Plenipotentiary

Hubby turned me on to this hilarious website: make an elf of yourself and up to three others. Holy Holly and Ivy, Batman! That’s entirely too funny! I’ve been playing on it for nearly an hour, and am going to play on it some more. This rocks. Really. Go there.

Eldest Son had an assignment: interview someone in his family at least two generations removed from him. (This is not as difficult as it sounds when you consider that in his class, 20 years makes a generation. He could practically have interviewed me.)

Keeping in mind that ES didn’t mention this assignment to me until zero-fricking-hour (due tomorrow, of course), so I was last-minute help, this is what he came up with:

Interview
Conducted by: Eldest Son

I interviewed my grandfather, W—- C—— S—–, born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1945. He is 62years old, and currently lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Grandpa is an electrical engineer and a Master of Business Administration, and used to work for the President of the United States. One of the many cool things he’s done is help develop a database (the Permit Compliance System) for President James Carter and the Environmental Protection Agency, that helped monitor pollution in our rivers and streams.

Now Grandpa works for ***, as a scientific consultant. He has always worked to better the environment.

ES: Where were you raised? What was it like?
Grandpa: I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. I thought it was a good place to grow up. There were lots of things to do like playing baseball, basketball, and football.

ES: What was the most important thing to you as a 12 year old?
Grandpa: I liked doing well in school. I liked to make friends and play sports.

ES: What kind of movies did you like?
Grandpa: I liked western movies. It made me feel at home because those movies were mostly made in places like Utah.

ES: What was going on in the world that you paid attention to when you were in the sixth grade?
Grandpa: I remember when the polio vaccine was distributed to all the people in America.

ES: Tell me about transportation when you were a kid. How did you get around?
Grandpa: I rode my bicycle to go see friends. I rode the bus every once in a while to go downtown. We had a car, and sometimes my Mom would drive me places.

ES: What was your favorite music? Why?
Grandpa: I liked Broadway shows, show tunes, and albums. I liked it because it was entertaining.

ES: What kind of family activities did you do?
Grandpa: We went to many of my mother’s family gatherings for holidays. The family went to Yellowstone almost every year.

ES: What was school like?
Grandpa: School was broken into two classes. I stayed in the same room all day, and the teachers would come to our classroom.

ES: What did you think of computers?
Grandpa: There were no computers when I was twelve.

ES: What did you like to do in your spare time?
Grandpa: I played sports, read books, and played with friends in the neighborhood.

ES: What kind of clothing did people wear?
Grandpa: I wore jeans and shirts – but shirts with collars, not T-shirts. Not too different from what kids wear today.

I suggested that ES elaborate a bit on the answers, as I was listening on the extension (of course) for some of the responses, and my father is much more eloquent than my eleven-year-old makes him sound. My father has had one of the more fascinating lives I’ve ever heard of – and I read a lot. Dad was raised Mormon, to a (mostly) single mother in SLC. He is Horatio Alger’s fantasy. An MBA, an accomplished executive, a successful family man, a well-travelled and extremely tolerant and kind individual, and the only person who has carte blanche in disciplining my children (that means a lot). All this, even with those unfortunate mutton chops he sported through much of my childhood. *smirk*

My father is my hero, and other than Hubby – who has many of my father’s best qualities (again, of course) – I have never met his equal.

My father puts me in mind of Joseph - Jesus’s father. (I’m not making any comparisons between myself and Jesus here – that would just be stupid. I’m thinking only of the best men I know.)

Not his kid. Not his responsibility. Not his problem.

The reason my father is my hero is that things that are important become his problem. He is good, way down deep. A good man, every day. He makes mistakes, but even so… a good man. What a rarity. What a fabulous measuring stick I have had my whole life. What a life I have had because he decided he wanted me in it.

I am sad because my son might never know what an enormous influence his grandfather has had on him, on his parents, on the world he inhabits. I could try to tell him, but ES would pretend to listen, and eventually, his eyes will roll. I know this is true, as I am his mom, after all. If ES follows my map, evetually he will see it. I hope I am raising the kind of people who can, as my father did.

So, Dad, thanks for saving my son’s bacon tonight, and letting your dinner get cold while you listened to my son stutter through an ill-conceived interview. It is one of the many things you have done to enrich all our lives. Thanks for giving me the life I have, the knowledge I would never have had without you, and the measuring stick to make them all make sense. 

Thanks for giving me a map, and teaching me how to read it.

And, gifted with the children I am currently raising, I have to thank you for something that may be a little odd, but if you lived in my house, it would make sense:

Thanks, Dad, for teaching me Math.

I love the Barenaked Ladies, and this song is as catchy a tune as I’ve heard since Tom Lehrer sang the elements. Enjoy!

I tried to buy a paper tonight. Stem cell breakthrough – all over the press.

But Bangladesh wins, folks. 3,100 dead. That’s two thousand more people than I know. My heart hurts.

