Does Our Guinea Pig Need A Therapist?

Years ago when I lived in Northern California, a woman I knew took her dog to a therapist. Apparently, the dog had emotional “issues,” and she believed a dog therapist would help. (Let’s be clear, this was not an abused animal.) In any case, my thought was that her money would be better spent on a dog trainer. Years later, I understand what drove her to it.

This past summer, my son bought a guinea pig. Matthew has cared for pets for years. (He is the owner of the resurrection hamster.) And he’s a responsible, nurturing pet owner who is studying biology in college and wants to be a vet. In preparation for the GP, Matt read and memorized every book our library had on guinea pigs. So he is the ideal guinea pig owner. However, someone forgot to tell Charlie the Guinea Pig that.

Charlie is skittish. Months of patient guinea pig care, along with treats, proper exercise, guinea pig toys, and meticulous pen care haven’t phased Charlie. He still acts like we’re going to eat him for dinner.

When we come into the room where he resides, he scrambles for his igloo (the newest in small animal nesting places). Then, he plays dead in the igloo. Sometimes we can tempt him out with bits of carrot, his favorite food. But other times, he glares at us with beady eyes.

So I can understand why someone would take a pet to a therapist. Obviously, Charlie must have a personality disorder. After all, guinea pigs are supposed to be very social, loving creatures. And Charlie isn’t.

Of course, one other thought did occur to me. Maybe Charlie is just really, really dumb. Maybe he doesn’t realize that the hand that feeds and cares for him belongs to Matthew. Maybe he hasn’t figured out that greeting the “master” with chirps and squeaks would garner him more treats than hanging out in his igloo.

Or maybe, it’s the igloo… When Matt bought a GP igloo, the only color he could find was pink. And Charlie is a boy. So maybe he’s punishing Matt for buying him a pink igloo. Yeah, that’s probably it. I guess we’ll have to buy a blue one.

Wait, aren’t GPs color-blind? I guess we need to make a therapist appointment after all.

Charlie in one of his rare trips outside the pink igloo.

Preparing for the Holidays with a Seventeen Year Old Son

Here’s how you know (as if you could possibly be confused) that you’re preparing for the holidays with a seventeen year old son as your helper.

1. He surfs the wood floors with the new chair pads that he’s supposed to be putting on the chairs.

2. He makes the cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries because when you cook them, they explode.

3. You ask him to refill all the bathroom soap containers and he says, “That seems pretty menial.” Then, you casually mention that toilets need to be cleaned.

4. He’s eager to help because he’s gotten off school a day early to help.

5. He asks if he can choose music to listen to while you clean. You cringe and nod. Until Silent Night fills the air. Maybe Christmas music before Thanksgiving isn’t so bad. 

Autism and Black Beauty

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I try to post about autism every year on World Autism Day. Part of me really doesn’t want to write about autism. But part of me has to.

I have a sixteen year old son who’s autistic. In God’s wonderful mercy, our son has responded very well to various therapies and diet and has progressed from the pediatric neurologist’s encouragement, “Maybe he’ll learn to talk” to what our family calls, “eccentric.” But it’s been a long, long road. And I don’t always like to look back because it’s sometimes painful. But it’s marvelous too. And funny—if you don’t laugh in midst of suffering, you lose perspective.

One of the most difficult things during the first few years of Matt’s life was the lack of sleep. Matt only slept a few hours out of every 24. Sadly, many of the leftover hours were spent doing rhythmic crying.

Much of our life revolved around Matt’s sleeping. He’d be walking in the kitchen, fall asleep standing up and literally crash to the floor. Sometimes his face would smack the ground. But he was asleep. You’d think the crash would wake him, but it never did. Anything else, on the other hand, would. No one could touch him or even go in the room because if he woke up, he wouldn’t sleep again. Often not until the next day. My older kids remember me saying, “I don’t care if it’s lunchtime. No one is going into the kitchen until Matt wakes up.”

And, of course, my husband Calvin and I needed to sleep. So we’d put Matt in our bed between us (autistic kids can get into so much trouble without supervision) and turn on the VCR so Matt could watch Black Beauty—I’ve seen it 1000 times or more. He was completely fixated on the movie. And every time the fire started in the barn, Matt would wake us up. I remember Cal saying, “Matt, you know that Black Beauty is going to be okay. This is the second (or third) time you’ve watched this movie tonight. In fact, you’ve seen this movie multiple times every night for the past couple of years. I promise you, Black Beauty is not going to die in the fire.” When Matt was asleep, Cal and I would sometimes giggle and devise ways for Black Beauty to die.

