bearing blog

Resolutions, federal and personal.

We're having a "reading day" today:

•   I am catching up on organizing my schoolroom, planning the schedule, and knocking items off my to-do list.  
• The children are permitted to do whatever they like as long as it doesn't involve the computer, video games, or TV.
• Except after lunch, when we'll all have our usual "break time" including the possibility of movies.

It's my way of easing back into the schedule.  I hope to school them tomorrow.

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Right now one child is still asleep (I suspect him of having stayed up late reading) and the other three are outside in the snow, with Vaseline on their faces to protect them from chapping; it's about ten degrees out.  I don't know how much time I have to write before I have to start guiltily up from the computer (it's a reading day, remember?  I'm trying to set a good example).

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Did you know that the federal government has helpfully suggested some New Year's Resolutions for you?  If that isn't an argument for subsidiarity, I don't know what is.  Let's use them as a starting point for discussion. 

Drink less alcohol.   Sorry, government.  I resolve to drink more alcohol.  One "standard" drink per day is good for most women and I don't measure up, even if you correct downward for my surprising petiteness.

Eat healthy food.  Sounds great, except that the link goes to the government's nth attempt to revise the food pyramid/plate/whatever, which although somewhat improved in recent years is still unreasonably authoritative about nutritional issues that are still unsettled.  Anyway, I don't make food-related resolutions as they're bad for my mental health.

Get a better education.  I resolve to do the opposite:  give a better education.

Get a better job.  Impossible for me.  

(And goodness me, considering the unemployment rate, I rather think it rude to be suggesting this as a "resolution.")

Get fit.  Well, I suppose I can't argue with that one.  Not many downsides to it, if you can find the time.  

Lose weight.  I encourage people who are unhappy with their body mass to set goals not based on the body mass itself, which is out of direct control, but instead based on behavior, which is under direct control.   I would substitute this:

"Discover behaviors which improve weight, and turn them into habits."

Manage debt.  Interesting verb, coming from the federal government.  

Manage stress.   There's that verb again.  

Quit smoking.  Never started, myself, so I can't really comment.   Seems like it would be a good idea.  I wonder if cigarette sales drop every January?  (UPDATE:  January and February are indeed "low" season for cigarette sales.  The fact that it's cold and many people have to go outside to smoke is probably part of it.)

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  Truth is, our family could probably stand to "reduce" a bit.   One of these days I might do the Squawkfox Food Waste Diary.  But I'm not likely to make it a New Year's resolution; more likely, a science project for one or another kid.

Save Money.  In our household, oddly enough, we'll be trying to figure out the best way to spend a bit more this year.  And giving more away, I hope.

Take a trip.  Well, that's a nice thought, actually.  I don't need a resolution for that, but maybe some folks do.

Volunteer to help others.  Also a good idea.  

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If I was feeling more smart-alecky or political this morning, I would suggest some resolutions from this citizen for the government to take on, but I'm not, really.

I don't have any particular resolution in mind this year.  I think I will put that sort of thing off till Lent.  I am not well-suited to resolutions, precisely because they appeal to me so much; I tend toward the control-freak, the inflexible, the planning and planning and planning.   It would be better for me to resolve to live in the moment more, but I'm not sure it's helpful to do that in a solemn declaration of how I will spend the next 365 days.

UPDATE.  Check out Monday's xkcd, which I just got around to reading today, and remember to read the mouseover text.  He's playing it for laughs, but I agree.

 

 

 

In praise of banal little posts.

I've not stopped posting on Facebook* (and occasionally on Twitter) even though my blog is really anemic right now.  I seem only to have little, short things to say.

Facebook is derided for good reason because it's full of people announcing ordinary things.  I daresay that a large number of the FB posts I see fall into the following categories:

• I just got off work!  Or I will soon.  Or I won't for a while, poor me.
• I'm having an alcoholic beverage!
• I'm about to eat something!  Here is a picture of it.
• Can you believe this interaction I just had with another human being in the real world? 
• I have children.
• I saw something in the news, and I have an opinion about it.

You know, I don't mind this.  Banal small talk is much of what our loose networks of relationships are built on; some more strongly, some less, and you don't find out the strength until, out of necessity, something more than banal is called for.

But you know what?  It's like that in real life even with normal, three-dimensional relationships.  The more you see someone, the smaller the talk can be sometimes.  

I have been co-schooling with H. for years and years now, and a lot of our conversations are about something she cooked for dinner two days ago, or what small thing is driving me crazy, or our plans for the weekend.  Occasionally we get to sit down and plot out next year's literature class or troubleshoot one another's battle against chaos, but mostly it's the little updates.  Staying in touch with each other and each other's children.

