would fly away on our many long walks.




Our friend Stephen probably wears suits frequently. This is the first time Noel's been in one in many a year.




MARTA was Archer's favorite Atlanta attraction. Goodbye, Peach City -- we'll see you again soon!

How tough must we be to ask for more now?

Today's post about a hat by choice it at Toxophily.



Normally I'd put a picture of the hat here. But CG was being very silly during our modeling session. Most of my shots feature the buck teeth she's growing more prominently than the hat. So here'a a throwback shot of her on the swingset last weekend -- reminding me of how many of those pictures I took of her swinging in earlier years. How she's grown!

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls

Twitter is a-twitter with critiques of these books from Scholastic: How To Survive Anything (Boys Only) and How to Survive Anything (Girls Only). Ryan North (creator of Dinosaur Comics), working off a tip from this Canadian books blog, breaks down the tables of contents and makes some excellent points. The authors can't be bothered to actually make the girls' version about, y'know, surviving things, like the boys' version is. Because girls aren't into danger, presumably, like boys. So their book has chapters about becoming a great babysitter and teaching your cat to sit (?) instead of handling swarms of bees and zombie invasions.

Here's the thing. Yes, this looks really bad. Yes, it does cater to gender stereotypes. But any parent who reads the Scholastic book flyers regularly knows that this kind of thing is pervasive in their offerings. The flyers have little subsections for books mainly of interest to girls (BFF quizzes, friendship-bracelet crafts) and to boys (who would win in a fight between a shark and a lion, gross stuff). It's rarer to see the same book marketed in boys and girls versions, but the model here is clearly The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls. The marketing on Scholastic's website even makes reference to "those books that are a little too dangerous/daring."

As far as I know (and I don't know far, I admit), The Dangerous Book for Boys and its follow-up did not provoke widespread condemnation as sexist. The intent behind them seemed to be taken in a positive way by parents, educators, and the culture at large: to recapture some of the adventure and exploratory spirit that used to be promoted for children by publications in the forties and fifties. Experiment, take a chance, go off the beaten path, be self-reliant, escape the cocoon. The division by gender was part of the retro appeal, but also was understood as a way to craft identities for boys and girls that weren't simply based on current stereotypes. The books seemed to react against the lazy assumptions about boys (video games, boogers) and girls (sleepovers, glitter) by hearkening back to a time when boys wanted to learn the skills to become men and girls wanted to learn the skills to become women. The books are less about gender than their titles make them seem. The real appeal to their audience lies in the promise of not being treated like a child.

Granted, How To Survive Anything doesn't get it. The whole life-skills thing gets buried under a pile of naked appeals to "things boys like" and "things girls like." And consequently, the focus is on perpetuating childhood obsessions rather than peeking over the wall at the more independent, less self-indulgent world of grown-ups. This attempt to capitalize on the success of Dangerous/Daring is a tone-deaf failure.

But the reason for its failure isn't just that there's a boy book and a girl book, clearly; otherwise, Dangerous/Daring would be equally reprehensible. It's the way the creators have executed that concept that deserves criticism.

And I'm not sure how much criticism even that deserves. When Scholastic markets books about horses to girls and football players to boys, they do have something positive in mind beyond making money. They are trying to get kids to read. And catering to preferences already present in the audience is presumably an effective way to do that.

There's something important about having a counter-cultural conversation about children and gender -- about pushing back against the pink/blue, rhinestone/denim, giggle/fart shorthand. And I'm not defending How to Survive, because those tables of content are indeed alarming. But let's not throw out the babies with the bathwater. Every instance of producing two versions divided by gender is not culturally regressive or demeaning to women. And Scholastic's publishing and marketing choices have the good intention of promoting reading for kids at a critical time in the development of lifelong habits. Sure, they could feed them only what's the very best for them -- classic literature, progressive ideas, moral uplift. Some of us can probably remember what it was like to be excited about reading comics, or books about celebrities, or thrillers, and to find those enjoyments disapproved by those who didn't think that reading was good, full stop, but ought to be purged of its junk food elements.

