rivka

My mothering skillz: Let me show U them.



The picture I took of the antechamber/courtyard didn't turn out as well. This is a hollowed-out but roofless section of snowdrift. Alex is reclining on a little snow bench.



She has taken to shouting out from time to time, "It's the SNOWPOCALYPSE!" I'm glad we've raised her well.

Here's the "If I could..." edition. You guys ask good questions.

kazoogrrl: If you worked at Colonial Williamsburg, you would be what kind of historical reenactor, and why?

If we are fantasizing that I would have any skills I might need to obtain such a position, I'd like to be in the dressmakers'/milliners' shop, preferably focusing on fine embroidery. When we were there in November, there was a woman sitting in a sunny window embroidering the most stunning piece of white-on-white lace. I really enjoy fine needlework, but I don't have much time (okay, any time) to work on it. It would be pleasant to have a lot of time to develop those skills and share them with others, in a mellow and conversational setting.

If we're thinking about positions I might legitimately be qualified for, I'd probably wind up doing historical dance performance. Which is funny, because I'm about the least athletic or graceful person ever, under ordinary circumstances. But I've done quite a bit of English Country Dancing, and I love it, and I'm good at it.

pameladean: What are three things you'd do to your house if you could?

0. Buy it. I would love to own this house instead of renting it. But I know that's not what you meant, so I'm making it #0.

1. Put decking on the porch outside our bedroom, so that it can be walked on without damaging the roof surface. I understand why our landlord never did that - that short short railing would create a massive liability risk, and you couldn't put a real, safe-height railing in because the historical preservation people would throw a fit.

2. Insulate the kitchen and the pantry. They're just kind of hanging off the back of the house, with nothing underneath them and nothing around them, and they get so cold in the winter that for a while the olive oil congealed.

3. Rip out the 70's-era paneling and dropped ceiling in the third floor guest room. Then, eventually, we could convert it to our bedroom and turn our gorgeous current bedroom, with its floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, into a study for the whole family. Right now our desks are crammed into the dining room instead.

moobabe: If you could do anything (job/hobby/etc) that you can't or don't do right now, what would it be?

Homeschool. This is in the works for a year and a half from now, when Alex is scheduled to start kindergarten. Michael and I hope to both work part-time and both share in the homeschooling. I'd kind of like to get started sooner, although I recognize that the older Colin is when we start the easier things will be. (Oops, here I am bringing in kids/parenting again, and violating the purpose of the meme.)

duanekc: If you had unlimited time and budget, would you travel? Where, and why? With or without family? Are there places you would like to see just by yourself, or is traveling without family unthinkable?

Oh, gosh. I haven't traveled that much, and I have a long list of places I'd like to go. I would love to go on safari in Africa. I'd like to see Egypt and Petra. I would like to do a rain forest/beach/snorkeling trip in central America. I would like to go on a cruise. I would like to cross the US and Canada by transcontinental rail. I would like to visit Vietnam. I would like to take the kids to Disneyworld.

I don't like to leave my kids for longer than a few days - at least, I can't imagine doing that until they're much older. So although I see definite advantages to familyless travel that'd be pretty far in my future. I think it will start being feasible for us to do significant travel when Colin is about the age that Alex is now. I have this family adventure travel site bookmarked, and it is a frequent stop for fantasizing.

castiron: What craft skill (where craft could be anything from sewing to blacksmithing to origami to small engine repair) would you most like to learn?

Quilting.

johnpalmer: Is there any one thing that you wish you had blogged about, but even if you were blogging, it's been *way* too long, so you can't blog about it now... but oh, it was *important*, and you really wanted to say something about it!

What was it? What did you want to say?

I wish I had finished my series on physician-assisted suicide, because it's a topic that I think many, many smart and ethical and well-meaning people are misguided about. I may be getting back to doing some writing on that in the near future.

This is probably a shocking confession coming from an American - especially one who lived in the midwest for five years - but until today I had never been to a state or county fair. I didn't grow up in a fair-going family, and I don't tend to like thrill rides, so I never really saw the point.

But, you know. We looked at the Maryland State Fair website, and it was impossible to deny that Alex would love it. Plus, it was on the light rail, so we wouldn't even have to drive. So we went for it. It turned out to be a great experience for all three of us.

