It's late. Do you know where your kids are?

Well, my oldest is currently in tears on the floor, being talked down by Lynda.

You see, Sarah is currently undergoing another bout of intense self-criticism regarding her story writing. She was upstairs, working on a story, but she decided that she didn't like it and wanted to abandon it. To do so would add to the teetering pile of castoffs, dead ends, false starts, and non-starters. This is something that has frustrated Lynda, me, and Sarah to an increasing degree and so (as parents) Lynda and I are trying to teach her how to work her way out of this habit of defeating self-criticism.

Lynda's good idea was to get some short stories for Sarah to read. Since Sarah expects her stories to roll out of her brain in some non-ending stream of perfection, when she hits a snag, she stops. And then she sees something new that triggers the grand idea for a different story that she begins with great enthusiasm--only to be frustrated again a few days, hours, minutes later.

(And if you are sniggering about this, pointing to all of my various blogs that I don't write on or other digital off ramps that I don't know how to properly utilize . . . well, you're right, of course. Now shut up.)

ANYWAY . . .

Lynda's idea of the short story is to help Sarah realize that a shorter story, with a smaller cast of characters, a limited, clearly reigned in plot, will help her hold onto an idea long enough to bring something to completion. And that is a very good idea. But more than that, Sarah is struggling to see how to take one flash of insight through the grim work of the middle to a conclusion. And she doesn't often know what that conclusion IS.

Lynda found some short story writing tips on the Internet that said writers should begin their story as close to the end as they can, so they know where they are headed. And I like that idea as a writing strategy. Perhaps that will help her. But just as important, and more difficult to convince her of, is the grim need to organize, outline, plan, conceptualize BEFORE lots of words get written. I always like to use some examples from my store of J.K. Rowling anecdotes here to give Sarah direct details of a writer that she admires and deeply understands. Unfortunately, is a nine-year-old prepared to accept the fact that such stories involve many notebooks of ideas, thoughts, plans?

God help her if I ever decide to show her the many volumes of The History of Middle Earth that currently sit on my bookshelf and that I haven't even read through all the way. It would scare her away from writing forever.

In the end, she's got to give herself a massive break. She's a nine-year-old kid with great talents and skills (for her age). But she has heard many times (from us and others) that she is a good writer--and she is . . . FOR HER AGE! But she's not ready yet to write in a complete way. She has the assumption that she should be able to do this without breaking a sweat. And she won't accept that this isn't possible. I wish she would give herself the time to learn and develop without giving up or quitting writing because she thinks its too hard.

Does anybody know how to help here? Any personal connections to authors who can come over to the house and tell her to relax and keep plodding? Please?!!!

I need more power

No, not in the level of my influence. I'm pretty happy with how much influence I have in my home life. (Well, except for when Lynda takes over the story that I am in the middle of telling . . . but that's just 14+ years of marriage. You win some, you loose a lot more.) And I'm pretty content with the amount of influence I have at work. (Well, I'm sure there are design meetings that I'll be in on later in this project when I'll wish someone would pay attention to me, but I'll probably just be wondering what all the kerfuffle is about.)

So, generally, I'm content with my personal power levels. What I need, however, is more electric power. If you've been keeping up here on WWYG?! you already know that my laptop battery power is suspect. So suspect that it destroyed my ability to give Dazed and Confused and The King of Kong the proper DTM movie review that they so richly deserve. (I may never muster the energy--or power as it were--to go back to that place and rethink it all.)

But in addition to my computer's lack of powerful portability, I discovered today that the basement refrigerator wasn't working properly. How did I know this? Well, the large amounts of water droplets forming on the ceiling of the main refrigerated area (which is the floor of what--normally--is the frozen area) was a major tip off. But, that might have just been a result of the fact that the refrigerator unit is pretty old (we inherited it with the house), so you never know . . . or at least I never do--at first.

But there were other signs. First the other items in the unit (top or bottom) didn't feel very chilled. And the frozen pizza's cardboard box didn't have the satisfying rigidity that one expects. Then, Lynda found (this morning) that the box was absolutely no longer rigid as the pizza encased in the plastic sleeve had thawed, expelled some sort of mysterious factory gas and swollen up, ballooning the box. A clear sign that something was amiss.