But having Matt awake and watching BB was better for Cal and me than when Matt actually slept because Matt slept sideways. So the three of us would be in bed, forming the letter H. Cal and I would be huddled on the edges of the bed, trying not to fall out. We couldn’t go sleep on the couch because if we moved even a little bit, Matt would wake up. And during the winter when Matt would shove the blankets to the bottom of the bed, I’d tell myself I wasn’t cold because if I pulled the blankets up, Matt would wake up.

Thankfully, ten years later, we sleep better. Though I’ll still wake up cold and wonder why I didn’t pull up the blankets. I guess old habits are hard to break. And as for Black Beauty. Cal and I are never, ever watching that movie again.

Friday Five

Here’s a peak into our home—five statements that Kellers made this week.

1. Ariel was complaining about a proof for Modern Algebra. Luke told her, “Next semester take Post-Modern Algebra, and you won’t have to write any proofs.”

2. This election is the first time Jacob will vote. So he’s been avidly watching political pundits and quoting them to us. “Candidate X will steal your money, burn your house, and kill your cat. I’m Candidate Y, and I approve this message.”

3. I was singing along to a song in the car. Luke said to me, “That’s a heinous song.” I said, “No, it’s not. It’s about the transitory-ness of life and enjoying the one you love. Death could be around the corner.” Luke said, “Uh, Mom, the song’s about a one-night stand.” Me, “Oh…now you’ve ruined it for me.”

4. Matt’s learning to drive. “Wouldn’t it be cool if they made semi-automatic cars? Then you’d be able to change gears without using a clutch.”

5. “Life is like a melon. The question is whether you’re the fleshy part or the rind.” I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean, but it’s the kind of thing Matt says as walks through the house.

Image from Wikimedia

Playing the PSAT Game

My youngest child takes the PSAT next week. So I’ve been helping him prepare.

The reading sections are his favorite, so he doesn’t need any help with those.

Then, there are the math sections. Matthew isn’t bad at math, but he has the same issue that I do—calculator error. I reverse numbers. (I’m really bad with phone numbers.) So when you’re moving numbers back and forth from the page to the calculator back to the page a couple of times, you’re almost guaranteed an error. So we look for shortcuts.

For example: “Look if you draw a line here, then you can turn the triangle into a 3, 4, 5 triangle and solve the problem in your head.” (Our brains don’t confuse the numbers, it’s the whole brain, eye, hand thing.)

Of course, other problems are so convoluted in terms of calculator use that I tell Matt don’t waste your time because you’ll have to double check your calculator work too many times. (This is why I hated chemistry in college. I’d have to run the numbers through the calculator multiple times and get many different answers.)

Then Matt and I got to the writing section. Having helped several kids prepare for the PSAT, I knew that I needed a deep breath. The PSAT writing section is not about good writing. It’s about using sentences to test grammar—sometimes. Other times, it’s just…horrid.

So we went over the questions that Matt missed on the pretest. I read the “question,” which isn’t really a question but a list of five sentences and they tell you to “pick the best one.” All five sentences sucked. I said, “These are bad.”

Matt said, “Uh, yeah.”

I said, “Why did you pick C.”

Matt: “Why not?”

Me: “Right.” I take another deep breath and begin to take apart the sentences.

“Okay, A is wrong because the pronoun and its antecedent don’t match—one is plural and the other is singular.”

“And E is wrong because, well, I’ve never seen anything written that poorly before. That clause stuck in the middle totally destroys the flow of the sentence—and I’m not even sure what they think it’s supposed to be modifying. If you wrote this, I’d make you rewrite it.”

“D is wrong because the verb’s in present perfect tense and the action was actually completed in the past.”

“B is wrong because it doesn’t have parallel structure in the verbs.”

Then, I read answer C—the wrong answer that Matt chose. “It’s in passive voice, Matt, so that’s why it’s wrong.”  I thought for a moment. “Wait a minute, I’ve ruled out every answer.”  So I looked the question up in the back of the book. The correct answer was E.

I was dumbfounded.

I looked at Matthew. “I’m sorry, buddy. This is really lame. You’re going to have to “game” the system. Don’t look for good writing. Just try to pick the sentence that has the least number of grammar and usage errors.”  