We’re always still people. They’re still people. I want to wrap my arms around them and tell them — really — that I’m glad it was them and not me. Not my children. I offer my home to them – as long as my kids aren’t there.

You and yours are welcome to my home; just don’t ever make me fear tomorrow the way you do.

I suck. I know it. Spoiled brat. I’m a complete wuss these days. I was much more feisty before I loved children.

But I’m so glad my boys are home and in their beds, hating me because I slacked on the recent fundraiser, so they’ll never get enough points to win those goofball magnets. The whatever they were gonna win. Youngest shouted at me tonight that “It’s always your fault, Mom!’.

Fine. My fault. Perfectly happy to take the heat, as long as my boys are strong and well. My fault. I didn’t buy the wrapping paper. I didn’t give you a YouTube account. BAD MOM – you can hate me all you want. No cyclones. No wildfires.  No scary men breaking into my home like they did to Kathy, to Ruby – I’ll never get over that.

No 3100 dead neighbors. No wrecked homes – no wrecked lives.

Always Mom’s fault, because the big choices always go to Mom. That’s why y’all get to keep blaming us, so many years later. Big choices are Mom’s – with Dad right behind, wearing the white hat. But we all remember Kathy opened the door – what is her husband’s name? He was a successful musician. Popular around here. Well liked.

I think it was Bryan. I don’t remember.

Ruby and Stella – we will never forget their faces.

Cruel as I may be, Mom is the one who holds, who hangs on. Mom is Kathy Harvey (God rest you, girl.). Mom is the one who stays, and tries, and holds.

I think of these things when my children scream at me and tell me I’m bad. Dad bought him the bow-and-arrow; Mom made him finish his homework before we went to Grandmas’.

I repair my heart by knowing that one day, they’ll see it. My choices. Maybe they’ll see that I made the best choice. Maybe they’ll just blame me.

But at least that gives them someone else to blame.

Hope so.

Hubby and I saw Beowulf this weekend. Uh, not so much.

It probably would’ve been better in 3D, but even that wouldn’t change the most basic flaw: none of the characters is worth caring about. (Except maybe Grendel. I ended up feeling sorry for him.) The movie may not be as tedius as the original poem, but it’s a bit tedius nonetheless.

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My book club recently finished Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. I was intrigued to read it, as Mr. Palahniuk wrote Fight Club, so I was expecting some real mental exercise.

Not so much.

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Took the boys to Maymont Park today. Nice day for it.

Maymont is the Victorian era home of railroad magnate James Dooley and his wife Sallie. It’s one of the favorite landmarks in Richmond, and a hugely popular site for weddings and such. There’s also an animal farm and nature center, which the kids love. It was lovely today, in all its fall colors.

The boys at the nature center:

Lookin’ at the animals:

Lovely foliage and fighting children:

I think I’m going next week to a wreath-making class here. We have this crazy old wreath that Hubby’s dad made forever ago, but Hubby won’t let me leave it in the attic. Maybe if I make one myself, Hubby will let me hang it instead…

Here’s Maymont from the James River:

Pretty, huh? I encourage y’all to visit.

So I’m surfing the web yesterday, and I come upon this photo:

This is a group of manmade islands shaped like the world. And I think to myself, ‘Self, is this real or a Photoshop creation?’ So I do some investigating. Turns out it’s real, and snuggled just off the coast of Dubai. And it’s spectacular.

This leads me to further investigation, as the only thing I really know about Dubai is that it’s in the UAE, is home to the world’s largest indoor snow park (in the desert. Who thunk that one up?), and there was some hullabaloo about ports a few months ago.  Not a lot of info. So I dig around a little bit, and what do I find?

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So I’ve decided to try my hand at this ‘Second Life’ business. So far, I can’t even figure out how to change my avatar. Apparently, I’m a nudnick.

Hi, guys. Been a while. In keeping with Scalzi’s Law, here’s a pic of a cat:

I have a lot of ground to cover, as I haven’t written in a couple of weeks. First up – Halloween. Then I’ll get to my high school reunion, then probably talk some more about my kids, and then I’ll be all caught up!

Trick-or-treating this Halloween was a big ole’ letdown. I took the kids to my mother-in-law’s neighborhood, thinking the pickings would be riper there (Hubby said he cleaned up when he was young). Not so much. I think trick-or-treating is going the way of the dodo. Bummer.

So I took the boys to a local church where they were having a festival. That was fun. The boys rode  a gyroscope, bounced in a moon-bounce, and rode a slide that looked like the Titanic while listening to a pretty good band. They had a much better time doing that, so like many of my contemporaries, I think next year I’ll just take them to the festival and buy the candy the day after when it’s 50% off!

“Dark” Vader and the Demon:

Youngest Son as Elvis:

Middle Son as Stewie:

OK, so gotta go run some errands, but I’ll be back later tonight. Hope to hear from y’all in the comments – let me know you’re still out there!