But we had to go to work. So, when I got home, I checked in the basement and sure enough, there was the distinct smell of chicken breast in a definite state of unfrozeness. So, the effort to throw stuff out commenced. Luckily, we didn't have lots to throw away. (Thanks recession!) The hot dog buns and bratwurst buns we had bought for this weekend's cookout were okay, but the brats and the hot dogs were goners. As was the aforementioned chicken and pizza, plus some other stuff in the freezer that was either thawed or had been sitting in the expressed chicken juices. (NOT good eats!)

But the random beer bottles were saved and relocated to the main refrigerator upstairs.

After I tossed stuff, I went back down and tested a theory. I unplugged the refrigerator from the outlet it was plugged into and tried an outlet on a power strip connected to a different plug in the basement. Sure enough, the refrigerator fans started whirring. The unit itself works well enough, it was the outlet that is faulty. I don't know why, but I think I'd better put a sign on the spot telling me not to use this one in the future. I then sopped up all the dirty water and scrubbed down all the affected surfaces with soapy water. And then I wiped everything dry with more paper towels. Later tonight, I went and bought some air fresheners to combat the lingering smell of things gone wrong and reality run amok.

It will all be a distant memory by the weekend. So, perhaps I do have power? The power to forget.

Garden update

I haven't given the clamoring masses an update on our garden lately--so here it comes.

We have harvested three family-sized servings of green beans so far. And thanks toy mothers suggestion we've hit a simple and tasty way to cook them tender-crisp with basil. Then we augment that with a quick toss in melted butter and diced onions. If it is up to me, I'll also toss in some garlic. And both Lynda and I like the addition of slivered almonds if we want to go extra fancy.

We have also harvested three or four zucchini. So far we've converted these into baked goods and some tasty fried fritters enjoyed with sour cream.

Somehow our tomato plants acquired a leaf blight that has withered the leaves and is retarding the ripening of the fruit/vegetable. And that is too bad. But it was the same over at our neighbors place as well, so it's not all our fault.

The lettuce and the carrots never grew well because the bigger leaves of the other plants cast too much shade and messed them up from the start. But, live and learn for the next attempt. I don't know if we will plant in the fall or not, but I am confident that we will be more successful next spring.


-- Posted From My iPhone (so, I apologize in advance for any typos I missed)

I think I need to take my laptop to the shop for service

I started writing the following last night:

Another Comic Con has come and gone and I didn't visit. (For those of you new to this space . . . anyone . . . hello? . . . well, I've never been to Comic Con.) I think that I might enjoy it a lot if I could find the time and money to go to San Diego. I've been lucky enough to be in that city before--even in the very same convention center where the Con is held each year. But, it (lamentably) was only for work-related purposes. While I don't anticipate ever wearing any costumes--and while I might have missed all the years of LOST panels--I could still see interesting stuff on upcoming movies and TV shows. It would certainly give me something to blog about.

And I have been in need of something to blog about lately. I appear to have landed back into one of those doldrum patches where I don't feel like I have anything interesting to write about--regardless of all the many artificial methods I have used to guarantee something to write about (such as the Clothing Project). But . . . try as I might, I haven't been engaged with the blog lately. And then I feel distressed that I have so visibly failed in my attempts to write a post every day this year. Even though that ended a while ago, I feel that I haven't made a good, honest effort at it lately.

So . . . moving on with tonight's reason for getting back in front of the keyboard. I've seen two movies in the last several days and I thought I should throw out some ideas on them.

First, Dazed and Confused. You've probably heard of this movie, written and directed by Richard Linkletter. It is set in the summer of 1976 and follows a handful of high school kids in an (undetermined?) American town.

And then my computer suddenly and completely switched off. Due to the malaise I was describing above, I stopped trying to write and fell asleep.

Afternoon delight? HAH!

It wasn't a good afternoon for me, let's just start there. (And I'll probably keep this a brief list of grievances as no one wants to read my bitching for too long.

BUT . . .

After I picked up the kids from Girls Scout camp and daycare, we were fine for a while. They watched some TV and I gathered the mail, noted that the grass (still) needs cutting, saw that they dishes from breakfast were still sitting out, and other stuff like that.

