Name Changer

Just now, from across another world (I'm heart-deep in an Abraham Verghese novel, about which more later), I heard the kids cheering their dad on as he got his bike ready for the hour-long ride to work tomorrow. "Go dad, GO~Go dad, GO." I could barely recognize their voices.

Baby A (4) doesn't sound like a baby or a toddler, she sounds like a grown kid.

Li'l A (12) doesn't sound little, and the amusingly high voice he seemed to have inherited from me has faded into a sound that's the drawl of a 24-year-old reddit denizen.

Renaming time. Henceforth, Li'l A is "At" and Baby A is "Nu."

So it is written.

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New neck of the woods

It's completely out of character in that I was born and bred a city kid and will never go camping in my life (if I can help it--all bets off in the zombie apocalypse). BUT I love this house miles from nowhere, nearly an hour from work, and miles down a dirt road. Big A doesn't believe me when I say I'd live there happily.

But the views are incredible. It's kind of a good thing, I suppose, that no moves are imminent since Big A still doesn't know where his workplace will be...

Because a 17-year-old shouldn't be shot to death for "looking suspicious"

Read Michael Skolnik's piece on race profiling.


Sign the justice for Travon Martin petitions at change.org and the signon.org.


Call someone.


Make a noise.


Cry.

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A world is ending...

Sepia Mutiny (literally the reason I fell for blogging) has decided to fold.

Immense sad.

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Innocently

innocently, I am being killed

hands wrap around me like prayer

the stretch of my arms losing all hope

happily it is done and gone

in intervals of rain, fallen breath

whirling fantastic, flying into release 

a comet's fragment of track

this hand across my heart saving me 

an empty room to understand everything

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No Good, Very Bad Day

It's only March, but it feels like May. Warm and toasty. Earth's heating up. Global Warming.

And you can thank me (or kick me). I parked the car in the university parking lot at 9 (running late because Cousin N forgot that she'd promised to take Baby A to school), and returned to it at 10:45 (after several surprise student conferences). To FIND THE ENGINE STILL RUNNING.

The hybrid engine (yes, we have some half-assed intention of conserving fuel) is so quiet (and I had turned the radio down to ask for a visitor parking pass, because my parking permit was in the other car, which had to be TOWED to Columbus yesterday because it broke down) that I hadn't realized that the engine was on.

Home now with two kids sick with snot (and feeling like I deserve this).

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The Gift of the Police

The local police chief has grandkids similar in age to my kids--I rolled along in his wake this morning as he dropped off the older child at the middle school, and then turned around to drop off the younger one at the hippie alternative school Baby A goes to. Since he was driving under the 20 mph speed limit, I had plenty of time to notice that his license plates were the first three letters of Li'l A's name.

I told him in the parking lot that he has interesting license plates.

And... it turns out that the car is going to be auctioned.

So... if Li'l A wants, he can have the license plates.

And the best part is that they're undercover license plates.

I know at least one geeky tween who's going to be so happy on the ride back home!

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