As we moved on, I realized that some of the questions were based on idioms—it was basically a match the correct preposition to the idiom. Really? That tests writing ability? I don’t think so. (And, let me just say, I’ve never heard of some of these “idioms.”) Does the ability to do this makes you smart? Does it make you a good candidate for scholarships?

Don’t get me wrong, my hat’s off to the kids who become National Merit Scholars. I know a lot of National Merit Scholars. And, yes, they will do very well in college because they are very bright students—they have to be. And ultimately, that is what the PSAT predicts. So it does what it sets out to do. But as for testing writing ability, not so much.

Standardized testing should dump the “writing” section. If you want to test grammar, then test grammar. If the test makers want to test students’ ability to use words and their ease in doing so, they should go back to analogies (those were actually fun).

In the meantime, I’ll keep telling Matt, “It’s a game. Play it the best you can, and then let it go.”

Why I Don't Need Entertainment

I don’t need sit-com entertainment in my life. I have children. Here’s what it’s like:

  

1.   Matt: “Hey, Mom, your horoscope says don’t make any financial decisions that would rock the boat.”

     Me: “Why do I care?”

     Matt: “So where’s your wallet?”

2.  Matt to Luke: “You’d better watch out. Or I’ll sneak up behind you with my love and kill you.”

3.  Matt and Ariel: “Movies are rated R for two reasons. Lack of clothes. Or, lack of skin (gore).”

4.  Ariel: “My prof said math proofs are like dresses. They have to be short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the subject.” (It was a class full of girls, and they thought it was hilarious.)

5.  Ariel (scanning Netflix looking for something to watch): "So there’s this cooking show, and it’s rated R. Does it involve disembowelment?"

6.  Matthew: “I’ve decided that Jezebel (our dog) has a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

7.  Matthew while eating lunch: “You are what you eat…I hope that doesn’t apply to PB&J.”

8. Matt: "Cynicism?! I don't believe in cynicism!"

Shakespeare Costumes

Today is begins Shakespeare Camp--this year they are performing Much Ado About Nothing. Since auditions in February, Jacob and Matthew have been memorizing lines and working on blocking. I've been sewing costumes. Every day this week, the entire cast will meet and rehearse. Then they'll have performances on Thursday and Saturday.

Here's a photo of Matthew in his Claudio attire. (His tunic is made of brown velvet, which didn't want to stretch the same way as the lining fabric. grrr.)

Here's photo of Jacob dressed as Benedick, striking a pose. (Yes, I sewed the hat and gauntlets as well as the tunic and shirt. But I made those last year.)

If you love Shakespeare or costumes, here are some links to other costumes I've made over the years. more costumes, even more costumes, and still more costumes. I've got even more costumes, but a couple of years I didn't post photos.

Autism

April is Autism Awareness Month. I think I have mentioned it on the blog before, but I haven’t talked about it much because it’s my son’s story not mine. But I think other people could use the encouragement to perseverance of knowing Matt’s story. Our son Matthew is autistic. He was diagnosed when he was two years old. The doctor told my husband and I that our son might eventually learn to talk. Then, he handed us the card of a support group and told us to come back in six months.

The next years were hard. Our son didn’t sleep. Okay, he did sleep some—3 hours out of every 24. He sent the rest of the nights screaming. Cal and I took turns sleeping and rocking a child who tried to throw himself out of our arms. I discovered that if you miss enough sleep over enough days, you will have visual hallucinations.

The other kids learned to sleep through the screaming. They learned that Matt would be walking and fall over asleep. And where he fell, there he slept. And no one, on threat of death, would walk through the room where Matt was sleeping.

But as Matt’s occupational therapist once said, “Everything went right for Matthew.” He got an early diagnosis back when most autistic kids didn’t get a final diagnosis until they were five—and the brain was set. We started Matt on the Autism Diet, which had a huge impact on his communication abilities. Matt had an amazing occupational therapist who believed there was a way to “save” these kids, back when one no believed they could be helped. She explained why he banged his head against the wall, why he did rhythmic screaming, and why he’d flap his hands and spin and spin and spin. She taught him to put his hands out when he fell so he wouldn’t land on his face. He helped him strengthen the muscles in his mouth and tongue so he could talk clearly. And she taught us how to touch and comfort him without causing him pain.