I knew Lynda was coming home later with some fast food (yeah, sue me), but I was going to cook some of our garden fresh green beans according to my mom's suggested recipe. I judged the timing of when Lynda was expected and prepared the beans, washed them, and got out the ingredients. I started boiling them and got the kids off the TV and onto other stuff. Hannah was wandering around here and there and not being extremely needy, so that was good.

All was pretty fine until the beans were pretty much completed and I just had them in the warming stage. Then I heard a shriek from the other room and looked around the wall to see that Grace was preventing Hannah from chewing on her glasses.

A good maneuver, but sadly too late. Hannah had (AGAIN, for the love of God . . . AGAIN!!!!!!!!) chewed not one--which is typical--but now BOTH of her nosepads off of the glasses. This has happened around six times now and each event results in our needing to take the glasses somewhere the next day for repair, delaying the amount of time she is actually using them and generally causing us major pains in the ass. I wasn't happy and (unfortunately) I showed it.

This naturally upset Hannah. Sarah and Grace (being good big sisters) removed Hannah to calm her down and to let me calm down. Then I got a phone call to inform me that the basement repair pre-inspection (that was supposed to have happened YESTERDAY) is going to be further delayed into this evening because the foreman is still on a different job and can he call me back later tonight to push the arrival time until sometime long past what would have been dinner/bath hours and more into kids asleep/parent hours.

But I've go to say, "Sure," don't I?

And soon after that, the doorbell rang. That is never a good sign around dinner time and especially since we aren't very popular and no one bothers to visit it.

So, I figured (correctly) that it was someone trying to sell me something. I opened the door to hear him out and politely decline, but he flummoxed me a bit by mumbling something about how he was reading some educational (I think) thing (what now? speak up?) to the other parents on the street (who?) and would I like to see the list of people he'd talked to already (huh?) and don't I recognize them (flattering me as a good parent who is concerned with my kids education and all I do is talk to the other parents on the street about my kids educations, right? but seriously, young man, what are you selling?). And so can I spend five minutes and hear him read this thing from this notebook (whaaa? NOW?), but . . .

And I interrupt and say, "Look, I've got kids running around, starting to cry, with partial dinner cooking on the stove and I simply can't stop right now and hear you read the mysterious manifesto . . . or whatever it is you've got right now? Can't you see that?"

Well, I thought that but didn't put it in exactly those words. But no worries, I think he'll be back tomorrow around 5ish to finally reveal what he wants me to buy . . . and I'm sure it is still some sort of sales pitch that I can do without. I've just got to find a polite way to tell him to leave me alone.

Still, I wonder what it is . . .

After shutting the door, I went back to the crying kids who were growing more hungry because Lynda was later than expected. When she got home, she had her own story of woe about how the people serving her at the food joint had no people skills, ignored her for the longest time, and finally got around to providing the food in the most perfunctory and non-engaged way possible. And while I should have been sympathetic, I was too harried from my own problems to give her much time to vent.

BUT . . .

things got better in the end. We celebrated Sarah's birthday (she's NINE now!) and ate some yummy cake. And I decided to let Grace and Sarah stay up a bit later to watch Night at the Museum. And the kids enjoyed it and Lynda and I watched it with them and laughed and got to relax and the basement guy eventually did come as the movie was just ending and all the measurements were taken and now things are pretty okay I guess.

(I won't bore you with how Hannah just woke up and coughed up some food chunks due to congestion and how it got on Lynda's shirt and how I had to rinse that smelly stuff off the shirt and the pajamas and run an emergency load of laundry to combat the stain and smell.)

sigh . . .

Nine years ago today was when it all started and when it all changed.

We never had night like tonight before that day.

Of course, we never had night like this before then either.

So . . . it's good. It's bad. It's yin. It's yang. It's hot. It's cold.

There is a reason we cried the day after Sarah was born, nine years ago today. We were dog tired and we realized that we'd committed ourselves to something intense and demanding.

And there will be more reasons why we cry some time years from now when Sarah, Grace, and Hannah no longer live here. Because we are still dog tired and all that work has paid off and there they go.