I have been married for fourteen years now, a good marriage if I may say so myself, and some weeks it seems as if the exact same exchanges happen across the breakfast table day after day after day.  They are for the most part happy, loving exchanges that reinforce the essential goodness of the phenomenon that is us.  Some of them involve inquiries about when the minivan will be taken in for service and whether our daughter was given her medication on time yesterday.  

Internet friends, it's okay if the only post of substance you made this week was to explain the new recipe you tried.  (Even better if you said what you did for side dishes and how you got your kids to eat it without complaining.) I'm paying attention.  

Sometimes the mommyblogs can get you down, what with all the exuberant bragging about things that went well.  FB seems to be more populated with the wry wisecracks about normal life.  I kind of like that. 

Once I visited the home of someone I knew well from the Internet, someone whom I thought of as kind of an amazing person, a superstar in the crunchy homeschooling breastfeeding homebirthing world.   It was the first time I'd met her in real life, and she had invited me and my kids for lunch while I was in town.  I was a little bit in awe, to tell you the truth, as I knocked on her door.

She welcomed us in and performed an act of generous hospitality for us for which I will forever be grateful:  she served us boxed macaroni and cheese.

("Annie's Naturals," of course.  But still.)

And that business being out of the way, we sat down and had a great conversation, getting on with the business of knowing and getting to know.  Which is about not worrying whether your presentation is perfect or your wit sparkling:  it's jumping off from the points that present themselves in your ordinary life, seeing where they can take you.

 

 

 

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*I intentionally keep my friend list pared down on FB, and regularly prune it.  I am unlikely to approve a friend request from a blog reader unless we have met in real life or otherwise Go Way Back (or unless I am a squealy fan of your own blog, a category specially created for Simcha Fisher).  It's nothing personal; that's just what I use it for.  You're welcome to follow me on Twitter where my handle is my real first and last name, no spaces, but I'm not very active there as of yet.

Jarring, yet intriguing, juxtaposition of the morning.

Grading papers as foot-washing, courtesy of Jamie (alias Dr. Most-Gladly).

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Thought on this one: Why do I always seem to encounter the insights that might have helped me make sense of and/or endure some difficult task, long after I have put that task long behind me, probably for good? I had to do some grading of papers as a TA a few times, and I did it back then with the expectation of a working life spent doing things like grading papers, among other things.

But I haven't put grading behind entirely, right, what with the whole homeschooling thing? Still doing it?

Not even close. Grading your own child's papers, or the papers of a friend's child whom you know well, is NOT the same because the intimacy of critiquing lacks the discomfort, that sensation of boundary-crossing. I am supposed to help my child grow up, navigate the requirements of adulthood, which here are communicating like a thinking person in a thinking world, and sending the correct social signals. I am authorized by human sociobiology itself to perform such tasks for my children (and, I believe, for the other children in other family groups close to me). Bathing your own child, however grimy, isn't even close to foot-washing. Hey, mothers, if you've done time in the volunteer nursery -- isn't there a REALLY SIGNIFICANT difference between changing your own child's diaper and changing someone else's child's diaper? Admit it. Your own kid's poop doesn't stink quite as badly.

The essence of foot-washing is that it violates a boundary we would all prefer not to violate. It knocks down an imaginary wall that we put there for our own protection against a number of uncomfortable truths: the sort of truths that are common to human beings. There is something in it that reminds me of the confessional (as it should). There is something in it that reminds me of Snowden's terrible secret in Catch-22.

I wonder if Jamie might find some irony in the discomfort of critiquing existing alongside the imposter syndrome -- the collection of all such critiquing is the way imposter syndrome is communicated from teacher to student, in a sort of intellectual laying-on-of-hands. (Personally, I would be a little bit concerned for a budding academic who entirely lacked that sense of uncomfortable self-awareness. It's a useful faculty, if it can be channelled.)

It might be a little funny to think of such a thing in the banality of grading papers, but I think there is a lot to be said for the comparison. Someone did it for you, and now you're to turn around and do it for others. It's thoroughly uncomfortable for everyone involved, but it has to be gotten through and everyone is the better for it, even when nobody's very well-practiced at the task. It requires the will overcoming the reluctance that persists, for a good natural reason, in our nature. And the will has its own reasons -- not wholly natural ones -- why it is good and right that it should prevail.

Blub blub.

Here is an obscurely inconsequential Minneapolis item:  

Minneapolis voting precinct located entirely in a lake

Not one voter cast a ballot in one Minneapolis precinct on Election Day. That’s because the only living species in Ward 10, Precinct 3B, is of the aquatic variety.

A newly redistricted precinct map shows 3B is located entirely in the eastern half of Lake Calhoun — the biggest lake in Minneapolis. City Clerk Casey Carl says the watery precinct is the “unintentional result of a programming error” made in drawing new ward boundary lines.