And then, she gave all of us work to do. Cal, the kids, and I all worked with Matt—every waking hour. Jake’s job was to keep Matt from slipping into his own world, to force Matt to participate in the real world and interact with people. (If you know Jacob, you know that this is the perfect job for him—he’s, uh, tenacious.) The occupational therapist told us that Jacob was God’s gift to Matthew.

And God blessed everything we did, all the years of Matthew’s hard work and ours. Matt’s almost sixteen now. And he’s as “normal” as the rest of us. In fact, in what seems to me to be the ultimate irony, Matthew loves acting and last year played Puck in our local Shakespeare troupe's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Our goal was that Matt would be eccentric. And there aren’t many eccentricities he has left. Does he still have some things he struggles with? Yes. But so do I.

Yesterday, I read an article in USA Today about the latest autism research, particularly the work of Dr. Geraldine Dawson, whose research into the genetic links of autism we have been a part of. A new day is dawning for autistic people. They are amazing individuals with tremendous gifts. And I am so thankful that they now have a future that’s looking brighter.

Shakespeare Tryouts and Writing

Today Matthew and Jacob have Shakespeare tryouts. They’ve got their lines memorized, and they’ve worked through the blocking. And this afternoon, they’ll try out for the same role, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. That should be interesting. (The director is also casting for The Tempest, so one or both may be in that play.)

I go to tryouts for moral support. But it’s so hard. I root for all the kids and my heart breaks for the ones who struggle, especially for the ones who’ve never done it before. I want to shout, “Honey, project, we can’t hear you.” And afterwards, I want to console them. I want to tell them that even if it didn’t go well, getting on stage is the first step. And if they persevere, the next year will be better because they’ll know how to project. They’ll know that in stage acting you must always face the audience. And they’ll know how to use the stage and how to gesture.

It strikes me that there are many parallels between acting and writing. While it’s true that some people are more naturally gifted than others, everyone starts as a newbie. The first story/novel you write isn’t going to be very good. In fact, it’s going to be quite bad. Just like the actor who turns his back to the audience while speaking, the writer has to learn not to chase after irrelevant sub-plots. You may love scrapbooking and describing how to cut beautiful paper, etc. But if it doesn’t impact your novel in more ways than giving your MC a hobby, you need to leave it out. And just like the actor who doesn’t know how to project until he can practice on a stage, you have to learn how to choose your words so that your voice shows through and not your thesaurus.

Recently, a blog friend got a rejection on an R&R (an agent asked her to "revise and resubmit" her manuscript). I’ve been there, so I know how much that hurts. To be so, so close to having your dreams come true, and then having your dreams trampled on. But just as the actor who gets a small role, it’s a step in the right direction. Getting a small role means you’re a step closer to getting a big role. Getting a request for an R&R means that the agent thinks you and your writing have real potential. Who knows what may happen next time? Unlike a lot of things in life, you can only get so far reading books on writing/acting, the real education comes in the doing—you must write/tryout, you must hone your skills, and above all you must never give up.

Chicken Pox

Wednesday Matthew said to me, “Mom, would you look at my back. I’ve got all these itchy pimples.” At the words “itchy pimples,” a muscle in my face twitched. A shudder went down my spine. And a voice in my head said, “Oh, no.”

I said, “Let me see, Matt.” So he lifted up his shirt. And my suspicions were confirmed. “Matt, sweetie, those aren’t itchy pimples. Those are chicken pox.” My fifteen year old son, who has had the chicken pox vaccine AND who had chicken pox twelve years ago, has CP again! This is NOT supposed to happen.

Luke, Ariel, and Jacob all expressed their disapprobation in varying ways as they contemplated the possibility of getting chicken pox before/during finals. To keep the peace, every surface of the house has been sanitized and Matt has been banished to our bedroom though everyone realizes that they’ve already been exposed.

Matt, who now has pox everywhere, is getting by on Benadryl, oatmeal baths, hydrocortisone, books and movies. His plan is to watch the entire extended version of the Lord of the Rings. In the meantime, we’re all scrutinizing every red dot/spot that shows up on our skin.

Incubation is 10 to 21 days. So if we don’t get the pox by December 8, the last day of finals, we should be good to go for the rest of the holidays. If I don’t comment on a lot of your blogs in the next month or so, you’ll know why—we’ll be having a Jolly Spotted Christmas.