Count me among the people who think we ought to let kids pick from the full smorgasbord of options, because the act of reading is not analogous to the act of eating in one very important sense. Eating isn't a choice. So we should make kids eat their vegetables, because they're going to eat something else if we don't.  Reading is a choice. If they don't have choices they like, they're not going to read at all. Some kids (like my daughter) are going to venture way beyond the gender-coded choices in the catalog because they have acquired the taste already. Some (like my son) won't read unless the book fits with his pre-existing obsessions and quirks. For people whose kids' preferences are more bound to gender stereotypes than mine, it might be critical to offer them sparkles and princesses on the one hand, slime and ninjas on the other. I'd rather have them read than be spared the stereotypes, if those are the only options.

Rip it up and start again

I spent a marvelous hour or so last fall at a yarn store in San Francisco called Artfibers. The owners formulate their own yarn bases and hand-dye them to produce a large loft of amazing, unique fibers. When I walked out after a happy morning swatching, I had 400 yards of Ming, a half-merino half-silk blend in a colorway that reminded me of bronze, copper, gold and amethyst.

Last night, having bound off an enormous Malabrigo wrap destined for my mother-in-law's shoulders, I couldn't wait to start another project. A scarf, a rectangular scarf that I can knit on my beloved Signature straights, worsted weight, large and satisfying stitches in a yarn that would be a treat for my hands and eyes.

I started out by looking for inspiration in my Ravelry stash and queue, but when I visited my yarn wall to poke through the yarn possibilities in person, the Artfibers cone practically fell into my hands. What better indulgence, I thought?I gathered the yarn and my needle roll and headed back to the living room to find a pattern.

I didn't expect that search to last all night and most of the next morning. Here are some of the patterns I tried.



Serafine by Molly Whiddon. I saw some lovely projects showing how this clusters and highlights variegated yarn. But after starting it, I was unhappy and wasn't sure why.



Tipsy Rib Scarf by Pamela Wynne. Very promising, since this pattern was created for this specific yarn. But I only got a couple of rows in before I made a mistake, and since I wasn't sure that a simple knit/purl pattern was what I wanted, I moved on.



One-Row Handspun Scarf by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. The one pictured is by Raveler purpleemma in Ming. Isn't it beautiful? I kept coming back to this, hoping it would work. I love one-row lace patterns. They're what I so often crave when I crave a rectangular worsted-weight scarf on straight needles knitting experience. And this wasn't the only one I tried.



Sinful Ribbed Scarf by Classic Elite. Nope.



Swish Scarf by Lisa Sisk. Nope, but this is the one that made me realize what was wrong with all these patterns I was rejecting. The fringe you see is made by knitting six stitches in stockinette on one side of the scarf, then dropping them all at the end. The lace pattern wasn't doing it for me at all, but the stockinette was gorgeous. Aha! Need to look for patterns with major swaths of stockinette!

Unfortunately, stockinette and rectangular straight-needle scarves go together like ... things that don't go together well. Stockinette rolls up from side to side, and scarves have to lay flat. Was it possible that this yarn, which begged for beautiful columns of knit-stitch V's to show off its iridescence, would be incompatible with my desire for a simple unshaped scarf?



The Prismatic Scarf by Huan-Hua Chye. I thought this would be the one. There's three knit stitches between those slipped-with-yarn-in-front bars. But the bars were distracting rather than enhancing. They looked messy. I needed even more stockinette.



SciWiNoNa (Scarf With No Name) by weezalana. Ahhhhh. Finally. A scarf with wide stockinette panels (five stitches across) and no yarn-overs or slipped stitches to detract from them.



As soon as I got past the garter border and started the pattern, I knew my yarn had found its pattern at last. The metallic sheen to the fibers, the deep tones of the colors, all glowed in the smooth stockinette surface.