Rides are expensive. We went on three rides, and it cost a total of $30. Alex rode the flying elephants with Michael (and loved it) and the carousel with me (mixed reaction - the carousel at the zoo is better). Then all three of us rode the 100-foot-high ferris wheel. I had never been on such an enormous ferris wheel before. It was amazing. Not only could you see the whole fair, you could also see a large portion of the surrounding countryside. Alex was technically five inches too short to ride, but fortunately the guy running the ferris wheel didn't give a damn.

The coolest stuff was happening in the Cow Palace, though. They had a Birthing Center set up in one corner. We were looking at chicks hatching in an incubator when a University of Maryland animal science student let me know that a cow was giving birth right then. So we made our way over to a large pen with bleacher seating surrounding it, and damned if there wasn't an animal tech narrating, "Okay, I can see the calf's nose..." We found seats, and ten or fifteen minutes later there was a wet, bedraggled calf lying on the straw. It was amazing. You could come up to within five feet of the mother and baby, and you could see everything. (I heard many hesitant conversations around me in which parents tried to explain the concept of "the afterbirth" to their kids. Because it was hanging out of the back end of the cow, that's why.) We watched the mother licking and licking the calf as it struggled to stand. Nearby were pens with an extremely pregnant cow and a day-old calf and its mother. I had never seen an animal giving birth before. What a neat experience!

Not far from the birthing center was a milking demonstration. For a dollar, Alex got to spend a couple of minutes hand-milking a Guernsey cow. A group of very kind, very elderly farmers ran the booth. They had one stool set up on each side, so two people at a time got to squirt some milk into a pail. We'd talked about "milk comes from cows" before, and the fact that all mammals make milk for their babies to drink, and then in the birthing center I showed her the cow's udder and explained that it was full of milk for the baby calf to drink. But still, until she pulled on the udder and actual milk that looks like what we actually drink came out, I think Alex had no real understanding of milk production. She was amazed.

On the way out, they gave her a frosty 8oz bottle of milk to drink. I thought that was a nice touch.

We spent a bunch of time by the horse ring, too. What I liked about the fair was the close-up immediacy of the animal areas. Animals at the fair are there to be shown, and the animal areas are set up for the convenience of the people showing animals. There was very little in the way of fences and barriers to keep the public at a distance. So when we wandered into the horse section, horses were ridden by just a couple feet away from us. We leaned up against the fence of the practice corral, watching the riders, for a while, and eventually sat down near the show ring and watched some teenaged girls jumping. It was a good time.

There were pig races. It was every bit as corny as it sounds, and yet kind of fun.

Also? There was a food booth run by the Maryland Watermen's Association, and so I had a soft-shell crab sandwich for lunch. Add your own lettuce-tomato-mayonnaise, and the tomatoes had obviously been grown on someone's farm rather than coming from the supermarket. They were INCREDIBLE. I put some on my sandwich and another pile next to my sandwich, and the lady running the booth just beamed at me and didn't say a word.

I just got a peek into the Home Arts building, because I was the only one in the family who was interested. If I'd had more time, I would have loved to look at all the needlework. I was surprised to see a cross-stitch that I recognized - it was the project I did before my current one. I had no idea that you could enter something you made from a kit, in a fair contest. I would've expected that they would require original designs, or something.

So: the fair was a great time. Consider me a convert.

...Now I want a Wii.

Voted on my way to work this morning. On a Diebold machine.

Now I am fretting. If Democrats can't pull this election off, they can't win anything. And I actually worry that it might be the case.

I am mortified that the Maryland Senate race is so close.

Fret fret fret.

LJ:
I just haven't felt much like updating, lately. I've half-written a bunch of posts in my head, but nothing makes it on to the screen. Instead I've been taking up much more worthwhile, productive online pursuits, like being the last person in the Western Hemisphere to discover Sudoku.

But posting takes my mind off fretting momentarily, so here's a mega-update of several disjointed areas. Bear with me.

( Work )
( Music )
( Alex's weight/diet/doctor's visit )
( Conversations with my daughter, Part IV )

Library book sale this weekend. Sadly, I completely misestimated the amount I was spending. When it rang up as $4.99, I realized that I had culled way too much from my pile - I could have bought a lot more. But by then it was too late.