(Note: If you’ve been waiting to buy Screwing Up Time, now’s the time. I’ve put it on sale for 99 cents for the holidays.)

And here’s something fun. "Christmas Can-Can." Give it a moment--it starts kind of slow.

Zombie Pandemic

I don’t get the whole zombie fascination. What is it about bloody semi-dead humans? I mean they’re not really scary—they seem incapable of rational thought. So even if there was a zombie apocalypse, it doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to defeat them. Of course, the whole undead-so-you-can’t-kill-them thing does make it a bit hard. But it seems to me that it wouldn’t be too hard to round them up a la the Pied Piper routine and take them out. I’m guessing that zombies are susceptible to RPGs. Once they are separated from their entrails, I’m guessing they’re a done deal. (That might be too gory, but I’ve got boys in the house so entrails are a hot topic.)

Jake and Matt are fascinated by zombies. Jake has made a zombie game, which is actually pretty fun since it’s a competitive/cooperative game and the only way you can survive the zombie onslaught is to work together. Matt draws murals on our big white board of the zombie apocalypse. Just when I thought my boys were getting too obsessed, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) put out a Preparedness 101 novella, Zombie Pandemic. Yep, find out how you too can survive the Zombie Pandemic. Click here. The art is pretty impressive. 

My Week Of Relaxation

Last Friday I finished the first draft of the sequel to Screwing Up Time. This week was supposed to be my week of relaxation. Week of Relaxation. I may have said those words, but I didn’t really mean them. What I meant was “my week to catch up on all the things that I slacked off on when I was writing.” (See this post.)

So did I get the yard work done? No, I didn’t even get Round-up sprayed. Instead, precious child number three, Jake, had a midterm in Calculus 2 (he’s taking a dual enrollment class—college and high school credits at the same time). Now you’d think that child one, Luke, and child two, Ariel, who are fulltime students at the university would be able to squeeze Jake into their schedule and transport him to review sessions/office hours. You’d be wrong. Luke and Ariel have jobs with weird hours. I drove Jake back and forth, even one time when guess what—the prof wasn’t available. I just love those car trips with no purpose.

Did I get the ironing done? Sort of. I got a pile finished, but not the one I wanted. I wanted to get Cal’s winter dress pants/shirts out of storage, washed, and ironed. (Our old house has miniscule closets.) I didn’t even get the clothes out of the basement. Child four, Matt, was taking the PSAT this week and needed help with the bizarre writing section—I had to explain that “B” was the right answer because the clause was modifying the correct noun even though it broke a grammar rule. I hate defending bad writing.

Did I get the refrigerator cleaned and washed? No. (Though I did throw out the scary food.) Instead, I helped Ariel get information sent off for a summer internship. You’d think that getting a transcript would be easy. At UTC, she just walks into the records office and they print one up. At Chatt State, she had to submit a request form and wait up to TEN days. And they don’t allow you to call and ask if it’s ready. And you actually have to drive down to the campus to find out. Seriously. When it was finally done, we had to fax everything. Except the fax machine was down at the site Ariel had to fax it to. It was finally back up five minutes before Ariel and Jake had to leave for class—Jake had his midterm waiting. He was doing the “I’d better not be late to my midterm.” I was promising, “You won’t be late. You won’t be late.”

So I’m looking forward to next week and getting back to writing. I never get anything done when I’m “relaxing.” 




N.B. If you're interested in discovering which character you're most like in Screwing Up Time, click here.

Lying About Writing

My baby is taking the PSAT today. For those of you who aren’t Americans, PSAT stands for Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. Of course, he’s not really preliminary yet—that would be next year when he’s a junior. So this is a practice preliminary SAT. Which seems kind of redundant to me. But we take testing very seriously in the US. Though not as seriously as Europe.

Matt’s spent the last two weeks preparing for the PPSAT. (Not to be confused with the SSAT—secondary scholastic aptitude test, which is given to junior high students hoping to get into very academic high schools. Or at least it was when I was young.) Anyway, Matt was preparing by taking a PSAT prep writing quiz. He got an answer wrong and called me over.

Basically, he was supposed to read a sentence and then decide whether the sentence was correct as is, or if one of four other sentences presented the same information but in a better way. I read the sentence. I paused. What?? I re-read the sentence. I paused again. It was a piece of crap sentence with more clauses than Santa. Hmm. At least I knew it wasn’t “correct as is.” Then I read the four other sentences. Whoa. They were worse. Misplaced clauses. Weird verb issues. Parenthetical tripe.

