recently

I took the childrens, each had a friend with them, to go see “Mountain”. I liked it. Was beautiful, great music, …quote from a child “it was OK but boring”.

We went as a family to go watch the Seattle Storm.

MsS birthday celebration, we went roller skating. One of her friends was learning how to skate, and it was very cute, right after I fell she rolled over to me to ask if I was OK.

MrG birthday celebration, we went to Mariners baseball game.

We went to the Amazon Seattle Sphere…funny thing, I think the childrens had the most fun playing with each other and jumping on the beanbags while we were waiting our turn to enter.

Advertisements

tonight

MrC and I worked on “only ten each” of flash cards for vocabulary and multiplication. He’s a bit behind where he needs to be in school, and we need to get him caught up for fall. Hoping that as his classmates get the “summer slump” that he will catch up to them. He also got his first kill in FortNite…uh…I’m so proud? (Actually, he was agressive, knocked down their fort, and weakened them with a rocket laucher, then close shoot out with a sub machine gun, then when they were down, finished them by dropping grenade and running. Yes. FortNite is my “video game of the now”.)

MrG and I talked about NBA trades. And wondered why a few idiots would run onto the field during World Cup…and what prison would be like in Russia. (Not good.)

MsS likes a story…  I told her my best concert performance ever in England with the youth symphony.

It’s past MyBetterHalf’s bedtime, but she is lost in a book.

We clipped MrOliverKitties nails… which is new, because when he was younger, he happily scratched up wood in MsSqueaky’s room.

PS… Good job, Ms Serena Williams. You play like a mother.  (Yes, I am getting a bit emotional because of a swamp juice commercial.)

Wolf Hollow

…and when MyBetterHalf and the childrens were away for the Fourth of July, I read “Wolf Hollow” By Lauren E. Wolk.

It was a quick, good read.

I’m hoping one of my childrens will read it, and we can chat.

the family returns

The family went to Leavenworth this past weekend, MsS rode in my car, the MrC & MrG in MyBetterHalf. We had a nice little two room cabin, which I always wonder about, how would it be to winter in said cabin…as the did in olden America. Or as they do in poor parts of the world. Or what if this whole campground, with around a hundred families was teleported to zombie land or dinosaur land…would we survive?

Well, the childrens are getting older, and wandered around the camp a bit on their own. Luckily they didn’t fall in the river, step on a snake or get run over by a shuttle bus. (When we were on the shuttle, we saw a youngster zip right in front of the bus!) They played some basketball, it was nice to see MrG encouraging his siblings and giving them an extra shot. (Side note: when we were playing a real game of two on two, MrG was getting upset with MrC double-dribble and traveling.)  ((Side note #2, the other day, MrG was playing FortNite… a great game all about killing the other squad. He got killed, and he complemented the player who killed him. Growth.))

That evening, MrC needed a calm down walk, because he was having a meltdown…he an I went to the river, and we saw bats zipping around at dusk. Fun!

Anyway…they went to Spokane. I went home to school & work.

They returned today…and MyBetterHalf did a great job with them, because this evening they were still wanting to play with each other, and were playing a game of catch that MrG invented, in the front yard.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

I appreciate Sarah Vowell, who likes “to use whatever’s lying around to paint pictures of the past”.

She tosses in things like “Considering Independence Hall was also where the founders calculated that a slave equals three-fifths of a person…making an adolescent who barely spoke English a major general at the age I got hired to run the cash register…was not the worst decision ever made there.”

“Years before the first shots were fired, women…were quietly sticking it to their colonial overlords with their needles and pins.”  (Describing the American home-spun movement.)

She mentions the American publishers fetish for war history, but she sees American history as a history of argument.

Note to self for further investigation:

• Christopher Densmore: “The Quaker Origin of the first Women’s Rights Convention”
• E. Wayne Carp: “To Starve the Army at Pleasure”

Storm v Sparks

the other day we went to watch Storm vs Sparks

Fun was had

I’m always happy to witness Sue Bird get a double-double  (assists & points, with a couple steals tossed in for fun)

The Checklist Manifesto

Atul Gawande writes about the checklist. Nope, not sexy. But good stories. WHO recently did a study, (Dr Gawande was part of this study), and results were using a checklist in surgery is good. Airplane pilots use check lists.

It was alright, but, if you’re gonna read one book by Dr. Gawande, please read “Being Mortal“.  I feel the information in the book could have been condensed, say, into an NPR interview.

(Note: I do have a couple check lists at work. And, I’m trying to have childrens use checklist for “what to do when I get home from school.” Both of these have varying measures of success.)

 

road trip & new song of the now

Drove to and fro Spokane this weekend. Mostly, MyBetterHalf drives, and thus has her phone to provide music. I drove the small car (MyBetterHalf left earlier with MrG and MsS) with MrC there, and drove solo back. The solo drive, is actually the first time I have driven across the state by myself. It was nice. I controlled the radio. I controlled the rest stops (staring at the Columbia before Vantage, two fruit stands, the Historic Thorp Mill, Blue Heron Park at Moses Lake) . A little R&R!!

speaking of radio, in the middle of the state. On the plus side, there weren’t too many commercials or dumb DJs trying to be funny. On the other hand, there was preaching, there was country music, there was Spanish radio, there was Spanish-preaching…. I heard a nice bit of a sermon, twice. Female pastor, “I was in the store with my young children and someone asked “are they all yours” and I thought “Who brings extra toddlers to the store??!!??”  Her sermon was about when we choose entertainment, we are choosing not something else, uh…more time spent with kids.  (Also, these days, everyone has their own entertainment, and don’t have a common time together – ESPN can vouch for that!)   Heard a sermon about Jonah: God still had a plan for Jonah, a plan delayed is not a plan denied. And talent isn’t most important, obedience is. Heard a Catholic apologist (weird, I thought only protestants did that), his interpretation of baptism of children – Baptism is the new circumcision and faith by one can bring gifts to another (ex: Centurian’s daughter healed).  Heard some NPR… segment about disabilities, and how a hundred years ago, many of us with bad vision would be disabled.

 

Songs I discovered

Sofi Tukker – Best Friend

Miranda Lambert – Mama’s Broken Heart.

…but Song-of-the-Now goes to one that i’ve known for a bit, and I liked, but it got upgraded to Song-of-the-Now because MrCuddles was enthusiastically and loudly singing the chorus:  Alice Merton “No Roots”

 

song of the now

Tom Waits “Yesterday is Here”

spurs – warriors game 2

MyBetterHalf and I watched a bit of the second half. I kept thinking, it’s close, Spurs would be winning if Kawhi Leonard was healthy.  Wait for it.  And it would be a Warriors blow out if Steph Curry was healthy.