Halloween 2014
Month: October 2014
After Dinner with the Boy
We're creatures of habit, the Boy and I. After dinner, there's really only one place to go. I could say it's an effort to get exercise, but I'm the only one really moving: the Boy, he's just laughing, chatting, fussing -- being a typical two-year-old.
We move in shapes -- triangles maybe -- from the driveway to the swing to the sandbox, back to the driveway.
There are always interruptions. A siren sounds in the distance, draws closer. The Boy stops and watches.
After a bit more digging, he declares it's time to go in. But on his way, it's time for a little work, and I get a glimpse into his bilingual reality. In typical E fashion, he begins raking and explaining what he's doing.
"To rake" in Polish is grabić. Before we head inside, he declares, "I'm grabing!"
Miś
A daughter of some Polish friends recently decided that she had outgrown an enormous plush bear that she had cherished for some time.
What to do with it? Goodwill? It’s a thought, but there’s no guarantee that the new owner will truly appreciate it.
And so she hit upon a simple idea: give it to L.
E, though, has also become completely obsessed with the teddy, miÅ› in Polish.
They seem to have the same obsession, though.
And so it’s a wonderful way to spend the last few moments of the evening before bath time. Until L decides she wants to take it back to her room.
Split Duty
The Girl had a birthday party to attend. It was to include her favorites: a dear friend and art.
I, meanwhile, spent the afternoon with the Boy, doing our favorite things.
Pumpkins
Denver Downs
Ten Years of MTS
Ten years ago, when K and I got married, I bought a domain name that was a clever (I thought) combination of our names: kingary.net. This domain name, in turn, came about when a friend, seeing our clever “kingary.net” suggested that it’s so corny that we’ll soon be wearing matching tracksuits. And then she bought this domain. And then I discovered Textpattern. And then I discovered WordPress. And the rest is sort of small-time history.
Ten years is a long time to keep a hobby, it seems to me.
Still
Most of the day has been in a blur. Everyone moving, though E starts with a bit of reading.
No time until it's evening, when K makes a deal with me: "Look after the kids now, and I'll get dinner ready." The Boy was already swinging, so I just kept up the rhythm, adding our little distinctives.
For example, the swing likes to break, it seems. At the top of the arc, it just stops, gets hung up on something. I push, I tug, and finally when I give it a bump, it gives way and continues on its way.
Another little trick: the foot grab. It's a delicate little move because the Boy's head seems like it could just pop back and crack the top of the swing seat if I'm not careful. It's the kind of move we do once or twice during a session, then I instantly regret it, because the Boy just wants more.
And of course the Girl's insistence that it's her turn causes more worries than a broken swing ever could: the Boy knows the broken swing is just a silly game, whereas the Girl's turn is not.
No Power
No power yesterday just as we were getting ready to head out...
Autumn Ritual
In years past, last Tuesday night's gathering would have filled a large-capacity auditorium, or even a civic center, like the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. They would have sat in dozens of rows on the floor, up risers, into the balcony area, and walking into the arena that first night would have produced an excitement in everyone that was audible.
Thousands of people, gathering for eight days, in locations all over the world. It would look something like this, except for more formal attire.
Part of my past that I haven't experienced in almost twenty years as best I can remember. Ninety-five was the last time, I think. Those gatherings have continued through those years, but my trajectory has gone in the opposite direction before veering back to something more like an eighty-degree angle: not quite the same beliefs, but certainly not a denial of all the beliefs.
Those gatherings have continued for the last twenty years, though the single, monolithic church organization that originally held it has splintered into almost countless pieces, with the organization itself changing its name and completely reversing most of its old doctrines -- like the required eight-day Old Testament festival observance -- so that it is indistinguishable from other mainline Protestant groups. The splinters that fell away have been keeping up the tradition, though, and last Tuesday night, in Bend, Oregon, a pastor opened the gathering with a message that has been repeated every fall with the regularity of the changing leaves.
They've been starting like that for decades now -- I still wonder every autumn how many more decades it will continue. When will a group that proclaims definitive prophetic events within our generation and has been proclaiming it in vain for something like seventy years (Germany will rise again, don't you know?) -- when will such a group (or in this case, groups) disappear for good? For how long can someone declare that "time is short" and warn people that a great confederation of European nations with Germany and the Vatican at the head will rise up and utterly decimate the United States? At which point does the hypothesis -- no, the sure prophecy -- become just too ridiculously and obviously wrong for anyone to take seriously?