Me: Uh, Matt, the right answer was “correct as is.”

Matt: But it doesn’t even make sense.

Me: It sort of does.

Matt: scowling and thinking “If I wrote that, you’d lecture me and make me rewrite it.”

Me: Okay, you’re right. The sentence is terrible, but it’s better than the other choices.

Matt: These tests are stupid.

Me: Yeah.

Part of me understands why they test the kids on these kinds of sentences. If you’ve ever read a college textbook, you know too. Academic writing isn’t too concerned with clean writing. (I know, I worked in the Academic Press division of Harcourt.) For example, Luke is taking Scientific Writing for Chemists this semester, and all he does is give Powerpoint lectures on really exciting stuff like Acid-Base Theory. I understand that they’re preparing him to be a professor or a researcher because unless he was forced, Luke would never learn to use Powerpoint. But maybe, writing classes should encourage clean writing. Crisp sentences communicate clearly. Stuffy, pedantic writing isn’t smarter. It’s just stuffy.

If they did that, then the PSAT could have examples of good writing. And Matt would be happy. And I wouldn’t have to explain why a terrible sentence was really not terrible. I hate lying.

Vacation Photos

I promised some vacation photos. Here are a couple.

Ariel doing computer work in the car on the drive to NC.

The boys and a friend at an artillery park.

A photo of the moon rise last night at the beach. It's beautifully pink because there was a controlled forest fire going on.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. We're having a relaxing time.

Game Crazies

Matt’s still sick. And everyone’s getting tired of it. Especially Matt. He’s decided he has Black Death. He’s been known to break out in singing “Ring Around the Rosies,” which Wikipedia says is not about the plague. But I’m not sure how else you’d explain the nursery rhyme.

However, since Matt has gastrointestinal issues and not an upper respiratory infection, the plague is doubtful. But he points to his rash (which my doctor friends call “viral exanthem”—cool word) as confirmation of his self-diagnosis. He’s been known to moan, “My rash is getting black rings.” Thankfully, he’s too tired to go get a sharpie and start circling them.

Because the rashes are itchy and we’ve tried everything else, I gave him oral Benadryl. I really, really should have known better. Matt doesn’t process medications that same way most people do. He became very hyper. There’s nothing like a hyper 14-year-old who says, “I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m bored.” Thankfully, Jacob came to the rescue. He got out characters from our games “Aunt Millie’s Millions” (a game where you fight over a deceased woman’s possession—it’s actually very funny because you make up wild stories in order to get the asset and the rest of the players vote on whether your story is good enough) and "Guillotine" (seriously, it’s a game about collecting heads). Okay, I need to insert a caveat here. Those games make us sound like psychopathic crazies. We’re not. At least, not all of us are.

Back to Jacob, he took these characters and made up this long interactive story/game involving all the games’ characters. Jacob has made up a lot of games over the years. My favorite one was "Zombies." It's a competitive/ cooperative game where you’re locked in a house and attacked by zombies, and in typical teenage boy fashion you can slow down the zombies by giving them raw meat, or you can kill them with explosives or flame throwers.

Hmm. Maybe we are a bit demented, but in a good way. I can’t wait to play the new game he’s working on—I see cards lying around the house, but he won’t tell me what the game’s about. Apparently, everyone he knows reads my blog, and he knows I’ll blog about the game. Smart boy.

Jaws

I finally saw Jaws. I didn’t intend to see Jaws. In fact, I had no desire to see Jaws, ever. But the boys were interested. And they have an ace up their sleeve—grandparents. The boys and my dad made some kind of deal, and my dad ordered it from Netflix.

When I heard the plan, Cal assured me that it wasn’t about bimbos-in-bikinis-being-bitten. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the alliteration.) So we watched it last night after my dad and Cal’s birthday party. I’m not sure what my 92 year old grandmother thought of the shark flick, but she probably fell asleep during the movie.

Of course, the shark left something to be desired for people jaded by amazing CGI. But back in the day, I’m sure viewers screamed instead of thinking, “They just need to biff that shark on his rubber nose.”