One of the great virtues of knitting is its ability to be unravelled and worked again. I knit the first inch or two of this scarf half a dozen times in the past twenty-four hours. For a material so precious, it was worth the trial and error to find its proper match. Trust your instincts, learn from your mistakes. Rip it up and start again. The investment is small -- just time and effort. The reward is beauty, and the pleasure of making it. Few activities afford so many opportunities to do it over and get it right.

When you know down inside that I really do

Today's post about dressing a growing girl for summer is at Toxophily.



And summer it almost is, at least by the holiday calendar here in the U.S. Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Two ends of the spectrum

Tomorrow Archer's school is going on a field trip to Wild River Country, a water park in Little Rock. Noel often goes with him on school outings, but this one is especially important. Archer's not a strong swimmer, is highly nervous and sensitive about getting splashed, and freaks out if his head goes underwater. Not only does he need help, but he needs to be protected from his peers who might goad him into dangerous situations or tease him for his lack of ability.

But our usual way of handling this -- send Noel with him for the day -- has been foiled by a couple of time-sensitive assignments. Noel has a phone interview mid-morning tomorrow, and is flying out to New York mid-afternoon. As a chaperone, he's out.

Last week when we were on our way to dinner in the car, Noel explained to Archer that he wouldn't be able to go, and we discussed the options. Archer absorbed the conversation. Then he explained to us how he felt, and he did it this way:

"There are two ends to the situation. If you don't let me go on the trip, I'll fall off the negative end. If I do get to go, I'll fall off the positive end."

That was a cryptic way to put it. My first reaction was to ask: Ends of what? "Happiness?" I guessed. Archer paused for a long time. "Maybe," he said. I hadn't quite gotten it right.

"Well, I can go with you, big man," I offered. That seemed to be the right answer. He relaxed and said "Okay," the way he does, with finality and agreement.  When he says "Okay" with that inflection, it means: "That sets the world in a configuration that makes sense to me. I can work within the world that creates."

Thinking about the strange "two ends" analogy he had proffered, I finally came to an understanding of what he might have meant. I think he was saying that either outcome held dangers and anxieties for him. He wanted to go to the water park, but he didn't want to be there without one of us. In a way, unless we were there to catch him on the positive end, there was no way for him to avoid disaster.

So I'll be there. And as Archer grows and is expected by his schools and friends to be more independent, we'll have to listen carefully to find out where the ends of his spectrum are, and to make sure he feels confident he won't fall off either way.

Or as we will always call it, Toe Sock Days

We were pretty busy two weekends ago. Then last weekend we weren't busy at all, thank goodness. Which, if you know me and how much I love my no-responsibility, no-work weekends, goes a long way toward explaining why I'm just now getting around to posting photos from our visit to the 2012 Toad Suck Daze festival on May 6.



Arrival, incognito. Well, at least the movie star among us is keeping a low profile.




First order of business: Lunch. We considered the Walking Taco, but it lacked one essential qualification.




It was not on a stick. Unlike this cheeseburger on a stick.




Time for some rides! Archer's got his ToadBucks ready.




First up, the ever-popular and picturesque carousel.




And you can't go wrong with the super slide, as Archer demonstrates.




Archer also really likes this little Tokyo Drift-style speedway ride. Guaranteed peals of laughter when it whiplashes you around the turn.




All three of us were laughing and screaming on the Scrambler, which has been one of my favorites ever since my dad took a home movie that featured a close-up follow shot of my hat falling off in mid-ride.




Dad and Archer rode the ferris wheel. Far as we could tell from down below, that's the two of them in the turquoise car up top.




We've earned some dessert. How about deep fried Oreos and Hershey's kisses?




It was a really hot day for this early in the season. But no matter whether it's graduation weekend or not, you can't just let Toad Suck Daze pass you by.




If you have a movie star in the family, though, do take the precaution of attending on Sunday when the paparazzi can be more easily evaded.