It's hard for me to tell if I'm going to like a mainstream novel or not. I went over tables and tables of them without picking much of anything up. With SF and fantasy and mystery, I can often even pick up good clues about whether something is worth looking at from the title and book jacket. With mainstream novels, even the blurbs don't necessarily help me. I keep checking things out from the library and not liking them very much.

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We've started watching House so that we can fit in with the rest of my friends list. I like the show - bitter sarcasm can carry me a long way - but I can't help wondering:

Am I really supposed to believe that the reason this guy is constantly on the brink of being fired is because he's nonconformist and insubordinate, rather than, for example, because he almost kills every single patient via a succession of incorrect diagnoses?

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I went to Whole Foods to stock up on baby food and organic frozen vegetables, and was captivated by a display of tiny live Christmas trees. I've been debating whether the pleasure of having a tree this year would be overwhelmed by the hassle of keeping Alex away from it. (At least by next year she should understand what "no" means, even if she doesn't pay much attention.) I bought a little 18" pine for our dining room table. Now poor curiousangel has to dig through the massive piles of junk in our storage area to find the buried Christmas ornaments.

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After Michael gave Alex her bath, I came down to help get her ready for bed. She looked up and saw me coming down the stairs. Her face broke into a grin... and she clapped. Clapped with excitement because Mama was coming.

I am not ashamed to admit that I cried. And asked her if she wanted me to buy her a Corvette.

curiousangel and I just watched the final three episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I feel curiously unmoved. ( spoilers, obviously )

What I ought to do today:
1. Work on our overdue book chapter.
2. Post to Respectful of Otters.
3. Do my cardio workout at the gym.
4. Finish learning a weights routine from the personal trainer.
5. Go to covenant group.
6. Cook dinner.
7. Post an alt.polycon 12 notice to the newsgroup.
8. Send out an e-mail to line up one more usher for each of the next two Sundays.

What I want to do today:
1. Work on my new needlework project now that, after years and years, I've finally finished my old one.

I'm serious. That's all I want to do. I'm feeling distinctly sulky.

A couple of people asked how my first venture in dance calling went.

I think I did well. We had a small group of dancers, probably because (a) it was the first night of Passover, and (b) schools were out on spring break. So for Ashford Anniversary (the first dance I called) there were only two sets of three couples each, and for Well Hall there were eight couples. The small number of dancers made it much, much easier to keep track of whether people were going astray.

I called the first two dances after we broke for refreshments, so I had plenty of time to get nervous. I went up on stage and told the musicians, "I've never called before, so I have absolutely no idea how to talk to musicians." They cackled, but then kindly told me that all I really needed to do was give them advance warning of the last two repetitions. Two of the three of them - the fiddle player and the pianist - were among our very best musicians, so I was able to leave things like the tempo to them. I think with less experienced players, the caller does need to do more than just warn them when to stop, so this was great for my first time.

We had a mix of skill levels among the dancers: one absolute and ungifted beginner, two people who have been coming for a while but have been kind of slow to progress, and then a bunch of old hands. I mostly kept my eyes on the three people I was worried about, and spoke directly to them during the teaching.

The first thing I learned is that, although you ought to have notes, you can't look at them and call at the same time. It was a good thing I had the dances memorized, because I never had the chance to look down at my paper. It was also good that I'd planned out how I wanted to describe various dance moves, because I was nervous enough to be standing on stage that I doubt I would've had much skill at improvising explanations.

Both dances went smoothly. I had to call all the way through Ashford Anniversary, because we just do two repetitions of the dance and because the absolute beginner froze every single time we came to the chorus figure. (On the second time through the dance, when we got to the chorus I just called her part - "first woman, skip around" - because everyone else had it.) When they danced Well Hall, after the first few repetitions I was able to just relax and watch them dance, throwing in occasional words of advice ("take your time, don't rush this"). It's a lovely dance, one of my favorites as a dancer, but of course I'd never seen it from the stage before. I loved being able to see the whole set at once, moving forward and back in the graceful, sweeping patterns of the dance. Watching them, I felt a surge of warm tender emotions, and almost lost my place. (I was supposed to be keeping track of when a good time to stop would be.)

As I was coming down off the stage afterward, the president said, "That was the calling debut of Rivka Wald," and everyone applauded. I was so grateful he hadn't said it in advance! Many people had kind things to say, but I was glad to melt back into ordinary dancerhood. At the end of the evening, I was surprisingly exhausted. Who knows how people manage to call for an entire dance.