I have to say I enjoyed it, although maybe not for the reasons that director/writer/producer intended. I loved the leisure suits, the poufy hairdos, the over the top emotional outbursts of the crazed shark hunter. And who doesn’t love Richard Dreyfus’s sarcastic commentary, “I’m not going to talk to this guy ‘cause he’s getting in line to be a hot lunch.”

Speaking of Richard Dreyfus, if you haven’t seen What About Bob?, see it. I can describe it in two words: Death Therapy.

Living With The Bubble

When I work on a novel, I enter what my kids call “the writing bubble.” Once I’m in it, I’m physically present, but mentally gone. My kids have been known to abuse this*. For example, I’ve given permission for Matt and Jake to play computer games for the rest of their natural lives. Of course, I’ve rescinded this blanket permission. The current rule is that for every two minutes of piano you practice, you get one minute of computer time. You’d think that they practice a lot. They don’t, not more than the minimum requirement.

Yesterday when I came out of the writing bubble, I found them on the computer playing games.

Me: Hey, you don’t have permission to play computer games.

Jake: We’re not.

Me: How is that little humanoid-ish thing bouncing around the screen not “playing computer games?”

Jake: I’m doing a level editor, programming a game.

Me: I don’t see coding. I see the humanoid-ish thing bouncing around the screen.

Jake: I’m testing the changes that I’ve made.

Me (having no idea what to do about this loophole): Ah. Well. Set that timer. You’re done “programming” in 15 minutes.

Jake: Sure.

Hmm. I think I lost that round of parental authority/supervision. Oh, well, back to the bubble.

* Matthew and Jake think "bubble brain" is hilarious and test it out all the time. I've been asked if they can tattoo 666 on their forehead or change their name to "semi-colon."

Standardized Testing

When I was young, I had to take Iowa Basic exams once a year. Personally, I liked them. No homework that week. And I thought the exams were fun, a game where I competed against everyone else. (Highly competitive person that I am.)

But now I give the exams. (Though this is the last year. Yee Haw.) Yesterday Matt had a question on the spelling section. “What is this word, candel, (which he pronounced can-dell) supposed to be?” Me: “Uh, candle.” Matt: “Oh, right.” Of course, he knew whatever the word was, it wasn’t spelled correctly. But he’s still obsessed with knowing what the words are supposed to be. He pointed to another word. “And this one?” I squinted at the jumble of consonant and vowels. “I have no idea, Matt.”  

The spelling section and the language section (why can’t they call it grammar?) are the easiest for Matt. Then we hit the math section. This section I always brace myself for. Permit me a digression—our math text is from Singapore. I chose this textbook because students from Singapore have the highest math scores in the world—clearly they are doing something much better than Americans who are in the toilet in terms of math. However, Singapore math is a disadvantage for Iowa Basics.

Singapore math is about math, they don’t try to obscure the math with weird language, including adverbs. (Why would anyone use more than one adverb in a word problem?) In the math concepts test yesterday, Matthew raised his hand so I came over to read the question. It was the most convoluted, overly verbose math tripe. I read it again. And still couldn’t figure out what they wanted. I read it a third and fourth time and finally understood it. It was a simple math problem that I knew Matt could do without any problem. But I was stymied. I’m not allowed to tell him, “All they want you to do is...” So all I can do is smile sympathetically and consider forcing all American math test instructors to take writing classes. Of course, by the time he finished the test, Matt was ready to throw his pencils.

Today we’ll finish the math section. But I reminded Matt that this was the last Iowa Basic that he had to take. Next year he gets to take the PSAT and the math sections are much clearer. Three cheers for the PSAT—I bet that’s the first time that you’ve ever cheered for that exam...it’s all a matter of perspective. 

Horse Love

When I was young, I wasn’t a horse girl. You know what I mean, a lot of girls obsess about horses. They knew a palomino from a pinto. And a bridle from a stirrup. They collected plastic horse figurines. Some of them even wore cowboy hats. (Or at least had them in their rooms.)

But I never got that. A horse is an interesting animal. And I enjoyed riding them. But like Mr. Ed said, “a horse is a horse.” I was much more interested in books. And, obviously, not the Misty of Chincoteague novels.