Charter Commission chairman Barry Clegg tells the Star Tribune that the mapping software couldn’t draw a line around the edge of the lake without putting a census block in the wrong ward. Clegg says it was supposed to be cleaned up for the final map, but never was.

Perhaps they're just looking out for a very special contingency.  It's my observation that the population of the eastern half of Lake Calhoun increases significantly after the ice gets thick enough to drag an ice fishing house out there.

But generally, Minneapolis stays on top of things.  The error came to light when a reporter asked why nobody voted in 3B.

If you'd like to see the watery precinct, you can look at the map here.

 

Semi-quick takes.

I seriously don't know where the blog muse has gone, but I'll try to bring it back with some quick-ish takes for this Thursday morning.  Some are political; you can skip those if you like.

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Simcha Fisher doesn't always write funny stuff, you know.  Today she answers a question from a sixteen-year-old girl:

I've been struggling with a problem begun during the years I thought I was going to be a nun.  I was very attracted to the idea of Jesus as the bridegroom, as a spouse, and due to my age I fell into a "Jesus-is-my-boyfriend" mindset.  Right now I'm having trouble because though I'm not allowed to date I have a very close friend whom I feel I would like to marry someday, and this is shaking up my view of Jesus, which I think was a little warped to begin with.  I was wondering if perhaps you could tell me how you, being married, relate to Jesus?  

The first thing I thought was:  If 16-year-old girls are seeking out Simcha Fisher for advice about marriage, then the world is truly far more awesome than I imagined.  

The second thing I thought was:  This is good.  So.  Go read.

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I've never gone to a Mass celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, but I think some of my readers do.  I heard that there's a new magazine out that is kind of like Magnificat, but for the 1962 Missal.  I thought I'd publicize it because it sounded like such a good idea, and because they'll need subscribers if they're going to survive.

It's called Laudamus Te.  See this blog post for details.

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Are you still feeling down in the dumps?  

 

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting.  I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

 

Not, of course, that you need to be fasting.  

But you know, there are two kinds of crosses:  the kind we bear on purpose according to our own schedule (like fasting) and the kind that comes to us unbidden.  I see no reason why we should look somber about the second kind either.  

So anoint your head and wash your face already.  It's obvious that things didn't go so well for you, eh?  We can all read the newspaper?  Well, if you go out of your way to make it obvious that you're cranky and worried about it, how is that going to help anyone?  

You know who's in charge here.

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There were some spots of good news for life on Tuesday.  Don't forget those.  Be thankful.    

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For some on the right, this is the beginning of the "we told you so" cycle:

I look back at 1984, and say, when Ronald Reagan won a huge reelection, it was an affirmation of his policies. That did not happen here [in 2012]; there is no mandate, because it’s not 1984. However, people have to lay down those markers, and make an argument, beginning tonight, that “we told you so.” This is going to be the two-year “we told you so” cycle. When the currency crisis comes, when the national defense crisis comes, when the Islamists hit us again, it is a “we told you so” moment, and Republicans can’t be afraid of that.

It is nothing but a fantasy to imagine that supporters of President Obama will be humbled and repentant if and when things get worse.  We have this thing in human nature where we tend to filter out observations that make us look bad to ourselves, and emphasize observations that make our enemies look bad to us.  The worse things get, the surer each person will be that it's somebody else's fault.  And everyone will be at least partly right.

It is also dangerous to tempt oneself to feel hopeful that people will suffer more.  So don't do it.  If you catch yourself being happy that people suffer because it makes "your side" look better, you are going off the rails.

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For others on the right, this is a "what went wrong?" moment, and that is probably a good thing.  Personally, I am convinced that the shift in the Latino vote points to a major, major error for the Republican party.   George W. Bush got a third of the Hispanic Catholic vote -- twice.  Senator McCain managed to hang on to a bit more than a quarter of it.  Mr. Romney, only a shred more than a fifth.  And if that doesn't sound like a big deal, please remember that this demographic is growing, and growing in importance.  It is a demographic that tends to be more pro-life, for one thing.

Pragmatically speaking, white conservative Catholics should be courting Hispanic Catholics, not turning them off.  We need a Catholic vision of the Americas as a whole and of the United States's place in them.   The Republican party, at least, is far too driven by knee-jerk protectionism, and both parties are far too complacent about the effect of U.S. drug policies on Latin America.  It's probably a mistake to assume that it's all about immigration -- here is a piece from the Atlantic that discusses the complexity in Arizona, at least -- but clearly there's a problem, and it can't all be framed as the unfortunate result of a conservatives-are-racists smear campaign.

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I made this chicken in a crockpot the other day to serve with a Trappist ale.  A dubbel, I think.  My beer book says that dubbels and tripels are good with meat-and-fruit combinations, so I thought that a dish of chicken with prunes would be a nice match.