That was the extent of my interest in horses. Until I was about thirty, and my son Matthew was born. As most of you know, Matthew is autistic. What you may not know is that he had serious sleep problems. He only slept three hours out of every 24. Which didn’t work well for him or us. Most of the rest of the night he cried. It was misery...until we found Black Beauty.  Matt loved horses, and someone gave us a video of Black Beauty. Matt loved it. So we started putting it on every night for Matt to watch while we slept. He sat between us in our bed and watched. Twice a night he watched the entire video of Black Beauty. Of course, he woke us up every time BB got caught in the fire. Cal would say, “Matt, he’s going to be fine. They’re going to rescue him like they did the last 2,000 times.” (He also woke us up when BB pooped in the house—Matt didn’t want us to miss the funny parts.)

Interestingly, the movie has subliminal messages. No, that’s not the result of sleep-deprived hallucinations. In some of the town scenes, people will walk through the corners of the scenes carrying placards with instructions on them. It’s only a frame or two long, and if you’re not looking for it (or haven’t seen the movie 2,000 times) you’ll miss it.

But subliminal messages aside, Matt’s obsession with BB gave me an idea. I wondered if he might like the Triple Crown, especially the Kentucky Derby. All those thoroughbreds racing. So we watched it. Matt adored the backstory on each horse and usually cheered for the horse-who-overcame-the-most-obstacles. Ariel and I fell for the hat parade. And okay, I’ll admit it, I fell in love with the horses for the same reason I love baseball. It isn’t that the sport is so amazing to me. It’s watching the near perfection involved. I love watching Mariano Rivera or Tim Wakefield pitch. So I love watching the horses do what they were bred to so—run like wind. I also like the irony of watching the “it” horse have a snit and deciding it doesn’t really care to win this particular race.

The Kentucky Derby is this Saturday. We’ll be watching. I’m rooting for Uncle Mo, and Matt’s rooting for Dialed In. (Neither of us will root for a Bob Baffert horse.) So my horse love came late. And that’s okay. Especially since I’ll get to enjoy a mint julep with the race. Yum. 

Appeal to Fear

Have you ever taken the time to participate in one of those political phone surveys? I usually don’t. I have too many things going on, someplace I needed to be or a child that needed me.  And so I always wondered how accurate those surveys were. After all, busy people didn’t have time.

But a month or two ago, on a quiet evening when everyone was gone, I got one of those phone calls. And instead of saying “no,” I thought that I’d like to have my voice heard. So I participated. And it started out normal enough. The first question was whether I approved of the way that the President was governing. Talk about your opened-end question. Um, on which issue? It seemed to be a popularity question. But that’s what politics has become. So I answered the question.

And after a couple more questions like that, things got a bit surreal. My favorite question (to the best of my ability to remember it) was “Don’t you think that it’s unfair that the city is forcing police officers who live outside the county to leave their vehicles at the county line?” Talk about your leading questions. Talk about swaying opinions by the way questions are phrased. I had a year of stats in college and my prof’s favorite exercise was to bring in front-page-of-the-newspaper scientific studies and show us why the results were meaningless because the statistical formulas used had no bearing on the studies’s data. While this wasn’t “scientific,” I’m sure he would have had a field day with this poll.

Again the pollster pushed me on the question. I said, “You know, I really don’t know enough about the issue to answer the question.” Nothing had been in the newspaper about the issue. As it turns out, the city no longer wants to pay for the gas, etc., for policemen who live outside of the county (it’s a large county) to drive their vehicles home. Now maybe there’s a good reason for them to drive their vehicles home, but I don’t know what it is. The police weren’t willing to make their case in the press. And I can certainly understand why the county doesn’t want to pay for the gas for a police officer who chooses to live a long way away. And unlike the mental image created by the pollster, there probably wouldn’t be scores of abandoned police cars lining the county line.

At the end of the poll, it was obvious that the police department and the mayor were skirmishing. Since then, it’s turned in a full-blown war. Nasty, name-calling billboards, where the police threaten that they won’t deal with gang violence unless the mayor gives them what they want. Um, hello, what happened to “Protect and Serve?” Maybe the police have a good reason for their anger, but punishing the citizens isn’t the way to go. And when the newspaper tried to talk to the police chief about the billboards, he refused to comment.

Perhaps someone needs a lesson in logic. My son Matthew is taking logic right now, and this whole fiasco had been an excellent example of ad hominen abusive, irrelevant goals and functions, and argumentum ad baculum (appeal to fear).

At this point, I’d really like the police chief and the mayor to write some editorials because I’d sure like to know what’s going on. In the meantime, Matt’s learning about politics and putting his logic skills to good use.