I left the olives out and added carrots, and I used broth instead of wine just in case the wine fought with my ale.  It turned out great, sweet/sour/savory, with a lovely sauce to have over rice.  If your kids like sweet sauces, this one might go over well.

I think part of my problem with crockpot chickens is that I've been cooking them too long.  Five hours on low was just right.   I think in the future I will not do anything chicken-related in the crockpot when I need to be gone all day, and will stick to days when I can put it together at lunchtime.

Mysterious nouns.

Why do we say "the Annunciation" and "the Visitation?"

Why don't we say "the Announcement" and "the Visit?"

I mean, look at the other Joyful Mysteries. Sure, "nativity" and "presentation" are kind of highfalutin words, but with "Presentation" there isn't any common synonym I can think of, fand as for "nativity" I am sure I have heard people announce the third mystery as "The Birth of our Lord" without so much as a hiccup. And come on -- we have never to my knowledge used a fancy word for the fifth mystery. It's "the Finding."

If "Finding" is good enough, and we don't have to say things like "the Location of Our Lord in the Temple" then why can't the first mystery be "the Announcement" and the second "the Visit?" As far as I can tell, Mary is unique not only by virtue of her immaculate conception -- she is also the only person in the history of the English language ever to "visitate" anybody.

Yes, this is what passes for meditation in my brain sometimes. I have to roll with what works.

Frugal wardrobe-building advice.

I am no fashion blogger, but! Great advice here at Squawkfox entitled "Frugal fashion: 12 classic pieces every gal should own."

I do know something about this because after my weight loss necessitated a complete wardrobe overhaul, I tried very hard to plan my purchases for maximum utility.

Of the 12 classic pieces that Squawkfox identifies, I am proud to say that I deliberately acquired 9 of them as part of my wardrobe overhaul, with a few modifications (my classic trench is black, not beige). I am also pleased as punch that this "budget" site has the same taste in designer shoes as me -- I own a pair of black heels exactly the same as hers, from the same designer, except that mine are peep toe. And I bought mine used on eBay, sweet!

 

I Am Making A Book, by my daughter when she was 5.

I am making a Book

Not a Book about Fish

or a Book about Monsters

But it is a Book about Me

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Why I don't know

Why, I don't know,

It couldn't be about Fish or Monsters

The First thing I Like is 

Stuffed Animals

That's the First

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I also like

Birds in the Trees

That's one too

Why I don't know

Why it is that I like 

Two girls playing in the Grass

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My room is Nice

Pink sheets

And pink Blankets

And fuzzy Blankets 

That are pink and Fuzzy

We like Music

and Things Like That

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We have Chairs and Sofas

That is a Story about My Family

The end

 

Anosmia.

I loved this short film about anosmia -- lack of a sense of smell -- at the NYT website.

It almost brought me to tears, actually! What did you think, if you watched it?

Entertaining Wikipedia article (unless you're afraid to fly).

Often, when our family takes a road trip, I bring along something to read aloud to Mark -- usually a nonfiction book. I like books that spur conversation between us, particularly pop-science books that we can argue about and analyze. This is fun even when the book is really bad. On the way down from Minneapolis to Ohio last week, we read The Psychopath Test, which turned out to be perfect road-trip reading -- entertaining, not entirely convincing (meaning that we had a chance to argue about it) and also, in general, food for thought.

I didn't have a book for the way back up, so I made do by following trails of links in Wikipedia to articles about things we didn't know. We started from an article about the Mars robot that landed earlier, and from there to previous Mars lander missions, including the one that famously failed because somebody forgot to convert newtons to pounds-force -- a mistake roundly mocked by everyone EXCEPT former engineering students because deep down, we all know THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I. If my life had been only a little bit different, I too might have broken NASA.

Anyway, from there we went to a list of disasters caused by metrication errors, and that led us to what must be (since I love engineering failure stories) the most entertaining Wikipedia article I have ever read in my life: the story of the "Gimli Glider."

It is only entertaining if you know how the story ends, so let me give you the spoiler first. EVERYBODY SURVIVED, NO MAJOR INJURIES. There you go. Now the teaser: this is the story of an airliner that ran out of gas at 41,000 feet because Canadians had just started converting to the metric system. Now you can read and enjoy.

I read this aloud to Mark, and we agreed that it could never have been made into a true-life disaster movie because no one would believe the chain of events. The aircraft was nearly uncontrollable -- but by a remarkable coincidence, the captain was an experienced glider pilot. The first officer proposed landing at the nearest runway, which happened to be at a nearby closed air force base -- which he knew well because he had once served there as a Canadian air force pilot. But he didn't know that the air force base had been converted to a race track complex. Or that there was a race going on (think NASCAR, but Canadian) and the runway area was full of cars and campers. Also that there were cars racing on the runway.

Anyway, if you thought the "Sully in the river" story was gripping, I think you should try this one.